Fort McCord - PLAQUE
Hamilton Township, Franklin County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
The site of Fort McCord where twenty seven pioneer settlers men women and children were massacred by indian savages or carried into captivity April 1st, 1756. Was a few rods south east of this spot. In the list of victims were Mary McCord, Mrs. John Thorn and babe, Mrs. Anne McCord wife of John McCord and two daughters, Martha Thorn a young mother with unborn babe, and a young girl. Names of provincial soldiers killed in pursuit of the Indians at Sideling Hill. [list of names of 21 killed and 11 wounded]
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
On April 1, 1756, Fort McCord — one of the small stockaded refuges thrown up along Pennsylvania's Cumberland Valley frontier during the French and Indian War — was overrun, and twenty-seven settlers were killed or carried off. A militia party that gave chase was itself ambushed days later at Sideling Hill, where many of the pursuers fell. The marker names the women, children, and provincial soldiers lost, preserving a roll of the dead from one of the war's bloodiest weeks on the backcountry.
Why it matters
It records the human cost of the mid-1750s frontier war that convinced Pennsylvania — long governed by pacifist Quaker principles — to build forts and fund a militia, a turning point in the colony's history.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Mary McCord
- · John McCord
- · Anne McCord
- · Martha Thorn
Related events
- · Fort McCord massacre
- · Battle of Sideling Hill
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Fort McCord
Hamilton Township, PA · est. 1947
In the tense years of the French and Indian War, Pennsylvania's Cumberland Valley settlers threw up log stockades like Fort McCord to shelter their families when frontier violence flared. Named for the settler John McCord, this refuge was overwhelmed and burned on April 1, 1756, in a raid that left 27 people dead or dragged into captivity. Such attacks were part of the wider war between Britain and France, in which allied Native nations struck deep into the exposed backcountry.
Fort Wadell
St. Thomas Township, PA · est. 1947
General Edward Braddock's crushing defeat near the Monongahela in 1755 tore open the Pennsylvania frontier, and settlers answered by building a chain of small stockaded forts as places of refuge. Fort Wadell was one link in that improvised line, standing ready when raiding parties struck the scattered farms of the Cumberland Valley. These were homemade defenses, thrown together by the very families they protected.
Fort Chambers
Chambersburg, PA · est. 1947
In 1756, as the French and Indian War set the frontier ablaze, pioneer landowner Col. Benjamin Chambers fortified his house and mill with a stockade and cannon for defense against Native raids. Chambers had settled at this junction of waters years earlier and founded the town that still bears his name. His fortified homestead anchored one of the exposed western settlements during the war's dangerous years.
Fort Loudon
Peters Township, PA · est. 1947
Built by the provincial government in 1756, Fort Loudon guarded the frontier during the French and Indian War and in 1758 served as a staging point for Gen. John Forbes's expedition that captured Fort Duquesne. In 1765 the fort became a flashpoint of a different kind when frontiersmen led by James Smith — the "Black Boys" — forced a British garrison to withdraw, an early act of armed colonial defiance. The site thus spans both the imperial war and the friction that would build toward revolution.