BGuthrie Photos: PA -- Pittsburgh -- Fort Pitt Museum

PA -- Pittsburgh -- Fort Pitt Museum:

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[1] FTPITT_070826_001.JPG	[2] FTPITT_070826_012.JPG	[3] FTPITT_070826_015.JPG
[4] FTPITT_070826_019.JPG	[5] FTPITT_070826_021.JPG	[6] FTPITT_070826_024.JPG
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[16] FTPITT_070826_064.JPG	[17] FTPITT_070826_065.JPG	[18] FTPITT_070826_070.JPG
[19] FTPITT_070826_073.JPG	[20] FTPITT_070826_081.JPG	[21] FTPITT_070826_082.JPG
[22] FTPITT_070826_085.JPG	[23] FTPITT_070826_093.JPG	[24] FTPITT_070826_099.JPG
[25] FTPITT_070826_100.JPG	[26] FTPITT_070826_103.JPG	[27] FTPITT_070826_106.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. FTPITT_070826_081.JPG: Pontiac's War: Pontiac Reacts: In 1763, angry Native Americans followed Pontiac into war against the British. Attacks began at Fort Detroit, then spread throughout the Great Lakes region and western Pennsylvania. The British had pursued Native Americans as allies during the French and Indian War, but afterwards dismissed them as obstacles to settlements. Gen. Jeffery Amherst, Command-in-Chief of British forces in North America, imposed new policies prohibiting the trade of powder, lead, and alcohol to the tribes. It was a blow to the Native Americans who relied on European products. Famine took its toll as settlers blocked access to hunting grounds. Pontiac, an Ottawa leader, called on Native Americans to unite and drive the British from their lands. Realizing their very survival was threatened, hundreds of warriors from the Great Lakes and the Ohio Country responded. The Attacks: Pontiac's followers attacked Fort Detroit on May 9, 1763. From May to July, some 900 warriors from several nations destroyed settlements and forts across the Great Lakes. Ten British forts and their occupants fell. Terror spread throughout western Pennsylvania as warriors attacked settlements throughout this region. Fort Pitt became isolated as it was surrounded by Native Americans. On May 30, residents of the fledgling town of Pittsburgh sought refuge inside the fort. There, settlers and soldiers suffered a prolonged siege by Delaware and Shawnee warriors who intimidated them with fire arrows and shouts for surrender. Germ Warfare: On June 24, 1763, Indian trader William Trent, on orders from Fort Pitt's commander Capt. Simeon Ecuyer, gave Indians two blankets and a handkerchief from the fort's smallpox hospital. In mid-July, Gen. Jeffery Amhert and Col. Henry Bouquet, unaware of Ecuyer's action, agreed to order Ecuyer to use smallpox against the Native Americans. The tactic had no immediate effect on the siege, but Indians would later suffer smallpox outbreaks. Bouquet Strikes Back: After receiving alarming reports from the isolated forts at Detroit and Pittsburgh, Amherst ordered Col. Henry Bouquet to Fort Pitt. An experienced field officer, Bouquet set out from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on July 18. Bouquet's column marched along the Forbes Road. On August 5, an Indian war party attacked as Bouquet's men approached Bushy Run Station. Bouquet held out through the night, and on the morning of August 6 feigned a retreat. His men then turned, attacked, and defeated the pursuing warriors. Bouquet reached Fort Pitt on August 10 to find his victory at Bushy Run had broken the siege.
2. FTPITT_070826_082.JPG: 1790-1795: Whose Land? Decision in the Northwest Territory: American settlers began entering the Northwest Territory b the thousands in 1787. Indian nations saw the beginning of an invasion. The Continental Congress organized the Northwest Territory in 1787, the first step in creating new states out of the region. It covered all of present-day Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and eastern Minnesota. Led by Little Turtle of the Miami and Blue Jacket of the Shawnee, Native Americans resisted the takeover of their lands. In 1790, in response to settlers' appeals for protection, the United States began sending armies into the territory. 1790: Harmar's Defeat: Brig. Gen. Josiah Harmar marched into western Ohio determined to destroy Kekionga, the strategic center for Ohio Country Indian nations. Many of the poorly trained militiamen in his force did not know how to load and fire a musket. On October 22, warriors led by Little Turtle ambushed Harmar's army at the Maumee River. Most of the militiamen fled without firing a shot. Harmar himself retreated to the safety of Fort Washington. His defeat was seen as a major setback to U.S. plans for expansion. 1791: St. Clair's Defeat: President George Washington sent Maj. Gen. Arthur St. Clair, Governor of the Northwest Territory, to end the Indian uprising. St. Clair's force was mostly poorly trained, ill-equipped, short-term recruits. On November 4, as they awaked in their camp along the Wabash River, Miami and Shawnee warriors led by Little Turtle and Blue Jacket swept in, killing nearly 900 soldiers. St. Clair, the balance of his men, and a number of civilians escaped to Fort Jefferson. St. Clair's defeat was another humiliating defeat for the American army. 1794: Wayne's Victory: President George Washington chose Gen. Anthony Wayne to lead a third expedition against the Indians. Believing the previous failures were caused by lack of training, Wayne established Legionville (present-day Ambridge, Pennsylvania) to drill his men in 1792. After intense training, Wayne moved his men west and carefully planned his campaign. Little Turtle carefully probe Wayne's force on their advance and concluded they could not be defeated. He called for a negotiated peace and, unable to convince his allies, left overall leadership to Blue Jacket of the Shawnee. Wayne defeated the allied tribes without much loss of life on either side at Fallen Timbers on August 20. 1795: The Treaty of Greeneville: In the summer of 1795, eleven Indian tribes gathered at Fort Greeneville in eastern Ohio to make peace with the United States. Little Turtle was their principal spokesman, eloquently defending Native American sovereignty. The treaty signed on August 3 placed much of the Ohio Valley in American hands. It also placed the Miami, Wyandot, Shawnee, Delaware, and seven other tribes under the protection of the U.S.. Over time, this provision was not honored. The Americans had achieved their goal, and settlers took possession of the territory.
3. FTPITT_070826_085.JPG: The Blockhouse: A Witness to Change: The building in front of you, called the Blockhouse, was built under the orders of Col. Henry Bouquet in 1764. The building is all that remains of the original Fort Pitt. It was actually a redoubt used for observation or defense. Soldiers standing on platforms inside could fire through slots in the all. This building was one of five similar structures built to give additional protection to Fort Putt following flood damage in 1762 and 1763. These structures were cheaper to construct that to repair the damage. Over time, the building saw a succession of owners and uses. Following the British evacuation of Fort Pitt in 1772, Alexander McKee, British Indian Agent, used it in his dealings with Native Americans. In 1785, Maj. Isaac Craig converted the building into a dwelling for his family. In 1794, it was designated as a place to register whiskey stills prior to the Whiskey Rebellion. It was used as housing through much of the 1800s and was even rumored to have been a speakeasy in the late 1880s. The Daughters of the American Revolution, Fort Pitt Chapter, acquired the building in 1894. They remain its present owners. "... this only remnant of a British engineer's defence against French hostility, is now the peaceful domicile of an industrious and meritorious Frenchman..."
4. FTPITT_070826_093.JPG: Wall Section through Rampart of Fort Pitt. This restored wall presents a section through a typical masonry rampart of Fort Pitt. Originally built of brick burned at the site and stone quarried in the area, the fort was a five-sided structure with a bastion at each corner and measured a half-mile in perimeter. The music, grenadier and flag bastions which faced the eastern or land side were built of masonry. The Ohio and Monongahela bastions were built of earth, This, the Monongahela Bastion, has been reconstructed of masonry on its original site so it could house the Fort Pitt Museum.
AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Wikipedia Description: Fort Pitt Museum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fort Pitt Museum is an indoor/outdoor museum that is administered by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission in downtown, Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania in the United States. It is at the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers, where the Ohio River is formed. Fort Pitt Museum is surrounded by Point State Park at Pennsylvania state park named for the geographically and historically significant point that is between the rivers. This piece of land was key to controlling the upper reaches of the Ohio River Valley and western Pennsylvania, before, during and after the French and Indian War as well as the American Revolution.

The museum is in a recreated bastion of the fort that was originally built in 1758 by the British. An outline of Fort Duquesne is nearby. The historical focus of the museum is the role that Fort Pitt played during the French and Indian War. The museum also features detailed information on Fort Pitt's role during the American Revolution, the Whiskey Rebellion and the founding of Pittsburgh.

History:

Fort Pitt was a fort in what is now the city of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The fort was built in 1758 during the French and Indian War, next to the site of Fort Duquesne. The French built Fort Duquesne at the beginning of that war, and it became a focal point due to its strategic river location. The Braddock expedition, a 1755 attempt to take Fort Duquense, met with a bloody repulse at the Monongahela River. The French garrison viciously mauled an attacking British regiment in September 1758, but abandoned and destroyed the fort at the approach of General John Forbes's expedition in November.

The Forbes expedition was successful where the Braddock expedition had failed because of the Treaty of Easton, in which area American Indians agreed to abandon their alliance with the French. American Indians—primarily Delawares and Shawnees—made this agreement with the understanding that the British military would leave the area after the war. The Indians wanted a trading post on the spot, but they did not want a British army garrison. The British, however, built a new fort on the site and named it Fort Pitt, after William Pitt the Elder.

Part of the excavated fort.As a result, in 1763 local Delawares and Shawnees took part in Pontiac's Rebellion, an effort to drive the British out of the region. The Indians' siege of Fort Pitt began on June 22, 1763, but the fort was too strong to be taken by force. In negotiations during the siege, the commander of Fort Pitt gave two Delaware emissaries blankets that had been exposed to smallpox, in hopes of infecting the surrounding Indians and ending the siege. The attempt was probably unsuccessful, and on August 1, 1763, most of the Indians broke off the siege in order to intercept an approaching force under Colonel Henry Bouquet, resulting in the Battle of Bushy Run. Bouquet fought off the attack and relieved Fort Pitt on August 20.

After Pontiac's War, Fort Pitt was no longer necessary to the British Crown, and was abandoned to the locals in 1772. At that time, the Pittsburgh area was claimed by both Virginia and Pennsylvania, and a power struggle for the region commenced. Virginians took control of Fort Pitt, and for a brief while in the 1770s it was called Fort Dunmore, in honor of Virginia's Governor Lord Dunmore. The fort served as a staging ground in Dunmore's War of 1774.

During the American Revolutionary War, Fort Pitt served as a headquarters for the western theatre of the war. Fort Pitt fell into disrepair once again in the years following the Revolution. It was abandoned in 1792 when Fort Fayette was built to replace it. Residents of the growing Pittsburgh used the remnants of the fort to build permanent housing for themselves.

A small brick building called the Blockhouse—actually an outbuilding known as a redoubt—remains in Point State Park, the only intact remnant of Fort Pitt. It was erected in 1764, and is believed to be the oldest building, not only in Pittsburgh, but in western Pennsylvania. Used for many years as a home, the blockhouse was purchased and has been preserved for many years by the Daughters of the American Revolution, who make it open to the public. Part of the foundations of Fort Pitt have been excavated and some of the fort has been rebuilt, though, giving visitors to Point State Park a sense of the size of the fort. In this rebuilt section the Monongahela Bastion houses the Fort Pitt Museum.

Fort Pitt Foundry was an important armaments manufacturing center for the Federal government during the Civil War, under the charge of William Metcalf.

Future:

Michael DeBerardinis, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, announce a $25 million dollar plan to renovate Point State Park and parts of the Fort Pitt Museum on October 11, 2006. The plans call for improving the green spaces within the park, expanding recreational opportunities, preserving historical installations and updating outdated amenities. The project is scheduled to be complete within four years, with the majority of the work to be completed in time for Pittsburgh's 250th anniversary celebration in 2008.

Sections of the park have fallen into disuse since it was established in 1974. The homeless have used the trenches surrounding the foundations of the remains of Fort Pitt as a temporary shelter for years. Graffiti on the structures of the park has become a major problem. Sections of the park are littered with fence posts, cut logs, plastic drums, and rolled up snow drift fencing. The walkways have become cracked and are beginning to fall apart. The goal of the restoration project is to re-establish the park as a recreational destination.

Plans for improving the park include, installing new pumps and pipes in the fountain, establishing a seating area around the fountain and a wading area for children, restoring the river walk with steps that lead into the river, building kiosks for information and concessions, renovating the rest rooms, renovating the water taxi landings and surrounding docks, and installing wireless internet access hubs.

These plans are not being put into place without some controversy. On January 25, 2007, thirteen members of two different local labor unions were arrested for blocking access by contractors to the work sites at the remnants of Fort Pitt. The labor union was protesting the use of four non-labor workers by the contractor responsible for completing the work at Point State Park.
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