sell any of his New York acres, Barnard and Michael Gratz remained Croghan's agents, creditors, primary suppliers and friends. He felt great sorrow at the loss of his friend Andrew Montour, murdered in January 1772. The British abandoned Fort Pitt that fall, and Croghan had McKee tell the Indians that it was done to please them. 1772 ended with "the news that the Privy Council had overruled Lord Hillsborough and approved Vandalia." A year passed with Vandalia still in limbo. Croghan borrowed money and pawned his plate (silver), spending £1,365 for provisions and gifts for 400 Indians who attended his November conference regarding the proposed colony. "Convinced that the powerful Vandalia project had fallen through, Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, decided to make good his colony's western claims. Presumably, when Dunmore visited Pittsburgh in the summer of 1773, he met Croghan, for he agreed to recognize the validity of Croghan's Indian grant." Dunmore appointed an associate and nephew of Croghan as his western agent. Dr. John Connolly, fully supported by Croghan, "claimed Pittsburgh for Virginia in January, 1774, and called up the militia. The first men to appear at the parade ground for the initial muster came from Croghan Hall." Virginia's claim was opposed by Pennsylvania's General Arthur St. Clair, the colony's chief official west of the Alleghenies. Dunmore's War Dunmore's War broke out in the Pennsylvania area in the spring of 1774, when frontiersmen led by Michael Cresap killed two Shawnee warriors, and Daniel Greathouse led other pioneers to kill the family of Logan, old Shikallamy's son. Croghan kept the Seneca and Delaware neutral, but his cooperation with St. Clair in defending the frontier prompted Connolly to accuse him of deserting Virginia. Shawnee chief Cornstalk, not wanting war, had three chiefs escort the traders from his villages to Croghan Hall. Connolly ordered 40 militiamen to capture or kill the Indians and they succeeded in shooting one of the Shawnee chiefs after they had escaped across the Allegheny. St. Clair, echoing other Pennsylvanians, said that Croghan was "indefatigable in endeavoring to make up the breeches." That August deputies of the Six Nation brought the news of Sir William Johnson's death. He had died in July, the day before a sheriff's sale put over of Croghan's New York land on the auction block. Bids totaled £4,840 despite the pall Johnson's death cast over the proceedings. Many of the bids were never