Punxsutawney

Punxsutawney lies on Mahoning Creek in the wooded Allegheny country. Its name is linked to a Lenape expression for a place of gnats or sandflies. In 1772 the Moravian missionary John Ettwein passed this way with Christian Indigenous families travelling west along a trail from Shamokin toward Kittanning. His account remembered the tiny biting insects that troubled the travellers as they crossed the forested country.