The French fort near present-day Waterford, Pennsylvania, visited by George Washington in 1753 was Fort Le Boeuf.
French forces established Fort Le Boeuf in 1753 on French Creek, about 15 miles south of Lake Erie. It guarded the southern end of the Venango Path, where supplies and trade goods were portaged from Fort Presque Isle before continuing by canoe down French Creek to the Allegheny and Ohio rivers.
Virginia governor Robert Dinwiddie sent the 21-year-old George Washington to demand that the French leave the Ohio Country. Washington and the guide Christopher Gist reached Fort Le Boeuf on 11 December 1753. The fort’s commander, Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, received Washington courteously but rejected the demand and sent a written reply to Dinwiddie.
Fort Le Boeuf belonged to a larger French defensive line that also included Fort Presque Isle, Fort Machault, and Fort Duquesne. It was later abandoned after the French lost Fort Niagara in 1759. Washington’s mission helped expose the growing territorial conflict that soon erupted into the French and Indian War.