Fort Bedford Fort Bedford was a French and Indian War - era British military fortification located at the present site of Bedford , Pennsylvania . The fort was a star - shaped log fortress erected in the summer of 1758 . Background . Fort Bedford was constructed during the French and Indian War by British troops under the command of Colonel Henry Bouquet by order of General John Forbes . The fort was one of a string of British forts and blockhouses designed to protect British supply lines on the Forbes Road , a pioneer trail built by the British during their invasion of the Ohio Country and campaign against the French garrison at Fort Duquesne . After General Edward Braddock ' s campaign to take the forks of the Ohio River ended in disaster , General Forbes was placed in command of a new expedition to capture the strategic point guarded by Fort Duquesne . Forbes vowed not to make the same mistakes as his predecessor . Braddock had led a small invasion force launched from western Maryland . His poorly defended lines of supply and communication were soon compromised . Forbes intended to launch a large invasion from eastern Pennsylvania by hacking a new pioneer wagon road over the Allegheny Mountains . His plan called for a string of forts and blockhouse s to guard the supply road from hostile bands of Native Americans . After constructing Fort Juniata Crossing near present Breezewood , Pennsylvania , Colonel Bouquet began planning Fort Bedford as the next step towards the Ohio Country . Location and construction . Bouquet chose a spot adjacent to the Juniata River west of a strategic gap in the mountains called " the narrows " . Keeping with the overall plan , the new site was about one day ' s march from the previous fort . After briefly being referred to simply as the " camp at Raystown " the new encampment was dubbed Fort Bedford in honor of the Duke of Bedford . Bouquet searched the area for some time to find a site that was both defensible and had access to fresh water . Since he could find no spot in the area with both these characteristics , the builders placed the fort on a high spot and devised an innovative fortified elevated gallery that provided access to and water from the Juniata River . It is believed that Fort Bedford was the only fort ever constructed in America with this unique arrangement . The exact location of the fort has been lost to history . Several archaeological digs have failed to yield any solid evidence of the fort ' s site . Using period documents , historians believe it was located somewhere along what is now East Pitt Street in the Borough of Bedford . The fort was a log star shaped fortress with five bastion s . The walls enclosed an area of approximately 1 . 45 acres ( 5 , 850 m² ) . The main gate was located on the south side of the structure and was protected by an earthen rampart . The north side , which faced the river , featured the unique gallery to the riverbank . The non - river sides were protected by a ditch estimated at between 4 and 9 feet ( 1 . 2 to 2 . 7 m ) in depth . Military history . Fort Bedford has been described as the " Grand Central Station of the Forbes campaign " during the French and Indian War . It was used as a staging ground and central storage area for the British Army ' s push westward towards the French garrisons . Colonel Bouquet and General Forbes used it as their headquarters for portions of the campaign . After the bulk of the army moved westward , the fort was garrisoned by about 800 men . The fort saw little action during the war and was used mainly as a forward supply base . As the French and Indian War wound down in the frontier , the fort ' s garrison was moved to other forts . Captain Lewis Ourry , in command of the fort at the outbreak of Pontiac ' s Rebellion , listed just twelve Royal Americans on his roster to guard the fort and more than 90 local families . Despite the weakness of the garrison , the fort was not directly attacked by native warriors . Instead they raided several local settlements and attacked supply trains bound for the fort , apparently hoping to starve out the garrison . The arrival of reinforcements under Colonel Bouquet in July 1763 ended most of the local raiding . Details of the fort during the inter - war years are sketchy and controversial . The British Army abandoned the fort sometime during this period . According to the autobiography of James Smith , leader of a colonial movement known as the " Black Boys " , he and his men captured the fort in 1769 . This incident is documented only in Smith ' s autobiography , so it may be a tall tale , although historian Gregory Evans Dowd ( " War Under Heaven : Pontiac , the Indian Nations , & the British Empire " , 2002 ) notes that there is some corroborating evidence , and that some other historians believe the tale to be true . Smith called this the first British fort to fall in the era of the American Revolution . The incident was portrayed in the 1939 Hollywood film " Allegheny Uprising " , starring John Wayne as James Smith . The fort was garrisoned by the Patriot - sympathizing Bedford County militia during the Revolutionary War . The fort guarded the frontier settlers against raids by British - allied native bands . Decline and reconstruction . After the American War of Independence ended , the treaties of the 1780s such as the Treaty of Fort Stanwix and the Treaty of Fort McIntosh reduced the fear of Indian raids in the area of the fort . Sometime during this period the fort was abandoned and demolished . George Washington stopped at the town of Bedford while leading troops into Western Pennsylvania to put down the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 . Records of the army ' s stay at that time seem to indicate that the fort had already been razed . A reconstruction of the log blockhouse was built on the site in 1958 in honor of the fort ' s 200th anniversary . It is currently a museum operated by Bedford County .