The gateway to a 200-year journey back in Meadville-area history is now open.
The Meadville 1825 Bicentennial Celebration opened Saturday afternoon at Unitarian Universalist Church of Meadville with “All About 1825.”
The celebration is a series of free public programs through this year to commemorate many historical events that happened in Meadville in 1825. Meadville’s own bicentennial was in 1988 to mark the 200th anniversary of the city’s 1788 founding.
“All About 1825” was the opening overview program about events that year that impacted Meadville and Crawford County.
The year was a remarkable one in the Meadville and Crawford County area, according to Tom Edmonds, who chairs the Meadville 1825 committee. Edmonds is an adjunct faculty member at Gannon University in Erie who lectures on world art and architectural history.
The year 1825 several major milestones in community history, Edmonds said.
In 1825, the famed Revolutionary War Major-General Marquis de Lafayette visited and spoke at Allegheny College as part of his tour of the U.S.; the Christ Church Episcopal, Stone Methodist and Unitarian church congregations were founded in Meadville; future abolitionist John Brown built a tannery near Guys Mills; and Crawford County built a new courthouse.
Meadville was on a steady path to growth by 1825. The city had grown from David Mead and his party of nine in 1788 to a population of around 850 by 1825.
Edmonds pointed out that by 1806 Meadville itself had a formal city plan of property lots and streets as it was experiencing growth.
By 1820, Meadville had an operating distillery that had cranked out 23,688 barrels of whiskey that year.
Crawford County, too, experienced growth with the county’s population going from 9,397 in 1820 to 16,030 in 1830, Edmonds said.
Meadville grew in the 1820s as it was a pioneer village on the edge of westward expansion of the country at the time.
Meadville was at the crossroads of an explosion of both immigrant population and commerce to serve settlers, Edmonds told The Meadville Tribune.
“It’s the opening up of the Erie Canal in 1825,” he said of the canal across upstate New York linking the Hudson River to Lake Erie.
“Revolutionary War soldiers were given all this land (in western and northwestern Pennsylvania as a bonus), but they didn’t want to come out here. So they sold it for cheap,” he added.
The opening of the Erie Canal fueled the westward push, making it easier for both people and goods to get to the country’s then-western frontier.
“It was the movement of people,” Edmonds said. “People wanted cheap land and it built on itself — and it was commerce.”
Saturday’s start of the Meadville 1825 Bicentennial Celebration also included the opening of a Victorian Parlor and meeting room at the Unitarian Universalist Church Parish House following the opening program.
The opening featured an art exhibit by Meadville Area Senior High art students who molded pottery pie plates using the techniques of Pennsylvania Dutch ceramics which were popular from 1780 to 1830.
The Meadville 1825 Bicentennial Celebration is hosting free events, about two each month, throughout 2025 with support of a $2,000 grant from the Crawford Heritage Community Foundation.
“We want to showcase the community history and preserve what we have left,” Edmonds said. “It’s education — it’s how you start.”