In the summer of 1974 local members of the Pennsylvania Society for Archeology and other volunteers began explorations directed at uncovering any remains of Fort McIntosh built by the Continental Army in 1778. Such progress was made that the project received a grant of $9,000 from the Pennsylvania Bicentennial Commission to continue the work in 1975. In addition, the National Parks Service has included the site in the National Register of Historic Places. The establishment of this fort by General Lachlan McIntosh, North of the Ohio River in what had hither to been Indian territory signalled a complete change in American strategy, one which took the initiative instead of reacting to British and Indian attacks on the frontier. It became the headquarters of the largest army West of the Alleghenies during the Revolution; the Treaty of Fort McIntosh in 1785 enabled the enactment of watershed legislation; the Land Ordinance of that year which opened the public lands of the United States to orderly presurveyed sale, with the sections reserved for educational use; and in 1784-1785 aside from 55 men at West Point and 20 at Fort Pitt, contained the entire army of the United States.
It was built and garrisoned by two Continental regiments, the 8th Pennsylvania and 13th Virginia, veterans of Brandywine, Germantown, Saratoga and Valley Forge, and 800 militia from as far away as what is now the area around Charleston, White Sulpher Springs, and Roanoke.
During the ten years of its existence some of the great figures of the Revolution, and particularly of the frontier played roles here: General Lachlan McIntosh, Colonels John Gibson, Daniell Brodhead, John Hardin, William Crawford, Joshua Harmar, and Richard Campbell and Richard Butler, all veterans of the major battles of the war; Arthur Lee, the man who helped negotiate the French Alliance, Col. George Roger Clark, hero of Vincennes, and Thomas Hutchins, Geographer of the United States. The names of two officers of lesser rank, Major Richard Taylor and Captain Abraham Lincoln, would be made famous by a son and a grandson, Presidents Zachary Taylor and Abraham Lincoln.
