by Laura Klotz, MarkerQuest Blog edited to fit magazine by CMVB Staff
the Stories Behind the Signs
One woman’s quest to photograph and research all of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission's historical markers recently brought her to Columbia & Montour Counties
Lt. Moses Van Campen was dispatched, along with a contingent of twenty soldiers, to travel to the region and establish a fort to provide the residents with better protection. Moses selected of the farms, which was owned by Isaiah Wheeler, for the positioning of the fort; they built the stockade around his house, and when it was finished they named it Fort Wheeler in his honor. It was built quickly, since they could tell there was no opportunity for delay, and indeed there was an attack on the settlement before the fort was completed. According to a contemporary account, a runner came with a warning about the approach, and the locals
I’ve lived in eastern Pennsylvania for over forty years, which is the closest I’m going to get to telling you how old I am. My maternal grandfather’s family has lived in Lehigh and Northampton Counties since before the American Revolution, and the various branches of my family tree are tied to the commonwealth’s history in a lot of different ways. I’ve been fascinated with these blue and gold markers since I was a kid, but when you’re driving past them, you don’t often really have the chance to read what they say. I always thought that was un- fortunate since they seemed interesting, and as an adult, I’ve occa- sionally wondered if most people pay attention to them at all. I de- cided that this project would be a fun way to make sure that at least a few more people get to know about them and the information they contain. So, with the blessing of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (the people who have been putting the signs up for over a hundred years), I launched this blog. Because I’m a very well-rounded sort of nerd, I decided to treat it like one of the collection quests in my video games, and this is my quest log.
Fort Wheeler Marker; Columbia County
We were in Columbia County on our way to Altoona last month, and we stopped in Bloomsburg for lunch and some markers. My husband is an extremely good sport. It would have been neat if Fort Wheeler had still been there for us to see, but I still get to share its interesting history with all of you. The European settlers of what today is Bloomsburg were, in 1778, being subjected to an extensive series of attacks by Native Amer- icans, and the violence had them in terror. From what I found in my reading, this is because the Natives had - for one reason or another - allied themselves with Great Britain against the fledgling United States. So in April of that year, a young man by the name of
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