XX. IIII'; r.olNDAKV CONTROVERSY BETWEEN PENN- 

 SYLVANIA AND VlRCilNIA; i 748-1 785. 



A Skki'ch," by B(n'i) Crumrine, of Washington, Pa. 



It is proposed to publish in the Annai.s of the Carnegie Museum, 

 the original minute books of the old Virginia Courts held within the 

 limits of southwestern Pennsylvania, during the period when Virginia 

 claimed and exercised jurisdiction over what is now Washington, 

 Greene, Fayette, Westmoreland, and Allegheny Counties, Pennsyl- 

 vania, and it is fit that these minutes should be preceded with a sketch 

 of the boundary controversy between the two states, beginning as early 

 as 1748, and terminating only by the final establishment of the west- 

 ern boundary line as it is to-day in 1785. 



When this contest began our Western country was indeed a wilder- 

 ness. Thomas Hutchins, an engineer with Bouquet's expedition 

 in 1764, .said of it in his "Topographical Description of Vir- 

 ginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland," published in London in 1778: 

 "The whole country abounds in Bears, Elks, Buffaloes, Deer, Tur- 

 kies, etc., an uncjuestionable proof of the goodness of its Soil." In 

 a foot-note, Hutchins cpiotes from (iordon, a still earlier explorer: 

 ' * This country may, from a proi)er knowledge, be affirmed to be the 

 most healthy, the most ])leasant, the most commodious, and the most 

 fertile spot of earth, known to luiropean people." Francis Parkman, 

 writing of the country west of the Alleghanies in 1760, says : " One 

 vast and continuous forest shadowed the fertile soul, covering the 

 lands as the grass covers a garden lawn, sweeping over hill and hol- 

 low in endless undulation, burying mountains in verdure, and man- 

 tling brooks and rivers from the light of day:" ^ Thus, more than 

 a century ago, when our country was a wilderness, did it give promise 

 of its future greatness. 



' This sketch is founded upon an address delivered before the Western Penn- 

 sylvania Hisorical Society, in Allegheny City, in the spring of 1894. 

 ■ Conspiracy of Pont iac, 147. 



