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The Petition of the Inhabitants, and some of the intended Settlers, of that part of NORTH- AMERICA now denominated TRANSYLVANIA, humbly showeth:
Whereas some of your Petitioners became adventurers in that country from the advantageous reports of their friends who first explored it, and others since, allured by the specious show of the easy terms on which the land was to be purchased from those who style themselves Proprietors, have, at a great expense, and many hardships, settled there, under the faith of holding the lands by an indefeasible title, which those gentlemen assured them they were capable of making. But your Petitioners have been greatly alarmed at the late conduct of those gentlemen, in advancing the price of the purchase-money from twenty shillings to fifty shillings, sterling, per hundred acres, and at the same time have increased the fees of entry and surveying to a most exorbitant rate; and, by the short period prefixed for taking up the lands, even on those extravagant terms, they plainly evince their intentions of rising in their demands as the settlers increase, or their insatiable avarice shall dictate. And your Petitioners have been more justly alarmed at such unaccountable and arbitrary proceedings, as they have lately learned, from a copy of the
And as we are anxious to concur in every respect with our brethren of the United Colonies for our just rights and privileges, as far as our infant settlement and remote situation will admit of, we humbly expect and implore to be taken under the protection of the honourable Convention of the Colony of Virginia, of which we cannot help thinking ourselves still a part, and request your kind interposition in our behalf, that we may not suffer under the rigorous demands and impositions of the gentlemen styling themselves Proprietors, who, the better to effect their oppressive designs, have given them the colour of a law, enacted by a score of men, artfully picked from the few adventurers who went to see the country last summer, overawed by the presence of Mr˙ Henderson. And that you would take such measures as your Honours in your wisdom shall judge most expedient for restoring peace and harmony to our divided settlement; or, if your Honours apprehend that our case comes more properly before the honourable the General Congress, that you would in your goodness recommend the same to your worthy Delegates to espouse it as the cause of the Colony. And your Petitioners, &c.
James Harrod,Petition of the Inhabitants and some of the intended Settlers of the part of North-America now denomianted Transylvania to the Convention of Virginia
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deed made by the Six Nations, with Sir William Johnson and the Commissioners from this Colony, at Fort Stanwix, in the year 1768, that the said lands were included in the cession or grant of all that tract which lies on the south side of the River Ohio, beginning at the mouth of Cherokee or Hogohege River, and extending up the said River to Kittaning. And as in the preamble of the said deed the said confederate Indians declare the Cherokee River to be their true boundary with the southward Indians, your Petitioners may, with great reason, doubt the validity of the purchase that those Proprietors have made of the Cherokees, — the only title they set up to the lands for which they demand such extravagant sums from your Petitioners, without any other assurance for holding them than their own deed and warranty — a poor security, as your Petitioners humbly apprehend, for the money that, among other new and unreasonable regulations, these Proprietors insist should be paid down on the delivery of the deed. And as we have the greatest reason to presume that his Majesty, to whom the lands were deeded by the Six Nations, for a valuable consideration, will vindicate his title, and think himself at liberty to grant them to such persons and on such terms as he pleases, your Petitioners would in consequence thereof be turned out of possession, or obliged to purchase their lands and improvements on such terms as the new grantee or proprietor might think fit to impose, so that we cannot help regarding the demand of Mr˙ Henderson and his Company as highly unjust and impolitick, in the infant state of the settlement, as well as greatly injurious to your Petitioners, who would cheerfully have paid the consideration at first stipulated by the Company, whenever their grant had been confirmed by the Crown, or otherwise authenticated by the Supreme Legislature.
Abm˙ Hite, Jun.
Patrick Dorane,
Ralph Nailor,
Robert Atkinson,
Robert Nailor,
John Maxfeld,
Samuel Pottinger,
Barnerd Walter,
Hugh McMillion,
John Kilpatrick,
Robert Dook,
Edward Brownfield,
John Beesor,
Conrad Woolter,
John Moore,
John Corbie,
Abraham Vanmetre,
Samuel Moore,
Isaac Pritcherd,
Joseph Gwyne,
Charles Creeraft,
James Willie,
John Camron,
Thomas Kenady,
Jesse Pigman,
Simon Moore,
John Moore,
Thomas Moore,
Herman Consoley,
Silas Harland,
William Harrod,
Levi Harrod,
John Mills,
Elijah Mills,
Jehu Harland,
Leonard Cooper,
William Rice,
Arthur Ingram,
Thomas Wilson,
William Wood,
Joseph Lyons,
George Uland,
Michael Thomas,
Adam Smith,
Samuel Thomas,
Henry Thomas,
William Myars,
Peter Paul,
Henry Simons,
William Gaffata,
James Hugh,
Thomas Bathugh,
John Connway,
William Crow,
William Fields,
Benjamin Davis,
Beniah Dunn,
Adam Neelson,
William Shepard,
William House,
John Dun,
John Sim, Sen˙,
John House,
Sime˙ House,
Andrew House,
William Hartley,
Thomas Dean,
Richard Owan,
Barnet Neal,
John Severn,
James Hugh,
James Calley,
Joseph Parkison,
Jediah Ashraft,
John Hardin,
Archibald Reves,
Moses Thomas,
J˙ Zebulon Collins,
Thomas Parkison,
William Muckleroy,
Meridith Helm, Jun˙,
Andrew House,
David Brooks,
John Helm,
Benjamin Parkison,
William Parkison,
William Crow.