Tulpehocken Path
Jordan Township, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
At Mahantango Gap, seen to the south, was the Double Eagle, a stopping place on the Indian path that ran from Shamokin (Sunbury) at the Forks of the Susquehanna to Weiser's in the Tulpehocken Valley, and on to Philadelphia.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
The trail marks the overland routes that carried Native and colonial diplomacy through the Pennsylvania interior, linking frontier towns to the seat of provincial government.
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Related people
- · Conrad Weiser
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Tulpehocken Path
Jackson Township, PA · est. 1950
This ridge carried the Tulpehocken Path, a leg of the "Indian Ambassadors Road" used by Iroquois chiefs traveling from Onondaga, their council fire near present-day Syracuse, to Philadelphia. Carrying wampum belts of peace from the "Fire that Never Dies," they journeyed to treat with colonial officials in the tense diplomacy of the 1700s. Shickellamy, the Oneida overseer of the Susquehanna, often walked this route.
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.
Sunbury
Shamokin Dam, PA · est. 1948
Sunbury was laid out in 1772 as the seat of newly formed Northumberland County, planted on the site of Shamokin, an important Native American town at the forks of the Susquehanna. Sixteen years earlier, during the French and Indian War, colonial authorities had built Fort Augusta here to guard the frontier. The spot's command of the river made it a lasting hub of travel, trade, and industry.
Wyoming Path
Northumberland, PA · est. 1949
Long before highways traced the Susquehanna, the Iroquois maintained a network of foot trails linking their homelands to the Native town of Shamokin, a vital multi-tribal settlement at the river's forks that is now Sunbury. This segment, the Wyoming Path, carried warriors, diplomats, and traders between the Wyoming Valley and Shamokin, and its practical route down the valley was later inherited by U.S. Route 11. The trail's crossing to Shamokin Island marks how thoroughly Indigenous knowledge of the terrain shaped later European travel.