Introduction
Roadside signs, monuments, and historical plaques that commemorate the 1779 Sullivan Expedition can be found across northeastern Pennsylvania and central New York. This expedition was originally called Washington’s Indian Expedition, and in New York is referred to as the Sullivan-Clinton Campaign. This scorched-earth expedition involved over a quarter of the Continental Army. Troops in the four forays into the Haudenosaunee homelands destroyed at least 53 towns and other settlements, burning homes, crops, and all stored foodstuffs (for map of the four components of Washington's Indian Expedition of 1779, see below).
Despite the grim nature of this mission, non-Native people commemorated it with projects from the nineteenth century into the present day. The hundreds of stone monoliths and roadside signs identified on this website trace out the campaign’s vast extent and note the locations of the Native American villages the troops destroyed. Our website includes sites that date as early as 1841; the vast majority were established in the 1920s and 1930s, timed for 150th anniversary celebrations. These markers and roadside signs follow the campaign’s vast extent and note the locations of the Native American villages that the troops destroyed.