Warriors Path — A Trail Older Than Pennsylvania

Long before European settlers arrived, this intersection was a crossroads of Native American movement and diplomacy. The Warriors Path passed here, running from the Great Island at present-day Lock Haven, past the Lenape town of Muncy, and through the gap in these mountains to join the Great Warriors Path at Shickshinny.

In seventeen forty-two, Moravian missionary Count Zinzendorf traveled this same trail after leaving Otstonwakin, the village near present-day Montoursville. There he had met with the remarkable Madame Montour, an interpreter of mixed French and Native ancestry and enormous influence, hoping to secure her help in bringing Christianity to the tribes she knew. The Warriors Path carried diplomats, traders, and warriors across this landscape for generations. By the time Europeans began following its route, the trail had already shaped the human geography of this entire region.