Yohogania County - Creation of Yohogania County

Creation of Yohogania County

In 1776, shortly after the American Revolutionary War began, the Virginia General Assembly formed three new counties from the District of West Augusta, an area of Augusta County, Virginia, which encompassed much of what is now northern West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania. These were Monongalia County, Ohio County, and Yohogania County. All three included, or at least claimed, land in what is now Pennsylvania as well as in Virginia, now West Virginia. The new counties were named after rivers in the region, the Ohio, the Monongahela, and the Youghiogheny, the latter two being Latinized to create the county names. The county seat of Yohogania County was probably near the Monongahela River, across from the present borough of Elizabeth, Pennsylvania.

On December 27, 1779, a resolution by the Second Continental Congress recommended to the two now-states of Virginia and Pennsylvania that, rather than continue to quarrel with each other as well as fighting the British, they should reach an agreement on the border situation. This was done in theory by an agreement reached by commissioners from both states in Baltimore in 1779, and ratified by the legislatures of both states in 1780, "to extend the line commonly called Mason and Dixon's line five degrees of longitude from Delaware River ... and from the western termination thereof to run and mark a meridian line to the Ohio River," which was the northern boundary of Virginia's claim. That would be the boundary between the two states.

The conflict apparently being over, Pennsylvania carved Washington and Fayette counties out of Westmoreland in 1781 and 1783, respectively. These counties contained land claimed by Yohogania and Ohio or (in Fayette's case) Monongalia counties. But confusion over jurisdictions continued.