Fort Necessity and the National Road

Fort Necessity

The day opened with 300 miles of traveling into Pennsylvania. Our one stop for the day was Fort Necessity. The Ohio territory was just being settled when a small force of Virginia soldiers, led by George Washington was sent in 1753 to build a road to a Fort established near the present site of Pittsburgh, where the Ohio River begins. But the French had taken over the Fort. They decided to build a small fort, Fort Necessity within 2 days ride of the French. They encountered a French patrol, and ten Frenchmen were killed. But the French came back in force and Washington was defeated here, the first battle of what Americans call the French and Indian war or the European’s call the Seven Year War between the French and the British. One of their many wars, but the first one that didn’t end in a stalemate. Britain won, giving them their American colony, India, several Caribbean islands; filling out the British Empire. But they almost went bankrupt and needed new revenues. Those taxes were part of the cause of the American Revolution.  Washington later purchased land nearby and became convinced that a National Road was needed to connect the wilds of the Midwest to the Eastern states (otherwise they might ship their goods down the Mississippi to French Louisiana. This road was constructed beginning in 1811, the first road financed by the Federal government. Here we visited the Washington Inn, built in 1827 as a way station on the road. (The road eventually was replaced by railroads, only to be rebuilt as US 40 in the 1920s.)

The Washington Inn