Redstone Old Fort

Redstone Old Fort — or Redstone Fort or (for a short time when built) Fort Burd — on the Nemacolin Trail, was the name of the French and Indian War-era wooden fort built in 1759 by Virginia militia colonel James Burd to guard the ancient Indian trail's river ford on a mound overlooking the eastern shore of the Monongahela River (colloquially, just "the Mon") in what is now Fayette County, Pennsylvania near, or (more likely) on the banks of Dunlap's Creek at the confluence. The site is unlikely to be the same as an earlier fort the French document as Hangard dated to 1754 and which was confusedly, likely located on the nearby stream called Redstone Creek. Red sandstones predominate the deposited rock column of the entire region.

Geopolitically, Redstone was a frequent point of embarkation to cross the Monongahela River for travelers who had crossed the Alleghenies or were heading west via the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers by boat. Its strategic importance had long been recognized and used by the Indians, and it was a target terminus of Braddock's Road during the French and Indian War. Redstone Old Fort was the terminus of an Indian trail which settlers improved around the 1750. They afterward called it Nemacolin's Trail, named after the Indian chief who assisted the improvement through the mountain pass. From this area, travelers could travel by water downstream on the Monongahela river to what is now Pittsburgh, or overland, by trails that later became Brownsville Road to the same destination.

The fortress site was chosen to guard and command the crossing point of the formidable east-west obstacle of the Monongahela River along the route of an Indian trail from the Potomac River—along one of the few mountain passes allowing traffic between the Ohio Country and the eastern seaboard cities. During 1749 and 1750, the Delaware Indian chief Nemacolin and Maryland frontiersman Thomas Cresap supervised improving the trail from the east to Redstone Creek, but Chief Nemacolin was a continuing presence in the war against the Mingo and Shawnee, and anecdotes place him at Nemacolin Castle waiting for Colonel Burd.

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