File:2018 - Hessian Prison Camp Memorial - Allentown PA.jpg

English: Hessian Prison Camp Memorial - Allentown PA

Located at the northeast corner of Jordan and Gordon Streets in Allentown are "The Bindery" apartments at 347 Gordon Streets. On the Gordon Street side of the building, just to the east of the corner is a memorial to one of two Allentown locations of a POW camp for Hessian soldiers, German mercenaries hired by the British Crown to fight in America.

The prisoners housed here and also at another location at 8th and Hamilton streets were said to have been captured at the Battle of Trenton, where Washington crossed the Delaware and surprised them on Christmas 26th, 1776. The Hessians captured at Trenton were placed in makeshift prisons.

Writing in the Anniversary History of Lehigh County, designed to celebrate Lehigh County's 100th anniversary in 1912, Charles Rhoads Roberts wrote: "Early in the year 1777, a number of Hessian mercenaries were taken prisoner at Trenton were brought to Allentown and kept in tents. The camp was located in the northern part of the town in the neighborhood of Gordon Street according to the testimony of an old citizen."

In addition to the Gordon Street site, another POW camp for the Hessian prisioners was a log stockade at the northwest corner of 8th and Hamilton. How long it was used for this purpose isn't known. But it must have been strongly made, because it lasted until 1873, when it was blown apart in a cyclonic wind storm.

The fate of many of the Hessian prisoners was to be sent off as farm laborers. Although in the case of Northampton Town (Allentown), where they were surrounded by fellow German speakers, this was apparently not always a boon. To many Pennsylvania Germans they were Americans and, despite their ancestry, the Hessians were the enemy.

When the Revolution ended in 1783, most Hessian prisioners went back to Germany. Although about 5,000 or so stayed in the United States and Canada. And at least some ended up settling in the Allentown area.