Behind the Marker
After Braddock's Defeat, the Ohio Indians found themselves bereft of any British support against the French who were building fortifications in their homelands. Delaware leader Captain Jacobs traveled to Philadelphia in August 1755 to request supplies from Pennsylvania governor Robert Hunter Morris with which to resist the French occupation of their country. Morris sent him away empty-handed, unwilling to dip into the Penn family's pockets to supply the Indians and knowing that the Quaker-dominated assembly would not appropriate money for military expenditures.

Thus, the western Delawares found themselves allies of the French by default. Kittanning, a Delaware town on the Allegheny River, served as a base for their French-sponsored raids on colonial settlements. When Fort Granville fell to an Indian attack in July 1756, Colonel John Armstrong raised a provincial force that destroyed Kittanning in a surprise dawn raid on September 8, 1756. Armstrong and his men killed and scalped Captain Jacobs, his wife, and son as they tried to escape their burning cabin. [Original Document]

The raid on Kittanning was celebrated as a great victory in Pennsylvania, but its impact on the course of the war is questionable. The British failed to follow it up with any more decisive actions against the Ohio Indians in 1756 or 1757, and it alienated any pro-British sentiment that may have remained among the western Delawares. The Pennsylvania frontier would remain aflame until the Forbes Expedition forced a French withdrawal from the Ohio Country.