some
contiguous territory is valued at upward of twenty million dollars.

Washington had large ideas for the development of these western lands.
At one time he considered attempting to import Palatine Germans to
settle there, but after careful investigation decided that the plan was
impracticable. In 1774 he bought four men convicts, four indented
servants, and a man and his wife for four years and sent them and some
carpenters out to help Simpson build the mill and otherwise improve the
lands. Next year he sent out another party, but Indian troubles and
later the Revolution united with the natural difficulties of the
country to put a stop to progress. Some of the servants were sold and
others ran away, but Simpson stayed on in charge, though without making
any financial settlement with his patron till 1784.

At the close of the Revolution Washington wrote to President John
Witherspoon of Princeton College that he had in the western country
patents under signature of Lord Dunmore "for about 30,000 acres, and
surveys for about 10,000 more, patents for which were suspended by the
disputes with Great Britain, which soon followed the return of the
warrants to the land office. Ten thousand acres of the above thirty lie
upon the Ohio; the rest on the Great Kenhawa, a river nearly as large,
and quite as easy in its navigation, as the former, The whole of it is
rich bottom land, beautifully situated on these rivers, and abounding
plenteously in fish, wild-fowl, and game of all kinds."

He could have obtained vast land grants for his Revolutionary services,
but he stuck by his announced intention of receiving only compensation
for his expenses. He continued, however, to be greatly interested in the
western country and was one of the first Americans to foresee the
importance of that region to the young Republic, predicting that it
would become populated more rapidly than any one could believe and
faster than any similar region ever had been settled. He was extremely
anxious to develop better methods of communication with the West and in
1783 made a trip up the Mohawk River to the famous Oneida or Great
Carrying Place to view the possibilities of waterway development in that
region--the future course of the Erie Canal. Soon after he wrote to his
friend the Chevalier de Chastellux: "I could not help taking a more
extensive view of the vast inland navigation of these United States and
could not but be struck by the immense extent