New light on Washington's Fort Necessity - A report on the archeological explorations at Fort Necessity National Battlefield Site

Harrington, J.

The present report describes the archeological explorations and interprets the discoveries in the light of available recorded information for Fort Necessity National Battlefield Site. On July 3, 1754, in an open meadow between two mountain ridges in southwestern Pennsylvania, was fought the first battle of the long struggle between France and England for control of North American. The English colonial troops occupied a little makeshift fortification known as Fort Necessity. The larger French army, which finally won the engagement and forced the English to withdraw temporarily from the disputed “Ohio County”, was fighting from the cover of woods that bordered the meadow.The scene of this important, but little-known opening battle of the French and Indian War, is now a national shrine. To more adequately interpret the site to the visiting public, the National Park Service found it necessary to supplement the scanty documentary information by archeological exploration. Excavating began in August, 1952, under the author’s supervision, with little expectation of finding more than a few “relics” and possibly the remains of certain entrenchments, which, according to the records, lay outside a stockade erected by the English just a month before the battle. The chance of discovering any remnant of the original stockade seemed very slight, in view of the extensive excavations carried on in connection with the earlier development and the project offered little challenge as an archeological problem. As it turned out, however, the archeological explorations of 1952 and 1953 proved to be both exciting and productive. Assumptions as to the fort’s location, size, and shape, which, through more than a century of repetition, had come to be accepted as established facts, were found to be in error. Most important was the recovery of relatively complete information on the original fort, including both the stockade and the outer entrenchments, permitting an authentic reconstruction on the exact original site. Reconstruction, as a matter of fact, was not a major concern when the work began, as the reproduction constructed in 1932 was believed to be on the original site and, on the whole, correct as to details. The present report describes the archeological explorations and interprets the discoveries in the light of available recorded information for Fort Necessity National Battlefield Site.