Editing Meadville, Pennsylvania (section)

===Settlement and establishment===
The Meadville area was the ancestral land of the Eriechronon people until the [[Iroquois|Iroquois Confederacy]] forced them out.<ref>{{Cite web | publisher = The library of Congress |title= No Connections Available|url= https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchCode=LCCN&searchArg=61014871&searchType=1&permalink=y|access-date=November 4, 2021|website=Catalog |archive-date=November 4, 2021|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20211104004327/https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchCode=LCCN&searchArg=61014871&searchType=1&permalink=y|url-status=live}}</ref> Having been displaced from their ancestral lands in what is now Eastern Pennsylvania, the [[Lenape]] moved into the now unoccupied region. They formed an alliance with the neighboring [[Seneca people|Seneca]], one of the five tribes that made up the [[Iroquois]] Confederacy, and other displaced Lenape. Under the leadership of Chief [[Custaloga]], they founded the settlement of Cussewago. Custaloga's name first appeared in western Pennsylvania's history in George Washington's journal of 1754.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1033&context=etas|title=The Journal of Major George Washington (1754)|last=Royster}}</ref> When Washington arrived in the village of Venango (Fort Machault), Custaloga was in charge of the wampum of his nation. This wampum was a message that was sent to the Six Nations if the French refused to leave the land. Custaloga was the chief of the Munsee or Wolf Clan of Delawares and he also ruled over the Delawares at the town of Cussewago, at the present site of Meadville.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://frenchandindianwarfoundation.org/washingtons-journal-1753-1754/|title=Washington's 2 Journals 1753-1754|website=frenchandindianwarfoundation.org|access-date=April 8, 2019}}</ref>

After Cussewago was abandoned, Meadville was laid out by [[William McArthur Sr.]] and settled on May 12, 1788, by a party of settlers led by [[David Mead (military general)|David Mead]]. Its location at the confluence of [[Cussewago Creek]] and [[French Creek (Allegheny River)|French Creek]] was only a day's travel by boat to the safety of [[Franklin, Pennsylvania|Fort Franklin]]. The neighboring [[Iroquois]] and [[Lenape]] befriended the isolated settlement, but their enemies, including the [[Wyandot people|Wyandot]]s, were not so amiable. The threat of their attacks caused the settlement to be evacuated for a time in 1791.{{citation needed|date=July 2023}} Around 1800, many of the settlers to the Meadville area came after receiving land bounties for service in the [[American Revolutionary War]]. Allegheny College was founded in April 1815 by [[Timothy Alden]].<ref name=tws71>{{cite news | first = Anne W. | last = Stewart | title = Nothing New Under the Sun | work = The Wall Street Journal | date = February 7, 2003 | url = https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1044579789897852013
| access-date = August 26, 2009 | archive-date = December 23, 2015 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151223052031/http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1044579789897852013 | url-status = live}}</ref> Meadville became an important transportation center after the construction of the [[French Creek Feeder Canal]] in 1837 and of the [[Beaver and Erie Canal]] it connected to at [[Conneaut Lake]] and subsequent railroad development.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Meadville played a small part in the Underground Railroad helping escaping slaves to freedom. An event in September 1880 led to the end of segregation by race in the state's public schools. At the South Ward schools, Elias Allen tried unsuccessfully to enroll his two children. He appealed to the Crawford County Court of Common Pleas, and Judge Pearson Church declared unconstitutional the 1854 state law mandating separate schools for Negro children. This law was amended, effective July 4, 1881, to prohibit such segregation.<ref>HistoricalMarkers.com [http://www.historicmarkers.com/Pennsylvania/Crawford_County_Pennsylvania/Desegregation_of_Pennsylvania_Schools_PA430] Retrieved on December 14, 2008.</ref>