Some of my older readers might be looking at that subject line and thinking this looks familiar. They might even be thinking Laura, are you feeling all right? You wrote this post seven years ago.
I'm fine, thank you. Actually, I'm a little giddy, because I have been making excellent progress on the first book version of this blog! I'm really happy with what I've got so far, I'm about halfway through at this point. The book will contain all of the blog posts about Carbon County, which is thus far the only county in which I've completed posts about all of the markers. (Well, all of them except for the ones related to the Walking Purchase. That's a big hornet's nest that needs special consideration.) The original posts are being expanded, with more information, more images, and - my apologies - more humor.
I recently finished the chapter about Fort Allen and its well, and I thought that as a sneak preview, I'd redo the blog post and put in some of that new stuff. I won't put in all of it, of course, because I have to save some goodies for the finished project. But if you like what you see here, then you have an idea of what I'll be releasing fairly soon!
When I wrote about the ill-fated Gnadenhütten, which is still one of my most popular posts of all time, I mentioned that as a result of the attack, a fort was built in the vicinity. This is that fort. This is a two-marker post, because the fort has a marker and its well has a separate marker of its own.
Following the Moravian massacre, the government realized that something had to be done to protect the settlers and the friendly Natives from outside attacks. The Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly almost immediately allocated considerable funds for frontier defense, and a temporary garrison was established on the ruins of Gnadenhütten itself, but it was deserted and burned after a group of soldiers were ambushed and killed. The Assembly suggested that the Moravians build a fort on their land in the area. The Moravians pointed out that they didn’t know very much about how to do that - while the brethren in Bethlehem had constructed a lot of other useful buildings, including their exceptional water distribution system, they had no experience with forts.
As a commissioner in the army and an almost frighteningly intelligent man of letters and science, the one and only Benjamin Franklin was selected to oversee the creation of a fort. He set out for Bethlehem in January 1756, and spent his 50th birthday there, before making his way to New Gnadenhütten. Ben’s strategy was to create what he called a ‘chain of forts’ stretching across the frontier, spaced at intervals close enough to each other that there would be enough protection. The first of these was to be situated roughly halfway between Nazareth and Gnadenhütten, on the northern side of the Blue Mountains near the Lehigh River. He drew up the plans relatively quickly, and immediately set about acquiring lumber from the nearby community of Kernsville, which today is called Slatington.
I’ll be honest, this is my favorite part of the story. It’s not clear if Ben went to Kernsville himself or sent some of his men; whoever it was, they went to Kern’s Mill, also known as Trucker’s Mill. The owner of the mill was William Kern, son of Kernsville's founder Nicholas Kern. William’s German neighbors called him the local trockener - the joker - due to his cheerful demeanor and good humor. This word somehow devolved into “trucker,” and that’s how the mill came to be identified. The reason this is my favorite part of the story is because I’m directly descended from William’s uncle, George Christopher Kern. In other words, Benjamin Franklin bought lumber from my family to build his chain of forts, beginning with this one.
Ben was a busy man, since he was not only personally overseeing the construction of Fort Allen, but also dispatching people to handle the construction of Fort Franklin, in Schuylkill County, and Fort Norris, in Monroe County.
Fort Allen was completed within a week and named in honor of William Allen, who at the time was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and a former mayor of Philadelphia. (Allen later founded the nearby city of Allentown, now the third-largest city in the state; his son James had a house there, Trout Hall, which will be the subject of a future post.) The fort's stockade - that is, the guard wall - was vaguely star-shaped; it was twelve feet high, 125 feet long, and 50 feet wide. There were two half bastions on opposite corners of the long walls, each with a mounted swivel gun, and a full bastion in the middle of each of the long sides. Within the stockade were officers' quarters, two barracks buildings, and a well that went 19 feet deep, known as the Franklin Well. A map of the fort's layout can be viewed on the Fort Wiki. Ben himself had to leave almost immediately after the place was finished, as he was summoned back to Philadelphia by the governor to participate in the Assembly.
Although there wasn’t a permanent trading post on the grounds until after 1758, both white and Native traders visited the fort often to deal in sugar, rum, and assorted dry goods. The fort was also a safe place for travelers to stop on their way to Bethlehem, Philadelphia, Easton, and points west of the river.
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| Monument to Benjamin Franklin and Fort Allen in Weissport Park, on Franklin Street |
Although there wasn’t a permanent trading post on the grounds until after 1758, both white and Native traders visited the fort often to deal in sugar, rum, and assorted dry goods. The fort was also a safe place for travelers to stop on their way to Bethlehem, Philadelphia, Easton, and points west of the river.
One visitor of note was Chief Teedyuscung, a Moravian convert known as the “King of the Delawares,” who had been invited to a peace conference in Easton to try to bring about an end to the hostilities. He stopped at Fort Allen in the summer of 1756, on an occasion when Captain George Reynolds was in Philadelphia and the fort was being commanded by his lieutenant, Anthony Miller. Miller managed to get the chief heavily drunk on rum, which Miller had stolen from the fort’s supplies, and tricked him into selling some deerskins, which were meant to be a gift for Governor Morris. On the same occasion, a Corporal Christian Weyrick instigated a violent mutiny; he and those he persuaded to join him smashed windows, antagonized the visiting Natives (to put it politely), and threatened to kill Miller. Miller, for his part, apparently did absolutely nothing to stop this mutiny.
What might be called a game of colonial telephone ensued. Captain Nicholas Wetterholt, stationed at Fort Hamilton, had the details of the chaos brought to him by a Native identified only as “Ben.” Wetterholt sent word to Major Parsons in Easton, who in turn shared this information with Governor Morris, and the governor ordered the arrest of both Miller and Weyrick. A justice of the peace from Bethlehem, Timothy Horsfield, was sent to bring the government's apologies to the outraged Teedyuscung and return the deerskins of which he'd been cheated. The entire garrison of Fort Allen, meanwhile, was swapped with that of Fort Norris, and Captain Jacob Orndt traded places with Captain Reynolds. Orndt took the precaution of building some cabins outside of the fort, where visiting Natives could stay without being subjected to any further trouble. The charges against Miller were eventually dismissed; Weyrick was arrested and taken to Easton, but no one seems to know what happened to him after that.
Orndt continued to have his hands full at Fort Allen, and found it increasingly difficult to keep order. My favorite complaint of his comes in a letter dated July 5, 1757. He reached out to Colonel Conrad Weiser, the celebrated missionary, to advise him of the expectation of roughly a hundred Seneca at the fort. Orndt then went on to make a request.
I am inform’d that Lieut. M_____ is run away with another man’s wife and hope you will inform his Honour the Governor how necessary it is that I might have another Lieutenant.
I can only assume that Weiser knew the lieutenant in question, so Orndt didn’t need to mention the name, but I’d personally love to know more details. His request was granted, in any case, and an Ensign Conrad was promoted to the rank.
In the fall of 1758, the multiple peace talks between the British colonists and the chiefs of thirteen Native American nations led to the signing of the Treaty of Easton. In exchange for them no longer supporting the French side of the war, the Natives would have their rights restored to certain tracts of land, particularly their traditional hunting grounds in the Ohio River valley. The Lenape nation also accepted a cash settlement in return for giving up their claims to any land in New Jersey. With this arrangement, the Native attacks on settlers came to an end, and many of the frontier forts started to fall into disuse.
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| Marker is found in Weissport Park on Franklin Street |
For Fort Allen, this meant a gradual dwindling of the garrison, and the fort was largely abandoned by 1761; it was declared closed, and ownership of the land it occupied was returned to the Moravian church. It did return to service briefly during a few other conflicts, including Pontiac’s War and the American Revolution, but its primary use was as a shelter for the local townsfolk in times of crisis.
An exception came in 1780, when 112 soldiers were stationed in and near the fort because fifteen area residents, including the entire Gilbert family, had been taken prisoner by a group of Natives. The kidnap victims were eventually rescued and brought home, though it took three years to recover them all. Their story, first published in 1784 as The Captivity of Benjamin Gilbert and His Family, 1780-1783, has since been reprinted under various titles.
Ultimately, Fort Allen was dismantled in 1785 by order of Colonel Jacob Weiss, to make way for the construction of the community of Weissport. Meanwhile, the fort’s well was left intact. I can’t find an explanation as to why; maybe the locals were still using it. Or, since it was still known then as the Franklin Well, maybe it was kept as a reminder of Ben Franklin’s time among them. Maybe both.
In 1922, a statue of Ben Franklin was erected in the small public park across the street from the well, to commemorate the existence of Fort Allen and Ben's role in creating it. In 1971, a historical marker was added near the statue for the well. A postcard dated 1907 shows the well looking like an antique iron pump situated atop a wooden platform; but by the time of the marker’s placement, Weissport had given the relic a handsome restoration. Known today as Fort Allen Well, it’s situated behind Jacobs United Church of Christ, on Franklin Street, and can be viewed at most any time by the public. As the only surviving piece of Fort Allen, it remains well preserved… pun intended.
Sources and Further Reading:
Montgomery, Thomas Lynch. Report of the Commission to Locate the Site of the Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania, Vol. 1. Published 1916; transcribed for the USGenWeb Archives by Georgette Ochs.
Pauff, Georgie. "Ben Franklin Built Outpost in Weissport." The Morning Call, January 13, 2000.
Elliott, Ella Zerbey. Blue Book of Schuylkill County: Who Was Who and Why. Published by the Pottsville, PA Republican, 1915.
Franklin, Benjamin. Memoirs of the Private Life of Benjamin Franklin. Originally published in French (Mémoires de la vie privée de Benjamin Franklin). French publication by Buisson, Paris, 1791; first English reprint by J. Parson's, London, 1793.
Horsfield, Timothy. “Substance of Capt. Wetterholt's letter giving an account of disturbances at Fort Allen, 12 August 1756.” Timothy Horsfield Papers, American Philosophical Society Libraries.
NorthAmericanForts.com
Fort Allen and Fort Allen Well at the Historical Marker Database
Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.
Fort Allen and Fort Allen Well at the Historical Marker Database
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Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.
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