[Illustration: SIEUR DE BIENVILLE.[51]] =106. The French in the Ohio Valley.=—The French now turned their attention to the task of securing the region watered by the Ohio River. In 1749 Céloron de Bienville, under orders of the governor of Canada, by means of canoe voyages and portages, reached Chautauqua Lake and thence the Allegheny River, where formal possession of the country was taken in the name of Louis XV. of France. Leaden plates with inscriptions asserting the French claim were interred at various points along the Ohio and its tributaries. Three years later a chain of forts was begun along the route taken by Bienville, the first erected being that of Presque Isle, near the present city of Erie. These movements of the French alarmed the English colonists greatly, and, most of all, Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia. This executive was interested in an American scheme for settling the Ohio region, through the agency of the so-called Ohio Company, and his colony claimed the country now threatened by the French. As soon as he heard of the new fort, he dispatched George Washington to demand the withdrawal of the French. Washington was just twenty-one years old, but he had seen life as a surveyor in the frontier counties of Virginia, and had learned to command men and to understand Indian character. =107. Washington in the West.=—Washington, who was already an adjutant general, took with him only a few companions on his winter journey of seven hundred and fifty miles through the perilous wilderness. He braved numerous dangers, which he set down modestly in a journal that is still preserved. His training as a surveyor enabled him to pick out as a proper site for a fort the spot at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers where Fort Duquesne was shortly afterward built by the French, and where Pittsburg now stands. He reached Fort Le Bœuf (near the present Waterford, Pennsylvania) and gave his letter to the French commandant. The latter promised to send it on to the governor of Canada, but continued to occupy the fort. On his return journey Washington nearly lost his life while attempting to cross the Monongahela on a raft; but he finally reached Williamsburg in safety, having been absent only eleven weeks. =108. Founding of Fort Duquesne.=—Dinwiddie determined to take possession of the Forks of the Ohio at once. William Trent, a trader, and some militia were hurried forward and began the erection of a fort. While the Virginians were thus occupied, and in the absence of their leader, a party of Frenchmen and Indians descended upon them and they were forced to surrender, their conquerors finishing the fort and naming it after Duquesne, the governor of Canada.