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From
the Shenandoah Valley the next step, in the middle 1700's, was
here, the wilderness at the Forks of The Ohio... Pittsburgh. Many names of families in "The Great Valley" are
the same as people in this area... Castor, Swearingen, Trumbo,
Tydball, Wickersham, to name just a few.
And by the late 1700's, children of the settlers who came
here, Pittsburgh, had already moved on to northwest
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana, for more land.
I have read correspondence from people in Indiana, back
to their families in Virginia, telling them to forget about
Pennsylvania, and come to Indiana!
Benjamin came here.
Benjamin married Ruth Thompson, of Washington County.
How did they meet? Don't
know. Benjamin,
though young, could have been in the French & Indian War, as
was Zadock Wright, one of the earliest settlers to the area.
How else would a young man from the Shenandoah Valley in
Virginia meet someone from southwest Pennsylvania?
Service in the F&I War could also explain his grant
of land from Virginia. Zadock
Wright, Custard's neighbor on Peter's Creek, was a teamster in
Braddock's campaign of 1755, and received 700 acres on Peter's
Creek. The story is
that he saw the land on the way home, and came back for it after
the war, as soldiers in the F&I War were promised.
The soldiers who came here in the 1750's were offered
land in the area in return for their service.
This is called a Bounty Land Warrant.
Bounty Land Warrants were also issued to soldiers in
Dunmore's War of 1774, but three of Benjamin's children were
born by then.
Benjamin
and Ruth had ten children.
According to German naming tradition, the oldest son was
named Conrad, after Benjamin's father.
Then a daughter Susannah, named after Benjamin's mother.
Three of their children- Conrad, Susannah, and Rebecca,
were born by the time they took land here in 1775.
The
Custard family came here, along with over one thousand other
families, as settlers from Virginia, settling land claimed by
Virginia. What is
today West Virginia, Kentucky and southwestern Pennsylvania was
originally part of Virginia.
That story, the Pennsylvania-Virginia Boundary
Controversy, and the story of The Ohio Company, are forgotten
chapters in history. Briefly,
it goes like this...
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