tes of Lord
Fairfax, going for months into the forest without fear of savage Indians
or wild beasts; and was now a major of Virginia militia. In pursuance of
the claim of Virginia that she owned that part of Pennsylvania in which
Pittsburgh is situated, Washington came there as the agent of Governor
Dinwiddie to treat with the Indians. With an eye alert for the dangers
of the wilderness, and with Christopher Gist beside him, the young
Virginian pushed his cautious way to "The Point" of land where the
confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers forms the Ohio. That,
he declared, with clear military instinct, was the best site for a fort;
and he rejected the promontory two miles below, which the Indians had
recommended for that purpose. Washington made six visits to the vicinity
of Pittsburgh, all before his presidency, and on three of them (1753,
1758, and 1770), he entered the limits of the present city. At the time
of despatching the army to suppress the whisky insurrection, while he
was President, in 1794, he came toward Pittsburgh as far as Bedford, and
then, after planning the march, returned to Philadelphia. His contact
with the place was, therefore, frequent, and his information always very
complete. There is a tradition, none the less popular because it cannot
be proved, which ascribes to Washington the credit of having suggested
the name of Pittsburgh to General Forbes when the place was captured
from the French. However this may be, we do know that Washington was
certainly present when the English flag was hoisted and the city named
Pittsburgh, on Sunday, November 26, 1758. And at that moment Pittsburgh
became a chief bulwark of the British Empire in America.

II

As early as 1728, a daring hunter or trader found the Indians at the
head waters of the Ohio,--among them the Delawares, Shawanese, Mohicans,
and Iroquois,--whither they tracked the bear from their village of
Logstown, seventeen miles down the river. They also employed the country
roundabout as a highway for their march to battle against other tribes,
and against each other. At that time France and England were disputing
for the new continent. France, by right of her discovery of the
Mississippi, claimed all lands drained by that river and its
tributaries, a contention which would naturally plant her banner upon
the summit of the Alleghany Mountains. England, on the other hand,
claimed everything from ocean shore to ocean shore. This situati