Hanna's Town opening day to include special activities, spring tea

Historic Hanna’s Town will open to the public for the 2019 season on May 4.

In addition to tours, special opening day activities will include living history demonstrations, early American toys and games for children, planting in the kitchen garden and the annual spring tea.

Hours will be 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. at the historic site at 809 Forbes Trail Road, Hempfield.

Seatings for tea are scheduled at 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. in the historic Klingensmith House. Savories, scones and pastries will be served. Fee is $25. Space is limited and advance registration is required at 724-532-1935, ext. 210.

The Museum Shop also will be open in the new Westmoreland History Education Center.

Founded in 1773 by Robert Hanna, the frontier settlement along the Forbes Road was the site of the first Westmoreland County government and first English court west of the Allegheny Mountains. Hanna’s Town was attacked and burned by Native Americans and their British allies in one of the final conflicts of the Revolutionary War, according to the Westmoreland Historical Society, which interprets and preserves the site.

Though the town never recovered, the site’s subsequent conversion to farmland in the early 1800s preserved it as an archaeological time capsule of frontier life during the waning British colonial period and the emerging American republic.

Also a county park, the site consists of the reconstructed Hanna’s Tavern, relocated historic log houses, a reconstructed Revolutionary War era fort and a shed that houses an authentic late 18th-century Conestoga wagon.

Details: 724-532-1935 or westmorelandhistory.org