Father Pitt

Category: History

  • Duquesne Baseball Team, 1892 or 1893

    Duquesne baseball team

    The borough (later city) of Duquesne was only three or four years old when this picture was taken, if the dating in family tradition is correct, but it already had a baseball team with spiffy jerseys. One of the players—possibly the boy on the ground in front with the dark jersey—is James W. Estep (1879–1948), son of George Estep, one of the founders (and later two-term burgess) of Duquesne, and it was James’ late grandson who provided us with this picture, for which Father Pitt is very grateful.

    Old Pa Pitt knows nothing of the history of this team, and he would be delighted if any readers could enlighten him.

  • PCC Car and Schoolhouse, Bethel Park

    Schoolhouse Arts & History Center

    This old school is now a community center for Bethel Park. In front is a Pittsburgh PCC car, the ideal Art Deco streetcar that dominated Pittsburgh transit for a generation, restored to its Pittsburgh Street Railways livery. (It was one of the last PCC cars to run in Pittsburgh, and had been repainted in the 1980s Port Authority livery.) Yes, we do have quite a few pictures of it, because old Pa Pitt is an unashamed fan of PCC cars, which always look to him like trolleys that would run on the planet Mongo in the old Flash Gordon serials. More modern, but less futuristic, trolleys still run on the Silver Line just a block away.

    PCC car
    PCC car
    Schoolhouse

  • The 1877 Point Bridge

    Point Bridge

    From an old postcard (the back bears a 1906 postmark), this picture gives us a good idea of the scale of freight traffic on the Monongahela. The first Point Bridge was built in 1877 and replaced in 1927; the second one was closed in 1959 but stayed up for eleven more years.

  • A Distinguished Beard: George Estep, Burgess of Duquesne

    George Estep, burgess of Duquesne

    George Estep was one of the founders of the borough of Duquesne and was burgess—the equivalent of mayor—twice. He was elected to the council in the first elections held in the new borough, and immediately began squabbling with the other members, leaving a trail of court cases all the way up to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and beginning a political tradition that has been lovingly preserved in Duquesne to the present day. His lush growth of beard distinguishes him in the group portraits of Duquesne founders.

    This photograph has never been published before, as far as old Pa Pitt knows, and he thanks the family for preserving it for us.

  • Master William Pickels of the Trinity Church, Pittsburg

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    Every once in a while old Pa Pitt likes to introduce you to a back alley of Pittsburgh history known to few even of his most informed readers. Here is one of them. Few Pittsburghers are aware that Trinity Church (now Trinity Cathedral) produced a boy soprano whose talent made him a brief national sensation. We hear few boy sopranos these days, but in 1915 Master William Pickels made a few records for Victor, the most prestigious recording company, that show off his technical ability. A short notice in Pacific Coast Musical Review:

    The first adequate records of a boy soprano are contributed by Master William Pickels, of Trinity Church, Pittsburgh, and two well known and popular airs are used for his Victor debut—Arditi’s “Love in Springtime” and “The Musetta Waltz” from Boheme. This young soprano is a most unusual singer. His voice lends itself admirably to reproduction, and the purity and freshness of his voice and its remarkable flexibility mark him as one of the best boy sopranos ever heard in America.

    This record has been given the usual audio restoration for our sister site The Lateral Cut, which brings out a more natural bass and reduces the surface noise.

  • The Pittsburgh Directory for 1815

    Suppose you suddenly dropped through a hole in time and found yourself in the Pittsburgh of 1815. How would you find your way? What was the population? What were the street names then? Where would you find a watch, or a suit of clothes, or wholesale German imports? Was there a library? How would you post a letter?

    In case that happens remember this name: James M. Riddle, on the south side of 3d, between Market and Wood streets, and nearly opposite the Farmers’ and Mechanics’ Bank. Mr. Riddle has published a complete directory of the booming Borough of Pittsburgh, and no visitor from the future should be without it.

    You will notice that there are no addresses. Though it had already grown to be one of the ten largest cities in the country, Pittsburgh had not yet numbered its houses and buildings. Instead, an address would be given as “S side of Virgin alley between Wood and Smithfield,” and if you wanted anything more specific, you would probably have to ask someone on the street.

  • Pittsburgh’s Forgotten Classical Master

    A century ago, if you had asked anyone around here who were Pittsburgh’s most famous composers, two names would have come up: Stephen Foster and Ethelbert Nevin. (Today you might hear Billy Strayhorn or Erroll Garner, which would certainly be good choices.) Foster was known for his popular songs that became the sound of America being America; Nevin was known for evocative salon pieces that were not too difficult for a talented amateur pianist. Nevin was born in Edgeworth, the son of a Pittsburgh newspaper-owner (Robert Peebles Nevin, who founded the Times, later merged with the Gazette) and a well-known pianist (Elizabeth Duncan Oliphant Nevin). He died at the age of 38, at the peak of his fame, in 1901, and for at least two decades afterward his music was everywhere.

    After that, he passed out of fashion so completely that few music-lovers today even recognize his name. His problem was that he wrote little suites meant to be evocative of a place or mood—“Water Scenes,” “In Arcady,” “May in Tuscany”—and the dogma of modernism in music insisted that such musical evocations not only should not but could not happen.

    But there are hundreds of recordings of his most famous pieces from the early twentieth century. This one, from 1915, is an orchestral arrangement of the Canzone amorosa from Opus 25, A Day in Venice. Audio restoration has brought out a pleasingly rich sound from the Victor house orchestra, conducted by Walter B. Rogers.

    This audio file comes from our sister site The Lateral Cut, which is trying to bring life back to old acoustical recordings with fancy (but not too aggressive) electronic sound restoration.

  • Prince Gallitzin Defends His Faith

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    Demetrius Gallitzin, the Russian prince who left his princely life to become a Catholic missionary in the back woods of Pennsylvania, heard a sermon by a Protestant minister on “a day appointed by the government for humiliation and prayer, in order to avert from our beloved country the calamity of war.” He didn’t like it.

    “The professed subject of his sermon on such a day was, or should have been, to excite his hearers to humility and contrition, and to a perfect union of hearts and exertions, during the impending storm; but he, very likely alarmed at a much greater danger, of which no body else but himself dreamed; alarmed I mean, and trembling for the ark of Israel, likely to be carried off by those Philistines, called Roman Catholics, or alarmed perhaps at the very probable danger of an intended invasion from the Pope, who would, to be sure, avail himself of the confused state of the country to assist his English friends in the conquest of it, that he might by that means extend his jurisdiction; or, in fine, alarmed perhaps lest our treacherous Catholics would take advantage of the times, and by forming a new Gunpowder plot, would blow up the Congress hall, State houses, and all the protestant meeting houses of the United States: Alarmed at least, by something or another, he suddenly forgets his subject, and putting on a grave countenance, enters the most solemn caveat against Popish and Heathen neighbours, cautions his hearers against their superstitions, and gives them plainly enough to understand, that such Popish neighbours are not to be considered their fellow citizens.”

    A little book printed in Pittsburgh in 1816 was Gallitzin’s answer. The book is poorly printed—there were much better printers in Pittsburgh by this time (thirty years after the first press appeared in Pittsburgh), but perhaps no good ones willing to print Catholic tracts. But in spite of the worn types and blotchy ink, the Protestant minister doesn’t stand much of a chance against Gallitzin’s logic and wit.

    For us two centuries later, though, it’s interesting to see that Gallitzin regards “the infallibility of the Pope” as one of the many “articles falsely attributed to Roman Catholics” that are “industriously propagated to answer certain iniquitous purposes” (p. 7). Well, you can’t always be on the right side of Popish history.

  • Earl Hines

    Pittsburgh is rich in great jazz pianists. Erroll Garner has been getting more attention lately, and Mary Lou Williams has seen a well-deserved revival. But no one seems to be talking about the one Father Pitt considers the greatest of all. So here, to jog some memories, is Earl Hines playing his own song “A Monday Date” in a recording from 1928. The record was much loved, so there’s a little fuzz around the edges. But the sound is otherwise excellent, and the genius of Fatha Hines glitters in every astonishing bar.

  • Guyasuta Visits Pittsburgh, 1787

    Statue of Guyasuta in Sharpsburg

    This article appeared in the Maryland Gazette (in Annapolis), February 1, 1787; it seems to have been reprinted from the Gazette in Pittsburgh. The narrative drips with sarcasm: Guyasuta led the Senecas in the attack that destroyed Hannah’s Town (or Hanna’s Town or Hannastown) in 1782, and the memory obviously had not grown cold in Pittsburgh. But Guyasuta was now appearing in a diplomatic capacity, and it is very interesting to see how he and the growing town of Pittsburgh reacted to each other. He gawked at the sights; Pittsburghers gawked at him. They discovered that they shared a common love of Monongahela rye, and after that everything seems to have gone smoothly.

    PITTSBURGH, January 6.

    We are happy to have an opportunity of congratulating our fellow citizens on the arrival in this town, of the great, the mighty, and the warlike Giosoto the First, king of the Seneca nation; defender of Hannah’s-town; protector of the widow and orphan, &c. &c.

    There was an elegant entertainment (consisting of three gallons of whiskey and twenty pounds of flour) prepared for his majesty and retinue, which they enjoyed with an uncommon relish, as these articles have become exceedingly scarce within his majesty’s, Giosoto, dominions.

    His majesty amuses himself whilst he remains here, in walking about to view the curiosities of this place, in quaffing good whiskey; and smoaking tobacco and the bark of willow trees, through his curiously ornamented wooden pipe.—As anecdotes of great men can never fail to be interesting, we shall not neglect to add, that his majesty was observed to be particularly fond of viewing the game of billiards—some biographers pretend to assert that his majesty has been a great gamester in his time, but whether billiards or football was his favorite game, we cannot pretend to assert.