Pittsburgh

by Charles W. Dahlinger

Much of Grant’s Hill was unenclosed. Clumps of trees grew on its irregular surface, and there were level open spaces; and in summer the place was green with grass, and bushes grew in profusion. Farther in the background were great forest trees. The hill was the pleasure ground of the village. Judge Henry M. Brackenridge, a son of Judge Hugh Henry Brackenridge dwelling on the past, declared that “it was pleasing to see the line of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen and children, ... repairing to the beautiful green eminence.”[101] On this elevation “under a bower, on the margin of a wood, and near a delightful spring, with the town of Pittsburgh in prospect,” the Fourth of July celebrations were held.[102] On August 2, 1794, the motley army of Insurgents from Braddocksfield rested there, after having marched through the town. Here they were refreshed with food and whisky, in order that they might keep in good humor, and to prevent their burning the town.[103]

Samuel Jones has left an intimate, if somewhat regretful account of the early social life of Pittsburgh. “The long winter evenings,” he wrote, “were passed by the humble villagers at each other’s homes, with merry tale and song, or in simple games; and the hours of night sped lightly onward with the unskilled, untiring youth, as they threaded the mazes of the dance, guided by the music of the violin, from which some good-humored rustic drew his Orphean sounds. In the jovial time of harvest and hay-making, the sprightly and active of the village participated in the rural labors and the hearty pastimes, which distinguished that happy season. The balls and merry-makings that were so frequent in the village were attended by all without any particular deference to rank or riches. No other etiquette than that which natural politeness prescribed was exacted or expected.... Young fellows might pay their devoirs to their female acquaintances; ride, walk, or talk with them, and pass hours in their society without being looked upon with suspicion by parents, or slandered by trolloping gossips.”[104]

The event of autumn was the horse races, which lasted three days. They were held in the northeasterly extremity of the town between Liberty Street and the Allegheny River,[105] and were conducted under the auspices of the Jockey Club which had been in existence for many years. Sportsmen came from all the surrounding country. The races were under the saddle, sulkies not having been invented. Racing proprieties were observed, and jockeys were required to be dressed in jockey habits.[106] Purses were given. The horses compared favorably with race horses of a much later day. A prominent horse was “Young Messenger” who was sired by “Messenger,” the most famous trotting horse in America, which had been imported into Philadelphia from England in 1788, and was the progenitor of Rysdyk’s Hambletonian, Abdallah, Goldsmith Maid, and a score of other noted race horses.

A third of a century after the race course had been removed beyond the limits of the municipality, Judge Henry M. Brackenridge published his recollections of the entrancing sport. “It was then an affair of all-engrossing interest, and every business or pursuit was neglected.... The whole town was daily poured forth to witness the Olympian games.... The plain within the course and near it was filled with booths as at a fair, where everything was said, and done, and sold, and eaten or drunk, where every fifteen or twenty minutes there was a rush to some part, to witness a fisticuff—where dogs barked and bit, and horses trod on men’s toes, and booths fell down on people’s heads!”[107]

The social instincts of the people found expression in another direction. The Revolutionary War, the troubles with the Indians, the more or less strained relations existing between France and England, had combined to inbreed a military spirit. Pennsylvania, with a population, in 1800, of 602,365, had enrolled in the militia 88,707 of its citizens. The militia was divided into light infantry, riflemen, grenadiers, cavalry, and artillery.[108] Allegheny County had a brigade of militia, consisting of eight regiments.[109] The commander was General Alexander Fowler, an old Englishman who had served in America, in the 18th, or Royal Irish, Regiment of Foot. On the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, he had resigned his commission on account of his sympathy with the Americans. Being unfit for active service, Congress appointed him Auditor of the Western Department at Pittsburgh.

The militia had always been more or less permeated with partisan politics. During the Revolution the American officers wore a cockade with a black ground and a white relief, called the black cockade. This the Federalists had made their party emblem. The Republican party, soon after its organization, adopted as a badge of party distinction a cockade of red and blue on a white base, the colors of revolutionary France. The red and blue cockade thereafter became the distinguishing mark of the majority of the Pennsylvania militia, being adopted on the recommendation of no less a person than Governor McKean. General Fowler’s advocacy of the red and blue cockade and his disparagement of the black cockade were incessant. He was an ardent Republican, and his effusions with their classic allusions filled many columns of the Tree of Liberty and the Pittsburgh Gazette. At a meeting of the Allegheny County militia held at Marie’s tavern, the red and blue cockade had been adopted. Fowler claimed that this was the result of public sentiment. He was fond of platitudes. “The voice of the people is the voice of God,” he quoted, crediting the proverb to an “English commentator,” and adding: “Says a celebrated historian, ‘individuals may err, but the voice of the people is infallible.’”[110] A strong minority in Allegheny County remained steadfast to the Federal party, and the vote in favor of the adoption of the red and blue cockade was not unanimous. Two of the regiments, not to be engulfed in the growing wave of Republicanism, or overawed by the domineering disposition of General Fowler, opposed the adoption of the red and blue cockade, and chose the black cockade.[111]

The equipment furnished to the militia by the State was meagre, but the patriotism which had so lately won the country’s independence was still at flood tide, and each regiment was supplied with two silk standards. One was the national flag, the other the regimental colors. The national emblem differed somewhat from the regulation United States flag. The word “Pennsylvania” appeared on the union, with the number of the regiment, the whole being encircled by thirteen white stars. The fly of the regimental colors was dark blue; on this was painted an eagle with extended wings supporting the arms of the State. The union was similar to that of the national flag. The prescribed uniform which many of the men, however, did not possess, was a blue coat faced with red, with a lining of white or red. In Allegheny County a round hat with the cockade and buck’s tail, was worn.[112] The parade ground of the militia was the level part of Grant’s Hill which adjoined Marie’s tavern on the northeast. Here twice each year, in April and October, the militia received its training. Of no minor interest, was the social life enjoyed by officers and men alike, during the annual assemblages.

In the territory contiguous to Pittsburgh the uprising, for the right to manufacture whisky without paying the excise, had its inception. That taverns should abound in the town was a natural consequence. In 1808 the public could be accommodated at twenty-four different taverns.[113] The annual license fee for taverns, including the clerk’s charges, was barely twenty dollars. Through some mental legerdemain of the lawmakers it had been enacted that if more than a quart was sold no license was required. Liquors, and particularly whisky, were sold in nearly every mercantile establishment. Also beer had been brewed in Pittsburgh since an early day, at the “Point Brewery,” which was purchased in 1795 by Smith and Shiras.[114] Beer was likewise brewed in a small way by James Yeaman, two or three years later.[115] In February, 1803, O’Hara and Coppinger, who had acquired the “Point Brewery,” began brewing beer on a larger scale.[116]

In the taverns men met to consummate their business, and to discuss their political and social affairs. Lodge No. 45 of Ancient York Masons met in the taverns for many years, as did the Mechanical Society. Even the Board of Trustees of the Academy held their meetings there.[117] Religion itself, looked with a friendly eye on the taverns. In the autumn of 1785, the Rev. Wilson Lee, a Methodist missionary, appeared in Pittsburgh, and preached in John Ormsby’s tavern,[118] on Water Street, at his ferry landing,[119] at what is now the northeast corner of that street and Ferry Street. This was the same double log house which, while conducted by Samuel Semple, was in 1770 patronized by Colonel George Washington.[120]

Tavern keeping and liquor selling were of such respectability that many of the most esteemed citizens were, or had been tavern-keepers, or had sold liquors, or distilled whisky, or brewed beer. Jeremiah Sturgeon was a member of the session of the Presbyterian Church.[121] John Reed, the proprietor of the “Sign of the Waggon,” in addition to being a leading member of the Jockey Club, and the owner of the race horse “Young Messenger,”[122] was precentor in the Presbyterian Church, and on Sundays “lined out the hymns” and led the singing.[123] The pew of William Morrow is marked on the diagram of the ground-plan of the church as printed in its Centennial Volume.[124] The “Sign of the Cross Keys,” the emblem of Sturgeon’s tavern, was of religious origin and was much favored in England. Although used by a Presbyterian, it was the arms of the Papal See, and the emblem of St. Peter and his successors. That the way to salvation lay through the door of the tavern, would seem to have been intended to be indicated by the “Sign of the Cross Keys.” William Eichbaum, a pillar in the German church, after he left the employ of O’Hara and Craig, conducted a tavern on Front Street, near Market, at the “Sign of the Indian Queen.” The owners of the ferries kept taverns in connection with their ferries. Ephraim Jones conducted a tavern at his ferry landing on the south side of the Monongahela River; Robert Henderson had a tavern on Water Street at his ferry landing; Samuel Emmett kept a tavern at his landing on the south side of the Monongahela River; and James Robinson had a tavern on the Franklin Road at the northerly terminus of his ferry.[125]