Historic Markers in Pennsylvania

Manorville, PA

In the summer of 1779, as the American Revolution raged along the western frontier, Continental soldiers threw up this small outpost on the bank of the Allegheny River. It was a staging point for Col. Daniel Brodhead's expedition northward against the Seneca — one arm of the wider campaign that year to break the power of the Iroquois nations allied with the British. The fort's usefulness was brief: raised in June and given up by autumn, once the campaign had passed through. It honored Maj. Gen. John Armstrong, a veteran Pennsylvania frontier officer.

Sunbury, PA · est. 1948

As war with France spread along the frontier, Colonels James Burd and John Clapham raised Fort Augusta in 1756-57 at the forks of the Susquehanna. It became the region's key stronghold, guarding the vital river junction and anchoring Pennsylvania's defenses against raids during the French and Indian War. A mansion later rose on the site in 1852, long after the fort's soldiering days had passed.

Bedford, PA · est. 1972

First known as Raystown, Fort Bedford was thrown up in the summer of 1758 by troops under Colonel Henry Bouquet during the French and Indian War. It became the staging point from which General John Forbes launched his methodical campaign westward, cutting a road through the wilderness to seize the French stronghold of Fort Duquesne—the site that would become Pittsburgh. A museum now stands on the fort's original ground.

Walker Township, PA · est. 1947

Built around 1754 in the Tuscarora Valley, Fort Bigham was a stockaded blockhouse raised to shelter the traders and settlers pushing into Pennsylvania's frontier. In 1756, during the French and Indian War, it was destroyed in a raid by Native warriors—one of many such attacks that terrorized the backcountry and drove families to abandon their farms. Its brief existence captures the vulnerability of frontier life during that conflict.

Derry Township, PA · est. 1947

In 1777, as the Revolution raged and the Pennsylvania frontier grew dangerous, settlers along the forks of Chillisquaque Creek fortified Bosley's mill, stockading and garrisoning it against raids. Such improvised frontier forts were the everyday reality of the backcountry war, where mills, farms, and blockhouses doubled as refuges. The site reflects a conflict fought not only on famous battlefields but in the woods and clearings of the northern branch of the Susquehanna.

Chambersburg, PA · est. 1947

In 1756, as the French and Indian War set the frontier ablaze, pioneer landowner Col. Benjamin Chambers fortified his house and mill with a stockade and cannon for defense against Native raids. Chambers had settled at this junction of waters years earlier and founded the town that still bears his name. His fortified homestead anchored one of the exposed western settlements during the war's dangerous years.

Lemoyne, PA · est. 1947

In the tense summer of 1863, as Robert E. Lee's army pushed north, defenders threw up earthen breastworks here to guard the approaches to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's capital and a vital rail and supply hub. On June 29, Confederate scouts probed toward these works but pulled back, and days later the campaign's decisive fighting erupted at Gettysburg instead. These humble earthworks mark the farthest reach of the Southern advance on the Susquehanna.

Lemoyne, PA · est. 1953

In June 1863, as Robert E. Lee's army drove north toward the Susquehanna in the campaign that ended at Gettysburg, panicked authorities threw up earthworks on Hummel's Heights to shield the state capital at Harrisburg. Named for General Darius Couch, commander of the Department of the Susquehanna, these breastworks were part of a hasty defensive line manned by militia and emergency troops. The expected Confederate assault on Harrisburg never fell, as Lee recalled his forces to concentrate at Gettysburg.

New Kensington, PA

This marker commemorates Fort Crawford, a frontier stockade from the era of the Revolutionary War when the Allegheny Valley was a dangerous borderland of raids and militia defense. The four-ton stone and bronze plaque were placed by the Massy Harbison Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and dedicated on May 13, 1942, during the 150th anniversary of the Logan's Ferry Presbyterian Church, on whose land the fort once stood. The chapter's namesake, Massy Harbison, was herself a famed survivor of frontier captivity in the region.

Montgomery Township, PA · est. 1946

Around 1755, as the French and Indian War set the frontier ablaze, Philip Davis's land became the site of a fortified refuge where nearby families could take shelter from raids. It stood as the southernmost link in a chain of such strongholds stretching across the Pennsylvania backcountry. In an age before organized armies patrolled the interior, these settlers' forts were the difference between survival and abandonment.

Montgomery Township, PA · est. 1931

Around 1754, as tensions with France and Native nations flared into the French and Indian War, the Welsh settler Philip Davis built a private fort on his plantation here to shelter frontier families from raids. Davis was a local patriot and tax collector active in the Presbytery of New Castle. His fortified home was one of many improvised strongholds that dotted the exposed Pennsylvania backcountry.

Whitehall, PA · est. 2001

On the north bank of Coplay Creek, Swiss immigrant Adam Deshler raised a sturdy stone house in 1760 that doubled as a fortified refuge during the dangerous years of the French and Indian War. Frontier families sheltered behind its walls when raids threatened the scattered settlements of the Lehigh Valley. The building outlived its garrison days by nearly two centuries, passing through the Deshler family and later the Coplay Cement Company before finally coming down around 1940.

Wilkes-Barre, PA · est. 1947

Begun in April 1769, Fort Durkee was the first stronghold raised by Connecticut settlers in the Wyoming Valley, named for their leader. It became a flashpoint of the First Pennamite War of 1769–71, the armed contest between Connecticut Yankees and Pennsylvania authorities over who rightfully held the land. The fort stood just a thousand feet from its rival, Fort Wyoming, a measure of how close the two colonial claims pressed against each other.

Lynn Township, PA · est. 1951

Around 1756, at the height of the French and Indian War, a log blockhouse rose just north of here as one link in a chain of frontier defenses guarding the settled valleys south of Blue Mountain. Its garrison watched the country between the Schuylkill and Lehigh Rivers, offering refuge to farm families when raiding parties struck the exposed Pennsylvania backcountry. Such small forts were the difference between staying and fleeing for the region's colonists.

Franklin, PA · est. 1947

In 1787, with the Revolution won but the frontier still contested, U.S. troops under Captain Jonathan Heart raised Fort Franklin just west of here at the strategic waters of French Creek. It was the first American military post in the region, built to shield the fragile new settlements of northwestern Pennsylvania during the tense years of the Northwest Indian conflicts. The fort anchored American authority in a corner of the country France and Britain had once fought over.

West Penn Township, PA · est. 1955

In the mid-1750s the Pennsylvania frontier erupted into violence as the French and Indian War spread down the Blue Mountain, and colonists petitioned for a chain of provincial forts to shield their scattered farms. This small stockade, thrown up in 1756 and named for Benjamin Franklin—then charged with organizing the colony's frontier defenses—was one such outpost. It saw little action and was given up the following year, a reminder of how quickly and cheaply many of these hastily built strongholds rose and fell.

Delaware Township, PA · est. 1947

As the Revolution reached the Pennsylvania frontier, settlers fortified Jacob Freeland's house in 1778, ringing it with a stockade against raids. On July 29, 1779, a force of British and allied Indians overwhelmed the small post, and its garrison of 21 were killed or captured—one of the sharp, deadly clashes that made the upper Susquehanna a war zone.

South Union Township, PA · est. 1946

Around 1764, on the old Catawba trail through the Pennsylvania backcountry, Thomas Gaddis raised a fortified house where settlers could take refuge during frontier raids. Such private strongholds were lifelines in a region where colonial and Native conflicts made isolated homesteads perilous. Gaddis himself later served as a colonel in the Pennsylvania Continental Line during the Revolution.

Lewistown, PA · est. 1947

Fort Granville was raised in 1755–56 as one link in the chain of stockades meant to shield Pennsylvania's frontier settlers during the French and Indian War. On July 30, 1756, a French and Indian force under Captain Louis Coulon de Villiers overwhelmed and burned it, carrying off captives. Its fall exposed how fragile the colony's western defenses were in the war's early, disastrous years.

Lewistown, PA · est. 1916

Raised in 1755–56 on the high bank of the Juniata, Fort Granville guarded a vulnerable stretch of the Pennsylvania frontier during the French and Indian War. It was attacked twice, and in July 1756 a large French and Indian force overwhelmed it, killing its commander, Lieut. Edward Armstrong, and either killing or carrying off the entire garrison. The loss was a shock that helped provoke Col. John Armstrong's retaliatory raid on the Delaware town of Kittanning weeks later.

Halifax Township, PA · est. 1946

In 1756, at the height of the French and Indian War, Col. William Clapham built Fort Halifax on the Susquehanna as one link in a chain of provincial forts strung along the Pennsylvania frontier. These stockades sheltered settlers and supplied troops during a war that saw brutal raids sweep the backcountry. The fort itself was short-lived, but it anchored the colony's defensive line during the conflict's most dangerous years.

Halifax Township, PA · est. 1926

When the French and Indian War set Pennsylvania's frontier aflame in the mid-1750s, the province threw up a chain of forts to shield its scattered settlements. Fort Halifax was one such post, built in 1756 under Colonel William Clapham along the Susquehanna corridor. Little more than a stockaded strongpoint, it anchored the line of defense that kept the war from rolling deeper into the colony.

Stroudsburg, PA · est. 1967

Built on Benjamin Franklin's direction and named for provincial councilman James Hamilton, Fort Hamilton guarded the Pocono frontier from 1755 to 1757 as part of a defensive chain raised during the French and Indian War. When violence threatened the scattered settlers of the region, forts like this one offered the only refuge. It was abandoned in 1757 and later succeeded by Fort Penn.

Stroudsburg, PA · est. 1930

Fort Hamilton was one of a chain of frontier forts that Benjamin Franklin directed to be built across Pennsylvania during the French and Indian War. Raised in January 1756 by Captain Levi Trump, it was garrisoned by a company of some forty men and passed through a succession of commanders over the next several years. The post guarded settlers in the Pocono frontier against raids during the conflict.

Lower Turkeyfoot Township, PA · est. 1947

Long before European settlers reached these ridges, Native people built and defended communities on the flat-topped hill above the valley. Archaeological study uncovered two villages ringed by wooden palisades, along with extensive traces of houses and burials, evidence of a settled and organized way of life. The finds date to the era around first European contact, when such fortified towns dotted the uplands of the region.

Susquehanna Township, PA · est. 1947

As the French and Indian War set the Pennsylvania frontier ablaze, colonists built a stockaded blockhouse here in 1755–56 to shelter settlers and to stage the construction of Fort Augusta upriver on the Susquehanna. For a few tense years it was a link in the province's chain of defenses; once the danger passed after 1763, it was abandoned and crumbled into ruin. The ground today holds the Fort Hunter Museum.

Susquehanna Township, PA · est. 1916

Built in the anxious winter of 1755–56, Fort Hunter was a blockhouse ringed by a stockade, one link in the chain of defenses Pennsylvania threw up along the Susquehanna after frontier raids began. It served less as a battlefield than as a supply depot and gathering point for troops moving through the valley during the French and Indian War. By 1814 the danger was a memory, and its last traces vanished when a new building rose on the ground.

Middle Smithfield Township, PA · est. 1947

In 1756, with the French and Indian War exposing Pennsylvania's undefended backcountry to devastating raids, the colonial government ordered a chain of frontier forts built along the mountains. Fort Hyndshaw anchored the northern end of that line, a stockaded refuge and garrison post guarding the settlers of the upper Delaware. These modest works were less battlefields than shelters where frontier families could ride out the terror of wartime raiding.

South Centre Township, PA · est. 1948

During the Revolution the Susquehanna frontier was a war zone, and settlers here fortified a house on the riverbank as a refuge between 1778 and 1780 until raiders destroyed it. The violence along this valley was part of the wider frontier warfare that pitted settlers against British-allied Native nations far from the war's famous battlefields. In a later, more peaceful chapter, the ground passed to James Wilson, a signer of the Declaration and a framer of the Constitution.

Waterford, PA · est. 1922

Here the French built Fort Le Boeuf in 1752 as one link in a chain of posts meant to seal their claim to the Ohio country. In 1753 a 21-year-old Major George Washington arrived carrying a letter from Virginia's governor demanding the French withdraw from lands Britain also claimed. The French politely refused, and the collision of empires that followed erupted into the French and Indian War.

West Brunswick Township, PA · est. 1949

After General Edward Braddock's disastrous 1755 defeat near Fort Duquesne left the Pennsylvania frontier exposed, colonists hurriedly threw up a chain of stockaded forts to shield settlers from raids during the French and Indian War. Fort Lebanon was one such outpost, later renamed Fort William in 1758 as the frontier defenses were reorganized. Its site, marked just off the road below, recalls a time when this quiet countryside was a tense military frontier.

Waterford, PA · est. 1946

This ground guarded the portage route linking Lake Erie to the Ohio Valley, and three successive forts rose here as empires contested the region. The French built the first in 1753 to secure their road south, abandoning it as their fortunes collapsed in 1759. A British fort followed in 1760 but was burned during Pontiac's uprising in 1763, and finally an American fort went up in 1794 to shield settlers moving west.

Waterford, PA · est. 1951

Here once stood the French Fort LeBoeuf, part of the chain of outposts France built to hold the Ohio Country in the 1750s. It was to this fort in 1753 that a 21-year-old George Washington carried a message from Virginia's governor demanding the French withdraw—his first public mission, and one of the sparks that helped ignite the French and Indian War. The Judson House, built in 1820, now occupies the historic ground.

Ligonier, PA · est. 1946

Fort Ligonier rose here in 1758 as a forward base for the Forbes Expedition, the British campaign that drove the French from the forks of the Ohio during the French and Indian War. Under Colonel James Burd its garrison beat back a French and Indian attack that October, and in 1763 it stood as the only small western fort never taken during Pontiac's War. From its shelter, Colonel Bouquet launched the relief that saved Fort Pitt.

Dublin Township, PA · est. 1924

In 1756, as war between Britain and France spilled across the Pennsylvania frontier, the colony raised a chain of provincial forts to shield its exposed backcountry settlements. Fort Littleton was one of these strongpoints, ordered up under Governor Robert Hunter Morris and planted on this knoll to guard a vital road through the mountains. In the fear-filled years of the French and Indian War, such stockades were refuge and rallying point for settlers who lived within reach of raiding parties.

Peters Township, PA · est. 1947

Built by the provincial government in 1756, Fort Loudon guarded the frontier during the French and Indian War and in 1758 served as a staging point for Gen. John Forbes's expedition that captured Fort Duquesne. In 1765 the fort became a flashpoint of a different kind when frontiersmen led by James Smith — the "Black Boys" — forced a British garrison to withdraw, an early act of armed colonial defiance. The site thus spans both the imperial war and the friction that would build toward revolution.

Peters Township, PA · est. 1915

Fort Loudon was built by Colonel John Armstrong in the winter of 1756 to guard the Pennsylvania frontier during the French and Indian War, replacing the earlier post at McDowell's Mill. It became a key staging point for the campaigns of General John Forbes in 1758 and Colonel Henry Bouquet in 1763–64, and the base from which pack-horse trains set out for the west. In 1765 it was the scene of the defiant exploits of Captain James Smith and his 'Black Boys,' frontiersmen who resisted the arms trade with hostile tribes.

Dublin Township, PA · est. 1967

Begun in 1755 by frontier trader and Indian agent George Croghan, Fort Lyttelton was one of a string of provincial strongholds thrown up across Pennsylvania during the French and Indian War. Named by Governor Morris for Sir George Lyttelton, Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, it sheltered provincial soldiers, regulars, and local volunteers through the frontier violence of the 1750s and the 1763 uprising. By 1764 the fort had already fallen into ruins, its wartime purpose spent.

Franklin, PA · est. 1969

During the French and Indian War, the French built Fort Machault here in 1756 to help secure their chain of posts guarding the route to the contested Ohio Country. Its usefulness ended in 1759, when the fall of Fort Niagara forced the French to abandon and burn their positions along the upper Allegheny. The site of the fort lies a block to the south of the marker.

East Hanover Township, PA · est. 1970

During the French and Indian War, settler James Brown's fortified log house served as a frontier strongpoint, garrisoned as Fort Manada from January 1756 to May 1757 as an outpost of nearby Fort Swatara. A small complement of about twenty-one officers and men manned it against raids along Pennsylvania's exposed backcountry. No description of the structure itself survives, leaving only its story on the land.

Montgomery Township, PA · est. 1946

Built about 1755 on William Marshall's land near the Old Warm Spring Trail, this refuge was one link in the frontier's early-warning network. It served as a station on the daily military patrols that guarded the Conococheague Settlement against raids during the French and Indian War. Riders moving between such posts carried word of danger, giving scattered farm families precious time to reach safety.

Masontown, PA · est. 1946

On the trans-Appalachian frontier of the 1770s, isolated families built their own defenses long before any army arrived. John Mason raised this blockhouse between 1774 and 1778, a stout log structure meant to shelter neighbors when danger threatened during the Revolutionary years. When the fighting passed, the timbers found a second life relocated to Main Street as an ordinary dwelling — the frontier fort quietly becoming a family home.

Bloomsburg, PA · est. 1948

After frontier raids destroyed nearby Fort Jenkins in 1780, the noted borderland fighter Moses Van Campen stockaded the McClure house early in 1781 to shelter settlers along the north bank of the Susquehanna. The improvised fort stood in what is now Bloomsburg, part of a chain of refuges thrown up as the Revolution's frontier war ground on. Such places were less military garrisons than desperate havens for families caught between armies and raiding parties.

Hamilton Township, PA · est. 1947

In the tense years of the French and Indian War, Pennsylvania's Cumberland Valley settlers threw up log stockades like Fort McCord to shelter their families when frontier violence flared. Named for the settler John McCord, this refuge was overwhelmed and burned on April 1, 1756, in a raid that left 27 people dead or dragged into captivity. Such attacks were part of the wider war between Britain and France, in which allied Native nations struck deep into the exposed backcountry.

Hamilton Township, PA · est. 1914

On April 1, 1756, Fort McCord — one of the small stockaded refuges thrown up along Pennsylvania's Cumberland Valley frontier during the French and Indian War — was overrun, and twenty-seven settlers were killed or carried off. A militia party that gave chase was itself ambushed days later at Sideling Hill, where many of the pursuers fell. The marker names the women, children, and provincial soldiers lost, preserving a roll of the dead from one of the war's bloodiest weeks on the backcountry.

Peters Township, PA · est. 1947

When war swept the frontier after 1755, John McDowell's gristmill was ringed with a stockade and pressed into service as a provincial strongpoint until the more substantial Fort Loudon rose the next year. The site also anchored one end of Colonel James Burd's road, cut in 1755 to carry troops and supplies westward toward the Ohio country. A working mill thus became both a fort and a gateway into the contested interior.

Peters Township, PA · est. 1916

Fort McDowell grew up around a frontier gristmill before 1754, then became a supply base and munitions store as the French and Indian War closed in, holding that role until Fort Loudon was raised in 1756. From this point in 1755 Col. James Burd pushed a military road westward to link with Braddock's ill-fated route at Turkey Foot. Standing at the edge of settled country, the little fort saw its share of the war's frontier alarms.

Beaver, PA · est. 1946

Built in 1778 during the Revolution, Fort McIntosh was the first military post the young United States raised north of the Ohio River, a foothold in contested Indian country. In 1785 it hosted the Treaty of Fort McIntosh, one of the early agreements by which the new republic pressed Native nations to cede lands in the Northwest Territory, and it also served as a base for surveying that opening frontier. The garrison was abandoned around 1790-91 as the line of settlement moved on.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1990

Laid out in 1771 by the British engineer John Montresor, Fort Mifflin guarded the Delaware River approach to Philadelphia. In the autumn of 1777 its small American garrison endured one of the fiercest bombardments of the Revolution, holding out against overwhelming British firepower until forced to abandon the ruins on November 15—buying precious time for Washington's army. Rebuilt around 1800 to a design associated with L'Enfant and enlarged in the nineteenth century, it served as a U.S. military post into the 1950s.

Shippensburg, PA · est. 1961

In the anxious summer of 1755, after General Braddock's crushing defeat on the Monongahela threw the Pennsylvania frontier open to French and allied Native raids, local settlers threw up a stockade here under James Burd and named it for provincial governor Robert Hunter Morris. Garrisoned by provincial troops under Hugh Mercer, it was one link in a chain of frontier forts meant to shield the exposed Cumberland Valley. Long after the timbers rotted, the soldiers' well still marked the spot a block north on Burd Street.

Muncy Township, PA · est. 2017

During the American Revolution, the West Branch Susquehanna Valley was a violent frontier, and Fort Muncy stood as the principal defensive post north of Sunbury. Built to shield settlers from raids, it was overrun by British forces and their Native allies in 1778, rebuilt and destroyed again in 1779, and raised a third time because its position was too important to abandon. From here scouting parties ranged out to guard a settler frontier caught in the wider war for independence.

Wharton Township, PA · est. 1946

In the spring of 1754 a young Virginia colonel named George Washington threw up a crude circular stockade in this soggy mountain clearing, aptly naming it Fort Necessity. On July 4 that year, outnumbered and surrounded by French and allied forces in the pouring rain, he was compelled to surrender — the only time in his life he ever did so. The skirmish here helped ignite the French and Indian War, a global conflict that reshaped North America.

Wharton Township, PA · est. 1926

In the Great Meadows just south of here, a 22-year-old lieutenant colonel named George Washington built a rough stockade he called Fort Necessity in the summer of 1754. Surrounded by a far larger force of French regulars and their Native allies under Coulon de Villiers, Washington and his raw Virginia and South Carolina troops fought a nine-hour engagement in the rain before surrendering, marching out with the honors of war on July 4, 1754.

Polk Township, PA · est. 1947

Fort Norris rose in 1756 as one of a string of frontier defenses Pennsylvania threw up during the French and Indian War, when raids drove settlers from their farms across the northern counties. Garrisoned by provincial troops, it served as a strongpoint and place of refuge in a landscape suddenly turned dangerous. The actual site stood about a mile from where the marker stands.

Stroudsburg, PA · est. 1967

Named for Governor John Penn and built to replace the abandoned Fort Hamilton, Fort Penn stood nearby as a provincial stronghold on the Pocono frontier. Garrisoned in 1763 amid renewed frontier warfare, it later became a haven for terrified settlers fleeing the raids that followed the Battle of Wyoming on July 3, 1778. In two different conflicts it served the same essential purpose: shelter on a dangerous frontier.

Indiana Township, PA · est. 1959

This blockhouse, a small defensive redoubt, was built in 1764 by Colonel Henry Bouquet as one of the outworks guarding Fort Pitt near its western bastions. It rose in the tense years after the French and Indian War, when British control of the forks of the Ohio was still contested during Pontiac's War. Today it is the only surviving structure of the great fort that once commanded this strategic point.

Erie, PA · est. 1946

Guarding the Lake Erie end of the strategic portage to the Ohio Valley, Fort Presque Isle changed hands as European empires fought for the continent. The French built it under Marin in 1753 and abandoned it in 1759; a British fort raised by Colonel Bouquet in 1760 fell to Pontiac's warriors in 1763. From here the French Road ran inland to Fort LeBoeuf, a chain of posts binding the lake to the Ohio country.

Lock Haven, PA · est. 1947

On the exposed western edge of colonial settlement, William Reed's stockaded house stood as the farthest line of defense for families along the Susquehanna's West Branch. In an era of frontier raids, such fortified homesteads gave scattered pioneers a place to shelter when danger threatened. A monument near the bridge now marks where this pioneer outpost once guarded the valley.

Antis Township, PA · est. 1947

During the American Revolution, frontier Pennsylvania needed lead for musket balls, and the Sinking Valley mines offered a rare domestic source. In 1778 Daniel Roberdeau built a fort here to guard those mines and the miners who supplied the Continental army. The stockade, sometimes called Fort Roberdeau or the "Lead Mine Fort," stood a few miles from this marker.

Northeast Madison Township, PA · est. 1947

In 1755, as the French and Indian War set the Pennsylvania frontier ablaze, settlers in the Sherman's Valley threw up a fortified stronghold on George Robinson's land. Fort Robinson was one of a chain of rough private and provincial forts where scattered farm families could shelter when war parties swept through. For several harrowing years it served as a place of refuge on an exposed and dangerous frontier.