William Trent

William Trent (February 13, 1715 – 1787) was an American fur trader and merchant based in the colonial-era Province of Pennsylvania.^[1] He was commissioned as a captain of the Virginia Regiment in the early stages of the French and Indian War, when he served on the western frontier with the young Lt. Colonel George Washington. Trent led an advance group who built forts and improved roads for troop access and defense of the western territory. He was later promoted to the rank of major.

Trent had gone into fur trading by 1740, aided by capital from his father, a wealthy shipping merchant of Philadelphia, who was the founder of Trenton, New Jersey. The younger Trent took on George Croghan, an Irish immigrant, as his partner, as he was effective in developing trading networks with Native Americans. Some of Trent's first land deals were of modest size, with the first three involving no more than four hundred acres of land each.^[2]

In 1744, Trent purchased vast lands in the Ohio Country west of the Appalachian Mountains. From then through the 1780s, he was a key figure in encouraging westward expansion by Anglo-American settlers past the Appalachian barrier, as he wanted to sell his land in parcels for development.