displacing Native Americans and selling lands northwest of the Ohio River were expected to increase the wealth of elite Virginians and their key contacts in Great Britain
Source: Library of Congress, A trader's map of the Ohio country before 1753 (John Patten, 1753)
The Ohio Company was organized after the 1744 Treaty of Lancaster and the end of the War in 1748 of Jenkin's Ear (known as King George's War in New England and Upstate New York, the American component of the War of the Austrian Succession). The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was silent about French and English claims to the interior of North America.1
Source: NBC News Learn, The War of Jenkin's Ear and King George's War, 1739 - 1748
The right of the colony of Virginia to grant lands in the Ohio River Valley was based on the Second Charter issued by James II to the Virginia Company in 1609. That charter granted to the company all land "from sea to sea, west and northwest."
In 1747 key Virginia leaders, with special access to the decisionmakers on the Council of State, organized the Ohio Company. The Ohio Company was a land speculation scheme orchestrated primarily by the Thomas Lee family and its allies on the Northern Neck. The investors included members of the Virginia gentry (including two brothers of George Washington), merchants in London with influence at the royal court, and agents living in the backcountry such as Thomas Cresap and his son Daniel.
The Ohio Company grant was one of several very large grants approved by the governor, his Council, and British officials in London starting in 1736 with the Beverley Manor grant.
The Loyal Land Company's 800,000 acre grant was also approved in 1749. The Greenbrier Company was awarded a grant for 100,000 acres in 1751, when the French were asserting their claim to the Ohio River Valley. From a geopolitical perspective, officials in London saw the land companies as a vehicle to establish British control by settling the territory with people loyal to Great Britain.
In 1749, the Ohio Company obtained a grant from King George II for 500,000 acres between the Allegheny Front and the Ohio River. Governor Gooch was unwilling to issue such a large grant on his own authority, but the Virginians got approval through the Privy Council and the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations (Lords of Trade). George Mercer represented the company in London as its agent (lobbyist).
The British Board of Trade issued instructions to Governor Gooch on March 18, 1749, to sign the paperwork. The Ohio Company land was:2
After settling the first 200,000 aces, the investors could claim an additional 300,000 acres. The investors hired Christopher Gist as their scout to identify the most valuable lands that should be surveyed. Thomas Cresap started to build a road crossing the Alleghenies towards the Forks of the Ohio, where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers combine to form the Ohio River. The company built trading posts/forts at Long Meadow, Oldtown, and Will's Creek.
Gist mapped the lands downstream from Shannopin's Town (at the Forks of the Ohio) to the Great Miami River in 1750-1551, and lands in Kentucky in 1751-1752.3
Getting people to move into the backcountry and occupy the first 200,000 acres required making arrangements with the Native Americans who lived and hunted on the territory south of the Ohio River. Agents for the Ohio Company attracted representatives of different Native American groups to attend a meeting in Logstown in 1752. The company's goal was to confirm the 1744 Treaty of Lancaster with the Haudenosaunee (six Iroquois tribes), and convince the actual residents to allow farmers to take their land.
The Iroquois thought the 1744 Treaty of Lancaster had shifted the boundary of accepted colonial settlement westward from the Blue Ridge to just the southern bank of the Ohio River. The Virginians claimed they had acquired the right to occupy all Iroquois lands west of the Blue Ridge - including lands west of the Ohio River, based on the phrase:4
Pennsylvania's interpreter Conrad Weiser had visited Logstown in 1748. He found the Shawnee, Delaware and Mingo there were not satisfied with the goods available from the French, and were interested in trading with the British. Governor Gooch of Virginia had supported the outreach to Logstown, and "Brother Assaraquoa" was thanked as well as the governor of Pennsylvania ("Brother Onas"). The door was opened for trade, but not for settlement.
A later 1748 Treaty of Lancaster between the Pennsylvania colony and the Twightwees (Miamis) had authorized Pennsylvania traders to travel within the Ohio River Valley north of the river. Virginians had not been represented in the Treaty of Lancaster discussions, and the Pennsylvania traders had no desire to see competitors from Virginia doing business with the Native Americans living in towns along the Ohio River valley.
The French were directly opposed to British trade or settlement. The French cited their long-standing claim to the entire Mississippi River watershed based on the Right of Discovery. René-Robert Cavalier, le Sieur de la Salle, had traveled from Canada to the mouth of the Mississippi River in 1682.
In 1749 Captain Celeron De Bienville led French soldiers down the Ohio River, burying lead plates and claiming the territory in the name of France. The Ohio Company investors assumed the French could be displaced; otherwise their grant from British officials would be valueless.5
The Virginians organized the 1752 meeting at Logstown to prevent a violent reaction to settlement beyond the south bank of the Ohio River. Commissioners from the Ohio Company, Pennsylvania, and Virginia negotiated the 1752 Logstown Treaty. The Haudenosaunee did not confirm at the 1752 meeting any Virginia ownership of lands that would be sold by the Ohio Company, but were enticed to accept new settlements.
Discussions were focused on the Mingo headman Tanaghrisson, serving as the Iroquois leader. Tanaghrisson, called the Half King because he was partially empowered by the six Iroquois tribes that composed the Haudenosaunee, agreed in the 1752 treaty to allow the construction of an English blockhouse and trading base on the Ohio River. His concession ensured the English would not shift to negotiating directly with Shawnee and Delaware leaders. Shingas was the Delaware "king," but Tanaghrisson claimed he had crowned Shingas and that the Delaware leader had no independent authority.6
In the 1752 discussions at Logstown, the Pennsylvania representative, George Croghan, was unable to get Pennsylvania's Quaker leaders to commit to a special deal for him to acquire a 200,000-acre grant. On August 2, 1749 he had gotten three local chiefs to give him that land. He asserted that claim for the rest of his life, up to the American Revolution in which he sided with the British, but could not get colonial officials to acknowledge the legitimacy of the private and undocumented land sale.
Pennsylvania officials rejected Croghan's 200,000 acre claim. As a result, during treaty negotiations at Logstown in 1752 Croghan supported Virginia's claim to the Ohio River Valley.7
Virginia Governor Robert Dinwiddie directed Captain William Trent to build a fort at the Forks of the Ohio. Construction of Fort Prince George ("Trent's Fort") started in April, 1754. It was not complete when a French force led by Claude-Pierre Pecaudy de Contrecoeur arrived. The French evicted the Virginians and built Fort Duquesne at the Forks.
The French fort was a small facility, not even large enough to house the planned garrison. The earthen walls were sufficient to defend against rifles, but not siege guns. Native Americans who chose to be allies with the French were the primary military capacity at Fort Duquesne.
The first two British attempts to capture Fort Duquesne failed. George Washington marched towards the fort later in 1754, but retreated after fighting a small detachment of French soldiers at Jumonville Glen. French and Indian troops sent from Fort Duquesne intercepted Washington's detachment and forced it to surrender at Fort Necessity. A year later, General Edward Braddock was defeated on the banks of the Monongahela River.
On September 14, 1758, the Native American allies helped defeat the advance guard of General Edwin Forbes' expedition, which was led by Major James Grant. The Native Americans then left. The French remaining at Fort Duquesne realized they could not withstand a siege. They destroyed their fort on November 24 and fled.
General Forbes left troops commanded by Hugh Mercer to build a British fort. Mercer constructed a temporary camp known as Mercer's Fort, then built a massive Fort Pitt between 1759-1762.8
With the British military protection, the Ohio Company expected to attract settlers and sell land. However, King George III issued the Proclamation of 1763 that prevented settlement in the territory where the Ohio Company expected to claim its first 200,000 acres. The company's investors were involved with negotiations to relax the prohibition. In the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, the Haudenosaunee/Iroquois sold the rights to the lands south of the Ohio River, but not to lands north of the river.
Lord Dunmore and the General Assembly tried to assist the land speculators. Virginia's royal governor launched Dunmore's War in 1774. In the Treaty of Camp Charlotte he got the Shawnee to relinquish their claims south of the Ohio River. However, the insurrection within the colonies graduated into a shooting war in 1775, and the authority of British officials to issue land grants was extinguished by the American Revolution.
There were other land speculators who competed for the same territory. Pennsylvania-based traders and investors formed the Illinois Company, then transformed it into the Indiana Company when they acquired the claims of the "suffering traders." Native Americans had seized the goods of traders at the start of the French and Indian War and later in 1763 during Pontiac's War. Those traders ended up getting Haudenosaunee chiefs to authorize a 200,000 acre land grant just prior to signing the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix.
While trying to get that grant officially confirmed so land could be sold, the suffering traders got involved with other Pennsylvania-based and London-based investors who were seeking land grants. In a confusing series of transactions in which some investors were cut out of the deals, the Indiana Company morphed into the Grand Ohio Company (also known as the Walpole Company).
It had the best connections in the royal court, and ended up proposing to purchase 2,000,000 acres of lands west of Pittsburg and south of the Ohio River. The land would be formed into a new colony called Vandalia. The Ohio Company investors merged into the Grand Ohio Company/Walpole Company, ending up with just two of the 72 shares. The original dream of 500,000 acres was reduced by that arrangement to just 55,000 acres, but that was still a windfall - if the grant could be formalized.
The Vandalia Colony was never finalized, and the British lost the war. The Ohio Company grant and others issued by royal officials to speculative land companies became worthless.9
During the American Revolution, the Virginia General Assembly established two Virginia Military Reserves in the Ohio River watershed to guarantee the state would have enough land to fulfill bounties promised to soldiers willing to enlist. The state also negotiated a deal with Richard Henderson to resolve his claims to Transylvania, but made no such bargain with any of the land companies.
Virginia relinquished its claims to the Northwest Territory in 1784. The Confederation Congress showed no willingness to accommodate the land speculators of the past who had obtained large grants during colonial days. The new national government eventually sold most of the public lands in the Northwest Territory to a new bunch of land speculators and to actual settlers. The Confederation Congress also created its own reserve to fulfill land bounties for veterans.
Fort Pitt was far larger than its predecessors, Fort Duquesne and Fort Mercer
Source: Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center, Map showing Fort Pitt, Fort Duquesne and Fort Mercer (c.1761)
British claims to land on Virginia's western edge were extinguished, a least in theory, by the 1783 Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolution
Source: Library of Congress, Bowles's new pocket map of the United States of America (Carington Bowles, 1784)
the land claimed by the Ohio Company ended up in the Northwest Territory
Source: Library of Congress, A map of the United States of North America (Aaron Arrowsmith, 1796)