When Virginia Claimed Pittsburgh
Boy, oh boy, do I have a story for you
The more I learn about the European kings who colonized the world, the more they blow my mind. For example, I was just in Barbados and picked up a book about its founding. Essentially, one of King James’s buddies fell into debt with some London merchants and figured the best way out was to start a colony in the Eastern Caribbean, as one does. He asked his king if he could have one, and the sovereign basically said, “Sure, take ‘em all.”
It’s always who you know.
Something not dissimilar happened when that same King James claimed North America from sea to shining sea and called it Virginia, after his cousin, Elizabeth I. Never did James mind the French and Spanish who had been there long before Jamestown failed, or the native people who’d been there for thousands of years before that. Colonizing kings were like toddlers, claiming everything as mine, mine, mine!
We’re on a roll here, so let’s talk about how William Penn got that huge land grant for the colony of Pennsylvania. Once again, debt was a factor. King Charles II of England (grandson to James I) had a large loan with Penn's father (also named William). When Penn pere died, the king settled the debt by granting Penn fils about 40,000 square miles west and south of New Jersey. Penn called it the “sylvania” (Latin for “woods”). Penn + sylvania = Pennsylvania.
Now, to the promised story about Virginia and Pittsburgh. This map will help. As you can see, there were boundary disputes aplenty, including the one in the southwest corner that’s of interest to us.
To set the stage, the French and Indian Wars, which ended in 1763 with The Treaty of Paris, included a proclamation from King George III that forbade all settlements west of a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains. The Ohio Country was delineated as an Indian Reserve.
Surprise, surprise, white settlers kept exploring and moving into these western lands, leading to a series of conflicts, mostly with Shawnee people, who had historical hunting rights south of the river, from which they launched cross-river attacks.
Enter Lord Dunmore, the royal governor1 of the colony of Virginia. In early 1774, he directed the Virginia militia to seize Fort Pitt and rename it Fort Dunmore to prepare for marching into war with the Shawnee. Dunmore used shrewd logic to justify this power play against Pennsylvania. He admitted that the land once belonged to Pennsylvania, but claimed that they lost the claim during the long French and Indian War, and the crown naturally absorbed title. Bottom line: Dunmore said Pittsburgh belonged to Virginia as a crown colony (Pennsylvania was a “restoration” colony).2 As the kids would say, what a baller.
Dunmore/Virginia/Britain prevailed against the Shawnee Chief Cornstalk at the Battle of Point Pleasant in October, 1774. Before all of his troops arrived home, the Revolutionary War had kicked off with battles at Lexington and Concord. Dunmore, a British loyalist, was now in trouble.
I can’t tell you Dunmore’s story any better than the The Baltzer Meyer Historical Society Library and Museum:
Dunmore’s British Royal Governorship made him loyal to the crown. As a result, he became an adversary of the colonists. The day after the beginning of the Revolutionary War in April 1775, Dunmore ordered the seizure of weapons and gunpowder from the colonial magazine in Williamsburg, Virginia and had them transferred to a British ship. His deceptive reasoning for this action was his concern that rebellious slaves might get their hands on the arms. Furthermore, on November 7, 1775 Dunmore issued a proclamation offering freedom to all slaves if they became members of the British military and declared their loyalty to the British resistance. Because slavery was the dominant form of colonial labor in Virginia, Dunmore concluded that the fear of emancipation and the arming of slaves would quash colonial insurrection. These contradictory measures, indicating his British allegiance, put him in the crosshairs of colonial revolutionaries.
Further angering the rebellious colonists was Dunmore’s engagement in biological warfare by inoculating slaves with smallpox and sending them into the Virginia mainland. This measure backfired because most of his enlisted slaves died from the disease. Despite his villainous attempts at sabotage, the gunpowder incident and Dunmore’s Proclamation,3 Fort Dunmore was regained and renamed Fort Pitt during the colonists fight for independence,
But wait, how did Pennsylvania reclaim Pittsburgh?
Dunmore’s ill-fated attempts at securing British power and increasing colonial hostilities led him to seek exile. His asylum took the form of boarding the British warship Fowey off the coast of Yorktown. With Dunmore out of the picture, the boundary line controversy was finally settled during the Revolutionary War when it was agreed to extend the Mason Dixon Line, which had been halted during Pontiac’s Rebellion of 1763.
West Virginia Encyclopedia finishes the tale:
Dunmore was one of the most unpopular figures of his day, accused of deliberately delaying his troops while the Indians attacked Lewis4 at Point Pleasant and despised for emptying the powder magazine at Williamsburg at the start of the Revolution. Most places in Virginia named in his honor were later renamed.
Stay tuned for March Trivia…some of the facts covered here will help you win!
This title has nothing to do with the nobility of the governor. A governor is royal when appointed to the post by a monarch. It’s a plum job, designed to allow the governor to enrich himself while directly or indirectly controlling every agency of government. Source.
In April 1775, Dunmore threatened to free slaves and reduce the capital, Williamsburg, to ashes if the colonists rebelled against British authority. Source.
Colonel Andrew Lewis of the Virginia Militia, led a left wing of forces down the Ohio River while Dunmore’s group proceeded from Fort Gower in October 1774. Lewis was later advised to cross the Ohio and meet Dunmore at the Shawnee towns on the other side. Before Lewis crossed, his forces of 1100 strong were met with a surprise attack led by Shawnee Chief Cornstalk and allied tribes. Lewis’ army had 215 casualties, of which an estimated 75 were killed. Source