Greene County
Waynesburg, Greene County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Formed February 9, 1796 from Washington County. Named for Gen. Nathanael Greene. Waynesburg, the county seat named for Gen. Anthony Wayne, was incorporated in 1816. Site of Waynesburg College, founded 1849. Near Ten Mile is birthplace of Gov. Edward Martin.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Formed from Washington County in 1796, Greene County was named for Revolutionary War general Nathanael Greene, and its seat, Waynesburg, honors the fiery General Anthony Wayne. In the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania, this was hard-won frontier country in the early republic. Waynesburg College was founded here in 1849, and the area near Ten Mile Creek gave rise to Governor Edward Martin.
Why it matters
Bearing the names of two Revolutionary generals and home to an early college, Greene County shows how the frontier honored the nation's founders while building its own civic and educational life.
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Related people
- · Nathanael Greene
- · Anthony Wayne
- · Edward Martin
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Greene Academy
Carmichaels, PA · est. 1953
Established by act of the Pennsylvania legislature in 1810 and aided by a state grant and local subscriptions, Greene Academy brought advanced schooling to Carmichaels when much of western Pennsylvania was still frontier country. For half a century it stood among the leading academies west of the mountains, educating young people far from the older schools of the East. Its old building still stands nearby.
Reverend John McMillan - PLAQUE
North Strabane Township, PA · est. 1931
The Reverend John McMillan carried Presbyterian faith and formal schooling into the rugged country of western Pennsylvania in the years after the Revolution. Over six decades of ministry he helped plant churches at Chartiers, Pigeon Creek, and beyond, and lent his energy to founding institutions that became Jefferson College and Western Theological Seminary. He and his wife endured the hardships of frontier life to build lasting religious and educational roots in the region.
Waynesburg College
Waynesburg, PA · est. 1949
In 1849, on the rolling hills of Greene County in Pennsylvania's southwestern corner, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church founded Waynesburg College, and the state chartered it the following year. In an era when higher education was almost entirely a male preserve, the young school made a remarkable choice: in 1857 it conferred degrees on women, becoming one of the first two Pennsylvania colleges to do so. That decision placed a small frontier-country college decades ahead of most of American academia.
Monongahela College
Jefferson, PA · est. 1960
In the years just after the Civil War, the Ten Mile Baptist Association set out to plant higher learning in the hills of southwestern Pennsylvania, founding what became the first Baptist college west of the Alleghenies in the state. Chartered by the legislature in 1871, Monongahela College opened its doors to students in a rural corner of Greene County, but like many small denominational schools of the era it struggled to stay solvent, closing, reopening, and finally shutting for good in 1894. Its brick 1871 college building still stands nearby as a reminder of that ambition.