Hannastown is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

and important historical and archaeological site located in Hempfield Township,

Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania Westmoreland County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 364,663. The county seat is Greensburg. Formed from, successively, Lancaster, Northumberland, and later Bedford co ...

. Although the village is not tracked by the

Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...

, it has been assigned the ZIP code 15635. The village was founded in 1773 as the seat of the newly created Westmoreland County, and was known at the time as "Hanna's Town". It was located along

Forbes Road The Forbes Road, a historic military roadway in what was then British America, was initially completed in 1758 from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to the French Fort Duquesne at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers in what is now downt ...

, the main route into the Ohio Country from eastern Pennsylvania, and named for Robert Hanna, an early settler whose tavern also served as Westmoreland County's first courthouse. Hannastown was settled primarily by

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

and Scotch-Irish, though the surrounding area was mostly

Pennsylvania Dutch The Pennsylvania Dutch ( Pennsylvania Dutch: ), also known as Pennsylvania Germans, are a cultural group formed by German immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. They emigrated primarily from German-spe ...

. On July 13, 1782, in one of the final actions of the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

, the settlement was attacked and destroyed by a British military detachment from Fort Niagara and British-allied American Indians led by

Guyasuta Guyasuta (c. 1725–c. 1794; see, Kayahsotaˀ, either "he stands up to the cross" or "he sets up the cross") was an important Native American leader of the Seneca people in the second half of the eighteenth century, playing a central role i ...

. The county government was moved to Newtown, which later became known as Greensburg. The village was rebuilt, but after Forbes Road was rerouted through Greensburg, the settlement grew little, and eventually most of it became farmland. In 1899 the Jamison Coal & Coke Company opened a shaft-entry coal mine at Hannastown. The site (known as No. 2) also had a coke works and nearly 80 company-built houses for employees. It was served by the Alexandria branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Production at the mine peaked in the 1910s, when the site employed as many as 635 people. It ceased operations in 1949.

Historic Hanna's Town

In recent decades, what was known as Hanna's Town in the 1700s has been excavated, extensively restored and rebuilt. Currently, the Historic Hanna's Town site includes the reconstructed Hanna Tavern/Courthouse, three vintage late 18th century log houses, a reconstruction of the Revolutionary-era fort and blockhouse, a blacksmith shop, and a wagon shed housing an authentic late 18th century Conestoga wagon. The site is maintained and opened to the public by the Westmoreland County Historical Society and the Westmoreland County Parks and Recreation Department.

References

External links

Historic Hanna's Town
Westmoreland County Historical Society
Historic Hanna's Town
Westmoreland County Parks and Recreation
$5 million Hanna's Town education center planned
from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 7, 2007

{{authority control Houses in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania Coal towns in Pennsylvania Scotch-Irish American culture in Pennsylvania Unincorporated communities in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania Unincorporated communities in Pennsylvania