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Old forts or Indian forts as they are better known, is a very extensive subject and cannot be covered in such a short paper as this must be. We will, however, take it for granted that you are more interested in the old forts of Pennsylvania, and still more in the old forts of Western Pennsylvania.

If it had not been for an Act passed in 1893, authorizing the Governor of this Commonwealth to appoint persons to look up the history of the forts of Pennsylvania prior to 1783, in a short time all trace of the true locality of many of the forts would have been mere conjecture and finally lost to history, so meager was the authentic knowledge of their situation.

In accordance with this Act, Governor Pattison appointed five men as Commissioners and they immediately began the work of looking up the location of each fort and learning all that could be found out about them, each one taking a separate section of country and visiting personally nearly all the localities celebrated in frontier warfare.

As a result of this labor, there was collected a large amount of interesting history which will become more interesting as the country grows older. When we think how friendly the earliest settlers of Pennsylvania were with the Indians, it seems strange that there was any need of forts at all. We do not know exactly what did cause the change of feeling toward the settlers on the part of the Indians unless it was that they daily saw themselves pushed back by the onward march of the white man, their hunting grounds full of game, the rivers swimming with fish lost to them, and their land either bought from them in fair purchase or very likely taken by fraudulent action on the part of the settlers. When they saw all this, it needed but a spark to start the fire of their savage nature which only blood could extinguish, and that fire was kindled in Braddock's defeat in 1755, for very soon after that even the frontier settlements of the Province fairly swarmed with scalping parties that left death and destruction behind them every where, and kept up their bloody work until the year 1783.

The Blue Mountains practically marked the Western boundary of the white man's settlement at this time, and it was along this border that the terrible deeds were committed, not in large bodies or any numbers combined, nor by tactics of civilized warfare, but in small parties of three to ten, or maybe more, who would creep noiselessly past watchful sentries and commit their bloody work and begone long before the alarm could be given and the most active troops overtake them.

As this was the Indian method of warfare, a peculiar method of defense on the part of the white man was necessary. The erection of forts not far distant from each other, convenient of access to the settlers where they might flee in time of danger, was the plan decided upon. The settlers themselves had erected block houses and used the farm houses as such whenever the danger seemed most imminent, without regard to any general plan. However, the Government took the defense of the people into their own hands in the year 1756, and accordingly established a chain of forts along the Blue Mountains from the Susquehanna to the Delaware at distances of from ten to fifteen miles apart. Some of these forts were simply the defenses which has been erected by the settlers and others were newly constructed by the government.

In M. M. Richard's, "Indian Forts of the Blue Mountains," he describes the forts as follows: "Almost without exception they were composed of a stockade of heavy planks enclosing a space of ground more or less extensive, on which were built from one to four block houses, pierced with loop-holes for musketry and occupied as quarters by the soldiers and refugee settlers. In addition to these regular forts it became necessary at various points where depredations were most frequent, to have subsidiary places of defense and refuge which were also garrisoned by soldiers and which generally comprised farm houses, selected because of their superior strength and convenient location around which the usual stockade was thrown, or occasionally block houses were erected for the purpose."

Doddridge, in his notes on the Early Settlements and Indian Wars, describes them somewhat differently. The fort consisted of cabins, block houses and stockades. A range of cabins commonly formed one side at least of the fort. The walls on the outside were ten or twelve feet high, the slope of the roof being turned wholly inward. A very few of these cabins had puncheon floors, the greater part were earthen. The block houses were built at the angles of the fort. They projected about two feet beyond the outer walIs of the cabins and stockades. Their upper stories were about eighteen inches every way larger in dimension than the under one, leaving an opening at the commencement of the second story to prevent an enemy from making a lodgment under the walls.

In some forts the angles of the forts were furnished with bastions instead of block houses. A large folding gate made of thick slabs nearest the spring closed the fort. The stockades, bastions, cabins and block house walls were furnished with port holes at proper heights and distances, the whole of the outside was made completely bullet proof. And all of this work, we are told, was done without the aid of a nail or an iron spike, for these things were not to be had in those days. This last statement seems to us almost incredible and we can understand how necessity is indeed "the mother of invention." In some places where the danger was not so great, a simple block house and a cabin or two constituted the fort.

As early as 1795 one John Harris, who was an Indian trader and also engaged in agriculture, built his log house on the banks of the Susquehanna. It was a typical log cabin of the early settler, with its huge well which was still there in 1850. Since then it has been covered over, but the site is even now distinguished by a circular mound of earth. There still remains in an enclosure near the bridge of the Cumberland Valley Railroad at Harrisburg, a portion of an old stump of a mulberry tree which stood near the house and to which he was bound by a party of drunken Indians to whom he refused more rum. He was saved by a party of more friendly Indians. His son, John Harris, was born in the same house in 1726, and it was he who was the founder of Harrisburg.

When the Indians began their depredations after Braddock's defeat, 1755, John Harris, Jr. was one of the first to take up the defense against the Indians. He turned his home into a fort, making port holes in the walls for musketry and building a substantial stockade around it. There is no doubt that this log house, the home of John Harris, erected in 1705, was Harris' Fort, now Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania.

On the east side of the Susquehanna there was another most interesting fort, Fort Augusta, at Sunbury. Built in 1756, it was a regularly laid out fort, mounting at least twelve cannon, two swivels, and seven blunder-busses, a formidable armament for the times and place. This fort held a place of great strategic importance at this time, and it held the only passage by water and blocked the pathway along the river by land to the pioneer settlements below. Reinforcements and provisions were easily obtainable from the country below as the country spread out fan-like before it and was dotted with forts all the way. All the main Indian paths could be reached and communication be kept up with the Indians to supply them with gew-gaws and beads to keep them on friendly terms, or to restrain them, as occasions required.

After the commencement of the Revolution this fort became headquarters for the upper Susquehanna district. The magazine of the fort is still in existence. A small mound of earth marks the spot where it may be found, from which a small opening two and one-half feet wide leads down twelve four inch steps into the cavity below. The room is ten by twelve feet and the arched roof is made of brick. The bricks are of English manufacture and they say were transported from Philadelphia to Harrisburg and then up the river by boats. There is one cannon, formerly mounted upon this fort, known to be in existence, and which has quite an interesting history of being lost, stolen, and finally recovered, and is now securely mounted and guarded and "open to visitors."

About one-half mile from this fort is another spot of historic interest which still remains today, called "The Bloody Spring." The incident that gave this name to the spring shows what constant danger the forts were in, for they all were in like danger. Over this spring grew a plum tree and one day while the plums were ripe Colonel Miles and one of the lieutenants from the fort took a walk to this tree to gather some plums. While they were there a party of Indians lay concealed in a thicket nearby and managed to get themselves almost between the two soldiers and the fort. Just then another soldier came to the spring for a drink. The Indians were in danger of being discovered, so fired at and killed the third soldier. Colonel Miles and the lieutenant took the chance and got back to the fort in much less time than it took them to walk out to the spring. The rescuing party from the fort found the soldier scalped and his blood trickling into the spring, thus giving it its name.

And so, West of the Susquehanna there was Fort Patterson, Fort Granville and Fort Robinson, and so on, forts by the dozen, until we reach Fort Duquesne on the site of Pittsburgh, each one with a separate story of its own of horrors and devastations.

A great deal of blame for the conditions of affairs in the Province is laid to the Quakers who controlled the government, and, to use the language of another, who 11 were more solicitious for the welfare of the bloodthirsty Indian than for the lives of the frontiersman." They would not accede to the demands of those of different religious faith, and it was the sturdy Irish and Germans - the Pennsylvania Dutch of the frontier - that came to the rescue, and the entire force of Colonel Bouquet was composed of them.

In the Western part of Pennsylvania the greatest cause of all trouble came from disputes over the right to the land. The French claimed the Ohio Valley by right of discovery and the English by grant of the King of England, so when the Ohio Company was formed and the right given them to take up the land, the Governor General of Canada, to counteract the designs of the English, sent Celeron in 1749 with a company of two hundred fifteen soldiers and fifty-five Indians down the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers to take possession of the land in the name of the King of France, provided with a number of leaden plates inscribed with suitable inscriptions, each one differing in minor points, which they buried at different places along the way. With these persisting inscriptions and proclamations made with much ceremony, they then asserted their possession of the land. One of these plates was found at Fort Duquesne in after years and another at the Muskingum River and another at French Creek.

In 1753 Marquis DuQuesne sent an expedition out to make plans for the occupation of the land. The first fort was built in 1753 where the City of Erie now stands. They traveled South and built the next fort on LeBoeuf River, or French Creek now called. They left these two forts garrisoned and returned to Canada for the winter. It was the building of and placing garrisons in these forts that aroused the English to action and so they decided to build a fort at the forks of the rivers Ohio, Allegheny and Monongahela to restrain the French, and sent Washington on his famous trip from Virginia up through this country to the French fort Le Boeuf. He succeeded in accomplishing nothing and the English accordingly began the construction of a fort at the forks of the Ohio, but before it was finished the French appeared on the scene and demanded the surrender of the post. Resistance was out of the question, the English officers being absent and the French party so much greater in numbers. So in 1754 Fort Duquesne was built by the French, where Pittsburgh now stands. This marks the beginning of the horrible struggle that occupied the next few years of our history.

On returning from Virginia, Washington was met by an Indian friend who told him of the surrender at Fort Duquesne and of the intention of the French army to strike at the very first opportunity. Without food, Washington and his army hurried on, cutting their road through forests with great labor, bridging or fording the streams and came to Great Meadows where they hurriedly threw up entrenchments and started to build a fort which they named Fort Necessity. Sad to relate, this fort was never finished. Nevertheless to us it is one of the most interesting landmarks of this War. We cannot think of this fort without seeing Washington, just a young man, weary with the labors of his march, hungry, anxiously waiting and looking for reinforcements (which never came) surprised all too soon by the French to whom he was compelled to surrender. Even the weather added to the gloom, for it was in a pouring rain that the surrender was made, and the fourth of July, 1754, the French took possession of the half-finished Fort Necessity.

The site of this fort is well known. Its ruins were still visible as late as 1858. It is associated in history with the well known name, Great Meadows. It is better known by the name "Mount Washington" and is on the National Road ten miles East of Uniontown. Washington seemed to have loved the place all his life. Virginia granted him a tract of ground including the fort which he still owned at the time of his death.

Through four tempestuous years the flag of France floated from Fort Duquesne, the spot of Western Pennsylvania that the English were most desirous of possessing. Several attempts were made to capture this fort, but each one was most unsuccessful. It was in one of these attempts that Braddock met his defeat and death. Not until the fall of 1758 did the English succeed in this undertaking, and then it was to find the fort in flames and the French army departed. Of this even Mr. Bancroft says: "Armstrong's own hand raised the British flag on the ruined bastions of the fortress. As the banner of England floated over the waters, the place was, at the suggestion of Forbes, called "Pittsburgh." It is the most enduring monument to William Pitt. The connection between the seaside and the world West of the mountains was established forever, a vast territory was secured. The civilization of liberty and commerce and religion was henceforth to maintain the undisputed possession of the Ohio."

General Forbes immediately began the erection of a new fort near the site of the old one. There were five sides to this fort, though not equal. The earth around it was dug and thrown up so as to enclose the fort inside with a rampart of earth. On the land side this rampart was supported by a brick work nearly perpendicular supporting the rampart on the outside, thus making an obstacle that the enemy could not easily overcome. Around the whole fortification was a wide ditch which would be full of water when the rivers were moderately high. The fort which still stands remains as a relic of English workmanship, they did not build until 1764.

The Indian wars had scarcely ended when the Revolution began, and the British, in possession of Detroit and the Lake region, "regardless of the ties of blood and the dictates of humanity", persuaded the savages to hostilities against the colonists. Once more the scalping knife and tomahawk threatened the lives of the settlers and the entire West became unsafe for white settlement. It was during this period that it became necessary to form a military organization of the West in order to check the savage inroads of the Indians.

Brigadier-General Hand was the first one sent to undertake this work. He made several attempts in expeditions against the Indians, but on account of difficulties in enlisting and maintaining troops in this quarter, was unsuccessful.

In 1778 General Hand was recalled at his own request. In his place Washington sent General McIntosh. The state of affairs into which McIntosh came is best described by Judge Agnew: "neither men nor munitions of war could be easily had and he was encompassed by hostile tribes, whose movements in a wild and uninhabited country, could not be foreseen or met. The red man was led also by whites, even more savage traitor to kin and country, and familiar with the affairs of the colonists. The savages lay in wait at every turn, coming when least expected, killing and scalping men, women and children."

As it was impossible to carry out the designs against Detroit at this time, McIntosh decided to spend the time in preparing for future operations. In order to be at a point where he could march West into Ohio or North to Detroit, he selected a site on the North side of the Ohio, a mile below the Beaver River, on which he erected a fort. This was Fort McIntosh, built in 1776, and about the time he built Fort Laurens on the Muskingum River, near Tuscarawas, about one hundred miles from Fort McIntosh.

Arthur Lee, a Commissioner of the United States to treat with the Indians, described Fort McIntosh as, "built of well hewed logs with four bastions. Its figure is an irregular square, the face to the river being longer than the side to the land. It is equal to a square of fifty yards; is well built and strong against musketry, but the opposite side of the river commands it entirely and a single piece of artillery from thence would reduce it.

This place was formerly a large Indian settlement. There are peach trees still standing. It is a beautiful plain extending about two miles along the river and one back to the hills, surrounded on the East by Beaver Creek and on the West by a small run which meanders through a most excellent piece of meadow ground full of shell bark hickory, black walnut and oak." It is also spoken of as a regular stockade work and furnished with bastions which were mounted with one sixpounder each. It is also spoken of as having a covered way to the river for water.

This fort has the honor of being the first fort to be built on the Indian side of the Ohio River. During 1778 and 1779 great hardships were endured at these new forts, especially Fort Laurens. The Indians were very troublesome and provisions exceedingly scarce. In the spring of 1779 General McIntosh, sick, disappointed and weary of his command, asked to be recalled. Colonel Brodhead was appointed to take his place. We read of nothing but peril and suffering of this Western department, and each officer appointed to take command endured it fo ra time, then at his own request was recalled.

After Colonel Brodhead came Colonel Gibson, then William Irvine who continued in command until the close of the Revolutionary War.

As the Indians were gradually pressed Westward, the occupation of Fort McIntosh became less important and was allowed to go out of repair, besides being greatly abused by settlers going down the Ohio on their way to Kentucky. In 1784 it was necessary to again occupy the fort. The Government desired to treat with the Indians and decided to hold the treaty at this fort.

It was repaired for the occupancy of the troops. There is one article of this treaty interesting to us, which "provided for the surrender by the Indians of all prisoners" black and white" held by them." Among the prisoners delivered at Fort McIntosh in 1785 was a boy named James Lyon, who had been captured several years before in Westmoreland County by the Indians. He became a well known citizen of Beaver.

The exact time of the abandonment of Fort McIntosh is not known, but it is supposed to have been in the early winter of 1785 when the troops were sent down to protect the Treaty Commissioners at the mouths of the Muskingum, Miami, and other places.

From a report of the Department of War of October, 1788, we learn that Fort McIntosh was ordered to be destroyed and a block house to be erected in place of the fort a few miles up the Big Beaver Creek. This was near New Brighton on Block House Run.