XII
It was not long after the close of the Revolutionary War before Pittsburgh was recognized as the natural gateway of the Atlantic seaboard to the West and South, and the necessity for an improved system of transportation became imperative. The earliest method of transportation through the American wilderness required the eastern merchants to forward their goods in Conestoga wagons to Shippensburg and Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and Hagerstown, Maryland, and thence to Pittsburgh on packhorses, where they were exchanged for Pittsburgh products, and these in turn were carried by boat to New Orleans, where they were exchanged for sugar, molasses, and similar commodities, which were carried through the gulf and along the coast to Baltimore and Philadelphia. For passenger travel the stage-coach furnished the most luxurious method then known.
Stage-coach
The people of Pennsylvania had given considerable attention to inland improvements and as early as 1791 they began to formulate the daring project of constructing a canal system from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, with a portage road over the crest of the Alleghany Mountains. In 1825, the governor appointed commissioners for making surveys, certain residents of Pittsburgh being chosen on the board, and in 1826 (February 25th) the Legislature passed an act authorizing the commencement of work on the canal at the expense of the State. The western section was completed and the first boat entered Pittsburgh on November 10, 1829. Subsequent acts provided for the various eastern sections, including the building of the portage railroad over the mountains, and by April 16, 1834, a through line was in operation from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. The termini of the road were Hollidaysburg, 1,398 feet below the mountain summit, and Johnstown, 1,771 feet below the summit. The boats were taken from the water like amphibious monsters and hauled up the ten inclined planes by stationary engines. The total cost of the canal and portage railroad was about ten million dollars, and the entire system was sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in 1857 (June 25th) for $7,500,000. The importance of canal transportation in the popular mind is shown by the fact that in 1828, when the Pennsylvania Legislature granted a charter to the Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad Company (which never constructed its road), the act stated that the purpose of the railroad was to connect Pittsburgh with the canal at Massillon, Ohio. The railroad quickly superseded the canal, however, and when men perceived that the mountains could be conquered by a portage road, it was a natural step to plan the Pennsylvania and Baltimore and Ohio railroads on a system of easy grades, so that all obstacles of height and distance were annihilated. The Pennsylvania Railroad was incorporated April 13, 1846, and completed its roadway from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh February 15, 1854. The canal was for a time operated by the Pennsylvania Canal Company in the interest of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, but its use was gradually abandoned. The division from Pittsburgh to Johnstown ceased to be operated in 1864, and that portion which was in the Juniata Valley was used until 1899, while the portion lying along the Susquehanna River was operated until 1900.[C]
[C] There is an interesting relief map of the portage railroad of the Pennsylvania Canal in the Carnegie Museum.
Over the mountains in 1839; canal boat being hauled over the portage road
Other railroads came as they were needed. The Baltimore and Ohio received a charter from the State of Maryland on February 28, 1827, but did not reach Pittsburgh until December 12, 1860, when its Pittsburgh and Connellsville branch was opened. The Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad was built into Pittsburgh July 4, 1851, and became part of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway in 1856, that line reaching Chicago in 1859. The Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway (the "Pan Handle") was opened between Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio, October 9, 1865. The Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, now a part of the New York Central Lines, was opened into Pittsburgh in February, 1879. The Wabash Railway completed its entrance into the city on June 19, 1904.
XIII
View of Old Pittsburgh, 1817
In 1784 the town was laid out and settlers, among whom were many Scotch and Irish, came rapidly. The town was made the county seat in 1791, incorporated as a borough in 1794, the charter was revived in 1804, and the borough was chartered as a city in 1816. The first charter granted to Pittsburgh in 1816 vested the more important powers of the city government in a common council of fifteen members and a select council of nine members. In 1887 a new charter was adopted giving to the mayor the power to appoint the heads of departments who were formerly elected by the councils. On March 7, 1901, a new charter, known as "The Ripper," was adopted, under the operations of which the elected mayor (William J. Diehl) was removed from his office, and a new chief executive officer (A. M. Brown) appointed in his place by the governor, under the title of recorder. By an act of April 23, 1903, the title of mayor was restored, and under the changes then made the appointing power rests with the mayor, with the consent of the select council. The following is a list of the mayors of Pittsburgh:
1816-1817, Ebenezer Denny
1817-1825, John Darragh
1825-1828, John M. Snowden
1828-1830, Magnus M. Murray
1830-1831, Matthew B. Lowrie
1831-1832, Magnus M. Murray
1832-1836, Samuel Pettigrew
1836-1839, Jonas R. McClintock
1839-1840, William Little
1840-1841, William W. Irwin
1841-1842, James Thomson
1842-1845, Alexander Hay
1845-1846, William J. Howard
1846-1847, William Kerr
1847-1849, Gabriel Adams
1849-1850, John Herron
1850-1851, Joseph Barker
1851-1853, John B. Guthrie
1853-1854, Robert M. Riddle
1854-1856, Ferdinand E. Volz
1856-1857, William Bingham
1857-1860, Henry A. Weaver
1860-1862, George Wilson
1862-1864, B. C. Sawyer
1864-1866, James Lowry
1866-1868, W. S. McCarthy
1868-1869, James Blackmore
1869-1872, Jared M. Brush
1872-1875, James Blackmore
1875-1878, William C. McCarthy
1878-1881, Robert Liddell
1881-1884, Robert W. Lyon
1884-1887, Andrew Fulton
1887-1890, William McCallin
1890-1893, Henry I. Gourley
1893-1896, Bernard McKenna
1896-1899, Henry P. Ford
1899-1901, William J. Diehl
1901, A. M. Brown (Title changed to Recorder)
1901-1903, J. O. Brown (Recorder)
1903, W. B. Hays (Recorder; served about one week under that title)
1903-1906, W. B. Hays (Mayor again)
1906-1909, George W. Guthrie
A movement to consolidate the cities of Pittsburgh and Allegheny together with some adjacent boroughs, was begun in 1853-54. It failed entirely that year, but in 1867 Lawrenceville, Peebles, Collins, Liberty, Pitt, and Oakland, all lying between the two rivers, were annexed to Pittsburgh, and in 1872 there was a further annexation of a district embracing twenty-seven square miles south of the Monongahela River, while in 1906 Allegheny was also annexed; and, as there was litigation to test the validity of the consolidation, the Supreme Court of the United States on December 6, 1907, declared in favor of the constitutionality of the act.
XIV
The first national convention of the Republican party was held in Pittsburgh on February 22 and 23, 1856. While this gathering was an informal convention, it was made for the purpose of effecting a national organization of the groups of Republicans which had grown up in the States where slavery was prohibited. Pittsburgh was, therefore, in a broad sense, the place where the birth of the Republican party occurred. A digression on this subject, in order that the record may be made clear, will probably not be unwelcome.
In 1620, three months before the landing of the Mayflower at Provincetown, a Dutch vessel carried African slaves up the James River, and on the soil of Virginia there was planted a system of servitude which at last extended throughout the Colonies and flourished with increasing vigor in the South, until, in the War of the Rebellion, Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation put an end forever to slavery in America. When the builders of our Government met in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, slavery was a problem which more than once threatened to wreck the scheme for an indissoluble union of the States. But it was compromised under a suggestion implied in the Constitution itself, that slavery should not be checked in the States in which it existed until 1808. In the meantime the entire labor system of the South was built upon African slavery, while at the North the horror of the public conscience grew against the degrading institution from year to year. By 1854 the men in the free States who were opposed to slavery had begun to unite themselves by political bonds, and in the spring and summer of that year, groups of such men met in more or less informal conferences in Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Maine, Massachusetts, Iowa, Ohio, and other northern States. But it was at Jackson, Michigan, where the men who were uniting their political fortunes to accomplish the destruction of slavery first assembled in a formal convention on July 6, 1854, nominated a full State ticket, and adopted a platform containing these declarations:
Resolved: That, postponing and suspending all differences with regard to political economy or administrative policy, in view of the imminent danger that Kansas and Nebraska will be grasped by slavery, and a thousand miles of slave soil be thus interposed between the free States of the Atlantic and those of the Pacific, we will act cordially and faithfully in unison to avert and repeal this gigantic wrong and shame.
Resolved: That in view of the necessity of battling for the first principles of Republican government, and against the schemes of an aristocracy, the most revolting and oppressive with which the earth was ever cursed or man debased, we will coöperate and be known as "Republicans" until the contest be terminated.
On January 17, 1856, "the Republican Association of Washington, D. C.," referring to the extension of slavery into Kansas and Nebraska as "the deep dishonor inflicted upon the age in which we live," issued a call, in accordance with what appeared to be the general desire of the Republican party, inviting the Republicans of the Union to meet in informal convention at Pittsburgh on February 22, 1856, for the purpose of perfecting the national organization, and providing for a national delegate convention of the Republican party, at some subsequent day, to nominate candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency, to be supported at the election in November, 1856.
The Republican party met accordingly for the first time in a national convention in Pittsburgh on the date appointed, and was largely attended. Not only were all the free States represented, but there were also delegates from Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Missouri. John A. King was made temporary chairman, and Francis P. Blair permanent chairman. Speeches were made by Horace Greeley, Giddings and Gibson of Ohio, Codding and Lovejoy of Illinois, and others. Mr. Greeley sent a telegraphic report of the first day's proceedings to the New York "Tribune," stating that the convention had accomplished much to cement former political differences and distinctions, and that the meeting at Pittsburgh had marked the inauguration of a national party, based upon the principle of freedom. He said that the gathering was very large and the enthusiasm unbounded; that men were acting in the most perfect harmony and with a unity of feeling seldom known to political assemblages of such magnitude; that the body was eminently Republican in principle and tendency; and that it combined much of character and talent, with integrity of purpose and devotion to the great principles which underlie our Government. He prophesied that the moral and political effect of this convention upon the country would be felt for the next quarter of a century. In its deliberations, he said that everything had been conducted with marked propriety and dignity.
The platform adopted at Pittsburgh demanded the repeal of all laws allowing the introduction of slavery into free territories; promised support by all lawful measures to the Free-State men in Kansas in their resistance to the usurped authority of lawless invaders; and strongly urged the Republican party to resist and overthrow the existing national administration because it was identified with the progress of the slave power to national supremacy.
On the evening of the second day, a mass meeting was held in aid of the emigration to Kansas. The president of the meeting was George N. Jackson, and D. D. Eaton was made secretary. Horace Greeley and others made addresses, and with great enthusiasm promises of aid to the bleeding young sister in the West were made.
This record seems to show beyond question that the Republican party had its national birth at Pittsburgh on February 22, 1856, and that it came into being dedicated, as Horace Greeley described it at that moment, to the principle of human freedom. A later formal convention, as provided for at Pittsburgh, was held at Philadelphia on June 17, 1856, which nominated John C. Fremont, of California, for President, and William L. Dayton, of New Jersey, for Vice-President. This ticket polled a total popular vote of 1,341,264, but was beaten by the Democratic candidates,—James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, for President, and John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, for Vice-President, who polled 1,838,169 votes. This defeat of a good cause was probably a fortunate piece of adversity, for the men who opposed slavery were not yet strong enough to grapple the monster to its death as they did when Lincoln was nominated four years later. It was the high mission of the party in 1856 and 1860 to stand against the extension of slavery, and in 1864 against all slavery as well as against the destruction of this Union; and in 1868, against those who wished to nullify the results of the war. Its later mission has been full of usefulness and honor.