our dinners, it may be interesting to know something of our first
attempts in the art of social entertaining. In a letter from Capt.
Ecuyer, commandant at Fort Pitt, dated January 8th, 1763, written to
Col. Bouquet, he informs the latter that they have a ball every Saturday
evening, graced by the presence of the most beautiful ladies of the
garrison. No mention is made of any solid refreshment, but we are
informed that "the punch was abundant," and it is also intimated that if
the fair sex did not find it strong enough for their taste, they knew
where the whiskey was kept and how to remedy the fault. Gay indeed must
have been the dancing and the merriment inspired by the frontier punch
and the shrieks of the Indians outside the stockade, for at that very
time hostile savages surrounded and threatened the lonely fort. No
wonder the revellers needed strong drinks to keep up their spirits! It
is indeed very doubtful if the very strongest ever brewed would give
nerve enough to Pittsburgh belles of today to enable them to dance a
cotillon to the tune of Indian whoops and yells.
As to more intellectual pursuits, it would at first seem impossible to
discover what our frontier ancestors did in the way of reading. News
from the outside world was not to be depended upon, and books a rare
article, one would presume; but information often comes from unexpected
sources, and in an edition of Robertson's "Charles Fifth," "printed for
the subscribers in America in 1770," is "a list of subscribers whose
names posterity may respect, because of their seasonable encouragement
the American edition hath been accomplished at a price so moderate that
the man of the woods, as well as the man of the court, may solace
himself with sentimental delight." In this list we find the name of
"Ensign Francis Howard, of the Royal Irish at Fort Pitt," the only
subscriber west of the mountains.
We can imagine the young soldier, far from home and friends, reading of
those far-off times of war and peril, the winter wind howling up and
down the river and beating against the Block House, carrying with it the
echo, perhaps, of an Indian death halloo! Doubtless he wondered what the
stern Spanish campaigner would have done if brought to the western
wilderness to fight the red man, and, if he lived to return to his
English home with his scalp intact, it is more than probable that Ensign
Francis Howard's tales of America warfare and adventure were the delight
of many a hunting dinner or evening fireside.
Few indeed are the tangible relics of the most romantic period of our
local history. The writer owns a copy of the edition of "Charles Fifth,"
and in all probability it is the one that the English ensign read at
Fort Pitt. A few old letters, maps and account books, some cannon balls,
rusty swords and bayonets, the handsome carved stone sun dial which the
Chapter has placed for safe keeping in Carnegie Museum until its own
home is built, are about all we can show of the works and possessions of
the men who made our early history.
Here was the scene of a mighty struggle for empire, a struggle of which
the only vestiges left are the Block House and the names of our streets,
too many of which have been changed in recent years to suit the vulgar
needs of convenience and at the cost of our historical identity.
JULIA MORGAN HARDING.
[Illustration: PITTSBURGH IN 1795
COPYRIGHT 1892 BY JOS. EICHBAUM & CO.]
Postscript.
1914.
Much water has run under the bridges of the Allegheny and the
Monongahela rivers, since the sketch, "The Names of Pittsburgh Streets"
was written, and changes as radical as those that took place between the
first years of the Nineteenth Century and the early days of the
twentieth, have revolutionized the historic "Point" in the last decade.
Just as the French and Indians stole down the river before the advance
of Gen. Forbes and his British and Colonial troops in 1758, so did the
denizens of the aforesaid "Point" melt away in every direction before
the steam shovels, creaking derricks and snorting engines of the
Pennsylvania Railroad in 1904-05.
With the consolidation of Pittsburgh and Allegheny into one city came
other changes. Some of the old streets whose names commemorated dead
patriots associated with Colonial and Revolutionary Pittsburgh, are
buried under embankments, concrete walls and brick warehouses. Other
names have been dropped and certain etymological curiosities have been
put in their places. Still others have been transferred to distant and
irrelevant localities, and an old resident, returning from the world of
shades would be sadly confused if looking for old landmarks, Fort Pitt
and all pertaining to it, excepting only the Block House, vanished long
ago. There is nothing left of the later age which saw "Rice's Castle" in
its glory. The new industrialism is steadily and rapidly blotting out
the picturesque and historic all around us. Let all good Pittsburghers
unite to preserve the little that is left, the Redoubt built by Col.
Bouquet in 1764.
JULIA MORGAN HARDING.
1914.
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| Transcriber's Note: |
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| Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the |
| original document have been preserved. |
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| = sign denotes bold type |
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