Valley Forge's Fence Force: six volunteers, a mile of worm fence

Fence Force volunteers with a new rail. NPS photo.

In 2023, six volunteers at Valley Forge National Historical Park carried about 148,000 pounds of timber by hand and set some 4,000 fence rails, building a mile of historic-style fence around an archaeological site and protecting walkers at three of the park's busiest places. They called themselves the Fence Force.

The crew

The team first met on a cold, windy January morning at Wayne's Woods to pilot a new volunteers-in-parks programme: replacing, rebuilding and maintaining the park's miles of wooden fence. Park staff Mike Albert, buildings and utilities supervisor, and Mark Dalton, utility systems repairer and operator, supervised; the volunteers organised themselves under a crew captain and deputy.

The six volunteers with Jennifer McMenamin, the park's facilities manager, and Khiet Luong, its volunteer and youth programme coordinator. NPS photo.

A mile around Wayne's Woods

Wayne's Woods, beside a popular picnic area, holds important archaeological remains. The crew took down the rotting Virginia worm fence — the zigzag, stacked-rail fence of the eighteenth century — hauled away the old timbers and cut back the brush so park staff could level the ground. Then they laid out and stacked new rails to specifications the park had drawn from historical evidence. Each hemlock rail is 11 feet long and weighs 25 to 50 pounds. After ten months the mile — 5,280 feet — was finished, with "Area Closed" signs where visitors crowd closest.

New rails laid out in the zigzag the historical specifications call for. NPS photo.

The mile of new fence around Wayne's Woods.

Three more sites

With the pilot done safely, the park gave the crew more:

• Varnum's Quarters and the von Steuben statue, and Muhlenberg's Brigade — fencing that separates traffic from the walkers and cyclists on the paved Joseph Plumb Martin Trail;
• Washington's Headquarters — fencing that keeps people off the unstable banks of Valley Creek where it meets the Schuylkill River.

New fence at Muhlenberg's Brigade, between the road and the trail. NPS photo.

Why it matters

The volunteers' work protected the park's archaeology and its visitors, and freed the maintenance staff for other projects — the Park Service's mission, carried out by six people and a lot of hemlock.

Sources

Written from "Volunteer Story: Fence Force Volunteers at Valley Forge", National Park Service, Valley Forge National Historical Park, a work of the United States government in the public domain.