Ohio Company
[1] Virginian explorers recognized the potential of the Ohio region for colonization and moved to capitalize on it,[2] as well as to block French expansion into the territory.
In 1752 George Mason, later to become a major founding father, became treasurer of the Ohio Company, a post he held for forty years until his death in 1792.
In 1748–1750, the Ohio Company hired Thomas Cresap, who had opened a series of trading posts along the Potomac River at Long Meadow, Oldtown and Will's Creek (on the foot of the eastern climb up the Cumberland Narrows along what was soon to be called the Nemacolin Trail).
In 1750, the Ohio Company established a fortified storehouse at what became Ridgeley, Virginia across the Potomac River from the Will's Creek trading post.
In 1752 the company had a pathway blazed between the small fortified posts at Wills Creek (that became Cumberland, Maryland), and Redstone Old Fort (that became Brownsville, Pennsylvania).
[8] Dinwiddie responded by sending a military unit under the command of George Washington to the region,[9] which led to the outbreak of the French and Indian War.
[10] However, following Pontiac's War, land claims west of the Appalachian Mountains were forfeited to the Native American tribes in the Proclamation of 1763, requiring them to be re-purchased through King George III.
[11] In 1768, the British government authorized Sir William Johnson to make the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, purchasing land rights from the Iroquois, in accordance with the Proclamation of 1763.
The Ohio Company of Associates was organized in 1786, composed largely of New England veterans who had certificates for land from Congress for their services during the Revolution.
