A fort was built at this same time at Raystown, and called Fort Bedford.
Mr. Charles N. Hickok, of Bedford, who has written much of the history of that county, claims that Rae, as he spells the name, defended his settlement as early as 1751, almost a decade before the soldiers of Forbes’ exposition arrived there. The settlement was known as “Camp at Raystown” before General Forbes was encamped there, and his first official papers were so dated.
Early in April, 1757, Governor Denny ordered Colonel John Armstrong and his battalion to encamp at Raystown, “a well chosen situation on this side of the Allegheny Hills between two Indian roads.”
In June following Captain Hance Hamilton led a scouting party from the “Fort at Carlisle to Raystown, but encountered no Indians.”
On August 16, 1758, Major Joseph Shippen wrote from the camp at Raystown: “We have a good stockade fort here, with several convenient and large store houses. Our camps are all secured with good breast works and a small ditch on the outside, and everything goes well.”
The “Old Fort House,” which is still standing, was a large and commodious building for the period in which it was erected. It was used as the officers’ quarters, and was designated as the “King’s House.”
Fort Bedford was the center of much activity during the latter part of the French and Indian and the Pontiac Wars. At times more than a thousand troops were quartered there. There are accounts of mutiny among the troops and other exciting incidents.
In 1763, Fort Bedford was the principal depot for military stores between Carlisle and Fort Pitt, and in order to further strengthen it, the small stockades at Juniata Crossing and Stony Creek were abandoned and the force concentrated at Fort Bedford.
Indians never made an attack upon the fort, but killed, scalped, or took prisoner, eighteen persons, in that immediate neighborhood.
The town of Bedford was laid out by Surveyor-General John Lukens, in 1766.