Franklin Begins Building Chain of Forts on December 29, 1755

Governor Robert Hunter Morris summoned the Provincial Assembly for November 3, 1755, when he laid before them an account of the depredations committed by the enemy, and demanded money and a militia law.

Petitions began to pour in from all parts of the Province; from the frontier counties praying for arms and munitions; from the middle counties, deprecating further resistance to the views of the Governor, and urging, if necessary, a sacrifice of property for the better defense of their lives. All wished that the religious scruples of the members of the Assembly might no longer prevent the better defense of the Province.

By the middle of November, and while the Assembly was receiving these petitions, the Indians entered the passes of the Blue Mountains and broke into the Counties of Lancaster, Berks and Northampton, committing murder, devastation and every other kind of horrid mischief, and yet the Assembly debated and debated the measures for defense.

The Governor, wearied with this delay, sent a message requesting the Assembly to strengthen his hands and afford assistance to the back inhabitants, but this time they made the excuse that in so doing they might alienate the affections of the Indians, and to a large degree refused to grant the means necessary for the protection of the frontiers. This was truly an unfortunate position.

But at this time the alarming news of Braddock’s defeat reached the proprietaries in England, and they came forward with a donation of £5000 for defense, to be collected from arrears in quit-rents; but they refused to grant it on any other ground than as a free gift. The Assembly waived their rights for a time, in consideration of the distressed state of the Province, and passed a bill to strike £30,000 in bills of credit, based upon the excise. This bill was approved by Governor Morris.

The population of the Province was not yet satisfied with the cold indifference of the Assembly at such a crisis and throughout all the 917counties there were indignant protests. Public meetings were held throughout Lancaster and the frontier counties, at which it was resolved that the people should “repair to Philadelphia and compel the provincial authorities to pass proper laws to defend the country and oppose the enemy.”

In addition, the dead bodies of some of the murdered and mangled were sent to Philadelphia and hauled about the streets with placards announcing that they were victims of the Quaker policy of nonresistance.

A large and threatening mob surrounded the House of Assembly, placed the dead bodies of their neighbors in the doorway and demanded immediate relief for the people of the frontiers. Such indeed were the desperate measures resorted to in their effort to obtain better defense.

One of the results of these demonstrative measures and the protests of the people was the erection of a chain of forts and block-houses. These were designed to guard against the Indian incursions and were erected by the Province, at a cost of £85,000.

This chain extended from along the Kittatinny Hills, near where Stroudsburg now stands, southeasterly through the Province, to the Maryland line. They were constructed at the important passes of the mountains and at important places, almost equi-distant, so that they would the better serve as havens of refuge when attacked suddenly.

These forts were garrisoned by troops in the pay of the Province, twenty to seventy-five men always under the command of a commissioned officer. Even the Moravians at Bethlehem cheerfully fortified their town and took up arms in self-defense.

Benjamin Franklin and James Hamilton were selected to repair to the forks of the Delaware and raise troops for the execution of the plan. They arrived at Easton, December 29, and appointed William Parsons to be major of the troops to be raised in Northampton County.

In the meantime Captain Hays, with his company from the Irish Settlement, in that county, had been ordered to New Gnadenhutten, which had recently been the scene of an Indian raid, in which they applied the torch, many being burned to death and others escaped to Bethlehem in their nightclothes in the cold winter air.

The troops erected a temporary stockade and a garrison was placed there to guard the Brethren’s mills, which were filled with grain, and to protect the few settlers who had the hardihood to return and again settle there.

Captain Hay’s detachment was attacked on New Year’s Day, 1756, while some of the troops were amusing themselves skating on the ice of the river, near the stockade. They noticed some Indians in the distance and thinking it an easy matter to capture or kill them the soldiers gave chase, and rapidly gained on these Indians, who proved to be decoys skilfully maneuvering to draw the untrained Indian fighters into an ambuscade.

918After the troops had gone some distance a party of Indians rushed out behind them, cut off their retreat and, falling upon them with great fury, as well as with the advantage of surprise and superior numbers, quickly dispatched them. Some of the soldiers, remaining in the stockade, filled with terror by the murder of their comrades, deserted, and the few remaining thinking themselves incapable of defending the place, withdrew.

The savages then seized upon such property as they could use and set fire to the stockade, the Indians’ houses and the Brethren’s mills. Seven farm houses between Gnadenhutten and Nazareth were burned by those same Indians, who also murdered such of the people as they discovered.

This incursion was the inception of Fort Allen. It seems that “it was the intention to build a fort at New Gnadenhutten, and Colonel Franklin started to Bethlehem to carry that plan into operation.”operation.” But the situation required him to change his plans and he marched to what is now Weissport, in Carbon County, and there erected Fort Allen. The site of this provincial fort is now occupied by Fort Allen Hotel. The old well is still in existence.

The Assembly requested Franklin’s appearance and when he responded to this call he turned his command over to Colonel William Clapham.

It is interesting to note that the chain of forts began with Fort Dupui, built on the property of Samuel Dupui, a Huguenot settler, in the present town of Shawnee, on the Delaware River, five and one-half miles from the present town of Stroudsburg. Then Fort Hamilton was built on the present site of Stroudsburg, where Fort Penn was also in the eastern part of the town. These forts were in the heart of the territory which the Minsink, or Munsee, Indians occupied.

Fort Norris came next in the chain and was near Greensweig’s, Monroe County, and fifteen miles west was Fort Allen, and then Fort Franklin, in Albany Township, Berks County, and nineteen miles west was Fort Lebanon, also known as Fort William, about a mile and a half from the present town of Auburn, a short distance from Port Clinton. The next in the chain was the small fort at Deitrick Six’s, then Fort Henry; then Fort Swatara, both described in former stories, and then Fort Hunter, six miles above Harrisburg, and Fort Halifax, both on the Susquehanna River.

Crossing the river was Fort Patterson, in the Tuscarora Valley, opposite Mexico, Juniata County; Fort Granville, near Lewistown; Fort Shirley, near Aughwick Creek; Fort Lyttleton, at Sugar Cabins, and Fort McDowell, in Franklin County, the last of the line in the Province of Pennsylvania.

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