Forbes Road - The Clear Fields
Jenner Township, Somerset County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Good forage found at open camps such as this on the Raystown Path led General Forbes to prefer this route to Braddock's Road. Site of Fort Dudgeon (Tomahawk Camp) is a short distance to the north.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
The decision to blaze a new road rather than follow Braddock's shaped the settlement patterns of western Pennsylvania and demonstrated how logistics, not just battles, decided frontier warfare.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By the late 1750s the mountains of southwestern Pennsylvania had become a corridor of war. This was the frontier of British America, where the reach of the colonies faded into deep forest and the influence of France, radiating from its posts on the Ohio, began. The French and Indian War made every path and pass across these highlands a matter of strategy.
An open meadow in this rugged country was a genuine asset. The Clear Fields — a natural clearing along an old traveling route known as the Raystown Path — offered something the surrounding forest could not: room to camp, and grass. For an army that moved on the muscle of horses and oxen, grass meant fuel, and fuel meant the difference between advancing and stalling.
This was the landscape in which the British decided, in 1758, how to reach the French stronghold at the forks of the Ohio. And in mountain warfare, that decision came down as much to forage and roadbeds as to soldiers and guns.
People & events
General John Forbes commanded the expedition that bears his name, and he faced a fundamental choice of route. An older road already existed — the road cut a few years earlier for General Braddock's ill-fated march — running well to the south. Forbes could follow it, or he could open a new road along the more northerly Raystown Path.
The forage tipped the balance. Open camps like the Clear Fields, with good grazing for the army's animals, helped persuade Forbes to prefer the northern route over Braddock's older road. It was a decision made in the language of supply: where can the horses eat, where can the wagons roll, where can a moving army sustain itself day after day.
Near here stood one of the campaign's fortified camps, Fort Dudgeon — also remembered as Tomahawk Camp — a short distance to the north. Like the other posts along the line of march, it existed to secure the road and shelter the men as the column pushed slowly toward its objective.
Its place in the American story
Forbes's choice of a new road rather than the old one was more than a military detail — it helped set the pattern of a region. The route an army blazes becomes the route settlers follow. By cutting west along this line, the expedition opened a corridor that later travelers, wagons, and towns would trace, shaping where western Pennsylvania grew.
The episode is also a clear lesson in how frontier wars were actually won. It's tempting to picture campaigns as chains of battles, but here the pivotal move was logistical: a commander weighing forage and terrain and deciding which way an army could physically go. Supply, not glory, drew the map.
And the stakes were large. The Forbes expedition succeeded in forcing the French from the forks of the Ohio, a shift that helped turn the war in Britain's favor on the continent. A quiet meadow that fed the army's animals played its small part in that outcome.
If you visit
Come here expecting a landscape rather than a monument. The Clear Fields owed its importance to being open ground in a sea of forest, and it's worth pausing to picture that — tents and picket lines, horses grazing, the noise and smoke of an army at rest between hard marches.
Look at how the land lies along the old path and imagine the calculation an eighteenth-century officer would make: is there grass, is there water, can wagons get through. That practical eye is the best way to read a place like this. The site of Fort Dudgeon, the Tomahawk Camp, lies a short way to the north if you want to extend the walk in your mind.
This stop rewards travelers following the thread of the Forbes route across the mountains. String it together with the other markers along the way and you get a moving picture of the campaign — not a battlefield, but a road, and the everyday problems of keeping an army alive on it. Bring your curiosity and a sense of distance; the mountains here still make you feel how far west that army had to go.
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
- · General John Forbes
Related events
- · Forbes Expedition of 1758
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Forbes Road, 1758, Fort Bedford to Fort Duquesne - Tomahawk Encampment (PLAQUE)
Jenner Township, PA · est. 1930
Part of the 1758 Forbes Road built during the French and Indian War, this point at the foot of Laurel Hill marks the Tomahawk Encampment on the army's push toward Fort Duquesne. Each such camp was a measured stage in General John Forbes's methodical advance, guarded and provisioned as the troops climbed the Alleghenies. The marker fixes the spot along the road running toward Fort Ligonier.
Forbes Road, 1758, Fort Bedford to Fort Duquesne - Fort Ligonier (PLAQUE)
Ligonier, PA · est. 1930
Fort Ligonier was raised in 1758 by order of General John Forbes as the last major stronghold on the road to Fort Duquesne during the French and Indian War. Officers including Colonel Henry Bouquet and Colonel John Armstrong distinguished themselves here, and young Colonel George Washington, Colonel James Burd, and Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Mercer all served in the campaign that passed this way. The fort anchored the British advance through the Pennsylvania wilderness.
Forbes Road - Stony Creek Encampment
Quemahoning Township, PA · est. 1951
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.
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.