OLEAN TRAIL

Indian Paths of Pennsylvania, by Paul A. W. Wallace, published on July 21, 1965 for the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, identifies the path traversing through Warrant 2548 and Gregg Hill, crossing Gregg Hill Road, passing near Wally Naletko's house, and crossing the Clarion River at the mouth of Millstone Creek as the Catawba Path.  

This same path was identifed by the same author on a map accompanying his article: Historic Indian Paths of Pennsylvania, an article appearing in "The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography" Vol LXXVI, No. 4, October 1952, as the "Iroquois Main Road."  In that article, Mr. Wallace wrote of the Catawba Path:

"CATAWBA PATH. Also called the Iroquois Main Road and the Tennessee Path. Course: From the country of the Senecas, who held the western door of the Five Nations, to Ichsua (Olean, New York), Kane, Millstone, Corsica, Kittanning. Here the path forked, one crossing the Allegheny River and continuing down the west side of that river and of the Ohio, the other running south to Ligonier, Connellsville, and Uniontown, to cross the Cheat River and pass out of Pennsylvania at the mouth of Grassy Run. During the period, before 1675,  when the  Susquehannocks held both branches of the Susquehanna River, this path was probably, as the name suggests, the principal highway used by the Five Nations when they traveled to the South. After the defeat of the Susquehannocks, however, the  Great Warriors Path, which found in the Susquehanna Valley a convenient passageway through the Allegheny Mountains, was preferred by the eastern members of the Five Nations: the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas and Cayugas. "

It is understood, generally, that the Senecas -- the westernmost situated of the Five Nations -- were the American Indians making use of the trail as we know it.

In an article written in the Olean Times Herald (Olean NY)  on April 27, 2016, titled " State and Union: Seeking Olean Trail," there is a photograph of a Pennsylvania Historical Marker, which indicates that the Olean Road followed the Catawba Path.  This is likely true both geographically and temporally, and it may be said that when white, European settlers of New York, Western Pennsylvania, and areas southward made use of the same path formerly used only by the Seneca Indians, it was often called by the name of the users' desitnation.  This same path, therefor, has been identified as the Olean Trail, Olean Trail Road, and the Kittanning Path.  This article also identifies the path as having been called the Iroquois Main Road and the Cherokee Path.

Most depictions of the Catawba Path show it traversing through Indiana Borough, Indiana County, and not through Kittanning Borough, Armstrong County.  However, most depictions of the Olean Trail show that terminated in Kittanning on the south end, never passing as far east as Indiana.  So, it may be inferred that The Olean Trail followed much, but not all, of the Catawba Path.

As the link to the Olean Times Herald article may not persist, and because the article is short, its entire text follows:

Our editor, Jim Eckstrom, relates that he got turned around while leaving downtown Pittsburgh over the weekend — an easy thing to do, we understand — and his GPS eventually took him up Route 28 past Kittanning, Pa.

In the area of New Bethlehem, Clarion County, he says he noticed a billboard for a business located on “Olean Trail.”

That Olean Trail is part of the southern portion of the old Kittanning Road mentioned in editions of State and Union this past February, in which we looked back at how South Union Street south of the Allegheny River had once been Kittanning Avenue.

“Kittanning” was used because of the fact that the trail leading away south from what was to become Olean was followed by a detachment of Continental soldiers, in the late summer or early fall of 1779, on their return trip to a fort at Kittanning. The soldiers, part of a Revolutionary War expedition against the Senecas up the Allegheny River that summer, were tasked to build a “road” from Olean down to Kittanning. The route the soldiers followed would become known as the Kittanning Road, or Trail, in the north, while it was the Olean Trail in the south.

Today, Olean Trail is an actual road on the map, running mostly southwest from just south of Corsica, Pa. (just south of Interstate 80) and terminating (in the Olean Trail name at least) at a point just northwest of New Bethlehem. Essentially the same road is Olean Road into Corsica, although it’s shown on the map as Route 949, north of Corsica, up to Sigel.

While the Olean Trail (or Road) name is used on that relatively short segment in Pennsylvania, one can trace the approximate route of the original trail all the way up to Olean. Because while modern roads have long since been built generally along the route, the Olean and Kittanning trail followed a path that long predated the Revolutionary War period.

Indeed, the original trail that passed through what would become Olean and extended down into what would be Pennsylvania, for native peoples, was an important land route and part of a vast network of trails that connected most of the continent east of the Mississippi River.

The trail that passed through our area was sometimes known as the Catawba Path, coming down the Ischua Valley to what is now Olean, and then down through McKean County and Pennsylvania to what is now Morgantown, W.Va. From there, branches of the trail led to what is now the Carolinas, Kentucky and Tennessee.

Also known to settlers as the Iroquois Main Road and the Cherokee Path, this trail once served as a warpath between the Haudenosaunee (or Iroquois, which included the Senecas) Confederacy of New York and the Catawba and Cherokee of North Carolina. When European settlement in eastern Pennsylvania pushed native tribes into western Pennsylvania, the path became even more heavily traveled.

The Catawba Path became the first public highway in the region when it was widened to create Olean Road in 1821. Completed in 1822, the 110-mile dirt road connected Kittanning with Olean. Though settlers used it to access this region, early excitement over the road faded as the steep inclines and rough conditions made many sections unfit for wagon traffic.

Many miles of the road were abandoned and rerouted during the 1840s and 1850s, which means much of the routes we travel today don’t follow the original paths.

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Searches of the terms "Catawba Path" and "Catawba Trail" return some overlapping results, but also indicate that while, generally, the paths taken by the Catawba Indian Nation, and by those seeking the Catawbas, are referred to by both names, Catawba Path is more typically associated with that portion of the path situate north of the Mason Dixon Line, and Catawba Trail is more typically associated with that portion of it south of the Mason Dixon Line.  The Catawbas made the Carolinas their home, and struggled for dominance of that area with the Cherokees and Tuscaroras.  While situated mostly a great distance apart, the Senecas often fought the Catawbas.  The Tuscaroras, while situated mostly in North Carolina, later comprised one of the Six Nations of Iroquoian-speaking tribes known as the Iroquoi Confederacy, which included the Senecas.

For identification puposes, this is the bad news:  the Catawba Trail is often identified as having branches.  To further complicate matters, the Catawba Trail overlaps, at least in some places, the path (or system of paths) referred to as the  The Great Indian Warpath (GIW)—also known as the Great Indian War and Trading Path, or the Seneca Trail.  

This is the good news:  in the area of Northwestern Pennsylvania identified as Buffalo Swamp, particularly from Sigel, Jefferson County, Pennsylvania through Millstone and Highland Corners, Elk County, then through Kane (Seneca Spring), McKean County, then north through Bradford, Pennsylvania to Olean, New York, there is only one well documented, singularly identified path, which at one time was used primarily by Seneca Indians and known as the Catawba Path, later known as the Olean Trail, and which in 1822 became a part of the Olean Road.

A signpost is presently found in the parking area at the mouth of the Millstone Creek bearing a depiction of Cornplanter, a half Dutch / half Seneca Chief.  It is certain that long before the time of Cornplanter, the Catawba path was in use and crossed the Clarion River (then the "Topeco")  just upriver from that location.