Trace of the Braddock Road.
Surveys and Excavations of Fort Necessity
In the two centuries that have elapsed since
Washington's capitulation and the subsequent destruction of Fort
Necessity by Villiers, several attempts have been made to fix the exact
location of the fort and to define its construction in detail.
Destruction of the stockade by the French, erosion of the surface, and
other disturbances of the soil made this a difficult task, and led to
varying ideas concerning the original structure. Much of the source
material relating to the fort was not available to those who undertook
early surveys and excavations. Only in recent years have research
studies produced documentary evidence bearing on the shape and size of
the stockade and defenses. This evidence, forming the basis of
archeological investigation early in 1953, led to the definite
establishment of the stockade location and the outlines of the
entrenchments built by Washington's men.
Maps of the period were generally diagrammatic and
contained only fragmentary evidence. Although certain charts indicated
the fort as a small square, the repetition of the same, or similar,
symbols for many fort locations implies that this was a conventional
sign for a fortification and was not intended to indicate actual fort
lines. Therefore, investigators turned early to ground evidence in an
effort to establish the fort entrenchments and the stockade.
Contemporary methods of stockade construction,
particularly those at Fort Le Boeuf and at Wills Creek, were well known
to Washington. In the earlier attempts to locate the outlines of the
fort, it was apparently assumed that the structure at Fort Necessity
followed the general lines of contemporary forts with which Washington
was acquainted.
Post ends of the original stockade of Fort Necessity.
The first known study of the ground surface was made
by Freeman Lewis, a local surveyor, in 1816. In his attempt to locate
the fort, he found clearly defined mounds, but the outlines were not
sufficiently distinct to establish the original works. He concluded, on
the basis of an examination of the 3-foot-high embankments on the
southwest and southeast of Great Meadows Run, that the fort was
triangular in shape. The existing mound led him to believe that the long
side of the triangular fort was parallel to the stream bed and that a
sector was projected to the creek to include a water supply within the
fort bounds.
Jared Sparks, historian and traveler, visited the
site in 1830. Observing closely the remnants of the embankments, Sparks
concluded that the fort had four sides of nearly equal length, each
approximately 35 yards long. For the clarification of his findings,
Sparks prepared a sketch embodying his conclusions. Entrances were
indicated on the southwest side, the direction from which the initial
French attack developed. A supply of water being vital to occupants of
the fort, Sparks indicated a bulge of the northeast corner to include
the stream bed.
Seventy years passed before another effort was made
to determine the appearance of the fort. In 1901, Robert McCracken, a
civil engineer, made the first archeological approach to the problem.
Aided by the findings of the Lewis survey and supplemented by his own
study and excavations, McCracken believed the fort had four nearly equal
sides and a projection to include the stream bed. Excavations undertaken
near the creek unearthed a quantity of oak bark, believed to be remnants
of the logs used in the original fort destroyed by the French. It was
believed that the stockade had been implanted on the line of the
entrenchments.
Relics of the Fort Necessity Battle.
Additional excavation work was undertaken in 1931 by
Harry R. Blackford, also a civil engineer. Conducting further digging in
the mounds near the stream bed, Blackford located remnants of the
original palisade 3 feet below the surface near the northern and
northeastern embankments and adjacent to the stream. The post ends
varied con siderably in thickness and the tops showed signs of having
been exposed to the action of time and water. At various points in this
area, according to Blackford, "pieces of charred wood and lumps of
charcoal were excavated from a depth of about three feet, this giving
evidence to support the statement that the stockade was burned." He
concluded that the original stockade had been built on the
entrenchments, the outlines of which could readily be followed.
Therefore, the recon structed stockade built in 1932 was placed upon the
line of the restored entrenchments.
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