Part 1 (1/2)
A Short History of Pittsburgh.
by Samuel Harden Church.
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 t.i.tles 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
HISTORICAL
I
George Was.h.i.+ngton, 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. Was.h.i.+ngton 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 mids.h.i.+pman 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, Was.h.i.+ngton 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. Was.h.i.+ngton 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 sh.o.r.e to ocean sh.o.r.e. 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 Sa.s.soonan, 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
Was.h.i.+ngton'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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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.
Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 s.h.i.+ngiss, 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, Was.h.i.+ngton 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 Was.h.i.+ngton received from the French commander a very satisfactory reply. On the trip back the two pioneers encountered almost insupportable hards.h.i.+ps. 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, Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 ill.u.s.trious career was put in deadly peril, for on the second day of his escort, the treacherous guide deliberately fired his gun at Was.h.i.+ngton when standing only a few feet away from him. Bad marksmans.h.i.+p saved the intended victim, and Gist started to kill the Indian on the spot; but Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 Was.h.i.+ngton was suffering acute agony from his frosted feet. While recrossing the Allegheny River on a rude raft, Was.h.i.+ngton 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 pa.s.sed 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 Was.h.i.+ngton'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 r.e.t.a.r.ded 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.