During the 17th century, the Iroquois Confederacy (then consisting of the Mohawk, Onondaga, Cayuga, Oneida, and Seneca tribes) drove the Hurons from the state and used it primarily as a hunting ground.

These tribes had traditions that at one time they had lived on the Ohio, but on-going conflict with the Iroquois Confederacy, or the Six Nations, made the mid-Ohio river valley a contested region.

[4] This proclamation said in part: "We do hereby forbid on pain of our displeasure, all our loving subjects from making any purchases or settlement whatever, or taking possession of any of the lands so reserved without our special leave or license.

[4] In 1770, George Washington led a surveying party down the Ohio River from Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh) and explored the area personally.

A colonizing expedition left Pittsburgh in the Fall of 1785 with the two men, four Scotch pioneer families from Pennsylvania,[8] and several hired hands, and sailed down the Ohio River landing in present-day Belleville on December 16, 1785.

They constructed a block house surrounded by a stockade and over the course of the next year cleared over 100 acres of land for cultivation, built several cabins, and named their new settlement Belleville.

[6][8] In 1787 they were joined by the following persons: Joel and Joseph Dewey, Stephen Sherrod, Malcolm Colman, Petre and Andres Anderson and their families.