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of his Country, is equally the Father of Pittsburgh, for he came thither in November, 1753, and established the location of the now imperial city by choosing it as the best place for a fort. Washington was then twenty-one years old. He had by that time written his precocious one hundred and ten maxims of civility and good behavior; had declined to be a midshipman in the British Navy; had made his only sea-voyage to Barbadoes; had surveyed the estates of Lord Fairfax, going for months into the forest without fear of savage Indians or wild beasts, and was now a major of Virginia militia. In pursuance of the claim of Virginia that she owned that part of

Pennsylvania in which Pittsburgh is situated, Washington came there as the agent of Governor Dinwiddie to treat with the Indians. With an eye alert for the dangers of the wilderness, and with Christopher Gist beside him, the young Virginian pushed his cautious way to "The Point" of land where the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers forms the Ohio. That, he declared, with clear military instinct, was the best site for a fort; and he rejected the promontory two miles below, which the Indians had recommended for that purpose.

As early as 1728 a daring hunter or trader found the Indians at the head waters of the Ohio, among them the Delawares, Shawanese, Mohicans and Iroquois,-whither they tracked the bear from their village of Logstown, seventeen miles down the river. They also employed the country roundabout as a highway for their march to battle against other tribes, and against each other. At that time France and England were disputing for the new continent. France, by right of her discovery of the Mississippi, claimed all the lands drained by that river and its tributaries, a contention which would naturally

plant her banner upon the summit of the Alleghany Mountains.' England, on the other hand, claimed everything from ocean-shore to ocean-shore. This situation produced war, and Pittsburgh became the strategic key of the great Middle West. The French made early endeavors to win the allegiance of the Indians, and they felt encouraged to press their friendly overtures because they usually came among the red men for trading or exploration, while the English invariably seized and occupied their lands. In 1731 some French settlers did attempt to build a group of houses at Pittsburgh, but the Indians compelled them to go away. The next year the Governor of Pennsylvania summoned two Indian chiefs from Pittsburgh to say why they had been going to see the French Governor at Montreal; and they gave answer that he had sent for them only to express the hope that both English and French traders might meet at Pittsburgh and carry on trade amicably. The Governor of Pennsylvania sought to induce the tribes to draw themselves farther east, where they might be made to feel

1 The word is commonly spelt thus for the mountains, but thusAllegheny for the river, county and city.

the hand of authority, but Sassoonan, their chief, forbade them to stir. An Iroquois chief who joined his entreaties to those of the Governor was soon afterward killed by some Shawanese braves, but they were forced to flee into Virginia to escape the vengeance of his tribe.

Louis Celeron, a French officer, made an exploration of the country contiguous to Pittsburgh in 1747, and formally enjoined the Governor of Pennsylvania not to occupy the ground, as France claimed its sovereignty. A year later the Ohio Company was formed, with a charter ceding an immense tract of land for sale and development, including Pittsburgh. This corporation built some storehouses at Logstown to facilitate their trade with the Indians, which were captured by the French, together with skins and commodities valued at £20,000; and the purposes of the Company were never accomplished.

As soon as Washington's advice as to the location of the fort was received, Captain William Trent was dispatched to Pittsburgh with a force of soldiers and workmen, packhorses and materials, and he began in all haste to erect a stronghold. The French had already