This news dampened the ardor of the volunteers and they soon concluded they could be of more effective service guarding their own firesides and they hurried back. The news that 500 Indians had already made their way through Tolkeo Gap and had killed a number of people did not contribute to their joy on the long march home.
Colonel Weiser sensed the situation and fully understood he could not count much upon this group, so he advised them to make a breastwork of trees at Swatara Gap, promising to procure for them a quantity of bread and ammunition. They got as far as the top of the mountain; fired their guns to alarm the neighborhood, and then hurried back.
Soon came the news of the murder of Henry Hartman, just over the mountain. When Mr. Parsons and a party went to bury the body, they learned that two others had been recently killed and scalped, and some had been captured. The roads were filled with persons fleeing from their homes and confusion reigned.
It was clearly apparent that Swatara Gap must be occupied by troops and Colonel Weiser ordered Captain Christian Busse with his company of fifty men to “proceed to Tolihaio Gap, and there erect a stoccado fort of the form and dimensions given you, and to take posts there and range the woods from the fort westward towards the Swatara and eastward towards a stoccado to be built by Cap. Morgan, about half way between the said fort and Fort Lebanon.”
Governor Morris writing to Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia, February 1, 1756, advised him that he had arranged to build a chain of forts, about ten or twelve miles apart, between the Delaware and Susquehanna. The best is “built at an important Pass through ye Kittahteny Hills, on our Northern Frontier and I have called it Fort Henry.” This is an error, as he should have written Fort Swatara.
This might be proved by a letter Colonel Conrad Weiser wrote to Governor Morris, July 11, 1756, giving the assignment of his troops. He stated that the men under Captain Smith are all placed in and about Swatara Gap and the Manada Fort; Captain Busse’s men were at Fort Henry and Captain Morgan’s at Fort Northkill and Fort Lebanon. This definitely proves that Fort Swatara and Fort Henry were not one and the same place.
The first and most important of the commanders of Fort Swatara was Captain Frederick Smith, whose company was recruited in Chester County. Captain Smith was ordered, January 26, to proceed as soon as possible to Swatara and in some convenient place there to erect a fort.
Captain Adam Read and Captain Hendrick, who had been ranging the mountains, were ordered to dismiss their men and turn over their arms and supplies to Captain Smith, all of which was done.
Further mention of the actual building of Fort Swatara is missing, as is the case of Manada Fort, but it is very probable that the stockade erected by the settlers was occupied by the provincial troops. This was not a very formidable fortification, and was afterward referred to in a letter to Colonel Washington as “only a block house.” It may therefore be presumed, at this late day, that it consisted of a single building, surrounded by a stockade.
The many murders committed by the savages and their stealthy approach, made it necessary to distribute the soldiers among the various farmhouses, especially during the harvest season.