Sullivan's March
Hamilton Township, Monroe County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Brinker's Mill was the storehouse and advance post for the Sullivan Expedition, which left Easton June 18, 1779, to attack the hostile Iroquois Indians.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
It marks a supply link in the Sullivan Expedition, the Revolution's devastating strike against the Iroquois that reshaped the frontier and Native life for generations.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By 1779, the American Revolution had settled into a long, grinding war, and its violence reached far beyond the famous battlefields. Along the frontier, the fighting took on a brutal character of raids and reprisals, with settlements and Native towns alike caught in the destruction.
Much of the Iroquois Confederacy had allied with the British, and frontier communities suffered repeated raids. In response, the Continental command resolved on a major campaign to strike into Iroquois country and break the power behind those attacks. It would be an offensive on a scale the frontier had rarely seen.
Staging such an expedition took more than soldiers. It required roads, supplies, and forward depots where provisions could be gathered before an army pushed into hostile territory. This place, along the army's line of march, played that supporting role.
People & events
The campaign is remembered as the Sullivan Expedition, after John Sullivan, and its columns set out from Easton on June 18, 1779, bound for the Iroquois heartland. An army on the move is only as strong as what it can carry and resupply, and that is where Brinker's Mill enters the story.
The mill served as a storehouse and advance post — a forward point where supplies were held and the expedition could stage as it started north. A grist mill was a natural choice: it already sat at a spot organized around gathering, grinding, and storing, exactly the functions an army provisioning itself would need.
So while no great fight is recorded here, this was a working link in the campaign. The men who marched past and the stores that moved through connected this quiet mill to one of the Revolution's hardest and most consequential frontier operations.
Its place in the American story
The Sullivan Expedition was one of the Revolution's most far-reaching campaigns, and its consequences fell heaviest on the Iroquois. The offensive aimed to shatter the Confederacy's ability to make war, and its effects on Native towns, fields, and communities were devastating and long-lasting — reshaping life on the frontier for generations.
That outcome sits at the heart of a difficult national reckoning. The same war that won independence for the United States also carried destruction into Native homelands, and the two truths are bound together in campaigns like this one. Honest history holds both.
A supply post along the route matters because great campaigns are not only their marches and their consequences; they are also the logistics that made them possible. Brinker's Mill marks the machinery behind the movement — the unglamorous work that let an army reach the country it was sent to strike.
If you visit
This is a place to slow down and think about the parts of war that rarely make the paintings: the storehouses, the wagons, the forward posts where a campaign gathered itself before setting out.
Standing at the marker, picture the direction of the march — an army stepping off from Easton and moving north through country like this, with supplies staged ahead of it. The mill's role was practical and vital, and the site rewards a visitor who enjoys tracing how an operation actually functioned on the ground.
If you're following Revolutionary history on a road trip, let this stop carry its full weight. The expedition it supported was both a significant military effort and a source of lasting harm to the Iroquois, and the honest way to visit is to hold the whole story in mind — the army that passed this way, and the people whose world it was sent to break.
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
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 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 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 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.