CONRAD WEISER --
               COMMANDER

Deeded a parcel of land just ten miles away from Nicholas Dupui's general store, one has to wonder how this denizen of Womelsdorf in Berks County came to be aware of this remote property (upon which local Fort Hyndshaw would later be built)?

Prior to assuming his role as commander of the First Battallion of the Pennsylvania Militia, Conrad Weiser, together with Daniel Claus, had in 1750 sojourned up to Onondaga for a set of meetings.  His travelogue records how he had first come to pass by this property:

"Since we had covered 30 miles in the past days, he persuaded us to spend the night and we well very well entertained.  Having covered 6 miles after an early breakfast we were taken over the Delaware where we left Pennsylvania and continued our way from Walpack on in the Province of New Jersey in warm weather on Wednesday; we took our midday meal at a North-German innkeeper by the name of Rosenkranz."

Innkeeper Rosenkranz (known as Sander Rossagrance in the Dupui ledger), had his property just across the river from where Fort Hyndshaw would later be built.  Looking up to the high cliff and plateau just across the river, Conrad Weiser could well appreciate the site's strategic value.

Describing this site, and the fort's location, Commissary James Young on 24 June 1756 would write:  "on the Banks of a Large Creek, and ab’t ¼ mile from the River Delaware, and I think in a very important Place for the Defence of this Frontier."