History of Washington County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 39

Author: Crumrine, Boyd, 1838-1916; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885; Hungerford, Austin N
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : H.L. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 1216

USA > Pennsylvania > Washington County > History of Washington County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 39

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1 Appleton's Cyclop., xvi. p. 382.

2 Public Good, p. 19.

3 Johnson r. McIntosh, 8 Wheat., 543; I. Story's Com., 143.

162

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

immediately extended her active sovereignty to the Ohio. On Feb. 26, 1769, she publicly announced the opening of her land-office for the sale of lands in the new purchase, and on the day of its opening, April 3, 1769, as has been seen, warrants of survey were issued for lands lying in Washington County. But not until 1774 did Virginia presume to pass like orders with regard to lands in the Monongahela valley.

The Penn Title .- The charter granted by Charles II. to William Penn for his province of Penn- 1681. sylvania was dated March 4, 1681. Section I., in its provisions in respect of the boundaries of the grant, is as follows :

" All that tract or part of land in America, with the Islands therein contained, as the same is bounded on the east by the Delaware river, from twelve miles distance northwards of New Castle town unto the three and fortieth degree of northern latitude, if the said river doth extend so far northward; but if the said river shall not extend so far northward, then by the said river so far as it doth extend; and from the head of the same river the eastern bounds are to be determined by a meridian line. to be drawn from the head of the said river unto the said three and fortieth degree. The said land to extend westward five de- grees in longitude to be computed from the said eastern bounds; and the said lands to be bounded on the north by the beginning of the three and fortieth degree of northern latitude, and on the south by a circle drawn at twelve miles distance from New Castle northward and west- ward, unto the beginning of the fortieth degree of northern latitude, and then by a straight line westward to the limits of longitude above mentioned." 1

It seems to be made plain by the language quoted from the charter that Pennsylvania was in her limits a province of three degrees of latitude and five degrees of longitude, extending from the fortieth degree, i.e., line 39°, to the beginning of the forty-third degree, i.e., line 42°; and in the absence of an interference with any prior grant, doubtless no other position 1632. would ever have been entertained. But in 1632, forty-nine years before the date of Penn's charter, Charles I. had granted a province to Lord Baltimore, which was named Maryland, and of which the bounds were :

" All that part of the Peninsula or Chersonese lying in the parts of America between the ocean on the east and the bay of Chesapeake on the west; divided from the residue thereof by a right line drawn from the promontory or headland called Watkin's Point, situated on the bay aforesaid, near the river Wighco on the west, unto the main ocean on the east; and between that boundary on the south, unto that part of the bay of Delaware on the north, which lyeth under the fortieth de- gree of north latitude from the equinoctial, where New England is ter-

- minated; and all that tract of land within the metes underwritten (that is to say) passing from the said bay, called Delaware Bay, in a right line by the degree aforesaid, unto the true meridian of the first fountain of the river Potowmack, thence verging towards the south, unto the further bank of the said river, and following the same on the west and south, unto a certain place called Cinquack, situate near the mouth of the said river, where it disembogues into the aforesaid bay of Chesapeake, and thence by the shortest line unto the aforesaid promontory or place called Watkin's Point."2

It does no violence to a fair construction of this charter to interpret the clause "which lyeth under the fortieth degree of north latitude from the equi-

1 Quoted from I. Dall. L. App. 1; I. Proud's History of Pennsylvania, 172.

" Quoted from Johnston's History of Cecil County, Md., 14.

noctial" as establishing the point whence the due west line forming the northern boundary of the grant was to be drawn, upon the line 39º, i.e., under or south of the fortieth degree, a degree of latitude being a portion of space lying between two parallels. The first degree of north latitude begins at the equator, and ends at the line 1°. So the fortieth degree begins at line 39°, and ends at line 40°. A point under the fortieth degree of latitude, "where New England is terminated," surely would not be a point in that de- gree. Therefore Penn's charter may properly have carried him down to parallel 39°, where he would have met Lord Baltimore's grant. Had that parallel been actually made the line between the two prov- inces, Baltimore would have been a Pennsylvania city, and our southern boundary would have nearly reached to the District of Columbia.3

But it was destined that our southern boundary should be neither at 39º as claimed by Penn, nor at 40° as claimed by Lord Baltimore. Of the fortieth : degree, divided into two, Pennsylvania got the smaller portion.

Mason and Dixon's Line .- It is not proposed to write of the controversy which arose with Maryland almost as soon as the colonists of William Penn, the proprietor, arrived, although the details of that con- test, its strifes, its captures and reprisals, the war waged upon the Susquehanna, and, perhaps above all, the scientific triumph for that day of the running of the line itself, comprise a most interesting part of Penn- sylvania history.4 Suffice it to say that not until Aug. 4, 1763, did the proprietors of Pennsylvania and Mary- land, being together in London, agree with Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, "two mathematicians or surveyors," to run and mark the boundary line be- tween the two provinces. Mason and Dixon arrived at Philadelphia on Nov. 15, 1763, and proceeded at once with their task, but not until 1765 had they completed their work upon the circle and the tangent and got upon the parallel. The completion of that line, henceforth to be known as Mason and Dixon's line, to a point thereon at a crossing 1767. of Dunkard Creek, on the southern boundary of Washington County as originally erected, is graphi- cally described by Mr. Latrobe as follows :

"In 1767 the surveyors began operations on the parallel of latitude late. A negotiation with the Six Nations was necessary,6 which Sir William Johnson had promised to conduct, and this was not concluded before

8 The writer is aware that Mr. Veech, in his Monongahela of Old, 219, and in his reprint, Mason and Dixon's Line, 18, holds a different opinion, and speaks of the "absurdity of this construction" which would carry Penn's grant to parallel 39º. The most that will be ad- mitted as to his view is that, when the controversy between Penn and Lord Baltimore arose, it was a fair case for a compromise, as the lawyers would say.

4 The reader is referred particularly to The Monongahela of Old, ch. viil .; Mason and Dixon's Line, by the same author, Hon, James Veech; and History of Mason and Dixon's Line, by Hon. J. H. B. Latrobe.

5 Because the lands they were about to pass upon had not yet been purchased from the Indians.

163

CIVIL AND LEGAL-BEGINNING OF THE BOUNDARY CONTENTION.

May, so that it was not until the 8th of June that the surveyors reached their halting-place of the preceding year, on the summit of the Little Alleghany. On the 14th of June they had advanced as far as the sum- mit of the Great Alleghany, where they were joined by an escort of fourteen Indians, with an interpreter, deputed by the Chiefs of the Six Nations to accompany them. And so the Indian becomes their protector against the Indians as they mark the boundary of the sovereignties that before long are to obliterate the very memory of their aboriginal possessore. And the escort seems to have had some vague apprehensions in regard to the results of all this gazing into the heavens and measur- ing upon the earth, and to have become restless and dissatisfied, and on the 25th of August the surveyors note that 'Mr. John Green, one of the chiefs of the Mohawk nation, and his nephew leave them, in order to return to their own country.' The roving Indians of the wilderness, regardless of the escort, begin also to give the party of white men un- easiness; and on the 29th of September, twenty-six of the assistants quit the work for fear of the Shawnees and Delawares. Mason and Dixon have now but fifteen axemen left with them; but, nothing disheartened, they send back to Fort Cumberland for aid, and push forward with the line. At length they reach a point two hundred and forty-four miles from the river Delaware, and within thirty-six miles of the whole dis- tance to be run. And here in the bottom of a valley, on the borders of a stream marked Dunkard Creek on their map, they come to an Indian war-path, winding its way through the forest. And here their Indian escort tell them that it is the will of the Six Nations that the surveys shall be stayed. There is no alternative but obedience, and retracing their steps they return to Philadelphia, and reporting all these facts to the commissioners under the deed of 1760, receive an honorable dis- charge on the 26th of December, 1767."1

The line thus run and marked was 39º 43' 26'' north latitude. Extending as it did westward beyond the meridian of the first fountain of the Potomac, which meridian formed the western limit of Mary- land, as to that extension it was ex parte, and, of course, could not affect the rights of Virginia. Why the surveyors did not stop at the meridian referred to is a mystery, "for there," says Mr. Veech, "their functions terminated. But they pass it by (unheeded, because unknown) resolved to reach the utmost limit of Penn's five degrees of longitude from the Dela- ware, for so they were instructed." And why were Mason and Dixon stopped in their line at the second crossing of Dunkard Creek ? Because by that point passed the Warrior Branch of the old Catawba or Cherokee trail, along which traveled the war parties of the Northern and Southern Indians, and across it the Indian escort would at that time allow not even an imaginary barrier to be drawn.

Thus, as late as the fall of 1768, the southwestern corner of the province of Pennsylvania had not been marked, and her western boundary, whether an irregu- lar line or a meridian, was as yet unknown. The boundary of a tract of land, even of small dimensions, is of the wildest uncertainty until it has been run out by courses and distances and marked upon the ground. One can easily see what results would be brought about by this gap in the boundaries between the, prov- ince of Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Beginning of the Boundary Contention .- In 1748, Thomas Lee, of the King's Council in Virginia, formed the design of effecting settlements on the wild lands west of the Alleghanies through 1748. the agency of a corporation called the Ohio

Company. Lawrence Washington and Augustine Washington, brothers of George Washington, were interested in the scheme. A grant was obtained from the king for five hundred thousand acres of land, to be taken chiefly on the south side of the Ohio, between the Monongahela and Kanawha Rivers. Two hun- dred thousand acres were to be selected immediately, and to be held for ten years free from quit-rents or taxes, on condition that the company should seat one hundred families on the lands within seven years, and build a fort and maintain a garrison sufficient to pro- tect the settlements.

The object of the company was not only to form settlements, but also to carry on upon a large scale a trade with the Indians, which hitherto had been mostly in the hands of the Pennsylvanians. In 1749 a cargo of goods suited to that trade arrived from London, another to follow the next spring, the whole amounting in value to four thousand pounds sterling. In 1751, Christopher Gist was sent out as the agent to explore the lands, and in 1752 he attended a treaty 1 with the Indians, with whom the French were then tampering.

This treaty was held at Logstown. Col. Joshua Fry and two other commissioners represented the colony of Virginia.

Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, became one of the London Company's proprietors, and in 1753 he sent George Washington, then but a youth, as a messenger to the French commandant at Venango to ascertain the purpose of the threatened encroachment. Then followed in 1754 the attempted erection of the fort at the " Forks of the Ohio," in pursuance of its rec- ommendation in Washington's journal as the most eligible place, its capture by the French, and the erec- tion of Fort Du Quesne in its stead, and the inaugura- tion of the French and Indian war. All this was brought about without the agency of Pennsylvania.2 How this trespass, committed by the colonies of Vir- ginia upon her western limits, called the attention of Pennsylvania to the necessity of a settlement of her western boundary, will presently appear.

Let us now go back to the year 1749. Remember that this was but about five years subsequent to the time when Peter Chartier,8 from a 1749. Pennsylvania Indian trader, went over to the

1 On the eastern half of the line the surveyors planted at the end of every fifth mile a stone graven with the arms of the Penns on the one side and of the Baltimore family on the other, marking the intermediate miles with smaller stones, having a P. on one side and an M. on the other. The stones with the arms upon them were all sent from England. The writer stood beside one of them in June, 1881; one hundred and fourteen years had not obliterated the inscriptions. For want of wheel transportation over the mountains a different and less permanent mode of marking was adopted.

2 For an account of the Ohio Company see Sparks' Writings of Wash- ington. Washington's Journal of his tour upon the Ohio in 1753 is pub- lished in full in I. Olden Time, 12.

8 One Chartier in 1717 received a warrant for five hundred acres where "he had sented himself on the Susquehanna River, above Cones- toga Creek, including within the survey the improvement then made by him, for which he agreed, on behalf of his son, Peter Chartier, in whose name he desired the survey to be made, to pay for the same."-Rupp's

164

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

French. On Nov. 22, 1749,1 Thomas Lee (heretofore mentioned), president of the Virginia Council, wrote to Governor Hamilton, of Pennsylvania, announcing the formation of the London Company, the purpose to build a fort for the protection of trade with the Indians, in order to retain them from the French and " engage them in affection to his Majestie's subjects," and stating that the Pennsylvania traders were pre- vailing with the Ohio Indians to believe that the fort was to be a bridle for them, and that the roads which the company were to make were to let in the Cataw- bas upon them to destroy them, etc., whereby " the carrying the King's Grant into execution is at present impracticable." The letter closed with a request that measures be taken " to put a stop to these mis- chievous Practices." Another letter from Mr. Lee followed, dated Dec. 20, 1749, wherein he states that he had found it necessary " to write to the Lords of the Treasury, desiring their Lordships to obtain the King's Order for running the dividing Line betwixt this Colony and Yours, else many difficulties will arise upon seating the Large Grants to the Westward of the Mountains." Governor Hamilton, on Jan. 2, 1749, replied in a letter from which is copied :

" As you have mentioned the large grant his Majesty has lately been pleased to make to some gentlemen in Virginia of Lands on the · Branches of the Ohio, 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 Governments in order to assure Ourselves that none of the Lands contained in that Grant are within the Limits of this Province. If you should join with me in Sentiment that the work is necessary to be done I shall at all times be ready to ap- point Commissioners,2 etc."

Again on May 6, 1753, Governor Hamilton wrote to Robert Dinwiddie, who had become Governor of Virginia, acquainting him of hostilities by 1753. Ottawa Indians upon the Allegheny, that in- formation had been received of a threatened invasion by a body of French and Indians, and pro- ceeded :

" I should be well pleased to know whether it be intended by Your Colony to erect any kind of Fort on the Lands granted to the Ohio Com- pany, and my reason for desiring this Information is that I have re- ceived Directions from the Proprietors of Pennsylvania to enter into any reasonable measures to assist You in any design of that Sort, only taking Your Acknowledgment that this settlement shall not prejudice their Right to that Country, and further that I may assure The Settlers they shall enjoy the lands they bona fide settle on the common Quit Rent, etc." 8

Lancaster County, 120, 121. Peter Chartier was licensed as an Indian trader by the Lancaster court Nov. 3, 1730 .- Ibid., 253. In 1739 there was surveyed to him a tract of six hundred acres in Paxton Manor, Lancaster, embracing land afterward the site of New Cumberland. A few years after this survey he settled on or near the Allegheny River, at what was called Old Town or Chartiers Old Town, about forty miles above Pittsburgh. In 1744 he accepted a military commission under the French, and prevailed upon some of the Shawanese Indians of Old Town to move to the French settlements on the Mississippi .- Rupp's Cumber- land, 436. He gave his name to the creek flowing northward through one of the most beautiful valleys of Washington County.

1 V. Col. Records, 423.

2 Ibid., 423-24.

8 Ibid., 629. The instructions from the proprietaries to Governor Hamilton are printed in VI. Col. Records, 4.

To this letter no reply is at hand from Governor Dinwiddie, but on Nov. 24, 1753, the latter wrote that he had "sent a person of Distinction to the Com- mander of the French Forces on the Ohio to know his Reasons for this unjustifiable Step in invading our Lands." He also said, " We have several work- men gone out to build a Fort at the Forks of the Monongialo with the approbation and desire of the Indians." This " person of distinction" was George Washington.5

It has appeared that Governor Hamilton had prom- ised co-operation with Governor Dinwiddie in the expulsion of the French, who had already estab- lished themselves upon the upper waters of the Alle- gheny, but the Assembly, by whom the money was to be supplied, refused it. This body, the representa- tives of the people, was then in a controversy with the Governor and Council, who represented the pro- prietors, with respect to the taxation of the unsold lands of the latter, their manors, etc., insisting that their private estate should bear its share of the bur- den with the property of the people. Neither side would yield, and it followed, which is now stated once for all, that in the French and Indian war Penn- sylvania contributed little if anything in men or money save only the supplies and transportation sold and hired by the Germans of the middle and older counties during the period of Braddock's march to his defeat. An excuse was made, in good faith perhaps too, of conscientious scruples, and at the time now under consideration a doubt was also expressed on the part of the Assembly whether the lands on the Ohio were really within the province at all or not. This suggestion brought about on the part of the Gov- ernor and Council an examination as carefully made as could then be done. An ascertainment of the dis- tance to the "Forks of the Ohio" by the usual route across the mountains was obtained ; a Mr. West was examined, who said "that Col. Joshua Fry, one of the Virginia commissioners (at the treaty at Logs- town referred to), who had the Reputation of an excellent Mathematician, with a Quadrant of eigh- teen Inches Radius, took an Observation of the Sun on the 16th of June, 1752, at a place about a Mile North of Shannopin's Town," and ascertained the latitude of that place to be 40° 29'.6

The Governor then communicated to the Assembly, March 2, 1754 :

" By these it would have appeared to you that Logstown, the Place where the French propose to have their Head-Quarters, is not at the Dis- tance of Five Degrees of Longitude from the River Delaware, and not to the South ward of Fifteen Statute Miles South of this City, 1754. and that the Course of the Ohio from that Place to Weningo [Venango], which the French have taken Possession of, and from whence they have driven away our Traders, is to the North-East, and conse- quently nearer to us." 7

6 Ibid., 712.

6 Shannopin's Town was at or near where Lawrenceville now is. Logs- town was supposed to be about one mile north of Shannopin's Town.

7 V. Col, Records, 751, 753.

165

CIVIL AND LEGAL-DR. JOHN CONNOLLY.

On March 13, 1754, Governor Hamilton, having made the examinations stated, wrote to Governor Dinwiddie :

" The Invasions lately made by the French on Parts of his Majesty's Dominions having engaged me to inquire very particularly into the sit- uation of their Forts, and likewise into the Bounds and Extent of this Province to the Westward, I have from thence the greatest Reason to believe not only the French Forts, but also the Forks of Mohongialo (where You propose to erect one and to grant away Two hundred Thou- sand Acres of Land to such as shall engage in the Intended Expedition to Ohio), are really within the limits of Pennsylvania. In duty to my ; Constituents therefore, I cannot but remind You of what I had the Honor to write you some time ago upon this subject." I

Dinwiddie had previously issued a proclamation of the tenor stated in the foregoing letter. On March 21, 1754, his reply to Governor Hamilton is written, in which are catalogued what had been done by way of men, means, arms, etc., for the expedition, but there is perfect silence as to the chief matter of inter- est in Governor Hamilton's communication. But in the next letter, of the same date, he says,-

" Your private letter of the Thirteenth Currant I have duly read and am much mislead by our Surveyors if the Forks of the Mohongialo be within the Limits of Your Proprietor'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 on the Ohio (if in this Govern- ment) to keep the Traders and others in good order, and I presume soon there will be Commissioners appointed for that service.

" In the mean time, that no Hindrance may be given to our intended Expedition, I think it is highly reasonable if these Lands are in your Proprietor's Grant that the Settlers thereon should pay the Quit Rents to Mr. Penn, and not to his Majesty, and therefore as much as lies in my power I agree thereto, after the time granted them by my Proclamation to be clear of the Quit Rents ceases ; but surely I am from all Hands as- ! sured that Logs Town is far to the west of Mr. Penn's Grant." !

Attention is called to these letters to and from Gov- ernor Dinwiddie, in view of what is to appear here- after, when many years are elapsed. About the time they were written the fort at the Forks of the " Mohon- gialo" was being erected, but on April 17, 1754, En- sign Ward was compelled to surrender his incomplete fortification which was to protect the Ohio Company's settlers and the trade with the Indians, to M. Contre- cœur, "who fell down from Weningo with a Fleet of Three Hundred and Sixty Battoes and Canoes, with upwards of One Thousand Men and Eighteen Pieces of Artillery, which they planted against the Fort ;" so wrote "Your Honours most obedient and very hum- ble Servant, G. Washington," in a letter to Governor Hamilton, received on the 3d of May.3 After this calamity Governor Dinwiddie was not so sure as to his jurisdiction over Logstown. The Maryland As- sembly had not been much more liberal than that of Pennsylvania, and on April 27, 1754 (perhaps, how- ever, before he had heard of Ensign Ward's surren- der), in a letter to Governor Hamilton, he com- plains :4

" I cannot help observing that Two Proprietary Governments should distinguish themselves ou this exigency of our affairs, in not contribu- ting their assistance agreeable to his Majestie's commands, and more so from your Province when it is in doubt if the Land we are going to pos- sess is not in your Grant."

1 VI. Col. Records, 3. 2 Ibid., 8. 8 Ibid., 28. 4 Ibid., 32.

This was the last official correspondence upon the subject for about twenty years, and now the first acts of the government of Virginia, in which jurisdiction over the Monongahela and Ohio valleys was claimed, have been here disclosed. Hitherto and through- out, the controversy has been courteous and peace- able. When it is again renewed it partakes of the very bitterness of partisan strife. But following En- sign Ward's surrender, the establishment of Fort Du Quesne at the confluence of the Ohio and the Alle- gheny, the first battles of young Washington in the territory now of Fayette County, and Braddock's de- feat, was a long period of relentless and bloody In- dian warfare, during which there was no opportunity for a conflict of civil jurisdiction west of the Alle- ghany Mountains.

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History of Washington County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 39

Author: Crumrine, Boyd, 1838-1916; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885; Hungerford, Austin N Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Philadelphia : H.L. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 1216

Author: Crumrine, Boyd, 1838-1916; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885; Hungerford, Austin N
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : H.L. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 1216