for the kind of fighting needed to cope with the denizens of the woods. Every afternoon he exercises his men in the woods and bushes in a particular manner of his own invention which will be of great service in an engagement with the Indians," is what Joseph Shippen wrote to his father from Bedford.

In a letter to Chief Justice Allen, written on the day of arrival at Fort Duquesne, November 25, 1758, Bouquet attributes the success of the expedition in great part to the adoption of his route. Besides being much nearer Philadelphia, the base of supplies, the route secured the favor and co-operation of the Pennsylvania German farmers on whom he had to depend for transportation and who would have been unwilling to leave their own province to follow the longer Braddock road. This contest was the beginning of the struggle for commercial supremacy which, with varying fortunes, has gone forward ever since and which now finds its leading champions in the Pennsylvania Central and Baltimore and Ohio railroads. While we would not detract one iota from the fame and merits of Washington, and feel that under the circumstances it was quite natural for him to contend for what was manifestly the interest of Virginia and the Ohio land company, we yet must say that the logic of events fully vindicated the course of Bouquet and Forbes in cutting a short and direct road to Fort Duquesne,

As Pennsylvanians, at least, we should feel thankful to the firm and sagacious man who did so much to open up the western part of our state to settlement and put matters in the best possible shape for military defence along the borders. It was hard and slow work to open a wagon track through the dense forests and over towering mountains, but with an army of over 6,000 men, including many frontiersmen and woodsmen, now was the time to have it done if the campaign was to be a complete success. Historians agree that thus twenty years were gained in the settlement of Western Pennsylvania. Forbes was a man

of courage and sterling merit, and the fact that a commander such as he endorsed the Loyalhannah route, is strong proof and presumption that Bouquet had the better

cause and better argument over against his indignant colleague, even the great and good Washington.

It is very probable, however, that this dispute may have contributed to the neglect or disparagement of Bouquet by biographers and historians, whose great object was to glorify the Father of our Country and present him as a hero and a sage under all circumstances, before as well as during and after the War of Independence.

Forbes was a lion hearted old Scotchman. Weak and emaciated in body but dauntless in spirit, he had himself conveyed through the wilderness on a litter between two horses. He reached Bedford September 15, but remained there six weeks waiting for the opening of the road. November 1, he arrived at the Loyalhannah. A stockade had been erected here by the road building party under Col. Burd by direction of Col. Bouquet. This had been assailed by the French and Indians, who made a determined sortie from Fort Duquesne to surprise and cut off the advance guard and pioneers before the main body could come up to their relief. But the assault was repulsed and in consequence the Indians became discouraged and left for their forest homes. A reconnoitering party of 800, mostly Highlanders under Maj. Grant had previously pushed forward from the Loyalhannah, and had gained possession of a hill in the rear of the Fort, but with strange infatuation they failed to improve their advantages and opportunities. Failing to advance and surprise the garrison and making an ostentatious display they were soon surrounded by the French and Indians who shot down their huddled ranks from behind trees and ravines like so many sheep. Grant's Hill, in the centre of Pittsburg, marks the scene of this disastrous affray. A stand made by Col. Lewis with Provincial troops prevented the annihilation of the impracticable Scotch officer and his Highlanders who seemed to have learned nothing from Braddock's disaster or Bouquet's discipline. De Lignery cruelly gave up five of the prisoners captured in the route to be burned at the stake by the Indians and allowed the remainder to be tomahawked in cold blood on the parade ground of the fort.

Washington was directed to open the last fifty miles of the road between the Loyalhannah and Fort Duquesne. On the 24th of November, 1758, Forbes and his army were encamped at Turtle Creek, near the scene of Braddock's defeat three years before.

Provisions, forage, &c., were so nearly exhausted that some advised a retreat, but the “iron-headed " old Scotchman, as Forbes was called, would listen to no such talk, but announced his intention of sleeping in the fort on the next night. That same evening a great smoke was seen ascending in the direction of the fort, and at midnight the camp was startled by the jar of a great explosion. French had evacuated the post and had set fire to the magazine. They resolved to destroy what they despaired of defending. The last of their troops had embarked in boats and were seen hurrying down the Ohio as the British army approached.

The

The Highlanders were infuriated by the sight of the heads of slaughtered countrymen impaled on stakes along the race course as they neared the fort. These were victims of Grant's defeat. As one has said who was present, "foaming like mad boars, engaged in battle, they rushed madly on with hope to find an enemy on whom to accomplish retribution. But the detested foe was gone, and gone forever was French power and prestige at the forks of the Ohio. A square stockade was built and placed in charge of Colonel Hugh Mercer with 200 men. Next year a fort was at considerable cost erected on the ruins of the old fort by General Stanwix and named Fort Pitt, in honor of the English statesman, whose energetic policy had secured British supremacy in the New World. Pittsburgh was laid out at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. As early as April 1761, there were 162 houses, 221 men, 73 women and 38 children in the young town of Pittsburgh, according to the returns made to Colonel Bouquet.

The capture of Fort Duquesne and the opening of the new road, proved as great a blessing to the people of Pennsylvania as Bouquet and his friends had predicted. The army speedily returned to their homes. Forbes was

borne to Philadelphia, where he died a few weeks later, and was buried with great honor in Christ church.

The following extract from a letter to his lady friend at Philadelphia, written on the day of the army's arrival at the fort, shows the high estimate in which Bouquet held his hoary-headed chief :

FORT DUQUESNE, Nov. 25, 1758. DEAR NANCY.-I have the satisfaction to announce to you the agreeable news of the conquest of this terrible fort. The French, seized with a panic at our approach, have destroyed themselves; -that nest of Pirates which has so long harboured the murderers and destructors of our people. They have burned and destroyed to the ground their fortifications, houses and magazines, and left us no other cover than the heavens-a very cold one for an army without tents and equipages. We bear all this hardship with alacrity, by the consideration of the immense advantage of this important acquisition. The glory of our success must, after God, be allowed to our general, who, from the beginning, took those wise measures which deprived the French of their chief strength, and by a treaty at Easton kept such a num- • ber of Indians idle during the whole campaign and procured a peace with those inveterate enemies more necessary and beneficial than the driving of the French from the Ohio. His prudence in all his measures in the numberless difficulties he had to surmount deserves the highest praises.

BOUQUET IN COMMAND.

Bouquet was now in command and by judicious conferences with the Delaware Indians and energetic management, he soon restored peace and tranquility to the borders, so that the pioneer settlers met with little disturbance during the remainder of the French war. Four thousand settlers, who had left their homes in terror during the past few years, in consequence of the ravages that succeeded the defeat of Braddock and the cowardly retreat of Dunbar, now returned. Bouquet, with his Royal Americans, garrisoned the forts and posts, reaching from Philadelphia via Carlisle, Bedford, Fort Pitt, Lake Erie, Sandusky, &c. to Detroit. This regiment, largely composed of recruits from the German and Swiss settlers of Pennsylvania and

Maryland, as we have seen, held the outposts of civilization in the midst of savage beasts and savage men for seven years. Communication was kept up largely by express riders, who, taking their lives in their hands, rode rapidly from post to post.

BYERLY AT BUSHY RUN.

Andrew Byerly was induced to establish a relay station for these express riders at Bushy Run, midway between Fort Pitt and Fort Ligonier. He received a grant of several hundred acres of land from Col. Bouquet and the proprietary government, on which he erected buildings. suitable for his purpose. Here, with his second wife and a young and growing family, he settled down in the midst of the wilderness, at the end of the Penn Manor, intending to carve out a home for his children.

He cultivated friendly relations with the surrounding Indians and was soon well established, with a valuable herd of milk cows and other comforts of civilization. Here Bouquet spent many a pleasant hour in his trips to and from Fort Pitt. Ecuyer was also on friendly terms with the family. Mrs. Byerly, whose maiden name was Beatrice Guldin, had emigrated from the Canton of Berne, in Switzerland, the home of Bouquet. They often conversed about the lakes and the Alps, and friends in the far away land of their nativity, and contrasted those peaceful scenes and associations with the rough experiences of pioneer life in the new world. Byerly was a baker by profession, and seems always to have been a favorite with military men. He had erected one of the very first inns ever built in Lancaster, Pa., where he resided for a long while and buried his first wife. He had baked for Braddock's army at Fort Cumberland; and, backed by Maj. George Washington, had beaten a Catawba warrior in a foot race, on a wager of thirty shillings, which was intended to test the relative prowess and fleetness of the two races. Afterwards he removed to Fort Bedford, where he baked for the British garrison and where his son Jacob, a great-grand-father of the writer, was born in 1760. The