The whole mountain district west of Johnstown is filled with coal
mines, coke ovens and iron furnaces, this being the "Pittsburg Coal
District." The Conemaugh breaks through the next western ridge, the
Laurel Mountain, and the broadening river winds along its deep valley
between high wooded hills. It is a veritable "Black Country," and ten
miles beyond, the river passes the finest mountain gorge on the
western slope of the Alleghenies, the deep and winding canyon of the
Packsaddle Narrows, by which the Conemaugh breaks out of the Chestnut
Ridge, the western border of the Allegheny ranges. For two hundred
miles the railroad has gone through or over range after range, and
this grand pass, encompassed by mountains rising twelve hundred feet
above the bottom of the gorge, is the impressive exit at the final
portal. The main railroad then leaves the Conemaugh, and goes off
southwestward along the slope of Chestnut Ridge towards Greensburg and
Pittsburg. The river unites with the Loyalhanna Creek below, and then
flows as the Kiskiminetas down to the Allegheny. The name of
Loyalhanna means the "middle stream," while the tradition is that an
impatient Indian warrior, anxious to move forward, shouted in the
night to his comrades encamped on the other river--"Giesh-gumanito"--
"let us make daylight"--and from this was derived its name of
Kiskiminetas. A branch railroad from here goes to Blairsville, named
in memory of the solitary pioneer of Blair's Gap, and another
northward leads to the town of Indiana. The great Chestnut Ridge which
the main railway runs along, gradually descending the slope, is the
last mountain the westbound traveller sees until he reaches the
Rockies. For seventy miles to the southwestward the Chestnut Ridge and
Laurel Mountain extend in parallels, their crest lines being almost
exactly ten miles apart, and enclosing the Ligonier Valley, out of
which flows northward the Loyalhanna Creek, breaking through the
Chestnut Ridge. Near this pass in 1757 was built Fort Ligonier,
another of the frontier outposts which resisted the incursions of the
French and Indians, who then held all the country to the westward. In
the Chestnut Ridge at Hillside is the "Great Bear Cave," an extensive
labyrinth of passages and spacious chambers stretching more than a
mile underground, which, like most such places, has its subterranean
river and its tale of woe. A young girl, stolen by gypsies, to escape
from them took refuge in this cave, and losing her way, perished, her
bones being found years afterwards. Explorers since have always
unwound balls of twine in this labyrinth, to be able to retrace their
steps.
In a good farming district of the Westmoreland region is Greensburg,
another railway junction where branches go southward to the
Monongahela coalfields. Robert Hanna built a house near here in the
eighteenth century, around which gathered some thirty log cabins, and
the place in course of time became known as Hannastown, prominent in
the early history of Western Pennsylvania. Here was held the first
court convened west of the Alleghenies, and here were passed the
patriotic resolutions of May 16, 1775, upon receipt of the news of the
battle of Lexington at the opening of the Revolution, which sounded
the keynote for the Declaration of Independence the following year.
Here also first appeared during the Revolution General Arthur St.
Clair, an immigrant from Scotland, the grandson of the Earl of
Roslyn, who lived in an humble house on Chestnut Ridge. He served in
the French and Indian wars, and was the British commander at Fort
Ligonier. Horrible Indian massacres and terrible retributions by the
settlers were the chief features of the Revolutionary War in
Westmoreland. At its close, the whites sent an expedition in 1782
against the Wyandottes, which was defeated. The savages soon wreaked
fearful vengeance, raiding the region in July of that year and burning
Hannastown, which was never rebuilt. Greensburg appeared soon
afterwards, however, and in 1875 it celebrated the centenary of the
Hannastown resolutions with patriotic spirit. In its Presbyterian
churchyard lie the remains of General St. Clair, who, after founding
and naming the city of Cincinnati, returned here, and died in 1818, at
the age of eighty-four, in his lonely cabin on Chestnut Ridge, in
unmerited poverty and obscurity. The stone over his grave has this
significant inscription: "The earthly remains of General Arthur St.
Clair are deposited beneath this humble monument, which is erected to
supply the place of a nobler one due from his country." Being in a
region of fine agriculture and prolific mines, Greensburg is a
prosperous and wealthy town.