Pierre Joseph Céloron de Blainville

In response to a call to the Canadian government for assistance, Céloron was dispatched to Fort de l'Assumption near present-day Memphis, Tennessee, with a "considerable number of Northern Indians" and a company of cadets.

After his return to Michilimackinac, Céloron was appointed to command of Detroit, at which time he was referred to as a Chevalier of the Military Order of Saint Louis and a captain in the Department of Marine.

France claimed the Ohio Valley (and indeed the entire Mississippi basin) on the basis of the explorations made by La Salle in 1669 and 1682.

In 1748, Comte de la Galissoniere, the governor of Canada, ordered Céloron to strengthen the French claim on the Ohio Valley.

On the shore of Lake Erie, at the mouth of Chautauqua Creek in present-day Westfield, New York, the expedition cut a road over the French Portage Road, and carried their boats and equipment overland to Chautauqua Lake, then followed the Chadakoin River and Conewango Creek to the Allegheny River, reaching it on July 29, 1749.

This was a traditional European mode of marking territory, but it might have contributed to Native American anxieties about the intentions of the French, and thus ultimately had a counterproductive effect.

They paused at Kittanning, but found the village abandoned except for a Lenape chief, whom they invited to attend a council meeting with Céloron at Logstown.

They spent a week camped outside the village and met briefly with the chief Memeskia, who promised to consider returning to live near Detroit as a French ally.

Céloron later remarked, speaking in general about his journey, that "the nations of these localities are very badly disposed towards the French, and are entirely devoted to the English."

In the year 1749, of the reign of Louis the 15th, King of France, we Céloron, commander of a detachment sent by Monsieur the Marquis de la Galissoniere, Governor General of New France, to reestablish tranquility in some Indian villages of these cantons, have buried this Plate of Lead at the confluence of the Ohio and the Chadakoin, this 29th day of July, near the river Ohio, otherwise Belle Riviere, as a monument of the renewal of the possession we have taken of the said river Ohio and of all those which empty into it, and of all the lands on both sides as far as the sources of the said rivers, as enjoyed or ought to have been enjoyed by the kings of France preceding and as they have there maintained themselves by arms and by treaties, especially those of Ryswick, Utrecht and Aix-la-Chapelle.

The French continued to press their claim to the Ohio Valley, and colonial friction with the British finally contributed to outbreak of the Seven Years' War.

His second wife was Catherine Eury de la Parelle, married in Montreal on October 13, 1743, and with whom he enjoyed nine children (Burton, 327).