Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
Allegheny County is a county in the southwest of the U. S. state of Pennsylvania. As of 2017 the population was 1,223,048, making it the state's second-most populous county, following Philadelphia County; the county seat is Pittsburgh. Allegheny County is included in the Pittsburgh, PA Metropolitan Statistical Area, in the Pittsburgh Designated Market Area. Allegheny was Pennsylvania's first to bear a Native American name, being named after the Allegheny River; the word "Allegheny" is with uncertain meaning. It is said to mean "fine river", but sometimes said to refer to an ancient mythical tribe called "Allegewi" that lived along the river before being destroyed by the Lenape. Little is known of the region's inhabitants prior to European contact. During the colonial era, various native groups claimed or settled in the area, resulting in a multi-ethnic mix that included Iroquois, Lenape and Mingo. European fur traders such as Peter Chartier established trading posts in the region in the early eighteenth century.
In 1749, Captain Pierre Joseph Céloron de Blainville claimed the Ohio Valley and all of western Pennsylvania for Louis XV of France. The captain traveled along the Ohio and Allegheny rivers inserting lead plates in the ground to mark the land for France. Since most of the towns during that era were developed along waterways, both the French and the British desired control over the local rivers. Therefore, the British sent Major George Washington to expel the French from their posts, with no success. Failing in this objective, he nearly drowned in the ice-filled Allegheny River while returning; the English tried in 1754 to again enter the area. They sent 41 Virginians to build Fort Prince George; the French learned of the plan and sent an army to capture the fort, which they resumed building with increased fortification, renaming it Fort Duquesne. The loss cost the English dearly because Fort Duquesne became a focal point of the French and Indian War; the first attempt to retake the fort, the Braddock Expedition, failed miserably.
It was recaptured in 1758 by British forces under General John Forbes. The British built a new, larger fort on the site, including a moat, named it Fort Pitt; the site is now Pittsburgh's Point State Park. Both Pennsylvania and Virginia claimed the region, now Allegheny County. Pennsylvania administered most of the region as part of its Westmoreland County. Virginia considered everything south of the Ohio River and east of the Allegheny River to be part of its Yohogania County and governed it from Fort Dunmore. In addition, parts of the county were located in the proposed British colony of Vandalia and the proposed U. S. state of Westsylvania. The overlapping boundaries, multiple governments, confused deed claims soon proved unworkable. In 1780 Pennsylvania and Virginia agreed to extend the Mason–Dixon line westward, the region became part of Pennsylvania. From 1781 until 1788, much of what had been claimed as part of Yohogania County, was administered as a part of the newly created Washington County, Pennsylvania.
Allegheny County was created on September 24, 1788, from parts of Washington and Westmoreland counties. It was formed due to pressure from settlers living in the area around Pittsburgh, which became the county seat in 1791; the county extended north to the shores of Lake Erie. In the 1790s, a whiskey excise tax was imposed by the United States federal government; this started the so-called Whiskey Rebellion when the farmers who depended on whiskey income refused to pay and drove off tax collector John Neville. After a series of demonstrations by farmers, President George Washington sent troops to stop the rebellion; the area developed in the 1800s to become the nation's prime steel producer. In 1913 the County's 125th anniversary was celebrated with a week long chain of events, the final day September 27 was marked with a steamboat parade consisting of 30 paddle wheelers which sailed from Monongahela Wharf down the Ohio to the Davis Island Dam; the boats in line were the flag ship. Woodward, Volunteer, A. R. Budd, J. C.
Risher, Rival, Jim Brown, Charlie Clarke, Robt. J. Jenkins, Bertha, Midland Sam Barnum, Cadet and Troubadour. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 745 square miles, of which 730 square miles is land and 14 square miles is water. Three majors traverse Allegheny County: the Allegheny River and the Monongahela River converge at Downtown Pittsburgh to form the Ohio River; the Youghiogheny River flows into the Monongahela River at McKeesport, 10 miles southeast. There are several islands in these courses; the rivers drain into the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi River. Although the county's industrial growth caused the clearcutting of the area's forests, a significant woodland remains. Butler County Armstrong County Beaver County Westmoreland County Washington County Until January 1, 2000, Allegheny County's government was defined under Pennsylvania's Second Class County Code; the county government was charged with all local activities, including elections, airports, public health, city planning.
All public offices were headed by elected citizens. There were three elected county commissioners. On January 1, 2000 the Home-Rule Charter went into effect, it replaced the three elected commissioners wi
Edgeworth, Pennsylvania
Edgeworth is a borough in Allegheny County, along the Ohio River 14 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. The population was 1,680 at the 2010 census. Edgeworth was established in 1904 and took its name from the Edgeworth Seminary, a school for girls that had relocated there in 1836; the school was named in honor of Irish writer Maria Edgeworth. From early on, it became a bedroom community for managers and professionals escaping the industrial pollution of Pittsburgh. Edgeworth is located at 40°33′3″N 80°11′33″W. According to the United States Census Bureau, the borough has a total area of 1.7 square miles, of which 1.5 square miles is land and 0.2 square miles, or 10.00%, is water. Edgeworth has four land borders, including Leetsdale and Leet Township to the northwest, Bell Acres to the north, Sewickley Heights to the east, Sewickley to the southeast. Adjacent across the Ohio River to the southwest are the townships of Crescent; as of the census of 2000, there were 1,730 people, 644 households, 510 families residing in the borough.
The population density was 1,133.6 people per square mile. There were 671 housing units at an average density of 439.7 per square mile. The racial makeup of the borough was 95.84% White, 1.97% African American, 0.35% Native American, 0.92% Asian, 0.06% Pacific Islander, 0.06% from other races, 0.81% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.87% of the population. There were 644 households, out of which 37.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 70.2% were married couples living together, 7.8% had a female householder with no husband present, 20.8% were non-families. 19.7% of all households were made up of individuals, 11.3% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.69 and the average family size was 3.10. In the borough the population was spread out, with 30.2% under the age of 18, 3.1% from 18 to 24, 21.6% from 25 to 44, 29.1% from 45 to 64, 16.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42 years. For every 100 females, there were 88.7 males.
For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 84.1 males. As of 2015, the estimated median income for a household in the borough was $155,170, the median income for a family was $183,750. Males had median earnings of $143,125 versus $70,625 for females. About 1.2% of families and 2.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 2.2% of those under age 18 and 1.1% of those age 65 or over. Sewickley Academy, a private coeducational day school, is located in Edgeworth. Edgeworth Elementary School of the Quaker Valley School District is located in Edgeworth. Sidney Crosby, NHL centre Glen Meakem, venture capitalist and radio host Arthur Nevin, American composer, conductor and musicologist Ethelbert Nevin, American pianist and composer List of cities and towns along the Ohio River Ethelbert Nevin Official website
North American Numbering Plan
The North American Numbering Plan is a telephone numbering plan that encompasses twenty-five distinct regions in twenty countries in North America, including the Caribbean. Some North American countries, most notably Mexico, do not participate in the NANP; the NANP was devised in the 1940s by AT&T for the Bell System and independent telephone operators in North America to unify the diverse local numbering plans, established in the preceding decades. AT&T continued to administer the numbering plan until the breakup of the Bell System, when administration was delegated to the North American Numbering Plan Administration, a service, procured from the private sector by the Federal Communications Commission in the United States; each participating country forms a regulatory authority that has plenary control over local numbering resources. The FCC serves as the U. S. regulator. Canadian numbering decisions are made by the Canadian Numbering Administration Consortium; the NANP divides the territories of its members into numbering plan areas which are encoded numerically with a three-digit telephone number prefix called the area code.
Each telephone is assigned a seven-digit telephone number unique only within its respective plan area. The telephone number consists of a four-digit station number; the combination of an area code and the telephone number serves as a destination routing address in the public switched telephone network. For international call routing, the NANP has been assigned the international calling code 1 by the International Telecommunications Union; the North American Numbering Plan conforms with ITU Recommendation E.164, which establishes an international numbering framework. From its beginnings in 1876 and throughout the first part of the 20th century, the Bell System grew from local or regional telephone systems; these systems expanded by growing their subscriber bases, as well as increasing their service areas by implementing additional local exchanges that were interconnected with tie trunks. It was the responsibility of each local administration to design telephone numbering plans that accommodated the local requirements and growth.
As a result, the Bell System as a whole developed into an unorganized system of many differing local numbering systems. The diversity impeded the efficient operation and interconnection of exchanges into a nationwide system for long-distance telephone communication. By the 1940s, the Bell System set out to unify the various numbering plans in existence and developed the North American Numbering Plan as a unified, systematic approach to efficient long-distance service that did not require the involvement of switchboard operators; the new numbering plan was accepted in October 1947, dividing most of North America into eighty-six numbering plan areas. Each NPA was assigned a numbering plan area code abbreviated as area code; these codes were first used by long-distance operators to establish long-distance calls between toll offices. The first customer-dialed direct call using area codes was made on November 10, 1951, from Englewood, New Jersey, to Alameda, California. Direct distance dialing was subsequently introduced across the country.
By the early 1960s, most areas of the Bell System had been converted and DDD had become commonplace in cities and most larger towns. In the following decades, the system expanded to include all of the United States and its territories, Canada and seventeen nations of the Caribbean. By 1967, 129 area codes had been assigned. At the request of the British Colonial Office, the numbering plan was first expanded to Bermuda and the British West Indies because of their historic telecommunications administration through Canada as parts of the British Empire and their continued associations with Canada during the years of the telegraph and the All Red Line system. Not all North American countries participate in the NANP. Exceptions include Mexico, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, the Central American countries and some Caribbean countries; the only Spanish-speaking state in the system is the Dominican Republic. Mexican participation was planned, but implementation stopped after three area codes had been assigned, Mexico opted for an international numbering format, using country code 52.
The area codes in use were subsequently withdrawn in 1991. Area code 905 for Mexico City, was reassigned to a split of area code 416 in the Greater Toronto Area. Dutch-speaking Sint Maarten joined the NANP in September 2011, receiving area code 721; the NANP is administered by the North American Numbering Plan Administration. Today, this function is overseen by the Federal Communications Commission, which assumed the responsibility upon the breakup of the Bell System; the FCC solicits private sector contracts for the role of the administrator. The service was provided by a division of Lockheed Martin. In 1997, the contract was awarded to Neustar Inc.. In 2012, the contract was renewed until 2017. In 2015, the contract beginning 2017 was granted to Ericsson; the vision and goal of the architects of the North American Numbering Plan was a system by which telephone subscribers in the United States and Canada could themselves dial and establish a telephone call to any other subscriber wi
Muscogee
The Muscogee known as the Mvskoke and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy, are a related group of indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands. Mvskoke is their autonym, their original homelands are in what now comprises southern Tennessee, all of Alabama, western Georgia and part of northern Florida. Most of the original population of the Muscogee people were forcibly relocated from their native lands in the 1830s during the Trail of Tears to Indian Territory; some Muscogee fled European encroachment in 1797 and 1804 to establish two small tribal territories that continue to exist today in Louisiana and Texas. Another small branch of the Muscogee Creek Confederacy managed to remain in Alabama and is now known as the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. A large population of Muscogee people moved into Florida between 1767 and 1821 and these people intermarried with local tribes to become the Seminole people, thereby establishing a separate identity from the Creek Confederacy. Muscogee people in these waves of migration into Florida were fleeing conflict and encroachment by European settlers.
The great majority of Seminoles were later forcibly relocated to Oklahoma, where they reside today, although the Seminole Tribe of Florida and Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida remain in Florida. The respective languages of all of these modern day branches and tribes, except one, are all related variants called Muscogee and Hitchiti-Mikasuki, all of which belong to the Eastern Muskogean branch of the Muscogean language family. All of these languages are, for the most part, mutually intelligible; the Yuchi people today are part of the Muscogee Nation but their Yuchi language is a linguistic isolate, unrelated to any other language. The ancestors of the Muscogee people were part of the Mississippian Ideological Interaction Sphere, who between AD 800 and AD 1600 built complex cities and surrounding networks of satellite towns centered around massive earthwork mounds, some of which had physical footprints larger than the Egyptian pyramids; some Mississippian city populations may have been larger than colonial European-American cities.
Muscogee Creeks are associated with multi-mound centers such as the Ocmulgee, Etowah Indian Mounds, Moundville sites. Mississippian societies were based on organized agriculture, transcontinental trade, copper metalwork, artisanship and religion. Early Spanish explorers encountered ancestors of the Muscogee when they visited Mississippian-culture chiefdoms in the Southeast in the mid-16th century; the Muscogee were the first Native Americans considered by the early United States government to be "civilized" under George Washington's civilization plan. In the 19th century, the Muscogee were known as one of the "Five Civilized Tribes", because they were said to have integrated numerous cultural and technological practices of their more recent European American neighbors. In fact, Muscogee confederated town networks were based on an 900-year-old history of complex and well-organized farming and town layouts. Influenced by Tenskwatawa's interpretations of the 1811 comet and the New Madrid earthquakes, the Upper Towns of the Muscogee, supported by the Shawnee leader Tecumseh resisted European-American encroachment.
Internal divisions with the Lower Towns led to the Red Stick War. Begun as a civil war within Muscogee factions, it enmeshed the Northern Creek Bands in the War of 1812 against the United States while the Southern Creeks remained US allies. General Andrew Jackson seized the opportunity to use the rebellion as an excuse to make war against all Muscogee people once the northern Creek rebellion had been put down with the aid of the Southern Creeks; the result was a weakening of the Muscogee Creek Confederacy and the forced cession of Muscogee lands to the US. During the 1830s Indian Removal, most of the Muscogee Confederacy were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory; the Muscogee Nation, Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town, Kialegee Tribal Town, Thlopthlocco Tribal Town, all based in Oklahoma, are federally recognized tribes, as are the Poarch Band of Creek Indians of Alabama, the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas. Seminole people today are part of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, Seminole Tribe of Florida, the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida.
At least 12,000 years ago, Native Americans or Paleo-Indians lived in what is today the Southern United States. Paleo-Indians in the Southeast were hunter-gatherers who pursued a wide range of animals, including the megafauna, which became extinct following the end of the Pleistocene age. During the time known as the Woodland period, from 1000 BC to 1000 AD, locals developed pottery and small-scale horticulture of the Eastern Agricultural Complex; the Mississippian culture arose as the cultivation of maize from Mesoamerica led to population growth. Increased population density gave rise to regional chiefdoms. Stratified societies developed, with hereditary religious and political elites, flourished in what is now the Midwestern and Southeastern United States from 800 to 1500 AD; the early historic Muscogee were descendants of the mound builders of the Mississippian culture along the Tennessee River in modern Tennessee and Alabama. They may have been related to the Tama of central Georgia. Oral traditions passed down by the ancestors of the Creeks have alleged that their nation migrated eastward from places West of the Mississippi River settling on the east bank of the Ocmulgee River.
It was here that they waged war with other bands of Native American Indians, as the Savannas, Wapoos, Yamafees, Icofans
1890 United States Census
The Eleventh United States Census was taken beginning June 2, 1890. It determined the resident population of the United States to be 62,979,766—an increase of 25.5 percent over the 50,189,209 persons enumerated during the 1880 census. The data was tabulated by machine for the first time; the data reported that the distribution of the population had resulted in the disappearance of the American frontier. Most of the 1890 census materials were destroyed in a 1921 fire and fragments of the US census population schedule exist only for the states of Alabama, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, the District of Columbia; this was the first census in which a majority of states recorded populations of over one million, as well as the first in which multiple cities – New York as of 1880, Philadelphia – recorded populations of over one million. The census saw Chicago rank as the nation's second-most populous city, a position it would hold until 1990, in which Los Angeles would supplant it.
The 1890 census collected the following information: The 1890 census was the first to be compiled using methods invented by Herman Hollerith and was overseen by Superintendents Robert P. Porter and Carroll D. Wright. Data was entered on a machine readable medium, punched cards, tabulated by machine; the net effect of the many changes from the 1880 census: the larger population, the number of data items to be collected, the Census Bureau headcount, the volume of scheduled publications, the use of Hollerith's electromechanical tabulators, was to reduce the time required to process the census from eight years for the 1880 census to six years for the 1890 census. The total population of 62,947,714, the family, or rough, was announced after only six weeks of processing; the public reaction to this tabulation was disbelief, as it was believed that the "right answer" was at least 75,000,000. The United States census of 1890 showed a total of 248,253 Native Americans living in the United States, down from 400,764 Native Americans identified in the census of 1850.
The 1890 census announced that the frontier region of the United States no longer existed, that the Census Bureau would no longer track the westward migration of the U. S. population. Up to and including the 1880 census, the country had a frontier of settlement. By 1890, isolated bodies of settlement had broken into the unsettled area to the extent that there was hardly a frontier line; this prompted Frederick Jackson Turner to develop his Frontier Thesis. The original data for the 1890 Census is no longer available. All the population schedules were damaged in a fire in the basement of the Commerce Building in Washington, D. C. in 1921. Some 25 % of the materials were presumed another 50 % damaged by smoke and water; the damage to the records led to an outcry for a permanent National Archives. In December 1932, following standard federal record-keeping procedures, the Chief Clerk of the Bureau of the Census sent the Librarian of Congress a list of papers to be destroyed, including the original 1890 census schedules.
The Librarian was asked by the Bureau to identify any records which should be retained for historical purposes, but the Librarian did not accept the census records. Congress authorized destruction of that list of records on February 21, 1933, the surviving original 1890 census records were destroyed by government order by 1934 or 1935; the other censuses for which some information has been lost are the 1810 enumerations. Few sets of microdata from the 1890 census survive, but aggregate data for small areas, together with compatible cartographic boundary files, can be downloaded from the National Historical Geographic Information System. Mayo-Smith, Richmond, "The Eleventh Census of the United States". In: The Economic Journal, Vol. 1, p. 43 - 58 1891 U. S Census Report Contains 1890 Census results Historical US Census data from the U. S. Census Bureau website Hollerith 1890 Census Tabulator by Columbia University "The Fate of the 1890 Population Census" from the National Archives website
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state located in the northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The Appalachian Mountains run through its middle; the Commonwealth is bordered by Delaware to the southeast, Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, Lake Erie and the Canadian province of Ontario to the northwest, New York to the north, New Jersey to the east. Pennsylvania is the 33rd-largest state by area, the 6th-most populous state according to the most recent official U. S. Census count in 2010, it is the 9th-most densely populated of the 50 states. Pennsylvania's two most populous cities are Philadelphia, Pittsburgh; the state capital and its 10th largest city is Harrisburg. Pennsylvania has 140 miles of waterfront along the Delaware Estuary; the state is one of the 13 original founding states of the United States. Part of Pennsylvania, together with the present State of Delaware, had earlier been organized as the Colony of New Sweden.
It was the second state to ratify the United States Constitution, on December 12, 1787. Independence Hall, where the United States Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution were drafted, is located in the state's largest city of Philadelphia. During the American Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg was fought in the south central region of the state. Valley Forge near Philadelphia was General Washington's headquarters during the bitter winter of 1777–78. Pennsylvania is 170 miles north to south and 283 miles east to west. Of a total 46,055 square miles, 44,817 square miles are land, 490 square miles are inland waters, 749 square miles are waters in Lake Erie, it is the 33rd-largest state in the United States. Pennsylvania has 51 miles of coastline along Lake Erie and 57 miles of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary. Of the original Thirteen Colonies, Pennsylvania is the only state that does not border the Atlantic Ocean; the boundaries of the state are the Mason–Dixon line to the south, the Twelve-Mile Circle on the Pennsylvania-Delaware border, the Delaware River to the east, 80° 31' W to the west and the 42° N to the north, with the exception of a short segment on the western end, where a triangle extends north to Lake Erie.
Cities include Philadelphia, Reading and Lancaster in the southeast, Pittsburgh in the southwest, the tri-cities of Allentown and Easton in the central east. The northeast includes the former anthracite coal mining cities of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton. Erie is located in the northwest. State College serves the central region while Williamsport serves the commonwealth's north-central region as does Chambersburg the south-central region, with York and the state capital Harrisburg on the Susquehanna River in the east-central region of the Commonwealth and Altoona and Johnstown in the west-central region; the state has five geographical regions, namely the Allegheny Plateau and Valley, Atlantic Coastal Plain and the Erie Plain. New York Ontario Maryland Delaware West Virginia New Jersey Ohio Pennsylvania's diverse topography produces a variety of climates, though the entire state experiences cold winters and humid summers. Straddling two major zones, the majority of the state, with the exception of the southeastern corner, has a humid continental climate.
The southern portion of the state has a humid subtropical climate. The largest city, has some characteristics of the humid subtropical climate that covers much of Delaware and Maryland to the south. Summers are hot and humid. Moving toward the mountainous interior of the state, the winter climate becomes colder, the number of cloudy days increases, snowfall amounts are greater. Western areas of the state locations near Lake Erie, can receive over 100 inches of snowfall annually, the entire state receives plentiful precipitation throughout the year; the state may be subject to severe weather from spring through summer into fall. Tornadoes occur annually in the state, sometimes in large numbers, such as 30 recorded tornadoes in 2011; as of 1600, the tribes living in Pennsylvania were the Algonquian Lenape, the Iroquoian Susquehannock & Petun and the Siouan Monongahela Culture, who may have been the same as a little known tribe called the Calicua, or Cali. Other tribes who entered the region during the colonial era were the Trockwae, Saponi, Nanticoke, Conoy Piscataway, Iroquois Confederacy—possibly among others.
Other tribes, like the Erie, may have once held some land in Pennsylvania, but no longer did so by the year 1600. Both the Dutch and the English claimed both sides of the Delaware River as part of their colonial lands in America; the Dutch were the first to take possession. By June 3, 1631, the Dutch had begun settling the Delmarva Peninsula by establishing the Zwaanendael Colony on the site of present-day Lewes, Delaware. In 1638, Sweden established the New Sweden Colony, in the region of Fort Christina, on the site of present-day Wilmington, Delaware. New Sweden claimed and, for the most part, controlled the lower Delaware River region (parts of present-day Delaware, New Jersey, Pe
Moon Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
Moon Township is a township along the Ohio River in Allegheny County, United States. Moon is located 12 miles northwest of Pittsburgh; the population was 24,185 at the 2010 census. The initial settlement of Moon Township was a direct result of the westward expansion of English settlers and traders who arrived in the Ohio Valley in the early to mid-18th century. During the French and Indian War, the Iroquois, who controlled the land for hunting grounds through right of conquest, ceded large parcels of southwestern Pennsylvania lands through treaty or abandonment to settlers. In some cases, the land was occupied by squatters who were to be forced off of the land. In the face of this turmoil, Native American settlements of the south bank of the Ohio River relocated to more populous areas of the north bank in the current locales of Sewickley and Ambridge. On the southern banks of the Ohio, political disputes among settlers clouded the disposition of lands; the Pennsylvania Land Office apportioned land to owners through grants.
But, some of the land encompassing what is now the Coraopolis Heights, Thorn Run valley, Narrows Run valley were claimed through the process of "Tomahawk Improvements", a non-specific and oftentimes contested method. Settlement processes were convoluted because of differences among land policies of the several colonies claiming the land Pennsylvania and Virginia; each colony had its own means of either restricting settlement opportunities. Each settler claiming land in what is now Moon Township had to go through a multi-level process of application for grant, warrant of property, survey to ensure the physical boundaries of the property, patent approval whereby the applicant paid for the land and title was conferred. On April 3, 1769, Andrew Montour, an Indian interpreter who had provided service to the English settlers during the French and Indian War, was granted one of the first land patents for 350 acres of what became the borough of Coraopolis and Neville Island. In 1773, the settler John Meek was awarded a 400-acre land grant from Virginia above the river bottom and between the Thorn Run and Montour Run valleys, "Moon Township" was born, although formal, legal recognition would have to wait until 1788.
The settlers Robert Loudon and John Vail were awarded grants to a total of 600 acres. Loudon's tract was situated on the Coraopolis Heights adjacent to the Meek grant. Vail's grant was established between the current Thorn Narrows Run valleys. Three other early grants were warranted by either Pennsylvania land speculators; the boundaries of these land tracts are hard to identify, the names of the original grantees are contested. But historians believe that they encompassed about 700 acres or so, were occupied by anonymous squatters. Given that the history is somewhat hazy, it remains that in abandoning their lands, the unidentified squatters ceded any potential claims to settlers who would otherwise improve and/or cultivate the land; as the 18th century drew to a close, abandoned lands were taken up by new settlers who were drawn to the region by the fertility of the soil. This round of pioneers were, by and large, wealthier than their predecessors and had the means to develop the broken and hilly areas into plots suitable for farming.
Moon Township was created in 1788 as one of the original townships of the newly created Allegheny County. In 1789 by an act of the legislature a portion of Washington County south of the Ohio River was transferred to Allegheny County; the transferred area became part of Moon Township. At this time Moon Township occupied an enormous tract of land - 145 square miles; some reports and, more legends of the time indicate that it would take one man on horseback two days to travel between the boundaries of the township. The sheer difficulty of settlers performing their civic duties made it necessary for local governing authorities to parcel out the land into smaller municipalities. So, in 1790, the current Fayette Township was portioned off from Moon Township, to be followed by Findlay and Crescent townships, respectively. In 1800 when Beaver County was created from Allegheny and Washington Counties that portion of Beaver County south of the Ohio River that it received from Allegheny County was in Moon Township.
Upon the creation of Beaver County that portion of Moon Township that Allegheny County lost to Beaver County was divided into two new townships: First Moon and Second Moon Townships, Beaver County. In 1943, the federal government designed and built a housing plan known as Mooncrest for defense workers. Mooncrest residents produced armor plates and ships at the nearby Dravo Corp. during World War II. Operated by the U. S. Air Force after 1945, homes were sold to private investors in the mid-1950s. Moon became home to Pittsburgh's modern-day airport in 1951, replacing the Allegheny County Airport as the main terminal for the region; the area developed due to the airport. Prior to this time, the western hills of Allegheny County consisted of rolling farms and small residential developments. On April 1, 1956, TWA Flight 400 crashed on takeoff from the airport, killing 22 persons just past the east end of the runway, which lies in Moon Township. During the Cold War, Moon Township was the location of Nike Site PI-71, a battery of Nike Ajax and/or Nike Hercules surface-to-air missiles, used by US armed forces for high – and medium-altitude air defense.
The former missile site is now a nature preserve
Sewickley travel guide from Wikivoyage
