Standard history of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, Part 75

Author: Wilson, Erasmus, 1842-1922; Goodspeed, Weston Arthur, 1852-1926. cn
Publication date: 1898
Publisher: Chicago : H.R. Cornell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1192

USA > Pennsylvania > Allegheny County > Pittsburgh > Standard history of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania > Part 75

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Chas. Pfeifer

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In November, 1779, the Delaware chiefs called upon him, stated that they were in a condition of great destitution and requested to be furnished with supplies. Colonel Brodhead wrote to the authorities: "My different staff departments here are out of money and out of credit, and if they are not sud- denly supplied I shall dread the consequences." He argued that the Indians should be plaeated with supplies of all kinds and thus made the friends and allies of the Americans. He deplored the faet that the Board of War had not sent him more and better shoes and hats. In December he wrote: "I meet with little perplexity in the common course of my duties, but the want of many of the necessary articles for the troops and Indians, the want of money in every department, with the difficulty of getting the ordinary supplies and the trouble with the Indians, who, for political reasons, I am obliged to tempt, drunk or sober; these, with the undetermined state of the rights of the gar- rison and a rascally set of inhabitants at this place, is sufficient to destroy the patience of Job."

Several companies of rangers were organized in the spring of 1780 in Westmoreland County, to be employed in checking the inroads of the savages. In January, 1780, Colonel Brodhead placed the Maryland corps, consisting of twenty men and officers, in the large house situated forty yards from one of the bastions of Fort Pitt, and owned by Ward and Smallman, against the pro- tests of the latter. Later the owners, who were justices of the peace of Yohogania County, applied for damages for this act of the commander. Still later they eommeneed suit against Colonel Brodhead for £5,000 damages.

About this time Brodhead evidently had in view the acquirement of valu- able real estate holdings in the Western country. He wrote in February, 1780: "Should our State determine to extend its settlements over the Allegheny River I should be happy to have an early hint of it, because it will be in my power to serve several of my friends. I have sometimes thought of proposing to the Executive Council and Assembly the purchase of the late proprietor's manor at this place, but it might perhaps be as well for me to be eoneerned with some gentlemen of my acquaintance in the purchase. I coneeive it will, within a few years after peace is established, be one of the first places of business of any inland town in America. Should your exeelleney be of opinion with me, and inelined to take in a few gentlemen into partnership in such a purehase, I shall be happy in the connection." President Reed, to whom this proposi- tion was made, deelined to enter into such an engagement.

In Mareh, 1780, Colonel Brodhead notified Joseph Reed, president of the Executive Couneil, that the savages had begun hostilities by killing five men and taking eaptive six children, at a sugar eamp on Raeeoon Creek. President Reed notified Colonel Brodhead that the Assembly had voted four companies to be raised for the defense of the frontier, but that the low condition of the State finanees had prevented plaeing them in the field. Rcv. John Hecke- welder wrote to Colonel Brodhead from Coshoeking that five or six bands of Delawares, Wyandots, Muncies and Shawnees had departed from that locality to strike the settlements in Western Pennsylvania, and that the Wabash Indians were reported likewise to have taken the war path.

In April, 1780, George Washington, in a letter to President Reed, said that it was his opinion that under the act of Congress of February, 1780, Fort Pitt was entitled to 24,000 barrels of flour, 7,000 gallons rum, 150 hundredweight of hay, 7,500 bushels of eorn and a considerable quantity of salt. In all the sup- plies sent. in those days the item of rum or whisky was invariably present in large figures. By the 27th of April Brodhead reported that over forty or fifty of the inhabitants living in the counties of Yohogania, Monongalia and Ohio had been murdered by the Indians. "It will give me great pleasure to

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hear from Congress," said Colonel Brodhead, "with respect to the half Whigs of this place, Ward and Smallman, because I have received another writ for £40,000 damages for taking the demised king's orchard for soldiers' gardens." Owing to the want of the necessary funds it was concluded best for small parties of experienced men to make forays against the Indian towns and fight them after their own style. It was about this time that a company of artillery. in command of Captain Isaac Craig was sent to the assistance of Colonel Brod- head. The authorities also offered a reward for Indian scalps. So desperate became the condition of the Western country that, in May of 1780, Colonel Brodhead wrote: "For Heaven's sake hurry up the companies voted by the Assembly or Westmoreland County will soon be a wilderness." In many instances, toward the end of the war, the supplies sent by the State authorities for the relief of Fort Pitt invariably came through far short of the quantity sent. This was due to the pilferings of the impoverished inhabitants along the route. Even after the arrival of supplies the soldiers would steal large quan- tities and sell them to the inhabitants, who would save them for a stringent time and then sell them at enormous prices. In July, 1780, Brodhead reported that he would probably be compelled to use force to keep the provisions from being stolen. The supplies for Fort Pitt were supposed to arrive monthly from Cumberland County, Virginia, and to consist of 150 barrels of flour, 500 bushels of short forage and 500 gallons of whisky. It was often the case that several months would elapse without the arrival of any supplies. Often the soldiers and inhabitants were cut down to short rations, and frequently were compelled, for want of something better, to consume provisions that were unfit to eat. In August, 1780, when the news was received that Colonel Clarke of Virginia had destroyed the Indian town at Chillicothe, Colonel Brodhead wrote: "How happy should I be if it was in my power to attack the Wyandots and Mingoes at this time; but I cannot march with one day's allowance of bread and three or four of beef." He also said: "Could a considerable sum of our State money be obtained our wants would be speedily supplied, for I am informed that the people will gladly receive it in payment for produce." In September, 1780, he wrote to Reed that all the garrison, a short time before, had drawn out of their quarters, stating as a reason that they had been five days without bread. They were informed that the officers were equal sufferers and that every exertion was being made to relieve them; whereupon they returned.

The Continental and State currency had depreciated to such an extent that it was next to impossible to use it in the purchase of supplies from the surrounding country. Later, provisions were secured from the country by com- pulsion, until the inhabitants learned to drive all their stock into swamps and other places where they could be concealed. It must be borne in mind that the inhabitants suffered the same privations imposed upon the troops. When the latter were well provided for, the inhabitants likewise received an abundance and were accordingly happy. It was reported by Colonel Brodhead, in Novem- ber, 1780, that Thomas Smallman had purchased of two Delaware chiefs McKee's Island, situated about two miles below Fort Pitt. About this time the troops obtained their supplies of beef from Virginia, the cattle being driven to this place by soldiers unders orders of the contractors.

The plan of the British in 1781 was to concentrate a large force of regulars and Indians in the vicinity of Detroit, then to move to Beaver Creek, from which point an attack upon Fort Pitt was to be made. The Continental authorities were aware of this contemplated movement and took effective steps to prevent it. In the spring of 1781 Brodhead discovered a plot which had for its object the capture and surrender of Fort Pitt to the English by several

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Tory residents here. He promptly arrested the suspected persons and suc- ceeded in crushing the attempt before any serious consequences resulted. He said: "Indeed, this place is infested with such a set of disaffected inhabitants that I have been under the necessity of ordering some away, and others must soon follow to prevent greater injury to the service."

The Indian atrocities of 1780 were repeated in 1781. The entire Western country was kept in a state of continuous suspense, and many settlers were ruthlessly murdered. In May, 1781, Alexander Fowler and William Amberson were sent to Fort Pitt with the necessary money to pay the members of the Eighth Regiment, stationed here and elsewhere in Western Pennsylvania. They were paid in depreciated certificates. In June, 1781, Colonel John Gibson tem- porarily succeeded Colonel Brodhead in command of Fort Pitt. In the sum- mer of 1781 General Clarke's command encamped for some time on the Ohio, three miles below Fort Pitt. In August, 1781, many of the soldiers marched out of their barracks, grounded their arms and announced their intention of going to their homes unless they should be supplied with suitable provisions and clothing. The commander prevailed upon them to wait for the arrival of the supplies which were then on the way. In September, 1781, General William Irvine was sent by Congress to take charge of Fort Pitt. He was directed to thor- oughly repair the fort and place it in a condition to resist a threatened attack from a combined force of British and Indians. In the summer of 1782 the expedition under command of Colonel William Crawford, destined for the reduction of Sandusky, rendezvoused at Fort Pitt and was joined by several residents of this place. The disaster of this expedition was followed by a general attack upon the settlements, and Fort Pitt itself was considered in danger. But news was soon afterward received that the war was nearly at an end and the Indians sued for peace, to the great relief of the inhabitants.

Immediately succeeding the Revolutionary War, and, in fact, dating from the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, it became the conviction in America that the cause of the Colonists would be successful. Many, therefore, at Carlisle and towns further East, determined, as soon as safety from the Indians was assured, to go into the Western country and locate either at Pittsburg, or in the surrounding country. They began to arrive as early as 1781. In the spring of that year there arrived Hugh H. Brackenridge, a man destined to cut the most prominent figure in many respects in Western Pennsylvania dur- ing the next twenty years. In 1783 a colored man, Charles Richards, kept the leading tavern. In the fall of 1783 the Penns, who had left no possessions in Pennsylvania, except their manors, offered for sale their lands at Pittsburg. The first sale occurred in January, 1784, to Stephen Bayard and Isaac Craig, of the tract of land, comprising about three acres, lying between Fort Pitt and the Allegheny River. The same year the proprietors laid out the town of Pittsburg, including therein the lots that had been previously platted in 1764 by . Colonel Campbell, and the three acres which had been purchased by Messrs. Bayard and Craig. Colonel George Wood, of Bedford, surveyor, was appointed by Tench Francis, attorney of the proprietors, in June, 1784, to lay out the town.

Immediately succeeding the survey many of the lots were sold, not only to residents but to speculators, who expected to hold them for a higher price. In 1786 the Gazette stated that the price of lots here was very high, doubtless owing to the recognized future prominence of Pittsburg as a business point. The number of people residing here in 1786 was about 250, and at this time the point had just begun to assume an importance from a business standpoint. Isaac Craig and Stephen Bayard, as the partners of Turnbull, Marmie & Co., of Philadelphia, engaged in the mercantile business and erected a distillery in

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1784, and likewise-erected a sawmill on the Allegheny and established saltworks on the Big Beaver. This was one of the first and most noted of the business ventures at this time. Previously, few, if any, stores here had been kept by others than traders, but this was a new departure, which gave immediate prominence to Pittsburg as a business point, and unquestionably attracted inany other residents. Perhaps the next most important events connected with Pittsburg were the location here of several blacksmiths, who began the manu- facture of nails, and the establishment of the Pittsburg Gazette by Messrs. Scull and Hall, in July, 1786. Mr. Brackenridge, who had come in 1781, was intent upon the growth of Pittsburg, and no doubt had much to do in securing the location here of early residents and early business houses. He recommended the establishment of the Gazette, and continued a liberal contributor to that paper until he passed into disfavor with it, about 1798, owing to his espousal of the cause of the Anti-Federalists. Pittsburg became the center of attraction and the basis of supplies for all the Western country; and the most noteworthy fact connected with its early career is that within a few years an immense demand from the settlers of Ohio and Kentucky for all varieties of ironmongery and store goods poured in so fast that the stores multiplied rapidly, and by 1792 from ten to twelve establishments for the manufacture of nails or the sale of merchandise were enjoying grcat prosperity. The several excursions made against the Indians from this point by United States troops served still further to attract settlers to this point. The whisky insurrection of 1794 created such a demand here for all manner of supplies that prices arose to double and triple their former figure, and merchants, in a few months, doubled their capital and greatly increased their stocks. Even the farmers for miles around shared immensely in the general prosperity. Thousands of soldiers required thou- sands of dollars' worth of food, clothing and equipment, and the United States footed the bill, while the inhabitants of Pittsburg received the greatest benefit accruing to them up to this time. During the same year, 1794, the town was incorporated as a borough, which likewise attracted attention, as it promised good order and safer individual and business methods. In 1797 the glassworks of General James O'Hara were projected, one of the most important ventures ever made in Pittsburg. Nothing but the persistency, promi- nence and capital of General O'Hara could have made it successful at that time. It must be conceded that Pittsburg then possessed immense possibilities. It required no prophet to predict that this town could, if it so desired, gain a large portion of the trade of the Western country. Even as early as 1792 the supplies of nails and other forms of iron could not meet the demand. The result was the multiplication of nail and other iron factories, and a large increase in the capital expended in these establishments.

It was in 1788 that one of the most important events of early times occurred to Pittsburg, namely, its establishment as the county seat of the new county of Allegheny. It is true that the act creating the county directed that the courthouse should be built across the river, on the reserved tract, or in what is now Allegheny; but soon afterward this clause was changed so that the first county buildings were erected in Pittsburg. In March, 1787, at a public meet- ing held for the purpose, High Ross, Stephen Bayard and Rev. Samuel Barr were appointed a committee to prepare plans for a market-house. The meeting was held on the Diamond. The editor of the Gazette said: "It may, indeed, be for the benefit of those who have cash, as it would save them some trouble and industry in order to get what articles they might want, but as for the inhabitants of this place in general to enter into an association to buy no pro- visions but in that market (on market days) is truly absurd, for many of us, at least he knows it to be his case, don't get as much in a week as would pur-

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chase a pound of beef, and we had better stay at home and suck our fingers than go to market without it." "The bulk of the inhabitants are traders, mechanics and laborers; of mechanics and laborers there is still a great want. Masons and carpenters are especially wanted; indeed, from this cir- cumstance the improvement of the town in buildings is greatly retarded" (k). In 1786 Pittsburg contained thirty-six log houses, one stone house, one frame house and six small stores. In September, 1789, there resided in Pittsburg 11early 300 persons entitled to vote.

Captain Thomas Hutchins died in Pittsburg at the house of John Ormsby, in April, 1789. He had been Geographer-General of the United States imme- diately succeeding the Revolution, and had been the friend of Ormsby since the French war of 1765. The funeral services were conducted by Rev. John Heck- ewelder, the famous Moravian missionary. It was said "that his map laid the foundations of American gcography" and that "he had measured much earth, but a small space now contains him." In 1788 the old Delaware chief, Henry Killbuck, in a petition to the Supreme Executive Council of the State, stated that owing to his having sided with the Colonies in their war with the mother country, he was forced by his people to leave them, and accordingly had taken up his residence opposite Pittsburg on an island, consisting of about twenty acres, under orders of the commandant of Fort Pitt. He stated that he had cleared about ten acres, and asked the Council to settle on him the title to the island, which rented for thirty bushels of corn per annum.

The act of the General Assembly, passed March 12, 1783, for the purpose of redeeming and paying off the certificates of depreciation given to the officers and soldiers of the Pennsylvania line, provided that a certain tract, "containing 3,000 acres in an oblong of not less than one milc in depth from the Allegheny and Ohio rivers, and extending up and down the rivers from opposite Fort Pitt so far as may be necessary to include the same," should be reserved to the use of the State. This tract includes what is now Allegheny. It was not surveyed until the winter of 1787-8. In February, 1788, David Redick, in a letter to Benjamin Franklin, wrote as follows: "On Tuesday last I went with several other gentlemen to fix on a spot for laying out the town opposite Pitts- burg, and at the same time take a general vicw of the tract, and find it far inferior to my cxpectations, although I thought I had been no stranger to it. There is some pretty low ground on the rivers Ohio and Allegheny, and there is but a small proportion of dry land, which appears any way valuable either for timber or soil, especially for soil; it abounds with high hills and deep hollows almost inaccessible to a surveyor. I cannot think that ten-acre lots on such pits and hills will possibly meet with purchasers, unless, like a pig in a poke, it be kept out of view. Would it not be more advantage to the State if the Legislature would alter the law? and that a town and a reasonable number of outlots for the accommodation of the town be laid out, the remainder of tlie land being laid out in 200-acre lots, fronting on the river where practicable, and extending back so as to include the hilly and uneven ground which might be of some use to a farm. I cannot believe but that Colonel Lowrey and Colonel Irwin, both members of the Assembly and who know the land well, will, on consideration, be of opinion with me that small lots on the sides of those hills can never be of use for any purpose but as above mentioned."

Pursuant to the resolution of the Executive Council, bcaring date August 29, 1788, notice was given by the Receiver-General at Philadelphia that on Wednesday, November 19, 1788, at 10 o'clock a. m., at the Coffee House in Philadelphia, the lots, outlots and small farms within the reserved tract opposite

(k) Gazette, August, 1786.

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Pittsburg would be. offered for sale agreeable to the plan on file in the receiver's office. It was announced that the purchase money should be gold or silver, bills of credit of the State of the last emission, or certificates upon which interest was made payable by law at the State Treasury, payment to be made within thirty days or the premises to revert to the State, the bidder to sustain any loss which might arise from a future sale. It was announced that the sale would continue from day to day until the whole should be sold, unless other- wise directed by the Supreme Council. A plat of the tract was also exhibited at the Gazette office in Pittsburg. It was provided by law that all the lands of the State within the limit of Allegheny, mentioned in the fourth section of the act of the Assembly of September II, 1787, except such as had already been disposed of, should be granted to Allegheny for public uses and as a common, and that thereafter such tract should not be diverted from this specific use with- out the relinquishment of the rights of all persons having an interest in the same. In 1788 all the islands in the rivers near Pittsburg were ordered sur- veyed by the Executive Council. George Ross and George Woods were appointed a committee to consider and report to the Council names proper for the use of streets, lanes and alleys within the reserved tract. They selected the well-known names of Bank, Strawberry, Island, Ohio, Water, Ferry, Spring, Chestnut, Huckleberry, Long, East, Sassafras, Pasture and Sandusky. Richard Butler, William Butler, James Robinson and Daniel Elliott made preparations to purchase lots in the reserved tract as soon as the same should be thrown on the market. These gentlemen had already made valuable improvements there, and took this course to secure to themselves such improvements. John Hamilton, for the same reason, asked for the preference of an island, and William Wilson likewise asked for the preference of Wilson's Island. The Supreme Executive Council valued Hamilton's Island, which consisted of 136 acres, at twenty shillings per acre in gold or silver, and Wilson's Island, which consisted of 334 acres, at ten shillings per acre in gold or silver, and authorized that the right of preemption should be given to Messrs. Hamilton and Wilson, provided application should be made within six months from November 15, 1788. They really made application previous to the sale for certain tracts, and asked that the same might be reserved for them. David Redick and John Canon pre- pared the plan for disposing of the lots offered for sale on the reserve tract. They recommended that one out-lot should be sold with each lot, and that the remaining outlots be added together to form a total of six farms. The Council expressed the opinion that the river lots opposite Pittsburg were worth thirty shillings or their equivalent in specie per acre, that the town lots were worth on an average forty shillings per acre, and that the farms were worth from seven shillings sixpence to twenty shillings per acre. A few of the lots' were not valued. The reserves asked by the Butlers, Robinson and Elliott were granted. Alexander McLean surveyed the reserved tract. From the report of the committee appointed to consider a suitable name for the town within the reserve tract it is learned that "Alleghany" was sclected. The records show that the name was then spelled with an "a" instead of an "e," as is now used. At this time also the names of the principal streets, Federal, Ohio, Sandusky and Beaver, were selected.

In the early years a large sandbar lay in the Monongahela River opposite Pittsburg, upon which, in 1795, a crop of buckwheat was grown until it was destroyed by a freshet late in the summer. In 1794 Mckeesport, twelve miles above Pittsburg, was laid out by John McKee, who established there a brewery, tanyard, boatyard and two stores. There was in 1800, and for ten or twelve years previously, a racecourse on oval ground surrounding about half the city and that part where the larger portion of the churches are built. Another

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of the principal features of the early years was the fine gardens and orchards standing where Liberty and Penn streets are now located.

One of the most important of the early pursuits was the land business, which began in 1769, at which date the Government office was established. Nearly all the first lawyers, merchants and officials dealt in land warrants, some of them to an aggregate of many thousands of dollars. This important feature of early Pittsburg is usually overlooked by historians. The soldiers of the Revolution, except, perhaps, the officers, almost invariably, owing to the financial pressure, sold their land warrants for a small percentage of their actual value to speculators, who often held them for many years before transferring them to actual settlers. Bills of credit, based upon public lands, were issued to the soldiers for their services during the Revolution. For various causes these bills did not turn out productive, but depreciated 6, 7 and 8 to 1, and in the Western country, where the distress was so general that, though many people procured this kind of money for services or supplies rendered to the public, they were obliged to part with it when it was most depreciated in order to procure subsistence, very few of them were thus left with the original holders; but soon the Government paid particular attention to these bills, treated them as a favored debt, added a new and productive fund for their redemption, made them receivable in specially directed taxes, which appreciated their value, and finally corrected much of their depreciation. In 1787 there were yet outstanding in the State these bills to the amount of about £13,000. The arrearages on lands purchased prior to December 10, 1776, amounted in 1787 to about £500,000. Of these arrearages only about one-third paid interest to the Commonwealth. The farmners, as a class, kept their securities, while the soldiers disposed of them to speculators. In fact, farmers endeavored to buy these securities in order to use them in payment for their lands. From time to time the date of settlement for located lands or other office rights was postponed. Land com- panies sprang into existence, and in Western Pennsylvania became powerful factors in the commercial world. Agents of the various companies located here, and a constant trade on a large scale in land patents and securities, furnished large profits to merchants, lawyers and others who had capital to carry such properties. The Holland Land Company was composed of foreigners, who de- pended on the constitutional provision that no ex post facto law, nor any law impairing contracts, should be made. This company purchased a large tract of land, consisting of 870 original patents, north and west of the Allegheny and Ohio rivers, and for the same paid into the State Treasury $92,960. An agency was established here, and the lands were thrown on the market. Great in- ducements were offered to settlers, and, in fact, this company as well as others endeavored to render the condition of the settlers as agreeable as possible by the establishment of stores, shops, schools, churches, etc. By December, 1797, this company had secured patents from the State to the number of 876 tracts, the Land Office fees amounting to $14,651.31. A great effort was made in 1786 to have public securities received for arrears due the Land Office for tracts held under the old rights. It was finally recommended by the committee of the Legislature on the subject, that one-fourth of the arrearages upon lands which were held by warrants or locations obtained before the Revolution should be paid in the bills of credit, or paper money emitted in the year 1781, and the remaining three-fourths in such public securities as received interest at the State Treasury. In March, 1788, "divers inhabitants of Pittsburg and the neighbor- hood" issued a memorial setting forth that, in consequence of permission ob- tained between the years 1762 and 1768 from the British commanding officers at Fort Pitt, they had settled upon and improved several parcels of land, and that about the time when the Land Office opened, in 1769, the late proprietors

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Standard history of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, Part 75

Author: Wilson, Erasmus, 1842-1922; Goodspeed, Weston Arthur, 1852-1926. cn Publication date: 1898 Publisher: Chicago : H.R. Cornell & Co. Number of Pages: 1192

Author: Wilson, Erasmus, 1842-1922; Goodspeed, Weston Arthur, 1852-1926. cn
Publication date: 1898
Publisher: Chicago : H.R. Cornell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1192