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.

MAP OF FORT NECESSITY IN “FRONTIER FORTS OF PENNSYLVANIA” FOLLOWING SURVEY OF FREEMAN LEWIS.
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Now, why did Mr. Lewis ignore the embankment B E and the triangle A F B which contained these fifty square rods he gave as the area of Fort Necessity? For the very obvious reason that that triangle crossed the brook and ran far into the marsh beyond. By every account the palisades of Fort Necessity were made to extend on the north to touch the brook, therefore it would be quite ridiculous to suppose the palisades crossed the brook again on the east. Mr. Lewis, prepossessed with the idea that the embankments must have been triangular in shape, drew the line B C as the base of his triangle, bisecting it at M and N, and making the loop M S N touch the brook. This design (triangle A B C) of Fort Necessity is improbable for the following reasons:

1. It has not one half the area Mr. Lewis gives it.

2. It would not include much more than one-half of the high ground of the plateau, which was none too large for a fort.

3. There is no semblance of a mound B C nor any shred of testimony nor any legend of its existence.

4. The mound B E is entirely ignored though there is the best of evidence that it stood in Mr. Lewis’ day where it stands today and was considered an embankment of Fort Necessity. Mr. Lewis gives exactly the area of a triangle with it as a part of the base line.

5. Loop M S N would not come near the course of the brook without extending it far beyond Mr. Lewis’ estimate of the length of its sides.

6. Its area is only about 5200 square feet which would make Fort Necessity unconscionably small in face of the fact that more high ground was available.

In 1759 Colonel Burd visited the site of Fort Necessity. This was only five years after it was built. He described its remains as circular in shape. If it was originally a triangle it is improbable that it could have appeared round five years later. If, however, it was originally an irregular square it is not improbable that the rains and frosts of five winters, combined with the demolition of the Fort by the French, would have given the mounds a circular appearance. Was Fort Necessity, then, built in the form of an irregular square? There is the best of evidence that it was.

In 1830—fourteen years after Mr. Lewis’ “survey,”[Pg 51]
[Pg 52]—Mr. Jared Sparks, a careful historian and author of the standard work on Washington, visited Fort Necessity. According to him its remains occupied “an irregular square, the dimensions of which were about one hundred feet on each side.” Mr. Sparks drew a map of the embankments which is incorporated in his “Writings of Washington.” This drawing has not been reproduced in any later work, the authors of both “History of Cumberland” and “Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania” preferring to reproduce Mr. Lewis’ inconsistent survey and speculation rather than the drawing of what Mr. Sparks, himself, saw.

It is plain that Mr. Sparks found the embankment B E running in the direction it does today and not at all in direction of the line B C as Mr. Lewis drew it. By giving the approximate length of the sides as one hundred feet, Mr. Sparks gives about the exact length of the line B E in whatever direction it is extended to the brook. The fact that such an exact scholar as Mr. Sparks does not mention a sign or tradition of an embankment at B C, only fourteen years after Mr. Lewis “surveyed” it, is evidence that it never existed which cannot come far from convicting the latter of a positive intention to speculate.

Mr. Sparks gives us four sides for Fort Necessity. Three of these have been described as C A, A B and the broken line B E D. Is there any evidence of the fourth side such as indicated by the line C D? There is.

When Mr. Fazenbaker first questioned the accuracy of the map of Fort Necessity in “Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania,” he believed the fort was a four sided construction and pointed to a small mound, indicated at O, as the remains of the fourth embankment. The mound would not be noticed in a hasty view of the field but, on examination proves to be an artificial, not a natural, mound. It is in lower ground and nearer the old course of the brook than the remains of Fort Necessity. A mound here would suffer most when the brook was out of banks, which would account for its disappearance.

Excavations in the other mounds had been unsuccessful; nothing had been discovered of the palisades, though every mound gave certain proof of having been artificially made. But excavations at mound O gave a different result. At about four and one-half feet below the surface of the ground, at the water line, a considerable amount of bark was found, fresh and red as new bark. It was water-soaked and the strings lay parallel with the mound above and were not found at a greater distance than two feet from its center. It was the rough bark of a tree’s trunk—not the skin bark such as grows on roots. Large flakes, the size of a man’s hand, could be removed from it. At a distance of ten feet away a second trench was sunk, in line with the mound but quite beyond its northwestern extremity. Bark was found here entirely similar in color, position, and condition. There is little doubt that the bark came from the logs of the palisades of Fort Necessity, though nothing is to be gained by exaggerating the possibility. Bark, here in the low ground, would last indefinitely, and water was reached under this mound sooner than at any other point. No wood was found. It is probable that the French threw down the palisades, but bark would naturally have been left in the ground. If wood had been left it would not withstand decay so long as bark. Competent judges declare the bark to be that of oak. An authority of great reputation, expresses the opinion that the bark found was probably from the logs of the palisades erected in 1754.

If anything is needed to prove that this slight mound O was an embankment of Fort Necessity, it is to be found in the result of Mr. McCracken’s survey. The mound lies in exact line with the eastern extremity of embankment C A, the point C, being located seven rods from the obtuse angle A, in line with the mound C A, which is broken by Mr. Fazenbaker’s lane. Also, the distance from C to D (in line with the mound O) measures ninety-nine feet and four inches,—almost exactly Mr. Sparks’ estimate of one hundred feet. Thus Fort Necessity was in the shape of the figure represented by lines K C, C A, A B, and B E, and the projection of the palisades to the brook is represented by E D K, E H K, or L W K, (line B E being prolonged to L.) Mr. Sparks’ drawing of the fort is thus proven approximately correct, although Mr. Veech boldly asserts that it is “inaccurate,” (the quotation being copied in the “Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania”) and despite the fact that two volumes treating of the fort, “History of Cumberland,” and “Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania,” refuse to give Mr. Sparks’ map a place in their pages. It is of little practical moment what the form of the fort may have been, but it is all out of order that a palpably false description should be given by those who should be authorities, in preference to Mr. Sparks’ description which is easily proven to be approximately correct.

Relics from Fort Necessity are rare and valuable, for the reason that no other action save the one Battle of Fort Necessity ever took place here. The barrel of an old flint-lock musket, a few grape shot, a bullet mould and ladle, leaden and iron musket balls, comprise the few silent memorials of the first battle in which Saxon blood was shed west of the Allegheny Mountains. The swivels, it is said, were taken to Kentucky to do brave duty there in redeeming the “dark and bloody ground” to civilization.

But, after all—and more precious than all—our study of this historic spot in the Alleghenies and the memorials left near it becomes, soon, a study of its hero, that young Virginian Colonel. Even the battles fought hereabouts seem to have been of little real consequence, for New France fell, never to rise, with the capture of Quebec—“amid the proudest monuments of its own glory and on the very spot of its origin!”

And it is not of little consequence that there was here a brave training school for the future heroes of the Revolution. For in what did Colonel Washington need training more than in the art of manoeuvring a handful of ill-equipped, discouraged men? What lesson did that youth need more than the lesson that Right becomes Might in God’s own good time? And here in these Allegheny glades we catch the most precious pictures of the lithe, keen-eyed, sober lad, who, taking his lessons of truth and uprightness from his widowed mother’s knee, his strength hardened by the power of the mountain rivers, his heart, now thrilled by the songs of the mountain birds, now tempered by a St. Piere’s hauteur, a Braddock’s blind insolence, or the prejudiced over-rulings of a Forbes, became the hero of Valley Forge and Yorktown, the immeasurable superior of Piere, Braddock, Forbes, Kaunitz or Newcastle.

For consider the record of that older Washington of 1775 beneath the Cambridge elm. He had capitulated at Fort Necessity, with the first army he ever commanded, after the first battle he ever fought! He had marched with Braddock’s ill-starred army, in which he had no official position whatever until defeat and rout threw upon his shoulders a large share of the responsibility of saving the army from complete annihilation. He had marched with Forbes, only to write his Governor begging to be allowed to go to England to tell the King the sad story of the campaign—of “how grossly his glory and interest and the public money, have been prostituted.” For the past sixteen years he had led a quiet life on his farms.

Why, now, in 1775, should he have had the unstinted confidence of all men, in the hour of his country’s great crisis? Why should his journey from Mt. Vernon to Cambridge have been a triumphal march? Professor McMaster asserts that the General and the President are known to us, “but George Washington is an unknown.” How untrue this was in 1775! How the nation believed it knew the man! How much of reputation he had gained while those by his side lost all of theirs! What a hero—of many defeats! What a man to fight England to a standstill, after many a wary, difficult retreat and dearly fought battle-field! Aye—but he had been to school with Gates and Mercer, Lewis and Stephen and Gladewin, on that swath of a road in the Alleghenies which led to Fort Necessity.

Half a century ago multitudes were pointed to the man Washington in the superb oratory of Edward Everett. But how, if not by quoting that memorable extract from the letter of the youthful surveyor, who boasted of earning an honest dubloon a day? Thus, the orator declared, he presented to his audience “not an ideal hero, wrapped in cloudy generalities and a mist of vague panegyric, but the real, identical man.” And, again, did he not quote that pathetic letter from the youth Washington to Governor Dinwiddie from the bleeding Virginia border, after Braddock’s defeat, that his hearers might “see it all—see the whole man.”? Was Edward Everett mistaken, are these letters not extant today, or are they unread? Surely the latter supposition must be the true one if the man Washington is being forgotten.

A candid review of the more popular school histories will bring out the fact that the man Washington is almost forgotten, in so far as the General and statesman do not portray him. In one of the best known school histories there seems to be but one line, of five words, which describes the character of Washington. Could we not forego, for once, what the Indian chieftain said of his bearing a charmed life at Braddock’s defeat, to make room for one little reason why Washington was “completer in nature” and of “a nobler human type” than any and all of the heroes of romance?

Mr. Otis Kendall Stuart has written a most interesting account of “The Popular Opinion of Washington” as ascertained by inquiry among persons of all ages, occupations and conditions. He found that Washington was held to be a “broad,” “brave,” “thinking,” “practical,” man; an aristocrat, so far as the dignity of his position demanded, but willing to “work with his hands” and with a credit that was “A 1!” Also, “when he did a thing, he did it,” and, if to the question, “Was he a great general and statesman?” there was some hesitation, to the question, “Was he a great man?” the answer was an unhesitating, “Yes.”

One may hold that such opinions as these have been gained from our school histories, but I think they are not so much from the histories, as from the popular legends of Washington, which, true and false, will never be forgotten by the common people, until they cease to represent,—not the patient, brave and wary general, or the calm, far-seeing statesman, but the man—“simple, stainless, and robust character,” as President Eliot has so beautifully described it, “which served with dazzling success the precious cause of human progress through liberty, and so stands, like the sunlit peak of Matterhorn, unmatched in all the world.”

The real essence of that “simple, stainless, and robust character” is nowhere so clearly seen as in these Allegheny vales where Colonel Washington first touched hands with fortune. Here truly, we may still “see it all—see the whole man.”

THE END.