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John Fraser (frontiersman)
John Fraser (1721 – 16 April 1773) was a fur trader licensed by the Province of Pennsylvania for its western frontier, an interpreter with Native Americans, a gunsmith, a guide and lieutenant in the British army, and a land speculator. He served in several of England's expeditions against the French and their allies in the vicinity of Fort Duquesne and later Fort Pitt. Born in the Scottish Highlands, Fraser, age 14, arrived in Pennsylvania and settled for a short time near the Susquehanna River in Dauphin County. He next moved west over the Allegheny Mountains to establish an English trading post at the Native American village of Venango (now Franklin, Pennsylvania), at the junction of French Creek and the Allegheny River. For some ten years there he bartered his gunsmith services, English manufactured goods, and alcohol, in exchange for Indian pelts and furs. In 1749 French expeditionary activity led by Pierre Joseph Céloron de Blainville forced Fraser to abandon Venango ...
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Bedford, Pennsylvania
Bedford is a borough and spa town in and the county seat of Bedford County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It is located west of Harrisburg, the state capital, and east of Pittsburgh. Bedford's population was 2,861 at the 2020 census. History The vicinity of Bedford was inhabited by Euro-American 'Indian' traders in the late 1740s and early 1750s. Actual settlers did not appear in the region until after Forbes Road was cut to enable the Forbes Expedition to reach Fort Duquesne in 1758. A village of sorts, created by the suttlers who followed the British Army, grew up around the fort, which was located two miles to the west of the Raystown trading post. The village of Bedford was laid out in 1766 by John Lukens. Bedford was incorporated on March 13, 1795. But because the citizens failed to fill the required posts at the time, the town had to be re-incorporated in 1816. For many years it was an important frontier military post. The Espy House in Bedford is notable for having ...
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Franklin, Pennsylvania
Franklin is a city and the county seat of Venango County, Pennsylvania. The population was 6,097 in the 2020 census. Franklin is part of the Oil City, PA Micropolitan Statistical Area. Franklin is known for its three-day autumn festival in October, Applefest, which attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors. History Franklin is located at the confluence of French Creek and the Allegheny River, an important site used for centuries by Native Americans. They had long before developed what became known as the Venango Path, passing from the head of French Creek north to Presque Isle Bay on Lake Erie. Via French Creek and the Allegheny River, the portage effectively linked the waterways of the Ohio River and the Great Lakes. In 1740, Scottish fur trader John Fraser built a trading post here at Venango, the Lenape village. The French also had designs on this region. They wanted to link their colonies of New France (Quebec) north of the Great Lakes, in Illinois Country (acc ...
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North Braddock, Pennsylvania
North Braddock is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States. North Braddock was organized from a part of Braddock Township in 1897. The borough prides itself in being the "Birth Place of Steel" as the home of Andrew Carnegie's Edgar Thomson Steel Works that opened in 1875. North Braddock is a suburb east of Pittsburgh with a 15-minute travel time to the city. The borough is located in the valley along the Monongahela River, and is made up of three jurisdictional voting wards. The 2010 census had the borough population at 4,857, a great decline from the 1930 population of 16,782. The decline is due largely to the diminishing steel industry in the region. History Origins In 1742 a Scottish trader named John Fraser from eastern Pennsylvania acquired land at the location of the current Edgar Thomson Steel Works from Queen Aliquippa and the Lenape people. Fraser settled his family on the location, and in 1753 Christopher Gist and George Washington met with Fras ...
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General John Forbes
John Forbes (5 September 1707 – 11 March 1759) was a Scottish professional soldier who served in the British Army from 1729 until his death in 1759. During the 1754 to 1763 French and Indian War, he commanded the 1758 Forbes Expedition that occupied the French outpost of Fort Duquesne, now Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This required the construction of a military trail known as the Forbes Road, which became an important route for settlement of the Western United States. Forbes died in Philadelphia and was buried in the chancel of Christ Church, where his memorial can still be seen. Life John Forbes was born in Dunfermline on 5 September 1707, youngest child of Colonel John Forbes, 1658–1707, who died several months before his birth, and Elizabeth Graham, daughter of an Edinburgh merchant. His uncle, Duncan Forbes (1644-1704), was a prominent supporter of William of Orange and obtained his brother John an army commission. In 1701, Colonel Forbes purchased Pittencrieff ...
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General Edward Braddock
Major-general (United Kingdom), Major-General Edward Braddock (January 1695 – 13 July 1755) was a British officer and commander-in-chief for the Thirteen Colonies during the start of the French and Indian War (1754–1763), the North American front of what is known in Europe and Canada as the Seven Years' War (1756–1763). He is generally best remembered for his command of a Braddock Expedition, disastrous expedition against the French-occupied Ohio River Valley in 1755; he was killed in the effort. Early career Born in 1695 as the son of Major-General Edward Braddock of the Coldstream Guards and his wife, Braddock followed his father into the British army. At the age of 15, he was appointed ensign (rank), ensign in his father's regiment on 11 October 1710. He was promoted to lieutenant of the grenadier company in 1716. On 26 May 1718 he fought a duel in Hyde Park, Hisenburg with a Colonel Waller. Braddock was promoted to captain in 1736, at the age of 41. He made major in 174 ...
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William Trent
William Trent (February 13, 1715–1787) was an American fur trader and merchant based in colonial Pennsylvania. He was commissioned as a captain of the Virginia Regiment in the early stages of the French and Indian War, when he served on the western frontier with the young Lt. Colonel George Washington. Trent led an advance group who built forts and improved roads for troop access and defense of the western territory. He was later promoted to the rank of major. Trent had gone into fur trading by 1740, aided by capital from his father, a wealthy shipping merchant of Philadelphia who was the founder of Trenton, New Jersey. The younger Trent took on George Croghan, an Irish immigrant, as his partner, as he was effective in developing trading networks with Native Americans. Some of Trent’s first land deals were of modest size, with the first three involving no more than four hundred acres of land each. In 1744, Trent purchased vast lands in the Ohio Country west of the Appalachia ...
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Fort Machault
Fort Machault (, ) was a fort built by the French in 1754 near the confluence of French Creek with the Allegheny River, in northwest Pennsylvania. (Present-day Franklin developed here later.) The fort helped the French control these waterways, part of what was known as the Venango Path from Lake Erie to the Ohio River. It was one of four forts designed to protect French access to the Ohio Country and connections between its northern and southern colonies. From north to south the forts were Fort Presque Isle (at Lake Erie), Fort Le Boeuf (at the south end of the portage leading to the head of French Creek), Fort Machault (at the confluence noted), and Fort Duquesne, at the Forks of the Ohio. Description The fort was built on a hill, 60 yards west of the Allegheny River. The fort was in the form of a parallelogram, about 75 by . The curtain was made of hewed timber, stacked lengthwise. The four corners had bastions in the form of polygons. The bastions were built of sapli ...
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Forge
A forge is a type of hearth used for heating metals, or the workplace (smithy) where such a hearth is located. The forge is used by the smith to heat a piece of metal to a temperature at which it becomes easier to shape by forging, or to the point at which work hardening no longer occurs. The metal (known as the "workpiece") is transported to and from the forge using tongs, which are also used to hold the workpiece on the smithy's anvil while the smith works it with a hammer. Sometimes, such as when hardening steel or cooling the work so that it may be handled with bare hands, the workpiece is transported to the slack tub, which rapidly cools the workpiece in a large body of water. However, depending on the metal type, it may require an oil quench or a salt brine instead; many metals require more than plain water hardening. The slack tub also provides water to control the fire in the forge. Types Coal/coke/charcoal forge A forge typically uses bituminous coal, indu ...
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Christopher Gist
Christopher Gist (1706–1759) was an explorer, surveyor, and frontiersman active in Colonial America. He was one of the first white explorers of the Ohio Country (the present-day states of Ohio, eastern Indiana, western Pennsylvania, and northwestern West Virginia). Gist is credited with providing the first detailed description of the Ohio Country to colonists in the Thirteen Colonies. At the outbreak of the French and Indian War, Gist accompanied Colonel George Washington on missions into this wilderness and saved Washington's life on two occasions. Early life Born during 1706 in Baltimore, Maryland, Gist is thought to have had little formal education. Historians believe that he received training as a surveyor, more than likely from his father Richard Gist, who helped plot the city of Baltimore. Gist's nephew Mordecai Gist served as a general commanded by Washington during the Revolution. Family Gist married Sarah Howard, a daughter of Joshua Howard of Manchester. Howard ser ...
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George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of the Continental Army, Washington led the Patriot forces to victory in the American Revolutionary War and served as the president of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which created the Constitution of the United States and the American federal government. Washington has been called the " Father of his Country" for his manifold leadership in the formative days of the country. Washington's first public office was serving as the official surveyor of Culpeper County, Virginia, from 1749 to 1750. Subsequently, he received his first military training (as well as a command with the Virginia Regiment) during the French and Indian War. He was later elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses and was named a delegate to the Continental Congress ...
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Turtle Creek (Monongahela River)
Turtle Creek is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 15, 2011 tributary of the Monongahela River in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. At its juncture with the Monongahela is Braddock, Pennsylvania, where the Battle of the Monongahela ("Braddock's Defeat") was fought in 1755. In the mid-19th century, the Pennsylvania Railroad laid tracks along the stream as part of its Main Line from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. Course The headwaters of Turtle Creek are in Delmont. The stream flows westward through the municipalities of Export, Murrysville, Monroeville, Penn Township, Trafford, Pitcairn, Wilmerding, Turtle Creek, East Pittsburgh and North Braddock, before and entering the Monongahela River in North Versailles Township. History The western frontier: 1700s Turtle Creek is the English translation of the Native American name, naming the area for its abundance of t ...
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Forks Of The Ohio
Point State Park (locally known as The Point) is a Pennsylvania state park on in Downtown Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, USA, at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, forming the Ohio River. Built on land acquired via eminent domain from industrial enterprises in the 1950s, the park opened in August 1974 when construction was completed on its iconic fountain. Pittsburgh settled on the current design after rejecting an alternative plan for a Point Park Civic Center designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The park also includes the outlines and remains of two of the oldest structures in Pittsburgh, Fort Pitt and Fort Duquesne. The Fort Pitt Museum, housed in the Monongahela Bastion of Fort Pitt, commemorates the French and Indian War (1754–63), in which the area soon to become Pittsburgh was a major battlefield. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960 for its role in the strategic struggles between Native Americans, French colonists, ...
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