Gallows Hill - PLAQUE
Springfield Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Here Edward Marshall and his associates of the famous Indian Walk of a day and a half September 19-20, 1737 left the Old Durham Road on the first day and followed the well-beaten Indian path which led northwesterly through present Hellertown, Bethlehem, Northampton and the Lehigh Gap
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
This spot marks a stage of the notorious "Walking Purchase" of 1737, when Pennsylvania's proprietors held the Lenape to a land deal measured by how far a man could walk in a day and a half. Rather than an honest stroll, Edward Marshall and his companions were trained runners who followed cleared paths at a punishing pace, seizing far more territory than the Delaware had expected to give. From the Old Durham Road they pressed northwest through the country that became Bethlehem and the Lehigh Gap.
Why it matters
The Walking Purchase became a byword for colonial dispossession, poisoning Lenape relations with Pennsylvania and pushing the nation toward alliance with the French.
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Related people
- · Edward Marshall
Related events
- · Walking Purchase
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Walking Purchase
Springfield Township, PA · est. 1949
In 1737 Pennsylvania's proprietors invoked a supposed 1686 deed promising land as far as a man could walk in a day and a half. Thomas Penn hired the fastest walkers he could find and had a trail cleared in advance to stretch the distance to its absolute limit. The maneuver seized far more Lenape land than expected and shattered the goodwill his father, William Penn, had cultivated with Native peoples.
Walking Purchase
Tinicum Township, PA · est. 1949
The 1737 Walking Purchase depended on three hired walkers, but the punishing pace took its toll. Near this point Solomon Jennings gave out after roughly 19 miles from the start at Wrightstown, leaving Edward Marshall to carry the walk to its grueling end. Jennings turned toward his home on the Lehigh River.
Gemein Haus - PLAQUE
Bethlehem, PA · est. 1931
Raised in 1741 as Bethlehem's first house of worship, the Gemein Haus stood at the heart of the Moravians' remarkable communal experiment in colonial Pennsylvania. Its rooms sheltered a roll call of Moravian leaders — including the reforming Count Zinzendorf — and hosted the community's celebrated 1749 "Great Wedding." Most strikingly, it housed a school devoted to studying and teaching Indigenous languages, part of the Moravians' unusual missionary engagement with Native peoples of the region.
Moravian Cemetery
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Consecrated by Count von Zinzendorf, this burial ground served Moravian Bethlehem from 1742 to 1910. In keeping with the community's belief that all are equal in death, only flat gravestones were permitted, laid in orderly rows without grand monuments. Here rest people of many nationalities and races — European settlers alongside Native American and African converts — a quiet testament to the Moravians' unusually inclusive spiritual vision.