Today the site is marked with a stone bearing a brass plaque placed there by the Fort McIntosh chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1932, memorializing the visit of Major George Washington to the town in November, 1753.

[5] The population grew as groups of Lenape, Cayugas, Senecas, and Shawnees migrated west into the Ohio River Valley seeking to escape a smallpox epidemic in 1733 and a drought in 1741, creating a multi-ethnic community.

Gardens and cornfields were planted on both sides of the river, on fertile, alluvial flatlands, where the town's residents cultivated maize, beans, squash, gourds, tobacco, and sunflowers.

As early as 1731, agents from Montreal had visited communities along the Ohio River, distributing goods and urging the tribes to send emissaries to Quebec to establish alliances.

"[1]: 328–29  In November 1747 Scarouady and other Iroquois leaders visited Philadelphia to sign the "Treaty Between the President and Council of the Province of Pennsylvania and the Ohio Indians,"[26] promising a military alliance against the French in exchange for supplies and trade goods.

"[34]: 43  Weiser met each tribe separately and then in a general council he announced that King George's War had ended and that England and France signed a peace treaty.

Several of the Logstown leaders were also unhappy, as they had petitioned the Pennsylvania provincial government as early as 1734 to restrict the sale of alcohol in Native American communities because of the social and economic problems it caused.

[1] Croghan eventually decided to break open the kegs and spill the rum, in accordance with a newly-enacted Pennsylvania statute issued by Lieutenant-Governor George Thomas.

[11]: 29–30 The Jesuit priest Joseph Pierre de Bonnecamps, who accompanied Céloron, wrote about Logstown, which he called by its French name: "The village of Chiningué is quite new; it is hardly more than five or six years since it was established.

"[11] In contrast, William Trent recorded that as the warriors arrived, "every man discharged his gun loaded with ball & large shot into the ground between the Frenchmen's legs which almost blinded them & covered them with dirt.

I have treated them with all possible mildness, though I had a right to look upon them as intruders and mere vagrants, their traffic being contrary to the preliminaries of the peace (Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748)), signed more than fifteen months ago.

[45]Afterwards, Céloron called the English traders who were living in Logstown to meet with him, "to whom I addressed a summons to retire into their own territory with all their servants...They answered...that they would do so, that they knew well they had no right to trade on the Beautiful River."

The expulsion of the British traders and Céloron's condescending attitude irritated the Shawnees, some of whom returned to their home villages, "tearing down and trampling underfoot with contempt" the French copper plates as they went.

Croghan arrived in late August, only a few days after Céloron's departure, and reported that the Indians had told Céloron "that the land was their own, and while there were any Indians in those parts they would continue to trade with the English," adding that “to separate them from their brothers, the English, would be like cutting a man in two halves and then expecting him to live.”[1]: 359 In September, 1750 the Ohio Company ordered Christopher Gist to survey lands along the Ohio to find an area of 200,000 acres that the Company could take possession of, according to a 1749 grant from King George II of England.

Joncaire was directed to explore the region, to learn all he could about the Monongahela River, to find a new route from southern Ohio to Lake Erie, to visit Lower Shawneetown and establish relations with the chiefs there, and finally, to report back to Céloron in Detroit.

Throughout September and October the Pennsylvania government received reports that a Frenchman named "Jean Coeur," or "John Ceur" was traveling up and down the Ohio River, distributing gifts and gaining influence with the Indians.

[57] The Treaty of Logstown was intended to open up land for settlement so that the Ohio Company could meet the seven-year deadline, and to obtain explicit permission to construct a fort.

[15] The Virginia and Pennsylvania delegates reminded the Delawares and Shawnees, "We advise and exhort you to beware of French Councils, and that you will adhere to a strict friendship with us (the English colonies and the Six Nations).

At the conclusion of the Logstown conference, Tanacharison promised that existing settlements southeast of the Ohio River "shall be unmolested by us, and that we will, as far as in our power, assist and Protect the British Subjects there.

[50] They responded to the news of the treaty by sending troops to construct and garrison a series of forts, intended to solidify their military presence in the Ohio region, intimidate the Native American inhabitants, and keep the British out.

Francois Bigot, intendant of New France since 1748, wrote this summary of the French plan on 26 October 1752: It is necessary to send 2000 Frenchmen with 200 of our domiciliated savages to this river (the Ohio)...in the spring; to build a store house at the lower end of this portage on the shore of Lake Erie, and another at the end of this same portage on Lake Chatakouin; likewise, to make a fort at La Paille Coupée (Brokenstraw Creek, later the site of Fort Le Boeuf) where M. de Joncaire is located, another at the Written Rock (McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, below Pittsburgh) or at Chiningué (Logstown), and a third at Sonhioto (the Scioto River, site of Lower Shawneetown).

[67]: 20 In late 1753 (the exact date is unknown) the sachems at Logstown received a letter from Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre stating: I am commanded to build four strong Houses, viz.

Tanacharison tried to return the wampum to Saint-Pierre, "who evaded taking it, & made many fair Promises of Love & Friendship; said he wanted to live in Peace & trade amicably with them; as a Proof of which, he wou’d send some Goods immediately down to the Logstown for them."

Correspondence between La Chauvignerie and his superior at Fort Le Boeuf, Saint-Pierre, describe the French soldiers as suffering from hunger and cold, as firewood was difficult to find.

La Chauvignerie writes on February 10: "We are on the eve of being without food...The scarcity of wood which prevails in this place causes us all to be exposed to the harshness of the weather...I shall take every care to keep the tribes as peaceful as possible until a reinforcement arrives.

Problems with supplies and illness among the troops had slowed progress,[76] however, and the sudden death of Marin, the commander, at Fort Le Boeuf on 29 October forced the French to postpone the project.

Washington's journal entry for 26 June 1754, reads: "An Indian arrived bearing the news that Monacatoocha (Scarouady) had burned his village, Logstown, and was gone by water with his people to Red-Stone, and might be expected there in two days.

Charles Stuart, who was taken captive by a group of Lenape and Shawnee warriors during the Great Cove massacre in November 1755, was taken to Logstown in December and reported: "When we came to Loggs town we found all the Cabbins waste but Three.

In his captivity narrative he reports living there with a Lenape family for two and a half years and states that Logstown "lay in a semi-circular form, round the bend of a creek."

"[1]: 382 In 1792, General Anthony Wayne established a military training base for the newly formed Legion of the United States on ground situated where Logstown's "upper town" had been.