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In the 1740’s King George II became acutely concerned
about this situation.
The English government encouraged their colonists to
settle in these western waters, and gave cheap land and a
promise of no real estate taxes for ten years if they would move
into this region.
A
course of collision between the empires of France and of England
was set.
The Land Companies
James Patton was from a distinguished
family in Ireland.
He developed a business of buying and selling indenture
contracts of the Scots-Irish people from Ireland, and of then
transporting them to the Rappahannock River in Virginia.
There he picked up furs and tobacco for the return
journey to Ireland.
He became immensely wealthy.
Benjamin Burden (Borden) had been Lord Fairfax’s agent in
Virginia, and had used this relationship to acquire great wealth
and influence.
His
daughter Mary married James Patton, whose sister Elizabeth had
married John Preston.
In 1736 Col. William Beverly of Essex Co. obtained a
grant of 118,491 acres, which was called “the Manor of Beverly”,
and whose extent was much of the present Augusta Co., of which
Staunton is the principle community.
Beverly was the son-in-law of Col. William Byrd III, and
author of History and Present State of Virginia, and also
a member of the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe.
Beverly Manor also became known as “the Irish Tract”, as
many Ulster Irish had settled there as early as 1732.
Patton and Beverly became acquainted, and in 1737 Beverly
offered Patton a quarter of Beverly Manor in exchange for his
bringing in Irish settlers.
Among these settlers was Charles Campbell (later called
‘Major Charles Campbell’).
James Patton and John Preston moved to Virginia, and went
into the real estate speculation business.
Patton got his first land patents in the Valleys of the
Roanoke and James Rivers in 1738.
In 1740 he formed a land company that was granted 100,000
acres in the New River Valley (Wood’s River).
That same year Virginia gave 800,000 acres to the Loyal
Company.
The list
of investors in both companies read like a log of the First
Families of Virginia, including many government officials.
Among the better known of the investors are the surnames
of Washington, Lee, Dinwiddie, Taylor, Mason, Pendleton, Carter,
Nelson, Lewis, Walker, Jefferson, Meriweather, Fry, Maury,
Willis, Henry, Mercer, and Preston.
Knowledge of the country where these grants were to be
located was rudimentary, and no line of demarcation between the
patents of the two companies was even attempted.
In 1748 Patton led an exploratory expedition to the west
to discover the lands that he had bought.
He got at least as far as Kingsport, Tennessee, and
possibly as far as Cumberland Gap.
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