Murdering Town


Murdering Town was a Lenni Lenape community that comprised several smaller villages along the Connoquenessing Creek and Breakneck Creek near present-day Harmony, and Evans City, Pennsylvania, United States. The village was located along the Venango Path which ran through what was then the Ohio Country during the French and Indian War. Today, the area is part of Western Pennsylvania.

History

In 1753, George Washington passed through Murdering Town while on a mission to Fort Le Boeuf about six months before the French and Indian War began. On December 27, Washington, and his guide Christopher Gist, were shot at by a French allied Native just a few miles from the village. A stone marker near Evans City, PA, marks the spot where the shooting took place. The exact location is unknown but is thought to be somewhere between Evans City and Zelienople, a region above the forks of the Ohio known as Mutheringtown or "Murdering Town".