USA > Pennsylvania > Greene County > History of Greene County, Pennsylvania > Part 20
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85
223
HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
and gave up their lands; again were they in tribulation in securing legal rights by reason of the great distance of the county seat from their homes; and scarcely was this concluded and the court of record and of justice seenred within reasonable distance, when the Revolution came, and although the transfer of authority was reasonably speedy, from the crown to the people; yet for eight long and troublous years the question was in doubt, whether the new government would be successfully vindicated, or the colonies would be compelled to go back under the government of the King of Britain; and now, as if their cup of adversity was not yet full, there came another which threatened to be more bitter and deadly than all the others viz: whether they owed allegiance to Pennsylvania, or Virginia; whether they should secure the patents to their lands and pay for them at the capital on the Delaware, or at that on the James.
It doubtless seems strange to the present generation, when the well defined limits of our good old Commonwealth are examined, as shown by any well drawn map of the State, how any such controversy could ever have occurred. And it will seem even more wonderful when the precise and explicit words of King Charles' charter to William Penn are carefully read. But such a controversy did actual- ly ocenr, which threatened at one time to bring on a conflict of arms and to interfere with the pacific and friendly relations of the two great Commonwealths. As Greene County was in the very heart of the disputed territory, and the point where Mason and Dixon's line was interrupted, at the crossing of Dunkard Creek, near the old Indian war-path, was the scene of threatened hostilities, its history would be incomplete without a brief account of it.
There can be no question but that this whole Monongahela country was originally settled by emigrants largely from Virginia and Mary- land. Nor can there be any doubt but that the authorities of Vir- ginia honestly entertained the belief that this country was embraced in the chartered limits of that colony. Hence, when the Ohio Com- pany was chartered and was authorized to take up a half million of acres in this valley, in which the Washingtons were largely con- cerned, it is apparent that the company put implicit confidence in the right of Virginia to grant these lands, or they certainly would never have invested their money in the enterprise and induced pioneers to go with their families and settle upon them. Hence, the original settlers could have had no question but that their true alle- giance was due to Virginia, from whose constituted authorities they received their conveyances and paid their fees. Having therefore innocently made their settlement under Virginia law, it is not strange that they elung with great tenacity to citizenship in that Common- wealth.
But by what right did Virginia claim this territory? As we
224
HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
have already seen Queen Elizabeth, in 1583, a hundred years before the time of Penn, granted to Sir Walter Raleigh an indefinite stretch of country in America which practically embraced the whole con- tinent, to which he gave the name Virginia, in honor of the virgin Queen, that portion to the south of the mouth of the Chesapeake receiving the title of South Virginia, and that to the north of it North Virginia. Raleigh spent a vast fortune, and impoverished himself in attempts to colonize the country; but all in vain, and the title lapsed. In 1606, James I, who had succeeded Elizabeth, granted charters to the Plymouth Company, who were to have the territory to the north, and the London, or Virginia Company, to the south; but the boundaries seem to have been drawn indefinitely, the two grants overlaping each other by three degrees of latitude. In 1609, the London Company secured from the King a new grant in this most remarkable language, probably never before nor since equalled for indefiniteness : " All those lands, countries, and terri -. tories situate, lying and being in that part of America called Vir- ginia, from the point of land called cape or point of Comfort, all along the sea-coast northward two hundred miles, and from the same point or Cape Comfort all along the sea-coast to the southward two hundred miles; and all that space and circuit of lands lying from the sea-coast of the precinct aforesaid up into the land throughont from sea to sea west and northwest; and also the islands lying within one hundred miles along the coast of both seas of the precinct afore- said."
On this wonderful piece of scrivener work, which no doubt taxed the best legal acumen of all England, in its composition, the authorities of Virginia hung all their claims to western Pennsylvania and the entire Northwest territory,-that fatal expression, "all that space and circuit of lands lying from the seacoast of the precinct aforesaid up into the land throughout from sea to sea, west and northwest." It does
not say due west from the extremities of the four hundred mile coast line from sea to sea, which would have been intelligible, though pre- posterous, but it was to be "from sea to sea west and northwest." This word northwest could not have meant to apply to the two ex- tremities of the coast line, for in that case it would have formed a parallelogram having the coast line fixed on the Atlantic and an equal coast line somewhere in Alaska on the Pacific and the frozen ocean. If it meant that the southern boundary should be a due west line from the southern extremity, and the northern boundary should be a line drawn due northwest from the northern extremity of the Atlantic coast line, then the limits of Virginia would have embraced nearly the whole boundless continent, as the coast line of four hundred miles would have embraced more than six degrees of latitude, from the 34° to the 40°, reaching from some point within South Carolina
Eli Long
227
HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
to the central part of the shore of New Jersey, and the due northwest line would have swallowed Philadelphia, two-thirds of Pennsylvania, a part of New York, all the great lakes except Ontario, and would have emerged somewhere in the Arctic Ocean. It may seem strange that the sober minded men who held the reins of government in Vir- ginia should have set up so preposterous a claim. But if this claim was good for anything, and there seems to have been no other authority upon which it was based, save the above quoted grant of 1609, why were not Maryland and Delaware, the half of New Jersey and nearly the whole of Pennsylvania claimed at once? For this grant of 1609 antedated that of Maryland, and was made before the foot of a white man had ever pressed Pennsylvania soil. This ex- travagant claim was not vindicated when the colonies to the north of it had become seated. But now, after it had been pushed down on the sea-shore from more than two-thirds of its northern claim- having left scarcely fifty miles above Point Comfort instead of two hundred-by the grants to Maryland and Pennsylvania, and been limited to the right bank of the Potomac, it now proposes to com- mence that northwest line at the head-waters of the Potomac instead of at the coast-line.
" But this whole extravagant claim was settled before either Lord Baltimore or Penn had received their charters. On the 10th of November, 1623, a writ of quo warranto was issued against the treasurer of the London Company. The grounds of this action were the irregularities in the government of the colony, which had in- vited the hostility of the Indians, resulting in massacres and burn- ings, which came near the utter destruction of the settlement, whereby the stockholders of the Company in London saw their investments being annihilated. The party of Virginia mnade defence; but upon the report of a committee sent out by the King to make examination of the Company's affairs, the King's resolution was taken, and at the Trinity term of 1624, June, " judgment was given against the Com- pany and the patents were cancelled." " Before the end of the same term" says the record, "a judgment was declared by the Lord Chief Justice Ley, against the Company and their charter, only upon a failure or a mistake in pleading." The decree may not have been just, as disturbing vested rights; yet it was nevertheless law and the Company was obliged to bow. The matter was brought before Par- liament; but public sentiment was against the Company, and the application came to nothing. Henceforward the Virginia settlement became a royal colony, subject to the will of the monarch.
Soon after the conclusion of the war with France, by which that nation was dispossessed of the Mississippi Valley and Canada, the King issued his royal proclamation, in which, after making some restrictions regarding the newly acquired territories of Quebec, and
-
228
HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
East and West Florida, he says: "We do, therefore, with the advice of our privy council declare it to be our royal will and pleasure that no Governor nor Commander-in-chief of our colonies or plantations in America do presume, for the present, and until our further pleasure be known, to grant warrants of survey or pass patents for any lands, beyond the heads or sources of any of the rivers which fall into the Atlantic Ocean, from the west or northwest, or upon any land what- ever, which, not having been ceded to or purchased by us, as afore- said, are reserved unto the said Indians, or any of them."
But it may be said that this order would have applied to Penn- sylvania as well as Virginia, and would then have confined the former to the eastern slopes of the Alleghanies as well as the latter. But there was this difference. Virginia, being now only a royal colony, was subject to the absolute will of the Monarch, while Pennsylvania, having been purchased for a price, and confirmed under a Proprietary government, was placed beyond his power to alter or annul. It will be oberved that by the cutting off of West Virginia, which occurred during the war of the Rebellion, Virginia is substantially confined to limits fixed by this royal proclamation.
As we have already seen, the charter of William Penn made his sonthern boundary the beginning of the 40° of north latitude. As this encroached upon the the territory supposed to have been granted to Lord Baltimore, a compromise was effected between Penn and Baltimore, by which Penn gave up a belt of 43' 26" of a degree to Baltimore. But this compromise could only apply to the Colony of Maryland, the western boundary of which is a meridian line drawn from the head spring of the Potomac River, which strikes the southern line of Pennsylvania in the neighborhood of the Laurel Hill Ridge. When, therefore, Mason and Dixon arrived at this point in running the dividing line between Maryland and Pennsyl- vania, they should have stopped, as no agreement had been entered into with Virginia touching the partition line. and there was no reason why at this point the line of Pennsylvania should not have dropped down to the beginning of the 40° parallel, as confirmed by the royal charter, which Pennsylvania subsequently claimed. But the surveyors, Mason and Dixon, kept on with this Maryland line across the Chestnut Ridge and across the Monongahela River to a point on Dunkard Creek, where they were stopped by the Indians at their old war-path. What, therefore, was done beyond the Maryland western limit, was ex parte, and of no foree; though it was open to the construction that the Pennsylvania authorities, at that time, were willing to make the same liberal concession to Virginia, that it had to Maryland, and was damaging, to that extent, to the claim which was subsequently set up to the whole fortieth degree of latitude from the ending of the thirty-ninth degree.
4
229
HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
In order to comprehend the nature and origin of the controversy between Pennsylvania and Virginia, it should be observed that the excellence of the lands along the upper Ohio and its tributaries, and indeed of the whole Ohio Valley, excited the cupidity of all who had come to a knowledge of them. As we have seen, the Ohio Company was formed in Virginia, in which the Washingtons were interested, which secured the grant of a half million of acres embracing that por- tion of Pennsylvania along the Monongahela, the members of this Company seeming at the outset to take it for granted that the western line of Pennsylvania would correspond with that of Maryland.
But this grant of a half million acres of the Ohio Company was but a drop in the bucket when compared to a project which was to follow. It appears that Sir William Johnson, the Indian agent of the British government in America, and William Franklin, governor of New Jersey, formed the project of founding a great colony on the Ohio, and wrote to Doctor Franklin the father of William, then in London, to advocate their project at court. The Doctor entered heartily into the project, and so persuasive were his arguments, that, in opposition to the powerful influence of Lord Hillsborough, on the 14th of August, 1772, he secured the grant of an immense tract. It commenced at the mouth of the Scioto River, three hundred miles below Pittsburg, extended southwardly to the latitude of North Carolina, thence northeastwardly to the Kanawha, at the junction of New River and Green Briar, up the Green Briar to the head of its northeasterly branch, thence easterly to the Alleghany Mountains, thence along these Mountains to the lines of Maryland and Pennsylvania, thence westerly to the Ohio, and down that stream to the point of beginning. Thomas Walpole, Thomas Pownall, Dr. Franklin and Samuel Whar- ton had the management of securing the grant, and hence it was known as "Walpole's Grant;" but Wharton, in a letter to Sir Will- iam Johnson, said, " A society of us, in which some of the first people in England are engaged, have concluded a bargain with the treasury for a large tract of land lying and fronting on the Ohio large enough for a government."
It will be observed that this grant swallowed bodily the grant of the Ohio Company, and it was agreed finally that the latter should be merged in the former. This action stimulated interest in this vast Ohio country; but the Revolution coming on four years there- after, the whole project, after an existence of a little more than four years, came suddenly to an end.
It seems that Thomas Lee, who was the first president of the Ohio Company, was a very just minded man, and suspecting that a portion of the lands embraced in the limits of his Company might turn out to be within the boundaries of Pennsylvania, by chartered rights, wrote to Governor Hamilton on this question. The Governor
230
HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
replied under date of Jan. 2, 1749: "I am induced to desire your opinion, whether it may not be of use that the western bounds of this province be run by commissioners to be appointed by both govern- ments, in order to assure ourselves that none of the lands contained in that grant (Ohio Company) are within the limits of this province." When Governor Hamilton learned that it was the intention of the Ohio Company to erect a fort at the Forks of the Ohio, for protection against the Indians, he again wrote, but now to Governor Dinwiddie, declaring that he had received instructions from the Proprietaries to join in such a work, "only taking your acknowledgment that this settlement, shall not prejudice their right to that country."
Without alluding to the matter of boundary, Dinwiddie wrote that he had already dispatched a person of distinction (young Wash- ington) to the commander of the French, to know upon what grounds he was invading the lands of the English, and that he had sent working parties to erect a fort at the Forks of the Ohio. Though Governor Hamilton had promised conditional aid in defending the country, yet little was ever furnished, partly on account of a wrangle over taxing the Proprietary estates, which prevented the voting much money for any purpose, and partly by reason of the peace principles of a majority of the assembly. The question had also been raised in the course of their assembly discussions, from a very short- sighted motive, whether this Ohio country, which they were asked to defend, was really after all within the limits of Pennsylvania.
When at Logstown, as agent of Virginia, securing a treaty with the Indians, Colonel Joshua Fry, who was accounted a good mathe- matician and geographer, had taken an observation by which it was found that that place, which is nine miles below Pittsburg, was in latitude 40° 29", which showed that this was far to the north of the southern line of Pennsylvania. From calculations made, it was evident to the mind of Governor Hamilton that the Forks of Ohio, as well as the French fort at Venango, were far within the boundaries of Pennsylvania, and this conclusion he communicated to the Pennsylvania assembly and also to Governor Dinwiddie. The latter subsequently responded: " I am much misled by our survey- ors if the forks of the Mohongialo be within the limits of your pro- prietory's grant. I have for some time wrote home to have the line run, to have the boundaries properly known, that I may be able to keep magistrates if in this government, * * and I pre- sume soon there will be commissioners appointed for that service. * * But surely I am from all hands assured that Logstown is far to the west of Mr. Penn's grant."
It would seem from this letter that the Governor of Virginia was contemplating the establishment of local government in this portion
.
231
HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
of Pennsylvania. It would appear, also, that after the organization of Bedford County, which was made to extend over all this sonth- western corner of the State, and immediately after the purchase of these grounds from the Indians by the treaty of Fort Stanwix, in 1768, the settlers were called upon to pay taxes for the support of the Bedford County Court. Bedford being a hundred miles away, they did not relish the paying of taxes for the support of a court which afforded them so little convenience. Besides, being natives largely of Virginia, and having originally been led to suppose that this was a part of Virginia, they petitioned that colony for the or- ganization of county governments.
Early in this controversy over jurisdiction, Colonel George Wil- son, a justice of the peace of Bedford County, the grandfather of Lawrence L. Minor, of Waynesburg, wrote a letter to Arthur St. Clair, of Bedford, in which he says: " I am sorry that the first letter I ever undertook to write you should contain a detail of grievance disagreeable to me. * ** I no sooner returned home from court, than I found papers containing resolves, as they call them, of the inhabitants to the westward of the Laurel Hills, were handing fast about amongst the people, in which amongst the rest was one that they were resolved to oppose every of Penn's laws, as they called them, except felonious actions, at the risque of life, and under the penalty of fifty pounds, to be recovered off the estates of the failure. The first of them I found hardy enough to offer it in pub- lie, I immediately ordered into custody, on which a large number were assembled as was supposed to resene the prisoner. I endeav- ored by all the reason I was capable of, to convince them of the ill consequences that would attend such a rebellion, and happily gained on the people to consent to relinquish their resolves and to burn the paper they sigued. When their foreman saw that the arms of his country, that as he said he had thrown himself into, would not rescue him by force, he catehed up his gun which was well loaded, jumped out of doors, and swore if any man came nigh him he would put what was in his gun through him. The person that had him in enstody called for assistance in ye King's name, and in particular commanded myself. I told him I was a subject, and was not fit to command, if not willing to obey, on which I watched his eye until I saw a chance, sprang in on him, seized the rifle by the muzzle and held him, so as he could not shoot me, until more help got into my assistance, on which I disarmed him, and broke his rifle to pieces. I received a sore bruise on one of my arms by a punch of the gun in the struggle. Then I put him under strong guard and told them the laws of their country were stronger than the hardest rifle among theni." After convincing the discontented party of their error, and indneing them to burn the resolves they had signed,
232
HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
the prisoner was discharged on his good behavior. Wilson closes his letter in these words: "I understand great threats are made against me in particular, if possible to intimidate me with fear, and also against the sheriff's and constables and all ministers of justice. But I hope the laws, the bulwarks of our nation, will be supported in spite of those low lived trifling rascals."
From this letter we can gather the spirit which actuated the par- ties to the controversy, and see the beginning of a bitter contention which vexed the people of this section for many years. The idea that Pennsylvania did not extend west of the Alleghany Monnt- ains was studiously cirenlated. Michael Cressap, and George Croghan, who were interested in land speculations here, were sus- pected of being privy to these rumors. A petition signed by over two hundred citizens was presented to the court at Bedford, under date of the 18th of July, 1772, " charging the government and offi- cers with great injustice and oppression, and praying that directions might be given to the sheriff's to serve no more processes in that country, as they apprehended it was not in Pennsylvania." Mr. Wilson answered the allegations of the petition before the court, and showed by documentary evidence that the grounds on which the petition rested were unstable, which had a very quieting effect upon the settlers, and induced the court to reject the petition.
Fort Pitt, which had been garrisoned by a detachment of British soldiers, from the time of its erection in 1759, by General Stanwix, was, by order of General Gage, of date of October, 1772, evacuated, and " all the pickets, bricks, stones, timber and iron which are now in the building or walls of the said fort " were sold for the sum of fifty pounds. At about this time, upon the death of Lord Bottetourt, Governor of Virginia, a new Governor was appointed in the person of the Earl of Dunmore, a man of a meddlesome disposition, and disposed to exercise the functions of his office with a high hand. In 1773, the year following the erection of Westmoreland County, Dunmore made a visit to Fort Pitt, where he met Dr. John Con- nolly, a nephew of Colonel Croghan. It appears that the new Gov- ernor was determined to act upon the assumption, whatever may have been his motive therefor, that all west of the Alleghanies and the whole boundless northwest belonged to Virginia. In Connolly he found a willing tool for asserting this claim; for, soon after the departure of the Governor, Connolly published the following pro- clamation: " Whereas, his Excellency John, Earl of Dunmore, Governor-in-chief, and Captain General of the colony and dominion of Virginia, and Vice Admiral of the same, has been pleased to nominate and appoint me Captain, Commandant of the Militia of Pittsburg and its dependencies, with instructions to assure his Ma- jesty's subjects settled on the Western Waters, that having the
233
HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
greatest regard to their prosperity and interest, and convinced from their repeated memorials of the grievances of which they complain, that he proposes moving to the House of Burgesses the necessity of erecting a new county to include Pittsburg, for the redress of your complaints, and to take every other step that may attend to afford you that justice for which you solicit. In order to facilitate this de- sirable circumstance I hereby require and command all persons in the dependency of Pittsburg to assemble themselves there as a militia on the 25th instant, at which time I shall communicate other matters for the promotion of public utility. Given under my hand the 1st day of January, 1774.
A copy of this high handed proceeding was immediately com- municated to the court at Hannastown, and to Governor Penn at Philadelphia. Before receiving instructions from the Governor, Arthur St. Clair, in his capacity as a justice, deeming that he was authorized by his commission to put a stop to such a procedure as was indicated in this proclamation, issued a warrant for the arrest of Connolly, who was apprehended and placed in confinement. Gov- ernor Penn wrote immediately to Lord Dunmore informing him of his advices, quoted the language of the charter, which gave five full degrees of longitude for the east and west extent of the State, which would carry the western limit far beyond Pittsburg, and expressed the belief that the Governor could not have authorized the procla- mation of Connolly.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.