In 1749 the Greenbrier Land Company was organized. It consisted of twelve members or stockholders, among whom
were its President, Hon John Robinson, the Treasurer of the Colony of Virginia, and long the Speaker of the House of Burgesses; Thomas Nelson, for thirty years the Secretary of the Council of State; and John Lewis, the founder of Staunton, and two of his sons, William and Charles. This company was granted the right by the Governor and the
Council to survey and take up a tract of land containing one hundred thousand acres of land, lying and being on Greenbrier river, and now in the West Virginia counties of Pocahontas, Greenbrier and Monroe. Four years were allowed to make surveys and pay rights for the same. Andrew Lewis (afterward General Andrew Lewis of the Revolution) was appointed surveyor and agent for the company, and, in execution of his commission, he in 1754 and prior thereto surveyed and sold small parcels of this land to sundry persons, who hastened to settle thereon. Col. John Stuart, the historian of the Greenbrier Valley, says that "previously to the year 1755 Andrew Lewis had completed surveys for the quantities aggregating more than fifty thousand acres. When Andrew Lewis came to the Greenbrier River in 1740, he
found Stephen Sewell and Jacob Martin, both of whom had fixed their abode at the mouth of Knopp's creek on the site of the present town of Marlinton, in Pocahontas County.
Dr. Thomas Walker with five companions, two of whom were Ambrose Powell and Colby Chew, when returning from a tour of exploration in the Kentucky wilderness, crossed the New River at the mouth of the Greenbrier, June 28th, 1750, and then journeyed up the latter stream. July 6th ensuing they were at the mouth of Anthony's Creek, now in Greenbrier County, where Dr. Walker wrote in his journal: "There are some inhabitants on the branches of Greenbrier, but we
missed their plantations." Evidently there was a very considerable population in the Greenbrier Valley prior to the year 1755.
