Description
The Dean Mountain Story
The Dean Mountain Story began in England in the mid-1750s when two brothers, John and William Deane, boarded a Dutch ship and sailed to Pennsylvania.
From there the brothers traveled south to Orange County, Virginia, and settled east of the North Mountain, now known as the Blue Ridge. Little is known of John's and William's lives, but Rockingham County records show that in 1816 James Dean, son of John (who had dropped the "e" from his name), married Susanne Harness. In the early 1820s, Susanne and the couple's two young daughters died in an epidemic, leaving James and his son Jeremiah alone.
In 1824 James married his second wife, Sarah Monger, and built a lovely two-story brick house for her in the valley beside Elk Run. The story of how James and Sarah Dean and their children left the valley and lived out their lives on Dean Mountain, now a part of Shenandoah National Park, has been reconstructed from family folklore and records in the family Bible. A fascinating look at life in the mountains before the Park.
