Sullivan Expedition Against the Iroquois Indians, 1779 - Heller's Tavern (PLAQUE)
Wind Gap, Northampton County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
The end of the first day's march June 18, 1779. Distance 12 miles.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
Tracing the army's daily stages, this marker helps map how a Revolutionary offensive physically unfolded across the Pennsylvania frontier.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By the summer of 1779, the Revolutionary War had spread far beyond the coastal cities into the frontier. Eastern Pennsylvania sat on the edge of that harder war — a country of scattered farms, rough roads, and wayside taverns, where the conflict was measured less in famous battles than in raids, marches, and long anxious distances.
That year the war on this frontier took a deliberate, organized turn. A major campaign was set in motion, and an army began assembling in the Pennsylvania country to march north and west into the lands of the Six Nations of the Iroquois. Moving such a force through this terrain was itself a formidable task; the roads were few and the going slow.
This marker captures the very first day of that movement — June 18, 1779 — and the modest distance the troops managed before nightfall. Twelve miles, and then a halt. It is a reminder that eighteenth-century armies traveled at the pace of men and animals on foot, and that a campaign's opening was measured in hours of dust and sweat before it was ever measured in outcomes.
People & events
The place where that first day ended was a tavern. On the colonial frontier, taverns were not merely places to drink — they were the fixed points of the landscape, offering the only reliable shelter, food, and gathering space along the roads. An army on the march naturally used them as waypoints, and a tavern's name became, for a night, the name of a campground.
So the soldiers came to rest here after their twelve-mile start, the column stretching back along the road behind them. Picture the ordinary business of an army halting: fires lit, animals tended, tired men settling in the fields around a single building that suddenly had to serve hundreds.
What the plaque records is not a clash of arms but a logistical fact — the exact end of the exact first day. That precision is the point. It lets us stand where the campaign's opening march actually stopped, and imagine the men who woke here the next morning to keep going.
Its place in the American story
We tend to remember the Revolution through its battles, but wars are won and lost in the spaces between them — in the marching, supplying, and sheer distance-covering that armies must accomplish before a shot is fired. A marker that fixes a single day's twelve miles honors that unglamorous truth.
The larger campaign this march began was aimed at the Iroquois Confederacy, and its consequences for the Six Nations were severe and lasting. That is a hard chapter of the American story, and an honest one: the reach of the Revolution into the frontier fell heavily on Native communities who had lived on that land for generations.
Seen that way, this quiet roadside stop is a doorway into a much bigger and more painful history. The first day's march was the small beginning of a campaign whose effects would ripple through the homelands of the Six Nations for years to come.
If you visit
This is a marker that asks you to think in terms of distance and time. Stand here and picture an army that had been on the road only since that morning, choosing this spot to stop for the night. The drama is in the ordinariness — the beginning of a long, deliberate march.
Don't expect a battlefield; expect a waypoint. The value of a stop like this is that it lets you trace a campaign the way the soldiers actually experienced it: one day, one stage, one halt at a time. It pairs naturally with a driving route, since you can follow roughly the same direction the column took.
Read the plaque, then look down the road in the direction the army was heading. That simple act — imagining the next day's march stretching away from you — does more to bring 1779 alive than any monument could.
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 events
- · Sullivan Expedition of 1779
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sullivan's March
Wind Gap, PA · est. 1947
On June 18, 1779, the first day's march of General Sullivan's expedition ended at Heller's Tavern near Wind Gap, where his weary army camped for the night. Stirring at four the next morning, the troops pressed on to cross the Blue Mountains through the natural pass at Wind Gap. Their route traced old paths through the ridges as they moved north toward the Iroquois heartland.
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 - Sullivan Road (PLAQUE)
Forks Township, PA · est. 1929
This plaque marks the road over which Sullivan's army began its advance on June 18, 1779. Cutting and following such roads was itself a feat, as thousands of men, horses, and wagons of supplies moved through country with few improved routes. The path set the direction of a campaign that would carry deep into the lands of the Six Nations.
Sullivan Campaign
Forks Township, PA · est. 1947
In the summer of 1779, Easton became the staging ground for one of the Revolution's largest offensives against the Native and Loyalist alliance harrying the New York and Pennsylvania frontier. Under General John Sullivan, the army spent more than a month gathering men and supplies before beginning its march on June 18, 1779. The campaign that followed would drive deep into Iroquois country to the north.