New forces, new ideas, are building splendid superstructures on the
foundations established by the generation now passing away. From the time
of the city’s incorporation, in 1832, the bench and the bar, the medical
and the clerical professions, have been especially rich with the names
of those who have left a lasting impress upon the thought of the city,
the state and the nation. The political life and the business progress
have been dignified by men of intellect and character. Such names as
the Right Reverend Arthur Cleveland Coxe, Protestant Episcopal Bishop
of Western New York; the Right Reverend Stephen Vincent Ryan, Roman
Catholic Bishop of Buffalo; John Ganson, one of the giants of the legal
profession; Millard Fillmore, a former President of the United States;
Doctors George N. Burwell and John Cronyn, cultured physicians of the
old school; William I. Williams, the pioneer of Buffalo’s unrivalled
paved streets; the Reverend Doctor William Shelton, rector of St. Paul’s
Church; the Reverend Doctor John Lord, perhaps the most famous of
Buffalo’s Presbyterian divines; James M. Smith, Justice of the Supreme
Court, recall types of men whose ability, integrity and civic worth would
contribute to advance civilization in any community.
[Illustration: DR. JOHN CRONYN.]
[Illustration: WILLIAM I. WILLIAMS.]
During the Civil War, Buffalo did its patriotic share towards the
preservation of the Union. The names of William F. Rogers, Michael
Wiedrich, James P. McMahon, Daniel D. Bidwell, Edward P. Chapin, John
Wilkeson and William Richardson are cherished by the people of Buffalo
and Erie County as typical of the soldiers who, in regiment after
regiment, enlisted there for the war.
In legislation, also, the city contributed its part to the successful
prosecution of the struggle. On December 30, 1861, Mr. E. G. Spaulding,
member of Congress from Buffalo, introduced the bill which afterwards
became famous as the Legal-Tender Act, whereby the Secretary of the
Treasury was authorized to issue $50,000,000 in Treasury notes, payable
on demand, in denominations of not less than $5, these to be the legal
tender for all debts, public and private, and exchangeable for the bonds
of the Government at par.
Nearly every element of American progress has entered into the growth of
this beautiful city. Its development has been brilliant in enterprise,
luminous in education, rich in romance, splendid in achievement, and
noble in patriotism. In a word, Buffalo has kept pace with the Great
Republic.
[Illustration: SEAL OF THE CITY OF BUFFALO.]
[Illustration]
PITTSBURGH
THE INDUSTRIAL CITY
BY SAMUEL HARDEN CHURCH
George Washington, the Father of his Country, is equally the Father
of Pittsburgh, for he came thither in November, 1753, and established
the location of the now imperial city by choosing it as the best place
for a fort. Washington was then twenty-one years old. He had by that
time written his precocious one hundred and ten maxims of civility and
good behavior; had declined to be a midshipman in the British Navy; had
made his only sea-voyage to Barbadoes; had surveyed the estates of Lord
Fairfax, going for months into the forest without fear of savage Indians
or wild beasts, and was now a major of Virginia militia. In pursuance
of the claim of Virginia that she owned that part of Pennsylvania in
which Pittsburgh is situated, Washington came there as the agent of
Governor Dinwiddie to treat with the Indians. With an eye alert for the
dangers of the wilderness, and with Christopher Gist beside him, the
young Virginian pushed his cautious way to “The Point” of land where the
confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers forms the Ohio. That,
he declared, with clear military instinct, was the best site for a fort;
and he rejected the promontory two miles below, which the Indians had
recommended for that purpose.
[Illustration: AN EARLY RESIDENT OF PITTSBURGH.
(FROM A STATUE BY T. A. MILLS IN THE CARNEGIE MUSEUM.)]
As early as 1728 a daring hunter or trader found the Indians at the head
waters of the Ohio,—among them the Delawares, Shawanese, Mohicans and
Iroquois,—whither they tracked the bear from their village of Logstown,
seventeen miles down the river. They also employed the country roundabout
as a highway for their march to battle against other tribes, and against
each other. At that time France and England were disputing for the new
continent. France, by right of her discovery of the Mississippi, claimed
all the lands drained by that river and its tributaries,—a contention
which would naturally plant her banner upon the summit of the Alleghany
Mountains.[26] England, on the other hand, claimed everything from
ocean-shore to ocean-shore. This situation produced war, and Pittsburgh
became the strategic key of the great Middle West. The French made early
endeavors to win the allegiance of the Indians, and they felt encouraged
to press their friendly overtures because they usually came among the
red men for trading or exploration, while the English invariably seized
and occupied their lands. In 1731 some French settlers did attempt to
build a group of houses at Pittsburgh, but the Indians compelled them to
go away. The next year the Governor of Pennsylvania summoned two Indian
chiefs from Pittsburgh to say why they had been going to see the French
Governor at Montreal; and they gave answer that he had sent for them
only to express the hope that both English and French traders might meet
at Pittsburgh and carry on trade amicably. The Governor of Pennsylvania
sought to induce the tribes to draw themselves farther east, where they
might be made to feel the hand of authority, but Sassoonan, their chief,
forbade them to stir. An Iroquois chief who joined his entreaties to
those of the Governor was soon afterward killed by some Shawanese braves,
but they were forced to flee into Virginia to escape the vengeance of his
tribe.
Louis Celeron, a French officer, made an exploration of the country
contiguous to Pittsburgh in 1747, and formally enjoined the Governor of
Pennsylvania not to occupy the ground, as France claimed its sovereignty.
A year later the Ohio Company was formed, with a charter ceding an
immense tract of land for sale and development, including Pittsburgh.
This corporation built some storehouses at Logstown to facilitate their
trade with the Indians, which were captured by the French, together with
skins and commodities valued at £20,000; and the purposes of the Company
were never accomplished.
[Illustration: SUN-DIAL USED AT FORT DUQUESNE.]
As soon as Washington’s advice as to the location of the fort was
received, Captain William Trent was dispatched to Pittsburgh with a force
of soldiers and workmen, packhorses and materials, and he began in all
haste to erect a stronghold. The French had already built forts on the
northern lakes, and they now sent Captain Contrecœur down the Allegheny
with one thousand French, Canadians and Indians, and eighteen pieces of
cannon, in a flotilla of sixty bateaux and three hundred canoes. Trent
had planted himself in Pittsburgh on February 17, 1754,—a date important
because it marks the first permanent white settlement there. But his
work had been retarded alike by the small number of his men and the
severity of the winter; and when Contrecœur arrived in April, the young
subaltern who commanded in Trent’s absence surrendered the unfinished
works, and was permitted to march away with his thirty-three men. The
French completed the fort and named it Duquesne, in honor of the Governor
of Canada; and they held possession of it for four years.
Immediately on the loss of this fort, Virginia sent a force under
Washington to retake it. Washington surprised a French detachment near
Great Meadows, and killed their commander, Jumonville. When a larger
expedition came against him, he put up a stockade near the site of
Uniontown, naming it Fort Necessity, which he was compelled to yield on
terms of marching away with the honors of war.
The next year (1755) General Edward Braddock came over with two regiments
of British soldiers, and, after augmenting his force with Colonial troops
and a few Indians, began his fatal march upon Fort Duquesne. Braddock’s
testy disposition, his consuming egotism, his contempt for the Colonial
soldiers and his stubborn adherence to military maxims that were
inapplicable to the warfare of the wilderness alienated the respect and
confidence of the American contingent, robbed him of an easy victory and
cost him his life. Benjamin Franklin had warned him against the imminent
risk of Indian ambuscades, but he had contemptuously replied: “These
savages may indeed be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia;
but upon the King’s regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible
they should make any impression.” Some of his English staff-officers
urged him to send the rangers in advance and to deploy his Indians as
scouts, but he rejected their prudent suggestions with a sneer. On July
9th his army, comprising twenty-two hundred soldiers and one hundred and
fifty Indians, was marching down the south bank of the Monongahela. The
variant color and fashion of the expedition,—the red-coated regulars,
the blue-coated Americans, the naval detachment, the rangers in
deerskin shirts and leggings, the savages half-naked and befeathered,
the glint of sword and gun in the hot daylight, the long wagon train,
the lumbering cannon, the drove of bullocks, the royal banner and the
Colonial gonfalon,—the pomp and puissance of it all composed a spectacle
of martial splendor unseen in that country before. On the right was the
tranquil river, and on the left the trackless wilderness whence the
startled deer sprang away into a deeper solitude. At noon the expedition
crossed the river and pressed on toward Fort Duquesne, ten miles below,
expectant of victory. What need to send out scouts when the King’s troops
are here? Let young George Washington and the rest urge it all they may;
the thing is beneath the dignity of his Majesty’s General.
But here, when they have crossed, is a level plain, elevated but a
few feet above the surface of the river, extending nearly half a mile
landwards, and then gradually ascending into thickly wooded hills,
with Fort Duquesne beyond. The troops in front had crossed the plain
and plunged into the road through the forest for a hundred feet, when
a heavy discharge of musketry and arrows was poured upon them, which
wrought in them a consternation all the greater because they could
see no foe anywhere. They shot at random, but without effect, while
the hidden enemy kept up an incessant and destructive fire. In this
distressing situation their courage forsook them, and they fell back
into the plain. Braddock rode in among them, and he and his officers
persistently endeavored to rally them, but without success. The Colonial
troops adopted the Indian method, and each man fought for himself behind
a tree. This was forbidden by Braddock, who attempted to form his men
in platoons and columns, making their slaughter inevitable. The French
and Indians, concealed in the ravines and behind trees, kept up a cruel
and deadly fire, until the British soldiers lost all presence of mind
and began to shoot each other and their own officers, and hundreds were
thus slain. The Virginia companies charged gallantly up a hill with a
loss of but three men, but when they reached the summit the British
soldiery, mistaking them for the enemy, fired upon them, killing fifty
out of eighty men. The Colonial troops then resumed the Indian fashion
of fighting from behind trees, which provoked Braddock, who had had five
horses killed under him in three hours, to storm at them and strike
them with his sword. At this moment he was fatally wounded, and many of
his men now fled away from the hopeless action. Washington had had two
horses killed and received three bullets through his coat. Being the only
mounted officer who was not disabled, he drew up the troops still on the
field, directed their retreat, maintaining himself at the rear with great
coolness and courage, and brought away his wounded general. Sixty-four
British and American officers, and nearly one thousand privates, were
killed or wounded in this battle, while the total French and Indian loss
was not over sixty. A few prisoners captured by the Indians were brought
to Pittsburgh and burnt at the stake. Four days after the fight Braddock
died, exclaiming to the last, “Who would have thought it!”
[Illustration: THE EARL OF CHATHAM.
FROM AN OIL PAINTING IN THE POSSESSION OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF
PENNSYLVANIA.]
Despondency seized the English settlers after Braddock’s defeat. But
two years afterward William Pitt became Prime Minister, and he thrilled
the nation with his appeal to protect the Colonies against France and
the savages. His letters inspired the Americans with new hope, and he
promised to send them British troops and to supply their own militia with
arms, ammunition, tents and provisions at the King’s charge. He sent
twelve thousand soldiers from England, which were joined to a Colonial
force aggregating fifty thousand men,—the most formidable army yet seen
in the new world. The plan of campaign embraced three expeditions:
the first against Louisburg, in the island of Cape Breton, which was
successful; the second against Ticonderoga, which succeeded after a
defeat; and the third against Fort Duquesne. General Forbes commanded
this expedition, comprising about seven thousand men. The militia from
Virginia, North Carolina and Maryland was led by Washington. On September
12, 1758, Major Grant, a Highlander, led an advance-guard of 850 men to a
point two miles from the fort, which is still called Grant’s Hill, where
he rashly permitted himself to be surrounded and attacked by the French
and Indians, half his force being killed or wounded, and himself slain.
Washington followed soon after, and opened a road for the advance of the
main body under Forbes. Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, had just been
taken by General Amherst, with the result that supplies for Fort Duquesne
were cut off. When, therefore, the French commandant learned of the
advance of a superior force, having no hope of reinforcements, he blew
up the fort, set fire to the adjacent buildings and drew his garrison
away.
[Illustration: BLOCKHOUSE OF FORT PITT. BUILT IN 1764.]
On Saturday, November 25, 1758, the English took possession of the
place, and on the next day General Forbes wrote to Governor Denny from
“Fort Duquesne, now Pittsburgh, the 26th of November, 1758,” and this
was the first use of that name. On this same Sunday the Rev. Mr. Beatty,
a Presbyterian chaplain, preached a sermon in thanksgiving for the
superiority of British arms,—the first Protestant service in Pittsburgh.
The French had had a Roman Catholic chaplain, Father Baron, during their
occupancy.
The English proceeded to build a new fort about two hundred yards from
the site of Fort Duquesne, which they called Fort Pitt. This stronghold
at Pittsburgh cut off French transportation to the Mississippi by way
of the Ohio River, and the only remaining route, by way of the Great
Lakes, was soon afterward closed by the fall of Fort Niagara. The fall of
Quebec, with the death of the two opposing Generals, Montcalm and Wolfe,
and the capture of Montreal, ended the claims of France to sovereignty in
the new world.
The new fort being found too small, General Stanwix built a second Fort
Pitt, much larger and stronger, designed for a garrison of one thousand
men. The Indians viewed the newcomers with suspicion, but Colonel Henry
Bouquet assured them, with diplomatic tergiversation, that, “We have not
come here to take possession of your country in a hostile manner, as the
French did when they came among you, but to open a large and extensive
trade with you and all other nations of Indians to the westward.” A
redoubt (the “Block-House”) built by Colonel Bouquet in 1764 still
stands, in a very good state of preservation, being cared for by the
Daughters of the American Revolution. The protection of the garrison
naturally attracted a few traders, merchants and pioneers to Pittsburgh,
and a permanent population began to grow.
But the indigenous race continued to resent the extension of white
encroachment; and they formed a secret confederacy under Pontiac, the
renowned Ottawa chief, who planned a simultaneous attack on all the white
frontier posts. This uprising was attended by atrocious cruelties at many
of the points attacked, but we may take note here of the movement only as
it affected Pittsburgh. At the grand council held by the tribes, a bundle
of sticks had been given to every tribe, each bundle containing as many
sticks as there were days intervening before the deadly assault should
begin. One stick was to be drawn from the bundle every day until but one
remained, which was to signal the outbreak for that day. This was the
best calendar the barbarian could devise. At Pittsburgh, a Delaware squaw
who was friendly to the whites had stealthily taken out three of the
sticks, thus precipitating the attack on Fort Pitt three days in advance
of the time appointed.
[Illustration: PLAN OF FORT PITT.]
The last stick was reached on June 22, 1763, and the Delawares and
Shawanese began the assault in the afternoon, under Simon Ecuyer. The
people of Pittsburgh took shelter in the fort, and held out while waiting
for reinforcements. Colonel Bouquet hurried forward a force of five
hundred men, but they were intercepted at Bushy Run, where a bloody
battle was fought. Bouquet had fifty men killed and sixty wounded, but
inflicted a much greater loss on his savage foes, and gained the fort,
relieving the siege. As soon as Bouquet could recruit his command, he
moved down the Ohio, attacked the Indians, liberated some of their
prisoners and taught the red men to respect the power that controlled at
Pittsburgh.
In 1768 the Indians ceded their lands about Pittsburgh to the Colonies,
and civilization was then free to spread over them. In 1774 a land office
was opened in Pittsburgh by Governor Dunmore, and land-warrants were
granted on payment of two shillings and sixpence purchase money, at the
rate of ten pounds per one hundred acres.
With the French out of the country, the Colonies began to feel the
oppression of a British policy which British statesmen and historians
to-day most bitterly denounce. Their opposition to tyranny found its
natural expression in the battle of Lexington, April 19, 1775. The fires
of patriotism leapt through the continent, and the little settlement at
Pittsburgh was quickly aflame with the national spirit. On May 16th a
convention was held at Pittsburgh, which resolved that
“This committee have the highest sense of the spirited behavior
of their brethren in New England, and do most cordially
approve of their opposing the invaders of American rights and
privileges to the utmost extreme, and that each member of this
committee, respectively, will animate and encourage their
neighborhood to follow the brave example.”
No foreign soldiers were sent over the mountains to Pittsburgh, but a
more merciless foe, who would attack and harass with remorseless cruelty,
was impressed into the English service, despite the horrified protests
of some of her wisest statesmen. American treaties with the Indians had
no force against the allurements of foreign gold, and under this unholy
alliance men were burnt at the stake, women were carried away, and cabins
were destroyed.
With the aim of regaining the friendship of the Indians, Congress
appointed commissioners who met the tribes at Pittsburgh; and Colonel
George Morgan, Indian agent, writes to John Hancock, November 8, 1776:
“I have the happiness to inform you that the cloud that
threatened to break over us is likely to disperse. The Six
Nations, with the Muncies, Delawares, Shawanese and Mohicans,
who have been assembled here with their principal chiefs
and warriors to the number of 644, have given the strongest
assurance of their determination to preserve inviolate the
peace and neutrality with the United States.”
These amicable expectations were not realized, and General Edward Hand
came to Pittsburgh the next year and planned an expedition against the
Indians. Colonel Broadhead took out Hand’s expedition in the summer and
burnt the Indian towns.
The depreciation of paper currency, or Continental money, had by this
time brought the serious burden of high prices upon the people. The
traders, who demanded apparently exorbitant rates for their goods, were
denounced in public meetings at Pittsburgh as being “now commonly known
by the disgraceful epithet of speculators, of more malignant natures than
the savage Mingoes in the wilderness.” This hardship grew in severity
until the finances were put upon a more stable basis.
By 1781, there were demoralization and mutiny at Fort Pitt, and General
William Irvine was put in command. His firm hand soon restored the
garrison to obedience. The close of the war with Great Britain was
celebrated by the issue of a general order at the fort, November 6, 1781,
requiring all, as a sailor would say, “to splice the main-brace.”[27]
Up to this time the Penn family had held the charter to Pennsylvania; but
as they had maintained a steadfast allegiance to the mother country, the
General Assembly annulled their title, except to allow them to retain
the ownership of various manors throughout the State, embracing half a
million acres.
In order to relieve the people of Pittsburgh from going to Greensburg
to the court-house in their sacred right of suing and being sued, the
General Assembly erected Allegheny County out of parts of Westmoreland
and Washington counties, September 24, 1788. This county originally
comprised, in addition to its present limits, what are now Armstrong,
Beaver, Butler, Crawford, Erie, Mercer, Venango and Warren counties.
The act required that the court-house and jail should be located in
Allegheny (just across the river from Pittsburgh), but as there was no
protection against Indians there, an amendment established Pittsburgh as
the county-seat. The first court was held at Fort Pitt; and the next day
a ducking-stool was erected for the district, at “The Point” in the three
rivers.
In 1785, the dispute between Virginia and Pennsylvania for the possession
of Pittsburgh was settled by the award of a joint commission in favor of
Pennsylvania.
A writer says that in 1786 Pittsburgh contained thirty-six log houses,
one stone and one frame house and five small stores. Another records
that the population “is almost entirely Scots and Irish, who live in log
houses.” A third says of these log houses, “Now and then one had assumed
the appearance of neatness and comfort.”
[Illustration: PHIPPS CONSERVATORY.]
The first newspaper, the Pittsburgh _Gazette_, was established July 29,
1786. A mail route to Philadelphia, by horseback, was adopted in the same
year. On September 29, 1787, the Legislature granted a charter to the
Pittsburgh Academy, a school that has grown steadily in usefulness and
power, and is now the Western University of Pennsylvania.
In 1791, the Indians became vindictive and dangerous, and General Arthur
St. Clair, with a force of twenty-three hundred men, was sent down the
river to punish them. Neglecting President Washington’s imperative
injunction to avoid a surprise, he led his command into an ambush and
lost half of it in the most disastrous battle with the redskins since
the time of Braddock. In the general alarm that ensued, Fort Pitt being
in a state of decay a new fort was built in Pittsburgh at Ninth and
Tenth streets and Penn Avenue,—a stronghold that included bastions,
blockhouses, barracks, etc., and was named Fort Lafayette. General
Anthony Wayne was then selected to command another expedition against
the savages, and he arrived in Pittsburgh in June, 1792. After drilling
his troops and making preparations for two years, in the course of which
he erected several forts in the West, including Fort Defiance and Fort
Wayne, he fought the Indians and crushed their strength and spirit. On
his return a lasting peace was made with them, and there were no further
raids about Pittsburgh.