James Caudy (Coddy)

James Caudy (1707 – March 15, 1784) was an early American frontiersman, settler, and landowner in the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians of the Colony of Virginia (present-day West Virginia). Born in the Netherlands, Caudy immigrated to the Thirteen Colonies in the 1730s and settled within the Cacapon River valley near present-day Capon Bridge in Hampshire County, West Virginia. As early as 1741, Caudy was associated with the arrangement and development of transportation routes throughout present-day Hampshire County. Caudy twice hosted George Washington: first during his surveying expedition in 1748 and again when Washington returned to the Cacapon River valley in 1750.

Caudy participated in the French and Indian War and is best known for having purportedly defended himself from attack by a band of Native American fighters on Caudy's Castle—a sandstone rock outcrop which now bears his name. According to tradition, Caudy pushed his Native American attackers off the rock with his long rifle barrel into the Cacapon River below. In his later life, Caudy became involved in a land dispute with John Capper that was resolved by Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron in November 1762. Caudy died in 1784 and was interred on his property south of present-day Capon Bridge. According to local tradition, Caudy was buried with a Native American on either side of him, while another tradition holds that Caudy was buried with his horse.