Government on the Ohio

Geographic position

40.4417° N, 80.0000° W

Sources

Rowland, Kate Mason. “The Ohio Company.” William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Papers. 1.4 (1893): 197-203. Web.

General note

Government on the Ohio refers to the place where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers converge in order to form the Ohio River in present-day Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. British colonists first attempted to establish the territory under their domain through the Ohio Company of Virginia, a company created for land speculation. The Ohio Company presented a petition to King George II in 1748 for extending Indian trade west of the Appalachians into Ohio country, and the crown agreed to grant a charter so long as the Ohio Company moved in one hundred families and built a fort within seven years. These plans were complicated by the fact that the French also claimed the land, and the territory changed hands between the French and British until the end of the French and Indian War, when it was finally held by the British. In a 1767 letter to Wheelock, David McClure explains that a tutor named Mr. Mitchell hoped that the Indian school was not within General Lyman’s Government on the Ohio, but Mitchell does not explain his reasoning.