[1] The governor of Virginia Colony, John Murray, Earl of Dunmore and Viscount of Fincastle, had succeeded Lord Botetourt, the namesake of Fincastle's "parent" county, upon the latter's death in 1770.
The county was the site of Lord Dunmore's War against the Ohio country Shawnee concluded by Virginia's victory at the Battle of Point Pleasant in Oct. 1774.
Attempts at organized settlement, ultimately unsuccessful, included the Indiana Grant (including part of southwestern PA), Vandalia Colony and Transylvania Colony.
Lord Dunmore in absentia led the military opposition to the rebels in Virginia.
He had already issued Dunmore's Proclamation, offering freedom to any of the rebels' slaves who fled their Virginia masters and joined the British forces, which was much resented by the rebel planters and slaveholders.