Editing Fort Prince George (section)

== Background ==

In 1749 the British Crown awarded the [[Ohio Company]] a grant of 500,000 acres in the Ohio Country between the [[Monongahela River|Monongahela]] and the [[Kanawha River]]s, provided that the company would settle 100 families within seven years.<ref name=Ambler>{{cite web|last=Ambler|first=Charles Henry|title=George Washington and the West|url=http://digital.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=pitttext;cc=pitttext;xc=1;idno=00agb5351m;g=pitttextall;type=simple;q1=ohio%20company;submit=Search;didno=00agb5351m;rgn=full%20text;view=image;seq=48;page=root;size=s;frm=frameset;|work=Historic Pittsburgh Text Collection|publisher=University of Pittsburgh|access-date=27 March 2021}}</ref> The Ohio Company was also required to construct a fort and provide a garrison to protect the settlement at their own expense.<ref name=Thurston>{{cite web|last=Thurston|first=George H.|title=Allegheny county's hundred years|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=na2TNhB3BuAC|work=Historic Pittsburgh General Text Collection|date=1888 |publisher=University of Pittsburgh|access-date=22 March 2024}}</ref> [[Logstown#Treaty_of_Logstown,_1752|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.<ref>[https://archive.org/download/ohiocompanyofvirbail/ohiocompanyofvirbail.pdf Kenneth P. Bailey, ''The Ohio Company of Virginia and the Westward Movement, 1748-1792: A chapter in the History of the Colonial Frontier,'' University of California at Los Angeles. The Arthur H. Clark Co., Glendale, California, 1939]</ref>{{rp|123-144}}

On 29 May 1751, at a council meeting at Logstown between [[George Croghan]], [[Andrew Montour]] and representatives of the [[Iroquois|Six Nations]], Croghan reported the following statement from Iroquois speaker Toanahiso:
:"We expect that you our Brothers will build a [[Blockhouse|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.<ref name = "Hazard">[https://books.google.com/books?id=Gk0OAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA341 Samuel Hazard, ed. ''Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania: From the Organization to the Termination of the Proprietary Government, Mar. 10, 1683-Sept. 27, 1775,'' Vol 4 of Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Provincial Council, Pennsylvania Committee of Safety; J. Severns, 1851.]</ref>{{rp|538–39}}"

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.<ref name = "Wainwright">[https://www.jstor.org/stable/20088029 Wainwright, Nicholas B. "An Indian Trade Failure: The Story of the Hockley, Trent and Croghan Company, 1748-1752." ''The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography,'' vol. 72, no. 4 (1948): 343-75]</ref> 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.<ref name = "Hazard"/>{{rp|547}} At the Treaty of Logstown in June 1752, [[Tanacharison]] agreed to the construction of a fort upriver from Logstown, and Virginia's [[Ohio Company]] began construction of a road from Will's Creek to the Monongahela River where they built a storehouse at the mouth of Redstone Creek.<ref name = "Cherry">[https://books.google.com/books?id=qA6IDwAAQBAJ Cherry, Jason A. ''Pittsburgh's Lost Outpost: Captain Trent's Fort.'' Charleston, SC: HISTORY Press, 2019.]{{ISBN|1467141623}}</ref>{{rp|45}} 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.<ref name = "MacGregor">[https://www.jstor.org/stable/27778786 Doug MacGregor, "The Shot Not Heard Around the World: Trent's Fort and the Opening of the War for Empire." ''Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies,'' Summer 2007, Vol. 74, No. 3, State College: Penn State University Press pp. 354-373]</ref>{{rp|364}} The following summer, the Ohio Company obtained permission from the Six Nations to build Fort Prince George.<ref name = "Cherry"/>{{rp|54}}

=== Washington's journey ===

Governor Dinwiddie decided to warn the French that they were occupying British-claimed land. He assigned the 21-year-old Major [[George Washington]] to carry the message to French commander [[Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre]] at [[Fort Le Boeuf]]. Washington left [[Williamsburg, Virginia]] on October 31, 1753. On his way to Logstown to meet with Native American allies, he stopped at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, noting that "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."<ref name = "Hunter">[http://libsysdigi.library.illinois.edu/OCA/Books2012-06/fortsonpennsylva00hunt/fortsonpennsylva00hunt.pdf Hunter, William Albert. ''Forts on the Pennsylvania Frontier: 1753–1758,'' (Classic Reprint). Fb&c Limited, 2018; pp 313-19]</ref>{{rp|44}} 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."<ref name = "Hunter"/>{{rp|44}} These supplies were intended for Fort Prince George.<ref name = "MacGregor"/>{{rp|365}}<ref name = "Cherry"/>{{rp|36}}

=== Trent's orders ===

On January 26, Governor Dinwiddie issued a captain's commission in the Virginia militia to fur trader [[William Trent]],<ref name = "Cherry"/>{{rp|44}} 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.<ref name = "MacGregor"/>{{rp|366}}