John Peter Salling (or Salley) was among five Virginia explorers
who departed March 16, 1742, from a few miles east of Natural
Bridge, on a journey to the Mississippi River. The Governor’s
Council of Virginia had granted a commission for this trip to
John Howard for the purpose of reinforcing British claims in the
west. The promised reward of 10,000 acres of land for a
successful expedition encouraged Howard’s son, Josiah, and
Salling, John Poteet, and Charles Sinclair to accompany the
elder Howard on the trip. At New River, they constructed a boat
covered with buffalo hides and embarked as the first Englishmen
to explore that region. They followed the New until the river
became too dangerous to navigate, leaving at a major falls and
traveling overland to the Coal River, then followed the Kanawha
and Ohio rivers, and reached the Mississippi on June 7. The
party descended the Mississippi to just below the mouth of the
Arkansas River, where, on July 2, they were captured by a large
company of Indians, blacks, a