Westsylvania

In the 1700s, my corner of Pennsylvania, most of what’s now West Virginia, and a slice of modern-era Kentucky, formed a plan to become the fourteenth state: Westsylvania. To those of you impertinent enough to think, “Fancy name for Pennsyltucky,” I must say . . . you’re absolutely right.

A glance at the topography of the region tentatively christened Westsylvania reveals the sense behind such a division.


To the east, the natural barrier of the Appalachians; to the west, the Ohio River Valley. And in between, a unique landscape and a mindset to go with it.

Think back to your American History lessons in eighth grade, and you’ll recall that by the Revolutionary War, the only populated areas of the colonies hugged the coastline: Philadelphia, Boston, New York. In Pennsylvania, when most colonists reached the Allegheny Mountains, they settled at their foot, uninterested in crossing the mountain range and establishing homesteads in the wilds of Fort Pitt or Kittaning. The insert on this map shows that, by the 1770s, the region of Westsylvania still wasn’t considered a proper part of the thirteen colonies.

The Europeans who made their home on the western side of the Alleghenies felt—quite naturally—separated from the rest of the colonies, and a political separation logically followed. However, the interruption of such minor events as the drafting of a certain Declaration and a rather conspicuous bullet shot in Massachusetts put an end to these plans.

But despite northern Westsylvania becoming western Pennsylvania, the inhabitants aligning themselves with the politics of Philadelphia, the landscape of the Alleghenies remained a sharp contrast to the comparatively easy hills in the east.

And the people who chose to live in this rugged and remote environment matched the land they now called home. My ancestors made their living by logging and making moonshine. You may remember that it was the Monongahela Valley where the Whiskey Rebellion originated in the 1790s. The residents simply wanted to be left alone. The rebellion all started because the feds dared to tax the whiskey coming out of the Monongahela region. They didn’t appreciate interference from the Outside World.

To a degree, that mindset still reigns supreme today, at least in the less urban areas outside of the Pittsburgh metropolis. The influences of the Internet are still suspect; immigrants, and even fellow citizens from other parts of the state, are looked on with a wary eye; and social interactions are forced, as though one is thinking, “I don’t know this person’s entire family history because they [or in my case, on of my parents] didn’t grow up here. What can there possibly be to discuss between us?”

But this makes the area where I grew up sound negative, and I’d rather not end on that note. For, as Thoreau wrote, solitude isn’t such a bad thing, and I think my fellow rural western Pennsylvanians have embraced this truth. The Alleghenies surround, compose the topography of my neighborhood, and one must really want to see one’s neighbors to climb a steep grade to reach their home. And even though the nation west of us has since been settled and turned into cities and suburbs quilted with threads of highway, something still feels remote about this region, as though we still might not belong to the rest of the United States.

And, just maybe, this is the truth that the original settlers knew when building their homes (and whiskey stills) in these mountains: we’re all just visitors on this earth, and this is not where we ultimately belong.