Fort Waddell (1754) - PLAQUE
St. Thomas Township, Franklin County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
One of the Forts for the defense of the frontier of Cumberland County from Fort Davis to Shippensburg, stood near this marker on the plantation, then owned by Thomas Waddell.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Fort Waddell was one of a line of frontier defenses raised to protect the settlers of old Cumberland County during the dangerous years of the French and Indian War. It stood on the plantation of Thomas Waddell, part of a chain of posts running from Fort Davis to Shippensburg. These small forts offered refuge to scattered farm families amid frontier raids.
Why it matters
The frontier forts of the Cumberland Valley reveal how ordinary settlers organized for survival during a war that engulfed Pennsylvania's western edge.
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Related people
- · Thomas Waddell
Related events
- · French and Indian War
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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 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.
Fort McDowell - PLAQUE
Peters Township, PA · est. 1916
Fort McDowell grew up around a frontier gristmill before 1754, then became a supply base and munitions store as the French and Indian War closed in, holding that role until Fort Loudon was raised in 1756. From this point in 1755 Col. James Burd pushed a military road westward to link with Braddock's ill-fated route at Turkey Foot. Standing at the edge of settled country, the little fort saw its share of the war's frontier alarms.
Fort McDowell
Peters Township, PA · est. 1947
When war swept the frontier after 1755, John McDowell's gristmill was ringed with a stockade and pressed into service as a provincial strongpoint until the more substantial Fort Loudon rose the next year. The site also anchored one end of Colonel James Burd's road, cut in 1755 to carry troops and supplies westward toward the Ohio country. A working mill thus became both a fort and a gateway into the contested interior.