Warren County’s exposure to the Revolution was minor, as there was no Warren County at the time-it was still Indian country, inhabited mostly by the Senecas, who were scattered up and down the Allegheny River basin. Colonel Daniel Brodhead, in charge of Fort Pitt, left there on August 11, 1779, to make his way north, partly across the Allegheny River; the explicit purpose of his expedition, independent of but simultaneous with the more famous Sullivan’s raid, was to prevent further depredations by those Indians who were in league with the British.
Accompanied by 605 soldiers and several delawares, Broadhead arrived at the foot of Thompson’s Island near Warren in late August, where some of his men engaged in a brief skirmish with 30-40 Indian warriors. From here, he marched to the Buckaluns at the mouth of Brokenrock Creek, raised a small parapet, and left behind a symbolic group of officers and men. He spent most of his remaining time in the area, after passing through Warren’s territory, destroying and burning Indian settlements along both banks of the river near the town of Enuchshadega, later the site of the village of Kornplanter. The Seneca, warned by the refugees from the conflict on Thompson Island and their Muncie allies, stayed ahead of the raids and found shelter on a high hill overlooking their homes.
Early settlement
It is commonly believed that because the first large influx of permanent settlers to Warren and the county arrived in the first decade of the nineteenth century, there were few whites in the area before 1800. But probably even before 1795, in addition to the Holland Land Company’s agents, there was a steady stream of others through the region; among them were warriors, missionaries, merchants, would-be settlers. emigrants heading west across the Allegheny River, gangs of laborers building roads and warehouses, and surveyors. The Holland Land Company built what was believed to be the first permanent building in Warren, a log warehouse later used as a house, and which stood until 1840.
There is ample evidence that temporary settlements sprang up along the Conewango Creek before 1800, in part due to the presence of sawmills and the convenience of the waterway for timber rafting.
Serious settlement of Warren Township began around 1806 with the arrival of Scots-Irish from southeastern Pennsylvania and New Englanders, most of whom were of English descent. Small groups of Germans and Alsatians (the first author decided that the latter “seem more like Germans than French,” probably in part because of their German names) began arriving in Warren County around 1830; and after the Civil War, quite large numbers of Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians arrived. Irish laborers came with the railroad in the 1850s and 1860s, and the later years of the century saw an influx of many Italian families.