The exact date of the first settlement near the current site of Canonsburg is unclear. Colonel John Canon, a common miller who also served as justice of the Virginia courts at Fort Dunmore (now Pittsburgh), purchased some land from the state of Virginia around Chartiers Creek, sometime before May 1780. The state had claimed what is now Yohogania Countysouthwestern-Pennsylvania in a dispute that would not finally be settled until later in the decade. In 1781 Pennsylvania carved Washington County out of Westmoreland County, PennsylvaniaWestmoreland, and the county seat was established at Washington. The notes of the first session of the Washington County Court during that year indicate a call for a road from Canon's mill to Pittsburgh. The road to Pittsburgh, called Pitt Street, remains in part today as an archaic and indirect route to the city. The first surviving plat of the town is from April 15, 1788. Lots were sold around Canon's property, and the emerging town took the name of Canonsburg shortly after. The town was the site of the first institution of higher educationhigher learning west of the Allegheny Mountains, Jefferson College. Founded in 1787, it was the eleventh such institution in the United States. The Phi Gamma Delta and Phi Kappa Psi fraternities were both founded at Jefferson College. Phi Gamma Delta, of whom President Calvin Coolidge was a member, was founded in 1848. Phi Kappa Psi, of whom President Woodrow Wilson and over 100 U.S. CongressU.S. Congressmen claim membership, was founded in 1852. The school would go on to become Washington & Jefferson College in nearby Washington. For generations, Jefferson College financially supported Canonsburg by accounting for much of its income. However, in 1868, the college was moved to nearby Washington, leaving behind empty college rooming and boarding houses, known as the "forts". Canonsburg largest financial draw had left, and it would take the introduction of the railroad system to return the city back to its former glory. The railroad system, on its way from Mansfield (Carnegie) to Washington (See: Chartiers Branch), was fully opened as scheduled on May 18, 1871. The first scheduled train departed the Washington depot carrying "borough authorities, the committee of arrangement and reception, as well as Rankin’s Cornet Band and a number of …prominent citizens who had been invited to join the excursion." They traveled to Mansfield, where they waited for the special to arrive from Pittsburgh. The special had 12 coaches pulled by two locomotives and was filled with a large number of dignitaries, especially the mayors of Pittsburgh and Allegheny. The special than made it was down the newly laid tracks, passing stations full of spectators to cheer on the train. Canonsburg had a large crowd of supporters, and many people climbed aboard the train to ride along to Washington. There, the crowd was led by Pittsburgh’s Great Western Band and they marched to Town Hall for a round of speeches. The Washington Reporter editor pronounced the day "a grand success"! Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonsburg%2C_Pennsylvania