Finding Fort Morris
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Middle States Geographer, 2004, 37: 45-52 FINDING FORT MORRIS Paul Marr Department of Geography-Earth Science Shippensburg University 1871 Old Main Drive Shippensburg, PA 17257 ABSTRACT: On July 31, 1755, following the defeat of General Braddock’s army in western Pennsylvania, Governor Robert Morris commissioned the construction of two stockade forts, one in Carlisle and one in Shippensburg. Built by Colonel William Burd and named in honor of the governor, Shippensburg’s Fort Morris was one of a line of frontier defenses erected to protect local settlers and garrison provincial troops. While the location of the fort at Carlisle is well documented, there has been much confusion over the location of Shippensburg’s small fort. For over one hundred years local historians have argued about this topic without reaching consensus, so that there are now three locations recognized by various state agencies and local organizations as the site of the fort. This research will examine the available historic evidence, paying particular attention to the geographic aspects of the extant documentation, in an attempt to locate the actual site of Fort Morris. INTRODUCTION forts, as well as Fort Louden and several private blockhouses, would provide a secondary line of In the summer of 1755 British Major- defense for the widely scattered western outposts. Morris immediately left for Philadelphia, where on General Edward Braddock took his main force of st 1450 men through Virginia and across the July 31 he wrote to Thomas Penn: Monongahela River on his way to engage the French On the 16th I wrote you from Carlisle in at Fort Duquesne. Robert Hunter Morris, the newly Cumberland given an account of the defeat of our appointed governor of Pennsylvania, went to the Forces under General Braddock in the imperfect small frontier settlement of Carlisle in an effort to manner I then had it from deserted Waggoners support Braddock’s military actions in the west. which however appearing to one to be in substance Morris commissioned a chain of supply depots be true. I issued writs to summon the Assembly on the organized and placed Charles Swaine in charge of 23rd and returned to Philadelphia having at the assembling the westernmost depot at the small town request of the people laid the Ground for a Wooden Fort in the Town of Carlisle and directed one of the of Shippensburg. Edward Shippen, the town’s 4 proprietor, offered Morris the use of his “Strong same kind to be formed at Shippensburgh. Stone House, 30 feet Square, at the back Run…”1 for Morris to use as the depot. Swaine arrived in Although this was the first official mention Shippensburg June 9th, 1756 and began securing of a fort at Shippensburg, preparations for the fort probably began within a week of Braddock’s defeat, supplies, but was instructed by Morris to wait for th instructions from General Braddock before preparing as on July 16 , 1755 Joseph Shippen wrote his father 2 Edward concerning the procurement of “12 Muskets the depot. While Swaine waited in Shippensburg, 5 Morris had decided to move the supplies 20 miles for the Fort to be built at Shippensburg”. west to McDowell’s Mill in an effort to locate the Swaine, who was already in Shippensburg depot closer to the troops.3 when news of Braddock’s defeat reached the On July 9th Braddock’s forces were defeated Cumberland valley, was placed in charge preparing by the French and the provincial army was dealt a the Shippensburg fort, but the actual construction fell crushing blow. Less than a week later, Morris to James Burd, son-in-law of Edward Shippen. received news of Braddock’s defeat and immediately commissioned the construction of two stockade forts, one in Carlisle and one in Shippensburg. These two 45 Finding Fort Morris On November 2nd Burd wrote to Shippen: the Campbell papers were reported to have been found in his desk and were later published in the … As our Fort goes on here with great vigour and April 3rd, 1880 edition of The Shippensburg News. expect to be finished in 15 days, in which we Unfortunately these papers have not been located and intend to throw all the Women and Children, it their existence can not be verified. The sources would be greatly Encouraging could we have quoted in Hazard’s 1829 work contain several Reason to expect assistance from Philada, by inaccuracies13 and has been labeled by a historians as private Donation of Sweevells, a few great guns, 14 small arms & ammunition… We have 100 men an obvious fraud. Therefore, the evidence of the working at Fort Morris… existence of Fort Franklin comes solely from secondary published works whose primary sources This is the first time that the stockade was cannot be located or authenticated. called Fort Morris. The fort was still not completed Prior to the French and Indian War there by March of 1756, most likely due to Burd being were no significant military establishments in commissioned as a captain in the provincial troops. Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Assembly and the Work on the fort was then taken up by others and western settlers did not view the Ohio valley as a completed sometime during the late spring of 1756 region of potential conflict, but rather as one of and garrisoned shortly thereafter.6 rivalry—a view that did not change until the middle 1750s. In 1740 the state had no standing army, and there is no record of Governor Thomas garrisoning THE LOST FORT troops at any location. Governor Thomas, at the time Fort Franklin was supposed to be built, was There is a long standing local tradition that enmeshed in a political deadlock with the Quaker Shippensburg was the site of two forts: Fort Morris, assemblymen over the raising of a state militia,15 a which was completed in 1756, and a little known proposal that was eventually defeated. Perhaps the earlier fort which has come to be called Fort best indication that there was no fort prior to Fort Franklin. The first mention of this earlier “settler’s Morris is that there is no mention of such a fort 7 fort” was by Hazard in 1829, reprinting a document anywhere in any of Edward Shippen’s tabulating the disposition of forces on the frontier and correspondence. During the 1740s Shippen had still purportedly written in 1755. Adding credence to the intended to use his Shippensburg land as a plantation, assertion that there were two forts in Shippensburg and he would have certainly taken a interest in the was a map produced by J. G. Weiser showing Fort construction of a fort using timber from his lands at a Morris on the western end of Shippensburg and an time when the frontier was relatively peaceful.16 8 “old English fort” on the northeastern end. John Unfortunately, local tradition dies hard since McCurdy, writing in Wing’s History of the more recent secondary published works—for the Cumberland Valley, fixed the date of the completion most part written by local historians17—perpetuate of Fort Franklin at 1740. McCurdy gave his writings the existence of Fort Franklin. This has led to credibility by noting that Governor George Thomas continued attempts to reconcile the locations of the sent a garrison of 22 men, thereby advancing the idea two forts, which has only added to the confusion. 9 that “Fort Franklin” was a provisional outpost. Currently there are three locations in Shippensburg There are no extant documents from the that have been suggested as the site of Fort Morris, period that mention any other fort in Shippensburg one of which is also identified as the site of Fort except Fort Morris. All subsequent historical research Franklin. Since there are no known contemporary 10 concerning Fort Franklin (in Shippensburg) can be maps which pinpoint the location of Fort Morris, the traced back to material published by John McCurdy burden falls solely on the few extant records that in 1879, whose writings on Fort Franklin and other have been authenticated. Fortunately there is enough local historical events were extremely detailed. evidence contained in these records to allow McCurdy was purported to have a set of papers researchers to make an educated and defensible 11 written by Francis Campbell, a merchant who is proposition as to the fort’s location. thought to have arrived in Shippensburg in either the late 1730s or early 1740s.12 Upon McCurdy’s death 46 Middle States Geographer, 2004, 37: 45-52 LAYOUT AND CONSTRUCTION OF FORT MORRIS Although individual designs varied widely, most frontier forts of the time were of the simple stockade type, consisting of a regular square of vertically placed logs and an elevated bastion at each corner to house small canons or swivel guns.18 The most distinctive feature of these early stockades was their bastions, which were angled in such a way as to allow for the maximum “line of defense”. This line marked an area around the perimeter of the fort where enemy troops could be subjected to fire from two directions. Morris laid out the proportions of the Figure 2. The portion of the Forbes memorandum standard stockade fort in a memorandum to Colonel noting the important dimensions of Fort Morris. William Clapham, the commander of Fort Augusta.19 Unfortunately the diagram which apparently The proportions of Fort Morris are detailed accompanied the memorandum has been lost, but th based on the text of the document the procedure was in a memorandum written on August 13 , 1758 by 20 Brigadier-General John Forbes after visiting the reconstructed by Hunter and was subsequently used 21 to reproduce the layout and proportions of Fort fort.