Sullivan Expedition Against the Iroquois Indians, 1779 - Vanderlip's Farm (PLAQUE)
Meshoppen Township, Wyoming County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Fourteen miles from Tunkhannock Fourth Encampment of Sullivan's Army on the march from Wyoming to Teaoga August 4-5, 1779 lay on this lowland known as Black Walnut Flats.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
As General Sullivan's army pushed north against the Iroquois in August 1779, it made its fourth encampment on the fertile bottomland here, remembered locally as Black Walnut Flats. The soldiers rested on the nights of August 4 and 5 before continuing the march from Wyoming toward Teaoga. The campaign systematically destroyed the towns and food stores of the Six Nations across this valley.
Why it matters
These marked encampments trace the path of a Revolutionary War campaign that reshaped the Pennsylvania frontier and the fate of the Iroquois Confederacy.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By the late summer of 1779, the American Revolution had ground into its fifth year, and the war on the northern frontier had turned brutal and personal. The Susquehanna Valley of northeastern Pennsylvania was borderland in every sense—a patchwork of scattered settlements, Native homelands, and contested ground where the Continental cause and the powerful Iroquois Confederacy collided.
Much of the Six Nations had aligned with the British, and raids along the frontier had spread fear through the valley the year before. In response, General George Washington ordered a campaign meant to break that threat at its source. The army that pushed north through this country in August 1779 was moving through a landscape of rich river-bottom farmland hemmed by forested ridges—the kind of fertile lowland that made the Susquehanna corridor worth fighting over.
The flat, well-watered ground here, long known to locals as Black Walnut Flats, was exactly the sort of place a marching army looked for: open enough to pitch a camp, close to the river, and generous with forage. On the nights of August 4 and 5 that year, it served that purpose for thousands of soldiers on the move.
People & events
The man at the head of this column was General John Sullivan, a New Hampshire lawyer-turned-soldier tasked with leading one of the largest offensive operations the Continental Army mounted against Native nations. His orders were sweeping and grim: to march into Iroquois country and render it incapable of supporting further raids.
This lowland marks the army's fourth encampment on its way north from the Wyoming Valley toward Teaoga, near the present New York border. Fourteen miles up the road from Tunkhannock, the troops halted here to rest before pressing on. An eighteenth-century army moved slowly—dragging artillery, provisions, and pack animals over rough ground—so these measured, marked stopping points tell the real story of the march: not a single dramatic battle, but a relentless, methodical advance.
The campaign that unfolded across this valley was one of systematic destruction. As the expedition pressed deeper into Iroquois territory, it burned towns, cut down orchards, and destroyed the stored harvest of the Six Nations. It was war waged against the means of survival itself, and its scars on the Confederacy would outlast the Revolution.
Its place in the American story
The Sullivan Expedition is one of the hard chapters of the founding era—a reminder that American independence was won, in part, through campaigns aimed squarely at Native peoples who stood in the new nation's path. What happened along this river corridor helped shatter the power of the Iroquois Confederacy, a political and military force that had shaped the Northeast for generations.
The consequences reached far beyond 1779. By breaking the Confederacy's ability to defend its homeland, the campaign helped open the door to a wave of settlement that would pour westward once the war ended. The fate of the valley you're standing in, and of the country beyond it, was bound up in that march.
Markers like this one, placed generations later, ask us to hold two truths at once: that these soldiers served a revolution we celebrate, and that the campaign's purpose and cost fell heavily on the Native nations who lived here first. The full American story includes both.
If you visit
Stand here and let the land do the explaining. The reason an army camped on this spot is the same reason it looks so peaceful now—flat, fertile bottomland along the river, sheltered by the surrounding hills. Picture thousands of tired men bedding down across these flats for two late-summer nights before shouldering their packs again.
The plaque is a quiet one, the kind you might drive past without noticing. That's part of its character. This was never the site of a famous clash; it was a waypoint, one of a chain of encampments strung along the route. Reading it that way—as a single step in a long, deliberate march—is what makes it worth the stop.
If you're tracing the expedition's path as a road trip, this is a good place to slow down and think about distance and terrain. The old name, Black Walnut Flats, still fits the setting. Take a moment with the river and the ridgelines, and the eighteenth-century march feels a good deal closer than the date on the marker suggests.
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 Sullivan
Related events
- · Sullivan Expedition of 1779
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sullivan's March
Meshoppen Township, PA · est. 1947
On August 4, 1779, General John Sullivan's Continental army made its fourth encampment on the lowland here as it marched from Fort Wyoming toward Tioga Point. The column was part of a coordinated Revolutionary War campaign against the Iroquois Confederacy, whose warriors had raided settlements along the frontier. The soldiers' northward advance up the Susquehanna would culminate in the destruction of dozens of Native towns.
Indian Hill Battlefield - PLAQUE
Tuscarora Township, PA · est. 1928
During the Revolutionary War, Pennsylvania's northern frontier was ravaged by raids from British-allied Native war parties. In September 1778 Colonel Thomas Hartley led an expedition up the Susquehanna, burning Tioga and Queen Esther's Town before fighting a sharp engagement near this spot on September 29. His campaign broke the momentum of raids in the region and cleared the way for the massive Sullivan Expedition the following year.
Indian Hill
Tuscarora Township, PA · est. 1947
The hill southeast of this marker saw sharp frontier fighting on September 29, 1778, when Colonel Thomas Hartley's soldiers from Fort Muncy clashed with Native warriors here. Two days earlier Hartley's raid had burned Queen Esther's town near present-day Athens, part of the brutal back-and-forth of Revolutionary warfare along the Susquehanna. These running fights pitted Pennsylvania militia against the Iroquois and their British allies in a contest for the northern borderlands.
Sullivan's March
Wyalusing Township, PA · est. 1947
In the summer of 1779, at the height of the Revolution, General John Sullivan led a Continental army up the Susquehanna Valley, camping near here on August 5-7 as it pushed north. The expedition, ordered by George Washington, aimed to break the power of the Iroquois nations allied with the British and to end the devastating raids along the frontier. Over the campaign Sullivan's troops burned dozens of Haudenosaunee towns and their harvests.