Forty Fort, In Search of the Fort Site!

Last Friday, September 12th, my first goal was the marker that was placed at the actual site of Forty Fort. It was important to me to feel the physical distance of the various locations so that I could better understand the events of the Battle of Wyoming.

I found the marker stone and information board at the corner of Fort Street and River St. (watch for one way on these streets) in Forty Fort which is past Kingston and before Wyoming on the north side of the Susquehanna River. River Street is a busy street and they zoom along. I parked on the north side of the street under some trees. Be careful when you cross. It was raining so it was slick.

The original marker stone had the metal plaque missing. However, the information board which was a little more to the northeast gave good detail about the fort. This information board was located where the ramp is that leads up to the top of the cement dike/levee that has been built. The dike is very white, huge, long and stretches along the Susquehanna River. You cannot miss it. It was built as a result of the terrible flood of 1972. You can climb this ramp and even walk or ride a bike for I saw at least two riders exit at the Forty Fort site. The Susquehanna River is right on the other side of this dike/levee. So this gives you and idea of how close the original fort was to the river.

My interest in the original fort site is because my ancestor Solomon Goss (4th great grandfather) was held prisoner there after the Battle of Wyoming but he escaped. This is accounted for in the history books written in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. Unfortunately these history books do not give their sources easily.

I have seen the pictures of the Fort and they are renderings of what they think it might have looked like. The information board had the picture of the fort on it. So you can see it if you do not find it in the Luzerne County history books. There is also a map on the information board giving you the location of the fort in reference to other sites like the Forty Fort meeting house and cemetery. There is also a great map in the book “The Certified Township of Kingston” that also gives a visual picture of the area.

The book Frontier Forts is on CD Rom and I got my copy at the FGS conference. I love forts a result of my father Keith’s interest in them and always taking us to them in the Puget Sound area. So this is just another fun thing for me to do. In my area of the US the forts are still in existence and you can go and visit them. Now they may not be the original fort but they are very close to a recreation of them.