Scotch-Irish and German settlers, who left Pennsylvania because they were unable to find haven there to worship as they wished, migrated to the Shenandoah Valley between 1732 and 1745. They had left their native lands for religious reasons, and they had run into much the same difficulties among the Quakers in William Penn's settlements, where restrictive governmental measures had been passed against them.Not long after they had established homes in what now comprises the counties of Augusta. Rockingham, Page, and others, the younger spints among them ventured further westward. As early as 1742 John Peter Salley, in company with Charles St. Clair, John Howard and his son, Josiah Howard, made a trip from their home at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Augusta County to the Ohio River. Their route led them through Greenbrier Valley and a is quite probable that they were the first white men to behold the creek which passed by White Sulphur Springs, and gave it the name of Howard's Creek, in honor of the two men in the party whose names were Howard. This stream was known and named very early in the history of the Greenbrier section, as one of the earliest bun and grants makes reference to it.