Chartier's Old Town
Tarentum, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
An early Shawnee Indian village located at the site of present Tarentum. It was named for Pierre (Peter) Chartier, who had a trading post here from 1734 to 1743. He was the son of Martin Chartier, a French explorer. Several heavily traveled Indian paths intersected nearby. In 1829, Henry Brackenridge laid out lots for a town along the Pennsylvania Canal and named it Tarentum for an ancient Greek city in present-day Italy.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Long before Tarentum, this bend of the Allegheny held a Shawnee village where several well-worn Indian paths came together. In the 1730s the trader Pierre Chartier — son of the French explorer Martin Chartier — kept a post here for nearly a decade. Nearly a century later, in 1829, Henry Brackenridge laid out a town along the new Pennsylvania Canal and gave it the classical name Tarentum.
Why it matters
The site layers three Americas atop one another — a Native crossroads, a French-era fur trade, and a canal-age town — showing how a single riverbank carried the frontier from Indian path to industrial waterway.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Pierre Chartier
- · Martin Chartier
- · Henry Brackenridge
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Shannopin Town
Pittsburgh, PA · est. 1958
Before Pittsburgh existed, a Delaware (Lenape) community stood on this ground from about 1731 until the French moved into the region in 1754. It sat at the Allegheny River end of the Raystown Path, an Indian and traders' route running from Carlisle out to the western country. In an era when rivers and footpaths were the highways of the continent, this was a hub of Native trade and travel at the strategic forks of the Ohio.
Kuskusky Path
Franklin Park, PA · est. 2008
Long before paved roads crossed western Pennsylvania, a network of Native American trails threaded the forests, and the Kuskusky Path was one of the busiest. Through most of the 1700s it carried hunters, traders, warriors, war captives, and diplomats between the great confluence at Fort Duquesne/Fort Pitt and the Delaware (Lenape) town of Kuskusky, at today's New Castle. As European settlers pushed in, they raised homes and churches right alongside the old trace, layering a new world atop an Indigenous one.
Venango Path
Cranberry Township, PA · est. 1995
Long before roads crossed western Pennsylvania, the Venango Path was a major Indian trail linking the Forks of the Ohio—today's Pittsburgh—with the Seneca town of Venango at present-day Franklin. In December 1753 a young George Washington, guided by frontier scout Christopher Gist, traveled this route on his return from Fort LeBoeuf, carrying a message for Virginia's Governor Dinwiddie warning the French out of the Ohio Country. Decades later, in 1796, the Franklin Road—the first wagon road north from Pittsburgh—was cut along the same corridor.
D. Leech & Company ⎯⎯⎯ Western Transportation Company
Leechburg, PA
From 1829 to 1853, D. Leech & Company—later the Western Transportation Company—ran an integrated freight and passenger network along the Pennsylvania Mainline Canal, stitching together canalboats, wagons, railroads, and steamships into one of the state's most extensive forwarding businesses. With agents in at least ten states, it moved goods between major cities and even partnered with the Pennsylvania Railroad, building new rail lines for them. Its boatbuilding yard stood near here.