Eastern Continental Divide ~ Cashiers, North Carolina USA - Watershed Markers and Monuments on Waymarking.com

From Wikipedia:

"The Eastern Continental Divide (ECD) or Appalachian Divide or Eastern Divide, in conjunction with other continental divides of North America, demarcates two watersheds of the Atlantic Ocean: the Gulf of Mexico watershed and the Atlantic Seaboard watershed. As can be readily seen from the first map at the right, the Gulf watershed demarcated by the Great Divide in red begins along the spine of the mountains of Central America and runs through the American Rockies where is terminates in the triple divide at Triple Divide Peak in Glacier National Park along the U.S.-Canadian border where the Laurentian Divide blocks the waters from traveling south to the Gulf of Mexico.

Prior to about 1760, north of Spanish Florida, the Appalachian Divide, according to the French Crown, represented the boundary between British and French colonial possessions in North America. The English contested the claims and the border throughout much of the 1600s as they absorbed the Dutch and Swede settlers and grew in population as the Amerindians died off from epidemic disease and internecine warfare over the Beaver fur trade. Overall, the Eastern Continental Divide runs south-southwest from the Eastern Triple Divide from the summit named 'Triple Divide peak' 10.40 mi due south of the New York-Pennsylvania line. The summit named 'Triple Divide peak' is the northernmost peak of three atop a broad plateau which is currently farmland near the junction of Kidney and Rooks Roads in southern Genesee Township Potter County Pennsylvania. From that northernmost peak and staying on alternative sides of rook roads, the ECD runs through the two nearby southern summits which are also in Genesee Township then southerly along the Allegheny Plateau staying west of the Allegheny Front until it plunges south along the Appalachians between the Eastern Seaboard States, and the states across or astride the Appalachians barrier ridge. As the altitude of the peaks diminishes across the Georgia, often swampy, plateau the divide meanders into the low country of Northern Florida until it reaches central Florida, ending above the north bank watershed of the Kissimmee River, which drains via Lake Okeechobee and the Okeechobee Canal Okeechobee Waterway to both the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Similarly, the summit of the Triple Divide drains three ways, but only because two rivers official sources are within two miles: The St. Lawrence destined Genesee River and the Allegheny River Mississippi tributary both have source springs less than two miles from the junctions of Pennsylvania Route 49 and PA 449 a bit down the Genesee watershed from the Triple Divide summit.

The geography for the Royal Proclamation of 1763 formulated by the Crown hoped to fully separate the populations of the Thirteen Colonies from the Native American Tribal lands north and west of it, so the proclamation border generally runs along, or close to, the Eastern Continental Divide's line going from the southern Georgia border northwards to the existing Pennsylvania/New York state border, and from there northeastwards along the St. Lawrence Divide into New England. That is, the divide is abandoned by the proclamation language to jog around the lands of where the Iroquois were a military power for 200 years, geographically the right bank (south side) of the St. Lawrence valley eastwards into northeastern colonial Massachusetts (Maine). It is no mistake these were the very lands claimed and controlled by the Six Nations of the Iroquois, New France's most dogmatic foe, and England's most powerful military force on the continent during the French and Indian War.
Because the divide represents the highest terrain, air is forced upwards regardless of wind direction. This process of orographic enhancement leads to higher precipitation than surrounding areas. In winter, the divide is often much snowier than surrounding areas, due to orographic enhancement and cooler temperatures with elevation. Some locations in North Carolina average up to 100 inches of snow a year, and up to 175 inches a year falls in parts of West Virginia."


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Date Logged Log   09/24/2021 KidWrangler visited it 06/06/2015 Manville Possum visited it

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