Fort Prince George (sometimes referred to as Trent's Fort) was an incomplete fort on what is now the site of Pittsburgh, at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The plan to occupy the strategic forks was formed by Virginia Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie, on the advice of Major George Washington, whom Dinwiddie had sent on a mission to warn French commanders they were on English territory in late 1753, and who had made a military assessment and a map of the site. The fort was still under construction when it was discovered by the French, who sent troops to capture it. The French then constructed Fort Duquesne on the site.
Background
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.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
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.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."
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.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 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 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.Cherry, Jason A. Pittsburgh's Lost Outpost: Captain Trent's Fort. Charleston, SC: HISTORY Press, 2019. 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.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 The following summer, the Ohio Company obtained permission from the Six Nations to build Fort Prince George.
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."Hunter, William Albert. Forts on the Pennsylvania Frontier: 1753–1758, (Classic Reprint). Fb&c Limited, 2018; pp 313-19 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. After clearing the ground, Tanacharison "laid the first log and said that the fort belonged to the English & them and whoever offered to prevent the building of it, they, the Indians, would make war against them." Construction was initiated by 33 Virginia militia, with 8 fur traders and trappers recruited by Trent with the assistance of his friend, Indian trader John Fraser, to whom Trent gave a lieutenant's commission. Trent accepted on condition that he be permitted to remain at his plantation, where he was engaged in fur trading, and come to the fort only once a week or whenever necessary.Clark, Howard Glenn. "John Fraser, Western Pennsylvania Frontiersman, Parts 1 & 2" Western Pennsylvania History Magazine, Vol. 38, No 3-4, Fall-Winter 1955; pp 83-93 Within 10 days they had "finished a Store House, and a large quantity of timber hew'd, boards saw'd, and shingles made." The fort was referred to as "Trent's Fort," and the title of Fort Prince George, (named for the crown prince and later King George III), was not attached to the fort until September 1754, when Governor Dinwiddie proposed it in a letter to his London superiors."Fort Prince George," historical marker placed May 8, 1959, explorepahistory.comSpencer Tucker, The Encyclopedia of North American Colonial Conflicts to 1775: A-K, ABC-CLIO, 2008
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,Papiers Contrecoeur: Le Conflit Anglo - Français Sur L'Ohio de 1745 à 1756. English translation of documents in the Quebec Seminary by Donald Kent, 1952Henry Wilson Temple, "Logstown," The Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, vol. 1, no. 1, Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania., 1918. Pp 248-258 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."Cherry, Jason A. Pittsburgh's Lost Outpost: Captain Trent's Fort. Charleston, SC: HISTORY Press, 2019. 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."
At that point, only a storehouse had been built, as Trent's men were still clearing the land and preparing stakes for the palisade. They had been subsisting on flour and corn they brought with them, along with meat traded to them by Native Americans from Logstown, but their supplies were running low. They were anticipating the arrival of now Lieutenant Colonel Washington and his troops, but on March 17, Trent decided to travel to Wills Creek to obtain more supplies, leaving Ensign Edward Ward in command, as Lieutenant Fraser was at his own plantation at Turtle Creek, tending to personal business.
On April 13, Ensign Ward received word via Robert Callender that a French military force was descending the Allegheny and would arrive within days. Alarmed, Ward went to inform Lieutenant Fraser, but there was nothing they could do except abandon the fort, in violation of their orders. Fraser refused to return to the fort, leaving Ward to confront the French. Ward returned to the construction site and had his men erect a stockade wall around the storehouse, completing it on April 16. Ward was determined to "hold out to the last extremity before it should be said that the English had retreated like cowards before the French forces appeared" as that "would give the Indians a very indifferent opinion of the English ever after." In his deposition of June 30, 1756, Ensign Ward reported that "there was no Fort but a few Palisades he ordered to be cut and put up four days before the French came down."
In April, a force of more than 600 men under the command of Captain Contrecœur traveled in pirogues and batteaux down the Allegheny River from Venango, landing at Shannopin's Town."From Benjamin Franklin to Richard Partridge, 8 May 1754," Founders Online, National Archives,The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 5, July 1, 1753, through March 31, 1755, ed. Leonard W. Labaree. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962, pp. 272–275. 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.