Bedford Village
Bedford Township, Bedford County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Settled about 1750, known then as Raystown. Site of an early trade post and Fort Bedford, 1758. Base for Forbes, Bouquet expeditions. In 1794 Washington here reviewed forces in Whiskey Rebellion.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Founded around 1750 as Raystown, this frontier settlement guarded the wilderness gateway to the Ohio country. In 1758 the British raised Fort Bedford here and used it as a staging base for the Forbes and Bouquet expeditions that drove the French from the forks of the Ohio during the French and Indian War. A generation later, in 1794, President Washington reviewed his militia army here on the march against the Whiskey Rebellion.
Why it matters
As a fortified base on the road west, Bedford stood at the crossroads of two defining struggles — the imperial contest for the American interior and the young republic's fight to enforce its own laws.
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Related people
- · George Washington
- · John Forbes
- · Henry Bouquet
Related events
- · French and Indian War
- · Forbes Expedition
- · Whiskey Rebellion
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Bedford Village
Bedford, PA · est. 1947
Founded around 1750 as Raystown, this frontier settlement guarded the wilderness gateway to the Ohio country. In 1758 the British raised Fort Bedford here and used it as a staging base for the Forbes and Bouquet expeditions that drove the French from the forks of the Ohio during the French and Indian War. A generation later, in 1794, President Washington reviewed his militia army here on the march against the Whiskey Rebellion.
Bedford Village
Bedford Township, PA · est. 1947
Founded around 1750 as Raystown, this frontier settlement guarded the wilderness gateway to the Ohio country. In 1758 the British raised Fort Bedford here and used it as a staging base for the Forbes and Bouquet expeditions that drove the French from the forks of the Ohio during the French and Indian War. A generation later, in 1794, President Washington reviewed his militia army here on the march against the Whiskey Rebellion.
Forbes Camp
Schellsburg, PA · est. 1947
In 1758 General John Forbes cut a new military road across the Pennsylvania mountains to strike the French at Fort Duquesne, where Pittsburgh now stands. His army halted at the Shawnee Cabins camp near this spot, one link in the chain of fortified camps that made the slow, methodical advance possible. The campaign ended with the French abandoning and burning the fort, opening the Ohio country to British control.
Forbes Road - Washington & Bouquet Meeting
Cumberland Valley Township, PA · est. 2008
On July 30, 1758, at the height of the French and Indian War, two colonels — Henry Bouquet and a young George Washington — argued strategy near this site. The question was how to reach and take French Fort Duquesne: Bouquet favored cutting a fresh road west from Bedford, while Washington pressed for Braddock's ill-fated 1755 route to the south. General Forbes chose Bouquet's path, and his army occupied the ruins of Fort Duquesne that November.