Existing comment:
War on the Conococheague and the building of Fort Loudoun
Following the defeat of General Edward Braddock's army of British and Colonial forces during the Battle of Monongahela on July 9, 1755, the Pennsylvania-Maryland-Virginia frontier became vulnerable to Indian raids launched from French Fort Duquesne (now Pittsburgh) and the Delaware village at Kittanning. Indian raids against the Conococheague Valley began in the fall of 1755, and over the next three years, the local population was terrorized by killings and attacks on perhaps as many as 400 settlers. In addition to many small private settlement forts that were erected in the region, Fort Loudoun was constructed in November 1756 to replace nearby Fort McDowell as a supply depot and to provide protection for local settlers. It was named after John Campbell, the 4th Earl of Loudoun, who became Commander-in-Chief of British forces in North America in July 1756.
Built by Colonel John Armstrong on farmland owned by Matthew Patton, the fort was essentially a simple square stockade measuring 127' x 127' and containing two or three modest buildings inside. An unusual feature, perhaps unique to this fort, was the corner shooting platforms supported from below by posts. This arrangement did not impress Rev. Thomas Barton, an Anglican minister serving as a chaplain in the army of General John Forbes, who noted during a visit in the summer of 1758 that Fort Loudoun was "a poor piece of work, irregularly built, and badly situated at the bottom of a hill subject to damps and noxious vapors. It has something like bastions supported by props, which if the enemy should cut down tumbles men and all."
During the summer and fall of 1758, the fort served as a depot for supplies for the Forbes Campaign and as a staging area for British and Provincial units marching west. Later it served as an important communication link along the Forbes Road during Pontiac's Rebellion of 1763. In 1765, James Smith, a local resident, led a group of settlers to stop the shipment of Indian trade goods and ammunition by unscrupulous traders despite direct British orders against it. Several confrontations occurred which forced the eventual British withdrawal from the fort in November of that year. This action by Smith and the settlers of the Conococheague is often considered one of the first acts of resistance that led to the American Revolution in 1775. |