Forbes Road: The Army's Highway to Fort Duquesne
Near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
The road you are near follows one of the most consequential military routes in colonial American history. In seventeen fifty-eight, British General John Forbes marched an army westward from Carlisle to capture Fort Duquesne, the French stronghold at the Forks of the Ohio, the site of present-day Pittsburgh.
Forbes followed the ancient Raystown Indian and Traders Path, widened by axemen working under Colonel Henry Bouquet to allow army wagons through. The campaign succeeded: the French abandoned and largely destroyed Fort Duquesne before Forbes arrived, and the British took control of the Ohio forks. Parts of the route Forbes cut through Pennsylvania's mountains are followed today by Routes Thirty and Twenty-Two and the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
