Shirleysburg borough

Digging for Fort Shirley: what the ground gave up

Lieutenant Governor William Denny ordered Fort Shirley destroyed in 1756. Lytle wrote in 1876 that Samuel McVitty, formerly of Shirleysburg, had spent many youthful hours gathering "arrow-heads, stone tomahawks, beads and musket balls" there. The 1983 National Register nomination for the Benjamin B. Leas house said no archaeological testing had been done on the site, though the state archaeologist held a 1981 collection of gun flints and of objects the nomination calls possibly lead balls. A note in the same file says a consultants' report of September 1983 found no significant material from the fort in a strip of highway right of way.

In 2009, initial survey testing turned up a copper charm one centimeter across, inscribed "No god but Allah" in Arabic. The authors of the 2016 article on it think it was most likely lost between 1753 and 1756 while its owner was in Croghan's service. The 2010 Penn State field school documented "a long builder's trench in excess of 95 feet," with several charred palisade logs. By 2012 all four walls had been located. Finds along the palisade included beads, brass artifacts and a mouth harp. A 2018 study of the animal bone found that white-tailed deer made up about half of the identified bones and domestic livestock a little over a quarter, a pattern its authors tie to how hard the place was to reach with supplies.

Checked against the record. We checked the story against Lytle's 1876 history, the 1983 National Register nomination, Hunter's 1960 history of the forts and the published archaeology. We did not see the 1983 right of way report, only the note about it. We read the digging in published articles and a 2012 field summary, not in the full excavation reports, and we did not read accounts of later seasons. The 2012 and 2018 accounts give different measurements for the fort, so this story gives none. The full excavation reports and later seasons remain unread.

Sources

Checked 2026-11-01 · Primary sources and the Pennsylvania Newspaper Archive

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