Ohio History Journal

64         Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.    [VoL. 4

 

 

 

BOUNDARY LINE BETWEEN OHIO AND VIRGINIA.

 

INTRODUCTORY.*

 

Previous to 1783 Virginia never laid any claim to the Ohio

River--or, in fact, to any territory west of the Alleghenies,

because, "this region was originally a part of the vast district

claimed by the French, and known as Louisiana. The Missis-

sippi River was discovered by French missionaries, and was

subsequently explored to its mouth by LaSalle, who, according

to the customs of the nations of that day, took possession in the

name of his sovereign, Louis XIV, of the vast region drained by

its waters. After the French war, France, by the treaty of

peace of 1763, ceded to Great Britain all her possessions east of

the Mississippi River. When the war of the American Revolu-

tion broke out, the whole of the eastern part of the great Missis-

sippi valley was claimed by Great Britain, and by the treaty of

1783 between that power and the United States this region was

relinquished to our nation. It is true that various States of the

Union laid claim during the Revolutionary war to large tracts

west of the Alleghenies on the ground of old English charters,

but their claims were conflicting, and it was the policy of Con-

gress not to decide between them. Eventually all these States

made concessions of their claims, some with and some without

reservations; but the probabilities.are that the nation as a whole,

 

*In 1877 the Fish Commission of Ohio in their report concerning the

Fish Culture in the State, considered also the subject of the territory over

which Ohio laws, incident to this topic, could be enforced. This involved

the question of the boundary line between Ohio and Virginia and between

Ohio and Kentucky. The Commission suggested that the Legislatures

of Ohio, Virginia and Kentucky respectively appoint Commissioners to fix

the boundary lines of the State of Ohio along the middle of the navigable

channel of the Ohio. The report then gives a statement of the history of

this matter as given in the above Introductory. Then follows the argument

of Mr. Vinton. Probably no one, certainly no Ohioan, ever gave such

thought and study to this question. This matter was all incorporated in

the report of the State Board of Agriculture for 1877, which report is now

out of print and practically inaccessible.           E. 0. R.

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Boundary Line Between Ohio and Virginia.      65

 

which had really wrested the lands from Great Britain, was by

the laws of nations the rightful owner of the region. These

lands thus came from the French to the English by the treaty

of 1763, and from the English to the United States by the treaty

of 1783." According to the above, none of the States laid any

claim to territory between the Alleghenies and the Ohio River,

for, "in June, 1783, the officers of the army, to the number of

288, petitioned Congress that the lands to which they were

entitled might be located in 'that tract of country bounded north

on Lake Erie, east on Pennsylvania, southeast and south on the

river Ohio, west on a line beginning at that part of the Ohio

which lies twenty-four miles west of the mouth of the river

Scioto, thence running north on a meridian line till it intersects

the river Miami, which falls into Lake Erie, thence down the

middle of that river to the lake.' They speak of this tract as 'of

sufficient extent, the land of such quality and situation, as may

induce Congress to assign and mark it out as a tract or territory

suitable to form a distinct government (or colony of the United

States), in time to be admitted one of the Confederate States of

America;' and also as 'a tract of country not claimed as the

property of, or within the jurisdiction of, any particular State of

the Union.'" Special stress is placed upon the closing para-

graph, viz., "a tract of country NOT claimed as the property of, or

WITHIN THE JURISDICTION of ANY particular State of the Union."

Whatever right or title Virginia had to the Ohio River must have

been acquired between 1783 and the time when she ceded her

claim to the general government in 1787, but there is no record

of any such acquisition.

In 1846, in the office of the Cincinnati Gazette, there was

printed the "Substance of an argument of Samuel F. Vinton, for

the defendants, in the case of the Commonwealth of Virginia vs.

Peter M. Garner and others, for alleged abduction of certain

slaves; delivered before the General Court of Virginia, at its

December term, A. D. 1845."

Mr. Vinton devotes a number of pages to show that when a

party claims the entire river as a boundary that then low water-

mark is the boundary line; then devotes a number of pages to

a discussion of the laws of nations on this question. After

Vol. IV-5

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66        Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.  [VoL. 4

 

discussing the boundaries described in this chapter, as well as

those of subsequent and amended chapters, he shows that by

none of them had Virginia acquired any title to the country west

of the Alleghenies.

As the transactions of the King, Parliament, and Congress,

in relation to the boundaries of Virginia, are of the greatest

possible importance to the people of Ohio in securing the middle

of the navigable channel of the Ohio River as the boundary line,

it was deemed not inappropriate to present Mr. Vinton's argu-

ment unabridged.

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