[135] David Elliott. The Life of the Rev. Elisha Macurdy, Allegheny, 1848, pp. 55–78.
[136] Centennial Volume of the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, Pa., 1784–1884, Pittsburgh, 1884, p. 32.
CHAPTER V
THE SEAT OF POWER
The year 1800 ushered in more than a new century in Pittsburgh. It heralded the beginning of another era. The decade beginning with that year will ever be memorable in the annals of the city. During those ten years the foundation was laid on which the great industrial city was subsequently built. In 1800 the population of Pittsburgh was 1565, and in 1810 it had risen to 4768, an increase of 204 per centum, which was the greatest percentage of increase that has ever taken place in its history. This decade marked the dividing line between that which was obsolete and that which was newly-born.
In 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of France, ceded to the United States the vast Louisiana Territory, whereby the area of this country was more than doubled, and commerce between Louisiana and Pittsburgh increased tremendously.
As far back as 1791, Alexander Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury, had communicated to the House of Representatives his famous report of manufactures. In this far-away community, with coal at its doors, and iron in the near-by mountains, Hamilton’s new doctrine found willing disciples and industry had more than a beginning. Soon after the close of the Revolutionary War, iron ore was mined in the Juniata Valley, and furnaces and forges established, and bar iron and castings made. The iron was carried to Pittsburgh, partly on horseback, and partly by water, down the Conemaugh and Allegheny Rivers. Small shops for the manufacture of articles of iron were opened. Shortly afterward iron ore was also mined in the counties of Fayette and Westmoreland and furnaces and forges built and iron produced. The distance being shorter from Fayette and Westmoreland Counties than from the Juniata Valley, iron was thereafter brought to Pittsburgh only from the former districts. The iron shops increased in number. Coal was the pole star which lighted the way to their establishment. A writer who saw the advantages of Pittsburgh with the eyes of a Münchhausen, writing of the value of its coal, declared, that the blaze afforded “so strong a light, that in winter, ... neither tailors, or other mechanics burn candles.”[137]
At the close of the eighteenth century, the black smoke of the iron shops, the glass manufactory, the boat yards, the distillery, the brewery, the tanneries, the brickyards, and the increasing number of dwelling houses had already given the town a sombre hue. Industry went forward with leaps and bounds, and manufactories on a larger scale were set up. They were insignificant, if compared with even the medium-sized establishments of to-day, but were large and important in the eyes of people who, prior to the American Revolution, had been practically prohibited from engaging in any manufacturing by their English masters. Cotton mills were established, as were iron foundries, nail factories, engine shops, a tinware manufactory, a pipe manufactory, and in 1808 a second glass works, that of Robinson & Ensell.[138] The extent of the plants can be gauged, when it is known that one of the nail factories employed thirty men, the tinware manufactory twenty-eight men, and one of the cotton mills twelve men.[139]
In 1804, the Bank of Pennsylvania opened a branch in Pittsburgh. A stage line from Chambersburgh to Baltimore and Philadelphia was placed in operation in the spring of 1803.[140] In 1804 this was extended to Pittsburgh, the first coach from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia being run on July 4th.
Religion was now keeping pace with the increase in population and the growth in material prosperity. Hitherto those who were religiously inclined were obliged to attend the services of either the German or the Presbyterian church. Other churches were now brought into existence. The Episcopalians formed an organization in 1805, under the name of “Trinity Church,” and began the erection of their brick octagonal building, on the lot bounded by Liberty, Seventh, and Wood streets, which was a landmark in its day.
Ever since the English occupancy, the population had been Protestant in religion, although Protestantism in the early days signified little more than a stout opposition to Roman Catholicism. The Presbyterians, who constituted the bulk of the English-speaking Protestants, had looked askance when the Episcopalians, whom they regarded as closely akin to Roman Catholics, formed their church organization. When it was rumored that Roman Catholic services were to be held, they shook their heads still more doubtfully. Prior to 1800 there was hardly a professed Roman Catholic in Pittsburgh. In 1804, the number was still so small that when the missionary priest and former Russian prince and soldier, Demetrius Augustine Gallitzen, came and celebrated mass, there were only fifteen persons present to assist.[141] In 1808, a congregation was formed, and the next year a one-story brick chapel was erected[142] at the southeast corner of Liberty and Washington streets, Washington Street then extending to Liberty Street. The site is now occupied by the entrance to the Pennsylvania Station. Practically all the parishioners were Irish, and it was natural that the new edifice should be named “St. Patrick’s Church.” The Methodists organized a congregation at the same time as the Roman Catholics,[143] and in 1810 erected a small brick building on Front Street below Smithfield, opposite the lower end of the site at present occupied by the Monongahela House.[144] The Baptists were growing in numbers and, although lacking a church organization, met at one another’s houses, and listened to the exhortations of traveling missionaries of that faith.[145]