Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, October 23, 1994                   TAG: 9410260015
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: STEVE KARK
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THE GRAIN WAS IMPORTANT TO SETTLERS IN 'RYE VALLEY'

I've poked through old files in the Giles County courthouse and pored over dusty, dog-eared volumes of local history at the Pearisburg Town Library. And although that kind of research has its place, I've also never failed to recognize the value of an over-the-fence chat with a neighbor.

For all my efforts, though, I've found nothing specific to our little valley from any of these sources. But that doesn't mean I've come up empty-handed either.

What I have found could be enough to fill in the missing pieces. But more than that, in the process of researching the name of our little valley, I'd like to think I've learned something about the tough-minded pioneers who settled hereabouts in the first place.

Since communities are sometimes named after the people who first settled them - take, for instance, nearby Staffordsville (Ralph Stafford, 1794) - it seemed reasonable to begin by looking for the name "Rye" in county records.

However, except for blacksmith William Rye, who settled "somewhere near the New River" in 1864 and who had at least one daughter married in his home, there are no more. None in the current phone book either. Surely, one might reasonably expect, not enough to justify naming a valley after them, even a small one like ours.

Besides, even the smallest communities out this way were settled close to 100 years before then. Samuel Shannon cut poplars for his cabin, near the present-day Bland county line, at Poplar Hill in 1774. The Stinson family mined ore from Brushy Mountain and forged it into plowshares, kettles, and various other implements when they settled at nearby White Gate in the 1780s.

Mind you, neither of these places were known at the time by the names we use today. Usually, since only a single family lived on a small patch cleared out of the dense forest, these places were likely known only by the family names. If either family had given up and moved on, the names could just as easily have been replaced by others. As you might think, it took a while for any name to stick.

If a family managed to hang on, gradually others moved in around them. After folks called it Stinson's place but before it became known as White Gate, the land out that way was called "Rye Meadows," according to one local history. And for our little valley, that could be the missing piece of the puzzle.

Rye, you see, as well as being a family name, is also a grain. And a very hardy grain at that. Like the people who settled the place, rye was (and is) notable for its ability to grow where other grains wouldn't.

To pioneers carving their homes out of the wilderness - which this area certainly was at the time - such a grain was useful for this reason and more.

Since it grows under even the most unfavorable conditions, it provided a valuable source of winter feed for livestock. Additionally, rye flour is also used to make bread, though heavier and darker than bread made from wheat.

Rye can also be distilled into whiskey. I don't mean to suggest that the area was first settled by moonshiners. This happened before federal regulation anyway. No, several sources report that early pioneers discovered that by converting their excess grain into whiskey, they could more easily transport it to market and get more for it when they got there.

And, of course, there was also the handy benefit that you could drink it, if you were so inclined.

Gen. George Washington had a commercial distillery near his property at Mount Vernon and was proud of the rye whiskey he made there. Jefferson, too, made the whiskey at Monticello.

There can be no denying the value of this hardy grain to these early pioneers. It would have been especially helpful to them until they were able to cultivate the land for growing the more desirable wheat crops.

Still, if the settlers at Rye Meadows grew it to help sustain themselves, it seems reasonable enough to consider that those who inhabited our little valley might have done so as well, identifying it by the grain that was so important to their lives.

Thus, the name "Rye Valley."

Steve Kark is an instructor at Virginia Tech and a correspondent for the Roanoke Times & World-News' New River Valley bureau. He writes from his home in scenic Rye Hollow, in a remote part of Giles County south of Pearisburg.