Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 5).djvu/59

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A BLOOD-RED FRONTIER
55

wrote Morris on the twenty-third of that month. "The duties of the harvest field have not permitted me to finish Carlisle Fort with the soldiers, it should be done otherwise, the soldiers cannot be so well governed, and may be absent or without the gates at the time of the greatest necessity." In the same letter Colonel Armstrong—the Washington of Pennsylvania—wrote: "Lyttleton, Shippensburg and Carlisle (the two last not finished) are the only forts now built that will in my opinion be serviceable to the public." It is significant that these three forts were on the old road westward, showing that this route was of utmost importance in Armstrong's eyes.

Fort Lyttleton was one of four important forts erected, at Armstrong's direction, by Governor Morris west of the Susquehanna late in 1755 and early in 1756. It was built "at Sugar Cabins upon the new road"; wrote Morris to Shirley February 9: "It [Fort Lyttleton] stands upon the new road opened by this Province towards the Ohio, and about twenty miles from the settlements, and I have called it Fort Lyttleton, in honor of my friend George. This fort