Abstracted from
Report of the Commission to Locate the Site of the Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania
Volume Two: The Frontier Forts of Western Pennsylvania
by George Dallas Albert, 1896
pages 190-1



Daniel Brodhead was born at Marbletown, Ulster county, New York in 1736. His great grandfather, Daniel Brodhead, was a royalist and captain of the grenadiers in the reign of Charles II. He came with the expedition under Colonel Nichols in 1664, that captured the Netherlands (now New York) from the Dutch, and settle in Marbletown in 1665. His son Richard, and his son Daniel, the father of the subject of this sketch, also resided in Marbletown. Daniel Brodhead, Sr., in 1736, removed to a place called Dansville on Brodhead's Creek, near Stroudsburgh, Monroe county, Pennsylvania, when Daniel Brodhead, Jr., was an infant. The latter and his brothers became famous for their courage in conflicts with the Indians on the border, their father's house having been attacked by the savages December 11th, 1755. Daniel became a resident of Reading in 1771, where he was deputy surveyor. In July, 1775, he was appointed a delegate from Berks county to the provincial convention in Philadelphia. At the breaking out of the Revolution, Daniel was elected a lieutenant-colonel (commissioned October 25, 1776) and subsequently became colonel of the Eighth Pennsylvania Regiment, his promotion was March 12, 1777, to rank from September 29, 1776. He participated in the battle of Long Island, and in other battles in which Washington's army was engaged. He marched to Fort Pitt in the summer of 1778, his regiment forming a part of Brigadier-General Lachlan McIntosh's command in the Western Department. Here he served until the next spring, when he succeeded to the command in the West, headquarters at Fort Pitt. He retained this position until September 17, 1781, making a very efficient and active commander, twice leading expeditions into the Indian country, in both of which he was successful; but was superceded in his command at Pittsburgh by Colonel John Gibson. Brodhead was, at that date, colonel of the First Pennsylvania Regiment, to which position he was assigned January 17, 1781. After the war, he was Surveyor General of Pennsylvania. He was appointed to that office November 3, 1789 and held the place eleven years, he having previously served in the General Assembly. He died at Milford, Pike county, November 15, 1809. He was twice married. By his first wife he had two children; by his second, none. In 1872, at Milford, an appropriate monument was erected in his memory.