In 1764, Franklin County PA was the frontier of colonial America, inhabited by Scots-Irish, German, Irish, and Welsh immigrants and remained the hunting grounds of Native American tribes, in particular the Lenni Lenape, known also as the Delaware. The unrest along the frontier was ever-present as a steady influx of settlers occupied the frontier lands of Franklin County, seeping more and more into the land Great Britain promised would remain Native American territory. A year earlier in western Pennsylvania, Chief Pontiac attacked British forts because of the encroaching settlements, and British Colonel Henry Bouquet responded by attacking the Native Americans, spurring an increase of Indian attacks on European settlers of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. It became all-out warfare. On the morning of July 26, 1764, as Enoch Brown and eleven students settled into their studies, the war came to the doorstep of the small, log school house in present-day Antrim Township, near Greencastle PA.
Three Delaware entered the school , clubbed and scalped schoolmaster Enoch Brown and his eleven pupils. Archie McCullough, one young boy, would survive by pretending to be dead as the horror happened around him. When the Delaware left the schoolhouse, Archie managed to hide himself in the fireplace until he was certain they would not return and then made his way to a nearby stream to wash his head in the cool waters. The quietness of the schoolhouse signaled nearby farmers to investigate, bringing help to Archie and discovery to the victims.
Today, the site of so much anguish is a much more peaceful place. It is now Enoch Brown Memorial Park– 3-acres of greenery, which includes a memorial where the story is told on the four faces of a monument, a series of walking trails, and a pavilion.
The park is located off Williamson Road, which is just off Route 11, at 2730 Enoch Brown Road in Greencastle.