George Washington: Farmer. Paul Leland Haworth
that the Indians had killed two white men, but they breathed easier on learning that the sole basis of the story was that a trader had tried to swim his horse across the Ohio and had been drowned. In spite of uncertainties, the voyagers continued to the Great Kanawha and paddled about fourteen miles up that stream. Near its mouth Washington located two large tracts for himself and military comrades and after interesting hunting experiences and inspecting some enormous sycamores--concerning which matters more hereafter--the party turned back, and Washington reached home after an absence of nine weeks.
Two of Washington's western tracts are of special interest. One had been selected by Crawford in 1767 and was "a fine piece of land on a stream called Chartiers Creek" in the present Washington County, southwest of Pittsburgh. Crawford surveyed the tract and marked it by blazed trees, built four cabins and cleared a patch of ground, as an improvement, about each. Later Washington, casting round for some one from whom to obtain a military title with which to cover the tract, bought out the claim of his financially embarrassed old neighbor Captain John Posey to three thousand acres, paying £11.11.3, or about two cents per acre. Crawford, now a deputy surveyor of the region, soon after resurveyed two thousand eight hundred thirteen acres and forwarded the "return" to Washington, with the result that in 1774 Governor Dunmore of Virginia granted a patent for the land.
In the meantime, however, six squatters built a cabin upon the tract and cleared two or three acres, but Crawford paid them five pounds for their improvements and induced them to move on. To keep off other interlopers he placed a man on the land, but in 1773 a party of rambunctious Scotch-Irishmen appeared on the scene, drove the keeper away, built a cabin so close in front of his door that he could not get back in, and continued to hold the land until after the Revolution.
By that time Crawford himself was dead--having suffered the most terrible of all deaths--that of an Indian captive burnt at the stake.
The other tract whose history it is worth our while to follow consisted of twelve hundred acres on the Youghiogheny River, likewise not far from Pittsburgh. It bore seams of coal, which Washington examined in 1770 and thought "to be of the very best kind, burning freely and abundance of it." In the spring of 1773 he sent out a certain Gilbert Simpson, with whom he had formed a sort of partnership, to look after this land, and each furnished some laborers, Washington a "fellow" and a "wench." Simpson managed to clear some ground and get in six acres of corn, but his wife disliked life on the borderland and made him so uncomfortable with her complaints that he decided to throw up the venture. However, he changed his mind, and after a trip back East returned and, on a site noticed by the owner on his visit, built a grist mill on a small stream now called Washington's Run that empties into the Youghiogheny. This was one of the first mills erected west of the Alleghany Mountains and is still standing, though more or less rebuilt. The millstones were dug out of quarries in the neighborhood and the work of building the mill was done amid considerable danger from the Indians, who had begun what is known as Dunmore's War. Simpson's cabin and the slave quarters stood near what is now Plant No. 2 of the Washington Coal and Coke Company. The tract of land contains valuable seams of coal and with some contiguous territory is valued at upward of twenty million dollars.
Washington had large ideas for the development of these western lands. At one time he considered attempting to import Palatine Germans to settle there, but after careful investigation decided that the plan was impracticable. In 1774 he bought four men convicts, four indented servants, and a man and his wife for four years and sent them and some carpenters out to help Simpson build the mill and otherwise improve the lands. Next year he sent out another party, but Indian troubles and later the Revolution united with the natural difficulties of the country to put a stop to progress. Some of the servants were sold and others ran away, but Simpson stayed on in charge, though without making any financial settlement with his patron till 1784.
At the close of the Revolution Washington wrote to President John Witherspoon of Princeton College that he had in the western country patents under signature of Lord Dunmore "for about 30,000 acres, and surveys for about 10,000 more, patents for which were suspended by the disputes with Great Britain, which soon followed the return of the warrants to the land office. Ten thousand acres of the above thirty lie upon the Ohio; the rest on the Great Kenhawa, a river nearly as large, and quite as easy in its navigation, as the former, The whole of it is rich bottom land, beautifully situated on these rivers, and abounding plenteously in fish, wild-fowl, and game of all kinds."
He could have obtained vast land grants for his Revolutionary services, but he stuck by his announced intention of receiving only compensation for his expenses. He continued, however, to be greatly interested in the western country and was one of the first Americans to foresee the importance of that region to the young Republic, predicting that it would become populated more rapidly than any one could believe and faster than any similar region ever had been settled. He was extremely anxious to develop better methods of communication with the West and in 1783 made a trip up the Mohawk River to the famous Oneida or Great Carrying Place to view the possibilities of waterway development in that region--the future course of the Erie Canal. Soon after he wrote to his friend the Chevalier de Chastellux: "I could not help taking a more extensive view of the vast inland navigation of these United States and could not but be struck by the immense extent and importance of it, and of the goodness of that Providence which has dealt its favors to us with so profuse a hand. Would to God we may have wisdom enough to improve them. I shall not rest contented till I have explored the Western Country, and traversed those lines or great part of them, which have given bounds to a new empire."
In partnership with George Clinton he bought, in 1784, a tract of six thousand acres on the Mohawk, paying for his share, including interest, one thousand eight hundred seventy-five pounds. In 1793 he sold two-thirds of his half for three thousand four hundred pounds and in his will valued the thousand acres that remained at six thousand dollars. This was a speculation pure and simple, as he was never in the region in which the land lay but once.
On December 23, 1783, in an ever memorable scene, Washington resigned his commission as Commander of the Continental Army and rode off from Annapolis to Mount Vernon to keep Christmas there for the first time since 1774. The next eight months he was busily engaged in making repairs and improvements about his home estate, but on September first, having two days before said good-by to Lafayette, who had been visiting him, he set off on horseback to inspect his western lands and to obtain information requisite to a scheme he had for improving the "Inland Navigation of the Potomac" and connecting its head waters by canal with those of the Ohio. The first object was rendered imperative by the settlement of squatters on part of his richest land, some of which was even being offered for sale by unscrupulous land agents.
With him went again his old friend Doctor Craik. Their equipage consisted of three servants and six horses, three of which last carried the baggage, including a marquee, some camp utensils, a few medicines, "hooks and lines," Madeira, port wine and cherry bounce. Stopping at night and for meals at taverns or the homes of relatives or friends, they passed up the picturesque Potomac Valley, meeting many friends along the way, among them the celebrated General Daniel Morgan, with whom Washington talked over the waterways project. At "Happy Retreat," the home of Charles Washington in the fertile Shenandoah Valley, beyond the Blue Ridge, Washington met and transacted business with tenants who lived on his lands in that region. On September fifth he reached Bath, the present Berkeley Springs, where he owned two thousand acres of land and two lots. Here fifteen years before he had come with his family in the hope that the water would benefit poor "Patey" Custis, and here he met "the ingenious Mr. Rumney" who showed him the model of a boat to be propelled by steam.
At Bath the party was joined by Doctor Craik's son William and by the General's nephew, Bushrod Washington. Twelve miles to the west Washington turned aside from the main party to visit a tract of two hundred forty acres that he owned on the Virginia side of the Potomac. He found it "exceedingly Rich, & must be very valuable--the lower end of the Land is rich white oak in places springey … the upper part is … covered with Walnut of considerable size many of them." He "got a snack" at the home of a Mr. McCracken and left with that gentleman the terms upon which he would let the land, then rode onward and rejoined the others.
The cavalcade passed on to Fort Cumberland. There Washington left the main party to follow with