POINT PLEASANT, W.Va. — On Aug. 18, 1749, French soldiers stopped at the mouth of the Kanawha River in present-day Point Pleasant and buried a lead plate beneath an elm tree—a declaration of ownership in a territorial struggle that, within five years, would draw a young George Washington into combat and help ignite a war fought around the world.
The plate bore an extraordinary claim. In the name of King Louis XV, France asserted possession of the Ohio River, the rivers flowing into it, and the lands extending toward their headwaters—an enormous territory that included much of what would eventually become West Virginia.
Nearly a century later, the plate reappeared. According to a West Virginia historian who later contacted its discoverers, boys searching the Point Pleasant riverbank for stones to use as fishing sinkers spotted it protruding among the exposed roots of an old elm.
The artifact eventually made its way to Richmond, where it remains today in the collection of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture. The museum regards the Céloron plate as an important surviving artifact of the struggle for the Ohio Country and has featured it alongside a 1754 letter from Washington concerning the escalating confrontation with France…