Fort Norris
Polk Township, Monroe County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Built in 1756 by the Province of Pennsylvania. One of a series of frontier defenses erected during the French and Indian War. The site was about a mile distant.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Fort Norris rose in 1756 as one of a string of frontier defenses Pennsylvania threw up during the French and Indian War, when raids drove settlers from their farms across the northern counties. Garrisoned by provincial troops, it served as a strongpoint and place of refuge in a landscape suddenly turned dangerous. The actual site stood about a mile from where the marker stands.
Why it matters
It represents Pennsylvania's wartime effort to shield its exposed frontier settlers, part of the fort line that defined the colony's role in the French and Indian War.
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Related events
- · French and Indian War
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Fort Allen
Franklin Township, PA · est. 1947
In 1756, as the French and Indian War set the Pennsylvania frontier ablaze with raids, the province built a chain of stockaded forts to shield its scattered settlers. Fort Allen was one link in that defensive line, raised on the site of present-day Weissport along the Lehigh. Benjamin Franklin himself oversaw the construction of forts in this region during that anxious winter, when the backcountry felt anything but safe.
Trucker's Mill
Slatington, PA · est. 1952
A sawmill standing here before 1755 turned the forests of the Lehigh Valley into lumber for a growing frontier. When the French and Indian War set the backcountry ablaze, the sturdy mill — also called Kern's Fort — became a defensive station and shelter for troops. Sitting at the crossing of two pioneer roads, it commanded a position of real military value in a dangerous borderland.
Fort Allen Well
Weissport, PA · est. 1971
In 1756, as the frontier violence of the French and Indian War pushed Pennsylvania settlers into panic, the colonial government threw up a chain of defensive forts along the Blue Mountains. Fort Allen at present-day Weissport was among them, and its construction was overseen personally by Benjamin Franklin, then a colonial official who marched into the backcountry to organize the province's defenses. The fort itself is long gone; only its stone well survives, restored and tucked behind the houses across the road.
Gnadenhuetten
Lehighton, PA · est. 2005
In 1746 Moravian missionaries established Gnadenhuetten, a mission town meant to shelter a growing community of Mohican and Delaware converts and the first European settlement in what is now Carbon County. As the French and Indian War engulfed the frontier, tensions boiled over, and on November 24, 1755, the settlement was attacked and burned in a raid encouraged by the French. The victims were laid to rest in what is now the Lehighton Cemetery nearby.