Transcribed and donated by Barb Ziegermeyer

The first settlers in North Western Virginia located their homesteads and built their cabins on any land that suited them without troubling themselves about procuring a legal title to their lands from the King or Colonial Government. They had a rude custom known as the tomahawk right, which consisted of deadening trees near a spring and cutting names or initials on trees to indicate that a location of that particular tract had been made, and among themselves these rights were generally respected and often sold to others. But as emigration became more numerous it was seen that to prevent confusion and disputes as to ownership of lands it was necessary to enact laws to secure to claimants the rightful possession of their homesteads and with this object in view several laws were passed, the substance of which are here given:

An Act of the General Assembly passed October 1777, provided that all persons who on or before the 24th day of June 1776 had settled on the western waters should be allowed four hundred acres of land for every family.

That any settler requiring a greater quantity of land should by paying the consideration money be entitled to the preemption of any greater quantity of land adjoining his settlement right not exceeding one thousand acres.

In 1779 the homestead law was changed to require the settler to live one year on and raise a crop of corn to entitle him to his four hundred acres.

In the above year an act was passed appointing a commission known as the "Commissioners of Unpatented Lands" who were authorized to hold sessions at various places in their respective districts and settle all disputes as to land entries and determine the right of all persons claiming any unappropriated lands and were required to grant certificates giving quantity and location of the tract with the cause of preemption and patents were issued upon these certificates.

In 1779 a land office was established at Richmond and all matters relating to land were transacted through the Register of the land office.
The purchase price of lands were fixed at forty pounds for every hundred acres.

In 1819 the price of land warrants were fixed at two dollars per hundred acres and could be located upon any vacant land not claimed by another.

This system led to many vexatious law suits, as sometimes several persons would locate upon the same tract, and it was many years before land titles were permanently settled.

Under the charter granted by King James, Virginia claimed that her territory extended across the continent to the Pacific Ocean.

In the treaty of Paris in 1763 between Great Britain and France, the country west of the Mississippi River was conceded to France, this limited the Western boundary of the colony of Virginia to that river.

After the war of the Revolution when the colonies had thrown off the yoke of Great Britain and Virginia had been organized into a separate State, it was realized by her public men that she could not exercise civil jurisdiction over such an immense territory and in the interests of all the states, and for the general good of the country proposed to grant all of her holdings North West of the River Ohio to the United States, subject to certain conditions set forth in the several acts of Assembly relative thereto.

These acts were passed on January 2, 1781, December 20, 1783 and the deed of cession was made on March 1, 1784.

The Acts of the United States Congress passed September 13, 1783, July 7, 1786 and July 13, 1787 accepted the cession of the said territory under conditions therein specified, which were ratified and approved by the Act of the General Assembly of Virginia passed December 30, 1788.

The conditions of the compact required that the territory so ceded should be laid out and formed into not less than three nor more than five states, to be republican in form and to be admitted into the Federal Union on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatsoever: That the inhabitants of the said territory shall have their possessions and titles confirmed to them and be protected in the enforcement of their rights and liberties. That a quantity not exceeding one hundred and fifty thousand acres of land promised by Virginia should be granted to General George Rogers Clark and to the officers and soldiers of his regiment, who marched with him when the post of Kaskaskies and St. Vincent were reduced, and to the officers and soldiers that have been since incorporated into the said regiment.

It was also provided that if the lands reserved by law on the East side of the Ohio River for the Virginia troops upon continental establishment prove insufficient for their legal bounties the deficiency should be made up to the said troops in good lands between the rivers Sciota and Little Miami on the North West side of the River Ohio.

The great States of Ohio, Indiana. Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and part of Minnesota have since been carved out of the territory above described.

A dispute having arisen as to the correct division line between the heirs of William Penn the proprietor of Pennsylvania, and those of Lord Baltimore, the proprietor of Maryland, two eminent surveyors from London, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon were sent out to establish the line between the two colonies in the summer of 1763.

After various calculations and astronomical observations they determined the starting point on the Delaware river, and thence with a circular line to the point where the States of Pennsylvania, Delaware and Mary­land now join and from thence ran the division line westward.

The work was slowly continued from year to year until in 1767 the surveyors reached a point near Mount Morris, now in Greene County, Pennsylvania, where they were ordered to stop by the Indians, and work was not resumed again in the field for seventeen years.

The intention of the commissioners was, after passing the Western limit of Maryland, to find the western boundary of Pennsylvania, five degrees of longitude from the Delaware River.
As long as the territory of the western country was a wilderness no attention was given to the boundary line between Pennsylvania and Virginia, but when settlers began to locate in the country a bitter controversy arose as to what authority would exercise jurisdiction over the country.

Augusta County, Virginia, claimed that South West Pennsylvania, including the site of Fort Pitt was in her boundary, which claim was denied by the latter colony.

In the year 1774 Lord Dunmore, the Royal Governor of Virginia, directed a county court to be held for Augusta County at Port Pitt, and the first Court was actually held there in February 1775 and proceeded to exercise jurisdiction over the surrounding settlements.

This was vigorously resisted by the Pennsylvania authorities and resulted in there being two sets of laws and two sets of officials to enforce them.

The Virginia officers arrested and imprisoned the Pennsylvania officers and the latter retaliated by doing likewise, and so intense did the controversy become that a resort to arms was imminent.

But the breaking out of the war of the Revolution caused an end to the dispute and all parties agreed to sink their local differences and unite in a patriotic cause against the common enemy.

When the war was drawing to a close and the two colonies had been elevated to the dignity of independent states it was amicably agreed that the Mason and Dixon line should be extended to the West.

Commissioners were appointed and after many delays caused by hostile Indians, lack of rations and other difficulties incident to the wilderness, the long contest was at last satisfactorily adjusted as will be shown by tie following official agreement:

"Agreement of Commissioners for Southern and Western Boundary of Pennsylvania.

We, James Madison and Robert Andrews, commissioners for the State of Virginia and George Bryan, John Ewing and David Rittenhouse, commissioners for the State of Pennsylvania, do hereby mutually in behalf of our respective states ratify and confirm the following agreement, viz.:

To extend Mason's and Dixon's line due West five degrees of longitude to be computed from the River Delaware for the Southern boundary of Pennsylvania, and that a meridian drawn from the Western extremity thereof to the northern limit of the said state be the western boundary of Pennsylvania forever.

In witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands this thirty first day of August in the year of our Lord 1779.

Pursuant to this agreement the commissioners of the two States assembled in 1784 at the point the survey had been discontinued and extended the line to the termination of the said five degrees of longitude from the Delaware river, which marked the Southern boundary of the State of Pennsylvania.

The line was marked by cutting a vista through the forest and at intervals planting posts marked with the letters P and V, each letter facing the State of which it was the initial. At the extremity of the line which was the South West Corner of Pennsylvania; a square unlettered White Oak Post was planted around whose base there was raised a pile of stones.

The advanced season of the year forced the commission to suspend operations until the following spring. The report of their operations is dated in Washington County, Pennsylvania, November 18, 1784 and is signed by John Ewing, David Rittenhouse, Thomas Hutchins, Robert An­drews and Andrew Ellicott.

The following year 1785 the commissioners met at the South West corner of Pennsylvania and ran the line due North to the Ohio River thus establishing the line between Pennsylvania and the Pan Handle Counties of Virginia.

This boundary line between the states mentioned took the name of the two original surveyors, Mason and Dixon, and in after years became famous in the political history of the country, as being the dividing line between the free and slave states.