Way back when, the Brits began dumping boatloads of Scottish POWs (or just people rounded up on village streets) in the Potomac near what is now called Alexandria.
They'd traveled in chains all the way to America, and were tossed naked and still in manacles overboard and left to swim for shore.
No doubt there was a high death rate.
The Scots began hiking upstream to get as far away from the Brits as they could. Their journey took them quickly beyond Pocahontas's old village at Great Falls, and on up to the Spanish landmark at Point of Rocks. Eventually they arrived at the headwaters and crossed over a mountain pass into another major river valley in what became known as Alexander county. They do those Scottish games there every Summer ~ a great event ~ everyone should visit.
The Great Trek from Smuggler's Creek is generally unknown ~ the historians prefer to focus on Baltimore where someone bothered to keep track of how many Scots came in.
The American Revolution began on the shores of the Potomac and was well underway by 1705. These guys were making firearms and steel hatchets in those Carolina mountains prepared to take the war to the enemy forces.
I suppose if the Brits had been more decent to the Scots when they dumped them here they'd have avoided the millennial anger they fostered in those men and women.