Tag: France

August 18, 1749: de Blainville Plate Sets French Claim to Ohio Valley

On August 18, 1749, explorer Pierre-Joseph Celoron de Blainville buried a lead plate at Point Pleasant as part of his task to claim the entire Ohio Valley for France.

In the mid-1700s, France and Great Britain were continually on the brink of war around the world, particularly in places where the two nations contended for the same land.

Perhaps no place was more tense than the North American frontier, which included most of present West Virginia.

Earlier in August 1749, Celoron de Blainville, accompanied by 230 Canadian militia and Indian guides, had buried a lead plate at the junction of Wheeling Creek and the Ohio River. The explorers then traveled down the Ohio to the mouth of the Kanawha River at present Point Pleasant and buried another plate. In all, Celoron buried four plates along the Ohio, but his effort ultimately failed. Great Britain’s victory in the ensuing French and Indian War forced the French from the region, and France surrendered to the British all claims on the Ohio Valley.

The Point Pleasant plate was found by a boy playing on the riverbank in 1846.

December 28, 1879: Brigadier General Billy Mitchell Born in France

Brigadier General Billy Mitchell was born in France on December 28, 1879. By 1921, he’d become chief of the Army Air Service. After seeing the potential military impact of aircraft during World War I, he wanted to demonstrate how planes could be used to quell civil unrest at home.

The West Virginia mine wars provided him with an ample opportunity. On August 25, 1921, armed miners began their long march culminating in the Battle of Blair Mountain in Logan County. Billy Mitchell arrived in Charleston the next day and ordered the 88th Squadron—part of the 1st Provisional Air Brigade—to southern West Virginia. Mitchell’s planes were used solely for reconnaissance. Many got lost, and one crashed in Nicholas County—located in the opposite direction from Logan.

Mitchell’s planes remain a confusing part of the mine wars story because Don Chafin, the Logan County sheriff, hired his own pilots to drop makeshift bleach and shrapnel bombs on the miners. Although Mitchell’s planes never dropped bombs, Blair Mountain holds the distinction of being the only time in U.S. history when law enforcement used planes to bomb American civilians.

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