The Dennis Farm
Brooklyn Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Settled by Prince Perkins, a free African American Revolutionary War veteran who came from Conn. in 1793, the property has remained in his descendants' ownership for over 200 years. Granddaughter Angeline Perkins Dennis and husband Henry W. Dennis expanded the farm. It provides an understanding about free African American settlement and life in an integrated rural Pa. community and attests to the prevalent antislavery activity in northeastern Pa.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In 1793, Prince Perkins, a free African American veteran of the Revolutionary War, came from Connecticut to settle this land in the hills of northeastern Pennsylvania, and his descendants have held it for more than two centuries. His granddaughter Angeline Perkins Dennis and her husband Henry expanded the farm, sustaining a rare, lasting Black landholding in an integrated rural community. The property offers a window into free African American settlement and the strong antislavery currents that ran through this corner of Pennsylvania.
Why it matters
The Dennis Farm preserves the too-rarely-told story of free Black landowners in the early republic, evidence that African American families built, held, and passed down property across generations of American history.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
To understand the Dennis Farm, picture the far northeastern corner of Pennsylvania in the 1790s: a country of steep, wooded hills and hard-won clearings, still very much a frontier. The Revolution had ended barely a decade before, the United States was a young and untested republic, and families were pushing inland to turn timbered slopes into working farms.
This was also a region where the question of slavery was very much alive and very much contested. Pennsylvania had passed a gradual abolition law in 1780, the first of its kind, and the northeastern counties in particular became known for strong antislavery feeling in the decades that followed. It was a place where a free Black family could, against long odds, put down roots and stay.
Into that landscape came a free African American man from Connecticut in 1793, choosing this ground to build a life that his descendants would hold for more than two centuries.
People & events
The story begins with Prince Perkins, a free African American who had served in the Revolutionary War before coming south from Connecticut to settle here in 1793. That he was both free and a veteran is worth pausing on: he had helped fight for the new nation's independence, then claimed a piece of its frontier as his own.
What makes this place remarkable is what came after him. The land did not pass out of the family's hands. His granddaughter, Angeline Perkins Dennis, and her husband, Henry W. Dennis, took up the work and expanded the farm, carrying the family's ownership forward into a new generation.
Across more than 200 years, through all the upheavals of American life, the property has remained in the ownership of Prince Perkins's descendants. That unbroken line of stewardship is itself the event worth remembering here — not a single dramatic moment, but the long, steady act of holding on.
Its place in the American story
We are used to hearing the early history of Black America told through the lens of slavery. The Dennis Farm insists on a different and too-rarely-told chapter: that of free African Americans who owned land, worked it, and passed it down as an inheritance.
A farm held by one family for over two centuries is rare for anyone in this country. Held by a free Black family founded by a Revolutionary War veteran, it becomes something larger — hard evidence that African Americans were builders and property-holders in the early republic, full participants in the frontier project, not only its victims.
The site also opens a window onto an integrated rural community and the antislavery currents that ran strong through this part of Pennsylvania. It is a reminder that the nation's story of freedom and ownership was being written in these hills, by people whose names deserve to be remembered.
If you visit
This is a quiet, rural place in the hills of Susquehanna County, and that quiet is part of the point. Stand here and take in how remote and demanding this country would have been to clear and farm by hand in the 1790s, and you begin to grasp what it took to establish a home and keep it for generations.
Let the span of years settle over you. Very few pieces of American ground have stayed with one family for more than 200 years, and fewer still carry a story that begins with a free Black Revolutionary War veteran. Reading the marker with that in mind changes how the whole landscape feels.
The Dennis Farm makes a thoughtful stop on a road trip through northeastern Pennsylvania's back roads, a chance to trade the usual highlights for a deeper, less-told strand of American history. Take your time, and give the place the attention its long survival has earned.
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
- · Prince Perkins
- · Angeline Perkins Dennis
- · Henry W. Dennis
Themes & tags
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