Ohio Company

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)

The Ohio Company was organized after the 1744 Treaty of Lancaster. The Iroquois thought that treaty pushed the boundary of accepted colonial settlement westward from the Blue Ridge to the Ohio River. The English recorded the bargain so it permitted settlement on:¹

all the Land within the said the said Colony as it is now or hereafter may be peopled and bounded by his said Majesty our Sovereign Lord the King

The Virginian's felt they were entitled to occupy lands west of the Ohio River, citing the Second Charter issued by James II to the Virginia Company in 1609. It had granted 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. In contrast, the faction in the House of Burgesses led by Speaker John Robinson and his cousin Attorney General Peyton Randolph focused its speculations on the Loyal Land Company.

In 1749, the company obtained a grant for 500,000 acres. Governor Gooch was unwilling to issue such a large grant on his own authority, but the Virginians got approval through the Lords of Trade. The Ohio Company grant was one of five such large grants approved by the governor, his Council, and British officials in London.²

The charter provided for only 200,000 acres initially.

References

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)