By the latter part of the 1700s, Pittsburgh had become a bustling pioneer village. Settlements began to spring up near Pittsburgh to become small villages in themselves, but the hills to the east remained sparsely populated. By the first half of the 1800s, the area now known as Monroeville was nothing more than a small village nestled among widely-scattered farms.
In 1807, the grand-daddy of modern highways, the Northern Turnpike was completed from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, and Monroeville, at its convenient location 13 miles out of Pittsburgh, became the first stagecoach stop heading east on the new road. In 1810 the village could boast of two blacksmiths, two stores, and an inn. And when a local farmer named Joel Monroe began selling off lots along the road, he was to lay down the core of the modern community that bears his name. In 1849 the village became part of the newly-formed Patton Township.
In the late 19th century the coal mining industry, busy in the hills around Pittsburgh, began to extend eastward. Patton Township was to enjoy a boom in coal mining when many local residents who didn’t work on the farms were to find employment in the mines, or on the railroads.

A Brief History of Monroeville, Pennsylvania by Louis Chandler, PhD.