This is the story of the Ohio Company of Virginia, founded by Thomas Lee and some of the greatest names of the Virginia Gentry to settle the West on their own. The Ohio Company’s settlement scheme and history are a tale of revived American colonialism, frontier adventure, high-stakes negotiations with everyone from the King to the Iroquois, and disappointment mixed with great achievement.
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In the middle decades of the 18th century, the Ohio River Valley became a major point of conflict between Great Britain and France. With the British fearing French expansion into the interior, and the future of the region hinged on the actions of Virginia planters led by Thomas Lee of Stratford Hall, patriarch of the Lee Family of Virginia.
After securing the Treaty of Lancaster in 1744 to win title to the Western frontier from the Iroquois, Thomas Lee collected some of the Virginia gentry’s grandest and most famous names to form the Ohio Company of Virginia and settle the West. The Ohio Company sought a grant of 500,000 acres, and planned to trade with Native Americans while settling Scots-Irish and German settlers to raise land values by colonizing the Ohio River Valley.
The scheme met resistance from the rival Loyal Land Company and Governor Gooch, but eventually was approved by the Board of Trade. After Thomas Lee’s death, leadership passed to Lawrence Washington, then to other directors. The company sent Christopher Gist to explore the Ohio country, built a fortified storehouse at Wills Creek, and cut a road from the Potomac to the Monongahela. Under Governor Robert Dinwiddie, these activities drew French opposition, leading George Washington to carry a warning to French commanders in 1753.
French troops soon destroyed the company’s fort at the forks of the Ohio and built Fort Duquesne. Washington’s clash with a French detachment and surrender at Fort Necessity helped ignite the French and Indian War. After the war, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and then the Vandalia Scheme or Grand Ohio Company dispute blocked Virginia’s claims, and Richard Henry Lee and George Mason fought the loss of what they saw as Virginia’s charter rights.
In the Revolution’s aftermath, Virginia invalidated Hancock Lee’s Kentucky surveys, ending most of the company’s land ambitions, and thus the attempts of the Virginia gentry to buy up and settle the frontier.
Chapters
0:00 The British and French Empires Clash Over the American Frontier
4:43 Thomas Lee’s Western Vision
7:40 Thomas Lee’s Lancaster Treaty Triumph
10:23 How the Ohio Company of Virginia Was Founded
13:38 The Loyal Land Company Power Struggle Over Western Lands
18:59 The Ohio Company Gets Its Grant
24:24 Mapping the Frontier as The French Advance
31:25 The French and Indian War Erupts in Ohio, and the Ohio Company is Involved
33:03 The 1763 Proclamation that Blocked Virginia’s Expansion
34:10 Benjamin Franklin’s “Grand Ohio Company” Vandalia Threat Emerges, and Richard Henry Lee Fights Back
38:50 The Ohio Company’s Kentucky Gamble
42:42 The Ohio Company’s Legacy: A Western Dream Fulfilled
Sources Referenced in this Episode:
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