Almost 14 months before delegates to the Continental Congress declared in July 1776 that "these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States," Westmoreland County residents had already moved toward independence from Great Britain.

As Pittsburgh prepares for its 250th birthday next November, the Post-Gazette will publish stories every other Sunday drawn from contemporary accounts in the region's newspapers and periodicals. The stories will offer snapshots at critical -- and sometimes comical -- junctures over the past two-and-a-half centuries.

Additional coverage of Pittsburgh birthday.

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The Hanna's Town Resolves were approved at what was then the county seat on May 16, 1775. Seven years later the British and their Seneca allies took their revenge.

As it had been during the French and Indian War, southwestern Pennsylvania became a dark and bloody ground during the American Revolution. White settlers were easy prey for Native American raiders, and many were murdered or kidnapped. When local militias or vigilantes struck back, they killed any Indians they could find.

Fort Pitt was critical to keeping control of the frontier, and the British considered several plans to capture or destroy it. In April 1781, George Washington wrote that a former agent for the royal governor of Virginia, Dr. John Connolly, was gathering troops in upstate New York and Canada. "[T]hey are to proceed, with their united forces by the route of Birch Island and Lake Ontario to Venango [now Franklin, Venango County]," Washington wrote. "Their object is to be Fort Pitt and the western posts."

That effort apparently never got farther south than Lake Chautauqua, but the following year the British and their Indian allies moved deep into Pennsylvania.

In a 1788 letter he sent to Washington, Gen. William Irvine, a former commander of Fort Pitt, reported on an interview he had with a Seneca chief and a white prisoner named Matthews about enemy intentions in the 1780s. "[I]n the year 1782, a detachment composed of three hundred British and five hundred Indians was formed and actually embarked in canoes on Lake Jadaque [Chautauqua], with twelve pieces of artillery, with an avowed intention of attacking Fort Pitt," Gen. Irvine wrote Washington.

"This expedition ... was laid aside, in consequence of the reported repairs and strength of Fort Pitt, carried by a spy from the neighborhood of the fort."

"They then contented themselves with the usual mode of warfare by sending small parties on the frontier, one of whom burned 'Hannastown.' I remember very well that in August 1782, we picked up at Fort Pitt a number of canoes that had drifted down the river ... but I never knew before then where they had assembled."

Amateur historian Neville B. Craig includes both letters in "The Olden Time," his 1848 documentary history of early Pittsburgh.

Mr. Craig also includes a description of the July 13, 1782, attack on Hanna's Town, as described in an undated report from the "Greensburgh Argus." The Argus was published in Westmoreland County under a variety of names between 1832 and 1922.

Few lives were lost on either side during the attack. A party of farm laborers spotted the invaders and warned residents, who took refuge in small stockade called Fort Reed.

"The Indians were exasperated when they found the town deserted, and after pillaging the houses they set them on fire," according to the Argus. "Although a considerable part of the town was within rifle range of the fort, the whites did but little executions, being more intent up their own safety than solicitous about destroying the enemy....

"One savage, who had put on the military coat of one of the inhabitants, paraded himself so ostentatiously that he was shot down ... some human bones [were] found among the ashes of one of the houses ..."

"A maiden, Jennet Shaw, was killed in the fort ... a bullet entered her bosom."

After the raid, Westmoreland's county seat was relocated to Greensburg, and Hanna's Town never recovered its prominence.

A partially restored village is located about three miles north of Greensburg, between U.S. Route 119 and state Route 819. For more information contact the Westmoreland County Historical Society at 724-836-1800, or go to the Westmoreland County Parks and Recreation Web site, www.co.westmoreland.pa.us/parks.