It was a perilous journey. Twice he got lost in the woods, and one of his guides strayed away and could not be found. Without food and drenched with rain, night after night he slept on the cold, wet ground. He was frequently very near the French. Finally he arrived at King Beaver’s, who ruled over the Delaware in the West. These Indians remembered him when he preached the gospel at Wyoming, and were glad to see him. They gave him a public dinner, to which they invited the surrounding tribes. The French sent spies to watch him and to induce him to go to Fort Duquesne. Post refused to be trapped, but instead succeeded in making arrangements for kindling a great council-fire at Easton in October following. Post now set out on his return and had not proceeded far when he heard the thunder of nineteen cannon discharged at the fort. Under the very mouths of these guns he had, singly and alone, with the full knowledge of the French, laid a plan which rent asunder the alliance between them and their Indian allies. Post succeeded in his mission, and the French at the fort, finding themselves abandoned by their allies, fired it and fled, as the invalid general, John Forbes, and his army made their appearance. Frank Cowan, poet of Southwestern Pennsylvania, tells the story in one of his songs, of which the following is a verse: “The Head of Iron from his couch, Gave courage and command, Which Washington, Bouquet and Grant Repeated to the band; Till Hark! the Highlanders began With their chieftain’s word to swell, ‘Tonight, I shall sup and drain my cup In Fort Du Quense—or Hell!’ But the Man of Prayer, and not of boast, Had spoken first, in Frederic Post.” Again, in 1761, he proceeded to the Muskingum and built the first white man’s house within the present State of Ohio. He had made previous trips into this country, and always succeeded in persuading the Shawnee and Delaware to “bury the hatchet” and desert the French. He did this with a heavy reward upon his scalp, and while his every footstep was surrounded with danger. In 1762 the Reverend John G. B. Heckewelder, the Moravian missionary and writer, especially among the Delaware, was an assistant to Post. Toward the close of his eventful life Post retired from the Moravian sect and entered the Protestant Episcopal Church. He died at Germantown on April 29, 1785, and on May 1 his remains were interred in the “Lower graveyard of that place, the Reverend William White, then rector of Christ Church,” conducting the funeral service. ---------- Veterans of French and Indian Wars Organize April 30, 1765