Dutch Settlers
Middle Smithfield Township, Monroe County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
First European settlers in this region were Dutch who came over the "Old Mine Road," traveling from the Hudson to the Delaware. Crossing at Walpack Bend, they then used this road, oldest in Monroe County.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Long before Pennsylvania's roads and railroads, Dutch colonists pushed inland from the Hudson River valley toward the Delaware, following the rugged trace known as the Old Mine Road. Crossing at Walpack Bend, these early settlers opened up this corner of the Pocono region, making the route the oldest road in Monroe County. Their arrival marked the first sustained European presence in a landscape then largely shaped by Native peoples.
Why it matters
The Old Mine Road and its Dutch travelers trace one of the earliest European inland migrations in the mid-Atlantic, a small chapter in the long story of colonial expansion across America.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Marshalls Creek Explosion, June 26, 1964
Middle Smithfield Township, PA · est. 2023
On June 26, 1964, a burning tractor-trailer parked along the road here suddenly exploded, killing six people—among them three Marshalls Creek volunteer firefighters who had rushed to the blaze—and injuring thirteen more. Investigators later found the truck had been hauling explosives with no placards to warn responders of the danger. The tragedy fed a national push for reform that helped bring about the 1974 Transportation Safety Act and its stricter rules for shipping hazardous materials.
Smithfield Church
Smithfield Township, PA · est. 2000
In the mid-1700s the Dutch families who had settled this region raised a simple log meetinghouse, said to be the first of four early churches they built. It sheltered a Dutch Reformed congregation until roughly 1752, when the worshippers moved to the Old Stone Church at Shawnee. In an age when the church was the heart of frontier community life, this humble structure anchored the faith of one of the region's earliest European settlements.
Nicholas Dupuy (1682-1762) - PLAQUE
Smithfield Township, PA · est. 1930
In 1727 Nicholas Dupuy became the first European settler at Shawnee on the Delaware, buying some 3,000 acres — including river islands — from the Minsi (Munsee) band of the Lenape. He descended from Huguenot refugees who had fled religious persecution in France and reached New Amsterdam in 1662. By mid-century the growing community had land set aside, through proprietor William Allen, for a Dutch Reformed congregation that endures today as a Presbyterian church.
Knickerbocker Ice Company Dock
Hardwick Township, NJ
Before mechanical refrigeration, Americans kept food from spoiling with natural ice cut from frozen lakes and ponds each winter. Crews sawed the surface into heavy blocks, slid them along docks like this one, and packed them in sawdust-insulated icehouses to be shipped to distant cities through the warm months. The Knickerbocker Ice Company was one of the region's well-known ice enterprises, and the weathered remains near this shore mark where that now-vanished trade once met the water.