Fincastle County was an expansion of Augusta to the west but an expansion to the northwest had been in progress since before 1754. In that year, Governor Dinwiddie ordered a fort built on the present site of Pittsburgh and issued a proclamation offering land in the area to those who would enlist as soldiers for the French and Indian War. The French captured the fort and named it Fort Duquesne. This outpost of great strategic importance fell to the English in 1758 and was renamed Fort Pitt. The area was under Virginia jurisdiction and called the district of West Augusta being considered a part of Augusta County. "County courts were held at Pittsburgh under Virginia jurisdiction and the great section of country from the Alleghany mountains northwest to the Ohio came to be called West Augusta. It was represented under this name in the Conventions of 1775 and 1776. In October 1776, the district of West Augusta was divided into the counties of Ohio, Yohogania and Monongalia. A portion of this territory, including Pittsburgh, was claimed by Pennsylvania and there was much disorder and some bloodshed between the officers and adherents of the two Colonies. In 1779, commissioners from Virginia and Pennsylvania finally settled the line and Pittsburgh and the adjoining area were surrendered to Pennsylvania." The above is the concise account, by the late W. G. Stanard, in an early volume of the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, of an almost forgotten episode in western development. It explains why in the Augusta County records in Staunton, Virginia are found deeds for land now in Pennsylvania.