"Is there any early history about here?" asked Helen, whose interest was unfailing in the story of her country.
"The French and Indian Wars were fought in part through this land," answered Mr. Emerson. "You remember the chief struggle for the continent lay between the English and the French. There were many reasons why the Indians sided with the French in Canada, and the result of the friendship was that; the natives were supplied with arms by the Europeans and the struggle was prolonged for about seventy-five years."
"Wasn't the attack on Deerfield during the French and Indian War?" asked Ethel Blue.
"Yes, and there were many other such attacks."
"The French insisted that all the country west of the Alleghenies belonged to them and they disputed the English possession at every point. When Washington was only twenty-one years old he was sent to beg the French not to interfere with the English, but he had a hard journey with no fortunate results. It was on this journey that he picked out a good position for a fort and started to build it. It was where Pittsburg now stands."
"That was a good position for a fort, where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers join to make the Ohio," commended Roger.
"It was such a good position that the French drove off the English workmen and finished the work themselves. They called it Fort Duquesne and it became one of a string of sixty French forts extending from Quebec to New Orleans."
"Some builders!" commended Roger.
"Fort Duquesne was so valuable that the English sent one of their generals, Braddock, to capture it. Washington went with him on his staff, to show him the way."
"It must have been a long trip from the coast through all this hilly country."