George Washington's 1770 Expedition to the Ohio Country. January 24, 2019

Copyright © 2019                               John F. Oyler 

January 24, 2019

George Washington’s 1770 Expedition to the Ohio Country

This month, the Bridgeville Area Historical Society’s workshop series on George Washington’s impact on Western Pennsylvania focused on his well-documented expedition to the Ohio Country in 1770. The Washington who made this trip was much different from the swashbuckling military hero who visited this area four times in the 1750s.

Now thirty-eight years old and a highly successful Virginia country gentleman, Washington had finally persuaded Virginia Governor Norborne Berkeley to make good on the promise Governor Dinwiddie had made sixteen years earlier to reimburse members of the Virginia Militia with land in the Ohio Country, in recognition of their service in the French and Indian War.

In 1768 the Treaty of Fort Stanwix opened up all of Virginia south and east of the Ohio River. A public announcement on December 16, 1769, reported that Washington had been appointed to administer the disposition of 200,000 acres of land “on the Great Kanhaway” to the deserving veterans, subject to their application for it by October 10, 1770.

Accordingly, Washington, accompanied by his personal physician and lifelong friend, Dr. James Craik, set out for the frontier on October 5, 1770. Fortunately details of this trip have been faithfully recorded in Washington’s Daily Journal and are available to the public.

Three days later they arrived at the plantation of Colonel Thomas Cresap, at Old Town, close to Fort Cumberland (now Cumberland, Maryland). Washington was quite familiar with this area because of Fort Cumberland’s significance in his 1754 Fort Necessity campaign and in Braddock’s Expedition the next year. He was eager to meet with Cresap, recently returned from London, and get an update on the efforts of Thomas Walpole and a group of Pennsylvanians led by Benjamin Franklin to obtain a grant from the Crown for the land Virginia claimed in what is now western Pennsylvania.

Next came the nostalgic trip up over Allegheny Mountain on “Braddock’s Road”, through the Great Meadows, terminating at the plantation of Captain William Crawford on the Youghiogheny River (now Connellsville, Pa.). Crawford had worked for Washington twenty years earlier during his surveying days and now served as his agent in land acquisition. They arrived there on October 13 and stayed three days before continuing on to Pittsburgh. On one of these days they visited property Crawford had acquired on behalf of Washington at what is now Perryopolis, Pa.

Arriving in Pittsburgh on October 17, Washington and his companions, Craik and Crawford, lodged at Semple’s Tavern, located roughly where Stanwix Street and Fort Pitt Boulevard intersect today. There they met George Croghan, a prominent local resident. Croghan served as Deputy (to Sir William Johnson) Indian Agent and laid claim to a significant amount of land in the Ohio Country, including the Perryopolis tract he had sold to Washington.

While Washington was in Pittsburgh Croghan facilitated a meeting with several Iroquois chiefs and obtained the services of two Indian guides and an experienced interpreter, Joseph Nicholson, to join the expedition. When they set out, on October 20, he accompanied them to their first encampment, probably at what is now Edgeworth. The next day he left them after breakfasting at Logstown (Ambridge).

According to Washington’s journal, Croghan wanted to sell him property in the Raccoon Creek watershed, “five pounds sterling for one hundred acres”. To help put this in perspective, five pounds was a good month’s wages twenty years earlier when Washington was a professional surveyor.

Travelling easily downstream in a large canoe, the expedition arrived at Mingo Town (now Mingo Junction, Oho) on the 22^nd. There they met sixty Iroquois heading west to make war on the Catawbas. By October 28 they were well beyond what is now Parkersburg, West Virginia, when they met an old friend and sometime enemy, Kiasutha.

Also known as Guyasuta, this Seneca chief had first met Washington in 1753 at Logstown and accompanied him part of the way north to Fort Le Boeuf. In 1758 he was an active participant in the defeat of Braddock’s Expedition. According to one folk legend Guyasuta claimed to have had two clear shots at Washington at the Battle of the Monongahela and that each time a “divine hand” had deflected them.

At any rate by now he and Washington were allies and had long discussions about cooperation between the Iroquois and the Virginians. He presented Washington with fresh meat – a quarter of a buffalo. The expedition reached its final destination, the confluence of the Kanhaway (Kanawha) River with the Ohio at what is now Point Pleasant, West Virginia, on October 31.

Point Pleasant, of course, is the location of the disastrous collapse of the Silver Bridge on December 15, 1967, killing forty six persons despite a warning by “the mothman”, as reported in the Richard Gere film, “The Mothman Prophecies”. Guyasuta would certainly have credited the mothman to more “divine” intervention.

Washington spent the next five days in that vicinity, evaluating the land as potential agricultural sites and establishing crude bench marks to facilitate land surveying in the future. His party ascended the Kanawha about fifteen miles. In addition to the Kanawha bottom land, the region being evaluated ran about fifteen miles to the northeast to a large bend in the Ohio. An interesting discovery in this area was a sycamore tree forty-five feet in diameter!

Heading back upstream the party encountered Guyasuta again, providing Washington an opportunity to inquire about land farther up the Kanawha. At this point there is a gap in Washington’s journal. We do know that they encountered a flood, with the water rising over twenty feet, and that they arrived at Mingo Town on November 17.

Having had his fill of paddling upstream, Washington hired two Indians to take the canoe back to Fort Pitt. On the 20^ththey acquired horses and set off overland toward Pittsburgh. Their camp that evening appears to have been near what is now Avella, Pa. The next day they proceeded on to Fort Pitt, following “branches of Raccoon Creek … and Shurtees Creek”, where they found “good meadow ground”. Shurtees, of course, is Chartiers, and we surmise the party followed Millers Run to the Catfish Path in what is now Bridgeville and then took the Path on to Pittsburgh. 

This visit to Pittsburgh included a meeting with Croghan’s nephew, Dr. John Connolly, whom Washington described as “a very, intelligent, sensible man” with detailed knowledge of the western lands. Five years later Washington would welcome the arrest and imprisonment of this Loyalist for plotting against the colonists during the Revolutionary War.

Washington then retraced his steps back to Mount Vernon via Crawford’s estate on the Youghiogheny and Cresap’s on the Potomac. He encountered “knee deep” snow on Allegheny Mountain. On December 1 he reported “Reached home, having been absent nine weeks and one day.” 

The next workshop in the Second Tuesdays series will discuss the Bridgeville High School classes of 1958 and 1959, on February 12 (formerly known as Lincoln’s Birthday), 2019. In March we will return to our study of Washington in western Pennsylvania with a workshop dealing with his trip to Millers Run in 1784 and his dispute with the “Seceders”, squatters on his property there.