Jenkins' Fort
West Pittston, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Stockaded home of John Jenkins. Built by Connecticut settlers, 1776. Surrendered to the British under Maj. John Butler, July 1, 1778, and burnt.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Raised in 1776 by Connecticut settlers who claimed the Wyoming Valley under Yankee title, John Jenkins' stockaded home was one of the small frontier forts guarding families along the Susquehanna. On July 1, 1778, as a British and Loyalist force under Major John Butler swept down the valley, the fort surrendered and was put to the torch—days before the bloody Battle of Wyoming that scattered the settlement.
Why it matters
The fall of Jenkins' Fort marks the opening of the 1778 Wyoming Valley campaign, one of the Revolution's most devastating frontier raids.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Jenkins' Fort belongs to the story of the Wyoming Valley on the eve of the Revolution — a rich strip of Susquehanna River land that was settled, in large part, by people acting under Connecticut's claims to the region. Reading its colonial charter as stretching far to the west, Connecticut encouraged families to plant themselves here, deep inside territory that Pennsylvania also claimed as its own.
That contested backdrop shaped how people lived. Homes on this frontier were not just houses; the more substantial ones were built to double as refuges. When a settler stockaded his home, he was turning a family dwelling into a small strong point where neighbors could shelter if trouble came down the valley.
By the mid-1770s, trouble was no longer just a border dispute between colonies. The Revolutionary War had begun, and the Wyoming settlements found themselves exposed on a dangerous frontier, within reach of raids launched from the north. A fortified home was suddenly a very practical thing to have.
People & events
The marker centers on John Jenkins and the stockaded home he and his fellow Connecticut settlers raised in 1776 — the same year the colonies declared their independence. It was one of a chain of modest forts strung along the valley, each meant to guard the families farming nearby.
Its moment of reckoning came at the very start of July 1778. A British and Loyalist force under Major John Butler swept down into the valley, and Jenkins' Fort stood in its path. On July 1 the fort was given up to Butler's men and put to the torch — its walls, so recently a symbol of security, burned.
What makes this small event sharp is its timing. The fall of Jenkins' Fort came just days before the larger, catastrophic fighting that would scatter the whole settlement. It was, in effect, one of the opening blows — an early sign to the valley's families of how swiftly and how completely their world was about to come apart.
Its place in the American story
A single burned stockade might seem like a footnote, but Jenkins' Fort marks the leading edge of one of the Revolution's most devastating frontier campaigns. The 1778 descent on the Wyoming Valley became notorious across the young nation, and this fort's surrender and destruction were among its first acts.
It also captures something true about how the Revolution was actually fought far from the famous battlefields. Out here the war was waged farmstead by farmstead and fort by fort — not with grand armies maneuvering in the open, but with families, neighbors turned enemies, and Native allies of the Crown, all contending over river valleys and the roads through them.
And it is a reminder that the war rode in on older conflicts. The Connecticut settlers who built this place were already living inside a bitter contest over who owned the valley at all. The Revolution didn't create the tension here; it set fire to a frontier that was already uneasy — in this case, quite literally.
If you visit
Approach this one as a chapter in a larger valley story rather than a destination unto itself. The stockade is long gone, so what you're really visiting is a location and a date — a place where you can stand and reset the clock to the anxious first days of July 1778.
Get your bearings by the river. The Susquehanna explains why settlers chose this ground and why an enemy force could move through it so quickly. Picture the fortified home not as a fortress but as a log-walled house where families crowded in and hoped the walls would hold — and then remember that here, they did not.
Because Jenkins' Fort was one link in a chain, it rewards a driving loop through the surrounding towns, where marker after marker records the same terrible summer from slightly different vantage points. Read them in sequence and this brief inscription stops being a lonely fact and becomes the opening scene of a campaign you can trace across the whole valley.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · John Jenkins
- · John Butler
Related events
- · Battle of Wyoming
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Pittston Fort
Pittston, PA · est. 1947
Begun in 1772 by Connecticut proprietors settling the contested Wyoming Valley, Pittston Fort sheltered families on the west bank of the Susquehanna. Caught up in the British and Loyalist descent on the valley, it was forced to surrender on July 4, 1778, and partly destroyed—only to be rebuilt in 1780 and manned through the rest of the Revolutionary War.
The Bloody Rock
Wyoming, PA · est. 1962
On the night of July 3, 1778, the day after the Battle of Wyoming, this rock became the scene of one of the Revolution's grim atrocities. Fourteen or more captured American soldiers were killed here, according to tradition by a woman remembered as "Queen Esther," though her identity has never been certain. The battle and its aftermath spread terror through the Susquehanna frontier and hardened the war on the Pennsylvania borderlands.
Battle of Wyoming
Wyoming, PA · est. 1952
On July 3, 1778, the Revolution reached the Susquehanna frontier in one of its bloodiest backcountry episodes. A small force of about 300 patriots under Colonel Zebulon Butler marched out to meet a much larger column of British, Loyalists, and allied Iroquois led by Major John Butler. The patriots were routed, many captives were killed, and terrified survivors fled to the refuge of Forty Fort.
Denison House
Forty Fort, PA · est. 1972
Built in 1790 in the Wyoming Valley, this house was home to Colonel Nathan Denison, who had served as a Revolutionary War officer during a turbulent era of frontier warfare and land disputes in northeastern Pennsylvania. After independence, Denison became a Luzerne County judge, helping build the civic institutions of the young republic. The home stands as a tangible link between a soldier's wartime service and his later role in ordering a new nation's local government.