Bradford County
Towanda, Bradford County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Formed on February 21, 1810 from Lycoming and Luzerne counties. Named Ontario County until 1812; renamed for the second U.S. Attorney General, William Bradford. County seat of Towanda was incorporated 1828. Famous for Sullivan's March and David Wilmot.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Formed in 1810 and first called Ontario County, this region was renamed in 1812 for William Bradford, the second U.S. Attorney General. Its seat, Towanda, was incorporated in 1828 along the Susquehanna. The county remembers Sullivan's March—the 1779 Revolutionary campaign against the Iroquois that passed through the valley—and native son David Wilmot, whose 1846 Proviso to bar slavery from new territories helped ignite the national crisis over slavery.
Why it matters
From a Revolutionary War expedition against the Iroquois to the antislavery politics of David Wilmot, this quiet valley touched two of the great struggles that defined the American nation.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Bradford County occupies a broad, handsome valley along the Susquehanna in the northern reaches of Pennsylvania, close to the New York line. When it was formed in 1810, this was still a frontier country in the minds of many Americans — recently opened, thinly settled, and rich with the memory of very recent conflict.
The county's early identity was unsettled in more ways than one. It first bore the name Ontario County, only to be renamed within a couple of years. Its seat, Towanda, sat on the river and would be formally incorporated in 1828, growing into the civic anchor of the valley.
This was a landscape layered with history even then. The Susquehanna Valley had been home to Native peoples and had witnessed hard fighting during the Revolution, so the settlers who organized the county were building atop ground whose recent past was anything but quiet.
People & events
The county took its lasting name in 1812, honoring William Bradford, who served as the second Attorney General of the United States. Naming the county for a national legal figure tied this remote valley to the founding institutions of the young republic.
But two other threads run deep in local memory. The first reaches back to 1779 and Sullivan's March — the Revolutionary War expedition, ordered against the Iroquois, that moved through this region. It was a campaign of the Revolution's harder edge, aimed at the Haudenosaunee nations, and it left a permanent mark on the history of the valley and its Native inhabitants.
The second thread is a native son, David Wilmot. In 1846 he attached to a funding bill a proposal — remembered as the Wilmot Proviso — to bar slavery from any territory newly acquired by the United States. It did not become law, but it detonated a national argument that would not be quieted.
Its place in the American story
Few quiet valleys can claim a foothold in two of the defining struggles of American history, but this one can. Sullivan's March belongs to the story of the Revolution and to the long, painful history of the new nation's dealings with the Native peoples whose homelands lay in its path.
David Wilmot's Proviso belongs to a different and later crisis. By insisting that slavery be kept out of newly won territory, it forced Americans to confront head-on the question they had long tried to avoid — and helped push the country toward the sectional rupture that ended in civil war.
That two such currents pass through one county is a reminder of how the largest national dramas are always, somewhere, local. The fight over the Revolution's frontier and the fight over slavery's expansion both touched ground here, in this valley along the Susquehanna.
If you visit
Let the river orient you. Towanda and the surrounding valley still follow the Susquehanna, and the water is the throughline connecting the county's Native past, its Revolutionary chapter, and the settled town that grew up on its banks.
As you take in the calm of the valley today, hold in mind how much national weight this peaceful-looking place has carried — a war expedition that changed the region forever, and a political spark that helped set the nation ablaze a lifetime later. The contrast between the quiet scenery and the loud history is the whole point.
This is a thoughtful stop for travelers interested in how the Revolution and the road to the Civil War reached into ordinary American communities. Give yourself a little time by the river to let those two very different stories settle.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Plan your visit
NearbyMake a day of it — museums, food, and places to stay near this marker.
Museums & culture
- Tioga Point Museum13.3 mi away
Places data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Hours and details change — call ahead.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · William Bradford
- · David Wilmot
Related events
- · Sullivan Expedition
- · Wilmot Proviso
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sullivan's March
Standing Stone Township, PA · est. 1947
As General John Sullivan's Continental army marched north against the Six Nations in August 1779, it made its sixth camp on the river lowlands near here on the nights of August 8-9. The stopping places along the Susquehanna traced the slow, deliberate advance of a major Revolutionary War expedition ordered by Washington. From Wyoming to Fort Sullivan, each riverside campsite marked another day's push into Iroquois country.
Sullivan's March
Ulster Township, PA · est. 1949
In August 1779, General John Sullivan led a Continental Army expedition up the Susquehanna Valley, camping on the Sheshequin Flats below this point on the ninth and tenth before pressing on to Tioga Point. This was the seventh and final overnight stop of a hard march into Iroquois country. Sullivan's campaign, ordered by George Washington, aimed to break the power of the Six Nations who had allied with the British on the frontier.
Lime Hill Battlefield - PLAQUE
Wyalusing Township, PA · est. 1928
On April 14, 1782, near this spot, Sergeant Thomas Baldwin's party tried to overtake a Native war band that had captured Mrs. Rosewell Franklin and her four children. After some four hours of fighting from hastily thrown-up breastworks, the rescuers freed three of the children, but Mrs. Franklin was killed. The skirmish was one of the last violent episodes of the Revolutionary frontier in the Wyoming country.
Joseph Elliot - PLAQUE
Wyalusing Township, PA · est. 1928
This marker honors Joseph Elliot, a Revolutionary War soldier of the embattled Wyoming Valley frontier. He fought at Trenton on the night of December 25, 1776, and by tradition was given a sword by George Washington for his bravery. He survived the Wyoming Massacre of 1778 — breaking free at the Bloody Rock and swimming the Susquehanna with a bullet in his shoulder — and later, at the 1782 Battle of Lime Hill, helped rescue captured children.