The French portaged supplies and trade goods from Lake Erie overland to Fort Le Bœuf.

This fort was the second of a series of posts that the French built between spring 1753 and summer 1754 to assert their possession of the Ohio Country.

They seized and occupied the British trading post of John Frazier, a Scots, at the Lenape village of Venango at the junction of French Creek and the Allegheny River (where Franklin, Pennsylvania developed).

Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, commandant at Fort Le Boeuf, a tough veteran of the west, received Washington politely, but contemptuously rejected his blustering ultimatum.

The letter ordered the Governor of Virginia to deliver his demand to the Major General of New France in the capital, Quebec City.

The bastions were made of piles driven into the ground, standing more than 12 feet (3.7 m) high, and sharpened at the top.

During Pontiac's Rebellion, on 18 June 1763, a war party of Native Americans burned Fort Le Boeuf.

When Judge Vincent settled in Waterford during 1797, he wrote, "There are no remains of the old French fort excepting the traces on the ground..."