Yohogania County - Boundary Survey

Boundary Survey

On November 4, 1782, Colonel Joseph Neville, representing Virginia, and Alexander McClean of Pennsylvania marked a temporary line. A final, permanent survey was performed by Neville and Andrew Ellicott, a Marylander representing Virginia. The corner was marked late in 1784—the report to the commissioners of both states being dated November 18, 1784—and on August 23, 1785, the boundary as far north as the Ohio River (near present-day East Liverpool, Ohio) was completed. In 1786 the line was continued to Lake Erie, marking the boundary between Pennsylvania and the portion of the Northwest Territory that in 1803 became the State of Ohio. (Virginia's claim to the Northwest Territory had been ceded to Congress in 1784.)

The survey determined that parts of Ohio and Monongalia counties and nearly all of Yohogania County were within the Pennsylvania boundaries. The areas of Yohogania County ceded to Pennsylvania included all of present-day Westmoreland County and parts of the present counties of Allegheny, Beaver, Washington, and Fayette. The portion of Yohogania remaining in (West) Virginia's Northern Panhandle—itself a creation of the border settlement—was deemed too small at the time to form a county, and was annexed to Ohio County. (Similarly, part of Ohio County's claim are now in Washington and Greene Counties in Pennsylvania, and part of what had been considered Monongalia County are in Washington, Greene, and Fayette Counties, Pennsylvania.)