Left Fauquier County

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Between 1780 and 1800, following the American Revolution, the greatest migration yet, started west. Eastern land was worn out, taxes and land prices were rising, currency was scarce and worth nothing, and new immigrants wanted land. Added to those reasons was the state of the American treasury. Congress had received the western land claimed by the colonies and was land poor. Unable to pay the Continental Army, most soldiers received land certificates, as payment for war service instead of money. Various states also reserved land to pay their own soldiers, and the land everyone sought was over the mountains or across the Ohio River.

Pioneers soon followed the now well-established trails to the forks of the Ohio and trekked into Kentucky through Cumberland Gap, but these trails were not enough. Every settler tramped to the head of his valley and crossed the mountain into the next valley, each hoping to find a shorter way to the Ohio

Thousands of settlers made their way to the thriving town of Pittsburgh at the Ohio forks and were willing to brave the treacherous Ohio River rapids and the stalking Indians along its banks. Other pioneers were far to the South where a hundred miles of Virginia mountains separated eastern Virginia and the Ohio River. South of the Pittsburgh trails, those mountains had only three major trails by 1790 including: the trail into the Greenbrier valley and down the Kanawha River; and the Wilderness Road trail through Cumberland Gap which had opened in the mid 1770's.

The two trails in central Virginia developed slowly because of the harsh terrain and continuing Indian problems. Although a fort had been erected at the mouth of the Kanawha after the Battle of Point Pleasant, settlement was delayed until 1790 and even then pioneers were forced to abandon their claims and return east for safety. The same story was true about the mouth of the Little Kanawha. The major southern flow of settlers between 1785 and 1795 remained through Cumberland Gap.

North Carolina granted vast acres in Tennessee to her Revolutionary soldiers and by 1790 those settlers were also moving through Cumberland Gap and down the French Broad, where Knoxville was founded in 1792. In 1788 North Carolina constructed a trail to connect Knoxville to the Cumberland River settlements around Nashville. Nashboro, as it was then called, had connections north to the falls of the Ohio at Louisville and southwest to the Mississippi. Most of Tennessee's settlements were along the western sections of both the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers away from the Indian controlled southeast. These rivers flowed along the northern and southern borders of Tennessee only to empty into the Ohio River about ten miles apart. The Cumberland's mouth has since been changed and forced into the Tennessee River.

After the American Revolution the pioneer was still looking for his ideal home. He wanted free or low cost land which could be acquired in western Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. He wanted credit for his Revolutionary service which might come from claiming his bounty or from selling to a speculator and using his the money to buy land closer to home. He also wanted lower taxes, a say in his government and a market on the west side of the mountains for his crops. Every land promoter claimed these expectations could be filled in the western lands.

Still the settlers were not satisfied, they wanted the entire west open to settlement and demanded as much from the government. The vast Northwest Territory had been ceded to the federal government in 1785. The land across the Ohio River beckoned because many Revolutionary claims lay north of the territory was to be surveyed and parcels offered for sale and as well as to provide military grants, but the pioneers wanted access to the new territory long before the surveys were completed.

Traders and hunters had used the Ohio River as a highway for over fifty years before the settlers reached its banks. Despite Indians, many a raft loaded with families and household goods reached central Kentucky between 1775 and 1785 from western Pennsylvania. Pioneers stayed on the Virginia side of the river for only one reason. Indians. Several military expeditions crossed into Ohio, burning crops and villages, to punish the Indians for frontier raids. Both the military roads they created and the stories the returning soldiers told, guaranteed an interest in the "Ohio Country." Several military campaigns were needed to subdue the tribes. Finally in 1795, the Treaty of Greenville ended Indian occupation of most of the Ohio Territory. The new flood of settlers to "Ohio Country" made earlier migrations seem inconsequential.

Ohio, as part of the Northwest Territory, was supposed to be surveyed before any land was sold. The first public lands sales for Ohio Territory were made in New York City in 1787 when 108,431 acres were sold. The second public sales were disappointing. The price per acre was only two dollars, but the settler was required to buy in 640 acre sections. In 1796, the Federal Government held two sales. At Pittsburgh, 43,446 acres of Ohio land were sold, while 5,120 acres were sold at Philadelphia.

The Virginia Military District covered parts of twenty counties between the Scioto and Little Miami Rivers. Reserved to pay Virginia Revolutionary claims, the District is the only section of Ohio surveyed in the "Metes and Bounds" system. It has been noted that 1,035,408 acres of the Virginia Military District, 25%, was patented by just twenty-five people. June FIKAC

I work the local history and genealogy desk at a public library inClarksburg, West Virginia. That's on US 50 today, but already in themid-1790's it was the western terminus of a route called the State Roadthat led out of the Northern Neck and brought lots of families fromFauquier to this area. Clarksburg is on the West Fork of the MonongahelaRiver and until the completion of the Northwestern Virginia Turnpike toParkersburg in 1838 the route to Pittsburgh and the Ohio and theMississippi was downstream by flatboat from Clarksburg. People weretraveling to St. Louis that way as early as 1808.

The resettlement of Northern Neck families in Harrison and other WestVirginia counties, from settlement times until circa 1850, is something weought to look at from both sides. The families who came are so numerous I can't list them without going tomy notes.

When the first traders and hunters entered the Virginia Valley, they discovered the Warrior's Trail, an Indian trading and war trail which extended from northern NY to the Atlantic Ocean in the far away Carolinas. This trail was soon to become one of the major transportation routes east of the major mountains. It followed a natural valley in the Appalachian Mountain Range. It began in upper NY State where the valley was wide, well-defined and forced close to the Atlantic Ocean between NY City and Philadelphia. Further south the valley ran on the western side of the Blue Ridge for over a hundred miles and then splintered into a parallel ridge and valley system south of Roanoke.

The old Warrior's Trail became the Great Wagon Road which wound through the Valley of Virginia connecting the northern seaports with the Carolina coast and the interior of North America through Cumberland Gap. Like others routes and trails, the Great Wagon Road developed slowly southward then accelerating as immigrants flooded the frontier.

The first section of the road was the Lancaster Road connecting Philadelphia to York and Lancaster in "western" Pennsylvania. Between 1710 and 1730, approximately 100,000 poverty-stricken peasants from the Palatinate region of Germany entered Philadelphia. The older land owners forced them to the outlying frontier along the Lancaster Road to provide a buffer against the Indian tribes. The immigrants gladly went in hopes of acquiring cheap or free land and soon settled the entire area. When they reached infertile lands along the Juanita River about 1727, the main thrust of settlers turned south into the more fertile Virginia Valley. The first settlement in Virginia's Great Valley was Winchester begun in 1731.

After 1717 thousands of Scotch-Irish joined the German Palatine pioneers. Coming later, the Scotch-Irish settled beyond the Germans and closest to the Indians. Land title squabbles in Pennsylvania and Maryland sent them south into the Virginia Valley. The Scotch-Irish were often the leading edge of settlement. The lands they cleared were soon sold or left while the pioneer moved on to clear more isolated land which appeared better than what he had just left.

I think the main reason was to acquire land of one's own. When you look at the census records and marvel at the size of some of the families, you can't help thinking there would not be enough acreage in Fauquier for everyone to stay and make a living. Somewhere I read many years ago that much of the County was owned by a few families. I am sorry I cannot quote the reference.

Besides, just think of the adventure of being able to strike out on your own and go someplace new. Life was so tough for most people anyway, the adventurous ones probably weren't the least bit apprehensive about starting out.

My grandfather was from the Vermont Islands, another beautiful place, and when he was asked how he could bear to leave, he said,"Waal now, I couldn't eat the scenery!" Happy Hunting, Pat Littlefield

This page last updated 3 Oct 2012