Editing Somerset County, Pennsylvania (section)

===Founding===
[[File:Somerset County Courthouse.jpg|thumb|Somerset County Courthouse]]
Southwestern Pennsylvania began as a huge area called Cumberland County. As population increased, the area was split into smaller counties. Bedford County was formed from part from Cumberland in 1771 and is referred to as "Old Bedford County" and contained what are now 20 smaller counties. In 1773 part of Bedford County was split off to form Westmoreland County. In 1787 Bedford County was split in half with the northern part becoming Huntingdon County and the southern part remained as a smaller Bedford County. Somerset County was split off from the western part of Bedford County on April 17, 1795, and the new county's name was taken from [[Somerset]], [[England]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Espenshade|first=A. Howry|title=Pennsylvania Place Names|url=https://archive.org/details/pennsylvaniaplac00espe|year=1925|publisher=[[Pennsylvania State University|Pennsylvania State College]]|location=[[State College, Pennsylvania|State College, PA]]|page=[https://archive.org/details/pennsylvaniaplac00espe/page/52 52]}}</ref> In 1804 the northern half of Somerset County was split off to form [[Cambria County, Pennsylvania|Cambria County]]. No further splits from Somerset County have occurred since 1804.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://mapgeeks.org/maps-of-pennsylvania/|title=State and County Maps of Pennsylvania|newspaper=MapGeeks.org|language=en-US|access-date=October 23, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180328102834/https://mapgeeks.org/maps-of-pennsylvania/|archive-date=March 28, 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref>