Circa 1754
Eckerlin Brothers Establish a Settlement at Dunkard Bottom
Brothers Samuel, Israel, and Gabriel Eckerlin—German-speaking religious dissenters formerly associated with Pennsylvania’s Ephrata Cloister—established a settlement at Dunkard Bottom on the Cheat River near present-day Camp Dawson. They are considered among the earliest recorded European settlers in what became Preston County. Sources disagree on whether they arrived in 1753, 1754, or 1756. Older Preston County accounts and the roadside marker call the leading brother Thomas Eckarly or Echarlin; modern research identifies him as Samuel Eckerlin.
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Library of Virginia, Dictionary of Virginia Biography, “Samuel Eckerlin (1703–1782)”; e-WV, “The Frontier”; Ephrata Cloister, “The Eckerlin Brothers”
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