Bushy Run

Hempfield Township, PA · est. 1946

Four miles north, on the wooded ground at Bushy Run, Colonel Henry Bouquet's column won a hard two-day fight against Native warriors on August 5 and 6, 1763. The victory broke the siege of Fort Pitt during Pontiac's War, the sweeping Indigenous uprising against British rule in the aftermath of the French and Indian War. Bouquet's success reopened the frontier passage west, and the battlefield is preserved today as a state park.

McKeesport, PA · est. 2003

In the years before the French & Indian War, the forks of the Ohio were contested ground where the Seneca and other nations navigated the rivalry between Britain and France. Queen Aliquippa was a respected leader whose favor the British colonies actively courted — so much so that a young George Washington detoured to pay his respects to her in 1753 during his mission to the Ohio Country. Her death the following year came just as the frontier war she had aligned with was erupting.

Murrysville, PA · est. 1960

In November 1758, as the British pushed toward the French stronghold at the Forks of the Ohio, a young Colonel George Washington established a supply camp on the hill south of here to help feed the advance along the newly cut Forbes Road. He did so under orders from Colonel Henry Bouquet, describing himself as commanding the troops "to ye Westward." The camp was one link in the long logistical chain that carried Forbes's army across the Pennsylvania mountains during the French and Indian War.

Penn Township, PA · est. 1964

In August 1763, as Pontiac's War swept the frontier and Native forces besieged Fort Pitt, Colonel Henry Bouquet led a relief column that was ambushed here at Bushy Run. After a desperate two-day fight, Bouquet's troops broke the encirclement and pushed on to relieve the fort, one of the few clear British victories of that uprising.