Fort Granville

Following the crushing French victory over General Edward Braddock’s forces at the Battle of the Monongahela a year earlier, Shawnee and Delaware Indians undertook a number of hit-and-run raids on vulnerable settlers in western Pennsylvania. Colonial authorities responded by building a string of small stockades (each fifty feet square and capable of garrisoning fifty men) on the Pennsylvania frontier. Fort Granville stood on the north side of the Juniata River, roughly a mile west of the confluence with Kishacoquillas Creek. According to one Redcoat, it was “one of our best Forts upon the frontier.”

In late July 1756, while Captain Edward Ward and most of his men left the fort to protect nearby harvesting settlers, Lt. Edward Armstrong remained behind with a mixed force of two dozen soldiers and civilians. Shortly after Ward’s departure, a large French/Indian force attacked Fort Granville. In the fighting, Lt. Armstrong was killed and the wooden stockade set on fire, which led second-in-command, Sgt. John Turner, to surrender the fort. The victorious Indians tortured Turner before killing him and then took their captives to the Illinois country where the French ransomed them. The Fort Granville raid was followed closely by the Kittanning Expedition. Today, the fort’s exact location remains uncertain.