Thompson's Island
Pleasant Township, Warren County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
An advance party of Brodhead's expedition of 1779 into the Seneca country had a skirmish here with 30 or 40 Indians, the only fighting which took place in that campaign, and the only Revolutionary battle in northwestern Pennsylvania.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
During Colonel Daniel Brodhead's 1779 expedition against the Seneca, an advance party clashed here with thirty or forty Native warriors in a brief but sharp skirmish. It was the only fighting of the entire campaign and, by the marker's reckoning, the sole Revolutionary War engagement in northwestern Pennsylvania. The rest of Brodhead's march met little resistance as it moved through the Allegheny country.
Why it matters
This small skirmish marks the Revolution's northwestern edge in Pennsylvania, a reminder that the war reached deep into Indigenous homelands far from its famous battlefields.
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Related people
- · Daniel Brodhead
Related events
- · Brodhead Expedition of 1779
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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Brokenstraw Township, PA · est. 1947
Buckaloons stood at the meeting of Brokenstraw Creek and the Allegheny River, a site so long inhabited that excavated burial mounds attest to its deep antiquity. In 1749 the French officer Céloron de Blainville passed through on his expedition to claim the Ohio Valley, and in 1779 the village was destroyed during Colonel Daniel Brodhead's Revolutionary War campaign against the Seneca. Its story spans centuries of Native life along these rivers.
Indian Paint Hill
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Mead Island Tradition
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Warren County
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