John Lederer
The First Known Discoveries of the Shenandoah Valley
In 1654, Colonel Abraham Wood, who lived near the present city of Petersburg, first discovered and named New River, which flowed through the Blue Ridge Mountains, probably near the Virginia line between Virginia and North Carolina.
Between 1666 and 1670, Captain Henry Batte, with fourteen white men and fourteen Indians, started from Appomattox and, crossing the Blue Ridge Mountains, followed the New River some distance, likely going by the same route as Colonel Wood.
Yet, it may be said Wood and Batte were not proper explorers of the Shenandoah Valley, except for a few stubborn facts insisted upon by a Dutchman or two.
Source: The German Element of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia by JOHN WALTER WAYLAND, B. A., Ph. D.
In 1669, German physician John Lederer, accompanied by three Indians, entered and mapped the Shenandoah Valley. It is thought that Lederer was once a Franciscan monk and a man of some learning, probably commissioned by Governor Sir Berkeley to explore the region. Lederer spent one year crossing the valley, southwest to the present boundaries of North Carolina and Tennessee. Lederer went on three expeditions to the Blue Ridge Mountains between 1669 and 1670, receiving a commission from Governor William Berkeley, who was interested in expanding the fur trade in Virginia and offered Lederer a potential for substantial profit.
Soon after his return from the third expedition, he was forced to leave Virginia and go to Maryland. There, under the friendship and patronage of Sir William Talbot, the colony's governor, he prepared a map of the districts he had explored and wrote out, in Latin, the account of his adventurers and observations. Talbot translated the journal into English and had it published in London in 1692.
Sources: J. G. Rosengarten, in Lippincott's Magazine, April 1902; Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. VIII, p. 324; Vol. X, p. 112; The German Element of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia by JOHN WALTER WAYLAND, B. A., Ph. D.; Source: The Discoveries of John Lederer in the Library of Congress;