Mini Mule John

Native Americans living or hunting in the area during the 18th century included the Iroquois, Lenape and Shawnee. The Lenape lived mostly to the east, with the Iroquois to the north and the Shawnee to the south. Traders, hunters and warriors traveled on the north-south route sometimes called the "Virginia path" through the Cumberland Valley, from New York through what became Carlisle and Shippensburg, then through what would become Hagerstown, Maryland, crossing the Potomac River into the Shenandoah Valley. Benjamin Chambers, a Scots-Irish immigrant, settled "Falling Spring" in 1730, building a grist mill and saw mill by a then-26-foot-high (7.9 m) waterfall where Falling Spring Creek joined Conococheague Creek. The creek provided power for the mills, and soon a settlement grew and became known as "Falling Spring." On March 30, 1734, Chambers received a "Blunston license" for 400 acres (160 ha), from a representative of the Penn family, but European settlement in the area remained of questionable legality until the treaty ending the French and Indian War, because not all Indian tribes with land claims had signed treaties.