Life in the frontier settlement was difficult, as Native American bands, mostly Lenape and Susquehannock, resisted settlers' encroachment.

[1]: 221  Daniel Brodhead and his four brothers, Charles, Garret, John and Luke, along with his 12-year-old sister, Ann, fired at the attackers through windows of the Dansbury Manor.

[2] On 25 December, James Hamilton wrote to Governor Morris: "Broadhead's was stoutly defended by his sons and others, till the Indians thought fit to retire without being able to take it, or set it on fire, tho' they frequently attempted it.

This became the residence of the Flory family for many years at 81 North Courtland Street, the oldest home in East Stroudsburg.

In the years leading up to the outbreak of hostilities, Brodhead began to take part in the protest movements against British taxation.

In 1776 as war broke out, Brodhead was commissioned as an officer of the Pennsylvania State Rifle Regiment with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Finley’s company into Penn's valley, where two of the latter’s soldiers, Thomas Van Doren and Jacob Shedacre, who had participated in the campaign against Burgoyne, were killed, on the 24th, in sight of Potter's Fort, by the Indians.

[7] (Several histories incorrectly state that Washington sent Brodhead and the 8th Pennsylvania to rebuild and re-garrison the frontier outpost of Fort Muncy.

[10] The Wyandot, Mingo, Shawnee, and Lenape allied with the British and regularly raided settlements on the Ohio Country frontier.

From his headquarters at Fort Pitt, Brodhead directed numerous raids against hostile native tribes, often leading the offensives personally.

His most famous raid was the Brodhead Expedition that was conducted against the Seneca tribe of the Iroquois Confederacy between August 11 and September 14, 1779.

As most of the warriors were away fighting the Sullivan Expedition further east in New York, Brodhead met little resistance in destroying the villages, crops and people at the heart of the Seneca nation.

In April 1781, Brodhead led a successful expedition against the Lenape bands around the Muskingum River in the Ohio Country.

Furthermore, the court martial ruled Brodhead justified in spending the recruiting money on supplies, and he was not punished.