Fort Prince George

In 1749 the British Crown awarded the Ohio Company a grant of 500,000 acres in the Ohio Country between the Monongahela and the Kanawha Rivers, provided that the company would settle 100 families within seven years. The Ohio Company was also required to construct a fort and provide a garrison to protect the settlement at their own expense. The Treaty of Logstown was intended to open up land for settlement so that the Ohio Company could meet the seven-year deadline, and to obtain explicit permission to construct a fort. On 29 May 1751, at a council meeting at Logstown between George Croghan, Andrew Montour and representatives of the Six Nations, Croghan reported the following statement from Iroquois speaker Toanahiso: :"We expect that you our Brothers will build a Strong House on the River Ohio, that if we should be obliged to engage in a war that we should have a Place to secure our Wives and Children...Now, Brothers, we will take two months to consider and choose out a place fit for that Purpose, and then we will send You word. We hope Brothers that as soon as you receive our Message you will order such a House to be built. Brothers: that you may consider well the necessity of building such a Place of Security to strengthen our arms, and that this, our first request of that kind may have a good effect on your minds." Governor Hamilton used this statement as evidence to the Pennsylvania Provincial Council that they should pay for the construction of a fort at a site selected by the sachems at Logstown, arguing that unless the fort were built, the English might lose not only Indian support, but control over the fur trade in Ohio. However, the Provincial Council decided not to provide funding for a fort, arguing that fair dealings and occasional presents would hold the Indians as allies. At a meeting in Winchester, Virginia in September 1753, Native American leaders expressed willingness to cooperate with the British and repeated their request that a fort be built on the Ohio. The following summer, the Ohio Company obtained permission from the Six Nations to build Fort Prince George. Washington met with the French commander, who refused to acknowledge that the British had any claim over land in the Ohio Country. On January 6 1754, near Will's Creek, while Washington was on his way back to Williamsburg, he met "17 horses loaded with Materials and stores for a fort at the Forks of the Ohio." These supplies were intended for Fort Prince George. Trent's orders On January 26, Governor Dinwiddie issued a captain's commission in the Virginia militia to fur trader William Trent, with orders to raise one hundred men who would "keep possession of his Majesty's land on the Ohio, and waters thereof, and to dislodge and drive away, and...to kill and destroy, or take prisoners, all and every person and persons whatsoever, not subjects of the King of Great Britain, who now are, or shall hereafter come to settle, and take possession of any lands on the said Ohio." A second letter informed Trent that he should proceed to the Ohio River to assist in the building of a fort there and defend it against any French actions. George Washington was ordered to raise an additional one hundred men to garrison the fort. == Construction ==

According to the 1756 deposition of Ensign Edward Ward, on February 17 Trent met Christopher Gist and Seneca leader Tanacharison and his followers, at the Forks of the Ohio. Within 10 days they had "finished a Store House, and a large quantity of timber hew'd, boards saw'd, and shingles made." == Capture ==

On March 4 1754, a French detachment under Ensign Michel Maray de La Chauvignerie discovered the fort under construction. Chauvignerie immediately reported to Claude-Pierre Pécaudy de Contrecœur at Venango, that "The scouts...took notice [of] an advanced house almost made, which is to serve as a Magazine, but because of the distance they could not know in what manner they were constructing their fort, since it was still only marked out." Governor-General Duquesne wrote immediately to Contrecœur: "From the letter from Sieur La Chauvignerie of March 11, it appears that the English are planning to settle at the mouth of [the Allegheny River], since there is already a storehouse built there. You must hasten, Sir, to interrupt and even destroy their work from the start, because their consolidation would lead us to a siege...which it would be wise to avoid, considering the bad state of the finances of the King." On April 18 the French Commander sent Captain Francois Le Mercier, two drummers and an interpreter to present Ensign Ward with a summons stating that the French Army intended to lay siege to the fort, and commanded Ward to "retreat peaceably with your troops" and "not to return." Ward and his men were given one hour to leave. Ward, on advice from Tanacharison, who was present, requested that the French wait until Ward's commanding officer, Captain Trent, returned, but Contrecœur refused. Ward then asked if the British might wait until the following day to leave, and Contrecœur agreed. He then invited Ward to dine with him, and Ward accepted. At dinner, Ward politely refused to discuss military or political matters, and declined Contrecœur's offer to buy Ward's carpentry tools. According to Ward, "the French entered, but behaved with great civility [and] said it might be their fate ere long to surrender it again so they would set [us] a good example. They however immediately went to work removing some of the logs as they complained the fort was not to their liking, and by break of day next morning 50 men went off with axes to hew logs to enlarge it." Tanacharison "stormed greatly at the French and told them it was he Order'd that Fort and laid the first Log of it himself, but the French paid no Regard to what he said." The British withdrew, and the French destroyed the partially built fort in order to construct their own. == Aftermath ==

Captain Trent's men marched to Washington's camp at Wills Creek. Washington regarded the capture of Trent's Fort as an act of war, and prepared to advance, writing on April 20 to Governor Dinwiddie to request artillery. Counting on Tanacharison to support him with Native American warriors, he prepared to attack French troops in what would become the first battle of the French and Indian War, the Battle of Jumonville Glen. Fort Prince George was the first of five forts to be built to control the strategic "Forks of the Ohio". Following the capture of Fort Duquesne in the 1758 Forbes Expedition, the British built Fort Pitt. Mercer's Fort was a temporary British fort built to defend against a French counterattack while Fort Pitt was being constructed. The final fort in what is now downtown Pittsburgh was an American post called Fort Lafayette, built in 1792 and located farther up the Allegheny River. == Memorialization ==

A historical marker commemorating Fort Prince George was placed in Point State Park in downtown Pittsburgh on May 8, 1959. A diorama depicting the fort's surrender to the French can be seen at the Fort Pitt Museum in Pittsburgh. ==Notes==