Allium sphaerocephalon, a popular garden flower now in full bloom.
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Whiskey Rebellion Flag
The Whiskey Rebellion was a feckless, doomed-from-the-start insurrection pushed mostly by people who were in the habit of insurrecting and didn’t know how to stop. The Treaty of Paris ending the Revolution was only eleven years old, and many of the men who had settled in the west country of Pennsylvania had fought in that war. Now the wicked Easterners, who were scarcely better than British, were imposing an excise tax on whiskey, the staple product that made farming profitable in the West. No taxation without representation! Well, we had representation, but… Liberty and no excise! It was time for another revolution!
And then President Washington sent an army and, well, you know… We weren’t really serious about rebelling…
The “flag with six stripes” is often spoken of as raised by the rebels—the six stripes representing the six counties of the West. They had other flags as well; the elaborate one preserved at the Century Inn is the model for all the “Whiskey Rebellion” flags sold by historical souvenir specialists. But the six-striped flag seems to have been the most common. Old Pa Pitt does not know of any surviving examples, so his reconstruction above is speculative. Other speculative reconstructions add a canton with six stars, but that would turn a hastily improvised banner into a craft project. Since only the stripes are mentioned in our sources, Father Pitt suspects only the stripes were used. The reconstructed flag is an SVG file that can be used at any size without loss of resolution (not that there’s much to resolve), and—like all of Father Pitt’s illustrations—it is released into the public domain with a CC0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
The story of the Whiskey Rebellion is best told by Hugh Henry Brackenridge, who was caught up in the middle of it and did his best to avert a civil war while also keeping himself alive—the latter of which was at least as difficult as the former. Brackenridge was Pittsburgh’s and the nation’s greatest literary figure in President Washington’s time, and he tells the story with the narrative skill of a practiced novelist and the humor of a famous wit.
This new carefully printed edition of Incidents of the Insurrection is the first in a series of important Pittsburgh books issued by the Franklin Head, a joint venture between Father Pitt and his old friend Dr. Boli.
Independence Day is a good day to reflect on the blessings we enjoy because of the surprising collective wisdom of the rabble we call our Founding Fathers. They bought us independence from Britain by a successful rebellion, but they also understood that perpetual rebellion is hell on earth. When we remember Washington and the rest today, we should remember that independence was one of their gifts, but orderly representative government was an even greater gift, and one they were just as willing to fight for.
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Robin
Resting on the Marshall monument in the Allegheny Cemetery. That happy smile is probably the bird panting: it was a hot day.
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Dormont Junction
Dormont Junction ceased to be a junction in the 1960s, but the Pittsburgh trolley system is crusty with tradition, and the name has never been changed—in spite of occasional attempts by the Port Authority to call the station “Dormont.” The current station was designed in the 1980s, and like most of the stations put up then it is utilitarian to the point of ugliness. Above, two Red Line cars pass; below, a closer view, showing the 1980s-vintage T-in-a-circle sign at the entrance.
Dormont Junction is at the north end of the Mount Lebanon subway tunnel, which is never called a “subway” by real Pittsburghers, to whom “subway” means the section of four underground stations, one ground-level station, and two elevated stations from Station Square to Allegheny.
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Pulpit of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral
This elaborate Gothic pulpit is equipped with a traditional sounding board to deflect the sound out into the congregation. It is also equipped with a microphone, which has become a much more tenacious tradition. An Episcopal church would sooner give up the Thirty-Nine Articles than the microphone. It is an interesting fact of history that no one ever heard anything until electrical amplification was invented.
Addendum: This pulpit was designed by Bertram Goodhue, the disciple of Ralph Adams Cram who was the architect of First Baptist in Oakland. It was installed in 1922.
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Two Antebellum Churches on the South Side
Here are two very similar churches in the same block of Bingham Street, both from the 1850s, and both built with the sanctuary on the upper floor. In the middle 1800s, this was a common adaptation for churches in crowded neighborhoods of Pittsburgh and adjacent boroughs (Birmingham was still independent until 1872). Built on tiny lots, they needed space for Sunday-school rooms and social halls, but the sanctuary obviously needed a high ceiling or it would look and feel absurd. Thus the ground floor was left for the smaller rooms.
The church above was the Bingham United Methodist Church (built 1859), now the City Theatre. It is a generic church-shaped church with vaguely classical details, including rounded arches in the windows. The same shape could be given details in any style; the church below is the First Associated Reformed Presbyterian Church of Birmingham (built 1854), with a very similar outline, but Gothic pointed arches in the windows. The windows along the sides are simple rectangles, and old Pa Pitt suspects that the 14th Street end was Gothicized at some time in the later 1800s.
The name “First Associated Reformed Presbyterian Church of Birmingham” is too long to fit on a date stone.
Boston ivy is eagerly devouring the entrance, so it is hard to see that this arch is also pointed.
When this article appeared, Joseph Moore commented:
Are those really the main doors for the Presbyterian Church? Very plain – look more like a loading doc than the entrance to a church, even a Calvinist one. The United Methodist Church has the architectural articulation one would expect for the main doors for a church.
We replied:
The main entrance might have been on the long side on Bingham Street, where the garage door is now. On the other hand, the Gothic arch with columns on the end (and the very interesting woodwork on the doors) does suggest that someone intended it as a main entrance. On the third hand, one would expect more natural light in a main entrance, which would probably have led into a foyer with a stairway (or a pair of stairways, as in the South Side Presbyterian Church). And on the fourth hand, it is possible that windows flanking the entrance have been bricked up. Old Pa Pitt has not been able to persuade himself that the brickwork is all original, and he has not been able to persuade himself that it is not. And on the fifth hand (we might as well be an octopus by now), Father Pitt has not been inside this building; it is possible that the whole front is a stairwell, in which case the large Gothic windows would provide ample light.
This was one of the small number of articles that did not survive the transition between servers, so it had to be reconstructed and the comments copied by brute force.
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Mushroom
Trying out a new camera. Actually, it’s twelve years old, but it just arrived, and twelve years old is newer than most of old Pa Pitt’s cameras.
