Fort McIntosh Site | |
Location | Beaver, Pennsylvania |
---|---|
Coordinates | 40°41′29″N80°18′9.24″W / 40.69139°N 80.3025667°W |
Area | less than one acre |
Built | 1785 |
Part of | Beaver Historic District (ID96001201) |
NRHP reference No. | 75001614 [1] |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | April 24, 1975 |
Designated PHMC | October 31, 1946 [2] |
Fort McIntosh was an early American log frontier fort situated near the confluence of the Ohio River and the Beaver River in what is now Beaver, Pennsylvania. It was the first American fort north of the Ohio River at the time of its erection. [3]
The fortress was constructed in 1778 under the direction of Lt. Col. Cambray-Digny, a French engineer, and named in honor of General Lachlan McIntosh. A conference was held at Fort Pitt in 1778 where the United States agreed to build Fort McIntosh and use it to help protect Native Americans against the British or enemy-Indian attacks in exchange for Delaware Indian cooperation in the Revolutionary War. The fort was completed by the fall of 1778 and Lachlan McIntosh then moved about 1,500 men from Pittsburgh to Beaver. [3]
Fort McIntosh was in the form of a trapezoid, about 150 feet on each side, with raised earthen bastions on each corner. Log palisades connected the bastions, and a 15 foot wide ditch protected three sides of the fort, with the 130 foot slope to the Ohio River protecting the other side. Inside were three barracks, warehouses, officer's quarters, a forge, kitchen, and powder magazines. The fort may have had either two or four iron cannon. [4] Supplies from the Ohio River were accessed and moved through an underground passage. [5]
The fortress was abandoned in 1791. Fort McIntosh was used as shelter for rangers, hunters, and spies after its shutdown. The roofs decayed in 1795 and only the western wing remained standing at that point. [5] After the Revolution, the fort was the home of the First American Regiment, the oldest active unit in the United States Army. Between the decay, lack of supplies, vandalism, and lessened importance of the fort as the frontier shifted further westward, Fort McIntosh became largely obsolete. [6]
Lachlan McIntosh began his service during the Revolutionary War as Colonel of the Georgia Battalion in January 1776. In 1778, he served alongside General George Washington at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, after which McIntosh was given command of the Continental Army’s Western Department. [7] With the creation of Fort McIntosh and Fort Laurens, McIntosh initiated a campaign for control of the Northwest Territory from Britain’s Native American allies in the Ohio Valley.
The Treaty of Fort McIntosh was signed on January 21, 1785. Its goal was to create clear title to Delaware Indian lands in Pennsylvania so Revolutionary soldiers could then purchase said lands with certificates of depreciation. The Treaty was less a negotiation and rather an imposition on the Delaware, Wyandots, Chippewas, and Ottowas. The Native Americans gave up two thirds of Ohio in Article III of the Treaty, establishing the first boundary in the Northwest from which future territories were measured. [8]
In 1974, citizens of Beaver, Pennsylvania received assistance from the University of Pittsburgh and the Carnegie Museum to locate Fort McIntosh’s remains and undertake excavations. They were successful in uncovering the stone footers which marked the walls and fireplaces of the fort. 80,000 identifiable artifacts were found in four years of digging. A dedication was held for the site on October 7, 1978 by U.S. Army General William Westmoreland, a full 200 years after Fort McIntosh was first constructed. [9] In late 2010, a local business owner donated money for a granite and sandstone memorial on the fort site. [10]
The fort site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. [1] In 1996, most of Beaver was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the "Beaver Historic District." [1] At that time, the fort site was singled out as one of the most significant of the district's 1,250 contributing properties. [11]
The Beaver Area Heritage Foundation protects the restored site, which features granite monuments and bronze plaques, as well as the original stone footers of the walls and fireplaces.
The legacy of Fort McIntosh lives on in the present day through the work of the Fort McIntosh Club institution in Beaver, Pennsylvania. Since 1911, the Club has strived to foster fellowship with the community via service outings, mentoring, and philanthropy. [12] It unites passionate individuals who want to create positive change within Beaver County. The Fort McIntosh Foundation, established as a not-for-profit organization in 2015, makes financial contributions to military members and veterans, youth, families, and other organizations in the county. [13]
The Beaver community also honors the importance of the fort to Western Pennsylvania with Fort McIntosh Day. Festivities include lessons on daily life in the 1700s and reenactments of canon fire and regimental drills by the Fort McIntosh and Wayne’s 4th Sub-Legion of the United States. [14]
Beaver is a borough in, and the county seat of, Beaver County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located near the confluence of the Beaver and Ohio Rivers, approximately 30 miles (48 km) northwest of Pittsburgh. As of the 2020 census, the population was 4,438.
The Ohio Country was a name used for a loosely defined region of colonial North America west of the Appalachian Mountains and south of Lake Erie.
William Crawford was an American military officer and surveyor who worked as a land agent alongside George Washington while Washington was a teenager. Crawford fought in the French and Indian War, Lord Dunmore's War and the American Revolutionary War arising to the rank of Colonel. In 1782, his unit was attacked, and while he and his surgeon escaped for less than one day, Crawford was eventually captured where he was tortured and burned at the stake by Crawford's former soldier turned British agent, Simon Girty, and Captain Pipe, a Chief of the Delaware Nation.
White Eyes, named Koquethagechton, was Chief Sachem of the Lenape (Delaware) people in the Ohio Country during the era of the American Revolution. Sometimes known as George White Eyes, or Captain Grey Eyes al. Sir William, his given name in Lenape was rendered in many spelling variations in colonial records.
Fort Laurens was an American Revolutionary War fort on a northern tributary of the Muskingum River in what would become Northeast Ohio, United States. The fort's location is in the present-day town of Bolivar, Ohio, along the Ohio and Erie Canal Towpath Trail.
The Treaty of Fort Pitt, also known as the Treaty With the Delawares, the Delaware Treaty, or the Fourth Treaty of Pittsburgh, was signed on September 17, 1778, and was the first formal treaty between the new United States of America and any American Indians, in this case the Lenape, who were called Delaware by American settlers. Although many informal treaties were held with Native Americans during the American Revolution from 1775 to 1783, the first one that resulted in a formal document was signed at Fort Pitt, Pennsylvania, now the site of Downtown Pittsburgh. It was essentially a treaty of military alliance between the Lenape Nation and the United States.
The National Register of Historic Places in the United States is a register including buildings, sites, structures, districts, and objects. The Register automatically includes all National Historic Landmarks as well as all historic areas administered by the U.S. National Park Service. Since its introduction in 1966, more than 97,000 separate listings have been added to the register.
The Treaty of Fort McIntosh was a treaty between the United States government and representatives of the Wyandotte, Delaware, Chippewa and Ottawa nations of Native Americans. The treaty was signed at Fort McIntosh on January 21, 1785. It contained 10 articles and an addendum.
James Potter (1729–1789) was a soldier, farmer, and politician from Colonial- and Revolutionary-era Pennsylvania. He rose to the rank of brigadier general of Pennsylvania militia during the Revolutionary War, and served as Vice-President of Pennsylvania, 1781–1782.
The riverside village of Logstown also known as Logg's Town, French: Chiningue near modern-day Baden, Pennsylvania, was a significant Native American settlement in Western Pennsylvania and the site of the 1752 signing of the Treaty of Logstown between the Ohio Company, the Colony of Virginia, and the Six Nations, which occupied the region. Being an unusually large settlement, and because of its strategic location in the Ohio Country, an area contested by France and England, Logstown was an important community for all parties living along the Ohio and tributary rivers. Logstown was a prominent trade and council site for the contending British and French colonial governments, both of which made abortive plans to construct forts near the town. Logstown was burned in 1754 and although it was rebuilt, in the years following the French and Indian War it became poor and was eventually abandoned.
Pennsylvania was the site of many key events associated with the American Revolution and American Revolutionary War. The city of Philadelphia, then capital of the Thirteen Colonies and the largest city in the colonies, was a gathering place for the Founding Fathers who discussed, debated, developed, and ultimately implemented many of the acts, including signing the Declaration of Independence, that inspired and launched the revolution and the quest for independence from the British Empire.
Custaloga was a chief of the Wolf Clan of the Delaware (Lenape) tribe in the mid-18th century. He initially supported the French at the beginning of the French and Indian War, but after Pontiac's War he participated in peace negotiations. He opposed the presence of Catholic missionaries, but later in life he became favorable to the Moravians. Captain Pipe was his nephew and succeeded him as chief.
Captain Pipe (Lenape), called Konieschquanoheel and also known as Hopocan in Lenape, was an 18th-century Head Peace chief of the Algonquian-speaking Lenape (Delaware) and War Chief 1778+. He succeeded his maternal uncle Custaloga as chief by 1773. Likely born in present-day Pennsylvania, he later migrated with his people into eastern Ohio.
The Treaty of Fort Stanwix was a treaty finalized on October 22, 1784, between the United States and Native Americans from the six nations of the Iroquois League. It was signed at Fort Stanwix, in present-day Rome, New York, and was the first of several treaties between Native Americans and the United States after the American victory in the Revolutionary War.
The Beaver Historic District is a historic district in Beaver, Pennsylvania, United States. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 24, 1996, it is centered on Beaver's commercial Third Street and the area around it. The buildings in the district date primarily to the nineteenth century, although some twentieth-century structures are present. Some of the district's most prominent buildings are five churches and the county courthouse, although most of the district consists of residential neighborhoods. Included in the boundaries of the district is the Matthew S. Quay House, the National Historic Landmark home of Beaver native Senator Matthew Quay, and the site of Fort McIntosh, a fort constructed in the 1780s.
Thomas Gaddis (1742–1834) was a militia officer in the American Revolutionary War. He was born December 28, 1742, in Winchester, Frederick County, Virginia and married Hannah Rice in 1764; the same year he built Fort Gaddis, a refuge from the Indians, located on the Catawba Trail. In fact, Pennsylvania and Virginia had conflicting claims in the area Gaddis settled. Though he maintained his loyalty to Virginia, Gaddis also protected his investment by recording his patent with Pennsylvania authorities. By 1773, both states created new geo-political boundaries in recognition of increased white settlement. Pennsylvania formed Westmoreland County out of the larger Bedford County, and Virginia established the District of West Augusta. In 1776, West Augusta was further divided into three counties: Ohio, Yohogania, and Monongalia, where Gaddis and his family resided.
Lachlan McIntosh was a Scottish American military and political leader during the American Revolution and the early United States. In a 1777 duel, he fatally shot Button Gwinnett, a signer of the Declaration of Independence ten months earlier.
Daniel Brodhead was an American military officer and politician who served during the American Revolutionary War.
Kuskusky, also known as the Kuskuskies Towns, Kuskuskie Towns, or Kuskuskies' Indian Town, with a wide variety of other spellings, were several Native American communities inhabited near New Castle, Mahoning, and Edinburg, Pennsylvania, and Youngstown, Ohio, during the mid-18th century. It was not one town, but three or four contiguous towns of the Mingoes, Lenape, and Seneca, located along the Beaver River, at and above the junction of its east and west branches, the Mahoning River and the Shenango River. It is usually referred to in the plural.
Saucunk or Sawcunk was a town established by the Lenape and Shawnees. It was the site of a Catholic mission and was visited by Conrad Weiser, Christian Frederick Post and George Croghan. The Lenape chiefs Tamaqua, Pisquetomen, Captain Jacobs and Shingas all lived there temporarily. Saucunk was abandoned after the Battle of Bushy Run in 1763.