to the census of 1830, of
78,510 souls. These counties, with a portion of Pennsylvania then
deemed to be within the limits of Virginia, constituted the district
of West Augusta; and was the last grand division of the state, to
become occupied by the whites. This was perhaps owing to natural
causes, as well as to the more immediate proximity of hostile
Indians.

The general surface of this district of country is very broken, its
hills, though rich, are yet steep and precipitous, and the various
streams which flow along their bases, afford but few bottoms; and
these of too narrow and contracted dimensions to have attracted the
adventurer, when more invited portions of the country, were alike open
to his enterprise.--The Alleghany ridge of mountains, over which the
eastern emigrant had to pass, presented too, no inconsiderable barrier
to its earlier location; while the cold, bleak, inhospitable region,
extending from the North Branch to the Cheat and Valley rivers, seemed
to threaten an entire seclusion from the eastern settlements, and to
render it an isolated spot, not easily connected with any other
section of the state.

The first attempt on the part of the English to occupy the country
contiguous to the Ohio river, was made in consequence of the measures
adopted by the French to possess themselves of it. France had early
become acquainted with the country, so far as to perceive the facility
with which her possessions in the north, might, by means of a free
communication down the valley of the Mississippi, be connected with
those in the south. To preserve this communication uninterrupted, to
acquire influence over the neighboring Indians and to prevent the
occupancy and settlement by England of the country west [52] of the
Alleghany mountains, the French were early induced to establish
trading posts among the Indians on the Ohio, and to obtain and
preserve possession of the country by the erection of a chain of forts
to extend from Canada to Louisiana.[1]

To counteract those operations of the French, to possess herself of
the country, to which she deemed her title to be good, and to enjoy
the lucrative traffic which was then to be carried on with the
Indians, England gave to an association of gentlemen in Great Britain
and Virginia, (under the title of the Ohio Company,) liberty to locate
and hold in their own right, 600,000 acres of land within the country
then claimed by both England and France. In pursuance of