New Geneva Historic District

Built on a bend of the Monongahela River in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, New Geneva was laid out in 1797 by Albert Gallatin as a river port and manufacturing town. Its streets climb from the river to the bluff, and its 35 buildings include frame, brick, stone, and log houses, two churches, and a schoolhouse. Early residences show a two-room center chimney plan, and the stone Wilson House, dating to about 1800, has some of the finest Federal detailing in the area. Greek Revival and Queen Anne houses from the mid-nineteenth and late nineteenth centuries also stand in the district. The town's economy moved from glass and gun making to a pottery industry centred on local stoneware clay beds. Steamboat traffic on the river, and the ferry to Greensboro, linked it to the wider region until the ferry closed in the early 1950s. The district is significant for its architecture and for its record of the ups and downs of an upper Monongahela port.