Tionesta grew at a place first settled by John Range, who came in 1816 to claim a 258 acre patent granted for his service in the French & Indian War and the American Revolution, after first taking it in 1785 in the name of his oldest son, Theobalt Shollas Range; the family moved there after the son deeded the land back in 1808, cleared part of it, and John Range built a home near present-day Bridge Street, planted an apple orchard, lived there until his death at age 83, and became the only Revolutionary War soldier buried at Riverside Cemetery in Tionesta. Another early settler, Poland Hunter, came in 1805 as a squatter on an island at Tionesta, built a home, farmed the island, secured a state patent, built the county's first gristmill, and through his grandson George S. Hunter helped shape local transportation with a ferry to the railroad depot and the financing of the first bridge across the river in 1872; after a dispute in about 1816 in which John Range claimed the island was part of his patent, Hunter won the case, and the island later became known as Lighthouse Island after construction of the Sherman Memorial Lighthouse in 2003. Before European settlement, Tionesta was home to Native Americans, first the Munsey Indians and later primarily the Seneca, with Council Run serving as a gathering place for leaders along the Allegheny River and Hunter Island serving as both farmland and a sacred place; Moravian missionary David Zeisberger first attempted work there in 1767 with John and Anthony Papunhank, returned in 1768 with greater success, and remained until 1770, while much of the Native population, along with Chief Cornplanter, moved north in the early 1800s to his land grant at the site of the present-day Kinzua Dam and Reservoir and those who remained gradually integrated into the European community. Tionesta later became the county seat in October 1866 after the state legislature enlarged the county, and its courthouse, built in 1868 of locally made brick with two-foot-thick walls containing about 90,000 bricks, and its jail, built in 1895, reflected the town's civic importance; the courtroom murals of Lady Liberty and Lady Justice, painted by W. Metzkes in 1884 and restored during a 2006 remodel, survive in one of the few northwestern Pennsylvania courthouses not subjected to fire, though its bell tower was later removed. Religious and commercial growth followed, beginning with a Methodist church started in 1827 and completed in 1835 on the site of the present library, later joined by other congregations including a Catholic church moved from Pithole in 1886; by the end of the 1800s the town had more than 1,000 people, many businesses, utilities, transportation links, and brick-paved streets, and later enterprises included Vail's Market, Purinton Pottery Company, Tionesta Mantel Manufacturing Company, National Casket Company, and Jamieson Lumber & Supply Company, although a 2003 fire destroyed seven historic storefronts and nearly half of downtown. Tionesta was also home to notable people including Howard Zahniser, Admiral James Kepler Davis, Jack McMichael, Peter O. Conver, and S.D. Irwin. Before flood-control projects and the building of the Kinzua Dam from 1960 to 1965, the town suffered repeated flooding, especially on its west side, with notable floods in 1865, 1867, 1913, 1945, 1956, and 1959. The name Tionesta was applied widely to nearby places and other sites, and may derive from the Iroquois Tiyowenowisto, meaning "It penetrates the island," referring to Tionesta Creek and Hunter, now Lighthouse, Island.