18th Century American Prison Camp For British Soldiers Found in Pennsylvania

With the location of the stockade finally pinpointed, archaeologists now intend to search for artifacts there.

Archaeologists in the United States have discovered the site of an American Revolutionary Era prison camp where captive British soldiers were held.

The so-called Camp Security was located in York, Pennsylvania and once housed over 1,000 English, Scottish and Canadian privates and noncommissioned officers for nearly two years during the war, with the first group of prisoners arriving there in 1781.

Work at the site went on for decades until researchers finally managed to identify a pattern of post holes and a stockade trench that appeared to match the stockades found at other 18th century military sites, lead archaeologist John Crawmer said.

“This has been a long project, and to finally see it come to fruition, or at least know you're not nuts, that's wonderful,” said Carol Tanzola, president of Friends of Camp Security and the person who led the fundraising effort for this archaeological project.

Researchers now hope to try and assess the size of the stockade and to conduct a focused search for artifacts there, Crawmer added.

“Was it circular or square, what's inside, what's outside?” he said. “As we do that, we're going to start finding those 18th-century artifacts, the trash pits. We'll be able to start answering questions about where people were sleeping, where they were living, where they were throwing things away, where the privies are.”