Yohogania Courthouse
Jefferson Hills, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Governmental and judicial center for Yohogania, a county erected by Virginia in asserting its claim to western Pennsylvania from 1777 to 1780. The site is on the hilltop opposite.
The Story
In the years around the Revolution, the western edge of Pennsylvania was contested ground: Virginia insisted its charter reached across the Monongahela country and, in 1776, carved the disputed region into three counties. Yohogania was one of them, and this hilltop served as its seat of government and justice from 1777 to 1780—complete with a courthouse where Virginia magistrates held court over settlers who thought they lived in Pennsylvania. The overlapping claims were only untangled when the two states finally agreed to extend the Mason-Dixon Line westward, extinguishing Yohogania County and returning the ground to Pennsylvania.
Why it matters
It marks a moment when two of the new United States nearly came to blows over the same frontier soil, a reminder that America's internal borders were improvised and fiercely contested long before they hardened into the map we know.
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Related events
- · Virginia–Pennsylvania boundary dispute
- · Creation of Yohogania County (1776)
Themes & tags
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