The Shenandoah River is formed northeast of Front Royal near Riverton, by the confluence of the South Fork and the North Fork. It flows northeast across Warren County, passing underneath Interstate 66 1 mile (1.6 km) from its formation. Beyond the I-66 bridge, the river flows through a set of bends before turning to the northeast again, crossing into Clarke County 11 miles (18 km) below I-66. Five miles (8 km) downriver from the Clarke County border, the Shenandoah passes under U.S. Route 50 and then passes through a triple bend. 14.5 miles (23.3 km) below the Route 50 bridge, the river passes underneath State Route 7 and then continues northeast another 8 miles (13 km) where it crosses into Jefferson County in West Virginia. Once in West Virginia, the river completes six large bends before joining the Potomac from the southwest near Harpers Ferry. The confluence is on the West Virginia-Maryland border, and 0.4 miles (0.64 km) from the Virginia-West Virginia border.[4]
On the riverbank, a few miles above Harper's Ferry, is said to be a cave with an opening just large enough for a mounted rider to squeeze through. It widened in the interior to a spacious room where hundreds of Col. John Mosby's raiding troops are said to have hidden from pursuing Union cavalry.[5]
Environmental issues
Mercury contamination
The Shenandoah River was contaminated with mercury which was released by a DuPontrayon manufacturing facility located in Waynesboro, Virginia from 1929 to 1950.[6] This mercury is still present in the fish population of the river today; data collected over the last several decades shows that mercury levels remain stable.[7] The fish in many sections of the Shenandoah River are not safe for human consumption. For example, the Virginia Department of Health (VDOH) states that it is not safe to consume any species except trout which are caught between Waynesboro and Grottoes, Virginia due to elevated mercury levels. In general, the VDOH states that it is not safe to consume more than two fish per month which are caught on the Shenandoah River in Page, Warren, Augusta, or Rockingham counties.[8]
In 2017 DuPont agreed to pay $42,069,916.78 to address natural resource damages and to implement restoration projects related to the impacted resources in the South Fork Shenandoah River watershed.[6]
Fish kills
Since 2005, the Shenandoah River has experienced several springtime fish kills that have affected several of its native fish species. In 2005, redbreast sunfish and smallmouth bass along a 100-mile (160 km) stretch of the South Fork Shenandoah River began dying of lesions caused by bacteria and fungi. Although the fish kill eventually wiped out 80% of the adult redbreast sunfish and smallmouth bass, juvenile populations appeared to be unaffected.[9] The following year more-localized fish kills in Clarke County spread to two of the Shenandoah's three species of sucker: the shorthead redhorse and the northern hogsucker – the former suffering from similar lesions witnessed in the previous year's fish kill.[10] Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality received reports of fish kills near Elkton and between Bentonville and Front Royal in late April 2007 and observed fish exhibiting lesions and strange behavior.[11]
Etymology
Moonlight on the Shenandoah, engraving by J.D. Woodward[12]
Various accounts tell the origin of the name. According to one, General George Washington named the valley (and river) in honor of Skenandoa (or Shenandoah), an Oneida "pine tree chief" based in New York, who led hundreds of Oneida and Tuscarora warriors in support of the American rebels on the frontier during the Revolutionary War. He also sent much needed corn to Washington and his troops during their hard winter at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania in 1777–1778.[13][14] However, the name was in use when Washington was a child, as evidenced in land grants and correspondence.[15]
It is also said to be named after the Senedo people, a little-documented tribe said to have lived on the north fork of the river and destroyed by the Catawba, some time between 1650 and 1700.
Recreation
The Shenandoah River is a very popular river for canoeing, river tubing, and white-water recreation such as rafting and kayaking (class I-III in season, II-III+ during the spring run-off), and several commercial outfitters offer a variety of guided trips and rentals.
The North Fork flows initially southeast, down from the mountains, then northeast through a valley across Shenandoah County, along the western side of Massanutten Mountain. It flows past Woodstock and Strasburg. On the north end of the ridge it turns briefly southeast to join the South Fork from the northwest to form the Shenandoah.
The American folk song and river and sea chantey titled "Oh Shenandoah" has been adapted to explicitly reference the river or river valley, although earlier versions referred to the 18th century Oneida Chief Shenandoah and the Missouri River, 1,000 miles to the west.
^ abcU.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map, accessed August 15, 2011
^Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, 7.5 Minute Topographic Quadrangle, USGS, 1996
^Virgil Carrington Jones, Mosby's Rangers (Chapel Hill & University of North Carolina Press, 1944), p. 240 (The Union discovered Mosby's cave only by accident late in the war when a wandering horse fell through a trap door hidden in a burnt-out house on the bluff above the river. A curious Union soldier noticed stairs leading downward, which proved to be the second entrance to the cave. There were stalls, hay, and room enough for 100 to 300 horses).
^ abU.S. Department of the Interior. "DuPont Waynesboro Case Details". Natural Resrouce Damage Assessment and Restoration Program. Retrieved February 17, 2023.
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