French & Indian War

Bedford, PA · est. 1951

Built before 1761 at the frontier outpost of Bedford, this log structure served as the Commandant's House—the "King's House"—housing British officers who garrisoned the region until the close of the French and Indian War. In later, more peaceful years it took on new life as the Rising Sun Inn before fire destroyed it in 1885. Its story traces Bedford's evolution from a military strongpoint on a dangerous frontier to a settled crossroads town.

Kittanning, PA · est. 1982

Created in 1800, this county was named for General John Armstrong, who in 1756 led a raid that destroyed the Delaware village at Kittanning during the French and Indian War. The county seat took shape on that same ground in 1803. Decades later, in 1881, local ingenuity produced the "Daugherty Visible" typewriter, an early machine that let writers see their words as they typed.

Lower Paxton Township, PA · est. 1947

During the bloody frontier years of the French and Indian War, Joseph Barnett's fortified log house near the head of Beaver Creek became a refuge for settlers fleeing raids between 1756 and 1763. The war struck this family directly: Barnett's young son William was carried off in a 1756 raid and not returned until 1763, freed in the settlement that followed Colonel Henry Bouquet's campaigns. Such private strongholds were the thin line of defense along a violent borderland.

Piqua, OH

In the Ohio Country of the early 1750s, the Miami village of Pickawillany grew into a thriving hub of the deerskin trade, where the leader Memeskia welcomed British traders and drew nearby tribes away from their older French alliances. That defiance made the town a target: in the summer of 1752 a French-allied war party swept down from the Great Lakes, destroyed the village, and killed Memeskia, breaking Britain's foothold in the region. The raid is often remembered as one of the sparks that would ignite the French and Indian War.

Bedford, PA · est. 1982

One of Pennsylvania's oldest western counties, Bedford was formed in 1771 and once stretched across much of the state's frontier. In 1758, during the French and Indian War, Fort Bedford rose here as a key link in the British campaign against the French, and the Forbes Road was cut through the wilderness to reach the Ohio country. That military road became one of the great early highways carrying settlers and commerce west.

Bedford Township, PA · est. 1947

Founded around 1750 as Raystown, this frontier settlement guarded the wilderness gateway to the Ohio country. In 1758 the British raised Fort Bedford here and used it as a staging base for the Forbes and Bouquet expeditions that drove the French from the forks of the Ohio during the French and Indian War. A generation later, in 1794, President Washington reviewed his militia army here on the march against the Whiskey Rebellion.

Bedford Township, PA · est. 1947

Founded around 1750 as Raystown, this frontier settlement guarded the wilderness gateway to the Ohio country. In 1758 the British raised Fort Bedford here and used it as a staging base for the Forbes and Bouquet expeditions that drove the French from the forks of the Ohio during the French and Indian War. A generation later, in 1794, President Washington reviewed his militia army here on the march against the Whiskey Rebellion.

Bedford, PA · est. 1947

Founded around 1750 as Raystown, this frontier settlement guarded the wilderness gateway to the Ohio country. In 1758 the British raised Fort Bedford here and used it as a staging base for the Forbes and Bouquet expeditions that drove the French from the forks of the Ohio during the French and Indian War. A generation later, in 1794, President Washington reviewed his militia army here on the march against the Whiskey Rebellion.

Ayr Township, PA · est. 1989

This burial ground holds victims of the Great Cove Massacre, a raid carried out on November 1, 1755, near present McConnellsburg during the violent opening of the French and Indian War on Pennsylvania's frontier. Delaware and Shawnee warriors led by the Delaware leader Shingas burned homes and killed or captured some fifty settlers. When word reached the Provincial Council in Philadelphia days later, it spurred Governor Robert Hunter Morris to press the Assembly for stronger defenses along the exposed backcountry.

Peters Township, PA · est. 2013

In 1765, on the frontier west of here, a band of settlers known as "The Black Boys"—led by James Smith—clashed with British troops from Fort Loudon over the reopening of trade with Native peoples. Still raw from recent frontier attacks, the settlers disguised themselves and repeatedly disrupted British supply trains bound for the western forts; in one skirmish colonist James Brown was wounded. Many consider this defiance the first armed resistance to British authority in the colonies.

Kittanning Township, PA

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.

East Hanover Township, PA · est. 1949

As frontier violence flared along the Blue Mountain in the 1750s and 1760s, Pennsylvania's colonial government paid volunteer companies to shield its exposed settlers. A chain of six fortified loghouse stations stretched roughly twenty-three miles from Fort Hunter on the Susquehanna to the Swatara Creek, garrisoned in 1763–64 by the Paxton Rangers, echoing an earlier defensive line held in 1756–57. These crude forts marked the raw, contested edge of British settlement during the French and Indian War and Pontiac's uprising.

Penn Hills, PA · est. 1946

In 1758, British and colonial forces under General John Forbes cut a road across Pennsylvania to strike at French-held Fort Duquesne at the forks of the Ohio. Bouquet Camp served as a supply base along that campaign, named for Colonel Henry Bouquet, Forbes's able second-in-command and the builder of the Forbes Road. The French abandoned and burned Fort Duquesne rather than face the advancing army, opening the gateway to the Ohio Country.

Shippensburg, PA · est. 1961

In 1755, as General Edward Braddock's army marched toward the French at Fort Duquesne, supplies for the expedition were stockpiled in Edward Shippen's stout stone house at Shippensburg. His son-in-law James Burd cut a road westward to move those provisions toward the front. After Braddock's crushing defeat, the goods that remained were handed out to settlers fleeing Indian raids along the exposed Pennsylvania frontier.

Wharton Township, PA · est. 1946

In July 1755, British General Edward Braddock led a large expedition toward the French-held forks of the Ohio and met catastrophe near the Monongahela, where he was mortally wounded. His men buried him in the roadbed here so passing wagons would hide the grave from pursuing enemies. His remains were reinterred nearby in 1804, and a trace of the military road he cut through the wilderness can still be seen.

North Union Township, PA · est. 1952

In the summer of 1755, General Edward Braddock cut a military road westward through the Pennsylvania mountains toward the French stronghold of Fort Duquesne, and Colonel Thomas Dunbar's detachment made its last camp near this point while hauling the army's heavy baggage. When Braddock's main column was shattered in ambush near the Monongahela, the survivors streamed back to Dunbar's position. Rather than regroup, Dunbar destroyed his supplies and retreated, abandoning the frontier to the French and their allies.

North Union Township, PA · est. 1952

On June 26, 1755, General Braddock's army pitched its tenth camp near a landmark called the Half King's Rock as it pushed toward Fort Duquesne. The rock honored Tanacharisson, the Iroquois "half king" who spoke for the Ohio nations and had allied himself with the British. A young George Washington had met Tanacharisson at this very spot in 1754, on the eve of the frontier clashes that helped ignite the French and Indian War.

Dunbar Township, PA · est. 1952

By late June 1755, General Braddock's army had reached its twelfth camp near the Youghiogheny River as it labored toward the French position at Fort Duquesne. On June 30 the troops forded the river at Stewart's Crossing, a well-known frontier fording place near present-day Connellsville. The crossing was one more grueling stage in an expedition that had to carve a wagon road through the wilderness as it advanced.

Henry Clay Township, PA · est. 1952

On June 24, 1755, General Braddock's army made its eighth camp here as it struggled toward Fort Duquesne, with Chestnut Ridge — the last mountain barrier before the descent toward the Ohio — looming on the western horizon. To move supply wagons and artillery over the ridge, Braddock's axemen widened an existing Indian path into a rough military road. It was slow, backbreaking work that set the army's crawling pace.

Alexandria, VA

In the spring of 1755, at the opening of the French and Indian War, British General Edward Braddock assembled his expedition at Alexandria and marched west on April 20 toward the French-held Ohio Country. His goal was Fort Duquesne, at the forks of the Ohio, but the campaign ended in disaster that July at the Battle of the Monongahela, where Braddock was mortally wounded and a young aide named George Washington helped rally the survivors. This monument marks the point where that ill-fated army set out, and notes a cannon left behind at the town as the troops moved out.

West Mifflin, PA · est. 1964

About midday on July 9, 1755, General Edward Braddock's British army of some 1,300 men forded the Monongahela here on its march to drive the French from Fort Duquesne. Hours later that expedition was shattered in the woods beyond, Braddock mortally wounded and his troops routed by a smaller force of French and their Native allies. The battered survivors—among them a young officer named George Washington—recrossed the river in retreat.

North Braddock, PA · est. 1948

On July 9, 1755, a British column under General Edward Braddock marched through this ground toward the French stronghold of Fort Duquesne at the forks of the Ohio. A smaller force of French soldiers and their Native allies caught the redcoats in the woods and shattered them, killing Braddock and sending the survivors reeling in retreat. The disaster was one of the worst British defeats of the French and Indian War — and a young colonial aide named George Washington helped rally the broken army.

Brownsville, PA · est. 1946

Long before it was Brownsville, this bluff above the Monongahela was called Redstone Old Fort. The Ohio Company built a storehouse here in 1754, and Fort Burd rose in 1759 during the struggle for the Ohio country. The site sat astride a succession of great routes west — Nemacolin's Trail, Burd's Road, and eventually the National Road.

Ligonier Township, PA · est. 2003

In the spring of 1759, during the French and Indian War, the frontier of western Pennsylvania was a contested and dangerous supply corridor. Captain Thomas Bullet's party of about 100 Virginians was hauling provisions from Bedford to Fort Ligonier when French and Indian troops ambushed them near here on May 22, inflicting more than 40 casualties and seizing many of their supplies. Such raids on supply lines were a defining feature of the war in the Ohio Country.

Middletown, PA · est. 1946

Col. James Burd was among the frontier soldiers who fought in the French and Indian War, the 1750s–60s struggle that pushed European powers and their Native allies across the Pennsylvania backcountry. From his estate "Tinian," Burd also helped author the Middletown Resolves in June 1774, one of many local declarations of grievance that swept the colonies on the eve of the Revolution. He and his wife, Sarah Shippen — of a prominent Pennsylvania family — lie buried near the entrance of the Middletown Cemetery.

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.

Delmont, PA · est. 1946

Three miles south of this marker lies Bushy Run, where Colonel Henry Bouquet's soldiers defeated Native warriors in a grueling battle on August 5 and 6, 1763. Fought during Pontiac's War in the wake of the French and Indian War, the clash lifted the siege of Fort Pitt and cleared the road for settlers pushing into the Ohio country. The ground is now protected as a state park.

Taylor Township, PA · est. 1968

In the autumn of 1758, during the French and Indian War, the Moravian missionary Christian Frederick Post carried out a delicate diplomatic errand: winning Native allies of the French over to the British side. Holding councils at the Kuskuskies towns from August to November, his negotiations helped erode French support among the region's Indian nations. Combined with the advance of General Forbes's army, that pressure led the French to abandon and burn Fort Duquesne at present-day Pittsburgh on November 24, 1758.

West Chillisquaque Township, PA · est. 1928

John Brady settled this stretch of the Susquehanna frontier in 1769, working as a surveyor before the constant danger of raids drove him to the fortified Muncy Manor that took his name. A veteran soldier, he fought in the French and Indian War, led a company in Pontiac's War, and raised a company for the Continental Line in the Revolution, taking a serious wound at the Battle of Germantown. Home on sick leave in April 1779, he was killed in an ambush near Fort Brady, one of countless casualties of the unrelenting frontier war.

Carlisle, PA · est. 1961

When news of Braddock's defeat reached the Pennsylvania capital in July 1755, Governor Robert Morris ordered a fort laid out "in the middle of" the town of Carlisle — the first fortification authorized by the province. It served as Colonel John Armstrong's headquarters until 1758 and was later remembered by some writers as "Fort Lowther." The fort made Carlisle a staging ground for the province's defense of its frontier during the French and Indian War.

Warren, PA · est. 1947

In 1749 a French expedition led by Céloron de Blainville pushed into the Ohio Valley by way of Chautauqua Lake and Conewango Creek, part of France's effort to secure its claim to the vast interior. At the mouth of the Conewango his party buried an inscribed lead plate asserting French sovereignty over the region. The gesture was a prelude to the imperial contest that would soon erupt as the French and Indian War.

Westbrook, ME

This memorial honors Chief Polin, an 18th-century leader of the Presumpscot people of the Sebago Lake region of Maine. Polin pressed colonial authorities to stop the dams and settlements that were choking off the salmon runs his community depended on, and he was killed in 1756 during the frontier fighting of that era. The marker keeps his name on the land his people long inhabited.

Highspire, PA · est. 1946

From his home "Tinian" on the Susquehanna, Col. James Burd served the frontier in the French and Indian War, helping cut roads for Gen. Edward Braddock's ill-fated 1755 expedition and later commanding at Fort Augusta, a key defensive post upriver at Sunbury. When the Revolution came, the veteran soldier again took up the patriot cause. His house, the marker notes, still stood on the opposite hill.

Dauphin, PA · est. 1948

Timothy Green's life traced the whole arc of Pennsylvania's revolutionary generation. He first bore arms as an officer in the French and Indian War, then in June 1774 joined his neighbors in signing the Hanover Resolves, a bold early declaration of readiness to resist British authority. Through the Revolution that followed he stood out as a leader of this Susquehanna-region community, and he rests today in the graveyard just south of the marker.

Stroudsburg, PA · est. 1931

This graveyard began as the cemetery of the Mission of Dansbury, a Moravian outpost started in 1743 near where Daniel Brodhead had settled in 1736. The mission chapel was destroyed during the Indian uprising of 1755 amid the French and Indian War, then rebuilt. Colonel Jacob Stroud — the frontier officer and founder of Stroudsburg — lies buried here.

Stroudsburg, PA · est. 1947

About 1744, frontier founder Daniel Brodhead raised a building here for Moravian missionaries, part of the remarkable Moravian effort to carry their faith to settlers and Native peoples along the Pennsylvania frontier. The mission stood barely a decade: in 1755, as the French and Indian War set the backcountry aflame, it was destroyed in the raiding that emptied the region. Its site lay beside what is now the cemetery.

Derry Township, PA · est. 1948

This churchyard, the oldest pioneer burial ground in Dauphin County, holds the first generations of the region's Scots-Irish settlers. Among the graves lie the early pastors William Bertram and John Roan, alongside men who fought in the French and Indian Wars and the Revolution. One of them, Col. John Rodgers, put his name to the Hanover Resolves of 1774, an early pledge of resistance to Britain.

Washington, DC · est. 1907

In the spring of 1755, at the height of the French and Indian War, a division of British regulars under General Edward Braddock set out along this road toward Fort Duquesne, deep in the contested Ohio country. The campaign ended in a disastrous ambush that killed Braddock and scattered his army, an early lesson in frontier warfare witnessed by a young aide named George Washington. The Society of Colonial Wars set this memorial in 1907 to mark the historic route.

Portland, PA · est. 1948

Edward Marshall was one of the fast walkers hired to pace off the 1737 Walking Purchase, the land grab that stripped the Lenape of vast territory in the Delaware Valley. He later settled in this frontier area, where in 1757, amid the raids of the French and Indian War, his wife and eldest son were killed—by some accounts in reprisal for his role in the notorious survey. Marshall eventually withdrew to the safer settlements of Bucks County.

Elizabeth, WV

This West Virginia town traces its beginnings to 1796, when William Beauchamp settled here in the years just after the Revolution and named the place for the wife of David Beauchamp. But the ground held older significance: in 1752, the frontier scout Christopher Gist passed through on behalf of the Ohio Company, a land venture that dreamed of planting British colonies across the trans-Allegheny west. That dream collided with French claims on the same territory, and the resulting French and Indian War froze the company's plans before they could take root.

Uniontown, PA · est. 1982

Formed from Westmoreland County in 1783, Fayette County honors the Marquis de Lafayette, the French nobleman who fought for American independence. Its rolling ground holds Fort Necessity, where a young George Washington fought an early engagement of the French and Indian War in 1754. Later the county's seat, Uniontown, incorporated in 1796, sat astride the National Road, the young republic's great federally built highway west that became U.S. Route 40.

Schellsburg, PA · est. 1947

In 1758 General John Forbes cut a new military road across the Pennsylvania mountains to strike the French at Fort Duquesne, where Pittsburgh now stands. His army halted at the Shawnee Cabins camp near this spot, one link in the chain of fortified camps that made the slow, methodical advance possible. The campaign ended with the French abandoning and burning the fort, opening the Ohio country to British control.

Napier Township, PA · est. 1947

During the French and Indian War, Britain raced to seize the Forks of the Ohio from the French. In 1755 Colonel James Burd hacked a supply road through this Allegheny wilderness, and in 1758 General John Forbes drove a new military road westward toward Fort Ligonier and, ultimately, Fort Duquesne. This quiet Bedford County intersection is where the later Forbes Road split from Burd's earlier trace, sending the army deeper into the mountains.

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.

Plum, PA · est. 1952

In the autumn of 1758, during the French and Indian War, General John Forbes led a British and provincial army west across the Pennsylvania mountains to seize the French stronghold of Fort Duquesne. This site marked the army's final staging point—breastworks thrown up by Colonel Henry Bouquet after nearly two hundred miles of cutting through wild country. On November 25, the French having abandoned and burned their fort, Forbes's men marched in unopposed.

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.

Allegheny Township, PA · est. 1952

Perched atop Allegheny Hill, this fortification was thrown up in 1758 as part of General Forbes's methodical advance against the French at Fort Duquesne. Small forts and redoubts like this one secured the army's long supply line as it pushed west through the mountains, each a link in a chain of defended camps. The site of the works lies near the head of Breastwork Run.

Carlisle, PA · est. 1952

In 1758, during the French and Indian War, General John Forbes set out from his base at Carlisle to seize Fort Duquesne at the Forks of the Ohio. Rather than follow Braddock's ill-fated earlier route, Forbes drove a new road westward, keeping as close as army wagons allowed to the old Raystown Indian and Traders Path. Axemen under Colonel Henry Bouquet widened the trail into a military road that ended with the French abandoning and burning the fort.

Southampton Township, PA · est. 1952

At Shippensburg the old Raystown Path split, and in 1758 General John Forbes had to choose his army's line of march west. One branch climbed directly over three steep mountains toward Burnt Cabins; Forbes instead took the southern fork around Parnells Knob to Fort Loudon, crossing the Tuscarora Mountain at Cowan Gap to avoid the punishing grades. The choice shaped where his military road—and later settlement—would run.

Dublin Township, PA · est. 1952

The Raystown Path was one of the great Indian trails threading the Allegheny ridges of central Pennsylvania, and in 1758 it became a corridor of war. During the French and Indian War, General John Forbes cut a military road westward toward the French stronghold at the forks of the Ohio, throwing up a chain of forts to guard his slow, methodical advance. The towns strung along his line of march — Littleton, Bedford, Ligonier, and finally Pittsburgh — still carry the names of those wilderness garrisons.

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.

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.

Cumberland Valley Township, PA · est. 2008

On July 30, 1758, at the height of the French and Indian War, two colonels — Henry Bouquet and a young George Washington — argued strategy near this site. The question was how to reach and take French Fort Duquesne: Bouquet favored cutting a fresh road west from Bedford, while Washington pressed for Braddock's ill-fated 1755 route to the south. General Forbes chose Bouquet's path, and his army occupied the ruins of Fort Duquesne that November.

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.

Bedford, PA · est. 1930

Fort Bedford, built at the frontier settlement of Raystown, served as the great supply depot and mustering ground for General John Forbes' 1758 campaign against Fort Duquesne. Here an army of nearly eight thousand men gathered before setting out westward toward the forks of the Ohio. The fort anchored the eastern end of the road that still bears Forbes' name.

Juniata Township, PA · est. 1930

This plaque marks Fort Dewart, one of the small fortifications built along the Forbes Road during the French and Indian War and garrisoned for several years. Constructed under Colonel Henry Bouquet, it guarded the army's line of march as it pressed westward toward Edmond's Swamp and, beyond, Fort Duquesne. Such posts protected supply trains crossing the rugged Allegheny highlands.

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.

Schellsburg, PA · est. 1930

Shawnee Cabins was one of the marked encampments strung along the Forbes Road as it climbed toward the eastern slope of the Allegheny Mountains during the 1758 campaign. This plaque records the point where the road turned southwestward, some eight and a half miles from Fort Bedford. Waypoints like this guided the army and its supply trains across the frontier wilderness.

Penn Hills, PA · est. 1930

During the French and Indian War in 1758, General John Forbes cut a military road westward across Pennsylvania to seize the French stronghold of Fort Duquesne at the forks of the Ohio. This plaque marks the road's farthest northern point, near an encampment associated with Colonel Henry Bouquet, some 97 miles from Fort Bedford. The methodical Forbes campaign succeeded where earlier expeditions had failed.

Napier Township, PA · est. 1930

At this spot two frontier military roads parted ways: the older path cut by Colonel James Burd in 1755 and the Forbes Road blazed in 1758. From here the Forbes Road bent southwestward toward the Shawnee Cabins encampment, only a few miles from Fort Bedford. The junction marks how successive campaigns layered their routes across the Pennsylvania mountains.