From the Rotarian magazine, May, 1916. Note the skyline filled with beaux-arts classical towers, most of which are still here today, although they are dwarfed by more modern skyscrapers..
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Pittsburgh in 1916
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Mary Roberts Rinehart Lived Here
The Circular Staircase was one of the greatest bestsellers of all time, and Mary Roberts Rinehart lived here when she wrote it—just half a block up Beech Avenue from the house where Gertrude Stein, a writer with a somewhat different style, was born. The success of The Circular Staircase made Mary Roberts Rinehart one of the most powerful literary figures in America, and her good business sense consolidated that power into a publishing empire for her family.
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Thirteen Stars, Thirteen Stripes
Those plucky colonials have raised their rebel flag over the blockhouse at Fort Pitt, Britain’s most important Western fort.
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“Pittsburgh,” by E. M. Sidney
From Graham’s American Monthly Magazine of Literature and Art, Vol. XXX (1847), p. 249.
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The Old Pike
A very interesting book on the subject of the National Pike has just appeared at Project Gutenberg. The National Pike (now U.S. Route 40, and for substantial stretches Maryland Route 144) brought the East to the West, and passes through what are now the southern suburbs of Pittsburgh. Many milestones of the sort seen in the photograph still exist, and are lovingly maintained.
The idea of a federally funded highway to the West was a product of the Jefferson administration; the right wing, of course, denounced it as a pinko plot. (The word for “pinko” in those days was “Jacobin.”)
The author of the book, Mr. Thomas B. Searight, was the son of the Searight who operated a tollhouse west of Uniontown. That tollhouse is still there; it is built to the standard octagonal plan of the tollhouses on the National Pike.
The Old Pike. A History of the National Road, with Incidents, Accidents, and Anecdotes Thereon. Illustrated. By Thomas B. Searight. Uniontown, Pa: Published by the Author. 1894.
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Pittsburgh Businesses in 1819
Pittsburgh was already a thriving small city nearly two hundred years ago, as we can see from a directory to the city published in 1819. A few of the advertisements from the back of the book give us a good picture of the commercial landscape of the place.
Taverns were common, of course, and what traveler would not be reassured by the name of this one?
We are almost certainly meant to read this as “Spread Eagle Tavern.” Rebuses were common in advertisements throughout the first half of the nineteenth century. Note the address, by the way. There were no address numbers in the Pittsburgh of 1819; advertisers had to give explicit directions relative to notable landmarks.
We have forgotten in our days of central heating how important a good bellows used to be.
As Pittsburgh grew more prosperous, homeowners kept up with the latest fashions. One popular fashion was to have mural wallpapers installed in the largest rooms of the house, and Pittsburgh was apparently not only a consumer but also a supplier of such decorations.”Third street,” by the way, is what we now call “Third Avenue.” Our numbered “avenues” were called “streets” in those simpler days; the numbered “streets” on our current map had individual names in 1819.
Of course, the reason Pittsburgh existed in the first place was because the site controlled the access to the West by way of the Ohio River, and much of the business here catered to travelers embarking for the new countries to the west. Grocers like Mr. Cotter kept everything you would need to stock your boat for a long trip.
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Very Early Map of Pittsburgh, 1759
UPDATE: Another more intact copy of the map has surfaced; see below.
Old Pa Pitt is very pleased to be able to present to you what must be one of the very earliest printed maps of Pittsburgh, perhaps the very earliest, printed only a month or so after the British founded the place on the ruins of Fort Duquesne. It can be found on the last page of the London Magazine: or, Gentleman’s Monthly Intelligencer, for January of 1759. Unfortunately a bit of the page is torn, but the missing words do not affect the meaning very much. (The last line almost certainly reads, “The Arrows shew the Course of the Rivers.”) All friends of civilization owe a great debt of gratitude to the Google Books project for making possible research that would have taken decades of work and thousands of miles of travel in the old days of, say, ten years ago.
——Father Pitt has found another copy of the same magazine in which the page is not torn. Here is the same map intact:
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Point Park: An Error Corrected
The Pittsburghers have committed an error in not rescuing from the service of Mammon, a triangle of thirty or forty acres at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela, and devoting it to the purposes of recreation. It is an unparalleled position for a park in which to ride or walk or sit. Bounded on the right by the clear and rapid Allegheny rushing from New York, and on the left by the deep and slow Monongahela flowing majestically from Virginia, having in front the beginning of the great Ohio, bearing on its broad bosom the traffic of an empire, it is a spot worthy of being rescued from the ceaseless din of the steam engine, and the lurid flames and dingy smoke of the coal furnace. But alas! the sacra fames auri is rapidly covering this area with private edifices; and in a few short years it is probable, that the antiquary will be unable to discover a vestige of those celebrated military works, with which French and British ambition, in by-gone ages, had crowned this important and interesting point.
——A Pleasant Peregrination through the Prettiest Parts of Pennsylvania, performed by Peregrine Prolix.
Our author looked down on Pittsburgh in 1835 and recommended a park exactly the size (“thirty or forty acres”) of Point State Park (which is 36 acres). Seldom in the history of urban planning has a need for green space in a particular location been so obvious; certainly it is even more seldom that the crying need is actually met by enlightened urban planners, even if it took us till 1974.
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An English View of Pittsburgh in the 1820s
APRIL, 1829.
From the Monthly Review.
LETTERS FROM THE WEST: containing Sketches of Scenery, Manners, and Customs; and Anecdotes connected with the First Settlement of the Western Sections of the United States. By the Hon. Judge Hall. 8vo. pp. 385. London. Colburn. 1828.
Our author commences his tour at Pittsburgh, formerly the ultima Thule of travellers, but now the vestibule through which they approach the great states of the West. It is favourably situated at the head of the Ohio, and the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers. The scenery around the town is charming. A circle of hills encloses it, from various points of which the three rivers just mentioned may be seen winding through the country.
“The city lay beneath me, enveloped in smoke—the clang of hammers resounded from its numerous manufactories—the rattling of carriages and the hum of men were beard from its streets—churches, courts, hotels, and markets, and all the ‘pomp and circumstance’ of busy life were presented in one panoramic view. Behind me were all the silent, soft attractions of rural sweetness—the ground rising gradually for a considerable distance, and exhibiting country seats, surrounded with cultivated fields, gardens, and orchards. On either hand were the rivers, one dashing over beds of rock, the other sluggishly meandering among the hills; while the lofty eminences beyond them, covered with timber, displayed a rich foliage, decked and shadowed with every tint of the rainbow. Below the town, the Ohio is seen, receiving her tributary streams, and bearing off to the west, burthened with rich freights. The towns of Allegheny on the right hand, and Birmingham on the left—the noble bridges that lead to the city in opposite directions—the arsenal, and the little village of Laurenceville, in the rear, added variety to the scene.”—pp. 22, 23.
The smoke of Leeds or Manchester is a pure atmosphere, compared with the masses of soot sent forth by the Pittsburgh coal. Even the snow that falls there is said to be tinged with it! The principal manufactures of this town consist of iron and glass ware. It is the principal place of deposit for goods destined for the western country. It is moreover a port of entry, a distinction which seems to have occasionally puzzled the Italian custom-house officers, if we are to believe an anecdote related by Mr. Clay, on the floor of Congress:—
“‘To illustrate the commercial habits and enterprise of the American people, (he said) he would relate an anecdote of a vessel, built, and cleared out at Pittsburgh for Leghorn. When she arrived at her place of destination, the master presented his papers to the customhouse officer, who would not credit them, and said to him, “Sir, your papers are forged; there is not such a port as Pittsburgh in the world; your vessel must be confiscated.” The trembling captain laid before the officer the map of the United States—directing him to the gulf of Mexico—pointed out the mouth of the Mississippi—led him a thousand miles up it to the mouth of the Ohio, and thence another thousand up to Pittsburgh. “There, Sir, is the port whence my vessel cleared out.” The astonished officer, before he had seen the map would as readily have believed that this vessel had been navigated from the moon.’”—pp. 36,37.
——Museum of Foreign Literature and Science, April, 1829, quoting from the Monthly Review. From the description, we can tell that the writer stood on the Hill, which was then not much settled, and looked westward.
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Pittsburgh in 1816
The English reformer William Cobbett published the journal of his friend Thomas Hulme, who visited the western parts of the United States in 1816. Mr. Hulme began, of course, in Pittsburgh, the gateway to the West, and on June 4 and 5 took a tour of the city.
Took a view of Pittsburgh. It is situated between the mouths of the rivers Allegany and Monongahela, at the point where they meet and begin the Ohio, and is laid out in a triangular form, so that two sides of it lie contiguous to the water. Called upon Mr. Bakewell, to whom we were introduced by letter, and who very obligingly satisfied our curiosity to see every thing of importance. After showing us through his extensive and well conducted glass works, he rowed us across the Monongahela to see the mines from which the fine coals we had seen burning were brought. These coals are taken out from the side of a steep hill, very near to the river, and brought from thence and laid down in any part of the town for 7 cents the bushel, weighing, perhaps, 80 lbs. Better coals I never saw. A bridge is now building over the river, by which they will most probably be brought still cheaper.
This place surpasses even my expectations, both in natural resources and in extent of manufactures. Here are the materials for every species of manufacture, nearly, and of excellent quality and in profusion; and these means have been taken advantage of by skilful and industrious artizans and mechanics from all parts of the world. There is scarcely a denomination of manufacture or manual profession that is not carried on to a great extent, and, as far as I have been able to examine, in the best manner. The manufacture of iron in all the different branches, and the mills of all sorts, which I examined with the most attention, are admirable.
Price of flour, from 4 to 5 dollars a barrel; butter 14 cents per lb.; other provisions in proportion and mechanic’s and good labourer’s wages 1 dollar, and ship-builder’s 1 dollar and a half, a day.
