A unique reputation attached to the houses in this block which, while descriptive, was at the same time significant of the political power of the occupants and their associates. Although the houses were built separately, and were of different types, they were collectively called by the not-over-euphonious name of “Clapboard Row.” As the name indicated, they were constructed of clapboards. So well known was “Clapboard Row” that the merchants who had their establishments there were fond of advertising the fact. Practically all the occupants were politicians, and without exception belonged to the Republican party. Also the “Sign of General Butler” was the headquarters of that party. By their opponents, these leaders were termed the “Clapboard Row Junto,” “junto” being an older word for “ring.” General Fowler, after he separated from the Republican party, designated them as the “Clapboardonian Democracy.”[214] The Pittsburgh Gazette charged that the editor of the Tree of Liberty was controlled by “Clapboard Row.”[215] Some were officeholders, others desired to be such, and in State and national affairs they were supreme.
The members of the “Clapboard Row Junto” were men of dual capacity. Their energies were devoted to their private affairs and to politics with equal intensity. In politics the smallest details received careful attention. Many of the methods employed by modern Pittsburgh politicians were inherited from “Clapboard Row.” One of the schemes for increasing the party vote, which originated with “Clapboard Row,” was to encourage and assist the aliens who settled in Pittsburgh to become naturalized. This was done through the medium of a committee composed of Thomas Baird, James Riddle, and Joseph McClurg.[216]
Dr. Scott was high in the favor of the Republican leaders, and on the death of George Adams on April 1, 1801, was appointed postmaster, and established the post office in his store, continuing the practice of medicine and the sale of drugs as before. William Gazzam was an aggressive Irishman, who had been in the country only a few years, but by dint of perseverance had pressed well forward in politics, perhaps to the detriment of his business, as he failed early in his career. He was brigade inspector of the Allegheny County militia, and justice of the peace. He aroused the ire of General Fowler, when with other “Clapboard Row” politicians he refused to support Fowler for Congress.
The controversy was amusing. In the communications which Fowler published in the Pittsburgh Gazette about his wrongs, he designated Gazzam as a “little man—in the most emphatic sense.” He declared that under “the cloak of Republicanism and religion,” Gazzam was “artfully aiming at offices.”[217] The allusion to Gazzam’s “religion” referred to the gentleman’s well known activity in the affairs of the Presbyterian Church, which he afterward left, owing, it was alleged, to the fact that the minister, the Rev. Robert Steele, gave out “two lines of a stanza to be sung, instead of the time-honored one.”[218] Fowler enlarged on Gazzam’s reputed yearning for office. He enumerated the offices which Gazzam had held, and the others that he desired. He claimed that Gazzam was an applicant for the post office on the demise of George Adams; that he hoped to be county commissioner; that he was scheming to become a member of the General Assembly.[219] To this abuse Gazzam replied with equal venom. He said General Fowler had been drunk on the last occasion that he had asked his support for Congress, and that he had abused him in a very ungentlemanly manner.[220]
Thomas Baird was a member of the firm of Fulton and Baird, and was a candidate for burgess in 1803, the year that Colonel Neville was elected.[221] Joseph McClurg was a candidate for supervisor in 1803, but was defeated by A. McNickle.[222] Affiliated with these men were Samuel Ewalt, Nathaniel Irish, and Adamson Tannehill, the last two being former Revolutionary officers. Nathaniel Irish was county commissioner,[223] and inspector of flour for the Western country.[224] Adamson Tannehill had formerly conducted a tavern on Water Street,[225] and had been president of the Pittsburgh Fire Company.[226] In October, 1800, while a justice of the peace, he was tried and convicted of extortion, before Justices Jasper Yeates and Thomas Smith of the Supreme Court while on circuit in Pittsburgh, that court then having original jurisdiction of this offense, under the constitution of 1790. Tannehill received a reprimand and was fined fifty dollars. The conviction was thought to disqualify him from further exercising the office of justice of the peace. Being a leading Republican, and the offense, which consisted in charging on two probates two shillings more than the law allowed, having been committed five years before, Governor McKean, in January, 1801, remitted the fine and reappointed Tannehill to the office which he had formerly held.[227] Dr. Andrew Richardson belonged to the “Clapboard Row” faction until his desertion of the Republican party. Joseph Davis, who had a grocery store on the other side of Market Street from “Clapboard Row,” was another member of the clique, as was Tarleton Bates, the prothonotary of the county,[228] who had succeeded John C. Gilkison in office.
“Clapboard Row,” was not allowed to win its victories unopposed. The opposition was both able and active. Judge Alexander Addison, Senator James Ross, and General John Woods were the leaders of the Federalists. Colonel O’Hara, General Neville, Colonel Neville, Major Craig, Major Ebenezer Denny, Dr. Stevenson, and most of the former Revolutionary officers were also Federalists. Other Federalists were William Christy, Dr. Mowry, Abner Barker, Jeremiah Barker, and Alexander McLaughlin. They made a gallant fight for their principles, but their voice was usually drowned in the mighty chorus of Republicanism that had swept the country from its former conservative moorings. In borough politics only were they successful.
The views of the rival political parties were echoed with startling frankness in the columns of the Tree of Liberty and the Pittsburgh Gazette. On October 11, 1800, the Tree of Liberty announced the election of the Republican candidate for inspector of elections in the borough, and added jubilantly: “The people are no longer to be led up like tame asses to vote against their inclination for the characters that Ross, Woods, and Addison recommend. They now act for themselves.” After the presidential election of 1800, it exulted further: “It is laughable to hear some of the hot-blooded Federalists moaning and groaning at the result of the last election. They know not what cause to attribute it to. They curse the Tree and all its leaves, they denounce ‘Clapboard Row’ with the yards and its size sticks.”[229]
The Pittsburgh Gazette was equally outspoken, its ire being particularly directed against Judge Hugh Henry Brackenridge. In an article signed “A Citizen of Washington,” it gave what purported to be an account of a drunken escapade of the Judge through Washington and Allegheny Counties, which, if published to-day, would lead to a personal encounter.[230] On another occasion Scull paid his compliments to Brackenridge in the following sarcastic terms: “You who get two or three thousand dollars a year for setting up a slanderous press, and for two or three journeys through the State to sit as a mute on the bench, and wear the new cockade, in your drunken frolics through the country, can afford to buy a press and hire types, and pay under-devils to set types and fetch and carry tales. I cannot afford such things. I have no salary, post, or pension.”[231]
A week later Scull attacked Brackenridge with even more virulence: “Mr. Brackenridge cannot expect to live long. He has already outlived all hope of fame. I doubt whether he feels that there is a God above him. I doubt whether he does not think that he is his own divinity while he lives, and that when he dies his dust will mingle with that of the beasts that perish. He has labored with industry and success to acquire the contempt and abhorrence of all whom it was possible for him to esteem.”[232]