My dear friend Kevin Abt treated me to another memorable adventure last month. This time our destination was at my suggestion. I have been aware of the historical significance of Hanna’s Town for many years but had never visited the actual site. Currently owned by the Westmoreland County Parks and Recreation Department and operated by the Westmoreland County Historical Society, it is an impressive recreation of a frontier village.
The original Hanna’s Town had a significant amount of history crammed into the nine years during which it prospered. Located on Forbes Road, halfway between Fort Ligonier and Fort Pitt, it was an ideal spot for Robert Hanna to locate in 1769. He acquired a grant of 337 acres and began to lay out a village. At its peak, his town consisted of thirty log cabins, numerous barns and outbuildings, three taverns, a jail, and a stockade. When Pennsylvania established Westmoreland County in 1773, it located the County Courthouse in Hanna’s Town, in Robert Hanna’s Tavern.
A year later the Virginia Legislature established the District of West Augusta. It included all the land west of Laurel Ridge and south of the Kiskiminetas, Allegheny, and Ohio Rivers, clearly in conflict with Pennsylvania’s claim. Dr. John Connolly was installed as commissioner in Pittsburgh, responsible for demonstrating Virginia’s right to the territory. Connolly attempted to conscript residents into the Virginia militia and to collect taxes to support the effort; in response he was arrested by the magistrate of Westmoreland County, Arthur St. Clair, then released on bail. When Connolly appeared in Hanna’s Town for trial, he was accompanied by two hundred Virginians, who promptly arrested several justices and took them back to Pittsburgh. Just as the dispute between Virginia and Pennsylvania peaked, news of the Battles of Lexington and Concord arrived in May 1775. This generated a massive response by the frontiersmen, culminating in a powerful document, “The Hanna’s Town Resolves”. It advocates the establishment of a local military association charged with opposing the “tyranny and oppression” imposed on the citizens of Massachusetts and calls upon “every man who has … any bowels for posterity” to support it. Ironically, Robert Hanna was unable to sign it; he was in Connolly’s jail in Pittsburgh. Disagreement between Virginia and Pennsylvania was shelved when the Revolutionary War broke out and was not resolved until 1780. At that point representatives of the two colonies agreed to revert back to William Penn’s original grant, which extended Pennsylvania’s southern boundary five degrees of longitude west from the Delaware River, producing its current western border and limiting Virginia to the slender (now West Virginia) Panhandle.
Hanna’s Town and Pittsburgh were now the county seats of Western Pennsylvania. In 1782 disaster struck. Despite the Continental Army’s victory at Yorktown and the ongoing peace negotiations, British Loyalists refused to capitulate. On July 13, 1782, a force of Seneca warriors and British soldiers attacked Hanna’s Town. Local residents had sufficient warning to seek protection in the fort, limiting fatal casualties to two. The infrastructure was not as fortunate; the raiders burned all the buildings to the ground, a calamity that the community never overcame. This made the relocation of the county seat to Newtown (now Greensburg) inevitable.
The tiny village site reverted to farmland. In 1826 John Steel purchased the Hanna property at a sheriff’s sale. Eventually it was divided into two parts, with the Steel family farming the 180 acres of “the Hannastown Courthouse Farm” until 1969, when the last surviving member of the family sold it to Westmoreland County and the Westmoreland Historical Society. Together they have recreated the feel of “Historic Hanna’s Town”.
The most impressive structure in the restored village is Hanna’s Tavern. It was faithfully reconstructed on its original site and dedicated in July, 1973. A two-story log structure, it consists of a large public gathering room, a bar, and a private guest room on the first floor, and a travelers’ room and the Hanna family bedroom upstairs. This was the site of the courthouse and the place where the Hanna’s Town Resolves were signed. The current building is rich with historic archives and furniture, each piece of which is accompanied by descriptive text, ideal for self-guided tours.
Adjacent to the Tavern is a reconstructed goal (jail), complete with pillory and whipping post. The goal functioned primarily as a holding cell for prisoners awaiting trial. The most severe crime was horse thievery, with its consequences being thirty-nine lashes on the whipping post followed by twenty-four hours in the pillory. Law abiding citizens were encouraged to pelt the miscreants in the pillory with stones and garbage.
The current village includes three log houses that were relocated from other sites in Westmoreland County. The Klingensmith House is a classic German log house, 28’ by 19’. Its chestnut timbers are eighteen inches square and “vee-notched”. The house has several fireplaces and a central chimney. The Murry-Deacon House currently hosts an excellent display staffed by docents, which demonstrates eighteenth century textile production from flax and wool. I was delighted to find a lady spinning yarn expertly with a simple drop spindle, a skill I was never able to master. The LaFevre House has two rooms on the main floor with a loft over one of them and a magnificent stone fireplace.
The small log cabin housing the blacksmith shop is lavishly equipped with a forge and smithy’s tools. A Conestoga wagon, dating back two centuries is exhibited in a wagon shed. An authentic replica of the original stockade was constructed, based on extensive archaeological investigation. It has three bastions and a log storehouse.
We are grateful to Westmoreland County and its Historical Society for their meticulous restoration of Historic Hanna’s town and the authentic revisit to colonial times it provides us. This was a time travel trip I greatly enjoyed.