Fort Pitt

“ Still others have been transferred to distant and irrelevant localities, and an old resident, returning from the world of shades would be sadly confused if looking for old landmarks, Fort Pitt and all pertaining to it, excepting only the Block House, vanished long ago. There is nothing left of the later age which saw "Rice's Castle" in its glory. The new industrialism is steadily and rapidly blotting out the picturesque and historic all around us. Let all good Pittsburghers unite to preserve the little that is left, the Redoubt built by Col. Bouquet in 1764. ”

“ Committing my baggage to a carman, I ascended the bank of diluvial earth and pebbles with all eagerness, and walked to the point of land where Fort Pitt (old Fort Du Quesne) had stood. It is near this point that the Alleghany and Monongahela unite, and give birth to the noble Ohio. It is something to stand at the head of such a stream. The charm of novelty is beyond all others. ”

“ The wild hills that surround Fort Pitt are frequently the scenes of Indian ambush and attack, and on more than one occasion the fort itself has been captured by the Blackfeet. The region in which Fort Pitt stands is a favourite camping-ground of the Crees, and the Blackfeet cannot be persuaded that the people of the fort are not the active friends and allies of their enemies in fact, Fort Pitt and Carlton are looked upon by them as places belonging to another company altogether from the one which rules at the Mountain House and at Edmonton. ”

“ The British Government, as the trouble with the colonies increased, deemed it advisable to abandon Fort Pitt and withdraw the troops. Maj. Edmonstone, then in command, sold the buildings and material October 10, 1772, to Alexander Ross and William Thompson, for fifty pounds New York currency. The fort was evacuated by the British forces in October, 1772, and in January, 1774, troops from Virginia sent by the Governor, Lord Dunmore, under command of Dr. James Connelly, took possession and changed the name to Fort Dunmore. Dr. ”

“ Instigated by the agents of Great Britain, it was not long before a deadly struggle began. Scalping parties of Indians ravaged the frontier, sparing neither age nor sex, and burning and destroying all that came in their path. Companies were formed to protect the settlements, whose headquarters were at [Pg 45] Fort Pitt, and expeditions were made into the enemy's country, but with no very great success. ”

“ A redoubt (the "Blockhouse") , built by Colonel Bouquet in 1764, still stands, in a very good state of preservation, being cared for by the Daughters of the American Revolution. The protection of the garrison naturally attracted a few traders, merchants, and pioneers to Pittsburgh, and a permanent population began to grow.
Henry Bouquet
Block House of Fort Pitt. Built in 1764
But the indigenous race continued to resent the extension of white encroachment ”

“ The army descended French Creek almost to its mouth and thence returned to Fort Pitt by what is known as the Venango path almost due north and south through the heart of Butler County.
The expedition arrived at Fort Pitt on September 14 without the loss of a man or a horse. Brodhead wrote: “I have a happy presage that the counties of Westmoreland, Bedford and Northumberland, if not the whole western frontier, will experience the good effect of it. Too much praise cannot be given to both officers and soldiers of every corps during the whole expedition. ”

“ When General Lachlan McIntosh was sent to relieve General Edward Hand at Fort Pitt it was expected that the frontiers would be made safe, as General Washington ordered the Eighth Pennsylvania and the Thirteenth Virginia detached from Valley Forge and marched to the Western post.
The plan of General McIntosh was to attack Detroit, which involved a march of 300 miles through a wilderness inhabited by savages, most of whom were hostile to the American cause. This army must be carried far from its base of supplies, and Fort Pitt was never strong. ”

“ For this reason, the life of the inhabitants of the frontier was one of constant peril and alarm. Many a scene of dismal barbarity was enacted, as the history of the times testifies, and even those who felt themselves in some measure protected by their immediate neighbors, the Delawares, never lost sight of the caution required by their exposed situation.
The vicinity of the military garrison at Pittsburg—or Fort Pitt, as it was then called—gave additional security to those who had pushed farther west, among the fertile valleys of the Alleghany and Monongahela. ”

“ When Croghan set out from Philadelphia for Fort Pitt, March 1, 1765, he gave a pass for a large number of wagons belonging to Boynton and Wharton, of Philadelphia, loaded with merchandise, which was intended as presents for the Indians at Fort Pitt.
But the people of Cumberland County took the law into their own hands to prevent warlike stores being supplied to savages recently in arms against them. These goods were hauled to Henry Collins, at Conococheague, and there he contracted to pack them on eighty-one horses, by which they were to be delivered into Fort Pitt. ”

“ A still richer inheritance is the story of the lives of the men who conquered the wilderness and subdued the Indians, French and British; and this inheritance is held in common by all good citizens of Pittsburgh, whether or not their ancestors fought with Braddock or Bouquet, or marched with Forbes. In the stir and bustle of the busy city, above the noise of the trolley and the iron wagon, one faintly hears the names of streets whose unfamiliar sound recalls to our minds these illustrious dead. ”

“ The works were repaired, and the fort was now named Fort Pitt. An important city, called after the same illustrious statesman, has been reared near the spot. General Forbes, whose health had been declining during the campaign, died shortly afterwards at Philadelphia. He was a native of Scotland, and was educated as a physician; was an estimable and brave man, and of fine military talents.
Burnaby, who visited Virginia about this time, in describing Williamsburg, mentions the governor's palace as the only tolerably good public building. The streets being unpaved are dusty, the soil being sandy. ”

“ After the usual delays and disappointments in securing troops from Pennsylvania and Virginia to aid in this expedition, the march from Carlisle was begun, and Col. Bouquet arrived at Fort Pitt September 17th, and was detained there until October 3rd. He followed the north bank of the Ohio until he reached the Beaver, when he turned towards Central Ohio. Holding on his course, he refused to listen to either threats or promises from the Indians, declining to treat with them [Pg 39] at all until they should deliver up the prisoners. Although not a blow was struck, the Indians were vanquished. ”

“ Immediately a gruelling fire was opened upon the silent walls of Fort Pitt, bullets and arrows flew thick and fast into the palisades, but hiding behind the stout log breastwork, the garrison paid little heed to the rain of shot and other missiles. Occasionally a red man would expose his head from one of the holes in the bank, whereupon a dozen rifles would speak from the stockade, and as many bullets would whizz past the ears of the wily [Pg 191] brave. ”

“ When the United States were yet very young, in fact, before the Federal Constitution was even proposed, before Washington was elected president, when the small cluster of log huts, protected by a stockade called Fort Pitt, was all that constituted Pittsburgh, is the time this old newspaper began its long and honorable career. ”

“ There was even a plan developed which had the capture of Fort Pitt and the United States Arsenal at Pittsburgh as its objectives.
The greatest popular demonstration was at Parkinson’s Ferry, where 16,000 men were pledged to follow the leadership of Bradford.
President Washington called a cabinet meeting and had General 689Thomas Mifflin, Governor of Pennsylvania, in attendance. Commissioners were sent to apprise the insurgents of their grave danger. ”

“ Pitt at once displayed a prime qualification for his post of honor by choosing with unfailing discernment men who should lead both fleets and armies from idleness into action. His American campaign of 1758 embraced three decisive movements, an attack on Louisbourg—stepping-stone to Quebec—an invasion upon Montcalm on Lake Champlain, and an expedition to Fort Duquesne. ”

“ His force, with the Cherokee, Catawba and Tuscarora Indians, who came with the southern force, now consisted of about six thousand men, not including the wagoners and laborers. Two days before, the road had been completed through the wilderness, a distance of forty-five miles to a point just beyond Laurel Hill on Loyalhanna Creek, where Boquet had proceeded to construct a fort which he called Fort Ligonier, in honor of the general of that name whom Pitt had recently appointed captain-general to succeed the Duke of Cumberland. ”

“ The stray visitor who from time to time threads his devious way through the alleys and courts which surround the Block House may find himself perhaps in Fort Street, on historic ground once trodden by Washington, Forbes, Bouquet and the Indian kings of whom we have just been speaking. ”

“ Gay indeed must have been the dancing and the merriment inspired by the frontier punch and the shrieks of the Indians outside the stockade, for at that very time hostile savages surrounded and threatened the lonely fort. No wonder the revellers needed strong drinks to keep up their spirits! It is indeed very doubtful if the very strongest ever brewed would give nerve enough to Pittsburgh belles of today to enable them to dance a cotillon to the tune of Indian whoops and yells. ”

“ On coming to England he sold this gem, weighing 1363⁄4 carats in its cut state, to the Duke of Orleans, Regent of France, for £130,000, on which account it bears the name also of the “Regent Diamond.” It decorated the sword hilt of Napoleon I., and after the battle of Waterloo passed into the hands of the Prussians.
Pittsburg. This city was built on the site of the French Fort Duquesne. When, after a sanguinary engagement, it was taken from the allied French and Indians in 1758 by General Forbes, he gave it the name of Fort Pitt, after the English statesman, William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. ”

“ No one is better informed than I am, who had an opportunity to see every step that has been taken from the beginning and every obstacle that was thrown in his way." Forbes' first care was to provide defense and shelter for his troops, and a strong stockade was built around the traders' cabins and soldiers' huts, which he named Pittsburgh, in honor of England's great Minister, William Pitt. ”

“ The immigrants who remained in Pittsburgh were generally of a sturdy class, and were young and energetic. Among them were former Revolutionary9 officers and soldiers. They engaged in trade, and as an adjunct of this business speculated in lands in the county, or bought and sold town lots. A few took up tavern keeping. From the brief notes left by Lewis Brantz who stopped over in Pittsburgh in 1785, while on a journey from Baltimore to the Western country, it appears that at this time Fort Pitt was still garrisoned by a small force of soldiers ”

“ The gloom and apathy of approaching overthrow already filled their hearts.
1759 A.D. It was the design of Pitt to attack simultaneously all the remaining strongholds of France. An army of eleven thousand men, moving northward from New York by the valley of the Hudson, took with ease the forts of Ticonderoga and Crown Point; and the fair region which lies around Lake Champlain and Lake George passed for ever away from the dominion of France. A smaller force attacked Fort Niagara, the sole representative now of French authority on Lake Ontario. ”

“ Pittsburgh has always been preeminently a hospitable city, and it is possible that in no other town of its size is there as much entertaining. At weddings, too, the display of presents is an object of surprise to the out-of-town guests, unused to such lavishness. Tracing our Provincial characteristics back to their remote origins, we discover that Pittsburgh at the end of the nineteenth century, in the grip of hereditary, imitates the traders and early settlers in this region, who were in the habit of entertaining whole tribes of Indians, and of making them [Pg 59] frequent gifts. ”

“ On making his report Washington recommended that a fort be built at the "Forks of the Ohio."
Men and money were necessary to make good Governor Dinwiddie's demand that the French evacuate the territory they had appropriated; these he found it difficult to get. He dispatched letters, orders, couriers from New Jersey to South Carolina, asking aid. Massachusetts and New York were urged to make a feint against Canada, but as the land belonged either to Pennsylvania or Virginia, the other colonies did not care to vote money to defend them. ”

“ I went off to Kaintucky too, jist as fast as I could. I got some track on him again, as how he had gone back to Philadelphia, We must ’a passed on the road somewheres. Back to Philadelphia 186 I went again, an’ found out as how Art had gone west to Duquesne—Fort Pitt, or Pittsburgh they call it now. So I started for Fort Pitt, an’ on the way I met up with you young kittens on your way into this red devils’ own kentry.
“An’ I come on into this kentry because I found out at Fort Pitt that Art had gone on west intendin’ to make his way to Detroit, huntin’ an’ trappin’ an’ tradin’. ”