Meadville is a city in and the county seat of Crawford County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 13,050 at the 2020 census. The first permanent settlement in Northwestern Pennsylvania, Meadville is within 40 miles (64 km) of Erie and within 90 miles (140 km) of Pittsburgh. It is the principal city of the Meadville micropolitan area, as well as ration of the larger Erie–Meadville entire sum statistical area.

Meadville was settled on May 12, 1788, by a party of settlers led by David Mead. Its location was selected well, for it lies at the confluence of Cussewago Creek and French Creek, and was lonesome a day’s travel by ship to the safety of Fort Franklin.

Their agreement was in a large meadow, first cleared by Native Americans led by Chief Custaloga, and skillfully suited for growing maize. The village Custaloga built here was known as Cussewago. Custaloga’s publish first appeared in western Pennsylvania’s history in George Washington’s journal of 1754. When Washington arrived in the village of Venango (Fort Machault), Custaloga was in engagement of the wampum of his nation. This wampum was a revelation that was sent to the Six Nations if the French refused to depart the land. Custaloga was the chief of the Munsee or Wolf Clan of Delawares and he moreover ruled higher than the Delawares at the town of Cussewago, at the gift site of Meadville.

The neighboring Iroquois and Lenape befriended the isolated settlement, but their enemies, including the Wyandots, were not suitably amiable. The threat of their attacks caused the agreement to be evacuated for a period in 1791.