The year 1756 was a bad time to be a farmer living on the Pennsylvania frontier. The recent destruction of a British army by mostly Native American warriors endangered every English trader, trapper and settler living in and around what is now Pittsburgh.

Those who failed to flee east back across the Alleghenies following Braddock's Defeat in July 1755 risked death or capture by Indians determined to drive English colonists from their rich hunting territories.

The result was two years of violence that reflected the low point in British fortunes during the French and Indian War.

Frontier warfare, including the raid by Pennsylvania forces on the Indian encampment at Kittanning, is one of the main topics to be discussed at the Ohio Country Conference this weekend. The annual event will draw historians, students, re-enactors and history buffs to the University of Pittsburgh's Greensburg campus for two days of talks and tours.

Pennsylvania's government was dominated by Quakers who would not participate in and were reluctant to pay for military activities, according to Benjamin Scharff. A graduate student in history at Slippery Rock, Mr. Scharff will talk about "Irregular Warfare in Pennsylvania."

"Pennsylvania was completely defenseless," he said in an interview last week. "People living around here had two choices -- to leave or stay and take their chances. Many of those who stayed were very unlucky."

"But If you left, you had to abandon everything you had worked for," he said.

Among the 250-year-old materials Mr. Scharff plans to share with conference participants is a letter a frontiersman named Joseph Mayhew sent to the Pennsylvania Gazette. "At the time he wrote the letter, he hadn't decided what he personally was going to do," Mr. Scharff said. "He describes what he was going through and what life was like here."

A graduate of Wake Forest University, Mr. Scharff has worked as an industrial archeologist and as an interpreter at Fort Ligonier.

Daniel Barr, an assistant professor at Robert Morris University, will discuss "Victory at Kittanning?" This September marks the 250th anniversary of the destruction of a large Indian village at what is present-day Kittanning by Pennsylvania troops under Col. John Armstrong.

Delaware Indians and their French allies had destroyed Fort Granville, near Lewistown, in June 1756. Those killed included Lt. Edward Armstrong, John Armstrong's brother. Gov. John Penn, the grandson of William, ordered Armstrong to retaliate.

The traditional view was that the Armstrong raid crippled the ability of the Delawares to make war on English colonists, with a resulting morale boost for settlers. In his conference talk, Mr. Barr will challenge both assumptions.

The Delawares were forced west to what is now New Castle. "But it did not affect the war effort," he said. "The number of Indian raids actually increased in 1757."

Armstrong's journey from present-day Carlisle to Kittanning, traveling 100 miles undetected through hostile territory, was heroic, he said. But both the battle and return journey went badly.

His force of 300 men had hoped to destroy the village and free between 50 and 100 captives. The Pennsylvanians rescued 11 captives, but 19 soldiers were captured by the Indians. While the surprise attack initially caught the Indians unaware, they quickly regrouped and inflicted heavy losses on the retreating soldiers.

When he returned to Philadelphia, Armstrong was feted as a hero, but frontier families continued to face Indian raids. In 1757, armed settlers threatened to march on Philadelphia to force the state government to provide more protection, Mr. Barr said.

Those protests did not end until 1758 after the British sent a new army under Gen. John Forbes to force the French to abandon Fort Duquesne. Fort Pitt was established on its smoking ruins.

The 10th annual conference is sponsored by the Bushy Run Battlefield Heritage Society, the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, Westmoreland Heritage and the Westmoreland County Historical Society. The event will be held Saturday and Sunday in Powers Hall on Pitt's Greensburg Conference.

More information about the conference is available at www.bushyrunbattlefield.com/ohiocountry2006.html. Those interested also can e-mail davmiller@state.pa.us or call 724-527-5584, Ext. 202.