Qualla: District of West Augusta

District of West Augusta: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. For two years in the mid-1770s, Pittsburgh was a Virginia town. The Royal Governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, traveled there in person to appoint local officials under the Virginia charter; Virginia sheriffs arrested Pennsylvania sheriffs and vice versa; settlers had to pick which colony's land office they preferred. The contested territory was called the District of West Augusta, and it covered most of what is now southwestern Pennsylvania - including Pittsburgh - and a substantial wedge of what is now northern West Virginia. The district lasted from 1774 to 1776. By the time the Revolution had gotten properly underway, both colonies had bigger problems, and within a few years the boundary was settled by extending the Mason-Dixon line west. But for those two years, the map of British America looked very different from the one we now know.

Read more: District of West Augusta on Qualla

Image: Public domain

District of West Augusta: Two Colonies, One Tract

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The conflict had its roots in the imprecise grants of the seventeenth century. Virginia's 1609 charter ran 'up into the land throughout from sea to sea, west and northwest' - language that, taken literally, meant Virginia stretched across the entire continent. Pennsylvania's 1681...

Read more: District of West Augusta on Qualla

Image: Public domain

District of West Augusta: Lord Dunmore Comes West

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, was the last Royal Governor of Virginia. He was an aggressive defender of Virginia's territorial claims, and in 1774 he traveled in person to Pittsburgh - which Virginia held by force at Fort Pitt, then renamed Fort Dunmore in his honor - to appo...

Read more: District of West Augusta on Qualla

Image: Public domain

District of West Augusta: Arrests on Both Sides

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The years 1774 through 1776 were genuinely chaotic in the disputed country. Virginia officials and Pennsylvania officials administered the same territory under different statutes. Each tried to enforce its laws against the other's settlers. Sheriffs were arrested when they crosse...

Read more: District of West Augusta on Qualla

Image: Public domain

District of West Augusta: Three Counties Out of One

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Later in 1776, the Virginia legislature broke the District of West Augusta into three new counties: Ohio County, Monongalia County, and Yohogania County. Ohio County ran along the Ohio River north and south of Wheeling; Monongalia County took in much of what is now north-central ...

Read more: District of West Augusta on Qualla

Image: Public domain

District of West Augusta: The Line Goes West

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The matter was settled by negotiation in 1780. Virginia and Pennsylvania agreed to extend the Mason and Dixon line - the boundary that ran east-west between Maryland and Pennsylvania, surveyed in the 1760s by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon - westward to 80 degrees 31 minutes we...

Read more: District of West Augusta on Qualla

Image: Public domain