Plan of Fort Le Quesne

This engraving is a detailed plan of Fort Duquesne (spelled here Le Quesne), which was built by the French in 1754 at the  point where the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers intersect to form the Ohio River—the present-day location of Pittsburgh. A key to the map, at bottom left, indicates the location of the fort's magazines, the soldiers' barracks, the parade grounds, and the fortification's prison. The information about the fort came to London from "some curious French Deserters." Thomas Jefferys, the geographer to the king of England, engraved this map, which was published in A General Topography of North America and the West Indies (1768).

Fort Duquesne was destroyed in 1758 during the French and Indian War. The British took over the strategic location and built a larger fortification, known as Fort Pitt.