Colonel Washington

by Archer Butler Hulbert

On a plateau surrounded by low ground at the western extremity of classic Great Meadows, Fort Necessity was built, and there may be seen today the remains of its palisades.

The site was not chosen because of its strategic location but because, late in that May day, a century and a half ago, a little army hurrying forward to find any spot where it could defend itself, selected it because of the supply of water afforded by the brooks.

From the hill to the east the young Commander no doubt looked with anxious eyes upon this well watered meadow, and perhaps he decided quickly to make his resistance here. As he neared the spot his hopes rose, for he found that the plateau was surrounded by wet ground and able to be approached only from the southern side. Moreover the plateau contained “natural fortifications,” as Washington termed them, possibly gullies torn through it sometime when the brooks were out of banks.

Here Washington quickly ensconced his men. From their trenches, as they looked westward for the French, lay the western extremity of Great Meadows covered with bushes and rank grasses. To their right—the north—the meadow marsh stretched more than a hundred yards to the gently ascending wooded hillside. Behind them lay the eastern sweep of meadows, and to their left, seventy yards distant, the wooded hillside to the south. The high ground on which they lay contained about forty square rods, and was bounded on the north by Great Meadows brook and on the east by a brooklet which descended from the valley between the southern hills.

When, in the days following, Fort Necessity was raised, the palisades, it is said, were made by erecting logs on one end, side by side, and throwing dirt against them from both sides. As there were no trees in the meadow, the logs were brought from the southern hillside over the narrow neck of solid ground to their place. On the north the palisade was made to touch the waters of the brook. Without its embankments on the south and west sides, two trenches were dug parallel with the embankments, to serve as rifle-pits. Bastion gateways, three in number, were made in the western palisade.

The first recorded survey of Fort Necessity was made by Mr. Freeman Lewis, senior author, with Mr. James Veech, of “The Monongahela of Old,” in 1816. This survey was first reproduced in Lowdermilk’s “History of Cumberland”; it is described by Mr. Veech in “The Monongahela of Old,” and has been reproduced, as authoritative, by the authors of “Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania” published in 1895 by the State of Pennsylvania. The embankments are described thus by Mr. Veech on the basis of his collaborator’s survey: “It (Fort Necessity) was in the form of an obtuse-angled triangle of 105 degrees, having its base or hypothenuse upon the run. The line of the base was about midway, sected or broken, and about two perches of it thrown across the run, connecting with the base by lines of the triangle. One line of the angle was six, the other seven perches; the base line eleven perches long, including the section thrown across the run. The lines embraced in all about fifty square perches of land on (or?) nearly one third of an acre.”

This amusing statement has been seriously quoted by the authorities mentioned, and a map is made according to it and published in the “Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania” without a word as to its inconsistencies! How could a triangle, the sides of which measure six, seven and eleven rods, contain fifty square rods or one third of an acre? It could not contain half that amount.

The present writer went to Fort Necessity armed with this two page map of Fort Necessity in the “Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania” which he trusted as authoritative. The present owner of the land, Mr. Lewis Fazenbaker objected to the map, and it was only in trying to prove its correctness that its inconsistencies were discovered.

The mounds now standing on the ground are drawn on the appended chart “Diagrams of Fort Necessity” as lines C A B E. By a careful survey of them by Mr. Robert McCracken C. E., sides C A and A B are found to be the identical mounds surveyed by Mr. Lewis, the variation in direction being exceedingly slight and easily accounted for by erosion. The direction of Mr. Lewis’ sides were N 25 W and S 80 W: their direction by Mr. McCracken’s survey are N 22 W and S 80.30 W. This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the embankments surveyed in 1816 and 1901 are identical.

But the third mound B E runs utterly at variance with Mr. Lewis’ figure. By him its direction was 59¼ E; its present direction is S 76 E. The question then arises; Is this mound the one that Mr. Lewis surveyed? Nothing could be better evidence that it is than the very egregious error Mr. Lewis made concerning the area contained within his triangular embankment. He affirms that the area of Fort Necessity was fifty square rods. Now take the line of B E for the hypothenuse of the triangle and extend it to F where it would meet the projection of side A C. That triangle contains almost exactly 50 square rods or one-third of an acre! The natural supposition must be that some one had surveyed the triangle A F B and computed its area correctly as about fifty square rods. The mere recording of this area is sufficient evidence that the triangle A F B had been surveyed in 1816, and this is sufficient proof that mound B E stood just as it stands today and was considered in Mr. Lewis’ day as one of the embankments of Fort Necessity.