Fort McIntosh Site

About this property

Fort McIntosh was an early American log frontier fort situated near the confluence of the Ohio River and the Beaver River in what is now Beaver, Pennsylvania. It was the first American fort north of the Ohio River at the time of its erection. The fortress was constructed in 1778 under the direction of Lt. Col. Cambray-Digny, a French engineer, and named in honor of General Lachlan McIntosh. A conference was held at Fort Pitt in 1778 where the United States agreed to build Fort McIntosh and use it to help protect Native Americans against the British or enemy-Indian attacks in exchange for Delaware Indian cooperation in the Revolutionary War. The fort was completed by the fall of 1778 and Lachlan McIntosh then moved about 1,500 men from Pittsburgh to Beaver. Fort McIntosh was in the form of a trapezoid, about 150 feet on each side, with raised earthen bastions on each corner. Log palisades connected the bastions, and a 15 foot wide ditch protected three sides of the fort, with the 130 foot slope to the Ohio River protecting the other side. Inside were three barracks, warehouses, officer's quarters, a forge, kitchen, and powder magazines. The fort may have had either two or four iron cannon. Supplies from the Ohio River were accessed and moved through an underground passage. The fortress was abandoned in 1791. Fort McIntosh was used as shelter for rangers, hunters, and spies after its shutdown. The roofs decayed in 1795 and only the western wing remained standing at that point. After the Revolution, the fort was the home of the First American Regiment, the oldest active unit in the United States Army. Between the decay, lack of supplies, vandalism, and lessened importance of the fort as the frontier shifted further westward, Fort McIntosh became largely obsolete. Lachlan McIntosh began his service during the Revolutionary War as Colonel of the Georgia Battalion in January 1776. In 1778, he served alongside General George Washington at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, after which McIntosh was given command of the Continental Army's Western Department. With the creation of Fort McIntosh and Fort Laurens, McIntosh initiated a campaign for control of the Northwest Territory from Britain's Native American allies in the Ohio Valley. The Treaty of Fort McIntosh was signed on January 21, 1785. Its goal was to create clear title to Delaware Indian lands in Pennsylvania so Revolutionary soldiers could then purchase said lands with certificates of depreciation. The Treaty was less a negotiation and rather an imposition on the Delaware, Wyandots, Chippewas, and Ottawas. The Native Americans gave up two thirds of Ohio in Article III of the Treaty, establishing the first boundary in the Northwest from which future territories were measured.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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