Father Pitt

Tag: Fort Pitt Blockhouse

  • Fort Pitt Blockhouse

    Fort Pitt Blockhouse with gate
    Inscription: A. D. 1764, Coll. Bouquet

    The oldest building in the city, and the only Colonial-era building as well,1 the Fort Pitt Blockhouse survived by becoming part of a private house in what was then the poor section of town.

    The Blockhouse, by Russell Smith

    Russell Smith made this painting, detailed down to the laundry, in 1832. (The Blockhouse was actually built for Fort Pitt.)

    The Blockhouse in 1910
    The Blockhouse in 1910, from Greater Pittsburg.

    The blockhouse remained a residence for most of the 1800s, until at last Mary Schenley donated it to the Daughters of the American Revolution.2 They fenced and landscaped its little lot and made it an island of tidy Colonial architecture in an otherwise tumbledown neighborhood. The date stone we saw above had been kept in City Hall, but was returned to the building when the DAR restored it.

    Front of the Fort Pitt Blockhouse

    Only after the Second World War was the Blockhouse given its current green and pleasant surroundings. But it remains a tiny island of private ownership in Point State Park: the Daughters of the American Revolution are still responsible for it.

    Fort Pitt Blockhouse
    Fort Pitt Blockhouse
    Fort Pitt Blockhouse
    Fort Pitt Blockhouse
    Fort Pitt Blockhouse
    Fort Pitt Blockhouse
    Sony Alpha 3000; Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
    1. The Old Stone Tavern in the West End has sometimes been claimed as older, but the claims seem to have been based on a mistake. ↩︎
    2. This is a correction. The article had originally said, “until the Daughters of the American Revolution finally bought and restored it,” but it was actually a gift of Mary Schenley, as recorded on a plat map from the early 1900s: “Daughters of the American Revolution / OLD BLOCK HOUSE / Presented by Mary E. Schenley.” Thanks to David Schwing for pointing out the correction. ↩︎
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  • Fort Pitt Blockhouse, by Arsene Rousseau

    Fort Pitt Blockhouse
    From The Charette, December, 1928.

    This sketch was a winner in the Pittsburgh Architectural Club’s Summer Prize Sketch Competition. The artist was Arsene Rousseau (misspelled in the caption), who later became a successful architect in Youngstown.

    The sketch shows the situation of the Blockhouse as attractively as the artist can manage consistent with honesty. It had been restored to its past and present condition by the Daughters of the American Revolution, who maintained a little patch of green in the decaying warehouse and slum district of the Point. We see just a little of the Point Bridge in the background.

    For comparison’s sake, here is how the Blockhouse looked in 1887, before the ladies of the DAR got their hands on it:

    Fort Pitt Blockhouse in 1887
    From Fisher & Stewart’s Guide and Handbook of Pittsburgh and Allegheny, 1887.

  • Fort Pitt Blockhouse, 2001

    Fort Pitt Blockhouse in black and white

    These pictures were taken in 2001 with an old folding Agfa camera. Of course the blockhouse, which is more than two and a half centuries old, doesn’t change much these days.

    Fort Pitt Blockhouse

  • Fort Pitt Blockhouse in 1887

    In the nineteenth century, the Fort Pitt Blockhouse was used as a residence. It was surrounded by slum and warehouses. Guides to the city (like the guide this cut came from) always pointed it out, but a visit would not have been calculated to give a good impression of living conditions in the city.