WEST VIRGINIA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



167 



and Elk branch empties just above Harpers Ferry. The chief 

 tributaries of the Shenandoah in the county, named from Harperi 

 Ferry up-stream, are Flowing run, Cattail run, Evitt run, Bull- 

 skin run and Long Marsh run. Opequon creek and Rocky Marsh 

 run form a part of the boundary line between Jefferson and Ber- 

 keley. 



Original Timber Conditions. 



The fertile limestone areas of the county once contained a 

 superior stand of hardwoods. Of these the chief were probably 

 white oak, red oak, hickory, poplar, ash, and black walnut. Others 

 of the hill land were chestnut (on Blue Ridge) pitch pine, scrub 

 pine, locust, chestnut oak and scarlet oak. 



No definite data can now be collected regarding original con- 

 ditions as the forests have long since been cleared away or 

 stripped of their virgin growth. 



The Lumber Industry. 



Jefferson county has been settled for nearly 200 years. For 

 more than 100 years, certainly, after the settlement of Shepherds- 

 town (then Mecklenberg) in 1727, there could have been little or 

 no commercial use made of the trees that were cut. When the- 

 Baltimore and Ohio railroad reached Harpers Ferry in Decem- 

 ber, 1834, however, the timber of the county began to have some 

 marketable value, especially as it was of good quality and easily 

 accessible from this terminus. From 1834 to the present the 

 county has furnished a large amount of timber. Many of the 

 young trees standing when the forests were first cut over reached 

 a large size within a hundred years and were cut as a second 

 crop. 



Mr. J. Garland Hurst, of Harpers Ferry, says that water 

 power saw mills were once common along the streams and sawed 

 not only for domestic use but for commercial purposes as Avell. 

 There is still one water-power saw mill in running order at 

 Halltown on Flowing run. Steam saw mills have operated ir- 

 regularly in the county for many years. Joseph Martin, an 

 early witer on the resources of Virginia, lists 2 saw mills for 



