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Township of Upper Tulpehocken

6501 Old Route 22
610-488-7170

About:

Upper Tulpehocken Township is located in the northwest section of Berks County. The boundries are as follows: Upper Bern to the east; Penn Township to the southeast; Jefferson to the south; Tulpehocken to the southwest; Bethel to the west; and Schuylkill County to the north.

The entire northwestern part of Berks County was named Tulpehocken, which was organized as a district in 1729, when it was part of what was Chester County. The area that is now known as Upper Tulpehocken Township was settled as early as 1735, but did not become a township of it own until 1820. Until that time it was part of Tulpehocken Township.

The early settlers of the township had their share of Indian trolubles and feared for their lives. Forts were erected as places of refuge along the Blue Mountain. In charge of their erection, was no less a personage than Ben Franklin himself. The Blue Mountain is broken by five gaps of almost equal distance from one another between the Delaware and Susquehanna Rivers.

Additional forts were erected between the gaps as havens for refugees. Many of them were little more than stone buildings that were adaptable for defense. One such for situation in the township was Fort Northkill. It was built in the early part of 1754 and was about two miles east of Strausstown, near the Northkill Creed and about one mile south of the base of the Blue Mountain.

As to the dimensions of the fort, it was recorded that the fort was about nine miles to the westward of the Schuylkill River and stood in a very thick wood on a small rising ground, half a mile from the middle of the Northkill Creek.

Strausstown was the only town in the township until 1920 when they incorporated and became a borough.There are 49.74 miles of road in the township. Of that amount the township maintain approximately 36 miles, the remainder being State Roads. The 2000 census placed the population at 1495. The size of the township is 22.7 square miles or 14,528 acres.


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