1763.] FORT PITT. 3 



gular beauty ; on the right, flowed the Alleghany, 

 beneath steep and lofty banks ; and both united, in 

 front, to form the broad Ohio, which, flanked by 

 picturesque hills and declivities, began at this point 

 its progress towards the Mississippi. The place 

 already had its historic associations, though, as yet, 

 their roughness was unmellowed by the lapse of 

 time. It was here that the French had erected 

 Fort du Quesne. Within a few miles, Braddock 

 encountered his disastrous overthrow ; and on the 

 hill behind the fort. Grant's Highlanders and 

 Lewis's Virginians had been surrounded and cap- 

 tured, though not without a stout resistance on the 

 part of the latter. 



Fort Pitt was built by General Stanwix, in the 

 year 1759, upon the ruins of Fort du Quesne, 

 destroyed by General Forbes. It was a strong 

 fortification, with ramparts of earth, faced with 

 brick on the side looking down the Ohio. Its 

 walls have long since been levelled to the ground, 

 and over their ruins have risen warehouses, and 

 forges with countless chimneys, rolling up their 

 black volumes of smoke. Where once the bark 

 canoe lay on the strand, a throng of steamers now 

 lie moored along the crowded levee. 



Fort Pitt stood far aloof in the forest, and one 

 might journey eastward full two hundred miles, 

 before the English settlements began to thicken. 

 Behind it lay a broken and woody tract; then 

 succeeded the great barrier of the AUeghanies, 

 traversing the country in successive ridges ; and 

 beyond these lay vast woods, extending to the 



