A photograph taken in October 2019 of the entrance to Fort Halifax Park, Halifax Township, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. The park in located along the Susquehanna River along the River Road, just north of the Borough of Halifax.
In the summer of 2021, archaeologists, looking to find the exact location of the footprint of the fort, made a discovery.
The latest edition of the Gazette, the quarterly newsletter of the Halifax Area Historical Society, provided the following article describing the discovery:
News from Fort Halifax Park – FORT FOUND!
At long last, an answer was provided to the age-old question: Where exactly was the original colonial fort located? Discussed and speculated for fifty years and searched for decades, opinions abounded: Was it on park land, to the north on the neighbor’s land, to the east under the railroad, or under the canal? Interestingly, it turns out the answer was right under our nose and clearly stated on a highway sign erected by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission: “Just west of this point stood Fort Halifax….” Due west of the sign was where it was found.
The archaeologist knew by the second day of the archaeology school that they were “in the fort.” Asked, how would they know this, they explained one of the signs was the preponderance of colonial nails as an important factor. When you find that many nails in one area you know they were building something.”
But the final and biggest give-away of the location was found the day before closing all pits. They discovered a dark colored soil line at the bottom of a pit they were exploring. They interpreted this indicator as a footer for the fort’s wall. It also revealed that the walls were constructed with horizontal logs, as opposed to upright, perhaps because it may have been a faster method of construction requiring less lumber and manpower.
That “find” sealed it. No more guessing! They had unquestionably found the fort! They also clinched hopes for summer 2022: There is universal agreement that further study of the site needs to be done. The archaeologists hope to be back on-site in 2022, next summer, with a primary goal to determine the orientation of the fort walls and location of the bastions (projecting corners that provide greater visibility along the fort walls during an attack).
Looking forward to another exciting dig in 2022!
Other Fort Halifax Park matters in the pipeline include preserving the farmhouse and barn, updating the entrance road, securing safe railroad crossing, and continued restoration of Yeager House. Discussions for another day.
Prior to the start of the archaeological dig, an article by editor Duane Good appeared in the Upper Dauphin Sentinel, June 8, 2021, describing the history of the fort and the intent of the project:
‘DIG’ WILL TRY TO PINPOINT FORT HALIFAX
As an operating British army garrison, Fort Halifax was in used for less than one of the seven years the French and Indian War was raging.
It’s been long presumed that the structure stood on the east shore of the Susquehanna River, not far from the town that shares its name. Exactly where it stood, however, has remained a mystery for two centuries and counting.
Repeated efforts to confirm its exact location — and, if possible unearth its original foundation — have proved elusive to this point. A new venture, scheduled to begin next week, will attempt to change that.
More than a dozen individuals are scheduled to be at Fort Halifax Park daily for two weeks, starting Sunday, June 13 to conduct their own archaeological ‘dig,’ with the discovery of the fort’s footprint the desired end result.
They’ll be joined by several U.S. military veterans armed with experience on projects at Pennsylvania’s Fort Ligonier (also a French and Indian War garrison), as well as in other states and countries.
To achieve its aims, the delegation will deploy both “old tech” (ground-penetrating radar and metal detectors).
This month’s initiative is a joint venture of the non-profit Friends of Fort Halifax Park Inc. and the Cultural resource Institute of Huntingdon-based Juniata College.
The majority of participants (14) in the “field school” are students at either Juniata or one of six other colleges or universities.
The Story So Far
Like Fort Augusta to the north and Fort Hunter to the south, Halifax was originally erected as part of a network of military installations in what was then British-owned Pennsylvania.
The collective goal, to defend settlers from attacks by enemy French forces and their First Nations allies.
Troops with the Pennsylvania Regiment of the Provincial Army were assigned to the fort.
The structure, 160 square feet in size and 10 feet in height, was erected in 1756 and decommissioned less than a year later after its locale was perceived as too vulnerable to invasion by river crossings.
The structure was finally dismantles in 1763, the last year of hostilities.
A commemorative marker was dedicated in 1926 along what is now State Route 147, north of Halifax Borough, in the vicinity of the suspected location.
Within the past two decades, a recreational park has been established on a 174-acre plot straddling both sides of the highway.
The most recent digs at the site — 2011, 2012, and 2013 — have proved beneficial to next week’s endeavor according to the Friends of Fort Halifax Park.
“These earlier surveys encountered artifacts and information that helped identify likely locations for the field school to investigate,” the organization said in a news release.
Probing Unexplored Areas
The upcoming field school led by Dr. Jonathan Burns, director of Juniata’s CRI, who has been involved in similar endeavors not only at Fort Ligonier, but at the site of two other 18th-century forts — Shirley (Huntingdon County) and Lyttleton (Fulton County).
He explained that is to take place in the course of the previous ones,” he said.
“The first week will be devoted to searching for colonial artifact distributions and physical remains of the palisade (defensive stakes driven into the ground) and the second (week) will likely be spent targeting the most promising areas.
“The crew will spend the first few days getting their ‘sea legs’ — learning to excavate with trowels and to identify artifacts while screening buckets of soil.
“There are a lot of procedural instructions, forms and lingo for them to learn. By the beginning of the second week, they should be functioning like well-oiled machines,” he said.
This year’s efforts will focus “in an area unexplored by the previous surveys,” according to Burns. “We have the results of a ground-penetrating radar survey in this area performed by Professor Jorden Hayes of Dickinson College this past April. Hotspots in the GPR data will guide the placement of our initial excavation locations.
“Controlled metal detector survey will also be employed to narrow the search for the fort.
Members of the Arlington, Virginia-based Veterans Curation Project — retired military personnel trained in working with archaeological collections — were invited to be part of the team.
“There is a growing body of evidence that this type of activity carries therapeutic value, along with employment skills, to military veterans transitioning back to civilian life after their service,” said Burns.
Optimism and Challenges
The upcoming dig is expected to have its share of challenges, but participants are hoping that their work in locating Fort Shirley’s footprint will prove beneficial locally.
“One factor that complicates Fort Halifax‘s discovery is that the Armstrong family was already established at the confluence of the Susquehanna River and the creek bearing their name prior to the fort’s construction,” Burns explained.
“Their material culture would be basically indistinguishable from that of the Pennsylvania militia occupying the fort… for the simple reason that they would have not been issued standardized clothing or firearms. These were settlers, who brought their own possessions with them into service on the frontier.
“Finding artifacts from the colonial era is compelling, but we want to locate the irrefutable evidence of the fortification’s architectural features like the palisade trench, well, bastions and/or foundations.
“Lastly, the site area encompasses a vast amount of real estate, and the historic documents and remote sensing data can only carry us so far — now it is up to archaeological methodology to make the discovery.”
Even so, the group is feeling very positive that this will perhaps be the year historical pay dirt is struck.
“I would say that our confidence level is sky high given the collaborative effort laying the groundwork for this project,” Burns said.
“We have significant leads, a great group of motivated students and a (local) community committed to the preservation and interpretation of this significant historic site.
“The COVID pandemic put a damper on field school offerings, so these students were eager and happy to enroll in this one to continue their training,” he continued.
“There is no doubt that the student training experience is maximized when finding lots of interesting artifacts; the Fort Halifax site promises to reveal colonial as well as prehistoric occupations.
“I think that they will be pleasantly surprised at how much they will expand their horizons and at how much public interest and support there is for historic preservation in Pennsylvania.”
A ‘Transformative’ Experience
Regardless of the outcome, none of the participants will view the two weeks in the field as time wasted.
“While the community will be left with enhanced knowledge of the site and their local colonial history, the educational component will be transformative for the students — they will takeaway valuable experience and job skills, preparing them for graduate studies and/or entry level positions in cultural resource management,” said Burns.
“Not only that, but working and camping in such a close-knit group for 14 days, the students will make friends for life as well as memories that they will never forget.”
Each student earns four undergraduate credits in field management — a valuable asset toward each student’s future career or graduate school plans, according to Burns.
The Friends of Fort Halifax Park Inc., have received assistance on the project from the following entities: The Keystone Historic Preservation Grants Program, administered by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission; the Louis J. Appell Jr. Preservation Fund at the National Trust for Historic Preservation; The Donald B. and Dorothy L. Stabler Foundations; and “members of the community who have donated generously through funding, time, resources and personal sacrifice.”
The park will remain open to the public during the project, but access to the archaeological excavation will be limited due to safety concerns.
On June 29, 2021, a follow-up article appeared in the Upper Dauphin Sentinel:
ARCHEOLOGICAL ‘DIG” UNCOVERS LIKELY FORT HALIFAX FOOTPRINT
Almost two weeks of archaeological research in Fort Halifax Park may have confirmed some of the fort’s original footprint.
Evidence uncovered during the ‘dig’ points to what appears to be the Colonial-era fort’s southeast quadrant, according to Dr. Jonathan Burns of the Juniata College Cultural Research Institute, who is overseeing the expedition.
“We believe we are standing inside the original fort,” Burns told assembled news media June 25 as work continued in the field north of the park’s barn and outbuildings.
According to Burns, signs of the fort’s original floor were found in multiple excavation sites in the same general region. Artifacts found during the excavation also were compared for similarities.
Excavation was preceded by extensive scouring of the field area by metal detectors and ground-penetrating radar.
The original Fort Halifax was pat of a network of army garrisons built in the 1750’s across the frontier of Pennsylvania when it was a colony under British rule.
The forts, which included Hunter, Augusta, Ligonier and Necessity, among others, were intended as a defense measure during the seven-year French and Indian War.
Fort Halifax was staffed for about a year during the conflict, then decommissioned and eventually dismantled. Its exact location has been a topic of speculation for more than a century.
The most recent findings are seen as significant toward the possible future discovery of the fort’s foundation, as well as the other quadrants and how the fort was placed. Burns said it is possible that the fort was set at an angle for a potentially better view of an possible encroachment onto the property.
Numerous artifacts of mid-18th century North American life have been unearthed in the past two weeks – the remnants of tools, nails, ammunition, pieces of firearms and clothing and — most fascinating to many involved — coinage that originated in Europe, some of it decades older than the 1750s. One French coin shows a strike date of 1655.
The bulk of the ‘dig” was accomplished by college-age students enrolled in a field school course for which they will receive credit. The students were from Juniata as well as several other colleges and universities. Work at the site concluded June 28….
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For further information about Friends of Fort Halifax Park, see their Facebook page.
For further information about the Halifax Area Historical Society, see their Facebook page.
Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.
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