History & local legend
Edgar Thomson Steel Works in Braddock occupies an industrial landscape near the scene of the Battle of the Monongahela. On July 9, 1755, French troops and Native warriors defeated General Edward Braddock's army as it advanced toward Fort Duquesne. George Washington accompanied the British force.
A western Pennsylvania ghost tradition describes British soldiers in red coats appearing on the mill grounds. One version, collected by Spirits of the Mist, even places Washington among the first witnesses to the returning dead during the retreat. In later tellings, the soldiers continue appearing amid the furnaces and mill buildings that replaced the landscape of their march.
Sources
- Spirits of the Mist, J. Edgar Thompson Steel Works, soldier apparition tradition
- National Park Service, Braddock’s Defeat, the British army, French marines and Native forces
- Braddock’s Battlefield History Center, site and course of the battle
- Historical marker at the Braddock Avenue entrance to Edgar Thomson Steel Works
