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Pittsburg, Pennsylvania
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or Or PITTSBURGH, 1 the second largest city of Pennsylvania, U.S.A., and the county-seat of Allegheny county, on the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers, 440 m. by rail W. by S. of New York City, 360 m. W. by N. of Philadelphia, 368 m. N.W. of Washington and 468 m. E. by S. of Chicago. Pop. (1890), 238,617; 2 (1900), 321,616, of whom 84,878 were foreign-born, 17,040 were negroes and 154 were Chinese; (1910 census, after the annexation of Allegheny), 533,905. Of the 84,878 foreign-born in 1900, 21,222 were natives of Germany, 18,620 of Ireland, 8 9 02 of England, 6243 of Russian Poland, 57 0 9 of Italy, 4107 of Russia, 3553 of Austria, 3515 of German Poland, 2539 of Wales, 2264 of Scotland, 2124 of Hungary, 1072 of Sweden and 1023 of Austrian Poland. Area (including Allegheny, annexed in 1906), 40.67 sq. m. Pittsburg is served by the Pennsylvania (several divisions), the Baltimore & Ohio, the Pittsburg & Lake Erie (controlled by the New York Central System), the Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis (controlled by the Pennsylvania Company), the Pittsburg, Chartiers & Youghiogheny (controlled jointly by the two preceding railways; 21 m. of track), the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburg, and the Wabash-Pittsburg Terminal (60 m. to Pittsburg Junction, Ohio; controlled by the Wabash railway), and the Pittsburg Terminal (also controlled by the Wabash and operating the 1 " Pittsburgh " is the official spelling of the charter and seal; but " Pittsburg " is the spelling adopted by the U.S. Geographic Board and is in more general use.
In previous census years the population was as follows: (1800), 1565; (1820), 7248; (1840), 21,115; (1860), 49,221; (1880), 156, 389.
West Side Belt, from Pittsburg to Clairton, 21 m.) railways, and by river boats on the Ohio, Monongahela and Allegheny. Picturesque rolling plateaus, the three rivers and narrow valleys, from which rise high hills or precipitous bluffs, are the principal natural features of the district over which the city extends. Retail houses, wholesale houses, banks, tall office buildings, hotels, theatres and railway terminals are crowded into the angle, or "The Point," formed at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, with Fifth Avenue as the principal thoroughfare, especially for the retail houses, and Fourth Avenue as the great banking thoroughfare. Factories extend for miles along the banks of all three rivers into the tributary valleys, and are the cause of Pittsburg's nickname, " The Smoky City." The more attractive residential districts are on the plateau in the eastern portion of the district between the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers and on the hills overlooking the Allegheny river from the north. Overlooking the Monongahela river is Schenley Park (about 422 acres), the first city park, of which about 400 acres were given to the city in 1890 by Mrs. Mary E. Schenley. About 2 m. to the north, overlooking the Allegheny river, is Highland Park (about 366 acres), which contains the city reservoirs and a picturesque lake. Adjacent to Schenley Park are Homewood and Calvary cemeteries; and adjacent to Highland Park is Allegheny cemetery. Across the Allegheny river, in the Allegheny district, are the beautiful Riverview Park (240 acres), in which is the Allegheny Observatory and West Park (about loo acres). A number of bridges span the rivers.
The city has some fine public buildings, office buildings and churches. The Allegheny county court-house (1884-1888) is one of H. H. Richardson's masterpieces. The Nixon theatre is also notable architecturally. The high Frick Office building has exterior walls of white granite; in its main hall is a stainedglass window by John La Farge representing Fortune and her wheel. A large government building of polished granite contains the post office and the customs offices. St Paul's Cathedral (Roman Catholic, 1 9 03-1 9 06) is largely of Indiana limestone. The city is the see of a Roman Catholic and a Protestant Episcopal bishop. In Schenley Park is the Carnegie Institute (established by a gift of $10,000,000 from Andrew Carnegie, who made further contributions of $9,000,000 for its maintenance), with a main building containing a library, a department of fine arts, a museum (see Museums Of Science) and a music hall, and several separate buildings for the technical schools, which had 2102 students in 1 9 09. The main building, dedicated in April 1907, is 660 ft. long and 400 ft. wide; in its great entrance hall is a series of mural decorations by John White Alexander, a native of the city. The library, in which the institution had its beginning in 18 9 5, contains about 306,000 volumes. The Phipps Conservatory was presented to the city in 18 9 3 by Henry Phipps (b. 183 9), a steel manufacturer associated with Andrew Carnegie. It is the largest in America, and, with its Hall of Botany, which is utilized in instructing school children in botany, is situated in Schenley Park. The conservatory is maintained by municipal appropriations. There is a zoological garden in Highland Park. In December 1 9 07 it .was decided that the several departments of the Western University of Pennsylvania, then in different parts of the city, should be brought together on a new campus of 43 acres near the Carnegie Institute. In July 1908 the name was changed to " The University of Pittsburgh." The university embraces a college and engineering school, the Western Pennsylvania School of Mines and Mining Engineering, a graduate department, an evening school of economics, accounts and finances, a summer school, evening classes, Saturday clasess, and departments of astronomy (the Allegheny Observatory, in the Allegheny district), law (the Pittsburg Law School), medicine (the Western Pennsylvania Medical College), pharmacy (the Pittsburgh College of Pharmacy) and dentistry (the Pittsburgh Dental College). The institution had its beginning in the Pittsburgh Academy, which was opened about 1770 and was incorporated in 1787. It was incorporated as the Western University of Pennsylvania in 1819, but was only a college from that date until 18 9 2, when the Western Pennsylvania Medical College became its department of medicine. In 1895 the department of law was added, the Pittsburgh College of Pharmacy was united to the university, and women were for the first time admitted. In 1896 the department of dentistry was established. In 1909 the university had 151 instructors and 1243 students. In the east end is the Pennsylvania College for Women (Presbyterian; chartered in 186 9), with preparatory, collegiate and musical departments. In the Allegheny district are the Allegheny Theological Seminary (United Presbyter j ian, 1825), the Western Theological Seminary (Presbyterian, opened 1827), and the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary (1856). Although Allegheny is now a part of Pittsburg, the two public school systems remain independent. The Pittsburg High School (five buildings in 1 9 10) has a normal course; and there are various private schools and academies.
The Pittsburg Gazette-Times is probably the oldest newspaper west of the Alleghany Mountains; the Gazette was founded in 1786 and in 1 9 06 was consolidated with the Times (1879). Other prominent newspapers of the city are the Dispatch (1846), the Chronicle Telegraph (1841), the Post (1792; daily, 1842), which is one of the few influential Democratic newspapers in Pennsylvania, the Leader (Sunday, 1864; daily, 1870) and the Press (1883). Two German dailies, one Slavonic daily, one Slavonic weekly, two Italian weeklies, and iron, building, coal and glass trade journals are published in the city. In Pittsburg is the publishing house of the United Presbyterian Church, and The Christian Advocate (weekly, Methodist Episcopal, 1834) is published here under the auspices of the general conference.
The oldest hospital is the Reineman (private; 1803) for maternity cases; the municipal hospital (1878) is for contagious diseases; the Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of Mercy, the Institution of Protestant Deaconesses, the Presbyterian Church and the United Presbyterian Woman's Association each have charge of a hospital; and there is also an eye, ear and throat hospital (1895). The Western Pennsylvania Institution for the instruction of the deaf and dumb (1876), in Edgewood Park, is in part maintained by the state. And the state assists the Home for Aged and Infirm Colored Women (1882), and the Home for Colored Children (1881). Among other charitable institutions are the Curtis Home (1894) for destitute women and girls, the Bethesda Home (1890) for homeless girls and their children, the Florence Crittenton Home (1893) for homeless and unfortunate women, the Roselia Foundling Asylum and Maternity Hospital (1891), the Protestant Home for Incurables (1883), the Pittsburg Newsboys' Home (1894), the Children's Aid Society of Western Pennsylvania, the Pittsburg Association for the Improvement of the Poor and the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society.
Pittsburg is in the midst of the most productive coalfields in the country; the region is also rich in petroleum and natural gas. The city is on one of the main lines of communication between the east and the west, is the centre of a vast railway system, and has freight yards with a total capacity for more than 60,000 cars. Its harbour has a total length on the three rivers of 27.2 m., and an average width of about woo ft., and has been deepened by the construction (in 1877-1885) of the Davis Island dam, by dredging, under a federal project of 18 9 9. Slack water navigation has been secured on the Allegheny by locks and dams (1890 and 1896 sqq.) at an expense up to July 1909 of $1,658,804; and up to that time $263,625 had been spent for open-channel work. The Monongahela from Pittsburg to the West Virginia state line (91.5 m.) was improved in 1836 sqq. by a private company which built seven locks and dams; this property was condemned and bought for $3,761,615 by the United States government in 1897, and, under the project of 18 99 for rebuilding three of the locks and enlarging another, and that of 1907 for a new lock and dam and for other improvements, $2,675,692 was spent up to July 1909. Coal is brought to the city from the coalfields by boats on the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers as well as by rail, and great fleets of barges carry coal and other heavy freight, such as steel rails, cotton ties, sheet iron, wire and nails, down the Ohio in the winter and spring. A ship canal to provide water communication between Pittsburg and Lake Erie has been projected. The railways have a heavy tonnage of coal, coke and iron and steel products, and a large portion of the iron ore that is produced in the Lake Superior region is brought to Pittsburg. In 1908 the river traffic amounted to 9,090,146 tons, most of which was carried on barges down the Ohio. Pittsburg is also a port of entry; in 1907 the value of its imports amounted to $2,416,367, and in 1909 to $2,062,162.
The value of the factory products in 1905 was $165,428,881, and to this may be added $45,830,272 for those of the city of Allegheny, making a total of $211,259,153. In the manufacture of iron and steel products Pittsburg ranks first among the cities of the United States, the value of these products amounting in 1905 to $88,250,805 or 53.3% of the total for all manufactures; if the manufactures of Allegheny be added they amounted to $9 2 ,939, 860 or 43.7%. Several neighbouring cities and towns are also extensively engaged in the same industry, and in 1902 Allegheny county produced about 24% of the pig-iron, nearly 34% of the Bessemer steel, more than 44% of the open-hearth steel, more than 53% of the crucible steel, more then 24% of the steel rails, and more than 59% of the structural shapes that were made in that year in the United States. In 1905 the value of Pittsburg's foundry and machine shop-products was $9,631,514; of the product of steam railway repair shops, $3,726,990 (being 424.8% more than in 1900); of malt liquors, $3,166,829; of slaughtering and meat-packing products, $2,732,027; of cigars and cigarettes, $2,297,228; of glass, $2,130,540; and of tin and terne plate, $1,645,570. Electrical machinery, apparatus and supplies were manufactured largely in the city (value in 1905, $ 1 ,79 6 ,557), and there was another large plant for their manufacture immediately outside of the city limits. Coke, cut cork, rolled brass and copper were other important products in 1905. In 1900, and for a long period preceding, Pittsburg ranked first among American cities in the manufacture of glass, but in 1905 it was outranked in this industry by Muncie, Indiana, Millville, New Jersey, and Washington, Pennsylvania; but in the district outside of the city limits of Pittsburg much glass is manufactured, so that the Pittsburg glass district is the greatest in the country, and there are large glass factories at Washington (18 m. south-west), Charleroi (20(20 m. south) and Tarentum (15(15 m. north-east). In Pittsburg or the immediate vicinity are the more important plants of the United States Steel Corporation, including that of the Carnegie Company. Here, too, are the plants of the Westinghouse Company for the manufacture of electrical apparatus, of air brakes invented by George Westinghouse (born 1846), and of devices for railway signals which he also invented. In the Allegheny district the H. J. Heinz Company has its main pickle plant, the largest establishment of the kind in the country.
The Pittsburg charter of 1816 vested the more important powers of the city government in a common council of 15 members and a select council of 9 members, and until 1834 the mayor was appointed annually by these city councils from their own number. By the Wallace Act of the state legislature in 1874 a form of government was provided for cities of three classes, and Pittsburg became a city of the second class (population between 10o,000 and 300,000); under the act of 1895 a new classification was made, under which Pittsburg remains in the second class. An act of 1887 had amended the provisions of the Wallace Act in regard to second class cities by changing the terms of select councilmen from two to four years and of common councilmen from one to two years. In 1901 a new act was passed for the government of cities of the second class. It provided that the executive be a " city recorder ";"; this provision was repealed in 1903, when the title of mayor again came into use. The mayor holds office for three years, has the powers and jurisdiction of a justice of the peace, appoints the heads of departments (public safety, public works, collector of delinquent taxes, assessors, city treasurer, law, charities and correction, and sinking fund commission), and may remove any of the officers he has appointed, by a written order, showing cause, to the select council. The city controller is elected by popular vote. The legislative bodies are the select and common council, elected under the law of 1887; by a three-fifths vote it may pass resolutions or ordinances over the mayor's veto. The department of public safety controls the bureaus of police, detectives, fire, health, electricity and building inspection; the department of public works controls bureaus of surveys, construction, highways and sewers, city property, water, assessment of water rents, parks, deed registry, bridges and light. In 1909 the taxable valuation was $100,771,321, and the tax rate was 13.8 mills for city property, 9.2 mills on rural property and 6.9 mills on agricultural property. The tax rate for separate indebtedness varied from 6 mills in Allegheny to 16.2 mills in the 43rd ward. The water-supply of Pittsburg is taken from the Allegheny river and pumped into reservoirs, the highest of which, in Highland Park, is 367 ft. above the river; and there is a slow sand filtration plant for the filtration of the entire supply.
Pittsburg owed its origin to the strategic value of its site in the struggle between the English and the French for the possession of the North American continent. A few Frenchmen attempted to establish a settlement here in 1731, but were soon driven away by the Indians. In 1753, after the French had laid formal claim to this region and the Ohio Land Company had been formed with a view to establishing a settlement within it, Robert Dinwiddie, governor of Virginia and a shareholder in the Ohio Company, sent George Washington with a letter to " the commandant of the French forces on the Ohio " (then stationed at Fort Le Bceuf, near the present Waterford, about 115 m. north of the head-waters of that river) asking him to account for his invasion of territory claimed by the English. This was Washington's first important public service. He reached the present site of Pittsburg on the 24th of November 1 753, and subsequently reported' that what is now called " The Point," i.e. the tongue of land formed by the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers, was a much more favourable situation for a fort and trading post than the one about two miles up the Monongahela (near the present site of McKees Rocks) which had been tentatively selected by the Ohio Company. Accordingly, on the 17th of February 1754, a detachment of about 40 soldiers, under the command of Captain William Trent, 2 reached " The Point," and began to build a fortification (under the auspices of the Ohio Company), which it seems to have been the intention to call Fort Trent, and which was the beginning of the permanent settlement here by whites. On the 17th of the following April, however, Ensign Edward Ward, commanding the soldiers, in the absence of Captain Trent, was forced to evacuate the unfinished fortification by a party of about r000 French and Indians, under Captain Contrecceur, who immediately occupied the works, which he enlarged and completed, and named Fort Duquesne, in honour of Duquesne de Menneville, governor of New France in 17521 755. In the following summer Washington attempted to recover this fort, in a campaign which included the skirmish 1 His Journal, published in 1754, gives a concise and lucid account of this expedition.
2 William Trent (c. 1715-1778) was a native of Lancaster (disambiguation)|Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, became a captain in the state militia in 1746 and served against the French and Indians, was for many years, after 1 749, a justice of the court of common pleas and general sessions of the peace for Cumberland (disambiguation)|Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, and in1750-1756was the partner of George Crogan in an extensive trade with the Indians. According to one account, he visited the site of Pittsburg, and examined its availability for fortification, in August 1 753 - before the arrival of Washington. In 1755 he became a member of the council of Lieut.-Governor Robert H. Morris, and in 1758 he accompanied General Forbes's expedition against Fort Duquesne. He acted many times as Indian agent; his lucrative trade with the Indians, conducted from a trading house near Fort Pitt, was ruined during Pontiac's conspiracy. At the beginning of the War of Independence he was given a major's commission to raise troops in Western Pennsylvania. See Journal of Captain William Trent (Cincinnati, Ohio,'871),'edited by Alfred T. Goodman.
(commonly considered the beginning of the French and Indian - Seven Years' - War) on the 28th of May 1754, at Great Meadows (in what is now Wharton township, Fayette county, Pennsylvania, about 50 m. south-east of Pittsburg), between a detachment under his command and a scouting party under N. Coulon de Jumonville, in which Jumonville and several of his men were killed; the building, at Great Meadows, by Washington, of Fort Necessity, and its capitulation (July 3); and the retreat of Washington to Virginia. Another expedition, led by MajorGeneral Edward Braddock, resulted in the engagement known as " Braddock's Defeat " (July 9, 1755), fought within the present borough of Braddock (about 8 m. east of Fort Duquesne), in which Braddock's force was practically annihilated, and Braddock was mortally wounded, dying four days later. The fort was finally recaptured by the English in 1758, as the result of an elaborate expedition (involving about 7000 troops) planned by Brigadier-General John Forbes (1710-1759), and prosecuted, with the assistance of Colonel George Washington and Colonel Henry Bouquet, in the face of great difficulties. General Forbes himself was so ill that he had to be carried in a litter throughout the campaign. The troops having rendezvoused during the summer (of 1758) at Ray's Town (now Bedford, Pennsylvania), and at Loyalhanna creek (now in Westmoreland county), about 50 m. to the north-west (where Fort Ligonier was built), Colonel Bouquet, commanding the division at the latter place, despatched Major James Grant (1720-1806) at the head of about 850 men to reconnoitre the fort. Grant advanced to a hill (still known by his name, and upon the crest of which the court-house now stands) within about a quarter of a mile of the fort. Here he rashly divided his force, and in a sortie of French and Indians, on the morning of the 14th of September, one of his divisions was surrounded, and a general rout ensued in which about 270 of Grant's men were killed, about 40 were wounded, and others (including Grant) were taken prisoners. Forbes's army advanced to within about 15 m. of the fort on the 24th of November, whereupon the French blew up part of the works, set fire to the buildings and retreated down the Ohio in boats. The English occupied the place on the next day and General Forbes ordered the immediate erection of a stockade fort near the site of the old one. In reporting to Lieut.-Governor William Denny (Nov. 26) the success of the expedition he dated his letter from Fort Duquesne "or now Pitts-Bourgh," and this name, with its subsequent modification " Pittsburgh," was thereafter more commonly used than that of Fort Pitt, which, as designating the fortification proper appears to have been first applied by General John Stanwix to the enlarged fort built (at a cost, it was estimated, of £60,000) chiefly under his direction during 1759-1760.
The first considerable settlement around the fort sprang up in 1760; it was composed of two groups of houses and cabins, the " lower town," near the fort's ramparts; and the " upper town," built chiefly along the banks of the Monongahela, and extending as far as the present Market Street. In April 1761, according to a census of the settlement, outside of the fort, taken for Colonel Bouquet, there were 332 inhabitants and 104 houses.
Fort Pitt was one of the important objective points of Pontiac's conspiracy (1763), and as soon as the intentions of the Indians became evident, Captain Simeon Ecuyer, the Swiss officer in command of the garrison (which then numbered about 330), had the houses outside the ramparts levelled and prepared for a siege. The Indians attacked the fort on the 22nd of June (1763), and kept up a continuous, though ineffective, fire upon it from the 27th of July until the 1st of August, when they drew off and advanced to meet the relieving party under Colonel Bouquet. They were defeated at Bushy Run, and Colonel Bouquet relieved the fort on the 10th of August (see Pontiac). In 1764 Colonel Bouquet added to the fort a redoubt, the " Block House," which still stands, the sole remaining trace of Fort Pitt, and is owned and cared for by the Daughters of the American Revolution.
A second town, laid out in 1764, by Colonel John Campbell (with the permission of the commandant at Fort Pitt), is bounded in the present city by Water Street, Market Street, Second Avenue and Ferry Street, and comprises four blocks. In November 1768, at a general council of the Six Nations with Sir William Johnson and representatives of Pennsylvania and Virginia, held at Fort Stanwix, on the site of the present Rome, New York (q.v.), at which was signed a treaty establishing the boundary line between the English possessions and the territory claimed by the Six Nations, the Indians sold for $io,000 to Thomas Penn (1702-1775) and Richard Penn (1706-1771), respectively, the second and third sons of William Penn - the founder of Pennsylvania - by his second wife, the remaining land in the province of Pennsylvania to which they claimed title, namely the tract lying south of the west branch of the Susquehanna river and of a straight line from the north-west corner of what is now Cambria county to the present Kittanning (in Armstrong county), and all of the territory east of the Allegheny river below Kittanning and south of the Ohio river. To this transaction the commissioner from Virginia seems to have made no objection, though the tract included the Fort Pitt region and other territory then claimed by Virginia. In January-March 1769 the Penns caused to be surveyed the " Manor of Pittsburgh," a tract of about 5700 acres, including much of the original city, intending to reserve it for their private use; but in the following April they offered at public sale the lands in the remainder of their purchase of the preceding year.' At this time the settlement about Fort Pitt consisted of about twenty houses, occupied chiefly by Indian traders. By order of General Thomas Gage the fort was abandoned as a military post in October 1772, and was partly dismantled. In January 1774 it was occupied by an armed force under Dr John Connolly, a partisan of Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, and by him was named Fort Dunmore (which name, however, was never formally recognized), this being one of Dunmore's overt acts ostensibly in support of his contention that the Fort Pitt region was included in Augusta (disambiguation)|Augusta county, Virginia. In the following April Connolly took forcible possession of the court-house at Hanna's Town (near the present Greensburg), the county-seat of Westmoreland county (which then included the Fort Pitt region), a few days afterwards arrested the three justices who lived in Pittsburg, and for the remainder of the year terrorized the settlement. Lord Dunmore himself issued a proclamation dated " Fort Dunmore," 17th September (1774), in which he called upon the inhabitants to ignore the authority of Pennsylvania, and to recognize only that of Virginia. A year afterwards Fort Pitt was occupied by a company of Virginia soldiers by order of the Virginia Provincial Convention (assembled at Williamsburg in August 1775), but this move apparently was more for the defence of the frontier in the coming war than an expression on the Pennsylvania-Virginia boundary dispute; and, in November, Connolly was arrested at Fredericksburg, Maryland, on the charge of furthering Dunmore's plans for invading the western frontier. The boundary itself was in controversy until 1780, and the marking of the boundary lines was not completed until 1785. During the War of Independence the fort was maintained as a frontier Indian post, and as a protection against the British at Detroit. Soon after the close of the war it was neglected, and by 1791 it was in bad repair; therefore at the time of the Indian hostilities of 1792 another stockade fort was built near the bank of the Allegheny river and about a quarter of a mile above the site of Fort Pitt, this new fort being named Fort Lafayette, or, as it was more commonly called, Fort Fayette. After General Anthony Wayne's defeat of the Indians,. at Fallen Timbers, Ohio (Aug. 20, 1 794), Pittsburg lost its importance as a frontier post.
In January 1784 the sale of the land included in the " Manor of Pittsburgh " was begun by the grandsons of William Penn,, John Penn (1729-1795), the second son of Richard Penn and lieutenant-governor of Pennsylvania in1763-1771and in 1 7731776; and John Penn (1760-1834), the fourth son of Thomas Penn; and in the following June a new series of town lots was laid out in which was incorporated Colonel Campbell's survey, Thereafter, settlers, chiefly Scotch and Irish, came rapidly.
1 This tract was confiscated by Pennsylvania in 1779.
XXI. 2 2 a Pittsburg and its vicinity witnessed much of the disorder, and some of the violence against person and property, incident to the Whisky Insurrection of 1791-94. Delegates from Allegheny, Westmoreland, Washington and Fayette counties met here on the 7th of September 1791, and passed resolutions severely denouncing the excise tax; and a similarly constituted gathering, on the 24th of August 1792, voted to proscribe all persons who assisted in the enforcement of laws taxing the manufacture of liquor. Thereafter various persons who had paid the excise tax, or had assisted in collecting it, were tarred and feathered or had their houses or barns burned. General John Neville (1731-1803), having accepted the office of chief excise inspector for Western Pennsylvania, his fine country residence, about 7 m. south-west of Pittsburg, was attacked by a mob of about 500 men on the 16th and 17th of July 1794. The defenders of the property (who included a squad of soldiers from the garrison at Pittsburg) killed two and wounded several of the attacking party, but they were finally forced to surrender, and General Neville's mansion and other buildings were burned to the ground. A mass meeting of about 5000 citizens of the above-mentioned counties (many of them armed militiamen), at Braddock's Field, on the 1st and 2nd of August 1794, threatened to take possession of Fort Lafayette and to burn Pittsburg, but cooler counsel prevailed, and after voting to proscribe several persons, and marching in a body through the streets of the town, the crowd dispersed without doing any damage. Upon the arrival in the following November of the troops sent by President Washington, a military court of inquiry, held at Pittsburg, caused the arrest of several persons, who were sent to Philadelphia for trial, where some of them were found guilty and sentenced to terms of imprisonment, but the sentences were not enforced.
The town was made the county-seat in 1791, it was incorporated as a borough in 1794, the charter was revived in 1804, and the borough was chartered as a city in 1816. As early as the year of its incorporation as a borough Philadelphia and Baltimore merchants had established an important trade with it. Their goods were carried in Conestoga wagons to Shippensburg and Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and Hagerstown, Maryland, taken from there to Pittsburg on pack horses, and exchanged for
Pittsburg products; these products were carried by boat to New Orleans, where they were exchanged for sugar, molasses, &c., and these were carried through the gulf and along the coast to Baltimore and Philadelphia. Boat-building was begun in Pittsburg in 1797 or earlier; the galley " President Adams," built by the government, was launched here in 1798, and the " Senator Ross," completed in the same year, was launched in 1799. In 1797 glassworks which were the first to use coal as a fuel in making glass were built here; later Pittsburg profited greatly by the use of its great store of natural gas in the manufacture of glass. In 1806 the manufacture of iron was well begun, and by 1825 this had become the leading industry. On the 10th of April 1845 a considerable portion of the city was swept by fire, and in July 1877, during the great railway strike of that year, a large amount of property was destroyed by a mob. The commercial importance of the city was increased by the canal from Pittsburg to Philadelphia, built by the state in 1834. at a cost of $10,000,000. The first petroleum pipe line reached Pittsburg in 1875. A movement to consolidate the cities of Pittsburg and Allegheny, together with some adjacent boroughs, was begun in 1853-1854. It failed entirely in that year but in 1867 Lawrenceville, Peebles, Collins, Liberty, Pitt and Oakland, all lying between the two rivers, were annexed to Pittsburg; in 1872 there was a further annexation of a district embracing 27 sq. m. south of the Monongahela river; in 1906 Allegheny (q.v.), although a large majority of those voting on the question in that city were opposed to it, was annexed, and in November 1907 the Supreme Court of the United States declared valid the act of the state legislature under which the vote was taken.
See N. B. Craig, The History of Pittsburgh (Pittsburg, 1851); Early History of Western Pennsylvania and the West, by a gentleman of the bar - J. D. Rupp (Pittsburg, 1848); William H. Egle, Illustrated History of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Pa., 1876); Sarah H. Killikelly, The History of Pittsburgh, Its Rise and Progress (Pittsburg, 1906)
S. H. Church, " Pittsburgh the Industrial City," in L. P. Powell's Historic Towns of the Middle States (New York, 1899); G. H. Thurston, Pittsburgh and Allegheny in the Centennial Year (Pittsburg, 1876); for a history of the various forts as such, Report of the Commission to Locate the Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania, vol. ii. (Harrisburg, Pa., 1896); and for a thorough study of economic and social conditions in Pittsburg, P. U. Kellogg (ed.), The Pittsburg Survey (6 vols., New York, 1910 sqq.), prepared under the direction of the Sage Foundation.
These files are public domain.
Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Pittsburg, Pennsylvania'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/bri/p/pittsburg-pennsylvania.html. 1910.
