The Ohio Company, formally known as the Ohio Company of Virginia, was a
land speculation company organized for the settlement by
Virginians of the
Ohio Country (approximately the present
U.S. state
In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...
of
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
) and to trade with the
Native Americans. The company had a
land grant
A land grant is a gift of real estate—land or its use privileges—made by a government or other authority as an incentive, means of enabling works, or as a reward for services to an individual, especially in return for military service. Grants ...
from Britain and a treaty with Indians, but
France also claimed the area, and the conflict helped provoke the outbreak of the
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...
.
Formation
Virginian explorers recognized the potential of the Ohio region for colonization and moved to capitalize on it,
as well as to block
French expansion into the territory.
In 1748,
Thomas Lee and brothers
Lawrence
Lawrence may refer to:
Education Colleges and universities
* Lawrence Technological University, a university in Southfield, Michigan, United States
* Lawrence University, a liberal arts university in Appleton, Wisconsin, United States
Preparator ...
and
Augustine Washington
Augustine Washington Sr. (November 12, 1694 – April 12, 1743) was the father of the first U.S. president, George Washington. He served as an officer in the British Navy during the War of Jenkin's Ear although he belonged to the Colony of Vir ...
organized the Ohio Company to represent the prospecting and trading interests of Virginian investors including
Robert Dinwiddie
Robert Dinwiddie (1692 – 27 July 1770) was a British colonial administrator who served as lieutenant governor of colonial Virginia from 1751 to 1758, first under Governor Willem Anne van Keppel, 2nd Earl of Albemarle, and then, from July 1756 ...
;
George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...
;
George Mason
George Mason (October 7, 1792) was an American planter, politician, Founding Father, and delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, one of the three delegates present who refused to sign the Constitution. His writings, including ...
;
John Mercer (colonial lawyer)
John Mercer (February 6, 1704 – October 14, 1768) was a colonial American lawyer, land speculator, and author.
Born in Dublin, Kingdom of Ireland, he came to Virginia in 1720 where he built the colonial estate Marlborough (also called Marlbo ...
and sons George Mercer,
James Mercer &
John Francis Mercer;
Richard "Squire" Lee;
Thomas Ludwell Lee;
Phillip Ludwell Lee;
Robert Carter III
Robert "Councillor" Carter III (February 28, 1728 – March 10, 1804) was a lawyer and planter from the Northern Neck of Virginia, in what became the United States. For two decades he sat on the Colonial Virginia Governor's Council. After th ...
of Nomoni;
John Tayloe II
Colonel John Tayloe II (28 May 172118 April 1779) was a planter and politician, among the richest planters in colonial Virginia. He served in public office including the Virginia Governor's Council, also known as the Virginia Council of State.
...
of
Mount Airy; and Gwain Corbin, son of
Henry Corbin (colonist)
Henry Corbin (also Corbyn; 1629–1675/76) was an emigrant from England who became a tobacco planter in the Virginia colony and served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly, in the House of Burgesses representing Lancaster County befor ...
.
In addition to the mandate and investment of Virginia Royal Governor
Robert Dinwiddie
Robert Dinwiddie (1692 – 27 July 1770) was a British colonial administrator who served as lieutenant governor of colonial Virginia from 1751 to 1758, first under Governor Willem Anne van Keppel, 2nd Earl of Albemarle, and then, from July 1756 ...
,
other original members included John Hanbury, Colonel
Thomas Cresap
Colonel Thomas Cresap (17021790) was an English-born settler and trader in the states of Maryland and Pennsylvania. Cresap served Lord Baltimore as an agent in the Maryland–Pennsylvania boundary dispute that became known as Cresap's War. Lat ...
,
George Mercer,
John Mercer, and "all of His Majesty's Colony of Virginia." In that same year, George Mercer petitioned
King George for land in the Ohio country,
and in 1749, the
British Crown granted the company 500,000 acres in the Ohio Valley between the
Kanawha River and the
Monongahela. The grant was in two parts: the first 200,000 acres were promised, and the following 300,000 acres were to be granted if the Ohio Company successfully settled one hundred families within seven years.
Furthermore, the Ohio Company was required to construct a fort and provide a garrison to protect the settlement at their own expense. But the land grant was rent and tax free for ten years to facilitate settlement.
The organizers signed a
treaty of friendship and permission at Logstown with the main tribes in the region in 1752 .
A rival group of land speculators from Virginia, the
Loyal Company of Virginia, was organized about the same time, and included influential Virginians such as
Thomas Walker,
William Cabell and
Peter Jefferson (father of
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was previously the natio ...
).
In 1752
George Mason
George Mason (October 7, 1792) was an American planter, politician, Founding Father, and delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, one of the three delegates present who refused to sign the Constitution. His writings, including ...
, later to become a major founding father, became treasurer of the Ohio Company, a post he held for forty years until his death in 1792.
French and Indian War
In 1748–1750, the Ohio Company hired
Thomas Cresap
Colonel Thomas Cresap (17021790) was an English-born settler and trader in the states of Maryland and Pennsylvania. Cresap served Lord Baltimore as an agent in the Maryland–Pennsylvania boundary dispute that became known as Cresap's War. Lat ...
, who had opened a series of
trading posts
A trading post, trading station, or trading house, also known as a factory, is an establishment or settlement where goods and services could be traded.
Typically the location of the trading post would allow people from one geographic area to tr ...
along the
Potomac River
The Potomac River () drains the Mid-Atlantic United States, flowing from the Potomac Highlands into Chesapeake Bay. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map. Retrieved Augu ...
at Long Meadow,
Oldtown and
Will's Creek (on the foot of the eastern climb up the
Cumberland Narrows
The Cumberland Narrows (or simply The Narrows) is a water gap in western Maryland in the United States, just west of Cumberland. Wills Creek cuts through the central ridge of the Wills Mountain Anticline at a low elevation here between Wills Mo ...
along what was soon to be called the
Nemacolin Trail
450px, Braddock's Road, General Braddock's March (points 1–10) follows or parallels (and improves upon) Chief Nemacolin's Trail from the Potomac River to the Monogahela. The route from the summit to Redstone Creek, which could be used by wago ...
). Cresap contracted to blaze a small road over the
Appalachian mountains
The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...
to the
Monongahela River
The Monongahela River ( , )—often referred to locally as the Mon ()—is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 15, 2011 river on the Allegheny Plateau in north-cen ...
, and then to start widening this road into a wagon road. Though not known at the time, that route was one of only three mid-mountain-range crossings of the
Appalachian Ridge and Valley system between the northern Hudson-Great Lakes route, and the southern Georgia-Mississippi-Western Tennessee plains route.
In 1750, the Ohio Company established a fortified storehouse at what became
Ridgeley, Virginia across the
Potomac River
The Potomac River () drains the Mid-Atlantic United States, flowing from the Potomac Highlands into Chesapeake Bay. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map. Retrieved Augu ...
from the Will's Creek trading post. That year the Ohio Company also hired
Christopher Gist
Christopher Gist (1706–1759) was an explorer, surveyor, and frontiersman active in Colonial America. He was one of the first white explorers of the Ohio Country (the present-day states of Ohio, eastern Indiana, western Pennsylvania, and nort ...
, a skillful woodsman and surveyor, to explore the Ohio Valley in order to identify lands for potential settlement. He surveyed and estimated the area drained by the
Kanawha River as well as that drained by other tributaries of the
Ohio River, and returned in 1751 and 1753. His journals provide valuable insights of the greater Ohio Valley as well as the
Alleghenies
The Allegheny Mountain Range (; also spelled Alleghany or Allegany), informally the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada and posed a significant barrier to land travel in less develo ...
. Gist travelled as far west as the
Miami Indian village of
Pickawillany
"ash people"
, settlement_type = Historic Native American village
, image_skyline =
, imagesize =
, image_alt =
, image_map1 = OHMap-doton-Piqua.png
, mapsize1 = 22 ...
(near present
Piqua, Ohio
Piqua ( ) is a city in Miami County, southwest Ohio, United States, 27 miles north of Dayton. The population was 20,522 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area.
It was founded as the village of Washington in ...
). Relying on his report, the Ohio Company began selling land in what later became
Western Pennsylvania and present-day
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the B ...
. Gist and Cresap both received sizable land grants west of the Appalachians. In 1752 the company had a pathway blazed between the small fortified posts at Wills Creek (that became
Cumberland, Maryland
Cumberland is a U.S. city in and the county seat of Allegany County, Maryland. It is the primary city of the Cumberland, MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 19,076. Located on the Potomac River, ...
), and
Redstone Old Fort Redstone Old Fort — or Redstone Fort
or (for a short time when built) Fort Burd — on the Nemacolin Trail, was the name of the French and Indian War-era wooden fort built in 1759 by Pennsylvania militia colonel James Burd to guard the ancien ...
(that became
Brownsville, Pennsylvania
Brownsville is a borough in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, United States, first settled in 1785 as the site of a trading post a few years after the defeat of the Iroquois enabled a post-Revolutionary war resumption of westward migration. The Tradin ...
). Cresap and his scout
Nemacolin had established the latter location in 1750, which overlooked
Redstone Creek and the longstanding Monongahela River
ford
Ford commonly refers to:
* Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford
* Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river
Ford may also refer to:
Ford Motor Company
* Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company
* Ford F ...
.
Conflicting land claims complicated settlement efforts. The Ohio Country tract ceded by the King through Virginia's Governor Dinwiddie included, in Dinwiddie's opinion, the "forks of the Monongahela," present-day
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...
. The Pennsylvania colonial government also claimed much of this territory (though Maryland's charter ended at the
Appalachian divide, and while the charter of Virginia set no western boundary, Pennsylvania's grant was for 5 degrees of longitude from the Delaware River, a SW point not determined until after the Mason Dixon survey). Moreover, France also claimed land in North America, including everything drained by the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...
(the Ohio River being one of the great river's tributaries). Not only did French traders compete with those of the Ohio Company and agents of other British-chartered entities, France had also sent soldiers, who were fighting for their kingdom's right to occupy the Ohio Valley, most notably at
Fort Duquesne
Fort Duquesne (, ; originally called ''Fort Du Quesne'') was a fort French colonization of the Americas, established by the French in 1754, at the confluence of the Allegheny River, Allegheny and Monongahela River, Monongahela rivers. It was lat ...
.
Dinwiddie responded by sending a military unit under the command of George Washington to the region, which led to the outbreak of the
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...
.
Post-war efforts
In 1763, the Ohio Company sent a representative to petition the British Crown for a grant renewal. The plans for settlement and military development continued, with
Henry Bouquet's 1764 plans to construct military posts around prospective western settlements.
However, following
Pontiac's War
Pontiac's War (also known as Pontiac's Conspiracy or Pontiac's Rebellion) was launched in 1763 by a loose confederation of Native Americans dissatisfied with British rule in the Great Lakes region following the French and Indian War (1754–176 ...
, land claims west of the Appalachian Mountains were forfeited to the
Native American tribes in the
Proclamation of 1763
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued by King George III on 7 October 1763. It followed the Treaty of Paris (1763), which formally ended the Seven Years' War and transferred French territory in North America to Great Britain. The Proclam ...
, requiring them to be re-purchased through
King George III
George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...
.
Grand Ohio Company
In 1768, the British government authorized
Sir William Johnson to make the
Treaty of Fort Stanwix, purchasing land rights from the
Iroquois
The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...
, in accordance with the Proclamation of 1763.
Samuel Wharton and
William Trent applied for a "despoiled traders" (frontiersmen who had been aggrieved by the various Indian raids during and after the French and Indian Wars) land grant in 1768. In order to get approved by the
British Crown, they joined with a number of other land speculators to form the Walpole Company,
named for Thomas Walpole, a British lawyer involved in the endeavor.
The company wanted to acquire 2.5 million acres of Ohio Country land. Pennsylvanian
Benjamin Franklin was one of the seventy-two shareholders, as well as included Franklin's son
William (then Royal Governor of New Jersey),
George Croghan
George Croghan (c. 1718 – August 31, 1782) was an Irish-born fur trader in the Ohio Country of North America (current United States) who became a key early figure in the region. In 1746 he was appointed to the Onondaga Council, the governin ...
and Sir William Johnson, as well as Franklin's perennial London allies
William Strahan and
Richard Jackson. The Walpole Company,
Indiana Company, and members of the Ohio Company reorganized, and on December 22, 1769, formed the Grand Ohio Company.
In 1772, the Grand Ohio Company received from the British government a grant of a large tract lying along the southern bank of the Ohio as far west as the mouth of the
Scioto River
The Scioto River ( ) is a river in central and southern Ohio more than in length. It rises in Hardin County just north of Roundhead, Ohio, flows through Columbus, Ohio, where it collects its largest tributary, the Olentangy River, and meets t ...
. A colony to be called
"Vandalia" was planned. However, the outbreak of the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
interrupted colonization and nothing was accomplished. The London-based company ceased operations in 1776.
The
Ohio Company of Associates
The Ohio Company of Associates, also known as the Ohio Company, was a land company whose members are today credited with becoming the first non- Native American group to permanently settle west of the Allegheny mountains. In 1788 they establis ...
was organized in 1786, composed largely of New England veterans who had certificates for land from Congress for their services during the Revolution.
[''The Records of the Original Proceedings of the Ohio Company'' (1796, reprinted 2008)]
Notes
References
*Abernethy, Thomas Perkins. ''Western Lands and the American Revolution''. New York: Russell & Russell, 1959.
*Bailey, Kenneth P. ''The Ohio Company of Virginia and the Westward Movement, 1748–1792''. Originally published 1939. Reprinted Lewisburg: Wennawoods Publishing, 2000. .
*Procter, James, Alfred. ''
The Ohio Company: Its Inner History.'' Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1959.
*
*Mulkearn, Lois, ed. ''George Mercer Papers Relating to the Ohio Company of Virginia''. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1954. Collection of many original documents, including Christopher Gist's journal.
;Attribution
External links
Ohio Company Papers (University of Pittsburgh Archives Service Center, Finding Aid and Digitized Content) ''Papers Relating to the Ohio Company of Virginia'' (Mercer and Mulkearn, Digitized edition)''The Ohio Company: its Internal History'' (James, Digitized edition)*
{{George Mason
Colonial United States (British)
Companies established in 1747
Early American land companies
French and Indian War
Pre-statehood history of Ohio
Pre-statehood history of Pennsylvania
Colony of Virginia