Wyoming-Minisink Path
Blooming Grove Township, Pike County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
The highway here follows closely the route of the Delaware Indian trail from Minisink Island to Wyoming. Refugees from the Massacre of Wyoming, 1778, camped by the "boiling" spring, which may be seen in the woods a few yards south of here.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
The modern highway here traces an old Delaware Indian path that ran from Minisink Island on the river to the Wyoming Valley. Along it, in July 1778, terrified refugees fled the Massacre of Wyoming — a bloody Revolutionary War raid by Loyalist and allied Iroquois forces — pausing to camp beside a bubbling spring still visible in the woods nearby. The path carried both ancient travelers and the human wreckage of the frontier war.
Why it matters
This trail ties together two American stories: the deep network of Native pathways and the brutal frontier violence of the Revolution, when the war for independence became a war of survival for settlers and Native peoples alike.
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Related events
- · Massacre of Wyoming, 1778
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Battle of Minisink
Lackawaxen Township, PA · est. 1948
On July 22, 1779, the Revolutionary War reached this stretch of the upper Delaware. Some 175 patriot militia attacked a force of roughly 300 Loyalists and allied Native fighters led by the Mohawk chief Joseph Brant, who was returning from raids on the New York frontier. The battle turned into a disaster for the settlers, most of whom were killed, while Brant slipped away.
Wyoming-Minisink Path
Palmyra Township, PA · est. 1950
Long before highways crossed the Poconos, a well-worn Indian path linked Minisink Island on the Delaware to the Wyoming Valley on the Susquehanna. Here it dropped down the hillside to ford Wallenpaupack Creek—a crossing later drowned when the valley was dammed to form today's lake—then climbed the mountains toward Capoose, near present-day Scranton, before following the Lackawanna down to the Susquehanna. These trails were the highways of their day, carrying trade, diplomacy, and news across the eastern woodlands.
Wyoming-Minisink Path
Dingman Township, PA · est. 1949
This spot marks where an old Native trail climbed from the Delaware River toward Powwow Hill on its way to the Susquehanna, tying together two of Pennsylvania's great watersheds. The Delaware (Lenape) people traveled it during their westward movement toward the Wyoming Valley, pushed in part by colonial pressure on their eastern homelands. Later, Connecticut settlers hungry for land followed the same ridgeline path, layering a new chapter of migration atop an ancient one.
Sullivan Expedition Against the Iroquois Indians, 1779 (White Oak Run)- PLAQUE
Pocono Township, PA · est. 1929
On June 20, 1779, the third day's march ended at a spot the soldiers dubbed Chowder Camp, where General Sullivan is remembered as dining on trout chowder pulled from the mountain streams. The short five-mile advance hints at the rough terrain slowing an army hauling artillery and supplies into the Poconos. Small human details like a general's stream-caught supper survive alongside the grand campaign.