Forest County
Tionesta, Forest County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Formed April 11, 1848 from Jefferson County. Named for its extensive forests. Part of Venango County was added, 1866, and county seat moved from Marienville to Tionesta. Area notable for its Indian paths, and Zeisberger's mission to the Munsees, 1767-1770.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Established in 1848 from Jefferson County and enlarged with part of Venango County in 1866, Forest County was named for the deep woodlands that still define it. Long before county lines, the region was laced with Native American paths, and between 1767 and 1770 the Moravian missionary David Zeisberger carried his mission among the Munsee people here. The county seat later moved from Marienville to Tionesta.
Why it matters
The old Indian paths and Zeisberger's mission recall a frontier where Native nations and European missionaries met along the trails of the Pennsylvania interior.
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Related people
- · David Zeisberger
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Indian Paths
Hickory Township, PA · est. 1947
Long before roads followed the Allegheny, Native travelers used seasonal footpaths that climbed the hills toward Oil Creek. Each spring they gathered crude petroleum skimmed from natural oil pits, boiled maple sap into sugar, and shaped canoes from tree bark — a round of harvests keyed to the season and the land. Forest County's oil seeps were valued generations before the 1859 Drake Well launched the world's petroleum industry nearby.
Olean Road
Corsica, PA · est. 1950
The Olean Road, an early route running from Olean to Kittanning, followed the older Catawba Path — a trail once used by Five Nations (Iroquois) war parties on their long raids against the Catawba people of South Carolina. Near this point it crossed another Native path linking Venango (present-day Franklin) with Chinklacamoose (present-day Clearfield). The layered names on the land record centuries of Indigenous travel and warfare before settlers ever arrived.
Venango Path
Irwin Township, PA · est. 1987
Long before wagon roads, an Indian path threaded the wooded ridges of western Pennsylvania, linking the Forks of the Ohio at present Pittsburgh to the native town of Venango near Franklin. It was along this route that a young George Washington rode north in 1753, carrying a British ultimatum to the French at Fort Le Boeuf on the eve of a continental war. Decades later the trail was broadened for troops and then for commerce, and the crossroads at Mayes Forks grew a busy hotel and stagecoach stop where travelers changed horses and collected the mail.
Seneca Crossing
Glade Township, PA · est. 2007
Long before roads crossed this country, an eight-mile footpath linked Conewango Creek to the upper Allegheny River, sparing travelers the grueling 26-mile trip upstream to the heart of the Seneca Nation. Generations of Seneca people, French explorers, and later Revolutionary War soldiers all wore this portage smooth, its lower branches converging near this midpoint before the route continued on toward Kinzua. It was a highway of the wilderness, connecting waterways and peoples across northwestern Pennsylvania.