08/06/2025
When traveling through the rolling hills of Mount Pleasant Township, Washington County, it would be easy to miss a large tract of land that once had a famous owner. Between the present towns of Hickory and Southview there was once a large semi-cleared tract of 2,813 acres on the banks of Miller’s Run owned by none other than future U.S. president George Washington. Only a few miles from here was another tract of 1,000 acres owned by George’s cousin Lund Washington, both of which lay entirely within present-day Mount Pleasant Township.
George Washington’s close friend and fellow war veteran Col. William Crawford surveyed the land for the Washingtons in 1771. Crawford hired John Canon of Canonsburg to build cabins and improve the land to help legitimize George Washington’s claim. However, a competing land speculator, George Croghan, also claimed the same land, from which he purchased through an earlier deal with the Iroquois Confederacy. To counter Washington’s competing claim, Croghan encouraged 13 families from Lancaster County to establish their own plantations on the land.
By 1783 the War of Independence had been won and General Washington retired from his military service. One of his first orders of business was to inspect his western lands and meet with the squatters on Miller’s Run. In September, 1784 he organized a party and made the trip west, eventually reaching Miller’s Run to attend a dinner meeting with the squatters. Presley Neville, John Canon, and others also attended. No agreement could be reached with the squatters and a lengthy court case followed, ending with a victory for Washington and an eviction for most of the squatters. Lund Washington also had some unrelated squatters evicted from his tract of land in the same year.
