John Fraser ( frontiersman ) John Fraser ( 1721 – 16 April 1773 ) was a fur trader licensed by the Province of Pennsylvania for its western frontier , an interpreter with Native Americans , a gunsmith , a guide and lieutenant in the British army , and a land speculator . He served in several of England ' s expeditions against the French and their allies in the vicinity of Fort Duquesne and later Fort Pitt . Born in the Scottish Highlands , Fraser , age 14 , arrived in Pennsylvania and settled for a short time near the Susquehanna River in Dauphin County . He next moved west over the Allegheny Mountains to establish an English trading post at the Native American village of Venango ( now Franklin , Pennsylvania ) , at the junction of French Creek and the Allegheny River . For some ten years there he bartered : his gunsmith services , English manufactured goods , and alcohol , in exchange for Indian pelts and furs . In 1749 French expeditionary activity led by Pierre Joseph Céloron de Blainville forced Fraser to abandon Venango and move south to the Forks of the Ohio . At the mouth of Turtle Creek ( Monongahela River ) he built a new cabin , from which to trade with the Indians once again . There he aided George Washington and his guide Christopher Gist during Washington ' s early diplomacy with the French . ( According to Washington ' s 1753 journal , by this time Fraser ' s cabin at Venango flew the French colors ; by the next year both the Venango cabin and its forge had been incorporated by the French into the new Fort Machault . ) During the French and Indian War Fraser served in colonial and British uniform , against the French , under Captain William Trent , George Washington , General Edward Braddock , and General John Forbes . Fraser ' s Turtle Creek cabin stood through the Battle of the Monongahela and for decades more , until about 1804 . The site today is located in North Braddock , Pennsylvania on the land where , since 1872 , sits the Edgar Thomson Steel Works established by Andrew Carnegie . Fraser , who petitioned the government for restitution for his losses during his war service , also speculated in land purchases on the frontier . He was granted 300 acres near Fort Ligonier along the Forbes Road in 1766 . On April 1 , 1769 he successfully purchased all of Braddock ' s Field as well as the cabin he had built there . Fraser married Jane Fraser ( formerly Jane Bell and Jane McClain ) in 1754 . On October 1 , 1755 , while returning to her home from the Fort Cumberland trading post several miles away , Jane was captured by Indians and taken to the Miami River near Dayton , Ohio . She eventually escaped and returned 18 months later only to learn that Fraser , her husband , had remarried because he assumed that she was dead . Fraser took her back , and he returned his second wife home to her father . Ruby Frazier Frey , a descendant , in 1946 published an historical novel , " Red Morning " , telling of Jane ’ s experiences . In 1771 John Fraser was appointed by Governor Penn as a justice of the peace for the newly formed Bedford County , Pennsylvania , where two years later he died suddenly . The Orphan ' s Court ruled that his widow Jane Fraser should sell some of the Fraser land to satisfy debts and to support her eight minor children . On October 14 , 1774 , Braddock ' s battlefield sold to Daniel Razior . In 1790 his 300 acres near Fort Ligonier sold to Father Theodore Brouwers , O . F . M . , who founded there the first Catholic Church parish west of the Alleghenies , and by 1846 Saint Vincent College and Saint Vincent Archabbey was established ( now the oldest Benedictine monastery in the United States ) . In 18th century documents his surname is spelled three ways : Frazer , Frazier , and Fraser . Fraser is the common Scottish spelling of the name and is used by many of John Fraser ' s descendants .