Drinking was universal among both men and women. Judge James Veech declared that whisky “was the indispensable emblem of hospitality and the accompaniment of labor in every pursuit, the stimulant in joy and the solace in grief. It was kept on the counter of every store and in the corner cupboard of every well-to-do family. The minister partook of it before going to church, and after he came back. At home and abroad, at marryings and buryings, at house raisings and log rollings, at harvestings and huskings, it was the omnipresent beverage of old and young, men and women; and he was a churl who stinted it. To deny it altogether required more grace or niggardliness than most men could command, at least for daily use.”[126]
A practical joke perpetrated by the Rev. Dr. John McMillan, on the Rev. Joseph Patterson, another of the early ministers in this region, illustrates the custom of drinking among the clergy. On their way to attend a meeting of the Synod, the two men stopped at a wayside inn and called for whisky, which was set before them. Mr. Patterson asked a blessing which was rather lengthy. Dr. McMillan meanwhile drank the whisky, and to Mr. Patterson’s blank look remarked blandly, “You must watch as well as pray!”[127]
Families purchased whisky and laid it away in their cellars for future consumption, and that it might improve with age. Judge Hugh Henry Brackenridge declared that the visit of the “Whisky Boys”—as the Insurgents from Braddocksfield were called—to Pittsburgh cost him “four barrels of old whisky.”[128] The statement caused Henry Adams, in his life of Albert Gallatin, to volunteer the assertion that it nowhere appeared “how much whisky the western gentleman usually kept in his house.”[129]
There was no legislation against selling liquors on Sundays. The only law on the subject was an old one under which persons found drinking and tippling in ale-houses, taverns, and other public houses on Sundays, were liable to be fined one shilling and sixpence; and the keepers of the houses upon conviction were required to pay ten shillings. The line of demarcation between proper and improper drinking being faint, the law proved ineffectual to prevent drinking on Sundays.
Religion had not kept pace with material progress. The people had been too much engrossed in secular affairs to attend to spiritual matters. They were withal generous, and practiced the Christian virtues; and never failed to help their unfortunate neighbors. This disposition was manifested in various ways. Losses by fire were of frequent occurrence and were apt to cause distress or ruin to those affected. In these cases the citizens always furnished relief. An instance where this was done was in the case of William Thorn. Thorn was a cabinet-maker on Market Street, and built windmills and Dutch fans.[130] When the house which he occupied was burned to the ground and he lost all his tools and valuable ready-made furniture, a liberal subscription was made by the citizens, and he was enabled to again commence his business.[131]
But there was little outward observance of religious forms. The Germans had made some progress in that direction. The little log building where they worshipped had been succeeded by a brick church. The only English church was the Presbyterian Meeting House facing on Virgin Alley, now Oliver Avenue, erected in 1786. It was the same building of squared timbers in which the congregation had originally worshipped. From 1789 to 1793, the church had languished greatly. There was no regular pastor; services were held at irregular and widely separated intervals. Two of the men who served as supplies left the ministry and became lawyers.[132] From 1793 to 1800, the church was all but dead. The house was deserted and falling into ruin. Only once, so far as there is any record, were Presbyterian services held in the building during this period. It was in 1799 that the Rev. Francis Herron, passing through Pittsburgh, was induced to deliver a sermon to a congregation consisting of fifteen or eighteen persons “much to the annoyance of the swallows,” as Herron ingenuously related, which had taken possession of the premises.[133]
A light had flashed momentarily in the darkness when John Wrenshall, the father of Methodism in Pittsburgh, settled in the town. Wrenshall was an Englishman who came to Pittsburgh in 1796 and established a mercantile business. He was converted to Wesleyanism in England and had been a local preacher there. As there was no minister or preaching of any kind in Pittsburgh, he commenced holding services in the Presbyterian Meeting House. His audiences increased, but after a few Sundays of active effort, a padlock was placed on the door of the church, and he was notified that the house was no longer at his disposal. The Presbyterians might not hold services themselves, but they would not permit the use of their building to adherents of the new sect of Methodists, “the offspring of the devil.”
A great religious revival swept over the Western country in the concluding years of the eighteenth century. In Kentucky it developed into hysteria,[134] and in Western Pennsylvania the display of religious fervor was scarcely less intense.[135] The effect was felt in Pittsburgh. On October 24, 1800, the Pittsburgh Gazette was moved to ask the Presbyterian congregation, of which its proprietor was a leading member, a number of pertinent questions: Could they hope for good morals without religion or the fear of God; could religion be maintained without public worship; had they a house in which public worship could be performed with decency and convenience? Were they not able to erect a respectable and commodious church building, as well as to provide for the maintenance of a minister? Would not money so employed “be more for the benefit of the town than horse racing, billiard playing, etc., etc.?” The answer of the congregation was to procure the appointment of the Rev. Robert Steele as supply and the church began to show signs of life again. In April, 1802, Steele was received as a member of the Presbytery, the action being approved by the Synod in the following September.[136] From that time forward, the church began that spiritual and material advancement—although there were ebbs and flows in its progress—which has continued to this day.
REFERENCES
Chapter IV
[84] Pittsburgh Gazette, November 28, 1800.