Pittsburgh: A Sketch of Its Early Social Life

Pittsburgh — CHAPTER I THE FORMATIVE PERIOD — REFERENCES Chapter I

Until all fear of Indian troubles had ceased, there was practically no social life in American pioneer communities. As long as marauding bands of Indians appeared on the outskirts of the settlements, the laws were but a loose net with large meshes, thrown out from the longer-settled country whence they emanated. In the numerous interstices the laws were ineffective. In this Pittsburgh was no exception. The nominal reign of the law had been inaugurated among the settlers in Western Pennsylvania as far back as 1750, when the Western country was no man’s land, and the rival claims set up by France and England were being subjected to the arbitrament of the sword. In that year Cumberland County was formed. It was the sixth county in the province, and comprised all the territory west of the Susquehanna River, and north and west of York County—limitless in its westerly extent—between the province of New York on one side, and the colony of Virginia and the province of Maryland on the other. The first county seat was at Shippinsburg, but the next year, when Carlisle was laid out, that place became the seat of justice.

After the conclusion of the French and Indian War, and the establishment of English supremacy, a further attempt was made to govern Western Pennsylvania by lawful methods, and in 1771 Bedford County was formed out of Cumberland County. It included nearly all of the western half of the province. With Bedford, the new county seat, almost a hundred miles away, the law had little force in and about Pittsburgh. To bring the law nearer home, Westmoreland County was formed in 1773, from Bedford County, and embraced all of the province west of “Laurel Hill.” The county seat was at Hannastown, three miles northeast of the present borough of Greensburg. But with Virginia and Pennsylvania each claiming jurisdiction over the territory an uncertainty prevailed which caused more disregard for the law. The Revolutionary War came on, with its attendant Indian troubles; and in 1794 the western counties revolted against the national government on account of the imposition of an excise on whisky. It was only after the last uprising had been suppressed that the laws became effective and society entered upon the formative stage.

Culture is the leading element in the formation and progress of society, and is the result of mental activity. The most potent agency in the production of culture is education. While Pittsburgh was a frontier village, suffering from the turbulence of the French and Indian War, the uncertainty of the Revolution, and the chaos of the Whisky Insurrection, education remained at a standstill. The men who had blazed trails through the trackless forests, and buried themselves in the woods or along the uncharted rivers, could usually read and write, but there were no means of transmitting these boons to their children. The laws of the province made no provision for schools on its frontiers. In December, 1761, the inhabitants of Pittsburgh subscribed sixty pounds and engaged a schoolmaster for the term of a year to instruct their children. Similar attempts followed, but, like the first effort, ended in failure. There was not a newspaper in all the Western country; the only books were the Bible and the almanac. The almanac was the one form of secular literature with which frontier families were ordinarily familiar.

In 1764, while Pittsburgh was a trading post, the military authorities caused a plan of the village to be made by Colonel John Campbell. It consisted of four blocks, and was bounded by Water Street, Second Street, now Second Avenue, Market and Ferry Streets, and was intersected by Chancery Lane. The lots faced in the direction of Water Street. In this plan most of the houses were built.

At the outbreak of the Revolution, the proprietors of the province were the cousins, John Penn, Jr., and John Penn, both grandsons of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania. Being royalists, they had been divested of the title to all their lands in Pennsylvania, except to a few tracts which had been surveyed, called manors, one of them being “Pittsburgh,” in which was included the village of that name. In 1784 the Penns conceived the design of selling land in the village of Pittsburgh. The first sale was made in January, when an agreement to sell was entered into with Major Isaac Craig and Colonel Stephen Bayard, for about three acres, located “between Fort Pitt and the Allegheny River.” The Penns determined to lay out a town according to a plan of their own, and on April 22, 1784, Tench Francis, their agent, employed George Woods, an engineer living at Bedford, to do the work. The plan was completed in a few months, and included within its boundaries all the land in the triangle between the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, extending to Grant Street and Washington, now Eleventh, Street. Campbell’s plan was adopted unchanged; Tench Francis approved the new plan and began to sell lots. Major Craig and Colonel Bayard accepted, in lieu of the acreage purchased by them, a deed for thirty-two lots in this plan.

Until this time, the title of the occupants of lands included in the plan had been by sufferance only. The earlier Penns were reputed to have treated the Indians, the original proprietors of Pennsylvania, with consideration. In the same manner John Penn, Jr., and John Penn dealt with the persons who made improvements on the lands to which they had no title. They permitted the settlement on the assumption that the settlers would afterwards buy the land; and they gave them a preference. Also when litigation arose, caused by the schemes of land speculators intent on securing the fruits of the enterprise and industry of squatters on the Penn lots, the courts generally intervened in favor of the occupants.1 The sale was advertised near and far, and immigrants and speculators flocked into the village. They came from Eastern Pennsylvania, from Virginia, from Maryland, from New York, and from distant New England. The pack trains carrying merchandise and household effects into Pittsburgh became ever longer and more numerous.

Once that the tide of emigration had set in toward the West, it grew constantly in volume. The roads over the Alleghany Mountains were improved, and wheeled conveyances no longer attracted the curious attention that greeted Dr. Johann David Schoepf when he arrived in Pittsburgh in 1783, in the cariole in which he had crossed the mountains, an achievement which until then had not been considered possible.2 The monotonous hoof-beats of the pack horses became less frequent, and great covered wagons, drawn by four horses, harnessed two abreast, came rumbling into the village. But not all the people or all the goods remained in Pittsburgh. There were still other and newer Eldorados, farther away to the west and the south, and these lands of milk and honey were the Meccas of many of the adventurers. Pittsburgh was the depository of the merchandise sent out from Philadelphia and Baltimore, intended for the western and southern country and for the numerous settlements that were springing up along the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers.3 From Pittsburgh trading boats laden with merchandise were floated down the Ohio River, stopping at the towns on its banks to vend the articles which they carried.4 Coal was cheap and emigrant and trading boats carried it as ballast.5 In Pittsburgh the immigrants lingered, purchasing supplies, and gathering information about the country beyond. Some proceeded overland. Others sold the vehicles in which they had come, and continued the journey down the Ohio River, in Kentucky flat or family boats, in keel boats, arks, and barges. The construction and equipping of boats became an industry of moment in Pittsburgh.

The last menace from the Indians who owned and occupied the country north of the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers was removed on October 21, 1784, when the treaty with the Six Nations was concluded at Fort Stanwix, by which all the Indian lands in Pennsylvania except a tract bordering on Lake Erie were ceded to the State. This vast territory was now opened for settlement, and resulted in more immigrants passing through Pittsburgh. The northerly boundary of the village ceased to be the border line of civilization. The isolation of the place became less pronounced. The immigrants who remained in Pittsburgh were generally of a sturdy class, and were young and energetic. Among them were former Revolutionary officers and soldiers. They engaged in trade, and as an adjunct of this business speculated in lands in the county, or bought and sold town lots. A few took up tavern keeping. From the brief notes left by Lewis Brantz who stopped over in Pittsburgh in 1785, while on a journey from Baltimore to the Western country, it appears that at this time Fort Pitt was still garrisoned by a small force of soldiers; that the inhabitants lived chiefly by traffic, and by entertaining travellers; and that there were but few mechanics in the village.6 The extent of the population can be conjectured, when it is known that in 1786 there were in Pittsburgh only thirty-six log buildings, one of stone, and one of frame; and that there were six stores.7

Religion was long dormant on the frontier. In 1761 and 1762, when the first school was in operation in Pittsburgh, the schoolmaster conducted religious services on Sundays to a small congregation. Although under the direction of a Presbyterian, the services consisted in reading the Prayers and the Litany from the Book of Common Prayer.8 During the military occupation, a chaplain was occasionally stationed at Fort Pitt around which the houses clustered. From time to time missionaries came and tarried a few days or weeks, and went their way again. The long intervals between the religious services were periods of indifference. An awakening came at last, and the religious teachings of early life reasserted themselves, and the settlers sought means to re-establish a spiritual life in their midst. The Germans and Swiss-Germans of the Protestant Evangelical and Protestant Reformed faiths jointly organized a German church in 1782; and the Presbyterians formed a church organization two years later.

The first pastor of the German church was the Rev. Johann Wilhelm Weber, who was sent out by the German Reformed Synod at Reading.9 He had left his charge in Eastern Pennsylvania because the congregation which he served had not been as enthusiastic in its support of the Revolution as he deemed proper.10 The services were held in a log building situated at what is now the corner of Wood Street and Diamond Alley.11 Besides ministering to the wants of the Pittsburgh church, there were three other congregations on Weber’s circuit, which extended fifty miles east of Pittsburgh. When he came West in September, 1782, the Revolutionary War was still in progress; Hannastown had been burned by the British and Indians in the preceding July; hostile Indians and white outlaws continually beset his path. He was a soldier of the Cross, but he was also ready to fight worldly battles. He went about the country armed not only with the Bible, but with a loaded rifle,12 and was prepared to battle with physical enemies, as well as with the devil.

Hardly had the churches come into existence when another organization was formed whose origin is claimed to be shrouded in the mists of antiquity. In the American history of the order, the membership included many of the greatest and best known men in the country. On December 27, 1785, the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, Free and Accepted Masons, granted a charter to certain freemasons resident in Pittsburgh, which was designated as “Lodge No. 45 of Ancient York Masons.” It was not only the first masonic lodge in Pittsburgh, but the first in the Western country.13 Almost from the beginning, Lodge No. 45 was the most influential social organization in the village. Nearly all the leading citizens were members. Toward the close of the eighteenth century the place of meeting was in the tavern of William Morrow, at the “Sign of the Green Tree,” on Water Street, two doors above Market Street.14 Although not a strictly religious organization, the order carefully observed certain Church holidays. St. John the Baptist’s day and St. John the Evangelist’s day were never allowed to pass without a celebration. Every year in June, on St. John the Baptist’s day, Lodge No. 45 met at 10 o’clock in the morning and, after the services in the lodge were over, paraded the streets. The members walked two abreast. Dressed in their best clothes, with cocked hats, long coats, knee-breeches, and buckled shoes, wearing the aprons of the craft, they marched “in ancient order.” The sword bearer was in advance; the officers wore embroidered collars, from which depended their emblems of office; the wardens carried their truncheons; the deacons, their staves. The Bible, surmounted by a compass and a square, on a velvet cushion, was borne along. When the Rev. Robert Steele came to preach in the Presbyterian Meeting House, the march was from the lodge room to the church. Here Mr. Steele preached a sermon to the brethren, after which they dined together at Thomas Ferree’s tavern at the “Sign of the Black Bear,”15 or at the “Sign of the Green Tree.”16 St. John the Evangelist’s day was observed with no less circumstance. In the morning the officers of the lodge were installed. Addresses of a semi-religious or philosophic character, eulogistic of masonry, were delivered by competent members or visitors. This ceremony was followed in the afternoon by a dinner either at some tavern or at the home of a member. Dinners seemed to be a concomitant part of all masonic ceremonies.

By the time that the last quarter of the eighteenth century was well under way, the hunters and trappers had left for more prolific hunting grounds. The Indian traders with their lax morals17 had disappeared forever in the direction of the setting sun, along with the Indians with whom they bartered. If any traders remained, they conformed to the precepts of a higher civilization. Only a scattered few of the red men continued to dwell in the hills surrounding the village, or along the rivers, eking out a scant livelihood by selling game in the town.18

A different moral atmosphere appeared: schools of a permanent character were established; the German church conducted a school which was taught by the pastor. Secular books were now in the households of the more intelligent; a few of the wealthier families had small libraries, and books were sold in the town. On August 26, 1786, Wilson and Wallace advertised “testaments, Bibles, spelling books, and primers” for sale.19 Copies of the Philadelphia and Baltimore newspapers were brought by travellers, and received by private arrangement.

In July, 1786, John Scull and Joseph Hall, two young men of more than ordinary daring, came from Philadelphia and established a weekly newspaper called the Pittsburgh Gazette, which was the first newspaper published in the country west of the Alleghany Mountains. The partnership lasted only a few months, Hall dying on November 10, 1786, at the early age of twenty-two years;20 and in the following month, John Boyd, also of Philadelphia, purchased Hall’s interest and became the partner of Scull.21 For many years money was scarcely seen in Pittsburgh in commercial transactions, everything being consummated in trade. A few months after its establishment, the Pittsburgh Gazette gave notice to all persons residing in the country that it would receive country produce in payment of subscriptions to the paper.22

The next year there were printed, and kept for sale at the office of the Pittsburgh Gazette, spelling books, and The A.B.C. with the Shorter Catechism, to which are Added Some Short and Easy Questions for Children; secular instruction was combined with religious.23 The Pittsburgh Gazette also conducted an emporium where other reading matter might be purchased. In the issue for June 16, 1787, an illuminating notice appeared: “At the printing office, Pittsburgh, may be had the laws of this State, passed between the thirtieth of September, 1775, and the Revolution; New Testaments; Dilworth’s Spelling Books; New England Primers, with Catechism; Westminster Shorter Catechism; Journey from Philadelphia to New York by Way of Burlington and South Amboy, by Robert Slenner, Stocking Weaver; ... also a few books for the learner of the French language.”

In November, 1787, there was announced as being in press at the office of the Pittsburgh Gazette the Pittsburgh Almanac or Western Ephemeris for 1788.24 The same year that the almanac appeared, John Boyd attempted the establishment of a circulating library. In his announcement on July 26th,25 he declared that the library would be opened as soon as a hundred subscribers were secured; and that it would consist of five hundred well chosen books. Subscriptions were to be received at the office of the Pittsburgh Gazette. Boyd committed suicide in the early part of August by hanging himself to a tree on the hill in the town, which has ever since borne his name, and Scull became the sole owner of the Pittsburgh Gazette. This act of self-destruction, and the fact that Boyd’s name as owner appeared in the Pittsburgh Gazette for the last time on August 2d, would indicate that the library was never established. Perhaps it was the anticipated failure of the enterprise that prompted Boyd to commit suicide.

The door to higher education was opened on February 28, 1787, when the Pittsburgh Academy was incorporated by an Act of the General Assembly. This was the germ which has since developed into the University of Pittsburgh. Another step which tended to the material and mental advancement of the place, was the inauguration of a movement for communicating regularly with the outside world. On September 30, 1786, a post route was established with Philadelphia,26 and the next year the general government entered into a contract for carrying the mails between Pittsburgh and that city.27 Almost immediately afterward a post office was established in Pittsburgh with Scull as postmaster, and a regular post between the village and Philadelphia and the East was opened on July 19, 1788.28 These events constituted another milestone in the progress of Pittsburgh.

Another instrument in the advancement of the infant community was the Mechanical Society which came into existence in 1788. On the twenty-second of March, the following unique advertisement appeared in the Pittsburgh Gazette: “Society was the primeval desire of our first and great ancestor Adam; the same order for that blessing seems to inhabit more or less the whole race. To encourage this it seems to be the earnest wish of a few of the mechanics in Pittsburgh, to have a general meeting on Monday the 24th inst., at six P.M., at the house of Andrew Watson, tavern keeper, to settle on a plan for a well regulated society for the purpose. This public method is taken to invite the reputable tradesmen of this place to be punctual to their assignation.”

Andrew Watson’s tavern was in the log building, at the northeast corner of Market and Front Streets. Front Street was afterward called First Street, and is now First Avenue. At that time all the highways running parallel with the Monongahela River were designated as streets, as they are now called avenues. The object of the Mechanical Society was the improvement of the condition of the workpeople, to induce workpeople to settle in the town, and to procure manufactories to be established there.

The society was more than local in character, similar societies being in existence in New York, Philadelphia, and in the neighboring village of Washington. At a later day the Mechanical Society of Pittsburgh produced plays, some of which were given in the grand-jury room in the upper story of the new court house. The society also had connected with it a circulating library, a cabinet of curiosities, and a chemical laboratory.

CHAPTER II A NEW COUNTY AND A NEW BOROUGH — REFERENCES Chapter II

The constantly rising tide of immigration required more territorial subdivisions in the western part of the State. Westmoreland County had been reduced in size on March 28, 1781, by the creation of Washington County, but was still inordinately large. The clamor of the inhabitants of Pittsburgh for a separate county was heeded at last, and on September 24, 1788, Allegheny County was formed out of Westmoreland and Washington Counties. To the new county was added on September 17, 1789, other territory taken from Washington County. In March, 1792, the State purchased from the United States the tract of land adjoining Lake Erie, consisting of two hundred and two thousand acres, which the national government had recently acquired from the Indians. This was added to Allegheny County on April 3, 1792. The county then extended northerly to the line of the State of New York, and the border of Lake Erie, and westerly to the present State of Ohio.29 On March 12, 1800, the county was reduced by the creation of Beaver, Butler, Mercer, Crawford, Erie, Warren, Venango, and Armstrong Counties, the area of these counties being practically all taken from Allegheny County. By Act of the General Assembly of March 12, 1803, a small part of Allegheny County was added to Indiana County, and Allegheny County was reduced to its present form and dimensions.30

On the formation of Allegheny County, Pittsburgh became the county seat. The county was divided into townships, Pittsburgh being located in Pitt Township. Embraced in Pitt Township was all the territory between the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers, as far east as Turtle Creek on the Monongahela River, and Plum Creek on the Allegheny River, and all of the county north of the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers. With the growth of prosperity in the county, petty offenses became more numerous, and a movement was begun for the erection of a jail in Pittsburgh.31

Next to the establishment of the Pittsburgh Gazette, the publication and sale of books, and the opening of the post route to the eastern country, the most important event in the early social advancement of Pittsburgh was the passage of an Act by the General Assembly, on April 22, 1794, incorporating the place into a borough. The township laws under which Pittsburgh had been administered were crude and intended only for agricultural and wild lands, and were inapplicable to the development of a town. Under the code of laws which it now obtained, it possessed functions suitable to the character which it assumed, and could perform acts leading to its material and social progress. It was given the power to open streets, to regulate and keep streets in order, to conduct markets, to abate nuisances, and to levy taxes.32

Before the incorporation of the borough, various steps had been taken in anticipation of that event. The Pittsburgh Fire Company was organized in 1793, with an engine house33 and a hand engine brought from Philadelphia. A new era in transportation was inaugurated on Monday, October 21, 1793, by the establishment of a packet line on the Ohio River, between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, with boats “sailing” bi-weekly. The safety of the passengers from attacks by hostile Indians infesting the Ohio Valley, was assured. The boats were bullet-proof, and were armed with small cannon carrying pound balls; muskets and ammunition were provided, and from convenient portholes, passengers and crew could fire on the enemy.34

One of the first measures enacted after Pittsburgh was incorporated, was that to prohibit hogs running at large.35 The dissatisfaction occasioned by the imposition of the excise on whisky, had caused a spirit of lawlessness to spring up in the country about Pittsburgh. When this element appeared in the town, they were disposed, particularly when inflamed with whisky, to show their resentment toward the inhabitants, whom they regarded as being unfriendly to the Insurgent cause, by galloping armed through the streets, firing their pieces as they sped by, to the terror of the townspeople. This was now made an offense punishable by a fine of five shillings.36

Literary culture was hardly to be expected on the frontier, yet a gentleman resided in Pittsburgh who made some pretension in that direction. Hugh Henry Brackenridge was the leading lawyer of the town, and in addition to his other activities, was an author of note. Before coming to Pittsburgh he had, jointly with Philip Freneau, written a volume of poetry entitled, The Rising Glory of America, and had himself written a play called The Battle of Bunker Hill. While a resident in Pittsburgh he contributed many articles to the Pittsburgh Gazette. His title to literary fame, however, results mainly from the political satire that he wrote, which in its day created a sensation. It was called Modern Chivalry, and as originally published was a small affair. Only one of the four volumes into which it was divided was printed in Pittsburgh, the first, second, and fourth being published in Philadelphia. The third volume came out in Pittsburgh, in 1793, and was printed by Scull, and was the first book published west of the Alleghany Mountains. The work, as afterward rewritten and enlarged, ran through more than half a dozen editions.

The interest in books increased. In 1793, William Semple began selling “quarto pocket and school Bibles, spelling books, primers, dictionaries, English and Dutch almanacs, with an assortment of religious, historical, and novel books.”37 “Novel books” was no doubt meant to indicate novels. In 1798 the town became possessed of a store devoted exclusively to literature. It was conducted in a wing of the house owned and partially occupied by Brackenridge on Market Street.

John C. Gilkison had been a law student in Brackenridge’s office, and had tutored his son. Abandoning the idea of becoming a lawyer, he began with the aid of Brackenridge, to sell books as a business.38 In his announcement to the public his plans were outlined:39 “John C. Gilkison has just opened a small book and stationery store.... He has a variety of books for sale, school books especially, an assortment of which he means to increase, and keep up as encouragement may enable him; he has also some books of general instruction and amusement, which he will sell or lend out for a reasonable time, at a reasonable price.”

Changes were made in the lines of the townships at an early day. When the new century dawned, Pitt Township adjoined Pittsburgh on the east. East of Pitt Township and between the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers were the Townships of Plum, Versailles, and Elizabeth. On the south side of the Monongahela River, extending from the westerly line of the county to Chartiers Creek, was Moon Township. East of Chartiers Creek, and between that stream and Streets Run was St. Clair Township, and east of Streets Run, extending along the Monongahela River, was Mifflin Township, which ran to the county line. Back of Moon Township was Fayette Township. North of the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers were the Townships of Pine and Deer. They were almost equal in area, Pine being in the west, and Deer in the east, the dividing line being near the mouth of Pine Creek in the present borough of Etna.

The merchants and manufacturers of Pittsburgh had been accumulating money for a decade. In the East money was the medium of exchange, and it was brought to the village by immigrants and travelers, and began to circulate more freely than before. In addition to the money put into circulation by the immigrants, the United States Government had expended nearly eight hundred thousand dollars on the expedition which was sent out to suppress the Whisky Insurrection. At least half of this sum was spent in Pittsburgh and its immediate vicinity, partly for supplies and partly by the men composing the army. The expedition was also the means of advertising the Western country in the East, and created a new interest in the town. A considerable influx of new immigrants resulted. With the growth in population, the number of the mercantile establishments increased. Pittsburgh became more than ever the metropolis of the surrounding country.

Ferries made intercourse with the districts across the rivers from Pittsburgh easy, except perhaps in winter when ice was in the streams. Three ferries were in operation on the Monongahela River. That of Ephraim Jones at the foot of Liberty Street40 was called the Lower Ferry. A short distance above the mouth of Wood Street was Robert Henderson’s Ferry, formerly conducted by Jacob Bausman. This was known as the Middle Ferry. Isaac Gregg’s Ferry, at this time operated by Samuel Emmett,41 also called the Upper Ferry, was located a quarter of a mile above the town, at the head of the Sand Bar. Over the Allegheny River, connecting St. Clair Street with the Franklin Road, now Federal Street, was James Robinson’s Ferry. As an inducement to settle on the north side of the Allegheny River, Robinson advertised that “All persons going to and returning from sermon, and all funerals, ferriage free.”42

The aspect of the town was changing. It was no longer the village which Lewis Brantz saw on his visit in 1790, when he painted the sketch which is the first pictorial representation of the place extant.43 In the old Military Plan the ground was compactly built upon. Outside of this plan the houses were sparse and few in number, and cultivated grounds intervened. Thomas Chapman who visited Pittsburgh in 1795, reported that out of the two hundred houses in the village, one hundred and fifty were built of logs.44 They were mainly of rough-hewn logs, only an occasional house being of sawed logs. The construction of log houses was discontinued, the new houses being generally frame. Houses of brick began to be erected, the brick sold at the dismantling of Fort Pitt supplying the first material for the purpose. The houses built of brick taken from Fort Pitt were characterized by the whiteness of the brick of which they were constructed.45 Brickyards were established. When Chapman was in Pittsburgh, there were two brickyards in operation in the vicinity of the town.46 With their advent brick houses increased rapidly.

With the evolution in the construction of the houses, came another advance conducive to both the health and comfort of the occupants. While window glass was being brought from the East, and was subject to the hazard of the long and rough haul over the Alleghany Mountains, the windows in the houses were few, and the panes of small dimensions; six inches in width by eight inches in length was an ordinary size. The interior of the houses was dark, cheerless, and damp. In the spring of 1797, Albert Gallatin, in conjunction with his brother-in-law, James W. Nicholson, and two Germans, Christian Kramer and Baltzer Kramer, who were experienced glass-blowers, began making window glass at a manufactory which they had established on the Monongahela River at New Geneva in Fayette County.47 The same year that window glass was first produced at New Geneva, Colonel James O’Hara and Major Isaac Craig commenced the construction of a glass manufactory on the south side of the Monongahela River, opposite Pittsburgh, and made their first window glass in 1800. Both manufactories produced window glass larger in size than that brought from the East, O’Hara and Craig’s glass measuring as high as eighteen by twenty-four inches.48 The price of the Western glass was lower than that brought across the mountains. With cheaper glass, windows became larger and more numerous, and a more cheerful atmosphere prevailed in the houses.

All that remained of Pittsburgh’s former military importance were the dry ditch and old ramparts of Fort Pitt,49 in the westerly extremity of the town, together with some of the barracks and the stone powder magazine, and Fort Fayette near the northeasterly limits, now used solely as a military storehouse.50 Not a trace of architectural beauty was evident in the houses. They were built without regularity and were low and plain. In one block were one- and two-story log and frame houses, some with their sides, others with their gable ends, facing the street. In the next square there was a brick building of two or possibly three stories in height; the rest of the area was covered with wooden buildings of every size and description. The Lombardy poplars and weeping willows which grew along the streets51 softened the aspect of the houses before which they were planted. The scattered houses on the sides of the hills which commanded the town on the east52 were more attractive.

It was forty years before houses, even on the leading streets, were numbered.53 The taverns and many of the stores, instead of being known by the number of their location on the street, or by the name of the owner, were recognized by their signs, which contained characteristic pictures or emblems. The signs were selected because associated with them was some well-known sentiment; or the picture represented a popular hero. In the latter category was the “Sign of General Washington,” conducted by Robert Campbell, at the northeast corner of Wood Street and Diamond Alley. Sometimes the signs were of a humorous character, as the “Whale and the Monkey” with the added doggerel:

displayed by D. McLane54 when he conducted the tavern on Water Street, afterward known as the “Sign of the Green Tree.” The sign was hung either on the front of the house, or on a board attached to a wooden or iron arm projecting from the building, or from a post standing before it. The last was the manner in which most of the tavern signs were displayed. This continued until 1816, when all projecting or hanging signs were prohibited, except to taverns where stabling and other accommodations for travelers could be obtained. Only taverns located at street corners were thereafter permitted to have signposts.55

Not a street was paved, not even the footwalks, except for such irregular slabs of stone, or brick, or planks as had been laid down by the owners of adjoining houses. Major Thomas S. Forman who passed through Pittsburgh in December, 1789, related that the town was the muddiest place he was ever in.56 In 1800, there was little improvement. Samuel Jones was the first Register and Recorder of Allegheny County, and held those offices almost continuously well into the nineteenth century. He resided in Pittsburgh during the entire period, and his opportunities for observation were unexcelled. His picture of the borough in 1800 is far from attractive. “The streets,” he wrote, were “filled with hogs, dogs, drays, and noisy children.”57 At night the streets were unlighted. “A solitary lamp twinkled here and there, over the door of a tavern, or on a signpost, whenever the moon was in its first or last quarter. The rest of the town was involved in primeval darkness.”

CHAPTER III THE MELTING POT — REFERENCES Chapter III

The population of Pittsburgh was composed of various nationalities; those speaking the English language predominated. In addition to the Germans and Swiss-Germans, there were French and a few Italians. The majority of the English-speaking inhabitants were of Irish or Scotch birth, or immediate extraction. Of those born in Ireland or Scotland, some were old residents—so considered if they had lived in Pittsburgh for ten years or more—while others were recent immigrants. The Germans and French had come as early as the Irish and Scotch. The Italians were later arrivals. There was also a sprinkling of Welsh. The place contained a number of negroes, nearly all of whom were slaves, there being in 1800 sixty-four negro slaves in Allegheny County,58 most of whom were in Pittsburgh and the immediate vicinity. A majority of the negroes had been brought into the village in the early days by emigrants from Virginia and Maryland. Their number was gradually decreasing. By Act of the General Assembly of March 1, 1780, all negroes and mulattoes born after that date, of slave mothers, became free upon arriving at the age of twenty-eight years. Then on March 29, 1788, it was enacted that any slaves brought into the State by persons resident thereof, or intending to become such, should immediately be free.59 Also public sentiment was growing hostile to the institution of negro slavery. The few free negroes in Pittsburgh were engaged in menial occupations, and the name of only one, whose vocation was somewhat higher, has been handed down to the present time. This was Charles Richards, commonly called “Black Charley,” who conducted an inn in the log house, at the northwest corner of Second and Ferry Streets.

Among themselves the Germans and the French spoke the language of their fathers, but in their intercourse with their English-speaking neighbors they used English. The language of the street varied from the English of New England and Virginia, to the brogue of the Irish and Scotch, or the broken enunciation of the newer Germans and French. Being in a majority the English-speaking population controlled to a considerable extent the destinies of the community. Their manufactories were the most extensive, the merchandise in their stores was in greater variety, and the stocks larger than those carried in other establishments.

Next in numbers to those whose native language was English, were the German-speaking inhabitants. They constituted the skilled mechanics; some were merchants, and many were engaged in farming in the neighboring townships. They were all more or less closely connected with the German church. Only the names of their leading men have survived the obliterating ravages of time. Among the mechanics of the higher class were Jacob Haymaker, William Eichbaum, and John Hamsher. The first was a boatbuilder, whose boatyard was located on the south side of the Monongahela River at the Middle Ferry; Eichbaum was employed by O’Hara and Craig in the construction and operation of their glass works. John Hamsher was a coppersmith and tin-worker, whose diversion was to serve in the militia, in which he was captain.60

Conrad Winebiddle, Jonas Roup, Alexander Negley, and his son, Jacob Negley, were well-to-do farmers in Pitt Township. Winebiddle was a large holder of real estate, who died in 1795, and enjoyed the unique distinction of being the only German who ever owned negro slaves in Allegheny County. Nicholas Bausman and Melchoir Beltzhoover were farmers in St. Clair Township; and Casper Reel was a farmer and trapper in Pine Township, where he was also tax collector. Samuel Ewalt kept a tavern in Pittsburgh in 1775, and was afterward a merchant. He was Sheriff of Allegheny County during the dark days of the Whisky Insurrection, and later was inspector of the Allegheny County brigade of militia. He was several times a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. William Wusthoff was Sheriff of Allegheny County in 1801. Jacob Bausman had a varied career. He was a resident of Pittsburgh as far back as 1771, and was perhaps the most prominent German in the place. As a young man he was an ensign in the Virginia militia, during the Virginia contention. He established the first ferry on the Monongahela River, which ran to his house on the south side of the stream, where the southern terminus of the Smithfield Street bridge is now located. The right to operate the ferry was granted to him by the Virginia Court on February 23, 1775, and was confirmed by the General Assembly of Pennsylvania ten years later. At his ferry house he also conducted a tavern. His energies were not confined to his private affairs. Under the Act of the General Assembly incorporating Allegheny County, he was named as one of the trustees to select land for a court house in the tract reserved by the State, in Pine Township, and was again, under the Act of April 13, 1791, made a trustee to purchase land in Pittsburgh for the same purpose. He was treasurer of the German church and, jointly with Jacob Haymaker, was trustee, on the part of the church, of the land deeded by the Penns to that congregation for church purposes at the northeast corner of Smithfield and Sixth Streets, where the congregation’s second and all subsequent churches were built. Michael Hufnagle was a member of the Allegheny County Bar, being one of the first ten men to be admitted to practice, upon the organization of the county. He was the only lawyer of German nationality in the county. He had been a captain in the Revolution, and prothonotary of Westmoreland County. On July 13, 1782, when the Indians and Tories attacked Hannastown, he occupied a farm situated a mile and a half north of that place, which has ever since been known in frontier history as the place where the townsfolk were harvesting when the attack began.61

By their English-speaking neighbors the Germans were generally designated as “Dutch.” In the references to them in the Pittsburgh Gazette and other early publications, they were likewise called “Dutch.” Books printed in the German language were advertised as “Dutch” books. The custom of speaking of the Germans as “Dutch” was however not confined to Pittsburgh, but was universal in America. The Dutch inhabitants of New York and elsewhere, were the first settlers in the colonies, whose language was other than English. The bulk of the English-speaking population, wholly ignorant of any language except their own, were easily led into the error of confusing the newer German immigrants with the Dutch, the only persons speaking a foreign tongue with whom they had come in contact. Nor were the uneducated classes the only transgressors in this respect. The Rev. Dr. William Smith, the scholarly Provost of the College of Philadelphia, writing during the French and Indian War, spoke of the Germans as “the Dutch or Germans.”62 Also “Dutch” bears a close resemblance to “Deutsch,” the German name for people of the German race, which may account, to some extent, for the misuse of the word.

The Germans were in Pittsburgh to stay. Their efforts were directed largely toward private ends. When men of other blood made records in public life, the Germans made theirs in the limited sphere of their own employment or enterprises. Owing to their inability to speak the English language, their position was more isolated than that of the greenest English-speaking immigrant in the village. That they were clannish was a natural consequence. This disposition was accentuated when a newspaper printed in the German language was established on November 22, 1800, in the neighboring borough of Greensburgh, entitled The German Farmers’ Register, being the first German paper published in the Western country. Subscriptions were received in Pittsburgh at the office of the Tree of Liberty,63 then recently established, and the effort to acquire a knowledge of English in order to be able to read the news of the day in the Pittsburgh newspapers, was for the time being largely abandoned. As the Germans learned to speak and read English, their social intercourse was no longer restricted to persons of their own nationality. With the next generation, intermarriages with persons of other descent took place. The German language ceased to be cultivated; they forsook the German church for one where English was the prevailing language. It is doubtful if a single descendant of the old Germans is now able to speak the language of his forbears unless it was learned at school, or that he is a member of or attends the services of the German church.

The French element was an almost negligible quantity, yet it exerted an influence far beyond what might be expected when its numbers are considered. So strong was the tide of public opinion in favor of all things French, occasioned by the events of the French Revolution, that Albert Gallatin, a French-Swiss, who had just been naturalized, and still spoke English with a decided foreign accent, attained high political honors. To the people he was essentially a Frenchman, and in 1794, he was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, from Fayette County where he lived. At the same time he was elected to Congress from the district consisting of Allegheny and Washington Counties; and was twice re-elected from the same district, which included Greene County after the separation from Washington County in 1796, and its erection into a separate county. It was while serving this constituency that Gallatin developed those powers in finance and statesmanship which caused his appointment as Secretary of the Treasury by President Jefferson, and by Jefferson’s successor, President Madison. From the politicians of this Congressional District, Gallatin learned those lessons in diplomacy which enabled him, while joint commissioner of the United States, to secure the signature of England to the Treaty of Ghent, by which the War of 1812 was brought to a close, and which led to his becoming United States Minister to France and to England. The training of those early days finally made him the most famous of all Americans of European birth, and brought about his nomination for Vice-President by the Congressional caucus of the Republican party, an honor which he first accepted, but later declined.64

Another prominent Frenchman was John B. C. Lucus. In 1796, he lived on a farm on Coal Hill on the south side of the Monongahela River, in St. Clair Township, five miles above Pittsburgh. It was said of him that he was an atheist and that his wife plowed on Sundays, in spite of which he was several times elected to the General Assembly.65 In 1800, he was appointed an associate judge for the county. He quarrelled with Alexander Addison, the president judge of the judicial district to which Allegheny County was attached, yet he had sufficient standing in the State to cause Judge Addison’s impeachment and removal from the Bench. In 1802, Lucus was elected to Congress and was re-elected in 1804. In 1805, he was appointed United States District Judge for the new Territory of Louisiana, now the State of Missouri.

Dr. Felix Brunot arrived in Pittsburgh in 1797. He came from France with Lafayette and was a surgeon in the Revolutionary War and fought in many of its battles. His office was located on Liberty Street, although he owned and lived on Brunot Island. An émigré, the Chevalier Dubac, was a merchant.66 Dr. F. A. Michaux, the French naturalist and traveler, related of Dubac:67 “I frequently saw M. Le Chevalier Dubac, an old French officer who, compelled by the events of the Revolution to quit France, settled in Pittsburgh where he engaged in commerce. He possesses very correct knowledge of the Western country, and is perfectly acquainted with the navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, having made several voyages to New Orleans.” Morgan Neville a son of Colonel Presley Neville, and a writer of acknowledged ability, drew a charming picture of Dubac’s life in Pittsburgh.68

Perhaps the best known Frenchman in Pittsburgh was John Marie, the proprietor of the tavern on Grant’s Hill. Grant’s Hill was the eminence which adjoined the town on the east, the ascent to the hill beginning a short distance west of Grant Street. The tavern was located just outside of the borough limits, at the northeast corner of Grant Street and the Braddocksfield Road, where it connected with Fourth Street. The inclosure contained more than six acres, and was called after the place of its location, “Grant’s Hill.” It overlooked Pittsburgh, and its graveled walks and cultivated grounds were the resort of the townspeople. For many years it was the leading tavern. Gallatin, who was in Pittsburgh, in 1787, while on the way from New Geneva to Maine, noted in his diary that he passed Christmas Day at Marie’s house, in company with Brackenridge and Peter Audrian,69 a well-known French merchant on Water Street. Marie’s French nationality naturally led him to become a Republican when the party was formed, and his tavern was long the headquarters of that party. Numerous Republican plans for defeating their opponents originated in Marie’s house, and many Republican victories were celebrated in his rooms. Also in this tavern the general meetings of the militia officers were held.70 Michaux has testified that Marie kept a good inn.71 The present court house, the combination court house and city hall now being erected, and a small part of the South School, the first public school in Pittsburgh, occupy the larger portion of the site of “Grant’s Hill.”

Marie’s name became well known over the State, several years after he retired to private life. He was seventy-five years of age in 1802, when he discontinued tavern-keeping and sold “Grant’s Hill” to James Ross, United States Senator from Pennsylvania, who was a resident of Pittsburgh. Marie had been estranged from his wife for a number of years and by some means she obtained possession of “Grant’s Hill,” of which Ross had difficulty in dispossessing her. In 1808, Ross was a candidate for governor against Simon Snyder. Ross’s difference with Mrs. Marie, whose husband had by this time divorced her, came to the knowledge of William Duane in Philadelphia, the brilliant but unscrupulous editor of the Aurora since the discontinuance of the National Gazette, in 1793, the leading radical Republican newspaper in the country. The report was enlarged into a scandal of great proportions both in the Aurora and in a pamphlet prepared by Duane and circulated principally in Philadelphia. The title of the pamphlet was harrowing. It was called “The Case of Jane Marie, Exhibiting the Cruelty and Barbarous Conduct of James Ross to a Defenceless Woman, Written and Published by the Object of his Cruelty and Vengeance.” Although Marie was opposed to Ross politically, he defended his conduct toward Mrs. Marie as being perfectly honorable. Nevertheless, the pamphlet played an important part in obtaining for Snyder the majority of twenty-four thousand by which he defeated Ross.

Notwithstanding the high positions which some of the Frenchmen attained, they left no permanent impression in Pittsburgh. After prospering there for a few years, they went away and no descendants of theirs reside in the city unless it be some of the descendants of Dr. Brunot. Some went south to the Louisiana country, and others returned to France. Gallatin, himself, long after he had shaken the dust of Western Pennsylvania from his feet, writing about his grandson, the son of his son James, said: “He is the only young male of my name, and I have hesitated whether, with a view to his happiness, I had not better take him to live and die quietly at Geneva, rather than to leave him to struggle in this most energetic country, where the strong in mind and character overset everybody else, and where consideration and respectability are not at all in proportion to virtue and modest merit.”72 And the grandson went to Geneva to live, and his children were born there and he died there.73

The United States Government was still in the formative stage. Until this time the men who had fought the Revolutionary War to a successful conclusion, held a tight rein on the governmental machinery. Now a new element was growing up, and, becoming dissatisfied with existing conditions, organized for a conflict with the men in power. The rise of the opposition to the Federal party was also the outcome of existing social conditions. Like the modern cry against consolidated wealth, the movement was a contest by the discontented elements in the population, of the men who had little against those who had more. Abuses committed by individuals and conditions common to new countries were magnified into errors of government. Also the people were influenced by the radicalism superinduced by the French Revolution and the subsequent happenings in France. “Liberty, fraternity, and equality” were enticing catchwords in the United States.

Thomas Jefferson, on his return from France, in 1789, after an absence of six years, where he had served as United States Minister, during the development of French radicalism, came home much strengthened in his ideas of liberty. They were in strong contrast with the more conservative notions of government entertained by Washington, Vice-President Adams, Hamilton, and the other members of the Cabinet. In March, 1790, Jefferson became Secretary of State in Washington’s first Cabinet, the appointment being held open for him since April 13th of the preceding year, when Washington entered on the duties of the Presidency. Jefferson’s views being made public, he immediately became the deity of the radical element. At the close of 1793, the dissensions in the Cabinet had become so acute that on December 31st Jefferson resigned in order to be better able to lead the new party which was being formed. By this element the Federalists were termed “aristocrats,” and “tories.” They were charged with being traitors to their country, and were accused of being in league with England, and to be plotting for the establishment of a monarchy, and an aristocracy. The opposition party assumed the title of “Republican.” Later the word “Democratic” was prefixed and the party was called “Democratic Republican,”74 although in Pittsburgh for many years the words “Republican,” “Democratic Republican,” and “Democratic” were used interchangeably.

Heretofore Pennsylvania had been staunchly Federal. On the organization of the Republican party, Governor Thomas Mifflin, and Chief Justice Thomas McKean of the Supreme Court, the two most popular men in the State, left the Federal party and became Republicans. There was also a cause peculiar to Pennsylvania, for the rapid growth of the Republican party in the State. The constant increase in the backwoods population consisted largely of emigrants from Europe, chiefly from Ireland, who brought with them a bitter hatred of England and an intense admiration for France. They went almost solidly into the Republican camp. The arguments of the Republicans had a French revolutionary coloring mingled with which were complaints caused by failure to realize expected conditions. An address published in the organ of the Republican party in Pittsburgh is a fair example of the reasoning employed in advocacy of the Republican candidates: “Albert Gallatin, the friend of the people, the enemy of tyrants, is to be supported on Tuesday, the 14th of October next, for the Congress of the United States. Fellow citizens, ye who are opposed to speculators, land jobbers, public plunderers, high taxes, eight per cent. loans, and standing armies, vote for Mr. Gallatin!”75

In Pittsburgh the leader of the Republicans was Hugh Henry Brackenridge, the lawyer and dilettante in literature. In the fierce invective of the time, he and all the members of his party were styled by their opponents “Jacobins,” after the revolutionary Jacobin Club of France, to which all the woes of the Terror were attributed. The Pittsburgh Gazette referred to Brackenridge as “Citizen Brackenridge,” and after the establishment of the Tree of Liberty, added “Jacobin printer of the Tree of Sedition, Blasphemy, and Slander.”76 But the Republicans gloried in titles borrowed from the French Revolution. The same year that Governor Mifflin and Chief Justice McKean went over to the Republicans, Brackenridge made a Fourth of July address in Pittsburgh, in which he advocated closer relations with France. This was republished in New York by the Republicans, in a pamphlet, along with a speech made by Maximilien Robespierre in the National Convention of France. In this pamphlet Brackenridge was styled “Citizen Brackenridge.”77 The Pittsburgh Gazette and the Tree of Liberty, contained numerous references to meetings and conferences held at the tavern of “Citizen” Marie. On March 4, 1802, the first anniversary of the inauguration of Jefferson as President, a dinner was given by the leading Republicans in the tavern of “Citizen” Jeremiah Sturgeon, at the “Sign of the Cross Keys,” at the northwest corner of Wood Street and Diamond Alley, at which toasts were drunk to “Citizen” Thomas Jefferson, “Citizen” Aaron Burr, “Citizen” James Madison, “Citizen” Albert Gallatin, and “Citizen” Thomas McKean.78

In 1799, the Republicans had as their candidate for governor Chief Justice McKean. Opposed to him was Senator James Ross. Ross was required to maintain a defensive campaign. The fact that he was a Federalist was alone sufficient to condemn him in the eyes of many of the electors. He was accused of being a follower of Thomas Paine, and was charged with “singing psalms over a card table.” It was said that he had “mimicked” the Rev. Dr. John McMillan, the pioneer preacher of Presbyterianism in Western Pennsylvania, and a politician of no mean influence; that he had “mocked” the Rev. Matthew Henderson, a prominent minister of the Associate Presbyterian Church.79 Although Allegheny County gave Ross a majority of over eleven hundred votes, he was defeated in the State by more than seventy-nine hundred.80 McKean took office on December 17, 1799,81 and the next day he appointed Brackenridge a justice of the Supreme Court. All but one or two of the county offices were filled by appointment of the governor, who could remove the holders at pleasure. The idea of public offices being public trusts had not been formulated. The doctrine afterward attributed to Andrew Jackson, that “to the victors belong the spoils of office,” was already a dearly cherished principle of the Republicans, and Judge Brackenridge was not an exception to his party. Hardly had he taken his seat on the Supreme Bench, when he induced Governor McKean to remove from office the Federalist prothonotary, James Brison, who had held the position since September 26, 1788, two days after the organization of the county.

Brison was very popular. As a young man, he had lived at Hannastown, and during the attack of the British and Indians on the place had been one of the men sent on the dangerous errand of reconnoitering the enemy.82 He was now captain of the Pittsburgh Troop of Light Dragoons, the crack company in the Allegheny County brigade of militia, and was Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the Academy. He was a society leader and generally managed the larger social functions of the town. General Henry Lee, the Governor of Virginia, famous in the annals of the Revolutionary War, as “Light-Horse Harry Lee,” commanded the expedition sent by President Washington to suppress the Whisky Insurrection, and was in Pittsburgh several weeks during that memorable campaign. On the eve of his departure a ball was given in his honor by the citizens. On that occasion Brison was master of ceremonies. A few months earlier Brackenridge had termed him “a puppy and a coxcomb.” Brackenridge credited Brison with retaliating for the epithet, by neglecting to provide his wife and himself with an invitation to the ball. This was an additional cause for his dismissal, and toward the close of January the office was given to John C. Gilkison. Gilkison who was a relative of Brackenridge, conducted the bookstore and library which he had opened the year before, and also followed the occupation of scrivener, preparing such legal papers as were demanded of him.83

CHAPTER IV LIFE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY — REFERENCES Chapter IV

The Pittsburgh Gazette was devoted to the interests of the Federal party, and Brackenridge and the other leading Republicans felt the need of a newspaper of their own. The result was the establishment on August 16, 1800, of the Tree of Liberty, by John Israel, who was already publishing a newspaper, called the Herald of Liberty, in Washington, Pennsylvania. The title of the new paper was intended to typify its high mission. The significance of the name was further indicated in the conspicuously displayed motto, “And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” The Federalists, and more especially their organ, the Pittsburgh Gazette,84 charged Brackenridge with being the owner of the new paper, and with being responsible for its utterances. Brackenridge, however, has left a letter in which he refuted this statement, and alleged that originally he intended to establish a newspaper, but on hearing of Israel’s intention gave up the idea.85

The extent of the comforts and luxuries enjoyed in Pittsburgh was surprising. The houses, whether built of logs, or frame, or brick, were comfortable, even in winter. In the kitchens were large open fire-places, where wood was burned. The best coal fuel was plentiful. Although stoves were invented barely half a century earlier, and were in general use only in the larger cities, the houses in Pittsburgh could already boast of many. There were cannon stoves, so called because of their upright cylindrical, cannon-like shape, and Franklin or open stoves, invented by Benjamin Franklin; the latter graced the parlor. Grates were giving out their cheerful blaze. They were also in use in some of the rooms of the new court house, and in the new jail.

The advertisements of the merchants told the story of what the people ate and drank, and of the materials of which their clothing was made. Articles of food were in great variety. In the stores were tea, coffee, red and sugar almonds, olives, chocolate, spices of all kinds, muscatel and keg raisins, dried peas, and a score of other luxuries, besides the ordinary articles of consumption. The gentry of England, as pictured in the pages of the old romances, did not have a greater variety of liquors to drink. There were Madeira, sherry, claret, Lisbon, port, and Teneriffe wines, French and Spanish brandies,86 Jamaica and antique spirits.87 Perrin DuLac, who visited Pittsburgh in 1802, said these liquors were the only articles sold in the town that were dear.88 But not all partook of the luxuries. Bread and meat, and such vegetables as were grown in the neighborhood, constituted the staple articles of food, and homemade whisky was the ordinary drink of the majority of the population. The native fruits were apples and pears, which had been successfully propagated since the early days of the English occupation.89

Materials for men’s and women’s clothing were endless in variety and design and consisted of cloths, serges, flannels, brocades, jeans, fustians, Irish linens, cambrics, lawns, nankeens, ginghams, muslins, calicos, and chintzes. Other articles were tamboured petticoats, tamboured cravats, silk and cotton shawls, wreaths and plumes, sunshades and parasols, black silk netting gloves, white and salmon-colored long and short gloves, kid and morocco shoes and slippers, men’s beaver, tanned, and silk gloves, men’s cotton and thread caps, and silk and cotton hose.

Men were changing their dress along with their political opinions. One of the consequences in the United States of the French Revolution was to cause the effeminate and luxurious dress in general use to give way to simpler and less extravagant attire. The rise of the Republican party and the class distinctions which it was responsible for engendering, more than any other reason, caused the men of affairs—the merchants, the manufacturers, the lawyers, the physicians, and the clergymen—to discard the old fashions and adopt new ones. Cocked hats gave way to soft or stiff hats, with low square crowns and straight brims. The fashionable hats were the beaver made of the fur of the beaver, the castor made of silk in imitation of the beaver, and the roram made of felt, with a facing of beaver fur felted in. Coats of blue, green, and buff, and waistcoats of crimson, white, or yellow, were superseded by garments of soberer colors. Coats continued to be as long as ever, but the tails were cut away in front. Knee-breeches were succeeded by tight-fitting trousers reaching to the ankles; low-buckled shoes, by high-laced leather shoes, or boots. Men discontinued wearing cues, and their hair was cut short, and evenly around the head. There were of course exceptions. Many men of conservative temperament still clung to the old fashions. A notable example in Pittsburgh was the Rev. Robert Steele, who always appeared in black satin knee-breeches, knee-buckles, silk stockings, and pumps.90

The farmers on the plantations surrounding Pittsburgh and the mechanics in the borough were likewise affected by the movement for dress reform. Their apparel had always been less picturesque than that of the business and professional men. Now the ordinary dress of the farmers and mechanics consisted of short tight-fitting round-abouts, or sailor’s jackets, made in winter of cloth or linsey, and in summer of nankeen, dimity, gingham, or linen. Sometimes the jacket was without sleeves, the shirt being heavy enough to afford protection against inclement weather. The trousers were loose-fitting and long, and extended to the ankles, and were made of nankeen, tow, or cloth. Some men wore blanket-coats. Overalls, of dimity, nankeen, and cotton, were the especial badge of mechanics. The shirt was of tow or coarse linen, the vest of dimity. On their feet, farmers and mechanics alike wore coarse high-laced shoes, half-boots, or boots made of neat’s leather. The hats were soft, of fur or wool, and were low and round-crowned, or the crowns were high and square.

The inhabitants of Pittsburgh were pleasure-loving, and the time not devoted to business was given over to the enjoyments of life. Men and women alike played cards. Whisk, as whist was called, and Boston were the ordinary games.91 All classes and nationalities danced, and dancing was cultivated as an art. Dancing masters came to Pittsburgh to give instructions, and adults and children alike took lessons. In winter public balls and private assemblies were given. The dances were more pleasing to the senses than any ever seen in Pittsburgh, except the dances of the recent revival of the art. The cotillion was executed by an indefinite number of couples, who performed evolutions or figures as in the modern german. Other dances were the minuet, the menuet à la cour, and jigs. The country dance, generally performed by eight persons, four men and four women, comprised a variety of steps, and a surprising number of evolutions, of which liveliness was the characteristic.

The taverns had rooms set apart for dances. The “Sign of the Green Tree,”92 had an “Assembly Room”; the “Sign of General Butler”93 and the “Sign of the Waggon”94 each had a “Ball Room.” The small affairs were given in the homes of the host or hostess, and the large ones in the taverns, or in the grand-jury room of the new court house.

The dancing masters gave “Practicing Balls” at which the cotillion began at seven o’clock, and the ball concluded with the country dance, which was continued until twelve o’clock.95 Dancing became so popular and to such an extent were dancing masters in the eyes of the public that William Irwin christened his race horse “Dancing Master.”96 The ball given to General Lee was talked about for years after the occurrence. Its beauties were pictured by many fair lips. The ladies recalled the soldierly bearing of the guest of honor, the tall robust form of General Daniel Morgan, Lee’s second in command, and the commander of the Virginia troops, famous as the hero of Quebec and Saratoga, who had received the thanks of Congress for his victory at Cowpens. They dwelt on the varicolored uniforms of the soldiers, the bright colors worn by the civilians, their powdered hair, the brocades, and silks, and velvets of the ladies.

In winter evenings there were concerts and theatrical performances which were generally given in the new court house. A unique concert was that promoted by Peter Declary. It was heralded as a musical event of importance. Kotzwara’s The Battle of Prague, was performed on the “forte piano” by one of Declary’s pupils, advertised as being only eight years of age; President Jefferson’s march was another conspicuous feature. The exhibition concluded with a ball.97

Comedy predominated in the theatrical performances. The players were “the young gentlemen of the town.” At one of the entertainments they gave John O’Keefe’s comic opera The Poor Soldier, and a farce by Arthur Murphy called The Apprentice.98 There were also performances of a more professional character. Bromley and Arnold, two professional actors, conducted a series of theatrical entertainments extending over a period of several weeks. The plays which they rendered are hardly known to-day. At a single performance99 they gave a comedy entitled Trick upon Trick, or The Vintner in the Suds; a farce called The Jealous Husband, or The Lawyer in the Sack; and a pantomime, The Sailor’s Landlady, or Jack in Distress. Another play in the series was Edward Moore’s tragedy, The Gamester.100

Much of Grant’s Hill was unenclosed. Clumps of trees grew on its irregular surface, and there were level open spaces; and in summer the place was green with grass, and bushes grew in profusion. Farther in the background were great forest trees. The hill was the pleasure ground of the village. Judge Henry M. Brackenridge, a son of Judge Hugh Henry Brackenridge dwelling on the past, declared that “it was pleasing to see the line of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen and children, ... repairing to the beautiful green eminence.”101 On this elevation “under a bower, on the margin of a wood, and near a delightful spring, with the town of Pittsburgh in prospect,” the Fourth of July celebrations were held.102 On August 2, 1794, the motley army of Insurgents from Braddocksfield rested there, after having marched through the town. Here they were refreshed with food and whisky, in order that they might keep in good humor, and to prevent their burning the town.103

Samuel Jones has left an intimate, if somewhat regretful account of the early social life of Pittsburgh. “The long winter evenings,” he wrote, “were passed by the humble villagers at each other’s homes, with merry tale and song, or in simple games; and the hours of night sped lightly onward with the unskilled, untiring youth, as they threaded the mazes of the dance, guided by the music of the violin, from which some good-humored rustic drew his Orphean sounds. In the jovial time of harvest and hay-making, the sprightly and active of the village participated in the rural labors and the hearty pastimes, which distinguished that happy season. The balls and merry-makings that were so frequent in the village were attended by all without any particular deference to rank or riches. No other etiquette than that which natural politeness prescribed was exacted or expected.... Young fellows might pay their devoirs to their female acquaintances; ride, walk, or talk with them, and pass hours in their society without being looked upon with suspicion by parents, or slandered by trolloping gossips.”104

The event of autumn was the horse races, which lasted three days. They were held in the northeasterly extremity of the town between Liberty Street and the Allegheny River,105 and were conducted under the auspices of the Jockey Club which had been in existence for many years. Sportsmen came from all the surrounding country. The races were under the saddle, sulkies not having been invented. Racing proprieties were observed, and jockeys were required to be dressed in jockey habits.106 Purses were given. The horses compared favorably with race horses of a much later day. A prominent horse was “Young Messenger” who was sired by “Messenger,” the most famous trotting horse in America, which had been imported into Philadelphia from England in 1788, and was the progenitor of Rysdyk’s Hambletonian, Abdallah, Goldsmith Maid, and a score of other noted race horses.

A third of a century after the race course had been removed beyond the limits of the municipality, Judge Henry M. Brackenridge published his recollections of the entrancing sport. “It was then an affair of all-engrossing interest, and every business or pursuit was neglected.... The whole town was daily poured forth to witness the Olympian games.... The plain within the course and near it was filled with booths as at a fair, where everything was said, and done, and sold, and eaten or drunk, where every fifteen or twenty minutes there was a rush to some part, to witness a fisticuff—where dogs barked and bit, and horses trod on men’s toes, and booths fell down on people’s heads!”107

The social instincts of the people found expression in another direction. The Revolutionary War, the troubles with the Indians, the more or less strained relations existing between France and England, had combined to inbreed a military spirit. Pennsylvania, with a population, in 1800, of 602,365, had enrolled in the militia 88,707 of its citizens. The militia was divided into light infantry, riflemen, grenadiers, cavalry, and artillery.108 Allegheny County had a brigade of militia, consisting of eight regiments.109 The commander was General Alexander Fowler, an old Englishman who had served in America, in the 18th, or Royal Irish, Regiment of Foot. On the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, he had resigned his commission on account of his sympathy with the Americans. Being unfit for active service, Congress appointed him Auditor of the Western Department at Pittsburgh.

The militia had always been more or less permeated with partisan politics. During the Revolution the American officers wore a cockade with a black ground and a white relief, called the black cockade. This the Federalists had made their party emblem. The Republican party, soon after its organization, adopted as a badge of party distinction a cockade of red and blue on a white base, the colors of revolutionary France. The red and blue cockade thereafter became the distinguishing mark of the majority of the Pennsylvania militia, being adopted on the recommendation of no less a person than Governor McKean. General Fowler’s advocacy of the red and blue cockade and his disparagement of the black cockade were incessant. He was an ardent Republican, and his effusions with their classic allusions filled many columns of the Tree of Liberty and the Pittsburgh Gazette. At a meeting of the Allegheny County militia held at Marie’s tavern, the red and blue cockade had been adopted. Fowler claimed that this was the result of public sentiment. He was fond of platitudes. “The voice of the people is the voice of God,” he quoted, crediting the proverb to an “English commentator,” and adding: “Says a celebrated historian, ‘individuals may err, but the voice of the people is infallible.’”110 A strong minority in Allegheny County remained steadfast to the Federal party, and the vote in favor of the adoption of the red and blue cockade was not unanimous. Two of the regiments, not to be engulfed in the growing wave of Republicanism, or overawed by the domineering disposition of General Fowler, opposed the adoption of the red and blue cockade, and chose the black cockade.111

The equipment furnished to the militia by the State was meagre, but the patriotism which had so lately won the country’s independence was still at flood tide, and each regiment was supplied with two silk standards. One was the national flag, the other the regimental colors. The national emblem differed somewhat from the regulation United States flag. The word “Pennsylvania” appeared on the union, with the number of the regiment, the whole being encircled by thirteen white stars. The fly of the regimental colors was dark blue; on this was painted an eagle with extended wings supporting the arms of the State. The union was similar to that of the national flag. The prescribed uniform which many of the men, however, did not possess, was a blue coat faced with red, with a lining of white or red. In Allegheny County a round hat with the cockade and buck’s tail, was worn.112 The parade ground of the militia was the level part of Grant’s Hill which adjoined Marie’s tavern on the northeast. Here twice each year, in April and October, the militia received its training. Of no minor interest, was the social life enjoyed by officers and men alike, during the annual assemblages.

In the territory contiguous to Pittsburgh the uprising, for the right to manufacture whisky without paying the excise, had its inception. That taverns should abound in the town was a natural consequence. In 1808 the public could be accommodated at twenty-four different taverns.113 The annual license fee for taverns, including the clerk’s charges, was barely twenty dollars. Through some mental legerdemain of the lawmakers it had been enacted that if more than a quart was sold no license was required. Liquors, and particularly whisky, were sold in nearly every mercantile establishment. Also beer had been brewed in Pittsburgh since an early day, at the “Point Brewery,” which was purchased in 1795 by Smith and Shiras.114 Beer was likewise brewed in a small way by James Yeaman, two or three years later.115 In February, 1803, O’Hara and Coppinger, who had acquired the “Point Brewery,” began brewing beer on a larger scale.116

In the taverns men met to consummate their business, and to discuss their political and social affairs. Lodge No. 45 of Ancient York Masons met in the taverns for many years, as did the Mechanical Society. Even the Board of Trustees of the Academy held their meetings there.117 Religion itself, looked with a friendly eye on the taverns. In the autumn of 1785, the Rev. Wilson Lee, a Methodist missionary, appeared in Pittsburgh, and preached in John Ormsby’s tavern,118 on Water Street, at his ferry landing,119 at what is now the northeast corner of that street and Ferry Street. This was the same double log house which, while conducted by Samuel Semple, was in 1770 patronized by Colonel George Washington.120

Tavern keeping and liquor selling were of such respectability that many of the most esteemed citizens were, or had been tavern-keepers, or had sold liquors, or distilled whisky, or brewed beer. Jeremiah Sturgeon was a member of the session of the Presbyterian Church.121 John Reed, the proprietor of the “Sign of the Waggon,” in addition to being a leading member of the Jockey Club, and the owner of the race horse “Young Messenger,”122 was precentor in the Presbyterian Church, and on Sundays “lined out the hymns” and led the singing.123 The pew of William Morrow is marked on the diagram of the ground-plan of the church as printed in its Centennial Volume.124 The “Sign of the Cross Keys,” the emblem of Sturgeon’s tavern, was of religious origin and was much favored in England. Although used by a Presbyterian, it was the arms of the Papal See, and the emblem of St. Peter and his successors. That the way to salvation lay through the door of the tavern, would seem to have been intended to be indicated by the “Sign of the Cross Keys.” William Eichbaum, a pillar in the German church, after he left the employ of O’Hara and Craig, conducted a tavern on Front Street, near Market, at the “Sign of the Indian Queen.” The owners of the ferries kept taverns in connection with their ferries. Ephraim Jones conducted a tavern at his ferry landing on the south side of the Monongahela River; Robert Henderson had a tavern on Water Street at his ferry landing; Samuel Emmett kept a tavern at his landing on the south side of the Monongahela River; and James Robinson had a tavern on the Franklin Road at the northerly terminus of his ferry.125

Drinking was universal among both men and women. Judge James Veech declared that whisky “was the indispensable emblem of hospitality and the accompaniment of labor in every pursuit, the stimulant in joy and the solace in grief. It was kept on the counter of every store and in the corner cupboard of every well-to-do family. The minister partook of it before going to church, and after he came back. At home and abroad, at marryings and buryings, at house raisings and log rollings, at harvestings and huskings, it was the omnipresent beverage of old and young, men and women; and he was a churl who stinted it. To deny it altogether required more grace or niggardliness than most men could command, at least for daily use.”126

A practical joke perpetrated by the Rev. Dr. John McMillan, on the Rev. Joseph Patterson, another of the early ministers in this region, illustrates the custom of drinking among the clergy. On their way to attend a meeting of the Synod, the two men stopped at a wayside inn and called for whisky, which was set before them. Mr. Patterson asked a blessing which was rather lengthy. Dr. McMillan meanwhile drank the whisky, and to Mr. Patterson’s blank look remarked blandly, “You must watch as well as pray!”127

Families purchased whisky and laid it away in their cellars for future consumption, and that it might improve with age. Judge Hugh Henry Brackenridge declared that the visit of the “Whisky Boys”—as the Insurgents from Braddocksfield were called—to Pittsburgh cost him “four barrels of old whisky.”128 The statement caused Henry Adams, in his life of Albert Gallatin, to volunteer the assertion that it nowhere appeared “how much whisky the western gentleman usually kept in his house.”129

There was no legislation against selling liquors on Sundays. The only law on the subject was an old one under which persons found drinking and tippling in ale-houses, taverns, and other public houses on Sundays, were liable to be fined one shilling and sixpence; and the keepers of the houses upon conviction were required to pay ten shillings. The line of demarcation between proper and improper drinking being faint, the law proved ineffectual to prevent drinking on Sundays.

Religion had not kept pace with material progress. The people had been too much engrossed in secular affairs to attend to spiritual matters. They were withal generous, and practiced the Christian virtues; and never failed to help their unfortunate neighbors. This disposition was manifested in various ways. Losses by fire were of frequent occurrence and were apt to cause distress or ruin to those affected. In these cases the citizens always furnished relief. An instance where this was done was in the case of William Thorn. Thorn was a cabinet-maker on Market Street, and built windmills and Dutch fans.130 When the house which he occupied was burned to the ground and he lost all his tools and valuable ready-made furniture, a liberal subscription was made by the citizens, and he was enabled to again commence his business.131

But there was little outward observance of religious forms. The Germans had made some progress in that direction. The little log building where they worshipped had been succeeded by a brick church. The only English church was the Presbyterian Meeting House facing on Virgin Alley, now Oliver Avenue, erected in 1786. It was the same building of squared timbers in which the congregation had originally worshipped. From 1789 to 1793, the church had languished greatly. There was no regular pastor; services were held at irregular and widely separated intervals. Two of the men who served as supplies left the ministry and became lawyers.132 From 1793 to 1800, the church was all but dead. The house was deserted and falling into ruin. Only once, so far as there is any record, were Presbyterian services held in the building during this period. It was in 1799 that the Rev. Francis Herron, passing through Pittsburgh, was induced to deliver a sermon to a congregation consisting of fifteen or eighteen persons “much to the annoyance of the swallows,” as Herron ingenuously related, which had taken possession of the premises.133

A light had flashed momentarily in the darkness when John Wrenshall, the father of Methodism in Pittsburgh, settled in the town. Wrenshall was an Englishman who came to Pittsburgh in 1796 and established a mercantile business. He was converted to Wesleyanism in England and had been a local preacher there. As there was no minister or preaching of any kind in Pittsburgh, he commenced holding services in the Presbyterian Meeting House. His audiences increased, but after a few Sundays of active effort, a padlock was placed on the door of the church, and he was notified that the house was no longer at his disposal. The Presbyterians might not hold services themselves, but they would not permit the use of their building to adherents of the new sect of Methodists, “the offspring of the devil.”

A great religious revival swept over the Western country in the concluding years of the eighteenth century. In Kentucky it developed into hysteria,134 and in Western Pennsylvania the display of religious fervor was scarcely less intense.135 The effect was felt in Pittsburgh. On October 24, 1800, the Pittsburgh Gazette was moved to ask the Presbyterian congregation, of which its proprietor was a leading member, a number of pertinent questions: Could they hope for good morals without religion or the fear of God; could religion be maintained without public worship; had they a house in which public worship could be performed with decency and convenience? Were they not able to erect a respectable and commodious church building, as well as to provide for the maintenance of a minister? Would not money so employed “be more for the benefit of the town than horse racing, billiard playing, etc., etc.?” The answer of the congregation was to procure the appointment of the Rev. Robert Steele as supply and the church began to show signs of life again. In April, 1802, Steele was received as a member of the Presbytery, the action being approved by the Synod in the following September.136 From that time forward, the church began that spiritual and material advancement—although there were ebbs and flows in its progress—which has continued to this day.

CHAPTER V THE SEAT OF POWER — REFERENCES Chapter V

The year 1800 ushered in more than a new century in Pittsburgh. It heralded the beginning of another era. The decade beginning with that year will ever be memorable in the annals of the city. During those ten years the foundation was laid on which the great industrial city was subsequently built. In 1800 the population of Pittsburgh was 1565, and in 1810 it had risen to 4768, an increase of 204 per centum, which was the greatest percentage of increase that has ever taken place in its history. This decade marked the dividing line between that which was obsolete and that which was newly-born.

In 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of France, ceded to the United States the vast Louisiana Territory, whereby the area of this country was more than doubled, and commerce between Louisiana and Pittsburgh increased tremendously.

As far back as 1791, Alexander Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury, had communicated to the House of Representatives his famous report of manufactures. In this far-away community, with coal at its doors, and iron in the near-by mountains, Hamilton’s new doctrine found willing disciples and industry had more than a beginning. Soon after the close of the Revolutionary War, iron ore was mined in the Juniata Valley, and furnaces and forges established, and bar iron and castings made. The iron was carried to Pittsburgh, partly on horseback, and partly by water, down the Conemaugh and Allegheny Rivers. Small shops for the manufacture of articles of iron were opened. Shortly afterward iron ore was also mined in the counties of Fayette and Westmoreland and furnaces and forges built and iron produced. The distance being shorter from Fayette and Westmoreland Counties than from the Juniata Valley, iron was thereafter brought to Pittsburgh only from the former districts. The iron shops increased in number. Coal was the pole star which lighted the way to their establishment. A writer who saw the advantages of Pittsburgh with the eyes of a Münchhausen, writing of the value of its coal, declared, that the blaze afforded “so strong a light, that in winter, ... neither tailors, or other mechanics burn candles.”137

At the close of the eighteenth century, the black smoke of the iron shops, the glass manufactory, the boat yards, the distillery, the brewery, the tanneries, the brickyards, and the increasing number of dwelling houses had already given the town a sombre hue. Industry went forward with leaps and bounds, and manufactories on a larger scale were set up. They were insignificant, if compared with even the medium-sized establishments of to-day, but were large and important in the eyes of people who, prior to the American Revolution, had been practically prohibited from engaging in any manufacturing by their English masters. Cotton mills were established, as were iron foundries, nail factories, engine shops, a tinware manufactory, a pipe manufactory, and in 1808 a second glass works, that of Robinson & Ensell.138 The extent of the plants can be gauged, when it is known that one of the nail factories employed thirty men, the tinware manufactory twenty-eight men, and one of the cotton mills twelve men.139

In 1804, the Bank of Pennsylvania opened a branch in Pittsburgh. A stage line from Chambersburgh to Baltimore and Philadelphia was placed in operation in the spring of 1803.140 In 1804 this was extended to Pittsburgh, the first coach from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia being run on July 4th.

Religion was now keeping pace with the increase in population and the growth in material prosperity. Hitherto those who were religiously inclined were obliged to attend the services of either the German or the Presbyterian church. Other churches were now brought into existence. The Episcopalians formed an organization in 1805, under the name of “Trinity Church,” and began the erection of their brick octagonal building, on the lot bounded by Liberty, Seventh, and Wood streets, which was a landmark in its day.

Ever since the English occupancy, the population had been Protestant in religion, although Protestantism in the early days signified little more than a stout opposition to Roman Catholicism. The Presbyterians, who constituted the bulk of the English-speaking Protestants, had looked askance when the Episcopalians, whom they regarded as closely akin to Roman Catholics, formed their church organization. When it was rumored that Roman Catholic services were to be held, they shook their heads still more doubtfully. Prior to 1800 there was hardly a professed Roman Catholic in Pittsburgh. In 1804, the number was still so small that when the missionary priest and former Russian prince and soldier, Demetrius Augustine Gallitzen, came and celebrated mass, there were only fifteen persons present to assist.141 In 1808, a congregation was formed, and the next year a one-story brick chapel was erected142 at the southeast corner of Liberty and Washington streets, Washington Street then extending to Liberty Street. The site is now occupied by the entrance to the Pennsylvania Station. Practically all the parishioners were Irish, and it was natural that the new edifice should be named “St. Patrick’s Church.” The Methodists organized a congregation at the same time as the Roman Catholics,143 and in 1810 erected a small brick building on Front Street below Smithfield, opposite the lower end of the site at present occupied by the Monongahela House.144 The Baptists were growing in numbers and, although lacking a church organization, met at one another’s houses, and listened to the exhortations of traveling missionaries of that faith.145

The Freemasons must be credited with a movement, inaugurated at this time, which was to have a far-reaching effect. The meetings of Lodge No. 45 in the taverns had been conducive of almost everything except sobriety. The effects were degrading, and in many cases injurious, not only to the persons affected but to their dependents as well. Also the evil was growing, and was contrary to the expressed ideals of the order. Practically all the leaders in the village, whether in public or private life, had been or were still members of the lodge. Among the older members were General Richard Butler and his brother, Colonel William Butler, General John Neville, Judge Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Captain Joseph Ashton, John Ormsby, Colonel James O’Hara, Captain Michael Hufnagle, Major Isaac Craig, Senator James Ross, Samuel Ewalt, and Captain John Irwin. Younger members were Dr. Andrew Richardson, Dr. Hugh Scott, William Wusthoff, Anthony Beelen, Thomas Baird, James Riddle, Tarleton Bates, Rev. Robert Steele, and Henry Baldwin. It is not surprising that such men should sooner or later realize the calamity which confronted the members of the lodge, and decide upon eliminating the cause. The change was effected upon the completion of William Irwin’s brick house, at the southwest corner of Market Street and the West Diamond, just prior to the opening of the new century. Thenceforth the meetings of the lodge were held in a room on the third floor of this building, and the temptation to excessive drinking was at least farther removed than when the sessions were being held in the “Sign of the Green Tree.” This was the first practical temperance movement in Pittsburgh.

Market Street was one of the narrowest streets in the town, but was the principal commercial thoroughfare. Coincidentally it was called “Main Street.” It received the name by which it has been known for more than a century and a quarter, from the fact that the first market house, erected in 1787, was located at the northwest corner of this street and Second Street. In 1800 the street was bustling with life. More drays and carts and wagons were moving over at least a portion of the thoroughfare than is the case to-day. Intermingled with the other vehicles were wagons from the country, drawn by oxen. In wet weather the roadway was ground into mud and thin mire. The merchants generally lived with their families in the houses where their business was conducted. The street was noisy with children. Trees grew on the outer edges of the foot-walks, and in the summer grass and weeds sprang up, watered by the street wells and pumps that supplied the residents with water.

Most of the prominent people lived on Market Street. Judge Hugh Henry Brackenridge, although often absent from Pittsburgh in the performance of his judicial duties, maintained his residence on the street, until August 24, 1801, when he removed with his family to Carlisle.146 All but one of the physicians were located there. Here the leading mercantile establishments were concentrated. Open spaces still intervened between the houses, and there were gardens, inclosed with fences painted white, in which flowers bloomed and vegetables flourished, but the spaces were rapidly being built upon. Everywhere the sounds of hammer and saw greeted the ear, and heaps of brick and beds of mortar encumbered the street.

Public improvements were commenced: Market and Wood streets were being paved, as was Chancery Lane from the Monongahela River to Second Street. Front and Third streets were being graveled from Market to Wood Street, as was also Diamond Alley.147 The price of land was advancing. The Penns had sold most of the lots fronting on Market Street, in 1785, at the average price of ten pounds each in Pennsylvania currency, a pound being equal to two dollars and sixty-six and two-thirds cents in United States money of the present value. The lots were of varying dimensions: some had a front on Market Street of one hundred and sixty feet, and a depth of eighty feet, while others had fronts of from fifty-six to eighty feet, and were of different depths. In 1789 and 1790, respectively, two lots were sold for fifty pounds each. In 1791, two others were sold for one hundred and twenty pounds each. In 1793, a lot on the East Diamond, where values had not appreciated to the same extent as on Market Street, was sold for one hundred pounds. After 1800, the lots began to be subdivided, and still higher prices prevailed, and they continued to advance year by year.

The Act of Congress of July 6, 1785, established a national currency, the unit being a dollar, equal in value to the Spanish milled dollar. The Spanish milled dollar had been in circulation in this country for many years, and was the expressed unit in the paper money and other obligations, authorized by Congress since the first year of the Revolution. The United States mint, however, was not authorized until the passage of the Act of Congress of April 2, 1792, and the first coinage of silver and gold did not take place until two years later. During this interval the circulating medium was mainly Spanish silver money and the consideration mentioned in conveyances was usually in the Spanish milled dollar. In 1801, a lot having a front on Market Street of thirty feet and a depth of seventy feet, was sold for six hundred and twelve dollars and fifty cents; in 1803, a lot having a front of forty-six feet and a depth of seventy feet was sold for thirteen hundred dollars. In 1804, an undivided fourth interest in a lot having a front of fifty-six feet, and a depth of one hundred and seventy-five feet, was sold for eight hundred and seventy-five dollars. In 1805, a half interest in a lot also having a front of fifty-six feet, and a depth of one hundred and seventy-five feet was sold for twelve hundred dollars. In 1806, an eighth interest in a lot having a front of fifty-six feet, and a depth of one hundred and seventy-five feet, was sold for two hundred and seventy-five dollars. In 1807, a sixth interest in a lot having a front of fifty-six feet, and a depth of one hundred and seventy-five feet, was sold for six hundred and sixty-six dollars and sixty-six cents.

Most of the houses were built on land leased from the owners, or on lots subject to the payment of ground rents, which accounted to some extent for the inferior quality of the improvements. The number of brick houses on Market Street was still so limited that the merchants were fond of referring to the fact that the establishments conducted by them were located in a “brick house” or “next door to,” or “across the street from,” a “brick house.”

A majority of the merchants and professional men on the street were young, or at least had not arrived at middle age. Like all the men in new communities, they were possessed of unbounded energy, which found vent in their business affairs, in a desire for pleasure, and in an inordinate ambition for political preferment. Perhaps it was owing to this cause, that the number of town and other offices were so numerous. The town officers were a chief burgess, a burgess and four assistant burgesses, a town clerk, a high constable, two assessors, and two supervisors. The duties of the assistant burgesses were to assist the chief burgess and the burgess in the performance of their duties.148 The justices of the peace were even more plentiful than the town officers. They were appointed by the governor and held office during good behavior, which was practically for life. Appointments were constantly made, usually as a reward for party fealty, and there being a dearth of deaths among those in office, the number of justices of the peace had become inordinately large. There was also a cause peculiar to Pittsburgh, for the craving for office. The legislative acts of the borough were performed at Town Meetings held in the court house by the “Burgesses, Freeholders, and Inhabitants, householders,” at which all the male adults whether citizens or aliens149 who had resided in the place for a year, had a voice. In 1800, there were nearly two hundred qualified electors who had a right to participate in the Town Meetings,150 and practically the entire number were politicians. A desire for the glare of public life developed, and the creation of offices resulted.

Considering the extent of the town and the number of the inhabitants, the stores were numerous, there being, in 1803, forty-nine stores and shops.151 The explanation was that much of the trade of Pittsburgh was with travelers passing through the place, and with settlements farther west and south. The travelers were frequently delayed for long periods. Owing to the lack of a sufficient stage of water in the rivers, as high as a hundred boats, each carrying an average of twelve emigrants, were sometimes tied up along the Monongahela River between Pittsburgh and New Geneva, and as many more along the Allegheny.152 The various supplies required while there and for the further journey were furnished by the merchants of the town.

The stores were usually what is termed “general stores,” where everything necessary for the use of pioneer families could be purchased. Only a few establishments dealt in special lines. On the shelves were articles that at present are suggestive of the day in which they were sold. Taken in connection with the dress of the people, the food they ate, their churches, their societies, their work, and their amusements, they form a more or less complete outline picture of the time. Items which stand out in relief are Franklin stoves, chimney hooks, window weights, brass and stock locks, brass and iron candlesticks, snuffers, horse fleams, iron combs, iron buttons, knee buckles, powder flasks, American and German gunpowder, bar lead and shot, wallowers for Dutch fans, and cards.153 The sale of cards was an industry of importance in agricultural communities. At present the name is confusing. The civilization of the day had not developed business or visiting cards, and if playing cards were intended they would have been so designated. The cards sold in Pittsburgh were brushes with wire teeth used in disentangling fibers of wool, cotton, and hemp, and laying them parallel to one another preparatory to spinning. In 1794, the advertisement of Adgate & Co., “at the card manufactory, corner of Market and Water Streets,” appeared in the Pittsburgh Gazette.154

The occupancy of Market Street began at Water Street. Some of the early settlers were still living in the houses where they began their business life. Samuel Ewalt was among the earliest merchants on the street. His store was at the northeast corner of Market and Water streets. He owned the entire block on the easterly side of Market Street, between Water and Front streets, his land extending eastwardly a considerable distance.

On Water Street, one lot removed from the west side of Market Street, was the home of Colonel Presley Neville. While a very young man, living in his native Virginia, he had served as an officer in the Revolutionary War. During this period he married the eldest daughter of General Daniel Morgan. In Pittsburgh Colonel Neville held many public positions. He had been inspector of the Allegheny County brigade of militia, agent for the United States for receiving and storing whisky taken in kind for the excise, a member of the Legislature,155 and was now surveyor of Allegheny County,156 and was engaged in selling town lots, and lands in the adjacent townships.157 In 1803, he was a candidate for chief burgess, but his vote was a tie with that of his opponent, Colonel James O’Hara, who had also been an officer in the Revolution The determination of the case being with the governor, the decision was in favor of Colonel O’Hara,158 but under the law Colonel Neville became burgess.159 Below Colonel Neville’s house, at the northwest corner of Water and Ferry streets, was a large two-story frame building set in a garden. This was the town house of General John Neville, the father of Colonel Neville. Like his son, he was a former Revolutionary officer; he had been Inspector of the Revenue under the excise law, during the Whisky Insurrection. The burning of his country home by the Insurgents was one of the events of the short-lived revolt. On Water Street, one door above Redoubt Alley, was the frame tenement house of Major Isaac Craig. The building had become historic. It was here that Alexander Hamilton, Judge Richard Peters of the United States District Court for Pennsylvania, together with the United States District Attorney, and the United States Marshal, who accompanied the army of General Lee into Western Pennsylvania, held court and interrogated Hugh Henry Brackenridge, and others suspected of fomenting the Whisky Insurrection.

West of Major Craig’s home, a short distance east of West Alley, was the large frame dwelling of Colonel O’Hara. O’Hara was the most enterprising citizen in the town, and an important factor in its early development. At one time he was engaged in almost a dozen enterprises. He was also the largest owner of real estate both in Pittsburgh, and Allegheny County, resident in the borough. Among the older merchants were William Christy, John Irwin, and William Irwin. They had formerly been partners, but the partnership had long since been dissolved,160 and each now had a store of his own. Christy’s establishment was at the northwest corner of Market and Water streets. He sold all kinds of cloths and velvets, cassimeres, corduroys, and flannels, teas, sugar, and “common groceries of every denomination.”161 During the Virginia régime, he was a lieutenant in the Pittsburgh militia, and in 1802 was town clerk.162 Adjoining Christy’s store was that of Dr. Andrew Richardson. Richardson was a physician. At this time physicians not only prescribed medicines, but prepared and sold them, and Richardson was no exception. His advertisement reads like that of a latter-day druggist: “Oil of Vitriol. I have for sale at my medical store a quantity of oil of vitriol which I will sell low for cash. Also a variety of drugs and medicines which I will sell wholesale or retail at the same terms.”163

He was prominent in many respects. Besides being a physician, he was a justice of the peace, and a leader in politics. In January, 1800, Governor McKean appointed him Register and Recorder of Allegheny County in place of Samuel Jones, his Federalist father-in-law,164 but he soon relinquished the office. He was likewise a prominent Freemason, being secretary of Lodge No. 45, and was well known as a public speaker. At the dinner given on the first anniversary of the inauguration of President Jefferson he was one of the two presiding officers.165 On St. John the Evangelist’s Day, December 27, 1798, he delivered an oration before Lodge No. 45, which was considered of such importance that the lodge procured its publication in the Pittsburgh Gazette.

The style was florid. Richardson was high in the councils of the Republican party, yet his argument was that of a Federalist. It was a panegyric on Freemasonry, and an expression of hope for universal peace and love. Opening with a review of the conflict convulsing Europe he launched out into a severe denunciation of the course that France was pursuing. “Already hath nation arisen against nation in lawless oppression,” the orator proclaimed. “Already hath our infant country been threatened with a final subjugation.” Continuing he asked: “And who are those who dare to usurp a superiority over us? The French! Once the boast of history, the pride of the smiling page; but now a band of robbers, dead to every feeling of humanity, lost to every virtue; a band of robbers whose lawless acts have drawn upon them the just resentment of our virtuous brother, the illustrious Washington, who, though loaded with the oppressive weight of sixty-six years, stands ready once more to unsheath his conquering sword to save his country from rapine and murder. Shall he stand the war alone? No, every Masonic heart will rush like lightning to his standard, with him conquer, or with him die!”166

Richardson’s outspoken views appear to have caused an estrangement with the local Republican leaders, and in 1801, when he was a candidate for the State Senate, they were arrayed against him. He was charged with the unpardonable sin of reviling Thomas Jefferson, the idol of American public life. The Pittsburgh Gazette and the Tree of Liberty contained frequent references to the incident. Richardson himself published a card, which was at once evasive and apologetic. He was accused of having three years before drunk a toast, “Damnation to Jefferson and his party,” in Marie’s tavern. He admitted having been in the tavern on the occasion referred to, but added: “This much I will say, that if such a toast was given by me, it was improper, and I must have done so on the impulse of the moment. I cannot say whether it was given at all.” The Republican tide was too strong and he was defeated, and was again defeated in 1802, when a candidate for representative to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives,167 and he met with a like fate when a candidate for the same office in 1803.168 In August of 1809 he died, a disappointed man.169

In the same block with Dr. Richardson, at the southwest corner of Market and Front streets, were the cabinet-makers and upholsterers, Dobbins & McElhinney.170 Directly across Market Street from Dobbins & McElhinney, was the establishment of the Chevalier Dubac. The sign gave no inkling of the noble birth of the proprietor, reading simply, “Gabriel Dubac.”171 He had recently removed to this corner from Front Street.172 He has been described as the most popular citizen of the village.173 With his wines, dry goods, and groceries, he sold confectionery. His dog “Sultan,” and his monkey “Bijou,” were the joy of the children. He was an accomplished scholar, and possessed most polished manners. When he closed his shop and entered society, he was the delight of all with whom he associated. He was in the habit of dining on Sundays at the home of General Neville. When the French princes, the Duke of Orleans, afterwards Louis Philippe, King of France, and his two brothers, the Duke of Montpensier and the Count of Beaujolais, visited Pittsburgh in 1797, it was the Chevalier Dubac who assisted in making their stay agreeable.

CHAPTER VI PUBLIC AND PRIVATE AFFAIRS — REFERENCES Chapter VI

The news and literary center was between Front and Second streets. Here the two newspapers were published. John Scull, the owner of the Pittsburgh Gazette, lived at the northwest corner of Market and Front streets; and on Front Street, immediately in the rear of his dwelling, stood the small one-story building where the newspaper was printed. In this house the post office had been located until 1794, when Scull was succeeded as postmaster by George Adams, who removed the post office to the log house on Front Street near Ferry. At the northerly end of the block, at the corner of Second Street, was the brick house of Dr. Peter Mowry, who had the largest medical practice in the town. Directly across Market Street from Dr. Mowry, Judge Hugh Henry Brackenridge had erected for the Tree of Liberty, a one-story office, and behind this a building where the paper was printed.174

Judge Brackenridge’s dwelling adjoined the office of the Tree of Liberty on the south.175 It was a large and commodious blue frame building which had been, until recently, surrounded by a paling fence. The larger part was now given over to trade. It was the best known house in the town. In it General Lee had made his headquarters while in Pittsburgh during the memorable days of November, 1794.176 In front of this building, Brackenridge, according to his own story, braved the indignation of Lee’s troops, by parading before them dressed in his “large cocked hat, buff underdress, and coat of military blue.”177 On the north side of Second Street, one door west of Chancery Lane, stood William Turnbull’s large two-story stone structure, occupied during the Whisky Insurrection by William Semple as a store.178 Here also resided at that time Colonel Presley Neville.179 General Daniel Morgan lived with his son-in-law during the stay of the army in Pittsburgh. From this house General Morgan and Colonel Neville rushed hatless to save Brackenridge from the fury of the soldiers, who Brackenridge charged were planning his assassination.180 In 1804, the building was occupied by the “Office of Discount and Deposit,” as the branch of the Bank of Pennsylvania was called. At the corner of Chancery Lane adjoining the Turnbull house, was the home of Steele Semple, the famous advocate and wit, and connoisseur of the polite and fashionable literature of the day.181

In the center of the block in which Brackenridge lived, was the book store and bindery of Zadok Cramer, at the “Sign of the Franklin Head.” “Its ancient appearance,” wrote one of its habitués, “is agreeably associated in the memory of many amongst us with our happiest moments, when the careless, airy hours of youth were passing thoughtlessly and cheerfully away.”182 Men just as substantial, but of less note, also had establishments in this square. At the southerly corner of Front Street was the large store of Abner and Jeffe Barker who sold bar iron and castings,183 and kept a “general assortment of merchandise and boulting cloths.”184 All the merchants were selling “boulting cloths,” which were cloths used by millers for sifting flour. Adjoining Abner and Jeffe Barker’s store on the north was the establishment of Jeremiah Barker who had for sale a “handsome and general assortment of the freshest goods,”185 and “a few boxes of glass eight by ten.”186 In addition to being a merchant, Jeremiah Barker was justice of the peace, and in 1801 burgess.187 The store of Abner and Jeffe Barker, and the store of Jeremiah Barker, were both on the site formerly occupied by Andrew Watson’s tavern.

On the north side of Front Street, two doors east of Abner and Jeffe Barker’s store, was an old two-story log building owned by Andrew Watson. It had been formerly occupied as a store by John and Samuel Calhoun,188 and when Allegheny County was formed, was rented by the county for the use of the courts, and called the “Court House.” In this house justice was dispensed for many years. In December, 1788, the first court of quarter sessions for Allegheny County was held there, George Wallace being president judge, and John Scott, John Wilkins, and John Johnson associates. They were all laymen, the constitution in force not requiring judges to be learned in the law. The first court of common pleas was held in the building on March 14, 1789.

The judges of the Supreme Court, or at least two of them, were required to go on the circuit annually, visiting every county during the intervals between the regular sessions of the Supreme Court, and to hold courts of nisi prius and Oyer and Terminer for the trial of capital cases.189 In Pittsburgh the sessions were held in Andrew Watson’s house. Here Chief Justice McKean and Justice George Bryan held the first court of Oyer and Terminer for Allegheny County. Judge Henry M. Brackenridge related that he had been informed that, at this session, they sat in scarlet robes. He stated further that when going to and returning from court the judges were carefully attired in black, with cocked hats, and were preceded by the Sheriff of the County bearing a white wand. Leading the procession was a drummer beating a drum.190

The first court house was memorable for another reason. It was in the court room that the townspeople assembled on that eventful evening of the thirty-first day of July, during the stormiest days of the Whisky Insurrection.191 The mail from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia had been robbed by the Insurgents and among the letters taken were several, written by prominent citizens of Pittsburgh, which indicated a hostile spirit toward the insurrection. The sentiments expressed were considered as reflecting the opinion of the town. The rage of the Insurgents was now directed against Pittsburgh. In their wrath they characterized it as another Sodom, and declared that they would come and destroy it with fire, and leave nothing but smoking ruins to mark the spot where it had stood. With this end in view they commenced gathering in force at Braddocksfield. News of the sinister purpose spread to the town. Alarm grew into terror, and a meeting was hastily called to consider measures of protection. The meeting was already in progress, when a committee sent by the Insurgents arrived and announced that the town would be spared if certain obnoxious persons, including the writers of the letters found in the mail, were banished from the town. They reported that the task of saving the town would be easier of accomplishment if the inhabitants marched out in a body to meet the Insurgents, and by fraternizing with them show that they were not hostile to the Insurgent cause. The meeting deliberated far into the night, and at two o’clock the next morning arrived at a humiliating conclusion. They agreed to banish the men asked for, and to join the Insurgents at Braddocksfield, “as brethren to carry into effect with them any measure that may seem to them advisable for the common cause.” Even then the panic did not subside. The people refused to go to bed; women wept; valuables were hidden, and lights flickered in the houses all night long.

At the northwest corner of Market and Second streets, in the three-story double brick building owned by Colonel O’Hara, was the store of Scott & Trotter, where they sold “merchandise of a superior quality suitable to every station, which they are determined to sell on very low terms for cash, peltry, furs, and approved country produce.”192 Next door to Scott & Trotter was Dr. George Stevenson. Like Dr. Richardson, Stevenson conducted an apothecary shop and sold “drugs, medicines, surgical instruments, etc.”193 He was a former Revolutionary officer, and had been third lieutenant in the First Pennsylvania Regiment. In 1778, he resigned to study medicine, and re-entered the service in 1779 as surgeon’s mate with the rank of ensign. In 1798, he was major in the Tenth United States Regiment. Stevenson was chief burgess in 1801.194

At the southwest corner of Market and Third streets was the “hat sales shop” of Thomas and Samuel Magee.195 Here they kept for sale the beaver, castor, and roram hats, which they manufactured at the corner of Front Street and Chancery Lane. On the opposite side of Market Street from Scott & Trotter was William Herd’s dry goods and grocery store.196 Also on this side of Market Street, at the northeast corner of that street and Third Street, was another physician, Dr. Hugh Scott.197 Then came the store of William Gazzam, and adjoining was that of William Barrett. Farther on, Fulton & Baird sold “soal and upper leather,”198 and James Riddle had a boot and shoe-making establishment199 and sold “Halifax soal leather, also boot legs, half and whole soals, and boot webbing.”200 Another establishment was that of William Porter who had a cut and forged nail manufactory.201

Adjoining Porter on the north was the well-known tavern of Mrs. Mary Murphy, commonly known as “Molly” Murphy, the widow of Patrick Murphy, at the “Sign of General Butler.” Beginning on April 1, 1800, and for several years afterward, the tavern was conducted by Richard Hancock.202 Next door to the “Sign of General Butler,” and extending to Fourth Street at the “Sign of the Negro,” Joseph McClurg sold dry goods, hardware, china, and glassware, and conducted a tobacco manufactory.203 He also advertised as having for sale “a large assortment of window and hollow glass of a superior quality, from A. Gallatin, Esq’s., glass works at New Geneva.”204

The “Sign of General Butler” was named for General Richard Butler who in his day was the most noted character in Pittsburgh. He had been Indian trader and Indian agent. In the Revolution he was second in command to General Daniel Morgan at Saratoga, and second in command to General Anthony Wayne at Stony Point. He was a justice of the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County205 and was the first lieutenant of the county, the officer who at that time was commander of the militia.206 He was a member of the General Assembly,207 and met a glorious death during St. Clair’s unfortunate expedition against the Indians on the Miami River, on November 4, 1791.208 His name has been commemorated in that of Butler County.209 His home was in the log house situated on the east side of Marbury, now Third Street, one door south of Penn Street, now Penn Avenue,210 where his widow continued to reside.

The “Sign of General Butler,” like the home of Brackenridge, became famous during the Whisky Insurrection. President Washington had appointed a commission to meet the Insurgents, and procure their submission. It consisted of Senator James Ross, Attorney General William Bradford, also a Pennsylvanian, and Jasper Yeates, a justice of the Supreme Court of this State. The commissioners on the part of Pennsylvania were Chief Justice McKean and General William Irvine. The commission had arranged to meet representatives of those in rebellion, on Wednesday, August 20, 1794. Two days before that date, the commissioners took up their lodgings at the “Sign of General Butler.” When it became known that they were at the tavern, a mob gathered before it on Market Street, and made their sentiments apparent by raising a liberty pole, the emblem everywhere in the disturbed districts of disaffection toward the national government. A streamer was fastened to the pole on which were inscribed the watchwords of the Insurgents:

Judge Hugh Henry Brackenridge has stated that it was with difficulty that he and others who were influential with the rioters prevailed on them to forego their intention of placing on the pole the flag which had been prepared, bearing six stripes, emblematical of the six counties, five in Pennsylvania, and one in Virginia, which were threatening to secede from the United States and set up a government of their own. That the conferences which followed were fruitless is well known. Only one man in attendance gained in reputation. Albert Gallatin was on the committee sent by the Insurgents. His ability and his firm stand in favor of law and order won for him everywhere, and particularly in Allegheny and Washington counties, the lasting regard of the citizens. Two months later a member of Congress was to be elected in the district composed of these counties, and Insurgents and non-insurgents flocked to Gallatin’s support, and to the surprise of Brackenridge and General John Woods, the other candidates, he was elected.

During the occupancy of the “Sign of General Butler” by Richard Hancock, James Hilliard had a farrier shop and livery stable, in the stable connected with the tavern.211 The public controversy in which Hilliard engaged his wife, is a striking illustration of the mischievous result of the husband’s absolute control of his wife’s separate estate under the existing laws. Hilliard was married to Elizabeth Bausman, a daughter of Jacob Bausman, who was possessed of property in her own right which she had inherited from her father. Hilliard published a notice212 advising the public that his wife had “absconded from his bed and board,” and declaring that he would not be responsible for debts contracted by her. To this charge Mrs. Hilliard replied in a sharp letter.213 She denied her husband’s accusation, and stated that she had gone with her children, at his request, on a visit to Jacob Haymaker. She charged Hilliard with having, during her absence, disposed of the household effects, including her wearing apparel, to John Smur, a tavern keeper in the town, and that everything had been taken away after nightfall; that the articles were part of her separate estate; that now she had “no bed nor board to go to.” She asked that no credit be extended to Hilliard on the strength of her estate, and declared that thereafter she would decline to pay his debts, but would use her estate for her own benefit. “In the future,” she concluded, “it shall not be expended in paying his tavern bills.”

A unique reputation attached to the houses in this block which, while descriptive, was at the same time significant of the political power of the occupants and their associates. Although the houses were built separately, and were of different types, they were collectively called by the not-over-euphonious name of “Clapboard Row.” As the name indicated, they were constructed of clapboards. So well known was “Clapboard Row” that the merchants who had their establishments there were fond of advertising the fact. Practically all the occupants were politicians, and without exception belonged to the Republican party. Also the “Sign of General Butler” was the headquarters of that party. By their opponents, these leaders were termed the “Clapboard Row Junto,” “junto” being an older word for “ring.” General Fowler, after he separated from the Republican party, designated them as the “Clapboardonian Democracy.”214 The Pittsburgh Gazette charged that the editor of the Tree of Liberty was controlled by “Clapboard Row.”215 Some were officeholders, others desired to be such, and in State and national affairs they were supreme.

The members of the “Clapboard Row Junto” were men of dual capacity. Their energies were devoted to their private affairs and to politics with equal intensity. In politics the smallest details received careful attention. Many of the methods employed by modern Pittsburgh politicians were inherited from “Clapboard Row.” One of the schemes for increasing the party vote, which originated with “Clapboard Row,” was to encourage and assist the aliens who settled in Pittsburgh to become naturalized. This was done through the medium of a committee composed of Thomas Baird, James Riddle, and Joseph McClurg.216

Dr. Scott was high in the favor of the Republican leaders, and on the death of George Adams on April 1, 1801, was appointed postmaster, and established the post office in his store, continuing the practice of medicine and the sale of drugs as before. William Gazzam was an aggressive Irishman, who had been in the country only a few years, but by dint of perseverance had pressed well forward in politics, perhaps to the detriment of his business, as he failed early in his career. He was brigade inspector of the Allegheny County militia, and justice of the peace. He aroused the ire of General Fowler, when with other “Clapboard Row” politicians he refused to support Fowler for Congress.

The controversy was amusing. In the communications which Fowler published in the Pittsburgh Gazette about his wrongs, he designated Gazzam as a “little man—in the most emphatic sense.” He declared that under “the cloak of Republicanism and religion,” Gazzam was “artfully aiming at offices.”217 The allusion to Gazzam’s “religion” referred to the gentleman’s well known activity in the affairs of the Presbyterian Church, which he afterward left, owing, it was alleged, to the fact that the minister, the Rev. Robert Steele, gave out “two lines of a stanza to be sung, instead of the time-honored one.”218 Fowler enlarged on Gazzam’s reputed yearning for office. He enumerated the offices which Gazzam had held, and the others that he desired. He claimed that Gazzam was an applicant for the post office on the demise of George Adams; that he hoped to be county commissioner; that he was scheming to become a member of the General Assembly.219 To this abuse Gazzam replied with equal venom. He said General Fowler had been drunk on the last occasion that he had asked his support for Congress, and that he had abused him in a very ungentlemanly manner.220

Thomas Baird was a member of the firm of Fulton and Baird, and was a candidate for burgess in 1803, the year that Colonel Neville was elected.221 Joseph McClurg was a candidate for supervisor in 1803, but was defeated by A. McNickle.222 Affiliated with these men were Samuel Ewalt, Nathaniel Irish, and Adamson Tannehill, the last two being former Revolutionary officers. Nathaniel Irish was county commissioner,223 and inspector of flour for the Western country.224 Adamson Tannehill had formerly conducted a tavern on Water Street,225 and had been president of the Pittsburgh Fire Company.226 In October, 1800, while a justice of the peace, he was tried and convicted of extortion, before Justices Jasper Yeates and Thomas Smith of the Supreme Court while on circuit in Pittsburgh, that court then having original jurisdiction of this offense, under the constitution of 1790. Tannehill received a reprimand and was fined fifty dollars. The conviction was thought to disqualify him from further exercising the office of justice of the peace. Being a leading Republican, and the offense, which consisted in charging on two probates two shillings more than the law allowed, having been committed five years before, Governor McKean, in January, 1801, remitted the fine and reappointed Tannehill to the office which he had formerly held.227 Dr. Andrew Richardson belonged to the “Clapboard Row” faction until his desertion of the Republican party. Joseph Davis, who had a grocery store on the other side of Market Street from “Clapboard Row,” was another member of the clique, as was Tarleton Bates, the prothonotary of the county,228 who had succeeded John C. Gilkison in office.

“Clapboard Row,” was not allowed to win its victories unopposed. The opposition was both able and active. Judge Alexander Addison, Senator James Ross, and General John Woods were the leaders of the Federalists. Colonel O’Hara, General Neville, Colonel Neville, Major Craig, Major Ebenezer Denny, Dr. Stevenson, and most of the former Revolutionary officers were also Federalists. Other Federalists were William Christy, Dr. Mowry, Abner Barker, Jeremiah Barker, and Alexander McLaughlin. They made a gallant fight for their principles, but their voice was usually drowned in the mighty chorus of Republicanism that had swept the country from its former conservative moorings. In borough politics only were they successful.

The views of the rival political parties were echoed with startling frankness in the columns of the Tree of Liberty and the Pittsburgh Gazette. On October 11, 1800, the Tree of Liberty announced the election of the Republican candidate for inspector of elections in the borough, and added jubilantly: “The people are no longer to be led up like tame asses to vote against their inclination for the characters that Ross, Woods, and Addison recommend. They now act for themselves.” After the presidential election of 1800, it exulted further: “It is laughable to hear some of the hot-blooded Federalists moaning and groaning at the result of the last election. They know not what cause to attribute it to. They curse the Tree and all its leaves, they denounce ‘Clapboard Row’ with the yards and its size sticks.”229

The Pittsburgh Gazette was equally outspoken, its ire being particularly directed against Judge Hugh Henry Brackenridge. In an article signed “A Citizen of Washington,” it gave what purported to be an account of a drunken escapade of the Judge through Washington and Allegheny Counties, which, if published to-day, would lead to a personal encounter.230 On another occasion Scull paid his compliments to Brackenridge in the following sarcastic terms: “You who get two or three thousand dollars a year for setting up a slanderous press, and for two or three journeys through the State to sit as a mute on the bench, and wear the new cockade, in your drunken frolics through the country, can afford to buy a press and hire types, and pay under-devils to set types and fetch and carry tales. I cannot afford such things. I have no salary, post, or pension.”231

A week later Scull attacked Brackenridge with even more virulence: “Mr. Brackenridge cannot expect to live long. He has already outlived all hope of fame. I doubt whether he feels that there is a God above him. I doubt whether he does not think that he is his own divinity while he lives, and that when he dies his dust will mingle with that of the beasts that perish. He has labored with industry and success to acquire the contempt and abhorrence of all whom it was possible for him to esteem.”232

CHAPTER VII A DUEL AND OTHER MATTERS — REFERENCES Chapter VII

On July 24, 1805, a third Richmond appeared in the Pittsburgh newspaper field in the person of Ephraim Pentland. He established a weekly newspaper called The Commonwealth, which was published in a building situated in the West Diamond, opposite the southwest corner of the new court house. The newspaper resulted from the dissension in the Republican party in Pennsylvania.

Governor McKean’s second term was drawing to a close. For two years prior to 1805, he had disagreed with the Republican General Assembly because of its extreme radicalism. It had enacted several revolutionary bills which he vetoed. The members appeared to have an especial aversion to lawyers, and a bill was passed to substitute, in civil cases, referees for juries, and prohibiting the employment of counsel. This bill was also vetoed. The House assumed that the Supreme Court was arrogating to itself powers which it did not possess, and on February 28, 1803, scarcely a month after the impeachment and removal from the bench of Judge Addison,233 the first step was taken in the attempt to impeach three of the judges of the Supreme Court for alleged arbitrary conduct in committing to prison for contempt, the plaintiff in a suit pending in the court.234 Brackenridge was absent from the bench when the offender was imprisoned, and although accused of being largely responsible for the impeachment of Judge Addison, was now loyal to his colleagues, and sent a letter to the House in which he declared his full concurrence in the course taken by the other judges, and asked to share their fate. The House replied by addressing the governor, and asking for Brackenridge’s removal. McKean refused to comply with the request. On January 28, 1805, the impeachment trial came to an end; a majority of the Senators pronounced the judges guilty, but as the majority was short of two-thirds, the result was an acquittal. The anger of the radical Republicans was boundless. A division took place in the party, which caused intense feeling throughout the State. McKean’s supporters took the name of “Constitutionalists,” while the opposition called themselves “Friends of the People.” The charm of French phrases was still strong.

The “Friends of the People” now put forward Simon Snyder as a candidate for governor in opposition to McKean. The abuse that was heaped on their former idol was appalling; threats of civil war were in the air. McKean was charged with being a demagogue who pandered to the worst elements in the Republican party, while being by education and sentiment an aristocrat. He was also accused of having gone over to the Federalists. The Tree of Liberty continued a staunch supporter of McKean. Its former violence had given way to an advocacy of “moderation.”

The Commonwealth was established in the interest of the faction opposed to McKean, and its attacks on him and his supporter, the Tree of Liberty, were brutal. Israel came in for the most violent abuse. Pentland accused Israel of being ignorant. “Let a beardless boy instruct you, old goat!” was one of his coarse thrusts. In the same article he designated Israel as “the man with the long beard, but no brains,” and concluded crudely, “Let a goslin’ instruct you, old goose!”235

The campaign teemed with personalities. The Federalists looked on in amusement, but finally came to the support of McKean, and he was elected. Pentland’s chagrin knew no bounds, and after the election was over, he continued to attack the Tree of Liberty, the management of which, by this time had changed. He vented his spite on the supposed owners. He charged that, although the newspaper was published in the name of Walter Forward, Tarleton Bates and Henry Baldwin,236 the two most prominent politicians in Pittsburgh, were the real proprietors, and that Bates was the editor. Baldwin, who was not quite twenty-six years of age, later in life became a member of Congress and a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Forward was a young man of nineteen, a law student in Baldwin’s office, and subsequently attained high political distinction. He was several times a member of Congress, was Secretary of the Treasury under President Tyler, chargé-d’-affaires to Denmark, under President Taylor, and president judge of the District Court of Allegheny County.

Bates was the oldest and best known of the three men. His tragic end has caused a halo of romance to be cast about his striking personality. He was a native of Virginia, where he was born on May 22, 1775. He was of Quaker origin, his father having lost his membership in the Society of Friends because of his services as a volunteer at the siege of Yorktown. The family seat was Belmont in Goochland County. Tarleton Bates came to Pittsburgh when eighteen years of age. During the early years of his residence he was employed by the national government in the Quarter Master’s Department under Major Isaac Craig, the Deputy Quarter Master and Military Storekeeper at Pittsburgh, with whom for a time he made his home. When the Spaniards surrendered their rights to the country on the lower Mississippi in 1798, and the Mississippi Territory was organized with Natchez as the capital, Bates determined to leave Pittsburgh and settle in the southern town, but did not carry his design into execution.237 Upon the appointment of John C. Gilkison to the office of prothonotary, he became a clerk under him.

He had a fair education, was studiously inclined, and was possessed of considerable culture, including a knowledge of the French language. He owned the best copy of Lavater in Pittsburgh. His letters to members of his family238 indicate that he was generous, warm-hearted, and tender. The family fortunes were low. His brother Frederick, just starting out in life, felt the need of money and made his wants known to Tarleton. Although in the habit of speaking of himself as living in “exiled poverty,” he responded without hesitation: “Nothing within my ability shall be wanting to smooth the entrance of the rugged path of life”; and he offered to help Frederick to the extent of thirty dollars a month. He led an upright life and ever attempted to deserve the good opinion of his mother and “avoid the imprudencies of youth.” Frederick charged him with being engaged to be married. His answer was an admission that he was in love, and a frank intimation that thus far success had not crowned his efforts. That he was fond of the society of ladies appears from a letter in which he tells of the many charming ladies in Pittsburgh. His acrostic on the name of Emily Morgan Neville, the daughter of Colonel Presley Neville, lends color to the imputation that at one time he was in love with that fascinating young woman. His complete obsession with politics was probably responsible for his remaining unmarried.

He was warmly attached to his party. In a letter written while the Republican party—which he was in the habit of calling the Democratic party—was still in its infancy in Pittsburgh, he said: “I believe I am almost the only Pittsburgher who is not ashamed to call himself a Democrat, and I am sure the appellation will never discredit me.” He related humorously that on one occasion he attended a Fourth of July celebration, and among the speakers was Colonel Presley Neville, who, “abhors the Democrats as so many imps of hell.” He was proud and told his family that he acknowledged no superior, and “admitted no knave, however bloated with wealth, to be an equal.” He was one of several famous brothers. His younger brothers, Frederick, James, and Edward, after his death, emigrated to the Missouri Territory where Frederick was the first secretary of the Territory, and the second governor of the State. James afterward settled in Arkansas and became a delegate to Congress from that Territory. Edward became the friend of Henry Clay and in 1860 was a candidate for President before the convention which nominated Abraham Lincoln; he became Attorney-General in Lincoln’s Cabinet.

On Christmas Day, 1805, the article appeared in The Commonwealth, which was the direct cause of the death of Tarleton Bates in a duel. In the course of the incendiary diatribe, Pentland declared that Bates and Baldwin were “two of the most abandoned political miscreants that ever disgraced a State.” He demanded savagely: “To what party do they belong?” and answered the question himself. “To no party, to all parties. They have been Whigs and Tories, High or Low Republicans, Democrats or Anti-Democrats, Jacobins or Anti-Jacobins, Constitutionalists or Republicans, according to existing circumstances.”

Pentland’s punishment was to be publicly cowhided by Bates on Market Street on January 2, 1806. He is said to have fled precipitately when attacked. Pentland gave a darkly colored account of the occurrence: “On Thursday evening last, a considerable time after dark, the editor of this paper was waylaid, and attacked in a most outrageous manner, by Tarleton Bates, the prothonotary of this county, and co-proprietor and editor of the Tree of Liberty. Bates was in company with some persons who were no doubt to act as aids, should their assistance be wanted, but owing to the mistiness of the evening, and their quick disappearance, all of them could not be recognized. Baldwin, Bates’s colleague in infamy, and the brave and redoubtable Steele Semple, who never feels afraid but when he is in danger, were in the gang,—both limbs of the law, students of morality!”239

Dueling had been forbidden in Pennsylvania since 1794, under penalty of fine and imprisonment, and loss of citizenship for seven years.240 An unconverted public sentiment, however, still approved of the code of honor, and Pentland, who had at first threatened legal proceedings against Bates, challenged him instead. The challenge was carried by Thomas Stewart, a young Irishman who was a merchant in the town. Bates declined to accept, on the ground that Pentland’s conduct since his chastisement, had rendered him unworthy of such notice. Pentland then posted Bates as a coward, upon which on January 7, 1806, Bates published a letter in the Tree of Liberty giving his reason for refusing the challenge, in which he reflected on Stewart. Stewart demanded a retraction, which was refused, whereupon he challenged Bates. This challenge was accepted.

Bates immediately wrote his will. It was expressive of deep feeling. There was every indication of a premonition of his forthcoming end. He had always led a simple life, and in death he desired to avoid display. In that moment he recalled the discussions in the French Legislative Councils during the Directory, on the disposal of the dead by burning. “Henry Baldwin, my very dear friend, my sole executor, ... is to burn my body, or at least bury it without any direction,” he wrote; then he provided for the education of his brother James, which was to be completed by his studying law. In case the estate proved insufficient for the purpose, his brother Frederick was to provide the deficiency. Any residue, he declared, “is to go to my adored mother.”

The encounter took place the next day in a ravine in Oakland, in what is at present the Fourth Ward of the city of Pittsburgh. The ravine through which a rivulet coursed, called “Three-Mile Run,” long since sewered over, opened on the Monongahela River, at a point now occupied by the lower end of the Jones & Laughlin Steel Company’s ore-yard, and by the office of the Eliza Furnace. To-day there are laid out through the ravine several unpaved hillside streets with narrow board sidewalks, one of which is the lower portion of Halket Street. On the upper edge of the easterly border of the ravine is Bates Street, named for Tarleton Bates. The duel was fought near the Monongahela River; the distance was ten paces; the weapons were pistols. Both principals displayed undaunted courage. Bates fell at the second fire, shot in the breast, and expired in an hour.241 On the day that Bates lay dead in the ravine which ever since has been haunted with his memory, Pentland made another slanderous charge in his newspaper: “I shall not engross the columns of this paper with remarks on the private character of Mr. Bates, because that already appears to the public in colors as dark as the skin of his mistress.”242

The community was shocked at the tragedy. Notwithstanding the directions of Bates’s will in regard to the disposal of his body, he was buried in Trinity Churchyard. A great concourse of people attended the funeral, the chief mourner being Henry Baldwin; but the whole town deplored his death. In its next issue, the Tree of Liberty added to the general gloom, by appearing in mourning dress. Two weeks later the post brought news of the dire calamity to the widowed mother in her Virginia home, and to her children. Amid their tears they rejoiced that the Virginia traditions of honor had not been violated and that Tarleton Bates had accepted the challenge and preferred “death to a life of infamy and disgrace.”243 The depth of their attachment appeared in the fact that the family preserved his letters as precious mementoes as long as they survived. For a time the grave was a hallowed spot to be pointed out to visitors, but as Bates’s old friends died, and a new generation came on, it was neglected, and now the location is forgotten. Bates’s brothers received their inspiration from him. He was the ablest member of the family. Had it not been for his untimely death, the name of Tarleton Bates might have become one of the great names in Pennsylvania history, if not in that of the United States.

At the northwest corner of Market and Third streets, in the house built by Major Ebenezer Denny, of brick taken from Fort Pitt,244 was the store of Denny & Beelen. The firm was composed of Major Denny and Anthony Beelen. They sold, “dry goods, hardware, groceries, stationery, perfumery, china, glass, and queensware.”245 Major Denny, the senior partner, was a slender, blue-eyed, and red-haired man of thirty-nine. His was a most adventurous career. In the Revolution he was ensign in the 1st Pennsylvania Regiment, and lieutenant in the 3d and 4th Pennsylvania Regiments. He had served as lieutenant under General George Rodgers Clark in Illinois, was adjutant to General Josiah Harmar in the campaign against the Indians in 1790, and aid-de-camp of General Arthur St. Clair in 1791. He was the messenger who carried the news of the rout of St. Clair’s army to President Washington at Philadelphia, then the seat of the national government. On returning to private life he had gone into business with Captain Joseph Ashton, a former Revolutionary officer like himself, at the place later conducted by Denny & Beelen. This partnership was dissolved in 1794 when Denny was again appointed to a military command and placed in charge of an expedition sent to Fort Le Boeuf. In Pittsburgh he took a conspicuous part in public affairs.246 He was a candidate for representative to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives against Lucus, but was defeated. Later he was elected county commissioner. In 1803 he was treasurer of the county, being the first man to hold that office, and was the first mayor of Pittsburgh upon its becoming a city in 1816.

Anthony Beelen, Major Denny’s partner, was a native of the Austrian Netherlands, now Belgium, and was the son of Francis, Baron de Belen Bartholf, Minister of the King of Austria, Joseph II., to the United States, who, upon the death of the King in 1790, continued a resident of the United States. The Baron seems to have soon discarded his title of nobility, as he was engaged in business in Pittsburgh at an early date, going by the name of Francis Beelen, being a partner in the firm of Amberson, Beelen, & Anshutz which was dissolved in 1794.247 Anthony Beelen made the acquaintance of Denny in Philadelphia, and became associated with him, and in 1794 settled the affairs of Ashton & Denny.248 In 1803 he was one of the Pittsburgh assessors.249 In later years he conducted an air furnace and other enterprises. Beelen afterward lost his property, but the family fortunes rose again when Mrs. Mary Murphy died. In her will she left all her valuable estate, the principal part of which consisted of the block on Market Street in which “Clapboard Row” was located, to Beelen in trust for his daughter and granddaughter.

On Third Street a short distance west of Market Street, Andrew Willock, Jr., conducted a baking business, at the “Sign of the Sheaf of Wheat.” He also kept a tavern,250 taverns and bakeries being frequently carried on together. Alexander McLaughlin, an oldtime merchant, was located at the southwesterly corner of Market and Fourth streets in the same block with Denny & Beelen. He had formerly been on Second Street.251 In 1800 he was a candidate for county commissioner, but was defeated by Nathaniel Irish.252 James Wills, who dealt in “boot and bootee legs,” adjoined McLaughlin on the south.253 Next to Wills’s house was that occupied by John Wrenshall. Wrenshall was a man of culture and, in addition to keeping store and preaching the Gospel when the opportunity was presented, was a writer of ability. His Farewell to Pittsburgh and the Mountains, published in Philadelphia in 1818, was a poem of some merit, and of considerable local interest. He was the grandfather of Julia Dent, the wife of General U. S. Grant, eighteenth President of the United States. Joseph Davis was located between Wrenshall and Denny & Beelen. He was assessor in 1802.254

John Irwin, one of William Christy’s old partners, had his store at the northeast corner of Market and Fourth streets. He was a former Revolutionary officer, having been captain in the 2nd Pennsylvania Regiment. At the next corner, where Market Street intersected the South Diamond, in the large three-story brick building were the tavern and store of William Irwin, the other partner of Christy. This building was another of the houses built of brick taken from Fort Pitt.255 To this house William Irwin had removed in 1799256; and here he furnished public entertainment, and sold, in addition to whisky, and other diverting drinks, “kettles, stoves, and dry goods.”257 Dancing classes were also held in the building, those for ladies at three o’clock in the afternoon, and the classes for gentlemen at six o’clock in the evening.258 More serious business was conducted there. In the large hall in the third story the courts were held for more than a year after being removed from Andrew Watson’s house.259 This was likewise the room in which Lodge No. 45 now held its sessions.260

North of the South Diamond the buildings were farther apart. At the southeast corner of the East Diamond and Diamond Alley was the log store of William Woods & Company.261 On the opposite side of Market Street from John Irwin and William Irwin’s stores, in the middle of the block, was John Hamsher’s retail shop, where he sold copper and tin-plate articles, and clover seed.262 Next door was the store of James Dunlap & Company.263 In the Diamond, east of Market Street, was the semicircular market house, which covered most of this part of the Diamond. Its wide, projecting roof was supported by a double row of brick pillars. In the interior of the building were rows of stalls, with benches and blocks, for the butchers. Encircling the structure was a brick pavement along the curb of which the farmers and market gardeners were stationed.264 In the Market House the borough elections were held.265

Across Market Street from the Market House was the new court house. It was the pride of the western country, and the only high building in the town. It was a square, two-story brick structure with one-story wings, for the county offices, and was surmounted by a tall wooden spire. In 1800, the main building was barely completed, some of the upper rooms being yet unplastered, although the county offices had been removed to the wings two years before.266 The belfry lacked the bell; and the space before the building was only then being paved. The main entrance was on Market Street, and on either side of the doorway were fluted wooden columns with Corinthian capitals. The court room was on the first floor and was paved with bricks which, like the brick used in the pavement outside, were large and almost square. Supporting the ceiling were Doric pillars resting upon square panelled pedestals.267 The judges’ bench and the jury box were in the rear of the court room. They faced the entrance, and the judges’ bench admitted seating the president judge and the four lay associate judges, at one time. It was elevated above the floor and was reached by stairs placed at the northerly end. The jury box was southerly of the judges’ bench, with a narrow passage between it and the judges’ bench. After the bell was placed in the belfry in 1801, Joseph Harris became bell-ringer, and rang the bell whenever court was about to convene.

Back of the court house, one hundred and forty feet west of the West Diamond, and running parallel with it, was an alley, now called Delray Street. On the westerly side of this alley, a short distance south of Diamond Alley, was the new square two-story stone county jail. It was erected on a lot purchased by Allegheny County in 1793, and was completed at the same time as the court house. The building was surrounded by a stone wall, the entire lot being enclosed by a high board fence.

Immediately in the rear of the court house, at the southwest corner of the West Diamond and Diamond Alley, was the tavern of John Reed at the “Sign of the Waggon.” Here the Allegheny County courts held a few sessions, during the interval between the time of leaving William Irwin’s house, and the completion of the court house.268 At the northeast corner of Market Street and the North Diamond, was the tavern of Thomas Ferree at the “Sign of the Black Bear.” Directly across Market Street in the new brick building, was the boot and shoemaking establishment of John and Alexander Wills.269 On the same side of the street, the second door south of Fifth Street, was James Yeaman’s brick building, in which he conducted his bakery and brewery.270

CHAPTER VIII ZADOK CRAMER — REFERENCES Chapter VIII

Into this environment Zadok Cramer had come in the early spring of 1800. He was a young man of twenty-six, and was lured by the promise of fortune and perhaps fame. In the short span of years that he lived and flourished in Pittsburgh, he did more to advance the literary culture of his adopted town, than perhaps all the other educational agencies combined, which came before or after his time. It is customary to glorify statesmen and soldiers; monuments are erected to their memory, eulogies are pronounced in their praise, and memoirs are written setting forth the deeds they have done. But one scarcely ever thinks of the men who made possible the statesmen and soldiers: the teachers, the men who conduct the newspapers, the writers of books, and above all, the men who publish and sell books. The publishers and sellers of books not only supply the wants of the reading public, but they lead it into new channels. They place temptingly before it the latest and best productions in every branch of human activity of the brightest minds in the world.

Cramer was born in New Jersey, in 1773, but spent most of his life since boyhood in Washington, Pennsylvania, where he learned the humble trade of bookbinding. He was of Quaker origin, but had fallen away from the tenets of that faith, although he still affected the drab coat and straight high-crowned, wide-brimmed hat of the sect.271 He possessed withal the worldly shrewdness that is often an accompaniment of Quaker devoutness.

On March 30, 1800, he advertised in the Pittsburgh Gazette that he was about to open a bookbindery. His announcement was couched in somewhat stilted language. “Under a conviction that an establishment of the above business will meet the approbation and encouragement of the inhabitants of Pittsburgh and its vicinity, the undersigned is determined to prosecute it as soon as he can make the necessary arrangements. His hopes of the success of this undertaking are flattering; he hopes likewise, that the public on whom he is depending for encouragement will not be disappointed in placing in him that confidence merited only by industry and attention to their favors.”

Cramer’s ambition extended beyond the limits of his bookbindery. John C. Gilkison died on March 21, 1800, after having held the office of prothonotary less than two months. The little bookstore which he had established was for sale. Judge Hugh Henry Brackenridge seems to have advanced the money invested by Gilkison in the business, and it devolved on him to settle Gilkison’s affairs. This was Cramer’s opportunity, and he purchased Gilkison’s business, obtaining favorable terms from Brackenridge. In June he took possession. All his life he believed in the efficacy of advertising, and his entry upon this larger field was heralded by a long public notice.272 It was addressed to the people of the “Western Country.” He declared that he did not mean to be limited to the confines of the borough, and intended to carry on his business extensively. He emphasized his ability to make blankbooks and do bookbinding “nearly if not quite as cheap” as could be done east of the Alleghany Mountains. He enlarged on the bookstore which he had just opened, and claimed to have a selection of nearly eight hundred volumes.

His choice of location was fortunate. The business center was changing. Merchants whose establishments had been on Water Street, on Front Street, and on Second Street, were congregating on Market Street. Gilkison’s store was on the east side of this street. Here Cramer established himself, and after the Tree of Liberty was founded, advertised as being located “between the two printing offices.”273 To indicate his place of business he hung out the “Sign of the Franklin Head”; Benjamin Franklin was the patron saint of everyone who had any connection, however remote, with printing. Cramer designated himself, “Bookbinder and Publisher,” and the word “publisher” did not long remain a misnomer. It was the day of small publishers. Even in the larger cities in the East, books emanated from the printing presses of men whose establishments were of minor importance. Large publishing houses are creatures of the complex civilization of a much later period. Probably from the beginning Cramer contemplated undertaking the publication of books and pamphlets as soon as his means permitted, although it was some months before he actually began publishing. But he was already making preparations to that end, and on October 17, 1800, he announced that in a few weeks almanacs for the year 1801 might be had at Philadelphia prices.274

At the national election of 1800, the Republicans were successful for the first time, John Adams, the Federal candidate, receiving less electoral votes than either Thomas Jefferson of Virginia or Aaron Burr of New York, the two Republican candidates. The returns of the electoral vote as counted by the Senate, indicated that Jefferson and Burr had each received the same number of votes. The decision thereupon devolved under the Constitution upon the House of Representatives, voting by States. The Federalists had a decided majority in the House of Representatives, but could not for the purposes of this election, control a majority of the States; neither could the Republicans. In the course of the summer the capital had been removed from Philadelphia to the new town of Washington. Only the north wing of the capitol was completed, and this was fitted up for the accommodation of both houses of the Sixth Congress. The House of Representatives then became the battle-ground for the presidency and vice-presidency. Jefferson and Burr were both voted for, the Constitution providing that two candidates should be voted for, the one receiving the highest number of votes to be president, and the other vice-president.

The struggle grew in intensity, and the excitement became acute. The sick members were brought into the House on beds. Ballot after ballot was taken. The Federalists were mostly voting for Burr. The first day’s session was extended into the next day. The House remained in session seven days, a recess being taken at night after the first day’s session. The Federalists were uneasy about several matters, but particularly about the continuance in office of their friends. Finally they secured from Jefferson an expression indicating that meritorious subordinate officers would not be removed merely on account of their political opinion. This settled the question. At noon on February 17th, the thirty-fifth ballot was taken with no result as before, but on the thirty-sixth ballot, Jefferson was elected. The vice-presidency thereupon devolved upon Burr. The joy over the election has hardly been equalled in the annals of American political history. This was especially true in the vicinity of Pittsburgh. On the day of the inauguration of Jefferson and Burr, the inhabitants of the neighboring town Beaver gave vent to their exuberance by dancing Indian dances, and singing the Ça Ira, and the Carmagnole of the French Revolution.275 Cramer saw another business opportunity and determined on his second publication. It was to be an account of the struggle in the House of Representatives. On March 21, 1801, seventeen days after Jefferson’s inauguration, Cramer announced the book.

Cramer’s energies were not to be confined to the business of publishing, of selling books and stationery, and doing bookbinding. Like John C. Gilkison, he determined to possess a circulating library276; perhaps the nucleus was to be the books received from Gilkison’s library. He called it the “Pittsburgh Circulating Library” and it prospered, and six months after its establishment, the circulation had nearly doubled.277 A catalogue was promised for an early date278 and was no doubt issued. The list of the original books in the library appears to have been lost. From notices of the reception of later books279 some opinion may be formed of the general character of the reading-matter in the library. The books were mainly romances, and they may have lacked the merit of later-day novels, but there is something about them that touches the heart. Also they recall from the shadows visions of readers long since dead. The books were realistic; they presented the life of a distant past in vivid colors; there is the lingering scent of lavender and bergamot. Delightfully described in their voluminous pages were languishing eyes, tender accents, quaint dances, dreamy music, and startling and sometimes unreal adventures. Ladies were the principal readers; they loved long tales, and the authors supplied them. Novels in three and four volumes were common, and some were divided into as many as six volumes.

The three most popular writers were the English novelists, Mrs. Ann Ward Radcliffe and William Godwin, and the Philadelphian, Charles Brockden Brown, who was one of America’s earliest novelists. Mrs. Radcliffe was the best writer of the three. Her novels fascinated her readers. Cramer’s library supplied Romance of the Forest, one of her best books. William Godwin was represented by St. Leon, a tale of the sixteenth century, in which much that is supernatural and terrible is introduced. Two books were by Charles Brockden Brown, one being a graphic story of Philadelphia life during the yellow-fever epidemic of 1793, called, Arthur Mervin, or Memoirs of the Year 1793, the other was, Edgar Huntly, or Memoirs of a Sleep-walker. Montalbert was by that most prolific of English writers, Mrs. Charlotte Turner Smith, who in her day was criticized and praised with equal vehemence. Mordaunt was perhaps the best novel of Dr. John Moore, who besides being a physician and novelist, wrote books descriptive of manners and customs in England, France, and Italy.

If the number of the author’s books in the library, was the criterion of his popularity, then the palm must be awarded to George Walker, the English bookseller, who was a prolific writer of novels. Three were on Cramer’s shelves, Theodore Cyphon, or the Beneveloent Jew, The Vagabond, and Three Spaniards. The last is the only one that may still be met with. A popular book was Children of the Abbey, by Mrs. Regina Maria Roche, who was a rival of Mrs. Radcliffe. Madame de Staël’s Delphine, was read in more restricted circles. In the case of Julia and the Illuminated Baron, by Miss Sarah Barrell, an encyclopedia would be required to find either the name of the book or of the author. Other books with suggestive titles have become still more obscure. Among them were The Silver Devil, Being the Adventures of an Evil Spirit, related by himself; The Rebel, Being a Memoir of Anthony 4th Earl of Sherwell, Including an Account of the Rising at Taunton in 1684, Compiled and Set Forth by his Cousin, Sir Hilary Mace; The Wanderings of William, or the Inconstancy of Youth, being a sequel to the Farmer of New Jersey. There were few periodicals in the library. The American Museum, emanating from Philadelphia, was a monthly publication, and contained articles on almost every conceivable subject—“agriculture, commerce, manufactures, politics, morals, and manners.” The Mirror, was another Philadelphia periodical published semi-weekly, and was a reprint of The Mirror of Edinburgh. The Philanthropist, appeared weekly.

The library continued to be an institution in Pittsburgh’s intellectual progress for many years. It became the Pittsburgh Library Company, and contained as high as two thousand volumes. On November 27, 1813, after Cramer’s death, a new library was organized, also called the “Pittsburgh Library Company.” A committee was appointed to confer with the old Pittsburgh Library Company upon the propriety of forming a coalition of the two institutions.280 Of this committee, John Spear, who had become a partner of Cramer’s, was a member. A consolidation was later effected.

The publications for which Cramer was best known in the early days, were his almanacs and Navigators. The publication of almanacs was common to all publishers in the border settlements, no less than in the more effete East. In 1803, Cramer’s Almanac had developed into a pamphlet which is to-day both curious and valuable. The edition for that year is a fair specimen of the other almanacs which followed it. The astronomical tables, “calculated for the meridian of Pittsburgh,” were said to “serve without any sensible variation for the states of Ohio, Virginia, Kentucky, etc.” The almanac also contained selections from the leading English contemporary writers. It necessarily followed that the articles were by English writers, as American authors were pitifully scarce. “The Poor Distracted Young Woman,” was from Robert Bloomfield’s Farmer’s Boy. The Farmer’s Boy from which the extract was taken had previously had a remarkable success, over twenty-five thousand copies being sold within two years after its publication in 1800. Other selections were, “A Description of a Summer Morning,” from James Beattie’s poem, The Minstrel; “Sic a Wife as Willy Had,” from Robert Burns; a biography of Dr. Isaac Watts, whose version of the Psalms had superseded that of Rouse, and was in general use among the Presbyterians of Western Pennsylvania. There were suggestions on various subjects—“Polonius’s Advice to his Son Laertes,” and “Dr. Soloman’s Observations.” The last article was by Dr. Samuel Soloman, a London physician who was termed a quack, but the “Observations” indicate that he had a discriminating knowledge of the rules of health. The ague, while not prevalent in Pittsburgh, was common west and south of the town. For this ailment there was a “Receipt to Cure the Ague,” and there was an “Advertisement to Farmers.”

The Constitution of the United States had been in force since 1788. Its provisions were little known to the general public and the almanac published it in full. The Constitution became the model for the constitutions of almost all the States, old as well as new. For this much credit was due to Cramer’s Almanac, at least so far as some of the Western and Southwestern States are concerned. More valuable than anything contained in the almanacs, from a local point of view, were the lists of marriages and deaths. Nowhere else are they to be found. No record of marriages or deaths was required to be made by either the municipality or the county. The church records were kept intermittently, and were imperfect. Few of the older families have records extending back to the beginning of the nineteenth century, and Cramer’s lists furnish the only accurate information on the subject. In 1804 he began publishing two kinds of almanacs, the “Common Almanac” and the “Magazine Almanac.” The latter contained somewhat more reading matter than the former. The almanacs were sold in large quantities both for local use and for distribution south and west of Pittsburgh. In the almanac for 1804 Cramer for the first time gave “a view of the manufacturing trade of Pittsburgh.” From that time forward, for the twenty-seven years that the publication of the almanacs was continued, much valuable local historical matter is to be found in their pages.

The Navigator was the result of an original idea of Cramer’s. He had been in Pittsburgh but a short time when he realized the necessity for a publication giving detailed information for navigating the Western rivers. He daily saw swarms of immigrants pass through the place, bound West and South, who lingered there attempting to learn, not only about navigating the rivers, but of the country to which they were bound. He proposed to furnish the information and set about collecting data for the purpose. He was venturing upon an almost uncharted sea.

The basis of his work seems to have been Captain Thomas Hutchins’s, A Topographical Description of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, published in London in 1778. Captain Hutchins was an American, who had seen much service in the English army before the Revolution, mainly as engineer. At the outbreak of the war he was in London, and owing to his sympathy for his native country, suffered indignities and imprisonment, but found an opportunity to publish his book. Escaping to America, he was in 1781, by the influence of Benjamin Franklin, made “Geographer to the United States of America,” which appears to have meant that he was in charge of the government surveys. After the war he lived in Philadelphia, but was well known in Pittsburgh where he often stopped, as he owned considerable land in Allegheny County. These facts and the knowledge that he died in Pittsburgh on April 28, 1789, no doubt helped to draw Cramer’s attention to Hutchins’s book. Other works from which Cramer may have obtained materials were Gilbert Imlay’s North America, published in London in 1797, and Jedidiah Morse’s The American Gazeteer, originally published in London in 1789 and republished in Boston in 1797.

It is generally supposed that the first edition of the Navigator was published in 1801, yet no copy bearing that date is known to be in existence. There are extant several copies of the edition of 1802. This edition was called The Ohio and Mississippi Navigator. In the preface dated February, 1802, the statement was made that two former editions had been issued; that they were both confined to the navigation of the Ohio River; and that they were sold in a very short time. No notice appeared in the Pittsburgh Gazette or the Tree of Liberty advertising either of the two earlier editions. The first mention of the Navigator appeared in the Pittsburgh Gazette on February 26, 1802. This notice stated that there was “In the press and speedily will be published by Zadok Cramer, ‘The Navigation of the Monongahela, Allegheny, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers.’” The advertisement was continued in several succeeding issues of the paper. Then on March 13, 1802, the Tree of Liberty announced that there had been published the day before, “The Navigation of the Monongahela, Allegheny, and Ohio Rivers.” The notice continued, “and in a few days will be added ... the ‘The Navigation of the Mississippi (with an account of the Missouri).’” No other notices appeared at or about this time conveying other information. As the edition of 1802 was called the Ohio and Mississippi Navigator, and the advertisement in the Tree of Liberty, referred to the publication of the “Navigation of the Monongahela, Allegheny, and Ohio Rivers,” nothing being said of the Mississippi, it might be inferred that it referred to one or both of the earliest editions and that they were published in 1802. The preface to the various editions of the Navigator published after 1802, declared that they were the “sixth,” or “seventh” or “eighth” edition, as the case might be, which had appeared “since 1801.” Whether this statement is the basis of the claim that the first edition of the Navigator was published in 1801, is not known, but the fact remains, that no trace of any Navigator issued in that year can be found. Nor are there any known copies of the two earliest editions, whatever the year of their publication.

The earlier editions were small octavo pamphlets bound in coarse paper covers, the third containing forty pages. In this edition Cramer declared that he had obtained the information set forth “From the journals of gentlemen of observation, and now minutely corrected by several persons who have navigated those rivers for fifteen and twenty years.” It contained a description of and directions for navigating the Ohio River, with only a description of the Mississippi. Directions for navigating the latter stream came in later editions. When Cramer began publishing his early Navigators, France still owned the Louisiana Territory. Louisiana was considered a great land of promise throughout the United States, and merchants and intending emigrants cast longing eyes in its direction. After Louisiana was purchased, the succeeding editions of the Navigator contained much detailed information regarding it. A flood of emigration to the territory set in, most of the emigrants going by way of Pittsburgh; and there was a pronounced and constant increase in the sales of the Navigators.

Captain Meriwether Lewis, and Captain William Clark made their famous expedition from the mouth of the Missouri River through the interior of the United States in the years 1804, 1805, and 1806. In 1807 Cramer published the first account of the undertaking, being the Journal of Patrick Gass, a member of the expedition. From this book Cramer compiled an account of the Missouri and Columbia rivers, which appeared in the Navigator for 1808, and in many subsequent editions. Each succeeding edition of the Navigator was an improvement on the one that preceded it. Every edition contained a description, short or long, of the “towns, posts, harbors, and settlements” on the rivers of which the work treated, the matter relating to Pittsburgh being particularly valuable, and as the editions increased in size, the descriptive matter grew in volume.

On December 6, 1811, the most destructive earthquake of the century occurred in the country bordering on the lower Ohio River, and on the Mississippi, completely changing the course of the two streams at numerous points. Cramer promptly published a notice of the fact, warning navigators of the danger, and requested newspaper editors to print his notice.281 The corrections were then made in the next edition of the Navigator which was published in 1814. The success of the Navigator reached its climax in 1814, when it contained three hundred and sixty pages. From that time the size of the book gradually decreased, until in 1824, when its publication was suspended, it had fallen to two hundred and seventy-five pages.

The information relating to Pittsburgh, and to the rivers flowing by and below it, cost Cramer infinite pains to collect. From Cramer’s Navigators the early travelers and later historians drew for facts when writing about the Western country, often without giving credit. Cramer complained of the piracy. In this connection he mentioned the Rev. Thaddeus Mason Harris, whose Journal of a Tour was published in Boston in 1805. He was especially bitter against Thomas Ash, the writer of a book of travel which appeared in London in 1808. He accused Ash of having taken his account of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers verbatim from the Navigator for 1806.282 Notwithstanding this charge, Ash’s book must have had some merit in Cramer’s eyes, as he republished it the same year that it came out in London. Most of the writers, however, who obtained their information from the Navigator, gave it as their authority. John Mellish who was in Pittsburgh in 1811, commended the work: “The Pittsburgh Navigator is a little book containing a vast variety of information regarding the Western country, the prosperity of which seems to be an object of peculiar solicitude with the editors.”283 Christian Schultz, coming through Pittsburgh in September, 1807, had this to say: “Before I left Pittsburgh I purchased the Navigator, a kind of Blunt, or Hamilton Moore, for these waters; it is a small pamphlet, but contains a great deal of useful and miscellaneous information, and is particularly serviceable to a stranger.”284 Blunt was the American Coast Pilot, published in 1796 by Edmund Blunt, and still used in recent years; Hamilton Moore was an English work called the Practical Navigator, of which many editions were published in London by Hamilton Moore.

CHAPTER IX THE BROADENING OF CULTURE — REFERENCES Chapter IX — INDEX — Transcriber’s Notes

Cramer’s business prospered. His was the only establishment in Pittsburgh where the sale of books was the predominant feature. He had long called it the “Pittsburgh Bookstore.”285 Oliver Ormsby, whose store was in the brick house on Water Street, at the westerly side of Chancery Lane, sold “Dilworth’s and Webster’s Spelling books, testaments, and Bibles in Dutch and English, primers, toy books, and a variety of histories, novels, etc.”286 William Christy287 and John Wrenshall288 kept a few books, a special feature of the latter’s business being the sale of Dr. Jonathan Edwards’s Sermons, but compared with Cramer’s stock, the supply of books in other hands was insignificant. Cramer was also practically the only publisher of books in the borough. After he had been publishing for a few years, others began the business, but their books were few in number and generally unimportant in character. Cramer’s advertisements were sometimes amusing. He sold his goods for money, or in trade, and in making the announcement employed the axiomatic language of “Poor Richard.” This was one of his naïve notices: “I hope the ladies and all good girls and boys will not forget to fetch me all the clean linen and cotton rags they possibly can. Save the smallest pieces and put them in a rag bag; save them from the fire and the ash heap. It is both honorable and profitable to save rags, for our country wants them.”289

He added new lines to his business. Articles which tended to elevate and refine the standard of living were introduced. Wall papers had been in use in the East to a limited extent since 1769, and were no longer rare in good homes. In the West they were scarcely known until Cramer advertised his “large stock of hanging or wall papers.”290 He sold stationery, writing paper, Italian and hot-pressed letter paper, wafers, quills, camel-hair pencils, inkstands, sealing wax, red and black ink powders. Card playing was one of the leading social diversions and he had the best English and American playing cards. Patent medicines were largely used and Cramer found it profitable to supply the demand. He had books of instructions for the flute, the violin, the piano-forte, and books of songs. His stock of English dictionaries included those of Nathan Bailey, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Thomas Sheridan, and John Walker. For the German population he had books in the German language, which he often designated as “Dutch” books. He sold German almanacs, German Bibles and testaments. Many of the German churches, both in Pittsburgh and in the surrounding settlements, had schools attached to their churches, where the German language was taught in connection with English studies. For these schools Cramer supplied the books. Ever since the cession of Louisiana to the United States there had been a great increase in the students of the French language among Americans, who intended either to engage in commerce with the people of that territory, or expected to settle there. The liberally advertised easy methods of learning French291 induced many persons to engage in its study. For these Cramer kept French books. He also sold Greek and Latin schoolbooks, Greek and Latin dictionaries, and Spanish grammars.

In the early years Cramer had no press of his own. A printing office being located at either end of the block in which he was established, he divided his work between them. The Almanacs were printed by John Israel, and the Navigators, by John Scull. Business increased and he deemed it advisable to do his own printing, and on August 14, 1805, announced that he had “received a press, and a very handsome assortment of new type, for the purpose of printing such literary and ecclesiastical works as may be most in demand.”292 His publications now became more numerous and pretentious.

He was too active to limit his energies to his business. In 1803, he became Secretary of the Mechanical Society, and thenceforth devoted much attention to the office, which he held for several years. He was not an active politician, but was warmly attached to the Republican party, and moreover had the respect of the entire community. In 1811, when a division took place in the Republican party in Allegheny County, and two tickets were placed in the field, his standing was such, that he was named as a member of the committee selected to bring about harmony.293 Like the modern successful business man, he had a desire for the free life and clear skies of the country, and he engaged in farming and sheep-raising. When he died he had on the plantation of his brother-in-law, Josiah Clark, in Washington County, a flock of one hundred and twenty-eight sheep.

In 1808, the partnership with John Spear began, and the firm became known as Cramer & Spear. The establishment, however, continued to be called “Zadok Cramer’s Bookstore”; sometimes it was advertised as “Zadok Cramer’s Classical, Literary, and Law Bookstore.” In 1810, William Eichbaum was taken into the firm. He had served a seven years’ apprenticeship in bookbinding with Cramer, and with Cramer & Spear, and was the son of William Eichbaum, the elder. It may be that young Eichbaum was the “active youth of good morals and respectable character, wanted to learn the bookbinding and stationery business,” for whom Cramer had advertised on November 6, 1802.294 The firm was now Cramer, Spear & Eichbaum, and continued as such until 1818, the year of the death of Elizabeth Cramer, the widow of Zadok Cramer, when Eichbaum withdrew and the firm was again changed to Cramer & Spear.

Cramer had traveled extensively, first in pursuit of information for his Navigators, and later in search of health. He went down the Ohio in 1806. In 1810, he was in Kentucky.295 When the New Orleans, the first steamboat that ran on the Western rivers was being operated between Natchez and New Orleans, he descended the Mississippi River in it twice, from the former to the latter place. Much of the information in regard to the New Orleans, its structure, cost, earnings, and length of time required between river points, is to be found in the Navigators.296

It would be impossible at this late day to compile a complete list of Cramer’s publications, nor would it serve any useful purpose. He published many schoolbooks, particularly for children in the primary grades. His Pittsburgh and New England primers, and the United States Spelling Book, were famous in their day. Ecclesiastical books were in great demand, and Cramer met it. Catechisms were used as books of primary instruction and were printed in many forms; there were Larger Catechisms, Shorter Catechisms, the Mother’s Catechism, and the Child’s Catechism. For the Germans he published in German, The Shorter Catechism of Dr. Martin Luther. The religious books that came from his press would form an endless list. Among those having a bearing on the history of that time was, The Marks of a Work of the Spirit, together with Remarks Respecting the Present Astonishing Work of God, and Revival of Religion in the Western Country, by J. Hughes of West Liberty.297 “J. Hughes,” was the Rev. James Hughes, pastor of the Presbyterian churches at Lower Buffalo in Washington County, and West Liberty in the adjoining county of Ohio in Virginia, and one of the trustees of the recently established Jefferson College, the pioneer college of the West.

Cramer lived and flourished in an age when many of the publications sent out in the name of religion contained the merest drivel, or were elaborations of theories in regard to matters infinite held by narrow-minded controversialists. The press was flooded with them. There were publications bearing such depressing titles as The Happy Voyage Completed, and The Sure Anchor Cast. Cramer realized that in publishing works of this character he might be misunderstood. This sentiment was evident in the advertisement of at least one of his publications. On that occasion he prefaced his notice by stating: “On the recommendation of some pious friends, we contemplate printing, A Token for children, Being an exact account of the Conversion, holy and exemplary Lives and Joyful Deaths of several young children!”298

The most pretentious of his works was religious in character, and was published in 1807. It was A Dictionary of the Holy Bible by the Rev. John Brown of Haddington, in Scotland, of which two editions were printed. It was a noteworthy achievement to be accomplished on the frontier, hundreds of miles from the center of civilization. Many difficulties had to be overcome, not the least of which was the delay occasioned by the difficulty in procuring a regular supply of paper.299 The work was in two large octavo volumes, and was illustrated with engraved pictures and maps that are still desired by collectors. Heading the list of subscribers, was the name of President Jefferson, of whom Cramer appears to have been an ardent admirer. In 1810, the firm published the Select Remains of the Rev. John Brown, the author of the Dictionary.

Cramer’s publications covered a wide range. In 1808 The Lawyer, by George Watterson, appeared, which was imbued with the current prejudice against lawyers, and presented a sorry spectacle of the legal profession. The same year, a map of Pittsburgh was published, which, if in existence to-day, would be of great interest. One of his most valuable contributions to the literature of travel, was Sketches of a Tour to the Western Country in 1807–1809, by F. Cuming, published in 1810. It contained according to Reuben Gold Thwaites,300 a “picture of American life in the West at the beginning of the nineteenth century that for clear-cut outlines and fidelity of presentation has the effect of a series of photographic representations.” Another work of value was Views of Louisiana, by Judge Henry M. Brackenridge, published in 1814. Cramer had met Brackenridge in New Orleans, in December, 1811, while on one of his visits to that city, and arranged with him there for the publication.301 In 1813, The Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith were brought out.

One of the most important ventures of Cramer’s entire publishing experience, the fruition of which he did not live to see, was The Western Gleaner or Repository for Arts, Sciences, and Literature. It was a monthly magazine of sixty-four pages. The first number appeared in December, 1813, four months after Cramer’s death. Compared with magazines of the present time, it was not of the highest order of literary merit. In its day, however, it ranked with the best magazines published. The excellent literary taste of the editor also appears from an incident which occurred during the early life of the magazine. The Pittsburgh Gazette published a communication from a disappointed aspirant for literary fame, signing himself “Recluse,” whose poem in fourteen stanzas entitled “The Two Roses,” had been declined by the Western Gleaner. “Recluse” referred sarcastically to the “uncommonly profound and very discerning editor of the Western Gleaner.”

That the editor of the Western Gleaner was more “discerning” than the editor of the Pittsburgh Gazette, which published “Recluse’s” effort, along with his letter, is evident from a perusal of the poem. The first stanza, which is also the best, reads:

The same persistency which procured the publication of “The Two Roses” in the Pittsburgh Gazette, enabled “Recluse” a few years later to find a publisher for a volume of his poetry, in which “The Two Roses” was one of the gems.303

In one of the numbers of the magazine Judge Hugh Henry Brackenridge contributed a poem, descriptive of his feelings on revisiting Pittsburgh, called “On a Circuit at This Place.”

Cramer realized that books having a local interest would find a ready sale. One of these was Judge Hugh Henry Brackenridge’s Modern Chivalry; another was his Incidents of the Insurrection in Western Pennsylvania, which was an effort to vindicate himself for his course in the Whisky Insurrection. Judge Addison’s impeachment in 1803, by the Republican General Assembly, had created profound interest in Pittsburgh. The account of the trial was immediately published in Lancaster, then the capital of the State, and eagerly read. Another book of local interest was Colonel James Smith’s Captivity among the Indians Westward of Fort Pitt in the Year 1755, published at Lexington, Kentucky, in 1799.

Although a Republican himself, Cramer’s mercantile instincts led him to sell books written in opposition to that party. A little volume of poems was of this class. David Bruce, a Scotchman living in the adjacent village of Burgettstown, whom Cramer designated as “an ingenious Scotch poet of Washington County,” had published in 1801, in Washington, Pennsylvania, a book which, while mainly political in character, had considerable merit. Bruce was a strong Federalist, and his volume was dedicated to Judge Addison. To the Republicans, Brackenridge, Gallatin, McKean, and other more or less local celebrities, Bruce’s references were disparaging. To Brackenridge he addressed the cynical lines:

A book of the same character, but covering a wider range, and of a higher literary tone, was The Echo. It had a local interest in that it contained a number of clever satirical references to Judge Hugh Henry Brackenridge. In the latter part of the eighteenth century, Hartford was the literary center of Federalistic ideas. They were promulgated by a group of young authors known as the “Hartford Wits.” Included in the coterie was Richard Alsop, who was the principal writer of The Echo. The Echo had originally appeared serially, but in 1807, the parts were collected and published in a volume. The allusions to Brackenridge indicated a keen sense of humor and considerable poetic spirit. An article written by Brackenridge had appeared in 1792 in the National Gazette of Philadelphia, then recently established as the organ of the Republicans, in which he urged savage reprisals against the Indians, who were causing trouble west of Pittsburgh. To this screed, The Echo made the mocking reply:

On another occasion when Brackenridge was a candidate for Congress, he published in the Aurora an appeal to the electors of his Congressional District in which he animadverted harshly on the educational accomplishments of General John Woods, his Federalist opponent. This presented another opportunity for the clever writers of The Echo to burlesque a leading Republican. The Echo gibed:

Cramer’s books covered the entire range of literary endeavor and among them were a majority of the contemporary publications. The French Revolutionary movement was well represented. A work coming under this designation was the Life and Campaigns of General Count Alexander Suwarrow, which was of interest also because Suwarrow’s title to fame rested at least partly on the fact that he was the originator of the high tasseled-boot, much worn both in military and civil circles after the year 1800. There was a flood of Bonapartist literature. A book of this class which had a local interest was the Life of General Jean Victor Moreau. After being exiled from France on account of conspiring against Napoleon, this officer had come to the United States in 1805, and made a tour of the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys. Having passed through Pittsburgh, his name was well known there. Works of travel were numerous. Conspicuous in biography were the lives of Washington, Franklin, and Kotzebue, the German playwright and novelist, then at the height of his career. There were histories of various European countries, and William Winterbotham’s History of the American United States. The History of Women, if at hand to-day, would be of interest to that large body of women who are making such herculean efforts to obtain greater rights for their sex. Among the notable books of the day was Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia. Two editions had been published prior to Jefferson’s becoming President. After the election in 1800, the work was republished in a large octavo volume, for which Cramer was agent in Pittsburgh.308 Another book which attracted considerable attention was the History of John Adams, Esquire, late president of the United States, by John Wood. It was a rank Republican account of a most interesting period. It was printed and ready for publication in December, 1801, but was suppressed at the instigation of Aaron Burr, as being incorrect and libelous. The book was finally published in 1802. A companion-piece to Wood’s book, was the one by James Cheetham, which gave an account of the suppression. It was entitled, A Narrative of the Suppression by Col. Burr of the History of the Administration of John Adams, by a Citizen of New York.

Philosophy was not neglected. Representative of that science were William Enfield’s History of Philosophy, William Smellie’s Philosophy of Natural History, Francis Hutchinson’s System of Moral Philosophy, and Count Volney’s Law of Nature. Books relating to trades, included the Miller and Millwright’s Guide; the Young Carpenter’s Assistant; the New System of Gardening; the Dictionary of Husbandry; Washington’s Letters to Arthur Young; the English Gardener; and Elements of Architecture. Freemasonry was described in William Preston’s Illustrations of Masonry. Among books relating to the professions, those pertaining to divinity were most numerous. The Methodists had increased in numbers and were in better standing in the community. John Wrenshall was addressed as the “Rev.” John Wrenshall, and Cramer began to sell the Memoirs of George Whitfield, the famous exponent of Methodism. Law books were a close second to those of divinity. There were books on state, national, and international law. In medicine there were books for family use, and books for physicians.

Belles-lettres and poetry formed an important department. Predominant in belles-lettres were the writings of Addison, Steele, and Pope in the Spectator, and its successors, the Guardian, and the Tattler; Dr. Johnson, in his “Rambler”; and Salmagundi, when it appeared in 1807. Junius’s Letters; the works of Lawrence Sterne; the Posthumous Works of Jonathan Swift; and Peter Pindar’s Satires were other books in this department. In the selection of plays, those of Kotzebue were prominent. The English plays were represented by George Colman, the younger’s, The Poor Gentleman, a comedy produced in Covent Garden in 1801, and by Thomas Morton’s, Speed the Plough, produced in 1798. Because of its authorship, The Battle of Bunker Hill, by Judge Hugh Henry Brackenridge, had a local interest. In the realm of poetry, were the poems of John Pomfret, Robert Burns, Dr. Thomas Brown, Alexander Pope, John Milton, Thomas Moore, Allan Ramsay, and Robert Southey. In this class was Thomas Campbell’s The Pleasures of Hope; James Beattie’s The Minstrel; Samuel Rogers’s Pleasures of Memory; William Cowper’s Beauties of Cowper, and The Task; Joel Barlow’s The Vision of Columbus; Robert Bloomfield’s, The Farmer’s Boy, and A Song; James Thomson’s Seasons. Zaida, by Kotzebue; Charlotte Temple, by Mrs. Susanna Rowson, and Don Quixote were popular romances. In colonial days, and in the early days of the republic, little stitched pamphlets, called chapbooks, because largely circulated by itinerant vendors, or chapmen, were much in vogue. Books in this form for children had a large circulation, and Cramer carried an interesting list.

Cramer’s upright nature often led him to express opinions that were contrary to the views obtaining in publications of his firm. Cuming in his Tour of the Western Country, in the reference to Pittsburgh had written: “Amusements are also a good deal attended to, particularly the annual horse races.” On this observation Cramer commented in a note: “We are sorry to have to acknowledge that horse racing contrary to the express law of the State, has been more or less practiced within the vicinity of this place for a few years back; but we are pleased with the prospect of having it totally abolished by the influence of its evident impropriety, danger, and wickedness, operating on the minds of the more thoughtful and judicious.”309 That Cramer was not alone in condemning the horse races is apparent from a communication which had appeared in the Pittsburgh Gazette six years earlier.310 This writer designated the races as “a fruitful seminary of vice.” He declared that the “schools and shops are shut up or deserted, and the youth of both sexes run to harm, folly, and debauchery.... The money, too, which ought to be expended in the honest maintenance of families and the payment of debts is squandered on sharpers, gamblers and sutlers.”

If some fact or custom was referred to, which Cramer considered morally wrong, or which might disparage Pittsburgh in the eyes of the world at large, he spoke out vigorously in opposition. In the Navigator for 1811,311 the statement was made that there were “two or three whisky distilleries in the town.” This was immediately followed in the text by a disapproval of distilleries, and a quaint homily on the evils of intemperance. “We cannot say anything in praise of these,” Cramer wrote. “Whisky as a medicine is good, that is, to take it only when the system requires it and no more than is sufficient to perform the part of a gentle stimulant; but to drink it as is now universally practiced, is destructive of health, strength, morals, religion, and honesty; and is a serious national calamity, in which man sinks in the estimation of himself, and becomes an abhorrence in the eyes of God.”

Cramer’s career was short. He had never been robust, and close attention to business had undermined his constitution; consumption developed. He attempted in vain to obtain relief in southern travel, and died on August 1, 1813, just before reaching his fortieth year, at Pensacola, Florida, while on the way to Havana, the journey having been recommended by his physician. In Pensacola his remains were buried and there they lie in an unmarked grave. To the last he was planning new business projects, and preserved his cheerfulness to the end. Not once was he known to be fretful or ill-natured. He left his widow and one child, a daughter, Susan. The firm was continued for many years, first by the widow, in conjunction with John Spear, and after her death on May 5, 1818, by the daughter. The affairs of the partnership were not wound up until July 6, 1835.

In early life the daughter married Dr. J. B. Cochran in Pittsburgh. Becoming a widow, she removed to Beaver, Pennsylvania, with her three children. Her children were Zadok Cramer Cochran, James Spear Cochran, and Mary Cochran. After their mother’s death in 1854, the children removed to Coatesville, Pennsylvania. From Coatesville they went to Freeport, Illinois. Here the two sons engaged in teaching and conducted an academy. James later took up the study of the law, and was admitted to the Bar. Drifting into politics he was elected to the State Senate. The two brothers are both dead, but the sister is still living, being the wife of Joseph Emmert, of Freeport, Illinois.