There were only about 50,000 colonists west of the Appalachians in 1775 in the fertile valley of the Ohio River, mostly on the Kentucky or south side of the Ohio. This map is Territorial Growth 1775 from the U.S. National Atlas, 1970. The map has been cropped to fit better in this presentation. The thirteen colonies are shown in the dark pink. The rest of the the British claims extend west to the Mississippi.
Maine is part of Massachusetts.
Vermont is claimed by New York but will wage its own revolution within the Revolution to become a de facto state. The French are not on the map, driven out of North American by Britain in what the colonists called the French and Indian War, a war which was triggered by the competition for the Ohio Valley . Although large areas are claimed by Britain and Spain, they were almost entirely occupied by the Native Americans. The Iroquois or Six Nations were centered in upstate New York and were the dominant power in the Ohio Valley. Transportation Infrastructure Colonial movement into the Ohio Valley was hampered by British policy and Native American resistance.