At the beginning of the French and Indian War, Edward Braddock's defeat left Pennsylvania without a professional military force.

[3] In late 1755, Colonel John Armstrong wrote to Governor Robert Hunter Morris: "I am of the opinion that no other means of defense than a chain of blockhouses along or near the south side of the Kittatinny Mountains from the Susquehanna to the temporary line, can secure the lives and property of the inhabitants of this country, the new settlements being all fled except Shearman's Valley.

[5]: 685 Since about 1740, there had been a temporary stockade in Shippensburg for the protection of cattle and provisions,[6] which may have been known as Fort Franklin after 1755,[4]: 506  but Shippen wanted a structure that could withstand attack, after a number of Native American raids in the area.

Local settlers assisted in the construction, and on November 2, Burd wrote: "We have one hundred men working at Fort Morris, with heart and hand every day.

[7]: 455 In August 1758, General John Forbes described the fort as "a regular Square with four Bastions, and one Gate in that Curtain which fronts due East towards the Town.

"[9] A plan of the fort depicts it as a square about 180 feet on each side, with four bastions, enclosing an officer's quarters, three barracks, a storehouse and a guardhouse.

[7]: 462 A storehouse, possibly a gunpowder magazine as it had stone walls two feet thick, remained standing for years after the stockade was torn down, and was still in use as a rented home as of 1781.

[8]: 72 Between 2009 and 2012, over 23,000 18th-century artifacts probably associated with the fort were recovered, including ceramics, gun parts, 30 musket balls, a dozen flints, hundreds of pottery shards, buttons, cuff links, belt-buckles and boot-buckles, a ladle for pouring molten lead into shot molds, eating utensils, large and intact pieces of dinnerware, a damaged firing mechanism from a flintlock, and a copper half-penny bearing the likeness of King George II, dated 1754.

The surveys also identified subsurface features possibly associated with the fort, including a foundation, a stone-and-clay oven, a root cellar and signs of rats that raided foodstuffs.

Erected in November 1755 by Col. James Burd and used as one of the chain of forts to protect the frontiers during the period of Indian hostility following the defeat of General Edward Braddock.