In 1730, however, the colonial government in Williamsburg granted 10,000 acres to Jacob Stover and another 30,000 acres to his apparent partners, the Van Meter family from New York. In 1736, the colonial officials approved a 100,000 acre grant to William Beverly in the upper Shenandoah Valley, including much of modern-day Augusta County (and the city of Staunton).
The grants to Stover, the Van Meters, and Berkeley required that one family be settled per 1,000 acres to be transferred - and, of course, there was that pesky issue of whether the colonial government owned the land in the first place. Lord Fairfax claimed he owned the lands in the lower Shenandoah, including the parcels where Josh Hite (Joist Heydt) established a settlement in 1732 near modern-day Winchester.
The colonial government authorized another 100,000 acre grant in 1736 to Benjamin Borden, south of Beverly's grant and clearly out of the area claimed by Fairfax. In 1745, another 100,000 acres was granted to James Patton.