Sullivan Expedition Against the Iroquois Indians, 1779 (White Oak Run)- PLAQUE
Pocono Township, Monroe County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
site of Chowder Camp, where Gen. Sullivan dined on trout chowder, end of third day's march June 20, 1779, distance 5 miles.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
Camp-by-camp markers like this preserve the everyday texture of a Revolutionary campaign, turning a military line of march into a human story.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In June 1779, this corner of the Pocono highlands was deep, difficult country — the kind of terrain that turns a simple march into a slow, grinding effort. The streams ran cold and clear off the mountains, the forest pressed close, and the trails were rough. It was the sort of place an army passed through, not the sort where anyone lingered by choice.
The Revolution had reached even here, into the folds of the mountains, because a Continental army was on the move. A force was marching from the settled east toward the homelands of the Iroquois nations, and its route carried it straight through this rugged upland. The war, so often pictured in open fields and coastal towns, was for a few days a matter of hauling artillery and wagons up mountain streams.
Progress in country like this was measured in painfully short distances. The land itself was the obstacle, and every mile gained came at the cost of sweat, broken axles, and exhausted animals. The setting explains, better than any order or report, why the campaign moved as slowly as it did.
People & events
This is remembered as the site of Chowder Camp, where the expedition ended its third day's march on June 20, 1779 — a march of only five miles. The name comes from a small, human moment that outlived the campaign's grander events: here, General John Sullivan is remembered as dining on a trout chowder, the fish pulled from the cold mountain streams nearby.
That detail is worth savoring precisely because it is so ordinary. Behind the strategy and the marching columns were men who got hungry, who fished when they could, who gave a campsite a nickname because of a memorable supper. A general eating trout chowder is the kind of thing that never makes it into the official accounts of a war, yet it is exactly how the people who were there would have remembered the day.
The five-mile distance tells its own quiet story. After longer marches through easier country, the army crawled just five miles through this terrain — a sign of how the mountains and the burden of supplies had begun to bite. The chowder was a small comfort at the end of a hard, short day.
Its place in the American story
The larger campaign this camp belonged to was among the biggest offensives the young United States mounted in the Revolution, directed against the Iroquois Confederacy, whose nations were allied with the British. It was a consequential and painful chapter, part of the war's long reach into Native homelands, and it should be remembered clearly for what it was.
But a place like Chowder Camp preserves a different and equally true layer of history: the daily texture of a campaign. Wars are lived one meal, one march, one camp at a time, and the small details — a supper of stream-caught trout — are what remind us that the soldiers were human beings and not just figures in a strategic diagram.
Markers that trace a campaign camp by camp turn an abstract line on a map into a lived experience. This one, named for a general's supper, is a reminder that the story of a nation is stitched together from countless ordinary moments, and that those moments are worth keeping.
If you visit
Come here for the small, human scale of it. This isn't a battlefield or a monument to a decisive moment — it's a place remembered for a meal, and that's exactly what makes it charming. Let yourself enjoy the idea of a general fishing his supper out of a mountain stream.
The surrounding country still tells you why the march slowed to a crawl. The cold, quick streams and the steep, wooded terrain are the same features that fed the soldiers' chowder and, at the same time, made every mile a struggle. Listen for running water; that's the detail the camp was named for.
As part of a road trip along the campaign's route, this is the stop that adds warmth and personality to the story. It fits neatly between the other day's-march markers, and it's the one where you can smile a little. Pause, picture the cook fires and the smell of chowder, and appreciate how a tiny detail can keep a place alive for centuries.
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
- · Gen. John Sullivan
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 (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
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 (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.