Part 17

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 sixpence purchase money, at the rate of ten pounds per one hundred acres.

With the French out of the country, the Colonies began to feel the oppression of a British policy which British statesmen and historians to-day most bitterly denounce. Their 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 burnt 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.

By 1781, there were 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 was celebrated by the issue of a general order at the fort, November 6, 1781, requiring all, as a sailor would say, “to splice the main-brace.”[27]

Up to this time the Penn family 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.”

[Illustration: PHIPPS CONSERVATORY.]

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, and is now the Western University of Pennsylvania.

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.

The Whiskey Insurrection demands a brief reference. Whiskey is 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 whiskey—a disproportion as startling as Falstaff’s intolerable deal of sack to one half-pennyworth 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 whiskey. 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: THE COAL FLEET.]

Pittsburgh was incorporated a borough in 1794. Her first glassworks was built in 1797; and both her population and her industries multiplied until she was made a city in 1816. 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, 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 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. Three 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. The lesson was worth all it cost, and anarchy has never dared to raise its head in the corporation limits since that time.

[Illustration: CARNEGIE INSTITUTE.]

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.

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 of over one million. The tax valuation of her property is $554,000,000. Her share is more than one half of the whole production in the United States of steel, steel rails, coke, oil, plate glass, glassware, harness-leather and iron pipe. She mines one quarter of the bituminous coal of the United States. She has 2500 mills and factories, with an annual product worth $250,000,000, and a pay-roll of $75,000,000. Her electric street-railway system multiplies itself through her streets for 250 miles. Natural-gas fuel is conveyed into her mills and houses through 1000 miles of iron pipe. Her output of coke makes one train ten miles long every day throughout the year. Her tonnage by river and rail exceeds the tonnage by river and rail of any other city in the world; it is equal to one half the combined tonnage of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Her rail tonnage is three times as large as that of New York or Chicago, double that of London, four times that of Paris, and greater than the combined tonnage of New York, Boston and Chicago. Two hundred and fifty passenger trains and six 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 sheathes our battleships, 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: COURT HOUSE.]

But while these surpassing industries have given Pittsburgh her wealth, population, supremacy and power, commercial materialism is not the _ultima thule_ of her people. She has the largest and handsomest court-house in the world, the crowning architectural triumph of H. H. Richardson. Her churches and schoolhouses are found in nearly every block. She spends a quarter of a million annually on her parks,—Schenley and Highland. She maintains by popular support one of the three symphony orchestras in America. She has given many famous names 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 millions for education and benevolence; Mrs. Mary Schenley, who has given the city a great park, four hundred picturesque 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. Mr. Carnegie has spent many millions on libraries, art galleries and scientific museums in Pittsburgh alone, and millions more for similar institutions in other parts of the world. The Carnegie Institute at Pittsburgh, comprising Art Galleries, Library, Museum and Music Hall, now in its fourth year, is the rallying-ground of the whole people in their growing love of æsthetic and spiritual life. Its doors are open all day, from nine in the morning until ten at night, free to the people. And the people use it with delight, more than five hundred thousand of them having thronged its halls in this past year.

Pittsburgh is truly an imperial city.

[Illustration: SEAL OF THE CITY.]

FOOTNOTES

[1] Reproduced by permission of Augustus Pruyn, Albany, N. Y.

[2] Reproduced by permission of Dr. Samuel B. Ward, Albany, N. Y.

[3] Reproduced by permission from _King Washington_, by Adelaide Skeel and William H. Brearley.

[4] From _Book of Newburgh_.

[5] _From Spirit of ’76_.

[6] From _American Patriots_.

[7] Reproduced by permission from _Bowling Green_, by Spencer Trask.

[8] Reproduced by permission from _Bowling Green_, by Spencer Trask.

[9] Reproduced by permission from _The Outlook_.

[10] Reproduced by permission of Lewis C. Vandegrift, Wilmington, Del.

[11] Reproduced by permission of Henry C. Conrad, Wilmington, Del.

[12] Reproduced by permission of Buffalo Historical Society.

[13] Subsequently the river bore the name of North River, to distinguish it from the Delaware, the South River of Nieu Nederlandt. In fact the fair stream has been renamed as often as a Parisian street. Albany has shared the fate of the river.

[14] The Chart illustrating this article is one of a later date.

[15] See page 93, Bradford’s _History of Plimoth Plantation. From the original manuscript_. Boston, 1898. This original MS. in the above year was transferred with appropriate ceremonies from the library of the Archiepiscopal Palace at Fulham to the archives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

[16] The writer is indebted to As-que-sent-wah, a member of the Onondaga tribe, an authority upon Indian local lore, and well known among white men as Edward Winslow Paige, for an account of the tradition which fixes the residence of Hiawatha at Schonowe. Mr. Paige owns the lot at the west end of Union Street on the bank of the Binnekill, upon which the castle and residence stood. He points out to the visitor existing traces of the Indian occupation.

[17] He was drowned in October, 1667, in Lake Champlain, while journeying to Canada in response to the pressing invitation of the Governor General to visit him.

[18] Governor Leisler was afterwards unjustly condemned and executed for high treason; the destruction of Schenectady being one of the charges against him.

[19] He came again in 1782, when the struggle was practically over. The authorities and the people did their utmost in his honor. This he suitably acknowledged in a letter addressed “To the magistrates and military authorities of the township of Schenectady,” closing in these words: “May the complete blessings of peace soon reward your arduous struggle for the freedom and independence of our common country.”

[20] “Ten eynde de Gemeente niet verstroyt werde.”

[21] EPITAPH OF JOSHUA DE KOCKERTHAL, IN BURYING-GROUND AT SAUGERTIES, N. Y.

Wisse Wandersman Unter diesem Steine Rusht nebst Seiner Sibylla Charlotte Ein Rechter Wandersman Per Hoch Jeutsehen in Nord America ihr Josua und der selben an Der Ost and West seite Der Hudson’s River rein Lutherischer Prediger. Seine erste an Kunft war mit Lrd Lovelace, 1707-8, den 1 Januar. Seine sweite mit Col. Hunter 1710 d. 14 Juny. Seine Englandische ruc reise unterbrach Seine Seelen Himmelische reise an St. Johannis sage 1719. Regherstu mehr Ku wissen So untersuche in Welaneh thons vaterland, Wer war de Kockerthal, Wer Harschias, Wer Winchenbuch, B. Berkenmayer, S. Heurtin, L. Brevort.

MDCCXLII.

Know, Wanderer, under this stone rests beside his Sybilla Charlotte a right wanderer, the Joshua of the High Dutch in N. America, the pure Lutheran Preacher of them on the East and West side of the Hudson River. His first arrival was with Lord Lovelace in 1707, the first of January. His second with Colonel Hunter, 1710, the fourteenth of June. His voyage back to England was prevented (literally interrupted) by the voyage of his soul to Heaven, on St. John’s Day, 1719. Do you wish to know more? Seek in Melancthon’s fatherland who was Kockerthal, who was Harschias, who Winchenbuch, B. Berkenmayer, S. Heurtin, L. Brevort.

1742.

[22] On this Glebe site was erected about 1730 the Lutheran Church of the Palatine Parish by Quassaick. Reverend Michael Christian Knoll, Pastor.

From July 19, 1747, the Reverend Hezekiah Watkins of the Church of England held services for about twenty-five years.

Erected by Quassaick Chapter, DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

[23]

IN MEMORY OF REVEREND HEZEKIAH WATKINS YALE 1737 ORDAINED 1754 IN ENGLAND SENT HERE BY VEN. SOC. P. G. IN F. P. FOUNDED THE PARISHES OF S. DAVID’S, S. ANDREW’S AND S. GEORGE’S RESIDENT MINISTER AT NEWBURGH FROM 1752 UNTIL HIS DEATH. APRIL 10, 1765. AET. 57.

_Tablet in S. George’s Church, Newburgh._

[24]

GEORGE CLINTON MEMBER OF CONTINENTAL CONGRESS 1775-1777 BRIGADIER-GENERAL CONTINENTAL ARMY 1777 GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 1777-85—1801-4 VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 1804-1812

_Cara Patria Carior Libertas._

Inscription on Clinton Statue in Colden Square, Newburgh. Statue by Henry Kirke Brown. Presented to the city by the Historical Society of Newburgh Bay and the Highlands and other citizens. Unveiled on the 119th anniversary of the battles of Forts Clinton and Montgomery in the Highlands.

[25] The change from Vredryk Flypse to Frederick Philips was synchronously made—both names being changed at the same time.

[26] The word is commonly spelt thus for the mountains, but thus—_Allegheny_—for the river, county and city.

[27] “The commissaries will issue a gill of whiskey, extraordinary, to the non-commissioned officers and privates, upon this joyful occasion.”—General Irvine’s Order.

[Illustration]

INDEX

A

Abercrombie, General, 30, 51

Academy of Natural Science, Philadelphia, 332

Ackland, Lady, 64

Adams, John, 266

Adams, Mrs. John, 310

Adams, John Quincy, 380

Albany, W. W. Battershall on, 1-37; settled by Dutch, 1-9; captured by English, 9; incorporated, 10; English church built, 14; its frontier position, 15-18; during the French wars, 18; convention of 1754, 20; in the Revolution, 20-23; becomes the State Capital, 24; historic survivals in, 24-37; architecture of, 30-32; the Capitol described, 32-34

Aldrich, T. B., 205

Allegheny, 414

_Almirante Oquendo_, 244

American Philosophical Society, 310, 318

Amersfoort, 216, 219

Amherst, Lord, 52

Amsterdam, 3, 6

André, John, in New York, 194; capture of, 158-161

Andros, Edmund, 176

Army, American, volunteer system organized, 380

Arnold, B., at Saratoga, 62; in Philadelphia, 312; treason of, 160, 161, 182, 195

Arnold, Matthew, cited, 300

As-que-sent-wah, _see_ E. W. Paige

B

Baldwin’s Locomotive Works, 326

Baltimore, Congress flees to, 272

Barbadoes, Washington’s voyage to, 393

Barclay, Rev. T., quoted, 100

Barnard College, 207

Baron, Father, 407

Bartram, John, and his garden, 312, 314

Battershall, W. W., on Albany, 1-37

Bayard, James A., 360

Bayard, Richard A., 360

Bayard, Thomas F., 350, 351

Beatty, Charles, quoted, 268

Beatty, Rev., preaches first Protestant sermon at Pittsburgh, 407

Bedford, Gunning, 267

Bedford, Gunning, Jr., 358

Beecher, H. W., 247

Beekman Mansion, 195-197

Belcher, Governor J., 252, 257

Bemis Heights, 23, 41, 64

Bennington, battle of, 58

Bertholf, Rev. G., at Tarrytown, 154

Beverwyck, 73, 81

Biddle, Colonel, 122

Bidwell, D. D., 390

Binney, Horace, house of, 318

_Bird Grip_, Swedish vessel, 337

Bjork, Rev. Eric, builds Old Swedes’ Church, 349

Black Rock, battery at, 373, 384

“Block House,” the Pittsburgh, 408

Bloomingdale, absorbed by New York, 188

Blue Anchor, the Swedish tavern, 301

Bordentown, 269

Boston, 181, 188

Boudinot, President, of Princeton, 288

Bouquet, Col. Henry, builds the “Block House,” 407; defeats Indians, 407-410

Bowles, naval constructor, 244

Bowling Green, 193

Boyle, H., 107

Brackinridge, 269

Bracola, _see_ Brooklyn

Braddock, defeat and death of, 51, 399-404, 416

Braddock’s Field, 418

Bradford, Governor, quoted, 4, 6

Bradford, press of, 306

Brainerd, David, expelled from Yale, 256

Brandt, 56

Brazil, Emperor of, 206

Breuckelen, _see_ Brooklyn

Brewster, E. A., 135

Brinkerhoff, M., 132

Broadhead, Colonel, attacks Indians, 412

Brocklandia, _see_ Brooklyn

Broecke, _see_ Brooklyn

Broeckede, _see_ Brooklyn

Broicklede, _see_ Brooklyn

Bronck, Jonas, 77, 80

Brooklyn, 181, 186, 271; Harrington Putnam on, 213-249; Dutch settlement, 213; Dutch settlers described, 216-220; first church, 220-222; British rule, 224-227; battle of Long Island, 228-240; the Navy Yard, 242; Fort Lafayette, 244-248; modern Brooklyn, 248

Brooklyn Institute, 249

Brown, General, in War of 1812, 378, 380, 381

Brown, H. K., 119, 125, 135

Bryant, Wm. Cullen, 215

Buffalo, Rowland B. Mahany on, 367-391; founding of, 367; early history, 368; incorporated, 370; strategic position in the War of 1812, 373; Perry’s victory, 376; burning of, 377; battle of Chippewa, 378; Lundy’s Lane, 380; unsuccessful siege by the British of Fort Erie, 381; the Erie Canal, 382-384; the modern city, 385-391

Burgoyne, surrender at Saratoga, 22, 23, 58-68; imprisoned at Albany, 28

Burns, Robert, statue of, 36

Burr, Aaron, 28, 204, 205, 254, 259, 267

Burr, Rev. Aaron, 252, 259

Burr, Dr. Horace, 350

Burwell, Dr. G. N., 389

Bushy Run, battle at, 410

C

Cadwalader, in battle of Princeton, 275

_Caledonia_, captured in War of 1812, 374

Campanius, at Fort Christina, 339

Campbell, Douglas, cited, 6

Canada acquired by England, 19

Carnahan, James, 292

Carnegie, Andrew, 424

Carnegie Institute, 424

Carpenters’ Hall, 314

Carroll, Charles, of Carrollton, 28

Caverley’s statue of Burns, 36

Celeron, Louis, 397

Centennial Exhibition of 1876, 332

Champlain, Samuel, 45

Chapin, E. P., 390

Charles I., 13, 346

Charles II., 175

Chemnitz, surrender of, 339

Cherry Valley, 49

Chippewa, battle of, 378, 380

Christiana, Swedes settle on the, 337; fortified, 355

Christina, Queen, 336

Christina Harbor, village of, 339

Christinaham, 346, 347

Church, S. H., on Pittsburgh, 393-426

Cincinnatus, Society of, 132

Clark, Abraham, signer, 268

Clinton, DeWitt, 205; favors Erie Canal, 382, 383

Clinton, General George, at Saratoga, 69; at Newburgh, 124-126

Clinton, Sir Henry, 194, 229, 236

Clinton, James, 124

Coit, George, 384

Colden, C., 121

Colden, Maria, 122

College Settlement, New York, 208

Colonnade Hotel, Philadelphia, 326

Columbia University, 207, 211

Colve, Captain, 175

Congress, first general American, 94

Congress, Continental, Witherspoon elected to, 265; flees to Baltimore, 272; meets in Nassau Hall, 286, 288; Declaration of Independence, 318; and the Indians, 412

Congress, U. S., and Whiskey Insurrection, 417

Congress Spring, _see_ Saratoga

_Connecticut_, the, captured in War of 1812, 374

_Constitution_, the, 242

Constitution, U. S., adoption of, 367

Contrecœur, Captain, 399

Convention of 1787, 290

Cooper, J. Fenimore, 29, 110, 157, 205

Cooper Institute, 204

Cornwallis, Lord, 194; at Brooklyn, 234-237; at Trenton and Princeton, 271-283

Courcelle, 46

Coxe, Right Reverend A. C., 389

Cramps, shipbuilders, 326

Crane Hook, 349

Cronyn, Dr. John, 389

Crown Point, 40, 54

Curtis, G. W., 141, 205

D

“Daughters of the American Revolution,” 408

Davies, President, of Princeton, 259

de Beauvois, Carel, 222

Declaration of Independence, 265, 270, 318

de Kockerthal, Joshua, 107, 115