Augusta Town
Buffalo Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Here met, in August 1776, under Virginia's claim to western Pennsylvania, the first court west of the Monongahela River. The site is a mile south and marked by a monument.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In the tangled years before Pennsylvania's western boundary was settled, Virginia also claimed this corner of the Ohio Country and governed it as part of its own frontier district. In August 1776, as the Revolution was just beginning, the first court west of the Monongahela River convened here under that Virginia authority. The rival colonial claims to the same rich land would not be resolved until the Mason-Dixon line was extended westward.
Why it matters
It marks the messy, overlapping frontier governance that shaped how the young United States sorted out competing state claims to its western lands.
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Related events
- · First court west of the Monongahela River
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Wolff's Fort
Buffalo Township, PA · est. 1947
Around 1780, as the Revolution's violence spilled onto the western frontier, Jacob Wolfe built a stockaded house here that neighbors could flee to when danger threatened. Such fortified homesteads — part dwelling, part refuge — were the backbone of frontier defense in this exposed corner of Pennsylvania, sheltering families during raids until the fighting passed. Wolff's Fort was counted among the most important of these strongholds in the region.
National Road
Buffalo Township, PA · est. 1949
Championed by Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin, the National Road was the young nation's first federally funded highway, begun at Cumberland, Maryland, in 1811 and reaching Wheeling on the Ohio River by 1818. It opened a reliable overland artery for settlers, freight, and mail streaming toward the western frontier, and was later maintained as a state-run toll road from 1835 to 1905. Rebuilt in the automobile age, its route survives as U.S. Route 40.
"S" Bridge
Buffalo Township, PA · est. 1947
This stone bridge carried the National, or Cumberland, Road, the first federally funded highway in the United States. Authorized in 1805 and pushed westward to Wheeling by 1818, the road became the great artery of early national travel. Across spans like this one rolled countless Conestoga wagons and stagecoaches carrying settlers, goods, and mail between the settled East and the growing West.
Washington
North Franklin Township, PA · est. 1947
Founded in 1781 by John and William Hoge on the site of the Native Catfish Camp, Washington grew from a frontier plat into a borough (1810) and later a city (1923). Its fortunes were tied to the National Road, the federally built highway that funneled settlers and commerce westward through southwestern Pennsylvania. Named for George Washington, the town became rich in historic buildings and associations as traffic streamed past its doors.