Conclins New River Guide Or A Gazetteer Of The Towns On The Western Waters

Author : George Conclin
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781331954644
Total Pages : 132 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (546 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Conclin's New River Guide written by George Conclin and published by . This book was released on 2015-07-21 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Conclin's New River Guide: Or Gazetteer of All the Towns on the Western Waters It is rich and fertile; celebrated for its flour, fruit, and whisky, its extensive mines of coal and iron, and large iron manufactories. The Monongahela has been rendered navigable, in all seasons, to Brownsville, formerly called Red Stone, a distance of about thirty-five miles. Steamboats daily run to this point, connecting with the great stage route from Wheeling to Cumberland. Brownsville contains about 1,500 inhabitants. Bridgeport, quite a flourishing town on the opposite side of Dunlap's creek, is connected with it by a bridge. In good stages of water, the Monongahela is boatable about one hundred miles above Pittsburgh. Fourteen miles above Pittsburgh, on the banks of this river, was the scene of Braddock's defeat by the Indians, on the 9th of July, 1755. Pittsburgh, the principal city of Western Pennsylvania, is situated on a point formed by the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers. It is 201 miles west of Harrisburgh, the capital of the state, 223 miles northwest from Washington City, and 297 miles west by north from Philadelphia. Perhaps its site is unrivalled in the world - surrounded by inexhaustible beds of iron, coal, &c., and with a navigation of about fifty thousand miles, which gives it access to the richest and most fertile regions of the globe. Its early history is very interesting. The Governor of Canada (then under dominion of the French) having formed the design of connecting that province with Louisiana, by a line of defenses extending from the Lakes to the Mississippi, had established a post at the mouth of French Creek, and was about to take possession of "the Forks," as the site of Pittsburgh was then called. Gov. Dinwiddie, of Virginia, dispatched George Washington, in October, 1753, to demand of the French commander his designs. On his route, he stopped at "the Forks," and, thinking it a proper place for the erection of a fort, communicated it to the Governor. The following spring, the Virginia Ohio company commenced erecting fortifications on it. While engaged in doing so, on the 17th of April, 1754, Monsieur de Contric ur, a French officer, arrived with three hundred canoes, containing one thousand French and Indians, and eighteen cannon, and compelled them to surrender. This was the commencement of the French and Indian wars, which existed nine years. The French gave to the fort the name of Fort Duquesne, and occupied it until the 24th of November, 1758, when Gen. Forbes, of Pennsylvania, and Col. George Washington, having marched against them, they set fire to, and evacuated it. Gen. Forbes took possession the next day, and called it Fort Pitt, in honor of the Earl of Chatham. Little improvement was made in it until after the Revolution. In 1775, the number of houses did not exceed thirty. In 1786, the first newspaper was printed here. In 1794, an insurrection (commonly known as the Whisky Insurrection) having broken out, the Governor sent a large number of troops to quell it. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."