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Introduction
Washington County PA was originally part of Cumberland County. The following list of townships was obtained from: Chaqrtiersl,com based on the History of Washington County by Boyd Crumrine, "History of Washington County, Pennsylvania with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men" (Philadelphia: L. H. Leverts & Co., 1882).
| Polity | Date | Formation | First Settlers
| | Washington Borough | June 19, 1769 | | First Warrants issued. William Houston of Catfish Camp arrives by 1774; 'the earliest white inhabitant of the vicinity of whom any information can be gained"
| | Monongahela City | 1768 | immediately after the treaty of Nov. 5, 1768, when the Indian title to lands comprising the southwestern counties of Pennsylvania was extinguished, the proprietaries or heirs of William Penn began the sale of tracts located in the new purchase to individuals at the rate of £5 for one hundred acres;
| | Canonsburg Borough | 1773 | John Canon, one of the earliest settlers in the Chartiers Valley, took up a large tract of land under Virginia authority, on which land he settled about 1773, his place of settlement being the site of the present town of Canonsburg.
| | California Borough | | The site of the town is celebrated in the annals of Pennsylvania as having been the place where the Indians met in council, in 1767 to express their grievances, which resulted in the mission of the Rev. Capt. Steele, of Carlisle, and others, who were sent out in the following spring to meet them, and to persuade white settlers to retire and not invade the lands yet belonging to the Indians. The Indian title, however, was extinguished by the treaty of Nov. 5, 1768, and the following year thousands of acres bordering upon the Monongahela were surveyed by Gen. James Hendricks and other surveyors, and many patents covering these lands were granted to individuals by warrants from the proprietary land-office.
| | West Brownsville Borough | 1768 | It seems that during the middle of the last century, and prior to the year 1769, a friendly Indian named William Peters, yet more generally known as "Indian Peter," lived on lands in the Youghiogheny Valley, adjoining a German named Philip Shute,1 with whom he could not agree. Thereupon Indian Peter wrote the proprietaries' agent, saying that he could not "get along with the d—d Dutchman," and wished to give up his land for another tract. His request was promptly complied with it appears, for on the 5th day of April, 1769, but two days after the land-office (for the sale of land in this newly-purchased territory) was opened, warrant No. 2844 was granted him for a tract containing three hundred and thirty-nine acres situated on the west side of the Monongahela River. This land was surveyed Oct. 7, 1769, by James Hendricks, deputy surveyor-general, who gave it the name of "Indian Hill."
| | Allen Township | 1852 | This is one of the most eastern townships of Washington County, lying in a sweeping bend of the Monongahela River, which stream forms its entire eastern and southern boundaries. On the north it is bounded by Fallowfield, and on the west by the townships of Fallowfield and East Pike Run, in which two townships the entire territory of Allen was embraced until the year 1852. At the February term of the court of Quarter Sessions in 1851 there was presented “a petition of sundry inhabitants of the northeast end of East Pike Run township, and the southeast end of Fallowfield township for a view to erect portions of said townships into a new and independent township district,
| | Amwell Township | | AMWELL was one of the thirteen original townships erected in 1781, and at that time embraced its present territory and the present townships of Morris and Franklin. On the 13th of March, 1788, the township of Morris was erected, comprising the southwest quarter of this township. On the 23rd of April, 1792, the township of Canton was erected, taking from Amwell that part of its territory that lay north of Morris.
| | Buffalo Township | 1798 | Buffalo was formed from a part of the territory of the original township of Donegal, in accordance with the prayer of a petition of Samuel Taylor and twenty others, inhabitants of the last-named township, presented at the April session of the Court of Quarter Sessions of 1798,
| | Canton Township | 1792 | AMWELL was one of the thirteen original townships erected in 1781, and at that time embraced its present territory and the present townships of Morris and Franklin. On the 13th of March, 1788, the township of Morris was erected, comprising the southwest quarter of this township. On the 23rd of April, 1792, the township of Canton was erected, taking from Amwell that part of its territory that lay north of Morris.
| | Carroll Township | 1834 | The township of Carroll, which until its organization in 1834 formed part of Fallowfield and Nottingham townships, is situated in a great bend of the Monongahela River, on the eastern border of the county. Its boundaries are Union township and the Monongahela River on the north, the Monongahela River on the east, the same river and Fallowfield township on the south, and Fallowfield and Nottingham townships on the west.
| | Cecil Township | | Cecil was the third in the list of original townships of Washington County, and embraced in its territory the present township and all that portion of Allegheny County lying between Robinson Run and Chartiers Creek, and all the present township of Chartiers, as well as the northern portion of Mount Pleasant. One of the earliest settlers within the territory that is now Cecil township was Samuel Parks, who, in the autumn of 1777, came over the Allegheny Mountains in search of land on which to make a home. He purchased of Matthew Rodgers for four hundred and fifty pounds a parcel of land in two drafts on Chartiers' waters, containing five hundred and sixty-six acres. The bill of sale, marked No. 8, is dated Dec. 1, 1777.
| | Chartiers Township | 1790 | The erection of Allegheny County in 1788 and the addition made to that county in 1789 reduced the territory of Cecil, which was further reduced to its present limits by the erection of Chartiers in March, 1790, and of Mount Pleasant in 1808. The township of Chartiers was erected by action of the Court of Quarter Sessions of Washington County on the 23d of March, 1790, in accordance with a petition from the inhabitants residing within the limits.
| | Cross Creek Township | 1789 | The territory now embraced in the townships of Cross Creek, Jefferson, and part of Mount Pleasant was included in the original township of Hopewell for more than eight years from the erection of the last-named township. The first movement towards the formation of Cross Creek township from a part of Hopewell was the presentation of a petition to the court on the 31st of March, 1789, setting forth
| | Donegal Township | 1781 | DONEGAL was one of the thirteen original townships of Washington County laid out in 1781. Its territory then embraced what is now included in the townships of Donegal, Buffalo, East and West Finley, and the western portion of Greene County. The first reduction of the large area of this township was made by the erection of Finley township from it, in 1788, as mentioned in the history of East Finley. Five years later (1793) the petition of John Hill, Martin Horn, Nathaniel McDole, David McMillan, John Buchanan, and fifty-five others, inhabitants of the township of Donegal, was presented to the Court of Quarter Sessions at the June term of the year named, representing that the inhabitants of the eastern part of the township were laboring under great difficulties in transacting business before the justices "at unreasonable distances from home, as also in being obliged to repair roads at extreme distances, with divers other inconveniences occasioned by the great extent of the township," and praying that the court divide the township and erect from a part of it a new township, to be called New German township,
| | East Bethlehem Township | | Of the thirteen original townships into which Washington County was divided immediately after its erection in 1781, the second on the list was the township of Bethlehem, which embraced the present territory of East and West Bethlehem and a part of that of East Pike Run township. The old township of Bethlehem continued, with its original boundaries, for nine years from the time of its erection.
| | East Finley Township | | This township, as also the present township of West Finley, was embraced in the old township of Finley, the territory of which formed a part of the original township of Donegal for nearly seven years from the time of its formation by the trustees. The first movement towards the erection of Finley township was made in 1788, in which year a petition of certain inhabitants of Donegal township was presented to the Court of Quarter Sessions of Washington County at the January term, | Early Settlements.---Abraham Enlow was among the first of the settlers in what is now East Finley township. There is little doubt that he was here as early as 1775. He settled on Wheeling Creek, where he built a block-house for the protection of himself and family from the Indians. His first land purchase was of a tract containing four hundred acres, called "Big Flat," situated on the waters of Big Wheeling Creek,
| | East Pike Run Township | | The township of East Pike Run lies in the eastern part of Washington County, on the Monongahela River, which forms its eastern boundary, except for a short distance on the northern part of that boundary, where it is joined by Allen township. The other boundaries of East Pike Run are: on the north, Fallowfield and a small part of Allen; n the west, West Pike Run township; and on the south, the township of East Bethlehem. The territory of the townships of East and West Pike Run were for almost half a century included in the old township of Pike Run were for almost half a century included in the old township of Pike Run, which was formed in 1792 | In 1769, Thomas Swearingen, Jr., a son of Thomas Swearingen, of Montgomery County, MD., entered application for a certain tract of land lying along the Monongahela River, in what is now East Pike Run township. A warrant for the tract was issued April 5, 1769, and it was surveyed under the name of “Turkey Bottom.”
| | Fallowfield Township | 1780 | Fallowfield was the sixth of the original townships of Washington , formed soon after the erection of the county in 1781. The next year a part of it's territory was taken off in the formation by the Court of Quarters Sessions of the township of Somerset. | Fallowfield township, like all the northeastern part of the present county of Washington, was within the county of Yohogania, as claimed by Virginia, prior to the settlement of the boundary controversy between that State and Pennsylvania; and it was under chiefly Virginia certificates that the first settlers in this township held their lands. County is that of "Maiden's Hall," a tract of three hundred and seventy-five acres, for which Joseph Brinton granted a Virginia certificate, and which was surveyed to him by Col. William Crawford, May 2, 1780
| | Franklin Township | | The territory now embraced in Franklin township was originally a part of Amwell. Morris township, erected from Amwell in September, 1788, embraced the northern part of the present township of Franklin, and Canton township, erected April 23, 1792, embraced the northern portion. The territory remained within these two townships without any effort to form a new township until the year 1852, | John Beard took out a warrant for a tract of land on the 19th of February, 1785. It was surveyed to him as "Strawberry" on the 11th of September the same year, and contained two hundred and ninety-three acres. James Huston, Daniel Leet, John Gabby, and David Hoge were owners of adjoining tracts.
| | Hanover Township
| | Hopewell Township
| | Independence Township
| | Jefferson Township
| | Morris Township | 1781 | AMWELL was one of the thirteen original townships erected in 1781, and at that time embraced its present territory and the present townships of Morris and Franklin. On the 13th of March, 1788, the township of Morris was erected, comprising the southwest quarter of this township. On the 23rd of April, 1792, the township of Canton was erected, taking from Amwell that part of its territory that lay north of Morris.
| | Mt. Pleasant Township | 1808 | The erection of Allegheny County in 1788 and the addition made to that county in 1789 reduced the territory of Cecil, which was further reduced to its present limits by the erection of Chartiers in March, 1790, and of Mount Pleasant in 1808.
| | North Strabane Township
| | Nottingham Township
| | Peters Township
| | Robinson Township
| | Smith Township
| | Somerset Township
| | South Strabane Township
| | Union Township
| | West Bethlehem Township
| | West Finley Township
| | West Pike Run Township |
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