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.
Mason and Dixon Determined Starting Point
for Boundary Survey, December 30, 1763
The dispute over the boundary of the province on the south began with the acquisition of the charter and continued through the life of William Penn and his descendants, until almost the end of Proprietary Government in Pennsylvania.
Charles Calvert, the fifth Lord Baltimore, drew an agreement, defining the boundaries between Maryland and Delaware and Maryland and Pennsylvania. On May 10, 1732, John and Thomas Penn agreed to this and signed the instrument. John Penn and Lord Baltimore then came to America, and, Baltimore changed his mind and caused every possible delay in having a survey made of this disputed line.