MiNUTKS OF Court for Ohio Counjw 7 



Baltimore Conference of 1779 (Vol. 1, p. 522, of these Annaf-s), the 

 portion of Yohogania County north of Cross Creek was at first put 

 into Ohio County, and subsequently became Brooke County.' 



It will also be seen that Ohio County, as originally created, ex- 

 tended northward to the mouth of Cross Creek, southward to the 

 mouth oftMiddle Island Creek, and from the Ohio River, eastward, so 

 as to include the present townships of Hopewell, Independence, Buf- 

 falo, l^laine, Donegal, East Finley, and West Finley, and parts of 

 Canton and Franklin in Washington County, as well as perhaps the 

 western one-third of Greene County, Pennsylvania. Thus it was 

 that a large part of the transactions of the early Ohio County Court 

 of Virginia related to the business and protection of inhabitants of 

 Washington and Greene counties, Pennsylvania. 



Black's Cabin where the first courts of Ohio County were held, was 

 on the north fork of Short Creek, about eleven miles northeast from 

 Fort Henry, now Wheeling, and about six or eight miles northwest 

 from \Vest Alexander, in Washington County, Pennsylvania. There 

 was Vanmeter's Fort, and not far away was Rice's Fort on Buffalo 

 Creek in Washington County, Pennsylvania; and Beeman's and 

 Ryerson's stations in Greene county, and Fort Jackson, now Waynes- 

 burg. And it will be remembered that in the days of this early court, 

 before Washington, town or county, was thought of, the people who 

 looked to it for protection to their lives and property were on the 

 frontiers of ciyilization ; across the Ohio was a wilderness of savages, 

 the enemies of civilization. Our present knowledge of events in these 

 times will be freshened and confirmed by entries made in the course 

 of judicial business shown in these records. 



Ohio county, Virginia, like Washington County, Pennsylvania, has 

 been shorn of its magnificent pro[)ortions. Its southern part has been 

 made into a number of new Virginian (now West Virginian) counties, 

 and its northern part, above the mouth of Short Creek, has been 

 divided into Brooke and Hancock counties, while, by the actual run- 

 ning of the western boundary of Pennsylvania, in 1784-5, it lost all 

 its old possessions in Pennsylvania. 



Following the records of the early Ohio County Court we shall 

 later give the contents of a small manuscript volume containing the 



•.See History of .Vugusta County, \'a., by J. Lewis Peyton, p. 177. 



