Tulpehocken Path
Pine Grove Township, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
On other side of the creek, where the old road runs, the Tulpehocken Path entered the "Gaps of the Swatara." In 1743 Conrad Weiser, John Bartram, and Lewis Evans passed here for Onondaga with peace messages from Virginia to the Six Nations.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
The Tulpehocken Path was a key overland route through the Blue Mountain, threading the "Gaps of the Swatara" toward the Iroquois council fire at Onondaga in New York. In 1743 the celebrated interpreter Conrad Weiser passed here alongside naturalist John Bartram and mapmaker Lewis Evans, carrying peace messages from Virginia to the Six Nations to defuse frontier tensions. Their journey was part of the delicate diplomacy that kept an uneasy peace between colonists and the powerful Iroquois Confederacy.
Why it matters
It marks the ground of colonial-era Indian diplomacy, where skilled go-betweens like Conrad Weiser held the fragile alliances that shaped the fate of the frontier.
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Related people
- · Conrad Weiser
- · John Bartram
- · Lewis Evans
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Tulpehocken Path
Bethel Township, PA · est. 1952
This ridge once carried the Tulpehocken Path, a Native trail linking the Iroquois town of Shamokin—at present-day Sunbury—with the fertile Tulpehocken Valley to the southeast. Along it traveled Indian ambassadors journeying to treat with "Brother Onas," the Iroquois name for William Penn and the proprietors who followed him. The path was a channel of the careful diplomacy that governed Pennsylvania's early relations with the Six Nations.
Tulpehocken Path
Hegins Township, PA · est. 1950
Running the ridge between Deep and Pine Creeks, the Tulpehocken Path tied Shamokin—the Susquehanna town of the Oneida overseer Shickellamy, now Sunbury—to the fertile Tulpehocken Valley to the southeast. In the mid-1700s it was a diplomatic artery, walked by Iroquois ambassadors carrying wampum and by Moravian and other Christian missionaries seeking Native converts. Along such paths the uneasy business of colonial-era alliance and negotiation moved on foot.
Tulpehocken Path
Jordan Township, PA · est. 1950
Near Mahantango Gap stood the Double Eagle, a resting place along the Native trail that ran from Shamokin, at the forks of the Susquehanna where Sunbury now stands, eastward to Conrad Weiser's home in the Tulpehocken Valley and on to Philadelphia. This path was a corridor of trade and diplomacy in colonial Pennsylvania. Along it moved the messengers and negotiators who bound the Iroquois and the colony together.
Tulpehocken Path
Heidelberg Township, PA · est. 1951
Long before highways, a network of Indian paths threaded through the Pennsylvania mountains, and the Tulpehocken Path was among the most important. It ran from Shamokin on the Susquehanna, over the ridges by way of Pine Grove, down to the Tulpehocken Valley where the interpreter Conrad Weiser made his home. Along it, chiefs of the Six Nations carried belts of wampum — the diplomatic currency of the Iroquois — on missions to "Brother Onas," the Native name for the Penn family, at Philadelphia.