Fort Manada
East Hanover Township, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
In this vicinity stood James Brown's log house-fort, named Fort Manada when garrisoned as an outpost of Fort Swatara from January, 1756, to May, 1757. Its usual complement consisted of 21 officers and men. No description of the fort has survived.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
During the French and Indian War, settler James Brown's fortified log house served as a frontier strongpoint, garrisoned as Fort Manada from January 1756 to May 1757 as an outpost of nearby Fort Swatara. A small complement of about twenty-one officers and men manned it against raids along Pennsylvania's exposed backcountry. No description of the structure itself survives, leaving only its story on the land.
Why it matters
It represents the chain of improvised frontier forts that defended Pennsylvania's settlers during the French and Indian War, when the colony's western edge was a violent, contested borderland.
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Related people
- · James Brown
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Barnett's Fort
Lower Paxton Township, PA · est. 1947
During the bloody frontier years of the French and Indian War, Joseph Barnett's fortified log house near the head of Beaver Creek became a refuge for settlers fleeing raids between 1756 and 1763. The war struck this family directly: Barnett's young son William was carried off in a 1756 raid and not returned until 1763, freed in the settlement that followed Colonel Henry Bouquet's campaigns. Such private strongholds were the thin line of defense along a violent borderland.
Blue Mountain Forts
East Hanover Township, PA · est. 1949
As frontier violence flared along the Blue Mountain in the 1750s and 1760s, Pennsylvania's colonial government paid volunteer companies to shield its exposed settlers. A chain of six fortified loghouse stations stretched roughly twenty-three miles from Fort Hunter on the Susquehanna to the Swatara Creek, garrisoned in 1763–64 by the Paxton Rangers, echoing an earlier defensive line held in 1756–57. These crude forts marked the raw, contested edge of British settlement during the French and Indian War and Pontiac's uprising.
Reed's Fort
East Hanover Township, PA · est. 1949
In 1755, as war raged along Pennsylvania's frontier, the home of Adam Reed just south of this point was fortified into a place of refuge. From here Reed and a company of Rangers drawn from Hanover Township stood guard over the surrounding countryside during a period of frequent raids. It was one link in the improvised chain of frontier defenses that ordinary settlers threw up when the empire's protection fell short.
Derry Churchyard
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