The French fort at present-day Erie, Pennsylvania, that formed part of the route from Lake Erie to the Ohio Country was Fort Presque Isle.
French soldiers built Fort Presque Isle in 1753 on Presque Isle Bay, at the site of present-day Erie. It guarded the northern end of the Venango Path, a portage route linking Lake Erie with French Creek and, through the Allegheny and Ohio rivers, the Ohio Country. The fort was the first post in a French chain extending southward.
That chain included Fort Le Boeuf near modern Waterford, Fort Machault near the Allegheny River, and Fort Duquesne at the Forks of the Ohio, where Pittsburgh later developed. Together, these posts were intended to connect France’s settlements in Canada with its territories farther south and to block British expansion.
The name is easy to confuse with Presque Isle State Park, the peninsula that projects into Lake Erie. “Presque isle” is French for “almost island,” describing the landform. The French abandoned and burned the fort during the war; a later British fort and subsequent American fortifications reused the name.