Place:Forty Fort, Luzerne, Pennsylvania, United States

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source: Family History Library Catalog

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Forty Fort is a borough in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 4,214 at the 2010 census. Its neighbors are Wyoming (to the north), Plains Township (to the east), Kingston (to the south), and Swoyersville (to the west). The Wilkes-Barre Wyoming Valley Airport and the Wyoming Seminary Lower School are both located in the borough.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Revolutionary War

In the late 1770s, forty settlers from Westmoreland County, Connecticut, established a fortress along the Susquehanna River in the area now known as Forty Fort Borough. During the American Revolutionary War, both Connecticut and Pennsylvania claimed this territory, as Connecticut laid claim to a wide swath of land to its west based on its colonial charter. These competing claims were settled by exchanges and agreements with resolution by the national government after the United States gained independence.

During the Revolutionary War, British forces arrived in the Wyoming Valley on June 30, 1778. The next day, Colonel Butler sent a surrender demand to the militia at Fort Wintermute. Terms were arranged that the defenders, after surrendering the fort with all their arms, would be released on the condition that they would not again bear arms during the war. On July 3, however, the British saw that the defenders were gathering in great numbers outside of Forty Fort. This led to the Battle of Wyoming.

The next morning, July 4, Colonel Nathan Denison agreed to surrender Forty Fort and two other posts, along with what remained of his militia. Butler paroled them on their promise to take no part in further hostilities. Non-combatants were spared and only a few inhabitants were molested after the forts capitulated. In 1900, a large stone was placed at the end of Fort Street, in Forty Fort Borough, by the Daughters of the American Revolution to mark the approximate location of Forty Fort.

Post-Revolutionary War

In the years following the Revolutionary War, Forty Fort became home to both the Nathan Denison House (built around 1790) and the Forty Fort Meetinghouse (built in 1806–08), which is located in the borough's cemetery. Forty Fort was officially incorporated as a borough in 1887. The borough later became home to the Lower School of the Wyoming Seminary and a portion of the southern end of the Wilkes-Barre Wyoming Valley Airport.

Flooding

In June 1972, Hurricane Agnes caused the Susquehanna River to overflow its banks. In Forty Fort, a portion of the levee protecting the town broke. This caused millions of dollars in damage to Forty Fort and the surrounding communities. In addition to structural damage, the Forty Fort Cemetery was heavily affected when over 2,000 caskets were washed away. Recovered bodies were eventually buried in a mass grave with a monument marking the 1972 flood's damage. In September 2011, the borough’s levee system was once again put to the test when Tropical Storm Lee caused severe flooding throughout the Wyoming Valley. However, this time the levee held, and the town was preserved from the catastrophe it witnessed in 1972.

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