NOTE A.
A number of recent writers on Western History, among whom we may mention
Dr. Hildreth, in his "Pioneer History," Col. Geo. W. Thompson, one of the
Commissioners appointed to adjust the boundary question between Virginia
and Ohio, and several others, speak of the destruction in 1753 of an English
trading house at Logstown.[81]
Col. Thompson, in support of his position, that Virginia authority extended
west of the Ohio, alleges, "That the first acts of hostility on the part
of the French, clearly indicate the possession and extensive establishment
of Virginia, west of the Apalachian mountains—west of the Ohio river."
And then quotes from Smollett and Burke, in reference to the destruction of
the post at Logstown.
Without desiring to enter upon a discussion of this point, it may be alone
necessary to say, that apart from the unreliable statements of Smollett and
other British writers, we have no evidence of the existence of any trading
post at Logstown, of the date referred to. Washington, who was there in
1753, makes no allusion to it in his journal. Important cotemporary papers,
now among the archives of the Ohio Historical Society, make no mention of
such a thing; and it is therefore most probable that the destruction of the
post referred to by Smollett, Burke, Russell, and others, was on the Miami,
and not at Logstown, on the Ohio.
