small house without the fort, for the Indians to be by themselves, and hired a woman to dress their victuals, which pleased them well.
30th.—Setting out early, we came to Shippensburg,[1] and were lodged in the fort, where the Indians had a house to themselves.
31st.—Set out early; in our passing by Chambers Fort,[2] some of the Irish people, knowing some of the Indians, in a rash manner exclaimed against them, and we had some difficulty to get them off clear. At fort Loudon we met about sixteen of the Cherokees, who came in a friendly manner to our Indians, enquiring for Bill Sockum,[3] and shewed the pipe[4] they had received from
————
- ↑ The town of Shippensburg was one of the oldest west of the Susquehanna, having been laid out in 1749, by Edward Shippen—later chief-justice of Pennsylvania—on land of which he was proprietor. It was the site of two frontier forts—Franklin, built before Braddock's defeat; and Morris, erected after that disaster. Shippensburg became an important station on the Pennsylvania state road; and until the opening of the nineteenth century was the end of the stage-route from Lancaster westward.—Ed.
- ↑ Chambers's Fort was a private stockade erected (1756) on the Conococheague Creek, by a Scotch-Irishman, Benjamin Chambers, who for some time had had a mill and settlement here. The fort was a large stone building, protected by cannon, and considered one of the strongest defenses in that region. The government attempted to take possession of the guns in 1757, lest they should be captured and turned against the other forts; but the Scotch-Irish settlers stoutly resisted this attempt, and it was abandoned. The present city of Chambersburg occupies the site.—Ed.
- ↑ This should not be confused with the more famous Fort Loudoun, built the same year (1756) in Tennessee as a check upon the Cherokees. The Pennsylvania fort was on the road between Shippensburg and Fort Lyttleton, about a mile east of the present village of Loudon, Franklin County, being erected by Armstrong after Braddock's defeat. This was the scene of the plundering of the Indian goods, dispatched to the Ohio (1765) for Croghan's use on his journey to the Illinois.The Cherokees were employed by the English as auxiliaries in this campaign. Their presence had caused much concern among the Northern Indians,
- ↑
in 1753, there were but five houses in the place. Later it became the eastern terminus of the Pennsylvania highroad, and the centre of an extensive overland trade.—Ed.]
