A Short History of Pittsburgh

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Short History of Pittsburgh, by Samuel Harden Church

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Title: A Short History of Pittsburgh
Author: Samuel Harden Church
Release Date: November 16, 2007 [EBook #23507]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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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
Zo?logical 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