April 2010
Participants: Phillip Feliciano and his family’s friend John Lyons
The pilgrimage, which will be between Washington DC and Pittsburgh PA and commemorate George Washington’s march between these two cities in 1753, when as a 19 year old Major in the British Colonial Army, he was sent to address the desire of the French to take over the Ohio Region. George Washington knew that the actions of the French would endanger the local Indian tribes’ land rights, so he agreed to travel between Washington DC and Ft. Leboeuf near Pittsburgh, during the winter. (He eventually was ordered to build a fort in that vicinity at the fork of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers when he was a 21 year old Lt. Colonel). Accompanied by a 100 man unit he recruited in the vicinity of Alexandria VA, he started the march on April 2, 1754, and began the task of helping the Native American Indians. He knew many of them personally from his days learning the trade of land surveyor in that area when he was only 14 years old. He learned that it was a “fatiguing” experience to manage “a number of self-willed, ungovernable people” with resolve.
George met his Seneca tribe friend Chief Half King whom he knew from previous experience in the area. Together they battled the French. On July 4, 1754 George and his ill and wounded troops marched out of Ft. Necessity back to the Washington DC area. A short time thereafter when George was only 23 years old, and being few military men in the colonies familiar with the Pittsburgh area, he became a member of British Major General Braddock’s forces to capture Ft. Duquesne. In June 1755 after his troops left for Ft. Cumberland, George became sick with fevers and pain in his head, something he had experienced before with smallpox. The battle was lost at Ft. Duquesne and the British were beaten. At an Indian Counsel fire a chief spoke and stated “The great spirit protects that man and guides his destinies --- he will become the chief of nations, and a people yet unborn will hail him as the founder of a mighty empire.” Washington left no record of his reaction.