Sullivan Expedition Against the Iroquois Indians, 1779 (Fort Penn)- PLAQUE
Stroudsburg, Monroe County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
The home of Col. Jacob Stroud was located here. Rendezvous for several companies for the expeditions uniting with main army at Learned's Tavern.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In the spring of 1779, General George Washington ordered a punishing campaign into the heart of Iroquois country to end frontier raids allied with the British. Here at Fort Penn, the fortified home of Col. Jacob Stroud served as a rendezvous where companies gathered before joining the main army. From this staging ground in the Pocono foothills, men and supplies funneled westward toward the march that would follow.
Why it matters
The Sullivan Expedition was one of the young republic's largest offensives against Native nations, and staging points like this reveal how the Revolution reached deep into the frontier.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the spring and early summer of 1779, the Pocono foothills of eastern Pennsylvania sat on the seam between two worlds. Behind lay the settled towns and farms of the coastal colonies; ahead stretched forest, mountain, and the homelands of Native nations. Places like Stroudsburg were frontier outposts in the truest sense — the last dependable settlements before the wilderness took over.
The Revolution had made these borderlands dangerous. Raids and counter-raids had emptied many exposed farms, and a fortified house was not a luxury but a survival strategy. Settlers clustered around strong points where they could shelter their families and store their goods when trouble came down the valley.
That summer, this ordinary frontier community found itself briefly at the center of a major military effort. Washington had ordered a campaign into Iroquois country, and an army marching from the settled east toward the frontier had to pass through country exactly like this. The war, until now something that happened to the frontier, was about to march right through it.
People & events
This was the site of the home of Colonel Jacob Stroud, a local leader whose fortified house — known as Fort Penn — gave the surrounding settlement both its anchor and, eventually, its name. In frontier communities, men like Stroud were part landholder, part militia officer, part protector, and their strong houses doubled as refuges for their neighbors.
As the expedition took shape, Stroud's place became a rendezvous — a gathering point where several companies of soldiers assembled before moving on. An army marching to the frontier did not travel as one solid mass from the start; smaller units converged from different directions, meeting at appointed places along the route. From here, the companies pushed on to unite with the main army farther along the march.
It is a small but telling role. Stroud's household would have watched soldiers fill the yard and the road, drawing on local supplies and local knowledge before continuing westward. The war effort ran on exactly this kind of cooperation between the Continental command and the settlers whose homes lay along the line of march.
Its place in the American story
The Sullivan campaign was one of the largest offensives the new nation launched during the Revolution, and it was directed against the Iroquois Confederacy, whose nations were allied with the British. Understanding that squarely is part of understanding the American founding: the Revolution's western edge was a war over Native homelands, with lasting and painful consequences for the people who lived there.
Staging points like Fort Penn show how that national undertaking reached into the fabric of ordinary frontier life. A campaign ordered at the highest levels of the war effort depended on the barns, roads, and fortified homes of local families to get moving at all. The distance between grand strategy and a colonel's front yard turns out to be very short.
This site also captures the double meaning of a frontier settlement in the Revolution. It was a place people were trying to defend and hold, and at the same time a springboard for pushing the boundary of settlement outward — the two impulses that drove so much of early American expansion.
If you visit
You're standing in what was, in 1779, very nearly the edge of the settled world. Let that reframe the ordinary streets around you: this was a place where the map ran out, where a fortified house was the difference between safety and exposure.
Look at the lay of the land and the passes through the hills. Stroudsburg sat where routes converged, which is precisely why it made sense as a gathering point — the same geography that made it a natural stop then still shapes the roads today. The plaque marks a house that is gone, but the reason it stood here is written into the landscape.
This marker pairs naturally with the other stops along the route of the campaign. If you're following the line of march, treat this as the place where scattered companies came together before heading deeper toward the frontier. It's a quiet spot to consider how a nation's war effort passed, quite literally, through one family's door.
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
- · Col. Jacob Stroud
Related events
- · Sullivan Expedition of 1779
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sullivan Expedition Against the Iroquois Indians, 1779 (Learned's Tavern)- PLAQUE
Pocono Township, PA · est. 1929
As Sullivan's army pushed into the wilderness in June 1779, it left the settled country behind. This spot, remembered as "the last house on the frontier," marked the end of the second day's march — a sixteen-mile push into thinning settlement. Beyond here lay forest and the long road to Iroquois territory.
Sullivan's March
Pocono Township, PA · est. 1947
On June 19, 1779, the army of the Sullivan Expedition camped near Learned's Tavern at the close of its second day out of Easton, having covered sixteen miles from Heller's Tavern on the long road toward Fort Wyoming at Wilkes-Barre. The tavern marked a waypoint on the campaign George Washington launched against the British-allied Iroquois. These recorded halts trace the grueling overland route of one of the Revolution's most consequential frontier operations.
Sullivan's March
Hamilton Township, PA · est. 1947
Brinker's Mill served as the storehouse and forward supply post for the Sullivan Expedition, the 1779 Continental Army campaign that marched out of Easton on June 18 to strike the Iroquois nations allied with Britain. Ordered by George Washington in response to frontier raids, the expedition aimed to break Iroquois power in the region. This mill helped provision an army bound for one of the Revolution's harshest campaigns.
Sullivan Expedition Against the Iroquois Indians, 1779 - Heller's Tavern (PLAQUE)
Wind Gap, PA · est. 1929
On June 18, 1779, Sullivan's troops set out on the first day of their long march toward Iroquois country, covering twelve miles before halting at Heller's Tavern. Wayside taverns like this were the natural waypoints of the era, offering the only fixed shelter along frontier roads. The plaque marks where the campaign's opening day came to a close.