In 1724 the French established a trading post where the Monongahela and Cheat Rivers meet. As settlers moved into the frontier, Colonel George Wilson received 108 acres at the site of the original trading post. After the Revolutionary War, Virginia and Pennsylvania accepted the Mason-Dixon Line as their boundary, shifting the river point from Monongalia County, Virginia, into Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, and Fayette County was created in 1783. In 1784 General George Washington traveled across the mountains to inspect his western Pennsylvania property and on September 24 recorded crossing the Cheat River at its mouth, noting its width and dark color in contrast to the clearer Monongahela. The Wilson family sold the point to Jacob Sadler in 1801, and in 1842 the land was divided into lots and auctioned. For $100, Seth Stafford, purchaser of the first lot, named the new town Point Marion in honor of Revolutionary War hero General Francis Marion. Lumber became the town's principal business, with logs floated down the Cheat River from camps in the West Virginia mountains and processed into doors, sashes, and other millwork by planing, saw, and finishing mills. In 1890 McClain Brothers Sand Company began supplying sand and gravel for Baltimore and Ohio Railroad masonry construction between Morgantown and Uniontown, later expanding with dredges, a steamboat, and barges. The glass industry came in 1900, and several companies operated plants there. On July 5, 1923, Leon J. Houze combined three smaller firms into the L.J. Houze Convex Glass Company, which became known for colored glass, art glass, utilitarian products, and window glass. It was the only plant in the country able to make hand-blown replacement glass for the 1792 White House windows during renovation in the early 1950s, later used innovative decorating techniques for products made for other manufacturers, served as Point Marion's leading employer for almost 100 years, and closed in 2004.