Pennsylvania Line Huts

The soldiers in Jockey Hollow spent a brutal winter in log huts they constructed.

NPS

Quick Facts

Location:

Jockey Hollow, south side of Sugar Loaf Hill

Significance:

Examples of huts built to specification by the Continental Army soldiers who survived a brutal winter in Jockey Hollow.

Approximately 2,000 Continental Army soldiers from Pennsylvania lived in wooden huts stretching along this hillside from the present replicas and across Grand Parade Road. There were two rows of enlisted men’s huts in the front with a couple of rows of larger officers’ huts behind. The Pennsylvania soldiers occupied the huts from December 1779 to early June 1780.

When the Pennsylvania soldiers left in June, their huts were converted into a military hospital for the sick and wounded who could not leave the camp. In November 1780 the Pennsylvania Line returned to Jockey Hollow planning on reusing their old huts from the previous winter. However, they found that the enlisted men’s huts were gone, having been used as firewood. The surviving officers’ huts were occupied by the sick. Consequently, the Pennsylvania troops moved into huts that were still standing near the Wick House. The hospital at the Pennsylvania Line remained in operation until June 1781.

The huts seen on the hill today are replicas built in the 1960’s by volunteers.