THE MELTING POT
The population of Pittsburgh was composed of various nationalities;
those speaking the English language predominated. In addition to the
Germans and Swiss-Germans, there were French and a few Italians. The
majority of the English-speaking inhabitants were of Irish or Scotch
birth, or immediate extraction. Of those born in Ireland or Scotland,
some were old residents--so considered if they had lived in Pittsburgh
for ten years or more--while others were recent immigrants. The Germans
and French had come as early as the Irish and Scotch. The Italians
were later arrivals. There was also a sprinkling of Welsh. The place
contained a number of negroes, nearly all of whom were slaves, there
being in 1800 sixty-four negro slaves in Allegheny County,[58] most
of whom were in Pittsburgh and the immediate vicinity. A majority
of the negroes had been brought into the village in the early days
by emigrants from Virginia and Maryland. Their number was gradually
decreasing. By Act of the General Assembly of March 1, 1780, all
negroes and mulattoes born after that date, of slave mothers, became
free upon arriving at the age of twenty-eight years. Then on March 29,
1788, it was enacted that any slaves brought into the State by persons
resident thereof, or intending to become such, should immediately be
free.[59] Also public sentiment was growing hostile to the institution
of negro slavery. The few free negroes in Pittsburgh were engaged
in menial occupations, and the name of only one, whose vocation was
somewhat higher, has been handed down to the present time. This was
Charles Richards, commonly called “Black Charley,” who conducted an inn
in the log house, at the northwest corner of Second and Ferry Streets.
Among themselves the Germans and the French spoke the language of
their fathers, but in their intercourse with their English-speaking
neighbors they used English. The language of the street varied from
the English of New England and Virginia, to the brogue of the Irish
and Scotch, or the broken enunciation of the newer Germans and French.
Being in a majority the English-speaking population controlled to a
considerable extent the destinies of the community. Their manufactories
were the most extensive, the merchandise in their stores was in
greater variety, and the stocks larger than those carried in other
establishments.
Next in numbers to those whose native language was English, were
the German-speaking inhabitants. They constituted the skilled
mechanics; some were merchants, and many were engaged in farming
in the neighboring townships. They were all more or less closely
connected with the German church. Only the names of their leading men
have survived the obliterating ravages of time. Among the mechanics
of the higher class were Jacob Haymaker, William Eichbaum, and John
Hamsher. The first was a boatbuilder, whose boatyard was located on
the south side of the Monongahela River at the Middle Ferry; Eichbaum
was employed by O’Hara and Craig in the construction and operation of
their glass works. John Hamsher was a coppersmith and tin-worker, whose
diversion was to serve in the militia, in which he was captain.[60]
Conrad Winebiddle, Jonas Roup, Alexander Negley, and his son, Jacob
Negley, were well-to-do farmers in Pitt Township. Winebiddle was a
large holder of real estate, who died in 1795, and enjoyed the unique
distinction of being the only German who ever owned negro slaves in
Allegheny County. Nicholas Bausman and Melchoir Beltzhoover were
farmers in St. Clair Township; and Casper Reel was a farmer and trapper
in Pine Township, where he was also tax collector. Samuel Ewalt kept
a tavern in Pittsburgh in 1775, and was afterward a merchant. He
was Sheriff of Allegheny County during the dark days of the Whisky
Insurrection, and later was inspector of the Allegheny County brigade
of militia. He was several times a member of the Pennsylvania House
of Representatives. William Wusthoff was Sheriff of Allegheny County
in 1801. Jacob Bausman had a varied career. He was a resident of
Pittsburgh as far back as 1771, and was perhaps the most prominent
German in the place. As a young man he was an ensign in the Virginia
militia, during the Virginia contention. He established the first ferry
on the Monongahela River, which ran to his house on the south side
of the stream, where the southern terminus of the Smithfield Street
bridge is now located. The right to operate the ferry was granted to
him by the Virginia Court on February 23, 1775, and was confirmed by
the General Assembly of Pennsylvania ten years later. At his ferry
house he also conducted a tavern. His energies were not confined to his
private affairs. Under the Act of the General Assembly incorporating
Allegheny County, he was named as one of the trustees to select land
for a court house in the tract reserved by the State, in Pine Township,
and was again, under the Act of April 13, 1791, made a trustee to
purchase land in Pittsburgh for the same purpose. He was treasurer
of the German church and, jointly with Jacob Haymaker, was trustee,
on the part of the church, of the land deeded by the Penns to that
congregation for church purposes at the northeast corner of Smithfield
and Sixth Streets, where the congregation’s second and all subsequent
churches were built. Michael Hufnagle was a member of the Allegheny
County Bar, being one of the first ten men to be admitted to practice,
upon the organization of the county. He was the only lawyer of German
nationality in the county. He had been a captain in the Revolution,
and prothonotary of Westmoreland County. On July 13, 1782, when the
Indians and Tories attacked Hannastown, he occupied a farm situated a
mile and a half north of that place, which has ever since been known in
frontier history as the place where the townsfolk were harvesting when
the attack began.[61]
By their English-speaking neighbors the Germans were generally
designated as “Dutch.” In the references to them in the _Pittsburgh
Gazette_ and other early publications, they were likewise called
“Dutch.” Books printed in the German language were advertised as
“Dutch” books. The custom of speaking of the Germans as “Dutch” was
however not confined to Pittsburgh, but was universal in America. The
Dutch inhabitants of New York and elsewhere, were the first settlers
in the colonies, whose language was other than English. The bulk of the
English-speaking population, wholly ignorant of any language except
their own, were easily led into the error of confusing the newer German
immigrants with the Dutch, the only persons speaking a foreign tongue
with whom they had come in contact. Nor were the uneducated classes
the only transgressors in this respect. The Rev. Dr. William Smith,
the scholarly Provost of the College of Philadelphia, writing during
the French and Indian War, spoke of the Germans as “the Dutch or
Germans.”[62] Also “Dutch” bears a close resemblance to “Deutsch,” the
German name for people of the German race, which may account, to some
extent, for the misuse of the word.
The Germans were in Pittsburgh to stay. Their efforts were directed
largely toward private ends. When men of other blood made records in
public life, the Germans made theirs in the limited sphere of their
own employment or enterprises. Owing to their inability to speak the
English language, their position was more isolated than that of the
greenest English-speaking immigrant in the village. That they were
clannish was a natural consequence. This disposition was accentuated
when a newspaper printed in the German language was established on
November 22, 1800, in the neighboring borough of Greensburgh, entitled
_The German Farmers’ Register_, being the first German paper published
in the Western country. Subscriptions were received in Pittsburgh at
the office of the _Tree of Liberty_,[63] then recently established,
and the effort to acquire a knowledge of English in order to be able
to read the news of the day in the Pittsburgh newspapers, was for the
time being largely abandoned. As the Germans learned to speak and read
English, their social intercourse was no longer restricted to persons
of their own nationality. With the next generation, intermarriages with
persons of other descent took place. The German language ceased to be
cultivated; they forsook the German church for one where English was
the prevailing language. It is doubtful if a single descendant of the
old Germans is now able to speak the language of his forbears unless
it was learned at school, or that he is a member of or attends the
services of the German church.
The French element was an almost negligible quantity, yet it exerted
an influence far beyond what might be expected when its numbers are
considered. So strong was the tide of public opinion in favor of all
things French, occasioned by the events of the French Revolution,
that Albert Gallatin, a French-Swiss, who had just been naturalized,
and still spoke English with a decided foreign accent, attained high
political honors. To the people he was essentially a Frenchman, and
in 1794, he was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives,
from Fayette County where he lived. At the same time he was elected
to Congress from the district consisting of Allegheny and Washington
Counties; and was twice re-elected from the same district, which
included Greene County after the separation from Washington County in
1796, and its erection into a separate county. It was while serving
this constituency that Gallatin developed those powers in finance
and statesmanship which caused his appointment as Secretary of the
Treasury by President Jefferson, and by Jefferson’s successor,
President Madison. From the politicians of this Congressional District,
Gallatin learned those lessons in diplomacy which enabled him, while
joint commissioner of the United States, to secure the signature of
England to the Treaty of Ghent, by which the War of 1812 was brought
to a close, and which led to his becoming United States Minister to
France and to England. The training of those early days finally made
him the most famous of all Americans of European birth, and brought
about his nomination for Vice-President by the Congressional caucus
of the Republican party, an honor which he first accepted, but later
declined.[64]
Another prominent Frenchman was John B. C. Lucus. In 1796, he lived on
a farm on Coal Hill on the south side of the Monongahela River, in St.
Clair Township, five miles above Pittsburgh. It was said of him that he
was an atheist and that his wife plowed on Sundays, in spite of which
he was several times elected to the General Assembly.[65] In 1800, he
was appointed an associate judge for the county. He quarrelled with
Alexander Addison, the president judge of the judicial district to
which Allegheny County was attached, yet he had sufficient standing in
the State to cause Judge Addison’s impeachment and removal from the
Bench. In 1802, Lucus was elected to Congress and was re-elected in
1804. In 1805, he was appointed United States District Judge for the
new Territory of Louisiana, now the State of Missouri.
Dr. Felix Brunot arrived in Pittsburgh in 1797. He came from France
with Lafayette and was a surgeon in the Revolutionary War and fought in
many of its battles. His office was located on Liberty Street, although
he owned and lived on Brunot Island. An _émigré_, the Chevalier
Dubac, was a merchant.[66] Dr. F. A. Michaux, the French naturalist
and traveler, related of Dubac:[67] “I frequently saw M. Le Chevalier
Dubac, an old French officer who, compelled by the events of the
Revolution to quit France, settled in Pittsburgh where he engaged in
commerce. He possesses very correct knowledge of the Western country,
and is perfectly acquainted with the navigation of the Ohio and
Mississippi Rivers, having made several voyages to New Orleans.” Morgan
Neville a son of Colonel Presley Neville, and a writer of acknowledged
ability, drew a charming picture of Dubac’s life in Pittsburgh.[68]
Perhaps the best known Frenchman in Pittsburgh was John Marie, the
proprietor of the tavern on Grant’s Hill. Grant’s Hill was the eminence
which adjoined the town on the east, the ascent to the hill beginning
a short distance west of Grant Street. The tavern was located just
outside of the borough limits, at the northeast corner of Grant Street
and the Braddocksfield Road, where it connected with Fourth Street.
The inclosure contained more than six acres, and was called after
the place of its location, “Grant’s Hill.” It overlooked Pittsburgh,
and its graveled walks and cultivated grounds were the resort of the
townspeople. For many years it was the leading tavern. Gallatin, who
was in Pittsburgh, in 1787, while on the way from New Geneva to Maine,
noted in his diary that he passed Christmas Day at Marie’s house, in
company with Brackenridge and Peter Audrian,[69] a well-known French
merchant on Water Street. Marie’s French nationality naturally led
him to become a Republican when the party was formed, and his tavern
was long the headquarters of that party. Numerous Republican plans
for defeating their opponents originated in Marie’s house, and many
Republican victories were celebrated in his rooms. Also in this tavern
the general meetings of the militia officers were held.[70] Michaux has
testified that Marie kept a good inn.[71] The present court house, the
combination court house and city hall now being erected, and a small
part of the South School, the first public school in Pittsburgh, occupy
the larger portion of the site of “Grant’s Hill.”
Marie’s name became well known over the State, several years after he
retired to private life. He was seventy-five years of age in 1802,
when he discontinued tavern-keeping and sold “Grant’s Hill” to James
Ross, United States Senator from Pennsylvania, who was a resident of
Pittsburgh. Marie had been estranged from his wife for a number of
years and by some means she obtained possession of “Grant’s Hill,” of
which Ross had difficulty in dispossessing her. In 1808, Ross was a
candidate for governor against Simon Snyder. Ross’s difference with
Mrs. Marie, whose husband had by this time divorced her, came to
the knowledge of William Duane in Philadelphia, the brilliant but
unscrupulous editor of the _Aurora_ since the discontinuance of the
_National Gazette_, in 1793, the leading radical Republican newspaper
in the country. The report was enlarged into a scandal of great
proportions both in the _Aurora_ and in a pamphlet prepared by Duane
and circulated principally in Philadelphia. The title of the pamphlet
was harrowing. It was called “The Case of Jane Marie, Exhibiting the
Cruelty and Barbarous Conduct of James Ross to a Defenceless Woman,
Written and Published by the Object of his Cruelty and Vengeance.”
Although Marie was opposed to Ross politically, he defended his conduct
toward Mrs. Marie as being perfectly honorable. Nevertheless, the
pamphlet played an important part in obtaining for Snyder the majority
of twenty-four thousand by which he defeated Ross.
Notwithstanding the high positions which some of the Frenchmen
attained, they left no permanent impression in Pittsburgh. After
prospering there for a few years, they went away and no descendants of
theirs reside in the city unless it be some of the descendants of Dr.
Brunot. Some went south to the Louisiana country, and others returned
to France. Gallatin, himself, long after he had shaken the dust of
Western Pennsylvania from his feet, writing about his grandson, the
son of his son James, said: “He is the only young male of my name,
and I have hesitated whether, with a view to his happiness, I had not
better take him to live and die quietly at Geneva, rather than to leave
him to struggle in this most energetic country, where the strong in
mind and character overset everybody else, and where consideration
and respectability are not at all in proportion to virtue and modest
merit.”[72] And the grandson went to Geneva to live, and his children
were born there and he died there.[73]
The United States Government was still in the formative stage. Until
this time the men who had fought the Revolutionary War to a successful
conclusion, held a tight rein on the governmental machinery. Now a
new element was growing up, and, becoming dissatisfied with existing
conditions, organized for a conflict with the men in power. The
rise of the opposition to the Federal party was also the outcome of
existing social conditions. Like the modern cry against consolidated
wealth, the movement was a contest by the discontented elements in
the population, of the men who had little against those who had
more. Abuses committed by individuals and conditions common to new
countries were magnified into errors of government. Also the people
were influenced by the radicalism superinduced by the French Revolution
and the subsequent happenings in France. “Liberty, fraternity, and
equality” were enticing catchwords in the United States.
Thomas Jefferson, on his return from France, in 1789, after an absence
of six years, where he had served as United States Minister, during
the development of French radicalism, came home much strengthened
in his ideas of liberty. They were in strong contrast with the
more conservative notions of government entertained by Washington,
Vice-President Adams, Hamilton, and the other members of the Cabinet.
In March, 1790, Jefferson became Secretary of State in Washington’s
first Cabinet, the appointment being held open for him since April
13th of the preceding year, when Washington entered on the duties of
the Presidency. Jefferson’s views being made public, he immediately
became the deity of the radical element. At the close of 1793, the
dissensions in the Cabinet had become so acute that on December 31st
Jefferson resigned in order to be better able to lead the new party
which was being formed. By this element the Federalists were termed
“aristocrats,” and “tories.” They were charged with being traitors to
their country, and were accused of being in league with England, and to
be plotting for the establishment of a monarchy, and an aristocracy.
The opposition party assumed the title of “Republican.” Later the
word “Democratic” was prefixed and the party was called “Democratic
Republican,”[74] although in Pittsburgh for many years the words
“Republican,” “Democratic Republican,” and “Democratic” were used
interchangeably.
Heretofore Pennsylvania had been staunchly Federal. On the organization
of the Republican party, Governor Thomas Mifflin, and Chief Justice
Thomas McKean of the Supreme Court, the two most popular men in the
State, left the Federal party and became Republicans. There was also a
cause peculiar to Pennsylvania, for the rapid growth of the Republican
party in the State. The constant increase in the backwoods population
consisted largely of emigrants from Europe, chiefly from Ireland,
who brought with them a bitter hatred of England and an intense
admiration for France. They went almost solidly into the Republican
camp. The arguments of the Republicans had a French revolutionary
coloring mingled with which were complaints caused by failure to
realize expected conditions. An address published in the organ of the
Republican party in Pittsburgh is a fair example of the reasoning
employed in advocacy of the Republican candidates: “Albert Gallatin,
the friend of the people, the enemy of tyrants, is to be supported
on Tuesday, the 14th of October next, for the Congress of the United
States. Fellow citizens, ye who are opposed to speculators, land
jobbers, public plunderers, high taxes, eight per cent. loans, and
standing armies, vote for Mr. Gallatin!”[75]
In Pittsburgh the leader of the Republicans was Hugh Henry
Brackenridge, the lawyer and dilettante in literature. In the fierce
invective of the time, he and all the members of his party were
styled by their opponents “Jacobins,” after the revolutionary Jacobin
Club of France, to which all the woes of the Terror were attributed.
The _Pittsburgh Gazette_ referred to Brackenridge as “Citizen
Brackenridge,” and after the establishment of the _Tree of Liberty_,
added “Jacobin printer of the _Tree of Sedition, Blasphemy, and
Slander_.”[76] But the Republicans gloried in titles borrowed from
the French Revolution. The same year that Governor Mifflin and Chief
Justice McKean went over to the Republicans, Brackenridge made a Fourth
of July address in Pittsburgh, in which he advocated closer relations
with France. This was republished in New York by the Republicans, in
a pamphlet, along with a speech made by Maximilien Robespierre in the
National Convention of France. In this pamphlet Brackenridge was styled
“Citizen Brackenridge.”[77] The _Pittsburgh Gazette_ and the _Tree of
Liberty_, contained numerous references to meetings and conferences
held at the tavern of “Citizen” Marie. On March 4, 1802, the first
anniversary of the inauguration of Jefferson as President, a dinner was
given by the leading Republicans in the tavern of “Citizen” Jeremiah
Sturgeon, at the “Sign of the Cross Keys,” at the northwest corner of
Wood Street and Diamond Alley, at which toasts were drunk to “Citizen”
Thomas Jefferson, “Citizen” Aaron Burr, “Citizen” James Madison,
“Citizen” Albert Gallatin, and “Citizen” Thomas McKean.[78]
In 1799, the Republicans had as their candidate for governor Chief
Justice McKean. Opposed to him was Senator James Ross. Ross was
required to maintain a defensive campaign. The fact that he was a
Federalist was alone sufficient to condemn him in the eyes of many of
the electors. He was accused of being a follower of Thomas Paine, and
was charged with “singing psalms over a card table.” It was said that
he had “mimicked” the Rev. Dr. John McMillan, the pioneer preacher of
Presbyterianism in Western Pennsylvania, and a politician of no mean
influence; that he had “mocked” the Rev. Matthew Henderson, a prominent
minister of the Associate Presbyterian Church.[79] Although Allegheny
County gave Ross a majority of over eleven hundred votes, he was
defeated in the State by more than seventy-nine hundred.[80] McKean
took office on December 17, 1799,[81] and the next day he appointed
Brackenridge a justice of the Supreme Court. All but one or two of the
county offices were filled by appointment of the governor, who could
remove the holders at pleasure. The idea of public offices being public
trusts had not been formulated. The doctrine afterward attributed to
Andrew Jackson, that “to the victors belong the spoils of office,” was
already a dearly cherished principle of the Republicans, and Judge
Brackenridge was not an exception to his party. Hardly had he taken his
seat on the Supreme Bench, when he induced Governor McKean to remove
from office the Federalist prothonotary, James Brison, who had held the
position since September 26, 1788, two days after the organization of
the county.
Brison was very popular. As a young man, he had lived at Hannastown,
and during the attack of the British and Indians on the place had
been one of the men sent on the dangerous errand of reconnoitering
the enemy.[82] He was now captain of the Pittsburgh Troop of Light
Dragoons, the crack company in the Allegheny County brigade of
militia, and was Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the Academy. He
was a society leader and generally managed the larger social functions
of the town. General Henry Lee, the Governor of Virginia, famous in the
annals of the Revolutionary War, as “Light-Horse Harry Lee,” commanded
the expedition sent by President Washington to suppress the Whisky
Insurrection, and was in Pittsburgh several weeks during that memorable
campaign. On the eve of his departure a ball was given in his honor by
the citizens. On that occasion Brison was master of ceremonies. A few
months earlier Brackenridge had termed him “a puppy and a coxcomb.”
Brackenridge credited Brison with retaliating for the epithet, by
neglecting to provide his wife and himself with an invitation to the
ball. This was an additional cause for his dismissal, and toward the
close of January the office was given to John C. Gilkison. Gilkison who
was a relative of Brackenridge, conducted the bookstore and library
which he had opened the year before, and also followed the occupation
of scrivener, preparing such legal papers as were demanded of him.[83]
REFERENCES