Sullivan Expedition Against the Iroquois Indians, 1779 - Sullivan Road (PLAQUE)
Forks Township, Northampton County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Over which the Army began its advance. June 18-1779.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
The line of march reminds us that logistics and roads — not just battles — determined the reach of the Revolution into the frontier.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In 1779, the Pennsylvania frontier was a place defined by its roads — or by the lack of them. Beyond the settled valleys, the country thinned into forest and rough track, and moving anything larger than a pack train was a genuine undertaking. For an army, the road was not a convenience; it was the whole campaign's lifeline.
That summer, a major Revolutionary campaign set out from this region toward the lands of the Six Nations of the Iroquois. Before the troops could fight, they had to move — thousands of men, along with horses, wagons, and supplies, pushing into country with few improved routes. The path they followed, and in places had to cut, determined everything that came after.
This marker sits on that line of march, honoring the road itself as the campaign's opening act on June 18, 1779. It is a quiet acknowledgment that in frontier warfare, the route was as decisive as any commander's plan.
People & events
The people to imagine here are not generals but the long, laboring column: soldiers on foot, teamsters urging wagons over uneven ground, animals straining under loads of provisions and equipment. An eighteenth-century army on the move was a slow, sprawling thing, and getting it started in the right direction was an achievement in itself.
Building and following a road for such a force meant clearing obstacles, fording streams, and keeping a heavy train from bogging down — work that fell to ordinary men with axes and muscle. Every mile gained was a mile earned. The advance that began over this road on that June day was the physical answer to a question every campaign must solve: how do you actually get there?
That is what the plaque commemorates — not a moment of combat, but the direction-setting first movement of a whole army. Stand here and the story is one of effort and momentum: the column heaving into motion and choosing its line into the wilderness.
Its place in the American story
The Revolution is usually told as a sequence of battles, but its outcome depended just as much on logistics — on whether armies could be moved, fed, and kept in the field. A marker devoted to a road makes that invisible foundation visible, reminding us that reach and supply shaped the war as surely as courage did.
The campaign this road launched carried the Revolution deep into the homelands of the Six Nations, with consequences for those nations that were profound and enduring. It is important to hold both truths at once: the logistical feat of the march, and the heavy cost it imposed on the Iroquois communities in its path.
So the road stands for something larger than itself. It marks the moment the war's frontier campaign gathered direction and force — a line drawn from the settled country toward lands that would be changed permanently by what followed.
If you visit
Look for the line, not a landmark. This marker celebrates a road — the direction an army chose and the path it took — so the thing to picture is movement stretching away from where you stand. Face the way the advance was heading and let your eye follow the route into the distance.
It's a good stop for anyone who likes to understand history as geography. Rather than a single dramatic site, you're standing on a thread that connected a starting point to a distant objective, and that thread is the story. Traveling the roads of this region, you can feel how challenging the country must have been to cross with wagons and horses.
Give the plaque a careful read, then take in the surrounding landscape. The reward here is imaginative: understanding that a campaign's real beginning was a decision about which way to go, made on ground much like the ground beneath your feet.
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 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.
First Reformed Church
Easton, PA · est. 1953
Easton's First Reformed congregation gathered in 1745, and by 1776 — the very year of independence — its members had built and enlarged this church. In 1777 it hosted an Indian treaty council, one of the diplomatic gatherings that shaped relations between the young nation and Native peoples on the Pennsylvania frontier. During the Revolution the building also served as a military hospital, its pews and floors given over to the sick and wounded of the Continental cause.
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.
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.