76 AXNALS OF THE CarNECJIE MuSEUM. 



"depending" before the Court of West Augusta at the time the said 

 jurisdiction should take place. And it was further enacted/ that the 

 landholders of the said counties, respectively, should meet on the 8th 

 day of December next, those of the County of Yohogania " at the house 

 of Andrew Heath, on the Monongahela " ; those of the County of 

 Monongalia " at the house of Jonathan Corbin [Coburn] in the said 

 county" ; and those of the County of Ohio "at the house of Ezekiel 

 Dewit in the said County," then and there to choose the place of hold- 

 ing courts for their respective counties. 



Jonathan Coburn lived al)out ten miles southeast of New Geneva, in 

 what is now Fayette County, and the ])lace chosen for holding the 

 courts of Monongalia County was the plantation of Theophilus Philips, 

 about two miles al)Ove New Geneva, on the upper Monongahela, and 

 here the courts of that county were held until the establishment of the 

 boundary line, when, to get them out of Pennsylvania, they were 

 removed to the plantation of Zachwell Morgan, afterwards Morgan- 

 town ; but the early records of this court were lost in the burning of 

 the court-house at Morgantown in 1796. The place chosen by the 

 landholders of Ohio County for the holding of the court for that 

 county was Black's Cabin, on Short Creek, now West Liberty, West 

 Va. , and the first court held there was on January 6, 1777. There 

 these courts continued to l)e held until 1797, when they were removed 

 to Wheeling. 



Whether the election recjuired to be held on December 8, 1776, at 

 the house of Andrew Heath (near what is now West Elizabeth, Alle- 

 gheny County, Pa.), to choose a place for holding the court for Yoho- 

 gania County, was held at the time and place appointed is not known ; 

 but, whatever the fact, there is now room for the belief, from a more 

 careful study of the records of that court here i)roduced, that, from 

 its first session on December 23, 1776, until on August 25, 1777, when 

 it was ordered "That the court be adjourned to the house now occu- 

 pied by Andrew Heath," the court for Yohogania County continued 

 to be held at Augusta Town, now Washington, Pa., and that it was 

 then removed to its new and last place of holding on the Mononga- 

 hela. 



We now submit to the student of western Pennsylvania history a 

 full verbatim transcript of the records of the long since extinct court 

 of Yohogania County, to be illustrated hereafter, it is hoped, by a col- 

 lection of explanatory notes, identifying persons and places mentioned. 



■ 2 Hennint^'s Statutes, 264, 265. 



