Redmond Ridge Road follows the course of Redmond Ridge south to Wyoma; from there it continues southeast to Lower Fivemile Road, which runs northeast along Lower Fivemile Creek in Arbuckle District, and southwest as County Route 25 until it joins Crab Creek Road. A more direct route, Horse Lick Road, County Route 29/6, follows a minor tributary of Crab Creek from Wyoma south to Crab Creek Road. A Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Line, now part of CSX, runs along the Ohio River between Huntington and Point Pleasant, crossing the river on a railroad bridge at Henderson, and continuing north along the river to Parkersburg. Until the twentieth century, there were ferries across the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers at Henderson, and a ferry on the Ohio at Gallipolis Ferry. The Robert C. Byrd Locks and Dam make the Ohio River navigable for barge and other water traffic between the Racine Locks and Dam at the upper end of the county, and the Greenup Lock and Dam in Kentucky, a stretch of one hundred and three miles. History The first European to attempt a settlement in Clendenin District was a man named Teas, who hoped to build a tannery at the present site of Henderson, on the southern bank of the Kanawha opposite Point Pleasant. However, he was forced to abandon his efforts and take shelter in Fort Randolph due to the threat of Indian raids. Indians regularly visited the area until 1795, when the Treaty of Greenville forced them westward into Ohio. The first permanent settlement occurred in 1795, when William Clendenin, John H. Henderson, and Samuel Henderson made their homes in the district. They were joined by Gideon H. Long in 1808; Spencer and George Withers, and Peter H. Steenbergen in 1810; Josiah Potts in 1813; and W.P.L. Neale in 1815. Clendenin, for whom the district was named, was a veteran of the Battle of Point Pleasant, in 1774, and about 1788 came to settle in the land that would become Mason County. His homestead in Clendenin District stood opposite the city of Gallipolis. From 1789 to 1804, the area was part of Kanawha County, which obliged the residents to travel nearly sixty miles through the Kanawha Valley, between Point Pleasant and the county seat at Charleston, to conduct official business. In 1804, the settlers petitioned the Virginia General Assembly for the formation of a new county, to be named after George Mason, one of Virginia's delegates to the U.S. Constitutional Convention in 1787, and the "father" of the Bill of Rights. William Clendenin was chosen to deliver this petition to Richmond, where it was approved. Clendenin subsequently served as Mason County's first representative in the Virginia legislature. Clendenin is also credited with having brought the first domestic geese to Mason County, a flock of twenty delivered by none other than Anne Bailey. In the autumn of 1814, Peter H. Steenbergen, one of the district's pioneers, was commissioned captain of a cavalry company requisitioned for service in the War of 1812. This was the third company raised in Mason County during the war, following the Mason County Riflemen, an infantry company led by Captain Anthony Van Sickle in 1812, and a second infantry company led by Captain William Parsons in 1813. The Riflemen had gone to the rapids of the Maumee, where they participated in the construction of Fort Meigs, while Parsons' company had gone to Norfolk, Virginia. Steenbergen's soldiers were mustered at Point Pleasant, and immediately sent out for the east coast. They had reached the summit of Big Sewell Mountain, now in Fayette County when news reached them