The French established themselves at Presqu’ Isle and extended themselves southward; they erected a fort at Au Boeuf and another at the mouth of French Creek, which they called Fort Machault.
Virginia was much interested in this foothold gained by the French along the Ohio, for they claimed the territory of Pennsylvania west of the Allegheny Mountains as part of their dominion.
The English Government having learned that the French claimed right to the Ohio River country by virtue of the discovery of La Salle, made sixty years previous, remonstrated with the Court of Versailles, but without avail, and resolved to oppose force with force.
The first move made by the English was to present a solid front by combining the efforts of all the colonies. To this end a conference was called at Albany in July, 1754, to which the Six Nations were invited. Governor Hamilton could not attend this conference, and John Penn and Richard Peters, of the Council, and Isaac Norris and Benjamin Franklin, of the Assembly, were commissioned to represent the Province of Pennsylvania. They carried with them £500 as the provincial present to the Indians.
The results of this confederated council were not satisfactory, but the Pennsylvania Commissioners obtained a great part of the land in the province, to which the Indian title was not extinct, comprising the lands lying southwest of a line beginning one mile above the mouth of Penns Creek, in what is now Snyder County, and running northwest by west “to the western boundary of the State.”
The Shawnee, Delaware and Munsee Indians, on the Susquehanna, Juniata, Allegheny and Ohio Rivers, thus found their lands “sold from under their feet,” which the Six Nations had guaranteed to them on their removal from the Eastern waters. This proved of great dissatisfaction to these Indians and had not a little part in causing their alienation from the English interest.
Work Begun on Building Braddock Road
Over Alleghenies May 6, 1755
