Be sure to watch Before Now, this month's Our Local Heritage video that tells you the story and takes you to the actual locations to which this story refers. Check it out here: http://www.alle-kiskitoday.com/webcasts/1314

Where do you live? What town or borough? What if it was in the mid-1700s but you still lived in the Alle-Kiski region? You wouldn't have been living in Tarentum, Saltsburg, New Ken, Parnassus, Vandergrift, Shelocta or Springdale. These towns were not around then. In fact, no towns as we even remotely know them were around here then.

What was here before now? At least five Indian villages—small collections of Native Americans that lived here mainly along the rivers. If you live near an AK area river, you probably at the most are within a few miles of one of them. Their correct original names may have been lost, but we do know what they were called by explorer Christopher Gist in 1750 and writer John Watson in 1857, among others.

Chartier's Old Town, Sewickley Old Town, Kiskimenitas Old Town, Tohogus (also called Letort's Town) and the village of Blacklegs were all right where your backyard is today. In fact all but one of these Indian villages existed just barely a mile away from one of several modern Alle-Kiski high schools.

They were inhabited by various Shawnee, Delaware and even a few Seneca and Mingo tribes. One of them was named after a man who lived there but had a very bad reputation among English settlers as a spy for the French who could not be trusted. Another one shared its name with another sister village located out of the AK region, many miles to the south. Still another village was situated near what is today a bowling alley and sewage treatment plant.

An overhead satellite shot of where the original village sites were, from an early 1700s map.

Where were these villages? One was in Springdale and across river in the Parnassus section of New Kensington, one was in Spring Church, and one was between Hyde Park and Pine Run. One was in Tarentum and the other one was little more than a stone's throw from Saltsburg.

And all of them had "roads" that led to or near them. You probably even drive some of them today. But that is another story… of Our Local Heritage.

Where in these towns were they, and which was which? Or do you think you know where these Indian villages were? Believe you know where some of these names came from? Check out Before Now, this month's Our Local Heritage video online at http://www.alle-kiskitoday.com/webcasts/1314 and find out if you are right

Some of the sources I used for this article are from the list below. They are mainly primary sources written or drawn at the time or shortly after. Special thanks goes to Dr. Reid Stewart, historian extraordinaire and Kenneth Blose, who both put me, if you will excuse the pun, on the trail of this information.

Darlington, William M. [1815-1889]. Christopher Gist's Journals with Historical, Geographical and Ethnological Notes and Biographies of His Contemporaries. Pittsburgh, PA. J. R. Weldin & CO, 1893.

Original village sites with modern nearby place names.

Fleming, George Thornton, 1855-1928. Vol. 1 History of Pittsburgh and environs, from prehistoric days to the beginning of the American revolution. New York, Chicago: The American historical society, inc., 1922.

Gordon, Thomas F. Gazetter of the State Of Pennsylvania. 1832.

Watson's Annals of Philadelphia And Pennsylvania, 1857: Area History: Chapter 3 - Part II, Vol II

Maps:

Jeffreys, Thomas. The American Atlas. Sayer & Bennet, 1776.

Scull, William. 1770.