Unity Township, Pennsylvania

Unity Township is a township in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 21,724 at the 2020 census, a decline of approximately 4% compared to the 2010 census.

The township is home to Arnold Palmer Regional Airport. The Norfolk Southern Railway (once part of the Pennsylvania Railroad mainline) runs through the northern section of the township.

Unity Township was incorporated on September 23, 1789. Initial records show settlement going back to 1760. Residents of Mount Pleasant Township petitioned the court to establish a new township around the area next to the Loyalhanna creek, based on the inconveniently large size of the existing township, which made it necessary to travel long distances to conduct township affairs. One of the oldest communities in the township was Youngstown, an important stop in the wagon and stagecoach era, ca. 1818–1852, which became a separate borough in 1831.

The township is home to Unity Cemetery, which was established in 1774. Some 15,000 people are believed to buried in the cemetery, including Colonel John Proctor, 31 other Revolutionary War veterans, U.S. Congressman William Findley and television host Fred Rogers.

In 1847 the Sisters of Mercy, an Irish Catholic order, established St. Xavier's Academy for Girls in Unity. In time, it expanded to include a convent. The buildings were destroyed by a fire in 1972, but the sisters' cemetery on the former school grounds in Unity remains.

For a time the coal industry "dwarfed all others" in the township, according to historian John Boucher, writing in 1906. Mines which once operated in Unity Township included those named Carney, Humphries, Dorothy, Marguerite, Mutual, Puritan (in Baggaley), Whitney, Jamison No. 20 (in Pleasant Unity), Hostetter, Beatty and St. Vincent's Shaft. Many of them were constructed in the period 1880 to 1900. All have long since closed. Extensive land remediation has taken place and few traces of the mines remain, but their names survive in township neighborhoods and streets.

Carr's Tunnel, an abandoned railroad tunnel, is located in Unity Township. Locally known as Witches' Tunnel, it is on a now-dismantled spur of the Pennsylvania Railroad which serviced coal mines in the area, including the Carney mine.

The Kingston House and St. Vincent Archabbey Gristmill are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.