History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 123

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the Whiskey Insurrection. At that time it had a clapboard roof, and it had for a sign & full-length painted effigy of Gen. Nathaniel Greene. At the time of which we speak nearly every one of the pri- vate houses was set in a yard, and being scattered about, the broad patches of sky and daylight were seen between them. At scarcely any place was the sight of the fields obscured. A cluster of one-storied log houses and miserable huts on the eastern slope of the hill going into town, by the side of the old road, was called Irishtown, and another suburb on the western side was called Dutchtown. This road was the main thoroughfare, and it is said that in the early times the most business was done on this street. Along here the biggest crowd of idle men and boys collected to see the horses stalling in going up the hill, and to hear the wagoner cursing and cracking his whip. Along here were the blacksmith-shops, and on the corners of the square where it crossed Main Street were two taverns, a store, and the county build- ings. Among the first public buildings on the Main Street were the taverns which from time to time were opened by impecunious great men. If a man had been high sheriff or county commissioner, or if he was a bankrupt merchant, he started a tavern. It did not require much capital, and it was the most remunerative business to get at. Thus the propor- tion of inns here was as high as in any other of the villages, and some of the houses now occupied as resi- dences were even later than that used as taverns. The building in the court-house square, in the walls of which you may see the archway, was at one time the "Dublin Hotel." Through this archway the wagoners drove to the yard behind the house, and it was in the upper story where Mr. Williams, to an ad- miring auditory, sang his comic song, "When Thim- ble's scolding wife lay dead," and where Professor Doupenloup, the French dancing-master, held his benefit.

Between the lower house on Main Street and the German burying-ground there was a patch of un- fenced common, upon which the boys kicked foot-ball, and where the cows of the town depastured and lay at night. The first Episcopal Church stood on East Ottoman Street, at the corner of the first square, on the north side. The commons on this side extended out from here over that part of the town next to the angle of the two railroads. It was not till 1803 that Judge William Jack, a public-spirited man, and one of the founders of the town, gave one hundred and thirty-one perches of ground to the "burgesses and inhabitants to erect thereon a house for preaching and public worship." Sixty feet square of this tract was to be set apart for the building, and the rest was to remain a place of burial for the dead. Upon this lot the burgesses, with the consent of the inhabitants, erected a Presbyterian Church, whence the burial- ground received the name of the Presbyterian grave yard. This old burying-ground lay for a long time

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on an uninclosed common, and where the graves were not inclosed by a durable wall or palings they were trodden upon by cattle or overrooted by the swine. The erection of the new Presbyterian Church on the ground of the congregation on South Main Street, and the bad condition of the burying-ground itself, led to the formation of the St. Clair Cemetery As- sociation, from which enterprise we have the only public place of recreation and resort in the town, and the chief object of interest to point out to strangers.

On the west side of the town, now its most populous suburb, there were but two or three log houses. Lud- wick Ottoman, a man who lived and died a Dutch- man, owned the Stokes farm and most of the land upon which Ludwick is built. His log house, which stood near the future site of the residence of the late William A. Stokes, Faq., was entered by a double door, hung the one above the other, like the doors a of stable. His Sunday dress was a red-flannel wambus, or roundabout, made out of a woolen blanket. There was, it is true, but somewhat later, a house of some repute on the summit of Bunker Hill along the turn- pike. It was a wooden structure, lathed and plastered on the outside. It was later known as the Bushfield tavern, when it was to Greensburg what Belmont was to Venice. At Henry Barton's blacksmith shop in East Greensburg the rough-visaged, brawny-armed men, like the Cyclops toiling at the forges, yelled like savages around a stack of heating tires, beat the horses with their rasps, and drew out of the white fire the seething plow-irons. From early in the morning till late at night the bellows were creaking, and it was a favorite place for countrymen to loiter and lazy men to gather to watch the sparks fly "like chaff from the thrashing-floor," and be in awe of the most extensive manufacturing establishment in the town.

Some of the old inhabitants, natives of the town, can go along and point out where was once the site of the house or the abode itself of her great burghers, whose reputation is as much identified with the town as the fame of Pericles is identified with Athens, or that of Lycurgus with Sparta. Thus on the site of the public hotel latterly well known as the " Richmond House," and now the property of Mr. Samuel Alwine, was the residence of John B. Alexander, Esq., whose monumental tablet in the St. Clair Cemetery epito- mizes the history of his life. "He was a distin- guished member of the bar, his knowledge and tal- ents placing him among the first of his profession. He served his country as an officer in the late war with Great Britain." Judge Young lived in a long, low-fronted, white-colored house, whose floor in time had sunk below the level of the pavement, on the corner opposite on the north side of Main Street, the lower house on the square since known as the Burnt District, which is now covered with the gigantic piles of iron, stone and brick masonry which go to make up the Kuhns Block and Masonic Hall. Dr. Pos-

tlethwaite resided in a house opposite the Alwine Hotel and diagonal to Judge Young's house. Judge Coulter, then a practicing lawyer, lived in a house and had his office whose site is now covered by the building of the Greensburg Banking Company.

THE PEOPLE AND THEIR OCCUPATIONS.

We have halted midway in the chronological history of the county town merely to get a glimpse at the people who then did businees in its shops and who walked about its streets. These memoranda are taken from the local notices or made up out of the advertisements which appeared in the county papers about the dates given.

From a card in the Gasette, Nov. 7, 1823, J. B. Alexander and Joseph H. Kuhns entered into a part- nership as attorneys and counselors-at-law. It is also seen that James B. Oliver was' established as a scrivener and convoyancer.

In 1828, John Connell kept a store opposite "the market-house and stage-office." In the same year, M. P. Cassilly, Randal Mclaughlin, and Henry Welty, Jr., were in partnership in the merchandising business. They dissolved their partnership in April, 1824, M. P. Cassilly continuing in business at the old place. H. Brown & Son and Mr. Mowry kept stores opposite the post-office. The Gasette office was removed to a building between these in 1824. John Connell kept a store and advertised fancy goods. Other mercantile houses and firms then were Arthur Carr, James Brady & Co., who kept two doors north of the bank and one door south of the Westmoreland Republican, Henry Welty, Jr., and Randal McLaugh- lin, who continued each for himself after the dissolu- tion of the partnership mentioned; Edward N. Clop- per, who had just come from Baltimore, and who engaged in business in the room "below Horbach's tavern, and next door south of Simon Drum, Esq."

Of other persons and trades we have these: Of hatters there were a Mr. Gallagher, John Isett, and William Findley. Hugh Stewart manufactured spin- ning-wheels and reels at his shop, " being the second house on the north side of the street, west of the residence of Mr. Henry Welty, Sr. James Arm- strong did tailoring. George Singer was chair-maker, and also did gilding, sign-painting, and glazing. James Gemmill was a stone-cutter, and had his shop opposite the German Church. He kept grindstones on sale. Peter Fleeger kept a saddlery. Jehu Tay- lor had what he was pleased to call a furniture ware- house, in which he exposed to sale various articles of household convenience, in conjunction with his busi- ness of cabinet-making.

In a current issue of one of these papers in 1825 there is a complaint of the scarcity of water in pumps in case of a fire. At that time they had an engine, but it was not kept in repair, and for practi- cal purposes was regarded as useless.

Samuel McCawley carded wool in an establishment

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one door above the brick brewery, on the turnpike road.

An article, a kind of political travesty, headed " Aid to the Greeks," appeared in the Gasette Feb. 18, 1824, which was signed "E. F. Pratt, Hair Dresser," and which had attached thereto the following :

. "Dose at the Jackson Tousorial Hall, two doors north of Mr. Edward Patchell's Jackson's Bullet-Proof and Element-Defying Hat Factory, a fow doors south of Beale's Arbitration and Delegation Hotel, sad patent mover-wearing-out brush manufactory, and in full view of the feb mar- ket. Those who cannot find the place will inquire at Alezander Smith's or Peter Shires', Point Brewery. The Sd day of February, L.D. 1884, and the year of the world 5834."

A writer who signed himself " A Mechanick" sent a couple of articles to the Gasette in December, 1826, which were intended to start a movement in favor of a circulating library for the benefit of the laboring class. In the second article he says,-

"In the present article I wish to impress more fully upon the minds of car citisene the issportasce, nay, absoluto necesetty, of catering upon comse decisive sessures to retain if not inereses car population, and of rendering that population fit for the sphere in which circumstances have rendered it necessary for them to move.

"A few weeks caly have transpired since Maj. Coulter's stoom-mill was pat into operation, and already the increased hum of business in apparent in the section in which the mill is located. To a casual ob- server this may be attributed to trivial or transient canses, which will caly cadere for a short cesson ; but to the man of business and reflec- tion caly are the true ressons and caness apparent. If, then, a steam grist-seill is materially reviving car business, and is consequently pro- ductive of gaia to a part of car population, in how much greater degree Would not the establishment of different kinds of manufactories among to promote the yesasiary interests of car whole community ?". . .

The writer says that Greensburg then was, and for the four years past had been, without that "useful mechanick, a nailor."

INHABITED LIMITS OF THE TOWN.

It is a singular observation, but the recollections of those older persons in the county whose attention has been directed to the Greensburg of the early times nearly all fix upon some certain date, and this date varies little from about the year 1880. The only way we can account for this is in the fact that about that time was hung Joseph Evans, an event that for many years was a subject-matter of conversation among country people, and one which had brought them to the county town perhaps for the first time in, their lives.

In 1880 the population of the town was 810. The buildings for the most part were frame or log, and the appearance of the town on the whole would bear little resemblance to it now. On the north the town extended to the house of Hon. John Latta and one just opposite occupied by a chair-maker, Joseph Her- wig. On the south it was bounded by the German Reformed parsonage and a house just opposite, where a tavern, not the most orderly in the world, was kept by one Mrs. Bignell. The house was called "The Sun, Moon, and Seven Stars." The sloping ground south of town was called the "Ballet Ground," be- cause it was used, and had been so used long previ- ously, for the manly exercise of "long bullets."

When log houses began to be erected along the road in that part of the town it received the name (about 1840) of " Kinderhook," in compliment to Martin Van Buren, whose birthplace had that old Dutch name. West Pittsburgh Street, then called "Dutchtown," was terminated by the blacksmith-shop of Tim Jen- nings, somewhere about the foot of the street, on the side opposite the residence of Mr. Cowan and some- what below it. The hill west of it was then known as "Bunker Hill," probably in ridicule, for there was a riotous tavern on the top of the hill, where cocks, dogs, men, and other game animals fought, sometimes for money and sometimes for recreation. There were no houses on the hill but one, a frame' house, opposite the house built by Judge Burrell, and now owned and occupied by Hilary Brunot, Enq. This house was occupied by John Williams, whose son, William Williams, was well known in his day as an efficient deputy and clerk in the public offices. East Greensburg, or " Irishtown," ended at the then new brick steam-mill of Eli Coulter, brother of Judge Richard Coulter. This mill was one of the first steam-mills in the county. It was nearly opposite the residence of William H. Hacke, Eeq. West Ot- toman street ended at the old stone house which was burnt down a few years ago, and on the site of which has since been erected the United Brethren Church. This house was a very old one; having been used as a tavern in 1797. About the time of which we write it was kept by David Cook, once register and associate judge and the grandfather of William Cook, Eeq., & gentleman in his day quite a politician in Westmore- land, and later a citizen of Washington City, where he has attained some reputation in a wider sphere as a politician and a lawyer. East Ottoman Street was ended by the brewery of John and Richard North, two Englishmen. This was at a point probably half- way between Main Street and the end of East Otto- man, at the foot of the hill.

TAVERNS AND LANDLORDS.

At that time the canal of the State and the National road from Wheeling to Baltimore had not been com- pleted, and so a stream of travel-wagons, heavy and light, carriages and horsemen-passed through the town, and the taverns were well patronized. There were three principal taverns on Main Street,-the "Simon Drum House" (corner of Main and West Pitts- burgh Streets, opposite the court-house), the " Hor- bach House" (corner of Main and East Pittsburgh Streeta, and opposite the Banghman building), these two in the centre of the town, and the " Westmoreland ' Hotel," owned and then kept by Frederick A .. Rohrer.

The Horbach House was the house where the mail coaches stopped, Mr. Horbach being an extensive stage proprietor and mail contractor. The Rohrer House, best known by that name, was Democratic headquarters.

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Other houses there were, but none of so wide and urtended reputation, nor of so long continuance. A house whose reputation was founded on the name of the landlord was an institution not of a day's growth. Among these the house opposite the store of Mr. Henry Welty (southest corner of Main and East Ottoman Street) was used a tavern, and kept by a man named Job Hornish. It was much frequented by drinking mechanics and working-men. On West Ottoman Street, on the corner of Depot Street (upon the site now occupied by the residence of W. H. Markle, Esq.), was a tavern. It was the only tavern in Greensburg at that time where broad-wheeled wagons stopped. These usually passed through to the " Eicher House," about a mile east of the town on the turnpike, or to Grapeville on the west side. This wagon-tavern had been kept by Griffith Clark, father of Capt. Samuel Clark, of Mount Pleasant. He died in 1829, and was buried with full Masonic honors. "The brethren of the mystic tie" attended the funeral in full drees, and at their head marched the Hon. John Young, presi- dent judge, with a book in his hands. The tavern was afterward kept by Brintnal Robbins, Peter Row, aud Joseph Nicewonger.

In "Dutchtown" there was an inn kept by John Kubins. The citizens of German descent at that day were very clannish, and so the " Kuhns House" was a favorite stopping-place with the Dutch who held Democratic opinions. In "Irishtown" there was a good tavern, called "The Federal Springs," owned and kept by Frederick Mechlin. The politics of the tavern were just the opposite to those of the Kuhns House, but in both the language spoken was mainly "Pennsylvania Dutch."

We have spoken of the "Drum House," and we might further say that although the house went by that name, as it had for years before and as it did for years after, Mr. Drum was not at that time the inn- keeper. This was a man named Ephraim Jordan.

Simon Singer kept the "Greensburg and Pitts- burgh Hotel."

The " Dublin Hotel" was an Irish house, kept by a man named Thompson, and stood on "Green Lane," the street from Caleb Stark's towards the railroad.

Snowden's printing-ofice was in an alley back of Baughman's building, and that of John W. Wise was on the corner of East. Ottoman Street going toward the cemetery on Maple Avenue.

THE YOUNG "HOODLUMS" OF OLD TIMES.

In those days some of the young men of the town were of wild habits. They much resembled the bloods of London, described by Liddell and Macaulay, who infested the streets of the metropolis during the shameless days of the Restoration. They had their se- cret societies, their cat-calls, and their signs. Every boy who came to study a profession, to learn a trade, or attend the academy was initiated by coal-housing. Any young man who kept the society of young

ladies was tabooed by these old-time "hoodlums," an it was a sign of. effeminacy. Temperance habits were with them an excluding sin. A young man was lampooned in the columns of the county papers, and jeered at on the streets, nicknamed and talked about, if he in the least slighted these larks and habitusted himself to quiet occupation, to temperance, and to close application to his studies. One of these young men, lampooned by the " hoodlums," became a celebrated physician by hewing his way up from a saddler's apprentice. He completed his studies under Dr. Postlethwaite, and located in South Carolina, where he achieved distinction in his profession. An- other timid young man when he came to town to read law, was chased about all night to be coal- housed. He is now on the Supreme Bench of one of the Territories. Many of these roystering young men subsequently settled down into quiet habits, and became the leading men of their localities, while others became nobodies, and were glad in after-years to receive any kindness from those they had in years gone by insulted.

SCHOOLS AND BOHOOL-HOUSES.

In speaking with a gentleman familiar with the subject of schools in the early Greensburg, he said that the schools there, as he first knew them, about 1880 might be distinguished by the degrees of com- parison, as much, more, most. Thus Miss Lydia Bid- dle taught much, Robert Nelson Somerville more, and Thomas Will most.

In 1829, on the site where now stands the Metho- dist Church, on Main Street, there stood an old log · house owned by Dr. Postlethwaite. In this house Lydia Biddle taught the rudiments of an English ed- ucation. At Miss Biddle's school were taught the children of Dr. Postlethwaite, Rev. Michael Steck, Alexander Johnston, Michael P. Cassilly, and other citizens. After having been lugged, shaken, and cuffed by the tender hands of Miss Lydia Biddle, the children were presumed to be far enough advanced for the flagellation of Robert Nelson Somerville.

On the public common, at a short distance north of the end of East Ottoman Street, and west of the Presbyterian Meeting-House, the citizens of Greens- burg had at a very early time erected a low, one- story log house, wherein the ordinary branches of an English education should be taught. There is a di- versity of opinion who the first schoolmaster was, and this in all probability will remain a question unset- tled till the crack of doom, and be rated in the cate- gory of unanswerable queries, of which one of th most universal is that one which is raised as to the identity of the individual who struck Billy Patterson.

This first school-house was erected, as we have said, on the public common, and but a short distance from the elegant spring now within the inclosed limits of the St. Clair Cemetery. It was a cabin house of rude structure, about eighteen by. twenty-four feet, one

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story high, with shingle roof. The furniture con- sisted of wooden benches of oak plank, of lengths cor- responding with the size of the room. The writing- desks were made of broad inch boards, which were fastened to the inside walls of the building, and ex- tended around the room. The light and ventilation were admitted to the promiscuous crowd of girls and boys through several small eight-by-ten-light win- dows.

Mr. Silliman, the county superintendent in 1876, who made up the local history of the common-school system for the report of that year, says that a man by the name of Roseberry began teaching a school in this building. This school was made up by subscrip- tion, and consisted of possibly above fifty scholars, of course varying in summer and winter. Among the other early teachers were James O'Harra and Robert Williams. Williams taught for a long period, and his labors extended possibly down to 1816 or 1817. After Williams came Gideon H. Tanner, a teacher of high qualifications and training. He introduced various improvements in the school and the branches taught, and brought the system of teaching nearer to that which is now maintained in the common schools of the county than any other. Among the first school- masters here was Samuel L. Carpenter, afterwards county surveyor, State senator, sheriff, and associate judge.

In 1829, as we said, the schoolmaster was an Eng- lishman named Somerville. The schools then were all maintained by subscription. On the supposition, we presume, that he had advanced to the second degree of comparison, our informant was removed from the school of Miss Biddle to that of Mr. Somerville. The dominie was a tall, straight, stern-looking man, with a thin, shallow face and overhanging black brows, under which gleamed two savage eyes. He dressed in taste and in first-class style,-black frock coat, cravat, and standing collar. His whole appearance and manner inspired awe and respect. After the scholars were seated, he passed around and inquired what books they had brought to school. These were indeed a queer collection, for they included all school books, such as Dilworth's and Murray's Readers, the Old and New Testaments, Plutarch's Lives, and Esop's Fables. He evidenced great discretion in ar- ranging his scholars into classes, and in making them conform to a regular system in classification.

Somerville enforced strict discipline in his school. Every Saturday afternoon he brought in his bundle of rods.

Somerville left Greensburg suddenly, and nothing was heard of his whereabouts afterwards. He, how- ever, left the reputation of being a good scholar, and among the learned men of the town he was regarded as the best informed. He had evidently been the graduate of a British university, and probably had been an usher in a High School.

the facilities for a rudimentary education prior to the efficient common-school system. For a more ad- vanced education it was still customary to be a pupil of some educated clergyman, who found it expedient to teach private schools, until the establishment of the Greensburg Academy.

THE GREENSBURG ACADEMY.

At an early period of its municipal existence the education of the rising generation was regarded with deep interest by the citizens of Greensburg. At the beginning of the present century several schools of different grades imparted instruction to the youth of the town and neighborhood. There were schools opened on both Academy Hill and on Bunker Hill. The Bunker Hill school was under the charge of the Rev. Milligan, whose son, also Rev. Milligan, offici- ated so long for the Covenanters of Westmoreland. The Academy Hill school was taught by several per- sons, among whom was the Rev. Cannon, who was also a burning and shining light to those of the faith who still protested against prelacy and the custom of singing psalms to worldly tunes, and who still ad- hered to the letter of the Solemn League and Cove- nant.

The ordinary schools created a desire for a higher institution, where striplings could be prepared for college and a knowledge of the humanities be ac- quired. Accordingly an act of incorporation was procured from the Legislature, and in 1810 an acad- emy was built on. the hill north of the town, on exactly the same site where the present edifice has been erected. The State gave a donation of two thousand dollars towards the foundation of the insti- tution. In 1836-37 another donation was given to it by the Legislature, in common with all the acade- mies and seminaries throughout the State.

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History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 123

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor Publication date: Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages: