24. The above person’s prosecuted their journey towards Carolina in pursuit of this scheme purposing also to view the Lands on Ohio, & to see Mine there before they returnd with their Report to Scotland. I rid to the Ferry Doeg Run and Mill Plantations.
GW had decided to lease his 20,000 acres of bounty land on the Ohio and Great Kanawha rivers (Pa. Gaz., 22 Sept. 1773, supp.; see 6 Nov. and 23 Nov. 1772). He felt that these lands, leased to tenants who would settle and develop them for their own use, would prosper more than lands placed under the management of an overseer. Nothing ever came of this scheme. Perhaps, as one prospective tenant claimed, GW’s terms were unrealistic (Richard Thompson to GW, 30 Sept. 1773, DLC:GW).