Loretto
Cresson Township, Cambria County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
This village, 3.5 miles NW of here, was founded 1799 by Prince Gallitzin as a Catholic colony. The site of the priest-missioner's grave is here. Charles Schwab, steel king, had his home in Loretto, and is buried here.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
The village of Loretto, a few miles from this marker, was founded in 1799 by Prince Demetrius Gallitzin as a Catholic colony on the Allegheny frontier. The priest-missioner who gave his life to the settlement is buried there, and generations later the steel magnate Charles Schwab made his home in Loretto and was laid to rest in the same ground. The place links the earliest days of frontier faith to the towering ambitions of the industrial age.
Why it matters
Loretto joins two very different chapters of the American story—frontier missionary settlement and Gilded Age industrial fortune—in a single small mountain town.
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Related people
- · Demetrius Gallitzin
- · Charles M. Schwab
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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