George Washington’s last visit to Cumberland came on October 16, 1794, when he arrived to review about 5,000 Maryland and Virginia militia troops gathered there during the Whiskey Rebellion. A few days later the militia army assembled on the parade ground of old Fort Cumberland, where the Allegany County Courthouse now stands, and Washington, dressed in full military uniform, rode along the line from right to left as the town’s population watched and the men loudly cheered. Afterward the command marched in review and Washington raised his hat in salute as they passed, while Generals Henry Lee and Daniel Morgan were also present and participated. Cumberland had figured in Washington’s earlier career as well: at age sixteen he visited Allegany County, then Frederick County, as a guest of Col. Thomas Cresap at Oldtown while surveying the valleys of Patterson Creek and the South Branch of the Potomac for Col. Wm. Fairfax on lands of Lord Fairfax; in 1753 Governor Dinwiddie ordered Major Washington to Wills Creek and then to Fort Leboef near Erie, Pa., to demand that the French withdraw from territory claimed by England, but they refused; in 1754 Lieutenant Colonel Washington was ordered toward the Forks of the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers to build and defend a fort, but after the French seized the site he held a war council at Wills Creek before moving on to fight at Fort Necessity, where a superior French army defeated the Virginia militia; in 1755 he served on General Edward Braddock’s staff as the British expeditionary force assembled there, and after the ambush and defeat near Ft. Duquesne, with Braddock mortally wounded, Washington led the survivors back to Ft. Cumberland; and in 1758 Virginia militia under Colonel Washington mustered at Fort Cumberland, joined General John Forbes at Raystown, and went on in the campaign that defeated the French at Ft. Duquesne, afterward renamed Ft. Pitt.
