Fort Pitt was one of the most strategic spots in American history and it played a pivotal role in the current national borders of North America. For untold thousands of years this spot was a meeting place for native tribes for trade, and it became one of the main staging points for early American western migration. The Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers join here to form the Ohio River making it a place that an empire must control. Fort Pitt was an extremely important outpost during the French and Indian War, Revolutionary War, Northwest Indian Wars, and even the War of 1812. In this video, I’ll tell you the story of Fort Pitt, show you the sites, and explain its impact on our modern United States.

In 1751, Chief King Beaver of the Delawares invited the British to come build a fort at the confluence of the Ohio River. In 1754, the British built a rough fortification that they named Fort Prince George. In April they were pushed out by the French. The British sent, then Major George Washington to lead an attack to retake the area but they were defeated and surrendered at Fort Necessity. The next year, General Braddock was given orders to take the territory back but failed in one of the worst defeats for the British Empire in the 1700s. Daniel Boone was a waggoner on this campaign.

The French built Fort Duquesne after the Marquis de Duquesne, the Governor General of New France. The Seven Years War exploded all over the world, and in North America it was called the French and Indian War. In 1758, the French in the Fort Duquesne area were defeated by British General John Forbes. The French sent their cannons by boat to the Illinois country, blew up and burned the walls of Fort Duquesne, and retreated from the territory. Upon taking possession of the area, General Forbes brought an army of 6,000 troops to the point. They built Fort Pitt and the town they called Pittsbourgh, after William Pitt the Elder, a British politician in the House of Commons, and Secretary of State for the Southern Department.

In 1758, the Treaty of Easton was signed by the Delaware and Iroquois tribes with Pennsylvania. The Treaty stated that if the Delaware and Iroquois abandoned their support of the French, that the British would return east of the Appalachian Mountains to their eastern settlements. In 1763, during Pontiac’s Uprising, a confederation of Delaware, Seneca and Shawnee attacked the fort. To appease the Indians and end the conflict, the British made The Royal Proclamation of 1763, which forbade European settlement west of the mountains. One of the blockhouses still stands and was completed in 1764. It is the oldest building in Pittsburg, and is officially, “the oldest building of authenticated date west of the Appalachian Mountains”. In 1894, the blockhouse was given to the Daughters of the American Revolution. In 1768, the Treaty of Stanwix was signed in which the Iroquois sold large tracks of land to the British. The British abandoned Fort Pitt in 1772.

Pennsylvania and Virginia began to compete for control of the territory. In the next few years, the area was claimed by both Pennsylvania and Virginia, and it wasn’t until 1780 that the infant federal government got involved and extended the Mason-Dixon Line further west, placing Pittsburg, in Pennsylvania. In 1770, George Washington met near here with the Seneca Chief Guyasuta. They had met seventeen years earlier, in 1753, when Guyasuta led the twenty-one-year-old Washington down the Allegheny River to Fort LeBoeuf to ask the French to leave the area. In 1777, the Continental Congress declared Fort Pitt the Headquarters of the Western District of the Continental Army.

In 1778, Fort Pitt’s commander General Edward Hand was sent to punish Indians that had joined to fight with the British. Some of his men came upon Delaware and Munsee villages who were peaceful at the time. General Hand’s men killed women and a boy in what would soon be called “The Squaw Campaign”. The fort was then commanded by General Lachlan McIntosh who launched an offensive against British held Fort Detroit. He established Fort McIntosh and Fort Laurens,. He was replaced by Colonel Daniel Brodhead. In 1779, Broadhead was ordered to march toward Fort Niagara. In 1781, General William Irvine took command of Fort Pitt and sent supplies to General George Rogers Clark for his expedition into Ohio against the tribes in retaliation for the massacre at Blue Licks.

Fort Pitt continued to be an important strategic location for supplies and staging for the 1790s Northwest Indian Wars in modern-day Ohio and Indiana. In 1792, General "Mad" Anthony Wayne ordered the construction of Fort Lafayette, later called Fort Fayette to be constructed about a half of a mile away from Fort Pitt.

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