Green Tree Inn
Carlisle, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
In 1753, Benjamin Franklin stayed at inn on this site while he, Richard Peters, and Isaac Norris treated with Indians. Hamilton and Knox, members of Washington's cabinet, lodged here in 1794.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In the mid-18th century Carlisle sat at the edge of the Pennsylvania frontier, a gateway where colonial officials met with Native nations to negotiate land and trade. An inn on this site hosted Benjamin Franklin in 1753 while he and fellow commissioners treated with Indians, and four decades later it lodged Alexander Hamilton and Henry Knox as Washington's cabinet passed through during the Whiskey Rebellion. A single roadside tavern thus touched both the colonial diplomacy of the 1750s and the young republic's first test of federal authority.
Why it matters
Ordinary inns like this were the meeting rooms of early America, where treaties were brokered and the new nation's leaders traveled the roads that bound the country together.
Plan your visit
NearbyMake a day of it — museums, food, and places to stay near this marker.
Museums & culture
- Appalachian Trail Museum13.1 mi away
- Ye Olde Sulphur Spa Historical Society13.6 mi away
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Related people
- · Benjamin Franklin
- · Richard Peters
- · Isaac Norris
- · Alexander Hamilton
- · Henry Knox
Related events
- · Whiskey Rebellion
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Forbes Road - Raystown Path
Carlisle, PA · est. 1952
In 1758, during the French and Indian War, General John Forbes set out from his base at Carlisle to seize Fort Duquesne at the Forks of the Ohio. Rather than follow Braddock's ill-fated earlier route, Forbes drove a new road westward, keeping as close as army wagons allowed to the old Raystown Indian and Traders Path. Axemen under Colonel Henry Bouquet widened the trail into a military road that ended with the French abandoning and burning the fort.
Forbes Road - Raystown Path
Southampton Township, PA · est. 1952
At Shippensburg the old Raystown Path split, and in 1758 General John Forbes had to choose his army's line of march west. One branch climbed directly over three steep mountains toward Burnt Cabins; Forbes instead took the southern fork around Parnells Knob to Fort Loudon, crossing the Tuscarora Mountain at Cowan Gap to avoid the punishing grades. The choice shaped where his military road—and later settlement—would run.
Cumberland County
Carlisle, PA · est. 1982
Carved from Lancaster County in 1750, Cumberland County once stretched all the way to Pennsylvania's western frontier, a vast gateway for settlers pushing toward the Alleghenies. Its seat, Carlisle, was founded the following year and became a crucial staging point on the roads leading west. In the colonial and early national decades, this was the edge of English America, where the Great Wagon Road funneled families toward the interior.
St. Patrick's Church
Carlisle, PA · est. 1986
Catholic worship took root in Carlisle in 1779, when a Jesuit priest acquired this lot on the eve of American independence. A humble log chapel of 1784 gave way to brick in 1806 and finally to the present church in 1893. Nearby stands St. Katherine's Hall, built in 1901 by Mother Katharine Drexel to serve Catholic students at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.