Sullivan Expedition Against the Iroquois Indians, 1779 (Learned's Tavern)- PLAQUE
Pocono Township, Monroe County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
The last house on the frontier. The end of the second day's march June 19, 1779. Distance 16 miles.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
The marker fixes the literal edge of colonial settlement, a reminder of how sharply the frontier line divided the young nation from the lands of Native peoples.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In June 1779, this spot in the Pocono country marked something that most maps only imply and few places make so plain: the actual edge of settlement. Beyond here, the farms thinned to nothing and the road gave way to forest. It was, in the memory that clung to the place, the last house on the frontier — the final touch of settled life before the wilderness took over.
The Revolution had pushed and pulled at these borderlands for years. Frontier settlement in the eighteenth century advanced in fits and starts, a ragged line rather than a clean border, and war made it ragged and dangerous besides. A traveler heading inland from the coastal towns would watch the countryside grow wilder mile by mile until, at a place like this, it simply ended.
That summer, the edge of settlement became a threshold for an army. A Continental force was marching from the settled east toward the country of the Iroquois nations, and this was one of the last familiar waypoints before the hard traveling began. What was a boundary for settlers became a doorway for a campaign.
People & events
This marks the end of the second day's march for the expedition, reached on June 19, 1779 — a distance of sixteen miles from where the day began. Sixteen miles is a real day's work for an army on foot, dragging its supplies and equipment over rough country, and reaching a known landmark like this would have felt like an accomplishment.
An army on the march measured its progress in exactly these terms: a day, a distance, a place to stop. Behind that plain accounting lies an enormous amount of effort — men and animals moving in column, the endless management of stragglers and supply wagons, the search each evening for ground to camp on. Reaching the last house on the frontier meant the easy part of the march was ending.
The soldiers who paused here knew what the name meant. Ahead lay country without the comforts and reference points of settlement — no more farmhouses, no more familiar roads. This stop was the army's last night, in a sense, with one foot still in the settled world.
Its place in the American story
This modest waypoint fixes something that the broad story of American history usually leaves abstract: the frontier line, the boundary between the settled nation and the lands of Native peoples. Here it is not a concept on a map but a specific spot on the ground, the literal last house before the wilderness.
The campaign that passed through was one of the Revolution's largest offensives, aimed at the Iroquois Confederacy, whose nations were allied with Britain. That the army's march can be tracked from the edge of settlement outward is a reminder that this was a war reaching into Native homelands — the frontier line the soldiers crossed here was someone else's homeland on the other side.
The American story is, in large part, a story of that line moving. To stand where it once ran is to see the process paused at a single moment: June 1779, the country settled to this point and no farther, an army about to step across.
If you visit
There's a quiet power in visiting a place defined by what lies just beyond it. Face the direction the army was heading and imagine the settled country simply stopping — the last chimney smoke, the last cleared field, and then forest. That contrast is the whole meaning of the spot.
The Pocono terrain still gives you a feel for what the marchers faced. The wooded ridges and narrow valleys that slowed an army are the same shapes on the land today, and it's easy to understand why the country ahead was called wilderness. Let the landscape do the explaining.
This marker sits naturally within a chain of stops that trace the campaign's route day by day. If you're following the line of march, this is the moment the story leaves the settled world behind — a good place to pause, look ahead into the hills, and think about what it meant to be at the very end of the known road.
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
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 Expedition Against the Iroquois Indians, 1779 (White Oak Run)- PLAQUE
Pocono Township, PA · est. 1929
On June 20, 1779, the third day's march ended at a spot the soldiers dubbed Chowder Camp, where General Sullivan is remembered as dining on trout chowder pulled from the mountain streams. The short five-mile advance hints at the rough terrain slowing an army hauling artillery and supplies into the Poconos. Small human details like a general's stream-caught supper survive alongside the grand campaign.
Sullivan Expedition Against the Iroquois Indians, 1779 (Fort Penn)- PLAQUE
Stroudsburg, PA · est. 1929
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.
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.