Virtual Tour of Fort Necessity

In Great Meadows, located near what is now Farmington, Pennsylvania, George Washington and the Virginia Regiment hastily constructed “Fort Necessity” in the spring of 1754. Washington had his regiment construct the fort with split white oak logs buried several feet deep in the ground in a nearly perfect circle fifty-three feet in diameter around a small log blockhouse. The design was flawed, as the circular shape made the already thin fort walls difficult to reinforce, and the hurriedly cut wood left many gaps and openings, vulnerable to gunfire.