Important Information about Life.

The son of Richard Reese and Jane Redman was John Henry Reese (1873-1945). John Henry Reese’s first wife was Laura Reese (1899-1935). Laura’s father was a man named James Overton. John Henry Reese was my 3rd great uncle. Later, John Henry Reese married Helen Catherine Overton on the date of November 4, 1936 at Portsmouth, Virginia. Helen Catherine Overton lived from June 18, 1915 at Windfall, North Carolina to September 5, 2008 at Portsmouth, Virginia. John Henry Reese and Helen Catherine Overton had the following children: John Henry Reese Jr. (1937-2009), David Sylvester Reese (1939-present), Helen Aleene Reese (1941-present), Gloria Christine Reese (1943-2013), and Violet Mae Reese (1947-present). These children of John Henry Reese and Helen Catherine Overton are my 1st cousins. John Henry Reese Jr. lived from February 14, 1937 at Portsmouth, Virginia to February 9, 2009 at Portsmouth, Virginia. He lived in Portsmouth, Virginia throughout his life. He loved the sea and he served in the Navy, the Coast Guard, and he was a merchant seaman. Also, John Henry Reese Jr. was a member of the St. Paul AME Church in Portsmouth. John Henry Reese Jr. married a great woman named Sarah Ann Cooke (1945-1999) on the year of 1971 at Pasquotank, North Carolina. John Henry Reese Jr. and Sarah Ann Cooke’s children are: Carol Yvette Reese (1966-present), Johnny Reese (1969-present), Michael Anthony Reese (1965-present), and Sarina Reese (1982-present). These human beings are my 2nd cousins. Michael Ann Reese married Darcy Jo Matthews on March 30, 1987 at Hampton, Virginia. Johnny Alonzo Reese married Zina Nichele Graham on July 27, 1990 at Portsmouth, Virginia. Carol Yvette Reese married Philip Andre Corry Senior on March 13, 2004 at Portsmouth, Virginia. 


The first people in Pittsburgh were the Native Americans. They lived in the region where the Allegheny and the Monongahela joined to form the Ohio; Paleo-Native Americans conducted a hunter gatherer lifestyle in the region as early as 19,000 years ago. There is an archaeological site west of Pittsburgh called Meadowcroft Rockshelter. It showed evidence of the first Americans who lived in the region. The Adena culture existed, and there was Mound Builders, who erected a large Native American mound at the future site of McKees Rocks. This location was about three miles (5 km.) from the head of the Ohio. The Native American Mound was a burial site, which was augmented in later years by members of the Hopewell culture. By the year of 1700, the Iroquois Confederacy (which is the Five Nations based south of the Great Lakes in present day New York) controlled over the upper Ohio valley reserving it for hunting grounds. Other tribes were the Lenape (called the Delaware), who had been displaced from eastern Pennsylvania by European settlement, and the Shawnee (who had migrated up from the south). After European explorers came into North America, many Native American tribes were devastated by European infectious diseases like smallpox, measles, influenza, and malaria when the tribes had no immunity to. In 1748, Conrad Weiser visited Logstown 18 miles downriver from Pittsburgh. He counted 789 warriors gathered; the Iroquois included 163 Seneca, 74 Mohawk, 35 Onodaga, 20 Cayuga, and 15 Oneida. Other tribes were 165 Lenape, 162 Shawnee, 100 Wyandot, 40 Tisagechroami, and 15 Mohican. Shannopin's Town, a Seneca tribe village on the east bank of the Allegheny, was the home village of Queen Aliquippa.

It was deserted after 1749. Sawcunk, on the mouth of the Beaver River, was a Lenape (Delaware) settlement and the principal residence of Shingas, a chief of theirs. Chartier's Town was a Shawnee town established in 1734 by Peter Chartier. Kittanning was a Lenape and Shawnee village on the Allegheny, with estimated 300–400 residents. The first Europeans who came into Pittsburgh were traders by the 1710’s. Michael Bezallion was the first to describe the forks of the Ohio via a manuscript in 1717, and later that year European traders established posts and settlements in the area. 

Europeans first started to settle in the region seriously in 1748. That was when the first Ohio Company, an English land speculation company, won a grant of 200,000 acres in the upper Ohio Valley. From a post at present day Cumberland, Maryland, the company started to form a 80 mile wagon road to Monogahela River. He used a Native American chief named Nemacolin and a party of settlers (head by Michael Cresap) to start widening the track into a road. It mostly followed the same route as an ancient Native American trail. This trail is known as the Nemacolin’s Trail. The river crossing and flats at Redstone creek was the earliest point and shortest distance for a wagon road. Later in the war, the site fortified as Fort Burd (now Brownsville) was one of several possible destinations. Another alternative was the divergent route that became Braddock's Road a few years later through present-day New Stanton. As time came out, the colonists did not succeed in improving the Native American path to a wagon road much beyond the Cumberland Narrows pass before they were confronted by other Native Americans. The colonists later mounted a series of expeditions in order to accomplish piecemeal improvements to the track.

The French had built nearby Logstown as a trade and council center for the Native Americans to increase their influence in the Ohio Valley. Between June 15 and November 10, 1749, an expedition headed by Celeron de Bienville, a French officer, traveled down the Allegheny and Ohio to bolster the French claim to the region. De Bienville warned away English traders and posted markers claiming the territory. In 1753, Marquis Duquesne, the Governor of New France, sent another, larger expedition. At present-day Erie, Pennsylvania, an advance party built Fort Presque Isle. They also cut a road through the woods and built Fort Le Boeuf on French Creek, from which it was possible at high water to float to the Allegheny. By summer, an expedition of 1,500 French and Native American men descended the Allegheny. Some wintered at the confluence of French Creek and the Allegheny. The following year, they built Fort Machault at that site. 

The French led incursions into the Ohio valley. That is why Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia sent George Washington (who was a Major at the time) to warn the French to withdraw. He was with Christopher Gist. He came at the Forks of the Ohio on November 25, 1753. Along the Allegheny, Washington presented Dinwiddie’s letter to the French commanders first at Venango and then at Fort Le Boeuf. The French officers received Washington with wine and courtesy. Yet, the French refused to withdraw. Governor Dinwiddie later sent Captain William Trent to create a fort at the Forks of the Ohio. By February 17, 1754, Trent started construction of the fort. This was the first European habitation at the site of modern day Pittsburgh. It was called Fort Prince George. It was only half built by April of 1754 when over 500 French forces arrived. They ordered the 40 some colonials to come back to Virginia. The French tore down the British fortification and built Fort Duquesne. Governor Dinwiddie then created another expedition. Colonel Joshua Fry commanded the regiment with his second-in-command, George Washington, leading an advance column. On May 28, 1754, Washington's unit clashed with the French in the Battle of Jumonville Glen, during which 13 French soldiers were killed and 21 were taken prisoner. After the battle, Washington's ally, Seneca chief Tanaghrisson, unexpectedly executed the French commanding officer, Ensign Joseph Coulon de Jumonville. The French pursued Washington and on July 3, 1754, George Washington surrendered following the Battle of Fort Necessity. These frontier actions contributed to the start of the French and Indian War (1754–1763), or, the Seven Years' War, an imperial confrontation between England and France fought in both hemispheres.  In 1755, George Washington worked with the British General Braddock’s expedition. They traveled into the Allegheny Mountains. They crossed the Appalachian Mountains. Braddocks’ road existed. This was part of the US40 National Road today. Some French people attacked Braddock’s forces. Braddock was wounded and killed. The British and colonial forces retreated. Native Americans and their French allies for a time controlled the upper Ohio valley.

On September 8, 1756, an expedition of 300 militiamen destroyed the Shawnee and Lenape village of Kittanning, and in the summer of 1758, British General John Forbes began a campaign to capture Fort Duquesne.  At the head of 7,000 regular and colonial troops, Forbes built Fort Ligonier and Fort Bedford, from where he cut a wagon road over the Allegheny Mountains, later known as Forbes' Road. On the night of September 13–14, 1758, an advance column under Major James Grant was massacred in the Battle of Fort Duquesne.  Forbes fought the French. The French lost Fort Frontenac and razed Fort Duquesne. Forbes ordered the construction of Fort Pitt named after the British Secretary of State William Pitt the Elder. This land was between rivers called Pittsborough or Pittsburgh. The French forces were soon defeated and signed the Treaty of Paris to end the French and Indian war. The French ceded their territories east of the Mississippi River. European settlements grew in Fort Pitt and around it.  In April 1761, a census ordered by Colonel Henry Bouquet counted 332 people and 104 houses. Native Americans fought back to defend their lands via the Pontiac War. The Odawa leader Pontiac fought British forts in May of 1763 at the Ohio Valley. Great Lakes tribes overran forts. Many of the colonists were in ramparts for refuge. Pontiac’s attack at Fort Pitt lasted for 2 months. It started on June 22, 1763. The Iroquois signed the Fort Stanwix Treaty of 1768, ceding the lands south of the Ohio to the British.

European expansion into the upper Ohio valley increased. An estimated 4,000 to 5,000 families settled in western Pennsylvania between 1768 and 1770. Of these settlers, about a third were English, a third were Scotch-Irish, and the rest were Welsh, German and others. Settlers dealt with harsh winters, bears, snakes, mountain lion, and timber wolves. Native Americans like the Shawnee, Miami, and Wyandot fought for their survival literally. The Dunmore’s War existed in 1774. Conflict spread all over the American Revolution. In 1777, Fort Pitt was an American fort. Seneca villages were destroyed along the upper Allegheny by forces from Colonel Daniel Brodhead in 1779 (with 600 men). With the war still ongoing, in 1780 Virginia and Pennsylvania came to an agreement on their mutual borders, creating the state lines known today and determining finally that the jurisdiction of Pittsburgh region was Pennsylvanian. In 1783, the Revolutionary War ended, which also brought at least a temporary cessation of border warfare. In the 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, the Iroquois ceded the land north of the Purchase Line to Pennsylvania. By 1795, Pittsburgh started to grow. Farmers existed. There was the Pittsburgh Academy in February 28, 1787. Hugh Henry Brackenridge promoted education. After the American Revolution, the boat building industry flourished in Pittsburgh. Manufacturing grew. There was a courthouse and Market Square. Glass was readily created in the city via manufacturing.


By Timothy