Calfpasture, Cowpasture, and Bullpasture, Virginia

In my post about Thomas Adams, I said that he lived in an area called Calfpasture in Virginia. It s interesting how the area got its name.

From wiki:

The Indians had named the river Walatoola, which means "winding waters", describing the great bends in the river. However, when British settlers arrived in the 1720s they named it the Cowpasture.

There is an interesting story about how the Cowpasture and neighboring rivers the Bullpasture River and Calfpasture River came to be so named. It is said that the Indians once had stolen a herd of settlers' cattle and were driving them westward into the mountains. The calves naturally tired first; they were left behind at the river which is now the Calfpasture. The cows were driven on farther, but they, too, had to be abandoned, the valley in which they were left became the valley of the Cowpasture. The bulls, being somewhat hardier, were still able to continue westward; they finally were left at the river which is known as the Bullpasture.