How are Historic Markers Made?
It is important to note that this extensive “commemorative complex” (Smith 2023) was not orchestrated by the federal or state governments. Instead, the Sullivan commemorative complex involved independent projects established by people working on their own or within civic organizations. Patriotic hereditary societies such as independent chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution or historical societies established many of the markers. As a result, the appearance, texts, and overall messages of the different elements of this complex vary greatly, as this website reveals.
In the twentieth century, state agencies became involved in celebrating Sullivan. In 1929, the Pennsylvania Historical Commission and the New York State Education Department developed dozens of grand stone monoliths with bronze plaques for the 150th anniversary of the expedition. These stone monuments were followed with dozens of metal highway signs established by these same agencies or their successor organizations in the 1930s into the present day. The messages on this highway signs were often blunt and unforgiving, as we see below.
Roadside sign established by New York State Education Department in 1932 (Source: Smith collection)
Many people are surprised to learn that historical markers had little oversight before the twentieth century. From the start of the nation, there was a concerted effort to keep the federal government out of the monument-making business to avoid what was viewed as Old-World ancestor-worship associated with absolutist forms of government. As a result, until states created oversight groups (such as the Pennsylvania Historical Commission in 1913), people who wanted to recognize a historic event had to come up with the funds and determine the wording and commemorative stylistic features on their own. There were no national-level organizations to vet language, artistry, or to fact-check. Many of the markers found on this site were the work of individual elites or social clubs like historical societies or patriotic hereditary organizations, composed not of professional historians but of people interested in history, groups that wanted to get across certain perspectives at certain times, sometimes for very personal reasons. Many of the marker texts present antiquated and derogatory language and interpretations. These early efforts at public history-making do not represent contemporary practice. It is important to consider that the results of this work may have had lasting effects on how people today understand this past.
Newtown Monument site
A good example of the idiosyncratic origins of our traditions is the Newtown Monument (also known as the Sullivan Monument) located in Newtown Battlefield Park in Lowman, NY, Chemung County. This monument was almost placed in a different (Tioga) county. A 1879 centennial celebration was first proposed by Waverly, NY lawyer, William Fiske Warner. Warner thought the one pitched battle of Washington’s Indian Expedition was worth celebrating. He proposed Waverly as the ideal location for a public event because it was halfway between the battle site and the military base at Camp Sullivan (but miles from either location). The committee formed to plan the event soon to instead to situate the celebration near the battle site in Chemung County. Committee members were unclear where the battle occurred, however, and even what to call it. In the end, they chose to call it the “Battle of Newtown,” but they placed the monument far from the battle site on a hilltop where it could be seen by passengers traveling on the new railroad lines the committee chair owned.
Practicalities determine Marker Placement
State and local officials sometimes knowingly located markers far from the actual sites out of concern for public safety or to be more visible or accessible to automobile travelers. Many of Pennsylvania’s 1929 monuments that trace the path of Sullivan’s soldiers were situated on the wrong side of the Susquehanna River, along more well-traveled roads.
Narrations are Simplified and sometimes Wrong
Historical markers must capture a great deal of information in a few lines and thus grossly simplify historical events. Some assertions made on New York’s 1929 Sullivan-Clinton monuments are highly debatable if not outright wrong. Their author, state historian Alexander C. Flick, was a medieval European historian who found himself responsible for the Education Department’s Revolutionary War programming. He spent considerable time learning about the Sullivan Expedition, gathering sources, and coming up with accounts to share with the residents of the state. He did not have available many of the sources today’s historians can access, nor could he read the historical texts of the future. The 35 New York 1929 monoliths state the following
Marker Text Close-up (NYSED Marker, Canajoharie, NY, author's image)
This text implies that the expedition, designed to stem attacks on frontier settlements, succeeded in this mission (“checked the aggressions”). Several historians have since pointed out that this was not the case: that Haudenosaunee/Tory/British attacks on frontier communities accelerated after the expedition. This text also implies that it was this expedition that was responsible for extending the United States to the west (“extending westward the dominion of the United States”). This too is quite debatable. We now know that many Haudenosaunee returned to many of their former settlements or started new ones nearby, such as at Buffalo Creek, and that the land that became western New York was under Seneca sovereignty until partway through the nineteenth century. Seneca lost this land only after illegal “treaties” with state officials and land speculators that did not follow federal law. This history is missing from the 1929 marker text, which implies that immediately following the Sullivan Expedition, the lands ravaged by the troops automatically became the land of the new nation (and, thus, the State of New York).