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Updated: May 4, 2025
The first of them is on French creek, near a small lake, about sixty miles from Venango, near north northwest: the next lies on lake Erie, where the greater part of their stores are kept, about fifteen miles from the other: from this it is one hundred and twenty miles to the carrying place, at the falls of Lake Erie, where there is a small fort, at which they lodge their goods in bringing them from Montreal, the place from whence all their stores are brought.
Although the distance to Venango, by the route taken, was not above seventy miles, yet such was the inclemency of the weather and the difficulty of travelling, that Washington and his party did not arrive there until the 4th of December. The French colors were flying at a house whence John Frazier, the English trader, had been driven.
Finally the Governor of Virginia picked young Washington to go to Venango and warn the French that they were trespassing, and also to make ceremonial visits to the Indians to ensure their friendship to the English in case of war with the French.
He lives at the Indian town of Kittanning, on the banks of the Allegheny, and he is upheld by the French from Fort Duquesne and Venango. They supply him with the munitions of war, and he makes of our lives a terror. Colonel Armstrong has been sent by the Governor to try to fall upon him unawares, and oust him from his vantage ground.
The oil region of Venango County, as far as has been explored, is confined to the creek and river bottoms. In connection with wells that have been opened, there is a superincumbent stratum of earth, varying from ten to sixty feet in thickness: underlying this is a stratum of argillaceous shale, generally about one hundred and eighty feet in thickness, and then a stratum of white sandstone.
The one thing, next to Drake's well, that made the oil available, was the discovery, which was made by Samuel Van Syckel, that a two-inch pipe, starting at the well, could convey the oil for several miles to the nearest railway station. In a few years the whole oil region of Venango County was an inextricable tangle of these primitive pipelines.
In 1753 the French, taking the alarm, crossed Lake Erie, and began to fortify themselves at Presque Isle, and at Venango on the Alleghany river.
The French officers seem to have made desperate efforts to retrieve the day, for nearly all of them were killed or captured; while their followers, after heavy loss, fled to their canoes and boats above the cataract, hastened back to Lake Erie, burned Presquisle, Le Boeuf, and Venango, and, joined by the garrisons of those forts, retreated to Detroit, leaving the whole region of the upper Ohio in undisputed possession of the English.
These mixed bands of white men and red, bushrangers and savages, were now gathered, partly at Le Boeuf and Venango, but chiefly at Presquisle, under command of Aubry, Ligneris, Marin, and other partisan chiefs, the best in Canada. No sooner did Pouchot learn that the English were coming to attack him than he sent a messenger to summon them all to his aid. Letters of Stanwix, May-July, 1759.
Washington's instructions required him to proceed to Venango and Waterford, a distance of more than four hundred miles, through forests and over mountains, with rivers to cross and hostile Indians to beware of; and it was the middle of November when he set out, with the most inclement season of the year before him.
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