vacation [I]

Clockwise from upper left: plaque on original location of Fort Duquesne,
me being *barely* tall enough to join the American Royal Regiment, a six-pound
cannon used in the Siege of Yorktown, and an original blockhouse from Fort Pitt

Today’s itinerary: the Fort Pitt Museum and Point State Park. Pittsburgh (named after William Pitt, a British politician beloved by Americans even through the American Revolution) sits on the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, which form the mouth of the Ohio River. The “Forks of the Ohio” were prime real estate in the bitter contest between France and Great Britain: whoever owned the Forks had the best water highway to the Ohio territory. The French lusted after the Forks for their Indian trade, and the British wanted the Forks as a “launching place” for westward expansion into the Ohio territory. In 1754, the British tried building a fort on the Forks but were run out by the French, who built Fort Duquesne. The French fort held out for several years during the French & Indian War, protected by a watershed of Indian warriors (and by the ineptitude and weaknesses of colonial soldiers). The latter years of the French & Indian War went bad for the French, and they abandoned their fort, burning it to the ground, retreating northwards to strengthen their string of forts protecting Quebec and Montreal. The British marched on the ruined fort and built their own fort in its place: far bigger than Fort Duquesne, Fort Pitt became the largest frontier fort in colonial America and became the launching pad for westward expansion and expeditions against the Indians. Fort Pitt’s prominence began to fall when a new fort further down the Ohio—Fort Washington in present-day Cincinnati—took its place.