06/03/2026
Near present-day Hiatt Road along Apple Pie Ridge, campfires stretched across the fields surrounding the farm of Widow Barringer, sometimes recorded as Ballenger in surviving accounts. Beside her spring house, General Edward Braddock’s army gathered for its march toward Fort Duquesne. Thousands of British soldiers, colonial troops, wagon drivers, and laborers crowded the countryside north of Wi******er. Much of the route west would have to be cut by hand through forests and mountains. Among the officers preparing for the expedition was twenty-three-year-old George Washington. He was suffering from a severe case of dysentery, known then as the bloody flux, along with a painful re**al abscess. The illness left him weak, feverish, and exhausted, yet he remained with the army as it moved into the wilderness.
As the expedition pushed westward, Washington often traveled in a covered wagon while his friend and surgeon, Dr. James Craik, treated him with the medicines available at the time. When Braddock’s army was ambushed along the Monongahela River on July 9, 1755, Washington climbed back into the saddle despite his condition. General Braddock was mortally wounded, officers fell in large numbers, and panic spread through the ranks. Through the confusion, Washington carried orders, rallied survivors, and helped organize a retreat that saved much of the army from destruction. Long before he became the Father of our Country, George Washington demonstrated the determination and leadership that would one day guide a nation, and part of that story began beside a spring house on Apple Pie Ridge. One could say for young George Washington…that March to the Monongahela was truly a pain in the rear!
