The area’s first colonial settler and founding father of Scranton, Isaac Tripp, will get another historical marker at his namesake 1878 Tripp House on North Main Avenue in Scranton, which is the oldest house in Lackawanna County, honoring him as a Revolutionary War patriot and in commemoration of America’s 250th anniversary this year.
A joint project of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Society for the Preservation of the Tripp Family Homestead, the marker will be unveiled during a public ceremony Sunday, April 19, at 2 p.m. at the Tripp House, 1011 N. Main Ave., organizers said.
The Tripp House was not the first dwelling in what would later become the city of Scranton in Lackawanna County. In 1771, Tripp constructed a log cabin near where the Tripp House would later be built by his son.
The new marker featuring a Daughters of the American Revolution logo says, “In Honor Of Revolutionary War Patriot Isaac Tripp,” and under that title the following: “Isaac Tripp, born circa 1700 in Rhode Island, was one of the first settlers in what is today Scranton. A proprietor of the Susquehanna Company, he purchased land in Providence section of Capouse Meadows. The first Tripp homestead is believed to have been built near this site about 1771. He was a member of the Legislature in 1777. In 1778, the British put a bounty on Isaac Tripp. A Quaker and American patriot, he lost his life in December of that year when he was shot and scalped near the Wilkes Barre Fort.” The bottom of this new marker says “Marker Placed By Scranton City Chapter, NSDAR, 19 April 2026.”
Isaac Tripp was the fourth generation of a British family that settled in Rhode Island in 1635. He became one of 200 people who obtained land grants from the Connecticut colony that included part of the area of Northeast Pennsylvania under a 1625 land grant from a British monarch, according to a July 22, 2001, article in the archives of The Times-Tribune.
That article said settlers from Rhode Island arrived in this area in 1769 and built homes close to each other in what is now the Wyoming and Forty Fort area. Tripp, a Quaker, thought the Native Americans would not be hostile if they were treated kindly, so he hiked to what is now Scranton, found a piece of land he liked and built a log cabin in 1771 near where the Tripp House would later get built by his son, Isaac II. Thus, the elder Isaac Tripp became the first white settler in what is now the city of Scranton and Lackawanna County.
The article continued: The American Revolution began in 1775 but the fighting did not reach this area until 1778, when the British allied with local Native Americans against colonial settlers. That led to the Wyoming Massacre and Tripp’s death, and possibly the burning down of his original log cabin. Later, Isaac Tripp II returned to the property his father had bought and, about 1778, built a more traditional home near where his father’s log cabin was built.
The Tripp House also has a historical marker installed in 1993 by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission along the front sidewalk and North Main Avenue. This marker references changes to the house made by Tripp descendants, saying: “The Tripp House. Isaac Tripp, Scranton’s first settler, built a house here in 1771. His son, Isaac II, began the present building — the oldest in Lackawanna County — about 1778. Both men represented this region in Connecticut’s Assembly. Isaac III enlarged the house in the Federal style, 1812. Col. Ira Tripp remodeled it along Victorian lines during the period 1870-91. The house remained in the family until 1900.”
The Times-Tribune 2001 archive article also reported that as generations of the Tripp family prospered in various enterprises, the homestead grew. The 6,000-acre estate included a racetrack for the family’s horses, an outside play house in the yard, a fountain, a statue of Mercury and five barns. After the family sold the estate, most of the land was sold off by various owners and the house became apartments. In the 1970s, the Tripp House was considered blighted and the Scranton Redevelopment Authority started a process to raze it. But the Junior League of Scranton took it over to preserve it for historical purposes.
The Tripp House was listed in 1972 on the National Register of Historic Places; and in 2001, the nonprofit Society for the Preservation of the Tripp Family Homestead formed.
On Thursday, the city’s Historical Architecture Review Board approved an application presented by Tripp House board President Michael Gilmartin for a new marker plaque and its placement on a front porch wall on the right side of the entrance door. HARB members voted 4-0 to accept the application for this new marker, with Chairman Michael Muller, Conrad Bosley, Katie Kearney and William Lesniak all in favor. HARB member Katie Gilmartin abstained because Michael Gilmartin is her father.
The left side of the entrance door already has a historical marker measuring 16 by 14 inches and installed in 1988. That older plaque will remain in place and the new one, measuring 18 by 12 inches and with different wording, will go on the other side of the front door, Gilmartin told HARB.
The ceremony Sunday will be followed by a tea reception. To make a reservation for the tea reception, email SPTFH1011@gmail.com by Thursday.
The front of the Tripp House in North Scranton Friday, April 10, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
An image of a plaque honoring Isaac Tripp to be installed on the historic Tripp House in Scranton. The image is a screen shot copy from an Electrict City Television simulcast and video posted on YouTube of a city Historical Architecture Review Board meeting held Thursday, April 9, 2026 . (IMAGE SCREEN SHOT / ELECTRIC CITY TELEVISION)
The Tripp House in North Scranton Friday, April 10, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
The Tripp House historical marker installed in 1993 by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission along the front sidewalk and North Main Avenue in Scranton, on June 25, 2021. (JIM LOCKWOOD / STAFF PHOTO)
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The front of the Tripp House in North Scranton Friday, April 10, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)