Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Museum of Rural Life, preserves the history of life on the land in Western Pennsylvania over the past 16,000 years. Meadowcroft is one of Western Pennsylvania's wonderful, off-the-beaten-path destinations.
Avella
Isaac Manchester, en route to Kentucky from his native Newport, Rhode Island, in 1796, found the lands in the Avella region so attractive that he returned to Newport and brought his family to settle here. He purchased a 380-acre tract of land called "Plenty" from Samuel Teeter.
Teeter came to the Avella region shortly after 1773 and took up land surveyed for him on May 1, 1780. It was patented in 1785. He built Teeter's Fort, consisting of his two-story log dwelling and another structure, presumably a blockhouse, surrounded by a stockade.
There is no record of this fort ever being attacked by Indians. However, it is said that it was less defensible than the nearby Doddridge Fort, and so it was abandoned during the Indian uprising of 1782.
