At the close of 1773 Governor Dunmore appointed Dr. John Connelly, a Pennsylvanian, as commandant of the militia of Pittsburgh. He took possession of Fort Pitt and changed its name to Fort Dunmore.
Connelly defied Pennsylvania authority and commanded all the people to appear as a militia under the authority of Lord Dunmore.
Arthur St. Clair, Prothonotary, Clerk, and Recorder of Westmoreland County, had Connelly arrested and bound over to keep the peace. St. Clair reported his actions to Governor Penn, who sent to Lord Dunmore a draught of the lines of Pennsylvania as surveyed by David Rittenhouse, William Smith and Surveyor General John Lukens, showing that Pittsburgh was east of the westernmost limit of the grant to the Proprietaries.
Dunmore demanded better evidence and that St. Clair should be dismissed from office for committing Dr. Connelly to jail.
A large company paraded in arms through the streets of Pittsburgh, and opened a cask of rum. St. Clair issued an order for them to disperse.
The Sheriff allowed Connelly to go to Pittsburgh under promise to return. He traveled about collecting adherents, and on the day he was to return he appeared before the Hannastown court house at the head of 200 men, all armed and colors flying. He placed sentinels at the door and kept the magistrates from entering unless they agreed to act under Virginia authority, and he demanded their decision in writing.
The magistrates declared they would continue to act under authority of Pennsylvania, when Connelly, a few days later, had them arrested and brought before him in Pittsburgh. When they refused to give bail, he sent them to the court of Augusta County, at Staunton, Va.
Governor Penn advised the three magistrates to get bail, but sent the Attorney General of Pennsylvania and James Tilghman, as commissioners to induce Lord Dunmore to join with the Proprietaries in a petition to the King to have the boundary line run and marked, and in the meantime to agree to a temporary line of jurisdiction, suggesting that the Monongahela River would answer for a line.
The application to the King was consented to, but the boundary was not agreed upon.
The adherents of Virginia increased in strength at Pittsburgh, and it became impossible to collect taxes imposed by Pennsylvania. How these troubles would have ended is unforeseen, for during the latter part of 1774, the attention of all the western frontier was turned to the Indian invasion, since known as Dunmore’s War.