Col. John Kelly
Kelly Township, Union County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Outstanding Indian fighter of Buffalo Valley. Settled here about 1769; built log house to the north, now weatherboarded, in 1775. Col. Kelly served with distinction at the battles of Trenton and Princeton. He died in 1832. Buried at Lewisburg.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
John Kelly settled in the Buffalo Valley around 1769 on the Pennsylvania frontier and in 1775 built the log house that still stands nearby, later clad in weatherboard. When the Revolution came he served with distinction under Washington at Trenton and Princeton, the twin winter victories that revived the American cause in 1776–77. He lived on until 1832 and lies buried at Lewisburg.
Why it matters
Kelly embodied the frontier settler who took up arms for independence, linking the hard life of the backcountry to the Continental Army's pivotal campaign along the Delaware.
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Related people
- · Colonel John Kelly
Related events
- · Battle of Trenton
- · Battle of Princeton
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Fought's Mill
Mifflinburg, PA · est. 1947
A mill has stood near this spot since 1771, when Fought's Mill first turned grain for the settlers of Buffalo Valley. During the Revolution, the sturdy mill doubled as a place of refuge when frontier raids threatened the scattered farms of the region. It was also here, on November 3, 1776, that Buffalo Valley held its first election under Pennsylvania's new revolutionary state constitution.
Captain John Brady - PLAQUE
West Chillisquaque Township, PA · est. 1928
John Brady settled this stretch of the Susquehanna frontier in 1769, working as a surveyor before the constant danger of raids drove him to the fortified Muncy Manor that took his name. A veteran soldier, he fought in the French and Indian War, led a company in Pontiac's War, and raised a company for the Continental Line in the Revolution, taking a serious wound at the Battle of Germantown. Home on sick leave in April 1779, he was killed in an ambush near Fort Brady, one of countless casualties of the unrelenting frontier war.
Widow Catherine Smith
White Deer Township, PA · est. 1967
In 1774 Catherine Smith, a widow, established a stone house and a complex of saw and grist mills along this stretch of the West Branch frontier. When the Revolution came, she built a boring mill in 1776 that finished gun barrels for the Continental Army, turning a backwoods industrial site into a small arsenal for the war effort. Running such works alone in a contested wilderness was a formidable undertaking for anyone, and remarkable for a woman of her day.
Lee Massacre
Union Township, PA · est. 1947
On August 16, 1782, Major John Lee and his family were killed near this place in a raid by an Indian war party, with only his son Robert surviving. The attack came during the violent final years of the Revolutionary War on the Pennsylvania frontier, when British-allied raids terrorized isolated valley settlements. Such tragedies were a grim feature of life on the contested edge of the new nation.