British fort to fall in the era of the American Revolution. The incident was portrayed in the 1939 Hollywood film Allegheny Uprising, starring John Wayne as James Smith. In October 1766, Garrett Pendergrass petitioned John Penn, the Provincial Governor for compensation for the use of his property. In his petition, Pendergrass claimed that "since the King's Troops evacuated that Fort, and the Avenues thereof..." In 1769 when James Smith attacked the fort to illegally free some legally arrested individuals, Fort Bedford was no longer a British Fort. The court records of Cumberland County maintain absolutely no records of Smith's capture of the 'British Fort'. No one knew that the fort had been captured until thirty years later when Smith published his self-congratulatory autobiography. The fort was garrisoned by the Patriot-sympathizing Bedford County militia during the Revolutionary War. The fort guarded the frontier settlers against raids by British-allied native bands. Decline and reconstruction After the American War of Independence ended, the treaties of the 1780s such as the Treaty of Fort Stanwix and the Treaty of Fort McIntosh reduced the fear of Indian raids in the area of the fort. Sometime during this period, the fort was abandoned and demolished. George Washington stopped at the town of Bedford while leading troops into Western Pennsylvania to put down the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794. Records of the army's stay at that time seem to indicate that the fort had already been razed. A reconstruction of one of the five log blockhouses was built near the site in 1958 in honor of the fort's 200th anniversary. The style of the reconstruction is not necessarily the style of the original blockhouses of Fort Bedford as no contemporary images of the fort exist. Unlike the 'cube' form of most French and Indian War blockhouses, the reconstruction resembles more so blockhouses from the 1870s of the American Midwest. It is currently a museum operated by The Bedford Heritage Trust. References Fort Bedford, Pennsylvania 2016-01-04 Fort Bedford Historical Marker 2016-01-04 External links Fort Bedford Museum official site Fort Bedford Time Line Fort Bedford park Forts in Pennsylvania French and Indian War forts American Revolutionary War forts Museums in Bedford County, Pennsylvania Military and war museums in Pennsylvania Colonial forts in Pennsylvania British forts in the United States 1758 establishments in Virginia History of Bedford County, Pennsylvania