Excerpt from Synopsis of the Proceedings of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, Late Old Residents' Association: During the First Five Years

Few sections of our country open a more pleasing and varied field of study and research to the historian than Western Pennsylvania. Commencing with the mound-builders of pre-historic times, and passing down through the Lanni Lenape and other aboriginal tribes to the day when the last remnant of the red race forever disappeared from our midst, such names as those of Shingiss, Guyasutha, Aliquippa, Captain Jacobs and Pontiac are presented to his mind. When the French entered upon the scene the list of historic names was continued in La Salle, Chartier, Celoron, Joncaire, Contrecoeur, Jumonville, Beaujeux and others. Finally, among the names which the English and colonists have inscribed on the pages of our history, are those of Trent, Braddock, Dunbar, Armstrong, Grant, Forbes, Bouquet, and last and greatest, George Washington.

Of the early struggles that marked the different changes of rulers, the annalist may begin with those of the savage tribes for the mastery over these once vast forests, long before the dawn of authentic history, and study to sift the truth as far as may be from the muss of conflicting myths and traditions. With the arrival of the French, and their bloodless victory over the colonists under Ensign Ward, began the deadly struggle in which it may be said without exaggeration that the spot upon which Pittsburg now stands was for a time the central point in the world's history, its possession being disputed by the two leading civilized nations of Europe. The battles of the Great Meadows, Braddock's Field, Kittanning, Ligonier, and Grant's Hill, with the fall of forts Duquesne, Machault or Venango, Le Boeuf, and Presqu' Isle, the destruction of the last three, the siege of Fort Pitt, and the concluding victory of Bushy Run, in the conspiracy of Pontiac, are the footprints which that protracted struggle has left on the sands of time.

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