Historians hope to preserve the former prison camp where 1,265 men, along with 182 women and 189 children lived by April 1782.
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| The camp was in Springettsbury Township |
A few miles east of York, the city that briefly served as the fledgling nation's capital after the Continental Congress fled Philadelphia, more than a thousand English, Scottish and Canadian soldiers were imprisoned at what was then known as Camp Security.
The fight to preserve the plot has lasted almost twice as long as the Revolutionary War itself. And the end is in sight - if its backers can raise the last few hundred thousand dollars needed to pay for it.
"This is an extraordinarily important site, because so few of these camp sites survived," said Steve Warfel, a retired curator of archaeology at the Pennsylvania State Museum.
"It's a very important piece for understanding the revolutionary period, and how people were treated when they were incarcerated," he added.
A 1979 archaeological study found numerous artefacts that confirmed local lore about the prison camp's location.
Two years ago, the local government, Springettsbury Township, took possession of an adjacent, 115-acre property and last year The Conservation Fund paid a developer nearly $1m for the 47-acre parcel.
Now the Friends of Camp Security faces a May deadline to pay off the fund so it can turn the smaller plot over to the township as well.
Nothing about the property today suggests it was once teeming with prisoners. The first group arrived in 1781, four years after their 1777 surrender at Saratoga, New York.
More arrived the next year after the battle in Yorktown, Virginia, and in April 1782, there were 1,265 men at the camp, along with 182 women and 189 children - family members and others who accompanied the prisoners.
The first group was kept under less strict conditions and could be hired out to nearby farms, where among other things they were put to use chopping firewood and hunting wolves.
The Yorktown veterans were much more strictly confined, kept inside a circular stockade that had been constructed from 15ft-high log posts.
The 1979 dig, which focused on a small area, produced metal items such as buckles and buttons that are associated with British soldiers of the period, suggesting that could have either been the Camp Security stockade or the adjacent Camp Indulgence village where low-risk prisoners stayed.
That survey also turned up 20 coins and 605 straight pins that may have been used by prisoners to make lace.
Researchers recently found lists of Camp Security prisoners in the British National Archives. And an 18th century account of camp life by a British surgeon's mate described a "camp fever" that may have killed some of the prisoners, who were buried on-site.
If there was a cemetery - there may be two or more - it has not been found. Some believe graves may be under what is today one of the neighbourhoods that encircle the property.
Les Jones, an English-born member of Friends of Camp Security, said interest in his home country has not been great, possibly because the British military had been so active around the globe during that period.
He said: "There was hardly a year when they weren't fighting somewhere. I think the problem is they're just swamped with wars. This is a little niche kind of thing."
Source: Sky
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