It was George Rodgers Clarke,[85] of Albemarle county, a Virginian and a Fredericksburg man, by the authority of Virginia’s Governor, Patrick Henry, with volunteers from Virginia and Kentucky, explored and conquered the great Northwest Territory. This territory belonged to Virginia under original grant in her charter, but the British at this time held it, established strong posts there and encouraged the Indians to make war on the white settlements. The Continental Congress could spare no troops to reclaim this territory, though appealed to by Virginia to do so. For this dangerous task Geo. R. Clarke proffered his services, which were accepted by the Governor. Enlisting volunteers, he marched into that region, and by real ability, rare skill, heroic courage and patience in bearing every hardship and privation, captured Forts Kaskaskia and Vincennes and other posts, and floated the flag of Virginia over the whole of the Northwest Territory, it being designated Illinois county, Virginia.
This campaign cleared that entire country of the British, and secured to Virginia a clear title to that vast territory, out of which the States of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan and a part of Minnesota were afterwards carved, and which Virginia gave to the Union as a free-will offering, the most imperial gift that State or nation ever laid on the altar of country.[86]
R., F. & P. Railroad Company’s Iron Bridge over the Rappahannock River.
(See [page 328])
Senator Daniel W. Voorhees, of Indiana, in his defence of Cook, at Charlestown, now West Virginia, in 1859, one of the John Brown raiders, said in his opening remarks:
“The very soil on which I live, in my western home, was once owned by this venerable Commonwealth, as much as the soil on which I now stand. Her laws there once prevailed, and all her institutions were there established as they are here. Not only my own State of Indiana, but also four other great States in the Northwest, stand as enduring and lofty monuments of Virginia’s magnanimity and princely liberality. Her donation to the general government made them sovereign States; and since God gave the fruitful land of Canaan to Moses and Israel, such a gift of present or future empire has never been made to any people.”
THE WEST EXPLORED.
It was Meriwether Lewis, of Albemarle, and Wm. Clarke,[87] of Fredericksburg, both Virginians, who explored that great stretch of country from the Mississippi river to the Pacific ocean, and made it less difficult for John C. Fremont, who afterwards explored the same territory and received the proud appellation of the “Great Path Finder,” which appellation rightly belonged to Lewis and Clarke.
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE.
It was Thomas Jefferson, of Albemarle county, a Virginian, who, while President of the United States, made the “Louisiana Purchase,” which brought to the possession of the United States more than one million square miles of territory. This immense territory belonged to the French government. It embraced the present States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Indian Territory, North and South Dakota, Montana, and parts of Kansas, Minnesota, Wyoming and Colorado. The price paid was $11,250,000 in money and the assumption by the government of debts due our citizens by France, amounting to $3,750,000, making in all $15,000,000.