George Washington and the West by Charles H. Ambler

Author:Charles H. Ambler [Ambler, Charles H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, Colonial Period (1600-1775)
ISBN: 9781469643878
Google: 2z9sDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Published: 2018-08-25T00:43:05+00:00

CHAPTER IX

IN THE REVOLUTION

ON THE EVE of the American Revolution Washington was trying to establish a permanent settlement on his lands near the mouth of the Great Kanawha River and the proposed capitol site of the Vandalia colony. Although his title to these lands was not questioned, he doubtless thought that possession amounted to the proverbial nine points of the law. Virginia had not yet opened a land office west of the Alleghenies; surveys there were still a matter of individual initiative and expense; and, in the midst of an ever-increasing number of claimants, settlement rights were necessary to clinch other preëpmtions. In this move Washington was doubtless motivated also by the example of his half-brother Lawrence, who, ignoring the dicta of an Established Church and other conventions of a somewhat aristocratic society, had planned to colonize the lands of the Ohio Company, of which he was president, with Palatine Germans. Already Washington was as liberal in practice as Thomas Jefferson later became in theory.

In this movement Washington was to all intents and purposes a modern real estate promoter, promising everything to everybody. Irish, Scotch, English, and German immigrants alike were to have religious and civil liberty, and that too within the bounds of Virginia which maintained an Established Church and a local government not renowned for liberalism. Referring to reported suspicions of certain interested Palatines to the contrary, Washington saw “no prospect of these People being restrained in the smallest degree either in their Civil, or Religious Principles.”1 His reason for this statement, namely: “these are Privileges, which Mankind are solicitous to enjoy, and Emigrants must be Anxious to know,”2 would have done credit to either Thomas Jefferson or to Thomas Paine.

In this mood Washington appealed to his old friend and fellow officer, John David Woelper, or as Washington spelled his name, “Wilper,” for aid in inducing Germans to emigrate to America. Although Woelper’s chief concern seems to have been to sell his own land claims to Washington, he was not averse to helping him, stating his decision and understanding of the situation in these words: “Sir, as you have Some Intainsion, to Impord Some of my Countery man, To Sattlen your Land, and to Resolve your Quistion, which you has macke, to your Servant, To which I will give you, my Humble answer, to the best of my knowledge, and Informaision,” adding, in equally good Pennsylvania Dutch, the following directions for lodging, or rather “packing” the desired colonists for shipment to America: “They are Logged in Bed Stals, macke of boards, 6-feet Long and 2 feet waith, This Bed Stals, are so Regulatted, acorting, to the vessel, Some Bed Stals are made for 2.3.4.5.6. Fraight, to hold, and Lay in it, and To keep Theries Nessisary by them, The other paggach, muss be but Down, in the hold,—.”3

For some reason, possibly aversion to the method of lodging the desired immigrants, Washington did not follow Woelper’s suggestion. In 1773 and 1774 his agents were active in Ireland and England,

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