trade there again, or on any of the Branches." He sent away all
the traders whom he found, giving them letters addressed to their
respective governors denying England's right to trade in the
West. To offset this move, within two years Pennsylvania sent
goods to the value of nine hundred pounds in order to hold the
Indians constant. The Governor had already ordered the traders to
sell whiskey to the Indians at "5 Bucks" per cask and had told
the Indians, through his agent Conrad Weiser, that if any trader
refused to sell the liquor at that price they might "take it from
him and drink it for nothing." There was but one way for the
French to meet such competition. Without delay they fortified the
Allegheny and began to coerce the natives. Driving away the
carpenters of the Ohio Company from the present site of
Pittsburgh, they built Fort Duquesne. The beginning of the Old
French War ended what we may call the first era of the pack-horse
trade.

The capture of Fort Duquesne by the English army under General
Forbes in 1758 and the final conquest of New France two years
later removed the French barrier and opened the way to expansion
beyond the Alleghanies. Thereafter settlements in the Monongahela
country grew apace. Pittsburgh, Uniontown, Morgantown,
Brownsville, Ligonier, Greensburg, Connellsville--we give the
modern names--became centers of a great migration which was
halted only for a season by Pontiac's Rebellion, the aftermath of
the French War, and was resumed immediately on the suppression of
that Indian rising. The pack-horse trade now entered its final
and most important era. The earlier period was one in which the
trade was confined chiefly to the Indians; the later phase was
concerned with supplying the needs of the white man in his