AMERICA REVOLUTION 1753-1783

THE HISTORIC ELM AT CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, WHERE WASHINGTON TOOK COMMAND OF THE AMERICAN ARMY, JULY 3, 1775. (From a photograph made some years before it felt on October 28, 1923)

AMERICA

Great Crises In Our HistoryTold by Its Makers A LIBRARY OF ORIGINAL SOURCES Volume III Revolution 1753-1783 ISSUED BY

AMERICANIZATI0N DEPARTMENT

VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS OF THE

UNITED STATES CHICAGO, U. S. A.

WASHINGTON'S EXPEDITION TO THE OHIO

From Washington's Journal.

THE French and English were both claiming the Ohio country. In Virginia the Ohio Company was organized to settle and develop the new territory. About the same time the French began occupying it and erecting forts to safeguard their possessions. The Virginia Company decided to send a messenger to the French to order them out.

Their first messenger was an experienced frontiersman who lost courage and came home. It was then that Governor Dinwiddy decided to send George Washington on the perilous expedition. That he should have been selected for this hazardous journey when only 21 years of age is a lasting tribute to the high character of the youthful Washington.

Washington kept a journal of his expedition and Governor Dinwiddy was so favorably impressed with it that he decided to have it published at once, and gave Washington only 24 hours to put it in the hands of the printer, William Hunter, who Published it at Williamsburg in January, 1754.

I WAS commissioned and appointed by the Honorable Robert Dinwiddy, Esq ; Governor, &c., of Virginia, to visit and deliver a letter to the Commandant of the French forces on the Ohio, and set out on the intended journey the same day: The next, I arrived at Fredericksburg, and engaged Mr. Jacob Vanbraam (formerly Washington's fencing-master) to be my French interpreter; and proceeded with him to Alexandria, where we provided necessaries. From thence we went to Winchester, and got baggage, horses, &c.; and from thence we pursued the new road to Wills-Creek (now Cumberland, Md.) where we arrived the 14th of November.

Here I engaged Mr. Gist to pilot us out, and also hired four others as servitors, Barnaby Currin and John Mac-Quire, Indian traders, Henry Steward, and William Jenkins ; and in company with those persons, left the inhabitants the day following.

The excessive rains and vast quantity of snow which had fallen, prevented our reaching Mr. Frazier's, an Indian trader, at the mouth of Turtle Creek, on Monongahela [river], till Thursday, the 22d. We were informed here, that expresses had been sent a few days before to the traders down the river, to acquaint them with the French General's death, and the return of the major part of the French army into winter quarters.

The waters were quite impassable, without swimming our horses ; which obliged us to get the loan of a canoe from Frazier, and to send Barnaby Currin and Henry Steward down the Monongahela, with our baggage, to meet us at the forks of Ohio, about 10 miles, there to cross the Aligany.

As I got down before the canoe, I spent some time in viewing the rivers, and the land in the fork ; which I think extremely well situated for a fort, as it has the absolute command of both rivers. The land at the point is 20 or 25 feet above the common surface of the water; and a considerable bottom of flat, well-timbered land all around it, very convenient for building: The rivers are each a quarter of a mile, or more, across, and run here very near at right angles: Aligany bearing N. E. and Monongahela S. E. The former of these two is a very rapid and swift running water ; the other deep and still, without any perceptible fall.

About two miles from this, on the south east side of the river, at the place where the Ohio Company intended to erect a fort, lives Shingiss, king of the Delawares: We called upon him, to invite him to council at the Loggs-town.

As I had taken a good deal of notice yesterday of the situation at the forks, my curiosity led me to examine this more particularly, and I think it greatly inferior, either for defense or advantages; especially the latter : For a fort at the forks would be equally well situated on the Ohio, and have the entire command of the Monongahela : which runs up to our settlements and is extremely well designed for water carriage, as it is of a deep still nature. Besides a fort at the fork might be built at a much less expense, than at the other place.

Nature has well contrived this lower place, for water defense ; but the hill whereon it must stand being about a quarter of a mile in length, and then descending gradually on the land side, will render it difficult and very expensive, to make a sufficient fortification there. The whole flat upon the hill must be taken-in, the side next the descent made extremely high, or else the hill itself cut away: Otherwise, the enemy may raise batteries within that distance with-cut being exposed to a single shot from the fort.

Shingiss attended us to the Loggs-Town, where we arrived between sun-setting and dark, the 25th day after I left Williamsburg. We traveled over some extreme good and bad land, to get to this place.

As soon as I came into town, I went to Monakatoocha (as the half-king was out at his hunting-cabin on little Beaver-Creek, about 15 miles off) and informed him by John Davison, my Indian interpreter, that I was sent a messenger to the French General; and was ordered to call upon the Sachems of the Six Nations, to acquaint them with it. I gave him a string of wampum, and a twist of tobacco, and desired him to send for the half-king; which he promised to do by a runner in the morning, and for other sachems. I invited him and the other great men present to my tent, where they stayed about an hour and returned.

According to the best observations I could make, Mr. Gist's new settlement (which we passed by) bears about W. N. W. 70 miles from Wills-Creek; Shanapins, or the forks N. by W. or N. N. W. about 50 miles from that; and from thence to the Loggs-Town, the course is nearly west about 18 or 20 miles: so that the whole distance, as we went and computed it, is at least 135 or 140 miles from our back inhabitants.