Fort Machault
Franklin, Venango County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Built by the French in 1756 to guard the route to the Ohio, it was evacuated and burned by them after the siege and fall of Fort Niagara in 1759. Site of fort is one block south.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
During the French and Indian War, the French built Fort Machault here in 1756 to help secure their chain of posts guarding the route to the contested Ohio Country. Its usefulness ended in 1759, when the fall of Fort Niagara forced the French to abandon and burn their positions along the upper Allegheny. The site of the fort lies a block to the south of the marker.
Why it matters
It marks a link in the fortified frontier over which France and Britain fought for control of the interior—a struggle that reshaped the map of North America.
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Related events
- · Siege of Fort Niagara
- · French and Indian War
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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.
Venango Path
Irwin Township, PA · est. 1987
Long before wagon roads, an Indian path threaded the wooded ridges of western Pennsylvania, linking the Forks of the Ohio at present Pittsburgh to the native town of Venango near Franklin. It was along this route that a young George Washington rode north in 1753, carrying a British ultimatum to the French at Fort Le Boeuf on the eve of a continental war. Decades later the trail was broadened for troops and then for commerce, and the crossroads at Mayes Forks grew a busy hotel and stagecoach stop where travelers changed horses and collected the mail.
French Creek
Cochranton, PA · est. 1946
French Creek was known to the French as the Riviere aux Boeufs before a young George Washington gave it its English name during his 1753 mission to warn the French out of the Ohio Country. The waterway served as a vital corridor during the French and Indian War, linking Lake Erie to the Allegheny, and later carried settlers into northwestern Pennsylvania. Its banks saw the movement of armies, traders, and pioneers alike.
French Creek
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The French knew this stream as the Riviere aux Boeufs, part of their chain of waterways linking Lake Erie to the Ohio. When young George Washington passed through in 1753 on his mission to the French, he gave it the English name French Creek. The waterway became a corridor for troops and traders during the French and Indian War and later for the settlers who opened northwestern Pennsylvania.