Forbes Road - Stony Creek Encampment
Quemahoning Township, Somerset County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
A fortified supply depot known as the Stony Creek encampment or fort was a little north of here. The route then leads north to the foot of Laurel Hill, the site of Tomahawk camp.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
During the French and Indian War, British General John Forbes cut a military road across Pennsylvania toward Fort Duquesne, and along it his army built fortified supply depots to feed the advance. The Stony Creek encampment stood just north of here, a stockaded storehouse on the route that then climbed toward Laurel Hill and the site of Tomahawk Camp. These depots kept Forbes's 1758 campaign supplied through the rugged Alleghenies.
Why it matters
The Forbes Road was both a war-winning logistical feat and one of the first great routes west, helping open the Ohio country and shaping the path of American settlement across the mountains.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the late 1750s, the ridges and creek valleys of what is now Somerset County were the front line of a world war. The French and Indian War — the North American theater of a much larger struggle between Britain and France — turned the Allegheny Mountains into contested ground, because whoever controlled the routes through them controlled access to the Ohio country beyond.
The great prize was Fort Duquesne, the French stronghold where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers meet to form the Ohio, at the site of present-day Pittsburgh. An earlier British attempt to reach it had ended in famous disaster. By 1758, the British were determined to try again, and this time to do it methodically.
That determination is why this remote spot has a marker at all. Cutting an army's road through this rugged, forested terrain — and keeping that army fed as it advanced — was one of the hardest problems of the campaign, and it was solved a chain of encampments at a time.
People & events
The man behind the effort was General John Forbes, who led the 1758 expedition against Fort Duquesne. Forbes chose to hack a brand-new military road straight across Pennsylvania rather than reuse an older, more southerly route — a decision debated then and studied ever since. He pushed the work forward even as his own health failed badly during the campaign.
Forbes's method was patient and unglamorous: advance in stages, and at each stage build a fortified post to store supplies and shelter troops before pressing on. The Stony Creek encampment remembered here, a little to the north, was one of those links in the chain — a stockaded depot holding the food, powder, and gear that an army on the march could not carry all at once.
From here the inscription follows the route onward, north toward the foot of Laurel Hill and the site called Tomahawk Camp. Read together, these place-names trace the slow, deliberate crawl of Forbes's army across the mountains — each camp a hard-won step closer to the forks of the Ohio.
Its place in the American story
Forbes's campaign is a classic lesson that wars are often won by logistics as much as by battles. The road and its depots let a large force cross terrain that had swallowed an earlier expedition, and the approach worked: the French ultimately abandoned and destroyed Fort Duquesne rather than face the oncoming army. The British built Fort Pitt on the ruins, and Pittsburgh grew from there.
But the road outlived the war. Routes like the one this marker sits on became among the first great highways west, funneling settlers over the Alleghenies into the Ohio Valley in the decades that followed. A supply line built for a single campaign helped set the direction of American expansion.
That's the larger meaning of a modest depot site: it stood at the meeting point of military necessity and westward movement. The same mountains that made the army's job so hard made the eventual road all the more valuable.
If you visit
Come here to read the landscape as a soldier's problem. Look at the surrounding hills and creek bottoms and imagine trying to move an entire army, with its wagons and cannon, across them by hand-cut road. The country itself explains why supply depots were spaced along the way.
The inscription places the fortified encampment a little to the north and points onward toward Laurel Hill. You won't find a standing fort — these were rough, temporary works of earth and timber — but you can trace the logic of the route on a map and appreciate how the camps chained together across the ridges.
As a stop, this fits beautifully into a Laurel Highlands drive, where the theme is mountains, passes, and the long human effort to get through them. It's a place for history-minded travelers who like to stand on the actual ground and feel the distance an eighteenth-century army had to conquer one camp at a time.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · John Forbes
Related events
- · Forbes Expedition, 1758
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Forbes Road, 1758, Fort Bedford to Fort Duquesne- Stony Creek Encampment (PLAQUE)
Quemahoning Township, PA · est. 1930
On the 1758 Forbes Road, the Stony Creek Encampment served as a fortified supply headquarters — its "Ovens" baking bread for the army — during the French and Indian War campaign against Fort Duquesne. Fortifications rose just north of this site as General John Forbes staged men and provisions for the mountainous advance. The marker records its distance along the road from Fort Bedford.
Forbes Road - Edmunds Swamp
Shade Township, PA · est. 1952
In 1758, during the French and Indian War, General John Forbes cut a new military road west toward the French stronghold at Fort Duquesne. This spot along the old Raystown Path — named for Indian trader Edmund Cartlidge — offered good grass to feed the army's horses, a vital consideration for a force hauling supplies through the Alleghenies. A nearby redoubt guarded the encampment.
Forbes Road, 1758, Fort Bedford to Fort Duquesne - Edmond's Swamp (PLAQUE)
Shade Township, PA · est. 1930
During the French and Indian War in 1758, British General John Forbes cut a road westward across the Pennsylvania mountains to strike the French at Fort Duquesne. This marker records the chain of encampments and supply forts strung along that route, positioning Edmond's Swamp relative to Stony Creek and Fort Bedford. The Forbes Road became a lifeline for one of the war's decisive campaigns.
Forbes Road - The Clear Fields
Jenner Township, PA · est. 1952
When General Forbes weighed how to reach Fort Duquesne in 1758, open meadows like the Clear Fields along the Raystown Path tipped the balance. Ample forage for cavalry and draft animals led him to favor this northern route over Braddock's older road to the south — a logistical choice that shaped the whole campaign. Fort Dudgeon, known as Tomahawk Camp, stood a short way to the north.