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Title: A Short History of Pittsburgh
Author: Samuel Harden Church
Release Date: November 16, 2007 [EBook #23507]
Language: English
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A SHORT HISTORY
OF
PITTSBURGH
1758-1908
[Illustration: George Washington, the first Pittsburgher]
A SHORT HISTORY
OF
PITTSBURGH
1758-1908
BY
SAMUEL HARDEN CHURCH
AUTHOR OF "OLIVER CROMWELL: A HISTORY,"
"PENRUDDOCK OF THE WHITE LAMBS," "JOHN MARMADUKE,"
"BEOWULF: A POEM," ETC.
PRINTED AT
THE DE VINNE PRESS
NEW YORK
1908
Copyright, 1908, by
SAMUEL HARDEN CHURCH
CONTENTS
PAGE
HISTORICAL 13
INDUSTRIAL 79
INTELLECTUAL 89
INDEX 127
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
George Washington, the first Pittsburgher _Frontispiece_
PAGE
William Pitt, Earl of Chatham 26
Plan of Fort Pitt 31
Henry Bouquet 32
Block House of Fort Pitt. Built in 1764 33
Anthony Wayne 41
Conestoga wagon 44
Stage-coach 46
Over the mountains in 1839; canal boat being
hauled over the portage road 47
View of Old Pittsburgh, 1817 50
Pittsburgh, showing the junction of the
Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers 80
The Pittsburgh Country Club 88
Panther Hollow Bridge, Schenley Park 93
Entrance to Highland Park 97
The Carnegie Institute 101
Court-house 104
Zoölogical Garden in Highland Park 107
Carnegie Technical Schools (uncompleted) 111
Margaret Morrison Carnegie School for Women 115
Design of University of Pittsburgh 119
Allegheny Observatory, University of Pittsburgh 123
Phipps Conservatory, Schenley Park 125
PREFACE
Some ten years ago I contributed to a book on "Historic Towns,"
published by G. P. Putnam's Sons, of New York and London, a brief
historical sketch of Pittsburgh. The approach of the one hundred and
fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Pittsburgh, and the elaborate
celebrations planned in connection therewith, led to many requests that
I would reprint the sketch in its own covers as a souvenir of the
occasion. Finding it quite inadequate for permanent preservation in its
original form, I have, after much research and painstaking labor,
rewritten the entire work, adding many new materials, and making of it
what I believe to be a complete, though a short, history of our city.
The story has developed itself into three natural divisions: historical,
industrial, and intellectual, and the record will show that under either
one of these titles Pittsburgh is a notable, and under all of them, an
imperial, city.
S. H. C.
Lake Placid Club,
Adirondack Mountains,
August 25, 1908.
A SHORT HISTORY
OF
PITTSBURGH
1758-1908
A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH
HISTORICAL
I
George Washington, the Father of his Country, is equally the Father of
Pittsburgh, for he came thither in November, 1753, and established the
location of the now imperial city by choosing it as the best place for a
fort. Washington was then twenty-one years old. He had by that time
written his precocious one hundred and ten maxims of civility and good
behavior; had declined to be a midshipman in the British navy; had made
his only sea-voyage to Barbados; had surveyed the estates of Lord
Fairfax, going for months into the forest without fear of savage Indians
or wild beasts; and was now a major of Virginia militia. In pursuance of
the claim of Virginia that she owned that part of Pennsylvania in which
Pittsburgh is situated, Washington came there as the agent of Governor
Dinwiddie to treat with the Indians. With an eye alert for the dangers
of the wilderness, and with Christopher Gist beside him, the young
Virginian pushed his cautious way to "The Point" of land where the
confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers forms the Ohio. That,
he declared, with clear military instinct, was the best site for a fort;
and he rejected the promontory two miles below, which the Indians had
recommended for that purpose. Washington made six visits to the vicinity
of Pittsburgh, all before his presidency, and on three of them (1753,
1758, and 1770), he entered the limits of the present city. At the time
of despatching the army to suppress the whisky insurrection, while he
was President, in 1794, he came toward Pittsburgh as far as Bedford, and
then, after planning the march, returned to Philadelphia. His contact
with the place was, therefore, frequent, and his information always very
complete. There is a tradition, none the less popular because it cannot
be proved, which ascribes to Washington the credit of having suggested
the name of Pittsburgh to General Forbes when the place was captured
from the French. However this may be, we do know that Washington was
certainly present when the English flag was hoisted and the city named
Pittsburgh, on Sunday, November 26, 1758. And at that moment Pittsburgh
became a chief bulwark of the British Empire in America.
II
As early as 1728, a daring hunter or trader found the Indians at the
head waters of the Ohio,--among them the Delawares, Shawanese, Mohicans,
and Iroquois,--whither they tracked the bear from their village of
Logstown, seventeen miles down the river. They also employed the country
roundabout as a highway for their march to battle against other tribes,
and against each other. At that time France and England were disputing
for the new continent. France, by right of her discovery of the
Mississippi, claimed all lands drained by that river and its
tributaries, a contention which would naturally plant her banner upon
the summit of the Alleghany Mountains. England, on the other hand,
claimed everything from ocean shore to ocean shore. This situation
produced war, and Pittsburgh became the strategic key of the great
Middle West. The French made early endeavors to win the allegiance of
the Indians, and felt encouraged to press their friendly overtures
because they usually came among the red men for trading or exploration,
while the English invariably seized and occupied their lands. In 1731
some French settlers did attempt to build a group of houses at
Pittsburgh, but the Indians compelled them to go away. The next year the
governor of Pennsylvania summoned two Indian chiefs from Pittsburgh to
say why they had been going to see the French governor at Montreal; and
they gave answer that he had sent for them only to express the hope that
both English and French traders might meet at Pittsburgh and carry on
trade amicably. The governor of Pennsylvania sought to induce the tribes
to draw themselves farther east, where they might be made to feel the
hand of authority, but Sassoonan, their chief, forbade them to stir. An
Iroquois chief who joined his entreaties to those of the governor was
soon afterward killed by some Shawanese braves, but they were forced to
flee into Virginia to escape the vengeance of his tribe.
Louis Celeron, a French officer, made an exploration of the country
contiguous to Pittsburgh in 1747, and formally enjoined the governor of
Pennsylvania not to occupy the ground, as France claimed its
sovereignty. A year later the Ohio Company was formed, with a charter
ceding an immense tract of land for sale and development, including
Pittsburgh. This corporation built some storehouses at Logstown to
facilitate their trade with the Indians, which were captured by the
French, together with skins and commodities valued at 20,000 francs; and
the purposes of the company were never accomplished.
III
Washington's first visit to Pittsburgh occurred in November, 1753, while
he was on his way to the French fort at Leboeuff. He was carrying a
letter from the Ohio Company to Contrecoeur, protesting against the
plans of the French commander in undertaking to establish a line of
forts to reach from Lake Erie to the mouth of the Ohio River. The winter
season was becoming very severe, in despite of which Washington and Gist
were forced to swim with their horses across the Allegheny River. On the
way they fell in with a friendly Indian, Keyashuta, a Seneca chief, who
showed them much kindness, and for whom a suburban town, Guyasuta, is
named.
Washington, in writing of his first sight of the forks of the river,
says:
As I got down before the canoe, I spent some time in viewing the
rivers and the land at the fork, which I think extremely well
situated for a fort, as it has the absolute command of both rivers.
The land at the point is twenty-five feet above the common surface
of the water, and a considerable bottom of flat, well-timbered land
all around it very convenient for building. The rivers are each a
quarter of a mile across and run here very nearly at right angles,
the Allegheny being northeast and the Monongahela southeast. The
former of these two is a very rapid and swift-running water, the
other deep and still without any perceptible fall. About two miles
from this on the southeast side of the river at a place where the
Ohio Company intended to erect a fort, lives Shingiss, King of the
Delawares. We called upon him to invite him to a council at
Logstown. As I had taken a good deal of notice yesterday at the
fork, my curiosity led me to examine this more particularly and I
think it greatly inferior either for defense or advantages,
especially the latter. For a fort at the fork would be equally well
situated on the Ohio and have the entire command of the
Monongahela, which runs up our settlement and is extremely well
designed for water carriage, as it is of a deep, still nature.
Besides, a fort at the fork might be built at much less expense
than at the other place.
Leaving Pittsburgh, Washington and Gist proceeded in a northeasterly
direction, and after a day's journey they came upon an Indian
settlement, and were constrained by the tribe to remain there for three
days. A group of these Indians accompanied the two travelers to the
French fort, and on the journey a large number of bear and deer were
killed. At Leboeuff Washington received from the French commander a very
satisfactory reply. On the trip back the two pioneers encountered almost
insupportable hardships. Lacking proper food, their horses died, so that
they were forced to push forward in canoes, often finding it necessary,
when the creeks were frozen, to carry their craft for long stretches
overland. When Venango was reached, Washington, whose clothes were now
in tatters, procured an Indian costume, and he and Gist continued their
way on foot, accompanied by an Indian guide. At this point an
illustrious career was put in deadly peril, for on the second day of his
escort, the treacherous guide deliberately fired his gun at Washington
when standing only a few feet away from him. Bad marksmanship saved the
intended victim, and Gist started to kill the Indian on the spot; but
Washington, patient then as always, sent the savage away, giving him
provisions to last until he could reach his tribe. But an apprehension
of further trouble from the friends of the discomfited guide impelled
the two men to travel all that night and the next day, although
Washington was suffering acute agony from his frosted feet. While
recrossing the Allegheny River on a rude raft, Washington fell into the
icy waters and was saved by Gist from drowning only after the greatest
efforts had been employed to rescue him. Reaching Herr's Island (within
the present city limits), they built a fire and camped there for the
night, but in the morning Gist's hands were frozen. The bitter cold had
now solidified the river and the two wanderers passed over it on foot.
By noon they had reached the home of John Frazier, at Turtle Creek,
where they were given clothes and fresh supplies. The journey was
completed in three more days, and on receiving the reply of
Contrecoeur, the English began their preparations for sending troops
to Pittsburgh.
IV
As soon as Washington's advice as to the location of the fort was
received, Captain William Trent was despatched to Pittsburgh with a
force of soldiers and workmen, packhorses, and materials, and he began
in all haste to erect a stronghold. The French had already built forts
on the northern lakes, and they now sent Captain Contrecoeur down the
Allegheny with one thousand French, Canadians, and Indians, and eighteen
pieces of cannon, in a flotilla of sixty bateaux and three hundred
canoes. Trent had planted himself in Pittsburgh on February 17, 1754, a
date important because it marks the first permanent white settlement
there. But his work had been retarded alike by the small number of his
men and the severity of the winter; and when Contrecoeur arrived in
April, the young subaltern who commanded in Trent's absence surrendered
the unfinished works, and was permitted to march away with his
thirty-three men. The French completed the fort and named it Duquesne,
in honor of the governor of Canada; and they held possession of it for
four years.
Immediately on the loss of this fort, Virginia sent a force under
Washington to retake it. Washington surprised a French detachment near
Great Meadows, and killed their commander, Jumonville. When a larger
expedition came against him, he put up a stockade near the site of
Uniontown, naming it Fort Necessity, which he was compelled to yield on
terms permitting him to march away with the honors of war.
V
The next year (1755) General Edward Braddock came over with two
regiments of British soldiers, and after augmenting his force with
Colonial troops and a few Indians, began his fatal march upon Fort
Duquesne. Braddock's testy disposition, his consuming egotism, his
contempt for the Colonial soldiers, and his stubborn adherence to
military maxims that were inapplicable to the warfare of the wilderness,
alienated the respect and confidence of the American contingent, robbed
him of an easy victory, and cost him his life. Benjamin Franklin had
warned him against the imminent risk of Indian ambuscades, but he had
contemptuously replied: "These savages may indeed be a formidable enemy
to your raw American militia; but upon the king's regular and
disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible they should make any
impression." Some of his English staff-officers urged him to send the
rangers in advance and to deploy his Indians as scouts, but he rejected
their prudent suggestions with a sneer. On July 9 his army, comprising
twenty-two hundred soldiers and one hundred and fifty Indians, was
marching down the south bank of the Monongahela. The variant color and
fashion of the expedition,--the red-coated regulars, the blue-coated
Americans, the naval detachment, the rangers in deerskin shirts and
leggins, the savages half-naked and befeathered, the glint of sword and
gun in the hot daylight, the long wagon train, the lumbering cannon, the
drove of bullocks, the royal banner and the Colonial gonfalon,--the pomp
and puissance of it all composed a spectacle of martial splendor unseen
in that country before. On the right was the tranquil river, and on the
left the trackless wilderness whence the startled deer sprang into a
deeper solitude. At noon the expedition crossed the river and pressed on
toward Fort Duquesne, eight miles below, expectant of victory. What need
to send out scouts when the king's troops are here? Let young George
Washington and the rest urge it all they may; the thing is beneath the
dignity of his majesty's general.
Meanwhile, all was not tranquil at the French fort. Surrender was talked
of, but Captain Beaujeu determined to lead a force out to meet the
approaching army. Taking with him a total effective of thirty-six
officers and cadets, seventy-two regular soldiers, one hundred and
forty-six Canadians, and about six hundred Indian warriors, a command
less than half the number of the enemy, he sallied out to meet him. How
insignificant were the armed forces with which the two empires were now
challenging each other for the splendid prize of a new world! Beaujeu,
gaily clad in a fringed hunting dress, intrepidly pressed on until he
came in sight of the English invaders. As soon as the alert French
commander felt the hot breath of his foe he waved his hat and his
faithful followers disappeared behind rocks and trees as if the very
earth had swallowed them.
The unsuspecting English came on. But here, when they have crossed, is a
level plain, elevated but a few feet above the surface of the river,
extending nearly half a mile landwards, and then gradually ascending
into thickly wooded hills, with Fort Duquesne beyond. The troops in
front had crossed the plain and plunged into the road through the forest
for a hundred feet when a heavy discharge of musketry and arrows was
poured upon them, which wrought in them a consternation all the greater
because they could see no foe anywhere. They shot at random, and not
without effect, for when Beaujeu fell the Canadians began to flee and
the Indians quailed in their covers before the cannon fire of the
English. But the French fighters were rallied back to their hidden
recesses, and they now kept up an incessant and destructive fire. In
this distressing situation the English fell back into the plain.
Braddock rode in among them, and he and his officers persistently
endeavored to rally them, but without success. The Colonial troops
adopted the Indian method, and each man fought for himself behind a
tree. This was forbidden by Braddock, who attempted to form his men in
platoons and columns, making their slaughter inevitable. The French and
Indians, concealed in the ravines and behind trees, kept up a cruel and
deadly fire, until the British soldiers lost all presence of mind and
began to shoot each other and their own officers, and hundreds were thus
slain. The Virginia companies charged gallantly up a hill with a loss of
but three men, but when they reached the summit the British soldiery,
mistaking them for the enemy, fired upon them, killing fifty out of
eighty men. The Colonial troops then resumed the Indian fashion of
fighting from behind trees, which provoked Braddock, who had had five
horses killed under him in three hours, to storm at them and strike them
with his sword. At this moment he was fatally wounded, and many of his
men now fled away from the hopeless action, not waiting to hear their
general's fainting order to retreat. Washington had had two horses
killed and received three bullets through his coat. Being the only
mounted officer who was not disabled, he drew up the troops still on the
field, directed their retreat, maintaining himself at the rear with
great coolness and courage, and brought away his wounded general.
Sixty-four British and American officers, and nearly one thousand
privates, were killed or wounded in this battle, while the total French
and Indian loss was not over sixty. A few prisoners captured by the
Indians were brought to Pittsburgh and burnt at the stake. Four days
after the fight Braddock died, exclaiming to the last, "Who would have
thought it!"
VI
Despondency seized the English settlers after Braddock's defeat. But two
years afterward William Pitt became prime minister, and he thrilled the
nation with his appeal to protect the Colonies against France and the
savages.
[Illustration: William Pitt, Earl of Chatham]
William Pitt, the great Earl of Chatham, the man for whom our city is
named, was one of the most indomitable characters in the statesmanship
of modern times. Born in November, 1708, he was educated at Eton and at
Oxford, then traveled in France and Italy, and was elected to Parliament
when twenty-seven years old. His early addresses were not models either
of force or logic, but the fluent speech and many personal attractions
of the young orator instantly caught the attention of the people, who
always listened to him with favor; and it was not long before his
constant participation in public affairs developed the splendid talents
which he possessed. Wayward and affected in little things, Pitt attacked
the great problems of government with the bold confidence of a master
spirit, impressing the clear genius of his leadership upon the yearning
heart of England in every emergency of peace or war. Too great to be
consistent, he never hesitated to change his tactics or his opinion when
the occasion developed the utility of another course. Ordinary men have
been more faithful to asserted principles, but no statesman more
frequently departed from asserted principles to secure achievements
which redounded to the honor of the nation. During the thirty years in
which Pitt exercised the magic spell of his eloquence and power over the
English Parliament, the stakes for which he contended against the world
were no less than the dominion of North America and of India. In the
pursuit of these policies he fought Spain and subdued her armies. He
subsidized the king of Prussia to his interests. He destroyed the navy
of France and wrested from her the larger part of her possessions beyond
sea. Having always a clear conception of the remotest aim of national
aspiration, he was content to leave the designing of operations in
detail to the humbler servants of the government, reserving to himself
the mighty concentration of his powers upon the general purpose for
which the nation was striving. The king trusted him, the Commons obeyed
him, the people adored him and called him the Great Commoner. He was
wise, brave, sincere, tolerant, and humane; and no man could more
deserve the honor of having named for him a city which was destined to
become rich and famous, keeping his memory in more enduring fame than
bronze or marble.
VII
Pitt's letters inspired the Americans with new hope, and he promised to
send them British troops and to supply their own militia with arms,
ammunition, tents, and provisions at the king's charge. He sent twelve
thousand soldiers from England, which were joined to a Colonial force
aggregating fifty thousand men, the most formidable army yet seen in the
new world. The plan of campaign embraced three expeditions: the first
against Louisburg, in the island of Cape Breton, which was successful;
the second against Ticonderoga, which succeeded after a defeat; and the
third against Fort Duquesne. General Forbes, born at Dunfermline (whence
have come others to Pittsburgh), commanded this expedition, comprising
about seven thousand men. The militia from Virginia, North Carolina, and
Maryland was led by Washington, whose independent spirit led the testy
Scotchman, made irritable by a malady which was soon to cause his death,
to declare that Washington's "behavior about the roads was no ways like
a soldier." But we cannot believe that the young Virginian was moved by
any motive but the public good. On September 12, 1758, Major Grant, a
Highlander, led an advance guard of eight hundred and fifty men to a
point one mile from the fort, which is still called Grant's Hill, on
which the court-house now stands, where he rashly permitted himself to
be surrounded and attacked by the French and Indians, half his force
being killed or wounded, and himself slain. Washington followed soon
after, and opened a road for the advance of the main body under Forbes.
Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, had just been taken by General
Amherst, with the result that supplies for Fort Duquesne were cut off.
When, therefore, Captain Ligneris, the French commandant, learned of the
advance of a superior force, having no hope of reinforcements, he blew
up the fort, set fire to the adjacent buildings, and drew his garrison
away.
On Saturday, November 25, 1758, amidst a fierce snowstorm, the English
took possession of the place, and Colonel Armstrong, in the presence of
Forbes and Washington, hauled up the puissant banner of Great Britain,
while cannons boomed and the exulting victors cheered. On the next day,
General Forbes wrote to Governor Denny from "Fort Duquesne, now
Pittsburgh,[A] the 26th of November, 1758," and this was the first use
of that name. On this same Sunday the Rev. Mr. Beatty, a Presbyterian
chaplain, preached a sermon in thanksgiving for the superiority of
British arms,--the first Protestant service in Pittsburgh. The French
had had a Roman Catholic chaplain, Father Baron, during their occupancy.
On the next day Forbes wrote to Pitt with a vision of prophecy as
follows:
PITTSBOURGH, 27th Novem'r, 1758.
_Sir_,
I do myself the Honour of acquainting you that it has pleased God
to crown His Majesty's Arms with Success over all His Enemies upon
the Ohio, by my having obliged the enemy to burn and abandon Fort
Du Quesne, which they effectuated on the 25th:, and of which I
took possession next day, the Enemy having made their Escape down
the River towards the Missisippi in their Boats, being abandoned
by their Indians, whom I had previously engaged to leave them, and
who now seem all willing and ready to implore His Majesty's most
Gracious Protection. So give me leave to congratulate you upon this
great Event, of having totally expelled the French from this
prodigious tract of Country, and of having reconciled the various
tribes of Indians inhabiting it to His Majesty's Government.
* * * * *
I have used the freedom of giving your name to Fort Du Quesne, as I
hope it was in some measure the being actuated by your spirits that
now makes us Masters of the place.... These dreary deserts will
soon be the richest and most fertile of any possest by the British
in No. America. I have the honour to be with great regard and
Esteem Sir,
Your most obed't. & most hum'le. serv't.
JO: FORBES.
[Footnote A: Local controversialists should note that the man who named
the city spelt it with the final h.]
VIII
As a place of urgent shelter the English proceeded to build a new fort
about two hundred yards from the site of Fort Duquesne, which is
traditionally known as the first Fort Pitt, and was probably so called
by the garrison, although the letters written from there during the next
few months refer to it as "the camp at Pittsburgh." This stronghold cut
off French transportation to the Mississippi by way of the Ohio River,
and the only remaining route, by way of the Great Lakes, was soon
afterward closed by the fall of Fort Niagara. The fall of Quebec, with
the death of the two opposing generals, Montcalm and Wolfe, and the
capture of Montreal, ended the claims of France to sovereignty in the
new world.
[Illustration: Plan of Fort Pitt]
The new fort being found too small, General Stanwix built a second Fort
Pitt, much larger and stronger, designed for a garrison of one thousand
men. The Indians viewed the new-comers with suspicion, but Colonel
Henry Bouquet assured them, with diplomatic tergiversation, that, "We
have not come here to take possession of your country in a hostile
manner, as the French did when they came among you, but to open a
large and extensive trade with you and all other nations of Indians to
the westward." A redoubt (the "Blockhouse"), built by Colonel Bouquet in
1764, still stands, in a very good state of preservation, being cared
for by the Daughters of the American Revolution. The protection of the
garrison naturally attracted a few traders, merchants, and pioneers to
Pittsburgh, and a permanent population began to grow.
[Illustration: Henry Bouquet]
[Illustration: Block House of Fort Pitt. Built in 1764]
But the indigenous race continued to resent the extension of white
encroachment; and they formed a secret confederacy under Pontiac, the
renowned Ottawa chief, who planned a simultaneous attack on all the
white frontier posts. This uprising was attended by atrocious cruelties
at many of the points attacked, but we may take note here of the
movement only as it affected Pittsburgh. At the grand council held by
the tribes, a bundle of sticks had been given to every tribe, each
bundle containing as many sticks as there were days intervening before
the deadly assault should begin. One stick was to be drawn from the
bundle every day until but one remained, which was to signal the
outbreak for that day. This was the best calendar the barbarian mind
could devise. At Pittsburgh, a Delaware squaw who was friendly to the
whites had stealthily taken out three of the sticks, thus precipitating
the attack on Fort Pitt three days in advance of the time appointed.
The last stick was reached on June 22, 1763, and the Delawares and
Shawanese began the assault in the afternoon, under Simon Ecuyer. The
people of Pittsburgh took shelter in the fort, and held out while
waiting for reinforcements. Colonel Bouquet hurried forward a force of
five hundred men, but they were intercepted at Bushy Run, where a bloody
battle was fought. Bouquet had fifty men killed and sixty wounded, but
inflicted a much greater loss on his savage foes and gained the fort,
relieving the siege. As soon as Bouquet could recruit his command, he
moved down the Ohio, attacked the Indians, liberated some of their
prisoners, and taught the red men to respect the power that controlled
at Pittsburgh.
In 1768 the Indians ceded their lands about Pittsburgh to the Colonies,
and civilization was then free to spread over them. In 1774 a land
office was opened in Pittsburgh by Governor Dunmore, and land warrants
were granted on payment of two shillings and six pence purchase money,
at the rate of ten pounds per one hundred acres.
IX
Washington made his last visit to Pittsburgh in October, 1770, when, on
his way to the Kanawha River, he stopped here for several days, and
lodged with Samuel Semple, the first innkeeper, whose hostelry stood,
and still stands, at the corner of Water and Ferry Streets. This house
was later known as the Virginian Hotel, and for many years furnished
entertainment to those early travelers. The building, erected in 1764 by
Colonel George Morgan, is now nearly one hundred and forty years old,
and is still devoted to public hospitality, but the character of its
patronage has changed from George Washington to the deck roysterers who
lodge there between their trips on the river packets. At the time of
Washington's visit the lower story of the house was divided into three
rooms, two facing on Ferry Street, and the third, a large room, on Water
Street, and in this latter room was placed, in the year of Washington's
stop there, the first billiard table ever brought to Pittsburgh. The
mahogany steps from the first to the second floors, which were once the
pride of the place, are still in the house.[B] According to Washington's
journal, there were in Pittsburgh in 1770 twenty houses situated on
Water Street, facing the Monongahela River. These were occupied by
traders and their families. The population at that time is estimated at
one hundred and twenty-six men, women, and children, besides a garrison
consisting of two companies of British troops.
[Footnote B: On going again to look at this house, which I have seen
many times, I find that it was recently demolished to make room for
railway improvements.]
In October, 1772, Fort Pitt was ordered abandoned. The works about
Pittsburgh, from first to last, had cost the British Crown some three
hundred thousand dollars, but the salvage on the stone, brick, and iron
of the existing redoubts amounted to only two hundred and fifty dollars.
The Blockhouse was repaired and occupied for a time by Dr. John
Connelly; and during the Revolution it was constantly used by our
Colonial troops.
X
With the French out of the country, and with William Pitt out of office
and incapacitated by age, the Colonies began to feel the oppression of a
British policy which British statesmen and British historians to-day
most bitterly condemn. America's opposition to tyranny found its natural
expression in the Battle of Lexington, April 19, 1775. The fires of
patriotism leapt through the continent and the little settlement at
Pittsburgh was quickly aflame with the national spirit. On May 16th a
convention was held at Pittsburgh, which resolved that
This committee have the highest sense of the spirited behavior of
their brethren in New England, and do most cordially approve of
their opposing the invaders of American rights and privileges to
the utmost extreme, and that each member of this committee,
respectively, will animate and encourage their neighborhood to
follow the brave example.
No foreign soldiers were sent over the mountains to Pittsburgh, but a
more merciless foe, who would attack and harass with remorseless
cruelty, was impressed into the English service, despite the horrified
protests of some of her wisest statesmen. American treaties with the
Indians had no force against the allurements of foreign gold, and under
this unholy alliance men were burnt at the stake, women were carried
away, and cabins were destroyed.
With the aim of regaining the friendship of the Indians, Congress
appointed commissioners who met the tribes at Pittsburgh; and Colonel
George Morgan, Indian agent, writes to John Hancock, November 8, 1776:
I have the happiness to inform you that the cloud that threatened
to break over us is likely to disperse. The Six Nations, with the
Muncies, Delawares, Shawanese, and Mohicans, who have been
assembled here with their principal chiefs and warriors to the
number of 644, have given the strongest assurance of their
determination to preserve inviolate the peace and neutrality with
the United States.
These amicable expectations were not realized, and General Edward Hand
came to Pittsburgh the next year and planned an expedition against the
Indians. Colonel Broadhead took out Hand's expedition in the summer and
burned the Indian towns.
The depreciation of paper currency, or Continental money, had by this
time brought the serious burden of high prices upon the people. The
traders, who demanded apparently exorbitant rates for their goods, were
denounced in public meetings at Pittsburgh as being "now commonly known
by the disgraceful epithet of speculators, of more malignant natures
than the savage Mingoes in the wilderness." This hardship grew in
severity until the finances were put upon a more stable basis.
In 1781, there was demoralization and mutiny at Fort Pitt, and General
William Irvine was put in command. His firm hand soon restored the
garrison to obedience. The close of the war with Great Britain in that
year was celebrated by General Irvine by the issue of an order at the
fort, November 6, 1781, requiring all, as a sailor would say, "to splice
the mainbrace." This order read as follows:
The commissioners will issue a gill of whisky, extraordinary, to
the non-commissioned officers and privates, upon this joyful
occasion.
The Penn family had purchased the Pittsburgh region from the Indians in
1768, and they would offer none of it for sale until 1783. Up to this
time they had held the charter to Pennsylvania; but as they had
maintained a steadfast allegiance to the mother country, the general
assembly annulled their title, except to allow them to retain the
ownership of various manors throughout the State, embracing half a
million acres.
In order to relieve the people of Pittsburgh from going to Greensburg
to the court-house in their sacred right of suing and being sued, the
general assembly erected Allegheny County out of parts of Westmoreland
and Washington Counties, September 24, 1788. This county originally
comprised, in addition to its present limits, what are now Armstrong,
Beaver, Butler, Crawford, Erie, Mercer, Venango, and Warren Counties.
The Act required that the court-house and jail should be located in
Allegheny (just across the river from Pittsburgh), but as there was no
protection against Indians there, an amendment established Pittsburgh as
the county seat. The first court was held at Fort Pitt; and the next day
a ducking-stool was erected for the district, at "The Point" in the
three rivers.
In 1785, the dispute between Virginia and Pennsylvania for the
possession of Pittsburgh was settled by the award of a joint commission
in favor of Pennsylvania.
A writer says that in 1786 Pittsburgh contained thirty-six log houses,
one stone, and one frame house, and five small stores. Another records
that the population "is almost entirely Scots and Irish, who live in log
houses." A third says of these log houses: "Now and then one had assumed
the appearance of neatness and comfort."
The first newspaper, the Pittsburgh "Gazette," was established July 29,
1786. A mail route to Philadelphia, by horseback, was adopted in the
same year. On September 29, 1787, the Legislature granted a charter to
the Pittsburgh Academy, a school that has grown steadily in usefulness
and power as the Western University of Pennsylvania, and which has in
this year (July 11, 1908) appropriately altered its name to University
of Pittsburgh.
[Illustration: Anthony Wayne]
In 1791, the Indians became vindictive and dangerous, and General Arthur
St. Clair, with a force of twenty-three hundred men, was sent down the
river to punish them. Neglecting President Washington's imperative
injunction to avoid a surprise, he led his command into an ambush and
lost half of it in the most disastrous battle with the redskins since
the time of Braddock. In the general alarm that ensued, Fort Pitt being
in a state of decay, a new fort was built in Pittsburgh at Ninth and
Tenth Streets and Penn Avenue,--a stronghold that included bastions,
blockhouses, barracks, etc., and was named Fort Lafayette. General
Anthony Wayne was then selected to command another expedition against
the savages, and he arrived in Pittsburgh in June, 1792. After drilling
his troops and making preparations for two years, in the course of which
he erected several forts in the West, including Fort Defiance and Fort
Wayne, he fought the Indians and crushed their strength and spirit. On
his return a lasting peace was made with them, and there were no further
raids about Pittsburgh.
XI
The whisky insurrection demands a brief reference. Whisky seems to be a
steady concomitant of civilization. As soon as the white settlers had
planted themselves securely at Pittsburgh, they made requisition on
Philadelphia for six thousand kegs of flour and three thousand kegs of
whisky--a disproportion as startling as Falstaff's intolerable deal of
sack to one half-penny-worth of bread. Congress, in 1791, passed an
excise law to assist in paying the war debt. The measure was very
unpopular, and its operation was forcibly resisted, particularly in
Pittsburgh, which was noted then, as now, for the quantity and quality
of its whisky. There were distilleries on nearly every stream emptying
into the Monongahela. The time and circumstances made the tax odious.
The Revolutionary War had just closed, the pioneers were in the midst of
great Indian troubles, and money was scarce, of low value, and very hard
to obtain. The people of the new country were unused to the exercise of
stringent laws. The progress of the French Revolution encouraged the
settlers to account themselves oppressed by similar tyrannies, against
which some of them persuaded themselves similar resistance should be
made. Genêt, the French demagogue, was sowing sedition everywhere.
Lafayette's participation in the French Revolution gave it in America,
where he was deservedly beloved, a prestige which it could never have
gained for itself. Distillers who paid the tax were assaulted; some of
them were tarred and feathered; others were taken into the forest and
tied to trees; their houses and barns were burned; their property was
carried away or destroyed. Several thousand insurgents assembled at
Braddock's Field, and marched on Pittsburgh, where the citizens gave
them food and submitted to a reign of terror. Then President Washington
sent an army of fifteen thousand troops against them, and they melted
away, as a mob will ever do when the strong arm of government smites it
without fear or respect.
[Illustration: Conestoga wagon]
XII
It was not long after the close of the Revolutionary War before
Pittsburgh was recognized as the natural gateway of the Atlantic
seaboard to the West and South, and the necessity for an improved system
of transportation became imperative. The earliest method of
transportation through the American wilderness required the eastern
merchants to forward their goods in Conestoga wagons to Shippensburg and
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and Hagerstown, Maryland, and thence to
Pittsburgh on packhorses, where they were exchanged for Pittsburgh
products, and these in turn were carried by boat to New Orleans, where
they were exchanged for sugar, molasses, and similar commodities, which
were carried through the gulf and along the coast to Baltimore and
Philadelphia. For passenger travel the stage-coach furnished the most
luxurious method then known.
[Illustration: Stage-coach]
The people of Pennsylvania had given considerable attention to inland
improvements and as early as 1791 they began to formulate the daring
project of constructing a canal system from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh,
with a portage road over the crest of the Alleghany Mountains. In 1825,
the governor appointed commissioners for making surveys, certain
residents of Pittsburgh being chosen on the board, and in 1826 (February
25th) the Legislature passed an act authorizing the commencement of work
on the canal at the expense of the State. The western section was
completed and the first boat entered Pittsburgh on November 10, 1829.
Subsequent acts provided for the various eastern sections, including the
building of the portage railroad over the mountains, and by April 16,
1834, a through line was in operation from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh.
The termini of the road were Hollidaysburg, 1,398 feet below the
mountain summit, and Johnstown, 1,771 feet below the summit. The boats
were taken from the water like amphibious monsters and hauled up the ten
inclined planes by stationary engines. The total cost of the canal and
portage railroad was about ten million dollars, and the entire system
was sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in 1857 (June 25th) for
$7,500,000. The importance of canal transportation in the popular mind
is shown by the fact that in 1828, when the Pennsylvania Legislature
granted a charter to the Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad Company (which
never constructed its road), the act stated that the purpose of the
railroad was to connect Pittsburgh with the canal at Massillon, Ohio.
The railroad quickly superseded the canal, however, and when men
perceived that the mountains could be conquered by a portage road, it
was a natural step to plan the Pennsylvania and Baltimore and Ohio
railroads on a system of easy grades, so that all obstacles of height
and distance were annihilated. The Pennsylvania Railroad was
incorporated April 13, 1846, and completed its roadway from
Philadelphia to Pittsburgh February 15, 1854. The canal was for a time
operated by the Pennsylvania Canal Company in the interest of the
Pennsylvania Railroad Company, but its use was gradually abandoned. The
division from Pittsburgh to Johnstown ceased to be operated in 1864, and
that portion which was in the Juniata Valley was used until 1899, while
the portion lying along the Susquehanna River was operated until
1900.[C]
[Footnote C: There is an interesting relief map of the portage railroad
of the Pennsylvania Canal in the Carnegie Museum.]
[Illustration: Over the mountains in 1839; canal boat being hauled over
the portage road]
Other railroads came as they were needed. The Baltimore and Ohio
received a charter from the State of Maryland on February 28, 1827, but
did not reach Pittsburgh until December 12, 1860, when its Pittsburgh
and Connellsville branch was opened. The Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad
was built into Pittsburgh July 4, 1851, and became part of the
Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway in 1856, that line reaching
Chicago in 1859. The Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis
Railway (the "Pan Handle") was opened between Pittsburgh and Columbus,
Ohio, October 9, 1865. The Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, now a part
of the New York Central Lines, was opened into Pittsburgh in February,
1879. The Wabash Railway completed its entrance into the city on June
19, 1904.
XIII
[Illustration: View of Old Pittsburgh, 1817]
In 1784 the town was laid out and settlers, among whom were many Scotch
and Irish, came rapidly. The town was made the county seat in 1791,
incorporated as a borough in 1794, the charter was revived in 1804,
and the borough was chartered as a city in 1816. The first charter
granted to Pittsburgh in 1816 vested the more important powers of the
city government in a common council of fifteen members and a select
council of nine members. In 1887 a new charter was adopted giving to the
mayor the power to appoint the heads of departments who were formerly
elected by the councils. On March 7, 1901, a new charter, known as "The
Ripper," was adopted, under the operations of which the elected mayor
(William J. Diehl) was removed from his office, and a new chief
executive officer (A. M. Brown) appointed in his place by the governor,
under the title of recorder. By an act of April 23, 1903, the title of
mayor was restored, and under the changes then made the appointing power
rests with the mayor, with the consent of the select council. The
following is a list of the mayors of Pittsburgh:
1816-1817, Ebenezer Denny
1817-1825, John Darragh
1825-1828, John M. Snowden
1828-1830, Magnus M. Murray
1830-1831, Matthew B. Lowrie
1831-1832, Magnus M. Murray
1832-1836, Samuel Pettigrew
1836-1839, Jonas R. McClintock
1839-1840, William Little
1840-1841, William W. Irwin
1841-1842, James Thomson
1842-1845, Alexander Hay
1845-1846, William J. Howard
1846-1847, William Kerr
1847-1849, Gabriel Adams
1849-1850, John Herron
1850-1851, Joseph Barker
1851-1853, John B. Guthrie
1853-1854, Robert M. Riddle
1854-1856, Ferdinand E. Volz
1856-1857, William Bingham
1857-1860, Henry A. Weaver
1860-1862, George Wilson
1862-1864, B. C. Sawyer
1864-1866, James Lowry
1866-1868, W. S. McCarthy
1868-1869, James Blackmore
1869-1872, Jared M. Brush
1872-1875, James Blackmore
1875-1878, William C. McCarthy
1878-1881, Robert Liddell
1881-1884, Robert W. Lyon
1884-1887, Andrew Fulton
1887-1890, William McCallin
1890-1893, Henry I. Gourley
1893-1896, Bernard McKenna
1896-1899, Henry P. Ford
1899-1901, William J. Diehl
1901, A. M. Brown (Title changed to Recorder)
1901-1903, J. O. Brown (Recorder)
1903, W. B. Hays (Recorder; served about one week under that title)
1903-1906, W. B. Hays (Mayor again)
1906-1909, George W. Guthrie
A movement to consolidate the cities of Pittsburgh and Allegheny
together with some adjacent boroughs, was begun in 1853-54. It failed
entirely that year, but in 1867 Lawrenceville, Peebles, Collins,
Liberty, Pitt, and Oakland, all lying between the two rivers, were
annexed to Pittsburgh, and in 1872 there was a further annexation of a
district embracing twenty-seven square miles south of the Monongahela
River, while in 1906 Allegheny was also annexed; and, as there was
litigation to test the validity of the consolidation, the Supreme Court
of the United States on December 6, 1907, declared in favor of the
constitutionality of the act.
XIV
The first national convention of the Republican party was held in
Pittsburgh on February 22 and 23, 1856. While this gathering was an
informal convention, it was made for the purpose of effecting a national
organization of the groups of Republicans which had grown up in the
States where slavery was prohibited. Pittsburgh was, therefore, in a
broad sense, the place where the birth of the Republican party occurred.
A digression on this subject, in order that the record may be made
clear, will probably not be unwelcome.
In 1620, three months before the landing of the _Mayflower_ at
Provincetown, a Dutch vessel carried African slaves up the James River,
and on the soil of Virginia there was planted a system of servitude
which at last extended throughout the Colonies and flourished with
increasing vigor in the South, until, in the War of the Rebellion,
Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation put an end forever to
slavery in America. When the builders of our Government met in the
Constitutional Convention of 1787, slavery was a problem which more than
once threatened to wreck the scheme for an indissoluble union of the
States. But it was compromised under a suggestion implied in the
Constitution itself, that slavery should not be checked in the States
in which it existed until 1808. In the meantime the entire labor system
of the South was built upon African slavery, while at the North the
horror of the public conscience grew against the degrading institution
from year to year. By 1854 the men in the free States who were opposed
to slavery had begun to unite themselves by political bonds, and in the
spring and summer of that year, groups of such men met in more or less
informal conferences in Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Maine,
Massachusetts, Iowa, Ohio, and other northern States. But it was at
Jackson, Michigan, where the men who were uniting their political
fortunes to accomplish the destruction of slavery first assembled in a
formal convention on July 6, 1854, nominated a full State ticket, and
adopted a platform containing these declarations:
Resolved: That, postponing and suspending all differences with
regard to political economy or administrative policy, in view of
the imminent danger that Kansas and Nebraska will be grasped by
slavery, and a thousand miles of slave soil be thus interposed
between the free States of the Atlantic and those of the Pacific,
we will act cordially and faithfully in unison to avert and repeal
this gigantic wrong and shame.
Resolved: That in view of the necessity of battling for the first
principles of Republican government, and against the schemes of an
aristocracy, the most revolting and oppressive with which the earth
was ever cursed or man debased, we will coöperate and be known as
"Republicans" until the contest be terminated.
On January 17, 1856, "the Republican Association of Washington, D. C.,"
referring to the extension of slavery into Kansas and Nebraska as "the
deep dishonor inflicted upon the age in which we live," issued a call,
in accordance with what appeared to be the general desire of the
Republican party, inviting the Republicans of the Union to meet in
informal convention at Pittsburgh on February 22, 1856, for the purpose
of perfecting the national organization, and providing for a national
delegate convention of the Republican party, at some subsequent day, to
nominate candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency, to be
supported at the election in November, 1856.
The Republican party met accordingly for the first time in a national
convention in Pittsburgh on the date appointed, and was largely
attended. Not only were all the free States represented, but there were
also delegates from Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, Kentucky, and
Missouri. John A. King was made temporary chairman, and Francis P. Blair
permanent chairman. Speeches were made by Horace Greeley, Giddings and
Gibson of Ohio, Codding and Lovejoy of Illinois, and others. Mr. Greeley
sent a telegraphic report of the first day's proceedings to the New York
"Tribune," stating that the convention had accomplished much to cement
former political differences and distinctions, and that the meeting at
Pittsburgh had marked the inauguration of a national party, based upon
the principle of freedom. He said that the gathering was very large and
the enthusiasm unbounded; that men were acting in the most perfect
harmony and with a unity of feeling seldom known to political
assemblages of such magnitude; that the body was eminently Republican in
principle and tendency; and that it combined much of character and
talent, with integrity of purpose and devotion to the great principles
which underlie our Government. He prophesied that the moral and
political effect of this convention upon the country would be felt for
the next quarter of a century. In its deliberations, he said that
everything had been conducted with marked propriety and dignity.
The platform adopted at Pittsburgh demanded the repeal of all laws
allowing the introduction of slavery into free territories; promised
support by all lawful measures to the Free-State men in Kansas in their
resistance to the usurped authority of lawless invaders; and strongly
urged the Republican party to resist and overthrow the existing national
administration because it was identified with the progress of the slave
power to national supremacy.
On the evening of the second day, a mass meeting was held in aid of the
emigration to Kansas. The president of the meeting was George N.
Jackson, and D. D. Eaton was made secretary. Horace Greeley and others
made addresses, and with great enthusiasm promises of aid to the
bleeding young sister in the West were made.
This record seems to show beyond question that the Republican party had
its national birth at Pittsburgh on February 22, 1856, and that it came
into being dedicated, as Horace Greeley described it at that moment, to
the principle of human freedom. A later formal convention, as provided
for at Pittsburgh, was held at Philadelphia on June 17, 1856, which
nominated John C. Fremont, of California, for President, and William L.
Dayton, of New Jersey, for Vice-President. This ticket polled a total
popular vote of 1,341,264, but was beaten by the Democratic
candidates,--James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, for President, and John C.
Breckinridge, of Kentucky, for Vice-President, who polled 1,838,169
votes. This defeat of a good cause was probably a fortunate piece of
adversity, for the men who opposed slavery were not yet strong enough to
grapple the monster to its death as they did when Lincoln was nominated
four years later. It was the high mission of the party in 1856 and 1860
to stand against the extension of slavery, and in 1864 against all
slavery as well as against the destruction of this Union; and in 1868,
against those who wished to nullify the results of the war. Its later
mission has been full of usefulness and honor.
XV
Among the eminent men who visited Pittsburgh in bygone days we find
record of the following:
1817, President Monroe
1825, General Lafayette
1833, Daniel Webster
1842, Charles Dickens
1848, Henry Clay
1849, President Taylor and Governor Johnston
1852, Louis Kossuth
1860, Prince of Wales (now King Edward VII)
1861, President Lincoln
1866, President Johnson, Admiral Farragut, General Grant,
and Secretaries Seward and Welles
In 1845 (April 10th), a great fire destroyed about one third of the
total area of the city, including most of the large business houses and
factories, the bridge over the Monongahela River, the large hotel known
as the Monongahela House, and several churches, in all about eleven
hundred buildings. The Legislature appropriated $50,000 for the relief
of the sufferers.
In 1889, the great flood at Johnstown, accompanied by a frightful loss
of life and destruction of property, touched the common heart of
humanity all over the world. The closeness of Johnstown geographically
made the sorrow at Pittsburgh most poignant and profound. In a few hours
almost the whole population had brought its offerings for the stricken
community, and besides clothing, provisions, and every conceivable thing
necessary for relief and comfort, the people of Pittsburgh contributed
$250,000 to restore so far as possible the material portion of the
loss.
In the autumn of 1908 a series of imposing celebrations was held to
commemorate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of
Pittsburgh.
XVI
In 1877, the municipal government being, in its personnel, at the
moment, incompetent to preserve the fundamental principles on which it
was established, permitted a strike of railroad employees to grow
without restriction as to the observance of law and order until it
became an insurrection. Four million dollars' worth of property was
destroyed by riot and incendiarism in a few hours. When at last outraged
authority was properly shifted from the supine city chieftains to the
indomitable State itself, it became necessary, before order could be
restored, for troops to fire, with a sacrifice of human life.
For some months preceding the riots at Pittsburgh disturbances among the
railroad employees, especially the engineers and brakemen of
freight-trains, had been frequent on railroads west and east of this
city. These disturbances arose mainly from resistance to reductions in
the rates of wages, made or proposed by the executive officers of the
various railroads, and also from objections of train crews to
regulations governing the transportation system.
The Pennsylvania Railroad Company, some time after the panic of 1873,
reduced the wages of its employees ten per cent., and, on account of the
general decline in business, made another reduction of ten per cent. to
take effect on June 1, 1877; these reductions to apply to all employees
from the president of the company down. The reductions affected the
roads known as the Pennsylvania Lines west of Pittsburgh, as well as the
Pennsylvania Railroad, and similar alterations were also made on the New
York Central and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroads. The changed conditions
caused a great deal of dissatisfaction among the trainmen, but a
committee was appointed by them, which held a conference with Mr. Thomas
A. Scott, President of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and agreed to
the reduction, reporting its conclusions to the trainmen.
On July 16th an order was issued by the railroad company that thirty-six
freight-cars, instead of eighteen, as before, were to be made up as a
train, without increase in the number of the crew, and with a locomotive
at the end to act as a pusher, assisting the one at the front, making
what is technically called "a double header." The train employees looked
upon this order as doubling their work under the decreased pay of June
1st, and in its effect virtually tending to the discharge of many men
then employed in the running of freight-trains. The strike which
followed does not seem to have been seriously organized, but was rather
a sudden conclusion arrived at on the impulse of the moment, and was
probably strengthened by a wave of discontent which was sweeping over
the roads to the east and west, as well as by an undercurrent of
hostility toward the railroads exhibited by some of the newspapers. As
far back as July 23, 1876, a Pittsburgh paper, in publishing an article
headed "Railroad Vultures," had said: "Railroad officials are commencing
to understand that the people of Pittsburgh will be patient no longer;
that this community is being aroused into action, and that presently the
torrent of indignation will give place to condign retribution"; and in
another paragraph the same paper had said: "We desire to impress upon
the minds of the community that these vultures are constantly preying
upon the wealth and resources of the country; they are a class, as it
were, of money jugglers intent only on practising their trickery for
self aggrandizement, and that, consequently, their greed leads them into
all known ways and byways of fraud, scheming, and speculating, to
accomplish the amassing of princely fortunes." These intemperate
utterances were the first seeds of popular sedition.
It was not until 8.30 o'clock on the morning of the 19th that the real
trouble began. Two freight-trains were to start at 8.40, but ten minutes
before that the crews sent word that they would not take the trains out.
Two yard crews were then asked to take their places, but they refused to
do so. The trains were not taken out, and the crews of all the trains
that came in, as they arrived, joined the strikers. As the day wore on
the men gradually congregated at the roundhouse of the road at
Twenty-eighth Street, but did not attempt or threaten any violence. The
news of the strike had spread through the two cities, and large numbers
of the more turbulent class of the population, together with many
workmen from the factories who sympathized with the strikers, hastened
to Twenty-eighth Street, and there was soon gathered a formidable mob in
which the few striking railroad employees were an insignificant
quantity.
When the railroad officials found their tracks and roundhouse in the
possession of a mob which defied them, they called upon the mayor of the
city for protection, to which Mayor McCarthy promptly responded, going
in person with a detail of officers to the scene of the trouble. When
the police arrived on the ground they found an excited assemblage of
people who refused to listen to their orders to disperse, and the mayor
made no serious effort to enforce his authority effectually. There was
no collision, however, until a man who had refused to join the strikers
attempted to couple some cars, when he was assaulted. An officer of the
road who undertook to turn a switch, was also assaulted by one of the
mob, who was arrested by the police. His comrades began throwing stones,
but the police maintained their hold of their prisoner, and conveyed
him to the jail. A crowd then gathered in front of the police station
and made threats of rescuing their comrade, but no overt act was
committed. The mob, which had by this time become greatly enraged, was
really not composed of railroad employees, who had contemplated no such
result of their strike, and now generally deplored the unfortunate turn
which the affair had taken. It was for the most part composed of the
worst element of the population, who, without any grievance of their
own, real or imagined, had gathered together from the very force of
their vicious inclinations and the active hope of plunder.
The strikers held a meeting that evening, at which they demanded that
the ten per cent. should be restored, and the running of double headers
abolished. In the meantime, the railroad authorities, perceiving the
inefficiency of the local police powers, and alarmed at the
still-increasing mob and the vicious spirit which it displayed, invoked
the aid of the sheriff of the county. At midnight Sheriff Fife came to
Twenty-eighth Street with a hastily summoned _posse_, a part of which
deserted him before he reached the scene of action, and ordered the
rioters to disperse, which they, with hoots and jeers, defiantly refused
to do. The sheriff then sought aid from the military, and General A. L.
Pearson issued an order to the Eighteenth and Nineteenth regiments of
the National Guards of Pennsylvania, with headquarters at Pittsburgh, to
assemble at half past six the next morning, armed and equipped for
duty. Sheriff Fife also telegraphed to the State authorities at
Harrisburg, stating that he was unable to quell the riot, and asking
that General Pearson be instructed to do this with his force; and
Adjutant General Latta issued the orders accordingly. General Pearson
marched his forces to the Union Depot and placed them in position in the
yard and on the hillside above it. The mob was not, however, deterred by
this action, as the troops were supposed to be more or less in sympathy
with the strikers, and were expected to be disinclined to fire upon
their fellow citizens if they should be ordered to do so. The employment
of local troops at this moment constituted a grave mistake in the
management of the riot.
The governor had, however, been telegraphed to, and had ordered General
Brinton's division of troops to leave Philadelphia for Pittsburgh. This
became known to the mob, which was still increasing in numbers and
turbulence, and the calling of troops from the east drove them to fury.
The feeling had spread to the workingmen in the factories on the South
Side, where a public meeting was held, and demagogical speeches made,
upholding the action of the strikers; and five hundred men came thence
in a body and joined the crowd.
At this critical moment the mob received an endorsement that not only
greatly encouraged it, but incited it to extreme violence. A local
newspaper, on Friday, the 20th, in the course of an editorial headed
"The Talk of the Desperate," which formulated what was assumed as the
expression of a workingman, used this language:
This may be the great civil war in this country between labor and
capital that is bound to come.... The workingmen everywhere are in
fullest sympathy with the strikers, and only waiting to see whether
they are in earnest enough to fight for their rights. They would
all join and help them the moment an actual conflict took place....
The governor, with his proclamation, may call and call, but the
laboring people, who mostly constitute the militia, won't take up
arms to put down their brethren. Will capital then rely on the
United States Army? Pshaw! Its ten to fifteen thousand available
men would be swept from our path like leaves in a whirlwind. The
workingmen of this country can capture and hold it, if they will
only stick together, and it looks as though they were going to do
so this time. Of course, you say that capital will have some
supporters. Many of the unemployed will be glad to get work as
soldiers, or extra policemen; the farmers, too, might turn out to
preserve your law and order; but the working army would have the
most men and the best men. The war might be bloody but the right
would prevail. Men like Tom Scott, Frank Thomson--yes, and William
Thaw--who have got rich swindling the stockholders of railroads, so
that they cannot pay honest labor living rates, we would hang to
the nearest tree.
Although the paper in a later edition suppressed that part of the
editorial, and the other papers of the city refrained from any
editorials that might increase the excitement, yet the mischief had been
done, the unfortunate words had been widely read, and the more
intelligently vicious of the rioters proceeded to make the most of
them.
The eastern troops left Philadelphia on Friday night and arrived at the
Union Depot on Saturday afternoon, tired and hungry. After a scant and
hasty lunch they were placed out along the tracks to the roundhouse
where the great bulk of the mob was assembled. In order to secure and
protect the building and tracks it was necessary that the crowd should
be forced back. When the troops undertook this movement some stones were
thrown and a few soldiers were hit. Then one of the subordinate officers
gave an order to fire, and about twenty persons were killed and thirty
wounded, three of whom were children.
When the rioters beheld their associates attacked, their rage passed all
control, and the troops were closed in upon and driven into the
roundhouse. Encouraged by this retreat, the mob took steps to burn them
out. Many cars loaded with whisky and petroleum were set on fire and
sent down the track against the building, and fire was opened on it with
a cannon which the crowd had seized from a local armory. General Brinton
came personally to one of the windows of the roundhouse and appealed to
the mob to desist, warning them that if they did not he must and would
fire. The rioters paid no attention to his appeal, but continued their
assaults, whereupon General Brinton gave orders to his men to fire at
those who were handling the cannon, and several of them were killed and
wounded. Incendiarism, having been inaugurated, went on through the
night, whole trains being robbed and then burned. The troops held their
position until Sunday morning, and then retreated out Penn Avenue to
Sharpsburg, where they went into camp.
During Saturday night and Sunday morning the mob seemed to have taken
possession of the city. They broke open several armories and gun stores,
and supplied themselves with arms and ammunition. The banks were
threatened, and the city seemed about to be pillaged, the business part
of the city being filled with bands of rioters who uttered threats of
violence and murder. On Sunday morning the roundhouse and all the
locomotives which it contained were destroyed by fire. The Union Depot,
the grain elevator, the Adams Express building, and the Pan Handle depot
were also set on fire and consumed. The firemen who hastened to the
scene and attempted to extinguish the flames were met by armed men and
driven back. At half past twelve on Sunday morning a committee appointed
by a citizens' meeting tried to open a consultation with the mob, but
were promptly driven away. The committee found that they were not
dealing with dissatisfied railroad employees but with a mob of the worst
of the city's population, there being neither organization nor leader,
but each man or party of men doing what the frenzy of the moment
suggested. When it seemed as if the whole city was to be destroyed, some
of the original strikers were persuaded to attend a meeting of the
citizens at four o'clock and arrange to aid in suppressing the
incendiarism, and they did this with such a good spirit as showed that
the railroad strikers were not a part of the mob and did not countenance
its violence. At this meeting the mayor was authorized to enroll five
hundred police, but the accounts of the day show that the ranks filled
up slowly. The state of terror continued through all of Sunday night,
and on Monday morning the mob was still in an unorganized control.
Throughout the thirty-six hours from Saturday night until Monday morning
a most unusual state of public mind developed here and there which
seemed like a moral epidemic. There was almost a wholesale appropriation
of goods from the burning cars by men and even women who would at other
times have shuddered at the idea of robbery; and after the riot was
suppressed goods were for some time voluntarily returned by persons who
had taken them unreflectingly, having at length recovered their moral
perceptions, which had seemingly been clouded by the vicious influence
of the mob.
On Monday morning, however, the uprooted law seemed to be recovering a
portion of its dissipated majesty. During the night posters had been
placed conspicuously throughout the city, on which was printed the law
under which the citizens of Allegheny County were liable for all the
damage done by the mob or arising from its actions. At eleven o'clock
in the morning, a meeting of citizens was called at the Chamber of
Commerce, to form a Committee of Public Safety to take charge of the
situation, as the city authorities, the sheriff, and the military seemed
powerless to control it. This committee presented the following address
to the public:
The Committee of Public Safety, appointed at the meeting of
citizens held at the Chamber of Commerce July 23d, deeming that the
allaying of excitement is the first step toward restoring order,
would urge upon all citizens disposed to aid therein the necessity
of pursuing their usual avocation, and keeping all their employees
at work, and would, therefore, request that full compliance be
accorded to this demand of the committee. The committee are
impressed with the belief that the police force now being organized
will be able to arrest and disperse all riotous assemblages, and
that much of the danger of destruction to property has passed, and
that an entire restoration of order will be established. The
committee believe that the mass of industrious workmen of the city
are on the side of law and order, and a number of the so-called
strikers are already in the ranks of the defenders of the city, and
it is quite probable that any further demonstration will proceed
from thieves and similar classes of population, with whom our
working classes have no affiliation and will not be found among
them.
It is to this end that the committee request that all classes of
business be prosecuted as usual, and our citizens refrain from
congregating in the streets in crowds, so that the police of the
city may not be confused in their effort to arrest rioters, and the
military be not restrained from prompt action, if necessary, from
fear of injuring the innocent.
While the rioters had by this time been somewhat restrained by the
resolute action of the committee, yet they were, although dispersed as
a body, holding meetings and still breathing sullen threats of further
outrage and murder. The strike had spread to the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne
& Chicago Railway, and its trains were for two or three days virtually
stopped; in other sections of the country the railroad troubles were
increasing, and the committee thought best to call Major-General Joseph
Brown and Colonel P. N. Guthrie, of the Eighteenth National Guards, into
consultation. Under their advice a camp of the military was formed at
East Liberty, to be held in readiness for any further outbreak. Mayor
McCarthy, at last inspirited by the determined men who urged him to his
duty, enrolled five hundred extra police, and issued a proclamation in
which he said:
I have determined that peace, order, and quiet shall be restored to
the community, and to this end call upon all good citizens to come
forward at once to the old City Hall and unite with the police and
military now organizing. I call upon all to continue quietly at
their several places of business and refrain from participating in
excited assemblages.
A proclamation had also been issued by Governor Hartranft, and he had
come to Pittsburgh to address the rioters, and subsequently two or three
thousand troops were ordered by him to Pittsburgh, and were encamped
near East Liberty for several days.
Under these vigorous measures quiet was in a few days restored,
although the Committee of Public Safety continued to hold sessions and
to take steps not only to prevent any further demonstrations, but to
arrest and bring to punishment a number of the prominent rioters.
Claims for losses in the riot were made on Allegheny County in the sum
of $4,100,000, which the commissioners settled for $2,772,349.53. Of
this sum $1,600,000 was paid to the Pennsylvania Railroad, whose claim
for $2,312,000 was settled for that sum. In addition to the buildings
already specified as burned, there were 1,383 freight-cars, 104
locomotives, and 66 passenger coaches destroyed by fire. Twenty-five
persons in all were killed.
The lesson was worth all it cost, and anarchy has never dared to raise
its head in the corporation limits since that time.
XVII
The Homestead strike and riot of 1892 is another incident of false
leadership in industrial life which must be chronicled here.
For many years the Carnegie Steel Company, whose principal works were
situated at Homestead, just outside the present boundaries of the city,
had employed a large number of skilled workmen who belonged to the
Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, and had contracted
for their employment with the officers of that Association. On July 1,
1889, a three years' contract was made which was to terminate at the end
of June, 1892. The workmen were paid by the ton, the amount they
received depending on the selling price of steel billets of a specified
size which they produced. If the price of these billets advanced, the
wages they received per ton advanced proportionately. If the price
declined, their wages also declined to a certain point, called a
minimum, but a decline in the selling price below this minimum caused no
reduction in wages. The minimum was fixed in the contract at $25.00 per
ton. At the date the contract was made the market price of the billets
was $26.50 per ton.
As the time drew near for the contract to expire, the Carnegie Company,
through its chairman, Mr. Henry C. Frick, submitted to the workmen
belonging to the Association a proposition as the basis of a new
contract. The three most important features of the proposed contract
were, first, a reduction in the minimum of the scale for billets from
$25.00 to $22.00; second, a change in the expiration of the date of the
scale from June 30th to December 31st; third, a reduction of tonnage
rates at those furnaces and mills in which, by reason of the
introduction of improved machinery, the earnings of the workmen had been
increased far beyond the liberal calculation of their employers. At
those places where no such improvements had been made, no reduction in
tonnage rates was proposed. The company gave as a reason for reducing
the minimum that the market price of steel had gone down below $25.00
per ton, and that it was unfair for the workmen to have the benefits of
a rise in the market above $25.00, and share none of the losses of the
company when the market price fell below that figure. Indeed, the
company contended that there ought to be no minimum as there was no
maximum under the sliding scale. The workmen insisted that there ought
to be a minimum to protect them against unfair dealing between the
company and its buyers, as they had no voice or authority in selling the
products of their labor.
The reason for changing the time for closing the contract was that the
company's business was less active at the end of the calendar year than
in midsummer, and that it was easier to complete new arrangements for
employment at that time. Another reason was that the company often made
sales for an entire year, and consequently contracts for labor could be
more safely made if they began and ended at times corresponding with
contracts made with their customers. The workmen opposed this change in
the duration of the contract on the ground that in midwinter they would
be less able to resist any disposition on the part of the company to cut
down their wages, and that in the event of a strike, it would be more
difficult to maintain their situation than it would be in summer. They
claimed, therefore, that the change in time would be a serious
disadvantage to them in negotiating with their employers. They proposed
to the company, as a counter proposition, that the contract should end
the last of June, as had formerly been the case, and that if any change
was to be demanded, three months' notice must be given them, and that,
if this was not done, the contract, which was to run for three years,
should continue for a year longer; in other words, from June 30, 1895,
until June 30, 1896. This suggestion was rejected by the company. But
the company then proposed to make the minimum $23.00 per ton for steel
billets, and the Association, through its committee, named a price of
$24.00, refusing to concede any more.
While these negotiations were pending, the superintendent of the
Homestead Steel Works had concluded contracts with all the employees,
except three hundred and twenty-five of the highest skill, who were
employed in three of the twelve departments. All the others were to be
paid on the former basis of remuneration without any reduction whatever.
Of the three hundred and twenty-five high-priced men with whom contracts
had not been made, two hundred and eighty would have been affected by
the tonnage reductions and about forty-five more by the tonnage
reductions and scale minimum.
Under the proposed readjustments those who received the low grades of
compensation and the common laborers would not have been touched in
their earnings. The actual controversy was thus narrowed down to a
small number of men, less than ten per cent. of those employed at
Homestead.
During the remainder of the month of June other steps were taken to
effect an agreement, but the relations between the officers of the
company and the workmen, instead of improving, grew worse. On the 28th
the company began to close the different departments, and on the last
day of the month work in all of them ceased. On July 1st the striking
workmen congregated about the gates, stopped the foremen and employees
who came to work, and persuaded them to go away. The watchmen of the
company were turned away from the works; guards were placed at all the
entrances, the river, streets and roads entering the town were patrolled
by strikers, and a rigid surveillance was exercised over those who
entered the town or approached the plant. When the sheriff came on July
4th and attempted to put deputies of his own selection in possession of
the works, to guard them for the company, he was opposed by a counter
force, the striking workmen proposing to place guards of their own and
give indemnity for the safety of the property; but this the sheriff
declined because it would enable the strikers to keep any new non-union
men from taking their places. On July 5th, when the sheriff sent twelve
deputies to take possession of the works, they were driven away.
In the meantime Mr. Frick had begun negotiations as early as June 20th
with Robert A. Pinkerton, of New York, for the employment of three
hundred watchmen to be placed in the works at Homestead. They were
brought from Ashtabula to Youngstown by rail, thence to Pittsburgh by
river. On the evening of July 5th, Captain Rodgers' two boats, with
Deputy Sheriff Gray, Superintendent Potter, of the Homestead works, and
some of his assistants, on board, dropped down the river with two barges
in tow, until they met the Pinkerton men. When the boat, with the barges
in tow, approached Homestead in the early morning of the 6th, they were
discovered by a small steamer used by the strikers as a patrol, and the
alarm was given. A short war of words was followed by firing on each
side, which resulted ultimately in the death of three of the Pinkertons
and seven of the workmen, and the wounding of many on each side. After a
brief fusillade those on shore fled in various directions, and the
Pinkerton men retreated into their barges. About five o'clock in the
afternoon the Pinkertons surrendered, being allowed to take out their
clothing, but their arms and supplies fell into the possession of the
Homestead people. The barges were immediately set on fire and burned,
and in their burning the pump-house belonging to the Carnegie Company
was also destroyed. The Pinkerton men, now being practically prisoners
of war, were marched up-town to the skating-rink for temporary
imprisonment. The sheriff was notified, and he came down that night and
took the prisoners away. He then informed the governor of Pennsylvania
of what had occurred, and called upon him for troops to enforce the law
and restore public order. Governor Pattison made a prompt response to
this appeal, as his duty under the law required him to do. On the
morning of the 12th the soldiers of the State militia entered Homestead.
As soon as they arrived the Carnegie Company took possession of its
works, and began to make preparations to resume work with non-union men.
It was difficult to secure employees, and several months passed away
before the company was able to obtain all the men it desired. At first
the new employees were fed and housed within the enclosure, and this
plan continued for several weeks until their number had increased to
such a degree that they felt secure in going outside for their meals
with the protection afforded by the sheriff's deputies.
The company made an effort to employ their old workmen and fixed a time
for receiving applications for employment from them. When the time had
expired, however, which was on July 21st, not one participant in the
strike had returned. At a later period many of the old employees
returned to work. By the close of July, nearly a thousand men were at
work at Homestead. On July 23d Mr. Frick was shot in his office by
Alexander Berkman, an anarchist, who was not, and never had been, an
employee. The chairman recovered from his wounds and his assailant was
sent to the penitentiary.
The last of the troops were not withdrawn until October 13th. At that
time the mill was in full operation with non-union men.
Though the strike was ended in October, its formal termination by the
Amalgamated Association was not declared until November 20th, when the
disposition of the strikers to return to work was very general. Assuming
that the strike lasted nearly five months, as the monthly pay-roll of
the mill was about $250,000, the loss to the striking employees for that
period was not far from $1,250,000. No estimate of the loss sustained by
the company has been published. The cost to the State in sending and
maintaining the National Guard at Homestead was $440,256.31.
INDUSTRIAL
I
Pittsburgh has thus passed through many battles, trials, afflictions,
and adversities, and has grown in the strength of giants until it now
embraces in the limits of the county a population rapidly approaching
one million. This seems a proper moment, therefore, turning away from
the romantic perspective of history, to attempt a brief description of
Pittsburgh as we see her to-day. In order to give value to the record it
will be necessary to employ certain statistics, but the effort will be
to make these figures as little wearisome as possible. The present
population after the annexation of Allegheny (December 6, 1907) is
estimated at 550,000, and if we were to add McKeesport with its tube
mills, Homestead with its Carnegie works, and East Pittsburgh with its
Westinghouse plants, all of which lie just outside of the present
corporate limits, the population would be 700,000. In 1900 we can give
the population definitely (omitting Allegheny) at 321,616, of whom
85,032 were foreign born and 17,040 were negroes. Of these foreign born
21,222 were natives of Germany, 18,620 of Ireland, 8,902 of England,
6,243 of Russian Poland, 5,709 of Italy, 4,107 of Russia, 3,553 of
Austria, 3,515 of German Poland, 2,539 of Wales, 2,264 of Scotland,
2,124 of Hungary, 1,072 of Sweden, 1,025 of Austrian Poland, and 154
Chinese.
[Illustration: Pittsburgh, showing the junction of the Allegheny and
Monongahela Rivers]
II
It has already been said that the city is a gateway from the East to the
West and South, and as such it is the center of a vast railway system.
The principal railroads serving Pittsburgh are the Pennsylvania,
Baltimore and Ohio, the New York Central Lines, and the Wabash System,
and she has also a numerous fleet of boats plying the three rivers. Coal
is brought to the city by boats as well as by rail, and great fleets of
barges carry it and other heavy freight down the Ohio. A ship canal for
the establishment of water transportation between Pittsburgh and Lake
Erie (127.5 miles) has been projected. The railroads carry through
Pittsburgh over eight per cent. of all the railroad traffic of the
United States; and have a particularly heavy tonnage of coal, coke, and
iron and steel products; while a large proportion of the iron ore that
is produced in the Lake Superior region is brought here to supply
Pittsburgh manufactures. The total railway and river tonnage is greater
than that of any other city in the world, amounting in 1906 to
122,000,000 tons, of which about 12,000,000 tons were carried on boats
down the Ohio. Her tonnage is equal to one half the combined tonnage of
the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The following table will be very
interesting as showing the extraordinary fact that the tonnage of
Pittsburgh exceeds the combined tonnage of the five other greatest
cities in the world (1902):
Pittsburgh 86,636,680 tons
London 17,564,110 tons
New York 17,398,000 "
Antwerp 16,721,000 "
Hamburg 15,853,490 "
Liverpool 13,157,720 "
----------
Total 80,694,320 "
----------
Pittsburgh's excess 5,942,360 "
Pittsburgh has freight yards with a total capacity for more than 60,000
cars. Its harbor has a total length on the three rivers of twenty-eight
miles, with an average width of about one thousand feet, and has been
deepened by the Davis Island Dam (1885) and by dredging. Slack water
navigation has been secured on the Allegheny River by locks and dams at
an expense of more than a million and a quarter dollars. The
Monongahela River from Pittsburgh to the West Virginia State line (91.5
miles) was improved by a private company in 1836, which built seven
locks and dams. This property was condemned and bought by the United
States Government, in 1897 for $3,761,615, and the Government is
planning to rebuild and enlarge these works.
Pittsburgh is surrounded by the most productive coal-fields in the
country. The region is also rich in petroleum and natural gas, and
although the petroleum in the immediate vicinity has been nearly
exhausted, it is still obtained through pipes from the neighboring
regions. The first petroleum pipe line reached Pittsburgh in 1875.
Pittsburgh is also a port of entry, and for the year ending December,
1907, the value of its imports amounted to $2,416,367.
In 1806 the manufacture of iron was begun, and by 1825 this had become
the leading industry. Among the earlier prominent iron industries was
the Kensington Iron Works, of which Samuel Church (born February 5,
1800; died December 7, 1857), whose family has been resident in
Pittsburgh from 1822 to the present day, was the leading partner. In the
manufacture of iron and steel products Pittsburgh ranks first among the
cities of the United States, their value in 1905 amounting to
$92,939,860, or 53.3 per cent. of the total of the whole country.
Several towns in the near neighborhood are also extensively engaged in
the same industry, and in 1902 Allegheny County produced about 24 per
cent. of the pig iron; nearly 34 per cent. of the Bessemer steel; 44 per
cent. of the open hearth steel; 53 per cent. of the crucible steel; 24
per cent. of the steel rails, and 59 per cent. of the structural shapes
that were made that year in the United States. In 1905 the value of
Pittsburgh's foundry and machine-shop products amounted to $9,631,514;
of the product of steam railroad repair shops, $3,726,990; of malt
liquors, $3,166,829; of slaughtering and meat-packing products,
$2,732,027; of cigars and cigarettes, $2,297,228; of glass, $2,130,540;
and of tin and terne plate, $1,645,570. Electrical machinery, apparatus,
and supplies were manufactured largely in the city, to a value in 1905
of $1,796,557. The Heinz Company has its main pickle plant in
Pittsburgh, the largest establishment of its kind in the world.
Pittsburgh's first glass works was built in 1797 by James O'Hara. In
1900, and for a long period preceding, the town ranked first among
American cities in the manufacture of glass, but in 1905 it was
outranked in this industry by Muncie, Indiana, Millville, New Jersey,
and Washington, Pennsylvania; but in the district outside of the limits
of Pittsburgh much glass is manufactured, so that the Pittsburgh glass
district is still the greatest in the country. In Pittsburgh or its
immediate vicinity the more important plants of the United States Steel
Corporation are located, including the Carnegie Works at Homestead. Just
outside the limits also are the plants of the Westinghouse Company for
the manufacture of electrical apparatus, of air-brakes which George
Westinghouse invented in 1868, and of devices for railway signals which
he also invented.
Alexander Johnston Cassatt, one of the greatest of the Pennsylvania
Railroad presidents, and perhaps the most far-seeing and resourceful of
all our captains of industry of the present generation, was born here.
James McCrea, the present wise and conservative president of that road,
lived here for twenty years. Andrew Carnegie, Henry Phipps, and Henry C.
Frick were the strongest personalities who grew up with the Carnegie
steel interests. George Westinghouse, whose inventive genius, as shown
in his safety appliances, has so greatly reduced the hazards of railway
travel and of operation, has long been one of the industrial and social
pillars of the community. John A. Brashear, astronomer and educator, the
maker of delicate instruments, is a well-beloved citizen.
Pittsburgh ranks high as a banking center. She is the second city in the
United States in banking capital and surplus, and leads all American
cities in proportion of capital and surplus to gross deposits, with 47.1
per cent., while Philadelphia ranks second with 26 per cent. In 1906,
there were one hundred and seventy-nine banks and trust companies in
the Pittsburgh district with a combined capital of $72,058,402, and a
surplus of $87,044,622. The gross deposits were $395,379,783, while the
total resources amounted to $593,392,069. Pittsburgh, with
clearing-house exchanges amounting to $2,640,847,046, ranks sixth among
the cities of the United States, being exceeded by the following cities
in the order named: New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and St.
Louis, and often on a given day exceeds those of St. Louis.
III
The tax valuation of Pittsburgh property is $609,632,427. She mines one
quarter of the bituminous coal of the United States. With an invested
capital of $641,000,000, she has 3,029 mills and factories with an
annual product worth $551,000,000, and 250,000 employees on a pay-roll
of about $1,000,000 a day, or $350,000,000 a year. Her electric
street-railway system multiplies itself through her streets for four
hundred and ninety-two miles. Natural-gas fuel is conveyed into her
mills and houses through one thousand miles of iron pipe. Her output of
coke makes one train ten miles long every day throughout the year. Seven
hundred passenger trains and ten thousand loaded freight cars run to and
from her terminals every day. Nowhere else in the world is there so
large a Bessemer-steel plant, crucible-steel plant, plate-glass plant,
chimney-glass plant, table-glass plant, air-brake plant, steel-rail
plant, cork works, tube works, or steel freight-car works. Her armor
sheaths our battle-ships, as well as those of Russia and Japan. She
equips the navies of the world with projectiles and range-finders. Her
bridges span the rivers of India, China, Egypt, and the Argentine
Republic; and her locomotives, rails, and bridges are used on the
Siberian Railroad. She builds electric railways for Great Britain and
Brazil, and telescopes for Germany and Denmark. Indeed, she distributes
her varied manufactures into the channels of trade all over the earth.
[Illustration: The Pittsburgh Country Club]
INTELLECTUAL
I
But while these stupendous industries have given Pittsburgh her wealth,
population, supremacy, and power, commercial materialism is not the
_ultima thule_ of her people.
Travelers who come to Pittsburgh, forgetting the smoke which often dims
the blue splendor of its skies, are struck with the picturesque
situation of the town, for they find rolling plateaus, wide rivers, and
narrow valleys dropping down from high hills or precipitous bluffs
throughout the whole district over which the city extends. Yet the
surpassing beauty of nature is not more impressive to the thinking
stranger than the work of man who has created and dominates a vast
industrial system. The manufactories extend for miles along the banks of
all three rivers. Red fires rise heavenward from gigantic forges where
iron is being fused into wealth. The business section of the city is
wedged in by the rivers, its streets are swarming with people, and there
is a myriad of retail houses, wholesale houses, banks, tall office
buildings, hotels, theaters, and railway terminals; but right where
these stop the residence section begins like another city of happy
homes--an immense garden of verdant trees and flowering lawns divided
off by beautiful avenues, where some houses rise which in Europe would
be called castles and palaces, with scarce a fence between to mark the
land lines, giving an aspect almost of a park rather than of a city.
There are many miles of asphalt streets set off with grass plots. On the
rolling hills above the Monongahela River is Schenley Park (about four
hundred and forty acres) with beautiful drives, winding bridle paths,
and shady walks through narrow valleys and over small streams. Above the
Allegheny River is Highland Park (about two hundred and ninety acres),
containing a placid lake and commanding fine views from the summits of
its great hills. It also contains a very interesting zoölogical garden.
Close to Schenley Park are Homewood and Calvary Cemeteries and near
Highland Park is Allegheny Cemetery, where the dead sleep amidst
drooping willows and shading elms. Connecting the two parks and leading
to them from the downtown section is a system of wide boulevards about
twenty miles in length. On the North Side (once Allegheny) is Riverview
Park (two hundred and seventeen acres), in which the Allegheny
Observatory is situated. A large number of handsome bridges span the
rivers. The Pittsburgh Country Club provides a broad expanse of rolling
acres for pastoral sports.
II
In Schenley Park is the Carnegie Institute, with its new main building,
dedicated in April (11, 12, and 13), 1907, with imposing ceremonies
which were attended by several hundred prominent men from America and
Europe. This building, which is about six hundred feet long and four
hundred feet wide, contains a library, an art gallery, halls of
architecture and sculpture, a museum, and a hall of music; while the
Carnegie Technical Schools are operated in separate buildings near by.
It is built in the later Renaissance style, being very simple and yet
beautiful. Its exterior is of Ohio sandstone, while its interior finish
is largely in marble, of which there are sixty-five varieties, brought
from every famous quarry in the world. In its great entrance hall is a
series of mural decorations by John W. Alexander, a distinguished son of
Pittsburgh. The library, in which the institution had its beginning in
1895, contains about 300,000 volumes, has seven important branches, and
one hundred and seventy-seven stations for the distribution of books.
Mr. Edwin H. Anderson inaugurated the library at the time of its
creation, and, after several years of successful service, was followed
by Mr. Anderson H. Hopkins, and he by Mr. Harrison W. Craver, who is now
the efficient librarian. The Fine Arts department contains many casts
of notable works of architecture and sculpture, sufficient to carry the
visitor in fancy through an almost unbroken development from the
earliest times in which man began to produce beautiful structures to the
present day. It is now the aim of this department to develop its
galleries on three lines: first, to gather early American paintings from
the very beginning of art in this country; second, to acquire such
portraits of eminent men as will, in the passage of years, make these
halls to some extent a national portrait gallery; and, third, to obtain
such pieces of contemporary art as will lead to the formation of a
thoroughly representative collection of modern painting. The Art Gallery
is already rich in this latter purpose, and is renowned for its annual
competitive exhibits which are open to the artists of all countries for
prizes offered by the Carnegie Institute. Mr. John W. Beatty, Director
of Fine Arts, has made the building up of this department his ripest and
best work. The Museum embraces sections of paleontology, mineralogy,
vertebrate and invertebrate zoölogy, entomology, botany, comparative
anatomy, archæology, numismatics, ceramics, textiles, transportation,
carvings in wood and ivory, historical collections, the useful arts, and
biological sciences. Its work in the department of paleontology is
particularly noteworthy as it has extended the boundaries of knowledge
through its many explorations in the western fossil fields. The
success of the Museum is largely due to the energy and erudition of Dr.
W. J. Holland, its amiable director. In the music-hall, a symphony
orchestra is maintained, and free recitals are given on the great organ
twice every week by a capable performer. When the orchestra began its
work thirteen years ago, it is doubtful if there were very many persons
in Pittsburgh, other than musical students, who knew the difference
between a symphony, a suite, a concerto, and a fugue. To-day there are
thousands of people in this city who can intelligently describe the
shading differences in the Ninth Symphony and give good reasons for
their preference as between the two movements of the "Unfinished." The
first conductor of the orchestra was Frederic Archer, for three years,
who was followed by Victor Herbert, for three years, and then came Emil
Paur, who is now in charge. The Technical Schools embrace a School of
Applied Science, a School for Apprentices and Journeymen, a School of
Applied Design, and a School for Women, and already possess a capable
faculty of one hundred and fifteen members, and a student body numbering
1,916. Dr. Arthur A. Hamerschlag is an enthusiastic and capable director
of this educational scheme. The Institute is governed by a Board of
Trustees, of which William N. Frew is President, Robert Pitcairn, Vice
President, Samuel Harden Church, Secretary, and James H. Reed,
Treasurer. Charles C. Mellor is chairman of the Museum committee, John
Caldwell, of the Fine Arts committee, George A. Macbeth, of the Library
committee, and William McConway, of the Technical Schools committee.
[Illustration: Panther Hollow Bridge, Schenley Park]
The annual celebration of Founder's Day at the Carnegie Institute has
become one of the most notable platform occasions in America, made so by
the illustrious men who participate in the exercises. Some of these
distinguished orators are William McKinley and Grover Cleveland, former
Presidents of the United States; John Morley and James Bryce, foremost
among British statesmen and authors; Joseph Jefferson, a beloved actor;
Richard Watson Gilder, editor and poet; Wu Ting Fang, Chinese diplomat,
and Whitelaw Reid, editor and ambassador. At the great dedication of the
new building, in April, 1907, the celebration of Founder's Day surpassed
all previous efforts, being marked by the assembling of an illustrious
group of men, and the delivery of a series of addresses, which made the
festival altogether beyond precedent. On that occasion there came to
Pittsburgh, as the guests of the Institute, from France, Dr. Leonce
Bénédite, Director Musée du Luxembourg; Baron d'Estournelles de
Constant, Member of the French Senate and of the Hague Court of
Arbitration; Dr. Paul Doumer, late Governor-General of Cochin China, and
Dr. Camille Enlart, Director of the Trocadero Museum; from Germany, upon
the personal suggestion of his Majesty, Emperor William II, His
Excellency Lieutenant-General Alfred von Loewenfeld, Adjutant-General to
his Majesty the Emperor; Colonel Gustav Dickhuth, Lecturer on Military
Science to the Royal Household; Dr. Ernst von Ihne, Hof-Architekt Sr.
Maj. d. Kaisers; Dr. Reinhold Koser, Principal Director of the Prussian
State Archives, and Prof. Dr. Fritz Schaper, sculptor; from Great
Britain, Mr. William Archer, author and critic; Sir Robert S. Ball,
Director of Cambridge Observatory; Dr. C. F. Moberly Bell, manager
London "Times"; Sir Robert Cranston, late Lord Provost of Edinburgh; Sir
Edward Elgar, composer; Mr. James Currie Macbeth, Provost of
Dunfermline; Dr. P. Chalmers Mitchell, Secretary Zoölogical Society of
London; Sir William Henry Preece, Consulting Engineer to the G. P. O.
and Colonies; Dr. John Rhys, Principal of Jesus College, University
of Oxford; Dr. Ernest S. Roberts, Vice Chancellor of Cambridge
University; Mr. William Robertson, Member Dunfermline Trust; Dr. John
Ross, Chairman Dunfermline Trust, and Dr. William T. Stead, editor
"Review of Reviews"; and from Holland, Jonkheer R. de Marees van
Swinderen, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the
United States, and Dr. Joost Marius Willem van der Poorten-Schwartz
("Maarten Maartens"), author.
[Illustration: Entrance to Highland Park]
Mr. Andrew Carnegie has founded this splendid Institute, with its school
system, at a cost already approximating twenty million dollars, and he
must enjoy the satisfaction of knowing it to be the rallying ground
for the cultured and artistic life of the community. The progress made
each year goes by leaps and bounds; so much so that we might well employ
the phrase used by Macaulay to describe Lord Bacon's philosophy: "The
point which was yesterday invisible is to-day its starting-point, and
to-morrow will be its goal." The Institute has truly a splendid mission.
III
The University of Pittsburgh was opened about 1770 and incorporated by
the Legislature in 1787 under the name Pittsburgh Academy. In 1819 the
name was changed to the Western University of Pennsylvania, but, holding
to the narrower scope of a college, it did not really become a
university until 1892, when it formed the Department of Medicine by
taking over the Western Pennsylvania Medical College. In 1895 the
Departments of Law and Pharmacy were added and women were for the first
time admitted. In 1896 the Department of Dentistry was established. In
1908 (July 11th) the name was changed to the University of Pittsburgh.
The several departments of the University are at present (1908) located
in different parts of the city, but a new site of forty-three acres has
been acquired near Schenley Park on which it is planned to bring them
all together. These new plans have been drawn under the direction of the
chancellor, Dr. Samuel Black McCormick, whose faith in the merit of his
cause is bound to remove whole mountains of financial difficulties. The
University embraces a College and Engineering School, a School of Mines,
a Graduate Department, a Summer School, Evening Classes, Saturday
Classes, besides Departments of Astronomy, Law, Medicine, Pharmacy, and
Dentistry. It now has a corps of one hundred and fifty-one instructors
and a body of 1,138 students.
IV
The author ventures to repeat in this little book a suggestion which has
been made by him several times, looking to a working coöperation or even
a closer bond of union between the Carnegie Institute and the University
of Pittsburgh. In an address delivered at the Carnegie Institute on
Founder's Day, 1908, the author made the following remarks on this
subject:
The temptation to go a little further into the future first
requires the acknowledgment which St. Paul made when he wrote of
marriage: "I speak not by authority, but by sufferance." There will
soon begin to rise on these adjacent heights the first new
buildings of the Western University (now University of Pittsburgh),
conceived in the classic spirit of Greece and crowning that hill
like a modern Acropolis. With its charter dating back one hundred
and twenty-five years the University is already venerable in this
land. Is it not feasible to hope that through the practical
benevolence of our people, some working basis of union can be
effected between that institution and this? Here we have painting,
and sculpture, and architecture, and books, and a wonderfully rich
scientific collection, and the abiding spirit of music. We have
these fast-growing Technical Schools. And yet the entire scheme
seems to be lacking something which marks its unfinished state. The
Technical Schools do not and should not teach languages,
literature, philosophy, and the fine arts, nor the old learned
professions, but these must always rest in the University. Should
not one school thus supplement the other? And then, the students on
each side of this main building would find available here those
great collections which, if properly demonstrated, would give them
a larger opportunity for systematic culture than could be offered
by any other community in the world. For we should no longer permit
these great departments of the fine arts and of the sciences to
remain in a passive state, but they should all be made the means of
active instruction from masterful professors. Music, its theory,
composition, and performance on every instrument should be taught
where demonstrations could be made with the orchestra and the
organ. Successful painters and sculptors, the elected members of
the future faculty, should fix their studios near the Institute and
teach painting and sculpture as well as it could be done in Paris
or Munich. Architecture should thrive by the hand of its trained
votaries, while science should continue to reveal the secrets of
her most attractive mysteries. Then, as the ambitious youths of the
ancient world came to Athens to obtain the purest culture of that
age, so would our modern youths, who are already in the Carnegie
Technical Schools from twenty-six States, continue to come to
Pittsburgh to partake of the most comprehensive scheme of education
which the world would obtain. Believing firmly in the achieving
power of hopeful thought, I pray you think on this.
[Illustration: The Carnegie Institute]
V
In the East End is the Pennsylvania College for Women (Presbyterian;
chartered in 1869), which has one hundred and two students. On the North
Side (Allegheny) are the Allegheny Theological Seminary (United
Presbyterian; founded in 1825), which has six instructors and sixty-one
students; the Western Theological Seminary (Presbyterian; opened in
1827), with sixty-four students and twelve instructors, and a library of
34,000 volumes; and the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary
(founded in 1856). There are five high schools and a normal academy and
also the following private academies: Pittsburgh Academy, for both boys
and girls; East Liberty Academy, for boys; Lady of Mercy Academy, for
girls and for boys in the lower grades; the Stuart-Mitchell School, for
girls; the Gleim School, for girls; the Thurston School, for girls; and
the Ursuline Young Ladies' Academy.
The Phipps Conservatory (horticulture), the largest in America, and the
Hall of Botany are in Schenley Park and were built by Mr. Henry Phipps.
There is an interesting zoölogical garden in Highland Park which was
founded by Mr. Christopher L. Magee.
The Pittsburgh "Gazette," founded July 29, 1786, and consolidated with
the Pittsburgh "Times" (1879) in 1906 as the "Gazette Times," is one of
the oldest newspapers west of the Alleghany Mountains. Other prominent
newspapers of the city are the "Chronicle Telegraph" (1841); "Post"
(1842); "Dispatch" (1846); "Leader" (1870; Sunday, 1864); "Press"
(1883); and the "Sun" (1906). There are also two German dailies, the
"Volksblatt und Freiheits-Freund" and the "Pittsburgher Beobachter," one
Slavonic daily, one Slavonic weekly, two Italian weeklies, besides
journals devoted to society and the iron, building, and glass trades.
The publishing house of the United Presbyterian Church is located here,
and there are several periodical journals published by the various
religious bodies.
The city has some very attractive public buildings and office buildings
and an unusual number of beautiful churches. The Allegheny County
Court-House, in the Romanesque style, erected in 1884-88 at a cost of
$2,500,000, is one of Henry H. Richardson's masterpieces. The Nixon
Theater is a notable piece of architecture. The Post-Office and the
Customs Office are housed in a large Government building of polished
granite.
[Illustration: Court-house]
The city has twenty or more hospitals for the care of its sick, injured,
or insane, ten of which have schools for the training of nurses. There
is the Western Pennsylvania Institute for the Instruction of the Deaf
and Dumb in Pittsburgh, which is in part maintained by the State, where
trades are taught as a part of the educational system. The State also
helps to maintain the Western Pennsylvania Institution for the Blind,
the Home for Aged and Infirm Colored Women, and the Home for Colored
Children. Among other charitable institutions maintained by the city are
the Home for Orphans, Home for the Aged, Home for Released Convicts, an
extensive system of public baths, the Curtis Home for Destitute Women
and Girls, the Pittsburgh Newsboys' Home, the Children's Aid Society of
Western Pennsylvania, the Protestant Home for Incurables, the Pittsburgh
Association for the Improvement of the Poor, and the Western
Pennsylvania Humane Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,
Children, and Aged Persons. Under the management of Women's Clubs
several playgrounds are open to children during the summer, where
competent teachers give instruction to children over ten years of age in
music, manual training, sewing, cooking, nature study, and color work.
The water supply of Pittsburgh is taken from the Allegheny River and
pumped into reservoirs, the highest of which is Herron Hill, five
hundred and thirty feet above the river. A slow sand filtration plant
for the filtration of the entire supply is under construction and a part
of it is in operation. In this last year the Legislature has passed an
act prohibiting the deposit of sewage material in the rivers of the
State, and this tardy action in the interest of decency and health will
stop the ravages of death through epidemic fevers caught from poisoned
streams.
VI
Pittsburgh maintains by popular support one of the four symphony
orchestras in America. She has given many famous men to science,
literature, and art. Her astronomical observatory is known throughout
the world. Her rich men are often liberal beyond their own needs,
particularly so William Thaw, who spent great sums for education and
benevolence; Mrs. Mary Schenley, who has given the city a great park,
over four hundred acres in the very heart of its boundaries; and Henry
Phipps, who erected the largest conservatory for plants and flowers in
our country. There is one other, Andrew Carnegie, whose wise and
continuous use of vast wealth for the public good is nearly beyond human
precedent.
[Illustration: Zoölogical Garden in Highland Park]
If Pittsburgh people were called upon to name their best known singer,
they would, of course, with one accord, say Stephen C. Foster. His songs
are verily written in the hearts of millions of his fellow-creatures,
for who has not sung "Old Folks at Home," "Nelly Bly," "My Old Kentucky
Home," and the others? Ethelbert Nevin is the strongest name among our
musical composers, his "Narcissus," "The Rosary," and many others being
known throughout the world.
Charles Stanley Reinhart, Mary Cassatt, and John W. Alexander are the
best known among our painters. Henry O. Tanner, the only negro
painter, was born in Pittsburgh and learned the rudiments of his art
here. Albert S. Wall, his son, A. Bryan Wall, George Hetzel, and John W.
Beatty have painted good pictures, as have another group which includes
William A. Coffin, Martin B. Leisser, Jaspar Lawman, Eugene A. Poole,
Joseph R. Woodwell, William H. Singer, Clarence M. Johns, and Johanna
Woodwell Hailman. Thomas S. Clarke is a Pittsburgh painter and sculptor.
Philander C. Knox, United States Senator, and John Dalzell, member of
the House of Representatives, are prominent among those who have served
Pittsburgh ably in the National Government.
VII
And how about letters? Has Pittsburgh a literature? Those rolling clouds
of smoke, those mighty industries, those men of brawn, those men of
energy, that ceaseless calculation of wages and dividends--can these
produce an atmosphere for letters? It seems unthinkable. Yet hold! Only
the other day on the train a man who has been a resident of New York for
thirty-five years remarked in this author's presence that "Pittsburgh is
the most intellectual city in America." He had never visited Pittsburgh
and the author did not and does not know his name. "How about Boston?"
asked another traveler. "Boston used to be, but is not now," he
answered. Then I, in my timid and artless way, ventured to ask him why
he spoke thus of Pittsburgh. "Because," said he, "distant as I am from
Pittsburgh, more inspiration in artistic and intellectual things has
come to me from that city than from any other place in America." But
that may have been his dinner or the cigar.
Literature I once attempted to define as the written record of thought
and action. If this be an adequate definition, then Pittsburgh writers
have substantially enriched the field of literature in every department,
and given our city permanent fame as a place of letters. As we begin our
survey of the local field, the wonder grows that the literary production
is so large, and that the character of much of it is so very high. Let
Pegasus champ his golden bit as he may, and beat his hoof upon the empty
air, Pittsburgh men and Pittsburgh women have ridden the classic steed
with grace and skill through all the flowered deviations of his bridal
paths. This is scarcely the place to attempt a critical estimate, and it
would be an ungracious and a presumptuous task for me to appraise the
literary value of that work with any great degree of detail. The
occasion will hardly permit more than a list of names and titles; and
while pains have been taken to make this list complete, it is possible
that some books may have been overlooked, but truly by inadvertence
only.
VIII
Perhaps the most important piece of literature from a local pen is
Professor William M. Sloane's "Life of Napoleon." This is a painstaking
and authoritative record of the great Frenchman who conquered everybody
but himself. Dr. William J. Holland, once chancellor of the University
of Pittsburgh, now director of the Carnegie Museum, has given to the
field of popular science "The Butterfly Book"--an author who knows every
butterfly by its Christian name. Then Andrew Carnegie's "Triumphant
Democracy" presents masses of statistics with such lightness of touch as
to make them seem a stirring narrative. His other books, "An American
Four-in-Hand in Britain" and "Round the World" present the vivid
impressions of a keen traveler. His "Life of James Watt" conveys a
sympathetic portraiture of the inventor of the steam engine. His "Gospel
of Wealth" is a piece of deep-thinking discursiveness, although it
really seems a superfluous thesis, for Mr. Carnegie's best exposition of
the gospel of wealth unfolds itself in two thousand noble buildings
erected all over the world for the diffusion of literature; in those
splendid conceptions, the Scottish Education Fund; the Washington
Carnegie Institution for Scientific Research; the Pension for College
Professors, which has so much advanced the dignity and security of
teaching; the Pension for Aged and Disabled Workmen; the Hero Fund, with
its provision of aid to the injured and to the worthy poor; the many
college endowments; and, greater than all, the Peace Palace at The
Hague, through which he will make his appeal to the conscience of
civilization during all time to organize and extend among the nations of
the earth that system of arbitrated justice which has been already
established within the borders of each State.
[Illustration: Carnegie Technical Schools (uncompleted)]
But if I continue to group our Pittsburgh authors in this arbitrary
fashion, those who come at the end will think I mean the last to be
least. Therefore, let me pursue the theme indiscriminately, as I meant
to do all along had not that same Pegasus, in spite of my defiance, run
away at the very start.
IX
The first Pittsburgh book that I can find in my hurried review of the
field is "Modern Chivalry," by Hugh Henry Brackenridge. The third volume
of this book was printed in Pittsburgh in 1796, the first two having
been published in Philadelphia. This writer's son, Henry M.
Brackenridge, was also an author, having written "History of the Late
War between the United States and Great Britain," "History of the
Western Insurrection called the Whisky Insurrection, 1794," "Journal of
a Voyage up the River Missouri, Performed in 1811," "Recollections of
Persons and Places in the West," and several other books. Neville B.
Craig wrote a "History of Pittsburgh," published in 1851, which is still
a work of standard reference. Another "History of Pittsburgh" was
brought out some ten years ago under the editorship of Erasmus Wilson,
who has also published a volume of "Quiet Observations," selected from
his newspaper essays. But the most important, painstaking, and accurate
"History of Pittsburgh" which has yet been published is the one by Miss
Sarah H. Killikelly, published in 1906. Another book of hers, "Curious
Questions," is an entertaining collection of many queer things that have
occurred in the world's history. Robert P. Nevin wrote "Black Robes" and
"Three Kings." Professor Samuel P. Langley was for many years in charge
of the Allegheny Observatory and won fame while here as a writer on
scientific subjects. Also the first models of his flying machine were
made while he was a resident in Pittsburgh. W. M. Darlington wrote "Fort
Pitt" and edited the journals of Christopher Gist, who was Washington's
scout when the Father of his Country first came to Pittsburgh. "Two Men
in the West" is the title of a little book on travel by W. R. Halpin.
Arthur G. Burgoyne, a newspaper writer, has published "All Sorts of
Pittsburghers." George Seibel has written three beautiful plays which
have not yet been produced because the modern stage managers seem to
prefer to produce unbeautiful plays. One of these is "Omar Khayyam,"
which was accepted and paid for by Richard Mansfield, who died before he
could arrange for its production. Another is "Christopher Columbus," and
he has just finished an important tragedy entitled "OEdipus," dealing
artistically with a horrifying story, which has been accepted for early
production by Mr. Robert Mantel. Mr. Seibel has published a monograph on
"The Mormon Problem." Charles P. Shiras wrote the "Redemption of Labor,"
and a drama, "The Invisible Prince," which was played in the old
Pittsburgh Theater. Bartley Campbell was the most prolific writer of
plays that Pittsburgh has yet produced, and his melodramas have been
played in nearly every theater in America. H. G. Donnelly, well known as
a playwright, was also a Pittsburgher. Mrs. Mary Roberts Rinehart is a
young author who is coming to the front as a writer of successful
dramas, stories, and books. Her plays, "The Double Life" and "By Order
of the Court" have been produced, and a novel, "The Circular Staircase,"
has just appeared from the press. My own little play, "The Brayton
Episode," was played by Miss Sarah Truax at the Alvin Theater,
Pittsburgh, June 24, 1903, and by Miss Eleanor Moretti at the Fifth
Avenue Theater, New York, January 15, 1905.
[Illustration: Margaret Morrison Carnegie School for Women]
Rev. W. G. Mackay wrote tales of history under the title of "The Skein
of Life." Father Morgan M. Sheedy and Rev. Dr. George Hodges, who used
to strive together in Pittsburgh to surpass each other in tearing down
the walls of religious prejudice that keep people out of the Kingdom of
Heaven, have each given us several books on social and religious topics
composed on the broad and generous lines of thought which only such
sensible teachers know how to employ. Among Dr. Hodges' books are
"Christianity between Sundays," the "Heresy of Cain," and "Faith and
Social Service"; while Father Sheedy has published "Social Topics."
That devoted student of nature, Dr. Benjamin Cutler Jillson, wrote a
book called "Home Geology," and another, "River Terraces In and Near
Pittsburgh," which carry the fancy into far-off antiquity. Professor
Daniel Carhart, of the University of Pittsburgh, has given us "Field
Work for Civil Engineers" and "Treatise on Plane Surveying." From J.
Heron Foster we have "A Full Account of the Great Fire at Pittsburgh in
1845." Adelaide M. Nevin published "Social Mirror," and Robert P. Nevin
"Poems," a book with mood and feeling. Dr. Stephen A. Hunter, a
clergyman, is the author of an erudite work entitled "Manual of
Therapeutics and Pharmacy in the Chinese Language."
Walter Scott, who, after taking a course at the University of Edinburgh,
came to Pittsburgh in 1826, was a very distinguished preacher and
author. His greatest reputation was gained in his work in association
with Alexander Campbell in establishing the principles of the now mighty
congregation known as the Christian, or Disciples, Church. His books
are: "The Gospel Restored," "The Great Demonstration," and "The Union of
Christians."
A memoir of Professor John L. Lincoln, by his son, W. L. Lincoln, gives
a record of a life so spent that many men were truly made better
thereby. Father Andrew A. Lambing, President of the Historical Society
of Western Pennsylvania, has written useful monographs on the early
history of this region, and he is one of the first authorities in that
field. He has also composed books on religious subjects. E. W. Duckwell
wrote "Bacteriology Applied to the Canning and Preserving of Food
Products."
Richard Realf was a poet "whose songs gushed from his heart," and some
of them hold a place in literature. His "Monarch of the Forges" breathes
the deep spirit of industrial life as he found it in Pittsburgh.
Mr. Lee S. Smith, now (1908) president of the Chamber of Commerce, has
published an interesting book entitled "Through Egypt to Palestine,"
describing his travels in the Orient.
Our men who have written most knowingly on industrial topics are James
M. Swank and Joseph D. Weeks. A young writer, Francis Hill, has
published a very readable boys' story, "Outlaws of Horseshoe Hole," and
Arthur Sanwood Pier has published "The Pedagogues," a novel satirizing
the Harvard Summer School.
Rev. Henry C. McCook's very successful novel, "The Latimers," is an
engaging study of the whisky insurrection of early Pittsburgh days.
Thomas B. Plimpton is remembered by some as a writer of verse. Judge J.
E. Parke and Judge Joseph Mellon have written historical essays. Josiah
Copley wrote "Gathering Beulah." Logan Conway is the author of "Money
and Banking." He has also written a series of essays on "Evolution."
Miss Cara Reese has published a little story entitled "And She Got All
That." Miss Willa Sibert Cather has just published her "Poems." Charles
McKnight's "Old Fort Duquesne; or Captain Jack the Scout" is a stirring
book that has fired the hearts of many boys who love a good tale.
William Harvey Brown's story, "On the South African Frontier," was
written and published while he was a curator in the Carnegie Museum.
Pittsburgh has produced a group of standard schoolbooks--always of the
very first importance in the literature of any country. Among these are
the books by Andrew Burt and Milton B. Goff, and a series of readers by
Lucius Osgood.
[Illustration: Design of University of Pittsburgh]
Henry J. Ford's "Rise and Growth of American Politics" is a well-studied
work. Henry A. Miller's "Money and Bimetallism" is a conscientious
statement of his investigations of that question. Judge Marshall Brown
has written two books, "Bulls and Blunders" and "Wit and Humor of Famous
Sayings." Frank M. Bennett's "Steam Navy of the United States" is a
useful technical work.
L. C. Van Noppen, after pursuing his studies of Dutch literature in
Holland, came to Pittsburgh and wrote a translation of Vondel's great
Dutch classical poem "Lucifer." Vondel published the original of this
work some ten or fifteen years before Milton's "Paradise Lost" appeared,
and critics have tried to show by the deadly parallel column that Milton
drew the inspiration for some of his highest poetical flights from
Vondel. It is probable, however, that Milton was unconscious of the
existence of Vondel's work.
S. L. Fleishman has translated the poems of Heine with tenderness and
feeling. Ella Boyce Kirk has written several educational pamphlets.
Morgan Neville published a poem, "Comparisons." From that Prince Rupert
of the astronomers, Professor James E. Keeler, who has made more than
one fiery dash across the borderland of known science, we have
"Spectroscopic Observations of Nebulæ." That truly gifted woman,
Margaretta Wade Deland, was born in Pittsburgh in 1857 and resided here
until her marriage in 1880. Among her books are "John Ward, Preacher,"
"The Story of a Child," "Philip and His Wife," and "Old Chester Tales."
Jane Grey Swisshelm wrote the recollections of an eventful experience
under the title "Half a Century of Life." Nicholas Biddle composed a
studious "Life of Sebastian Cabot," and another book, "Modern Chivalry."
Mrs. Annie Wade has written poems and stories. The city has fathered
many able writers against slavery and intemperance, among whom was
William H. Burleigh, who wrote "Our Country." William B. Conway wrote
"Cottage on the Cliff." From Rev. John Black we have "The Everlasting
Kingdom," and Rev. John Tassey published a "Life of Christ." William G.
Johnston's interesting book, "Experiences of a Forty-niner," was
published in 1892. John Reed Scott has published two successful novels,
"The Colonel of the Red Hussars" and "Beatrix of Clare." Martha Fry
Boggs wrote "A Romance of New Virginia." Then there are "Polly and I,"
by Cora Thurmston; "Free at Last" and "Emma's Triumph," by Mrs. Jane S.
Collins; "Her Brother Donnard," by Emily E. Verder; "Essays," by Anna
Pierpont Siviter; "Human Progress," by Thomas S. Blair; "Steel: A Manual
for Steel Users," a useful monograph by William Metcalf; and "Memoir of
John B. Gibson," by Colonel Thomas P. Roberts. Then there are some poor
things from my own pen, if, in order to make the record complete, I may
add them at the end--"Oliver Cromwell: A History" (1894); "John
Marmaduke: A Romance of the English Invasion of Ireland in 1649"
(1897); "Beowulf: A Poem" (1901); "Penruddock of the White Lambs," a
novel (1903); "The Brayton Episode," a play (1903); "The Sword of the
Parliament," a play (1907); and this, "A Short History of Pittsburgh"
(1908).
And such is the list. Imperfect though it may be, it is the best that I
have been able to compose. But how large and full the measure of it all
is! History, biography, philosophy, religion, nature, science,
criticism, government, coinage and finance, art, poetry, the drama,
travel, adventure, fiction, society, education, all avenues of human
activity, all themes of human speculation, have been covered in books
written with more or less interest and power by men and women of
Pittsburgh. Much of this volume of production is ephemeral, but some of
it on the other hand is undoubtedly a permanent addition to the world's
literature.
X
One word more before leaving this subject. Literature has not until
recently enjoyed that degree of attention from the public press of
Pittsburgh which it deserves. It ought to be the concern of every human
unit in the nation to receive honest guidance in the development of
literature; for literature, once again, is the written record of thought
and action. Mobs will melt away when the units in the mob begin to
think, and they will think when they read. Then will the law be
paramount, and then will our institutions be safe. Thousands of our
serious people annually subscribe for literary reviews of one kind or
another in order that they may follow the rapid expansion of the written
record of the thought and action of the world, when the whole department
might be covered so admirably by our daily newspapers. Should not the
newspaper give each household practically all it needs in criticism and
information outside of the printed books themselves? How easily we could
spare some of the glaring and exaggerated headlines over the daily
record of crime, misconduct, and false leadership, which inflame the
mind and the passions with evil fire, and how joyfully we would welcome
instead an intelligent, conscientious, comprehensive, discriminating,
piquant--in short, a masterful discussion from day to day of the written
record of the thought and action of the world as unfolded in its
statesmanship, its oratory, its education, its heroism, and its
literature.
[Illustration: Allegheny Observatory, University of Pittsburgh]
XI
And so my little story of Pittsburgh comes to an end. It is the story of
a great achievement in the building of a city, and the development of a
community within its boundaries. I have sometimes heard a sneer at
Pittsburgh as a place where undigested wealth is paramount. I have never
beheld the city in that character. On the contrary, I have, on frequent
occasions, seen the assemblage of men native here where a goodly section
of the brain and power of the nation was represented. There is much
wealth here, but the dominant spirit of those who have it is not a
spirit of pride and luxury and arrogance. There is much poverty here,
but it is the poverty of hope which effort and opportunity will
transform into affluence. And especially is there here a spirit of good
fellowship, of help one to another, and of pride in the progress of the
intellectual life. And with all of these comes a growth toward the best
civic character which in its aggregate expression is probably like unto
the old Prophet's idea of that righteousness which exalteth a nation.
[Illustration: Phipps Conservatory, Schenley Park]
INDEX
Adams, Gabriel, Mayor, 51
Alexander, John W., 91, 106
Allegheny, made county-seat, 40;
county-seat changed to Pittsburgh, 40;
annexed to Pittsburgh, 52
Allegheny Cemetery, 90
Allegheny County, erection of, 40;
iron and steel products of, 84
Allegheny Observatory, 84, 99
Allegheny River improved, 82
Allegheny Theological Seminary, 102
Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, 71, 78
Amherst, General, captures Fort Frontenac, 29
Anderson, Edwin H., 91
Archer, Frederick, 94
Archer, William, 100
Armstrong, Colonel, raises English flag over Fort Duquesne, 29
Artists, list of, 106
Astronomical Observatory, 91, 106
Authors, list of, 112
Ball, Sir Robert S., 96
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, 49, 60, 81
Barker, Joseph, Mayor, 51
Baron, Father, 29
Beatty, John W., 92, 108
Beatty, Rev. Mr., 29
Beaujeu, Captain, attacks Braddock's army, 22;
killed, 23
Bell, C. F. Moberly, 96
Bénédite, Leonce, 95
Bennett, Frank M., 120
Biddle, Nicholas, 121
Bingham, William, Mayor, 51
Black, John, 121
Blackmore, James, Mayor, 52
Blair, Francis P., 55
Blair, Thomas S., 121
"Blockhouse," built by Bouquet, 34;
occupied by Dr. John Connelly, 37;
used by Colonial troops in Revolution, 37
Boggs, Martha Fry, 121
Bouquet, Colonel Henry, builds "Blockhouse," 34;
leads army at Battle of Bushy Run, 35
Brackenridge, Henry M., 112
Brackenridge, Hugh Henry, 112
Braddock, General Edward, marches upon Fort Duquesne, 21;
wounded in battle, 24;
his army defeated, 24;
death of, 25
Braddock's defeat, effect of on Colonies, 25
Brashear, John A., 85
Breckinridge, John C., 57
Broadhead, Colonel, 38
Brown, A. M., Recorder, 52
Brown, Joseph, 70
Brown, J. O., Recorder, 52
Brown, Marshall, 120
Brown, William Harvey, 118
Brush, Jared M., Mayor, 52
Bryce, Right Honorable James, 95
Buchanan, James, 57
Burgoyne, Arthur G., 113
Burleigh, William H., 121
Burt, Andrew, 118
Bushy Run, Battle of, 35
Caldwell, John, 94
Calvary Cemetery, 90
Campbell, Alexander, 117
Campbell, Bartley, 114
Carhart, Daniel, 116
Carnegie, Andrew, 85, 96, 106, 110
Carnegie Institute, 91, 99
Carnegie Steel Company, 71, 77
Carnegie Technical Schools, 91, 94
Cassatt, Alexander Johnston, 85
Cassatt, Mary, 106
Cather, Willa Sibert, 118
Celeron, Louis, 16
Charitable institutions, 103
Chatham, Earl of (William Pitt), 25, 29, 37
Church, Samuel, 83
Church, Samuel Harden, 94, 114, 121
Civil War, 53
Clarke, Thomas S., 123
Clay, Henry, visits Pittsburgh, 58
Cleveland, Grover, 95
Coffin, William A., 108
Collins annexed to Pittsburgh, 52
Collins, Jane S., 121
Composers, list of, 106
Constant, Baron d'Estournelles de, 95
Constitutional Convention, 53
Contrecoeur, Captain, visited by Washington, 17;
his reply received by English, 19;
captures fort at Pittsburgh and names it Fort Duquesne, 20
Conway, Logan, 118
Conway, William B., 121
Copley, Josiah, 118
Country Club, 90
Court-house, architect of, 103;
cost of, 103
Craig, Neville B., 113
Cranston, Sir Robert, 96
Craver, Harrison W., 92
Dalzell, John, 108
Darlington, W. M., 113
Darragh, John, Mayor, 51
Daughters of American Revolution, 34
Davis Island Dam, 82
Dayton, William L., 57
Defiance, Fort, built by General Wayne, 42
Deland, Margaretta Wade, 120
Denny, Ebenezer, Mayor, 51
Denny, Governor, 29
Dickens, Charles, visits Pittsburgh, 58
Dickhuth, Colonel Gustav, 96
Diehl, William J., Mayor, 52
Dinwiddie, Governor, sends Washington to Pittsburgh, 14
Donnelly, H. G., 114
Doumer, Paul, 95
Duckwell, E. W., 117
Dunfermline, 28
Dunmore, Governor, opens land office in Pittsburgh, 35
Duquesne, Fort, built and named by French, 20;
captured by English, 29;
blown up and burned by French, 29;
taken possession of by English, 29;
name changed to Fort Pitt, 29
East Liberty Academy, 102
Ecuyer, Simon, leads attack on Fort Pitt, 35
Elgar, Sir Edward, 96
Emancipation Proclamation, 53
England, war with France, 15
Enlart, Camille, 95
Fang, Wu Ting, 95
Farragut, Admiral, visits Pittsburgh, 58
Fleishman, S. L., 120
Forbes, General, captures Fort Duquesne, 14;
names captured fort Pittsburgh, 14, 29;
his letter to Pitt announcing capture and renaming of Fort Duquesne, 29
Ford, Henry J., 118
Ford, Henry P., Mayor, 52
Foster, J. Heron, 116
Foster, Stephen C., 106
Founder's Day, 95
France, war with England, 15
Franklin, Benjamin, 21
Fremont, John C., 57
French Revolution, 43
Frew, William N., 94
Frick, Henry C., 72, 76, 77, 85
Frontenac, Fort, captured by General Amherst, 29
Fulton, Andrew, Mayor, 52
Gilder, Richard Watson, 95
Gist, Christopher, accompanies Washington to Pittsburgh, 14;
hardships of journey to Fort Leboeuff, 17, 18, 19;
saves Washington from drowning, 19
Gleim School, 102
Goff, Milton B., 118
Gourley, Henry I., Mayor, 52
Grant, General U. S., visits Pittsburgh, 58
Grant, Major, defeated at Grant's Hill and killed, 28
Great Meadows, Battle of, 20
Greeley, Horace, 55, 56, 57
Greensburg, 40
Guthrie, George W., Mayor, 52
Guthrie, John B., Mayor, 51
Guthrie, P. N., 70
Guyesuta, 17
Hailman, Johanna Woodwell, 108
Hall of Botany, 102
Halpin, W. R., 113
Hamerschlag, Arthur A., 94
Hancock, John, 38
Hand, General Edward, plans expedition against Indians, 38
Hay, Alexander, Mayor, 51
Hays, W. B., Recorder and Mayor, 52
Heinz Company, 84
Herbert, Victor, 94
Herron Hill Reservoir, 105
Herron, John, Mayor, 51
Herr's Island, 19
Hetzel, George, 108
Highland Park, 90
Hill, Francis, 117
Hodges, George, 116
Holland, W. J., 94, 110
Homestead Steel Works, 68
Homestead strike, 71
Homewood Cemetery, 90
Hopkins, Anderson H., 91
Hospitals, 103
Howard, William J., Mayor, 51
Hunter, Stephen A., 116
Ihne, Ernst von, 96
Indians cede land about Pittsburgh to Colonies, 35
Irvine, General William, placed in command of Fort Pitt, 39
Irwin, William W., Mayor, 51
Jackson, George N., 56
Jefferson, Joseph, 95
Jillson, Benjamin Cutler, 116
Johns, Clarence M., 108
Johnson, President, visits Pittsburgh, 58
Johnston, Governor, visits Pittsburgh, 58
Johnston, William G., 121
Johnstown Flood, 58
Jumonville, death of, 20
Keeler, James E., 120
Kensington Iron Works, 83
Kerr, William, Mayor, 51
Keyashuta, Indian chief, 17
Killikelly, Sarah H., 113
King, John A., 55
Kirk, Ella Boyce, 120
Knox, Philander C., 108
Koser, Reinhold, 96
Kossuth, Louis, visits Pittsburgh, 58
Lady of Mercy Academy, 102
Lafayette, Fort, built, 42
Lafayette, General, visits Pittsburgh, 58
Lambing, A. A., 117
Langley, Samuel P., 113
Lawman, Jaspar, 108
Lawrenceville annexed to Pittsburgh, 52
Leboeuff, Fort, 17
Leisser, Martin B., 108
Lexington, Battle of, 37
Liberty annexed to Pittsburgh, 52
Liddell, Robert, Mayor, 52
Ligneris, Captain, surrenders Fort Duquesne, 29
Lincoln, Abraham, visits Pittsburgh, 58
Lincoln, John L., 117
Lincoln, W. L., 117
Little, William, Mayor, 51
Loewenfeld, His Excellency Lieutenant General Alfred von, 95
Logstown, storehouses built by Ohio Company, 16;
captured by French, 16
Louisburg, capture of, 28
Lowrie, Walter B., Mayor, 51
Lowry, James, Mayor, 51
Lyon, Robert W., Mayor, 52
"Maarten Maartens," 96
Macbeth, George A., 94
Macbeth, James Currie, 96
Mackay, W. G., 116
Magee, C. L., 102
Mail route to Philadelphia established, 40
Mansfield, Robert, 114
Mantel, Robert, 114
Mayflower, landing of, 53
McCallin, William, Mayor, 52
McCarthy, William C., Mayor, 52
McCarthy, W. L., Mayor, 52
McClintock, Jonas R., Mayor, 51
McConway, William, 95
McCook, Henry C., 118
McCormick, Samuel Black, 99
McCrea, James, 78
McKenna, Bernard, Mayor, 52
McKinley, William, 95
McKnight, Charles, 118
Mellon, Joseph, 118
Mellor, Charles C., 94
Metcalf, William, 121
Miller, Henry A., 118
Milton, John, 120
Mitchell, P. Chalmers, 107
Monongahela River improved, 83
Monroe, President, visited Pittsburgh, 58
Montcalm, death of, 31
Moretti, Eleanor, 114
Morgan, Colonel George, 38
Morley, John, 95
Murray, Magnus M., Mayor, 51
Necessity, Fort, built by Washington, 21;
captured by French, 21
Neville, Morgan, 120
Nevin, Adelaide M., 116
Nevin, Ethelbert, 106
Nevin, Robert P., 113, 116
Newspapers, list of, 40, 113
New York Central Lines, 60, 81
Niagara, Fort, fall of, 31
Nixon Theater, 103
Oakland annexed to Pittsburgh, 52
O'Hara, James, 84
Ohio & Pennsylvania Railroad, 49
Ohio Company formed, 16
Osgood, Lucius, 118
Parke, J. E., 118
Paur, Emil, 94
Pearson, A. L., 63
Peebles annexed to Pittsburgh, 52
Penn family, purchased Pittsburgh region from Indians, 39;
their title annulled, 39
Pennsylvania, dispute with Virginia settled, 40
Pennsylvania and Ohio R. R. Co. incorporated, 48
Pennsylvania Canal, proposed, 47;
construction authorized, 47;
canal completed, 48;
termini of, 48;
portage railroad, 48;
cost, 48;
sold to Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 48;
abandoned, 49
Pennsylvania College for Women, 102
Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 48, 49, 60, 81, 85
Pennsylvania, Western University of. See University of Pittsburgh
Pettigrew, Samuel, Mayor, 51
Phipps Conservatory, 102
Phipps, Henry, 85, 102, 106
Pier, Arthur Stanwood, 118
Pinkerton, Robert A., 76
Pitcairn, Robert, 94
Pitt annexed to Pittsburgh, 52
Pitt, Fort, building of first fort, 30;
building of second fort, 31;
abandoned, 36;
mutiny at, 39;
General William Irvine put in command, 39;
first court held, 40
Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham, 25, 29, 37
Pittsburgh, site selected for fort, 13, 14;
site claimed by Virginia, 14;
said to have been named by Washington, 14;
French attempt to make settlement, 16;
explored by Louis Celeron, 16;
Washington's first impressions of, 17;
first permanent white settlement, 20;
captured by Contrecoeur, 20;
named Fort Duquesne, 20;
captured from French by English, 29;
name changed to Pittsburgh, 29;
first Fort Pitt built, 30;
second Fort Pitt built, 31;
attacked by Indians under Simon Ecuyer, 35;
land ceded to Colonies by Indians,35;
land office opened, 35;
made county seat, 40;
first court held, 40;
ducking-stool erected, 40;
size of in 1786, 40;
mail route to Philadelphia established, 40;
new fort built and named Fort Lafayette, 42;
town laid out, 50;
incorporated as a borough, 50;
chartered as a city, 50;
new charter adopted in 1887, 50;
"Ripper" charter adopted, 50;
list of mayors, 51;
first Republican Convention, 53;
distinguished visitors, 58;
great fire, 58;
railroad riots, 59;
consolidation of Pittsburgh and Allegheny, 52;
present population, 79, 81;
tonnage compared with other cities, 82;
surrounded by rich coal and gas fields, 83;
imports in 1907, 83;
manufacture of iron begun, 83;
iron and steel statistics, 83, 84, 86;
value of various products, 84;
first glass works built, 84;
rank as a glass-producing center, 84;
as a banking center, 85;
tax valuation of property, 86;
public buildings, 103;
hospitals, 103;
charitable institutions, 103;
water supply, 105
Pittsburgh Academy, 41, 98, 102
Pittsburgh and Connellsville Railroad, 49
Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Canal, 81
Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, 49
Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, 49
Pittsburgh Country Club, 90
Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad, 49
Pittsburgh Harbor, 82
Pittsburgh Orchestra, 94, 106
Pittsburgh riots, 59
Pittsburgh, University of, 41, 98
Plimpton, Thomas B., 118
Pontiac plans attack on whites, 34
Poole, Eugene A., 108
Poorten-Schwartz, Joost Marius Willem van der ("Maarten Maartens"), 96
Preece, Sir William Henry, 96
Quebec, fall of, 31
Realf, Richard, 117
Rebellion, War of, 53
Reed, James H., 94
Reese, Cara, 118
Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary, 102
Reid, Whitelaw, 95
Reinhart, Charles Stanley, 106
Republican Association, 54
Republican Party, founding of, 52;
first Convention, 55;
first candidates, 57
Rhys, John, 96
Richardson, H. H., 103
Riddle, Robert M., Mayor, 51
Rinehart, Mary Roberts, 114
"Ripper" charter, 50
Riverview Park, 90
Roberts, E. S., 96
Roberts, Thomas P., 121
Robertson, William, 96
Ross, John, 96
St. Clair, General Arthur, sent against Indians, 42;
defeated, 42
Sassoonan, 16
Sawyer, B. C., Mayor, 51
Schaper, Fritz, 96
Schenley, Mrs. Mary, 106
Schenley Park, 90, 91
Scott, Walter, 116
Seibel, George, 114
Semple, Samuel, 35
Seward, William H., Secretary of State, visits Pittsburgh, 58
Sheedy, Morgan M., 116
Shiras, Charles R., 114
Singer, William H., 108
Siviter, Anna Pierpont, 121
Slavery, introduction into
United States, 53;
abolished, 53
Sloane, William H., 110
Smith, Lee S., 117
Snowden, John M., Mayor, 51
Stanwix, General, builds new Fort Pitt, 31
Stead, William T., 107
Stuart-Mitchell School, 102
Swank, James M., 117
Swinderen, R. de Marees van, 96
Swisshelm, Jane Grey, 121
Tanner, Henry O., 108
Tassey, John, 121
Taylor, President, visits Pittsburgh, 58
Thaw, William, 106
Thomson, James, Mayor, 51
Thurmston, Cora, 121
Thurston School, 102
Ticonderoga, capture of, 28
Trent, Captain William, established first permanent white
settlement in Pittsburgh, 20
Truax, Sarah, 114
Turtle Creek, 19
Uniontown, fort at, 21
United States Steel Corporation, 85
University of Pittsburgh, 41, 98
Ursuline Young Ladies' Academy, 102
Van Noppen, L. C., 120
Venango, 18
Verder, Emily E., 121
Virginia, claims site of Pittsburgh, 14;
sends Washington to retake Fort Duquesne, 20;
dispute with Pennsylvania settled, 40
Volz, Ferdinand E., Mayor, 51
Vondel, 120
Wabash R. R. Co., 49, 74
Wade, Annie, 121
Wales, Prince of, visits Pittsburgh, 58
Wall, A. Bryan, 108
Wall, Albert S., 108
Washington, George, the first Pittsburgher, 13;
first visits Pittsburgh, 13, 17;
his visits to Pittsburgh, 13, 14, 17, 35;
said to have named Pittsburgh, 14;
first impressions of site of Pittsburgh, 17;
hardships of journey to Fort Leboeuff, 17, 18, 19;
shot at by his Indian guide, 19;
saved from drowning by Gist, 19;
sent to retake Fort Duquesne, 20;
directs the retreat of Braddock's army, 24;
commands militia at Fort Duquesne, 28;
last visit to Pittsburgh, 35;
warns General St. Clair against Indians, 42;
sends army to suppress whisky insurrection, 44
Wayne, Fort, built by General Wayne, 42
Wayne, General Anthony, sent against Indians, 42;
builds Fort Defiance and Fort Wayne, 42;
defeats Indians, 42
Weaver, Henry A., Mayor, 51
Webster, Daniel, visits Pittsburgh, 58
Weeks, Joseph D., 117
Welles, Gideon, Secretary of Navy, visits Pittsburgh, 58
Western Theological Seminary, 102
Western University of Pennsylvania. See University of Pittsburgh
Westinghouse Company, 85
Westinghouse, George, 85
Whisky insurrection, 42
William II, Emperor of Germany, 101
Wilson, Erasmus, 113
Wilson, George, Mayor, 51
Wolfe, death of, 31
Woodwell, Joseph R., 108
Zoölogical garden, 102
Transcriber's notes:
Page 30 (026.png) - Left spelling of Missisippi as is in quoted letter
Index (026.png) - Corrected spelling of Breckinridge, John C. to match
correct spelling as in text (based on Internet search)
The name Rhys appears once in the text and once in the Index. In the print
copy, there is a carat over the y which is not included in this version.
The name Contrecoeur appears throughout the text with an oe ligature which
is removed for this version. Similarly OEdipus appears once herein without
the OE ligature.
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