Page Contents for Tuscarora, Pennsylvania

Statistics & Facts

History & History-related items

Historical Events

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Statistics & Facts

The Pennsylvania state capital is Harrisburg.
The population of Tuscarora is approximately 980 (2010).
The approximate number of families is 494 (1990), 442 (2010).
The amount of land area in Tuscarora is 6.27 sq. kilometers.
The amount of surface water is 0 sq kilometers.
The distance from Tuscarora to Washington DC is 138 miles.
The distance to the Pennsylvania state capital is 55 miles. (as the crow flies)
Tuscarora is positioned 40.76 degrees north of the equator and 76.05 degrees west of the prime meridian.

History & History Related Items

Tuscarora was a coal-mining town and lively community during the late 1800s and first half of the 19th century. The town, which now sports a single bar and, now and then, one small general store, once claimed many bars and rooming houses that catered to the large minework community. It is believed that the Molly Maguires were active in the town and that several of its members lived there. During the past fifty to seventy years, the town shrank in population as the coal industry contracted dramatically and the mines around the town were closed. It is now a nice sleepy town of well-kept houses, yards and several churches.
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Tuscarora Historical Events

1770, November 20
Birth of Richard McNemar Richard McNemar was an important Tuscarora native and a leader of the Shaker Church. He was a printer and an editor at Union Village and Watervliet Village until 1836. He was an outstanding figure in Western Shakerism. He was the eternal adventurer, the practical frontiersman and honest thinker unafraid to follow his convictions wherever they might lead him - the prototype of all that was best in the Shaker Church. He was born in Tuscarora, Pennsylvania, on Nov. 20, 1770, of Scotch-Irish parents. At the age of 16 he left home and taught at various schools. In 1791 he entered school at Maysville, Kentucky (then called Limestone), to study Latin, and was characterized as a "classical scholar who read Latin, Greek and Hebrew with ease." He was licensed to preach at Caneridge, Kentucky, in 1797. He was a prolific writer of sermons and songs yet today is seldom mentioned except in connection with bibliographical puzzles which tease collectors and librarians. McNemar bought a farm in 1802 at Turtle Creek in Warren County, west of Lebanon, and in 1805 he came to live there. The Turtle Creek Presbyterian Church followed McNemar, its pastor, into the "New Light" religious movement and was the largest of the western churches of that order. In 1810 McNemar had been appointed as a "High Priest in Zion" by Mother Ann Wright (the woman who replaced Mother Ann Lee). She renamed him Brother Eleazar Wright. At the age of 65 he was released from his duties at Watervliet. On Jan. 13, 1836, he left for Union Village to pass the remainder of his life. He died Sept. 15, 1839.