Fort Necessity to receive original Jumonville document at French and Indian War Seminar

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Date: October 28, 2009
Contact: MaryEllen Snyder, 724-329-8131

(Farmington, PA)  Joseph Coulon de Villiers sieur de Jumonville.  The annual French and Indian War Seminar is held at the site that bears his name.  This year there will also be a rare document that bears his signature: Villiers Jumonville. 

The Braddock Road Preservation Association will open their twenty-first annual French and Indian War Seminar Friday, November 6, at 4:00 p.m. in the Fort Necessity visitor center.  Dr. Walter Powell, President of the BRPA will unveil the original document bearing Jumonville’s signature and present it to the National Park Service.  This presentation is open to the public.  The 1749 document settles a legal dispute and names several of Jumonville’s relations.  It will be on a long term loan to the National Park Service for exhibit at Fort Necessity.

After the presentation Dr. Jose Brandao will speak on Iroquois relations with both the French and the British during the French and Indian War.  Brandao is a professor of History at Western Michigan University and the author of “Your Fyre Shall Burn No More: Iroquois Policy toward New France and Its Native Allies to 1701.”  Copies will be available in the park’s bookstore. 

In May of 1754, Jumonville was the leader of a party of French soldiers involved in a skirmish with British and Iroquois led by George Washington.  Jumonville was killed in the encounter.  Over two hundred fifty years later, controversy still surrounds the incident.  Who fired the first shots, was the nature of the Jumonville’s mission diplomatic or military, and what motivated the Iroquois leader Tanaghrisson to deal the death blow to the wounded French commander are all still debated.  Dr. Brandao will address the cultural relations behind what historians have described as “the volley fired by a young Virginian in the backwoods of America [that] set the world on fire.” 

After the unveiling, the seminar will move to the retreat center at Jumonville for a full weekend of speakers and vendors focusing on the French and Indian War.  For more information or to register for the seminar, visit the Braddock Road Preservation Association website at www.braddockroadpa.org.  Visit www.nps.gov/fone for more information on Fort Necessity National Battlefield.

  

-NPS-

 

 

 

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Last updated: February 26, 2015

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