Fort Machault Fort Machault was a fort built by the French in 1754 near the confluence of French Creek with the Allegheny River , at present - day Franklin , in northwest Pennsylvania . The fort was part of a line that included Fort Presque Isle , Fort Le Boeuf , and Fort Duquesne . Description . The fort was built on a hill , 60 yards west of the Allegheny River . The fort was in the form of a parallelogram , about 75 by . The curtain was made of hewed timber , stacked lengthwise . The four corners had bastion s in the form of polygons . The bastions were built of saplings , eight inches ( 203 mm ) thick , and in height . The gate fronted the river . Inside the fort were a magazine , several officer ' s barracks , with two stories and stone chimneys . The soldiers barracks consisted of 45 buildings outside the fort . History . One of four forts built by the French and Canadiens , to control the Venango Path between Lake Erie and the Ohio River , Fort Machault was located in modern Franklin , Pennsylvania , at the confluence of French Creek and the Allegheny River . Fort Machault was the last stop on the supply route from Canada to Fort Duquesne . Prior to the arrival of the French in 1753 , Pennsylvania blacksmith and Indian trader John Fraser had set up shop on this site , supplying Indians in the region with trade goods and repairing their guns and other metal wares . His business was an example of the western expansion of Pennsylvania ' s fur trade that prompted the French to fortify the Ohio Country , for fear of losing trade and influence among the Indians there . Captain Chabert de Joncaire finished building Fort Machault in April 1754 . It was named in honor of prominent financier , Jean - Baptiste Machault d ' Arnouville , the French Minister of the Marine at the time of its construction . It was also known as " Venango , " the name of the nearby Delaware Indian village . In December 1753 , George Washington used the Venango Path to reach Fort Machault during his first expedition into the Ohio Country . Washington , with an escort of seven men and a letter from Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia , protesting the French invasion of lands claimed by Great Britain and demanding their immediate withdrawal . The French officer at the fort said he did not have the power to negotiate with the British . Therefore , he told Washington to go to Fort Le Boeuf instead to meet with a higher - ranking officer . The French and Indian War began on May 28 , 1754 with the Battle of Jumonville Glen . In 1756 , William Johnson , who had escaped from Native Americans , described the fort as a " Captain ' s command of about 50 men ; the Fort of Stockades , very weak , and scarce of provisions . . . " In 1758 , Colonel Mercer , in a report from Fort Pitt , reported that there were about 100 soldiers at Fort Machault , where the French had 11 flat - bottomed boats called " batteau s " and a large gun the size of a quart pot " which they fire off by a train of powder . " After abandoning Fort Duquesne in November 1758 , the French fell back to Fort Machault , and the British expected them to launch a counterattack from there in the following campaign season . In July 1759 , the French began a campaign to capture Fort Pitt . Nearly a thousand French and Canadiens and a thousand Native Americans mustered at Fort Machault . The British , however , began a siege of Fort Niagara . The fall of Fort Niagara in summer 1759 , however , made the French presence in the Ohio Country untenable . The assault on Fort Pitt was abandoned , and available forces were sent to relieve Fort Niagara . On July 25 , 1759 , the French surrendered Fort Niagara . In August 1759 , the commander of Fort Presque Isle sent word to Fort Le Boeuf and Fort Machault to abandon their forts . The French burned Fort Machault to the ground and retreated to Canada in anticipation of a British expedition north from the Forks of the Ohio . In 1760 , the British built Fort Venango near this site .