Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/252

 *tions was erected by general Stanwix just above, and named Fort Pitt, in honour of the then prime minister of England.—It cost government £60,000 sterling. A garrison {221} was kept here for several years after the peace of 1763, but it was withdrawn on the commencement of the disputes between Britain and America, and the inhabitants of the surrounding settlement, which had not yet taken the form of a town, occasionally forted themselves for defence against the Indians, and so late as the year 1781, there were only a few small houses and cabins on the banks of the two rivers, under protection of the fort, a noble row of brick and stone houses built by the French Indian traders on the banks of the Allegheny, having been undermined and swept away by that river since 1766, in the memory of some of the present inhabitants of Pittsburgh.[156] After 1781, Pittsburgh began to improve slowly, and in 1784 a gazette[157] was established in it.[158] In 1783 Fort Pitt was repaired by general Irwin, but was afterwards neglected, and a stoccado fort called Fort Fayette, was erected on the bank of the Allegheny, half a mile above Fort Pitt.[159] Fort Fayette is now