Hummelstown Gun Factory: Pennsylvania's Secret Arsenal
Near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
When British forces occupied Philadelphia in the autumn of seventeen seventy-seven, Pennsylvania's provisional government fled west and needed to keep supplying the Continental Army. Their solution was to establish a secret gun factory near Hummelstown, in what is now Dauphin County.
Operating covertly from seventeen seventy-seven to seventeen seventy-nine, the factory produced muskets and rifles for American soldiers fighting for independence. The location was well inland, far from British reach. The operation was kept quiet. That this clandestine factory succeeded at all, and kept colonial troops armed during some of the war's most desperate years, speaks to the improvised resourcefulness that sustained the Revolution when its outcome was anything but certain.
