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Greathouse Point > Greathouse County > PA > Bedford County

Greathouse of Bedford County, PA

Do you have any Greathouse kith and kin who resided in Bedford County, PA? If so, please join us in our efforts to better document the Greathouse kith and kin who lived in this county, by sending your additions and corrections to Greathouse Point.

1771, Mar 11 - Survey Party: William Crawford

William Crawford of Stewart's Crossing, Bedford County, PA, under the authority of the Executive Council of Virginia in 1769 and 1771, was hired to survey most of the lands on the Ohio and Kanawha rivers for the military land grants, which were due soldiers who fought in the Virginia Militia, commanded by Colonel George Washington after the French and Indian War.

Excerpt: Roy Bird Cook, Washington's Western Lands, 1930

In March, 1771, a meeting of the men interested in the "military land" grants was called at Winchester. George Washington arrived on the fourth [March 4], the following day rendered his accounts, and made his reports relative to his journey down the Ohio River [in Oct 1770]. On the evening of the sixth [March 6] he set out for the home of his brother, Samuel, at "Harewood". Here he spent five days in company with Captain William Crawford, "the surveyor of our 200,000 acres of land", going over the details in this connection and writing out instructions and orders. On the eleventh [March 11] he left the present Charles Town vicinity for Mount Vernon.

Captain Crawford departed for his home at Stewart's Crossing, on the Youghiogheny opposite what is now Connellsville, which was located in Bedford County, PA in March 1771. Upon his arrival there, he began recruiting and hiring men from the area, to form the surveying party which would accomplish the task of surveying all of the lands along the Ohio, Great Kanawha and Little Kanawha rivers for the "military land" grants, which were due soldiers who had served in the Virginia Militia during the French and Indian War.

The Crawford surveying party arrived in the Ohio River valley, along the Great Kanawha River in Apr 1771, where William Crawford, assisted by Marcus Hardin, Joel Rees, George Cox, Joseph Tomlinson Jr., John Custard and William Jackson, began surveying most of the lands on the Ohio, Kanahwa and Little Kanawha rivers.

Footnotes:

1) Marcus Hardin and Joel Rees were of Springhill, Bedford County, PA, in 1771.

Excerpt: Philip W. Sturm, Kinship Migration to Northwestern Virginia, 1785-1815

Marcus Hardin and Joel Rees were noted as two of James Neal's closest associates. In 1764, James Neal had married Hannah Hardin, becoming the brother-in-law of Marcus Hardin. James Neal and his brother George had settled with the Hardins in the area between where Georges Creek and the Cheat River empty into the Monongahela, in Springhill, Bedford County, PA. Here he claimed a tract of 332-1/4 acres, which he called “Rich Land Valley,” on November 24, 1769.

2) George Cox and Joseph Tomlinson Jr. were of Grave Creek, Augusta County, VA.

Excerpt: Letter: Michael Cresap Jr., born 17 Oct 1775, of Powhattan, OH to Lyman C. Draper Esquire, 1845:

Col. William Crawford in 1771, surveyed land for Gen. Washington on the Kanawha.- Capt. George Cox & Joseph Tomlinson [Jr.] aided. In the spring of '75, Crawford surveyed lands around & below Wheeling.

Sources:

Roy Bird Cook, Washington's Western Lands, Strasburg, VA: Shenandoah Publishing House, Inc., 1930. Page 37, 43; Captain William Crawford hired as surveyor by "military land" grants commission to survey most of the lands on the Ohio and the Kanawha rivers.

Philip W. Sturm, Kinship Migration to Northwestern Virginia, 1785-1815: The Myth of the Southern Frontiersman, Dissertation submitted to the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History, Department of History, Morgantown, West Virginia 2004. Joel Rees settled along the Cheat River near it's mouth, or Point Marion, Bedford County, PA from 1771 through 1773. Online: http://wvuscholar.wvu.edu:8881//exlibris/dtl/d3_1/apache_media/5879.pdf

State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Draper Manuscript Collection, Draper's Notes Mss., Vol. 2S. Page 307, Letter: Michael Cresap Jr., born 17 Oct 1775, of Powhattan, OH to Lyman C. Draper Esquire, 1845.

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