Forging a Character. October 31, 2019

Copyright © 2019                               John F. Oyler 

October 31, 2019

Forging a Character

I recently had the good fortune to be invited to give a presentation to the Historical Society of Collier Township. My subject was a summary of the seven workshops the Bridgeville Area Historical Society just completed, dealing with George Washington’s seven visits to Western Pennsylvania.

Coming up with a title for the talk proved to be easy; a common theme running through the workshops was the way these experiences helped convert an ambitious, athletic twenty-one-year-old into a world-renowned statesman. Hence, “Forging a Character”.

The audience was impressive. In addition to Sal Sirabella, Gene Czambel, and a nice group of Collier Township folks, it included Earl Edwards from the Moon Township Historical Society, Noreen Beatty from the Old Stone Tavern Friends, and Debbie Lynch from the Pioneers West Historical Society. It felt like a convention of local history buffs.

In 1753 George Washington was twenty-one years old and had just completed three years as a surveyor, an experience that provided him with a firm foundation in integrity and judgment. He sought a career as an officer in the Virginia Militia, a desire that led to his being selected for a difficult, sensitive assignment.

Virginia Governor Dinwiddie chose him to go West into the Ohio Country, locate the French interlopers who had invaded Virginia territory, and deliver a message to them demanding that they leave. Washington handled the mission admirably and started home with the French reply.

On his return trip he had two “near death” experiences. A hostile Indian took a shot at him at a range of “not 15 steps off” and missed. Two days later he was accidentally thrown off a makeshift raft in the middle of the flooding Allegheny River and nearly drowned. 

The maturity and heroism Washington displayed on this mission were rewarded by a commission as Major, second in command of the Virginia Regiment. Their assignment was to proceed to the Forks of the Ohio and dislodge the French army that was constructing Fort Duquesne at that site.

The death of Jumonville, the surrender of Fort Necessity, and Washington’s inadvertent signing of a document that implied Jumonville had been assassinated were a series of examples of adversity from which the young Major learned well. 

Despite these setbacks he was given the opportunity to serve as aide-de-camp to General Edward Braddock in the 1755 campaign to capture Fort Duquesne. His rapport with Braddock was significant. Before the general died from wounds suffered in the unfortunate debacle on the field now named for him, he bequeathed his favorite horse, his servant, and his red sash to Washington.

In the battle Washington had two horses shot from under him and four slugs passing through his coat. When Braddock fell, Washington rallied the troops and successfully led the retreat back to Virginia. A hero once again, he spent the next three years commanding the Virginia Militia against numerous severe Indian raids.

In 1758 the British resolved to make another effort to neutralize Fort Duquesne and sent General John Forbes and two crack regiments to the colonies with that mission. Washington was the obvious choice to command the Virginia troops assigned to the campaign.

Despite his disagreement with Forbes’ decision to invade through Pennsylvania rather than follow Braddock’s route, Washington, ever the “good soldier”, moved his regiment to Fort Bedford and became a significant part of the expedition. 

Once again he found himself in the midst of a death-defying situation, this time from “friendly fire”. His troops and Colonel Hugh Mercer’s regiment blundered into each other while pursuing a French raiding party; thirty-two men were killed. At the height of the firing Washington realized what had happened and rode between the two lines, wielding his saber to stop his men from shooting.

At the end of this successful campaign Washington resigned from the Army, disappointed at his failure to earn a commission in the British Army. Not to worry, back in Virginia was widow Martha Custis, happy to marry him and become the mistress of Mount Vernon. Her husband was happy to take on the role of country gentleman and plantation manager.

In 1770 Governor Dinwiddie finally made good on his promise to reward veterans of the Fort Necessity campaign with land in the Ohio Country. Washington was asked to coordinate the distribution of 200,000 acres in the Kanawha Valley to deserving veterans. With his personal surgeon and best friend, Dr. James Craik, he set out on a massive trek to that area.

A major objective of this trip was identifying properties Washington could purchase for his own benefit. En route they picked up Colonel William Crawford, who became Washington’s agent. They followed the old Braddock Road to Pittsburgh on horseback, then shifted to canoes for the long journey down the Ohio to the point where the Kanawha enters it.

Washington’s journal gives great detail of the trip and particularly his evaluation of the suitability of the land they traversed as a site for farming. At one point they met an old acquaintance and sometime enemy, Guyasuta. A member of Washington’s party on the Fort LeBoeuf mission in 1753, Guyasuta was one of the leaders of the Indian contingent that defeated Braddock two years later.

He and Washington had a long discussion regarding the future relations between Indians and settlers in the Ohio Country, a discussion that influenced Washington’s policies with the frontier for the next two and a half decades.

On the return trip Washington tired of paddling upstream by the time they got to the Indian village Mingo Town (now Mingo Junction) and decided to go cross country back to Fort Pitt. It is highly likely that this trip took him down Millers Run to its junction with “Shurtees” (Chartiers Creek).

The next few years found Washington busy with political issues, culminating with participation in the First Continental Congress. Then followed seven years of war as commander of the colonial forces, capped by victory at the Battle of Yorktown and peace.

A year later he decided to go West and inspect his land holdings in the Ohio Country. Everywhere he went he met disappointment. The people he had engaged to manage his properties had allowed things to deteriorate. 

His property on Millers Run had been occupied by squatters. When he met with them and offered to sell the land at the going rate, they responded by insisting on going to court over the dispute. Two years later in the community of Washington, in Washington County, Pennsylvania, George Washington won the suit. 

His other motivation for this trip was his obsession with developing a transportation link between the Potomac River and the Ohio Country. He spent a lot of time investigating different tributaries in the hope he could find one with a minimum of canal building required to construct a practical route. In later years he would found the Potomack Navigation Company and serve as its President.

When the first Electoral College of our new nation met in 1788 they unanimously chose George Washington to be President. Every move his administration made established precedent; he, along with Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison, invented our government.

In 1791 Hamilton persuaded Congress to pass the Distilled Spirits Duties Act, a piece of legislation which settlers on the frontier felt treated them unfairly. Their dissatisfaction and Hamilton’s reaction to it ultimately led to the Whiskey Rebellion and the burning of Bower Hill. Washington’s administration had its first major crisis – How does a democratic government respond to civil unrest?

Despite the possibility of defusing the insurrection peacefully, Washington elected to demonstrate the authority of the federal government by organizing militias from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia into an army of 13,000 men and sending them to Pittsburgh.

The sight of George Washington reviewing an army of this magnitude in Bedford, eighteen years after the Winter of Valley Forge, must have been impressive. The worst confrontation ensuing was the “Night of Terror” when troops dragged suspects out of their homes and arrested them. Eventually twenty-four men were indicted, ten were tried, and two were convicted of treason.

Washington pardoned the two convicts; his use of overwhelming force followed by compassion successfully terminated this specific threat to the Union. Sixty-seven years later Abraham Lincoln would face a much more serious threat.

It is our opinion that the solid character that George Washington exhibited in the bleak years of the Revolutionary War and then demonstrated as the first president of our Great experiment was heavily influenced by his experiences on the frontier, right in our back yard.

We are grateful to Sal Sirabella and the Historical Society of Collier Township for giving us the opportunity to complete our study of George Washington in Western Pennsylvania by reaching this conclusion.