Part of a series of articles titled 2023 Preservation Planning Grants Highlights.
Article
Gunpowder and Shot: Researching the Continental Powder Works at French Creek
Image courtesy of the NPS.
Recipient: East Pikeland Township
Amount: $124,587.65
For the first three years of the Revolutionary War, the United States struggled to supply the Continental Army with the most important tools for a soldier during the 18th Century – muskets, cannon, and the gunpowder to use them. During the siege of Boston in 1775, General George Washington wrote to his brother and complained that his men “[were] obliged to submit to an almost daily cannonade without returning a [shot] from our scarcity of powder.” A precarious condition that the Continental Congress struggled to resolve.
Working with the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety in the Spring of 1776, the Continental Congress funded the construction of a powder mill and gun works along French Creek in Chester County, Pennsylvania. One of the many domestic arsenals that the Americans established during the Revolutionary War, the job of the complex was to turn raw ingredients into a consistent flow of weapons and gunpowder to Patriot forces.
Operating for only a few months, an accidental explosion at the powder mill damaged essential equipment beyond repair and the gun works was burned by the British during the Brandywine Campaign of 1777. However, the war material that the French Creek complex was able to produce helped the Continental Army hold-out until the Kingdom of France joined the war on the side of the United States. With this new alliance, French arms and gunpowder began arriving in mass to American ports, greatly supporting the Patriot war effort.
A 2023 Preservation Planning Grant from the American Battlefield Protection Program to East Pikeland Township will allow the township to conduct an archeological field survey on the Revolutionary War powder mill complex at French Creek and assess the site’s current condition and use physical evidence to explore the daily lives of the mill workers.
Preservation Planning Grants are the American Battlefield Protection Program's broadest and most inclusive grant program, promoting the stewardship of battlefields and sites of armed conflict on American soil. In addition, ABPP administers three other grant opportunities: the Battlefield Land Acquisition Grant, Battlefield Restoration Grant, and Battlefield Interpretation Grant programs. This financial assistance generates community-driven stewardship of historic resources at the state, tribal and local levels.
Get Your Project Funded
Check out the American Battlefield Protection Program's website for more information about various grant offerings and eligibility.
Last updated: July 26, 2023