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The Peters Creek Historical Society will celebrate milestones of their own in an anniversary celebration of the founding of the society and in the significance of their headquarters, the historic Enoch Wright House, located in the village of Venetia, Peters Township, Pennsylvania.

Enoch Wright House

The celebration will begin Saturday, May 20 at noon with the raising of the flag, opening remarks and a proclamation given by Washington County Commissioner, Harlon G. Shober, Jr. and will conclude Sunday, May 21 with the society’s burial of a time capsule for posterity. Scheduled events will include tours of the house and log cabin, a quilt display, 19th century children’s games, a story teller, roving musicians and re-enactors. Hotdogs and beverages will be sold as the fare of the day.

The society’s heritage day festivities will be held in conjunction with Venetia Heritage Society in the Venetia School and with Wrights United Methodist Church on Venetia Road in “Celebrating History in the Village of Venetia.”

The Peters Creek Historical Society was founded in 1967 by a group of individuals within the Peters Creek watershed that includes portions of Peters, North Strabane and Nottingham Townships in Washington County and South Park Township in Allegheny County. Their mission is to promote awareness of local heritage and the preservation of them by reaching out as speakers at schools, clubs and churches, acting as tour guides to local historical sites and in dedications to mark their significance.

Their efforts led to heritage dedications in a monument at Mingo Presbyterian Church, two brick columns and marker at the Finleyville Cemetery, a marker at Ft. Cox and a plaque commemorating the Cincinnati Mine Disaster of 1913. In 1975 the society was given the ancestral home built by Enoch Wright, son of the pioneer Joshua Wright, and serves as the society’s headquarters in The Museum of Westward Expansion. Monthly meetings are held in the social room at Wrights United Methodist Church in Venetia.

The log house with the butterfly garden

The Enoch Wright House is a living history museum and a repository in collections of Native American artifacts, in articles related to the fur trader and trapper period and in a room dedicated to coal mine history and equipment. One of the old kitchens has been taken back to its original 19th Century Keeping Room period and one of the upstairs bedrooms house Wright Family memorabilia. The home is open to the public for special events like the annual “Soup and Stroll” as well as for private tours. It was nominated and placed on the National and State Register of Historic Sites in 2007. The Enoch Wright House remains virtually unaltered in design and historic fabric since its construction circa 1815-16. The central block, five bay brick farmhouse is unique in its attached, symmetrical wings and remains a fine example of early 19th Century vernacular architecture with Federal style influences in southwestern Pennsylvania.

The society extends a welcome to visit its historic home, the Enoch Wright House, 815 Venetia Road on this special anniversary, “Celebrating History in the Village of Venetia,” Saturday, May 20 and Sunday, May 21 from noon to 5 p.m. It is their way of saying thank you for fifty years of community support directed to historic preservation at a local level. The door is open for all to step back in time and to take pride in our local heritage!

In the photo at right: The log house with the butterfly garden in the spring of 2016; it will be staffed with re-enactors on Saturday and Sunday, May 20 and 21. An Indian re-enactor from Meadowcroft will interpret his life as a member of an Eastern Woodland tribe on Saturday, May 20.

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