to recruit soldiers in 1754, Governor Dinwiddie promised free land plus a 15-year exemption from quit rents (property taxes
Source: William Waller Hening, The statutes at large
to recruit soldiers in 1754, Governor Dinwiddie promised free land plus a 15-year exemption from quit rents (property taxes
Source: William Waller Hening, The statutes at large
Virginians could acquire land through special military service in the French and Indian War, Lord Dunmore's War, and the Revolutionary War. Annual, routine militia service did not qualify for special compensation. To recruit the soldiers and officers, Virginia's governor and General Assembly authorized issuing military warrants that could be used for future land grants.
The need for military land bounties started in 1753. When Governor Dinwiddie learned that the French were building forts on Lake Erie and on the Ohio River, he sent George Washington to notify the French commander at Fort LeBoeuf that the Virginia government viewed the French as trespassers. Virginia claimed the land in the Ohio River Valley based on the Second Charter issued by King James I in 1609.
Washington was rebuffed by the French; they claimed the same land based on the traditional Right of Discovery. René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle had led an expedition that paddled down the Mississippi River over 70 years earlier. On April 9, 1682, he had erected a cross at the mouth of the Mississippi River and claimed the entire watershed in the name of King Louis XIV.
In 1749, 250 soldiers led by Pierre Joseph Celeron, sieur de Blainville, left Montreal and floated down the Ohio River. They buried six lead plates at the confluences of major tributaries to affirm the French claim:1
After George Washington reported back to Governor Dinwiddie in January 1754 that diplomacy had failed, the Ohio Company sent 100 men in 1754 to build a company fort at the Forks of the Ohio (now modern-day Pittsburgh). Control of the Forks of the Ohio would force the French and the rival Pennsylvanian land speculators to acknowledge that Virginia's boundaries included the Ohio River watershed.
To support the Ohio Company, Governor Dinwiddie dispatched a special 300-person expedition to protect the construction force. Though the Ohio Company rather than the colony was constructing the fort, it was an outpost of the colony. Private and public interests were mixed together, since members of the Governor's Council were also investors in the Ohio Company.
To get members of militia companies to volunteer for an expedition that would march outside of their counties to the Forks of the Ohio, Governor Dinwiddie declared on February 19, 1754 that he was allocating 200,000 acres of the colony's land for enlistment rewards ("bounties").
100,000 acres for the land grants were to be contiguous to the new fort. The other 100,000 acres were to be located on the south/east side of the Ohio River. From the perspective of Virginia officials, all 200,000 acres were within the boundaries of Augusta County. The governor's plan to issue land grants was not constrained by the possibility that a fort located at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers could be within the boundaries of Pennsylvania.
For the bounties to be valid, the British needed to expel the French from the Ohio River valley. Officials in Montreal, Quebec, and Paris expected that claims to land west of the Appalachians would be awarded in the name of the King of France. If the French established permanent military bases on the Ohio River, the Ohio Company would not be able to survey and sell 500,000 acres in the Ohio River Valley. Its 1748 land grant, which King George II had affirmed in 1751, would not be honored in Paris or Quebec.
Governor Dinwiddie appointed Joshua Fry as Colonel of the provincial force, with George Washington as Lieutenant Colonel. Colonel Fry died before the first components of the military force left Alexandria, so George Washington took charge.
Governor Dinwiddie's land bounty incentive was needed to recruit 300 volunteers for the Virginia "provincial" forces, but Washington had great difficulty gathering enough from the western counties. In 1754, he was just a 22-year old man from far away on the other side of the Blue Ridge. He lacked a reputation, and he laced the family connections needed to attract many followers from Frederick County. About 20 years later, Washington discovered again that recruiting soldiers to fight in the American Revolution was as difficult as recruiting soldiers for the French and Indian War.
In theory, every male Virginian over the age of 18 was prepared to fight as a member of the colonial militia. There was no process to "enlist" in order to join the militia organized in each county. According to colonial law, once a white male turned 18 he was automatically in the militia and responsible for having a musket or rifle.
The requirement to serve was mostly ignored during times of peace east of the Blue Ridge, where threats from Native Americans were minimal. Militia gatherings in Tidewater and the Piedmont were at times just social events.
That changed with the outbreak of the French and Indian War. According to a law passed in 1757, the militia obligation lasted until a man turned 50 years old. In every Virginia county, there were supposed to be companies of 32-68 men who assembled in their district for monthly militia training except in January and February. All companies were supposed to gather together in a general muster twice a year. In the 1750's, county leaders in the sparsely-settled western part of Virginia had not had time to create well-organized, well-trained militia companies.
Men who were supposed to be carving out time for monthly militia duty were busy starting farms on the edge of European settlement. Cutting down trees, clearing fields, planting crops, and building structures in the wilderness required all of their available time.
Many living on scattered farms in the backcountry, particularly in Augusta County and the Augusta District, failed to appear at the required times for militia training. In theory, they could be fined by the officers who assembled for a court martial hearing. In reality, the captains and County Lieutenant lacked the capacity to force men to show up.
The greatest threat to the settlers after the 1744 Treaty of Lancaster came from Shawnee and Delaware hunting and war parties. Families prepared to defend their individual homes against raids, creating fortified houses that could protect against a one-day attack. There was little desire to invest the extra time required to train with others and create an effective local militia unit that could go on offense, or march away from home to defend another area.
Colonels in charge of the county militia technically had the power to draft men of military age to serve in Dinwiddie's expeditionary force, but drafting men was a last resort. Land bounties were used to recruit volunteers, often landless laborers, who were willing to march away from home and fight in another area. It was politically unrealistic to try to force men to leave their farms in 1754, when France and Great Britain were officially at peace and there was no active war underway with Native Americans.
Some county officials proposed releasing men from the local jail to serve under Fry and Washington. Washington expressed his frustration with his recruitment efforts in a letter to his brother, saying:2
Before Washington's provincial force could come near the Monongahela River, the French sent troops from Fort LeBoeuf down the Allegheny River. They displaced the Ohio Company's construction team and started to construct Fort Dusquesne. Washington ended up ambushing a French detachment while it was asleep, then retreated to escape the French response. He was too slow to get away. He built Fort Necessity for defense, then had to surrender it in 1754.
Following that defeat, the General Assembly sought to recruit soldiers into a special colonial unit, a provincial army in which the soldiers would be paid. The October, 1774 "Act for raising levies and recruits to serve in the present expedition against the French, on the Ohio" included a provision to protect families of soldiers who might not be able to return to farming:3
By 1756 the backwoods skirmish had erupted into the Seven Years War, known as the French and Indian War in North America. A land bounty originally expected to be claimed by just a few soldiers led by Fry/Washington ended up being a key recruitment tool for many Virginia troops for nine years.
In 1763, the war ended with the French ceding all claims to New France and surrendering their forts stretching to the Mississippi River. The British obtained legal ownership (by European standards) of Canada and the Ohio River and Mississippi River watersheds. For the first time, France accepted boundaries that were consistent with Virginia's claims under the 1609 charter. Peace with France created the potential for the Ohio Company to survey and sell parcels, and for veterans to claim their Ohio River land bounties.
the statue to the First Virginia Regiment in Richmond was removed, along with all Confederate monuments on city land, in 2020
Source: Wikipedia, Virginia Regiment
Peace with the Native American tribes took longer to achieve and delayed colonial officials in Williamsburg from processing the land bounties promised by Governor Dinwiddie. After the outbreak of Pontiac's War in 1763, King George III issued the Proclamation of 1763 that prohibited colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains. In theory, keeping colonists and Native Americans separate would reduce the need to pay for an expensive set of forts staffed by Regulars.
The proclamation blocked colonial governors from issuing patents for settlers or land speculators to acquire legal title to land in the Mississippi River Watershed. At the same time, it included provisions for veterans of the French and Indian War to qualify for land grants.
Any Virginians who had joined Washington's expedition that ended in surrender at Fort Necessity, and also enlisted afterwards to fight in the Virginia Regiment, qualified for two grants. Such veterans could claim land under Governor Dinwiddie's offer, within the 200,000 acres he had set aside, plus at least 50 acres from King George III - once the king opened western lands to settlement. Those who began to serve after the surrender at Great Meadows were entitled just to the grant awarded by King George III.
By the time King George III issued his Proclamation of 1763 offering land as a reward for having fought during the French and Indian War in a provincial force such as the Virginia Regiment, a family could make a fair living on 100 acres. The king promised a grant that would be large enough to get all soldiers at least halfway there:4
The process for claiming bounty land started with French and Indian War veterans submitting discharge documents or affidavits from commanding officers and fellow soldiers to the governor's office. Once that office determined that the soldier had served for the required amount of time in a Virginia military unit (other than the militia), it provided a military certificate.
The soldier used that certificate to obtain a warrant, a piece of paper from the Land Office managed by the Secretary of the colony in Williamsburg. The warrant proved the soldier was qualified for a land grant. The warrant could then be sold by the veteran to a land speculator, or used to authorize a surveyor to mark the boundaries of a parcel of land.
Warrants were granted for parcels of different sizes based on military rank. King George III specified in the Proclamation of 1763 that common soldiers who had enlisted in provincial forces were entitled to land, but those who served just in the county militia were not entitled to acreage.
Surveyors were supposed to mark the boundaries of each parcel to include the acreage identified in individual warrants. To ensure satisfied customers and avoid a later lawsuit, surveyors often were generous in the acreage they included. The surveyor's documentation was presented to the Secretary of the colony, who then issued a patent (also known as a grant). The patent served as the legal deed to the property, and begins the chain of title for properties that stretches to the current day.
Before the American Revolution, surveyors could mark trees and define boundaries on any unclaimed land. Much of the land just west of the Blue Ridge was unsettled, but little of it was unclaimed.
To find large parcels of unclaimed land that could be divided into separate parcels, surveyors would journey westward into the hunting grounds of the Shawnee, Delaware, and Cherokee. All the food, gunpowder, and surveying equipment was carried on pack horses for a trip lasting several months. Surveyors would complete metes and bounds surveys, chopping boundary markers on trees. They would return with logbooks and sketches, then complete a formal survey document suitable for admission to colonial officials. Wealthy investors such as George Washington would finance the expeditions after accumulating enough warrants to justify the expense.
When a survey was submitted for final approval, anyone with a rival claim could challenge it by entering a "caveat." That blocked the award of land until conflicting claims could be resolved. The further west a surveyor traveled, the lower the chance that anyone would object.
One land speculator with extensive personal experience identifying valuable land in the backcountry was George Washington. As a teenager, he had started to survey parcels west of the Blue Ridge. In 1770, over twenty years later, he was still personally traveling in the Kanawha River valley with William Crawford to select the best parcels for his personal claims.
Washington sent directions to Crawford starting in 1767. The surveyor was supposed to seek out only the best possible land:5
Crawford informed Washington in 1769 that, when he returned from a trip to Frederick, he discovered:6
land grants were used to recruit soldiers and officers to serve during the French and Indian War
Source: Library of Congress, Three-thousand acre land grant to the heirs of Hugh Mercer, Kentucky County, Virginia
For French and Indian War veterans, the Proclamation of 1763 and also confusion about the western boundary of Pennsylvania prevented surveyors from getting official approval in the 1760's to carve out parcels. Speculators funded some surveys anyway, but few colonial officials accepted them in the 1760's.
Veterans and land speculators who purchased their rights discovered the Proclamation of 1763, confusion over the Virginia-Pennsylvania boundary, and duplicate promises of land grants to speculators delayed surveying and patenting.
Virginia's wealthy elite, many of whom were descendants of political refugees who arrived during the English Civil War between 1642-1660, always assumed the Proclamation Line would be only temporary and that the Pennsylvania-Virginia border would eventually be defined. However, the delay in making land available to veterans caused many soldiers to sell their warrants to land speculators like George Washington. The wealthy could afford to pay immediately, and were willing to accept long delays in hopes of a significant profit later when a patent was finally issued. Reflecting that risk, the price paid to veterans for their warrants (the starting point for surveys and then patents) was steeply discounted.
Squatters took advantage of the delays. Without any payment or permission, they occupied river terraces in the Ohio River watershed where the soils were best suited for growing crops. Squatters anticipated that they would have strength in numbers.
The colonial Land Office in Williamsburg closed at the start of the American Revolution. The General Assembly re-opened it in 1779 and allowed a significant number of established (squatting) residents to acquire their parcels by preemption rights. Forcing families off "their" land in the middle of a war would have been bad public policy, and many squatters successfully gambled that possession would lead to legal ownership.
As a major land speculator, George Washington had constant problems with squatters. In 1770, he identified a valuable parcel on the Ohio River that offered a base for operations between Pittsburgh and the lands he owned on the Kanawha River. William Crawford surveyed the property in 1771 and determined the Round Bottom parcel encompassed 587 acres.
The official survey by William Crawford established Washington's primacy for ownership. Still, two other people tried to claim that land by 1773. Washington convinced one to leave. The other, Michael Cresap, built houses on it and started farming the land.
Cresap died in 1775. In 1784 the Virginia Land Office issued a patent to Washington for the Round Bottom property. Cresap's heirs then sought to obtain their own patent, and Washington had to enter a caveat objecting to their claim. He sold Round Bottom in 1798, a year before dying at Mount Vernon. The legal ownership of Round Bottom remained in question until Washington's buyer finally got clear title in 1834.7
As the commander of the 300-man force sent to the Ohio River in 1754, George Washington was entitled to the largest land bounty under Governor Dinwiddie's promise of 200,000 acres. As commander of the Virginia Regiment, he also qualified for 5,000 additional acres from King George III's promise. By purchasing warrants of other French and Indian War veterans, he ended up being entitled to the most acreage from service in that war. That land could be patented only after survey, so getting Lord Botetourt to authorize William Crawford's surveys was essential.
Washington could afford to make risky investments in land that might not produce income for many years, while most veterans desired a quicker reward for their service. Washington invested some of his wealth to buy the land claims of many veterans who did not want to wait for the British and colonial governments to sort out how to make good on the promised bounties. He spent time with the royal governors, particularly Botetourt and Dunmore. In an era where public officials often made decisions based on their private interests, a personal relationship could lead to personal favors regarding Washington's efforts to acquire land.
After the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, the 1768 Treaty of Hard Labor, and the 1770 Treaty of Lochaber eliminated the claims of the Iroquois and Cherokee, Washington tried to use his personal relationship with the royal governor of Virginia to get permission to survey and patent lands in the Ohio River watershed.
In 1769, Washington succeeded in getting Lord Botetourt and the Governor's Council to approve surveying the 200,000 acres promised to those who had served in the military force that ended up surrendering at Fort Necessity in 1754. The authorization was finalized on December 15, 1769. The colonial officials authorized up to 20 surveys along the Kanawha River.
At an August 2, 1770 meeting in Fredericksburg, other investors who had acquired large numbers of military warrants agreed to finance the surveys required to define parcel boundaries and obtain land deeds (patents). That decision was reaffirmed at a 1771 meeting in Winchester. Not all who were entitled to Governor Dinwiddie's land bounty provided funding for the surveys, creating frustration among the others who did fund the speculative investment.
To avoid conflict with various land company grants, existing settlers, Pennsylvania officials, and other land speculators actively claiming land near the Forks of the Ohio, those seeking to claim the 200,000 acres promised by Governor Dinwiddie chose to focus on acquiring land farther west in the Kanawha River valley rather than at the Forks of the Ohio.
In October 1770, Washington personally started surveying parcels along the Kanawha River. That area might was within the boundaries of the Ohio Company's 1749 land grant, but he was closely associated with members of that company and could finesse any objections they might raise.
Washington's friend and physician, Dr. James Craik, plus the surveyor George Crawford accompanied Washington to what is now the middle of West Virginia. The Governor's Council had authorized the College of William and Mary to choose an official surveyor to mark boundaries for parcels within Governor's Dinwiddie's promise of 200,000 acres in 1754. Washington arranged for the selection of Crawford, who had already been hired to do surveying for Washington.
Washington raced out west after the 1770 Fredericksburg meeting to identify the best parcels for himself. In the mountains of western Virginia, flat acres on bottomland with springs that could water corn, wheat, and other crops were far more valuable than acres on steep mountain slopes that were suitable for just grazing cattle and hogs.
Washington selected tracts that were flat and watered by streams or springs; "bottomlands" had better soils for growing crops than hillsides
Source: Library of Congress, Eight survey tracts along the Kanawha River, W.Va. showing land granted to George Washington and others (1774)
Washington later declared that his lands surveyed along the Kanawha River were "...the cream of the Country in which they are: that they were the first choice of it; and that the whole is on the margin of the Rivers..."9
On November 23, 1772 the field officers from the 1754 expedition met in Fredericksburg again to allocate among the claimants the 127,899 acres identified in the first 13 surveys along the Ohio and Kanawha rivers. The officers also allocated costs for reimbursing Washington for funding the surveys. He said he was willing to allow a revision of the parcels he would receive if anyone objected, but the officers determined that "there is no great inequality in the Land which is already Surveyed."10
Washington provided a very different description in 1772, when a veteran who had not funded the surveys questioned how the parcels were allocated:11
The Governor's Council approved a second allotment of land under the Proclamation of 1754 on November 4, 1773. The last five certificates covered 72,299 acres of land. The process of distributing the 200,000 acres promised by Governor Dinwiddie involved wealthy investors paying for surveys of large tracts. Men with claims based on service in the French and Indian War, or who had purchased the warrants from such veterans, were allocated a certain number of acres within each tract defined by a large survey. There were 60 soldiers entitled to a part of one tract which included 28,627 acres.
Getting the surveys authorized was the first step in transferring land into private ownership. Getting the acres allocated was the second step, finally accomplished in 1773. In a third step, additional surveys were required to mark the boundaries of separate parcels for each person within each of the surveys, based on the acres to which each individual was entitled. The last step was for the Secretary of the colony to issue a patent (deed) signed by the governor, transferring title.
When George Washington reported that the last allocation of the 200,000 acres within the large initial surveys, he noted his frustration that some veterans had not advanced any money to fund those initial surveys and he was expected to pay the surveyor:12
In 1775, British officials in London declared that the surveys of the 200,000 acres were invalid. That decision radicalized Virginia's elite even further, since they viewed it as harsh economic retribution for their political advocacy to change Parliament's policies. George Washington initially though the report was "altogether incredible, then wrote to Governor Dunmore on April 3, 1775 and asked him to intervene. Washington emphasized:13
Dunmore decided he had to support the policies determined in London. He was already planning to seize the gunpowder stored in the magazine in Williamsburg, complying with orders sent to all colonial governors in an effort to prevent insurrectionists from getting armed. Governor Dunmore wrote a terse rejection to Washington on April 18::14
Land speculators included Virginia's wealth elite and its appointed royal governors. After Governor Botetourt died, Lord Dunmore transferred from New York to Virginia in 1771. Dunmore was a land speculator when he was royal governor of New York. There he sought grants of unsettled lands far east of the Proclamation of 1763 line. In his new colony, Dunmore again sought to gain personal wealth by acquiring land in Virginia, but the unsettled land was west of the Proclamation Line.
The 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix and the 1770 Treaty of Lochaber had resolved (at least to the English) the Iroquois and Cherokee claims to territory south of the Ohio River. However, after the treaties were ratified in London, royal officials did not issue instructions allowing colonial governors to issue patents west of the Appalachians.
Land speculators who had purchased warrants from French and Indian War veterans, in anticipation that the royal constraints would be lifted, pressed to have surveys authorized. George Washington sought to get surveys approved for the 5,000 acres to which he was entitled as commander of the Virginia Regiment, plus another 8,000 acres he could patent after purchasing warrants issued to others who had served between 1754-1758.15
Defining parcels would allow speculators to allocate land among themselves. Surveyed but still-unpatented claims had significant value in an economy where cash was scarce, and approval of surveys was expected to be followed by approval of patents.
Dunmore made a few exceptions to the prohibition of authorizing land transfers west of the 1763 Proclamation Line, but most of the time he refused to allow official surveys. Despite that constraint, the speculators funded survey expeditions that would establish prior rights to parcels, once British officials allowed conversion on land west of the Alleghenies into private ownership.
Different groups of speculators were in competition. In 1773 William Bullitt, associated with the Ohio Company and an ally of George Washington, led an expedition that surveyed lands in Kentucky. The Fincastle County surveyor, William Preston, refused to authorize Bullitt's surveys because no Fincastle County surveyor had participated, and at the time Kentucky was part of Fincastle County.
Preston was allied with the Loyal Land Company and the Greenbrier Company. Speculators in those land companies wanted to patent the best lands in Kentucky before allowing competing land companies to file claims.
Governor Dunmore visited Fort Pitt in the summer of 1763, where he made arrangements with Dr. John Connolly to acquire western lands. Dunmore promised Connolly 2,000 acres at the Falls of the Ohio River, now Louisville, Kentucky. Dunmore and his Governor's Council heard an appeal from William Bullitt on December 15, 1773.
The Loyal Land Company and the Greenbrier Company were disappointed by the decision announced the next day, December 16. The governor allowed all officers to claim the 1,000 acres to which they were entitled under the Proclamation of 1763 "wherever they should desire," so long as a previous survey was not affected.
Governor Dunmore also fulfilled a promise and issued a patent to Dr. Connolly for his 2,000 acre tract, which William Bullitt had surveyed. Preston refused to accept Bullitt's 1773 surveys, but was willing to resurvey the lands. In 1774 he sent his deputy John Floyd on an expedition to complete surveys along the Kentucky River and near the Falls of the Ohio.
Settlers were already crowding into the region, not waiting for the legal process to acquire land. Daniel Boone had tried to lead a party from the Powells River Valley through the Cumberland Gap in 1773. His son was killed on that trip and the group turned back, but Boone returned to Kentucky in 1774. James Harrod, who had explored central Kentucky in 1773, led a different group of settlers down the Ohio River in 1774 and established Harrodsburg on the Kentucky River.
Daniel Boone led settlers into Kentucky in 1774 despite the ban on surveying/patenting land in the Proclamation of 1763
Source: Kemper Art Museum, Daniel Boone Escorting Settlers through the Cumberland Gap (George Caleb Bingham, 1851-52)
Floyd led his men on foot down the New River to its confluence with the Gauley River. After passing Kanawha Falls, the 16 men made canoes and floated down the Kanawha River. They surveyed some parcels as they went. Shawnee resistance to their presence was clear, and William Preston sent messengers to recall the surveyors. Daniel Boone traveled extensively throughout Kentucky to warn all surveyors and settlers as Dunmore's War broke out. Not all managed to flee Kentucky alive, but the land hunger remained strong and Harrodsburg was reoccupied in 1775. 16
in 1774, William Preston advertised in Williamsburg that he planned to survey parcels located west of the 1763 Proclamation Line
Source: Virginia Chronicle, Virginia Gazette (February 24, 1774, p.3)
The colonists expected that those surveys, approved by Preston, would be processed by the Land Office and patents would be issued. On December 16, 1774 Governor Dunmore appeared to be willing to allow processing of the necessary paperwork to patent lands in the Ohio River watershed despite offical instructions. Part of his motivation was that surveyors from Pennsylvania were marking boundaries of parcels in the Ohio River Valley, and Virginia was at risk of losing its claim to western lands.
Everyone's expectations were overcome by events, Dunmore's War in 1774 and then the American Revolution. When the royal governor fled Williamsburg in June, 1775, the process for approving surveys and issuing patents to French and Indian War veterans stopped.17
A restart occurred in 1779. The General Assembly passed a land law on May 3, 1779 to create a Land Office that could process land bounties awarded to soldiers who enlisted in the state forces or Continental Army. The land law also made it possible for holders of warrants and surveys issued while Virginia was still a colony to obtain a deed, and for the new state to sell land for cash:18
The Virginia government seized land owned by loyalists during the American Revolution. It was sold by the Register of the Land Office, with revenue used to pay off the loyalist's debts. Any remaining value was kept by the state government. The colony and then the state still re-acquires a small amount of property through escheat, when a landowner died without heirs. The responsibility for disposing of escheated assets was transferred to the Secretary of the Commonwealth in 1924 when the Land Office was abolished. In 1952, the state librarian was given responsibility for issuing the grant for escheated land.19
George Washington managed the surveys required for patenting parcels to veterans of the French and Indian War
Source: Virginia Chronicle, Virginia Gazette (January 14, 1773, pp.1-2)