On this day 250 years ago in Pittsburgh, Justice of the Peace Joseph Spear wrote to Chief Magistrate Arthur St. Clair of Pennsylvania that there had been “two or three musters” of about 20 Virginia militia at Redstone fort in Maryland under the command of Dr. Joseph Connolly and Capt. Michael Cresap. Although these militia were assembled by Connolly as a show of force in a dispute between Virginia and Pennsylvania over which colony would govern Pittsburgh, the ostensible reason was the threat of Indian raids on the Virginia frontier and the militia under Captain Cresap would be fighting the Shawnee before the end of the year.

John Connolly would later be arrested as a Loyalist, but St. Clair and Cresap both served in the Revolution for the Patriots. Michael Cresap died of illness in command of his company of Maryland militia marching to join Washington besieging Boston in 1775. Arthur St. Clair would rise to the rank of Major General in the Continental Army before the end of the Wa.

https://digital.lib.niu.edu/islandora/object/niu-amarch%3A79362/web.shtml