1754

Deep in the Ohio wilderness, 200 miles south of Lake Erie lay a site of strategic importance to both the French and English. The Forks of the Ohio where the Allegheny and Monongahela come together to form the Ohio River.

Both England and France claimed this land. New France, due to Sieur de la Salle's explorations of the 1670s. Virginia as part of its western border, granted by Royal Charter to the settlers of Jamestown.

Virginian and Pennsylvanian fur traders had built posts at Logstown, an Indian village 18 miles down the Ohio River from the forks and at Picawillany (Piqua Ohio), in the Indian village of chief Unemakemi (called Old Britain by the English). But in June 1752, the Marquis de Duquesne, governor of New France, sent a war party of Ottawa and Chippewa to destroy the trading posts. The traders were killed, and Old Britain was said to have been butchered, boiled and eaten.

To secure French claims, Duquesne then orders two forts be built to protect the headwaters of the Ohio. Fort Presque Isle on the banks of Lake Erie, (Erie, Pa.), and Fort Le Boeuf, (Waterford, Pa.).

In October, 1753, Virginia Lieutenant Governor, Robert Dinwiddie, sent George Washington, to protest the building of these two French Forts. With him was as French interpreter, Dutchman, Jacob van Braam, fur trader, Christopher Gist as pilot, Barnaby Currin, John MacQuire, Indian Traders, Henry Steward and William Jenkins as "Servitors".

Washington and his companions rode to Fort Le Boeuf and delivered Dinwiddie's message to the forts commander, Captain Legardeur de St. Pierre. This message demanded his imitate withdrawal. St. Pierre politely informed Washington he would be allowed to return home, but any further trespassing would be met with force.

Washington could do nothing but return to Virginia. But by now it was December, and the rivers were frozen, so Washington and Gist set out cross-country. He arrived back in Williamsburg after many hardships and narrow excapes, in early January 1754.

Dinwiddie was outraged by the French disregard for British claims. On February 14th he convened the House of Burgesses. They soon voted for funds to be appropriated in order to raise and equip troops. William Trent ( a former Fur Trader) was given commission as captain and ordered to recruit a force of men to build a fort at the Forks of the Ohio. The fort was commenced under the direction of Ensign Ward. On February 17th they began to build a redoubt for the fort, and by mid April, construction had progressed to just above ground level. On April 18th, French Captain Pierre de Contrecoeur arrived with over five hundred troops, forcing the Virginians to surrender the site under a threat of using his artillery. After ordering Trent and his men to return to Virginia, the French began completing the structure, which they named Fort Duquesne.

Washington was then promoted Lieutenant Colonel and placed second in command to Colonel Joshua Fry. They would follow Trent and his men with a military force to defend the new fort. Leaving Alexandria, Virginia, in April 1754, Washington, with about 133 men, set out for the Forks of the Ohio. On May 25th, Colonel Fry, with two companies left Winchester, Virginia toward the meeting place at Wills Creek. During this march he fell from his horse and died, leaving Washington in command. He cut a wagon road over the Appalachian Mountains, that for the first time since creation of the world, carried wheels into the Ohio country.

On April 20, Washington was informed that three days earlier, the French had seized the fort that the British had begun at the Forks of the Ohio. May 24, the day after Jumonville marched from fort Duquesne, Washington received a letter from chief Thaninhisson (also called the Half-King), alluding to the French army which was going out to meet him. Thaninhisson declared that the French " are resolved to strike the first English they see". The afternoon of the same day, a trader stated that he had seen two Frenchmen the night before, and that there was " a strong detachment on the march".

Arriving at a place known as The Great Meadows, about 60 miles south of the new Fort Duquesne, Washington thought it prudent to entrench his detachment. On may 27^th, Christopher Gist reported that a party of fifty men had attempted to destroy his post. Washington sent 75 men in pursuit of the Frenchmen.

After sending out Indian scouts, Washington was informed later the same evening by chief Half-King, that " they had seen along the road the tracks of two men which went down into a gloomy hollow, and that he imagined that the whole of the party was hidden there." He set out with about 40 men and marching all night, arrived near the French camp six miles away about dawn, May 28, 1754. After sending out scouts it was determined that, a party of about thirty Frenchmen was camped in a hidden gully half a mile from the road.

Washington then held council with Thaninhisson where it was decided they would strike jointly. The combined force surrounded and attacked the French camp about seven or eight o’clock in the morning. Here the French and English accounts differ as to how the fighting began, but the results were, ten Frenchmen, including their leader, Ensign Joseph Coulon de Villiers, the Sieur de Jumonville, fell dead or dieing. The twenty-two survivors fight bravely, but fifteen minutes later were forced to surrender.

After destroying Jumonville's party, Washington found himself forced to move quickly to protect his troops. Knowing the French would soon attack, he returned to the Great Meadows. Here with little planning, he and his men built a crude stockade named Fort Necessity. It was a small round stockade surrounded by shallow trenches. To make matters worse, it was built in a natural bowl commanded by wooded hillsides. It was hardly completed when the English Indian allies vanished.

Days later, an escaped survivor returned to Fort Duquesne and reported the ambush. Captain Claude-Pierre de Contrecoeur, commander of Fort Duquesne, sent out messages for help. Militia, Coureurs de Bois and Indian allies converged on the fort. By the end of June 1400 men had gathered there. Among them was Jumonville's older half-brother Captain Louis Coulon Ecuyer, Sieur de Villers. He soon left the fort with a 900-man force of French troops, and their Indian allies.

When the French arrived, Washington formed his men in front of the trenches, hoping for a battle in the open. The French however did not take the bait. Taking cover, they fired on the English from the trees. The Virginians fell back inside the stockade, but it provided little protection. Surrounded by his attackers during a spring downpour, the young Washington lost third of his men to enemy fire. By nightfall, half of the defenders were out of action. They had broken into the stores of rum, and those not wounded were drunk. French attackers quickly overcame fort necessity. Washington was forced to request surrender terms, July 4^th, 1754.

In the noblest European tradition, the French allowed the English to bury their thirty-one men who had died. Then, except for Captains Robert Stobo and Jacob Van Braam who were to be held hostage, Washington and his men departed in an orderly fashion and slowly made their way back to Virginia. The French on their return to Fort Duquesne, burned Gist's settlement and the Ohio companies storehouse at Wills creek. With this done, no English flag was left flying west of the Allegheny Mountains!

The first strong reactions to the defeat came from the English colonists and Native Americans living in the regions nearest the French forts. Washington's failure to seize Fort Duquesne ignited an undeclared war between France and England in North America. Two years later, a formal declaration of war between the two countries would open the final war between them, the French and Indian War.