Blanket Hill
Kittanning Township, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
So named for the blankets left by the Armstrong expedition after destroying Kittanning. Here also was a stopping point of the troops on September 7, 1756 en route to attack the Indians.
The Story
During the French and Indian War, Pennsylvania's frontier was raided repeatedly by warriors based at Kittanning, a Delaware (Lenape) town on the Allegheny River. In September 1756, Lt. Col. John Armstrong led a force of provincial soldiers on a bold overland strike against the town, and this rise marked one of their stopping points on the march. The expedition destroyed Kittanning, and tradition holds the hill took its name from the blankets the men discarded here as they moved fast toward their objective.
Why it matters
The Armstrong expedition was one of the few offensive blows Pennsylvania struck during the French and Indian War, and this quiet hill preserves the memory of a brutal frontier conflict that shaped the contest for the Ohio Country.
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Related people
- · John Armstrong
Related events
- · French and Indian War
- · Kittanning Expedition
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Kittanning
Kittanning, PA
For roughly a generation, this bluff above the Allegheny River held Kittanning, the largest Delaware (Lenape) town west of the Appalachian ridges — a thriving community whose name honored the "great river" it overlooked. During the French and Indian War it became a staging ground for raids on Pennsylvania's frontier settlements, and in September 1756 a colonial force under Colonel John Armstrong marched over the mountains and burned it. The destruction of the village broke a key node in the borderland war and became one of Pennsylvania's most celebrated frontier exploits.
Kittanning
Applewold, PA
For a generation before the French and Indian War, Kittanning was the largest Delaware (Lenape) town beyond the Allegheny front, a thriving community on the Allegheny River whose name carried the sense of the "great river" that fed the Ohio country. From the 1730s it grew into a hub of Native life and, by the 1750s, a staging ground for raids on frontier settlements. In September 1756 a Pennsylvania force under Lt. Col. John Armstrong marched west and burned the town, one of the war's few colonial strikes deep into Indian country.
Fort Venango
Franklin, PA
By 1760 the British had won the struggle for the Ohio Country, and they raised Fort Venango where French Creek meets the Allegheny River—a strategic river junction the French had earlier fortified. Its garrison held the frontier only briefly. In 1763, as Pontiac's War swept the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley, Native warriors overwhelmed the post and burned it, one of a string of British forts that fell in that coordinated uprising.
Fort Armstrong
Manorville, PA
In the summer of 1779, as the American Revolution raged along the western frontier, Continental soldiers threw up this small outpost on the bank of the Allegheny River. It was a staging point for Col. Daniel Brodhead's expedition northward against the Seneca — one arm of the wider campaign that year to break the power of the Iroquois nations allied with the British. The fort's usefulness was brief: raised in June and given up by autumn, once the campaign had passed through. It honored Maj. Gen. John Armstrong, a veteran Pennsylvania frontier officer.