During the 18th century, France and Great Britain competed for control of North America as British settlement pushed west over the Appalachian Mountains and the French moved south from Canada, setting the stage for war. In Maryland, Anglo-American settlers, mainly English, Scots-Irish, and German immigrants, established agricultural communities in the Potomac River valley along the Conococheague, Licking, Little Tonoloway, and Big Tonoloway Creeks. After the French established Fort Duquesne in 1754 at the forks of the Ohio River and British armies failed to capture it in 1754 and 1755, French forces and their Delaware and Shawnee allies launched raids against frontier inhabitants in the fall of 1755, spreading panic across the backcountry of western Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland. Early defenses such as Stoddert's Fort proved inadequate, and Governor Horatio Sharpe, after a prolonged funding dispute with the colonial legislature, began building Fort Frederick in June 1756. Construction continued until December 1757, when the Maryland Assembly ended funding. The completed stone fort contained two enlisted men's barracks and an officer's quarters, or Governor’s House, enclosed by walls three to four feet thick, with space for nearly 400 men when necessary though intended to house 200 comfortably. Sharpe also raised five companies of Maryland troops to garrison Forts Frederick and Cumberland and patrol the frontier. In 1757, Fort Frederick hosted a conference between Maryland authorities and 60 Cherokee warriors under Chief Wahachey of Keowee, who agreed to aid Maryland in the war with the French and helped protect the frontier alongside Maryland and Virginia troops. In 1758, British General John Forbes captured Fort Duquesne, and Fort Frederick served as an important supply depot and staging area for his army, holding oats, Indian corn, hay, wagonloads of musket balls, artillery shells, cannon balls, and road-building tools. After Fort Duquesne fell, the frontier threat ended, the last Maryland forces were mustered out in early 1759, and Fort Frederick was left to a single caretaker. In 1763 the fort briefly returned to service during Pontiac's war, when Maryland militia went to the frontier and Fort Frederick sheltered local residents, but it was abandoned again once the danger passed.