 Although Captain John Smith had traveled up the Chesapeake, possibly this far, in 1608, Virginians had ceded this area to Maryland, but Pennsylvania also claimed the area as covered by land grants to William Penn.Cresap had little formal education, but became a land surveyor, and was of great service to Lord Baltimore in extending the western boundary of Maryland from the source of the south branch of the Potomac due north, thus adding at least one third more territory to Maryland.Cresap came to Conojohela Valley in March, 1730, and built a block-house on the banks of the river three and one half miles below today's Wrightsville, near the site of Leber's Mill.