The Monongahela River coming from the southward, and the Allegheny
River flowing from the northward, drain the western defiles of the
Alleghenies, and at Pittsburg unite to form the Ohio River. Each comes
to the junction through a deeply-cut canyon, and at the confluence is
a triangular flat upon which the original town was built. Like most
American rivers, all these have names of Indian origin. Monongahela is
the "river of high banks, breaking off in places and falling down."
Ohio is a Seneca word, originally pronounced "O-hee-o," and meaning
the "beautiful river" or the "fair water," and Allegheny in the
language of the Delawares has much the same signification, meaning
"the fairest stream." All the Indians regarded the two as really the
same river, of which the Monongahela was a tributary. The first white
men exploring this region were the French, who came down from the
lakes and Canada, when they spread through the entire Mississippi
Valley. In 1753, however, Washington with a surveying party was sent
out by Virginia and carefully examined the site of Pittsburg,
advising, on his return, that a fort should be built there to check
the advance of the French, and the next year this was done. Scarcely
was it completed, however, when the French sent a summons to
surrender, addressed "From the Commander-in-chief of His Most
Christian Majesty's troops now on the Beautiful River to the Commander
of those of Great Britain." A French force soon appeared, and the fort
was abandoned. This began the French and Indian Colonial War that
continued seven years, the French then erecting their famous fort and
trading-post guarding the head of the Ohio, which they named after the
great French naval commander of the seventeenth century, Marquis
Abraham Duquesne. Then came Braddock's defeat in 1755, and for some
time the region was quiet. Moravian missionary influence, however,
had by 1758 detached many of the Indians from the French interest, and
after another British attack and repulse, General Forbes came with a
large force, and the French abandoned the fort and blew it up.
Immediately rebuilt by the English, a Virginia garrison occupied the
post, and it was named Fort Pitt. Then a larger fort was built at a
cost of $300,000 and garrisoned by artillery, which the enemy vainly
besieged in 1763. The next year a town site was laid out near the
fort, and in 1770 it had twenty log houses. After the long succession
of wars and massacres on that frontier had ceased, the village grew,
and business began developing--at first, boat- and vessel-building,
and then smelting and coal mining and the manufacture of glass. In
1812 the first rolling-mill started, and the war with England in that
year caused the opening of a cannon foundry, which became the Fort
Pitt Iron Works. The village of Fort Pitt had become Pittsburg, and
expanded vastly with the introduction of steam, and it became an
extensive steamboat builder for the Western waters. Railroad
connections gave it renewed impetus; natural gas used as a
manufacturing fuel was a wonderful stimulant; and it now conducts an
enormous trade with all parts of the country, and is the seat of the
greatest iron, steel and glass industries in America.
Few views are more striking than that given from the high hills
overlooking Pittsburg. Rising steeply, almost from the water's edge,
on the southern bank of the Monongahela River, is Mount Washington,
three hundred and fifty feet high. Inclined-plane railways are
constructed up the face of this hill, and mounting to the top, there
is a superb view over the town. The Allegheny River comes from the
northeast and the Monongahela from the southeast, through deep and
winding gorges cut into the rolling tableland, and uniting form the
Ohio, flowing away to the northwest also through a deep gorge,
although its bordering ridges of hills are more widely separated.
Pittsburg stands upon the low flat surface of the peninsula, above the
junction of the rivers, which has some elongated ridgy hills,
stretching eastward through the centre. Its situation and appearance
have thus not inaptly been compared to a flatiron, the point being at
the head of the Ohio, and these ridgy hills making the handle. The
city has overflowed into extensive suburbs across both rivers, the
aggregate population being more than a half-million. Numerous bridges
span the rivers, the narrow shores between the steep hills bearing a
mixed maze of railways and factories. Countless chimney-smokes and
steam-jets come up in all directions, overhanging the town like a
pall; and so impressive is the obscuration, combined with the lurid
glare of furnaces and the weird white gleam of electric lights, that
the elevated view down into Pittsburg seems a veritable pandemonium.
So startling is it on a lowering day that it has been pointedly
described by one who thus for the first time looked upon the "Smoky
City," far down in its deep basin among the high hills, as appearing
like "Hell with the lid off." There are plenty of railways in the
scene, and scores of odd-looking, stumpy-prowed little steamboats
built high above the water, having huge stern-wheels to drive them,
with their noses thrust up on the sloping levee along the river bank,
whereon is piled the cargoes, chiefly of iron products. The swift
current turns all the sterns down stream, so that they lie diagonally
towards the shore. Fleets of flat, shallow coal barges are moored
along, waiting to be made up into tows for their journey down the
Ohio, as Pittsburg has an extensive river trade, covering over twenty
thousand miles of Western waters. Out of the weird and animated scene
there come all sorts of busy noises, forges and trip-hammers pounding,
steam hissing, railroad trains running, whistles screeching,
locomotives puffing, bells ringing, so that with the flame jets
rising, and the smokes of all colors blowing about, there is got a
good idea of the active industries of this very busy place.