Qualla: Germany Valley

Germany Valley: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dion Hinchcliffe, CC BY-SA 2.0. John Justus Hinkle was 56 years old when he moved his family from North Carolina to a remote West Virginia valley in 1761. He brought his wife, Maria Magdalena, their twelve children, and the children's families - a whole extended clan looking for cheap, fertile land and a little distance from the Indian raids that had destroyed Fort Seybert and Fort Upper Tract just three years earlier. The Hinkles were originally Henckel, German Lutheran farmers from the Lebanon and Lancaster counties of Pennsylvania. The valley they settled became known, naturally enough, as Germany Valley. The Hinkles painted hex signs on their barns - possibly the only place in West Virginia where they were ever seen. They built a fort. They held the valley. And the land they farmed turned out to sit on top of one of the most extensive cave systems in the eastern United States.

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Image: Dion Hinchcliffe | CC BY-SA 2.0

Germany Valley: A Karst Valley with German Bones

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Germany Valley runs about ten miles long and two and a half miles wide, oriented northeast to southwest in the upper reaches of the North Fork of the South Branch Potomac River in Pendleton County. The valley floor sits at about 2,100 feet, with the surrounding mountaintops 500 t...

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Image: Public domain

Germany Valley: Hinkle's Fort and the Methodist Bishop

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jarek Tuszyński, CC BY-SA 3.0. After the 1758 destruction of Fort Seybert and Fort Upper Tract by Bemino's war party, the Hinkle family built a blockhouse in Germany Valley in 1762 to defend their new settlement. Hinkle's Fort served as the local refuge and, by the time of the American Revolution, as the headq...

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Image: Jarek Tuszyński | CC BY-SA 3.0

Germany Valley: Caves Below the Pasture

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0. The caves of Germany Valley make up one of the most important karst landscapes in the eastern United States. Seneca Caverns, discovered by settler Laven Teter around 1780, has been open to the public since 1930. Visitors descend up to 165 feet below the surface along a three-quar...

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Image: Famartin | CC BY-SA 4.0

Germany Valley: The Quarry and the Bats

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0. Greer Limestone Company operates an open-pit quarry in Germany Valley, immediately west of the Hellhole cave entrance. The company has leased the cave entrance from a private landowner since 1986. The conflict that emerged in the late 1990s and 2000s pitted the quarry's expansion...

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Image: Famartin | CC BY-SA 4.0

Germany Valley: Family Names on the Map

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stacy Hall, CC BY-SA 4.0. Walk a topographic map of Germany Valley and you can read the genealogy of the original settlers in the place names. Judy Gap and Judy Spring honor the Judy family. Bennett Gap, Teter Gap, and Harper Gap mark the others. The named knobs - Harman, Harper, Mallow, Ketterman - all r...

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Image: Stacy Hall | CC BY-SA 4.0