Fort Durkee
Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
First fort built by the Connecticut settlers; begun in April 1769. Used during the first Pennamite War against Pennsylvania authorities, 1769-71. It stood 1000 feet from Ft. Wyoming.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Begun in April 1769, Fort Durkee was the first stronghold raised by Connecticut settlers in the Wyoming Valley, named for their leader. It became a flashpoint of the First Pennamite War of 1769–71, the armed contest between Connecticut Yankees and Pennsylvania authorities over who rightfully held the land. The fort stood just a thousand feet from its rival, Fort Wyoming, a measure of how close the two colonial claims pressed against each other.
Why it matters
Fort Durkee marks the opening of the Pennamite Wars, a rare instance of two colonies coming to blows over conflicting royal land grants on the American frontier.
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Related people
- · Major John Durkee
Related events
- · First Pennamite War, 1769–71
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
George Catlin
Wilkes-Barre, PA · est. 1947
In 1796 the boy who would become America's great chronicler of Native peoples was born in this corner of the Wyoming Valley, of Connecticut stock. George Catlin trained and practiced law here before abandoning the bar around 1823 for the paintbrush, and within a few years he set out to record the faces and lives of Indian nations across the young republic. His hundreds of portraits and scenes remain among the fullest visual records of Native America before it was transformed.
Fort Wyoming
Wilkes-Barre, PA · est. 1947
Pennsylvania built Fort Wyoming in 1771 to press its claim in the Wyoming Valley, only to have it seized by the Connecticut settlers it was meant to check. Rebuilt in 1778, it served the following year as a mustering point for General John Sullivan's expedition against the Iroquois during the Revolution. The garrison held until 1784, when Continental and Pennsylvania troops withdrew and the works were destroyed.
Luzerne County
Wilkes-Barre, PA · est. 1982
Formed in 1786 from Northumberland County and named for the French nobleman Chevalier de la Luzerne, an ally of the American Revolution, Luzerne County has long been a place shaped by conflict and coal. Its seat, Wilkes-Barre, was settled in 1769 amid the Yankee-Pennamite Wars — bitter contests between Connecticut and Pennsylvania claimants over the same Wyoming Valley land. More than a century later the region became a flashpoint again during the great Anthracite Strike of 1902, a landmark clash between miners and coal operators.
Connecticut Settlement
Wilkes-Barre, PA · est. 1947
In 1762 settlers from Connecticut planted their first community here on the Susquehanna Purchase, a tract the colony claimed under its sea-to-sea charter deep in what Pennsylvania considered its own territory. The fragile settlement was destroyed in an Indian attack on October 15, 1763, and the valley lay unsettled by the newcomers until they returned in 1769. The episode opened one of colonial America's most contested land struggles in the Wyoming Valley.