Salisbury, PA

Salisbury is a Somerset County borough in the Johnstown metropolitan area, where the 2020 census counted 707 residents. Joseph Markley laid out the town in 1794, with Douglas Baker as surveyor. Peter Shirer and Martin Weimer built the first house, and Shirer opened the first store. The borough is surrounded by Elk Lick Township, placing it in the rolling farm country of southern Somerset County.

Salisbury grew into a busy market village by the nineteenth century. Its business district included general stores, a drugstore, hardware and shoe shops, harness and tin shops, a foundry, blacksmiths, a planing mill, livery stables, and three hotels. Peter Welfley established the first pottery in southern Somerset County, while John Welsh kept the first hotel and Adam Glotfelty worked as the first blacksmith. Those early trades gave Salisbury the practical shape of a crossroads town, with farms, workshops, lodging, and local shopping meeting around Markley’s original plan. The town’s original streets still make sense as a place built to serve farms, travelers, and tradespeople moving through the mountain gap, long before larger county centers drew those errands away.