During the autumn of 1768 Johnson and Stuart conducted simultaneous negotiations with the Iroquois and Cherokee, respectively. Stuart, the Indian superintendent for the Southern District, or the colonies south of Pennsylvania, concluded the Treaty of Hard Labor on October 17, by which the Cherokee gave up their claims to lands north of a line drawn from Chiswell's Mine to the mouth of the Kanawha. In the Treaty of Fort Stanwix of November 5, Johnson, the superintendent for the Northern District, or colonies from Pennsylvania northward, went far beyond his instructions. Instead of negotiating the release of Iroquois claims to lands north of the mouth of the Kanawha River, he obtained on November 5 a treaty by which they gave up lands south to the Tenneseee River, confirmed an earlier grant of 200,000 acres to George Croghan, Johnson's deputy, and stipulated that a large tract must be provided a group of Philadelphia merchants calling themselves the Suffering Traders.
Johnson's violations of his instructions produced widespread dissatisfaction. The governments of both Pennsylvania and Virginia refused to recognize the grants to Croghan and the Suffering Traders. Lord Hillsborough informed Johnson that the Crown had no intention of permitting settlement beyond the mouth of the Kanawha. Johnson, however, offered the weak defense that if he had not accepted the provisions for Croghan and the Suffering Traders, as well as the Tenneseee River line, the Iroquois would not have made any agreement. Johnson's action led to pressures to acquire additional territory from the Cherokee.
On October 18, 1770, Stuart concluded the Treaty of Lochaber, by which the Cherokee agreed to a new boundary, which ran from the Virginia-North Carolina border to a point near Long Island in the Holston River and thence in a straight line to the mouth of the Kanawha. The treaties of Hard Labor, Fort Stanwix, and Lochaber completely extinguished the rights of the Iroquois and Cherokee to West Virginia, except a small Cherokee claim in the southwest corner of the state.
A Wave of Trans-Allegheny Settlements. The treaties of Hard Labor and Fort Stanwix opened the floodgates to settlement of the trans-Allegheny region from the northern part of Pennsylvania to the headstreams of the Tennessee River. Beginning in the spring of 1769, thousands of pioneers occupied lands in the Greenbrier, Monongahela, upper Ohio, and Kanawha valleys, as well as choice sites in intervening areas.
The movement into the Greenbrier Valley, the third attempt at settlement, was led by John Stuart, Robert McClanahan, Thomas Renick, and William Hamilton, who located near Frankford in 1769. Within the next six years, at least three hundred families, drawn largely from the Scotch-Irish population in the southern part of the Valley of Virginia, moved into the Greenbrier area. They included the Boggs, Burnside, Clendenin, Donnally, Handley, Johnson, Keeney, Kelly, Kincaid, Lewis, Mathews, McClung, Nichols, Skaggs, Swope, and Woods families.
Even before 1768, intrepid men had made their way into the Monongahela Valley. In 1761 John and Samuel Pringle, deserters from the garrison at Fort Pitt, took up residence in a large hollow sycamore tree near Buckhannon. Three years later John Simpson arrived in the Clarksburg area. These men, and a few others, lived by hunting and trapping. They were the counterparts of Daniel Boone and other noted Long Hunters who ventured into Kentucky and Tennessee about the same time.
Monongahela Valley settlers originating in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and parts of Maryland and Virginia followed Forbes's or Braddock's roads to the middle Monongahela and then made their way upstream, while those from the upper Potomac, particularly the South Branch, threaded their way through the mountains to the waters of the Cheat and Tygart Valley. Conspicuous family names along the Monongahela and its West Fork and Cheat tributaries included Cobun, Collins, Davisson, Dorsey, Haymond, Ice, Judy, Martin, Miller, Nutter, Parsons, Pierpont, Scott, Shinn, Stewart, and Wade. Among the early pioneers were Zackwell Morgan, Michael Kerns, and John Evans, who located at Morgantown in 1772.
Like Daniel Boone in Kentucky, the Pringle brothers later turned immigrant guides. They led numerous settlers into the Tygart Valley, which abounded in game animals, wild fruits, and fertile lands. The accretions to the Buckhannon and Hackers Creek settlements were so great in 1773 that the grain crops were insufficient to feed the people, and they suffered a “starving year.” Early settlers in the Tygart Valley included the Connelly, Hadden, Jackson, Nelson, Riffle, Stalnaker, Warwick, Westfall, Whiteman, and Wilson families.
Most writers have credited the first settlements in the upper Ohio Valley section of West Virginia to Ebenezer, Silas, and Jonathan Zane, who allegedly arrived at Wheeling in 1769, or even earlier. George Washington, who in his own search for lands passed the site of Wheeling on October 24, 1770, made no mention in his journal of any inhabitants there. Moreover, Ebenezer Zane, David Shepherd, John Wetzel, and Samuel McCulloch, all among the earliest residents of the Wheeling area, stated later that they made their settlements in 1772. Fears that the claims of the Suffering Traders, later known as the Indiana Company, might be upheld retarded occupation of lands between the Ohio and Monongahela rivers.
In 1773 Walter Kelly, and possibly John Jones and William Pryor, settled in the Kanawha Valley. Kelly, a refugee from the Carolina backcountry and a man “of bold and intrepid disposition,” located at Cedar Grove, where he was killed by Indians the following year.3 Shortly afterward, William Morris acquired the tomahawk rights (based on notching of trees along the boundary) of Kelly's widow, who, with the remainder of the family had returned to the Greenbrier settlements prior to the attack. With his large and prolific family, Morris established the first permanent settlements in the Kanawha Valley.
The Proposed Colony of Vandalia. For a time it appeared that the trans-Allegheny settlements of West Virginia would become part of Vandalia, a proposed fourteenth colony. Vandalia had its origins in the grant made to the Suffering Traders, or Indiana Company, in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix. In 1769 the company sent Samuel Wharton to London to press its claim. Through tact and skillful maneuvering, Wharton won the support of several cabinet officials and members of parliament, including Thomas Walpole, an influential London merchant. Some of the English supporters, including Walpole, became members. The organization then took the name of the Grand Ohio Company, but it was more commonly known as the Walpole Company, in honor of its chief English supporter.
The Grand Ohio Company endeavored to purchase 2.4 million acres from the territory ceded by the Iroquois and offered the Crown 10,640 pounds, the exact amount that the government had paid the Indians for the entire cession. Its members were astonished when Lord Hillsborough, whom they expected to place impediments in their path, suggested that they enlarge their request to 20 million acres, or sufficient land to establish a separate colony. Hillsborough probably expected to wreck the scheme by pushing the price up to about 100,000 pounds and by raising further opposition from Virginia. Wharton and Walpole reached an understanding with the Treasury Commissioners on January 11, 1770, however, by which the price remained at 10,640 pounds.
The company proved equally adroit in overcoming opposition in Virginia. Excited by prospects that he might become governor of the new colony, George Mercer negotiated the merger of the Ohio Company of Virginia, of which he was the agent, into the Grand Ohio Company. In addition, the Grand Ohio Company agreed to set aside two hundred thousand acres in one tract for the military grant promised by Dinwiddie in 1754. It eased the fears of men such as Andrew Lewis and Thomas Walker by recognizing the rights of earlier grantees, including the Greenbrier and Loyal companies.
On July 1, 1772, the Committee on Plantation Affairs approved the Grand Ohio Company grant. Lord Hillsborough, who steadfastly opposed the move, was forced out of office, and on the very day that he left, the Privy Council gave its approval. The new colony, named Vandalia in honor of Queen Charlotte, who claimed descent from the Vandals, included all of trans-Allegheny West Virginia, the part of Pennsylvania between the Monongahela and Ohio rivers, and all of Kentucky east of the Kentucky River.
Although the setting of the royal seal on the document was the only official action that remained, Vandalia never became a colony. Complaints about vagueness in its boundaries and possible problems in the collection of quitrents arose, but the greatest deterrent was the rapidly developing hostility between England and her American colonies. The Boston Tea Party in 1773 and the Intolerable Acts of the following year wrecked all hopes for Vandalia.
Lord Dunmore and the Land Speculators.