Contents VI. THE CULTURAL HERITAGE OF THE PIONEERS 115 European Backgrounds of Immigration - Transported Convicts - Re- demptioners - Irish Immigrants - German Immigrants - Colonial So- ciety in Pennsylvania - The "Old West" - The Germans - The Scotch- Irish - Common Characteristics of Frontier Settlers VII. THE COMING OF THE SETTLERS 135 The Land Policy of the Penns - Settlers' Encroachment on Indian Lands - The Land Policy of Virginia and Claim to the Monongahela Valley - The First Settlements and the Population of Southwestern Pennsylvania - The Revolution and Immigration - Population in 1790 - The Growth of Towns - Population by Counties - Routes and Methods of Settlement - The National Origins of Settlers VIII. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF POLITICAL BOUNDARIES 156 Proposed New Colonies in the West - The Organization of Bedford and Westmoreland Counties - The Pennsylvania-Virginia Boundary Dispute - The Movement for a Separate State - The Organization of Washington, Fayette, and Allegheny Counties - The Pennsylvania-NewYork Boundary - The "Erie Triangle" IX. THE REVOLUTION AND INDIAN RELATIONS, 1774-95 175 Dunmore's War - Frontier Grievances -Revolutionary and Loyalist Activities - Overtures to the Indians - Early Military Mobilization - Hand, McIntosh, and Brodhead - The Critical Situation with Indians - Detroit and Gnadenhiitten - Fighting in the West after Cornwallis' Sur- render - Negotiations with Indians Following the Treaty of Peace - In- dian Relations, 1783-94 X. THE EXPANSION OF SETTLEMENT, 1790-1820 204 Pennsylvania's Land Policy - Speculation in Lands - Settlers' Organiza- tions - The Appeal to the Courts - The Settlers in Northwestern Penn- sylvania - The New England Element - The Organization of New Coun- ties, 1795-1807 - Population - The Growth of Towns - Cosmopolitanism XI. THE DEVELOPMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 229 Indian Trails - Pack-Horse Transportation - Roads - Bridges and Fer- ries - Wagons, Stagecoaches, Carriages - Water Transportation - Inns and Taverns - Postal Service viii Western Pennsylvania Shippensburg to a point a few miles west of Raystown (Bedford) and thence in a southwesterly direction to the summit of the Allegheny Ridge. When that point was reached, news was received of Braddock's defeat and the workmen fled to Fort Cumberland. The need of Indian allies for a campaign in the woods against the French and their Indians was recognized by Braddock, and efforts were made, without success, to enlist the services of some of the south- ern Indians. The Half King was now dead, but Croghan brought Sca- rouady and about fifty Iroquois warriors, mostly refugees from the Ohio, from Aughwick to Fort Cumberland. Braddock received them graciously and they promised to assist in the campaign, but, when he asked them to send the women and children back to Aughwick, all but eight of the warriors slipped away. The advance from Fort Cumberland began on June 7, but progress was slow because of the necessity of widening and improving the road and because of the shortage of horses for the exhausting work of haul- ing the artillery and wagons across the mountains. On June 16, when the army had reached the "Little Meadows" (near Grantsville, Mary- land), Braddock decided, on the advice of Washington, to push ahead with about twelve hundred of the best troops and a minimum of artil- lery and wagons, leaving the remainder of the army under Colonel Dunbar to bring up the heavy baggage as best it could. Thereafter the advance was more rapid, and the site of Gist's plantation was reached on June 27. From there the Indian and traders' path was followed north across the Youghiogheny at Connellsville to the vicin- ity of Mount Pleasant and thence northwest to a point near Irwin. In order to avoid the danger of attack in crossing the deep gorge through which Turtle Creek flows, the army then left the trail, and on July 9 it forded the Monongahela first above and then below the mouth of the creek. Elaborate precautions were taken to avoid a sur- prise at the fords. Nothing was seen of the enemy, however, and the army, in full dress, started over the hills for Fort Duquesne less than ten miles away. Governor Duquesne had been aware for some time, of course, that the British were preparing another expedition, but he appears to have believed that the mountains and the wilderness would prove insur- mountable obstacles to a large and fully equipped army. The French had experienced great difficulty in getting provisions and supplies 80 00 z 0 6 0 H H H H 0 U z ~z4 z 0 U Lz~ H H 0 0 U H H E~Z k 0 0t '3 '3 0 0 '3 '3S 0- '3 0 0C -0 The French Occupation over the portages at Niagara and Presque Isle, and the garrison at Fort Duquesne had been reduced. Moreover the expected reinforce- ments from France had not reached Quebec until June, too late to be of use in the interior. Contrecoeur had taken the precaution, however, to summon the Indians of the lake region; and the engineer, Chausse- gros de Lery, had made a difficult overland journey from Detroit to strengthen the fort, which had been damaged by a flood. It was recog- nized, however, that the fort would not be able to withstand a siege with artillery planted on the surrounding hills. The only hope was to stop the English before they reached the fort. On the morning of July 9 Captain Beaujeu marched out with some two hundred soldiers, mostly Canadians, and about five hundred Indians, with the intention of laying an ambush to trap the approaching army. He was delayed, however, by difficulties with his Indians, who were alarmed at the reports of the numbers of the British; and in the early afternoon he un- expectedly encountered the advance guard of the long thin line of the British army, and the battle began. The English promptly opened fire with their cannon loaded with grapeshot. Beaujeu was killed, and most of the Canadians fled. The Indians, however, encouraged by Dumas, who succeeded to the French command, spread out through the woods on both sides of the advancing column and, sheltering themselves behind trees and in ravines, poured a devastating fire on the British troops in their con- spicuous red coats. As the main body of the troops under Braddock pushed forward it was thrown into confusion by the attempt of the advance guard to retreat. The battle lasted about three hours, with the British crowded together and firing aimlessly into the forest. Braddock and his officers rushed back and forth trying to rally the men and to form them for an attack on the Indians, but all discipline was gone. Finally, Braddock ordered a retreat, and, as he was striving to direct it, he was shot and fell from his horse. Washington and the few remaining officers attempted to control the troops, but they fled in disorder across the ford, leaving the wounded and the baggage to the mercy of the Indians. Braddock was carried off the field by two provincial officers. Fortunately for the British, the Indians were at- tracted by the opportunities for plunder on the battlefield and did not attempt to follow the demoralized troops across the ford. About a third of the British army had been killed and another third wounded, 81 Western Pennsylvania and sixty-three of the eighty-six officers had been killed or disabled. Braddock sent Washington to Dunbar, who had encamped on Chestnut Ridge, with instructions to bring up wagons and supplies for the wounded, and the refugees made their way as best they could to Dunbar's camp. There all was alarm and confusion, and no con- sideration seems to have been given to the possibility of making an- other attempt against Fort Duquesne or even of making a stand anywhere west of the mountains. As the wagons were needed for the transportation of the wounded, quantities of ammunition and provi- sions were destroyed or buried, and the army retreated as rapidly as possible to Fort Cumberland. Braddock died on the way and was buried in the road to prevent the enemy from discovering his remains. Morris, who had succeeded Hamilton as governor of Pennsylvania, and Dinwiddie tried to persuade Dunbar to use the regular troops, of which he was now the commander, for the protection of the fron- tier and to build a fort at Raystown; but he was deaf to their en- treaties and marched his regiments to Philadelphia in August, leaving to Virginia and Pennsylvania the problem of defending themselves against the expected raids of the French and Indians. Braddock's expedition failed of its objective, but it taught the British and the colonials a lesson in wilderness fighting and it demonstrated the possibility of moving a large army with artillery and supplies across the mountains. It also served to stimulate the interest of the colonies and of England in the transmontane country. It was not likely that a handful of French soldiers and their Indian allies could con- tinue indefinitely to check the powerful forces of expansion in the English colonies. The roads that Braddock and Burd made were ulti- mately to serve as great arteries through which the lifeblood of a new nation would pour into western Pennsylvania and the region beyond. The French held undisputed possession of western Pennsylvania for three years after Braddock's defeat, but their occupation was purely military in character. Trade was carried on with the resident Indians, and, in the effort to wean them from the English, the French built houses for them at Logstown and elsewhere, but no attempt was made to establish missions among them. Had the French held possession of the region in a period of peace, it is probable that agricultural villages would have developed around the forts as they had in the Illinois country and at Detroit, but no settlers were available at this 82 The French Occupation time. Considerable crops of corn, oats, peas, and garden stuff were cultivated by the garrisons, and some cattle and hogs were raised, but the bulk of the provisions and all the clothing, equipment, and ammunition had to be imported from the St. Lawrence Valley, if not from France, though some provisions were brought up the Ohio River from the Illinois country, where a surplus was produced. The Allegheny River was the slender channel that connected the upper Ohio country with the outside world during these years. Up and down that stream and French Creek and over the portage from Presque Isle to Le Boeuf passed a constant procession of soldiers from France, Canadian militia, and bands of Indian allies. Thousands of packages of supplies and provisions were carried over the portage in wagons, on pack horses, and on the backs of soldiers and Indians, and were floated down the rivers in bateaux, pirogues, and canees. So many pirogues or dugout canoes were made at Fort Le Boeuf that by 1755 the supply of large trees in the vicinity of the fort had been exhausted. Sawmills were set up at some of the forts and these sup- plied planks for the making of bateaux. Some use was made of the Chautauqua portage and Conewango Creek as a means of reaching the Allegheny, especially in 1754, but the main route was by way of Presque Isle and French Creek. Although no missions were established by the French in western Pennsylvania, the soldiers and others at the forts were not de- prived of the consolations of religion. Two Recollect priests, Fathers Anheuser and Baron, accompanied the expedition of 1753 and ad- ministered the sacraments at Presque Isle and Le Boeuf. Father Baron went on to Fort Duquesne in 1754, where he served as chaplain until at least the end of 1756. Another Recollect, Father Collet, was chap- lain at Presque Isle and Le Boeuf in 1755 and paid a visit to Fort Duquesne. A chapel dedicated to St. Peter was built inside of Fort Le Boeuf in the fall of 1753, and the one at Fort Duquesne "under the title of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin" was in use in August, 1754. The registers kept by Father Baron are mainly a record of burials. There were a few baptisms, but no marriages are recorded. At least nine white women were at Fort Duquesne during the years 1755 and 1756, of whom two were Irish, one was German, and the rest, apparently, were French. Three of them were married, of whom one was the wife of a trader and one of a sergeant. Several of the 83 Western Pennsylvania baptisms were of children who had been taken prisoners by the Indians or had been born in captivity. The first recorded birth at the fort was that of John Daniel Norment, the son of a trader, on September i8, 1755; six days later his death was recorded. The only other birth that can with certainty be assigned to Fort Duquesne is that of Mary Louisa St. Mary on August 9, 1756. A romantic story of the marriage of a Canadian soldier and an English girl who had been captured by the Indians and of their escape down the Ohio from the Indians who claimed the girl is told in the journal of a French soldier who was at the fort during the summer of 1754, but there is no record of the marriage in the registers. As early as 1754 Fort Duquesne served as a base for Indian raids against the frontiers of Virginia and the Carolinas. Until Braddock's defeat these raids appear to have been conducted by Indians from Canada and the lake region, and few, if any, of the Delawares, Shawnee, and Mingo participated in them. After the Braddock ex- pedition, however, most of these Indians threw in their lot with the French, who began to lead them in raids against the border settle- ments of Virginia and Pennsylvania. In July, 1756, Dumas, who had become the commandant at Fort Duquesne, reported that he had "suc- ceeded in ruining the three adjacent provinces, Pennsylvania, Mary- land, and Virginia, driving off the inhabitants, and totally destroying the settlements over a tract of country thirty leagues wide reckoning from the line of Fort Cumberland.... The Indian villages are full of prisoners of every age and sex. The enemy has lost far more since the battle than on the day of his defeat." Efforts were made by the French officers to prevent the torturing of prisoners, but often in vain, and the records of the time are filled with accounts of suffering and outrages. Frontier settlements were abandoned over a wide area, and effective measures for protection were demanded of the assemblies. In Virginia, additional troops were raised, Washington was put in charge, and a chain of small forts was constructed; but the raids were not wholly checked. Pennsylvania had no troops and no forts, and for several months the frontiers were har- ried without opposition while the assembly disputed with the gover- nor over the taxation of the proprietors' estates. Finally in November, 1755, after the proprietors had offered to contribute five thousand pounds for the defense of the colony, the assembly made an appropria- 84 II ;r h hAF ILI HENRY BOUQUET From the portrait by Benjamin West GENERAL JOHN FORBES Courtesy of Henry King Siebeneck ARTHUR ST. CLAIR CONRAD WEISER From the portrait by Charles Willson Peale Courtesy of the Pennsylvania German Society The French Occupation tion of sixty thousand pounds and passed a militia act. Forts were con- structed at intervals along the Blue Mountains and were garrisoned with provincial troops, thus affording some protection to the settle- ments. Even the Delawares and Shawnee who still dwelt east of the mountains in the upper Susquehanna and Delaware valleys partici- pated in some of the attacks, and in April, 1756, Governor Morris declared war against the hostile Indians and offered bounties for their scalps. Despite the measures that had been taken for defense, the raids continued in 1756, and two of the Pennsylvania forts were burned by the Indians. Finally, in August, a retaliatory expedition was planned against the Delaware town of Kittanning, which was being used as a center of French and Indian operations against the Pennsylvania frontier. At the end of the month Colonel John Armstrong led a party of about three hundred militiamen and volunteers from Fort Shirley, which had been erected at Aughwick, over the Kittanning Trail and succeeded in surrounding the town without being discovered. In the battle that followed, some thirty or forty Indians were killed; the town, consisting of about thirty houses, was burned; and large quan- tities -of ammunition and supplies were destroyed. Eleven English prisoners were released. The losses of the Pennsylvanians were nearly as great as those of the Indians, but the moral effect of the raid upon the Indians and the frontiersmen was probably considerable. The town was reoccupied by the Indians, but it ceased to be a rendezvous for expeditions against the frontier. Despite the declaration of war against the Delawares and the Shaw- nee, efforts were kept up to win them back to the English alliance by diplomacy. The leading Quakers, who had opposed the declaration; certain friendly chiefs, including Tedyuskung, who called himself the king of the Delawares; representatives of the Iroquois; Sir William Johnson, now in charge of relations with the northern Indians for the British government; George Croghan, his deputy; and Governor Denny, who had succeeded Morris, all participated in the negotia- tions. The difficulties were enhanced by the fact that bands of Chero- kee and Catawba, who were looked upon as deadly enemies by the northern Indians, were being employed by Virginia and Pennsylvania in the border warfare. Council after council was held, all the old grievances were threshed over, and finally in August, 1757, peace was 85 Contents XII. FRONTIER ECONOMY 261 The Economic Motive of Immigration - Agricultural Establishments - Domestic Industries - Slave Labor - Markets - The Beginnings of In- dustry - The Growth of Exports XIII. COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL FOUNDATIONS 288 The Expansion of Agriculture - Commerce and Markets - The New Orleans Trade - The Financing of Commerce - Earliest Manufacturing - The Iron, Paper, Glass, and Textile Industries - Problems of Early Indus- trialists - The Introduction of the Steam Engine XIV. DOMESTIC LIFE 118 Dwellings and Furnishings - Marital Relations - Size of Families - Food - Clothing - Health Conditions - Ignorance and Superstition XV. COMMUNITY LIFE 349 Social Classes - Professional and Social Organizations - Community Wel- fare Activities - Diversions in the Country - Diversions in the Town - Commercial Entertainment - Taverns - Drunkenness XVI. INTELLECTUAL LIFE 372 Pioneers of Culture - The Increase in Professional Men - Professional Societies - Newspapers - Local Writers - Publishing - Libraries and Bookstores - Schools - Academies - Colleges XVII. RELIGION 401 The Influence of Europe and the East - Earliest Religious Services - Varieties of Presbyterians - Other Protestants - Roman Catholics - Minor Sects - The Rural Character of Religion - The Clergy - Lay Activities - Revivals - Estimates of Church Membership XVIII. LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND COMMUNITY CONTROL 430 Pre-legal Customs - The Machinery of Local Government - The Courts - The Militia - Tax Collection - County Recorders - Lawlessness - The Influence of the Church - Types of Crime - Increasing Orderliness XIX. FRONTIER RADICALISM AND REBELLION 454 Sectionalism in Pennsylvania - Western Grievances - The State Consti- tution of 1776 - Constitutionalists and Anti-Constitutionalists - Political Issues - The United States Constitution - The State Constitution of 1790 - The Whiskey Rebellion - Appeasement ix Western Pennsylvania formally declared. The western Indians had not participated in the negotiations, but there were some indications that they were tiring of the French alliance and might be induced to follow the example of their eastern brethren. The capture of Braddock's papers gave the French in Canada full information of the English plans for the various expeditions against them. The army that Sir William Johnson led against Crown Poir* was met by a French army under Baron Dieskau. In the battle that ensued, the French were defeated and Dieskau was captured, but the English were unable to advance and contented themselves with build- ing Fort William Henry on Lake George. A French fort on disputed territory in Nova Scotia was captured, but the expedition against Niagara was abandoned. This was a period of political confusion in England; the ministry was weak, and William Pitt, the ablest man in public life, was in the opposition. Finally, on May I8, 1756, Great Britain, having arranged an alliance with Frederick the Great of Prussia, declared war on France. Russia, Austria, and Poland joined with France to check the designs of Frederick, and the war that had begun in the upper Ohio Valley developed into a world war that was fought in India and on the high seas as well as in Europe and America. Plans were made in England to send reinforcements to Lord Loudoun, the new commander in America, but they did not arrive until mid- summer, and difficulties in organizing the proposed expeditions and in obtaining the co-operation of the colonies prevented any effective campaign in 1756. Meanwhile the French government had sent over the Marquis de Montcalm to command its forces, and in August he captured and destroyed the English fort at Oswego on Lake Ontario. The disasters suffered by the English in 1756 resulted in the call- ing of Pitt to the cabinet, and energetic measures were taken to strengthen the army and navy and to prepare for a vigorous offensive. Unfortunately for these plans, politics intervened and Pitt was out of office from April to June, when popular demand forced his recall. Reinforcements were again sent to America, but Loudoun's expedi- tion against Louisburg in 1757 was a failure, and his withdrawal of troops from the New York frontier gave Montcalm the opportunity to capture and destroy Fort William Henry. By the spring of 1758 Pitt's measures were showing results: France was finding it difficult to send supplies and reinforcements to America; the English colonies, 86 The French Occupation alarmed by the disasters of the previous year and encouraged by the attitude of the home government, prepared to raise twenty thousand provincial troops; and England's sea power enabled her to send over ammunition and equipment in large quantities. The plans for 1758 included for the first time since 1755 a campaign against Fort Du- quesne, which was to be led by Brigadier General John Forbes. General Abercrombie, the new commander-in-chief, was to advance toward Canada by way of Lake Champlain; and General Amherst, with the assistance of the fleet, was expected to bring about the reduc- tion of Louisburg. Preparations for the expedition against Duquesne were started in March. There was no need for haste, as time was working against the French, and Forbes planned to advance slowly and to protect his communication with forts along the route. If the French could be deprived of the assistance of the upper Ohio Indians, the capture of the fort would be greatly facilitated, and much attention was de- voted to this problem. The French were no longer in a position to make lavish presents, and the Indians evidently sensed the fact that the tide was turning. For over a year Croghan and the Iroquois chiefs had been sending Indian messengers to the western tribes, and in the spring of 1758 Tedyuskung, the chief of the eastern Delawares, sent them a peace belt, to which a favorable reply was made. In July, while Forbes was still assembling his troops and equipment in eastern Pennsylvania, Governor Denny commissioned Christian Frederick Post, a Moravian missionary, to visit the western Indians and en- deavor to win them over. Post, who was well and favorably known to the Delawares and spoke their language, made his way, accompanied only by Indian guides, up the west branch of the Susquehanna, across to the Alle- gheny near Fort Machault, and thence overland to Kuskuski on the Beaver, the principal town of the Delawares at this time, where he conferred with the leading chiefs. Two French officers arrived at the town while Post was there and tried to seize him but he was protected by the Indians. Accompanied by a bodyguard of Indians he traveled via Sawcunk at the mouth of the Beaver and Logstown to the Indian camp on the Allegheny opposite Fort Duquesne, where on August z6, in the presence of French officers and soldiers, he made his plea for peace. The French found it impossible to seize Post without incurring 87 Western Pennsylvania the enmity of the Indians, and he returned to Kuskuski, where he received a peace belt from the Delaware chiefs. On his return journey he reported to General Forbes at Harris' Ferry (Harrisburg). In the meantime preparations had been made for a "Grand Coun- cil" with the Indians at Easton. At this council, which was in session during most of October, Croghan, representing the imperial Indian department, and the governors of Pennsylvania and New Jersey labored with the Iroquois and the Delawares, endeavoring to settle their grievances over land and trade and to attach them firmly to the English interest. As a result of pressure exerted by Sir William John- son through the Board of Trade on the proprietors in England, Penn- sylvania gave back to the Indians all the land west of the Allegheny Ridge that had been purchased in 1754. The peace belt from the Ohio Indians was delivered at the council, and Post was again dispatched to inform them of the retrocession of their lands and to continue his negotiations with them. On his second journey to the Ohio, Post fol- lowed in the wake of Forbes' army, in order to confer with the general, whom he found at Loyalhanna (Ligonier) on October 7. A lieutenant and fourteen soldiers accompanied Post as a guard to within ten miles of the Allegheny. Crossing the river at Chartier's Old Town (Taren- tum) he made his way to Kuskuski, where he learned that most of the warriors were away in the French service, despite the promises they had made to him in August. One of the chiefs soon arrived with the information that his band had attacked the soldiers that had served as a guard, killing the lieutenant and four others and taking five prisoners, and Post had difficulty in preventing one of the pris- oners from being burned at the stake. It is evident that the Indians were divided and uncertain which way to turn. They did not relish the British occupation of their coun- try any more than they did that of the French. Doubtless the efforts of Post and the information that he brought them about the Treaty of Easton were important factors in inducing them to refrain from further hostile measures against the English. On November 25, the day on which Forbes took possession of the remains of Fort Duquesne, Post held a formal council with the Indians at Kuskuski and delivered his messages. Three days later the Indians in their reply asserted their friendship for the English but insisted that the troops, having driven out the French, must go back across the mountains. 88 The French Occupation While Forbes was preparing for the movement against Fort Du- quesne, the operations to the northward were making the ultimate fall of that post inevitable. In July the great fortress of Louisburg was captured by the combined forces of the British army and navy. Abercrombie's attack on Ticonderoga was beaten back by Montcalm, but in August Bradstreet led a small force to Oswego, crossed Lake Ontario to Fort Frontenac at its outlet, and captured and destroyed not only the fort but also the fleet of nine armed vessels that were used for transport on the lake and a large quantity of supplies designed for the West. Bradstreet made no attempt to hold the place, but the destruction that he wrought so weakened the French line of communi- cations with Niagara and Duquesne that there was no possibility of reinforcing these posts from Canada. The troops for the campaign under Forbes, amounting to about six thousand men, were assembled during the spring and summer at various points in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. They con- sisted of a part of the regiment of Royal Americans, which had been raised in the colonies, largely among the Pennsylvania Germans, and was commanded by Colonel Henry Bouquet, a Swiss soldier of for- tune; part of a regiment of Scotch Highlanders, commanded by Colonel Montgomery; about twenty-five hundred Pennsylvania troops, whose officers included Colonels John Armstrong, James Burd, and Hugh Mercer; about fifteen hundred Virginians, under Colonels Washington and William Byrd; and smaller numbers of provincials from North Carolina, Maryland, and Delaware. Bouquet was second in command and Sir John St. Clair, who had been with Braddock, was quartermaster general. It was obvious that an army of this size would have little difficulty in capturing Fort Duquesne, provided the army could be got to the fort and could be kept supplied with provisions and munitions. Braddock had demonstrated that an army could cross the mountains, but when his advance force was defeated it had no fortified post west of the mountains to fall back upon. Forbes determined to advance by slow stages from the settled parts of Pennsylvania and to construct forts and depots for supplies at suitable points along the way, thus taking possession of the country instead of merely marching through it. Fully realizing the advantage of having Indian allies, he obtained in April, through the co-operation of Edmund Atkin, superintendent 89 Western Pennsylvania of the southern Indians, the services of over six hundred Cherokee and Catawba, who were equipped and sent out against the enemy. Al- though they began to go home in June and only fifty of them remained to the end of the campaign, their operations seem to have put a stop to the raids of the western Indians upon the frontiers, to have pre- vented them from harassing the troops that were opening the road, and to have kept the French from obtaining information about the progress of the army. The most difficult decision that Forbes had to make concerned the route he should take, and it was made more difficult by the rival inter- ests of Pennsylvania and Virginia in the western country. To Washing- ton and the other Virginians it seemed preposterous that the road already cut by Braddock should not be used, for, though it was ad- mittedly a more roundabout route for the greater part of the army and the supplies than the traders' path through Pennsylvania, an immense amount of labor would be required to make the Pennsylvania route passable for an army. Had Forbes contemplated a rapid expedition in the nature of a raid the old route would have been the better, but he was more concerned with insuring a continuous supply of provisions for his army of occupation than he was with speed. At the outset Forbes expected to go by way of Fort Cumberland, but he soon learned of the possibility of the shorter route, and in June he sent Bouquet forward with the advance division to Raystown, over the road that had been cut by James Burd in 1755. At this point a stock- ade had been constructed by Pennsylvania militia in 1757, which was now enlarged and strengthened and named Fort Bedford. It was still possible to move the main army through the valley to Fort Cumber- land instead of transferring the Virginia troops, which were assem- bling at that point, to Bedford, but Bouquet sent out exploring parties along the traders' path and collected all available information about it, with the result that by the end of June he was convinced that it was a practicable route. Forbes and Bouquet made no hasty decision about the route, how- ever. During July, while troops and supplies were being moved from Fort Loudoun to form a new base of supplies at Fort Bedford, more exploring parties were sent out, and late in the month Major George Armstrong led a detachment over Laurel Hill and discovered a site for another fort at Loyalhanna. "The situation," he reported, "is un- 90 The French Occupation doubtedly Good for nature has supplyed it with all the conveniences, and what makes it more desirable is the Western breezes carrying with them the Smell of the French brandy." In the meantime Washington at Fort Cumberland was still pressing for the use of the Braddock route and he and Bouquet met halfway between Cumberland and Bedford to discuss the matter, but Bouquet could not be shaken in his conviction in favor of the northern route, and on July 31 Forbes issued the order for the cutting of the new road. Some consideration was given to the possibility of sending the troops at Fort Cumberland over the Braddock route and having them join the main army west of the mountains, but they were ultimately ordered to Bedford. The advance from Fort Bedford was made with great caution. Breastworks were constructed at various points along the trail for the protection of the road makers, and the supplies and scouting parties were kept well in advance. One of these parties, consisting of a Virginia officer with a sergeant and five Indians, went in August as far as what was later known as Grant's Hill, where a good view of Fort Duquesne was obtained. Late in August work on the road had progressed sufficiently to make another advance possible, and fifteen hundred men under Colonel Burd and Major James Grant of the Highlanders were marched from Bedford across the mountains to Loyalhanna, where, on September 4, they began the construction of a fortified camp. The French were not unaware, of course, that an attempt was to be made by the English to capture Fort Duquesne, and they did every- thing in their power to prepare to defeat it. Ligneris, who had been in command of the fort since 1756, apparently expected an expedition by the Braddock route during the summer, and he summoned to his aid large numbers of Indians from the lakes region. The posts of Niagara, Detroit, and the Illinois country were also drawn upon for reinforcements, and at times during the summer as many as three thousand rations were issued at the fort. Much difficulty was experi- enced, however, in retaining the Indians when the enemy failed to arrive, the supply of provisions began to run short, and it was recog- nized that the fort was in no condition to withstand a siege. As soon as the English had established their camp at Loyalhanna, the smell of French brandy on the western breezes had an intoxicating effect on Major Grant and even on Colonel Bouquet, who arrived 91 Western Pennsylvania on September 7. Two days later Grant was permitted to lead a force of some eight hundred men, mostly Highlanders and Virginians, on an expedition to reconnoiter Fort Duquesne and if possible to pick up some prisoners. The French were still watching the Braddock road, quite unaware that the enemy was approaching by a different route, and Grant's force reached the height that still bears his name on the night of September 13 without being discovered. A detachment was sent forward to attack the Indians supposed to be encamped around the fort, but they could not be found in the darkness. At daybreak Grant, apparently convinced that the fort had few defenders, sent two hundred Virginians some distance back with instructions to form an ambush, dispatched other troops to the right and left toward the rivers, and then sent a company of Highlanders toward the fort. Hav- ing disposed his troops in what he considered advantageous positions, Grant had his drummers beat the reveille in order to draw the Frenrich from the fort. Up to this time the French and the Indians were un- aware of the presence of the enemy, but now French troops swarmed out of the fort in unexpectedly large numbers, and the Indians, ad- vancing under cover of the river banks, approached Grant's force on both flanks. The advanced company was driven back and a battle ensued that was in many respects a repetition of Braddock's defeat. The English loss in the main battle and in several skirmishes fought by the scattered troops was about 270, including prisoners, among whom were Major Grant and about 20 other officers, while the French loss probably did not exceed 20o. Some 54o men, including over 4o wounded, straggled back to the camp at Loyalhanna. After the battle of Grant's Hill, Ligneris could no longer retain the services of the western and northern Indians for the defense of the fort. They insisted on returning to their homes to celebrate the victory and enjoy the booty. He still had at his command, however, a con- siderable body of troops, and many of the local Indians were once more willing to co-operate with him. This was between the two visits of Post, and it is evident that some of the Delaware chieftains were tempted by the French victory to forget their promises to the mis- sionary. The French were now fully informed of the position and strength of the English, and Ligneris determined to attack before they could be reinforced and before his garrison was further reduced. Early in October he organized an expedition of 44o French and 150 92 03 *0 0c 0 0? 0! 0o 0S 0 sa 0 From Hulbert, "Crown Collection of Photographs of American Maps in the British Museum." Courtesy of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh The French Occupation Indians and dispatched it under Aubry, the commander of the troops from the Illinois, to attack the camp at Loyalhanna. In the meantime the English were strengthening their position and preparing for the final advance upon Fort Duquesne. After Grant's defeat, Bouquet left Burd in command of the camp and hastened back to look after the improvement of the road from Bedford and the forwarding of supplies and troops across the mountains. Under the direction of Captain Harry Gordon, an engineer, the construction of a log fort was begun at Loyalhanna and four hundred men were put to work cutting the road to a point ten miles farther west, where breastworks had been erected. While this work was going on and before the fort was completed, the French attacking party put in its appearance on October 12. A detachment of five hundred men sent out to meet the French was driven back, and the fort was attacked several times during the day and the ensuing night. Both sides con- sidered the affair a victory. The English loss of about sixty was prob- ably considerably in excess of that of the French and Indians, but the fort was held and the attackers were finally driven off. Forbes and Bouquet regretted that Burd had not pursued them but, as he be- lieved they numbered about fourteen hundred, he was satisfied with having driven them away. The French supply of provisions was now so low that all but two hundred of the troops at Fort Duquesne had to be sent away to De- troit, the Illinois country, and Presque Isle, and it is doubtful if even that number could have been subsisted throughout the winter. The only hope was that the English, unaware of this weakness, would go into winter quarters and that reinforcements could be brought in in the spring. The advance of the main British army under Forbes proceeded very slowly, partly because of difficulties occasioned by the weather and the state of the road and partly as a result of the illness of the general, who had to be carried most of the way in a hurdle slung between two horses and was frequently too weak to travel. Bedford was reached on September 15, but it took nearly two months to get the army and its equipment over the mountains to the new base. Forbes himself arrived at Loyalhanna on November 3 and found a very unpromising situation. The approach of winter and the difficulty of bringing up supplies and provisions for the army of nearly five thousand men 93 Contents XX. JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY 474 The Rise of the Democratic-Republican Party - The Impeachment of Judges - The Mississippi Question - Land Problems - Attempts at Judi- cial Reform - Rising Radicalism - Modifications of the Judicial System - The Settlement of the Land Question - The War of I8Iz XXI. THE PATTERN OF CULTURE 488 Indian Culture Replaced by White - White Culture Modified by Contact with Indians and by Frontier Conditions - The Struggle with Environment - Frontier Ideals and Virtues INDEX 495 x Western Pennsylvania assembled there were depressing to officers and men alike. Dissatis- faction and discord were rife and several courts-martial were held to suppress them. Forbes was at first in favor of pushing on, but at a council of war a decision was reached to go into winter quarters, and Forbes, apparently despairing of ever reaching the forks of the Ohio, in view of the state of his health, bestowed the name of "Pitts- borough" on the new fort at Loyalhanna. Doubt was expressed as to the possibility of holding the fort against an attack with artillery, and consideration was given to the feasibility of an expedition against Duquesne during the winter by way of the Kiskiminetas and Allegheny rivers. On November 12 a scouting party came in contact with some French and Indians about two miles from Loyalhanna and took some prisoners. At the sound of the firing another party was dispatched from the fort, and the two parties meeting in the dusk mistook each other for the enemy and exchanged shots with the result that several were killed and many wounded. Colonel Washington, who was in command of one of the parties, afterwards stated that he "never was in more imminent danger, by being between two fires, knocking up with his sword the presented pieces." One of the captives turned out to be an Englishman who had been captured by the Indians some years before, and from him Forbes learned the true state of affairs at Fort Duquesne. This information, together with the fortunate arrival of much needed supplies, cleared the atmosphere. Depression gave way to enthusiasm and a decision was quickly reached to push for- ward. Washington and Armstrong were sent ahead with twenty-five hundred picked men to clear the way, and on November 17 Forbes left "Pittsborough," soon to be renamed Fort Ligonier, with the main body of the army. Colonel Burd, much to his regret, was left in com- mand of the garrison at the fort, and most of the supplies, wagons, and heavy artillery were left behind. Thus relieved of its burdens, the army, despite the fact that little work had been done on the road beyond the breastworks ten miles from Ligonier, was able to move with some expedition, and on the night of November 24 it was en- camped near Turtle Creek about ten miles from Fort Duquesne. Recognizing that resistance was hopeless, Ligneris made plans for abandoning the fort and making his escape. Some of the troops went down the Ohio to the Illinois country, others were sent overland to 94 The French Occupation Presque Isle, and the commander retreated with another detachment up the Allegheny to Fort Machault. Before the last of the troops left on November 24 they set fire to the fort. Word that the fort was burn- ing was brought to Forbes in his camp that night, and about at mid- night the sound of an explosion was heard. The next day Forbes's army in three divisions marched through the woods and over the hills to the forks and began the construction of a camp in the vicinity of the smoking ruins of Fort Duquesne. The objective of the long campaign had been attained. November z6 was observed as a day of thanks- giving, with a sermon by the Reverend Charles Beatty, a chaplain of the Pennsylvania troops, and the following day was devoted to a grand celebration. On that day, November 27, Forbes wrote a letter to William Pitt dated at "Pittsbourgh," in which he informed Pitt that he had taken the liberty of giving his name to the former Fort Du- quesne. The French occupation of western Pennsylvania was not quite ended, for Forts Presque Isle, Le Boeuf, and Machault were not abandoned until the following summer; but the English were now in possession of the strategic forks of the Ohio. The civilization that was to be planted on the upper Ohio and ultimately in the vast continent beyond would be not the French but the English variety. 95 v. The Indian Reservation IN the decade that followed the fall of Fort Duquesne, western Pennsylvania was a part of the unorganized territory of the Brit- ish Empire. Both Pennsylvania and Virginia had indefinite claims upon the region, and Pennsylvania made some ineffectual attempts to exercise jurisdiction, but the real source of authority was the com- mander-in-chief of the British forces in America, and that authority was exercised by the commanding officers at the posts and by the deputies of Sir William Johnson, the superintendent of Indian affairs for the northern tribes. The ownership of the land was considered to rest in the Indians, although their right to dispose of it was limited, and settlement was illegal except by military permit. The region was in effect a part of a great Indian reservation, which, after 1763, ex- tended from the mountains to the Mississippi and included the terri- tory around the Great Lakes. The occupation of the forks of the Ohio was only the beginning, however, of the extension of British authority over this vast interior region, a process that was not completed until 1765. Until midsummer of 1759 the problem of the British forces in western Pennsylvania was to hold what had been occupied. The large army that had been brought over the mountains could not be retained in the region during the winter because of the lack of housing facilities and the difficulty of getting provisions over the road. Forbes left Pittsburgh on December 3, 1758, followed by Bouquet two days later, and only z8o men were left under the command of Colonel Mercer of the Pennsylvania pro- vincials to garrison the place. By the eighth of January Mercer was able to report that temporary works had been erected "now capable of some Defence, tho' huddled up in a very hasty manner, the Weather being Extremely Severe." Conditions were somewhat better at Ligo- nier, where a fort had been erected that had already withstood an 96 The Indian Reservation attack by French and Indians, and a larger garrison was left there. Forbes returned to Philadelphia, where he died on March i I; Bouquet established his headquarters at Bedford and directed the work of mov- ing troops and supplies on the communication. As soon as sufficient provisions had been forwarded, reinforcements were sent to Ligonier and Pittsburgh. In the meantime the French were strengthening themselves at Fort Machault and making plans for driving the British back across the mountains. No help could be expected from Canada, but troops and Indians were summoned from the Illinois country and the Great Lakes region in the hope that it would be possible to descend the Alle- gheny in force and recapture the forks of the Ohio. Detachments of Indians were sent out to harass the convoys on the road, and on July 6, 1759, an unsuccessful attack was made on Fort Ligonier. The advance of the British expedition against Niagara in the summer of 1759 put an end to the danger of a French attack on Pittsburgh. The troops at Fort Machault were summoned to the defense of Niagara, and a force of four hundred men that came up from the Illinois coun- try by way of the Wabash and Lake Erie to Presque Isle was sent on to Niagara, where it fell into the hands of the British. The capture of Fort Niagara on July 24 cut the communications between Canada and the West and soon thereafter the French abandoned Forts Machault, Le Boeuf, and Presque Isle and retreated to Detroit. The French occupation of western Pennsylvania was now definitely ended. When the news of the fall of Fort Duquesne reached England, orders were dispatched by Pitt for the erection of a fort on the site strong enough to maintain "the undisputed possession of the Ohio," to protect the colonies from incursions, and to secure the dependence of the Indians. General Amherst, who had succeeded Abercrombie as commander-in-chief, appointed Brigadier General Stanwix to succeed Forbes; and Stanwix exerted himself during the summer of 1759, with- out much co-operation from Pennsylvania, to assemble and transport material and equipment for the new fort. Captain Harry Gordon, the engineer who had supervised the construction of Fort Ligonier, ar- rived at Pittsburgh early in August with a number of artificers and began the preparation of materials. Stanwix arrived about Sep- tember I with additional laborers and equipment, selected the site for the fort, and got the work of construction under way. 97 Western Pennsylvania The fort proper was located on the bank of the Monongahela be- ginning about six hundred feet from the point and extending about an equal distance along the river and two-thirds of the distance across to the Allegheny. It was in the shape of an irregular pentagon with bastions at the corners, and it covered about eight acres. The western walls were revetted with brick, and the others were wooden stockades banked with earth. Around the fort was a broad moat, which was connected with the Allegheny River. Beyond the moat and running across the point from river to river was a broad glacis or earthwork, and along the river banks within the inclosed area was a light parapet with three bastions. The wood was obtained from the surrounding forest, the brick was made in the vicinity, and such stone as was used was doubtless quarried near by, but all other materials and equipment had to be brought over the mountains. The fort was designed to house a garrison of about a thousand men, and its cost to the British govern- ment was probably in the neighborhood of six thousand pounds. While Stanwix was directing the construction of Fort Pitt, as he designated the new establishment in a letter of December 24, 1759, Bouquet was endeavoring to improve the communications. As soon as the menace of the French was ended and materials were available, men were put to work constructing the road from Ligonier to Pitts- burgh, which had been left unfinished the previous year, and it was completed by October 25, 1759. The Braddock Road was also cleared and improved, and Colonel James Burd directed the construction of a road along the old trail from Gist's plantation to the mouth of Red- stone Creek (Brownsville). At this point, often called Redstone Old Fort, because of the prehistoric earthworks near by, a small log fort was erected, which was named Fort Burd. These improvements facili- tated the transportation of supplies from Virginia and Maryland to the Monongahela and down that stream to Pittsburgh. A small garri- son was kept at Fort Burd until the outbreak of the Indian troubles in 1763. Although Fort Pitt was not fully completed until the fall of 1761, it was ready for occupancy in March, 1760, and Stanwix departed for Philadelphia and England, leaving Major Tulikens of the Royal Americans in command with a garrison of seven hundred men. Gen- eral Monckton, who succeeded Stanwix, arrived at Fort Pitt at the end of June with additional troops and immediately dispatched Bou- 98 The Indian Reservation quet with five hundred men to take possession of the communication with Lake Erie. Small forts were erected on or near the sites of the three French forts, which had been burned when the French abandoned the region, and garrisons were established in each of them. The fort at the mouth of French Creek was called Fort Venango, but the French names were used for the forts at Le Boeuf and Presque Isle. These posts were subsidiary to and were supplied in the main from Fort Pitt, and the problem of keeping them in provisions was a very difficult one because of the lack of roads. Some supplies were obtained from Niagara, and Indian hunters were employed, but the bulk of the provisions were packed over the trail or rowed up the Allegheny from Pittsburgh. Bouquet returned to Fort Pitt and, when Monckton departed in October, 1760, he was left as commandant of the fort, a position that he held for two years. The capture of Niagara in July, 1759, was followed by Wolfe's fa- mous victory over Montcalm at Quebec in September, and a year later the British forces converged on Montreal and forced a capitulation, in which all Canada was surrendered. Major Robert Rogers, who was sent out to take possession of the posts on the lakes, came down from Presque Isle to Fort Pitt for instructions from Monckton and then proceeded to Detroit. In the spring of 1761 Rogers took possession of the posts on the upper lakes, but the Illinois country, which was considered a part of Louisiana, remained in the hands of the French. Negotiations for peace between France and England were begun in 1761, but were broken off when Spain entered the war on the side of France. There was no more fighting in America, however, and a pre- liminary peace agreed upon in November, 1762, was followed by a definitive treaty in February, 1763. During the negotiations there was considerable discussion in England of the advisability of returning Canada and the West to France in exchange for one of the rich sugar producing islands of the West Indies, but in the end the treaty pro- vided for the cession to England of all French territory on the main- land east of the Mississippi with the exception of the island of New Orleans. About the same time France ceded Louisiana west of the river and New Orleans to Spain as compensation for the Floridas, which Spain was forced to surrender to England. France conceded to England the right to the free navigation of the Mississippi, and this provision was binding on Spain as France's successor; thus a founda- 99 Western Pennsylvania tion was laid for the later American claim to that right, which was to be a vital matter to the early settlers in western Pennsylvania. The French were now eliminated from the contest for the control of the region west of the mountains, but the Indians, who had not been con- sulted about the transfer and who considered that most of the ceded territory belonged to them, were yet to be reckoned with. The problem of Indian relations was of outstanding importance at Pittsburgh from the very beginning of British occupation. The local Indians insisted that the British, having driven out the French, should withdraw their military forces from the region and leave the Indians in possession of the country. They very much wanted the re-establish- ment of trade but they were strongly opposed to the occupation of their country by soldiers or settlers. At first they were told that the troops could not be withdrawn because the French were still in the country, and thus they were given the impression that the soldiers would be withdrawn when the war was over. Many of the Indians, fearful that the English, if they got the Indians in their power, would take vengeance upon them for their attacks on the settlements, aban- doned their towns and moved westward into the present state of Ohio. Only the villages on the upper Allegheny and those in the Beaver Valley appear to have been regularly occupied after 1758. Neverthe- less the Delawares, the Shawnee, the Mingo, and even the more west- ern Indians flocked to Fort Pitt for conferences with the English, lured doubtless by the food and presents that were distributed freely to them at such conferences and by the desire to reopen the trade. Although the commandants usually participated in the formal con- ferences, the management of Indian relations at Pittsburgh during most of the British regime was in the hands of George Croghan, the former "King of the Traders" and now Sir William Johnson's deputy in charge of the western Indians. Croghan established the headquar- ters of his department at Pittsburgh and built a residence called "Croghan Hall" on a large farm about four miles up the Allegheny. In July, 1759, Croghan and Mercer held a conference with five hun- dred Indians at Pittsburgh, and in August, 176o, over a thousand Indians assembled there for a formal council with Croghan and Monckton. In the fall of 1760 Croghan accompanied Rogers to De- troit to assist him in negotiations with the Indians and returned over- land from Sandusky. The next year he made the trip again to assist IOO From William Smith, "Historical Account of the Expedition against the Ohio Indians" 0 0~* 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -i 0 -t 0 C,) 0 0 0 -i The Indian Reservation Sir William Johnson at a general Indian conference at Detroit. The principal object of these conferences, aside from paving the way for the British occupation of the West, was to bring about the surrender of white prisoners captured by the Indians during the war. This took a long time because the Indians found that by bringing in a few at a time they could keep up the flow of presents received in exchange for the prisoners; and, although Croghan obtained the release of 338 prisoners at Fort Pitt between June, 1759, and October, 1761, there were still some in the hands of the Indians at the outbreak of Pontiac's War. Another important aspect of Indian relations was that of trade. Immediately after the establishment of Pittsburgh there was a short- age of trade goods there to meet the needs of the Indians, who brought in large quantities of peltries. By an act of 1758 the legislature of Penn- sylvania had made provision for a system of provincial trading houses, and one of these houses was opened at Pittsburgh in 1759 under the management of James Kenny, a Quaker. Pennsylvania issued no li- censes to private traders, but such licenses were issued by the gover- nors of other colonies, by the commanding officers, and by Indian agents, and there seems to have been no effective way of preventing the operations of unlicensed traders, who brought in large quantities of rum. The largest private trading house in Pittsburgh during these years was that of Trent, Simon, and Franks, which was established in 1760. These men were old associates of Croghan and it is probable that he had an interest in their operations. As the pacification of the In- dians proceeded, the traders pushed out from Pittsburgh to the In- dian towns in the Ohio region and even to Detroit, where they met with competition from Montreal. The military officers attempted to regulate the trade, even to the fixing of prices; the purchase of horses from the Indians was prohibited, in an attempt to stop the stealing of horses by them; and in 1762 General Amherst, the commander-in- chief, forbade the sale of rum and greatly restricted the sale of am- munition. It was impossible, however, to enforce these regulations upon the traders who operated in the wilderness. The expenses of the Indian department at Pittsburgh and elsewhere were very heavy. The Indians, with their communal attitude toward food, expected to be fed whenever they called at a post or agency, and the customary ration for an Indian was twice that for a soldier. Pres- IOI Illustrations Central Seip Burial Mound 20 Tremper Burial Mound 22 Mound-Builder Artifacts 23 Iroquois Masks 25 Making a Dugout Canoe 26 Indian Artifacts of Stone 28 Indian Utensils 33 Manufacture of Flint and Stone Implements 37 Indian Artifacts of Stone 39 Seneca Earthenware 40 Indian Pipes 41 Interior of Iroquois Long House 42 Indian War Clubs and Tomahawks 49 Bark Canoe 52 Indian Ceremonial Equipment 55 Method of Making a Wampum Belt 59 Iroquois Long Houses facing 64 Bark Wigwams facing 65 Lead Plate Left by Celoron facing 8o Henry Bouquet facing 85 General John Forbes facing 85 Arthur St. Clair facing 85 Conrad Weiser facing 85 David Zeisberger Preaching to the Indians facing Io9 Flintlock Rifles and Pistols 145 The Rattlesnake Flag of Westmoreland County 180 Lachlan McIntosh facing 9go Daniel Brodhead facing 190 Western Pennsylvania ents were necessary to keep the Indians in good humor and to per- suade them to surrender their captives. The conciliation of the In- dians at Pittsburgh was essential at first when the garrison was small and lacked adequate defense works, and the difficulty of getting up enough food for both troops and Indians delayed the strengthening of the garrison. As the English became more firmly established in the Indian country, however, and particularly after the capitulation of Canada, their attitude toward the Indians changed. The British government was eager to reduce expenses, and Amherst, who had a very low opinion of the Indians, insisted that much less money be spent upon them. This parsimony, which was opposed by Johnson and Croghan, was doubtless one of the causes of the outbreak in 1763. A more serious cause of discontent among the Indians, however, was their growing fear of the loss of their hunting grounds. They saw the old French forts occupied and strengthened or new ones built on their sites, and it was obvious to them that such structures as Fort Pitt were not temporary in character. They were told that the land west of the mountains was theirs but they saw settlers pushing in and establishing themselves on that land. The military officials attempted to restrict occupation of the Indian lands but a certain amount of settlement around the forts and along the roads was considered es- sential to the maintenance of the garrisons and the communications. Croghan, basing his claims on a private grant from the Indians made before the war, was developing two little settlements, one at his resi- dence on the Allegheny and the other on the Youghiogheny about twenty-five miles from Pittsburgh. These operations were embarrass- ing to the military, but they did not interfere. The Ohio Company in 1760 proposed to renew its operations in the region and attempted to enlist the support of Bouquet by offering him a share in the company. He feared the effect on the Indians, however, and in October, 1761, he issued a proclamation prohibiting for the time being hunting or settling west of the mountains without a permit. In December, 1761, the British government prohibited all grants of land "reserved to or claimed by the Indians" or purchases of land from the Indians except by the governors with the approval of the king. These measures put a stop temporarily to the operations of speculators, but they did not prevent squatters from setting up their huts in the woods. There was no intention at this time on the part of the government I02 The Indian Reservation that settlement should be permanently restricted to the land east of the mountains. The purpose of these measures was to prevent Indian hostilities, and it was expected that in the course of time and when the opportunity presented itself lands in the West would be purchased from the Indians and opened to settlement. In so far as the Indians were led to believe that the British forces would be withdrawn when the French were driven out and that conditions in the upper Ohio Valley would revert to what they had been before 1750, they were deceived. On the other hand it is difficult to see that the Indians had any abstract right to prevent other people from making use of un- occupied land. They could contend that they needed all this land to maintain themselves in their way of life but the white man could answer that he could make more effective use of the land and make it support a much larger population. The Indians of the upper Ohio Valley were tenants at will of the Iroqlois, who based their claim to the region on the conquest of the previous inhabitants, but if it had been right for the Iroquois to acquire land by force, it was right for the whites to do so also. As a matter of fact the issue was not one of right but of might, and the whites had the greater might. Nevertheless the Indians were justified in feeling that the constant encroachment of settlers on their hunting grounds would mean in the end the destruc- tion of their way of life, and they are hardly to be blamed for fighting to preserve the conditions that seemed good to them. The "Conspiracy of Pontiac" was a conspiracy in the sense that it was secretly concocted among a large number of tribes. All the western tribes were involved in it, including the Delawares, Shawnee, and Mingo, and even the Seneca of the Six Nations. Undoubtedly Pontiac, an Ottawa chief, was the arch plotter, but he had many able lieuten- ants, such as Guyasuta, a Mingo, and Custaloga, a Delaware, who directed the operations in western Pennsylvania. As early as 1762, belts were circulated among the tribes to draw them into an alliance against the British, and it is surprising that the plot was not dis- covered. The Indians bought up guns and ammunition from the traders in as large quantities as they could without exciting suspicion, and they counted on obtaining more from the French in Louisiana and the Illinois country. There is no evidence that French officials gave them any encouragement, but there is reason to believe that French traders circulated a report that an army from France was com- 103 Western Pennsylvania ing to help drive out the English, and it is notable that French traders and settlers were immune from attack. The news of the treaty of 1763 seems to have been the final straw, for the Indians resented being handed from one power to another as a subject people. The principal grievance of the Indians of the upper Ohio was the failure of the mili- tary forces to retire after the withdrawal of the French, but it is doubt- ful if they would have risen at this time had it not been for the in- fluence of Pontiac and the western Indians. All the posts west of Lake Erie were attacked almost simultaneously in May, 1763, and all of them except Detroit, which was besieged for several months, were captured, usually by stratagem. The garrisons were massacred or taken prisoners. Practically all the English traders among the Indians, including those in the Ohio country, were plun- dered, and many of them were killed. Fort Pitt had a garrison of about three hundred under the command of Captain Ecuyer, a Swiss officer of the Royal Americans, and there were some two hundred men, wo- men, and children in the village of Pittsburgh outside the fort. That the Delawares and the Shawnee were not so eager for war as were the Indians of the lake region is indicated by the fact that they made no attack on Pittsburgh at the appointed time. On May 28, however, William Clapham and his family were massacred at Croghan's farm on the Youghiogheny and at about the same time two soldiers were killed at the sawmill near Fort Pitt. Ecuyer promptly concentrated the inhabitants of Pittsburgh inside the fort and destroyed the cabins to prevent their being used as cover by the Indians. Messengers were sent out to warn the settlers along the road, and several unsuccessful attempts were made to warn the garrison at Fort Venango. Fort Burd was abandoned and the settlers west of the mountains fled to Forts Pitt or Ligonier, where the men were formed into militia companies. About the first of June, Indians appeared at Fort Ligonier, which was held by a very small garrison under Lieutenant Blane, and fired upon the fort from the woods. A more serious attack was made on June zI, but the garrison was able to hold out, and about July I it was reinforced by a party of twenty volunteers sent out from Fort Bedford. In the meantime the three small forts in northwestern Pennsylvania were captured by the Indians. At Venango a band of Seneca gained admission to the fort and massacred the entire garrison. Fort Le Boeuf was attacked on June 18 and Presque Isle on June zo. The soldiers Io4 The Indian Reservation at Le Boeuf succeeded in escaping from the fort after the Indians had fired it, and seven of them got to Fort Pitt in safety. At Presque Isle the garrison surrendered after two days of fighting on the promise of being allowed to depart unmolested, but the commander and his men were promptly distributed among the Indians as prisoners. The In- dians did not confine their attacks to the forts, however. Early in June they crossed the mountains and began to ravage the frontier settle- ments. Their operations extended eastward as far as Carlisle, and many settlers and their families were massacred or taken prisoners. The Cumberland Valley and other frontier regions were deserted; the settlers who escaped the Indians fled eastward or took refuge in the forts. The first general attack on Fort Pitt was made on June 22, and the next day some Delaware chiefs came to the fort for a parley. Protest- ing their own friendship they warned Ecuyer that a large body of western Indians was on its way to attack the fort and offered their protection for the retreat of the garrison and the other people in the fort. Ecuyer replied that a great army was coming to Fort Pitt to punish the Indians, and this answer seems to have dampened their ardor for the time being. More than a month went by without a con- certed attack, though the communications were entirely cut off. On July 26 the Delaware chiefs were admitted for another parley, de- nounced the English for building forts in their country, and demanded their withdrawal. Ecuyer told them that the fort would never be abandoned and sent them away with some blankets from the small- pox hospital as presents. During the week that followed the fort was closely besieged and almost continuously under fire, but the loss amounted to only one man killed and seven wounded. On August I the Indians left the fort and went eastward to meet the army that was approaching under Colonel Bouquet. General Amherst in New York thought that Fort Pitt could "never be in danger from such a wretched enemy."Nevertheless he sent troops to Bouquet, who was in Philadelphia, and ordered him to march to Fort Pitt. Bouquet established his headquarters at Carlisle and, after much difficulty over the assembling of wagons and supplies, got under way with five hundred men in July. He reached Ligonier on August z and, as no word had come through from Fort Pitt, he decided to push on as rapidly as possible, leaving his wagons and heavy baggage 105 Western Pennsylvania and using pack horses to transport the necessary supplies for his men and for the relief of the garrison at Fort Pitt. Shortly after noon on August 5, as the army was approaching Bushy Run, about fifteen miles from Pittsburgh, the advance guard was attacked by the In- dians. The assailants were quickly driven back but, adopting the tac- tics that had been so successful at Braddock's defeat, they spread out through the woods and began firing at the troops from all directions. Fortunately for Bouquet his troops were well disciplined and some of them were experienced in forest warfare. He took possession of a hill near the road, formed his troops in a ring around the horses and baggage, and charged the Indians in whatever quarter they at- tempted an assault. Little damage could be done to the elusive In- dians, however, while the troops suffered severely. By nightfall sixty men had been killed or wounded. The attacks were renewed in the morning, and it seemed for a time that the troops, tied down by the necessity of protecting the convoy and the wounded, would be com- pletely wiped out. Finally, however, Bouquet devised a stratagem by which some of the troops were moved in such a way as to make it appear that a retreat was to be attempted. The Indians then left their cover and rushed in, eager to share in the anticipated climax of vic- tory, only to be attacked on their flank by other troops that "sallied out from a part of the hill they could not observe." A hand-to-hand battle ensued in which the troops were victorious and the surviving Indians were "totally dispersed." Bouquet's victory at the battle of Bushy Run was the turning point in the war. Had he been defeated, Fort Pitt would probably have been forced to surrender and the restoration of the white man's rule on the upper Ohio would have been a long and difficult process. The Indians were much disheartened by their losses in the battle and fled past Fort Pitt to their villages in the West. Bouquet made litters for the wounded, destroyed such of the provisions as could not be carried on the remaining pack horses, and marched slowly to Fort Pitt, where he arrived on August Io. The troops and supplies available were inade- quate for an expedition into the Ohio country to force the Indians to submit and surrender their captives; and Bouquet remained at Fort Pitt, supervising the work of strengthening the posts along the com- munication and bringing up supplies, until January, when he re- turned to Philadelphia. There was a lull in the attacks on the settle- Io6 The Indian Reservation ments for a period after the battle of Bushy Run, but they were soon renewed all along the western frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania, and the Indians of the upper Susquehanna region took up the hatchet and raided the northern frontier of Pennsylvania. Plans were made by General Amherst for two expeditions against the Indians in 1764, one by way of Niagara and Lake Erie and the other by way of Fort Pitt, and the colonies were called upon to furnish troops and supplies to supplement the meager resources of the regu- lar army. The Pennsylvania assembly, at first reluctant, was stimu- lated by an uprising of frontiersmen, who marched on Philadelphia to demand protection and a redress of grievances, with the result that provision was made for raising a thousand men. General Gage, who succeeded Amherst as commander-in-chief in November, 1763, put Bouquet in charge of the expedition by way of Fort Pitt. As usual, delays were experienced in raising the men, drilling them, and assem- bling supplies, and it was not until August io that Bouquet was able to march from Carlisle with about seven hundred Pennsylvanians and a few regulars. Pittsburgh was reached on September 17, and there the expedition was joined by two hundred volunteers from Virginia. In the meantime Sir William Johnson had persuaded the Seneca to withdraw from the war, and the northern expedition, which was designed to relieve Detroit and then attack the Delawares and the Shawnee by way of Sandusky, had got under way under the command of Colonel Bradstreet. On August 12, when Bradstreet was encamped near Presque Isle, he was visited by a number of Delawares and Shaw- nee who professed to be authorized to make peace on behalf of the tribes. Bradstreet indiscreetly accepted their overtures, made a pre- liminary treaty with them, agreed not to attack the tribes on condi- tion that they deliver their captives to him at Sandusky, and then sent word to Bouquet that the expedition from Fort Pitt was unnecessary. Aware that the Indians were continuing their attacks on the frontiers, Bouquet went ahead with his plans, and Gage promptly disavowed the treaty. On October 4 Bouquet's army of about fifteen hundred marched west from Fort Pitt and ten days later it encamped on the Muskingum near the mouth of the Tuscarawas. In view of the size of the army and the fact that it was made up largely of men who knew how to fight in the woods, the Indians did not dare to attack it. They were aware, Io7 Western Pennsylvania moreover, that the Indians of the lake region had made peace with the English and they realized that further resistance was hopeless. When the leading chiefs came to Bouquet with offers of submission, he upbraided them for their conduct and demanded the surrender of all prisoners within twelve days. He then moved the army southward to the forks of the Muskingum, where in the heart of the Indian country he awaited the surrender of the prisoners. Finally, when over two hun- dred had been collected, he accepted hostages for the surrender of the remainder at Fort Pitt in the spring and agreed to peace with the Indians. He refused to make a treaty, however, but directed them to send deputies to Sir William Johnson for that purpose. The army marched back to Pennsylvania, and on December 5 Governor John Penn proclaimed the end of the war. The war was over so far as Pennsylvania and the lake region were concerned, but Pontiac, who had retreated to the Illinois country, was still intransigent, and he stirred up the Miami and Kickapoo and other western tribes to oppose the British occupation of that region. After an unsuccessful attempt to send troops to Fort de Chartres in the Illinois country by way of the Mississippi River, Johnson and Gage deter- mined to send Croghan from Pittsburgh on a mission to the western Indians. The plan was for him to hold a council with the Delawares and the Shawnee at Fort Pitt and to persuade them to send a delega- tion with him down the Ohio River, and supplies and presents for this purpose were started west from Philadelphia. Although the trade had not been reopened with the Indians of the upper Ohio as yet, some of the merchants seized upon the opportunity of this expedition to send trade goods to the frontier. The frontiersmen, who had suffered so severely from Indian raids, did not relish the idea of arms, ammuni- tion, and supplies being sold or given to the Indians, and a band of them fell upon the pack-horse train in the vicinity of Sideling Hill, forced the drivers to unload the goods, and appropriated or destroyed the plunder. Croghan managed to get together enough goods for his purposes from public and private stores in Pittsburgh, but the In- dians who came in with their accumulated peltries found a shortage of trade goods there. The Shawnee hostages had escaped, and the tribesmen were slow about coming in and surrendering their prisoners as promised, but on May 10, 1765, enough Indians had assembled to warrant the holding of the council. Croghan urged them to send Io8 MAP OF THE COUNTRY TRAVERSED BY BOUQUET S EXPEDITION IN I764 From William Smith, "Historical Account of the Expedition against the Ohio Indians" t3 z~ 0- The Indian Reservation deputies to Johnson to arrange the final peace terms and persuaded them to furnish the desired escort to the Illinois country. Croghan started from Fort Pitt on his mission on May 15, and all went well until June 8, when his party was attacked by a large band of Kickapoo a short distance below the Wabash. Five of the party including two white men were killed, and the rest were made prisoners and plundered. Before long, however, the Indians with Croghan con- vinced the Kickapoo that their conduct would bring down upon them the wrath not only of the upper Ohio tribes but also of the Iroquois. The prisoners were escorted first to Vincennes and then to Ouiatenon on the upper Wabash, where Crogan found a number of Indian friends of his trading days and was released. Delegations came in from the neighboring bands to smoke the pipe of peace with him, and soon a messenger arrived from the French commandant inviting him to go to Fort de Chartres. He started out but had not gone far when he met Pontiac and some of the Illinois chiefs, who were coming to con- fer with him. Both parties returned to Ouiatenon, where the Indians, including Pontiac, convinced that the French would not support them, agreed to bury the hatchet. His objective achieved, Croghan returned by way of Detroit, where another Indian council was held, with Pontiac present. As soon as word of Croghan's success reached Fort Pitt, Captain Stirling with about one hundred regulars went down the Ohio and up the Mississippi to Fort de Chartres, where on October Io he relieved the French garrison. The Ohio route to the Illinois country was now open, and trade was not slow to follow the flag. Philadelphia merchants had been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to begin trading operations in this region, not only with the Indians but also with the French inhabitants. The firm of Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan, which took the lead in open- ing up this trade, sent four expeditions down the Ohio in 1766. Six hundred pack horses, in addition to many wagons, were used to trans- port the goods for one of these expeditions across the mountains. A large crew of carpenters was sent to Pittsburgh to build boats and within a year or two the firm had three hundred boatmen employed on the river. The profits did not come up to expectations: other Phila- delphia firms entered the field, the French from New Orleans and St. Louis offered competition, and it proved very difficult to transport the furs up the Ohio River. Soon the British traders were sending their o09 Illustrations William Irvine Edward Hand A View of Fort Robertdeau in Sinking Valley Military Dress, Late Eighteenth Century Pack-Horse Train Conestoga Wagon and Six-Horse Bell Team Conestoga Wagon Accessories Keelboat Flatboat River Scene Showing Flatboat and Two Keelboats Advertisement of Boat Outfitter Title Page of Zadock Cramer's "Navigator" Advertisement from "Pittsburgh Directory for 1819" Specimen Pages from Zadok Cramer's "Navigator" Agricultural Implements Sweep Mill for Grinding Corn Grain Cradle Scythe Sharpening Tools Agricultural Implements Wool Cards Wool-spinning Wheel Maple Sugar-making Equipment Flax Hackles Used in Combing Out Flax Fiber Flax Brake and Scutching Knife Flax-spinning Equipment The Spindle at Work Shaving Horse Candle Molds Types of Candle Holders Blacksmith Tools Exterior of Cold Blast Furnace Forge. Exterior Water Wheels Forge. Interior Blacksmith Shop xu facing 90o facing 19o facing 19I 201 facing 240 facing 241 243 245 246 249 250 facing 256 facing 256 facing 257 263 265 267 268 270 272 273 275 276 277 278 28o 281 282 283 285 301 302 303 facing 304 facing 305 Western Pennsylvania furs down the Mississippi and disposing of them illegally at New Orleans, where prices were higher than at Philadelphia, but they con- tinued to import their goods by way of the Ohio. Pittsburgh was already the gateway to the West. As a result of the acquisition of a vast region in the interior of North America the British government was forced to attempt to formulate a western policy. The problems were so many and so complicated that no solutions could have been found that would have been satisfactory to all concerned. The interested parties included the Indians, who had to be considered at least to the extent of preventing them from making war on the colonies; the French settlers, who occupied a few widely separated villages; the traders and the merchants both in the colonies and in England who profited by their operations; the land speculators who were eager to exploit the new area; the holders of unoccupied land east of the mountains, who feared that the value of their holdings would be reduced by the opening of the West; the frontiersmen who were determined to push out and select choice sites for homes in the interior; and the colonies with extensive and overlapping claims to the western territory. In accordance with the prevalent mercantilist philosophy, colonies were valued in England as sources of raw ma- terials or as markets for manufactured commodities. Much depended, however, upon which of these values was stressed: those who laid the emphasis on raw materials favored the preservation of the interior as an Indian reserve, from which furs and skins would be drawn; but those who were more concerned about markets favored the expansion of settlement, although some of them feared that remote settlers might be tempted to manufacture for themselves. The situation was further complicated by the factional character of English politics at this time, which resulted in frequent changes in the ministry and prevented the development of a consistent policy. Among the specific questions that presented themselves, the most important was that of whether or not settlement should be permitted in the interior. If this should be answered in the affirmative, then the questions would arise as to whether the entire region should be opened at once or portions of it from time to time as conditions might war- rant and whether the development should take the form of extensions of the old colonies or the establishment of new colonies. These ques- tions did not have to be answered at once, but the problem of Indian 110 The Indian Reservation relations was more pressing. This involved the regulation of the trade, the control of land cessions, and the protection of the frontiers; and the issue in each case was whether these matters should be adminis- tered imperially or by the individual colonies. Prior to the French and Indian War the problems of expansion had been handled by the colonies themselves, but the mountain barrier made difficult the orderly extension of the old colonies into the in- terior. Even before the war, plans for new colonies in the West had been discussed in England and America, and at the Albany Congress in 1754 Franklin had proposed the establishment of two border colo- nies, one south of Lake Erie and one in the Scioto Valley. In 1756 the political relations with the Indians had been put into the hands of imperial officials, and in 1761, as has been seen, the approval of the king was required for the purchase of land from the Indians. Western Pennsylvania was in a somewhat different position from the rest of the interior, for the Penn family had not only a claim but a recognized legal right to such territory as would fall within its charter limits. What these limits were was a matter of dispute, however, and the province was in no position to exercise jurisdiction west of the moun- tains. The first attempt to formulate a policy for the new territory was made by Lord Shelburne as president of the Board of Trade in 1763. He studied the situation with great care and came to the conclusion that a boundary should be drawn between the settlements and the hunting grounds of the Indians and that the territory beyond this line should be opened up only after purchase from the Indians by imperial officials. It was Shelburne's intention that the location of the boundary should be determined with reference to existing and prospective settlements and by negotiations with the Indians, but the outbreak of Pontiac's War made it desirable to fix a temporary line at once in the hope of thereby pacifying the Indians. Lord Hills- borough, who succeeded Shelburne as president of the Board of Trade, selected the Appalachian divide for the line, and the royal proclama- tion of October 7, 1763, prohibited "for the present" all purchases from the Indians, grants of land, or settlements west of that line and ordered all who had settled beyond it to retire. It was not the intention of the ministry to establish this line as the western boundary of the colonies, as has sometimes been claimed, and the part of Pennsylvania III Western Pennsylvania that lay beyond it could not legally have been taken away from the Penns by a royal proclamation. Whether their right to purchase land from the Indians within the chartered limits of the province and to dispose of it to settlers could thus be curtailed was never brought to an issue. When the proclamation of 1763 was issued the ministry had not come to a decision with reference to the regulation of the trade with the Indians in the reserved area, and that document merely provided that anyone might engage in the trade by getting a license from the governor of his colony and giving a bond to obey such regulations as might be established. In the summer of 1764 a plan was devised by the ministry for the imperial regulation of the trade on an elaborate scale. For the northern district the trade was to be administered by Sir William Johnson as superintendent, with deputies in charge of three subdistricts and with a commissary, an interpreter, and a smith at each trading post. Prices were to be regulated by the officials, and traders were no longer to be allowed to visit the Indians in their vil- lages. Although this plan was never officially promulgated, Johnson put it into operation in his district as fully as possible. His deputy for the western subdistrict was George Croghan, who had his head- quarters at Pittsburgh and attempted to supervise the operations of the commissaries at Detroit and in the Illinois country. The salaries of all these employees and the expenses incurred in con- ferences with the Indians were a heavy drain on the royal treasury. The ministry had expected to provide for these expenses by laying a tax on the fur trade, but the colonial opposition to taxation at this time, as manifested in the Stamp Act riots, made such a procedure unwise. The maintenance of detachments of the army at scattered posts in the interior, which seemed to be necessary for the control of the trade, was also a heavy expense to the Crown. Finally in 1768 a decision was reached to abandon imperial regulation of the trade, though the superintendents and their deputies were retained to look after political relations with the Indians. The troops were withdrawn from all but a few of the western posts, and the garrisons at the others, including Fort Pitt, were reduced. The colonies were notified that they were expected to regulate the trade in the future and were urged to provide commissaries at the posts to which their traders resorted. No effective action was taken by any of the colonies, however; the traders 112 The Indian Reservation were practically unrestricted in their operations; and the abuses that ensued were partly responsible for the growing animosity of the In- dians that manifested itself in Dunmore's War and in the attitude of most of the tribes toward the colonies during the Revolution. The efforts of the imperial government to control the advance of the frontier were no more successful than were those to regulate the Indian trade. As soon as Pontiac's War was over, the advance guard of settlers, heedless of royal proclamations and colonial laws, pushed across the divide and began to take possession of choice sites in west- ern Pennsylvania and what is now West Virginia. No titles to land could be obtained, of course, but the pioneers were convinced that their squatter claims would ultimately be recognized. The Indians complained of this invasion of their hunting grounds, and troops were sent out from Fort Pitt to dispossess the settlers and destroy their cabins. It was impossible, however, for the small garrison to police the extensive area in which illegal settlements were being made, and the squatters who had been driven out returned as soon as the troops had departed. The unrest among the Indians over this and other grievances became so great that the officials feared the outbreak of another general war. In April and May, 1768, a council was held at Fort Pitt at which Croghan, with the commander of the garrison and commissioners appointed by the governor of Pennsylvania, conferred with over a thousand Indians, mostly Delawares and Shawnee. The Indians were told of the efforts that had been made to remove the settlers; and, as some of the squatters had claimed that they had been urged by Indians to remain, an attempt was made to organize a dele- gation of chiefs to accompany the Pennsylvania commissioners on a tour of the settlements. The Indians, however, were unwilling to incur the ill will of the frontiersmen and declared that it was the busi- ness of the white people to remove the squatters. In the meantime Sir William Johnson had been urging the British government to authorize negotiations with the Indian nations for the draWing of a more satisfactory boundary than the Proclamation Line, as had been contemplated in 1763. He asserted that the only way to solve the problem of intrusions on the Indian lands was to purchase the lands in question and that the payments to be made to the Indians for the land would tend to pacify them. Influences were brought to bear upon the government by the Penns and by specula- 11'3 Western Pennsylvania tors who hoped to profit from the transaction, and negotiations were authorized. The council was held at Fort Stanwix, now Rome, New York, in October and November, 1768; and a treaty was negotiated by which the Iroquois gave up their claims to territory east and south of a line that entered Pennsylvania by the North Branch of the Sus- quehanna, jumped over to the West Branch by way of Towanda and Pine creeks, and then ran up the West Branch, straight across to Kit- tanning, and down the Allegheny and Ohio rivers to the mouth of the Tennessee. The British government paid over ten thousand pounds in money and goods for the ceded lands in the royal provinces, and the Penns agreed to pay ten thousand Spanish dollars for the land ac- quired in their province. The Delawares and the Shawnee had been invited to the council at Fort Stanwix, but only a few of them attended, and, as the land in question was considered to belong to the Iroquois, Johnson felt that it was unnecessary to insist on the participation of the western Indians. Such minutes as are available do not indicate that the few that were present had any part in the negotiations, and none of them signed the deeds. Although the western Indians admitted the Iroquois claim to the land, it was not long before they were complaining bitterly that their hunting grounds in western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky had been sold without their consent and that they had received no part of the compensation. The Treaty of Fort Stanwix, instead of quieting these Indians, added to their discontent. The "New Purchase" acquired by the Penns in 1768 covered ap- proximately the southern half of Pennsylvania west of the Allegheny Ridge, together with a large area in the northeastern part of the province. Although the provision of the proclamation of 1763 pro- hibiting settlement west of the divide was not formally rescinded, it was generally understood that it no longer applied to the region south- east of the new line, and no further efforts were made to exclude settlers. Southwestern Pennsylvania was no longer a part of the Indian reservation, and the province was now free to extend full juris- diction over the section, subject only to the rival claims of Virginia. Fort Pitt was maintained by the British government to protect the communication with the Illinois country until 1772, when, upon the abandonment of Fort de Chartres, the garrison was withdrawn and the fort was dismantled. I14 vi. The Cultural Heritage of the Pioneers HE seeds of civilization that were planted in western Pennsyl- vania were derived from plants that had matured in Europe, especially in the British Isles and Germany, and in the Eng- lish colonies in America in the second half of the eighteenth century. The civilized world of the day, at least in the minds of western Euro- peans, consisted of western Europe. The rest of the globe was merely heathendom, and Christian nations felt that they had the right to exploit it to promote their own advancement in the only part of the world that really mattered-western Europe. Yet their own civiliza- tion at the middle of the century was not much of an improvement on that of medieval times. Despite the Renaissance; the inventions of printing, gunpowder, and improved nautical instruments; and the tremendous expansion of the known world, the life of the common man was not very different from what it had been in the Egypt of the Pharaohs. In 1750 the old feudal aristocracy still dominated western Europe, and the world was envisioned as made up of the rulers, the clerics, and the workers. Europe was overwhelmingly agricultural, tools and implements were crude, and goods were manufactured by hand. Considering the cost of handicraft products, there was a surpris- ing amount of commerce; but transportation was still carried on by cart, pack horse, or sailboat, and roads were worse than they had been fifteen hundred years before. The religious wars that followed the Reformation had long been over, but the animosities implanted by them still burned intensely. The universal church had been succeeded by established churches, varying from state to state and each intolerant of dissent. Radical religious sects, attempting to set rigid moral and theological stand- ards, flourished, especially among the common people; but so also did vice, crime, and immorality. Formal education was controlled by the '5 Western Pennsylvania churches, and only a few could read or write. Charitable institutions were increasing, usually as auxiliaries of religious denominations, but they made little impression on the mass of human misery. Honesty and industry were of course held up as the paths to financial success and worldly respect; at the same time, however, the honest and in- dustrious citizen was given to understand that misery was the in- evitable lot of the lower order. When the eighteenth century is examined in the light of succeeding years a more attractive picture emerges. Even as early as 1750 a new world was in process of formation under the rags and tatters of decadent feudalism. The rediscovery of ancient humanism, the stimu- lus of overseas expansion, and the ever widening application of scien- tific discoveries were ushering in a new era in human history. Probably the basic fact in this transformation was the emergence of the middle class with its interest in commercial and industrial activities and in science, art, and letters. Before the century was over, the middle class had definitely seized control of affairs and was molding the world to suit itself. Feudalism as an economic system was giving way to capi- talism, and bourgeois governments were taking the places of the old despotisms, benevolent or malevolent. The expansion of commerce and the industrial revolution were making possible a division of labor that was ultimately to bring about higher standards of living. The immediate effects upon the common people were often far from bene- fidial, however. Agricultural and handicraft workers were thrown out of employment and even those who found places in the new factory system had to work long hours for a bare subsistence. It is not strange that many of them turned their eyes toward America, where the opportunities of developing a new country would enable them to find employment. The burgeoning of a new world was most apparent in England, and it was from England that the American colonies drew the bulk of their population. By 1700 England had become aware that her destiny lay upon the ocean and that in her expanding overseas empire was the true source of her wealth. As the century passed it became evident that England was also taking the leadership in the movement that was rapidly destroying the thousand-year-old system of feudalism and substituting capitalism in its place. Not only was an economic revolution in progress in England at this time but also a religious Ii6 The Cultural Heritage of the Pioneers revolution, while no less important social and political changes were in preparation. From this rapidly changing society came many of the men and women who were to build up England's colonies beyond the seas and to lay the foundations of the American republic. The eagerness with which they left the old country to try their fortunes in the wilderness is suggestive of their treatment at home, and a close view reveals conditions that were appalling; on the other hand there were obvious rifts in the clouds that augured a fairer day for the world. One of the most striking facts in English history is the existence of a system of classes that at any given time seems rigid. On closer observation, it appears that this system owes its seeming immuta- bility to the fact that, grudgingly but unfailingly, newcomers have been admitted to the classes and even new classes to the system. This was true under the Tudors and especially true after the dawn of the industrial era, when the growing mercantile and manufacturing aris- tocracy slowly but firmly made its way into the ranks of the nobility and at the same time a new lower middle class made its appearance. These changes, of course, were the result of the industrial revolution and of the increasing activity, wealth, and power of capitalists. New industries, new mercantile enterprises, and new cities were springing up, especially in the North. The changes taking place in agriculture at the same time threw millions of peasants and yeomen off the land, who swelled the lists of emigrants overseas, filled the prisons with "sturdy rogues," and littered the streets of the new cities with men, women, and children savagely underbidding each other for work. The factory system and division of labor had been introduced before 1750, but it was not until the introduction of power-driven machinery that it had its greatest development. The widespread employment of the cheap labor of women and children with outrageous working condi- tions and brutally long hours is well known to every reader of English economic history. During the whole of the eighteenth century, England was under the influence of the reaction from Puritanism, and those who should have set the good examples were best known for their licentiousness and indifference to moral laws. The aristocracy, living in wanton luxury on the gains wrung from the poor, spent their days and nights in a round of fetes, theatricals, and gaming. Drunkenness was an almost universal vice. Literature and the drama were impregnated with 117 Western Pennsylvania pornographic themes, and common conversation, even in the most fashionable society, reeked with lewdness. Gaming was society's most fashionable vice and almost everyone indulged in it, many to excess. Crime was rampant. The belated passenger in the streets of London was in serious danger from footpads, and the gentleman of substance traveling in the counties carried arms as a matter of course to protect himself against knights of the road. Many of the peasantry, brutal- ized by generations of oppression, were dull and sodden. The manu- facturer and the landholder exploited the workers - the workers sought recompense in drunkenness and vice. Cockfighting, bull-bait- ing, and boxing matches "to the death" were common Sabbath oc- cupations. The established Anglican Church offered little promise of regen- erating society in the eighteenth century. It had emerged from the period of civil disturbances with a dread of both "Popery" and Puri- tanism and therefore sought to steer a middle course between the two. Enthusiasm was discouraged lest it drive the church into one extreme or the other. The result was stagnation. Any change was presumed to be for the worse. Christianity became, not progress, but a formal tradition, and it appeared that God had given over any active share in the government of the universe. The Anglican Church had been "exhausted of all spiritual forces." The ministers as a rule were not very greatly honored, though thousands of men were willing to take holy orders for the loaves and fishes. Such men were too often of the absentee, fox-hunting, or even bibulous type. The reverse of this gloomy picture of eighteenth-century England is one of definite achievement and increasing enlightenment. The strides in human advancement made possible by the industrial revolu- tion are obvious, and need scarcely be discussed here. The ever widen- ing circles of mechanization, scientific research, world trade, and world solidarity were bringing about a slow improvement in the general standard of living. The art and literature of England in the eighteenth century, as well as her scientific discoveries and applications, have a permanent place in the development of human civilization. Philanthropy in medieval times, with some notable exceptions, had been merely a means to salvation, but now it began to spring from the depths of a new human sympathy. Beginning about 1750 there was in England a remarkable growth of a humane attitude toward 118 The Cultural Heritage of the Pioneers the unfortunate and the sufferer-the slave, the pauper, the lunatic, the convict, the debtor, the working child, and even the dumb animal. This new attitude was in no small part the result of the Methodist revival, which kindled the spark of far-reaching social and political reforms. There is a remarkable unanimity among historians as to the rejuvenating influence of the Methodists and of their chief founder, John Wesley. Lord Macaulay says that "the greatest event of the era was the work of Wesley," and Lecky speaks of Wesley's sermons as of "greater historic importance to England than all the victories by land and sea under Pitt." The secret of the greatness and permanency of Wesley's influence is found in his ability to translate spiritual force into moral and social power. With him religion was not simply a set of dogmas, such as justification by faith, but was an active plan of life that was to govern one's relations to God and to his fellow men. Fortunately for later generations, the Methodist movement also spread the fundamentals of education so that in time the common people awoke to their downtrodden condition and began to demand reform. Another aspect of English development under the Georges was the continuing evolution of personal and religious liberty. The Protestant dissenters, woefully handicapped in their religious and political life under the Stuarts, had by I8oo gained a position actually, though not legally, equal to that of Episcopalians. Personal liberties were man- fully upheld and extended in a thousand battles in court and in Parli- ament. The attempts of George III to exercise his royal "prerogative" met a decisive defeat in the American Revolution, and that conflict found thousands of Britons siding with the colonies against the king. The unquenchable spirit of liberty exemplified in England had found a ready echo in America, and it is significant that the rebellious colonists did not envision themselves as advocating any new theories but as fighting to maintain the traditional liberties of Englishmen. The general pattern of life in the English colonies in America was framed by Englishmen on the basis of English institutions, but in western Pennsylvania men of Scotch antecedents and the culture of Scotland had a large part in the process. Scottish affairs during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were inevitably conditioned by the nation's relations with England. The union of the Crowns of England and Scotland in 1603 destroyed the latter's traditional league 119 Illustrations Six-Plate Stoves 307 Coopering Tools 308 & 3 I0 Coopering 312 Bootjacks, Boots, Hatter's Block, and Pattens 313 Woodcutter's Tools 320 Mill Built for Washington near Perryopolis facing 320 The Crumrine Barn near Zollarsville facing 320 Fireplace and Typical Kitchen Equipment facing 321 Domestic Utensils 322 Betty Lamps 325 Lard Lamps and Can for Warming Lard 327 Lanterns of Tin and Glass 329 Domestic Utensils 331 Wooden Utensils for Making Butter 333 Men's Dress during the Revolutionary Period 336 Styles of Dress about 1790 337 Domestic Utensils 339 Kettles and Kettle Handles 340 Hand Looms and Shuttle for Weaving Belts, Garters 342 Fireplace Equipment 345 Styles of Dress about 18oo 361 First Page of the Third Issue of the "Pittsburgh Gazette" 377 The "Halfway House" near Blairsville facing 388 A Log House near Sewickley facing 388 Details of Log and of Stone Building facing 389 The Cook House near Fayette City facing 396 The Miller House in South Park, Allegheny County facing 396 "Mount Braddock," the Meason House near Uniontown facing 397 "Plantation Plenty," the Manchester House near West Middletown facing 397 John Heckewelder facing 404 David Zeisberger facing 404 John McMillan facing 404 Demetrius A. Gallitzin facing 404 Sacramental Scene in a Western Forest facing 405 xiii Western Pennsylvania with France and hampered, and at times during England's wars with continental countries almost obliterated, the trade with the continent upon which Scottish economic prosperity depended. England, instead of treating her new dependent as an ally, sought to aggrandize herself at Scotland's expense, and Scots were even forbidden to trade with the American colonies. As Scotland's commerce decreased her sea- ports fell into ruin, land values dropped, and the tenants were so impoverished that hundreds of thousands of them were forced to become vagrants or to emigrate to Ulster or to America. Movements to found industries were started, but they were doomed to failure by the paucity of capital and credit, by the fact that England through the king could restrict Scotland's commercial policies, and by internal disorganization and bad government. Of outstanding importance among the institutions of Scotland was the Presbyterian Church. There the Reformation, under the leader- ship of John Knox, had been a thorough-going affair. Not only the connection with Rome but also the whole episcopal hierarchy had been abandoned; and the Calvinistic theology, with its emphasis on covenants, on the Bible as the rule of life, and on the direct responsi- bility of the individual to God, became the basis of the new church. The dogmas of Calvinism, including the doctrine of predestination, with the prevalent belief that worldly success was evidence of divine favor, were destined to have a powerful influence on the character of Scotchmen and their descendants in the New World. When in 1689, the Presbyterian Church became the established state church in Scot- land, some of the more radical members, objecting to the connection between church and state, withdrew from the organization. These dissenters were known as Covenanters, and finally in 1743 they organ- ized the Reformed Presbytery of Scotland. In the meantime, the ex- tension of lay control in the established church, particularly in the matter of the calling of ministers, had led to another schism, and in 1733 the Seceders, as they were called, had organized the Associate Presbytery, which later expanded into the Associate Synod. These various brands of Presbyterianism were much alike in doctrine, but, on the whole, the more rigid and puritanical element was to be found among the dissenters. The union of Scotland and England in 1707 on the basis of free trade and a common parliament proved to be the turning point in 120 The Cultural Heritage of the Pioneers Scotland's fortunes, and industrialism played a powerful part in im- proving them as the century advanced. Scottish life, however, was pe- culiarly barren of graciousness both because of the natural dourness of the Scotch character and climate and because of the necessity of frugal living. The rigid theology of Calvin and Knox exercised a powerful influence on national ways of living and, until well into the eighteenth century, prevented the growth of liberal ideas. Scotland, it is true, gave Burns and Scott to the world, but not until the close of the century, after the new era had begun to make its influence felt. The common people benefited little by the rise of industrialism until well into the nineteenth century. Conditions in the cities were much the same as in England, while the peasants lived in rude stone or turf huts on a coarse diet in which oats was the staple, or lurked in the hedges and subsisted on the fruits of beggary and occasional labor. Necessity had made the Scot an excellent bargainer, and this turn was put to effective use as Scotchmen spread over the world and gathered into their capable hands the management of trading posts, factories, and shipping businesses. Their frugality, industry, and honesty made them desirable pioneers as well, and thousands found their way to the American farming frontier. Ireland, also, made large contributions of men and manners to western Pennsylvania in the pioneer period, but they were drawn mainly from Ulster, in the North, which had been planted during the reign of James I with dissenters from the lowlands of Scotland and the North of England. The Emerald Isle was afflicted with a medley of antagonistic races and religions. The Celts, descendants of the ancient Gaels, were everywhere, but the purest strain was in the west- ern part of the island. In the eastern half many of the people were descendants of Irish women and English soldiers, but they were almost indistinguishable in manners and religion from the pure Celts and in fact were even more turbulent in their resistance to British oppression. A group more distinctively of English descent was the "Garrison"- the military and governmental officials and the legal and ecclesiastical functionaries. The Anglican Church was the establishment and was supported by taxation, but it had few adherents. The bulk of the people were Catholics, except in Ulster, where Presbyterianism pre- vailed. Both Catholics and Presbyterians, however, labored under the disabilities of poverty and of restrictions imposed by the government. 121 Western Pennsylvania The Irish, of all the inhabitants of the British Isles, and perhaps of western Europe, were the most ignorant, poverty-stricken, and op- pressed. The attempts of the islanders to enter the English markets with their manufactured or agricultural products had been systemati- cally discouraged from the time of the restoration of Charles II. Catholics and dissenters alike were hampered in numerous ways in their efforts to hold land or gain a living, and even members of the state church found that English placemen were preferred to them. The land, owned largely by absentees, was in the care of middlemen, who exacted every penny of rent they could and, except in Ulster, re- fused to allow dispossessed tenants credit for any improvements made. Under these circumstances it is no wonder that appalling social and economic conditions existed, particularly in the rural areas. Cut off from all hope of improvement, the Irish, especially the Celts, de- veloped a philosophy of "cynical content in dirt and beggary." Lands had been removed from farming to grazing in such vast acreages that the cotters found it impossible with their few antiquated implements to raise a living from the tiny plots devoted to each family. When they had eaten up their potatoes, almost their only crop, they took to the road by families and lived by beggary until the new crop was ready to dig. When the potato crop failed, thousands perished of starvation or of the fevers and fluxes brought on by putrid and un- natural food. The thatched dwellings were miserable huts of mud, sticks, or stones, crudely furnished, often without chimneys. The splendid forests of Ireland, some of the finest in Europe in the seven- teenth century, had been cut down by the English as a military measure, and it was consequently difficult for the people to obtain firewood. Their fires, if they had any, were of wet, smoky peat. Work was scarce and even when it could be found the return was scarcely sufficient to sustain life. It has been estimated that the average in- come of the poor Irish family was about ten pounds a year in money and produce. Idleness, beggary, thievery, drunkenness, lack of persistence, and improvidence inevitably became characteristics of the people; but on the other hand they developed a warm-hearted charity toward their fellows, an incorrigible optimism, and a willingness to undertake any allotted task. Their training in the school of poverty and deprivation 122 The Cultural Heritage of the Pioneers was also excellent preparation for life on the American frontier. Few of the peasants could read or write, but they were much given to re- counting the imaginative tales that lend an air of colorful romance to Erin's history. The last of the old bards died in 1737 but their music lingered on, gay or haunting, and was even transferred to America, together with the Irishman's passionate love of dancing. The county fairs with their sports and gaudy shows were bright spots in every Irishman's life, and few who could attend missed them. There were classes in Ireland that were better off from an economic standpoint than the cotters. The small farmers, as numerous and most of them almost as miserable as the cotters but distinguished by their longer tenures, graded up to a position about like that of the English yeomen. The middlemen who leased the land from the absentee land- lords strove to live like the English gentry but succeeded only in squandering their incomes in extravagant and often riotous living and in gaining the hatred of the peasantry. Life in the great towns, especially in Dublin, was on a higher plane, but even there the effects of the economic and religious restrictions that were throttling Ireland were clearly felt. The inhabitants of Ulster were to a noticeable degree more pros- perous than those of the South. In Ulster a tenant, upon his departure from a holding, had the customary right to receive compensation for improvements he had made. This system encouraged improvements, increased profits, and made the Ulster agriculturists more progressive than the southerners, though their economic situation was still miser- ably low. The right to compensation for improvements, however, furnished many of them with a small capital and made it possible for them to emigrate to America. Ulster also harbored the most im- portant Irish industry, the manufacture of linen. Most of the farmers there were also weavers, and some, in spite of British restrictions, managed to make enough profit to rise above poverty. Many of them eventually found their land rents raised because of their supposed weaving profits and were then able to subsist only because the entire family worked at farming or weaving, but their knowledge of two trades encouraged thousands to collect their small capital and take the risk of emigrating to America. By I8oo this movement was being ac- celerated by the competition of machine-made cotton cloth and a few years later by the use of machinery in the manufacture of linen. 123 Western Pennsylvania The Scotch-Irish, as the Ulster Presbyterians came to be called in America, differed in many respects from their Celtic Irish neighbors, being in fact more like their Scottish ancestors. Surrounded as they were by enemies, Catholic and Episcopalian, they came to look upon themselves in much the same way as the Israelites had when sur- rounded by the Canaanitish nations. Democracy was fostered by their religious organization, and the Old Testament simplicity and hardship of their lives made them content with little and at the same time, at least among the more serious, fostered the gospel of work for its own sake. The aesthetic had no place in their lives, except as expressed in the sonorous lines of the Psalms of David. The beauties of nature, the glory of the sunset, the green of the grass and of the trees, and the songs of the birds were lost upon most of these stern Calvinists, and in consequence their home clearings in the New World, which could have been allowed to retain a vine or a tree or even a few wild flowers with less labor than was expended to clear them, were often bare of beauty and choked with weeds. All these characteristics and circum- stances, however, aided in shaping the Scotch-Irish into men of in- dependent courage and self-reliance, trained to dispense with most of the amenities of civilization, and thus equipped for the role of pioneers. The German immigrants who settled in western Pennsylvania prior to I812 were largely children of settlers in the eastern dr central part of the state. These settlers came principally from the Rhine country; that is, from Wiirttemberg, Baden, the Palatinate, Alsace, and part of Switzerland. Germany, which in i6oo had given promise of leading European civilization, had been ruined by the savage devas- tations and wholesale slaughter of the Thirty Years' War. She had emerged from the war with her hard-won advancements in culture and science hopelessly perverted if not wiped out, her universities closed or barely existing, and her people starving and crassly ignorant and superstitious-scarcely more than barbarians. The power of the emperor had been broken and the princes great and small ruled their lands as absolute monarchs. The followers of Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli vied with the Catholics and with each other for the control of the state churches, and a multitude of obscure pietistic sects and esoteric cults swarmed in town and country, thriving in spite of almost constant persecution. The Rhineland was the fairest and most fertile region in Germany, I24 The Cultural Heritage of the Pioneers but it shared in the general desolation. Time after time during the Thirty Years' War was the country devastated. After the war the efforts of the farmers and manufacturers to regain their old prosperity were hindered by the religious and political jealousies as well as the selfishness and incapacity of the rulers, eager to emulate the splendors of the French court and the absolutism of the French government. The wars of Louis XIV added to the miseries of the inhabitants as armies marched and countermarched, leaving a trail of devastated farms and flaming villages. The people thus were ripe for emigration, and the direct inducements were not long in coming. These induce- ments took the forms of promotion literature, of which a pamphlet by William Penn is a prominent example, and personal solicitation by agents, usually called "newlanders." The Germans who were at- tracted by this propaganda were, as a rule, honest, industrious, and agriculturally more progressive than were the British and the Irish. Nearly all the German emigrants were Protestants and many of them were pietists; a few were highly educated. French immigration to the English colonies was never large, though a considerable number of French Protestants (Huguenots) who had fled to Germany and some French-speaking Swiss came over with the Germans. French influence in America, therefore, was predominantly intellectual and political, and some of it came indirectly through an influence wielded on other lands. France under Louis XIV had sup- planted Italy as the artistic and intellectual leader of Europe, and the splendors of French civilization were eagerly aped by the lesser powers. The works of a galaxy of French liberal thinkers, principally Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau, thus gained admit- tance to libraries all over the world, and their advocacy of reform struck telling blows at the rotting foundations of absolutism even before 1789. These men owed their inspiration to some extent to the example of English laws, institutions, and thinkers, but their genius was too universal to be laid to any one source. English reform even- tually profited by this bread it had cast upon the waters, and the American revolutionists, particularly the more radical ones, frankly studied the French thinkers and drew upon their ideas. The transit of civilization to America was by no means an orderly process. The vast majority of those who came were of the peasant or artisan classes, and the few men of culture and refinement who sought I25 Western Pennsylvania homes in the New World failed to influence greatly the succeeding generations. The first and most important business was that of wresting a livelihood from the soil or the forest, and culture in the higher sense was left to the future. New England was settled by free immigrants, but the colonies farther south received a large part of their population as transported convicts, vagrants, or redemptioners. The convicts, sent over at the king's expense, consisted of political and other offenders. There were of course desperate criminals among them, but the majority were victims of the brutal criminal code that made minor infractions punishable by transportation. In fact it seems probable that the lighter forms of felony were encouraged by the prospect of transportation to the New World. Nevertheless there arose in the colonies, particularly in Pennsylvania, a determination to prevent the importation of felons; and, although Pennsylvania's laws placing prohibitive taxes upon the importation of convicts were cyni- cally disallowed by the British government, it can be said that in gen- eral the province succeeded in checking the practice. Vagrancy was the inevitable outcome of the changing economic system in the British Isles, for it was impossible to find work for all the unemployed. Vag- rants and debtors were transported, and became indentured servants. Redemptioners were immigrants who paid the ship captains for their passages by agreeing to let themselves be indentured for a num- ber of years, usually from four to seven, as laborers or craftsmen. Until about 1730 most of Pennsylvania's indentured servants were British or Irish in origin. Emigration was almost the sole hope of the poor and they availed themselves of the opportunity by the thou- sands. Fugitives from justice, and runaway wives, husbands, and children, as well as individuals and families who openly determined upon emigration, found their ways to the emigrant ships. The number of unwary persons who were kidnaped by professional men-stealers and sold to ship captains will never be known, but the practice was so common as to call for Parliamentary investigation. The profit to be made in carrying emigrants was great enough to make it advanta- geous for ship owners and agents called "crimps" to post broadsides inviting those who were "disgusted with the frowns of fortune of their native land" and those of "an enterprising disposition" to embark for the land of promise. It is not likely that crimps or ship captains were overly particular as to whether or not the passengers came willingly 126 The Cultural Heritage of the Pioneers so long as troublesome laws could be evaded and a profit could be made. The system of immigrant indentures undoubtedly enabled people to obtain transportation who otherwise would not have been able to go, and the period of service may have been an advantage to the agricultural worker, for it gave him an introduction to American farming methods under conditions probably no more onerous than those of a hired hand. Not all redemptioners, of course, were agricul- tural laborers. The trades were recruited largely from their ranks, and it is said that in some provinces nearly all the schoolteachers had come over under indentures. After a servant had finished his term he usually set up in business for himself or rented or bought a farm, and in a few years he was indistinguishable from the mass of his neighbors. The sad condition of Ireland laid its inhabitants open to the wiles of the crimps, who did not hesitate to circulate exaggerated accounts of the ease and plenty to be found in America. So many Irish servants came to Pennsylvania that in 1729 the assembly laid a heavy tax upon their importation, lest they turn the province into a colony of "Papists." Many of these Irishmen, however, were Presbyterians from the North. The German immigration to Pennsylvania, except for a small group that came soon after Penn's landing, began about 1717 and continued in increasing numbers until the Revolution. If the German emigrants were supplied with money when they left home the exactions of the innumerable customs offices on the Rhine, the robberies of the emigration agents or "newlanders," and the ex- pense of waiting in Amsterdam or Rotterdam often left them penni- less when they embarked. The conditions on the emigrant ships, usually owned by Dutch, English, or American firms, were only better than those on the African slave ships, and the captains often starved and otherwise abused their passengers. Many of those who had paid their way had extra charges placed on them so exorbitant that they had to be sold to satisfy the debts. When emigrant ships reached the American ports, they were often met by dealers called "soul-drivers" who purchased the convicts and redemptioners at wholesale rates and drove them into the interior in gangs, disposing of them at retail to the planters. The American scene in the eighteenth century was not a mere copy of Europe. Rather was it the result of the reaction of New World conditions upon people of European origin. The influence of the Euro- 127 Western Pennsylvania pean, and especially the English, heritage was naturally strongest in the settlements along the coast from Massachusetts to South Caro- lina. Moreover, the wilderness environment with its leveling effects had long been eliminated from most of these settlements by 1750. As a consequence there had developed a class division into gentry, small farmers, and artisans. In New England the gentry was made up largely of the prosperous mercantile element and maintained its as- cendancy over the much larger numbers of small farmers and artisans with the aid of the clergy and a high property qualification for the exercise of the franchise. The Atlantic Coast Plain in the southern colonies was well adapted to plantation economy and slavery, and there the gentry gained its wealth and position through agriculture and land speculation. Unlike the merchant princes of New England, who still looked upon work as the chief aim in life, the planters in the South strove with considerable success to imitate the life of the English country gentlemen. In the middle colonies, wealth and pres- tige were based in part on landholding and in part on commercial activity. Pennsylvania and the tiny colony of Delaware were socially and economically a curious outgrowth of Quaker engagement in trade and politics. Essentially conservative as it was, yet this Quaker society, with the aid of a few outsiders such as Franklin, had developed one of the few cities in the world that could be thought of as enlightened. Philadelphia at the close of the colonial period possessed a university, several libraries, an abolition society, a society for the protection of prisoners, societies for the care of immigrants, a philosophical society, a model prison, and a hospital for the insane. Books and newspapers poured from its presses, its scientific men experimented with natural forces, and its artists were on the way to European recognition. The names of Franklin, Rittenhouse, West, Stuart, Fitch, Bartram, and Wistar were already well known or soon to reach eminence. The so- ciety of the city was polished and humane and its manner of living almost Parisian in its luxury. Even the streets were paved, though there were as yet no street lights and no water system. Philadelphia was the metropolis of the English colonies and was to be the metrop- olis of the new nation for half a century. Not only was it an entrep6t for the world's goods and raw materials but it was also a manufactur- ing center of rising importance. I28 The Cultural Heritage of the Pioneers Politically Pennsylvania was controlled by the "Quaker aristoc- racy" in the period prior to the Revolution. After the adoption of the state constitution of 1776 it was more democratic in government than any of the other states. Henry Adams thus describes the situa- tion in Pennsylvania at the close of the eighteenth century: "The only true democratic community then existing in the eastern States, Pennsylvania was neither picturesque nor troublesome. The State contained no hierarchy like that of New England; no great families like those of New York; no oligarchy like the planters of Virginia and South Carolina. 'In Pennsylvania,' said Albert Gallatin, 'not only we have neither Livingstons nor Rensselaers, but from the suburbs of Philadelphia to the banks of the Ohio I do not know a single family that has any extensive influence. An equal distribution of property has rendered every individual independent, and there is among us true and real equality.'... Too thoroughly democratic to fear democracy, and too much nationalized to dread nationality, Pennsylvania became the ideal American State, easy, tolerant, and contented .... With twenty different religious creeds, its practice could not be narrow, and a strong Quaker element made it humane." The trans-Allegheny West did not introduce a new manner of life; it merely spread a manner of life that was already flourishing just east of the mountains. The coastal settlers had brought with them Euro- pean institutions and habits and had planted little Englands, changed only to adjust them to the environment and to the special ideas of the settlers. As the settlements congealed, those who disagreed with their rulers went west and with them went those, conformist or noncon- formist, who wanted land. By 1750 there existed back of the tidewater settlements from Maine to Georgia an "Old West," distinguished by its vigorous individualism, its crude manners, and its hostility toward what it considered the greedy, domineering, and effete coastal aristoc- racy. The inhabitants of this Old West were of different national origins, English, Welsh, Scotch, Irish, French Huguenot, and German, but there came to be a striking uniformity among them-with the exception of the distinctly German groups in Pennsylvania. The con- ditions of life in the Great Valley, which extended from the Susque- hanna to the Carolinas, and in the Piedmont section east of it were much the same wherever the immigrant might settle; and here by the time of the French and Indian War there had evolved a society, self- 129 Illustrations A Typical Log House facing 405 Evolution of the Western Pennsylvania Church Structure facing 412 The "White Swan" Barroom in Uniontown facing 413 Dining Room of the Gallatin House near New Geneva facing 413 Interior of Union Log Church near Shellsburg facing 413 Footwarmers Fired by Charcoal 417 Hugh Henry Brackenridge facing 465 Albert Gallatin facing 465 William Findley facing 465 James Ross facing 465 Maps and Plans A Plan of Fort Duquesne facing 8I Braddock's Route facing 84 Plan of Fort Bedford facing 92 Plan of Fort Ligonier facing 93 Plan of the Battle near Bushy Run facing 100 Plan of the Second Fort Pitt facing ioi Map of the Country Traversed by Bouquet's Expedition in 1764 facing Io8 Map Illustrating the Boundary Controversy between Pennsylvania and Virginia 165 Plan of the Town of Pittsburgh facing 464 The Ohio Indian Country, Showing Important Purchases 512 Pennsylvania before 80oo 514 Pittsburgh about 18oo 515 Map of the State of Pennsylvania by Reading Howell Southwestern Portion 516 Northwestern Portion 518 xiv Western Pennsylvania sufficient, hardy, and land hungry, whose members could lay claim to being true Americans, for they had cut all ties with the mother coun- tries and had definitely chosen the New World for better or for worse without any backward glances toward what the coast dwellers still wistfully called "home." The Old West of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia constituted the breeding ground whence came the bulk of the people who were to push across the mountains and occupy the upper Ohio Valley; hence it is worth while to glance at the principal elements that composed the population of this region and at the contributions they made to the formation of the American character. The first settlers in the region were mainly indentured servants who had served their terms in the near-by coastal settlements and free immigrants, mostly Eng- lish and Welsh, who came too late to get cheap land near the coast. Most of them, lacking capital, adjusted themselves to the environ- ment as pioneer farmers, hunters, and stock raisers, and some, of course, developed into men of substance. Among them, however, were a few younger sons of planters and other men of enterprise who had seized the opportunity to acquire broad acres and lay the founda- tions of estates; and artisans, merchants, and professional men moved in as the need for their services arose. Migration from the older settle- ments into the Piedmont and the Great Valley continued throughout the period of occupation and promoted the development there, in the course of time, of social and economic conditions approximating those of the tidewater section. In the eighteenth century, however, the character of society in this region was largely determined by two streams of non-English immigrants that poured in, mainly through Philadelphia, from about 1720 on-the Germans and the Scotch-Irish. The Germans took up lands beyond the Quaker settlements around Philadelphia and by 1730 had made the country for a hundred miles east of the Susquehanna their domain. After the first few years their dogged industry and frugality made their economic situation enviable. They farmed with intelligence as well as industry, managing to live well where others had starved; their barns were designed to hold plentiful crops of hay and fodder and consequently their cattle and horses were better fed than were those of others; they lived frugally, doing all their own work and always paying cash; their land was not allowed to become sterile by erosion or leaching, nor their wood lots 130 The Cultural Heritage of the Pioneers to become exhausted. These Pennsylvania Germans were charac- terized by deep piety and a love of law and order, though there were mixed with these a great deal of superstition and, after the first gen- eration, considerable illiteracy. Since they did not understand English and the laws and customs of the land, they were often easy victims of the unscrupulous, and in time this, together with the natural sepa- ratism of the pietists; resulted in their withdrawing stubbornly into their shells and refusing to become Anglicized. Their conservatism, however, made them the political allies of the Quaker aristocracy. The Germans who pushed west often lost contact with the central body and more or less rapidly conformed to the life of their neighbors, the English and the Scotch-Irish. The mountain barriers soon turned them from their westward course so that by 1726 they were entering the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and before many years they were mingling in the Piedmont of the Carolinas with German immigrants who had entered at Charleston. In the process of migration they lost some of their original virtues and gained others. They became more self- reliant and adventurous, less lovers of the plough and the hearth than of the chase and the wilderness. Illiteracy became even more common, and they lost touch with the church so rapidly that they soon became objects of missionary enterprise. They were often to be found among those who pushed out beyond the settlements. The Scotch-Irish, with whom may be considered the other Protes- tant elements from Ireland and the Scots who came directly from Scotland, found the best lands east of the Susquehanna appropriated or unavailable because of high prices, and many of them pushed on across the river to the frontier. Like the Germans they moved south- ward into the mountain valleys of Virginia and the Piedmont of the Carolinas. Their settlements were in the main to the westward of those of the Germans and other elements, although frequently inter- mingled with them, and they served as a shield for the protection of the older settlements. The Scotch-Irish were not the patient, painstak- ing people that the Germans were. They did not keep up their farms so well, partly because they were naturally slipshod and partly because they were always looking ahead to greener fields. Harsh, irascible, in- tolerant, and restless, they found the life of the hunter or the solitary farmer ideal, especially since they were also courageous, self-reliant, aggressive, and hardy. Where they settled in communities, they or- '3' Western Pennsylvania ganized Presbyterian churches and schools, but elsewhere they drifted away from the church and into a condition almost bordering on paganism. They were hard drinkers and hard fighters and when they wanted something nothing could turn them aside. In Pennsylvania "these bold and indigent strangers" squatted on lands of the proprie- tors, "saying as their excuse when challenged for titles that we had solicited for colonists and they had come accordingly." Here, before the Alleghenies had been crossed, was the spirit that was to dominate the American pioneer. The genius of western Pennsylvania was to be built on characteristics of this group, as well as on the patient thoroughness of the German and on the quiet, consuming energy of the English. There were certain fundamental factors that tended to unify the various elements that occupied the Old West. Most of their members had lived as the under dogs in a world divided into more or less rigid classes. This was particularly true of those who had come directly from Europe, but even in the coastal settlements outside of Pennsyl- vania (and there until the Revolution) property was the god, and the property holders composed a sacred priesthood that ruled for its own benefit. The lower classes thus found themselves hampered in their attempts to rise, condemned to lives of poverty and servitude. The modes of living of the various groups in the Old World had not differed greatly from each other, and it is questionable if they differed as much from those on the American frontier as is sometimes sup- posed. Most of the immigrants had been agriculturists and had lived in an economy in which iron was still comparatively scarce. Away from the main highways the crudest carts were in use in Europe, and in the rougher sections pack horses still furnished the chief means of transportation. Much of the cloth was woven in the homes of those destined to use it, and the average family bought but little food- rarely more than the salt. Schooling was almost nonexistent, and ac- quaintance with the forest and its wild life was the common heritage of the peasants. Another common characteristic of the settlers in the backwoods was their religious dissent. Some of them came to America for reasons connected with their disagreements with the state churches. The modes of thought and even of life engendered by these disagreements led them to settle in regions where they could do as they pleased, and 132 The Cultural Heritage of the Pioneers in fact the dominant elements along the coast consciously crowded them out toward the Indian country. The harshness and rigor of the dissenting creeds had fitted their adherents for the severity, danger and simplicity of frontier life. At the same time it is to be borne in mind that the dissenters belonged in the main to the propertyless class, so that even apart from religious considerations they were logi- cally the ones who would be pushed to the outskirts of the settlements. The Old West first exhibited the distinctive characteristics of the American frontier. It was crude, raw, and even vulgar, with a low, dead level of culture. The comforts of civilization were unknown, not to speak of its luxuries, and there was little effort to observe the ameni- ties of life. The houses were rude makeshifts, the domestic utensils few and crude; clothing was homespun and there were not many changes of raiment at that; food was coarse but usually plentiful; amusements were boisterous, vulgar, and often brutal; religious exercises were not rare but, as there was no bishop to enforce an attitude of devotion upon the unwilling householder, he followed his inclination and some- times relapsed into semi-paganism. The life was hard or easy depend- ing upon the climate, the fertility of the soil, and the inclination of the settler, but it was possible for the pioneer with initiative and ability to wrest a good living from the soil and even to attain some affluence. It is a question if even the most wretched of the pioneers were eco- nomically worse off than they had been in Europe, and it is likely that the rickety cabins and slovenly clearings deplored by aristocratic travelers in the backwoods seemed to the occupants to be a great im- provement over their Old World huts and potato patches. There were few whose economic status was better than that of other members of the community, few who were better educated than their fellows, and none who could claim hereditary precedence. Influence in the com- munity came by ability and leadership; and culture, wealth or educa- tion conferred little power unless they were accompanied by the requi- site personal qualities. The result was that each man developed inde- pendence and self-respect. His neighbors, he felt, were no better than he, but he thought himself no better than his neighbors. Democracy thus developed in the Old West from the conditions of life and per- haps from hazy recollections of the rights of Englishmen, but certainly not from the speculations and preachments of French and English political theorists. The European influence, it is true, was later to join 133 Western Pennsylvania with that from the American West in the system of the Democratic- Republicans, but the life and ideals developed in the Old West were to be the foundation of American democracy. This, then, was the world from which the settlers of western Pennsylvania were drawn; a world in transition, poised on the verge of incalculably important changes--changes destined to exert a tre- mendous influence upon the nature of the society that was ultimately to be evolved around the headwaters of the Ohio. I34 viI. The Coming of the Settlers THE occupation of the continent of North America in the four centuries from 50oo to 19oo was one of the greatest folk move- ments in the history of mankind. Wave after wave of human beings surged across the Atlantic Ocean to the shores of the New World, where the immigrants multiplied and sent forth new waves, which, joining with those from Europe, moved westward across the continent. The motivating force of this migration was the belief of those who took part in it that they would ultimately find more satis- factory living conditions for themselves and their children on the frontier than in the old environment. Some of them sought freedom from interference in religious matters, some hoped to improve their social status, a few were drawn by the love of adventure or the desire to escape the consequences of past conduct, but the dominant motive of the great majority was economic-the desire to acquire property, to enjoy the fruits thereof, and to feel that their future and that of their families were provided for. In the agricultural economy of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the principal form of property was land, and the lure of un- occupied land was the great magnet that drew the population west- ward. The amount of this unoccupied land was enormous, but all of it was subject to a claim of ownership. According to the prevalent theory the title to all newly discovered land was vested in the king. He might transfer the land of a whole colony to a company or to one or more proprietors, or he might dispose of it through his agents directly to settlers or speculators, as in the royal colonies. In the case of Penn- sylvania the king granted the ownership of the land as well as jurisdic- tion over it to William Penn and his successors, and the settler who desired to own land had to acquire the title from the proprietor. To the founder the colony was a "Holy Experiment," but to his successors '35 Western Pennsylvania it was mainly a source of revenue, and they attempted to obtain large profits from the primary disposal of the land and from quitrents that were supposed to be paid annually by the purchasers. They also with- held considerable areas from sale in the expectation that these areas could be sold at a greater profit after the surrounding lands had been improved. Even after the title to unsold or unreserved land passed from the proprietors to the commonwealth during the Revolution, the theory continued to be held that this land could and should be a source of revenue to the state. The relatively high prices for land in Pennsylvania during the colonial period tended to defeat the purposes of the proprietors. Al- though immigrants swarmed in through the port of Philadelphia and pushed westward, many of them and of their descendants were at- tracted southward into the valley of Virginia and the piedmont section of the Carolinas, where good land could be obtained on easier terms. Moreover, the practice grew up of occupying land without purchasing it, on the theory that "it was against the laws of God and Nature that so much land should be idle while so many Christians wanted it to labor on and to raise their bread." The settler who by his own toil and that of his family made a clearing, raised a crop, and erected a home- stead pointed to these accomplishments and demanded that his rights be recognized. If the law did not protect him the stout arms of his neighbors and fellow squatters could be counted on to resist the claim- jumpers. As time went on the officials realized that the expansion of the settled area of the province, with the resultant increase in produc- tion and trade, was more important than immediate returns from land sales, and by the middle of the eighteenth century the occupation and improvement of vacant land was recognized as establishing a quasi title that could later be converted into full ownership by the payment of the purchase money. Improvement rights were bought and sold, and the perfecting of the title was often postponed for years. Although they derived their title to the soil from the Crown, the proprietors recognized a right of occupancy on the part of the Indians and made a practice of purchasing the land from them before offering it for sale. This did not, however, prevent the restless frontiersmen from pushing out across the Indian boundary. In the seventeen twen- ties they began to occupy the Cumberland Valley, with the result that the proprietors were obliged to purchase the region in 1736 in order 136 The Coming of the Settlers to avoid trouble with the Indians. Within four or five years after the purchase, the advance guard of settlers was crossing the new boundary line and crowding over the Blue and Tuscarora mountains and the Susquehanna River into the valley of the Juniata. About 1740 several German families settled some twenty miles up the Juniata and there, presumably, they remained, in spite of Indian protests and pro- prietary fulminations. Path Valley and the Big Cove along the border between Fulton and Franklin counties, Sherman's Valley in Perry County, and the Aughwick Creek region in Huntingdon County were occupied about the same time. By 1750 the site of Bedford was a well- known post on the traders' path and was called Raystown after its principal inhabitant. With the exception of Raystown these new settlements were agri- cultural and were, therefore, menaces to the tenure of the Delawares and the Shawnee, who regarded the Juniata Valley as their richest hunting ground. Repeated complaints were registered by these In- dians with their overlords, the Iroquois, who finally prevailed upon the Pennsylvania authorities to evict the settlers. In May, 1750, Secretary Richard Peters was sent to collect the magistrates of Cumberland County and to undertake the task with their aid. The settlers on the main stream of the Juniata were visited, and, after the removal of their few possessions, their cabins were burned. The magistrates then journeyed to Aughwick, Path Valley, and Big Cove, dispossessing the inhabitants in each place. No serious effort appears to have been made, however, to take the trespassers into custody, and they probably returned and rebuilt their cabins almost as soon as the magistrates' backs were turned. Other settlers also moved in in defiance of the authorities, and in 1754 the proprietors purchased the territory to the western boundary of the province from the Iroquois. The Delawares and the Shawnee received no part of the purchase money, however, and in the French and Indian War that followed they took a terrible vengeance on the inhabitants of the new purchase. In 1758 the western boundary of the purchase was drawn back to the Allegheny Ridge as part of the effort to with- draw the Indians from the French alliance. The eastern part of the purchase was retained, however, and, with the cessation of Indian attacks after the fall of Fort Duquesne, the movement of settlers into it was renewed, only to be checked again by Pontiac's War in 1763. '37 Western Pennsylvania While the frontier of settlement in Pennsylvania was thus moving westward into the coves and valleys of the Appalachians east of the Allegheny Front, the Virginia frontier was also advancing westward and northwestward, and by the middle of the century it was ready to cross the divide and begin the occupation of the Appalachian Plateau. In Virginia the idea of making a profit out of the primary disposal of the land had long been subordinated to that of promoting the settlement and development of the colony. The headright system of granting fifty acres of land for each immigrant was so liberally applied that land was easily acquired. The agricultural methods re- sulted in a rapid exhaustion of the soil and forced the planters to hold large tracts in reserve. As a consequence the land was rapidly taken up and the speculators and home seekers were forced to look farther and farther to the west. Large and indefinite grants of land beyond the frontier of settlement were made to individuals and to companies, and during the French and Indian War land bounties were promised to all who served in the provincial forces. In spite of the ease with which titles could be acquired, the practice grew up on the Virginia frontier as well as on that of Pennsylvania of taking possession of unoccupied land without authority and establishing "tomahawk claims," which were usually respected by the pioneers. The significance for western Pennsylvania of this advance of the Virginia frontier lies in the fact that the first trickle of agricultural settlers into the region west of the mountains and indeed the main stream of such settlers until after the Revolution flowed from Virginia rather than from eastern Pennsylvania. The Virginians believed that the whole of the Monongahela Valley lay outside the charter limits of Pennsylvania and hence within the boundaries of their colony. Acting on this belief they established their claims in accordance with the Virginia land system, and when in 1780 the boundary dispute was settled Pennsylvania agreed to recognize these claims. The Pennsylvania traders who established their posts in the upper Ohio Valley as early as the seventeen twenties were the harbingers rather than the advance guard of agricultural settlers, although some of them probably cultivated gardens. One of them, however, did attempt to acquire land in the region. In 1747 George Croghan per- suaded the Indians to deed to him two hundred thousand acres of land in three tracts in the vicinity of the forks of the Ohio and on the 138 The Coming of the Settlers Youghiogheny. Despite the fact that his deeds were ratified by the Iroquois when the Treaty of Fort Stanwix was negotiated in 1768, he was never able to persuade the British government or the states of Virginia or Pennsylvania to recognize the validity of these Indian grants. The first attempt at agricultural settlement in Pennsylvania west of the mountains seems to have been that of the Eckerlin brothers, who with several followers established themselves at the mouth of Dunkard's Creek in what is now Greene County in 1750 or 1751. The brothers, Alsatian immigrants and former members of the Ephrata Brotherhood in the Conestoga Valley of eastern Pennsyl- vania, had lived for several years on the Virginia frontier in the New River Valley. It is probable that one of them was the "Dunkar from the Colony of Virginia," who, according to Croghan, appeared at Logstown on May 2z6, 1751, and "requested Liberty of the Six Nation Chiefs to make [a settlement] on the River Yogh-yo-gaine." The Eckerlins and their associates appear to have lived on Dunkard's Creek for several years, spending their time in mystic meditations, hunting, and agriculture. They are reputed to have possessed as many as twenty-eight horses, which were used in packing the fruits of their labor and hunting to the frontier towns of Virginia to ex- change for necessities. Acting on the advice of friendly Delawares, they removed their settlement to a bottom on the Cheat River, now within the state of West Virginia, where in 1757 it was wiped out by the Indians. In 1751 or 1752 Wendell Brown and two or three of his sons settled in what is now Fayette County, first on the Monongahela below Jacob's Creek, then on Georges Creek. A doubtful tradition asserts that they prospered to the extent that they were able to pack provi- sions to Washington at Fort Necessity. Christopher Gist's plantation near the present Mount Braddock was started in 1753, and about the same time William Stewart settled at Stewart's Crossing, now Con- nellsville. The families that Washington met in January, 1754, on his return from his mission to Fort Le Boeuf were probably bound for one or the other of these settlements. It is likely that most of these settlers went out under the auspices of the Ohio Company and expected to obtain title to their land through that company, but there was noth- ing to prevent the establishment of other claims in the district, and I39 The Planting of Civilization in Western Pennsylvania Western Pennsylvania there is evidence to indicate that a "Russell and Company" surveyed in 1753 a large tract of land in the forks formed by the Monongahela and the Youghiogheny with a view to locating a Virginia grant there. All these settlements were abandoned in 1754 when Washington withdrew from Fort Necessity, if not before, and in the years that followed both the Virginia and the Pennsylvania frontiers were pushed back and dammed up by the Indian raids. After the fall of Fort Duquesne in 1758 and the abandonment of western Pennsyl- vania by the French in the following year, conditions were ripe for another advance of settlement in both colonies. Population had in- creased in the settled areas, the Braddock and Forbes roads offered avenues of approach to the interior, the war had advertised the upper Ohio country and provided the soldiers in the provincial forces an opportunity to observe its advantages, and the new forts at Bedford, Ligonier, Pittsburgh, and Redstone offered nucleuses for settlements. The only apparent obstacle was the fact that the British government declared the country west of the mountains to be Indian land and not open to settlement except by military permit. To the frontiersman this was not a serious obstacle. The military apparently offered no opposition to settlement in the little towns that quickly sprang up around the forts. Pittsburgh was the most important of these. Essentially a garrison town and trading post, it had a population of I49, exclusive of the soldiers, in July, 1760, and nine months later the number had risen to 332. The razing of the houses in anticipation of the Indian siege of 1763 paved the way for reconstruction according to a plan. Such a plan was drawn up by Colonel John Campbell in 1764, and the new village was located in the area now bounded by the Boulevard of the Allies and Water, Ferry, and Market streets. The first shingle-roofed structure in the town was erected by George Morgan in 1766. This was a store and warehouse for the firm of Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan of Philadel- phia, whose trading operations with the Illinois country contributed largely to the economic life of Pittsburgh. A few agricultural settlers in the vicinity of the forts and along the roads were desired by the military for the supplies and conveniences they might furnish to the garrisons and to travelers. George Croghan began to develop his Indian grants as early as 176o, settling several families on his home plantation on the Allegheny about four miles 140 The Coming of the Settlers from Pittsburgh and establishing William Clapham as a farmer on the land claimed by Croghan on the Youghiogheny about the mouth of Sewickley Creek. In 1761 a German named Andrew Byerly was per- mitted to settle near Bushy Run, and by 1763 there were fourteen families living along the Forbes Road west of Ligonier and doubtless others in the vicinity of that post. Farms were also opened up in the vicinity of Fort Burd at the mouth of the Redstone, some of them at least under military permits. In 1761 a thousand bushels of corn were shipped from the Redstone region to Fort Pitt, and two years later it was reported that fourteen families were settled there. Bedford, which was east of the Indian boundary and consequently open to un- restricted settlement, was the center of a community of about one hundred families. Settlement in the Indian country was not confined, however, to those who had military permits. Colonel Bouquet reported to Gover- nor Fauquier of Virginia that beginning with 1760 the Monongahela country was "over run by a Number of Vagabonds, who under pre- tense of hunting, were making settlements." Bouquet's attempts to put a stop to hunting and settling west of the mountains by issuing military orders probably had little effect on the "vagabonds," but the uprising of the Indians in 1763 cleared the country of licensed and unlicensed settlers alike. No sooner had Bouquet imposed peace on the Indians at Coshocton in 1764 than the settlers swarmed back to their abandoned fields and others rushed in to pick out choice sites. The mountain settlements around Bedford and Ligonier were reoccupied and the Turkey Foot at Confluence in Somerset County was settled or resettled. West of the ridges the main settlements centered around Pittsburgh, Red- stone (Fort Burd had been abandoned), the mouth of the Cheat River, and Stewart's Crossing (Connellsville). In addition, however, a large part of the present counties of Westmoreland, Fayette, Greene, and Washington was traversed by land hunters and marked off in tomahawk claims. Doubtless many isolated settlements were also started in these years before the land was purchased from the Indians. Proddings of royal officials and fear of renewed Indian troubles led to repeated efforts to remove the unlicensed settlers from the Monon- gahela Valley. On June 22, 1766, Alexander Mackay, an officer of the garrison at Fort Pitt, appeared at Redstone with a number of soldiers 14' Western Pennsylvania and some Indian chiefs, notified the intruders that they were behaving in a "Lawless and Licentious manner," and, on the authority of the commander-in-chief, ordered them to return to their "several Prov- inces without delay." Warning was issued that the Indians would be encouraged to seize any merchandise "exposed for sale" to them ex- cept at the fort, and "if accidence should happen, you lawless people must look upon yourselves as the Cause." Furthermore "if this should not be sufficient to make you return to your several Provinces, his Excellency, the Commander-in-Chief, will order an armed force to drive you from the Lands ... till such time as his Majesty may be pleased to fix a further Boundary." The settlers promised to withdraw and Mackay's soldiers burned all the huts they could find. Three months later, however, Governor Penn found it necessary to issue a proclamation reciting royal commands to suppress settle- ment on Indian lands and prohibiting the practice, with the threat that those who did not obey would be "excluded from the privilege of securing such settlements, should the Lands, where they shall be made, be hereafter purchased of the Indians." Virginia, the colony from which most of the intruders came, made a great show of zeal by issuing three proclamations warning them to leave, then passed an act to reopen the Braddock Road, perhaps to enable the conscience- stricken squatters to make more haste in their return to the East! The frontiersmen appear to have been more influenced by the repeated intimations that the land might soon be purchased from the Indians than by the threats conveyed in the proclamations. At any rate they continued to flock in, and in October, 1767, George Croghan reported to Sir William Johnson that "not withstanding all the trouble that has been taken [to re]moove the People settled on Red- stone Creek, & Cheat [River] I am well assured there are double the Number of Inhabi[tants] in those two Settlements that ever was before." Pennsylvania, in February, 1768, reached the height of absurdity in specifying the death penalty for any who dared to remain and sent a commission headed by the Reverend John Steele to convey the dire- ful warning. When the commissioners met with the inhabitants of Redstone, the people asserted that the law was a "Contrivance of the Gentlemen and Merchants of Philadelphia, that they might take rights for their improvements when a Purchase was made." Most of I42 The Coming of the Settlers them promised to move off but apparently with mental reservations. The men of the Cheat River settlement and Stewart's Crossing met with the commissioners at Gist's plantation and made similar prom- ises. Steele estimated that there were about 150 families in the settle- ments represented at these meetings and prophesied that the greater part of them would not move but would await the outcome of the forthcoming conference with the Indians. The Treaty of Fort Stanwix in the fall of 1768, as had been antici- pated, put an end to the attempts to prevent the settlement of the country between the mountains and the Ohio. After reserving certain tracts as manors for the proprietors, including the sites of Pittsburgh and Kittanning, the officials of Pennsylvania opened the land office in 1769 for the sale of land in the new purchase. A flood of applications for warrants of survey poured into the land office. Many of these appli- cations were made by speculators, but thousands of settlers made their way across the mountains from eastern and central Pennsylvania. The tracts were limited in size to three hundred acres and the price was set at five pounds per hundred acres or about thirteen cents an acre. The land did not have to be paid for, however, until the patents were taken out, and the patenting could be and often was deferred in- definitely. Moreover, settlement or improvement rights on unclaimed land were recognized as valid against anyone except the proprietors, and little effort was made by the officials to force the squatters to per- fect their titles. Even the intruders who had entered the region before the purchase were allowed the right of pre-emption on the tracts that they had occupied, despite the threats that had been hurled at them in the past. Another flood of settlers poured into the Monongahela country from Virginia and Maryland, and most of them, apparently, expected to obtain titles to the land they occupied from Virginia. Under the land system of the Old Dominion, tracts of a thousand acres or more could be obtained by individual settlers at a few cents an acre. There were outstanding, moreover, thousands of claims to land bounties for service in the French and Indian War, and speculators such as George Washington, who had bought up large quantities of these claims, hastened to apply them to land in the Monongahela country. The revolutionary state of Virginia granted the right of pre-emption to all who had settled on unclaimed land west of the mountains prior 143 Western Pennsylvania to 1778, and, before the boundary agreement with Pennsylvania took effect in 1780, commissioners were sent out to furnish certificates to the claimants. Pennsylvania had agreed to recognize claims to land under Virginia unless they were antedated by Pennsylvania claims, and in the end I,I8z Virginia certificates covering 634,371 acres were accepted by the land office. Southwestern Pennsylvania was settled mainly in the five-year period from 1769 to 1774, and thus became, with the adjacent parts of West Virginia, the "first English-speaking trans-Appalachian fron- tier." Unfortunately no census was taken until 1790, but contempo- rary estimates throw some light on this first push of the American people into the great interior valley of the continent. George Croghan wrote on October z, 1770: "What number of families has settled since the congress [of Fort Stanwix], to the westward of the high ridge, I cannot pretend to say positively; but last year, I am sure, there were between four and five thousand, and all this spring and summer the roads have been lined with waggons moving to the Ohio." A few weeks later Washington, on a trip through western Pennsylvania and down the Ohio in the interest of his land operations, wrote in his journal: "The people of Virginia and elsewhere are exploring and marking all the lands that are valuable, not only on Redstone and other waters of the Monongahela, but along down the Ohio as low as the little Kenhawa." By midsummer of 1771 it was estimated that there were ten thousand families in the upper Ohio country. Some of these were settled in what is now West Virginia, and the estimate may have been exaggerated, but it is probable that by 1774 there were fifty thousand people living west of the Allegheny Ridge and south of the Ohio, Allegheny, and Kiskiminetas in what is now Pennsylvania. From the outbreak of Dunmore's War in 1774 to the end of the Revolution in 1782 the western Pennsylvania frontier suffered almost continuously from alarms and excursions occasioned by hostile In- dians. Many settlers were massacred and some fled back to the older settlements, but in general the frontier held. Almost every neighbor- hood in the exposed zone had its little fort to which the inhabitants fled when warning was received of the approach of the enemy, and many thrilling tales are told of attacks upon these forts. The settle- ment of Kentucky, begun in 1774 and carried on rapidly after Dun- more's War, despite the danger from the Indians, drew off some of the 144 The Coming of the Settlers population of western Pennsylvania during these years. Many settlers of the hunter-pioneer type were naturally attracted to the new fron- tier, but there was also considerable emigration of men of substance, especially after 1780, when the boundary dispute was settled and Pennsylvania made provision for the gradual emancipation of slaves. How extensive this emigration was, it is impossible to say, but un- FLINTLOCK RIFLES AND PISTOLS The rifle was first loaded by tamping the racy was improved as the bullet was not bullet into the muzzle by means of a pounded out of round. The small pan of wooden mallet, then jamming it into priming powder placed just behind the place with an iron rod which smashed it rear sight and above the end of the barrel into the grooves of the barrel. Later, the was connected with the powder charge bullet, weighing about half an ounce, was within the barrel by a small opening. The made a trifle smaller than the barrel and flint released by the trigger struck the wrapped in a "patch" of greased rag or rough-faced steel above the pan, and the deerskin to prevent leakage of gas. Accu- sparks ignited the powder. doubtedly it was considerable and made an important contribution to the building up of Kentucky. Immigration into the region continued, however, and probably more than made up for the losses, from whatever causes. Virginia issued certificates for land on nominal terms until the boundary settle- ment was made, and the fact that Pennsylvania's land office was closed during the Revolution did not prevent squatters from taking possession of vacant lands. Some of the newcomers appear to have been Tories, who hoped, perhaps, to find a more congenial environ- ment on the frontier than that of their former homes. Colonel Brod- head complained in 1780 that the emigration to Kentucky had enabled disaffected people to purchase and settle on lands in the Monongahela country. "The King of Great Britain's health is often drunk in com- panies;" he wrote, "& I believe those wish to see the Regular Troops 145 Western Pennsylvania removed from this department, & a favorable opportunity to submit to British Government." The upper part of the Juniata Valley, ac- cording to a local historian, contained nearly as many Tories as pa- triots. In some respects the Revolution gave a fillip to western pros- perity. The lead mines of Sinking Valley, now in Blair County, were operated, and sixty or seventy families, chiefly foreigners, were brought in to work them. The farmers of the Monongahela country were able to sell their produce to the army (when the army had any acceptable cash), and toward the close of the war the Spanish on the lower Mississippi were offering good prices for it. The ownership of vacant lands, with the exception of manors and other private estates, passed from the Penns to the commonwealth by the divesting act of 1779, and in 1784, when the Revolution was over, the land office was reopened. Quitrents were abolished and the amount of land that could be obtained on a single application was increased to four hundred acres, but the price was raised to ten pounds for a hundred acres. Settlers who had occupied vacant land were given the pre-emptive right to purchase but were required to pay interest on the value of the land from the date of settlement. By treaties of October, 1784, and January, 1785, the Indians gave up the remainder of their claims to land in Pennsylvania, but the continuing danger of Indian attacks, the high price of thirty pounds for a hundred acres, and the fact that the lands west of the Allegheny were reserved for special purposes prevented any considerable settlement in this new purchase until the next decade. The stream of immigration to the West rose again after the Revolution and much of it poured through southwest- ern Pennsylvania to Kentucky and later to the Northwest Territory. Many of the inhabitants of this region helped to swell the stream to the farther West, but many from the East and from Europe dropped out to settle in the region, and the high birth rate contributed ma- terially to the increase in the population. When the first census was taken in 1790, southwestern Pennsyl- vania was found to have a population of about seventy-five thousand people. Of this number eighty per cent or about sixty thousand dwelt in the comparatively level and fertile section west of Chestnut Ridge and the remainder were scattered in the valleys and coves between that ridge and the present eastern boundary of Bedford County. This population was almost wholly agricultural in character and in the 146 The Coming of the Settlers western section was rather evenly distributed with an average den- sity of about fifteen to the square mile. Several towns had been founded but none of them, not even Pittsburgh, had achieved a popu- lation in excess of four hundred. The growth of Pittsburgh was very slow during the first thirty years of its existence. When Washington visited the town in 1770 he found some twenty log houses ranged on the streets that had been laid out in 1764 and "inhabited by Indian traders, etc." The abandonment of Fort Pitt two years later probably resulted in a temporary drop in the civilian population. During the Revolution Pittsburgh was again the center of military operations and negotiations with the Indians, but the confusion occasioned by the dispute over jurisdiction and by the war itself was not conducive to growth. No titles to real estate in the town could be obtained until after the Revolution because the site was included in one of the manors that had been reserved to the Penns. Hugh Henry Brackenridge, who arrived in 1781, wrote in hyperbolic terms of the amenities of Pittsburgh society, but Arthur Lee, who visited the place in 1784, described it as "inhabited mostly by Scots and Irish, who live in paltry log-houses and are as dirty as in the north of Ireland, or even Scotland." He reported four attorneys and two doctors but no clergyman, so that the inhabitants were "likely to be damned without benefit of clergy." A German traveler, Dr. Johann Schoepf, who visited Pittsburgh in the winter of 1783-84, found the inhabitants "extremely inactive and indolent" and much given to "extorting money from strangers and travellers." He was cheered, however, by "the sight of several well clothed gentlemen and stately ladies," and he came to the conclusion that the town could not "fail to become, notwithstanding its present insignificance, an important post for inland trade." In the same year in which these travelers visited Pittsburgh, the Penns had George Woods survey the town and make an enlarged plan. Woods had intended to widen the original streets, but the inhabitants objected so vigorously that he was obliged to leave them as they were. When the new plan, which extended as far east as Grant Street, was completed, lots were offered for sale, and the residents hastened to acquire title to the property they were occupying. Some additional lots were sold but actual building progressed slowly in the new section, and much of it was swamp land where the citizens could still go duck '47 Western Pennsylvania hunting. Another visitor, Lewis Brantz, reported in 1785 that most of the inhabitants were engaged in merchandising or tavern keeping. There were six stores and about one hundred houses in the village when John Scull arrived with a printing press in 1786 and established the first newspaper west of the mountains, but in 1790 the census enumerator was able to report only 376 inhabitants. Allegheny County, however, had a population of 10,322. Of this number only zo6 were living north of the Ohio and Allegheny rivers, so that there were over ten thousand people in the settled portion of the county, which included the present county south of the rivers together with about two-thirds of that part of the present Beaver County that lies south of the Ohio. Elizabeth Town, now Elizabeth, was laid out on the Monongahela by Stephen Bayard and Samuel Mackay in 1787; and Allegheny, across the river of that name from Pittsburgh, was surveyed by authority of the legislature in 1788. Elizabeth Town had a store, a sawmill, and a boat yard before 1790, and was an important point of embarkation for the trip down the rivers; but Allegheny apparently existed only on paper at that date. The settlement of Washington County began on Ten Mile Creek as early as 1767, and by 1774 most of the land had been taken up under the Virginia system. In 1790 Washington was the most populous of the western counties, with 23,901 inhabitants, but it then included the present Greene County and a small section of the present Beaver County. The county seat, Washington, was settled about 1769, but it was not until 1781 that a definite attempt was made to promote its growth by laying out a town plan. As a way station on the road be- tween Brownsville and Wheeling the village profited by the extensive traffic that sought the Ohio River at a point below Pittsburgh. Its population was not separately reported in the census of 179o but it is said to have had about that time more different industries than were to be found in Pittsburgh. Canonsburg, on Chartiers Creek, which was navigable in times of high water, was laid out in 1787 by John Canon, who had settled there about 1773. By 1790 it had a mill, a distillery, a store, a tavern, and a number of resident mechanics. The first permanent settlers in the area of the present Greene Coun- ty were probably the members of the band of about fifty, including the Swan, Hughes, and Van Meter families, with their slaves, who settled on Muddy Creek about 1768. The valleys of all the creeks 148 The Coming of the Settlers flowing into the Monongahela were occupied in the next few years, but the more hilly western part of the county was only sparsely settled for many years. Greensboro on the river opposite the mouth of Georges Creek was an important shipping point for the farmers and was laid out in 1791, but Waynesburg, the future county seat, did not come into existence until the county was organized in 1796. Westmoreland County's first permanent settlements, except for the establishments along the Forbes Road for the convenience of the mili- tary, were made in the Ligonier Valley, between Chestnut and Laurel ridges, soon after the close of Pontiac's War, and by 1772 there were probably one hundred families, mostly Scotch and Irish, in the dis- trict. The town of Ligonier was not laid out, however, until 1817. After the lands were offered for sale by the proprietors of Pennsylvania in 1769 the more desirable tracts throughout the county were quickly occupied, some of them by groups of Germans, and by 1790 there were 14,I80 inhabitants within the present boundaries of the county. Han- nastown, where the county seat was located when the county was established, had developed into a village of about thirty log houses when it was destroyed by the Indians in 1782. In 1787 the county seat was moved to Greensburg, which had been laid out in 1785 in antici- pation of the change. Greensburg was on the new road that was being opened from Ligonier to Pittsburgh, south of the old Forbes Road, and a little village soon developed on the site. Fayette County, as has been seen, was the goal of most of the pioneers who sought new homes in southwestern Pennsylvania while it was still Indian country. After the treaty of Fort Stanwix, settle- ment went forward rapidly. The section west of Chestnut Ridge and the Youghiogheny River was especially attractive to settlers, so at- tractive that in 1790 it had II,402 of the county's total population of 13,325. The mouth of Redstone Creek was a center of settlement from 1759, when James Burd cut the road to it from the Braddock Road and erected Fort Burd. Although the fort was abandoned in 1763, the site retained its importance as a crossing of a main highway and a navigable river and as a convenient transfer point from land to water transportation, and the town of Brownsville was laid out on it in 1785. Most of the early settlers in Brownsville and its vicinity were Marylanders or Virginians, among whom were a number of Quakers. '49 Western Pennsylvania Uniontown was settled about 1767 by Thomas Douthet and Henry Beeson, the latter a Quaker. Beeson was a blacksmith and miller and it is said that he "made his customers dig his mill race while he made or sharpened their plow irons." The town was laid out by Beeson in 1776 and by 1784 it was the county seat with a courthouse and school in one building, a mill, four taverns, three smith shops, five stores, a distillery, and several mechanics. The nucleus of Quakers living near Brownsville and Uniontown as early as 1776 was augmented after the Revolution by the influx of Friends from Virginia, who bought up land from slaveholders desirous of migrating to Kentucky. The southern parts of the present Armstrong and Indiana counties -those between a line from Cherry Tree to Kittanning on the north and the Kiskiminetas-Conemaugh on the south-were open to settle- ment after 1768. A number of cabins were built in the region before the Revolution, and some of the settlers erected blockhouses and re- mained on this exposed frontier throughout the period of warfare. After the Revolution immigrants pushed into the region from the more densely settled sections of western Pennsylvania as well as from the East, and by 1790 it had 1,838 inhabitants, most of them in the western of the two townships of Westmoreland County into which the area was then divided. The mountain region east of Westmoreland and Fayette counties filled up more slowly, and, in fact, pioneer conditions persisted there long after the Monongahela country had taken rank as a prosperous farming and manufacturing community. Bedford County, which in- cluded Somerset on the west and Fulton on the east togetherwith the southern parts of Cambria and Blair, had a population of 13,124 in 1790. Unfortunately the census gives no indication of the distribution of the people within this vast area; it is probable that a considerable proportion of them were in the present Fulton County. The town of Bedford seems to have been slow in recovering from the setback dur- ing Pontiac's War; for, although it was laid out in 1766, it was credited with only twenty families in 1773 in place of the one hundred men- tioned in 1763. The larger figure may have been intended to cover the region round about as well as the town, but it is evident that the opening up of the more attractive country west of the mountains de- layed the occupation of Bedford County. Somerset County had settlers at the Turkey Foot, in Brother's 150 The Coming of the Settlers Valley, and along the Forbes Road before it was legally opened to set- tlement in 1769. Many of the early settlers at the Turkey Foot were Jerseymen. Brother's Valley was settled largely by German pietists, and the town of Berlin was laid out there in 1784 and 1787. The site of the town of Somerset was occupied about 1771 by several hunter- farmers, including Harmon Husband, a Quaker refugee from the Regulator troubles in North Carolina, and the town was laid out with the name of Brunerstown about 1785. Settlers continued to come in from Maryland, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania during the Revolution, and among them were Tories as well as pacifists. Doubt- less there was an increase in the flow of immigrants after the war, but the population of the present county probably did not exceed three thousand in 1790. Cambria County seems to have been devoid of permanent settlers until 1790, but a number of families are reported to have fled from the neighborhood of Johnstown in 1777. Blair County, on the other hand, had a considerable number of settlers before the Revolution. Some of them fled as a result of Indian raids and massacres during the war, but the erection of forts or blockhouses prevented the abandonment of the region. Immigration was renewed after the war, and Hollidays- burg was laid out in the Frankstown community in 1790. A large pro- portion of the early settlers were Scotch, Scotch-Irish, or German. Southwestern Pennsylvania's settlers came in mainly by the two roads made famous by the Braddock and the Forbes expeditions. Those who came by the former were, of course, mainly Virginians and Marylanders, while those who came by the latter were Pennsyl- vanians and Jerseymen with some Marylanders. The men usually went ahead, selected and cleared the land, planted a crop, and reared a cabin. The bottom land along the rivers, fertile and conveniently situ- ated for transportation, was taken up first, then the land up the creeks, and lastly the higher ground away from the streams. When the pioneer had prepared the way he returned for his family. If he had a wagon he carried his goods in it. Many immigrants used pack horses, and some there were who transported all their worldly goods in a wheelbarrow or a pushcart. Some wagoners made a business of hauling immigrants' goods, carrying those of several families at a time, while the immigrants, men, women, and children, streamed out behind, perhaps driving their cattle or poultry. Those who could not 151 Western Pennsylvania afford to stop at a tavern slept under the wagon or under the stars. Wagon transportation was not common before 1790, both because of the nature of the roads and because of the scarcity of vehicles; and pack horses furnished the chief means of transportation. David Mc- Clure described "one family of about twelve in number. The man carried an ax and gun on his shoulders,--the wife, the rim of a spinning wheel in one hand and a loaf of bread in another. Several little boys and girls, each with a bundle, according to their size. Two poor horses each heavily loaded with some poor necessaries. On the top of the baggage of one was an infant, rocked to sleep in a kind of wicker cage, lashed securely to the horse. A cow formed one of the company, and she was destined to bear her proportion of service. A bed cord was wound around her horns, and a bag of meal on her back." With settlers pouring into western Pennsylvania from every ele- ment on the seaboard and in the Old West, it is no wonder that the region showed a bewildering complex of national origins. The best basis for a statistical estimate of the proportions of the various ele- ments is furnished by the names of the heads of families as recorded in the census of 1790. Since it is known that certain names appear in fairly uniform proportions in the different elements, it is possible by counting these names to arrive at an approximation of the propor- tions of the elements themselves. It is recognized, of course, that families were of different sizes, that some names had been changed, and that there had been considerable intermixture of blood by 1790, but it is not believed that these factors would seriously affect the conclusions when applied to a population of considerable size. Of the 12,955 white families in the five western counties of Alle- gheny, Washington, Fayette, Westmoreland, and Bedford in 1790, it appears that about thirty-seven per cent were of English origin, seven of Welsh, seventeen of Scotch, nineteen of Irish, and twelve of German, while eight per cent belonged to various minor groups or are unassignable. The Irish element may be subdivided, however, into the Scotch-Irish, 7.5 per cent of the total; the Ulster Celts, 2.7; the English-Irish (Irish of English descent), 4.6; and the South Irish (Celts), 4.6. The distribution of the various elements among the counties is also of considerable interest. Thus the English element amounts to about forty-seven per cent of the total population in Fayette County, forty- 152 The Coming of the Settlers three in Allegheny and Washington, thirty-two in Westmoreland, and only seventeen in Bedford. It is clear that the counties that were settled mainly from Virginia and Maryland had a larger element of English origin than did those whose settlers came mainly from eastern Pennsylvania; and this is to be expected when it is observed that the English element amounted to fifty-eight per cent in Virginia and only twenty-eight per cent in Pennsylvania as a whole. The Welsh, who were closely akin to the English in characteristics, made up nine per cent of the population in Washington County, eight in Allegheny, seven in Bedford and Fayette, and three in Westmoreland. The Scotch were strongest in Allegheny County, where they comprised twenty- five per cent of the population. They amounted to twenty per cent in Washington, fifteen in Westmoreland, thirteen in Bedford, and eleven in Fayette. The various elements from Ireland taken together formed thirty-one per cent. of the population in Westmoreland Coun- ty, nineteen in Fayette, sixteen in Allegheny and Washington, and fourteen in Bedford. Of Germans there were thirty-two per cent in Bedford, eleven in Fayette, ten in Westmoreland, five in Washington, and four in Allegheny. Of the Irish elements, the Scotch-Irish comprised sixteen per cent of the total population in Westmoreland County, but dropped to six per cent in Washington and Fayette, five in Bedford, and four in Allegheny; the Ulster-Celts were about three per cent throughout; the English-Irish amounted to nine per cent in Westmoreland, two in Bedford, and about four in the other three counties; and the South Irish were six per cent in Allegheny and Fayette and four per cent in the other counties. The Scotch and Scotch-Irish together comprised twenty-four per cent of the population of the region, amounting to thirty-one per cent in Westmoreland County, twenty-nine in Alle- gheny, twenty-five in Washington, eighteen in Bedford, and seventeen in Fayette. If to these groups are added the Ulstermen with Celtic names and the Irish of English origin, most of whom were probably Protestants and similar to the Scotch-Irish in characteristics, the total for the region amounts to thirty-two per cent. For Westmore- land County it is forty-three per cent; for Allegheny, thirty-five; for Washington, thirty-one; and for Bedford and Fayette, twenty-four. It would seem then, that the largest element in the region was the English, followed closely by the Scotch and Protestant Irish combined, 153 Western Pennsylvania and at some distance by the German. The relative order of the three elements was the same in Allegheny, Washington, and Fayette coun- ties as in the region as a whole, but in Westmoreland the Scotch and Protestant Irish exceeded the English and in Bedford the Germans were the most numerous. One of the surprising results of this statistical survey is the revela- tion of the small number of Scotch-Irish, that is, descendants of Scots who had settled in Ireland, in western Pennsylvania in 1790. Equally surprising is the fact that this element was apparently exceeded in numbers by Scots who, or whose ancestors, may be presumed to have come directly from Scotland to America and by Irish of other than Scotch origins. These conclusions would seem to be difficult to recon- cile with the prominent part that the Scotch-Irish have played in the history of the region and with the prevalent impression that they formed the main element in its population prior to the Civil War. The proportion of the Scotch-Irish may have been considerably increased by immigration after 1790, but it is probable that the term "Scotch- Irish" as commonly used includes the Scotch and many of the Irish of English or Celtic origin. The tumultuous and rigorous lives of all these peoples in Scotland and Ireland and in the Old West had condi- tioned them to the frontier environment, and the similarity of their backgrounds together with the adherence of most of them to the Presbyterian church helped to mold them into a unified and powerful element in the community. The facts that Bedford County had the largest proportion of Ger- mans-approximately one-third-and that Westmoreland and Fay- ette were next in this respect illustrate the tendency of the Germans to expand as solidly as possible and to establish their new settlements as close as might be to their cultural center in eastern Pennsylvania. Although many communities were settled preponderantly by Ger- mans, they were not large enough to enable the settlers to maintain the cultural isolation that prevailed in the Pennsylvania-German land east of the mountains. The westward movement of the Germans continued after 1790, and it is probable that their proportion in Alle- gheny County was somewhat larger in later years. It is also significant that people of English descent formed the largest single element in the district and in Allegheny, Washington, and Fayette counties amounted to almost half of the population. 154 The Coming of the Settlers Most of these people, with several generations of colonial ancestors back of them, had ceased to be Englishmen and had become Ameri- cans. There have been no English-American historical societies to emphasize their contribution; they lacked the sense of solidarity and the religious unity of the other elements; but they unquestionably played a vital part in the planting of civilization in the region. They probably served also as a catalytic agency in the process of transform- ing the Scotch, the Irish, and the Germans into Americans and build- ing a fairly homogeneous society in western Pennsylvania. 155 vIII. The Establishment of Political Boundaries WHEN the adventurous pioneers began to push across the mountains into what is now western Pennsylvania the future status of the region they were occupying was far from being settled. In addition to the possible extension of the jurisdiction of Pennsylvania over the region, there were the prospects that it might be determined to be a part of Virginia, that it might be included in a new colony to be established west of the mountains, or that it might be divided up among two or more jurisdictions. Part of the region was unquestionably within the charter limits of Pennsylvania and could not legally be taken away from the Penns without their consent. There was the possibility, however, that they might dispose of their province to the Crown for a consideration; and, had they done so, Pennsylvania would have become a royal colony, from which territory could have been taken at the will of the king. There were the further possibilities during the period of the Revolution that the state might surrender some of its western territory to the federal government, as other states were doing, or that the settlers west of the mountains might set up a state of their own. The idea of new colonies in the West was in the air even before the outbreak of the French and Indian War. Apparently the organizers of the Ohio Company did not contemplate the establishment of a colony, though that might have been the result had their project been developed. The plan of union adopted by the Albany Congress in 1754 contemplated the setting-up of additional colonies beyond the mountains, and soon thereafter Benjamin Franklin drew up a plan for two new colonies, one to be located south of Lake Erie and the other in the upper Ohio Valley. In 1755 Samuel Hazard, a merchant of Philadelphia, proposed a colony to embrace most of the Ohio Valley west of Pennsylvania and the central portion of the Mississippi Valley, i56 The Establishment of Political Boundaries and he even persuaded Connecticut to agree to relinquish her claims to territory in this region and enlisted many prospective settlers. Lewis Evans, the map maker, in his Analysis of a General Map of the Middle British Colonies, published in Philadelphia in 1755, pointed out the advantages that would accrue if "his Majesty would be pleased to appoint a Colony to be made in Ohio, with a separate Governor, and an equitable Form of Government, a full Liberty of Conscience, and the same secured by Charter." Soon after the fall of Fort Duquesne, Evans' argument was reprinted in the Newport (Rhode Island) Mer- cury and the Maryland Gazette; and on March 22, 1759, the latter paper published a letter from a correspondent in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, reporting that "a Proposal is on Foot in this Province, for an immediate Application to be made to His Majesty and the British Parliament, (on the first notice of a Peace) for a Royal Charter; with proper Encouragement to settle a New Colony on the OHIO, by the Name of PITTSYLVANIA, in Honour of that worthy Patriot WILLIAM Prrr, Esq." With the end of the French and Indian War and the establishment of England's claim to the West, numerous projects for the acquisition of land and the establishment of settlements or colonies beyond the mountains made their appearance. Thus in 1763 the Ohio Company sent a representative to England to urge a renewal of its grant and a group of speculators in New York proposed the establishment of a colony on the upper Ohio to be called New Wales and advertised in the papers for prospective settlers; and in 1764 Colonel Bouquet and Thomas Hutchins worked out a plan for military settlements around the western posts, in which soldiers and their families were to raise provisions for the garrisons. The most important of all the projects of this period was the one initiated by a group of merchants and Indian traders, mostly of Penn- sylvania, who hoped to obtain compensation for losses suffered in the Indian outbreak of 1763. After vainly petitioning the Crown for a land grant, these "suffering traders," as they were called, turned to the Indians and, during the treaty negotiations at Fort Stanwix in 1768, persuaded them to cede to the king for the benefit only of the "despoiled traders" a large tract of land in what is now West Virginia, extending from the Monongahela to the Little Kanawha. The grantees promptly organized themselves as the Indiana Company and '57 Western Pennsylvania sent one of their number, Samuel Wharton of Philadelphia, to London to endeavor to obtain a confirmation of the cession. When this proved to be impossible Wharton joined with a number of influential men in England and the colonies to organize the Grand Ohio or Walpole Company, which proposed to purchase and develop the territory southwest of Pennsylvania, with the understanding that it would be embraced in a new royal colony. The interests of the Indiana Company and later those of the old Ohio Company were merged in the new project, and it was looked upon with favor by the British government. Some opposition was encountered and many delays were experienced, but by 1774 practically all the details had been settled. Had it not been for the outbreak of the disturbances that led to the Revolution, a new colony named Vandalia would, in all probability, have been established west of the mountains, and Virginia would have been cut off from the interior. The new colony would have fallen heir to Vir- ginia's bounday dispute with Pennsylvania, and it is likely that most of that part of Pennsylvania that lies west of the Monongahela would have been included in Vandalia. The first exercise of local jurisdiction in the upper Ohio country appears to have been by Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, which had been established in 1750 with its county seat at Carlisle and in- cluded all of western Pennsylvania within its boundaries. After the purchase of 1768 this county attempted to extend its authority over the newly acquired territory west of the mountains. It soon became apparent, however, that a new county was necessary, and in 1771 that part of Cumberland west of the line between the present Fulton and Franklin counties was organized as Bedford County, with its county seat at Bedford. Since the bulk of the settlement in the new territory was west of Laurel Ridge, while Bedford was situated east of the Allegheny Ridge, this arrangement was not satisfactory, and in Feb- ruary, 1773, the territory west of Laurel Ridge and south of a line due west from the head of the West Branch of the Susquehanna was set off as Westmoreland County. The county seat of the new county was located temporarily at Hannastown on the Forbes Road about thirty miles east of Pittsburgh, and the first English court west of the mountains was organized there on April 6, 1773, with Robert Hanna as the presiding judge. Arthur St. Clair, who had settled in the vicinity of Ligonier, was not only prothonotary and a justice but also register 158 The Establishment of Political Boundaries and recorder and clerk of the new county. This orderly process of the development of the jurisdiction of Pennsylvania in the territory west of the mountains was rudely interrupted by the intrusion of Virginia authority into the same region. The claim of Virginia to jurisdiction over what is now western Pennsylvania was derived in the first place from the charter granted to the London Company in 16o9. By the terms of this charter the boundaries of Virginia were to extend along the Atlantic coast two hundred miles north and an equal distance south of Old Point Com- fort and then "up into the land throughout, from sea to sea, west and northwest." If this meant, as was claimed, that a northwest line was to be drawn from the northern terminus of the eastern boundary, which was near the latitude of Philadelphia, and a due west line from the southern terminus, Virginia was given an enormous territory, in- cluding all of what is now Maryland and much of Pennsylvania. In I6zo the Council for New England received a grant of the land from the fortieth to the forty-eighth parallel and from sea to sea. As the north- ern end of the eastern boundary of Virginia was approximately at the fortieth parallel, this grant would seem to indicate that the English government did not countenance the claim of Virginia to a north- westerly extension, but the grant to the London Company was the prior one and could not legally be reduced by a later grant. In 1624 the charter to the London Company was revoked by judi- cial process, Virginia became a royal colony, and the vacant land within the boundaries of the grant reverted to the king. Thereafter the king had the unquestioned right to make grants and even to carve other colonies out of the territory originally granted to the London Company, but the Virginians claimed that their colony included all territory within the original charter boundaries except such as was definitely assigned to other colonies after 1624. It could be contended, however, that the revocation of the charter to the London Com- pany operated to confirm the grant to the Council for New England of the territory north of the fortieth parallel that was claimed by Virginia, and this contention is strengthened by the fact that, when Maryland was carved out of Virginia and granted to Lord Baltimore in 1632, its territory was described as extending northward to "that part of Delaware Bay... which lieth under the fortieth degree of North Latitude where New England terminates." 159 I. The Natural Environment JUST as the development of an organism, whether plant or animal, is dependent both on the inherent qualities of the organism itself and on its environment, so is the development of a civilization dependent both on the cultural heritage of the settlers and on the physical conditions of the region they occupy. Among these condi- tions not the least in importance is the situation of the region in rela- tion to the other parts of the civilized world. It must be recognized at the outset that the term "western Pennsylvania" is a vague one and needs definition. The northern, western, and southern boundaries of the region coincide, of course, with those of the state, but there is no general agreement as to the boundary between western Pennsylvania and eastern or, if three divisions are preferred, central Pennsylvania. From the point of view of physiography, one might choose the divide between the westward and the eastward flowing streams. This has the advantage of running across the state from north to south with approximately one-third of the state to the west; but, except for about forty miles where it coincides with the Allegheny Ridge, it is a very inconspicuous landmark. The Allegheny Ridge itself is more significant and marks the recognized boundary between two physio- graphic provinces, but as it progresses northward it swings to the east and it fails to reach the northern boundary of the state. From the point of view of history it is even more difficult to locate the eastern boundary of western Pennsylvania because, during the period of settlement, it coincides with the vague and shifting western limit of the settled country. Taking into consideration both the physiographic and the historical points of view and also the desirability of following county lines, it has seemed best to draw the line in an arbitrary man- ner so as to include Potter, Cameron, Clearfield, Blair, and Bedford counties and all the state west of them within the limits of western Pennsylvania as the term is used in this work. The northeastern sec- Western Pennsylvania In 1635 the Council for New England surrendered its charter and its ungranted territory to the king. Under patents from the council, however, Massachusetts and Connecticut had acquired claims to territory extending from sea to sea, although these did not apply to the lands held by the Dutch, which were acquired by England by conquest in 1664. After the grant of the territory between the Con- necticut and the Delaware rivers to the Duke of York, just prior to its conquest from the Dutch, the region west of the Delaware and north of Maryland appeared to be available for a further grant, and in I68I the king created therein the province of Pennsylvania and conferred the land and its government upon William Penn and his heirs. By the terms of the charter Pennsylvania was to extend along the Delaware "from twelve miles distance, Northwarde of New Castle Towne unto the three and fortieth degree of Northerne latitude ... The said lands to extend westwards, five degrees in longitude, to bee computed from said Eastern Bounds, and the said lands to bee bounded on the North, by the beginning of the three and fortieth degree of Northern Latitude, and on the South, by a Circle drawne at twelve miles, distance from New Castle Northwards, and West- wards unto the beginning of the fortieth degree of Northerne Lati- tude; and then by a streight Line westwards." Although the charter appeared to convey to Penn a definite tract of land five degrees long and three degrees broad, it proved to be so difficult to interpret and so much of the territory to which it seemed to apply was affected by adverse claims that a century was to elapse and Pennsylvania was to throw off the yoke of the proprietary as well as that of the British government before its boundaries were to be definitely determined. Much of the difficulty resulted from the use of the word "degree" in the charter. Strictly speaking, a degree is the distance between two parallels of latitude rather than a line, though the term was often used as synonomous with "parallel." Such expres- sions, however, as "the beginning of the fortieth degree" would seem to indicate that the word was being used in the strict sense, but they raise the question as to which side of a degree is its "beginning." If the approach is from the direction of the equator, the beginning of the fortieth degree is the thirty-ninth parallel, but it could be argued that the approach was supposed to be from Pennsylvania and that, there- fore, "the beginning of the fortieth degree" meant the fortieth parallel, 16o The Establishment of Political Boundaries while "the beginning of the three and fortieth degree" meant the forty-second parallel. The grant of 1632 to Lord Baltimore took precedence, of course, over that to Penn, but the charter description of the northern bound- ary of Maryland was about as vague as was that of the southern boundary of Pennsylvania and could be interpreted to mean the thirty-ninth parallel, although such an interpretation would have left little territory to Maryland. The reference to New Castle, however, in the Pennsylvania charter and the fact that on contemporary maps New Castle appeared to be situated on or near the fortieth parallel would seem to indicate an intention to make that parallel the southern boundary of Pennsylvania. But the problem is still further compli- cated by the fact that New Castle is actually over twenty miles south of the fortieth parallel and that, therefore, "a Circle drawne at twelve miles" from it would nowhere touch either the fortieth or the thirty- ninth parallel. Since the line between Pennsylvania and Maryland could not pos- sibly be drawn to conform to the terms of the Pennsylvania charter and since William Penn had inadvertently located his principal settle- ment south of the fortieth parallel, while the use of the thirty-ninth parallel would have reduced Maryland to insignificance, a compromise seemed to be called for; and in 1732 the proprietors of the two prov- inces agreed upon a line to be drawn due west from the circle around New Castle at a distance of fifteen miles south of Philadelphia. This agreement was later repudiated by Lord Baltimore, but a similar one was finally ratified in 176o, and in the years from 1763 to 1767 the line was surveyed and marked by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon. Mason and Dixon's line, which was to become famous in American history as the dividing line between the free and the slave states, could have no validity at that time beyond the western boundary of Mary- land, which was the meridian of the source of the Potomac; but the location of that meridian was unknown and the surveyors carried the line across the Monongahela to Dunkard's Creek, where they were stopped by the Indians. The boundary between Pennsylvania and Virginia west of Mary- land depended on the interpretation of the terms of Penn's charter. The agreement with Maryland established nothing as to the true meaning of the charter, and Virginia could still claim that her terri- 161 Western Pennsylvania tory extended to the fortieth parallel while the Penns could claim ter- ritory west of Maryland as far south as the thirty-ninth parallel. Theoretically, in fact, if the thirty-ninth parallel were the true bound- ary, Pennsylvania could also claim territory south of Maryland as far east as the Potomac, but no such extreme claim was ever put forward. As difficult to determine as the southern boundary of Pennsylvania was the western. It was to be five degrees west of the eastern boundary, the Delaware River, but did that mean that the line was to be drawn to conform to the windings of the river? If a meridian was to be the boundary, from what point on the Delaware should the five degrees be measured? Until about 1774 it seems to have been assumed by all parties concerned that the boundary was a meandering line every- where five degrees west of the Delaware, and it was so depicted on a number of maps. But until Mason and Dixon's line was surveyed no accurate information was available on which to base an estimate as to the actual location of the western boundary. The Virginians believed that it would be found to be in the vicinity of Laurel Ridge; and, as has been seen, they acted accordingly in their attempt to occupy the upper Ohio country before the French and Indian War. The governor of Pennsylvania at that time expressed the belief that the forks of the Ohio were in Pennsylvania and demanded and re- ceived assurances that the rights of the Penns would not be prej- udiced. A little later, however, the provincial assembly, unwilling to make appropriations for defense, expressed doubts that the territory invaded by the French was within the boundaries of the province. No objections appear to have been made by the Virginia authori- ties, prior to 1773, to the extension of the jurisdiction of Pennsylvania counties west of Laurel Ridge; and some of the prominent Virginians in the region, notably William Crawford, accepted offices in these counties. Many of the immigrants from Virginia, however, and espe- cially those who had settled west of the Monongahela claimed their lands by titles derived from Virginia and refused to pay taxes to or otherwise recognize the authority of the Pennsylvania county officials. As early as 1771 "associations" were formed among the inhabitants to oppose the claims of Pennsylvania in the region. Two events that occurred in 1772 paved the way for the attempt of Virginia to establish its jurisdiction in the region around the forks of the Ohio. One of these was the withdrawal of the British garrison 162 The Establishment of Political Boundaries from Fort Pitt, and the other was the appointment of the Earl of Dunmore as governor of Virginia. Dunmore quickly became interested in the possibilities of land speculation in the western territory ac- quired from the Indians at the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, and in 1773 he made a journey to the frontier and visited Pittsburgh. There he came in contact with a group of men who also were interested in acquiring land and promoting settlement in the Ohio Valley. One of these men was George Croghan, the deputy Indian agent, who was a Pennsylvanian but who realized that his Indian grants in the vicin- ity of the forks would have no validity in the proprietary province of Pennsylvania and therefore preferred that the region should be included either in the proposed new colony of Vandalia, in which he was deeply interested, or in the royal colony of Virginia. More im- portant than Croghan, however, in the developments that were to follow, was his relative and associate in business, Dr. John Connolly, a native of Pennsylvania, who had served in the British army and had settled in Pittsburgh about 1765. Connolly had made a number of trips up and down the Ohio River, had lived at Kaskaskia in the Illinois country for several years, and had returned to Pittsburgh in 1770. His observations in the western country had filled him with enthusiasm over its possibilities and he had evolved various projects for acquiring land and promoting settlement, especially in the Ken- tucky country. Just what happened while Lord Dunmore was in Pittsburgh in 1773 is unknown, but it is probable that he was convinced that the establishment of Virginia jurisdiction in the region thereabouts was feasible and that such action was desirable not only for the sake of controlling the region itself but also for using it as a base for the exploitation by Virginians of the whole western country. Early in January, 1774, Dr. Connolly posted a proclamation on the walls of Fort Pitt announcing his appointment by Dunmore as "Captain, Com- mandant of the Militia of Pittsburgh and its Dependencies" and sum- moning the people to assemble "as a Militia" on the twenty-fifth. As soon as information of this action reached Arthur St. Clair, prothono- tary of Westmoreland County, he determined to prevent the organi- zation of the Virginia militia, and on January 24 he had Connolly arrested and confined in the jail at Hannastown. On the next day, in response to Connolly's call, about eighty people, "chiefly from Mr. 163 Western Pennsylvania Croghan's neighborhood and the Country west of and below the Monongahela," assembled under arms in Pittsburgh and paraded through the town to the fort. They were met by St. Clair and several other Pennsylvania magistrates, who read them a statement of the blessings to be experienced under the government of Pennsylvania and ordered them to disperse. This they promised to do, but "towards night, their peacable disposition forsook them" and St. Clair "thought it most prudent to keep out of their way." Connolly was able to persuade the sheriff of Westmoreland County to release him on February 2 on his promise to return at the April session of the court. Soon thereafter, escorted part way by a body of twenty armed men from the Redstone settlement, he went to Staun- ton, Virginia, the county seat of Augusta County, which was held to include the Pittsburgh district. There he obtained a commission as justice of the peace for himself and blank commissions for other offi- cials. Thus armed with civil as well as military authority, the doctor returned to Pittsburgh, took possession of Fort Pitt, and proceeded with the organization of his militia, despite the protests of the Penn- sylvania magistrates, who read the riot act to him and his followers. Connolly kept his promise to appear at court at Hannastown in April, but he took with him a body of nearly two hundred armed men, denied the authority of the court, and refused to submit himself to its jurisidiction. The court in a dignified reply asserted its intention to continue the regular exercise of its jurisdiction. Soon thereafter three of the justices of the court were arrested in Pittsburgh on warrants issued by Connolly; and, on their refusal to give bail to stand trial, they were dispatched as prisoners to Staunton. One of them, Aeneas Mackay, got permission to go to Williamsburg, where he persuaded Dunmore to order the release of the three, and they returned to their homes. The summer of 1774 was one of great confusion in western Pennsylvania, with each faction trying to prevent the other from exercising jurisdiction. The Virginians had the advantage, however, of having a militia force and the possession of Fort Pitt, which they had renamed Fort Dunmore, and they seem to have been responsible for most of the arrests, impressments, and jail deliveries. The confu- sion was increased by the development of hostilities between Vir- ginia and the Shawnee, and some of the settlers fled from their homes for fear of an Indian attack. Pennsylvania had no provision for the 164 The Establishment of Political Boundaries raising of militia; but in May St. Clair and some of the other Penn- sylvania leaders, with the aid of Croghan, who was opposed to Con- nolly's Indian policy, organized a company of about one hundred rangers to protect the northern frontier. These rangers, although later MAP ILLUSTRATING THE BOUNDARY CONTROVERSY BETWEEN PENNSYLVANIA AND VIRGINIA taken into the pay of the province, seem not to have been used to en- force the jurisdictional claims of Pennsylvania, but their presence probably served as a check on the activities of the Virginians. Information of Connolly's assumption of authority was promptly sent to Governor Penn by St. Clair. After conferring with his council, the governor sent a courteous letter to Dunmore expressing his sut- prise at the proceedings of Connolly and suggesting that a temporary line be agreed upon to prevent conflict of jurisdictions. In this letter Penn claimed that surveys from the last milestone on Mason and Dixon's line to Pittsburgh and of the course of the Delaware had demonstrated that Pittsburgh was about six miles less than five de- grees west of the Delaware. This geographical demonstration was I65 Western Pennsylvania surprisingly correct, but Dunmore in his reply brushed it aside be- cause Virginia had had no part in it. He then declared that it was immaterial anyway, for Virginia's claim to the region had been as- serted by "the transactions of the late war," while the assembly of Pennsylvania had declared "that Pittsburgh was not within the jurisdiction of that government." To this Governor Penn replied that "the rights of Pennsylvania" had been "carefully guarded" at the time of Virginia's attempted occupation of the region, that the assem- bly had merely "declined making any determination upon the extent of the province," and that its declarations, no matter how positive, could not "prejudice the rights of the proprietors." No answer was received from Dunmore. Letters and affidavits concerning the disturbances in the West poured in upon Governor Penn, and in May he appointed two com- missioners to go to Williamsburg and try to persuade Dunmore to agree upon a temporary line of jurisdiction. The first proposition of the commissioners was that surveyors be appointed by the two gov- ernments to extend Mason and Dixon's line to a point five degrees from the Delaware and to run a line from that point to the Ohio "cor- responding to the courses of the Delaware," these lines to serve as the boundary until it should be settled "by Royal authority." Dunmore countered with the proposition that the western boundary of Penn- sylvania should be a meridian five degrees west of the Delaware to be measured along the forty-second parallel, which, he thought, "by the river Delaware running very much eastwardly towards your northern bounds," would be "at least fifty miles" east of Pittsburgh. Dunmore was mistaken as to the course of the Delaware, and the line he pro- posed would have been less than ten miles east of the present western boundary of the state and more than fifteen miles west of Pittsburgh, but the commissioners were also ignorant of the geography involved and failed to take advantage of this proposal. Dunmore asserted fur- ther that the proprietors had lost whatever claim they might have had to the country about Fort Pitt by suffering it to be "claimed and possessed by an enemy" from whom it was afterwards acquired by the king by treaty. The commissioners then proposed the Mononga- hela River as the temporary boundary-the most liberal offer per- mitted by their instructions-but Dunmore replied that their pro- posals amounted "in reality to nothing" and declared that Virginia 166 The Establishment of Political Boundaries would not relinquish jurisdiction over Fort Pitt "without his Ma- jesty's orders." Further negotiations were obviously useless. The Virginians continued their efforts to establish their authority in the disputed region; and on September 17 Dunmore, who was then in Pittsburgh in connection with his expedition against the Shawnee, issued a proclamation calling on "all his Majesty's subjects west of the Laurel Hill" to obey the laws of Virginia. On October Iz Governor Penn issued a counter proclamation asserting the claims of Pennsyl- vania, requiring the inhabitants of the disputed area to observe the laws of Pennsylvania, and directing the magistrates of the province "to proceed as usual in the administration of justice." Both the in- habitants and the magistrates were enjoined, however, "to use their utmost endeavors to preserve peace and good order." The assembly of Pennsylvania refused to maintain the rangers in the West after November i, the governor and council were preoccupied with the rising controversy between the colonies and the English government, and the magistrates of Westmoreland County were left to enforce their jurisdiction as best they could. By this time a number of influen- tial men who had held commissions from Pennsylvania, including William Crawford, had gone over to the Virginians; and the bulk of the inhabitants, at least in the Monongahela Valley, seem to have been inclined to accept the jurisdiction of that province. Connolly ruled with a high hand at Pittsburgh, impressing horses and provi- sions belonging to his opponents for the use of his militia; and the efforts of the Pennsylvania officials to exercise authority were frus- trated by intimidation and jail deliveries. On December 6 Dunmore issued a writ in the name of the king for adjourning the court of Augusta County from Staunton to Fort Dun- more and commissioned a number of additional justices in the Pitts- burgh district. The adjourned court was organized at Pittsburgh on February 21, 1775, with George Croghan as presiding judge and Con- nolly as one of his associates, and proceeded to exercise the usual func- tions of a Virginia county court for the district of West Augusta, as the territory west of the mountains was called. Further sessions of this court were held from time to time at Pittsburgh until August, 1776, after which they were held at Augusta Town, near the present site of Washington. On the second day of the first session of the court Robert Hanna and James Cavet, justices of the court of Westmore- 167 Western Pennsylvania land County, were committed to jail on their refusal to give bonds to refrain from acting as magistrates of Pennsylvania. They were held within the jail bounds for over three months and were occasionally threatened with close confinement. The Pennsylvania adherents also found themselves in danger of losing their lands, for a jury set up by the Virginians denied the claim of one of them, Devereux Smith, to a tract of land some miles east of Pittsburgh, and he was dispossessed by the sheriff. In the spring of 1775 Lord Dunmore apparently came to the con- clusion that the approaching revolution was more important than the dispute over jurisdiction and advised Connolly to disband the militia and devote his energies to winning the support of the Indians for the British cause. Hanna and Cavet remained in jail until about June zo, when the sheriff of Westmoreland with a posse of twenty men set them free and seized Connolly and carried him to Ligonier. The reason given for Connolly's seizure was his disloyalty to the cause of the colonies, and he was to have been turned over to the council of safety in Philadelphia; but the Pittsburgh committee of safety, com- posed largely of Virginians, feared that this move was a ruse to outwit Virginia in the controversy over jurisdiction and demanded his re- lease. St. Clair, in whose custody Connolly had been left at Ligonier, thought best to comply. On his way back to Pittsburgh Connolly was again seized and confined at Hannastown, at the instigation of three Pennsylvania magistrates. His friends then captured the three justices and sent them down river on a flatboat to be held as hostages at Wheeling. Connolly was promptly released, but on July 25 he left for Virginia, never to return. Lord Dunmore was also eliminated from the controversy over juris- diction by his flight in the summer of 1775 to a man-of-war, which left the patriots in control of Virginia. The delegates from Virginia and Pennsylvania in the Continental Congress advised the adherents of the two colonies in the West to refrain from interfering with each other, and the necessity for a united front in dealing with Indians and Tories put an end to the disturbances. The claims of the two factions were not abated, but Pennsylvania authority prevailed generally in what is now Westmoreland County, and that of Virginia in the Mo- nongahela Valley. Captain John Neville, who had occupied Fort Pitt, as it was again called, with a militia company from the Shenandoah i68 The Establishment of Political Boundaries Valley in September, 1775, turned it over to General Hand in June, 1777, and it was garrisoned thereafter by Continental troops. In October, 1776, the legislature of the state of Virginia divided the dis- trict of West Augusta into three counties. The territory northeast of a line drawn from the northwestern corner of Maryland through the future sites of Brownsville and Washington to Cross Creek and the Ohio was designated at Yohogania County, the Monongahela Valley above Brownsville was included in Monongalia County, and the ter- ritory tributary to the Ohio south of Cross Creek became Ohio Coun- ty. The seat of Ohio County was in the Panhandle, but the courts of the other two counties were held on Pennsylvania soil, that of Yohogania at Andrew Heath's house near the site of West Elizabeth and that of Monongalia at the plantation of Theophilus Phillips, about two miles south of the present New Geneva. The constitution adopted by Virginia in June, 1776, acknowledged the right of Pennsylvania to the territory granted by her charter; and in December, 1776, the legislature of Virginia proposed a settlement of the boundary controversy on the basis of the fortieth parallel and a line five degrees west of and corresponding with the Delaware. This was unacceptable to Pennsylvania. Negotiations were continued, however, and in August, 1779, commissioners of the two states met in Baltimore and quickly agreed to fix the boundary by extending Mason and Dixon's line to a point five degrees west of the Delaware and by drawing a line due north from that point. Thus Pennsylvania gave up her claim to extend south to the thirty-ninth parallel but received more territory to the west than had been claimed in any of the previous negotiations. The agreement was ratified by Pennsylvania on November 19, 1779, but Virginia held back. In May she had made provision for adjusting titles to land in the West, and commissioners had been appointed to investigate rights of claimants and to issue certificates. After the commissioners had visited the disputed area and distributed hundreds of certificates, the legislature, on July I, 1780, ratified the agreement "on condition that the private property and rights of all persons acquired under, founded on, or recognized by the laws of either coun- try previous to the date hereof, be saved and confirmed to them." There was considerable grumbling in Pennsylvania over these pro- ceedings, but on September 27, 1780, the conditions were accepted and 169 Western Pennsylvania tion of this area, however, will have little part in the story because the planting of civilization made little progress there until after the period under consideration, and the emphasis will be on the region west of the mountains and in the drainage basin of the Ohio. Vague though the concept of western Pennsylvania be, it has a very real significance-it implies something more than the western part of the state-and that significance is derived from the Appalachian Mountains. The Appalachian system, running from Nova Scotia to Alabama and Georgia, forms a natural barrier between the Atlantic slope and the great interior valley of the continent of North America. The effectiveness of this barrier, before modern means of transporta- tion were developed, was due not so much to the height of the ridges as to the breadth of the system, which amounts to about sixty miles in southern Pennsylvania. The Appalachian system in Pennsylvania and the Virginias consists of a series of roughly parallel ridges with valleys of varying width between them. On the east lies the Great Valley of Pennsylvania and its extension, the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, bounded by the Blue Ridge in Virginia and by South Moun- tain and a low range of hills in Pennsylvania. This valley is readily accessible from the coast, but west of it the ridges lie closer together and the valleys are narrower; and beyond the Allegheny Front, which marks the western boundary of the mountains proper, lie miles of rugged plateau with two additional ridges thrust up through it in southern Pennsylvania. The two great rivers that drain the central portion of the Appa- lachian system, the Susquehanna and the Potomac, cut their channels through the ridges and empty their waters in Chesapeake Bay. Their tributaries generally flow in the longitudinal valleys but some of them, such as the Juniata, also cut across the ridges. Through the gaps made by these streams and other gaps in the ridges it was possible for the forerunners of civilization to make their way by zigzag paths, as the Indians and wild animals had done before them, across the broad belt of mountains to the fertile lands of the interior. The natural entrances from the English colonies on the coast to the interior of the continent were in central New York, where the Mohawk Valley makes a broad gap in the Appalachian system, and around the south- ern end of the mountains, but both of these routes were blocked by powerful tribes of Indians, the Iroquois in New York and the Chero- 2 Western Pennsylvania the agreement was finally ratified. The establishment of the bound- ary agreed upon was delayed by local opposition, and it was not until November, 1782, that a temporary line was run as far as the Ohio. The permanent boundary was surveyed and marked by commis- sioners representing the two states as far as the southwest corner of Pennsylvania in 1784 and from thence to the Ohio in 1785, and in the following year the line was extended by the Pennsylvania commis- sioners to Lake Erie. Not all the people of western Pennsylvania during the Revolution were adherents of either Pennsylvania or Virginia. As early as June, 1776, a movement was on foot in the district for the organization of a separate commonwealth to be the fourteenth state in the Union. It was proposed that a meeting of inhabitants should be held to determine whether "application should be made to Congress for laying off the country ... into a new government or whether they would not im- mediately proceed to Colonize themselves by their own authority, and send Delegates to Congress to represent them." It is doubtful if the meeting was ever held, but by August I a petition to Congress was in circulation asking that the territory between the mountains and the Ohio from the Indian boundary of 1768 to a line from the mouth of the Scioto to Cumberland Gap be "Constituted declar'd and Acknowledg'd a seperate distinct and independant Province and Government by the title and under the name of the Province and Government of Westsylvania." The petitioners set forth their em- barrassment over the conflicting claims of Pennsylvania and Virginia, of Croghan, and of the Indiana and Vandalia companies. They as- serted that they had "emigrated from almost every Province of America" and "having imbibed the highest and most extensive Ideas of Liberty," they would "with deffeculty submit to the being annex'd to or Subjugated by (Terms Synonymous to them) any one of those Provinces much less the being Partition'd or parcel'd out among them." They objected to being "enslaved by any set of Proprietary or other Claimants or arbitrarily depriv'd and robb'd of those Lands and that Country to which by the Laws of Nature and of Nations they are entitl'd as first Occupants ... while the rest of their Countrymen ... are bravely contending for and exerting themselves on behalf of a Constitutional Natural rational and Social Liberty." They called attention to the fact that the seats of government of Pennsylvania 170 The Establishment of Political Boundaries and Virginia were "four or five hundred Miles distant and Seperated by a Vast extensive and almost impassable Tract of Mountains by nature itself form'd and pointed out as a boundary between this Coun- try and those below it." Congress was in no position to antagonize two of the most powerful states in the incipient Union by giving heed to this memorial, but it was much concerned about the problem of the West. The states with- out claims to land in the transmontane country were urging that all such claims be surrendered to the nation, and Maryland refused to sign the Articles of Confederation until the movement for western land cessions was under way. In 1780 Congress promised that the ceded lands should "be settled and formed into distinct republican States, which shall become members of the federal union." These developments, together with the settlement of the boundary con- troversy in a manner unsatisfactory to the Virginia adherents in the disputed area, seem to have been the principal causes of a revival of the new state project. Meetings to protest against the boundary set- tlement were held at various places in the Monongahela Valley, and in the fall of 1780 another memorial to Congress urging the establish- ment of a new state was drawn up. Even in Westmoreland County there was a feeling that, if Pennsylvania should cede her unappropri- ated territory to the federal government, "we must go with it, or Else we shall remain a people dependent on pennsylvania, Remote in situa- tion, different in Interests, few in number, and forever prevented of future groath." Pennsylvania had no intention, however, of surrendering any of her territory either to the federal government or to a new state. In 1781 an act was passed for the organization of the territory south of the Ohio and west of the Monongahela as Washington County. The agi- tation continued, however, and many of the people refused to recog- nize the jurisdiction of the province and drove away the tax collectors. So serious was the situation that in 1782 the legislature enacted a law declaring any attempt to organize a new state within the boundaries of Pennsylvania to be high treason and prescribing the death penalty. Before attempting to enforce this act, the authorities decided to try persuasion, and in 1783, they sent the Reverend James Finley, a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian, who had previously visited the region as a missionary, to try to convince the people of the error of their ways. I'7 Western Pennsylvania Finley found the people east of the Youghiogheny opposed to the new state project, but "a considerable number" between that stream and the Monongahela "as well as a great part of Washington County" were "fond of it," including "some of ye clergy." Concealing his official connection and traveling about in the guise of a missionary preacher, he labored with the people in conversations and by letters, arguing that a new state would be expensive to support, would deprive the Pennsylvania soldiers of their promised land bounties and the state of the means of meeting its obligations to the former proprietors, and would in every way be contrary to the best interests of the inhabi- tants. This propaganda doubtless had considerable effect; and, with the end of the Indian raids and the partial opening of trade down the Ohio and the Mississippi, the new state movement died out in west- ern Pennsylvania. The more intransigent of the inhabitants moved to Kentucky or crossed the Ohio to the federal domain, where a squat- ter commonwealth was organized. The establishment of Washington County in 1781 was but the be- ginning of the subdivision of the old Westmoreland County. In 1783 the people southwest of the Youghiogheny petitioned for separate organization and the county of Fayette was set up in that region; in the following year territory northwest of the river was added to the new county, giving it its present boundaries. The people of Pittsburgh, who were irked by the necessity of having to travel to Hannastown or Greensburg to transact county business, seized the opportunity of the purchase from the Indians of the territory north of the Ohio in 1784 and 1785 to agitate for the establishment of a new county with its seat at the forks. As a consequence the legislature in 1788 took a small amount of territory from Washington and Westmoreland coun- ties and added to it the enormous area north and west of the Ohio and Allegheny rivers to create Allegheny County. A year later, additional territory from Washington County was transferred to the new coun- ty at the request of the inhabitants, who found it more convenient to travel to Pittsburgh than to Washington. The claim of the proprietors of Pennsylvania to the territory be- tween the forty-second and forty-third parallels west of the Delaware was asserted from time to time during the colonial period, but was denied by New York, which claimed the same region by virtue of its jurisdiction over the Iroquois Indians. The dispute did not become I72 The Establishment of Political Boundaries acrimonious, however, probably because the territory involved was not open to settlement, and in 1774 the proprietors quietly dropped all pretensions to the area and suggested that the forty-second parallel be surveyed and marked as the boundary. All that was accomplished at this time was the location and marking of the parallel at the Delaware River, but in 1786 and 1787 the entire line was surveyed and marked by a joint commission of the states of New York and Pennsylvania. The acquiescence of the proprietors of Pennsylvania in the claim of New York in 1774 was probably prompted in part by a desire to strengthen their hands in the dispute then raging with Virginia, for so long as they claimed that "the beginning of the three and fortieth degree" meant the forty-third parallel they could not with good grace claim that "the beginning of the fortieth degree" meant the thirty- ninth parallel. An even more important reason for the maneuver, however, was the desire to strengthen the claims of Pennsylvania against the people of Connecticut, who were actually occupying terri- tory along the upper Susquehanna on the basis of the Connecticut charter of I66z and a purchase from the Indians. The long and at times bloody contest with the Connecticut settlers was fought out in northeastern Pennsylvania; but, had the claim of Connecticut been established, Pennsylvania would have lost a wide strip of territory extending across the state to its western boundary. In 178z the dis- pute was referred to a special court constituted in accordance with the provisions of the Articles of Confederation, and the decision of the court gave the territory in question to Pennsylvania. Connecticut accepted the decision, but here as in the southwest a new state project was supported for several years by some of the dissatisfied settlers. When the western and northern boundaries of Pennsylvania were extended to Lake Erie in 1786 and 1787, it developed that the state was entitled to only about four miles of lake shore, within which there was no harbor. Fortunately, when New York had ceded her western claims to the nation in 1781, her boundary had been fixed as the meridian of the western end of Lake Ontario. Thus the triangle of land bounded by New York, Pennsylvania, and Lake Erie and containing the excellent harbor of Presque Isle became an isolated area of federal territory. At the instigation of General William Irvine, who had surveyed in the region and was a Congressman from Pennsyl- vania, the federal government in 1788 first sold the land in the tri- 173 Western Pennsylvania angle to Pennsylvania and then ceded jurisdiction over it to the com- monwealth. The price agreed upon was seventy-five cents an acre, but the area involved was unknown until the western boundary of New York was surveyed in 1789. It was then ascertained that the triangle contained 202,187 acres, and the purchase money, amounting to $151,640.25 was paid in March, 1792. Thus by the beginning of the last decade of the eighteenth century the extent of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania had been finally determined. The long period of uncertain boundaries had left its mark on the regions involved, and the decisions arrived at were to be vital factors in the future development of those regions. Had it not been for Virginia's claim to southwestern Pennsylvania, it is not likely that the Virginia element would have been so large and influential as it was in the region. Had that claim been substantiated, fewer Virginians would have left, more would have come in, and the institution of slavery would have persisted. It is possible, however, that a trans- montane Virginia including Pittsburgh and much of western Pennsyl- vania would have broken away from the mother state long before the Civil War. Had the dictates of physiography been observed and the upper Ohio Valley been organized as a separate colony or state, with Pittsburgh as its capital, the region would undoubtedly have played a more important role in the affairs of the nation. The partitioning of the region, against which the new state advocates protested in 1776, could not prevent Pittsburgh from becoming the center of a commer- cial and industrial province that transcends state lines; but it did determine that western Pennsylvania, though geographically and for many years socially a part of the Middle West, was long to be, politi- cally and culturally, merely the western end of an eastern state. I74 ix. The Revolution and Indian Relations, 1774-95 HE rapid advance of the frontier settlement into the Ohio Valley following the Treaty of Fort Stanwix of 1768 was destined to encounter the resistance of the Indian tribes of the Northwest in the period from 1774 to 1795, a resistance that was made more effective during and after the Revolution by the support of the British authorities in the Great Lakes region. The military opera- tions of the Revolutionary period in the West were a part of one cycle in the long struggle between the Indians and the frontiersmen for the possession of the interior of the continent. Nevertheless those operations played their part in the winning of independence, for they served to protect the rear of the American forces and to prevent the British and their Indian allies from attempting to sever the long thin line of the revolutionists by a thrust from the West. The strategic situation of southwestern Pennsylvania at the head of the Ohio Valley and the fact that it had been occupied by settlers before the outbreak of the war made it the center of transmontane military operations and of Indian relations during the struggle. Fort Pitt was the headquarters of the Continental forces west of the moun- tains, except for a brief period when they were at Fort McIntosh at the mouth of the Beaver, and Pittsburgh was the residence of the Con- tinental Indian agent for the middle department and the scene of numerous treaties or conferences with the Indians. The fact that the frontiersmen were able to maintain and even increase their settle- ments in the upper Ohio country during the war made possible the occupation of Kentucky and the operations of George Rogers Clark in the Illinois country and presumably contributed to the conviction of British statesmen at the end of the war that the western boundary of the new nation should be the Mississippi River rather than the Appalachian Mountains. 175 Western Pennsylvania The first episode in the cycle of Indian warfare associated with the Revolution-the contest between Virginia and the Shawnee in 1774 known as Dunmore's War-was not in any sense a part of the con- flict between the colonies and the mother country. Its fundamental cause, as has been true of practically all the Indian wars, was an ad- vance of the American frontier that threatened to interfere with the established culture of the Indians. At the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768 the Iroquois Indians, in order to relieve the pressure upon their own hunting grounds, ceded the territory claimed by them south of the Ohio River as far west as the mouth of the Tennessee. The Shaw- nee Indians, who were accustomed to hunt in the Kentucky country, though their principal villages were in the Scioto Valley north of the Ohio, had no part in the treaty and did not receive any of the compen- sation. They had, it is true, recognized from time to time that their rights in the Ohio Valley were derived from and dependent on the Iroquois, but it is not strange that some of them were determined to resist the loss of their hunting grounds. It was not settlers but white hunters (some of whom, however, were advance agents of land speculators) who first aroused the hostility of the Indians. From 1769 on, Daniel Boone and other "long hunters" from Virginia and North Carolina were operating in the Kentucky country, killing large quantities of game and looking for choice sites for future settlements. The Shawnee captured some of these white hunters, deprived them of their property, and told them to go home. When these tactics failed, the Indians killed some of the whites. In the meantime the advance guard of pioneer settlers was moving down the left bank of the Ohio in what is now West Virginia, and in 1773 a party of surveyors went down the river to the falls. In the spring of 1774 a large group of land seekers and immigrants from Virginia and Maryland gathered at the mouth of the Little Kanawha preparatory to entering the Kentucky country, but reports of inter- ference with and warnings to advance parties of surveyors caused them to return to Wheeling. An appeal to Captain Connolly, the Virginia commandant at Pittsburgh, for advice and aid, brought the response "that the Shawanese were ill disposed" and that the immi- grants should "hold themselves in readiness to repell any insults that might be offered to them." Upon receipt of this letter the group, under the leadership of Captain Michael Cresap, solemnly declared war on 176 The Revolution and Indian Relations the Indians and began to attack small parties of them on the river. Several Shawnee and one Delaware were killed. On May 3 a number of peaceful Mingo Indians, including women and old men, from Chief Logan's village near the site of Steubenville, who had crossed the river to visit the farm of a settler named Baker, were brutally murdered by a group of frontiersmen. The main body of the Shawnee, under the leadership of Chief Cornstalk, still tried to avoid war, but Logan was determined to make reprisals, and some of the Shawnee braves whose relatives or friends had been murdered by the whites joined him in his incursions upon the settlements. Through the efforts of the British Indian department and of St. Clair and the Pennsylvania traders, the Delawares and other Indian tribes were prevented from taking up the hatchet. The Shawnee, dis- tinguishing between the Pennsylvanians, who traded with them, and the Virginians, who coveted their hunting grounds, sent the traders back to Pittsburgh in safety; and St. Clair resisted the efforts of Connolly to draw the Pennsylvania settlers into the conflict. Thus the war was localized, and the Indians confined their raids to the Virginia frontier, which included the settlements in what is now Pennsylvania west of the Monongahela. When the raids began, in the present Greene County, late in May, panic spread rapidly throughout the frontier. Hundreds of settlers, not only west but also east of the Monongahela, abandoned their farms and fled across the mountains; and those who remained concentrated in the little forts that were hastily constructed in almost every neighborhood. Fearing that Westmoreland County would be depopulated, St. Clair and other Pennsylvania leaders, with the assistance of Croghan, raised a company of about one hundred rangers, which patrolled the northern border from Pittsburgh to Ligonier. With this protection and the indications that the Indians were not going to cross the Monongahela, most of the settlers re- turned to their farms in time to gather the harvest. Since Pittsburgh was controlled by the Virginians under Connolly, who were deter- mined to stop the trade of the Pennsylvanians with the Indians, some of the traders decided, with the approval of the governor, to remove their headquarters to Kittanning. St. Clair planned to go there in August to lay out a town, but the Virginians seized the goods of the principal traders on their way to the new post. As St. Clair's provisions were with these goods, he was obliged to give up the expedition, but '77 Western Pennsylvania one or two of the traders did establish themselves at Kittanning at this time. When the news of the Indian raids reached Dunmore, he issued orders for the embodiment of the militia of the western country and the erection of forts for the protection of the frontier, and Major Wil- liam Crawford was sent by Connolly to Wheeling, where he erected Fort Fincastle. As the raids on the frontiers of Virginia continued, Dunmore came to the conclusion that an expedition into the Indian country would be more effective and less expensive than defensive measures. Colonel Andrew Lewis, with the militia of the southwestern counties, marched down the Kanawha toward the Ohio, and Dunmore himself advanced to Pittsburgh, gathering what troops he could on the way. On October 10 the Shawnee attacked Lewis' army encamped at the mouth of the Kanawha. The resulting battle of Point Pleasant was a draw, and the Indians retired across the Ohio. Dunmore, in the meantime, was advancing into the Indian country from Pittsburgh, and the Shawnee made overtures for peace. At Camp Charlotte (Chillicothe) in November the Shawnee agreed to abandon their claims to the country south of the Ohio, even for hunting purposes, to refrain from molesting whites on the river, and to surrender their captives. Negotiations for a more definitive treaty were to be resumed at Pittsburgh in the spring. As the Mingo refused to join in the treaty at Camp Charlotte, Major Crawford led out a detachment of the army and destroyed their towns. Dunmore's War opened the way for the occupation of Kentucky in the early years of the Revolution, but the hearts of the Shawnee and the Mingo were filled with resentment against the frontiersmen, and it is not strange that they were the first of the upper Ohio tribes to take up the hatchet against the Americans during the Revolution. The controversies that led up to the Revolution were of immediate concern mainly to the Americans who lived near the seaboard, but the frontiersmen were not without grievances. The blundering at- tempts of the British government to restrict or at least to regulate the expansion of settlement and to uphold the rights of the Indians were resented both by the pioneers and by the land speculators, and in the upper Ohio country the abandonment of Fort Pitt was a special grievance. The extension of the province of Quebec to the Ohio River west of the boundaries of Pennsylvania and the prohibition of settle- 178 The Revolution and Indian Relations ment in the annexed territory appeared to be an invasion of the natural right of Americans to expand their settlements and their in- stitutions indefinitely westward. The frontiersmen were accustomed to regulate their own affairs and were easily influenced by the assertions that the rights and liber- ties of Americans were endangered by the arbitrary acts of the British government. Many of them, or their ancestors, had emigrated from Ireland under conditions that tended to predispose them to hostility to England. Despite the isolation of the settlers west of the mountains, they appear to have kept in touch with what was going on in the East. As early as July II, 1774, a "very respectable Body of People" as- sembled at Hannastown "in consequence of a letter from the Com- mittee in Philadelphia," and selected Robert Hanna and James Cavet to attend the ensuing convention in Philadelphia. The attitude of the Virginia frontiersmen was indicated by the declaration of the officers in Dunmore's army of their determination to defend American liberties, and the district of West Augusta was represented by John Harvie in the Virginia convention of March, 1775. As soon as the news of the battles of Lexington and Concord reached the frontier, meetings were held at Hannastown and at Pitts- burgh, both on May 16, 1775, at which steps were taken for aligning the region with the coastal sections in the struggle with the mother country. The Pennsylvanians assembled at Hannastown asserted their "most unshaken loyalty and fidelity" to the king but declared their determination "to maintain and defend our just rights ... wan- tonly violated in many instances by wicked Ministry and a corrupted Parliament." Provision was made for organizing the people into a military "Association of Westmoreland County," and on May 24 township meetings were held to form companies, which were later grouped into two battalions. The meeting at Pittsburgh created a general committee for the district of West Augusta consisting of twenty-eight men, of whom at least five were supporters of Pennsyl- vania in the boundary dispute. This committee met immediately, constituted a standing committee or committee of correspondence of seven members, and adopted resolutions for embodying the militia and levying a tax of two shillings and sixpence on "each tithable person" for the purchase of ammunition. Although the county courts continued to function, the Westmoreland Association and the West '79 'The Natural Environment kee in the South. Moreover it was in the central colonies-Pennsyl- vania, Maryland, and Virginia-that settlement pushed most rapidly westward toward the mountain barrier and the great valley beyond. Thus it happened that the first English advances of importance into the interior were made by the winding paths over the mountains to the upper Ohio Valley and the first English settlements beyond the mountains were planted in western Pennsylvania. Of natural routes across the mountains to western Pennsylvania, there were at least five that were used during the colonial period. The northernmost and the least important of these led up the North Branch of the Susquehanna to Tioga Point (Athens) and thence up the Tioga and Cowanesque Creek to the northeastern corner of Pot- ter County. From there the trail led across the headwaters of the Genesee to the upper Allegheny. One of the earliest routes to be extensively used by traders was the Shamokin Path, which led up the West Branch of the Susquehanna and Bald Eagle Creek and then cut across to the upper waters of the West Branch at Clearfield. The traveler could then cross the low divide to the Mahoning, which flows into the Allegheny a short distance above Kittanning. At times it was possible to travel in canoes up the West Branch all the way to Canoe Place near the southwest corner of Clearfield County. The Franks- town Path or Kittanning Trail, for some years the "Main Road to Allegheny," led up the Juniata and its Frankstown Branch to Kittan- ning Gap in the Allegheny Ridge, and thence across country by way of Canoe Place to Kittanning. The Raystown or Traders' Path, which followed the upper waters of the Raystown Branch of the Juniata and then crossed over to Loyalhanna Creek, a tributary of the Kiski- minetas, was destined to become the Forbes Road; and the Nemacolin Trail, which crossed from Wills Creek on the upper Potomac to the Youghiogheny, was to be used by the first military forces to cross the mountains. West of the divide the various tributaries of the upper Ohio spread out like the branches of a tree from the forks at Pittsburgh. The Alle- gheny River, rising in the north central part of the state, enters New York and then returns to Pennsylvania farther to the west and flows southwest, southeast, and southwest to the forks. Several of its eastern tributaries, the Clarion, the Red Bank, and the Mahoning, take their rise near the headwaters of the West Branch of the Susquehanna; and Western Pennsylvania Augusta Committee of Correspondence ruled the transmontane country until the establishment of state governments after the Dec- laration of Independence. Some indication of the activities of these organizations and of the feeling of the frontiersmen is given by an incident that occurred in Pittsburgh on August 25, 1775. Learning that Joseph Symonds of Lancaster and John Campbell of Pittsburgh were selling tea at their store in Pittsburgh "in an Open Contempt and defiance of the Re- solves of the Continental Congress," a delegation of twenty-three men marched from Hannastown to Pittsburgh and, with the cooperation of the West Augusta committee, forced the surrender of the unsold part of the tea, "which was Burned at the Liberty pole at Pittsburgh." Thus Pittsburgh as well as Boston had its "Tea Party." Nicholas Cresswell, an Englishman who was visiting in the region, wrote in his diary on July 31, 1775: "The people here are Liberty mad, nothing but War is thought of." A further illustration of the popular temper is supplied by the famous flag of Colonel John Proctor's battalion of THE RATTLESNAKE FLAG OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY This flag, adopted in 1775, had a red field, the corner. The initials stood for John gold scrollwork, and the British ensign in Proctor's Independent Battalion. the Westmoreland Association, which bore as its device the figure of a coiled rattlesnake with the motto, "Don't Tread on Me." No overt opposition was manifested to the patriot cause in the dis- trict in 1775; but Connolly, who still commanded a small garrison 18o The Revolution and Indian Relations of militia at the fort, and a number of others were suspected of loyalist sympathies. As a matter of fact Connolly, before he disbanded the garrison and left for Virginia in July, attempted to pave the way for the restoration of British authority by cultivating the Indians and such of the inhabitants as he thought he could trust, but his activities were hampered by the watchfulness of the committee. Connolly made his way to Lord Dunmore, who had taken refuge on a ship in Chesapeake Bay, and the two concocted a "plot" for over- throwing the rebels in the Pittsburgh district and severing the colo- nies. The regulars and militia of the Illinois country and Detroit were to be mobilized on Lake Erie and, with the co-peration of the In- dians, were to capture Fort Pitt. The frontiersmen were to be induced to join the army by the offer of land grants, and the whole force was to sweep over the mountains and effect a junction with Dunmore at Alexandria. Dunmore sent Connolly to General Gage in Boston, who approved the plan and commissioned Connolly to command the ex- pedition. The advance of the American armies toward Canada in the fall of 1775 prevented Connolly from going to Detroit by the northern route and he returned to Virginia and attempted to make his way over the mountains. Unfortunately for him, his loyalist sentiments had been disclosed to the West Augusta committee by John Gibson, a Pittsburgh trader, to whom he had written before going to Boston; and the committee had sent word to the eastern committees to be on the watch for him. On November zo Connolly and two companions were captured near Hagerstown, Maryland. Incriminating evidence was found and they were imprisoned. The activities of the frontier patriots, with aid from Virginia and the Continental Congress, had made it very unlikely, by the time of Connolly's arrest, that he could have accomplished his purpose. Recognizing that the principal danger to the frontier was that the Indians might be induced to take up the hatchet by Tories or British agents, the West Augusta committee at its first meeting on May I6 resolved to cultivate the friendship of the natives and declared that "if any person shall be so depraved as to take the life of any Indian that may come to us in a friendly manner, we will, as one man, use our utmost endeavors to bring such offender to condign punishment." Appeals were made to Congress and to Virginia for aid in handling the Indian problem, and on June 24 the Virginia assembly appointed 181 Western Pennsylvania six commissioners to treat with the Indians at Pittsburgh and appro- priated two thousand pounds for expenses, including presents. The commissioners immediately sent James Wood, one of their number, on a tour through the Indian towns north of the Ohio to explain to the tribesmen the nature of the quarrel with England, to ascertain their sentiments, and to invite them to the treaty. Wood discovered that British agents from Detroit had been prejudicing the Indians against the Virginians and, despite the fact that he was well received by all the tribes except the Mingo, he reached the conclusion that a hostile confederacy was in process of formation among the In- dians. On his return he called attention to the "defenceless situation" of the people in and around Pittsburgh, where at least five hundred Indians would assemble for the treaty, and a company of one hundred militiamen was dispatched from Winchester to take possession of Fort Pitt. This company, which arrived on September II, was commanded by Captain John Neville, who had established himself in the vicinity of Pittsburgh some years before and was a member of the West Augusta committee; and Neville continued to command the garrison at the fort on behalf of Virginia until June I, 1777. The Continental Congress also early took cognizance of the impor- tance of Indian relations and in July, 1775, organized three Indian departments and appointed commissions to negotiate with the tribes. The commissioners for the middle department decided to take advan- tage of the council already called by Virginia, and by the middle of September both groups of commissioners were in Pittsburgh awaiting the assembling of the Indians. By October 7, when the council was convened, representatives of all the important tribes of the region- Delawares, Shawnee, Mingo, Seneca, and even the Wyandot and the Ottawa, who lived near Detroit-had arrived. The Continental com- missioners contented themselves with explaining to the Indians that the Americans were now all one people with a great council fire at Philadelphia, and left the conduct of the negotiations to the Virgini- ans. These were concerned in the main with a final settlement of the issues of Dunmore's War, and both sides agreed to respect the Ohio River as the permanent boundary line. The principal point at issue was the return of the captives and stolen negroes and horses still held by the Shawnee, and arrangements were made for representa- tives of the Seneca and the Delawares to assist in assembling them. 182 The Revolution and Indian Relations The Indians were assured that the Americans did not need their assist- ance in the quarrel with England but expected them to remain neu- tral, and the spokesmen of the various tribes promised that they would keep a firm hold on the chain of friendship. An interesting feature of the council was the quarrel that developed between the Delawares and the Iroquois, represented by the Seneca, who had long claimed and to some extent exercised authority over all the tribes of the upper Ohio Valley. Sensing perhaps that the rise of an American power in contradistinction to the British, with whom the Iroquois were in close alliance, offered an opportunity, White Eyes, a chief of the Delawares, announced that he had removed his petti- coats and was a man once more-a virtual declaration of indepen- dence-and asserted that his tribe held its lands not under the Iroquois but as a gift from the Wyandot. The Americans were not in a position to support the Delawares in this move, for they still hoped to retain the friendship of the powerful Iroquois tribes; but it is probable that the desire of the Delawares to throw off the hated yoke of their over- lords was an important factor in the maintenance of their friendship for the Americans until near the close of the war. In general it may be said that the Treaty of Pittsburgh of 1775 was a success: the Indians were gratified by the consideration shown to them and the presents distributed, they accepted at its face value the promise of the Ameri- cans to observe the Ohio River boundary, and the frontier was spared the horrors of a general Indian war until 1777. In the meantime immi- gration was continuing into western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky; and, when the outbreak did come, the frontier was better prepared to meet it than it had been in 1775. The first group of soldiers from western Pennsylvania to join the Revolutionary armies in the East appears to have been a body of about twenty men from the Monongahela country who crossed the mountains in June, 1775, and joined a Maryland company being re- cruited by Michael Cresap for service in Washington's army near Bos- ton. In the fall of 1775 the Seventh Virginia Regiment was recruited in the Monongahela country; and, when the fears of an Indian uprising were allayed by the Treaty of Pittsburgh, most of the regiment was marched across the mountains to support the patriot cause in eastern Virginia. About the same time a company was raised in Westmoreland County and marched east to join Miles's Pennsylvania Rifle Regiment. 183 Western Pennsylvania Thus the frontier was early deprived of a part of its natural defenders. From the very onset of the Revolution the British post at Detroit was recognized as a menace to the American frontier, and in the fall of 1775 Arthur St. Clair, who served as secretary to the Continental Indian commissioners for the middle department, proposed to raise a volunteer force and capture the post by surprise. This project was rejected by Congress because of the lateness of the season and the expectation that the invasion of Canada would force the surrender of all the western posts. The early successes of the Canadian expedition did interfere with the flow of trade goods and presents for the Indians to the western posts, and the resulting shortage was an important factor in maintaining the friendship of the tribes for the Americans during the winter of 1775-76. The retreat of the American forces from Canada in the spring of 1776 changed the situation, and a committee of Congress made plans for an expedition against Detroit, but they were dropped because of inadequate resources and the fear of arousing the hostility of the Indians through whose territory the army would have to pass. Since the capture of Detroit did not appear to be feasible, the policy adopted was that of continued negotiations with the Indians to coun- teract the activities of Governor Henry Hamilton at Detroit, who was striving to win them away from the American influence. In April, 1776, Congress appointed Colonel George Morgan as Indian agent for the middle department and directed the commissioners to hold an- other treaty with the Indians. Morgan, who arrived at Pittsburgh in May, had represented the Philadelphia firm of Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan in the Illinois country for a number of years, was well acquainted with the situation throughout the West, and had a reputa- tion for fair dealing among the Indians. On his arrival he found the frontier in a state of alarm over reports of negotiations of the British with the Iroquois and the western Indians, and this alarm was soon intensified by sporadic attacks on the Kentucky settlers, most of which were traceable to an irresponsible band of Mingo. British policy at this time did not call for the encouragement of Indian attacks on the frontiers, and Hamilton, though he warned the Indians against the wiles of the "Long Knives," as the Virginians were called, en- deavored to dissuade them from attacking the settlements. The fron- tiersmen and the Continental commissioners, of course, were unaware 184 The Revolution and Indian Relations of this fact, and the reports brought in by agents sent among the Indians indicated that they were in a state of great unrest. In July, Congress, on the advice of the commissioners, ordered the raising of a battalion of Continental troops in western Pennsylvania, which was to erect forts at Kittanning, Le Boeuf, and Presque Isle and to defend the northern frontier. Aeneas Mackay, one of the Pittsburgh traders, was commissioned colonel of the new battalion, which later became the Eighth Pennsylvania Regiment, and the troops were raised largely from the "Associators"-seven companies from West- moreland County and one from Bedford County. The regiment went into camp at Kittanning in the fall. In the meantime Morgan paid a visit to the Shawnee and sent emis- saries to the other tribes to quiet their fears of an American attack and to invite them to the treaty to be held at Pittsburgh. One of the agents, William Wilson, was so bold as to visit the Wyandot near Detroit and was taken by them to a council with Hamilton. The governor de- nounced him and the Americans roundly before the assembled In- dians but permitted him to leave unharmed. In spite of British oppo- sition the Delawares, Shawnee, and Seneca, together with one chief each from the Wyandot and the Ottawa, attended the second Treaty of Pittsburgh in October, 1776, renewed their pledges of friendship and neutrality, and received the large present provided by Congress. The Seneca and the Shawnee even undertook to suppress the obstrep- erous Mingo. Morgan and the commissioners were now convinced that the war cloud had been dissipated and recommended that the plans for forts at Le Boeuf and Presque Isle be abandoned. Just at this time Washington's army, which was being driven across New Jersey by the British, was greatly in need of reinforcements, and on December 4, 1776, orders were received by the Eighth Pennsyl- vania to march to New Jersey. Despite considerable opposition on the ground that the men had enlisted for the defense of the frontier and that their departure would leave their families unprotected, prepara- tions were made for the march; and in January and February the regiment, inadequately supplied with clothing and equipment and often lacking provisions, made its way across the mountains and camped near Philadelphia. Colonel Mackay was one of the fifty who died, presumably as a result of the hardships of the winter journey, and the regiment was reorganized with Daniel Brodhead as its colonel. 185 Western Pennsylvania In the winter of 1776-77 still another regiment, the Thirteenth Vir- ginia, was raised in the Monongahela country. Part of this regiment was retained in the West to strengthen the garrisons along the Ohio, and the remainder went east to join the army under Washington. After the departure of the Pennsylvania regiment an independent com- pany on the Continental establishment was raised by Captain Samuel Moorhead to garrison Kittanning, but the chief reliance for the de- fense of the northern frontier until the summer of 1778 was on the militia of Westmoreland County and volunteer companies of rangers. In the meantime the contest between the British and the Americans for influence over the Iroquois was gradually being won by the British, although two of the constituent tribes aligned themselves with the Americans and the Seneca were reluctant to make a decision. In Feb- ruary, 1777, four Indians sent out by the commandant at Niagara captured Andrew McFarlane, a trader at Kittanning, and carried him to Niagara, where he was questioned about the state of the frontier; and a month later a soldier was killed and his companion captured on the Kittanning Trail in what is now Armstrong County. The raids of the Mingo and their associates in Kentucky and along the Ohio bor- der were continued, and in March the Virginia council ordered an ex- pedition to chastise them. Morgan, who feared that such an expedi- tion would bring on a general war, induced Congress to persuade Virginia to abandon the expedition and redoubled his efforts to retain the friendship of the Indians by gifts and diplomacy. Congress de- cided, however, to send out a general officer to systematize the defense of the frontier, and on June I Brigadier General Edward Hand took command at Fort Pitt. No body of troops could be spared from the eastern armies at that time, but a quantity of arms and ammunition was sent out and Hand was given authority to command the militia as well as the few regulars that were in the region. Before the arrival of Hand the shortage of powder for the defense of the frontier had been relieved by the exploit of George Gibson and William Linn, who, leaving Pittsburgh in July, 1776, with fifteen companions, had made their way down the Mississippi to New Orleans and persuaded the benevolently neutral Spanish officials to permit them to purchase twelve thousand pounds of powder, three-fourths of which was brought up the streams by Linn and landed at Wheeling in May, 1777. The British plan of operations against the Americans in 1777 called i86 The Revolution and Indian Relations for three expeditions-from Canada under Burgoyne, from Oswego under St. Leger, and from New York under Howe-to converge in the Hudson Valley and cut off New England from the rest of the country. To promote the success of these operations it was determined not only to enlist the Indians in the armies but also to use them to create a diversion on the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia in the hope of thus weakening the main American army. In March orders to this effect were dispatched from London to Hamilton at Detroit, and on their receipt in June he summoned a grand council of the Indians and urged them to take up the hatchet. The "far Indians"--Chippewa and Ottawa-and most of the Wyandot and the Mingo responded to the appeal; but the Delawares and the Shawnee, who were closest to the frontiers, had no desire to incur the wrath of the "Long Knives," though individuals of both tribes doubtless joined the raiding parties. By July 15 Hamilton had sent out fifteen bands of Indians, each ac- companied by one or two white men, and by the following January he was able to report the receipt of 73 prisoners and 129 scalps. Although Hamilton urged the Indians to spare old men, women, and children, they paid little heed to his admonition, and he rewarded them for scalps as well as for prisoners. The brunt of these attacks was borne by the Virginia frontier, in- cluding Kentucky, but some of the bands crossed the Allegheny and raided the frontier settlements from Pittsburgh to Ligonier, with the result that the country north of the Forbes Road was abandoned, except for a few forts. Morgan's efforts to bring about another treaty with the Indians were frustrated when in August a number of Seneca coming to Pittsburgh to participate were fired upon, and thereafter the Seneca took up the hatchet and added their raids upon the north- ern frontier of Pennsylvania to those of the western Indians. During the summer many of the Shawnee joined with the hostile tribes in the raids, though Cornstalk, their principal chief, remained friendly to the Americans; and at the beginning of September a band of several hundred Indians besieged Fort Henry at Wheeling for two days and wiped out the surrounding settlement. By the end of July General Hand was convinced of the desirability of a retaliatory expedition again the towns of the hostile Indians and summoned the militia to assemble at the various forts along the Ohio. In September he shortened his line by withdrawing the garrison from 187 Western Pennsylvania Kittanning to the south side of the Kiskiminetas,where Fort Hand was constructed later in the year. Despite the vigorous efforts of the county lieutenants, Hand was able to raise less than a thousand of the two thousand men he considered necessary for the expedition, and early in November it was abandoned. It is probable, however, that the preparations, of which the Indians and the British at Detroit were well aware, were partly responsible for the slackening of the raids on the Ohio frontier in the fall; and the news of the defeats of Burgoyne and St. Leger with their Indian allies, which reached the frontier by the middle of September, undoubtedly served to dampen the ardor of the Indians. On the other hand an event that occurred at Fort Randolph at the mouth of the Kanawha had the opposite effect. The militia captain in charge of the fort had detained Cornstalk as a hostage for the good behavior of the Shawnee during the proposed expedition, and on November Io he was murdered in cold blood by the militiamen in retaliation for the killing of one of their number by Indians. Thereafter the Shawnee were among the most inveterate enemies of the frontiersmen and only the Delawares remained friendly to the Americans. The importance of Pittsburgh as a base for operations in the more distant West is illustrated by the fact that three western expeditions were organized there in the winter and spring of 1778, one under the auspices of Congress and two under those of Virginia. Captain James Willing, a naval officer authorized by Congress to lead an expedition to Natchez on the lower Mississippi, left Pittsburgh in an armed boat on January io and in due time made himself very obnoxious to the British in West Florida. On February I George Rogers Clark arrived at Redstone with a commission from Virginia to enlist men and lead an expedition against the French villages in the Illinois country, which were being used as bases of Indian raids into Kentucky; and on May x2 this famous expedition got under way. The third expedition was that of David Rogers, who, under orders from Governor Henry, started from Pittsburgh in June with about forty recruits from the Monongahela Valley to get another cargo of ammunition from New Orleans-an expedition that was destined to come to grief at the hands of the Indians on the return journey in October, 1779. General Hand, who gave assistance to each of these parties in turn, was un- willing to abandon all offensive operations himself, and in February, I88 The Revolution and Indian Relations 1778, he led about five hundred militiamen, mostly from Westmore- land, north from Pittsburgh with a view to capturing a British maga- zine supposed to be at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, the future site of Cleveland. This "Squaw Campaign" was stopped in the vicinity of the present New Castle, Pennsylvania, by floods in the Beaver River, and the militiamen had to content themselves with raiding two camps of inoffensive Delawares, where two squaws were taken pris- oners and a man, a woman, and a boy were killed. How extensive was the sentiment opposed to the Revolutionary cause among the frontiersmen cannot be determined, because, as a rule, it was concealed, but it is evident that there were always a number who would have welcomed a restoration of British authority. Con- nolly believed in 1775 that he could count on the co6peration of many of the inhabitants of the region in his projected campaign. The ap- parent success of the colonies in throwing off the yoke of England and in creating a new nation in 1776 probably led many of the doubtful ones to acquiesce in the new state of affairs, but the elaborate plans of the British for crushing the rebellion in 1777, together with the In- dian raids upon the settlements, may have caused them to waver once more. The war parties sent out by Hamilton in 1777 planted proclama- tions inviting "all such as are inclined to withdraw themselves from the Tyranny and oppression of the rebel Committees" to take refuge at Detroit and offering bounties of two hundred acres of land for serv- ice "against Rebels and Traytors 'till the extinction of this rebellion." As a result, perhaps, of these proclamations and the general distress of the frontier, a Tory movement developed in the Monongahela Val- ley in August of 1777, but it was ruthlessly suppressed by Zackquill Morgan, the county lieutenant of Monongalia County. Several promi- nent citizens of Pittsburgh and even George Morgan and General Hand were accused of Tory leanings, but no evidence could be found against them. Alexander McKee, the former British Indian agent, who, although an avowed loyalist, had been allowed his liberty under parole and had remained on his farm at McKees Rocks, was now summoned to Pittsburgh and "put on a new parole" by General Hand. In December Hand received orders from the Board of War to send him to York, but McKee was able to postpone the enforcement of the order by feigning illness. Finally at the end of March, 1778, McKee and I89 Western Pennsylvania the most important of them, the Kiskiminetas-Conemaugh, has its sources near the top of Allegheny Ridge and cuts a deep gorge through the high plateau at Johnstown. The Monongahela, rising in West Virginia, flows north with many a turn and twist to join the Allegheny and form the Ohio. Its principal tributary, the Youghiogheny, also has its sources just west of the Allegheny Front, in Pennsylvania and Maryland, and cuts across Laurel and Chestnut ridges to join the parent stream at McKeesport. Two of the western or northern tribu- taries of the Allegheny, Conewango Creek, which drains Lake Cha- tauqua in New York, and French Creek, rise near Lake Erie; and the Beaver River with its extension, the Shenango,, rises about fifteen miles from the lake and flows south, near the western boundary of the state, to join the Ohio at its northernmost bend. During the period when white men were occupying the region most of these streams were navigable by canoes and some of them by larger craft, and trails that could be traveled on foot or on horseback ran in every direction through the primeval forest. Although western Pennsylvania was accessible from the east it was and is definitely a part of the great interior valley of the con- tinent, which stretches from the Cordilleras on the west to the Appa- lachians on the east. Drained in most part by the Ohio, the region has connection by navigable waters with the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. Touching on Lake Erie, with an excellent harbor at Erie, it has, moreover, a natural connection with the upper lakes region and with the St. Lawrence Valley. Situated between the North Atlan- tic section and the great West, the region was destined to be crossed by many of the major transportation routes of the country, whether highways, canals and rivers, railroads, or airlines. As time went on, western Pennsylvania found itself at the center of the most densely populated portion of the continent; if a circle with a radius of five hundred miles were drawn with Pittsburgh as its center, it would include a larger population than could be found in such a circle drawn around any other metropolis in North America. To those who learned in school the definition of a plateau as "an elevated table-land" and who consequently visualize a plateau with a top like an immensely enlarged dining-table top and with steep sides up which one would have to climb to the smooth unbroken expanse of damask, it may be difficult to think of western Pennsylvania as a part Western Pennsylvania Matthew Elliot, who was also on parole, with Simon Girty and two others, made their escape through the Indian country to Detroit, where they were welcomed with open arms by Hamilton and given appointments in the Indian service. This flight of the Tories from Pittsburgh was a serious blow to the American cause, for their ac- quaintance with the Indians and the frontiers made them most effi- cient leaders and instigators of Indian raids. Moreover it had the effect of encouraging others to follow their example. On the night of April 23, fourteen soldiers deserted from Fort Pitt and, with "a party of the country people," made their way to the mouth of the Mus- kingum, where about half of them were captured by a pursuing expedi- tion. The deserters were court-martialed and some of them were exe- cuted at Fort Pitt. On May 14 Hand reported that "a number of people went off from Turtle Creek and that neighborhood a few days ago; and I hear of a considerable emigration from Bedford county"- doubtless a reference to the band of about thirty Tories from what is now Blair County who tried to escape to the Indians at Kittanning in April but were attacked and scattered by a party of Iroquois un- aware of their intentions. Hand expressed the belief that "if a few men are not put here immediately to encourage the timorous, tho' well affected, and overawe the Tory faction, this whole country will be abandoned or over-run by the enemy in a short time." Late in 1777 Congress, alarmed by reports of the serious situation on the frontier, sent commissioners to Fort Pitt to conduct an investi- gation and to make plans, if feasible, in co6peration with General Hand, for an expedition against Detroit. In the spring the commis- sioners recommended that Hand's repeated request for a recall be granted and that Continental troops under a general officer be sent out, which, with supporting militia, should capture Detroit and put an end to the Indian raids. In May, Brigadier General Lachlan McIn- tosh was appointed to succeed Hand, and orders were issued for the return to the frontier of the Eighth Pennsylvania Regiment and the part of the Thirteenth Virginia that was in the East. Two additional regiments were also to be raised for service in the West, and in June the Board of War ordered that the proposed expedition against De- troit be immediately undertaken. Three thousand regulars were to be used, and Virginia was asked to furnish as much militia, not to exceed twenty-five hundred men, as should be deemed necessary. The gover- 190 LACHLAN McINTOSH DANIEL BRODHEAD From the portraits by Charles Willson Peale WILLIAM IRVINE EDWARD HAND 0 z z z H 0 H 0 0 0 cl 0 The Revolution and Indian Relations nor and council of Virginia opposed the expedition, however, probably because they expected George Rogers Clark to capture Detroit and thus strengthen Virginia's claim to the Northwest; and despite the strong arguments in favor of it advanced by George Morgan, Congress, on July 25, voted that the expedition be deferred and that McIntosh be directed to assemble fifteen hundred regulars and militia at Fort Pitt and proceed to destroy the towns of the hostile Indians. Doubtless the difficulty of obtaining the troops thought necessary for the con- quest of Detroit without weakening Washington's army around Phila- delphia, and the high estimate of the expense that would be involved were factors in the decision. McIntosh, accompanied by the detachment of the Thirteenth Vir- ginia, arrived at Fort Pitt on August 6, but the Eighth Pennsylvania, detained for an expedition against the Indians on the upper Susque- hanna, did not arrive until September Io. In the meantime the Dela- wares had been summoned for another council, which opened Septem- ber 12. Two Virginians, serving as commissioners on behalf of the United States, negotiated with the chiefs a formal treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, in which it was provided that the Delawares should in time become citizens of the United States and their territory should be made a state in the Union. Unfortunately the Indians ap- parently did not understand that they would be expected to take up the hatchet against their friends and connections in the hostile tribes; and Morgan, who was not present at the negotiations and who was opposed to abandoning the policy of encouraging the Indians to re- main neutral, declared that the conference was "improperly or vil- lianously conducted." McIntosh's plan of operations, similar to that of Forbes in 1758, called for a slow advance into the Indian country and the construction of forts along the line of march to maintain his communications and hold the territory occupied. Unfortunately, however, his force of regu- lars was much smaller than that of Forbes had been; and the Vir- ginia militia, which made up the bulk of his army, was enlisted for short terms. Moreover it proved impossible to obtain adequate sup- plies and provisions for the army, small though it was; and the gen- eral's lack of tact soon caused him to be cordially disliked by most of his subordinates. In October the army advanced down the Ohio to the mouth of the Beaver, where a large stockaded post was con- 191 Western Pennsylvania structed and named Fort McIntosh. From there in November the commander advanced with about twelve hundred men, along the route followed by Bouquet in 1764, to the Tuscarawas River, where, in the heart of the Delaware country, Fort Laurens was constructed. No goods were available for distribution to friendly Indians, and so obvious were the weakness and lack of equipment of the army that, when McIntosh announced to the Delawares that all the Indians that did not make submission within fourteen days would be punished, they burst into laughter. The terms of enlistment of the militia were to expire in December; and, as Virginia refused to provide reliefs and the supplies were nearly exhausted, McIntosh was forced to order a retreat, which on the part of the militia took on the character of a flight. A garrison of 150 regu- lars under Colonel John Gibson was left at Fort Laurens, and the gen- eral took up his winter quarters at Fort McIntosh. Soon after the re- tirement of the army the hostile Indians began a series of attacks on Fort Laurens. Hunting parties were driven in and provisioning ex- peditions from Fort McIntosh were forced to retreat, with the result that Gibson was obliged to appeal to the Delawares for food to keep his men from starving. In March a large party of Indians directed by an officer from Detroit laid siege to the fort, and the garrison was soon in desperate straits. Word was got through to McIntosh, however, and he made a forced march with a relief expedition of five hundred men. The besiegers had departed before the general arrived, and his army was not large enough or sufficiently equipped to warrant a further advance. A new garrison was installed at Fort Laurens and the rest of the troops marched back. The preparations of McIntosh for his expedition and the operations of Clark in the Illinois country undoubtedly served to diminish the attacks of the western Indians on the Ohio frontier in the fall of 1778 and the ensuing winter. The news of the capture of Hamilton at Vin- cennes by Clark in February was probably responsible for the aban- donment of the siege of Fort Laurens. The news of the French alliance also had its influence on the Indians, and the Shawnee and Wyandot began to make overtures through the Delawares for peace with the Americans. The northern frontier of Pennsylvania, however, contin- ued to suffer from raids by the Iroquois. The defenses were strength- ened by the building of Fort Crawford on the south side of the Alle- 192 The Revolution and Indian Relations gheny about ten miles below the mouth of the Kiskiminetas in the early summer of 1778, and the frontier from Pittsburgh eastward to Ligonier was dotted with blockhouses. Independent companies of rangers were raised to garrison the forts and blockhouses and patrol the border, but the Indians continued to take their toll. In November a militia expedition of 150 men from Westmoreland was sent against the Indians on French Creek, but the provisions ran out and the party "returned without seeing the face of a single Indian." The raids in the West and the Cherry Valley and Wyoming mas- sacres in New York and northeastern Pennsylvania led Washington to make plans in the spring of 1779 for punitive expeditions against the Iroquois by way of the Allegheny and the Susquehanna. McIntosh was recalled at his own request, and Colonel Brodhead, who succeeded to the command in April, was ordered to make plans secretly for the Allegheny expedition. Posts were to be constructed at Kittanning and Venango, and three additional companies of Continental troops under Colonel Moses Rawlings were sent out from Maryland. Much to his disappointment, Brodhead received orders in May to abandon the expedition and dispose his troops for defense. In the meantime the attacks on the Westmoreland frontier had continued and on April 26 the Indians had laid siege to Fort Hand. Brodhead adopted the policy of sending out small parties of men dressed as Indians and led by scouts such as the famous Captain Samuel Brady, with the result that some captives and considerable plunder were recovered; and in June Fort Armstrong was constructed at Kittanning and garrisoned with regulars. Brodhead repeatedly urged Washington to allow him to lead an expedition against the Seneca on the upper Allegheny and thus create a diversion to the advantage of Sullivan's expedition against the Iro- quois from the East, which was getting under way in June. About the middle of July the desired permission was received, and the com- mander promptly called in the garrison from Fort Laurens and sum- moned the militia to join him as soon as the harvest was completed. With a force of six hundred men he left Fort Pitt on August Ii and advanced up the Allegheny, transporting his supplies as far as possible by boats and then resorting to pack horses. Guided by Dela- ware Indians, the expedition made its way to a group of Seneca towns on the upper Allegheny near the border between New York and 193 Western Pennsylvania Pennsylvania. The Indians had fled, but their towns, containing 13o houses in all, were burned, great quantities of growing corn and vege- tables were destroyed, and plunder valued at thirty thousand dollars was taken. The expedition returned to Fort Pitt without the loss of a man. The damage inflicted upon the Iroquois by Brodhead and the still greater damage inflicted by Sullivan greatly weakened the power- ful confederacy and reduced its influence among the western Indians. The tribesmen were succored by the British, however, and their raids on the frontiers of Pennsylvania and New York were renewed from time to time throughout the remainder of the war. So long as the British held Niagara and Detroit and were able to supply the Indians with trade goods, provisions, and ammunition, peace could not be expected on the frontier. The prestige of the Americans was at high tide in the Northwest in the early fall of 1779. When Brodhead returned to Pittsburgh from his Allegheny campaign in September he found delegations from the Wyandot and part of the Shawnee begging for peace under the tute- lage of the Delawares. Anticipating that the Americans were con- templating an expedition against Detroit, the Wyandot spokesman asked them to go by way of Lake Erie or the Wabash and thus avoid the country of his tribe. Brodhead replied that he would take his "choice of roads." Both Brodhead and Clark, who had established himself at the falls of the Ohio, made plans for expeditions against Detroit in the fall of 1779, but neither of them succeeded in assem- bling the men and supplies that he considered necessary for the pur- pose, and they were unable or unwilling to coiperate with each other. The successful attack of Indians led by the Girtys on the party under David Rogers that was convoying five boatloads of supplies and ammunition up the Ohio in October marked the turning of the tide against the Americans. In addition to valuable booty, the loss of which was seriously felt at Fort Pitt, the enemy seized letters that informed them of the weakness of Clark's force. The Wyandot, convinced that Detroit was not going to be captured, soon returned to the alliance with the British, who alone could supply them with the goods they needed. Early in the spring of 1780 the western Indians renewed their raids in the region between the Monongahela and the Ohio, and by May the Seneca were sufficiently recovered to invade the Westmore- land frontier again. Brodhead made plans three times during the year 194 The Revolution and Indian Relations for expeditions against the western Indians, but each time he was compelled to abandon them because of inability to get supplies or the refusal of the militia to co-perate. He was obliged, therefore, to re- main on the defensive and to endeavor to "amuse the Indians by speeches." The fortunes of the Americans were at a low ebb both in the East and in the West during 1780. The British armies were overrunning Georgia and the Carolinas, and the resources of the new nation ap- peared to be exhausted. Men and supplies promised by Congress or the states for western operations were not forthcoming, and the fron- tier was largely left to shift for itself. In April, 1780, Pennsylvania descended to the level of offering bounties for Indian scalps, which probably led to the killing of friendly as well as of hostile Indians. Strange as it may seem, there was considerable emigration to western Pennsylvania and Kentucky at this time, partly as a result of dis- tressing conditions in the East; but the newcomers were not as a rule experienced woodsmen and Indian fighters, most of them were very poor, and a considerable number harbored Tory sentiments. Loyalist uprisings occurred in southwestern Virginia, and only the promptness of Brodhead in seizing British agents and deserters prevented such an uprising in western Pennsylvania. The agreement of Pennsylvania and Virginia over the boundary resulted in much dissatisfaction and confusion, especially as the line was not marked, and the new state movement added to the confusion. The harvest of 1780 was large but a drought in the summer caused a shortage of flour by putting the mills out of commission. The farmers were no longer willing to accept due bills payable in depreciated Continental currency for their pro- visions; and, when Brodhead tried to impress cattle in preparation for one of the projected expeditions, they secreted their stock in the woods. Later the commander was obliged to rely upon game procured by hunting parties to keep the garrison at Fort Pitt from starving. The problem of defense was further complicated by a dispute between Brodhead and Archibald Lochry, the county lieutenant of Westmore- land, over the control of the independent companies of rangers, and by discord between the commander and his subordinate officers. The continual pressure of the British and their Indian allies upon the Delawares together with the obvious weakness of the Americans and their inability to supply the Indians with trade goods resulted in '95 Western Pennsylvania the decision of the Delaware council in February, 1781, to join the British alliance and strike the frontier. Word of this decision was sent to Brodhead by the Moravian missionaries, and he determined to strike first. Gathering about 150 militiamen and an equal number of regulars, he swept down upon the Delaware towns of Coshocton and Lichtenau in April. The towns were destroyed, fifteen warriors were killed, twenty prisoners were taken, and much plunder was seized. The militia refused to cooperate in further plans and the expedition returned to Wheeling, where the plunder was sold and the proceeds were divided among the participants. The main body of the Delawares then removed to the Sandusky Valley, but the Moravian converts for the time being remained in their villages. The expedition had pre- vented the hostile Delawares from making their contemplated attack, but the frontiersmen of the upper Ohio were to hear from them again before the year was over. In the winter of 178o-81 plans were made by Thomas Jefferson, governor of Virginia, with the approval of Washington, for another expedition under the auspices of Virginia for the conquest of Detroit. George Rogers Clark, now a brigadier general in the state forces, was to raise an army of two thousand men in the back counties of Virginia and advance by way of the Ohio and the Wabash in the spring. When some of the counties refused to contribute their quotas, Washington instructed Brodhead to turn over to Clark as many men as could be spared from the forces under his command and the council of Pennsylvania gave Clark permission to enlist men in the western part of that state. Clark's recruiting activities in the region ran afoul of the animosities engendered by the boundary dispute and were op- posed on the ground that the men were needed at home to protect the frontier from expected Indian attacks. Brodhead was not in full sym- pathy with the project and gave only grudging cooperation. Late in July, long after the date contemplated, Clark assembled about four hundred men, including a regiment of Virginia state troops and Captain Isaac Craig's artillery company of regulars, at Wheeling, where he expected to be joined by a detachment of about a hundred men from Westmoreland under Lochry. Desertions were so numerous, however, that Clark started off on August 8 and pushed rapidly down the Ohio, leaving word for Lochry to follow him. As a result of this division of forces, Lochry's party was attacked by a large band of 196 The Revolution and Indian Relations Indians led by Alexander McKee and Joseph Brant, the Mohawk, about twenty miles below the site of Cincinnati. Not a man escaped death or capture. Clark, unable to obtain the hoped-for reinforcements from Kentucky, was obliged to abandon the expedition and dispose his forces for the defense of Kentucky. The preparations of Clark caused most of the western Indians to remain on the defensive during the summer of 1781, but in September a large party set out from Sandusky to attack Fort Henry at Wheel- ing. As usual, the Americans were warned of the approach of this party by the Moravian missionaries, and as a consequence the garrison was on its guard and the Indians were able to accomplish little. They discovered the source of the warning, however, and as a result the missionaries and their converts were forced to remove from the Tus- carawas to the Sandusky Valley. The removal was effected so hastily that the Christianized Indians left large quantities of ungathered corn in the fields about their towns, and, when they began to run short of food during the winter, groups of them returned to their old homes. Some of these parties were accompanied by hostile Indians, who in February, 1782, raided the settlements in Washington County. The frontiersmen were aware that the Moravians had been re- moved but were convinced that a raid at this season must have come from their towns. They decided, therefore, that the towns must be destroyed in order that they should no longer serve as places of ren- dezvous for hostile Indians. To accomplish this purpose a mounted party of over a hundred Washington County militiamen under the leadership of Colonel David Williamson surrounded the town of Gna- denhiitten on March 7. The Indians made no resistance and, on being told that they were to be taken to Fort Pitt, sent messengers to bring in some of their people that were in another town. Before long, how- ever, it was discovered that some of the hostile Indians who had participated in the February raid were in the town, and one of the Moravian women was found to be wearing a dress that had belonged to one of the captives. This was too much for the enraged frontiers- men, and they decided, with only eighteen negative votes, that the entire band should be killed. The Indians were shut up in the church, where they sang hymns and prayed during the night, and in the morning, men, women, and children, numbering nearly a hundred, were executed in cold blood. The towns and cornfields were then destroyed 197 The Natural Environment of what geographers call "the Appalachian Plateau." Though the region is distinctly hilly, most of it is nevertheless part of a dissected plateau, in which the tops of the hills represent the original level of the land and the valleys or comparatively level low sections have been made by erosion-mainly by erosion from running water. This Appalachian Plateau extends in a northeasterly and southwesterly direction from New York to Alabama and broadens out in the central section to include not only most of western Pennsylvania and West Virginia but also parts of Ohio and Kentucky. Its eastern boundary in Pennsyl- vania is the summit of the Allegheny Ridge, or the Allegheny Front, as it is often called because it rises abruptly on the east and then slopes gradually to the west; but the western edge of the plateau merges imperceptibly into the plains. The only true mountains west of the Allegheny Front are Laurel and Chestnut ridges, which are thrust up through the plateau as outriders of the Appalachian system. Geologically, western Pennsylvania has had a long and varied past. Ages ago, perhaps more than two hundred millions years, Pennsyl- vania was covered by the sea. Then came a long period of successive risings and submergings of the land. When the land rose, vegetation sprang up and grew lush and thick in warm damp swamps; huge trees, ferns taller than a man, flourished and rotted and gave new life to other trees and ferns, forming in the swamps a peat-like substance with vast implications for the future. When the land sank, the sea rushed in, depositing layers of sand over the layers of rotting vegeta- tion. Again and again the land rose; again and again vegetation sprang up and ran its normal cycle until the sea covered it once more. As the weight of sand and other layers of vegetation increased through suc- cessive submergings and risings the peat in the lower layers became coal, the sand was compressed into sandstone, the mud into shale or slate, the sea shells into limestone. From the present number and position of the coal veins, it is possible for geologists to determine how many times the land rose and sank before its final emergence from the waters of the sea. Finally the land was elevated permanently above sea level, though not so high above as at present, and the erosion of normal drainage began. Through the aeons the country was gradually shaped into a region of gently rounded hills and wide shallow valleys through which ran quiet rivers. At this time the region was drained to the north- 5 Western Pennsylvania and the "'white Indians" returned to their homes laden with spoils. The War for American Independence was ended in the East by the surrender of Cornwallis on October 19, 1781, but the blessings of peace were not to be experienced in the West until another "bloody year" had elapsed. Brodhead was removed from his command in September, 1781, and his successor, General William Irvine, who arrived at Pittsburgh about November I, reorganized the remnants of the Conti- nental troops under his command into four companies and repaired the fort. The spring raids of the Indians and the fear of reprisals for the massacre of the Moravians led him to authorize another volunteer expedition from the Monongahela Valley, with the objective of de- stroying the upper Sandusky town of the Wyandot. Nearly five hundred mounted men assembled at the end of May, elected Colonel William Crawford their commander, and rode rapidly toward the Sandusky. Finding the upper town deserted by the Indians, who had learned of the approach of the Americans, the army advanced down the Sandusky Valley; and on June 4 a considerable force of Indians and British was encountered. The Americans held their own in the battle that followed; but, having noted the arrival of enemy reinforcements, Crawford ordered a retreat during the night. The frontiersmen, unaccustomed to army discipline, were seized by panic and could not be kept together. The main body of about three hundred got back to the Ohio on June 12 and doubtless some others straggled in, but many were killed or captured by the Indians. Among the captives was Colonel Crawford, who had lost his way while search- ing for some of his relatives, and the Delawares burned him at the stake in retaliation for the massacre of their Moravian kinsmen at Gnadenhiitten. This disaster was quickly followed by another inflicted on the fron- tiersmen of Westmoreland County. On July 13 a large band of Seneca led by Guyasuta and accompanied by Canadian rangers fell upon Hannastown, the county seat. The inhabitants were warned in time to take shelter in their fort, which they were able to hold against the attackers, but the Indians plundered and burned the thirty log houses of the town, drove off the stock, and ravaged the surrounding country. A similar stroke against Pittsburgh and Wheeling was planned by the western Indians and their British and Tory aids immediately after Crawford's defeat. Despite the refusal of De Peyster, the commandant 198 The Revolution and Indian Relations at Detroit, to supply them with cannon, the combined forces of the Wyandot, Shawnee, and Delawares marched toward Wheeling. The Shawnee, however, alarmed by a rumor that Clark was about to lead a large force into their country, deserted the expedition, and the others turned aside to attack a blockhouse in Kentucky. Finally in September some two hundred western Indians and Canadian rangers attacked and besieged Fort Henry without success, after which a part of them went on a marauding expedition into Washington County. In the meantime plans had been made for a series of expeditions against the Indians all along the border from New York to Kentucky. General Irvine was to lead the regulars under his command and the militia of western Pennsylvania against the Indians of the Sandusky region early in August, but, as usual, difficulties were experienced in assembling supplies and the expedition was postponed from time to time. Finally on October 23, just as he was preparing to set out with a force of about six hundred, Irvine received instructions from Wash- ington to abandon the expedition. Washington had learned that Sir Guy Carleton, the British commander-in-chief, had ordered the officers at the western posts to discontinue the attacks on the frontiers. The news did not reach Clark in time to prevent his destructive invasion of the Shawnee country in early November; and this was probably responsible for the sporadic raids of small bands of Indians in western Pennsylvania in the spring of 1783, in which forty persons were re- ported to have been killed or captured. By the provisional treaty with Great Britain of November 30, 1782, which was made definitive on September 3, 1783, the claim of the United States to the territory between the Ohio and the Great Lakes was established. The Indians were astonished to learn that the coun- try they had successfully held against the Americans had been handed over to the enemy without any stipulation for their protection, and the British traders and officials were shocked to discover that Detroit and Niagara were to be turned over to the new nation. Enough pres- sure was brought to bear to induce the English government to order the retention of the posts for the time being, and the British advised the Indians to insist upon the Ohio River as the boundary of their country and continued to supply them with trade goods and presents. In the summer of 1783 Congress sent agents among the Indians to inform them of the terms of the treaty and to urge them to bury the 199 Western Pennsylvania hatchet. The emissary to the western Indians, Ephraim Douglass of Pittsburgh, was well received by the Wyandot and the Delawares; and, although the commandant at Detroit prevented him from hold- ing a formal council with them, the Indians were apparently con- vinced that the Americans desired peace. In September, however, a grand council of the Indian tribes was held at Sandusky under the leadership of Brant, at which a confederacy was formed and it was agreed that no cessions of land should be valid without the approval of the confederacy. At this council, Sir John Johnson, the British superintendent of Indian affairs, told the Indians that he would "take the Tomahawk out of their hand" but would "lay it down carefully by their side, that they might have it convenient to use in defense of their rights and property if they were invaded or molested by the Americans." The American theory, as set forth in an ordinance adopted by Con- gress on October 15, 1783, was that the Indians, having taken up arms against the United States, had forfeited all their rights; but it was proposed that, as an act of mercy, they might be allowed to retain the land west of the Miami and Maumee rivers. Commissioners were appointed to negotiate treaties with the tribes, in cioperation with the states of New York and Pennsylvania. The first of these treaties was signed with the Iroquois at Fort Stanwix in October, 1784. By threats and intimidation the once powerful confederacy of the Six Nations was forced to surrender all claim to the Northwest and to sell to Pennsylvania for five thousand dollars all unceded land in that state except a reservation of a few hundred acres on the upper Alle- gheny for Chief Cornplanter and his band of Seneca. The Indians were told that they might continue to hunt in the ceded territory until the white men were ready to occupy it. Two months later the commis- sioners met the Delawares and Wyandot and a few Ottawa and Chip- pewa at Fort McIntosh and by similar tactics extorted from them a cession of the greater part of what is now the state of Ohio. These Indians also surrendered to Pennsylvania all claim to land in that state in exchange for goods worth two thousand dollars. Meanwhile the resistless advance of the American frontier was again manifesting itself. As early as 1779 squatters had been staking out claims on the north bank of the Ohio; with the announcement of peace in the fall of 1782, they began to flock across the river by the 200 The Revolution and Indian Relations thousands. In 1785 Congress passed an ordinance for the disposition of the land ceded by the Indians, and the national military frontier was advanced from Fort Pitt and Fort McIntosh to Fort Harmar at the mouth of the Muskingum. Soon surveyors were at work laying off the "Seven Ranges" west of the Ohio, and in 1787 large tracts of land were sold by the federal government to companies and specula- tors and the Northwest Territory was created for the government of the region. Many of the Indians, however, encouraged by the continued reten- tion of the lake posts by the British, expressed dissatisfaction with the treaties of Fort Stanwix and Fort McIntosh; and the treaties were repudiated at a general council of the tribes held at Detroit in the sum- mer of 1785 on the ground that they had not been ratified by the MILITARY DRESS FPRONTIERSMAN UNIFORM RECOMMENDED ARMY UNIFORM OFFICER'S UNIFORM BY WASHINGTON AT BE- 1785 1796 GINNING OF REVOLUTION confederacy. Roving bands of Indians continued to attack the fron- tier, and almost every year some of them penetrated into Pennsyl- vania to take their toll of victims. The open war that began in 1790 was fought in the Northwest Territory, with the armies advancing from Fort Washington at Cincinnati; but a large part of the militia for Harmar's expedition of 1790 was drawn from western Pennsylvania, most of the recruits for St. Clair's army of 1791 traveled to Fort Wash- 20 I Western Pennsylvania ington by way of Pittsburgh, Wayne's army was assembled at Pitts- burgh in 1792 and spent the following winter drilling at Legionville near the site of old Logstown, and the provisions, including whiskey, for all the armies were supplied in large part by the farmers of south- western Pennsylvania. Fort Pitt had been sold by the government and largely torn down, but after St. Clair's defeat Fort Fayette was erected on the bank of the Allegheny in Pittsburgh by order of the war department. The occasional raids of Indians into the district kept the inhabitants in a more or less continual state of alarm and delayed the settlement of the lands purchased from the Indians in 1784 and 1785. After the Treaty of Fort McIntosh the direct relations of Pennsyl- vania with the Indians were confined to the Iroquois and especially to the Seneca. No objections were made by the Indians to the erection of Fort Franklin at the mouth of French Creek by United States troops in 1787, and at the Treaty of Fort Harmar in 1789 the Seneca supported the claims of the Americans against the western Indians. At this treaty, also, commissioners from Pennsylvania obtained a deed from the Iroquois chieftains to the Erie Triangle in exchange for two thousand dollars worth of goods. On the way home from this treaty Complanter complained in Pittsburgh that the blankets received in part payment for the Erie lands were "all moth eaton and good for- not'g." The failure of Pennsylvania and the United States to provide the Seneca with adequate trade facilities and to send teachers, car- penters, and farmers to aid them in adopting the white man's ways, as had been promised, together with the moral effect of the defeats of Harmar and St. Clair and the influence of British agents and traders, caused these Indians to waver in their allegiance to the Americans in 1793 and 1794. An occasion for the manifestation of the growing discontent of the Seneca was furnished by the attempt of Pennsylvania to occupy the Erie Triangle in 1794. In accordance with acts of April 16, 1793, and February 28, 1794, commissioners and surveyors had been appointed to lay out a town near Presque Isle, and a special force of militia had been organized under Captain Ebenezer Denny to support the occu- pation. By the end of June the expedition had reached Le Boeuf (Waterford), having strengthened and reinforced Fort Franklin and left a small detachment at Cussewago (Meadville) to protect the settlement that had been begun there. In the meantime the United 202 The Revolution and Indian Relations States agent to the Iroquois had warned the government that this movement might provoke hostilities on the part of the Indians; and the governor, at the request of President Washington, had ordered the expedition halted at Le Boeuf. The receipt of the order by Denny on June 24 caused him "very great mortification." A few days later a delegation of Seneca led by Cornplanter arrived at Le Boeuf and demanded the removal of the whites from all territory north of Fort Franklin. Complanter asserted that the Indians had not sold the land and that the goods they had received had been presents. The reply, delivered by Andrew Ellicott, the surveyor, defended the va- lidity of the cessions but promised that the matter would be referred to the president. The Indians withdrew, and soon thereafter Corn- planter was authorized by a council of the Iroquois to send a strong statement of their position to the United States government. Complanter's message was written and sent. The reply, however, came from the battlefield of Fallen Timbers, where on August 4, 1794, General Wayne not only defeated the Indians but also demonstrated that they could not count on British support. Close on the heels of the battle came the news of Jay's Treaty, by which England agreed to surrender the posts on American soil. There was nothing for the In- dians to do but to submit. On November i i the Iroquois ratified their sales to Pennsylvania in a treaty negotiated at Canandaigua, New York, and in 1795 the western Indians made their peace with the United States at the Treaty of Greenville. A long cycle of Indian resistance to the advance of the frontier had been completed, and the Indian boundary had been pushed from the Allegheny and the Ohio far beyond the western limits of Pennsylvania. No longer was the Indian to be a factor in the history of western Pennsylvania; his culture had been superseded by that of another race. 203 x. The Expansion of Settlement 1790-I 820 M OBILIT has been and still is an outstanding characteristic of the American people, and this characteristic is well illus- trated in the early history of southwestern Pennsylvania. In less than a generation after the first planting of considerable settle- ments, the region was supplying pioneers for the planting of similar frontier settlements in Kentucky and Ohio. That does not mean, how- ever, that southwestern Pennsylvania was fully occupied, even as an agricultural community. The professional frontiersmen, who resented the sight of the smoke from a neighbor's cabin; the speculator-farmers, who wanted to acquire choice sites in a wilderness; and many who were dissatisfied for one reason or another with their social or eco- nomic environment moved on. Their places were more than filled, however, by additional immigrants from the East and from abroad, especially from Ireland and Scotland; and the population of the sec- tion steadily increased. The newcomers and such of the sons of the earlier settlers as did not join the rush to the West acquired the lands of emigrants or the surplus lands of others, took up the less desirable lands that had not been wanted by the pioneers, or found places for themselves in the rising commerce and industry of the region. With the end of the Indian war in 1794 a considerable part of the stream of emigration from the section was deflected into northwestern Penn- sylvania, and this region in time began to attract settlers from the East and from abroad. The competition of the states, the federal government, and the great land companies for settlers to purchase and occupy their vacant lands was keen in the period following the close of the Revolution, and as a consequence the expansion of settlement in western Penn- sylvania was greatly affected by the land system of the common- wealth. Unfortunately Pennsylvania was unable to establish and 204 The Expansion of Settlement maintain a consistent land policy. The desire to promote the settle- ment and thus increase the wealth and population of the state as rapidly as possible was at war with the desire to make as much profit as possible from the primary disposal of the land, and the desire of speculators to buy land cheaply in large quantities and sell it at a profit was at war with both of these aims. The land system of the state was a shifting compromise that satisfied no one, brought in little revenue, ruined most of the speculators, and delayed settlement. By an act of April I, 1784, the legislature provided for the reopen- ing of the land office, which had been closed during the Revolution, and reduced the price of unsold land west of the mountains to three pounds, ten shillings for a hundred acres or about ten cents an acre, but interest was to be charged from the date of occupation. It was further provided that "the quantity of land granted to any one person shall not exceed four hundred acres." These provisions applied only to land already purchased from the Indians. The lands about to be acquired were, according to this act, to be surveyed into lots of from two to five hundred acres and sold at auction without restriction as to quantity and with the privilege of credit for two years. Had that section of the act remained in force, the lands would have passed rapidly into the hands of speculators; but it was repealed on Decem- ber 31, 1784, and provision was made for the sale of the newly ac- quired land east of the Allegheny River in tracts of not to exceed one thousand acres at thirty pounds per hundred acres or about eighty cents an acre. No restriction was placed upon the number of tracts that might be acquired by one person, but the price was so high that only a few choice tracts were purchased. As early as March 7, 1780, the legislature had promised a donation of lands to the soldiers of the state at the end of the war, and by an act of December 18, 1780, provision had been made for issuing to the soldiers certificates of depreciation equivalent to the amount repre- sented by the drop in purchasing power of their compensation. These certificates were to be receivable for the purchase of any unlocated lands. By an act of March 12, 1783, the lands west of the Allegheny, although not yet purchased from the Indians, were set aside to facili- tate the redemption of the depreciation certificates and to provide for the promised bounty. That part of the area south of a line drawn due west from the mouth of Mahoning Creek (approximately through 205 Western Pennsylvania the middle of Butler County), with the exception of reservations for town sites at the mouths of the Allegheny and the Beaver, was directed to be surveyed into lots of from two hundred to three hundred and fifty acres and offered at auction in exchange for depreciation certifi- cates. The first surveys were returned in 1785, and sales began in November of that year and were continued intermittently until 1787. By that time less than half of the 720,000 acres had been sold at an average price of only twenty-eight cents an acre, and the demand was so small that the sales were discontinued. It is probable that most of the purchasers were speculators who had bought up the certificates from the soldiers at a discount, and very few of the purchasers made any attempt to settle their lands until the Indian wars were over. On March 24, 1785, the legislature made definite provision for the bounty promised to soldiers in 1780. The amounts of land to be given ranged from two hundred acres for privates to two thousand for major generals, and enough land to meet the requirements was to be sur- veyed in the area north of the depreciation lands and west of the Alle- gheny. A preliminary exploration of the region was made by General William Irvine in 1785, and the surveys were completed in 1786. The bulk of the donation lands were situated in Lawrence and Mercer counties, the northern half of Butler, and the western half of Craw- ford, and they comprised about two-thirds of these areas. A total of 616,500 acres was surveyed and divided into tracts ranging in size from two hundred to five hundred acres. The tracts were numbered, tickets bearing corresponding numbers were put into lottery wheels, and the soldiers drew for the amount of land to which they were en- titled. The drawing began on October I, 1786, and was to have closed on August 31, 1787, but was extended from time to time until I8Io. In this manner almost three thousand soldiers received patents for land as bounties from the commonwealth. It is probable, however, that most of them disposed of their lands to speculators at low prices. Only the officers were allowed to sell their claims in advance of the drawing, but there was nothing to prevent the privates from selling after they had received their patents. Certainly no appreciable amount of settlement resulted from this wholesale disposal of land until after the termination of Indian hostilities in 1795. After the soldiers had been provided for, the state still had at its disposal about two-thirds of the land west of the Allegheny River, 206 The Expansion of Settlement including over half of the depreciation lands, and nearly all of that part of the purchase of 1784-85 that lay east of the Allegheny. In order to make available for sale the remaining land in the West Alle- gheny district and to promote the disposition of unsold lands else- where, a general land law was enacted on April 3, 1792. The price of vacant lands acquired from the Indians before 1784 was reduced to less than seven cents an acre, and the East Allegheny lands in the new purchase were offered at about thirteen cents an acre, or one- sixth of the previous price. No restriction upon the amount to be acquired by an individual nor requirement of settlement was imposed in the case of these lands. The available lands in the West Allegheny district, however, were offered only "to persons who will cultivate, improve and settle the same, or cause the same to be cultivated, im- proved and settled," and the price was fixed at twenty cents an acre. This provision was an attempt apparently to meet the desires of both settlers and speculators and at the same time to promote the occupa- tion of the region. The actual settler on a vacant tract was given ten years from the date of the act in which to apply for a warrant of survey for not to exceed four hundred acres and was required to reside on the land for five years before the patent would issue. Application could also be made, however, for any number of warrants in advance of settlement, the grantee being required to cause each tract of four hundred acres to be settled within two years after the issuance of the warrant and continuously occupied for five years in order to get a patent. Settlers were not supposed to occupy land for which warrants were in the hands of the deputy surveyors, and the surveyors were not supposed to locate warrants upon occupied lands except for the occupants, but the probability of conflict between settlers and speculators is obvious. The principal cause of strife, however, was the provision in the act that, if the grantee should be prevented "by force of arms of the ene- mies of the United States" from making or continuing a settlement and should persist in his endeavors he should be entitled to the same rights "as if actual settlement had been made and continued." The speculators hastened to take advantage of the opportunities held out to them by the land act of 1792. The country was enjoying a boom at that time and the stock market had not yet been invented. Applications were quickly made for an enormous number of tracts in 207 Western Pennsylvania the Monongahela and the Allegheny met much as they do now, and the combined stream ran northwest to the point that is now the mouth of the Beaver River. Here, meeting with another large river running northeast, the waters turned north up the great valley of the Beaver, and finally united with the Erigan River, which ran through what is now the bed of Lake Erie. Then came a period of great activity in the making of the land. The plateau was lifted to its present level or even higher, and tilted so that its gentle rivers became swift and turbulent, their tributaries mountain torrents fed by cascading brooks. This was an age of waterfalls-falls that cut down through the substrata of sandstone, shale, coal, slate, and limestone, once buried beneath the sea and now many hundreds of feet above it, to form the gorges in which many of the rivers now run. But though the rivers destroyed land they also built it; for after they had carved out the valleys and no longer ran so swiftly they deposited along their flood plains rich alluvial soils, later eagerly sought for agriculture. Coincident with this last elevation came some tremendous pressure of the earth, which folded the mountains of the Appalachian chain and in western Pennsylvania thrust up the formations of Laurel and Chestnut ridges. Then, last of the titanic sculptors of the land, came the glaciers, covering the northwestern corner of the state and level- ing its contours. The line of the southern limit of glaciation enters Pennsylvania from the west at a point south of New Castle and almost due east of Canton, Ohio, swings east of New Castle and Meadville, and runs near Franklin, Tidioute, and Warren. The glaciers changed the course of the streams from northerly to their present outlet to the Mississippi, and as the ice sheets melted they deposited a glacial drift that makes excellent soil for agriculture and left in their wake a few lakes, notably Conneaut, the largest natural lake in the state. The glacial retirement was accompanied by a tilting of the land at the north, which made the basins of the Great Lakes and prevented Lake Erie from draining to the south. Thus at the end of the glacial period the main topographic features of the region were determined, though the processes of erosion by water and wind were still going on, as indeed they are today. The accounts of more than one early traveler compare the west- ward view from the summit of the Allegheny Ridge to an outlook over the sea. A sea of treetops, the waves of the sea, the sea after a 6 Western Pennsylvania both sections of the new purchase, the applicants expecting to get the money with which to pay for the land by sales to settlers or to other speculators. The "rights," as they were called, passed from hand to hand, and soon most of them were in the possession of three great companies. The North American Land Company, controlled by Robert Morris, acquired land in several states, principally in New York, and its operations in Pennsylvania were much smaller than those of its rivals; the Pennsylvania Population Company, dominated by John Nicholson, controlled about half a million acres in the state, chiefly in Erie County and in the Beaver Valley; and the Holland Land Company operated on an extensive scale both in New York and in Pennsylvania. More information is available about the activities of the Holland Land Company than about those of the other companies, and its story will serve to illustrate the workings of the land act of 1792 and the influence of speculation on settlement in western Pennsylvania. In 1792 and 1793 a group of Dutch capitalists, who had previously made large purchases in New York, acquired through their American agent rights to about a million acres east of the Allegheny River and over half a million acres west of that stream. These rights were purchased from James Wilson, a judge of the supreme court of the state, who had entered the applications but had lacked sufficient funds to enable him to obtain the warrants. The prices paid were about forty and forty-five cents an acre, but these sums included the cost of locat- ing and surveying the lands. Unfortunately for the Hollanders most of the good land in the East Allegheny district was surveyed on war- rants issued prior to those obtained for them by Judge Wilson, and much of the remainder was obtained by later warrantees through collusion with the deputy surveyors. As a consequence the Holland Land Company, which was formed by the Dutch capitalists in 1795 to handle their American property, found itself in the possession of vast areas of rough and at that time practically worthless land in what are now Potter, McKean, Cameron, Elk, and Jefferson counties. Somewhat better land was obtained in the western part of the dis- trict; and the land acquired in the West Allegheny district, in Erie, Crawford, Warren, and Venango counties, was generally good. The East Allegheny lands of the company were surveyed in 1795 and 1796, and attempts were promptly made to dispose of some of zo8 The Expansion of Settlement them in large blocks. The land boom had collapsed, however, with the failure of Robert Morris, and purchasers could not be found. The imposition of taxes by Lycoming County and the new counties into which it was divided forced attempts at retail sales. The company opened a road from Lock Haven to the New York border and offered gratuities of land to settlers along the road, but the sales in the eastern counties were negligible. Some demand developed for the East Alle- gheny lands in Venango and Warren counties about 1804. An agency was opened at Kittanning and a considerable amount of land was sold in lots of 165 acres at from $1.50 to $2.25 an acre to farmers from southwestern Pennsylvania and from the Pennsylvania-German dis- trict. In 1809 the company sold a half interest in four hundred thou- sand acres of its East Allegheny lands to Benjamin B. Cooper of New Jersey at fifteen cents an acre, and further sales were made from time to time to him and to other American speculators. These purchasers, however, were as a rule unable to make payments when they became due, and it was not until 1849 that the company was able to close its books and calculate its losses on these lands. When the agent of the Dutch capitalists acquired for them in 1793 the rights to over half a million acres of West Allegheny lands it was obvious that the requirement of the act of 1792 for settlement on each tract within two years could not be complied with. It was ex- pected, however, that the Indian war, then providentially raging, would serve to excuse the purchasers from compliance and enable them to obtain title to the land without providing it with settlers. The board of property, which administered the state lands, recognized the validity of the claim that settlement had been prevented by "the enemies of the United States" but ruled that the requirement of settlement was merely postponed and that it must be complied with within two years after the conclusion of peace with the Indians in December, 1795. As a matter of fact the danger from the Indians was practically ended by Wayne's victory in the fall of 1794, and in 1795 "intruders," as the agents of the company called them, or "im- provers," as they called themselves, began to take possession of tracts claimed by the company. The company's warrants for these tracts were in the hands of the deputy surveyors but most of the tracts had not yet been surveyed. It is probable that many of the improvers were speculators on a small scale rather than bona fide settlers; when the 209 Western Pennsylvania company's agent, Major Roger Alden, arrived at Meadville in 1795 he found few settlers in possession but many cabins or huts erected as a basis for claims, and "improvement rights" being bought and sold in the market. The company began in 1796 to make vigorous efforts to establish settlers on its land. Gratuities of one hundred acres were offered to anyone who would settle on a tract and thus enable the company to obtain title to the remaining three hundred acres, provisions and tools were supplied on credit, roads were opened, and mills were erected. The lands were advertised in the papers and agents were sent through eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia seeking for recruits. So keen was the competition for settlers, however, that not many could be obtained, and numbers of those who were brought in remained only a short time or deserted the company to become improvers on their own account. Realizing that they could not fulfill the requirement of settlement within the allotted time, the great land companies brought influences to bear on the board of property, with the result that in 1797 it re- versed its decision and began issuing patents on the basis of certifi- cates to the effect that settlement had been prevented by the war and that efforts to accomplish it had been persisted in. A considerable number of such patents had been issued by 800oo, when the advent of a Democratic-Republican administration brought Tench Coxe to the head of the board of property and the policy was again reversed. The new board not only refused to issue any more patents based on prevention certificates but also began to issue "vacating warrants" to the intruders and even threatened to attack the validity of the patents already issued. An appeal by the companies to the state su- preme court for a mandamus to compel the board to deliver patents was refused in September, I8oi. In the meantime the intruders had begun to form organizations, and politicians and small-scale speculators were attempting to take advantage of the situation. The leading men of these combinations apparently bought up large numbers of claims in the hopes either of making them good or of scaring the companies into buying them off. The Pennsylvania Population Company compromised with the McNair brothers of Pittsburgh on the basis of joint ownership of dis- puted tracts and enlisted their aid in disposing of the land; and the 210 The Expansion of Settlement Holland Land Company bought out the claims of two speculators for over twenty-six thousand dollars without, apparently, reaping much advantage from the transaction. The refusal of the state supreme court to interfere in ISoI encour- aged the intruders and strengthened their organizations. "They had their town meetings to consult about their affairs," wrote the Holland Land Company agent at Meadville, "and these again chose deputies who attended their general county or district meetings, where the plans of opposition were organized, assessments made, counsel appointed, and every step taken that would insure success to their lawless plans." Such activities were reminiscent of the committees of cor- respondence of the Revolutionary period and of the Democratic so- cieties of the time of the Whiskey Insurrection, and they played their part in widening the rift between the radicals and the conservatives in the Democratic-Republican party. When the organizations attempted to dictate to Governor McKean, who was inclined to be conservative, he proposed to abandon their claims entirely and to compromise with the companies on the basis of the payment by them of additional sums to the state as commutation for the settlement they had failed to accomplish. The companies, however, preferred to make one more effort to establish their contention that the prevention of settlement by the Indian war had relieved them of the requirement of providing settlers. The members of the Holland Land Company as aliens had the privi- lege under the Constitution of suing in the federal courts. Several ejectment suits were brought before the circuit court of the United States at Philadelphia, and one of these was carried to the Supreme Court, which, despite the arguments of intervening attorneys on be- half of the state, handed down a unanimous decision in I805 uphold- ing the contention of the companies. While these cases were pending, the state senate approved a bill sponsored by William Findley denying the jurisdiction of the federal government over the "mode of settling and disposing of the territory exclusively belonging to each state respectively in respect whereof each state is and ought to be sovereign and independent" and forbidding citizens of the state to answer de- clarations of ejectment issued by the federal courts. This bill failed of passage in the house, but in I807 both the house and the senate adopted a resolution implying that the decision of the Supreme 211 Western Pennsylvania Court was of no effect because of lack of jurisdiction. Governor Mc- Kean vetoed this attempt at nullification. The state courts refused to admit that the decision was binding upon them, but in later cases they usually managed to find special circumstances warranting deci- sions in favor of the companies. By the time the Supreme Court had rendered its decision the in- truders' organizations had broken up, and the companies found themselves confronted only by individuals. The Holland Land Com- pany adopted a policy of compromise and in a few years it cleared the titles to most of its lands. Its troubles were not over, however, for it still had the problem of finding purchasers and collecting payments, and in 18Io it sold its remaining lands and credits west of the Alle- gheny to William Griffith of New Jersey and J. B. Wallace of Philadel- phia at a great loss on the original investment. The prolonged uncertainty with regard to land titles in the West Allegheny district undoubtedly operated to retard settlement. More- over, the district was off the main route of travel from the East to the West and farther away from the New Orleans market than were the lands that were available in Kentucky and Ohio. The industrious and self-reliant homeseekers, as a rule, passed the region by or, if they settled in it, soon moved on into Ohio; and many of those brought in by the companies were poverty-stricken immigrants from Ireland without experience in frontier life, or floaters who asked of life only a few necessities and freedom from toil. At any rate there was little incentive for hard work when the land titles were insecure and there was no market for the products of toil. In 8o0z Harm Jan Huidekoper, who had just made a tour through the region in the interest of the Holland Land Company, reported to his employers in a letter which Evans, the historian of the com- pany, summarizes as follows: "The log cabins were more shabby, the clearings smaller and more slovenly, the fields more carelessly tilled than in almost any other frontier community of the day. Many of the settlers were half starved for lack of proper food; the majority were clad in the most miserable clothes. Abject poverty held the whole country in its grip. As the farmers generally had neither oxen nor horses, they were unable to cultivate their lands; they could only scratch over the surface with a hoe." Three years later, after Huide- koper had assumed the agency for the company at Meadville, he wrote 212 The Expansion of Settlement that the region, despite its good soil, offered "a picture of wretchedness I have never seen equalled in America" and that it was difficult to find anyone in it who had enough money to change a five-dollar bill. When it became evident that the courts were on the side of the companies, a large part of the shiftless element decided to move on. Year after year the rivers were dotted with flatboats and rafts as the people floated on to new frontiers and milder climates where they could continue to live the life that appealed to them. "Our country is clearing very fast," wrote Huidekoper in 1805, but he had no fear that it would again become a desert. "Such vagrants eat more than they earn and were only a nuisance. Better men will soon replace them." The prophecy was destined to be fulfilled. New England's surplus sons and daughters had been pushing into central New York ever since the Revolution, and from 18oo on they moved westward in ever increasing numbers. As the land titles to the West Allegheny lands began to be cleared, the Yankees, particu- larly those from Connecticut, supplemented by New Yorkers of New England ancestry, began to move in, and by 18io they were entering the region in a steady stream. The successors of the Holland Land Company and Huidekoper, who remained at Meadville as their agent, did all they could to encourage this immigration, even taking old farms in New England in payment for the land. Influential men scat- tered about New England and New York were given commissions of five or ten per cent on all sales made to persons whom they sent in, and large tracts were sold on credit to speculators who undertook to find settlers for them. The War of 1812 probably helped the movement by diverting set- tlers from the Genesee country to the West Allegheny, which was thought to be safer from British invasion. The Yankees, like their predecessors, were, as a rule, wretchedly poor and unable to pay much of the purchase money for their lands at the outset. They were, however, industrious and competent, they improved their holdings, and in the course of time most of them were able to pay for their lands. Not all the permanent settlers in northwestern Pennsylvania, prob- ably not even a majority of them, were Yankees. The depreciation and donation lands were probably settled largely by men from south- western and eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and immigrants from these sections undoubtedly made up a part of the permanent 213 Western Pennsylvania settlers on the company lands. Nevertheless the civilization that de- veloped in the region exhibited many evidences of New England influence. As settlement expanded into northwestern Pennsylvania and the density of population increased in the southwest, a demand arose for the organization of additional counties. Somerset County was set off from Bedford in 1795 and Greene from Washington in 1796. Until 18oo the section west of the Allegheny River was a part of Allegheny Coun- ty and the remainder of the New Purchase was embraced in Lycoming County. In that year the legislature marked out the boundaries of eight new counties: Armstrong, Butler, Beaver, Mercer, Crawford, Erie, Venango, and Warren. These counties covered the western half of the New Purchase, and Armstrong and Beaver included territory below the line. In 1803 Indiana County was created, and another omnibus bill of March 26, 1804, provided for Cambria, Clearfield, Jefferson, McKean, and Potter counties. That some of these counties were created on paper considerably in advance of the need for them is indicated by the delays that occurred before their organization. Of the counties provided for in I8oo only Crawford was organized for judicial purposes at that time. Butler, Beaver, Mercer, and Erie were organized in 1803, and Armstrong and Venango in 1805, but Warren was not organized until 1819. Indiana County was fully organized in 18o6 and Cambria in 1807, but judicial organization was delayed for Clearfield till 1812, for McKean till 1824, for Jefferson till 1830, and for Potter till 1833. The increase of population and the extension of settlement in west- ern Pennsylvania can be measured by decades by an analysis of the federal census data, but it is impossible to separate the natural in- crease from that resulting from immigration or to measure the fluctua- tions within the decades. The total population of the region increased from about 75,000 in 1790 to 139,0oo in I8oo00, a gain of 64,ooo or eighty- five per cent. Sixty-seven per cent of the population of 18oo was con- centrated in the five southwestern counties of Allegheny, Washington, Greene, Fayette, and Westmoreland reduced to its present bound- aries. Washington had the largest number of inhabitants-28,298- and Westmoreland and Fayette exceeded Allegheny, which had only 15,087. The mountainous area now embraced within Bedford, Somer- set, Cambria, and Blair counties had seventeen per cent of the total, 214 The Expansion of Settlement and the remaining sixteen per cent was to be found in the newly created northwestern counties and the area soon to be set off as Indiana County. Of these counties the most populous was Beaver with 5,776. Butler and Mercer had between three and four thousand each; Armstrong, Indiana, and Crawford were in the two to three thousand range; Erie and Venango had 1,468 and I,130 re- spectively; and Warren had only 233. It is clear that between 1790 and I8oo00 the occupied area had been pushed northward all along the line from the mountains to the western boundary of the state but most rapidly in the tier of counties adjacent to Ohio. As a result of this uneven advance the unoccupied area in north central Pennsylvania was cut off from the vacant territory to the west, and the frontier of settlement in western Pennsylvania assumed the form of a curve extending from Lake Erie southward and eastward to the mountains and advancing northeastwardly. The total population of western Pennsylvania in I8Io was zio,ooo, and the increase from I8oo, amounting to 71,000, was greater than that of the preceding decade, but the percentage of increase was re- duced to fifty. The five southwestern counties had not gained so rapid- ly as the region as a whole, but still contained sixty per cent of the total, and Washington, with 36,289 inhabitants, continued to lead. The mountain counties, with fourteen per cent of the total, had also gained at a somewhat smaller rate than the region as a whole, but the new counties to the north had more than doubled their population and now held twenty-six per cent of the total. Beaver was still in the lead of these counties, with I2,I68. Mercer had over eight thousand; But- ler, over seven thousand; and Indiana, Armstrong, and Crawford, over six thousand each. Erie still had less than four thousand, Venango had about three thousand, Warren and Clearfield had between eight and nine hundred each, Jefferson and McKean had less than two hundred each, and Potter had only twenty-nine. The decade of I8io-2z, including the War of I812, the boom that followed it, and the panic of I819, doubtless witnessed considerable fluctuation in the rate of increase of population in western Pennsyl- vania. The total increase for the decade was 6I,ooo, which was Io,000 less than that of the preceding decade, and the rate of increase was only twenty-nine per cent. The total population in 82zo was 27I,ooo. The five southwestern counties still had over half of the population 215 Western Pennsylvania but the proportion had been reduced to fifty-five per cent. Washing- ton continued in the lead, with forty thousand, but Allegheny was now close behind with thirty-five thousand. The mountain counties continued to hold fourteen per cent of the total. The remainder of the region, with about two-thirds of the area, still had less than a third of the population. The six most populous counties of this section, Beaver, Mercer, Crawford, Butler, Armstrong, and Indiana, had each added from three to four thousand to its population, and this group as a whole had increased about forty per cent. Erie, however, had jumped from 3,758 to 8,553, an increase of 4,795, which was larger than that of any other county in western Pennsylvania except Alle- gheny. The upper Allegheny region and the territory east of it was still only sparsely occupied in i8zo. Venango County had almost five thousand inhabitants, but Warren's population was under two thou- sand, and McKean, Jefferson, and Potter together had less than fif- teen hundred. Clearfield County, however, as a result of the develop- ment of lumbering on the West Branch of the Susquehanna, had jumped from 875 in 18Io to 2,342. In much of this region the land is so rugged that only the bottoms are worth the labor of cultivation, and lumbering was profitable only in the vicinity of the main streams. The few settlers who were attempting to carve farms out of this wil- derness were destined to suffer the hardships of frontier life for many years. An old pioneer of Venango County thus recounted his early experiences in the region: "Me and the woman came out on foot, driving one little cow, and carrying all our effects on our backs. The first year we eat potatoes and slept on good clean leaves gathered up in the woods. The first wheat I raised, I took a bushel on my back, walked to Pittsburgh, got it ground and carried back the flour." Seed was so scarce that on one occasion when a hen had eaten some melon seeds placed in the sun to dry the owner cut open the chicken's crop, extracted the seeds, and then sewed up the gash because she could not afford to lose the hen. A Potter County pioneer recited some of his experiences in the early years: "It was very lonesome for several years. People would move in, stay a short time, and move away again.... I started, with my two yoke of oxen, to go to Jersey Shore [in Lycoming County] to mill, to procure flour. I crossed Pine Creek eighty times going to, and 216 The Expansion of Settlement eighty times coming from mill, was gone eighteen days, broke two axle-trees to my wagon, upset twice, and one wheel came off in cross- ing the creek.... The few seeds that I was able to plant the first year yielded but little produce. We, however, raised some half-grown pota- toes, some turnips, and soft corn, with which we made out to live, without suffering, till the next spring, at planting time, when I planted all the seeds that I had left; and when I finished planting we had nothing to eat but leeks, cow-cabbage, and milk. We lived on leeks and cow-cabbage as long as they kept green-about six weeks.... During the three winter months it snowed seventy days. I sold one yoke of my oxen in the fall, the other yoke I wintered on browse; but in the spring one ox died, and the other I sold to pro- cure food for my family, and was now destitute of a team, and had nothing but my own hands to depend upon to clear my lands and raise provisions. We wore out all our shoes the first year. We had no way to get more,--no money, nothing to sell, and but little to eat,- and were in dreadful distress for the want of the necessaries of life. I was obliged to work and travel in the woods barefooted. After a while our clothes were worn out. Our family increased, and the children were nearly naked. I had a broken slate that I brought from Jersey Shore. I sold that ... and bought two fawn-skins, of which my wife made a petticoat for Mary; and Mary wore the petticoat until she outgrew it; then Rhoda took it, till she outgrew it; then Susan had it, till she outgrew it; then it fell to Abigail, and she wore it out." Western Pennsylvania's population was overwhelmingly rural throughout the period under consideration, but the proportion living in towns and villages was slowly increasing. It rose from less than four per cent in 8oo00 to about six per cent in I8Io and about seven per cent in I8io; and the number of such communities increased from eleven in 1790 to over sixty in i8zo. Many other towns were laid out by optimistic speculators during these years but failed to attract settlers and reverted to farm land. Pittsburgh's position as the metropolis of the region was definitely established in the decade from 1790 to I8oo, when its population rose from 376 to 1,565. Small as that figure seems, it was more than the population of any two other towns in the region and about a third of the total in towns and villages. Approximately that proportion was maintained throughout the period, the number rising to 4,768 in I8io 217 The Natural Environment tremendous storm-these comparisons come naturally in the midst of otherwise rather prosaic accounts by early travelers of distances over- come and sleeping accommodations available. The dense forests west of the Allegheny Ridge made the region especially attractive to the pioneer settlers, despite the immense amount of labor necessary to clear the land for cultivation; for it was generally thought that in order to insure good agricultural land a site must be chosen that was heavily forested with deciduous trees. Furthermore, in the early period, accessibility to forests was necessary in the economy of the settler. The forest furnished him with wood, an absolute requisite both for shelter and for heating and cooking. The forest also supplied a natural environment for game and fur-bearing animals, of the great- est importance to Indians, traders, explorers, and pioneers; and its fruits and nuts supplemented the food supplies of the early settlers. Even in a much later period the prairies of the West were settled first at their borders or on the wooded watercourses, and settlement on the treeless plains did not come until the penetration of railroads insured the settler a means of obtaining food, fuel, and building materials. The forests of western Pennsylvania were mainly deciduous but decidedly mixed in character. The conifers or evergreens, not espe- cially important at first to the settler, grew mainly on the poorer lands and were most prominent in the northeastern part of the region and on the tops of the mountains in the southeastern section. Pine was well mixed with the hardwoods, however, throughout the region; in the southwestern quarter it occupied cool ravines and northern slopes. Hemlock also was usually to be found near stands of white pine or intermixed with it. After settlement had been well established, large quantities of white pine were floated down the Susquehanna and the Allegheny, and these lumbering activities of a later generation are an index to the extent and distribution of the original pine forests of the section. Of deciduous trees the oak was perhaps the most widely distributed, with the sugar maple a close second. In the southern half of the region there were more chestnut, walnut, and hickory trees than in the northern, the chestnut flourishing in hilly areas with a gravelly dry soil, and the walnut and shagbark hickory growing most abundantly along the alluvial river beds. Other deciduous trees com- mon in the region were ash, wild plum, buttonwood or sycamore, and the tulip tree, a species of magnolia. 7 Western Pennsylvania and 7,248 in I820. Pittsburgh owed its pre-eminence to its situation at the principal meeting place of river and overland transportation and to the early recognition of the fact that many goods could be manufactured there for less than they could be brought over the mountains. The result was a constant influx of merchants, entrepre- neurs, and artisans, who rendered economic services not only to the western Pennsylvanians but also to the hordes of passing immigrants and to the settlers in the farther West. Pittsburgh's closest rivals, Washington, Uniontown, and Browns- ville, were all situated on the main highway from the Potomac to the West, which the national government was developing as the Cumber- land Road. Washington had 1,687 inhabitants in I8zo; Uniontown, ,o058; and Brownsville, 976. The only other towns in the southwest with a population in excess of five hundred were Bedford (789) and Greensburg (771), both of which were on the Pennsylvania Road from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh; and Connellsville (6oo), at the head of keelboat navigation on the Youghiogheny. The new towns in Alle- gheny County included Middletown (now Coraopolis), laid out in the nineties; McKeesport, surveyed in 1795; and Birmingham, Lawrence- ville, East Liberty, and Bayardstown, now parts of Pittsburgh. Mc- Nair's Town (Wilkinsburg) was a "new log settlement" in 1817. McKeesport had 137 and Elizabeth I ii inhabitants in i8oo. In Washington County, Fredericktown and Parkinson's Ferry (Monongahela City), on the Monongahela, and West Alexander, on the road from Washington to Wheeling, were laid out in the nineties. In Greene County, Greensboro, established in 1791, and Waynesburg, in 1796, were followed in 1809 by Clarksville at the forks of Ten Mile Creek, and in 1814 by two rival towns on the south branch of that stream, which were appropriately named Hamilton and Jefferson but were later merged as Jefferson. Across the Monongahela in Fayette County, Bridgeport was laid out near Brownsville in 1794 and New Geneva at the mouth of Georges Creek in 1797. The founder of New Geneva was Albert Gallatin, and his glass factory and gun works at- tracted mechanics to the town. Woodstock, later Monroe, and now Hopwood, was laid out a few miles east of Uniontown in 1791. In Westmoreland County, East Liberty (now Laughlintown) and Ligo- nier appeared on the main Pennsylvania Road, and Mount Pleasant and Jones Mills, on the alternative Glade Road. 2z8 The Expansion of Settlement The mountain counties were as prolific of villages as was the better agricultural section to the west. Salisbury, started in 1796, and Smith- field (now Somerfield), in 1818, were added to the earlier Stoystown, Somerset, and Berlin in Somerset County. In Cambria County, Ebens- burg, Conemaugh (now Johnstown), Beulah, and Loretto were laid out between 1796 and 1804, and Munster followed soon after; but the largest of them, Ebensburg, had only 168 inhabitants in i82o. Five towns, Hollidaysburg, Newry, Williamsburg, Frankstown, and Martinsburg, had been laid out within the present limits of Blair County by 1815. Williamsburg took the lead and had a population of 268 in i82o. In Bedford County, on the other hand, Bedford, al- ready noted as a health resort, and Shellsburg, laid out about I8o8, appear to have been the only towns as late as i820. As the time approached for the opening up of the New Purchase, it occurred to someone that the state might obtain a part of the profits to be made by the laying out of towns in that region. The act of 1783 setting aside the depreciation lands, as already noted, reserved tracts at the mouths of the Allegheny and the Beaver, and in 1787 the leg- islature made provision for the laying out of the town of Allegheny on the tract opposite Pittsburgh. When the sale of lots took place in Philadelphia in November, 1788, most of them were bought by Pittsburghers, and there are indications that their intentions were to prevent or at least to control the growth of the rival town. When Alle- gheny County was created in 1788, the new town was designated as the county seat, but the citizens of Pittsburgh protested so vigorously that the provision was repealed, and the county buildings were erected in Pittsburgh. Allegheny was hardly more than a town on paper until after i8oo, and as late as 1825 it had only eighty-five houses. In 1791 the legislature made provision for the town of Beaver in the other reserved tract and it was laid out on the site of Fort McIn- tosh in the following year. The sale of lots took place at Washington instead of at Pittsburgh, because the Pittsburghers were thought to be desirous of suppressing another prospective rival, and many of the first lot owners of Beaver were residents of Washington County. The new town was conveniently situated to profit by the traffic on the Ohio and later on the Beaver; when Beaver County was created in I8oo, it was designated as the county seat; and by I8Io it had a popu- lation of 426. 219 Western Pennsylvania By acts of 1793 and 1794 the legislature directed the laying out of four additional towns in the New Purchase. The sites selected for three of these towns were those of the three French forts in the region, Presque Isle (Erie), Le Boeuf (Waterford), and Machault or Venan- go (Franklin). The other town, Warren, was to be located at the mouth of Conewango Creek--on the alternative route used by the French in entering the upper Ohio country. The opposition of the Indians, as noted in the previous chapter, delayed the surveys, but the towns were laid out by General William Irvine and Andrew Elli- cott in 1795. Some of the lots in these towns were sold at auction in Pittsburgh, Carlisle, and Philadelphia in 1796, and other sales took place in subsequent years. Probably most of the lots were bought by speculators. Franklin grew very slowly. It is said to have had five resident families in 18oo and twenty-five houses in I8o5, when it became a county seat. The census enumerators listed only 159 in- habitants in I8io and 252 in 820zo. Waterford and Warren were prob- ably even smaller; they do not appear in the census tables until after I8zo. Erie, on the other hand, was important from the first. When the surveyors, accompanied by troops, arrived in July, 1795, the site of the town was uninhabited, though there were eight or ten acres of cleared land as well as several houses and wells left by the French. The soldiers erected a stockade, and within a few days some settlers arrived and set up a bark cabin. This was promptly labeled "The Presque Isle House," and among its guests it eventually harbored a future king of France. Within a year a store had been set up with goods laboriously brought from New York by way of the Mohawk River and Lakes Ontario and Erie. The population rose to 81 in 18oo and 394 in 810io. The streets, however, were still muddy and encumbered by stumps, and it is said that an early town ordinance required every man to spend Saturday afternoon grubbing stumps and that drunken- ness was punished by forcing the culprit to dig three stumps. As early as 18o8 Erie possessed a newspaper and an academy, but as was often the case in frontier towns, church services were desultory and there were no buildings dedicated solely to worship. The population of the town was 635 in 18zo. Equally important with Erie among the towns of northwestern Pennsylvania was Meadville, on French Creek opposite the mouth 220 The Expansion of Settlement of the Cussewago. The site was occupied as early as 1789 by settlers from Sunbury, and in 1792 a stockade and a blockhouse were erected for protection against the Indians. Laid out as Lewisburg in 1792 and resurveyed and renamed in 1795, Meadville soon became the trading center for a large surrounding area. The town profited by the salt trade from western New York to Pittsburgh and the lumber and other traffic on French Creek; and the transients, including "tame" Indians, trappers, raftsmen, boatmen, and countrymen, made it a colorful and sometimes turbulent place. The permanent inhabitants manifested their interest in education by the early establishment of schools and academies and the founding of Allegheny College in 1815, and the first newspaper of northwestern Pennsylvania made its ap- pearance at Meadville in 1805. A Presbyterian church was organized in 1799, but for twenty years the services were held in the courthouse or in an academy building. The town had a population of 426 in x8io and 649 in 18zo. The laws for the establishment of new counties naturally were fol- lowed by the laying out of towns to serve as county seats. Butler, Mer- cer, and Kittanning were surveyed in 1803, Clearfield in I804, In- diana in I805, and Smethport in I807. Of these towns only Kittanning appeared in the census of 18Io, with a population of 309. Ten years later, however, it seems to have had only 3 18 inhabitants, while Mer- cer had 506; Indiana, 317; and Butler, 225. Freeport, in Armstrong County, was founded in 1796; Armagh, in Indiana County, about I8oo; and New Castle, later to become the county seat of Lawrence County, in 1798. Zelienople, laid out in I80o or 1803, and Harmony, founded in 1804, both in Butler County, had populations of I12 and 217 respectively in 18zo. Beaver County broke out with a rash of small towns during these years. Besides Beaver, the county seat, there were Georgetown, on the south bank of the Ohio near the state line, laid out in 1793; Sharon (now included in Bridgewater), at which a part of Aaron Burr's flotilla was built, founded about 1798; Greersburg (now Darlington), laid out in 1804; Brighton (now Beaver Falls), in 1806; East Brighton (now New Brighton), in 1815; and Bridgewater, in 1818. Another Sharon was laid out in Mercer County in 1815- No statistical data are available concerning the various elements involved in the immigration to western Pennsylvania between 1790 and I820, but something of the cosmopolitan character of the popu- 22I Western Pennsylvania lation can be indicated by noting several of the special groups. The immigration of German and Irish Catholics into the region, some from the East and some directly from Europe, seems to have begun a few years before 1790 with the settlement of a number of families from Berks County a few miles east of Greensburg. In 1790 a farm near the site of Latrobe was acquired by a priest, who at his death a few months later left it to the Church. Sportsman's Hall, as the place was called, served, despite internal dissensions, as a nucleus for Catholic settlement west of Laurel Ridge, and from it went forth from time to time groups that founded Catholic communities in Armstrong and Wayne counties. Another Catholic center developed about the same time at Loretto in Cambria County, where Captain Michael McGuire from Maryland began a settlement in 1790. With the coming of Prince Gallitzin in 1799 to serve as priest and promoter, the settle- ment grew rapidly. Gallitzin acquired more than twenty thousand acres of land, which he sold to settlers on easy terms; and by 1813 his church had over five hundred communicants and Catholic settle- ments had been established at several other places in Cambria and Blair counties. The majority of the Catholics in the mountain region were Irish, while Germans predominated among them in the com- munities farther west. Cambria County was also the scene of the settlement of two groups of immigrants from Wales, each under the leadership of a minister. The land occupied by these settlers was purchased from Dr. Benjamin Rush, and it is probable that he was responsible for their location in this region. The first group, consisting of about twelve families led by the Reverend Rees Lloyd, founded Ebensburg in 1796; and in the following year the other group, of about the same size, started the rival town of Beulah. Beulah faded away after the county seat was located at Ebensburg and the main roads left it to one side, but the agricultural settlements expanded and doubtless attracted additional immigrants from Wales. While the Catholic Irish and Germans were settling in the northern part of the county and the Welsh in the center, Protestant Germans were expanding from their stronghold in Somer- set and Bedford counties to take in the southern part of Cambria. A study of the racial origins of the settlers in Cambria County before 1815, based on names in tax lists and census schedules, indicates that those of Germanic origin made up the largest group, about forty-two 222 The Expansion of Settlement per cent. The Irish and the Scotch accounted for about thirty-five per cent, the Welsh for fifteen, and only eight per cent appear to have been of English origin. The most remarkable group settlement in western Pennsylvania during this period was that of the followers of George Rapp in Butler County. As members of a pietistic sect in Germany they were so harassed by the authorities that Rapp determined to lead them to America. After traveling over a large area and making extensive in- vestigations, he finally in 1803 bought five thousand acres in the Conoquenessing Valley, and his followers began their migration in 1804. The organization adopted was that of a "communistic theoc- racy," with Rapp as the spiritual and temporal ruler. Dress was uni- form, living conditions were as nearly equal as possible, and every- one worked. The practice of celibacy was adopted in 1807. Many of the members were experienced mechanics and the colony made re- markable progress. Additional land was acquired, bringing the total to nine thousand acres; recruits were received from time to time; and, despite one considerable defection, the community had about eight hundred members in I811. Most of them lived in the town of Har- mony, but a few dwelt in outlying agricultural villages. The colony was almost completely self-sufficing; agriculture, including sheep rais- ing, was practiced on a large scale, and a wide variety of industries was developed. The 130 buildings, many of brick or stone, included a tavern and a church. Visitors were welcomed, and it is probable that the knowledge brought over from Germany by the colonists con- tributed to the improvement of agricultural and industrial practices in the region. Despite their progress the colonists believed they would be better off in a location more suited to the wine industry and better supplied with transportation facilities for the marketing of their products. In 1814 they disposed of their property in Pennsylvania and removed to the banks of the Wabash, but ten years later they returned and built their famous community at Economy near the site of old Logstown on the Ohio. Doubtless there were a number of other group migrations to west- ern Pennsylvania during these years-such, for example, as that of the band of forty or more young men and women from Germany who, about i812, were deserted by a land agent in the wilderness of south- eastern McKean County and proceeded to build their homes where 223 Western Pennsylvania they found themselves. The great majority of the immigrants, how- ever, came as individuals or family groups. Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and the Valley of Virginia continued to make their contributions. Yankees from New England and western New York made their appearance, as has been noted, and foreigners came direct from the British Isles and Germany. Many of the newcomers were penniless when they arrived and sought only the opportunity to make a comfortable living for themselves and their families; some, however, were men of enterprise with financial resources or pro- fessional attainments, who hoped to rise to opulence and leadership in the new country. Some further impressions of the varied character of the immigration to the region between 179o and I820 can be gained by noting a few of the individuals who rose to leadership during the period or later. Among the natives of eastern Pennsylvania were Dr. James Postle- thwaite of Carlisle, educated at Dickinson College, who accompanied the army sent to suppress the Whiskey Insurrection in 1794, settled in Greensburg in 1797, and rose to prominence in medicine and politics; John M. Snowden, a printer from Philadelphia, who established the Farmers Register at Greensburg in 1799, later published papers in Pittsburgh, and was elected mayor of Pittsburgh in I825; John Han- nen, a brick mason from Lancaster County, who settled in Pittsburgh in I8oo, was one of the builders of the Western Penitentiary, and be- came a prominent druggist and manufacturer; Abraham Overholt, of Pennsylvania-German stock, who removed with his parents from Berks County to Westmoreland in i8oo and became a leading farmer, miller, and distiller at West Overton; James Anderson, of Shippens- burg, who was brought by his parents to Allegheny County in I8OI and rose to prominence as an iron manufacturer and philanthropist; Samuel Roberts of Philadelphia, doubtless of Welsh ancestry, who settled in Pittsburgh in 1803 to serve as a judge in the circuit court and became noted for his Digest of Select British Statutes... in Force in Pennsylvania; John Thaw of Philadelphia, who removed to Pitts- burgh to engage in banking in 1804 and became the progenitor of a distinguished family; and Daniel Sturgeon, from York County, who crossed the mountains in 1804, studied and practiced medicine in Uniontown, entered politics, held several state offices, and became a United States Senator in 1838. Among immigrants of Quaker stock 224 The Expansion of Settlement who were not natives of Pennsylvania were Zadok Cramer from New Jersey and Colonel Ewing Brownfield from Winchester, Virginia. Cramer arrived in Pittsburgh in 18oo after spending some years in Washington, Pennsylvania, and rose to prominence as a bookseller, printer, and compiler of guides and almanacs. Brownfield was taken by his parents to Uniontown in 1805 and in later years became a prominent businessman and banker at that place. It is to be expected that men of New England stock would be found to have played important roles in the development of the northern counties. Among the most prominent of the early citizens of Erie were Colonel Seth Reed, who built the first tavern in 1795, and his son, Rufus S. Reed, both natives of Massachusetts; and Judah Colt from Connecticut, who became the local agent of the Pennsylvania Population Company in 1796. David Mead, who moved his family to the site of Meadville in 1788 and became the founder and leading citizen of the town, was born in New York of parents from Connecti- cut and had lived in northeastern Pennsylvania before crossing the mountains. Major Roger Alden, who came to Meadville in 1795 as the first agent of the Holland Land Company and later served in the legislature and held county offices, was a native of Massachusetts, as was his cousin, the Reverend Timothy Alden, a Harvard graduate, who settled at Meadville in 1815, founded Allegheny College and served as its first president, and strove to diffuse culture among the frontiersmen. The New England influence was not confined to the northern coun- ties, however. Henry Baldwin, a native of Connecticut and a graduate of Yale, after studying law in Philadelphia, settled in Pittsburgh about I8oo, rose to leadership at the bar, was elected to Congress in 1817, and became a justice of the United States Supreme Court in 1830. Walter Forward, also a native of Connecticut, left his parents' farm in Ohio in 1803 to seek his fortune in Pittsburgh, studied law in Baldwin's office, edited a newspaper, went to Congress in 1822, and became secretary of the treasury in President Tyler's cabinet. Even Bedford had a Yankee among its prominent citizens: John Tod, a product of Connecticut and Yale, settled there in I8oo, taught school, studied law, was elected to the legislature in 18io and to Con- gress in I82z, and became a judge of the state supreme court in 1827. Among the immigrants from Ireland who settled in western Penn- 225 Western Pennsylvania sylvania during these years were the Reverend John Taylor, born in Ulster and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, who became rector of the Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh about 18oo, taught in private schools and in the Pittsburgh Academy, and made astronomical cal- culations for almanacs; Thomas Henry, also a native of Ulster, who accompanied his parents to Washington County in 1794, settled in Beaver in 1798, served in the legislature, held various county offices, edited a newspaper, and was elected to Congress in I837; and Patrick Farrelly, a Catholic and doubtless of Celtic stock, who settled in Meadville in I8oz, acquired an extensive law practice, married first a daughter of David Mead and later a daughter of Timothy Alden, served in the legislature and as a major of militia in the War of 1812, and was elected to Congress in I8zo20. Thomas Mellon, who was to rise to prominence as a judge and a banker in Pittsburgh, accompanied his parents from Ulster to Westmoreland County in 1818. Men of Scotch birth who came to western Pennsylvania during these years also rose to leadership: the Reverend Robert Bruce, a native of Perthshire, who was installed as pastor of the Associate Presbyterian churches of Pittsburgh and Peters Creek in I8o8, served as principal of the Western University of Pennsylvania from 1819 to 1843; and Walter Lowrie, a native of Edinburgh, who accompanied his parents to Butler County in the seventeen nineties, served in the legislature, was elected United States Senator in 1819, and directed the foreign missionary work of the Presbyterian Church for many years. Of Englishmen who settled in the region in this period the most notable was Benjamin Bakewell, who purchased a glass factory in Pittsburgh in I8o8, imported expert workmen from Holland and England, developed with his partners the first flint-glass factory in the country, and promoted many civic enterprises. A German named Detmar Basse, who arrived in Butler County in I8oz, acquired a ten-thousand acre estate, built a "castle" known as "Bassenheim," founded the village of Zelienople, and operated a brickyard, a mill, a blast furnace, and a foundry. Basse's attempt to establish a New World barony was not a success and he returned to Germany in I818; but his son-in-law, Philippe Louis Passavant, who joined him in I8o6, remained and became the progenitor of an in- fluential family. George Rapp and his followers made their first pur- chase of land from Basse, and it is probable that he was responsible 226 The Expansion of Settlement for their settlement in Butler County. Another type of German immi- grant is exemplified by the Reverend Charles Colson, highly educated scion of a prominent family, who emigrated to Pennsylvania in I8Io, settled in Meadville in the spring of I816, organized four Lutheran churches, including one at Erie, and served them all until his untimely death in the fall of the same year. Harm Jan Huidekoper, the agent of the Holland Land Company at Meadville after 1805, had been well educated before he left Holland for America in 1795 and played a prominent part in the cultural as well as the economic development of his community. While the East and Europe were thus contributing leaders for the development of civilization in western Pennsylvania, many of the sons and grandsons of the first settlers, and in some cases the pioneers themselves, were moving on to the farther West and taking the lead in the planting of civilization in the new communities that were spring- ing up there. Even Kentucky, which is usually considered as purely the product of Virginia enterprise, owed the settlement of several of its earliest towns to Pennsylvanians, though it must be admitted that many of them were originally from Virginia. The Popes, the Rowans, the Metcalfs, and the Hardins had lived in western Pennsylvania until the gradual emancipation act and the boundary settlement prompted them to move to Kentucky with their slaves. Ohio was to a large extent a colony of Pennsylvania and especially of western Pennsylvania. One of the founders of Steubenville was Senator James Ross of Pittsburgh, and Warren was laid out by Ephraim Quinby from Washington, Pennsylvania. Ohio's first Presbyterian churches were organized by Pennsylvanians and drew most of their early pastors from that state, and Pennsylvania schoolmasters were com- mon. Twelve of Ohio's governors were natives of the Keystone State, and it is said that a majority of the members of the Ohio House of Representatives of 1817 had been born in Washington County, Penn- sylvania. The constant emigration and immigration of people and leaders tended to prolong the period of social instability in western Pennsyl- vania. Threads that had been woven into the pattern of culture were drawn out and others had to be inserted in their places. It must not be forgotten, however, that not all the sons and grandsons of the pio- neers moved West. Usually at least one of each generation remained 227 Western Pennsylvania Of the wide variety of timber available, the white oak and the sugar maple were probably the most useful to the first settlers: the white oak afforded excellent material for the building of cabins and wagons; and maple sugar--substituted for the prohibitively costly cane sugar-made possible the utilization of native fruits such as wild plum and crabapple, too sour for use without sweetening. Other varieties of oak found frequently in western Pennsylvania were the rock or chestnut oak, abundant in the mountains and used for fuel and tanbark; the laurel oak or shingle oak, found commonly in the western part of the section; the red and scarlet oaks, the bark of which was much used in tanning; and the black oak, used for fencing, fire- wood, staves, and shingles. The bark of this last species was used in dyeing wools (and later silks) a yellow color, and when employed in tanning gave a yellow tinge to the leather. White pine was the wood most commonly used for frame buildings, especially for timbers and siding. The chestnut, which often attained great size, afforded strong, durable wood for fence posts and rails and was later to become im- portant for the manufacture of charcoal used in smelting the native ores. The black walnut, where abundant, was used by the early set- tlers for buildings and for fence posts; it is said that fence posts and rails of walnut would last for twenty to twenty-five years. It was also used for musket stocks, and both the bark and the outer covering of the nuts were used for dyeing woolens. Its later use for cabinet work and the making of coffins was of course not envisaged by the first set- tlers of the region. Hickory was another important tree: aside from the food value of the nuts, its wood was desirable for its strength and elasticity and was much used for the axletrees of carriages, for tool handles, screws, mill-wheel cogs, rake teeth, flails, and ox yokes. It was also valuable as fuel, being slow-burning wood and giving out an intense heat. Of the three varieties of ash found in the section, the black, the white, and the red, the two first were especially useful where light weight combined with strength and elasticity was desir- able--for farming implements, oars, handspikes, pulley blocks, and, later, in coachmaking. Among the trees not so generally distributed in western Pennsyl- vania were the aspen, formerly of little use; the beech, especially the red beech, abundant in the northern sections and used for tools, shoe lasts, and charcoal; the dogwood, useful for tool handles and affording 8 Western Pennsylvania to carry on the family tradition. Moreover, the cultural heritage of many of the newcomers was so similar to that of earlier settlers that they quickly fitted into the social environment. By 1815, approxi- mately half a century after the beginning of permanent settlement, a cultural pattern was taking form in southwestern Pennsylvania, a form that was to persist without great modification until the coming of the railroads in the fifties. Social stability was not to be achieved in the northwestern section, however, for another generation; and in the north central counties it was delayed until after the Civil War. 228 x. The Development of Transportation HE planting and progress of civilization in a new region are obviously dependent on the facilities for transportation and communication to and from and within the region. Not only must the country be accessible to immigrants but continuous contact must be maintained with the outside world so that there may be a free inflow of the ideas, institutions, and products of more highly developed areas. The natural advantages of western Pennsylvania in this respect have been indicated in a previous chapter-its central location, its relation to the great waterways of the Mississippi and St. Lawrence systems, and its accessibility by passes over the Appala- chian Mountains. During the period under consideration these ad- vantages were developed and improved mainly by the application to them of techniques and types of equipment already well known in the civilized world when the occupation of the region began; and it was only at the close of the period that a notable recent invention-the steamboat-made its appearance in the West. The first great era of progress in transportation-the era of turnpikes, steamboats, and canals-did not get under way in the West until after the War of 1812; and the locomotive had just been invented in England at that time. What the early history of western Pennsylvania would have been if it had been penetrated by a railroad in advance of settlement can only be imagined. The facilities for transportation were not wholly in a state of nature when white men began to enter the region. The Indians, often follow- ing the runways of wild animals, had discovered most of the passes and convenient fording places, had developed by use a network of trails, and had invented canoes for navigating the streams. Indian trails, contrary to a common impression, were not blazed or marked in any way, but those most used were worn deep by innumerable foot- 229 Western Pennsylvania steps and could easily be followed. They were seldom more than a foot or two in width and they took little account of the steepness of the slopes they ascended and descended. As a rule they kept to the ridges and avoided wooded ravines and narrow valleys, which might be swampy in summer or filled with snow in winter and in which the danger of ambush was greater than on higher land. The larger streams were usually crossed at their mouths, where the formation of bars made fording possible, but the smaller ones could be waded or crossed on fallen trees at many convenient points. The Indians apparently made no conscious efforts to improve their trails or to clear the streams of obstructions. The first white men to enter the region, the traders, naturally made use of the Indian trails. Some of them, doubtless, traveled on foot as did the Indians, but most of them appear to have ridden horses and to have used pack horses for the transportation of their goods. The footpaths of the Indians could as a rule be traversed by horses without difficulty, and such use doubtless widened and deepened them. Even after the navigable waters of the West were reached, the traders who were going farther usually continued their journeys by trail, for the overland routes to the Indian villages were more direct than the streams and only a few of the traders possessed establishments where they could leave their horses. Pack-horse transportation was used extensively by the army dur- ing the French and Indian War, and with the advent of settlers it developed into a business. The military roads that had been opened were often impassable for wagons, especially in rainy seasons, and they reached only a few of the settlements. The pack-horse trains were usually composed of twelve or more horses with two men to attend them, and the average load for a horse was about two hundred pounds. One man led the train and the other brought up the rear, keeping an eye on the packs to see that they did not come loose. The horses were small, wiry, and sure-footed, and were equipped with ingeniously constructed wooden packsaddles. Each horse wore a bell, the clapper of which was tied while the train was in motion but was allowed to swing while the horse was feeding so that the animal could easily be found. The point at which goods were transshipped from wagons to pack horses varied with the seasons but generally moved westward as the roads were improved. Before the French and Indian War it was 230 The Development of Transportation Lancaster; afterwards Carlisle and later Harrisburg were shipping stations. On the southern route Baltimore, Frederick, Hagerstown, Oldtown, and Cumberland were successive depots. The expense of this form of transportation added a high percentage to the cost of imports and correspondingly reduced the value of exported com- modities. Packing was not confined to the professionals; for the most part they served the traders, the army, and the merchants in the towns. The farmers of each community, as a rule, united in the fall in sending a train to the East to exchange furs, whiskey, ginseng, and perhaps other goods for salt and iron. Thus Washington on his trip to the West in 1784 "met numbers of Persons & Pack horses going in with Ginseng; & for Salt & other articles at the Markets below." Bags of feed were usually taken along on such expeditions and deposited at convenient points to be used on the return. Ordinarily only two or three men went, but they made it their business to collect the eastern news and recount it upon their return. Often they visited the old settlements from which they and their neighbors had come, delivered messages from those in the West, and carried back the local news. The era of the pack horse in western Pennsylvania was approaching its end in the decade of the seventeen nineties as a result of the open- ing and improvement of roads and the increasing wealth, which en- abled the farmers to purchase wagons. The pack-horsemen fought bitterly against the transition, for their horses were too small to pull the wagons and consequently it was difficult for them to go over to the ranks of the wagoners. Nevertheless wagons became increasingly plentiful, and by the end of the century they carried practically all the intersectional trade. Pack horses continued to be used, however, for internal transportation where roads were not available; and in some of the slow-settling northern counties they could not be dispensed with for many years. Traveling on horseback, moreover, continued to be a common practice, even for long distances and on the improved roads, until the coming of the railroads. The first road opened into western Pennsylvania was that of the Ohio Company from the Potomac at Wills Creek (Cumberland) to the Youghiogheny, probably in 1752, but it is doubtful if wagons were used on it before the French opened their portage road of fifteen miles from Presque Isle to Le Boeuf in 1753. The Ohio Company's road was 231 Western Pennsylvania improved and extended to Gist's plantation west of Chestnut Ridge by Washington in 1754, and wagons and cannon were drawn over it. Braddock used this same road in the following year, further improving it and extending it to the Monongahela at Turtle Creek; and at the same time James Burd opened a road from Shippensburg through Bedford and thence in a southwesterly direction to the top of the Allegheny Ridge. By 1758 these roads were apparently overgrown with brush and impassable for wagons. The troops under General Forbes reopened Burd's road to a point about four miles west of Bedford and then constructed a new road over the Raystown Path of the Indian traders to a point about ten miles west of Ligonier. Thence to Fort Duquesne the army apparently traveled over the trail and through the woods without stopping to make a road. In 1759, however, the road was opened to Pittsburgh, the sections through the mountains were improved, the Braddock Road was reopened, and Burd opened a road from Gist's plantation to Redstone Old Fort (Brownsville) on the Monongahela, from which point water trans- portation could beised to Fort Pitt. During the next five years these roads were much used for the transportation of military supplies and much effort was expended on them by soldiers to keep them passable. From then on, however, they were allowed to deteriorate, and it is doubtful if there was much wagon transportation over them during the Revolution. As soon as the war was over a movement began, in which Hugh Henry Brackenridge had a large part, to obtain state aid for the improvement of the facilities of transportation; and in the spring of 1784 the legislature authorized a lottery to raise forty-two thousand dollars for this purpose, one half of the sum to be applied to the roads leading from Philadelphia to the western parts of the state. It is prob- able that this money was expended in the eastern section. In Septem- ber, 1785, however, another act of the legislature provided for the appointment of three commissioners to lay out a public highway from the western part of Cumberland County to Pittsburgh and appropri- ated two thousand pounds ($5,333) for the expenses of the commis- sioners and to assist townships containing "difficult mountains or other broken ground to open and make the said highway." The com- missioners reported to the council in November, 1787, and the route was confirmed as far west as Bedford. The council was not satisfied 232 The Development of Transportation with the work west of that point, and new surveys were ordered, which were not completed until 1790. In the meantime, however, work was under way on the section east of Bedford; but the money appropriated was found to be insufficient for making the road sixty feet wide, as the law had directed, and in January, 1788, the council ordered that the road from the east side of Sideling Hill to the west side of Ray's Hill "be cleared and made good and sufficient, to be twelve feet wide on the sides of the hills, or among the rocks . . . and room to be made for not less than three wagons to draw off to one side in the narrow places, at a convenient distance for others to pass by." An attempt in 1787 to obtain an annual appropriation of six thousand pounds for roads, of which twenty-five hundred pounds were to have been expended on the road to Pittsburgh, the money to be raised by a tax on horses, was defeated; but in 1791 the assembly included five hundred pounds for the road from Bedford to Pittsburgh in an omnibus act for internal improve- ments, and additional sums were appropriated in 1792 and 1793. Thus was created the great Pennsylvania Road from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. It followed in the main the line of the old Forbes Road across the mountains to Ligonier and thence took a course, a few miles south of that road, through Greensburg to Pittsburgh-approxi- mately the route of the modern Lincoln Highway (U.S. 30). An alternative route that seems to have been preferred by travelers to the one through Ligonier, except in wet weather, diverged from the main road about four miles west of Bedford, followed probably the line of Burd's road of 1755 to the Allegheny Ridge, and then took what was known as the Glade Road through Somerset and Mount Pleasant. The traveler on this road could rejoin the main road at Greensburg or at a point farther west, or he could continue in a wester- ly direction to the Monongahela at Parkinson's Ferry (Monongahela City) and thence to Washington and Wheeling. An appropriation of four hundred pounds for the road from Bedford to the west side of Laurel Hill in the act of 1791 was probably intended for this route; and in 1805 the legislature provided for the laying out of a road by the "most direct practicable route" from Somerset to Greensburg. Money was appropriated for the expense of opening this road, but the counties through which it passed were expected to keep it in repair. While the Pennsylvania Road was being laid out along the general 233 Western Pennsylvania route of the old Raystown Trail, provision was made for the opening of another state road across the mountains by way of the Frankstown Trail. This was designed at first not as a through road but as a con- necting link between the navigable waters of the Susquehanna and the Ohio systems. It was surveyed in 1787 from Frankstown to the Conemaugh at the site of Blairsville and thence along the south side of the Conemaugh to the mouth of Loyalhanna Creek, and it was cleared and made passable for wagons in 1789. One of the principal uses of this road in the early years was for the transportation of iron from the Juniata region to Pittsburgh. In order to shorten the land haul a branch was built to the mouth of Stony Creek (Johnstown), whence the Conemaugh could be navigated in times of high water. The road was soon extended from the site of Blairsville to Pittsburgh; in 1807 the state appropriated twelve hundred dollars to be expended by the counties through which it passed in improving it; and in the course of time it became the Huntingdon Pike and finally the William Penn Highway. A road branching from this one at Ebensburg and running through Indiana and Kittanning and across Butler and Mer- cer counties was opened with the aid of five thousand dollars appro- priated by the legislature in I8o6. Still another road across the mountains for which the state made appropriations was that following the Chinklacamoose Trail from Milesburg, near Bellefonte, through Clearfield and Brookville, to the Allegheny near the site of Tionesta and thence to Waterford. This road was surveyed by 1799, and an act of that year appropriated five thousand dollars to be expended under the direction of the gover- nor in opening and improving it, but it was not completed until 1804. In 18o7 provision was made by the legislature for explorations for a road across the state through the northern tier of counties, and parts of it were opened in the following year. The route across the mountains that had been opened by the Ohio Company and developed by Washington and Braddock suffered from the fact that Pennsylvania was not interested in improving the facili- ties for transportation from her western territory to Baltimore and Alexandria. In 1787 Maryland and Virginia proposed to lay out a road from the Potomac to the Ohio and to bear the expense of opening it through western Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania legislature gave its consent, but nothing came of the project. Maryland made provi- 234 The Development of Transportation sion for improving the section within her limits in 1795, 1798, and 18o2, but the Pennsylvania section appears to have been little used for through transportation until it was developed by the federal gov- ernment as the Cumberland Road. A road was opened from western Maryland to Morgantown on the Monongahela, but the bulk of the traffic from the Chesapeake Bay region to the upper Ohio went north to Chambersburg and then took the Pennsylvania Road. Although the state naturally concerned itself mainly with through routes across the mountains, it also aided in the opening of roads wholly within the western section. In 1791 the legislature appropriated four hundred pounds for a road from Le Boeuf to Presque Isle, but no work could be done on it until after the pacification of the Indians in 1795. Soon thereafter it "was made by a kind of causeway of logs." An act of April 4, 1796, appropriated four thousand dollars for the clearing of a road from Pittsburgh via Franklin to Waterford, and in the Pittsburg Gazette of June z4, James G. Heron and Dunning McNair advertised for "a number of good Axe Men, to be employed in cutting the road." Apparently the road was not opened beyond Franklin at this time, however, for three years later the legislature set aside the first five thousand dollars received from the sale of lots in Erie, Franklin, Waterford, and Warren for use in laying out and opening the road from Franklin to Waterford. After the establish- ment of the new northwestern counties and the location of their coun- ty seats, the state in 1807 appropriated three thousand dollars to be expended by the county commissioners in "opening and improving" roads from Beaver to Mercer, Pittsburgh to Butler, Butler to Mercer, Mercer to Meadville, Butler to Franklin, Franklin to Meadville, and Meadville to Waterford. In 1809 commissioners were appointed to survey a road through Westmoreland and Somerset counties to con- nect the Pennsylvania Road with the projected Cumberland Road. This crossroad was laid out through Connellsville, and fifteen hun- dred dollars were later appropriated by the state to aid in improving it. The road from Pittsburgh to Beaver was declared a state road in i809, and commissioners were appointed to extend it to the state line. In addition to the through roads, there was need, of course, of a vast number of local roads. These were laid out by the authority of the county courts and were opened and cared for by the townships or the 235 Western Pennsylvania near-by inhabitants. The first local road in the region was probably the one from the Monongahela River at FishpotRun (near the site of Fred- ericktown) to the Braddock Road at the top of Laurel Hill (Chestnut Ridge), which was petitioned for in 1773 by the inhabitants of Spring- hill Township to the county court of Westmoreland County. The regular procedure on the receipt of such petitions was for the court to appoint viewers, at least three in number, to go over the route and report at the next session on the need for and practicability of the proposed road and the line it should follow. Some indication of the rapidity with which roads were provided during the period of settle- ment is seen in the fact that no less than fifteen boards of viewers were appointed at the first session of Virginia's Augusta County court at Pittsburgh in February, I775. Although western Pennsylvania was covered by a network of roads by 18z1, it cannot be said that they provided satisfactory avenues of travel and transportation. In general the roads, whether authorized by the state or by the counties, were not "constructed," they were merely "opened"-that is, the trees were cut down and the stumps were grubbed out. Sometimes a little digging was done on side hills and in passes, swampy places were filled with logs laid crosswise with a little dirt on top of them, and crude wooden bridges were con- structed over some of the smaller streams. Little effort appears to have been made to avoid steep inclines, and culverts were practically unknown. Road maintenance consisted merely of the removal of fallen trees and the dumping of dirt into mudholes and washouts. It is the universal testimony of contemporaries that a trip over almost any of the roads with a wagon or a carriage was a difficult and haz- ardous experience, especially in the winter or spring. In the wet sea- sons, parts of the main roads appeared to be bottomless, and it is re- ported that wagoners sometimes spent three successive nights at the same tavern while working their wagons through a boggy section. Christian Schultz, who traveled on horseback over the portage road from Erie to Waterford in August, 1807, reported that the road was the worst he had ever experienced. "What think you of starting at sunrise, at this season of the year, when the days are longest, and making it dark night before you could whip and spur through fourteen miles of mud and mire? a great part of which is up to your knees while sitting on the saddle." The wagon on which his trunk was shipped 236 The Development of Transportation did not arrive "until the next day, when it made its appearance with an additional yoke of oxen. The crippled condition of the waggon con- vinced me that it had seen hard times; and, upon inquiry, I found the whole waggon and cargo (by one wheel running over the stump of a tree) had been overset in a deep mud hole." In the same year Fortes- cue Cuming, traveling by stage to Pittsburgh on the Pennsylvania Road, after descending "a very long and steep hill, by a shocking road" in the Turtle Creek Valley and then ascending "another hill by an equally bad and dangerous road," expressed his astonishment "that in so fine and so improving a country more attention is not paid to the roads." As a matter of fact Pennsylvania had already taken the lead among the states in the construction of artificial roads with the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike, which was completed in 1794 at a cost of nearly half a million dollars and was extended to Columbia on the Sus- quehanna in I8o6. The money for the construction of turnpikes was raised by stock companies incorporated by the state, and the state usually subscribed for part of the stock. Tolls were collected from those who used the roads to provide for their maintenance and for dividends to the stockholders. The first such road to be constructed in western Pennsylvania was over the route that gave Schultz so much trouble in 1807. As early as 1804 the legislature had incorporated a "company for making an artificial road from Erie to Waterford," but the company was not organized until I8o6 and the road was not con- structed until I809. According to a contemporary newspaper account: "The manner of making this road has been different from the other turnpike roads in this state [whick were macadamized]; the timber has been cleared off to the width of one hundred feet; thirty feet grubbed, and twenty feet in the center of which has been dug and the clay thrown up, raising the middle from eighteen inches to two feet higher than the sides; deep ditches are dug on each side to carry off the water, which leaves the part travelled on so solid that very little impression is made on it by the heaviest teams." In I8II it was re- ported to be "an excellent turnpike road." In the meantime two lines of turnpike were being pushed westward from Lancaster, one by way of York toward Chambersburg and the other toward Harrisburg, and plans were being made for artificial roads over the mountains. A Harrisburg and Pittsburgh Turnpike 237 The Natural Environment in its inner bark a substitute for quinine; the elm, not originally very common and little used by the first settlers, except for medicine made from one variety known as the "slippery elm," but later to be of im- portance as a shade tree; the locust, used for fence posts and later for timber in ships and railroad lines; the red maple, the wood of which was made into saddletrees, spinning wheels, bedsteads, and chairs, and the bark of which was boiled to extract a purple color used as a dye and in making ink; the pitch pine, used for boards and scantling and for fuel and tar making; the sour gum, used for wheel hubs and hat- ters' blocks; and the red cedar, which was made into fence posts un- usually resistant to the weather. The later use of the sweet gum and the wild cherry in cabinet work might also be noted. Thus it is evident that the forests of western Pennsylvania offered to the prospective settler a wide variety of timber suited both to his immediate wants and to his future needs. The character of the forest growth is a matter of some dispute. Some early observers reported the woods as impenetrable; others said that travel in them was easy. It is likely that the "impenetrable" thickets were mostly those of scrub oak on poor soil or of mountain laurel and rhododendron on more moist sites; certainly there is ample evidence that in the forests west of the ridges the trees were so large and well spaced that travel was little impeded. Many accounts com- ment on the absence of undergrowth, sometimes explaining that the Indians frequently burned over the floor of the forest to help them see their game, but usually ascribing the open park-like condition of the forest to the dense shade of the trees and the canopy of wild grape- vines which, spreading over the treetops to reach the sun, linked the trees with a roof impenetrable to sunlight. Darkness, gloom, silence- these were conditions of the western forest. Song birds progressed into the woods only as clearings became common; at first the sole sounds were the cries of eagles or ravens and at night the hooting of owls, the howling of wolves, and the occasional wild scream of a panther launch- ing itself on its prey. The somberness and silence of the woods had their psychological effects on the first explorers and settlers. Moving through the forest, silent themselves to stalk their prey or to beware lest they in turn be stalked by dangerous beasts, working in their little clearings hemmed in by the forests and alert for possible menace, men naturally acquired a habit of taciturnity. When a group of fron- 9 Western Pennsylvania Company was incorporated in 18o6 to build a road by way of Cham- bersburg and Bedford, and in 1807 another company was incorporated to build by way of Huntingdon and the Frankstown Road. No prog- ress having been made by either of these companies, the legislature in 18 Ii provided for a commission to decide between the two routes and authorized a stock subscription of $150o,ooo by the state to pro- mote construction on the route selected. The commission decided in favor of the southern route and stock was offered to the public in 1812, but the work of construction did not begin until 1816. During these same years the national government was also making plans for the construction of an artificial road across the mountains and through southwestern Pennsylvania to the Ohio River. The act for the admission of Ohio to the Union in 8o0z had provided that one-twentieth of the net proceeds of land sales in the state should be applied to the construction of roads from the Atlantic to the borders of the state. By 1805 enough money had accumulated to warrant the passage of an act for "laying out and making a Road" from Cumber- land, Maryland, to the Ohio River, and by 1807 the road had been surveyed as far as the Monongahela at Brownsville. The line as origi- nally surveyed followed approximately the route of the Braddock and Burd roads, but President Jefferson, at the urgent request of Pennsylvania, changed it to run through Uniontown. Construction of the road was begun at Cumberland in I811I, but it was not com- pleted to Uniontown until 1817. The route west of the Monongahela through Washington was confirmed in I816, and the entire road to Wheeling was completed in I8zo at a total cost of $1,700,00. A necessary adjunct to land transportation was some provision for crossing the streams that could not be forded. If these streams were narrow, wooden bridges were built over them when the roads were opened, but the broader streams were usually crossed by means of fer- ries. The establishment of such conveniences was authorized and their services were regulated by the county courts or by provincial or state authorities. Thus in 1775 Jacob Bausman was authorized by the court of Augusta County (Virginia) "to keep a ferry aCross the Monon- gohale River from his house to the Town opposite thereto [Pittsburgh], and that he provide and keep a Sufficient number of Boats for that purpose, in ferrying over the Militia on Muster days"; and at the same time the request of John Ormsby for permission to 238 The Development of Transportation keep a ferry over the Monongahela at Pittsburgh, "being opposed by Jacob Bousman," was refused. A chain suspension bridge, the first of its kind in the United States, was built by James Finley over Jacob's Creek for Westmoreland and Fayette counties in 80oi; and there was a wooden toll bridge at Connellsville in 1809; but in general the construction of bridges over the larger streams was not under- taken until the advent of turnpikes after the war of 1812. A bridge was built across the Beaver at New Brighton in 1815, but Pittsburgh's first two bridges, across the Monongahela and the Allegheny, were not constructed until 1818 and 18zo respectively. The principal vehicles used on the roads of western Pennsylvania in the period under consideration were four-wheeled wagons. Doubt- less wagons of many varieties were used by individual farmers, but the greater part of the trans-Allegheny freight was carried in what was known as the Conestoga wagon. This vehicle was developed by German wagon-makers in the Conestoga Valley of Lancaster County before the French and Indian War. Its chief characteristic was the peculiar shape of the box, which was designed to prevent the displace- ment of the cargo on rough or sloping roads. The floor of the box sloped upward toward both front and rear and to a less extent to each side, and the ends flared outward at an angle of nearly forty-five de- grees. Great bows extended upward from the body, those at the ends following the lines of the ends of the body, and over them was stretched an immense cover of white cloth. Although the wheels were only a few feet apart, the box was usually sixteen feet long at the top and the length of the cover was twenty-four feet. The top of the front bow was about eleven feet from the ground. Six-horse teams were com- monly used to pull these "ships of inland commerce," and the team and wagon together were sixty feet in length. The "Conestoga" horses that made up the teams were of a special breed of large and powerful animals, usually black, that was developed in Lancaster County. Each horse was equipped with hame bells, and the driver usually rode on the left-wheel horse or walked beside the team. Sometimes the driver or a helper rode on the "lazy board," which could be pulled out on the left side of the wagon and from which the brakes could be manipu- lated. A caravan of Conestoga wagons, with their blue boxes, red running gear, and white tops, must have been a striking spectacle. The wagons engaged in the freighting business across the moun- 239 Western Pennsylvania tains were, as a rule, driven by their owners or by hired men in a train headed by the owner. Many men made their entire living in the busi- ness, but farmers also engaged in it during off seasons. The former were known as "regulars" and the latter as "militia" or "sharp- shooters." Most of the members of both groups, at least in the early years, were Germans. The hired wagoners received wages of from eight to ten dollars a month. The journey from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, a distance of 297 miles, ordinarily required about three weeks, and the charge for transportation during the first decade of the nineteenth century was about five dollars a hundredweight. A traveler on the Pennsylvania Road in 1813 recorded in his diary that he often met as many as fifty wagons a day engaged in the through traffic. The distance from Baltimore, even by way of Chambersburg, was about twelve miles less than that from Philadelphia, but the bulk of the business was with Philadelphia. Freight rates eastward were as low as three dollars, but even so the wagons often returned empty, for most of the products of the West, with the exception of furs and ginseng, were marketed down the Mississippi. Livestock was fre- quently driven to the eastern market, and droves of cattle, sheep, and pigs were a common sight on the road. Much of the westward traffic was supplied by immigrants transporting their effects to the West, and it was not uncommon for them to bring out other commodities to sell to their neighbors. In addition to the through traffic there was, of course, a considerable amount of local transportation on the roads: agricultural products had to be hauled to market or to the mill, and the commodities manufactured in the West as well as those imported had to be distributed throughout the region. Travel over the roads to and in western Pennsylvania in the early part of the period under consideration was usually on foot or on horse- back. As early as 1784, however, a stage line was in operation from Philadelphia to Lancaster, and by 1796 it had been extended through York and Carlisle to Shippensburg, which remained the terminus until I804. In the summer of that year the first stage service across the Appalachian Mountains was established, with Pittsburgh as its objec- tive. The line, which was made possible by a subsidy in the form of a favorable contract for carrying the United States mail, extended from Philadelphia through Lancaster, Harrisburg, Carlisle, and Chambers- burg to Bedford and thence followed the Glade Road through Somerset 240 PACK-HORSE TRAIN, SHOWING VARIOUS METHODS OF PACKING BURDENS ......... P Lill3 1 CONESTOGA WAGON AND SIX-HORSE BELL TEAM The wagon boxes were usually painted blue, the running gears red, and the covers white. In the illustration above a toolbox is at the side and a feed trough at the back. The horses were a special breed of powerful blacks known as Conestogas. The breed is now extinct. Note the hoop of bells above the hames of each horse. The Development of Transportation to Greensburg. At first the stages ran once a week, but the service was increased to twice a week in December, I804. The trip was made in six or seven days, and the rate was twenty dollars for a passenger and twenty pounds of baggage, with a charge of twelve dollars a hundred- weight for additional baggage. A line from Baltimore to connect with this line at Chambersburg was also started in 1804. In November, 1804, the postmaster-general wrote to citizens of Canonsburg that he was "fully disposed to give every reasonable aid to the extension of the line of stages beyond Pittsburgh," and in 1805 a line was in operation through Canonsburg and Washington to Wheeling. At- tempts were made in 1805 and I806 to continue the service through Chillicothe, Ohio, to Lexington and Frankfort in Kentucky, and stages were run over this route somewhat irregularly in I807, but it was not until 18o8 that the line was in successful operation. No other stage lines to or in western Pennsylvania appear to have been es- tablished until after the War of 18i2. The vehicles used for stage service at this time were not the com- fortable coaches of a later day but ordinary wagons with four seats or benches arranged crosswise, each of which would accommodate three passengers. The whole was covered with a flat top, from which depended curtains of canvas or leather that could be raised or lowered. These "stage wagons" were usually drawn by four horses, and relays were kept at various taverns along the route so that the horses could be changed frequently. According to John Melish, who made the trip from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh in 1811, the "horses were noble- looking animals, the best I had yet seen in the United States." In winter, sleds were sometimes substituted for the wagons. Three o'clock in the morning appears to have been the usual starting time. At the better taverns the ladies were fortified with strong coffee and the gentlemen with something even stronger before starting. Stops were made at taverns for breakfast and dinner; and, after covering a distance of forty to sixty miles, the weary passengers were deposited at an inn, where they might or might not find comfortable accom- modations. Sunday was not counted in the six days in which the stages were required by the mail contract to make the trip between Phila- delphia and Pittsburgh, but short distances were usually driven on that day in order to ease the strain on the other days. The combination of mountains, bad roads, and bad taverns made 241 Western Pennsylvania the western half of the trip a harrowing experience for most travelers. Fortunately the drivers were generally skillful. Even as late as 1817 Henry Fearon reported that near Bedford "nothing could exceed the badness of the roads; yet the understanding between the drivers and horses was so perfect, that we proceeded, though with almost broken bones, with the exactness of mechanism. A London coachman would in half an hour have dashed the strongest English stage to pieces, and probably broken the necks of his passengers." Travelers frequently found it more comfortable to walk than to ride over rough roads and sometimes they were required to walk up hills in order to lighten the load. Apparently human nature was much the same then as it is now: "Let every man get in first with all his baggage and take the best seat"; and "At every town let every man light his segar, and continue smoaking in the face of his fellow travellers" were among the rules for traveling by stage published in a Pittsburgh paper in 18o6. Despite the difficulties the more philosophical of the travelers appear to have enjoyed the trip; food and liquor were plentiful and cheap, conver- sation with fellow passengers was free and easy, and the experiences of the road left little opportunity for boredom. Private carriages were rare in western Pennsylvania during this period, even in the towns. Probably the first person to cross the mountains in a carriage was the German traveler Dr. Johann Schoepf, who made the trip in a two-wheeled chaise in 1783--"what hitherto had been regarded as next to impossible." He reported that the vehicle attracted much attention along the road and that even in Pittsburgh it was regarded as a curiosity. A carriage with accommodations for three persons and the driver, which had been made in Newport, Rhode Island, was offered for sale in Pittsburgh in 1796. Thaddeus M. Harris, a traveler from New England, who made the trip over the mountains to Pittsburgh in a carriage in I803 and continued on to Wheeling, re- ported that his was the first private carriage on the road from Pitts- burgh to Canonsburg. The experiences of two other New Englanders who made the trip to Pittsburgh in a carriage in 18x3 help to explain the scarcity of such vehicles. Meeting a wagon on a narrow road in the mountains, "they were compelled to lift their carriage out of the road, the precipice leaving hardly room." Again and again "the bolt connecting the fore wheels to the body" of the carriage was broken. At one place "the ill graces of fortune guided their horse into a deep 242 . . / CONESTOGA WAGON ACCESSORIES IRON AX SOCKETS PLACED ON THE HOUNDS TOOL BOXES iil" ~ a Western Pennsylvania rut, and in an instant, overturned the carriage and every article there- in, into a deep puddle.... Inspection proved the back to be broken and the unfortunate bolt also." The travelers appear to have walked much of the way, often leading the horse; and, in pulling the empty carriage over the Turtle Creek hill, the horse was "sometimes com- pelled to raise himself on his hind feet and with the assistance of the falling weight of his body to draw the carriage from the deep holes which fill the road." The use of water transportation in the periods of the French and Indian War and the Revolution has already been indicated. The military men and the traders not only made use of Indian canoes and of unwieldy pirogues but also introduced an adaptation of a European river craft-the bateau. This was a flat-bottomed boat with tapering ends, which was made of planks and was propelled with oars or poles. The appearance of a surplus of agricultural products in the region, especially grain and flour, and the opening of a market for such com- modities in New Orleans stimulated the building of larger craft on which heavy cargoes could be floated down the rivers. These craft, known as arks or flatboats, were clumsy raft-like affairs with square ends, usually about fifteen feet wide and fifty feet long, and capable of carrying forty or fifty tons. The Kentucky boat, intended for use on the placid Ohio and smaller streams, was a flimsy craft roofed over about two-thirds of its length; the Orleans boat, destined for the more turbulent "Father of Waters," was more sturdily built and was usually roofed over its entire length. Hundreds of flatboats were made every year at Pittsburgh and Brownsville and smaller numbers at other river towns throughout the region. Their cost was from a dollar to a dollar and a half a foot of length. When the cargo of a flatboat reached its destination, the boat was either sold for a trip farther downstream or was broken up and disposed of as lumber. Flatboats were used not only for transporting the products of agriculture and industry to markets down river but also as a means of conveyance of immigrants and their possessions to new homes in the West. Most of these immigrants arrived at Pittsburgh or at ports on the Monongahela or Youghiogheny in the winter or spring. From the boat yards at these places they obtained flatboats and, with the breaking up of the ice, they set off in flotillas bound for the land of promise down the river. On the roofs of the boats were perched the 244 The Development of Transportation wagons in which the immigrants had crossed the mountains, the horses and cows were stabled in one end, and the cargo often included, in addition to the equipment for the new home, a miscellaneous as- sortment of goods to be sold to the denizens of the river towns. A copy of the latest edition of Zadok Cramer's Navigator supplied all I KEELBOAT the information needed about the rivers and the communities on their banks. To handle the rapidly increasing commerce on the rivers and es- pecially to provide upstream transportation, another type of craft, the keelboat, was developed. This was a light boat, sharp at both ends, usually from sixty to eighty feet long and eight or ten feet in beam, built on a keel about three inches deep and four or five inches wide, and equipped with a long cabin occupying most of the deck. It was often provided with a removable mast and sails, but it always had cleated running boards along the sides on which the men of the crew could walk toward the stern as they poled the boat upstream. The patroon or captain was the steersman. He stood on the cabin or on a great block in the stern and managed the long oar that served as a rudder, and the crew rowed or poled the boat. The keelboat was fitted by its light draft and narrow beam to traverse the upper reaches of the streams that emptied into the Ohio and was able to ply the Ohio itself during all but the lowest stages of the water. Another type of boat sometimes seen around Pittsburgh was the barge, which was much like a small ocean vessel. It was built on a keel, had a ship's bow and stern, and made extensive use of sails; but it was also equipped with runways, poles, and oars. Heavier, broader, and of greater draft than keelboats, barges necessarily confined most of their activities to the deeper waters, though some of them were built in western Pennsylvania and sent downstream on the floods. 245 Western Pennsylvania tiersmen got together, however, as more than one account records, this taciturnity often had its reaction in uproarious talking and sing- ing helped on by frequent recourse to the whiskey jug. Some of the fruits of the forest have already been mentioned or implied: acorns, buckeyes, and beechnuts were food for swine; crab apples, persimmons, hickory nuts, and black walnuts for men. In addi- tion to these might be mentioned butternuts, pawpaws, wild haws, wild cherries, wild plums, wild strawberries, blueberries, June berries or service berries, and the blackberries and raspberries which, dis- tributed generally throughout the woods, sprang up luxuriantly in the sunshine along the first clearings. These edible fruits and nuts were important for the settlers as affording a vegetable nutriment before their fields began to bear crops and as a variation from the meat diet of the hunter-though it is doubtful if the earliest settlers were much concerned about the "balanced rations" that play so large a part in the food planning of the modern household. The roots of the ginseng plant, which grew wild in the forest were of much value to the pio- neers as an export commodity because of the strong demand for them in China, where they were esteemed for their supposed medicinal properties. The chief food products of the forest were of course fish and game, and these were so abundant that it was possible for early explorers and travelers to cross miles of wilderness, dependent for sustenance entirely on their fishing lines and their muskets. In this well-watered region fish were naturally abundant: trout were found in the tribu- taries of the Allegheny, perch and pike in the streams flowing into the Monongahela, and in these two great rivers and the Ohio were the two latter fish as well as catfish, sturgeon, bass, and "buffalo fish"- probably bullheads. Turtle, eel, and the "Allegheny alligator fish" are also recorded by early travelers. Colonel John May's experiences as reported in his journal of 1788 were not unusual: "Within ten rods of the house [at the foot of Mount Washington, opposite Pittsburgh] we catch any quantity of fish, and of a considerable variety of kinds-bass of two sorts, sturgeon of two sorts, and others.... There has been a fish caught here which weighed one hundred and twenty pounds, and the story goes that he drowned the man who caught him.... What has been said of the fish in these. quarters, I am certain must be true, from what I have seen and ex- IO Western Pennsylvania There were said to be about fifty keelboats of thirty tons each on the upper Ohio in 1805, and by 1817 the number had tripled. Freight rates around i81z were eleven dollars a hundredweight from New Orleans to Pittsburgh and three dollars from Louisville to Pittsburgh. The time required for trips depended upon circumstances, but that from Louisville to Pittsburgh usually occupied about two months. Keelboats also ascended the tributaries of the Ohio in western Pennsylvania, especially in times of high water, and communities as remote as Warren on the Allegheny, Meadville on French Creek, Johnstown on the Conemaugh, and Morgantown on the Mononga- hela were reached by them. They played an important part in the distribution of the commodities manufactured in or imported to the Pittsburgh district, and they supplemented the flatboats in the trans- portation of agricultural products to market and in the importation of salt from western New York by way of French Creek and the Allegheny. The flatboatmen were usually farmers during most of the year and worked on the boats only to get their cargoes to market or for a change of scene. The keelboatmen, on the other hand, were profes- sionals; and, if the tales of their exploits are to be trusted, they were an unruly, hard-drinking, brutal set of men. Recruited from the wild- est elements of a rough population and freed from the restraints of FLATBOAT domesticity, they were exemplars of frontier hardihood and audacity. They shot tin cups from each others' heads, stole the stock of farmers along the river banks, fought flatboatmen at sight, wrecked taverns in the river towns, put the militia to flight, and danced all night at their rowdy gatherings-then went straight to a hard day's labor. The most famous of the keelboatmen was Mike Fink, a native of Pittsburgh, whose exploits in time came to be surrounded with an aura of legend. He began his career as an Indian fighter but spent most of it on the Ohio and the Mississippi as a boatman. Finally, oppressed by the growth of settlements and the inroads of steam- 246 The Development of Transportation boats, he retired to the wilderness of the upper Missouri, where he was killed in a quarrel. The ocean-going ships that were built at Elizabeth and Pittsburgh in the period from 1792 to 810o and were floated down the Ohio and the Mississippi to the sea helped to transport the surplus products of the region to market, but like the flatboats they never returned. Sailing vessels were in use on Lake Erie of course, especially in the transportation of salt from western New York. When Schulz, the traveler, arrived at Fort Erie, at the outlet of the lake, in 1807, he found "three British schooners lying here waiting for salt, one of which was bound for Presque Isle." He engaged passage on this one, but she was "detained several days with head winds." When she got within sight of her destination, a gale arose and she was forced to seek shelter on the Canadian shore. Schulz reported that the lake was "perhaps the most dangerous to navigate of all the lakes," be- cause of the lack of harbors and the rocky bottom, which made anchoring difficult. He found the harbor at Erie "large and spacious, with a good depth of water ... good anchoring ground, and complete shelter from wind and sea; yet, on account of a sand bar which runs across its mouth, no vessel drawing more than four feet of water can avail herself of these advantages." The larger vessels anchored as near to shore as they dared, and flatboats were sent out to unload them. Often, however, "a light sea will prevent these flats from going out for a week together." For this reason, according to Schulz, the cost of transportation was higher on Lake Erie than on Lake Ontario. The charge for salt from Fort Erie to Presque Isle, a distance of ninety miles, was "seventy cents a barrel, merchandise fifty-cents a hundred weight, and a cabin passage four dollars, including board." Soon after the close of the Revolution attempts were made to es- tablish packet services on the western waters. In 1786 both John Blair and John McDonald announced that they would make weekly trips by keelboat on the Monongahela and proposed to deliver the Pitts- burgk Gazette to regular subscribers and to carry freight and pas- sengers. In 1793 Jacob Myers advertised in the Gazette a fortnightly service between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati on boats propelled by oars and sails. The first boat left Pittsburgh on October 14. Myers' adver- tisement contained the essence of an ideal code for public utilities: "The Proprietor... being influenced by a love of philanthropy and 247 Western Pennsylvania desire of being of service to the public, has taken great pains to render the accommodations on board the Boats as agreeable and convenient as they could possibly be made." Each boat was "armed with six pieces carrying a pound ball," and passengers and crew were sheltered against Indian attacks by high bullet-proof bulwarks. The manage- ment supplied board and "liquors of all kinds," a separate cabin was provided for ladies, and freight and letters were transported. Myers even sold insurance to those disinclined to trust their goods entirely to him. Despite, or perhaps because of, its philanthropic character, this enterprise appears to have been short-lived; and in May, 1794, Isaac Craig wrote that "the idea of Passenger Packet-Boats ought at Pres- ent to be abandoned." The government mail boats that were oper- ated from 1794 to 1798 carried a few passengers, but thereafter no regular service appears to have been available on the upper Ohio until the advent of the steamboat. Presumably the ease and cheapness with which boats could be purchased or passage obtained on the boats of others made packet service unprofitable. In i815, however, "the fast sailing boat Torpedo" was making regular semiweekly runs be- tween Pittsburgh and Elizabethtown on the Monongahela. Before the keelboat had entered upon its halcyon days, the shadow of the steamboat was cast across its way. Fulton's experiment on the Hudson had proved successful, and in the summer of 1809 Nicholas Roosevelt, a partner of the inventor, accompanied by his bride, made a trip on a flatboat from Pittsburgh to New Orleans to investigate the feasibility of steamboat transportation on the western waters. Encouraged by his report, Fulton and his associates organized the Mississippi Steam Boat Company, and in the spring of 18io Roose- velt arrived at Pittsburgh to superintend the building of the first steamboat in the West. The community was, of course, much in- terested. Zadok Cramer, the bookseller and publisher, grew lyrical in his discussion of the new means of locomotion and its prospective advantages to the interior. "It will be a novel sight," he wrote in the 18io edition of his Navigator, "and as pleasing as novel to see a huge boat working her way up the windings of the Ohio, without the ap- pearance of a sail, oar, pole, or any manual labor about her-moving within the secrets of her own wonderful mechanism, and propelled by power undiscoverable!-This plan, if it succeeds, must open to view flattering prospects to an immense country . .. of as fine a soil and 248 *; \~,\ \ Co 0 0 z 0 ~z4 0 0 Co z 'IJ U C,) li11N Nk . .......................... . Western Pennsylvania climate as the world can produce, and to a people worthy of all the advantages that nature and art can give them." After many delays and disappointments, the "New Orleans" was finally launched in March, 1811 . According to the Pittsburgh Gazette, her keel was 150 feet long and she had a capacity of 450 tons. She was "built with the best materials and in the most substantial manner," and her cabin was "elegant, and the accommodations for passengers not surpassed." In design she was more like the sailing craft of the day than like the floating palaces that later navigated the rivers. The engine and the cabin were in the hold rather than on deck, there were portholes and an eight-foot bowsprit, and it is probable that two FLORENCE COTTEE, SOUTH .FST COI'ER. OF FERRI' W9ITER STREETS, 9 ( Respectfully informs the Public, that lie constantly has on hand, a complete assort-X Xmeut of 0roceries ind Liquors, of the best quality, which he will sell on the mustf Yreasonable terms. Gentle'en prepariag to descend the Ohio River can be supplied with B] AT STORES,, OF EVR VESRPTION AT'TRYA MT LST NOTICE .ccuXXXxxxxoO< XXXX=XO XXXXXX< xXXVXXXX ADVERTISEMENT OF BOAT OUTFITTER, SHOWING KEELBOAT From Riddle and Murray, "Pittsburgh Directory of 18z9" masts were carried. The cost of construction was about forty thousand dollars. By the time the fitting of the boat was completed, the waters were too low for navigation. When they rose in October a trial trip was made on the Monongahela, after which the Gazette announced "with pleasure ... that the Steam Boat lately built at this place ... fully answers the most sanguine expectations that were formed of her sailing." The maiden voyage down the Ohio and the Mississippi began on October 25. The populace turned out to give the boat a rousing send-off, but Mrs. Roosevelt was the only passenger. The passage of the falls at Louisville was delayed until the end of Novem- ber to obtain a favorable stage of water. It was then made with 250 The Development of Transportation success, and the boat proceeded without difficulty to New Orleans. The first successful trip of a steamboat on the western waters did not, of course, produce an immediate revolution in water transporta- tion.The "New Orleans"herself never returned to the Ohio. One or two steamboats a year were built at Pittsburgh or Brownsville from 1811 to 1816, and in 1814 the "Enterprise" made two round trips from Pittsburgh to Louisville. Most of these boats quickly made their way, however, to the deeper waters of the Mississippi and never returned. As late as 1816 "a company of gentlemen," after observing the efforts of a steamboat to ascend the "Horsetail" ripple near Pittsburgh, came to the unanimous conclusion that "such a contrivance might do for the Mississippi ... but that we of the Ohio must wait for some more happy century of invention." In that very year, however, a steamboat was built at Wheeling that floated on the water instead of in it, with the machinery on the first deck instead of in the hold; and within a few years steamboats were making regular trips not only on the upper Ohio but also on the Allegheny and the Monongahela. The great obstacle not only to steamboat navigation but also to the smooth and continuous operation of keelboats and even flatboats was the frequent falling of the water in the streams and the obstruc- tions that were thereby brought near the surface. Moreover the streams were usually closed by ice a part of the winter, and great damage was often done to shipping by storms and sudden floods. A visitor to Pittsburgh in 1770 reported that the upper Ohio was navi- gable for large boats only from February to April. The statement may have been true for that year, but the seasons of high and low water varied greatly from year to year. About all that could be counted on was a period of high water in the early spring, though there was usually another such period in the fall. In the summer it was not uncommon for all shipping except the lighter skiffs to be tied up at the wharves for weeks at a time. The legislature of Pennsylvania early passed acts declaring the various navigable streams to be "public highways," which meant ap- parently that anyone interested was at liberty to remove obstruc- tions; and in 1791 an appropriation of about seventeen thousand dollars was voted for the improvement of the West Branch of the Susquehanna, the Juniata, the Allegheny, French Creek, the Con- emaugh, and the Kiskiminetas. In 1805 the governor was authorized 251 Western Pennsylvania to appoint a committee to join with similar committees from Ohio and Kentucky in estimating the cost of effecting improvements at the falls of the Ohio and to suggest the reasonable proportion that should be borne by each state, but the project was dropped. The ex- amination of the Monongahela authorized by the legislature in 1814, with a view to discovering "the most suitable places for constructing dams, locks, works or devices necessary to be made to render said river navigable through the whole distance," was equally ineffective; and the era of slack-water navigation did not arrive until a genera- tion later. In general it may be said that prior to the War of 18I2 the rivers remained about as nature had made them, and man adapted himself to their vagaries as best he could. The earliest travelers in western Pennsylvania lived on the game of the forest supplemented by food carried with them, and they slept in the open unless they found shelter in the lodge of an Indian or the cabin of a trader. With the establishment of a British garrison at the forks of the Ohio it became necessary to maintain constant com- munication with the East, and the military authorities permitted settlers who would keep houses of entertainment to establish them- selves along the Forbes Road. By 1767 the number of such houses was sufficient to meet the needs of the travelers, but the accom- modations were not all that could be desired. The experiences of Matthew Clarkson, who was sent by Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan to Pittsburgh in that year, are typical. Leaving Bedford at nine in the morning on August I6, he "Bated at the foot of the Allegheny Mountains at Higgin's... Got to Atkins, at Stony Creek, and lodged there-a most scandalous dirty house, or rather hog-sty. Was almost devoured with flees." The next day he "Mounted by daybreak, and proceeded ten miles to Mr. Mahon's and bated. Dined at Legonier at Bonjour's, and got to William Proctor's at Twelve Mile Run, and lodged there." On the eighteenth he "Proceeded on and halted at Byerly's, at Bushy Run. Stopped again at the crossing of Turtle Creek at- , and dined there.... Got to Fort Pitt just after dark, was stowed away in a small crib, on blankets, in company with fleas and bugs, and, of course spent a night not the most comfortable." Apparently there was no tavern in Pittsburgh at this time. Clarkson was given a room in the barracks by the commanding officer, and he "Dined, or, rather, endeavored to eat, at the store-dirty beyond endurance, without 252 The Development of Transportation the least necessary utensil or convenience." After that experience he usually ate with officers at their messes or in his own room. For many years lodging and meals could be procured by the traveler at the home of almost any settler, but as travel increased taverns or ordinaries began to be differentiated. Under the Virginia law the tavern-keeper was required to obtain a license from the county court and to give bonds to "find and provide.., good, whole- some, and cleanly lodging and diet for travellers" and not to "suffer or permit any unlawful gaming, in his house, nor on the sabbath day suffer any person to tipple and drink any more than is necessary." The court was required to "set the rates and prices to be paid at ordi- naries," and fines were to be imposed for exceeding them. In Penn- sylvania, licenses were granted by provincial or state authorities, but the county courts were expected to determine the number and the distribution of the taverns and to fix their rates. The minutes of both the Virginia and the Pennsylvania courts record the licensing of numerous taverns from 1773 on, and in 1775 Samuel Ewalt was fined five pounds by the Yohogania court "for keeping a disorderly House" at Pittsburgh. In 1780 the court of Ohio County fixed such rates as six dollars for half a pint of whiskey, four dollars for supper or break- fast, and three dollars "for Lodging with clean sheets." These rates were in the depreciated Continental currency of course. In 1783 the rate for "diet and meal" was one shilling, three pence, and that for half a pint of whiskey was ten pence in Westmoreland County. Despite the rapid occupation of the region after I1768 and the licens- ing and regulation of taverns, the accommodations for travelers, if one may generalize from the experiences of Dr. Schoepf, who made the trip from the East to Pittsburgh and back in 1783-84, were little if any better at the close of the Revolution than they had been in 1767, when the army ruled the region. Between Bedford and the Alle- gheny Ridge, Schoepf "arrived at a large tavern where, if one brings meat and drink along with him he finds room enough to dispose of them. Two young fellows kept house but had nothing but whiskey and cheese; bread and meat are accidental articles." The travelers were obliged to push on over the mountain in the dark "stumbling from stones to slough, and from slough to stones. After four miles... we reached the cabin of a smith ... who on occasion plays the inn- keeper. Unfortunately his house was no inn this evening; he had 253 Western Pennsylvania nothing, and we must grope for two heavy miles more, to the farm of an Anabaptist by the name of Spiker.... We arrived after 10 o'clock; he kept no tavern and we were glad of it, for we were taken in will- ingly and given milk, butter, and bread, and straw for a couch." The next day, after traveling for twelve miles without seeing a house, Schoepf stopped at the cabin of "Dr. Peter, a German," whose wife "set before us mountain-tea and maple-sugar, which as well as her bacon, whiskey, and cakes were the products of her own land and industry." Schoepf commented that "along this road, and others like it in America, one must not be deceived by the bare name of taverns. The people keep tavern if they have anything over and above what they need, if not, the traveller must look about for himself." Arrived at Pittsburgh, the doctor was "directed to the best inn, a small wooden cabin set askew by the Monongahela, its exterior prom- ising little; but seeing several well dressed men and ladies adorned we were not discouraged." This was the tavern kept by John Ormsby in a double log cabin at his ferry landing on Water Street. On the return journey Schoepf was marooned by a storm at a cabin just east of the Allegheny Ridge, where "there was nothing to be had.... Lying on hard deal-boards we had to go hungry through the night, man and horse, and hungry keep on over the Dry Ridge.... We breakfasted with a Bonnet, four miles from Bedford; he was of French origin, made bad coffee, had odorous butter, but read to us from a French gram- maire, and brought out Welleri Opus Mago-Caballisticum which he believed to contain much hidden wisdom if it could be understood." Doubtless the confusion oocasioned by the controversy over juris- diction and by the Revolution was responsible for the lack of improve- ment in accommodations for travelers prior to 1783. Two decades later F. A. Michaux, a Frenchman, making the trip over the moun- tains to Pittsburgh, found the inns numerous, "yet almost every- where, except in the principal towns, they are very bad, notwith- standing rum, brandy, and whiskey are in plenty.... Travellers wait in common till the family go to meals. At breakfast they make use of very indifferent tea, and coffee still worse, with small slices of ham fried in the stove, to which they sometimes add eggs and a broiled chicken. At dinner they give a piece of salt beef and roasted fowls, and rum and water as a beverage. In the evening coffee, tea, and ham. There are always several beds in the rooms where you sleep: seldom .254 The Development of Transportation do you meet with clean sheets." On the summit of the Allegheny Ridge Michaux found "two log-houses, very indifferently constructed, about three miles distant from each other, which serve as public houses .. We stopped at the second, kept by one Chatlers ... they served us up for dinner slices of ham and venison fried on the hearth, with a kind of muffins made of flour, which they baked before the fire upon a little board." At Greensburg Michaux "lodged at the Seven Stars with one Erbach, who keeps a good inn," but he was obliged to share a room with another traveler. In Pittsburgh he took up his "resi- dence with a Frenchman named Marie, who keeps a respectable inn." This was a farrous tavern on Grant's Hill, just outside the limits of the borough, the scene of many political and social gatherings. As a result of the increase in travel after the turn of the century and of the establishment of the stage line, there were not only an increase in the number and an improvement in the quality of the taverns but also a differentiation of them into wagon houses and stage houses. The wagon houses, according to Fortescue Cuming, who visited the region in 1807, were patronized by wagoners, packers, countrymen, and the poorer immigrants, who "carry provisions for themselves and horses, live most miserably, and wrapped in blankets, occupy the floor of the bar rooms ... which the landlords give them the use of ... in consideration of the money they pay them for whis- key." One such tavern "was surrounded on the outside by wagons and horses, and inside, the whole floor was ... filled with people sleeping, wrapped in their blankets round a huge fire." The stage houses, which catered to "country merchants, judges and lawyers attending the courts, members of the legislature, and the better class of settlers removing back," usually had one or more rooms filled with beds, sometimes but not always curtained. Patrons were expected to "double up," and a request for a private room marked the traveler as a prig or an Englishman. Meals were piled upon the table and everyone ate in family style. The fare was usually plentiful but there were exceptions. Cuming found two good taverns at Bedford, and at Somerset he "stopped at Webster's excellent, comfortable, and well furnished inn, where we found good fires, a good supper, and a series of the Baltimore Daily Advertiser." This tavern had a very high reputation among travelers, and its proprietor, John Webster, a former officer in the American army and a member of the Society of the 255 The Natural Environment perienced in the short time I have been here-only twenty-four hours. Within fifteen rods of where I now sit, they are all day, and I believe I may say all night, catching fish of various kinds.... This morning, about 8 o'clock, two lads brought to my quarters a number of fine fish, just caught. Amongst them were two perch, weighing forty and one- half pounds together.... A boy brought to my quarters this evening a sturgeon four and one-half feet long. He is a very handsome and well- made fish, excepting the mouth, which is made like a hose. He has no kind of bone in his body, and is considered good eating by many; but I have no mind to try." It is said that fish from the colder waters of the Allegheny were better flavored and firmer than those from the Monongahela. Of the birds useful for food the most important was probably the wild turkey. Turkeys "are very plentiful in this quarter," wrote Christian Schultz, Jr., on the Allegheny River in 1807, "and considered the largest known throughout the western country, many of them weigh- ing from thirty to forty pounds, and sometimes so overburthened with fat that they fly with difficulty. It frequently happens, that after shooting one on a tree, you will find him bursted by falling on the ground." Other smaller birds useful for food were the woodcock or heathcock (grouse), quail, partridge, and wild pigeon. Birds not use- ful for food but found in the virgin forests were the bald eagle, golden eagle, vulture, raven, and parakeet. The ordinary songbirds and the common crow did not penetrate the section until after settlement had progressed; this was also true of the western species of birds, such as the meadow lark, the sparrows, and the horned lark, birds that live naturally on the prairies rather than in the forests. The animals of the forest were both helpful and harmful to the early settler. From them he obtained food, skins, and furs, but some of them were dangerous or destructive. Among the animals that were useful both for food and for skins the more important were the deer, the elk, the bear, and the bison. This last animal, or rather a species of it known as the wood buffalo, was once common in western and northern Pennsylvania. Aside from the testimony of early travelers in the region, there is evidence of the presence of the buffalo in the names of several Buffalo creeks, Lac Le Boeuf, and a "Buffalo Swamp" delineated on the early maps in the vicinity of Clarion. The animals differed from the buffalo of the plains in that they were larger (some II Western Pennsylvania Cincinnati, was a famous character. When John Melish, an inquisitive Scot, attempted to question him about the town and the surrounding country, he turned on his heel and walked away. The next morning, as the stage passengers were preparing to leave, he refused to allow one of the men to have coffee with the ladies instead of the whiskey and bitters he had provided for the gentlemen, but he supplied the ladies with greatcoats to protect them from the cold. Stage passengers were sometimes required to pay more for their meals than were other travelers, on the ground that a certain number had to be prepared for whether they came or not. Nevertheless their tavern expenses usually did not exceed a dollar a day. By I8o8 there were twenty-four taverns of various sorts in Pittsburgh. Written communications with the outside world or within the re- gion in the early days were carried by traders, pack-horsemen, In- dian runners, army couriers, and casual travelers; and the bulk of them must have been large, judging from the number that have sur- vived. By 1767 the colonial postal service had been extended to Ship- pensburg, and letters from Pittsburgh, private as well as official, were forwarded by the commanding officer by express to that place, "where they were put in the post-office." The postal service was taken over by the Continental Congress in 1775, but it was greatly demoralized dur- ing the Revolution, and the route from Philadelphia to Shippensburg appears to have been abandoned. With the coming of peace there was a general recognition of the desirability of extending the service as a means of promoting the unity as well as the development of the new nation, but lack of funds prevented the establishment of routes that would not be self-supporting. As early as 1784 Isaac Craig was attempting to raise a subscription for a postrider to serve Pitts- burgh, and in 1786 James Brison, a rising politician of the village, traveled to New York and prevailed upon the Congress to attempt the service. On March 2, 1787, the post-office department announced that "in consequence of a contract entered into for that purpose, there will shortly be a regular communication by post" between Alexandria, Virginia, and Pittsburgh by way of Winchester, Fort Cumberland, and Bedford and offered to anyone who would undertake to carry the mails on a more direct route from Philadelphia to Bedford "to tally with the Virginia post" an exclusive contract "and all the emolu- 256 TITLE PAGE OF ZADOK CRAMER S "NAVIGATOR, EDITION OF 1814 ADVERTISEMENT FROM RIDDLE AND MURRAY, "PITTSBURGH DIRECTORY FOR 1819" z 0 z- The Development of Transportation ments arising therefrom." Unfortunately for the western country, the contractor for the route from Alexandria disappeared and apparently no one came forward to establish the direct route from Philadelphia to Bedford. The department repeated the offer to contract for this route in its general advertisement for proposals of August I, 1787, again with- out effect; but no attempt seems to have been made to revive the project for the Virginia route. Finally on May 2o, 1788, the Congress directed the postmaster-general "to employ posts for the regular transportation of mail" between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The service was established on July 3, 1788, with postriders carrying the mail weekly from Philadelphia to Chambersburg and fortnightly from there to Pittsburgh. It is probable that John Scull, the editor of the Gazette, had served as a sort of unofficial postmaster for Pittsburgh and the western coun- try for a number of years. At any rate he had from time to time ad- vertised letters "left at the Printing office." The first official post- master at Pittsburgh, however, was not Scull, as has usually been stated, but William Tilton, who served from July 7, 1788, to January 5, 1789. Scull became postmaster in 1789 and served until 1797, and during these years the office was in his printing shop on Water Street near Ferry. In the fiscal year ending in 1790 the receipts of the office amounted to $I1o.99. George Adams, who succeeded Scull, removed the office to a log house on Front Street near Ferry. Dr. Hugh Scott became postmaster in 1803, and John Johnson, who succeeded him in I804, served for eighteen consecutive years-the longest tenure of a Pittsburgh postmaster. The establishment of the first mail service across the mountains was an important step in breaking down the isolation of the western country and promoting national unity. The cultural influences of the East and of Europe could now flow more freely into western Pennsyl- vania. In their issue of July 19, 1788, the editors of the Pittsburgh Gazette announced that "A regular post being now established be- tween the city of Philadelphia and this place, it will be in their power to give the public every transaction of importance." Unfortunately, however, the service was not always wholly satisfactory. On March 31, 1798, the Gazette stated that "The Philadelphia mail for this office is either lost, or through neglect has been left at one of the Post Offices on the road-a similar circumstance happened about three months 257 Western Pennsylvania ago--the quarter part of the newspapers for this place did not arrive here for three weeks past, until yesterday-unless steps are taken by the Post Master General to have these errors corrected, all confidence in the department will be lost, and it will fall short of answering the ends intended by its establishment." The time required for the transportation of mail from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh was approximately a week, from the establishment of the route until after the War of i8Iz. By 1794 the service to Pitts- burgh had been increased to once a week. Beginning in 1796 the mail was carried by stage between Philadelphia and Shippensburg, and when, in I804, the postmaster-general contracted for stage service all the way to Pittsburgh, he required that the mails be delivered there twice a week. For a few months one of the trips each week was made by postrider, but before the end of the year the stages were running semiweekly. In general the mail service by stage was more satisfac- tory than by rider, but there were still complaints of delays and of carelessness in the handling of the mails. The extension of mail service beyond Pittsburgh to the new com- munities in Ohio and Kentucky was begun in 1794. A postrider car- ried the mail to Wheeling via Canonsburg and Washington, and from there it was transported in special post-office department boats in three stages to Marietta, Gallipolis, and Maysville, each stage being covered by a round trip weekly. "The great want of regularity and expedition" in this service as well as the heavy expense involved caused it to be abandoned in 1798 in favor of service by postrider from Pittsburgh by way of Wheeling to Marietta, and in the same year another route was established from Pittsburgh to Zanesville in Ohio. The first regular mail service between Pittsburgh and Erie was apparently a private venture of John Scull's. On July 16, 1796, the Gazette announced that "A careful person is employed to go from this place to Presqu' Isle, once every two weeks. He will leave the Printing Office at ten o'clock. Those who wish to write to their friends in that quarter will now have an opportunity." Again on May 12, 1798, the Gazette announced that "a Post will leave this Office for Presqu' Isle, by way of Franklin, Meadville, &c. and continue during the summer, once in two weeks--Offices for the safe keeping of letters will be estab- lished at the different places." By i8OI the post-office department had taken over this service, and in I803 a traveler found regularly 258 The Development of Transportation established post offices receiving mail every other week at Erie, Waterford, Meadville, and Franklin. In i8oI biweekly service was established from Pittsburgh via Beaver to Warren and other towns in northeastern Ohio. From I805 on, northwestern Pennsylvania re- ceived mail from the East by a route from Bellefonte to Franklin, and by 1814 a weekly mail route was in operation between Buffalo and Cleveland through Erie. By 1815 Pittsburgh was enjoying triweekly service on the main route from both the East and the West, semi- weekly service from Zanesville and Steubenville, and weekly service from Detroit and northeastern Ohio via Beaver, from western New York via Erie, and from Huntingdon via Ebensburg and Indiana. The rates for postage varied with the number of sheets in the letter and the distance it was transported. From 1799 to 18I4 the minimum rate for a single sheet was eight cents, for a distance under forty miles, and the maximum was thirty-five cents, for a distance over five hun- dred miles. The rate between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh was seven- teen cents. In 1814 the minimum was increased to twelve cents, the maximum to thirty-seven and a half cents, and the rate between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh to twenty-five and a half cents. No enve- lopes or postage stamps were used. Large sheets of paper were care- fully folded, sealed with wax, and addressed on the back. The sending office usually noted on the sheet the amount of postage required, and the postmaster at the receiving office collected the money from the recipient. The sender could prepay the postage, however, if he desired to do so. Newspapers were carried at special rates. In I815 the rate was one and a half cents for each paper to any place in the state in which it was printed and two and a half cents to any place outside the state if the distance exceeded one hundred miles. The rate for maga- zines and pamphlets varied from one and a half to three cents, de- pending on the distance; but pamphlets were "not to be received or conveyed by post on the main line, or any cross road where the Mail is large." Although these facilities for travel, transportation, and communi- cation seem very inadequate when compared with those of the present day, they were not far behind the best that existed anywhere in the world in the early years of the nineteenth century and they made possible for most of the inhabitants of the region a multitude of con- tacts with the outside world. The roads, bad as they were, and the un- 259 Western Pennsylvania reliable rivers made possible the settlement and development of the region. They enabled the farmer to get his surplus crops to market and the manufacturer to dispose of his products; they made it pos- sible for merchants to import commodities from the East and from Europe, for the representatives of the people to serve them in the legislature and in Congress, for ministers to spread the gospel and keep in touch with their governing bodies, for promising young men of the region to attend colleges in the East, and for judges and lawyers to travel their circuits. Over them flowed a constant stream of immi- grants to the region and to the newer West beyond, of men and wo- men traveling for business or pleasure, and of visitors curious to see for themselves the new civilization that was growing up beyond the mountains. Many of these visitors-Englishmen, Scotchmen, French- men, Germans,Yankees, New Yorkers, Pennsylvanians, and Southern- ers-were cultivated men of the world-scientists, authors, generals, statesmen, members of the nobility, and even a future king of France -and doubtless they disseminated ideas as well as collected informa- tion. Their recorded observations supply an invaluable panorama of the region and its people, and one of the outstanding impressions to be derived from it is that of a mobile society. 26o xII. Frontier Economy HE economy that could be introduced into and developed in western Pennsylvania in the last third of the eighteenth cen- tury was dependent in the first place upon the cultural heri- tage of the settlers-their knowledge and beliefs based on experience and tradition, as well as the scientific and technological equipment that was available to them. In the second place it was conditioned by the frontier status of the region-the fact that that region was in process of being occupied. And further it was restricted by the physi- cal characteristics of the region and especially by its comparative iso- lation from the older settlements. The motivating force back of the immigration into western Penn- sylvania was predominantly economic. Some there were, especially among the first settlers, who were drawn by a love of adventure or of solitude or by a desire to escape the consequences of past conduct, but the great majority of the pioneers sought the opportunity to improve their economic status. This they expected to do by acquiring land and developing it into improved farms, which would provide old- age security for themselves and something to hand down to their children. It was not that they expected to make a better living, at least for some years to come, than they could in the East; but rather that they hoped to be able, while supporting themselves and their families, to acquire and create capital goods in the form of improved land, farm buildings, livestock, and equipment. Ultimately, of course, the durable wealth created by the pioneer would result in improved standards of living, at least for his children. The land in its wilderness state had comparatively little economic value; not until it was trans- formed into farms by the labors of the pioneers did it become produc- tive capital; and it is probable that, during the frontier period, at least as much human energy was devoted to the creation of capital in Western Pennsylvania the form of producers' goods as to the production of consumers' goods for the use of the producer or for sale or exchange. An interesting contemporary description of the long-drawn-out process of making a farm in the wilderness and of the successive types of settlers who participated in it is available in "An Account of the Progress of Population, Agriculture, Manners, and Government in PENNSYLVANIA," which was written by Dr. Benjamin Rush and pub- lished anonymously, as "a letter from a citizen of Pennsylvania, to his friend in England," in the Columbian Magazine in 1786. According to Dr. Rush, "The first settler in the woods is generally a man who has outlived his credit or fortune in the cultivated parts of the State. His time for migrating is in the month of April. His first object is to build a small cabbin of rough logs for himself and family .... A coarser building adjoining this cabbin affords a shelter to a cow, and a pair of poor horses. The labor of erecting these buildings is succeeded by kill- ing the trees on a few acres of ground near his cabbin; this is done by cutting a circle round the trees, two or three feet from the ground. The ground around these trees is then ploughed and Indian-corn planted in it.... His family is fed during the [first] summer by a small quantity of grain which he carries with him, and by fish and game. His cows and horses feed upon wild grass, or the succulent twigs of the woods. For the first year he endures a great deal of distress from hunger--cold-and a variety of accidental causes, but he seldom com- plains or sinks under them. As he lives in the neighbourhood of Indians, he soon acquires a strong tincture of their manners.... His pleasures consist chiefly in fishing and hunting. He loves spirituous liquors, and he eats, drinks and sleeps in dirt and rags in his little cabbin.... In proportion as population increases around him, he becomes uneasy and dissatisfied.... He cannot bear to surrender up a single natural right for all the benefits of government,--and therefore he abandons his little settlement, and seeks a retreat in the woods, where he again submits to all the toils which have been mentioned." Despite his unsocial character, the settler of the hunter-pioneer type made a beginning in the process of creating a farm. He was usual- ly succeeded, according to the same observer, by a settler of a second species, who enlarged the cabin by an addition of hewn logs, cleared meadowland, planted orchards, brought more land under cultivation, and raised wheat and rye as well as Indian corn. "This species of set- 262 Frontier Economy tier by no means extracts all from the earth, which it is able and willing to give. His fields yield but a scanty encrease, owing to the ground not being sufficiently ploughed. The hopes of the year are often blasted by his cattle breaking through his half made fences, and destroying his grain. His horses perform but half the labor that might be expected from them, if they were better fed; and his cattle often die in the spring from the want of provision, and the delay of grass. ... This species of settler... delights chiefly in company--sometimes drinks spirituous liquors to excess-will spend a day or two in every week, in attending political meetings; and, thus, he contracts debts, which (if they do not give him a place in the sheriff's docket) compel him to sell his plantation, generally in the course of a few years, to the third and last species of settler. "This species of settler is commonly a man of property and good character... His first object is to convert every spot of ground, over which he is able to draw water, into meadow ... His next object is to build a barn, which he prefers of stone ... very compact, so as to shut out the cold in winter; for our farmers find that their horses and cattle, when kept warm, do not require near as much food, as when they are gI 7 AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS HARROW PLOW OX YOKE SINGLE YOKES exposed to the cold. He uses ceconomy, likewise, in the consumption of his wood. Hence he keeps himself warm in winter, by means of stoves, which save an immense deal of labour to himself and his horses, 263 The Planting of Civilization in Western Pennsylvania Western Pennsylvania of the bulls are said to have weighed a ton), were more nearly black in color with shorter hair and no hump, and were shaped more like domestic cattle with a relatively horizontal backbone and large hind quarters. The wood buffalo is now extinct, for the settlers, in the midst of a region that appeared to be limitlessly stocked with game, adopted the tactics that later so nearly resulted in the extinction of the plains buffalo--those of slaughtering many of the animals and using only the tongues, hearts, and hides. One account of the slaughter of the "last herd" places the event in the winter of 1799-I800, but it is evi- dent that for some time before that the animals were to be found only in the unsettled region in the north central part of the state. Perhaps the most generally available animals in the region were deer and elk: the former in particular supplied the meat staple, veni- son, helped to clothe the early settlers, and provided a good export staple in skins. Bears too were common, as the wilderness afforded many caverns for dens, plenty of food, and numerous hollow trees for hibernation. Even after the opening of the nineteenth century, travel- ers in the region, especially in the less settled section on the Allegheny, subsisted well enough on deer, bear, and wild turkey shot en route. The large and heavy pelt of the bear contributed not a little to warmth and comfort in the wilderness. Other animals, valuable mainly for furs, and less common in the region than those already noted, were the otter, mink, beaver, and raccoon. Of the destructive birds and animals of the forest, the natural enemies of man, a few were valuable as food, but most of them were valuable if at all for peltries. Several varieties of eagles did a certain amount of harm to livestock. The vulture, buzzard, and raven prob- ably were of real use as forest scavengers after the inefficient and wasteful butchering of the hunters. The gray and the black squirrels were dangerous enemies to growing crops; in the earlier period they were, however, extremely useful because of their wide distribution as an available source of food when none of the larger game animals could be obtained. Fox squirrels were not native to the wilderness, nor were bees, crows, or rats. Foxes were of course enemies of poultry; they were, however, valuable as a source of fur. Wolves were at first extremely numerous and then suddenly became scarce, not, it is thought, as a result of extermination by hunters, but because of a wave of hydrophobia among them. To support this contention, several 12 Western Pennsylvania in cutting and hawling wood in cold and wet weather. His fences are every where repaired, so as to secure his grain from his own and his neighbour's cattle. But further, he encreases the number of the articles of his cultivation, and, instead of raising corn, wheat, and rye alone, he raises oats, buckwheat ... and spelts. Near his house, he allots an acre or two of ground for a garden, in which he raises a large quan- tity of cabbage and potatoes. His newly cleared fields afford him every year a large encrease of turnips. Over the spring which supplies him with water, he builds a milk-house: he likewise adds to the num- ber, and improves the quality of his fruit-trees ... The last object of his industry is to build a dwelling-house. This business is sometimes effected in the course of his life, but is oftener bequeathed to his son, or the inheritor of his plantation ... The horses and cattle of this species of settler, bear marks in their strength, fat, and fruitfulness -of their being plentifully fed and carefully kept. His table abounds with a variety of the best provisions-his very kitchen flows with milk and honey-beer, cyder, and wine are the usual drinks of his family." That this progression of farmers of three distinct types occurred with anything approaching uniformity in western Pennsylvania may be doubted. Dr. Rush himself notes that there were exceptions -to it. "I have known some instances where the first settler has performed the improvements of the second, and yielded to the third. I have known a few instances likewise, of men of enterprizing spirits, who have settled in the wilderness, and who, in the course of a single life, have advanced through all the intermediate stages of improvement that I have mentioned, and produced all those conveniences which have been ascribed to the third species of settlers ... There are in- stances, likewise, where the first settlement has been improved by the same family, in hereditary succession, 'till it has reached the third stage of cultivation." It should be added that in some cases land speculators, as for example George Washington, sent out gangs of indentured servants and slaves under overseers to make the first clear- ings and erect log houses on their properties, after which the incipient farms were sold or leased to settlers. Sometimes, such property was, as Washington wrote, "more pregnant of perplexities than profit." There were instances also in which well-to-do settlers, using slave labor in part, created plantations with mansion houses and many acres of 264 Frontier Economy cleared land in a comparatively short time. There is plenty of evi- dence, however, that farms and farmers of each of the described types, and of intermediate types, were to be found in the region during the frontier period; and it is clear that, in most cases, more than a genera- tion was required to advance a farm to the state in which it produced much surplus. The principal task involved in the process of making a farm was the clearing away of the forest and brush from the parts that were suitable for meadow or for cultivation. This was accomplished by a --- SWEEP MILL FOR GRINDING CORN variety of methods, depending on the character of the settler and the amount of time and number of workers available. Deadening of the trees by girdling was widely practiced, and the ugly skeletons some- times stood for years in the cornfields. When live trees were chopped down, they were usually left where they fell to dry out for a year, after which they were burned. Some of the timber was needed, of course, for buildings, furniture, fences, and firewood, but only a small portion could be used with profit; and, unless it was so situated that it could easily be floated down a stream to a sawmill, there was no market for it. The stumps were sometimes pulled out with the aid of oxen, but they were often left in the fields until they had rotted sufficiently to be amenable to the grubbing hoe. Brush was sometimes reduced by turning the cattle and hogs into it or by burning it in dry seasons, but the remnants and especially the roots had to be grubbed out. 265 Western Pennsylvania Although the clearing of the fields was a fundamental task, only a little of it could be done, as a rule, during the first few years, because of the multitude of other tasks that had to be performed. The cabin or house must be erected, perhaps also a barn, especially if the settler were a German; and fences, usually of the zigzag Virginia or worm type must be built, not to confine the stock, but, as always on the frontier, to inclose and protect the fields. Crops must be raised as soon as possible to provide food and clothing, and hunting and fishing were usually necessary in order to supplement the meager resources of the incipient farm. If the pioneer were ambitious, he must often have been torn between the desires to increase his capital in the form of improved land and to increase his income in the form of immedi- ately consumable commodities. If agriculture be understood to include the making of farms and the domestic industries that were conducted on them as well as the pro- duction of crops and the raising of livestock, then the economy of western Pennsylvania was almost wholly agricultural during the fron- tier period. Pittsburgh had fewer than four hundred inhabitants in 1790, and the half dozen other villages were even smaller. It is prob- able that at least ninety-five per cent of the inhabitants lived on farms at that date, though some of the farmers were also millers, tavern- keepers, ferrymen, boatbuilders, or even preachers. On the other hand, some of the professional men and merchants in the villages were also farmers, and practically every villager at least kept a cow or two and cultivated a garden. Some idea of the size and character of the farms or plantations, as they were usually called, may be derived from advertisements pub- lished in the Pittsburgh Gazette. In 1786 Timothy Ryan offered for sale "a plantation containing four hundred acres, of which 80 is clear, and under good fence, ten acres made into meadow, a dwelling house, 30 by zo, with a double stone chimney, two rooms on a floor, a double barn, kitchen and a weaver's shop, with other out houses." This plan- tation was situated on Ten Mile Creek near Washington. A planta- tion of three hundred acres on Sewickley Creek offered for sale by James Perry in 1787 contained "about forty acres cleared, iz of which is good meadow, and 30 or 4o acres more may be made"; also "grist and saw mills... a good two story dwelling house, kitchen, barn and still house." It was recommended as "a good place for a tavern or store." 266 Frontier Economy In 1793 Gideon Walker offered for sale "A VALUABLE plantation con- taining Ioo acres... within half a mile of Redstone Old Fort [Browns- ville ].... there is about 30 acres of clear land, 5 of which is in meadow, and 10 in wheat and rye, also a very good peach orchard and a num- GRAIN CRADLE The curved wooden bars above and parallel to the curved blade of the scythe itself cradled the grain as it was cut and dropped it in regular rows. C-l ber of cherry trees, and about zo bearing apple trees." From a con- siderable number of such advertisements, from descriptions by trav- elers, and from tax records, the impression is gained that farms of about three hundred acres, of which some forty acres were under cul- tivation and a somewhat smaller amount was in meadow, were com- mon in Westmoreland, Fayette, Allegheny, and Washington counties around 1790o. In the more recently settled sections, of course, and also in the mountainous area, the proportion of cleared land in farms was smaller and there was much unoccupied land. Even in Washington County, a number of tracts of land remained unoccupied in 1786, and the county commissioners threatened to sell them for the "large ar- rearages of the taxes." The agricultural economy that prevailed during the pioneer period, as is usually the case where land is cheap and labor scarce, was of the extensive rather than the intensive type. The principal crops, with the exception of Indian corn or maize, were about the same as those of medieval England-wheat, oats, barley, rye, buckwheat, flax, and hemp. The agricultural revolution that took place in England in the eighteenth century had had little influence as yet on the American frontier. Turnips and cabbage were sometimes grown for fodder, and, as the cattle were turned in to feed upon them, the soil was somewhat 267 Western Pennsylvania replenished; but clover, which played an important part in the Eng- lish four-course rotation system, was little used, partly, perhaps, be- cause of the difficulty of collecting the seed. Hay was made by cutting the native grasses on the meadows. Since the cattle roamed the woods most of the time, little manure was available, and what did accumulate in the barnyards was seldom used to advantage. The virgin soil was rich enough to produce large crops for a few years without fertilizer of any sort-in fact some of it was said to be too rich for wheat until one or more crops of Indian corn had been grown on it-and by the time it SCYTHE SHARPENING TOOLS COW HORN WHETSTONE SHEATHS CARRIED ON THE BELT SCYTHE SHARPENING ANVIL AND HAMMER began to show signs of exhaustion, enough land had been cleared so that part of it could lie fallow. If the general husbandry of the pioneers was primitive, even more so were their methods of preparing the soil, planting, cultivating, and harvesting, and the tools that were used in these operations. The plows were little if any better than those of the Romans. The mold- boards were straight and were made of wood, though usually the point or share was of iron. Jefferson and others were experimenting with curved moldboards early in the nineteenth century, but these did not come into use in western Pennsylvania until after the War of 1812. The primitive plows were so clumsy and made so blunt a wedge that 268 Frontier Economy they required four oxen or two horses and two oxen to pull them and great strength and agility on the part of the plowman to keep them from being thrown out of the ground. Only an expert could so guide the plow as to invert the soil completely, and cross plowing was usually necessary. The harrowingwas done by dragging across the field a thornbush weighted with logs or a heavy wooden frame fitted with wooden or iron teeth. If the harrow was to be used on fields from which the stumps had not been removed, it was made in the shape of a tri- angle. After the field was prepared, the grain was broadcast by hand as it had been from time immemorial. Corn was at first planted In- dian fashion on unplowed ground; a few kernels were dropped into holes made with a hoe. Later a crude hand drill came into use. The growing corn was cultivated with a hoe or a small plow. As the crops began to ripen, eternal vigilance was necessary to prevent the squirrels and crows from getting too large a share of them. The harvest was, of course, the culmination of the farmer's labor. In December, 1786, "A Subscriber" expressed in the Pittsburgh Ga- zette his satisfaction "as I journeyed through Washington county last summer, to behold the ground covered with such rich crops .. . and to see so many parties of laborious farmers, occupied in the delightful task of gathering in the copious harvest .... Here were persons of each sex, and of every age. The lusty youths stooping to their work, plied the sickle, or swept with their scythes the falling ranks. The blythe damsels followed, binding the handful into sheaves; or piling the swarths into hasty cocks ... This is the most joyful period of the countryman's life." Whether joyful or not, the harvest was certainly laborious. It began with the cutting of the meadow grass late in June or early in July, progressed through the different grain crops, and ended in the early fall with the gathering of the corn. All the work was done by hand. The grass was cut with a scythe consisting of a long iron blade and a crooked wooden handle, which was usually home- made. The sickle used for cutting the grain did not differ from that used by the ancient Israelites, but in the early years of the nineteenth century there was coming into use a new invention called a cradle- a scythe with wooden fingers attached to the handle parallel to the blade, which would catch the falling stalks of grain and deposit them on the stubble in such a manner that they could be raked and bound in sheaves. It was said that one man with a cradle could cut as much 269 Western Pennsylvania wheat in a day as could four men with sickles. The cornstalks were cut with a sharp knife and arranged in shocks much as they generally are today. Equally primitive and laborious were the two methods of thresh- ing-flailing and treading--both of which had been used by the ancient Egyptians. Flailing was more common because it damaged the straw less than did the treading process; and the straw was valu- able, not only for bedding, both of animals and of humans, but also for thatching and for plaiting into hats. The flail consisted of two stout rods of unequal length hinged together with a thong. Grasping the longer rod or "staff," the expert thresher swung the flail with a peculiar switching motion and brought the "supple" down on the heads of the grain with a resounding thwack. Whenever possible flail- ing was done inside the barn on a hard-packed dirt threshing floor. The lack of tongued and grooved boarding made it difficult to fashion wooden floors that were grain proof. The treading process was accom- \l\\-ll-\\\\\\ ,, -, AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS MARKER FIELD RAKB GATHERING FORK SHAKING FORKS plished by spreading the stalks in a circle, usually out of doors, and driving oxen or horses over them. It was slower than flailing, but less laborious. All the small grains were threshed by one or the other of these processes, and peas and beans were sometimes flailed. The corn was husked by hand, often at a husking bee; and, although it was harvested last and could stand in the shocks indefinitely, it was usually 270 Frontier Economy husked before the grain was threshed, because of the more pressing need for it. Of equal importance with the crops was the livestock of the fron- tier farmer, for it furnished not only essential parts of the food and clothing but also power for moving logs and firewood, for plowing and harrowing, and for transporting crops to the mill or to market. If the tax records are reliable it would appear that most of the farmers in the southwestern counties about 1790 had two horses, three or four head of neat cattle, and four or five sheep, though perhaps a third of them had no sheep. As early as 178I, however, General John Neville had ten horses, sixteen head of cattle, and twenty-three sheep on his thousand-acre estate near Pittsburgh. On the other hand, as late as 1790 there were still many farmers in these counties who possessed only one horse and one cow. Swine and poultry multiplied rapidly, and, as there was little market for them or their products, most farmers soon had an ample supply for domestic consumption. The pioneer farmer had little time to devote to the care of his live- stock, and as a consequence it tended to decline in quality. That was especially true of the cattle and sheep, which seem to have been dis- tinctly inferior to their English prototypes. If any barn at all was pro- vided, it was usually a log structure, which might serve to protect the stock from predatory animals but not from the elements. The com- mon practice of branding the stock and turning it loose in the woods must have resulted in frequent losses of animals; for example, the traveler Schoepf reported concerning the Turkey Creek settlement in 1783 that "Wolves and bears had within a few days done much dam- age in these parts among the calves, sheep, and hogs, which are let run night and day regardless in the woods." Many advertisements concerning stray horses and cattle were published in the newspapers, and it is evident that much time must have been expended in round- ing up wandering stock. That stock was raised primarily for use on the farm rather than for sale is indicated by the fact that there was comparatively little in- crease in the ratio of stock to population between 1790 and I8io. From the census of the latter year it appears that for every hundred people in the region there were about forty horses, eighty-five head of neat cattle, and ninety-three sheep; and the ratio did not vary greatly from county to county. For the state as a whole excepting 271 Western Pennsylvania both the city and the county of Philadelphia the ratio was thirty-five horses, eighty-six cattle, and eighty-eight sheep. The relatively larger number of horses in western Pennsylvania seems to indicate that oxen were used there somewhat less than in the East. Unfortunately the available statistics do not distinguish between oxen and cows, but it is probable that of the four or five head of neat cattle on the average farm, two would usually be oxen. Apparently oxen were used for most WOOL CARDS FOR COMBING OUT WOOL of the heavy work on the farm and for hauling over the unimproved roads, and horses were used mainly as mounts or as pack animals. Efforts to improve the husbandry of the frontier farmers by dis- seminating among them information concerning better practices that had developed in the Old World or in the East were not entirely lack- ing. The first agricultural society in the country was organized in Philadelphia in 1785, and the next year an article on the culture of potatoes published at its request in a Philadelphia paper was re- printed in the Pittsburgh Gazette. Reprints of other articles on hus- bandry and occasional original contributions appeared in later issues of the Gazette, in other newspapers, and in such publications as the Pittsburgh Almanack; and doubtless they had some influence with the more well-to-do farmers. The bulk of the pioneers, however, were more concerned with providing the essential food, clothing, and shel- ter, clearing more land, and perhaps preparing to move on to a new location than they were with introducing new crops, conserving the soil, or increasing the yield per acre. Many of the suggested improve- ments were impracticable for the frontier farmer because of the initial expense or the amount of labor involved, and there was little incentive to increase production when there was little or no market for surplus 272 Frontier Economy crops. In the latter part of the period, after stabilized farms had suc- ceeded the frontier clearings, and markets had been developed, pro- posed improvements had a better chance and a few establishments could be found that compared favorably with the best-managed farms in the East. The earliest farms were, of course, essentially self-sufficing units. Because of the isolation of the region and of the individual farms, it was more economical to produce at home the necessary commodities, makeshifts though they might be, than to transport surplus crops to a distant market and bring back the goods received in exchange; and this was true whether the transportation were done by the farmer himself or by a middleman. Moreover, in the early stages of the mak- ing of a farm, when only a few acres had been cleared and much of the energy of the farmer was devoted to clearing more, little surplus was produced. It should be remembered, also, that domestic industries WOOL-SPINNING WHEEL The wool fibers were twisted by hand as they were fed into the spindle. flourished at this time in all parts of the country and even in Europe-- the age of specialization was only in its infancy. Each farm unit, therefore, was the scene of a wide variety of activi- ties; and, since neither labor for hire nor money to pay for it was available, the work was done by the farmer and his family, with occa- sionally an indentured servant to help them, and everyone had to be a Jack-of-all-trades. Such division of labor as there was was based on 273 The Natural Environment cases are cited in which human beings, after being bitten by wolves, developed rabies and died. Probably the most dangerous animals in the forest were the pan- ther, the wildcat, the rattlesnake, and the less common copperhead. Says Doddridge, in his Notes, speaking of the explorer or hunter: "His situation was not without its dangers. He did not know at what tread his foot might be stung by a serpent, at what moment he might meet with the formidable bear, or, if in the evening, he knew not on what limb of a tree, over his head, the murderous panther might be perched, in a squatting attitude, to drop down upon and tear him to pieces in a moment." As for rattlesnakes, there is much testimony that they were numerous and dangerous. Leather leggings usually afforded suffi- cient protection for the legs of the traveler, and if the snake's first strike was vain, it was possible to kill the reptile before it coiled for a second attack. The danger from snakes became greater after farms were cleared and roads opened. The workers in the harvest fields had at least their hands and arms exposed, and in stooping to make sheaves they might easily come in contact with the snakes. Women pulling flax for their linen were also endangered by snakes, and some- times in the cooler nights of autumn, snakes came into the cabins seeking warmth. Travelers over the Allegheny ridges report seeing numbers of snakes killed in the roads and occasionally mention seeing men suffering from the effects of snake bite. The pioneers who first pushed over the Allegheny ridges to find new soil for farming were for the most part ignorant of the mineral re- sources that lay beneath that soil. Yet minerals there were, waiting only the development of a society sufficiently industrial to make use of them. Iron and coal were among the first to be exploited. Though at the present time-since the discovery of immense bodies of iron to the west in northern Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota-Penn- sylvania is unimportant in the production of iron, there was ample iron ore for the needs of an early agricultural society. Significant for the utilization of iron in the region were the forests which, trans- muted into charcoal, were used in early iron smelting. The coal deposits were also drawn upon very early for fuel to be used for heating and in the industries; and later coal, in the form of coke, played an important part in the development of the iron and steel industries. The bituminous coal fields of Pennsylvania lie mainly 13 Western Pennsylvania sex and on age or strength. To the men fell the tasks of hunting and fishing, clearing the land, erecting buildings and fences, plowing, culti- vating, harvesting, threshing, grinding, shearing sheep, and provid- ing firewood, together with such domestic industries as butchering, smoking meat, making maple sugar, blacksmithing, coopering, cabi- netmaking, tanning, and shoemaking. The tasks of the women in- cluded the care of the poultry and of stock, except perhaps the work animals, as well as the preparation of food, the making of clothing, and the care of the house and the children. They did the baking, brew- ing, churning, spinning, dyeing, weaving, knitting, and made the garments, candles, soap, and cheese, in addition to cooking the daily meals and occasionally nursing the sick. The children, even very young ones, could assist their elders at the tasks of the farm and the household, and, as the work was never-ending, the parents were spared the modem domestic problem of finding something for the youngsters to do. Moreover, the children were learning by the labora- tory method the processes they would need to know when they set up their own households, and some of them were developing skills that would enable them later to specialize as artisans. Among the multitude of domestic industries that were practiced on the frontier farms the most important had to do with the transfor- mation of the products of the farm or of nature into food, clothing, or shelter. After the harvest was over came the slaughtering and dressing of hogs and cattle, followed by the processes of preserving the meat so that a supply would be available throughout the year. The hams and shoulders of the hogs were salted and hung in the smokehouse over smoldering green hickory wood, the sides were treated in the same way to become bacon or were packed in brine for salt pork, and other portions were made into sausage. Beef might be dried, corned, or smoked. Wheat and rye were ground into flour at the nearest mill, and the flour was made into bread, biscuits, and pastries. Corn could be ground in hand mills, if necessary; or, by soaking in lye water, it could be transformed into hominy. If the farm included a "sugar grove," the maple trees were tapped in the spring, and the sap, caught in wooden troughs or buckets, was boiled down in an iron kettle over an outdoor fire. Canning was un- known, but fruit and vegetables were preserved by drying or pickling, and the vinegar used was made at home from cider with the mother 274 Frontier Economy from the previous year's vinegar. Quantitatively one of the most im- portant preserves was sauerkraut, which was made by packing cut cabbage in salt and changing the brine from time to time during the process of fermentation. Apple butter was made in vast quantities MAPLE SUGAR-MAKING EQUIPMENT EVAPORATING PAN KETTLE SAP BUCKETS PADDLES YOKE FOR CARRYING BUCKETS and apparently was one of the most durable of the preserves. One writer refers to some that "had gone through the Revolutionary War; stood shoulder to shoulder with the patriots of our young Republic in the War of 18Iz; helped to elect a half a dozen Presidents, and still looked the picture of blooming youth and towering strength." The making of clothing and housefurnishings must have taxed the resourcefulness and even the patience of the pioneers. In many house- holds every process from the carding of the fiber to the fashioning of the garment was carried out at home. Flax, hemp, and wool were the basic materials out of which were made the linens, linsey-woolseys, woolens, and coarser hempen mixtures that were worn by the members of the family and used in the household. The flax had to be soaked or retted, pounded in a flax brake to loosen and break up the woody portions, scutched or whipped to remove the waste matter, and hackled or combed to separate the short or tangled fibers from the remainder. The number of times it was hackled, with successively finer combs, depended on the degree of fineness desired in the product. The fleece sheared from the sheep had to be carded before it could be 275 Western Pennsylvania spun. This could be done by brushing and combing the tangled fibers by hand, but it was more easily accomplished by means of a crank and cylinder device that pulled the fibers through the combs. Spinning with the wheel was a tedious process and required considerable skill, but it was not especially laborious. If the family did not possess a loom the spun thread was taken to a neighbor, who wove the cloth in exchange for a part of the finished product. Weaving with a hand loom was a difficult and complicated task, and considerable expertness was required to make cloth of good quality. Woolen cloth, after it was woven, was fulled to thicken it and prevent future shrinking. In the early days this was usually done by hand, or rather by foot, at a fulling party, with the participants sitting in a circle and stamping with their bare feet on the cloth soaked in soap- suds. Copperas and a number of homemade vegetable dyes were used for coloring cloth. The cutting and sewing of cloth to make garments and household articles was all done by hand, of course, and without the aid of commercial patterns. Stockings were knit by hand of woolen yarn or linen thread, and old cloth was torn into strips, which were sewed end to end and braided, knitted, or woven into rugs or carpets. _ .... ..... - ilk FLAX HACKLES, WITH COVERS, USED IN COMBING OUT FLAX FIBER No statistics are available concerning this domestic cloth industry prior to I8io, but calculations based on the data of the census of manufactures taken in that year indicate that the average amount of cloth produced annually by the families of western Pennsylvania was sixty-two yards, whereas for the state as a whole it was only forty- four yards. In Westmoreland and Washington counties it amounted to seventy-eight yards. From the same data it appears that one third 276 Frontier Economy of the families possessed hand carders, that nearly every family had a spinning wheel unless a considerable number had more than one, and that there was one loom for every five families. It is interesting to FLAX BRAKE USED IN LOOSENING THE WOODY PORTIONS FROM THE FLAX, AND SCUTCHING, OR SWINGLING, KNIFE OF WOOD USED IN STRIPPING THEM FROM THE FIBER note that, although western Pennsylvania had but twenty-five per cent of the population of the state at this time, it had forty per cent of the hand looms. Another industry that taxed the farmer's ingenuity and patience was woodworking. Not only buildings, fences, and furniture were made of wood but also most of the instruments and utensils that were used on the farm. The broad ax of the pioneer not only felled the trees to make the clearing but, with the aid of the frow and the mallet, converted many of them into posts, fence rails, beams, and clap- boards, as well as firewood. Before sawmills were available, boards were made with a ripsaw manipulated by two workers, one of whom stood in a pit under the log. Another method of shaping large-sized blocks of wood was by burning; mortars, troughs, and large bowls were so made. Most of the wooden equipment, such as spoons, dishes, churn dashers, cheese hoops, splint brooms, flails, ax helves, and handles for other tools, was made by shaving with a draw knife and whittling with a jackknife. Carefully selected crooked saplings were used in making scythe handles, oxbows, sled runners, and saddletrees. Coop- erage or the making of barrels, kegs, tubs, buckets, and the like, was 277 Western Pennsylvania an especially important branch of the industry, for flour, meat, fish, cider, vinegar, fruit, salt, and kraut, as well as whiskey, were kept and transported in such containers. Most farmers spent part of their time during the winter cutting and shaping staves, but the process of fitting them together to make a leak-proof container was usually intrusted to someone who had had experience as a cooper. The industry centering around the making and manipulating of leather was also conducted on the farm in the pioneer period. The skins of the cattle, and sometimes of wild animals, were soaked in lime or lye water to loosen the hair, which was then scraped off. Next they were immersed for several days in a solution of tannin made from the bark of trees, preferably oaks. After the leather was dried, dressed by scraping, and softened by rubbing in bear's grease, lard, FLAX-SPINNING EQUIPMENT SPINNING WHEEL REEL USED IN WINDING SKEIN SWIFT FOR HOLDING SKEIN See also p. 28o or tallow, it was ready to be made into harness, saddles, breeches, or shoes. Moccasins were easy to make, but the "shoe pack," more suited to heavy farm work, required skillful cutting, sewing, and nailing. Heavy knitted socks and tough feet were needed to make these home- made shoes endurable, and men and women as well as children went barefoot much of the time. Many farmers possessed crude blacksmith's outfits, with which they could shoe horses and make and repair tools for themselves and their neighbors. Before the establishment of furnaces in the region, 278 Frontier Economy iron was so expensive that many an early anvil consisted merely of a tree stump with a piece of iron laid on the top of it. Such an anvil and a simple forge and bellows might save many trips to a distant blacksmith shop. Such industries as the making of soap and of candles kept the women of the pioneer household from having too much leisure time. Soap was made by combining lye with tallow or other grease. The lye was made by leeching wood ashes, and the grease was usually ren- dered at slaughtering time. The ingredients, including water, in the proper proportions were boiled over an outdoor fire, impurities were drained off from time to time, and the resulting product was a slimy "soft soap," not altogether pleasant to the touch but effective in cleansing floors, clothing, dishes, and even the human body. Candles were made by repeatedly dipping the wicks in melted tallow and hanging them on racks to dry between dippings. The possession of a candle mold, with which more shapely candles could be made with less labor, was a mark of prosperity on the frontier. Still another industry that was carried on by many of the pioneer farmers--one that was destined to be involved in a major disturbance -was the distilling of whiskey. Such evidence as is available seems to indicate that there were about five hundred stills in Washington County around 1790, which would be approximately one for every ten families. Most of these stills had a capacity of not more than one hundred gallons, and they were operated from time to time to trans- form the surplus grain of the owner and of his neighbors into a com- modity that was much relished by the pioneers and one for which there was some market. Cider, wines, and beer were also made on the farms for home consumption, the last two mainly by the Germans. All these and a multitude of other industries were carried on by the pioneer farmers of western Pennsylvania and their families. There were, however, a few farms or plantations, less than three per cent of the total number of establishments, on which slave labor was employed. The 88o slaves listed in the census of 1790 were distributed among 362 families, but of these 178 possessed only a single slave and only 17 had more than six. The largest number was on the plantation of Margaret Hutton of Fayette County, whose household apparently consisted of herself, twenty-four slaves, and seven free negroes- doubtless children born of slave parents after the passage of the 279 Western Pennsylvania gradual abolition act of 1780. Other owners of considerable numbers of slaves in Fayette County were Edward Cook, with eleven; John Caltroon, with ten; William Goe and the Widow Beal, with nine each; THE SPINDLE AT WORK After Mrs. G. Blount, in Kissel, "Yarn and Cloth Making" This is a Saxony wheel, which twists the rapidly than the bobbin wheel, twists yarn as it is spun. The rove passes through the rove as it passes through the hollow the hollow spindle, then across the hooks spindle. The operator occasionally shifts on the flyer, and is tied to the bobbin the yarn from one hook to another in shaft. The flyer, which is rotated less order to distribute it evenly on the bobbin. Nathaniel Breading, with eight; and John Laughlin, Isaac Meason, and John Hall, with seven each. In Allegheny County John Neville had eighteen slaves; Presley Neville, nine; and Isaac Craig, eight. The only large holdings in Washington County were those of Herbert Wallace, eleven, and Frederick Cooper, ten; Nechimia Stockley, Joseph Hill, Sr., and James Finley of Westmoreland County had seven each; but no one in Bedford County possessed more than four. As a consequence of the act of 1780, which prevented the introduc- tion of slaves and provided that children born thereafter of slaves should be free, the number of slaves in the region decreased from 88o in 1790 to 431 in I8oo00, 184 in 18io, and 70 in 182o. As the slaves died off, however, their places were doubtless taken by their children, who were required to serve the masters of their mothers until they were twenty-eight years old; and it is worthy of note that the number of free negroes increased from 145 in 1790 to 940 in I8oo, 2,299 in I8Io, and 3,739 in 182o. Not all the free negroes were indentured servants, 28o Frontier Economy of course, but it is probable that most of them were employed on the farms or plantations of white people. Under the conditions that prevailed on the frontier, free white labor was difficult to obtain, even if one had the money to pay for it. When land was easily procured, why should a man work someone else's land? When a woman could easily have a husband of her own, why should she labor in some other woman's household? About the only white laborers obtainable were indentured servants, apprentices, and orphans bound out by the courts. No statistics of their numbers are available, but their presence is amply attested by court records and frequent advertisements of runaway servants in the papers. Condi- tions in the region apparently made it easy not only for servants but also for slaves to escape from their masters. The servant problem, however, was of immediate interest to only a small proportion of the population. Whether operated by the family alone or with the help of servants or slaves the frontier farms were essentially of the subsistence variety, but they were never completely self-sufficing, of course. From the very beginning of settlement, iron and glass, salt and spices, and a few AT WORK ON A SHAVING HORSE luxuries were brought over the mountains, at first on the backs of pack horses and later in wagons. Once a year, in the early period, an expedition from each neighborhood made the trip to the East to get the necessary supplies. About the only commodities produced in the 281 Western Pennsylvania region of sufficient value in proportion to their weight to warrant their being transported across the mountains to balance the imports were furs, whiskey, and ginseng. Cattle were sometimes driven to market, G 49 rr - CANDLE MOLDS but the trip was so hard on them that they could not compete suc- cessfully with eastern and southern cattle. A small local market for more bulky products was supplied by immigrants and by the military establishments, but the payments in Continental currency during the Revolution were not relished by the farmers. About the close of the war, farmers and merchants began to make occasional shipments of grain, flour, pork, and beef down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans, where, if the Spanish officials happened to be agreeable, such products could be disposed of for cash; but the restrictions im- posed upon this trade and the danger from the Indians prevented any considerable development of it until after 1795. The new settle- ments in Kentucky and the Northwest Territory were partly depen- dent on western Pennsylvania for supplies, but their expansion was restricted by Indian hostilities until after Wayne's victory. Most of the money received for the sale of products was quickly drained out of the region in payments for land or for imported commodities. The most notable development in the field of commerce during the years immediately following the Revolution was the advent of the general store. Stores of a sort had existed in Pittsburgh ever since the place was occupied by the British under General Forbes in 1758, but 282 Frontier Economy the early ones were concerned primarily with the Indian trade, though they catered also to the soldiers, occasional travelers, immigrants, and near-by settlers. The improvement of roads, the development of ag- ricultural surpluses, and the increase of migration through the region after the Revolution made it practicable for merchants to import larger and more varied stocks of goods and to offer them for sale or barter not only in Pittsburgh but also in the other villages such as Washington, Brownsville, and Uniontown. There were eight general stores in Pittsburgh in 1784 and another was about to be established. The founding of the Pittsburgh Gazette in 1786 enabled the mer- chants to advertise their wares, and the fortunate preservation of files of that paper makes available information as to the character of the stocks. An assortment of goods offered by Terrence Campbell in his new store in Washington in 1788 contained fifty varieties of cloth, including broadcloths, serges, cottons, flannels, velvets, jeans, and TYPES OF CANDLE HOLDERS The two at the left are pottery, the others iron or tin. linens; fifteen articles of wearing apparel, such as hats, shoes, gloves, aprons, shawls, and hose; one hundred and twenty-five items of hard- ware and notions, including looking glasses, snuffboxes, pistols, scalp- ing knives, scissors, combs, spectacles, brushes, carpenters' and slid- ing rules, inkpots, watch chains, jew's-harps, fiddles, candlesticks, flatirons, china, axes, tongs, sickles and scythes, and artificial flowers; and twenty-five articles of food or staples, such as coffee, tea, choco- late, spices, tobacco and snuff, indigo, German and Crowley steel, bar 283 Western Pennsylvania to the west of the line dividing Center, Blair, and Bedford counties from Clearfield, Cambria, and Somerset. Like the mountains and the Appalachian Plateau, the coal fields lie on an axis running northeast and southwest. There is little or no coal in the two northern tiers of counties of western Pennsylvania, and the heaviest concentration of the mineral occurs in Armstrong, Allegheny, Westmoreland, Wash- ington, Greene, and Fayette counties. Throughout this district there are outcroppings of coal, caused by erosion on the hillsides and along the banks cut by streams, so that there was no necessity to prospect for coal-it was plainly to be seen even by the earliest comers, and later, when roads had been made, the wearing away of the softer soil disclosed rock-like ridges of coal in the roadways. Gas fields, to be of immense importance in the latter half of the nineteenth century and at the present time, lie in general northwest of the coal fields; the eastern edge of the gas belt, running roughly west of a line through the northwest corner of Potter County and the southwest corner of Fayette County, overlaps the western edge of the coal fields. Fields of gas are concentrated especially in Clarion, Arm- strong, and Greene counties, though the greatest modern production of gas occurs in Warren, Elk, Washington, and Greene counties. To the west and northwest of the gas fields, and overlapping them on the eastern side, lie the fields of petroleum, known to the early set- tlers as "Seneca oil," from the Seneca Indians, who used it as a remedy for rheumatism, strains, and sprains. An especially heavy concentra- tion of oil, in McKean, Venango, and Butler.counties, was to become increasingly important from the Civil War on, with the greater use of petroleum for lubrication of machinery and with the later develop- ment of the gasoline engine. As early as 1755, Evans' map notes the presence of petroleum near Venango. Petroleum was found by the earliest inhabitants floating freely on the streams or in the springs of the oil region, and subterranean oil was first found mixed with the brine in salt wells. In the pioneer period, salt was far more important than oil, and salt springs, which were scattered about through the region, were highly prized by the early settlers. They were inadequate, however, to supply the needs, and much salt was imported, at first across the mountains and later from the Onondaga works in New York and the Kanawha works in West Virginia. There were extensive underground deposits of salt in the region, however, especially in the 14 Western Pennsylvania iron and castings, and gunpowder. The more or less permanent stores were supplemented by wandering merchants, who hauled their "ven- tures" across the mountains and moved them about from place to place by wagon or by flatboat until they were sold. It is significant of the lack of money in the region that nearly every merchant offered to accept "cash or country produce" for his mer- chandise. One storekeeper in Pittsburgh elaborated the familiar phrase in 1786 into "Cash, Flour, Whisky, Beef, Pork, Bacon, Wheat, Rye, Oats, Corn, Ashes, Candlewick, Tallow, &c. &c." Ginseng, snakeroot, skins and furs, and "country linen" were also accepted, and sometimes cash was offered for ginseng. Goods were often sold on credit, and there is evidence in the advertisements that collections were frequently difficult. Apparently the bulky products received in exchange for imported goods were sold to villagers or immigrants or shipped down the rivers when opportunity offered. Furs, ginseng, and whiskey were sent east in the wagons that brought out the mer- chandise. Not only was there increasing exchange of commodities between the farmers of western Pennsylvania and the outside world but with- in less than a decade after the first permanent settlements, diversifi- cation of activities began to develop within the region itself. Sawmills, boat yards, and blacksmith shops were in operation for the benefit of traders and the army even before the advent of permanent agri- cultural settlers, and they multiplied rapidly thereafter; mills for the grinding of grain soon made their appearance in every considerable neighborhood, to be followed a little later by fulling mills; weaving and distilling tended to be concentrated in the hands of those who were more skillful or had better equipment than the average; and itinerant shoemakers and tinkers began to relieve the farmers of difficult tasks. Most of the industries were operated on a custom basis, and payment for the work was usually in the form of raw materials. The mills were run by water power as a rule, though occa- sionally horse power was used. Toward the close of the Revolution artisans of many sorts began to set up their shops in the villages. From advertisements in the Gazette it appears that by 1790 Pittsburgh could boast of carpenters, coopers, wagon makers, and cabinet and chair makers; tanners, cur- riers, cobblers, and saddlers; distillers, vintners, and bakers; tailors 284 C) 0 0 0 ra hIL zv not Q a solid ..... ..... .............. Western Pennsylvania and hatters; watch and clock makers and gold and silver smiths; ma- sons and quarrymen; ropemakers; and printers. Most of these artisans did their work in their homes or in small shops, with sometimes an apprentice or two to help them, and like the merchants they were often obliged to accept country produce for their wares. Doubtless there was also considerable exchange of commodities among artisans and of stock and produce among farmers; and it is significant of the growing internal trade that a market house was erected and regular market days were established at Pittsburgh in 1787. The transformation of southwestern Pennsylvania from an isolated frontier community made up of self-sufficing agricultural units to one of more specialized activities integrated with the national economy went on apace during the last decade of the eighteenth century. Several factors contributed to the acceleration of this movement. As the farmers increased their acreages of improved land, the agricultural surpluses became larger and larger. The armies of the United States operating against the Indians in the Northwest Territory from i79o to 1794 furnished a cash market for much of this surplus, and the immigrants that poured into that territory after the Indian wars were over usually bought their equipment and supplies for the first season in southwestern Pennsylvania. In 1794 the Whiskey Insurrection brought into the region another Federal army, which needed supplies. These outlets were temporary, of course, for the armies were dis- banded and the immigrants were soon producing surpluses of their own; but the removal of restrictions on the Mississippi trade, effected by Pinckney's Treaty in 1795, opened the markets of the world to the farmers and merchants of the West. Flatboats and keelboats made their way to New Orleans from the upper Ohio in ever increasing numbers, and before the end of the century ocean-going ships had been built in western Pennsylvania, loaded with the produce of the region, floated down the rivers, and sailed out on the high seas. In this period also the improvement of the highway from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, largely at the expense of the state, and the extension and improvement of local roads decreased the cost of wagon transpor- tation and greatly facilitated the introduction and distribution of eastern commodities. Southwestern Pennsylvania was still predominantly agricultural at the end of the eighteenth century and was destined to continue so for 286 Frontier Economy many years, but the process of making the farms was there approach- ing completion, commerce both internal and external was well estab- lished, and, as will appear in the following chapter, manufacturing and mining were being developed. The population of this settled dis- trict had increased to about a hundred thousand. Pittsburgh, its metropolis, was a thriving commercial and industrial center with 1,565 inhabitants. A visitor of 18oo reported that he "found the town, which was called the Western Exchange, a reflex of New York, the same earnest bustle in its business, and the same national variety in its thickly thronging strangers." In approximately a third of a cen- tury a wilderness had been transformed into the habitat of a nu- merous human society well supplied with capital goods in the shape of improved farms, roads, buildings, and factories, and integrated in a complex economic structure. Frontier conditions were to prevail in some parts of northwestern Pennsylvania for half a century, but in the southwestern section, especially in the Monongahela Valley, the frontier stage of development had been completed. 287 xiii. Commercial and Industrial Foundations T HE quarter century from 1790 to 1815 witnessed the begin- ning, but only the beginning, of the transformation of the original self-sufficing agricultural economy of western Penn- sylvania into an industrial economy based largely on the manufacture of commodities for the outside world. Although agriculture was des- tined to be superseded in the course of time by manufacturing as the principal source of wealth in the region, it continued to expand throughout this period, not only in the northern section, which was still in process of settlement, but also in the southwestern, where that process had been completed in the main by 179o. This agricultural expansion in fact played an important part in the promotion of in- dustrialism, for it provided the surpluses that made possible the expansion of commerce and the accumulation of fluid capital, both of which were essential to the development of manufacturing on a large scale. Contemporary accounts of agricultural conditions during the early years of the nineteenth century indicate great variation from section to section and from farm to farm, but on the whole a steady increase in acreage under cultivation, in crops produced, and in the income and wealth of the farmers. In 1804 a traveler reported that the farmers of the Monongahela country "seemed to live in ease and plenty," although many of them were affected by the mania to move to the new country beyond the Ohio. Four years later Cramer's Navigator asserted that wheat, rye, barley, oats, buckwheat, corn, and potatoes were produced in that section "in great abundance," that Mononga- hela flour sold for more than any other at New Orleans, and that "the best and greatest quantity of rye whiskey is made on this river." In 18i , John Melish wrote of this same section: "The farms are well improved, and the farm-houses are, many of them, substantial, and 288 Commercial and Industrial Foundations bespeak affluence, ease, and comfort.... The people here appear to be as well lodged, as well fed, and as well clothed, as those who live in the neighbourhood of Philadelphia or New York." In the rougher country east of Chestnut Ridge and along the road from Ligonier to Pittsburgh conditions were not so good. Travelers in 18oz and 1807 wrote of "plantations ... surrounded with woods" and of "scattered farms." The improvement of roads and the estab- lishment of the stage line in 1804 had a beneficial effect. In 18I Melish found the country west of Bedford "tolerably well cultivated" and raising "much more grain than is sufficient to supply the internal demand"; but Elbridge Gerry, Jr., reported as late as 1813, "The country east of Pitsburgh is clearing very fast, sides of hills and fields of dead trees or stumps are seen in all directions." In the section north- west of the Allegheny River, where settlement did not get under way until about 1795, pioneer conditions prevailed throughout the period. In 1807 a traveler in the French Creek Valley found the country from Waterford to Meadville "improving very fast" and the land around Meadville "yielding already great quantities of grain and other pro- duce, as well as considerable droves of excellent cattle for transporta- tion." As late as 1816, however, another traveler reported that agri- culture was in a "most degraded state" along the road from Meadville to Pittsburgh. As he approached Pittsburgh, he saw some "well im- proved farms, embellished by decent buildings. No want of industry appears; but that skill, which preserves the fertility of arable lands, seemed unknown." The lack of efficiency and progressiveness on the part of the farmers of the region was deplored by William Eichbaum in the Pittsburgh Magazine Almanack for 1816. He asserted that they had, in general, "too much land at the same time under cultivation, which, added to the scarcity of hands to hire, is not worked to ... advantage." Too much grain and not enough stock were raised, stock was neglected, no use was made of manure, a good barn was "quite a novelty," fences were down, fields were worked out, and the houses were "open to every breeze and drift of snow or shower of rain, presenting a want of care and economy." A partial explanation of this condition is indicated by the observation of Timothy Flint in 1815 that "except the inhabitants in the immediate vicinity of Pittsburg, or other man- ufacturing villages," the farmers "find indifferent markets for their 289 Western Pennsylvania produce, and their chances for making money are very precarious." There is plenty of evidence, however, that some farmers were pros- pering. James Flint discovered an Irishman in I818, only a few miles from Pittsburgh, to be sure, whose wealth had increased in fifteen years from less than fifty dollars to four thousand dollars, though he had "not followed any other occupation than the cultivation of his farm, and the sale of its produce." Undoubtedly, however, a consider- able part of his profit had accrued from the appreciation of land values in his neighborhood. Nearly all the farmers were land specula- tors in a small way, either consciously or unconsciously, and many of them were able to increase their available capital from time to time by selling surplus land. Farmers who lived along the main traveled roads were sometimes able to combine tavern-keeping with agriculture very successfully. Thus Gerry reported a tavern-keeper named Ramsey at Ligonier who "began with a very trifle, and tho' young now [r813], by dint of in- dustry and perseverance, has acquired a fortune of £ 30,000 and prob- ably more. He has quite a large plantation. His house is neat and handsome, and... he has a tanyard, flour mill and some others. More than zo persons are constantly employed in his service... He carries on farming very largely and drives 6oo cattle a year, besides other quadrupeds, to market." Ninian Beall, who kept a small tavern in the western part of Washington County in 1817, had purchased his farm, consisting of 250 acres, of which 65 were cleared, for thirty-five hundred dollars in i815. He paid only nine hundred dollars down, but in two years he had paid all but five hundred and the value of the place had increased to seven thousand dollars. "Thus it is," com- mented Morris Birkbeck, "that people here grow wealthy without extraordinary exertion, and without any anxiety." Whatever may have been the prospects and progress of individual farmers, there can be no question that the one collectivized farm es- tablished in the region was a financial success. The community at Harmony in Butler County, which was founded by George Rapp and his associates and was known as the Harmony Society, began opera- tions in I804 with five thousand acres of practically virgin forest. Dur- ing the first year the members of the society not only built houses, barns, and a gristmill, but also cleared over two hundred acres of ground. By the end of the third year they had cleared about a thou- 290 Commercial and Industrial Foundations sand acres, and in that year they produced and sold a surplus of six hundred bushels of grain and three thousand gallons of whiskey. Two years later, in I809, "they sold 3000 bushels of corn, Iooo bushels of potatoes, Iooo bushels of wheat; and they distilled i6oo bushels of rye." Although the original investment did not exceed twenty thousand dollars, the property of the society was valued in 1811 at two hundred and twenty thousand dollars, including ninety thousand dollars for nine thousand acres of land; and the land and improvements were sold in 1815 for one hundred thousand dollars. In the previous year the leaders of the society, which then numbered about one hundred and forty families and over seven hundred individuals, had purchased a much larger tract of land in Indiana, to which the community was being removed. It is true, of course, that domestic industries and even manufacturing played important parts in the accumulation of surplus capital for the Harmony Society, but so did they also for many in- dividual farmers. Despite the increasing importation of manufactured goods and the beginnings of factory production in the region, the domestic and cus- tom industries continued to flourish and even to expand, at least until after the War of I812. Although these industries developed at first to meet the consumption needs of the individual producer or of his neighbors, it was not long before they were producing surpluses that were available for export. Since the raw materials used in these indus- tries were almost wholly products of the agriculture of the region, their surpluses may be looked upon as constituting a part of the agricultural surplus which, by processing, had been rendered more valuable and less bulky. Thus, for example, grain was transformed into flour or whiskey; wool and flax into yarn, thread, or cloth; and livestock into bacon, corned beef, lard, tallow, leather, saddles, and even boots and shoes. Such joint products of agriculture and domestic industry and many other commodities difficult to classify, such as lumber, maple sugar, hats, furs, venison, butter, cheese, cider, peach brandy, ginseng, and soap, appear to have been available for export in considerable quantities during the early years of the nineteenth century. These surplus products provided a basis for the development of external commerce, and, with the removal of restrictions on the Mississippi trade, the elimination of the Indian menace, the rapid 29I Western Pennsylvania increase in immigration to Kentucky and the Old Northwest, and the improvement of facilities for transportation during the last decade of the eighteenth century, trade with the outside world increased by leaps and bounds. Soon the products of manufacturing began to find a place in the lists of exports, and certain raw materials for manufac- turing began to be imported, but the bulk of the external commerce throughout the period consisted of the exchange, directly or indi- rectly, of the surpluses of agriculture and the domestic and custom industries for consumers' goods not produced in the region or for money or credit to be used in paying for land. Despite the opening and improvement of roads across the moun- tains the principal markets for the surplus products of western Penn- sylvania continued to be found down the Ohio and the Mississippi throughout the period under consideration and even for many years thereafter. This was due not only to the fact that it was easier and cheaper to transport bulky commodities ten miles down a river than one mile over the mountains but also to the existence of a greater demand for the products in the West and South than in the East. The East and especially eastern Pennsylvania had its own surpluses of most of the commodities produced in the upper Ohio country-sur- pluses that were exported by water to the southern states, the West Indies, and Europe-and only articles of high value in proportion to weight, such as furs, whiskey, and ginseng; or livestock, which could furnish its own transportation, could cross the mountains and com- pete in the eastern markets. To the west, also, competition was met as soon as Kentucky and Ohio were producing surpluses; but the western Pennsylvania community had the advantages of greater ma- turity, more varied products, and an earlier accumulation of capital, while the cost of transportation was so low that the greater distance to New Orleans, the common market, was not a serious handicap. In the field of imports the situation was reversed. Until the coming of the steamboat, transportation up the rivers was more difficult and more expensive than that across the mountains. Moreover, the East produced surpluses of the commodities desired in western Pennsyl- vania--principally manufactured articles-or was accustomed to im- port them, while such commodities, as a rule, could not be obtained at satisfactory prices in the farther West or at New Orleans. On the other hand, certain raw materials needed for the rising industries of 292 Commercial and Industrial Foundations the region were more available in the West than in the East, and such articles as lead, cotton, hemp, and tobacco were imported up the rivers in increasing amounts. Since the external commerce of the region flowed mainly in one direction, from east to west, the wagons in which goods were imported usually returned empty and most of the boats in which goods were exported never returned at all. In some way, of course, the accounts had to be balanced, the exports had to pay for the imports, and that was accomplished only in part by the shipment of money. In fact money seems to have played a much smaller part in the transactions than did credit and barter. A merchant might obtain a stock of goods on credit in Philadelphia, exchange it for country produce in Pitts- burgh, and ship the produce to New Orleans, where he could some- times dispose of it for cash. In that case he would probably invest the money in southern products for which there was a market at Phila- delphia, ship them by sea to that port, and meet his obligations after many months, perhaps by selling the products to the very merchants from whom he had bought his original stock. If no good offer was re- ceived in New Orleans, he might ship the produce to one of the West Indian islands, where it could usually be exchanged for commodities that could profitably be imported at Philadelphia. Many variants of this procedure were used, of course; but they all reflect not only the special circumstances of the region but also the general characteristics of commerce at that time. Instead of conduct- ing a continuous business of a single type, merchants engaged in "ven- tures," which might be carried through in a few months or at most a few years. The same man might be concerned in several ventures at the same time, and often a new venture grew out of one that was being concluded, but each was an independent transaction. Such com- mercial ventures, moreover, were not restricted to an established class of merchants. A farmer or a group of farmers might build a flatboat and take the surplus produce of a neighborhood to New Orleans; or an artisan might turn merchant until he had disposed of his surplus wares. Many of the merchants were outsiders who remained in the region only long enough to complete their transactions; and others were resident factors or partners of merchants of Philadelphia or Bal- timore. Rarely did a specific business or partnership last more than a few years. Importing, exporting, wholesaling, and retailing were all 293 The Natural Environment Kiskiminetas-Conemaugh Valley, and after the War of 18Iz these were made commercially profitable by the boring of salt wells. Stone suitable for building material was common throughout the region. Sandstone and limestone were most extensively used, but blue- stone and flagstone were also available. Limestone was also used as fertilizer and as flux for iron ore. Brick clay occurs in most counties in the state, with Allegheny the largest producer in western Pennsyl- vania; fire clay is now extensively mined in connection with coal; pottery clay is found in Beaver County, terra cotta clay near Pitts- burgh, flint clay in half a dozen different counties; and deposits of molding sand and of glass sand are scattered throughout the region. Thus it can be seen that, when the settlers wished to build dwellings more elaborate than the rudely primitive cabins they had at first erected, there were to be found in the region varieties of building stone, iron, clay, and glass sands from which could be made materials and fitments for house building, and that, even after the exhaustion of the forests, the local resources of coal, oil, and gas would offer endless possibilities for the heating and lighting of these more pretentious dwellings. The most important source of power applied to machinery in the pioneer period, and one that seems destined to regain its former promi- nence, was the falling waters of the many streams that resulted from abundant rains and the dissected character of the plateau. Mill sites were common on the tributaries of the Monongahela and the Alle- gheny, and water-driven gristmills and sawmills played an important part in the economy of the early settlers, though Doddridge in his Notes declares that they planned to have their grain ground by the middle of May at the latest, as failure of water often made the mills idle from late spring to early fall. Water power was later to play an important part in the establishment of industries along the rivers of the region, although the potential water power of the section can not be fully available until the construction of reservoirs near the head- waters of the rivers has operated to reduce the floods and to increase the flow of the rivers during periods of drought. Besides location, topography, and natural resources, one other as- pect of the physical environment deserves consideration-the climate. In the early period of settlement, with medical and technical progress only in its infancy, successful and speedy colonization of a region by '5 Western Pennsylvania parts of the same general business; and merchants as well as farmers were Jacks-of-all-trades, prepared to engage in any transaction that offered the prospect of profit. The record of an early venture in importing into western Pennsyl- vania has been preserved in the journal of John May, a New Eng- lander. Influenced probably by interest in the Ohio Company settle- ment at Marietta, which seems to have been his original objective, May shipped about five tons of merchandise from Boston to Balti- more by schooner in April, 1789. From Baltimore the goods were transported by wagon to Brownsville at a cost of eight pounds per ton, not including ferry charges and tavern bills. At Brownsville May purchased a boat, on which the goods were loaded; and, while waiting a rise in the river, he opened a store on shipboard. Sales were few and far between as long as he insisted on being paid in cash. "A number of people here today," he wrote, "but it is like stripping the cow after you have milked. They have paid away all their money, & by no device can get more.... We might still trade to any extent if we would take produce; but what could we do with it if we had it?" Finally he disposed of some of the goods in exchange for ginseng, though it broke his Yankee heart to do so, for the price of ginseng was falling, and he feared that he would have to keep it a year or two before he could dis- pose of it at a profit. A midsummer rise in the rivers enabled May to move on to Wheeling, where he hoped to sell his goods for cash to immigrants bound for the new settlements, but he soon found it necessary to accept furs and skins as well as more ginseng in payment. Late in October he started for the East with his receipts on the backs of fourteen pack horses; the best that he then hoped for, apparently, was to conclude the venture without a loss. When John May visited Marietta in July, 1789, while his goods were held at Brownsville by low water, he found that the settlers there wanted goods but had nothing with which to pay for them. Soon thereafter merchants known as "Kentucky traders" began to acquire stocks of provisions and other merchandise in western Penn- sylvania, float them down the Ohio on flatboats, and dispose of them to the new settlers along the streams. Thus an English traveler, Fran- cis Baily, noted in 1797 that the people of the Northwest Territory "depend very much upon the boats which, coming from the upper and more settled parts of the country, bring with them many articles 294 Commercial and Industrial Foundations of use and luxury." The new settlements soon ceased to need staple provisions, of course, but apparently they furnished for many years a market for miscellaneous merchandise produced, manufactured, or imported in western Pennsylvania and peddled from flatboats float- ing down the river. That the ultimate market for the bulk of the exports of the upper Ohio country must be sought at New Orleans was fully realized by the westerners before 1790. In an interesting communication from "The Western Farmer" in the Pittsburgh Gazette of January 16, 1790, the point was made that the way to raise the price of wheat was to produce more of it so that the surplus would be large enough to justify shipments of flour to New Orleans: "Can you suppose that an eminent merchant of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Alexandria, &c. would think it worth his while to ride all over this country to collect about four or five hundred barrels of flour for the purpose of so long a voyage? Certainly not. But could a single merchant readily collect fifteen hundred or two thousand barrels, you would shortly have many able adventurers, and get a generous price for your wheat." The writer believed that the reports "that the Spanish king wants no trade or commerce with the inhabitants [of] the western waters" were "propagated by men through mere sinister views" and that "the emoluments of an advantageous trade" would not be rejected. The same issue of the Gazette contains an advertisement that in- dicates one of the methods by which such surplus wheat as there was at the time was accumulated in the hands of merchants and the im- portant part that the mills played in the commercial structure. In this advertisement John and David Acheson, who had a store at Washington, and Abel Hennan and Company, who had one on Muddy Creek, listed fifteen mills within their trade territory at which wheat and rye would be received in payment for dry goods and groceries purchased at the stores. The millers' receipts would be accepted "the same as cash." Doubtless when a sufficient quantity had been ac- cumulated, the merchants exchanged the receipts for flour and shipped the flour to New Orleans. Once an adequate supply of flour was obtained, the merchant ex- perienced many hazards in using the New Orleans market, not the least of which were the delays and dangers caused by low water or floods on the rivers. The summer climate and the tropical diseases of 295 Western Pennsylvania Louisiana took a heavy toll of the "Monongahela lads"; the flour was likely to be spoiled by the heat and the humidity before it could be disposed of; the rush to market during the best seasons for navigation frequently caused a glut and a fall in prices, especially if no ships happened to be available to carry away the flour; and finally the capriciousness of the Spaniards in imposing charges, restrictions, and sometimes complete prohibition on importation made each expedi- tion a gamble. The spokesmen of western Pennsylvania, like those of Kentucky, protested vigorously against the restrictions, denounced the suggestion that the United States acquiesce in the closure of the Mississippi, and rejoiced in the treaty of I795, which provided for free navigation of the river and the right of deposit at New Orleans. The removal of the restrictions on exportation by way of the rivers undoubtedly tended to stabilize the business, but that there was still a considerable element of speculation in it is evident from the journal of William Johnson, a Jerseyman, who joined his brother "Sammy" at Pittsburgh in I8oo00 for a venture in the downstream trade. In October the brothers decided to buy a boatload of flour, whiskey, and other commodities "and go to New Orleans with it, and from thence take Spanish produce, and get it freighted to New York." By the time they had bought the wheat, had it ground in three dif- ferent mills, and loaded the boat, the rivers had fallen, and they were obliged to wait for the spring freshet. In February they got under way, and the boat reached New Orleans on April 14. Some of the flour was sold on April 17 "to very good advantage" and more of it three days later to make "a tolerable good speck." The next day the boats were coming in fast and Johnson wrote that "the price of flour begins to decrease." The brothers then hit upon the scheme of buying flour at the low price with the proceeds of their sales, and when, a few days later, some vessels arrived seeking cargoes they were able to sell again at a profit. They then bought cotton with the proceeds and shipped it to New York. Another variety of commerce that developed in the closing years of the century was the trade in Onondaga salt with western New York by way of Erie. Prior to 1796 most of the salt used in western Penn- sylvania was imported over the mountains and consequently was very expensive. On August zo of that year the Pittsburgh Gazette an- nounced: "We have it from undoubted authority that Salt, by way 296 Commercial and Industrial Foundations of the Lakes, can be supplied at Pittsburgh for Two Dollars and a Half per Bushel; that a gentleman of known enterprise is making such arrangements as will enable him to keep up a supply of that neces- sary article, adequate to the demand of this country." The gentleman referred to was James O'Hara, but it is uncertain how soon he began operations. The fact that salt was offered at three and a half dollars a bushel in Pittsburgh in 1799 would indicate that some was already being received by way of Lake Erie. In i8oo the port of Erie received 723 barrels of salt, by 1803 the amount had risen to 2,736 barrels, and by 1809 to 14,346 barrels. A year later, however, salt was being produced at the Kanawha licks in western Virginia, whence it could be imported up the Ohio more cheaply than from New York; and about 1813 salt began to be produced commercially on the Cone- maugh near the present site of Saltsburg. The Louisiana Purchase, in I803, which not only eliminated all danger of foreign interference with export trade by way of New Orleans but also opened the internal market of Louisiana to American products free of duty; together with the Napoleonic wars in Europe, which created an immense demand for agricultural commodities; re- sulted in a rapid expansion of the amount of exports from western Pennsylvania to New Orleans during the first decade of the nineteenth century. From customs records preserved in New Orleans it appears that 14,964 barrels of flour were received from western Pennsylvania towns in the first six months of 1805 and 18,499 barrels in the same period of 1807. Most of this flour was shipped from Pittsburgh, but considerable shipments were made from other towns, such as Beaver, Brownsville, and Meadville. The embargo and nonintercourse policies of the United States interfered somewhat with this trade after I8o8, but the War of 18z1 again stimulated the demand for the products of the region, not only at New Orleans but also wherever in the West military operations were carried on. This period witnessed also a considerable increase in the upstream trade. The number of vessels plying more or less regularly between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati increased from about fifty in i805 to about one hundred and fifty in i815. Importations from the West received at Pittsburgh between May I and November 14, i8Io, included "689 tons of spun yarn, hemp worth about two hundred thousand dollars, 1o tons of tobacco, and 120o tons of cotton"; and shipments from Mays- 297 Western Pennsylvania ville, Kentucky, to Pittsburgh in 18iz are said to have amounted to a thousand tons. In June, 1814, a Pittsburgh firm was expecting six keelboats with cargoes from New Orleans, and the importations from New Orleans of another Pittsburgh firm in the summer of that year amounted to 275 tons. Not all these goods received from the South and West, however, were destined for consumption in the region or for use in its manufactures. Some of them were transshipped across the mountains in the wagons that would otherwise have returned empty. This was especially true during the War of I81z, when the coastwise trade was interfered with by the British; and four thousand wagonloads of goods are said to have been shipped from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia in 1813. The early commerce of western Pennsylvania was financed very largely by outside capital, which usually took the form of credit to importers. Currency of any sort was so scarce in the region that barter was almost universal and whiskey and ginseng sometimes served as mediums of exchange. What capital there was was almost wholly in the form of land and improvements. An attempt that was made in x802 to mobilize capital in the region in order to put the export busi- ness on a stable basis indicates both the lack of and the need for liquid capital. John Wilkins, Jr., a prominent merchant of Pittsburgh, in the Gazette of September 17 proposed "to the FARMERS, MILLERS, TRADERS and MANUFACTURERS of the WESTERN COUNTRY" the creation of an exporting company with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars. Twelve days later the "Ohio Company" was organized at a public meeting in Pittsburgh and arrangements were made for opening sub- scription books at twenty-four places. Since it was recognized that very little currency was available, it was provided that "the capital of the whole country should be united" by "throwing our produce and manufactures into a common stock." The producers of the upper Ohio country had too many obligations and needs to be willing or able to turn their produce into capital by investing it in the stock of an exporting company, and the scheme apparently was abandoned. The merchants of Pittsburgh next appealed to the Bank of Penn- sylvania in Philadelphia for aid, and on March 26, 1803, the proposal of the bank to establish a branch in Pittsburgh was laid before "a meeting of the corporation" of the borough, which all the inhabitants were invited to attend. Evidently the proposal was accepted, for the 298 Commercial and Industrial Foundations branch was opened for business on January 9, 1804. The same John Wilkins, Jr., who had proposed the Ohio Company was the first presi- dent of the branch, and most of the members of the local board of directors were prominent merchants. Men of substance could now borrow money in Pittsburgh, with which to finance their ventures, and could have the notes received in payment discounted there; but the capital came from Philadelphia, and in the fall of 1804 the parent bank sent out one of its clerks, John Thaw, to serve as teller of the branch. Needless to say the Pittsburgh Branch of the Bank of Pennsyl- vania, based as it was on outside capital, was conservatively managed. The profits of the mercantile business were large, however, and as time went on some of the merchants accumulated considerable wealth and were prepared to use part of it in financing manufacturing and other enterprises more speculative than routine commercial transac- tions. The result was the attempt in I8io to establish under the name of the Bank of Pittsburgh an unincorporated institution based on local capital and locally controlled. In less than two months, however, a change in the state banking laws forced the bank to cease opera- tions. When a printed memorial appealing to the legislature for a charter failed of its purpose, despite its assertion that Pittsburgh "perhaps contains a greater portion of useful manufactories, accord- ing to its population, than any other town in the United States," the institution became the Pittsburgh Manufacturing Company; and in 18iz it began doing a general banking business for its shareholders. William Wilkins, a brother of John Wilkins, Jr., was the first presi- dent. In 1814 the banking laws were again liberalized and the institu- tion became once more the Bank of Pittsburgh. About the same time banks were established in Brownsville, Uniontown, and Washington; and in 1815 a Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank of Pittsburgh was char- tered. More significant of the changing economy of the region than the commercial or even the financial development was the beginning of manufacturing as distinguished from the custom, handicraft, and domestic industries. The first two important types of manufacturing, boatbuilding and merchant milling, were rather adjuncts of commerce and agriculture than independent enterprises. Boatbuilding had been carried on in the region since the beginning of white occupation, if 299 Western Pennsylvania not before, and apparently any carpenter and almost any farmer could build a flatboat. Boat yards at such places as Pittsburgh, Brownsville, and Elizabeth advertised their facilities in the Pitts- burgh Gazette from 1786 on, and presumably boats were built not only to order but also to meet the anticipated demand of immigrants bound downstream. In the seventeen nineties boatbuilding at various points on the Monongahela and at Pittsburgh, as elsewhere in the Ohio Valley, developed from an industry designed to meet the local needs of trans- portation into a business of manufacturing for export. In 1793 a schooner was built on the Monongahela, which made its way down the rivers and thereafter sailed the high seas; in 1798 and 1799 two armed row galleys were launched at Pittsburgh for the use of the army; and in I8oi the "Redstone" and the "Monongahela Farmer," both ocean-going ships, were launched at Brownsville and at Eliza- beth respectively. The principal shipyard at Pittsburgh was that es- tablished by the Tarascons, merchants of Philadelphia, originally from Bordeaux, France, under the name of Tarascon Brothers, James Berthoud and Company. About twenty ships destined for ocean commerce were built in western Pennsylvania during the first decade of the nineteenth century, but the difficulties of getting the vessels over the falls at Louisville and restrictions imposed by the embargo appear to have brought the business to a close in IS8o. The building of keelboats and barges continued, however, and the construction of the "New Orleans," the first steamboat on the western waters, at Pittsburgh in 18ix marked the beginning of a new industry to take the place of shipbuilding. The first American vessel to sail Lake Erie, the schooner "Washington," was built at Erie in 1797, but it was some years before other ships were built there. In 1813, however, four of the vessels of Commodore Perry's fleet were constructed at Erie. Merchant milling developed naturally out of custom milling as soon as a surplus of grain and a market for flour were available, and each establishment usually performed both kinds of services. One of the first, if not the first, of the water-power mills equipped with burr mill- stones was the one erected for George Washington at Perryopolis in 1774 and 1775. Prior to 1790 most of the flour mills appear to have been querns operated by hand or sometimes by horse or water power, but thereafter millstones quarried from the ridges were rapidly in- 300 EXTERIOR OF COLD BLAST FURNACE Shown are water driven bellows, the casting shed (at the foot and elevator to lift the ore and charcoal to the top of the of the furnace) and the furnace proper with the charging floor furnace. The charcoal house is in the distance. FORGE: The sluice at the right fed the breast type water wheel on a level with the axle. The crank at the right of the wheel operated the two tub bellows above, which furnished the blast for the forge. The shaft which may be seen entering the building just at the left of the wheel furnished the power for the tilt hammer. Commercial and Industrial Foundations troduced and every creek with a steep enough fall and a sufficient volume of water was harnessed to turn them. In 18 o there were nearly six hundred "wheat mills" in western Pennsylvania and over one hundred in Washington County. The first steam flour mill in the re- gion, which had a much larger capacity than any water mill, was I'IX iI II WATER WHEELS After Oliver Evansr BRBAST WHEEL: A hybrid combining under PITCHBACK WHEEL: Water coming through and overshot. The water struck the vanes the flume is held in check by the gate until half way up. needed to turn the wheel. UNDERSHOT WHEEL: The speed of the water rather than the weight was the motive force. OVERSHOT WHEEL: The most efficient. erected in Pittsburgh in 1809, and by 1815 the centralizing of the merchant milling business in the larger towns, and especially in Pitts- burgh, was well under way. Ironmongering and iron smelting, as they developed in western Pennsylvania in the eighteenth century, were also closely related to agriculture and the domestic and handicraft industries. From the beginning of white occupation blacksmiths, operating at the forts, on the farms, and in the towns, wrought bar iron into horseshoes, wagon tires, tools, and utensils of various sorts; and soon after the Revolution some of the blacksmiths began to advertise themselves as locksmiths, as sickle and scythe makers, and as whitesmiths. For example, George M'Gunegle of Pittsburgh informed the public through the medium of the Gazette in 1789 that he "makes locks, keys, and hinges of all sorts, pipe and square tomahawks, scalping knives, boxes and pins for vizes, grates ... andirons, shovels, tongs, 303 Western Pennsylvania people of western European backgrounds demanded a climate not too divergent from that to which they had been accustomed. Though its summers were somewhat hotter and its winters somewhat colder than those of the British Isles, France, and Germany, the climate of western Pennsylvania varied less from that of such regions and of the Atlantic seaboard than did that of many unsettled portions of the New World. Although many early observers comment on the great changes of temperature in the region from day to day or from summer to winter, it must be remembered that most of these observers had previously experienced only more equable climates in the region east of the mountains or in Europe. Western Pennsylvania is less subject to wide range of temperature than is most of the Middle West; Pittsburgh, for instance, has a mean temperature for summer like that of Chicago and for winter like that of St. Louis. Throughout the section there is a growing season sufficiently long for the crops usual in such latitudes. As the first frosts in fall and the last killing frosts in spring occur in the more elevated sections, and as the poorer agricultural soil is also the more elevated, the longest growing season for crops is in general experienced in the best farming sections of the district-the section around Lake Erie, the southwestern section of the region, and the alluvial lands lying low along the rivers or creeks. In any discussion of the early weather conditions, the historian is confronted with two points of view: one that of the reminiscent, such as Doddridge, who maintains that summers- were cooler and winters colder and snowier in pioneer days than they were later; the other that of the meteorologist, who, basing his conclusions on recorded data and observing that despite great individual variations from year to year there has been no perceptible difference in temperature from decade to decade, maintains that in all likelihood the temperature was not very different in the period before meteorological observa- tions were made than it is now. It is possible that these conflicting opinions may be at least partially reconciled. In a heavily forested region the summers would certainly feel cooler than they would in the same region after clearing, and in the woods snows are undoubted- ly less rapidly diminished by thaws than in the open and hence they tend to pile up to a greater depth during the course of a winter. On the other hand, it is quite possible that in the early period temperature 16 Western Pennsylvania pokers, chaffing dishes, bread toasters, ladles, skimmers, flesh forks, and scewers ... razors, scissors, and pen knives ... bed screws, and branding irons . . . and does several other pieces of business in the White Smith line, too tedious to mention." A nail "factory" at Mer- cersburg, east of the mountains, advertised in the Gazette of June 20, 1789; but less than a month later Samuel Black had a nail factory in operation at Washington. Wrought nails were made in these "fac- tories" by the same processes as those used by blacksmiths. Until 1790 all the iron used by these smiths and all objects of cast iron in the region were brought over the mountains on pack horses or in wagons. It was known as early as 1780, however, that iron ore in readily accessible deposits was to be found west of the mountains; and, in view of the high cost of transportation, it is not surprising that, as soon as the demand had become sufficient, men of enterprise and some capital undertook the establishment of blast furnaces in the region. In 1790 William Turnbull and Peter Marmie, merchants of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, built the Alliance Iron Works on Jacob's Creek in Fayette County, and their furnace was blown in on November I of that year. Probably Turnbull supplied the capital and Marmie, a Frenchman who had come over with Lafayette, the tech- nical skill. A year or two later Isaac Meason, who appears to have acquired considerable wealth by buying and selling land in Fayette County, established Union Furnace on Dunbar Creek. By the end of the century eleven furnaces had been established in the region, eight of them in Fayette County, but several had been short-lived, as, for example, the one started by George Anshutz on Two Mile Run near Pittsburgh about 1792, which had to be abandoned because the supply of ore in the vicinity was inadequate. Others were built after i8oo, and when the census of 1810 was taken there were eighteen sur- vivors, eleven in Fayette County, three in Westmoreland, two in Alle- gheny, and one each in Beaver and Butler. The products of these furnaces were pig iron and castings-pots, kettles, stove plates, mill irons, cannon balls, and the like-but in most cases the establishment included a forge at which the pigs were transformed into blooms or bar iron. The distribution of the furnaces was influenced not only by the situation of the beds of ore but also by the availability of forests, from which charcoal could be made, of limestone for flux, of water power to supply the blast, and of means 304 v CU)x x aU 0 CUo d-4 U X X E 0 E -C S0 . X (0 0 X ~ *Ji' . -4 z 0 U) 0 114 114 0 0 11~ BLACKSMITH SHOP The chief articles of equipment shown here are (from left to right): vise, horseshoer's box, bellows, anvil, water tub, and horseshoeing buck. The buck was used to support the horse's hoof. Commercial and Industrial Foundations of transportation to market. All these conditions were met most com- pletely in the vicinity of Chestnut Ridge and especially in Fayette County. The furnaces were usually erected not far from the navigable waters of the Youghiogheny or the Monongahela rivers, on creeks that could be harnessed for power, and adjacent to a hillside, so that a bridge could be built to the top of the stack to facilitate loading. The organization of the industry, established as it was in rural dis- tricts, quite naturally took on the plantation form, which prevailed at that time in eastern Pennsylvania and elsewhere in the United States. The owner or operator lived in a "mansion house" surrounded by the cabins of the workers, and the establishment might include- besides the ironworks and the ore beds, forests, and quarries that fed the furnace-a farm, a gristmill, a sawmill, a boat yard, a blacksmith shop, and even a store and a tavern. Sometimes a coal mine was oper- ated to supply fuel for heating the buildings, but the use of coal or coke in the furnaces was still in the future. The reduction in the price of pigs, blooms, and bar iron that fol- lowed the establishment of furnaces in the region naturally stimu- lated the secondary iron industries; and these industries were to be found in the towns as well as on the plantations. As early as 1797 cut nails were being made in the region by a machine "which goes by water," and before the end of the century two cut-nail factories were in operation at Pittsburgh. In 1804 Joseph McClurg established an air furnace or foundry at Pittsburgh, which cast not only hollow ware, utensils, and plows, but also cannon balls for the army and machinery for the rising industries. During the War of 181 z McClurg constructed a cannon foundry, which supplied ordnance for Perry's fleet and for the defense of New Orleans. There were three rolling and slitting mills and five trip hammers in Fayette County in I8Io, and two years later Christopher Cowan, an Englishman, built a mill in Pittsburgh in which sheet iron was rolled and hammered and slit iron for nails and spikes was produced. No attempts were made to puddle iron or to roll bar iron in any of these mills until after the War of 1812. The first mill in the United States for the manufacture of wire was started at Pittsburgh by William Eichbaum in I8Io. A steam engine was assembled in Pittsburgh in 18o09, and in 1814 three different factories were making steam engines there. The census of I8io reports thirty- four naileries, twenty-eight gun factories, twenty-six cutlers' shops, 305 Western Pennsylvania two plane factories, and two mills for grinding flatirons in western Pennsylvania. By no means all the iron used in these industries was produced in the region. The output of the furnaces and forges of central Pennsyl- vania, especially of the Juniata Valley, was considered better, for some purposes at least, than that of Fayette County, and much of it was hauled in wagons over the Frankstown Road to the Conemaugh River and floated downstream to Pittsburgh. Most of the steel used in the region was imported, largely from England, but the manufacture of blister steel was attempted as early as 1803. On June z of that year William M'Dermott informed "the public that he has removed his MANUFACTORY OF STEEL from his house in Somerset county to Bed- ford, where he intends carrying it on in all its various branches." A steel furnace in Fayette County with a product of one and three- quarters tons valued at $467 was reported in the census of 18Io. This was doubtless the Brownsville Steel Factory, operated by Morris Truman and Company, which in 18II produced edged tools as well as steel. Some of the finer products of the iron and steel industries continued to be imported throughout the period, but the embargo and the War of i8iz shut off much of the supply and, together with the increasing demand from the West and the Southwest, stimulated a rapid expansion of these industries. The high cost of transportation from the East to western Pennsyl- vania was the equivalent of a protective tariff for infant industries in the region, and, as soon as a sufficient market had developed in the West and capital and skilled workmen could be obtained, many such industries began to make their appearance. Thus the manufac- ture of paper was begun about 1796 in the Redstone Paper Mill es- tablished by Jackson and Sharpless near Brownsville. The proprie- tors were familiar with the operation of a paper mill on the Brandy- wine and apparently supplied their own capital. The Pittsburgh Gazette in its issue of June 24, 1797, announced "with great pleasure" that it was printed on paper made at this mill, which also made "writ- ing paper of all kinds and quality . . . cheaper than that which is brought across the mountains"; and the editor rejoiced that the "large sum of money" that had been "yearly sent out for this article" would thereafter be retained. This expectation was not wholly realized be- cause the supply of rags for use in making paper was inadequate, 306 Commercial and Industrial Foundations despite the fact that "the highest price" was offered over and over again "for clean Linen and Cotton Rags, at the Printing-Office." By I809 another paper mill had been established at the mouth of the Little Beaver, but much paper was still being imported. Three years later, however, there were seven paper mills west of the mountains, the supply of rags was plentiful, and the annual product in western Penn- sylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky was valued at eighty thousand dollars. SIX-PLATE STOVES SHOP STOVE HOUSE STOVE These were called six-plate stoves because the box was cast in six pieces, excluding the door. Although some of the pioneers dispensed with glass in their log cabins, it was practically in the class of necessities; and it was one of the few necessities that could not be produced without an elaborate plant or factory. Moreover there was a need not only of flat glass for windows but also of bottles in which to store or ship the product of the stills. A considerable amount of glass was imported during the eighteenth century from factories in the East and in England, but its fragility and its great weight in proportion to its value made the cost of transportation over the mountains exceed its value in the East. It is not strange, therefore, that the possibility of glassmaking in the West early attracted the attention of local capitalists familiar with the situation. In 1796 James O'Hara and Isaac Craig of Pitts- burgh obtained the services of William Eichbaum, an experienced glassmaker from Germany, who had served as superintendent of a 307 Western Pennsylvania glassworks near Philadelphia; and, after expending over ten thousand dollars on plant, equipment, raw materials, and experiments, they began to produce window glass and bottles in 1797. This plant was established on Coal Hill (Mount Washington) to be near a plentiful supply of fuel, and it was the first glassworks in America to use coal instead of wood for fuel. In the same year Albert Gallatin obtained the services of some German glassmakers and established at New Geneva a wood-burning plant, which is said to have brought him con- siderable profit. The early glass manufacturers experienced difficulty in getting sat- isfactory raw materials, and at times they had to import sand, lead, clay for pots, and other things from the East, from Missouri, and even COOPERING TOOLS TEMPORARY HOOP USED TO HOLD STAVES COMPASSES TOGETHER UNTIL BARREL WAS TIED WITH PERMANENT HOOPS DRIVER AND MALLET USED TO DRIVE DEVICE USED TO PULL STAVES TOGETHER HOOPS ON BARREL from abroad. They persisted, however, and in I8o8 Pittsburgh glass was shipped by way of the rivers and the ocean for sale by merchants in Philadelphia. "The first successful flint glass works in America" was developed at Pittsburgh beginning about i8o8 by Benjamin Bakewell, an Englishman who had been in business in New York, and a number of associates. By 1815 there were five glassworks in or near Pittsburgh, and they are said to have had 169 employees and an an- nual product worth $235,ooo. The keymen in these establishments 308 Commercial and Industrial Foundations were the skilled workmen imported from Germany, France, and Eng- land; but apprentices were being trained and technical improvements were already being introduced. The transfer of the textile industry from the home and the shop to the mill or factory was a long-drawn-out process, but it was well under way in western Pennsylvania during the period under consideration. The first step in that process appears to have been the establishment of fulling mills run by water power; in the course of time carding ma- chines were often installed in connection with these mills; and in 1794 Zacharias Leard announced that he would "commence the BLUE DYING & STAMPING Business in Greensburgh." The transit to the United States of the inventions of the seventeen sixties and seventies, which were revolutionizing the textile industry in England, began about 1790 with the successful operation in Rhode Island of machines for spin- ning cotton by water power; and on January 21, 1797, the Pittsburgh Gazette printed an item from Philadelphia announcing the establish- ment in that city of "a most curious and extensively useful Manufac- tory, in which the spinning and weaving of hemp, flax, and tow are performed by means of machinery, the whole being carried on by a water-wheel, requiring no other labor than that of a few boys." Only six years later, in 1803, a factory for carding and spinning cotton was started in Pittsburgh by a "British manufacturer from Bolton," and in the next year "a second establishment, which also wove several varieties of cloth, went into operation." Apparently only one of these factories was in existence in 18o6; it was stated, however, that this one "can spin Izo threads at a time, with the assistance of a man and boy. The big cylinder of the Carding Machine has on it 92 pair of cards, attended by a boy; the reeling is done by a girl." The industry apparently spread rapidly to the other towns of the region, for the census of i8Io reported twenty-two "cotton manufacturing establishements" in western Pennsylvania, of which six were in Wash- ington County, four each in Allegheny and Bedford counties, and one or two in each of five other counties. One of these establishments was that of the Harmony Society in Butler County, which had a wool- carding machine, two spinning jennies, and twenty looms. These were doubtless hand looms, but the census listed four "looms with fly shuttles" in Beaver County. "Mules," "billies," "jennies," and other spinning devices were more common. The first application of steam 309 Western Pennsylvania power to textile machinery in the region was probably in James Ar- thur's carding and spinning establishment at Pittsburgh about 1814; by I816 another cotton factory at Pittsburgh and one at Brownsville were being run by steam engines. COOPERING TOOLS PLANE ADZBS CROZES USED TO MAKE THE GROOVE MALLET AND FROWS FOR CLEAVING ON THE INSIDE OF THE BARREL TO HOLD THE BARREL HEAD. The industries that have been described are only a few, though among the most important, of the many that had been introduced into western Pennsylvania by the end of the War of I8Iz. Some of these industries were still in the handicraft stage, others were in process of transition to the factory type, and a few were conducted in full-fledged factories run by steam engines; but in many cases it is impossible to tell from the available data to which of these classes an industry belonged. Among the establishments known to have been operated, in addition to those already noted in this chapter, are brick- yards, quarries, marble yards, potteries, and coal mines; sawmills, cooper shops, cabinet shops, and chair factories; tailor shops, hat- teries, boot and shoe shops, stocking factories, glove shops, button factories, and comb factories; bakeries, breweries, distilleries, tobacco mills, and soap and candle factories; tanneries, saddlery shops, saddle-tree factories, wagon and carriage shops, and ropewalks; gold and silver smitheries, copper, brass, and tin works, and shot factories; 310 Commercial and Industrial Foundations printing presses, book binderies, and a playing card factory; white- lead factories and flaxseed-oil mills; and a "chemical manufactory." Coal was dug from the hill sides and was used locally for fuel, especially in Pittsburgh; and spring oil (petroleum), valued at two dollars a gallon, was one of the products reported for Venango County in I8Io. Among the problems that confronted the early industrialists were those of obtaining capital and credit, raw materials, markets, labor, and power. The original capital was usually supplied by the entrepre- neurs themselves or by their friends; although some of it was im- ported, a considerable part had been accumulated in the region itself, especially by the merchants. Capital for expansion was obtained largely from the profits of the industries. Credit was available for sound enterprises after the local banks were established. Most of the industries found their raw materials in the region, though some im- portant materials such as cotton, tobacco, and all the metals except iron had to be imported. Markets were expanded by the increase in population and wealth in the region itself, by the expansion of settle- ment in the Ohio Valley, and by the opening of trade by way of the Mississippi with Louisiana, the West Indies, and even the Atlantic coast and Europe. The labor problem that confronted the manufacturers was two- fold: it was difficult to obtain the services of workmen with the re- quisite knowledge and skill for the technical processes involved in the new industries, and it was also difficult to retain an adequate supply of any sort of labor in the face of the opportunities to lead an independent existence as farmers or craftsmen. The knowledge and skill were often supplied at the outset by the entrepreneurs them- selves and then imparted by them to apprentices or other workmen. In a number of industries, however, such as glassmaking and phases of iron manufacture, special efforts were made to import skilled work- men from the East and even from abroad. Thus James O'Hara fre- quently importuned his agents in the East to send him blowers for his glassworks, and in 1804, in order to induce one to migrate from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, he offered to advance "fifty dollars on account, and pay him one half of his expenses to this place. He shall have a house and coal fuel free, he will be paid wages when not blow- ing and when in blast he will be paid by the piece as the other best workmen." 3'' The Natural Environment readings taken some distance above the tops of the trees would not have differed materially from readings taken at a similar height today. Besides a temperate climate, adequate rainfall is of course necessary for civilization in any region. The mean annual precipitation in west- ern Pennsylvania is slightly over 41 inches; for the rest of the state it is 43 inches, and for the United States as a whole it is about 30 inches. Rainfall of course varies greatly in different years: Clarion, Pennsylvania, had 6z inches in 189o and 37 in 1908; Pittsburgh had 51 inches in 1865 and z8 in 1894. The mean annual precipitation in different parts of the section also varies, with the least rainfall in the central counties of the western tier and the greatest along the northern and eastern borders of the section. In a region with almost no lakes and frequent heavy falls of rain or snow, flood conditions are to be expected from time to time in the rivers. The common belief that the floods are a result of deforestation is in need of revision in the light of the fact that the highest known stage of the rivers at Pittsburgh prior to the great flood of 1936 occurred in 1763 before any appreciable part of the drainage basin had been cut over. The early floods that preceded settlement did com- paratively little damage, of course, but Fort Duquesne was nearly car- ried away by the rivers in 1756 and Fort Pitt was inundated in 1762 and again in 1763. The floods usually occur in the winter or early spring but there are records of flood stage being reached by the rivers at Pittsburgh in every month except October. While droughts of sufficient duration to cause serious damage to crops are unusual in the region, the rivers, before they were improved, were often so low that navigation was dangerous or impossible. Travelers bound for Kentucky or Ohio frequently had to wait for days or weeks at Pittsburgh or Brownsville for the waters to rise so that they could proceed in safety, and it is recorded that at times cattle could ford both the Monongahela and the Allegheny at Pittsburgh. The region is relatively free from cyclones and destructive hailstorms, although early travelers record seeing trees laid flat by the wind and hearing of hailstones as big as ducks' eggs. Colonel John May, in fact, reports that he was credibly informed by supposedly veracious per- sons that during a hailstorm on June 29, 1788, "one piece fell four feet square and nine inches thick." One suspects that the frontiersmen were exercising their humor on the stranger from New England. '7 Western Pennsylvania The unskilled laborers in the industries appear to have been recruit- ed largely from the women and children of the region. The appren- tice system facilitated the employment of children, and some of the apprentices were given opportunities to acquire skills. There were instances, however, of imported workmen refusing to train appren- tices. The number of advertisements for apprentices in the Pittsburgh Gazette indicates that the demand exceeded the supply. The editor himself frequently advertised for "an apprentice to the printing busi- COOPERING PULLING THE STAVES TOGETHER DRIVING ON A HOOP USING A CROZE TO MAKE A GROOVE FOR THE BARREL HEAD ness," and apprentices were sought by watch and clock makers, hat- ters, ropemakers, shoemakers, coopers, and others. No data concern- ing labor were collected in the census of I8Io, but it appears from the 18zo census of manufacturing establishments, that women and "boys and girls" made up a considerable proportion of the laborers in the textile, glass, paper, tobacco, and boot and shoe industries of the region. Thus a woolen mill in Allegheny County employed nine men and five children; a cotton spinning establishment in Beaver County, one man and six children; and the various textile mills in Fayette County, sixteen men, fourteen women, and forty-two children. About one-third of the employees in the glassworks of the region were children. Such evidence as is available indicates that the "real wages" of work- men, whether skilled or unskilled, were higher in western Pennsyl- 312 Commercial and Industrial Foundations vania than they were in the East and much higher than those that prevailed in Europe. Contemporary observers frequently pointed to the shortage and the consequent high wages of labor as the principal obstacle to the rapid expansion of manufacturing, but some of them thought it could be overcome by the introduction of labor-saving machinery, especially machinery that could be operated by women and children. The "Mechanical Societies" that flourished in Pittsburgh and in Washington in the eighteenth century were associations of master craftsmen rather than of employees and their purposes were social rather than economic. The progressive differentiation of employers and workers, however, soon led to efforts on the part of the employees to obtain better wages and more satisfactory conditions of labor. As early as 1804 a "turn out for higher wages" on the part of the shoe- makers of Pittsburgh appears to have been successful, for, after it was over, they issued a warning in the Gazette to "tramping journeymen Shoemakers" not to "come here unless they want a seat of cobling." The journeymen tailors struck in October, 18o6, causing their masters to appeal to the public "to pay something more for some part of your work, to enable us to keep those hands in our employ, who do credit to our shops and justice to the public." The rising cost of living and the increased demand for manufactured goods occasioned by the war I V BOOTJACKS BOOTS HATTER'S BLOCK AND MALLET WOMEN'S OVERSHOES, OR PATTENS were probably responsible for a series of strikes on the part of the shoemakers from 1812 to 1815, most of which appear to have been successful. By that time the journeymen were definitely organized in 313 Western Pennsylvania a society, each member of which was pledged "not to work for any employer who did not give the wages, nor beside any journeymen who did not get the wages." The time was not yet ripe, however, for collective bargaining and the closed shop. In i815 the employers organized a society of their own and raised a fund to fight the union in the courts on the grounds that its members were guilty of conspiracy, as had been done success- fully in similar cases in New York and Philadelphia. Twenty-two of the cordwainers, as shoemakers were then designated, were indicted by the "grand inquest of the commonwealth" for "unlawfully, per- niciously, and deceitfully, designing and intending to form and unite themselves into an unlawful society and combination for the purpose of unjustly and iniquitously raising the price of their wages and the wages of all journeymen cordwainers in said borough, and of extorting from all persons who should employ them large sums of money." The trial took place in the court of quarter sessions of Allegheny County in December, i815. Walter Forward, of counsel for the de- fendants, denied that the combination was a conspiracy. "None can deny," he said, "the right of every man to affix his own price to his own labor; it is a right with which no court nor jury nor even the legislature ever dared to interfere; on what principle shall an act, lawful and innocent in one, become criminal from the concurrence of another?" Significant of the real issues involved was the assertion of Henry Baldwin, of counsel for the prosecution, "that any act is en- dictable which is against good morals, injures society, or is destructive to the trade of a place." The presiding judge, Samuel Roberts, in his charge to the jury defined conspiracy "according to the common law" as "a confederacy of two or more, by indirect means to injure an individual, or to do any act, which is unlawful or prejudicial to the community." He asserted, "It is not for demanding high prices that these men are endicted, but for employing unlawful means to extort those prices. For using means prejudicial to the community.... But it is said that no threats or violence were used. Neither the one, or the other is necessary. The means employed ... were such as coerced the party, with infinitely greater effect. No shoemaker dare receive one who worked under price; or who was not a member of the society. No master workman must give him any employment, under the penalty of losing all his workmen." The jury found most of the de- 314 Commercial and Industrial Foundations fendants guilty of conspiracy as charged, but they were let off with nominal fines. The principal obstacle to the development of large-scale manufac- turing in western Pennsylvania and especially at Pittsburgh in the period from 1790 to I8io was the lack of adequate and reliable power resources. Reliance was had almost entirely on water power, which was not always available at the sites otherwise suitable for manufactur- ing. Moreover, the streams with sufficient fall to furnish power were small and were frequently dry during several months of the year. Thus Sally Hastings reported in the summer of I8oo that "the largest Creeks are but standing Shallows; and no Mill can grind the smallest quantity of Grain. To remedy this Inconvenience, the People have substituted a kind of Mills, turned by Horses; which are of great Utility, and make Flour little inferior to that ground by Water." Two years later, however, F. A. Michaux stated that flour ground in horse-mills in western Washington County, where creeks were "not very numerous" was "consumed in the country, not being fit for commerce." In 1813 Gerry saw a mill at which "the wheel is boarded on the circumference, and inside a horse is placed, whose weight when once he moves forward continually presses down the wheel.... An- other mill has a horizontal wheel, and the horses are placed on its plane." To Michaux, it seemed strange that no one had "thought of constructing windmills," but it is probable that as a source of power they would have been even less reliable than water mills. It is obvious that industrialism could not make much progress so long as it was dependent for power on horses, wind, or intermittent streams. There was still plenty of wood available for fuel, and there were untold re- sources of coal, but the use of these fuels to produce power had to wait for the progress of inventions and their transit to the region. The use in manufacturing processes of the steam engine developed by Watt began in England about 1785, but the century was to end before the new technique would be applied in America. In the mean- time Oliver Evans of Philadelphia was developing the principles of the high-pressure steam engine as contrasted with the low-pressure engine then in use in England, and in I8oi he completed the con- struction of such an engine and used it for grinding plaster of Paris and sawing stone. Within two or three years Evans was building his engines for sale, and in I8o8 a company was formed in Pittsburgh to 315 Western Pennsylvania build at that place a flour mill to be run by one of these engines. Apparently the finer parts of the engine were built in Philadelphia and shipped over the mountains to be assembled with the parts that could be built locally. The engine was installed under the supervision of George Evans, son of Oliver, and the Pittsburgh Steam Flour Mill went into operation in 1809. On a test run it ground nineteen bushels of grain in an hour on two pairs of stones. From a notice in the Pitts- burgh Commonwealth of August 20, I809, stating that the "two cylindrical boilers ... consume about twenty bushels of coal daily, which costs $I.oo," it appears that coal was used for fuel from the start; this was probably the first use of coal for the production of power in the United States. The Pittsburgh mill and one constructed in Lexington, Kentucky, about the same time were the only steam flour mills in operation in the country in 18Io. The success of these mills doubtless created a demand for steam engines in the West, and in 1811 George Evans, who had remained in Pittsburgh as the manager of the mill, founded the Pittsburgh Steam Engine Company. A plant was erected, machine tools were imported from the elder Evans' works in Philadelphia, and on May 22, 181z, George Evans advertised in the Gazette that he was "ready to con- tract for the supplying of STEAM ENGINES on Oliver Evan's princi- ples" and also to sell the "right to use said engines for all and every manner of manufacturing iron" within the Pittsburgh district. The engine built for the steamboat "New Orleans" in Pittsburgh in 181 I was of the low-pressure type as developed by Fulton, and in 1814 the Mississippi Steam Engine Company was making engines on the Fulton plan at Pittsburgh, doubtless for use on steamboats. A third establishment, conducted by Thomas Copeland, was making engines at that time on the Boulton and Watt plan; and in 1815 James Arthur's carding and spinning factory was being run by an engine that was "partly the invention of one of his [Arthur's] sons ... by a useful and ingenious combination of the invention of others." By 1816 there were at least eight steam engines operating mills or fac- tories in Pittsburgh and one at Brownsville. They were in use in gristmills, sawmills, paper mills, cotton mills, nail factories, and wire factories; and the largest of them, of seventy horsepower, was running Cowan's rolling and slitting mill. The Industrial Revolution was under way in the upper Ohio country. 316 Commercial and Industrial Foundations Such, then, were the foundations of commerce and industry in western Pennsylvania. The expansion of agriculture and the domestic industries had supplied a surplus for export, markets had been opened, transportation facilities had been developed, capital had been ac- cumulated by merchants and others and was available for investment in industry, banks had been established, many different industries had been started, skilled laborers had been imported or trained, an at- tempt on the part of workingmen to strengthen their bargaining power had been crushed, and the coal in the region had been trans- formed into an inexhaustible source of power by the introduction of the steam engine. All this was accomplished within half a century after the beginning of permanent settlement. On these foundations was to be built during the century to follow one of the most productive industrial societies to be found anywhere in the world. 317 xiv. Domestic Life HE everyday life of the people of western Pennsylvania in their homes derived its characteristics of course from their cultural heritage and from their environment. Both of these elements, however, were variables. The cultural heritage of an individual or family depended not only upon the status of western civilization in general, which was constantly changing, but also upon the specific background of that individual or family; and the local environment was not only changing rapidly but varied from section to section at any given time in accordance with physical conditions and with the age and density of settlement. The outstanding types of cultural heri- tage that emerge from the welter of individual variations are the Vir- ginian, the Scotch and Scotch-Irish Presbyterian, and the German; the major environmental types are the backwoodsman, the pioneer farmer, and the townsman. By the close of the period under considera- tion, the backwoodsman had vanished from southwestern Pennsyl- vania, except in some of the mountainous sections, though he was still an important element in the northern counties of the region. In the older counties, population growth and increased wealth had afforded to most of the people opportunities for more graceful living than was possible in the primitive "cabin in the clearing" of the pioneers. Whatever the social or racial status of the first pioneers in any district, their early dwellings were very much alike. Many, after hav- ing chosen their land, put up as temporary living quarters the type of shelter used by hunters in the wilderness and called a "half-faced camp." This was a three-sided structure of light poles with brush in- terwoven to keep out the wind and rain. The open face of the camp was higher than the rear so that the roof sloped from front to back. Just outside of the shelter were kindled fires for cooking and, when necessary, for heating--the warmth of the fires radiated into the open 318 Domestic Life shed on the same principle as in modern "shelter tents." Thus while the log cabin was being "raised," the family had some protection from the elements and from the beasts and insects of the wilderness. The cabin was always placed in a location that seemed convenient to the frontiersman, often in a sheltered nook toward the bottom of a hill so that "everything might come to the house down hill" and so that the higher ground might afford protection from winter winds. Sometimes the house was built not only near, but actually over, a spring, to insure a water supply in case of Indian attack and to pro- vide under the house a cool cellar for the storage of butter, cheese, and milk. Occasionally the pioneer was unfortunate in his choice of a home site: in one case a cabin built near Brownsville in the early spring was inadvertently placed over a den of rattlesnakes, and when these issued forth with the warmer days the pioneer and his wife were forced to abandon their first location. The log cabin was a type of dwelling never used in the British Isles and unknown in America to the first settlers and to the primitive Indians, some of whom built shelters of poles, brush, and bark, but not of horizontal logs. In the Scandinavian countries log houses were built, and the Swedish settlers on the Delaware may have originated their use in the New World, or they may have been evolved anew in America out of necessity and the ingenuity of man. By the time settle- ment began in western Pennsylvania the technique of cabin building was well established and was part of the equipment that most of the pioneers carried with them over the mountains. In the earliest days the cabin was built entirely by its prospective occupant with the help of his sons if he had any old enough to assist. Later, as settlement grew less sparse, the whole neighborhood turned out for a "cabin rais- ing," with the more skilled work delegated to the experts of the com- munity. The cabin was usually built and equipped with simple fur- niture in the single day of the "raising." The earliest log cabins were constructed entirely of materials avail- able in the forest, and about the only tools needed were the ax and the knife. Not only were the round logs notched near the ends and fitted together at the corners in the method still used in the "cabins" at some summer resorts, but other ingenious devices to avoid the use of nails had been worked out under the tutelage of that stern mother, necessity. The roofs were not shingled but clapboarded, with the over- 319 Western Pennsylvania lapping clapboards held in place by "weight poles" running the length of the roof, the lowest pole supported by notches in the top logs of the cabin walls and the other poles kept from rolling off by "knees" -short billets of wood placed at right angles between the poles. The door, which was built of clapboards fastened by wooden pins to strong oak cross-pieces, was hung on a massive hinge made of hickory wood WOODCUTTER'S TOOLS WOODEN MALLET FROW FOR CLEAVING POD AUGER FOR DRILLING HOLES BROADAX and was fastened by the familiar heavy bar inside, to which was attached the latchstring that was left "out" during the day or when the family was away from home. Often the door was made in two pieces, like the typical Dutch or German cottage door, so that the upper part might be swung open to admit light while the lower part was closed against hungry dogs or chilly drafts. Many log cabins had no windows; others had a window or two, low wide openings formed by cutting out part of a log. Sometimes these were covered with oiled paper, and always they could be barricaded by removable solid wooden shutters. The spaces between the logs were chinked with split strips of wood held in place by clay or mud, and in the earliest cabins the earthen floor of native Pennsylvania clay, beaten down hard, was apparently quite acceptable. Over their one room most cabins had a ceiling, which served the purpose of conserving heat and of providing a loft for storage or sleep- ing purposes. Access to the loft was usually gained by pegs placed in the walls. A most important feature of the cabin was the built-on chimney, which took up the greater part of one end wall. The chim- ney was constructed of heavy logs, plastered on the inside with clay about six inches thick so that the flames might not touch the logs, and terminated in an unplastered chimney stack of lighter poles or logs. A crane from which hung chains of various lengths for suspending 320 A MILL BUILT ABOUT 1775 FOR GEORGE WASHINGTON NEAR PERRYOPOLIS THE CRUMRINE BARN NEAR ZOLLARSVILLE Illustrations from Stotz, "Early Architecture of Western Pennsylvania" Western Pennsylvania Western Pennsylvania, then, was a region well fitted by nature for occupation by Europeans and their American descendants. Its geo- graphic situation, its geologic history, its soil, its resources in timber, game, fruits, and minerals, its temperate climate and adequate rain- fall, all contributed to its first occupation or to its later development. Here was an appropriate theater for the drama so frequently repeated on successive frontiers in America--the establishment of a simple agricultural civilization, the gradual beginnings of industrialism, and finally the growth of a complicated urbanization in which all the ma- terial resources of the region were to be utilized. 18 FIREPLACE AND TYPICAL KITCHEN EQUIPMENT Note the baking oven in the left corner of the fireplace. After the oven was heated the coals were raked out and the bread put in. Domestic Life "cooking pots" over the fire, a wide mantelshelf above the fireplace, pegs and sometimes shelves about the walls, and a rifle rack, often made of antlers, completed the cabin. The log house, later than the log cabin, differed from it in greater sophistication of finish. The logs in this were square hewn and occa- sionally were whitewashed on the inside; there were as a rule four windows with small glass panes; the floor was either of puncheons (pieces of log split lengthwise and laid with the flat side up) or of sawed lumber; the chimney was built of stones and mortar; the shingled roof was nailed; and a staircase often gave access to the loft. When a log cabin was abandoned for a log house as living quarters, the cabin was always put to good use as an outbuilding-barn, but- tery, or shed-and it was sometimes connected with the log house by a roof and used as a kitchen. The roofed space between the two struc- tures was used for the storage of swill barrels, grindstones, and the like. Log cabins and log houses were the usual buildings in the frontier towns as well as in the country, although in the towns the houses were often two stories or a story and a half in height. In Pittsburgh after the Revolution log houses began to be weatherboarded to improve their appearance and comfort. Before 1795 log buildings predominated in all sections of the region, but stone, brick, or frame houses were occasionally erected by the more prosperous settlers. Though stone was often quarried locally and brick was sometimes made from clay on the premises, even with such economy the building of these more permanent houses pre- supposed an economic order in which both skilled labor and accumu- lated wealth were available. In the early decades of the nineteenth century such houses made their appearance in considerable numbers both in town and in country. Brick and frame houses were still rare in the country, because of the difficulty of transporting the materials from brickyards and sawmills, but stone was available everywhere. Doubtless the selection of material was influenced in some cases by the traditions of the settlers, which varied according to the regions from which they came. Stone was predominant in eastern Pennsyl- vania and western Maryland; brick in Virginia and eastern Maryland. The older stone houses of western Pennsylvania are architecturally much like those of the eastern part of the state or of Maryland, built mainly of the local sandstones west of the ridges and of limestone in 321 DOMESTIC UTENSILS FROM TOP TO BOTTOM GCAKE TURNERS, LADLES, REVOLVING GRILL, GRIDDLE USED FOR BROILING, TRIPODS, FAT PRESSES, STRAINER • . " " . " W..0 ~~Td~Ak Domestic Life the mountains, often smoothly dressed on the main fagade and almost always left fairly rough on sides and back, with a few small though well-placed windows, and with ample stone chimneys. No porch or veranda originally marred the stern austerity of the stone house, although many of the houses still occupied have since been "im- proved" with wooden excrescences that add to the comfort but de- crease the dignity of the structure. A good example of the simple stone farmhouse is the Edward Cook house on the east side of the Monongahela near Fayette City, which was built just before the Revolution. A more pretentious stone house of the Georgian type is that built near Uniontown in I802 by Isaac Meason. The early brick houses of the region were usually larger than those built of stone; they often had a central hall with rooms on both sides heated by fireplaces for which chimneys were provided at the gable ends. Two square windows were usually placed high on either side of the chimney, and windows were especially numerous at the front. They were generally topped by plain white lintels of stone or by flat arches of brick in the colonial manner. The windows were divided into small panes, as many as twenty-four to a window, not to satisfy any ideal of beauty or diversity but because it was difficult to manufac- ture and transport larger sheets of glass. Many a brick house had merely a slab of stone before the colonial doorway for an entrance; some had small "stoops" at the entrance in the Dutch fashion; a few, influenced probably by the Virginian style, had porches with colon- nades sometimes running two stories high and with a balcony on which opened doors from some of the second-story rooms. A small brick house of excellent design was that built by James Ross in I8o8, a part of which was incorporated in the remodeled structure that stood east of Aspinwall on the north side of the Allegheny until its destruction by fire in the 1930's. A more elaborate brick house, built by Isaac Manchester in Washington County between I8oo and 1815, is still standing near Avella. Another type of "mansion house," though rare, was of frame con- struction. Such houses were those of Arthur St. Clair near Ligonier, of John Neville on Bower Hill, and of Presley Neville, whose house, built in 1785, is still notable in Woodville. But let not the reader visualize another Mount Vernon in thinking of the early mansions of western Pennsylvania. Though often architecturally pleasing, they 323 Western Pennsylvania were not particularly commodious. John Neville's house, destroyed by fire during the Whiskey Insurrection, was only forty feet long by twenty feet wide; and lists of furniture left in the estates of deceased mansion-owners do not indicate extensive domiciles. Space in the main building was often saved, however, by having the kitchen in a separate building near by-again following the southern rather than the northern trend. The interior woodwork of the later and larger houses was often notable. The flooring was usually of broad pine boards, and the mantelpieces, paneling, and balustrades were often of maple, cherry, or walnut, the finest cabinet woods in the region. An interesting description of a town house in Pittsburgh was writ- ten in 1818 by John Thaw, who had bought the house ten years earlier. This house, which fronted on Wood Street near Third, exemplifies the early trend in Pittsburgh domestic architecture toward conserving land by building houses with "party walls." "The square in which this house is situate," wrote Thaw, "consists of Eight new three story brick buildings, each divided from the other by brick walls continued above the roofs as fire walls." The main part of the house was twenty- one feet in width and forty-five in depth, with a porch eight by twelve and, attached successively at the rear, a kitchen fourteen by seven- teen and a "wash-house and privy" fourteen by twenty feet. An open space of four feet separated the last addition from the stable, fourteen feet square, to which access was gained by an alley. The main part of the house was in three stories with a half-story garret above con- taining two "Dormant windows." A staircase ran from the "entry or hall" to this garret, with "hand rail & turned bannisters of Cherry. ... The Eves is of solid Log with the Water course in the top without any hollow or open work ending with stone projections-The first floor is divided in two rooms and an Entry." The woodwork-mainly oak-on the first and second floors and on the "piazza" was "secret naild"-evidently a point of pride in those days. This property, which the owner wished to insure for five thousand dollars, represents the type of Pittsburgh house of which the traveler Schultz wrote in 1807 that many "would be called elegant even in the city of New York." The transit of culture from Greece and Rome through England and the older settlements in America to western Pennsylvania is well illustrated in the field of architecture. The later and larger houses of the section were generally in the Georgian style, which had developed 324 Domestic Life in England in the eighteenth century as a product of the classical revival. The transplanting of current architectural styles from Eng- land to the colonies and from the East to the West in America was accomplished, as a rule, not by the migration of professional archi- tects, but through the medium of builders' handbooks containing measured drawings, which could be reproduced or adapted by the local builders and carpenters. Doubtless some of the builders had had experience in the construction of similar houses in the East or in Europe, and occasionally skilled workmen were imported from the East to install and finish the interior woodwork. Thus Isaac Man- chester brought a cabinetmaker from Philadelphia to work on his house, and Arthur St. Clair is said to have had the services of one who had worked for Washington at Mount Vernon. Examples of archi- tecture are shown facing pages 320, 388, 389, 396, 397, 412, and 413. The furniture of the frontier homes in the earliest decades of settle- I BETTY LAMPS ment was practically all crude and homemade. Bedsteads were usual- ly made of light logs fastened to the cabin wall at one side, the outer corners supported by crotched poles and the "springs" made of thin strips of wood or lacings of rawhide. Often if the family was large another and lower bed, supported by crotched poles, was used in the manner of a trundle-bed, to be pulled out from under the higher bed at night and shoved back in the daytime when the single room of the cabin was converted from bedroom into living room, dining room, and 325 Western Pennsylvania kitchen. In most cabins, too, a cradle was soon added as part of the furniture to accommodate the successive infants born all too fre- quently for the health and strength of the pioneer housewife. Bedding at first consisted chiefly of bearskins and buffalo robes, and these articles, not being washable, soon became the haunts of fleas and other insect pests that made sleeping uncomfortable for the fron- tier family and impossible for the unseasoned traveler. Feather beds and straw mattresses were available, as a rule, only after flax had been grown, from which ticks could be made; a stock of chicken, goose, duck, or wild-turkey feathers had been accumulated; and the first crops of grain had yielded their straw. The German settlers were especially partial to feather beds and in the winter used the "top tick" extensively in place of the blanket. The possession of blankets and sheets depended on the raising of sheep and of flax and furthermore on the ability of the housewife to turn the raw wool and flax into manufactured cloth. In addition to the bed and cradle, the cabin usually contained a rough table, a few three-legged stools, and sometimes a chest for stor- ing wearing apparel. Most of the settlers, however, hung their extra clothes on pegs around the walls of the cabin and probably took a secret pride in the display of such evidence of their comparative pros- perity. The lighting of the cabin was mainly by means of the fireplace at first, though sticks of dried pitch pine stuck into crevices in the wall or floor were also used, as were rushlights made of the dried pith of reeds soaked in grease and burned in tongs or iron clips. Some of the settlers used a crude sort of lamp called a "slut," which was com- posed of a vessel of refuse grease with a rag floating in it as a wick. Such makeshifts, though smoky and odorous, served the purpose of lighting until time permitted the dipping or molding of tallow candles. In contrast to these most primitive arrangements of the interior of the cabin were the furniture and accessories of the wealthy families who came at a later date or had acquired enough capital to replace the first crude makeshifts with more seemly articles. As early as 1786 there was a cabinetmaker in Pittsburgh, and when freight routes pass- able by wagons had been opened over the mountains furniture could be imported. By 1804, at least, it was possible to buy in Pittsburgh locally-made furniture of cherry or walnut at Philadelphia prices. The inventory of John Neville's furniture destroyed in the burning of his 326 Domestic Life house in 1794 illustrates the possibilities of domestic comfort in pros- perous families. The downstairs rooms of the house contained andi- rons, tongs, and shovel, a settee, a desk, a mahogany eight-day clock, a spyglass, a hydrometer, maps, and books valued at eighty dollars. Eighteen Windsor chairs were perhaps distributed in dining room and parlor; there were also two large and three small dining tables, fine silverware, china, glass, and linen, a Franklin stove, candle sticks and candle snuffers. Upstairs were probably found the "five new feather beds with bedsteads and furniture," "four good trunks and one chest," and two sets of common chairs. Distributed about the house were four looking glasses and thirty pictures and prints in gilt frames. The house was carpeted throughout, including halls and stairs. Among the personal property listed in 1795 in the will of Conrad Winebiddle, who lived on a large plantation near Pittsburgh, were a desk, a clock, a cupboard, a ten-plate stove and a "tea Equipage." The families that lived in these frontier homes--whether cabins or mansions--exhibited a marked degree of cohesion and solidarity. Divorce was rare and separation infrequent, especially among the more religious groups and in the more rural districts. In the frontier LARD LAMPS AND CAN FOR WARMING LARD homes, under the imperative necessity of united family action against the wilderness, quarrels between husband and wife became of minor importance compared to the task of keeping themselves and their children sheltered, warmed, fed, and clothed. Occasionally the minis- ter had to be called in as arbitrator of disputes, but very rarely did 327 Western Pennsylvania the wife desert her "bed and board." As economic pressure lightened, however, family discord came to the surface and often burst into print in newspaper advertisements. Runaway wives were stigmatized by injured husbands in notices such as that of Abraham Morgan in 1787, stating that "my wife has eloped from my bed and board, and behaved in a very scandalous manner," and warning "all persons from trusting her on my account, as I will pay no debts of her contracting." In 1789 one Dennis O'Bryan, who apparently did not take his loss too serious- ly, recorded it in verse: July the twenty seventh day, My wife Betsy ran away, From bed and board did flee and say, She would no longer with me stay, Since she has left me without cause, I'll give her time enough to pause, That she may see her error, While I live happy with a fairer. Therefore I forwarn, both great and small, To trust her anything at all, For her contracts from this day Not one farthing will I pay. Occasionally a wife retorted to such advertisements, pointing out perhaps that she had not deserted but had been put out of the house or that she had not deserted the husband's bed because the bed had been her own before her marriage. In I8oo and in 82iz two women turned the tables on the other sex and warned the public that they would not pay their husbands' debts. Despite these evidences of marital friction, however, it is safe to say that either the friction was less or the means of escaping it were fewer than at the present day. Though divorce and separation were not common, remarriage after the death of one of the conjugal partners was usual. For such remar- riages there was cogent reason. The widow, left alone with young children, needed a protector and a provider of food for her family; the widower needed someone to cook food, make clothing, and care for his children. As neither the means for hiring help nor workers who might be hired were common on the frontier, the natural solution of the problem for both man and woman was remarriage. There is ample evidence that the unmarried woman was a rarity on the frontier, and 328 Domestic Life this situation, because of the preponderance of men on the fringes of civilization, was to be characteristic of all the successive frontiers in the United States. The size of the frontier family was large, judged by the standards of today and even by those of eastern observers of the period. Says Fortescue Cuming in 1807, "Here I must remark that throughout this whole country, wherever you see a cabin, you see a swarm of children." Hugh Henry Brackenridge commented that the pure and healthful .0 . LANTERNS OF TIN AND GLASS air of the western country contributed to human as well as to vege- table fecundity. Near Bedford, wrote Mrs. Sally Hastings in I8oo, her landlord's family was "not small." Another landlord, in Somer- set County, had fifteen sons and one daughter. In a list of deaths in the Buffalo Valley settlement to I8o8, giving the number of surviv- ing children, it appears that the average was almost six children per family-and it must be remembered that, with the current igno- rance of child care and preventive therapy, many children did not sur- vive their parents. A rough estimate based on the census schedules for 1790 indicates almost six children per family. These figures are sup- ported by a small group of statistics gathered from wills filed in Alle- gheny County before 1803. In the fifty-three wills that specify the number of children, the average is a little over five per family. The high proportion of children under ten years enumerated in the cen- suses of 18oo and 18io indicates that the annual crop of infants was still being produced. 329 II. The Indian Regime HE first human beings known to have lived in western Penn- sylvania were the so-called "Mound Builders," once thought of as a distinct race but now generally believed to have been Indians of the Algonquian stock. What is known of these people is de- rived from Indian tradition and from archaeological examination of their village sites and the mounds they built, for they disappeared from the region before the advent of white men. When they entered the region and when they left or were destroyed are matters of con- jecture, but it is certain that their occupation extended over a con- siderable period of time. From the evidence of the mounds it appears that the builders dwelt mainly in the great central valley of the continent. Four major areas of occupation have been noted: the upper Mississippi, the lower Mississippi, the Ohio Valley, and the Great Lakes region. Each differed from the others in some characteristics, and even within these areas varying types of cultures are indicated, which may or may not have existed at the same time. Of the mounds themselves four types have been distinguished: the burial mounds, most frequent, consisting of large barrows or tumuli, sometimes conical in shape, heaped over the remains of several persons; the effigy mounds, which represent with surprising fidelity such animal forms as birds, snakes, dogs, and turtles, and were probably of religious significance; the domiciliary mounds, extensive truncated or flat-topped platform mounds on which were built houses and perhaps temples; and the earthwork mounds, including a type obviously built for defense purposes and a type of geometric mound-usually circular or square or a combination of square and circle-which, it is conjectured, was probably social or religious in purpose. So little scientific investigation of mounds in western Pennsylvania '9 Western Pennsylvania One reason for the large families on the frontier was undoubtedly economic. In a day when food was cheap, when the presence of chil- dren in the house meant no more in the way of furniture than an extra bed, when boys as young as eight years old could perform the lighter tasks on the farm, and when girls no older could be of real help to the housewife, children were a means not only of domestic pleasure but of financial gain. The more sons a man had, the more land could be cultivated; the more daughters he had, the more dairy products and clothing could be produced. By the time the sons and daughters were of marriageable age they had amply repaid their parents for the slen- der expense of their upbringing. Undoubtedly the member of the frontier family who did the hard- est work was the housewife and mother. Although in work demand- ing great strength the man might excel, in unremitting toil and in daily hours of labor his wife surpassed him. It was her duty not only to pro- duce food, clothing, and bedding for the family, to clean the house, and to care for the sick but also to tend the garden and the poultry and to milk the cows; and often she helped in clearing fields and harvesting crops. Dr. Increase Matthews, making a journey through western Pennsylvania in 1798 and stopping overnight with a family living between Washington and Chestnut Ridge, wrote: "I endeavored to persuade them that they put too much hardship on their women. In excuse they plead that their business at certain seasons of the year is very urgent. This is truly the case, but it is not in my mind a suffi- cient excuse.The landlord has two Daughters ... They had both been employed all day in spreading flax, which is very hard work." The legal position of women in Pennsylvania was still determined by the common law of England; a married woman had no property rights save that property belonging to her before her marriage might be disposed of in her will and might not be alienated without her consent. All income from her property or her labor during her life accrued to her husband. Despite their legal disabilities, however, women were respected on the frontier and perhaps valued more highly than in communities more plentifully supplied with them. After settlement increased so that farm products could be sold, the house- wife as a rule kept her "butter and egg money," using it to purchase necessities or luxuries in the way of clothing or household equipment. The will of Conrad Winebiddle indicated male approval of house- 330 Domestic Life wifely economy in that he left to his wife the money she had "Gethered by her own industry." Family life was more marked by births, deaths, and marriages than is life in the smaller family units of today. Infant mortality was high. There were few families that did not have the graves of young chil- dren in the burying ground, and there were many in which the ceme- tery also was the resting place of worn-out wives. Funerals in those days were simple functions, held always in the home, no matter how humble. Among the Presbyterians the minister announced the death in church, and stated the time at which the body would be "lifted" -that is, carried to the grave. In Lutheran churches the death bell was tolled, and then followed short taps of the bell indicating the number of days to elapse before the funeral. Among the Scotch-Irish, neighbors came in to sit up all night with the dead, in a "wake." The wake among the less religious elements of the community may some- times have been a noisy drinking party, but not among the more pious. When a person died the cabinetmaker was summoned to take t DOMESTIC UTENSILS BUTTER CHURN WASH TUBS BIRCH BROOMS The broom handles were whittled down to size and the shavings turned over at one end and tied. Each broom was all one piece. measurements and make a plain coffin. Neighbors dug the grave, which in later days was in the churchyard rather than on the farm. An historian of the Scotch-Irish relates that, at the time of his great- grandmother's death in the Buffalo Valley settlement in 1784, the 331 Western Pennsylvania only vehicle in the community was a pair of clumsy front wheels for a wagon and that the coffin was strapped on an axle between these wheels and "bounced over the rough roads to the Bethel burying- ground." Under frontier economic conditions it was possible and desirable for young people to be married at a relatively early age, and the parents of a girl anticipated her marriage from her earliest childhood. Her mother prepared for her dowry a collection of feathers to be made into feather beds and helped her with the weaving of linens and blankets for her prospective household. At the time of the wedding the bride's father was expected to furnish at least a horse and a good cow for her future establishment. Often provision for this was made for a daughter in a will. The bride's chief dower, however, consisted of her home training in spinning, weaving, and other domestic arts. The diet of frontier families was far less varied than the modern diet and probably there was less divergence between the rural family and the wealthy city family in this respect than there is at present. In the very early days, before crops could be harvested, the settlers lived as hunters, on wild game, fruit, and nuts, with meals served only twice a day. There was no sugar at first: later came maple sugar and honey procured from "bee trees"; still later molasses, sor- ghum, and corncob molasses (perhaps the forerunner of the modern corn sirup). After the first corn was harvested, hominy was the staple dish. This was prepared for cooking in two ways. The first was by means of the "hominy block"-a large log, stump, or o&casionally a stone, hollowed out at one end. About a quart of corn was poured into this and the grains were crushed into meal with a large round stone used as a pestle and weighing from ten to twelve pounds. The second method of preparing hominy could be used only by those families that were fortunate enough to possess a large iron kettle. Into this about a peck of corn was poured, and the corn was hulled by soaking and boiling in water and lye made from wood ashes. After the hulls were off, the corn was soaked and rinsed in cold water and was then ready to be cooked or dried for storage. Still later, the hand mill came into use as a labor-saving device. When the corn was not hard enough to pound or grind it was sometimes grated to a meal. Corn pone or johnnycake could be baked from the first corn crop, and as soon as pigs and cows were raised in sufficient numbers the 332 Domestic Life staples "hog and hominy" and "mush and milk" made their appear- ance. Perhaps at this period in the evolution of the frontier the settlers may have had three meals a day, hog and hominy for breakfast, some kind of stew made of wild game and vegetables for dinner, and mush and milk for supper. If milk failed, mush was eaten with sweetened water, sirup, gravy or bears' oil. Fat for cooking was derived at first not from pork but from bear or opossum meat. It was rendered into lard and stored in deerskin bags, just as bears' oil had been stored by the Indians from time immemorial. This diet was supplemented, of course, by native fruits and nuts when they were available. In a somewhat later agricultural period, chickens, eggs, and quan- tities of fresh vegetables were available, and fish might be had if a son of the family could be spared from farm duties for the profitable sport of going fishing. Buckwheat cakes made their appearance on the table; and dried fruits, apple butter, jams, and jellies helped to vary the winter diet. No preserving by canning was done until many years later. Some writers note that by i8oo tea and coffee were in common use, but a Pittsburgh store bill of I807 and I8o8, which lists tea at one dollar to a dollar and a half and coffee at thirty-eight to forty cents a pound, indicates that such beverages were luxuries i ..... . .. .. WOODEN UTENSILS FOR MAKING BUTTER MOLDS TUBS TRAYS PADDLES to be used only on rare occasions. The Reverend William Wood of the Erie Presbytery on a missionary tour sometime after I8oo took a 333 Western Pennsylvania package of tea with him and one night asked his hostess to prepare some for him. Not seeing it on the table, he inquired for it, and the woman "pointed to a broad earthen dish, where the entire paper of tea stood, dished up in the form of greens." Substitutes for tea in com- mon use were herbs like mint, thyme, sage, pennyroyal, and catnip; for coffee, sassafras, roasted chestnuts, and such grains as barley, rye, and wheat, boiled and roasted. The grocery bill referred to above exempli- fies interestingly the cheapness of foods produced locally and the cost- liness of foods imported. Bacon was only ten cents a pound; flour, two dollars and twenty-five cents a hundredweight; whiskey, fifty cents a gallon; oats, forty cents a bushel; "country sugar," twelve and a half cents a pound; but imported sugar was sixteen cents a pound; loaf sugar, thirty-three cents a pound; salt, ten dollars a bar- rel; chocolate, forty cents a pound; ginger and pepper, fifty cents a pound; and a bottle of mustard (size not specified), twenty-five cents. With such prices it is not surprising that most households bought very little imported food. Certain variations in diet were found among the different racial ele- ments of the region. German children were allowed very little meat, and both they and their parents ate more vegetables than did their Scotch and Virginia neighbors. The use of raw "salad greens" was confined almost exclusively to the Germans in the early days. Cheese, sausage, and sauerkraut made a staple German supper, and cider or small beer thickened with flour was often served for breakfast. Other favorite German dishes were twisted doughnuts sweetened with molasses, and "Schnitz Knopf"-dried apples cooked with small dumplings called "dough buttons." A favorite dish among the Scotch was "buckwheat souens" (sourings). For this, baking soda was made by burning corncobs. The recipe, not too inviting to modern eyes, reads: "Mix buckwheat flour with water, preferably in the morning, making a stiff batter; add enough yeast to make the batter light; let stand till evening or till thoroughly soured. Add a little soda; then stir into boiling water and cook until it is the consistency of mush. Eat hot or cold with milk, cream, or butter." In town as early as 1798 such luxuries as figs, prunes, muscat raisins, and "sugar plumbs" were available, for those who could afford them. A bakery in Pittsburgh in 1788 advertised "all kinds of bread, biscuit, and cakes" and solicited "the custom of the gentlemen and 334 Domestic Life ladies of Fort Pitt." A hotel menu of 1816 presents a lavish variety consisting of turtle soup; gammon and eggs, beef, mutton, venison, fish, and fowls; vegetables and bread and butter; pepper, mustard, vinegar, and pickles; cakes, pies, tarts, and custards; coffee, tea, wine, beer, brandy, whiskey, and gin; and "Segars." Cooking in the cabins was done over the open fire in the fireplace. The preferred fuel was hickory, but black or white oak was used if hickory was not at hand. These were slow-burning woods and with their use the fire did not need frequent replenishment. In the frontier cabin it was necessary to keep the fire constantly alight. This was not difficult in winter, when it was needed for heating, but in summer the fire had to be smothered with ashes or peat when not in use for cook- ing, and there was danger of its going out during the night. When it did go out, it was necessary to get a "chunk of fire" from neighbors if there were any near enough, or to make fire laboriously by the use of flint and steel and "touchwood"-rotted pith wood dried and treated to take fire at a spark. To tend the fire some settlers had fire sets con- sisting of andirons, long-handled shovel, and tongs. Pokers were rarely used until the advent of coal fires. Cooking utensils were not numerous. The iron "dinner-pot" hang- ing from the crane was used for preparing stews or boiled mush. There were as a rule a frying pan and a Dutch oven-an iron pot set up on three legs with a tight fitting cover and a bail handle-to be used for baking bread. As for table appointments, pewter dishes, plates, and spoons were restricted to the more fortunate families. As late as 1807 six pewter plates cost two dollars, and a pewter "bason," a dollar and a half. The price of six tin cups was fifty cents-more than the value of a bushel of oats. China and silver were almost unknown at the beginning, though a few emigrating families had carried with them prized heirlooms from the East. The common tableware was of wood -wooden bowls and noggins were almost universal, and even wooden spoons and gourds for pitchers and cups were not unusual. Before the close of the period, however, glassware and pottery made in the region were available to the settler in ordinary circumstances, and imported china graced the tables of the more prosperous. Fine table linen was possible according to the skill of the housewife and was suffi- ciently common after 18oo so that the Communion tables in churches were well decked with it. 335 Western Pennsylvania Clothing ran the gamut in the period from deerskin to the luxuries of broadcloth, silk, and sprigged muslin. The pioneers seldom arrived in the region with much clothing other than what they had traveled in, though occasionally a woman may have carried with her her best black dress, her husband's wedding coat, and some cloth for making garments. During the earliest years there was little time for making cloth. The typical frontiersman wore a tow-linen shirt and pantaloons, with buckskin coat, leggings, and moccasins. As worn-out stockings MEN'S DRESS DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD SATIN SUIT UNCUT VELVET SUIT LINEN SUIT WITH BUSINESS DRESS STRIPED SILK WAISTCOAT could not be replaced until sheep had been raised and sheared and their wool had been spun into knitting yarn, many a settler walked the highroad to prosperity with dried leaves or grass in his moccasins. At the time of the Indian wars, says Doddridge, some of the young men adopted the Indian mode of dress, wearing a breechclout instead of pantaloons, and high leggings, which, however, left the upper thigh and part of the hips bare. Occasionally women and girls wore deer- skin clothing, but this was not considered the proper dress, as after a few years if the pioneer and his wife were competent and thrifty they should be able either to procure a loom or to produce sufficient wool and flax to have a neighbor do their weaving. When wool was not avail- able, coarse cloth was sometimes woven of nettle bark or buffalo wool. The usual dress for the pioneer woman consisted of linsey petticoats and a "bed gown." This latter, a smock-like garment with an opening 336 Domestic Life at the back of the neck, was put on over the head and gathered in at the waist with a belt. A kerchief about the neck completed the woman's attire except in winter or on state occasions, when her bare feet were encased in moccasins, shoe-packs, or coarse shoes. The clothing of boys and girls was much like that of their parents. Shoes or moccasins for the whole family were at first made at home from deer, elk, and calfskin. Hats when worn in summer were homemade of plaited rushes or oat straw; winter caps were made of the typical coonskin or of some other fur. Such was the usual dress both in country and in town in the earliest days. It was not to be expected, however, that these simple and pic- turesque garments would be retained with increasing prosperity. Even in the country the men began to wear linsey pantaloons held up by "galluses" of leather or knitted worsted, and the weaving of fine linen STYLES OF DRESS ABOUT 1790 WORKINGMAN WOMAN'S WORK DRESS BROADCLOTH SUIT WITH SHAD-BFr ImD COAT made possible the wearing of ruffled shirts by the men and under- garments by the women. In the towns, especially in Pittsburgh, by the late eighties, "store shoes" were available, also straw or beaver hats and exotic dress goods such as chintz, Irish linens, cambrics, lawns, muslins, gauzes, and flannels. Before the turn of the century two milliners and mantua-makers of Pittsburgh advertised their desire to provide suitable feminine frills for the ladies. When Henry 337 Western Pennsylvania M. Brackenridge, a boy of ten, returned to Pittsburgh in 1796 after his sojourn in the French settlements in the West, his father sent him to the bootmaker and the tailor to be measured for an outfit suitable to one of his social station. An advertisement of the same year prom- ises a reward to the finder of a package containing "a lady's tam- boured muslin dress and a blue sash." An advertisement of a later decade describes a stolen "Black Great Coat, with a large Cape, the Cape buttoned on the collar, on the front of the Cape is black glass buttons, and on the front and hips of the coat is cloth buttons." The price of cloth was still high, however, in I8o8: muslin was thirty-seven cents a yard; "country linnen," forty cents; calico, fifty cents; "forest cloth," one dollar and forty cents; and "Super Blue Cloath," seven dollars and a half. It may be inferred that at these prices the large family of the average farmer, whose flour was retailed at two dollars and twenty-five cents a hundredweight, was dressed mainly in homemade linsey-woolsey. All the cloth, whether home- made or imported, was durable; styles did not change rapidly; and except by the most wealthy families clothing was worn until it was worn out. Even wealthy testators considered articles of clothing of sufficient importance to be bequeathed. Such items as a red-checked apron, petticoats, bed gowns, shifts, stockings, gowns (one silk one is specified before 1803), suits of clothes, suits of mourning, a surtout, and a "good hat" are mentioned in wills. One of the problems frequently to be faced in the frontier home was that of sickness in the family. Throughout the period there were large districts in the region in which there were no physicians and in which ministers, old women of experience, schoolmasters, and the pioneer mothers had to treat illness as best they could. The first physician in Pittsburgh, Dr. Nathaniel Bedford, is said to have come to the town as an army surgeon about 1770 and to have resigned his commis- sion to set up his private practice. The first physician in Fayette County was Dr. Charles Wheeler, who settled near Brownsville, probably about 1780. As other physicians came they, too, tended to settle in the towns; and, though Pittsburgh had two doctors and a surgeon's apprentice by 1784, in many rural districts there was no physician available. It is difficult at this day to arrive at a true picture of health con- ditions on the western edge of settlement. Hugh Henry Brackenridge 338 Domestic Life and Andr6 Michaux (the former perhaps under suspicion as a "booster" of the region) speak of the pure air that conduced to the health of the inhabitants; Thomas Ashe and others make much of the "noxious vapours" arising from swamps to menace the lives of the settlers. That there was an endemic "fever and ague" can hardly be denied, although it seems probable that this disease was less com- DOMESTIC UTENSILS LARD TUB SMALL WOODEN TUB SLAW CUTTERS PIGGIN (FOR FEEDING PIGS) CALABASHES mon in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio than it was to be later in western Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. Nevertheless, as most reminiscent accounts of pioneer health contain discussions of the treatment for ague, and as contemporary newspapers published sug- gestions for sufferers, it is likely that the disease was fairly common in some districts. Harris writes of Presque Isle, "A prevailing fever for some time retarded the settlement. It is said, however, that this ob- stacle is now nearly, if not entirely removed." On the other hand, Michaux says of Pittsburgh, "Intermittent fevers are unknown there ... neither are they tormented in summer with musquitoes." No one at that time thought of ascribing malarial fever to the mosquito; it was laid to gases from decaying vegetable matter or newly turned earth, and also to the "miasmatic exhalations of swamps"-a rather shrewd guess as to the locality of the trouble at least. Naturally as settlement progressed, swamps were drained and the disease grew less 339 Western Pennsylvania has been made that all conclusions about the Mound Builders in this region must be tentative. Geographically considered, the mounds of Erie and Crawford counties apparently belong to the Great Lakes division of the Mound Builders' culture; those of the Allegheny, of the Ohio near the Beaver, and of the Monongahela and its tributaries, --~ S-k CROSS SECTION OF CENTRAL SEIP BURIAL MOUND, ROSS COUNTY, OHIO After Shetrone, "The Mound Builders" to the Ohio Valley group. From the distribution of the mounds it appears that the most thickly settled areas were in the southwestern counties. Although mounds have been opened and artifacts removed in many places, scientific archaeological examinations of the mounds of the region have been confined to a few sites. Mounds along the Monongahela and the Youghiogheny rivers in Westmoreland and Fayette counties were investigated in 1929 and 1930, and in 1934 work was begun on mounds in southwestern Erie and northeastern Crawford counties. From these investigations it is evident that at least two types of mounds are present, the fortification and the burial mound. Village sites within fortifications as well as those unfortified but strategically located have also been investigated-some in greater detail than others. From the remains and artifacts found in these mounds it is obvious that the prehistoric inhabitants, though they had not attained so high a culture as some of the Mound Builders elsewhere, notably those of the Hopewell culture in Ohio, were nevertheless to be classified as 20 Western Pennsylvania common; naturally, too, it was less common in an elevated section such as western Pennsylvania than it was to be in some of the lower lying lands to the west. A physician of the present day, summing up the environmental con- ditions that made for health or disease on the frontier, notes that factors tending against health were cold houses, inadequate clothing, exposure to bad weather, lack of sanitary or hygienic knowledge, and the presence of large numbers of insects and snakes. Among factors tending toward health he notes a relatively simple diet, living in the open air in good weather, and the peace of mind that came from the absence of competition for social and financial position. The com- monest diseases of the frontier, aside from those contagious diseases equally prevalent in the East and from the malaria already men- tioned, were probably rheumatism, coughs and colds, pneumonia, I I__ _... , I KETTLES AND KETTLE HANDLES tuberculosis, and typhoid fever. Another rather common ailment, es- pecially among women, was goiter. This last is of great medical in- terest, as it was met for the first time in America west of the mountains in western Pennsylvania and was practically unknown in Europe except in Switzerland. A traveler in 1803 remarked that he "observed several people near Pittsburgh afflicted with a tumour on the throat like a wen . .. they imputed it to some effect of the climate under the brows of the high mountains where they reside." In 1813 another traveler, in Pittsburgh, remarked that some of the ladies "after re- 340 Domestic Life siding in the town for some years, have a gradual swelling or lump called a goitre come under the chin ... The reason assigned for this singular incident is, that the vaporous particles of the coal smoke, are too impure for the delicate skin of the ladies. Thus only that description are afflicted. Others ascribe it to the waters." In the absence of doctors in the earliest days, the settlers used a multitude of home remedies, some based on European or eastern traditions and others peculiar to the western country. Of many of these, the best that can be said is that they were harmless, but some seem to have been definitely harmful to the patient. The usual rem- edies for ague were the Indian sweating bath and copious drafts of some herbal decoction, often Virginia snakeroot, designed to bring on profuse perspiration. The Pittsburgh Gazette in 1787 advised the sufferer from ague to "take as much flour of brimstone as will cover half a dollar piece, moisten it to a paste with lemon juice, mix it with a glass of rum or port wine, and take it as the fit comes on." Quinine was either unknown or unprocurable in the early days, and if the malaria took the form of the "dumb ague" it was usually fatal. The "dumb ague" was the name given to the disease when there were com- plications involving an abscess of the liver and a stupefying fever. Malaria did not usually, however, develop to this fatal stage; it merely weakened the bodies and constitutions of its victims, making them easier prey to other diseases. The prevalence of rheumatism is not surprising. Deerskin leggings and moccasins absorbed water readily and were exceedingly cold when wet, yet they were often the frontiersman's only protection against the elements when he went hunting in winter or worked on the farm in spring and fall rains. If the rheumatism was accompanied by a fever, bleeding was resorted to--and it must be remembered that the practice was not confined to the ignorant frontiersman but was com- mon in the East at that time. If there was no doctor in the community, the minister or some layman who had the tools and the experience necessary for bleeding cattle or men would perform the operation. When rheumatism was not accompanied by fever, it was treated by external applications, rubbed on while the limb was exposed to the heat of the open fire. A favorite liniment, after its discovery, was the "Seneca Indian oil"-that is, petroleum. Harris says that in 1803 it was "considered as an infallible specific." If Seneca oil was not avail- 341 Western Pennsylvania able, however, other oils such as "goose grease" mixed with pepper were used, and no doubt the heat of the fire and of friction helped to alleviate if not to cure. Coughs and colds were treated in innumerable ways: a piece of fat meat well sprinkled with pepper was tied around the throat to relieve soreness; mustard or onion poultices were applied on the chest; onion or garlic juice was taken internally; and concoctions of sugar and whiskey with bloodroot, cherry bark, spikenard, or elecampane were freely used. These same remedies were used for tuberculosis and asthma, presumably with less success. Pneumonia is said to have been less prevalent in the days of open fireplaces and log cabins than later in tighter houses heated by stoves: The patient with pneumonia was carefully protected from fresh air, was covered with feather beds, and HAND LOOMS AND SHUTTLE FOR WEAVING BELTS, GARTERS, ETC. was not allowed to drink cold water. He was bled as a matter of course. Typhoid fever, not present perhaps in the very earliest years, was almost inevitable as settlement progressed. Little care was exercised to keep the water supply free from any but the most obvious con- tamination, and the importance of the sanitary handling of milk and other food was unknown. Of Pittsburgh in 1803 it is recorded that the inhabitants used the water of the river for drinking, as being more wholesome and palatable than that from springs, because "the spring water, issuing through fissures in the hills, which are only masses of coal, is so impregnated with bituminous and sulphureous particles as to be frequently nauseous to the taste and prejudicial to the health." Few wells had been dug in Pittsburgh at the time of this observation. 342 Domestic Life It was inevitable that springs, wells, and rivers should eventually be polluted as settlement grew less sparse. Typhoid was often called nervous fever and brain fever; its cause and cure were unknown; and it was variously ascribed to the night air, grief, fear, unripe fruit, or intense thought. Contagious diseases were mainly allowed to run their course. Vac- cination for smallpox was known in the early years of the nineteenth century but was rarely used even by physicians because of the dif- ficulty of getting vaccine and because of fear or prejudice on the part of the settlers. The treatment of most of the eruptive contagious diseases was mainly confined to attempts to "bring out" the rash. Saffron tea was administered for this purpose in measles. Michaux was in western Pennsylvania during an epidemic of measles. "At the invitation of my host," he says, "I went to see several of his relatives and friends that were attacked with it. I found them all drinking whiskey, to excite perspiration. I advised them a decoction of the leaves of the viscous elm, with the addition of a spoonful of vinegar to a pint, and an ounce of sugar of maple." Another brew used by the settlers to hasten the appearance of the rash in eruptive diseases was "nanny tea"-made from sheep dung. Contagious diseases were looked upon as inescapable, and children with strong constitutions were often deliberately exposed to them at favorable seasons. Wounds, cuts, and snake bite were responsible for many deaths on the frontier. For gunshot wounds and cuts, poultices of slippery elm bark, flaxseed, or spikenard root were usually applied. As steriliza- tion and aseptic dressings were unknown, such wounds often developed into blood poisoning and "mortification of the flesh." Before surgery was available, the best cures for this were thought to be either burn- ing with a hot iron or exposure to the smoke of tar, feathers, and brimstone burned on hickory coals. Among the treatments for snake bite were drinking milk in which white plantain had been boiled, cutting the offending snake into two-inch pieces that were applied successively to the bite and then burned, wrapping the limb in freshly peeled chestnut bark and pouring over it frequently a decoction made by boiling chestnut leaves in water, and making deep incisions in the limb and filling them with salt and gunpowder. Other ailments had their particular cures. The itch was treated by washing with water and soft soap, sometimes applied with a corncob, 343 Western Pennsylvania and then by using an ointment made of lard mixed with sulphur, brimstone, or gunpowder. Worms, real or fancied, in children were attacked with doses of common salt, the scrapings of pewter spoons, or sulphate of iron. Croup in children was treated by doses of Indian turnip root in molasses or by the juice of roasted onions. Digestive disorders were combated by a strong tea made from white walnut bark and given in half-pint doses. "When intended for a purge, the bark was peeled downward; when for a vomit it was peeled upwards." A recipe for curing dropsy recommends two ounces of bark, two ounces of gunpowder, and one ounce of coarse mustard seed steeped in a quart of wine and well shaken, and specifies the dose as three full glasses to be taken daily. Most household medicine chests soon ac- quired calomel, ipecac, and camphor-and these were liberally used. For a general tonic, especially in the spring, boneset tea was taken, or bitters made of various herbs or roots combined with cider, whiskey, or brandy. So long as a mixture tasted bitter it was thought to be effective. Michaux notes a "bitter" made by the infusion of the green "cones" of the cucumber tree in whiskey. "This bitter," he says, "is very much esteemed in the country as a preventive against inter- mittent fevers; but I have my doubts whether it would be so generally used if it had the same qualities when mixed with water." Many of the cures partook of the nature of pure superstition; usually they were harmless, and they may have tended to quiet the fears of the sufferers. The Germans had many such cures, but the other groups were not far behind them. Erysipelas was to be cured by the blood of a black cat; mumps by rubbing the swollen jaws on the hog trough; goiter by stroking three times with the hand of a corpse; a felon by holding a mole in the hand until it died; and a dog bite by the application of some of the dog's hair to the wound. Epilepsy was treated by wedging apart the fork of a crotched hickory, passing the sufferer through three times, and removing the wedge. If the tree grew together again and lived, the epileptic would recover. For whooping cough the child was sometimes shaken in the hopper of a flour mill and sometimes treated by having him inhale the breath of a stallion that had been made to run until it snorted. A widely practiced cure for asthma in a girl consisted of stuffing some of her hair into a hole bored in a tree just above her head. When the girl grew taller than the hole, the asthma was supposed to disappear. For 344 st i .I v? E r i FIREPLACE EQUIPMENT POT HANGERS ANDIRONS TONGS LADLB USED FOR MELTING LARD ALI- 7ft ~cPPcB~i~ .I ".u ..I .- ,, ' . , v ...... - I .-...... .... ov. , a 9 . ...... ... ,_:.:u _... J_ill A $Z 1 4 d L-; i (I ®! F i p 1 a Western Pennsylvania colic, scrapings of the tablecloth were administered; for a pain in the neck, a buckwheat cake was applied to the head. Toothache was thought to be prevented by the use of a toothpick made from the nail of the middle toe of an owl. If toothache was severe and persistent, the only remedy was to have the tooth out. Before dentists were avail- able, tooth extraction among the Scotch-Irish was performed with an instrument known as the "pullikens," a short rod with iron claws attached at the end. When these were clamped over the tooth and brawny arms were brought into play, the toothache was soon a thing of the past. When newspapers became available for advertising, the patent- medicine business began to invade the frontier, with such advertise- ments as those in 1789 of "Doctor Anderson's famous Scotch pills" and "Old Robert Turlingtons original balsam of life," in 1813 of Dr. Hamilton's "Worm Destroying Lozenges" and Dr. Robertson's "Celebrated Stomachic Elixir of Health" and "Vegetable Nervous Cordial," and in i816 of "Medicines" prepared by W. T. Conway of Boston. The patent-medicine field was not greatly exploited, how- ever, until after I8Io; before that time recipes for medicines to be made at home were published more frequently than advertisements. Such recipes were usually to be found also in the almanacs of the period. In 1786 the Pittsburgh Gazette printed five articles by the dis- tinguished physician, Dr. Benjamin Rush, advocating the use of arsenic powder to relieve cancer and discussing the harmful effects of liquor on the human body. In 1793 and again in 1798 the Gazette's articles on yellow fever in Philadelphia caused alarm in Pittsburgh and the temporary suspension of intercourse and business between the two cities. With the frontier family absorbed in providing the prime necessities of shelter, food, and clothing, and with the housewife further busied in rearing children and caring for the sick, it is not surprising that the virtue of cleanliness was frequently neglected. Certainly to eastern eyes the early frontiersmen were not cleanly. There is no denying the allegation that fleas, lice, and other vermin attended the dwellers on the frontier. The same allegation is made of later frontiers and of the earlier frontiers in the Piedmont and in the Great Valley. Dirt was a natural concomitant of pioneer life. The frontier family, in order to exist at all, had to put production first and domestic comfort last. 346 Domestic Life Moreover, as has been pointed out, furs could not be washed; and even when bedding and clothing were washable a large kettle and tubs for the purpose were seldom available and the carrying of water was a back-breaking task. It was not until after a generation or two had passed that the rural housewife had the time to devote much atten- tion to cleanliness and had the equipment to make cleanliness possible. Even the cities did not escape the charge of being dirty. There, however, dirt was usually caused by the use of the local soft coal as fuel. "Stone coal" in Pittsburgh is said to have caused a smoke "which overhangs the town, and descends in fine dust which blackens every object; even snow can scarcely be called white in Pittsburgh. The persons and dress of the inhabitants, in the interior of the houses as well as the exterior, experience its effect." Besides being dirty, the frontiersmen were largely unlettered and ignorant. Wills disposing of considerable property are signed by the testator's "mark"-thirty of the seventy-nine first wills filed in Allegheny County bear a mark rather than a signature; some declara- tions of slave births are so signed; and many legal depositions show that the deponents could not write their own names. It is not sur- prising, therefore, that superstition, the handmaid of ignorance, was common in the region. Probably the Germans, with their medieval background of superstition modified but little in small European villages and in some cases strengthened in America by years of conflict with the dark and unknown wilderness east of the mountains, were more superstitious than any other group. The Celtic imagination, however, was always susceptible to the occult, and some of the Virgin- ians had been exposed in childhood to the superstitions of the negro. Among the Germans and some of the Scotch the phases of the moon were considered to have an important influence on agriculture: cereals should be planted in the waxing of the moon, onions when the horns of the moon were down, and beans and potatoes when the horns pointed upward; apples, it was believed, would keep better if they were picked in the dark of the moon. Some families believed Good Friday to be the best day of the spring for sowing flax. Marriages should be made at the time of the full moon, soap should be boiled at the waxing of the moon, and hair should be cut on the Friday after the new moon. Among the Germans a horoscope was often taken at the birth of a child, as the stars were thought to determine the tempera- 347 Western Pennsylvania ment and to some extent the fate of the new-born babe. Various omens prophesied bad luck. The Scotch disliked to sit down at a table of thirteen or to begin an important piece of work or a jour- ney on a Friday. During candle-dipping some families shut up all their cats and small dogs. Although the practical reason for this was prob- ably that the animals might disturb the drying candlewicks, the super- stitious believed that if a dog or a cat ran under the candle racks before the work was done the candles would burn over a corpse within a year. A broken candle was thought to presage a break in the family group. The howling of a dog or the hoot of an owl was thought to prophesy bad luck for the hearer. One writer refers this belief to the Indians' use of such cries as signals for attacks, and that circumstance may have strengthened a superstition older than Christianity. Out- right belief in witchcraft was probably less common than other types of superstition, but there is ample evidence that it existed. To some extent the literal religious beliefs of the time fostered the belief in witchcraft; certainly persons in biblical days had been "possessed of the devil," and according to the convictions of the day the Prince of Darkness was a very real and very powerful being, always on the alert to delude or to attack those enlisted under the banner of his adversary. Thus one can visualize the frontier household, a united group fight- ing a common battle against the wilderness, wresting from it shelter, food, fuel, and clothing, living at first in discomfort and often in filth, fighting against disease with what weapons were available, moved by superstition to unreasoning hopes and unreasoning fears, yet never giving up the fight. The marvel is not that there were some failures in the unequal battle, but that so many won through to victory. 348 xv. Community Life THE development of community life in the new country was necessarily deferred until after the first stage of settlement. The isolated cabin was a social unit in itself, with the members of a single family as its constituents. As the family acquired neighbors, however, community life naturally came into being. The settlers, ex- cept perhaps those of the backwoodsman-hunter type, were no Ishmaels; they had known and enjoyed association with their fellows in the East or in Europe. Those who came direct from Europe, where for centuries most of the farmers had lived in agricultural villages, must have missed community life even more than did those who had lived on farms east of the Appalachians. Yet even the latter had known fellowship with neighbors in church and market and rural gatherings. Those who had come from eastern cities had had association with their kind in such organizations as mechanics' societies, professional groups, and churches; some of them, too, had tasted the more sophis- ticated pleasure of coming together in groups for lectures, theatrical performances, and concerts. It was natural that, as communities grew, their members should try to reproduce the social opportunities they had known before crossing the mountain barriers to the West. At first there was little differentiation of the population into social classes, except perhaps at Pittsburgh, where the army officers made a rather exclusive and homogeneous group. By I8rz, however, social stratifications were apparent, though probably not so clearly marked as in the East and certainly less rigid than in Europe. Social grada- tions ranged up through the classes of the indentured servants; the shopkeepers, mechanics, and small farmers; the more prosperous farmers; the professional men and well-to-do merchants, to the high- est rank, represented by the officers of Fort Fayette and the wealthy landowners, who frequently described their occupation as that of "gentleman." These classes were not of course rigidly exclusive; for 349 The Indian Regime barbarians rather than as savages. No traces of woven cloth were found; but in addition to beads made of bone and mussel shell native to the region there were shells from the Gulf of Mexico used as orna- ments, proving a commerce, presumably indirect, with that region, and copper beads indicating a connection, probably also remote, with the Lake Superior district. Burial customs among the Mound Builders of western Pennsylvania also indicate a somewhat lower culture than that of some of those farther westward, for of thirty-three burials examined only one skeleton, that of an infant, was found extended; in the other cases economy of space and labor is indicated by the fact that the bodies were buried with legs and arms flexed, a position that required a relatively small grave. In Erie and Crawford counties cremated burials have been found intermixed with normal burials, as is the case in some of the Ohio mounds, but no evidences of crema- tion have been discovered in the mounds of the southern counties. The frequent presence of carbonized food materials in the burials indicates that fire was used in the religious rites for the dead. Wood or stone burial vaults such as those of the Hopewell culture in Ohio have not been discovered in Pennsylvania as yet, but a number of burial mounds built of large stone boulders and a group of burials under stone slabs indicate a desire to provide permanent resting places for the dead. From the objects found associated with buried bodies archaeologists have reconstructed at least partially the life of the Mound Builders. Fragments of pottery in graves and on village sites indicate that the making of clay utensils was practiced, although in western Pennsyl- vania the pottery thus far unearthed is not notable for variegation in color and is marked merely by incised lines or by a "corded" design formed before firing by pressing the pot with a paddle around which a leather thong had been wrapped. From kitchen middens on village sites, from tepee inclosures, and from burials where the use of fire is evident, indications of the diet of these pre-Columbian tribes can be found. There are present both worked and unworked bones of the animals native to the region, fish scales, mussel shells, corn, corncobs, beans, squash seeds, hickory nut shells, and the pits of the wild cherry and the wild plum. The finding of pipes indicates the use of tobacco, and tubes of bone and stone containing pigments bear mute witness to the presence of the "painted savage." Weapons and tools of flint 21 Western Pennsylvania instance, the French emigre the Chevalier du Bac kept a small shop in Pittsburgh yet was frequently a guest at the table of John Neville. Professional men enjoyed a high social position in the community, perhaps higher than is now accorded to any but the outstanding members of the professions. In the country the minister was of greater social importance than in the towns. There the lawyer seems to have had the higher rank. Most of the lawyers were also politicians, and the legislator, the judge, the congressman, and the senator were held in great esteem-at least by members of their own party. One ob- server rather acidly comments: "There is also a very numerous class, which assumes a certain air of superiority throughout the whole country-I mean the lawyers. They (even their students and pupils) arrogate to themselves the title or epithet of esquire, which the unin- formed mass of the people allow them; and as, by intrigue, they generally fill all the respectable offices in the government as well as the legislature, they assume to themselves a consequence to which they are in no other way entitled." Doctors, too, were highly es- teemed; Nathaniel Bedford and Thomas Parker were among the first incorporators of the Pittsburgh Academy; Peter Mowry and Felix Brunot were men of comfortable means and social position. By the end of the period several different groups had been organ- ized for professional or social purposes or both. In Pittsburgh a lodge of Ancient York Masons was established in 1785, and a lodge of Free and Accepted Masons was in operation before 1798; in the latter year Judge Matthew Ritchie was buried at Washington with all the honors of Masonry. By 1815 there were four Masonic organizations in Pitts- burgh alone. A flourishing Mechanical Society was formed by "the reputable tradesmen" in Pittsburgh in 1788 and met regularly, usually at one of the taverns, for at least a decade thereafter. In 1793 Presley Neville inserted in the Gazette an advertisement to persons of Alle- gheny County wishing to form a "Troop of Light Horse," inviting them to meet at John McMaster's tavern to elect their officers. The Irish formed a group with strong social proclivities. As early as I763, Ecuyer wrote to Bouquet, "We had St. Patrick's fetes in every manner, so that Croghan could not write by this express." A Hibernian Society had been organized in Pittsburgh by i8oz, and a Tammany Society was functioning in the "Month of Horns, Ist, Year of Dis- covery, 315"-in other words, by July I, 1807. By 1815 a Missionary 350 Community Life Society, a Bible Society, a Chemical Society, and a Medical Society had been organized in the region. But the heyday of commercial, social, and professional organizations with many members, elaborate conventions, and weekly luncheons was yet far off. Other early societies were organized for activities now administered by municipal agencies. Protection against fire, for instance, was a matter for community co5peration. A "Pittsburgh Fire Company" is mentioned in the Gazette in 1793. The hand-engine used by the early company was bought for one hundred pounds of Pennsylvania currency in 1792 or 1793 and was transported from Philadelphia by wagon. In I8oi a complaint was published in the Gazette that the supply of buckets for the fire company was inadequate, and a town meeting was called to arrange for the purchase of more pails. In I8o8, however, when a fire broke out in a brewery in Wood Street and the citizens assembled to fight the blaze, there were still not enough fire buckets. Subsequently Scull wrote in the Gazette: "That the town of Pittsburgh has been heretofore so remarkably preserved from... fire, we can only attribute to the guardian care of Heaven, and not to our exertions." How long the Pittsburgh Fire Company was active is uncertain. According to the directory of 1815, the Eagle Fire Company was "formed in May 18Io." Admission to membership in the Eagle company was guarded with the precautions of a social club; the candidate must be proposed by a member and unanimously elected. The Vigilant Fire Company, established in May, I8I I, seems to have been less exclusive. It demanded, however, an admission fee of three dollars and dues of six shillings a year from each member. The membership was limited to sixty; in 1815 it was fifty-two. The Vigilants had an elaborate organization; in addition to the usual officers there were two engineers, an inspector, four axmen, four property men, four watermen, eight ladder men, and two auditors. In 1815 William Wilkins was president of the Vigilant company and James Butler of the Eagles. Just after the War of 1812 a third com- pany was organized, which appropriately called itself the Neptune Fire Company. On May Io, 1813, the Pittsburgh Humane Society was established "to alleviate the distresses of the poor-to supply the wants of the hungry, the naked and the aged-to administer comfort to the widow, 351 Western Pennsylvania the orphan and the sick." Funds came from the membership (a dollar initiation fee and fifty cents per quarter dues); from donations of money, food, fuel, and clothing by members and others; and from the "collections at charity sermons (which are to be preached quarterly for this purpose)." Committees from each of the four wards solicited donations and distributed aid within their jurisdictions. There were among the officers and ward committee members in 1815 one cashier, two "gentlemen," three manufacturers, three merchants, eight skilled artisans, and seven ministers-two of them without churches in town. It is perhaps significant of the religious prejudices of the day that three of the clergymen with charges in town-the Covenanter, the Catholic, and the German Lutheran-were not in the group. At the turn of the century, the matter of community sanitation began to interest the municipal government. In I8oz borough ordi- nances in Pittsburgh forbade the "casting of shavings, mud, dung, or other filth into streets or alleys," under penalty of a heavy fine. A correspondent to the Gazette of that year remarks on "the diseases which appear in this once healthy spot" and ascribes them to "narrow streets and alleys . . . filthy gutters, putrid vegetable and animal matter, the stench from foul slaughter houses, and exhalations from ponds of stagnant water." In the same year the borough authorities attacked the problem of water supply by sinking municipal wells and installing pumps. In 1814 a bathhouse was opened in Pittsburgh, next door to the steam mill on the Monongahela. The proprietor advertised that he supplied soft water, warm and cold, and that the baths were open from 5 A.M. to IO P.M. In the next year he advertised mechanical improvements and announced that, although the profits did not justify opening the baths for another season, he hoped that these im- provements and a "more extended knowledge of the great benefit arising from the use of Baths, in such a place as this" might make the venture profitable. Baths were twenty-five cents each. It is probable, however, that most of the citizens continued to use the family wash- tub at home, if they bathed at all. Although for almost all the inhabitants, both in city and country, life on the frontier was a process of hard, grinding work to maintain or improve existence, it was not without its pleasures. Some of these, especially in the country, were obtained in ways almost forgotten in 352 Community Life the East and characteristic of the frontier throughout its history. In the rural districts the instinct for play found its expression most often in connection with church activities or with co6perative labor. In the towns, especially after 18oo, amusement became an end in it- self rather than a means incidental to the glory of God or the accom- plishment of work. The Presbyterians of the country, with ancestry and tradition run- ning back to the north of Ireland or to Scotland, were inclined to "take their pleasures sadly," as the Scotch phrase has it. Their rural Sabbath, a day on which all unnecessary activities-even such operations as shaving, bootblacking, and baking-were suspended, and which, as soon as churches were provided, was spent in and about the church, nevertheless gave opportunity for pleasant though decorous social in- tercourse. The family, after arising as early on Sunday as on any other day, did the chores, ate breakfast, and was soon ready to walk or drive to the church. The Sabbath school for the younger people, usually held at nine o'clock, was to the socially minded but a prelude to the interval between it and the morning service. During this inter- mission boys and young men sauntered or stood talking in the grove about the church, casting sidelong glances at the young ladies, who walked sedately into the church with their parents. "At first sound of the opening service, these groups in the grove would make a rush for the church, and go thundering down the uncarpeted aisles in their farmer boots, making as much noise as a drove of horses." After morning service came another intermission of half an hour, an oppor- tunity for the families to "eat their piece"-the cold lunch brought with them-and for the younger persons to make or advance acquain- tances, which might later lead to matrimony. When the afternoon service was concluded, the families prepared to take their separate ways homeward, and both the public devotion and the sociability of the Sabbath were over. Among the Presbyterians, celebrations of Christmas, New Year's Day, and Easter were rare, as such festivities were deemed "Popish" practices. The only festival of the church that was largely social was the Harvest Thanksgiving, held on a weekday in the latter part of August. After a morning service in the church, the rest of the day was given over to social gaiety, making calls among neighbors, and eating elaborate dinners. Another social amusement among the Presbyte- 353 Western Pennsylvania rians was "visiting." In winter often a whole family would go to a neighbor's house in the evening and "sit up till bed-time," talking, eating gingerbread, and drinking cider. If a family was formally in- vited to "make a visit," the invitation meant staying all day and sometimes all night with the hosts. The various bees held in connection with farm work were common to all groups on the frontier. The industries practiced in the frontier home thus had a socializing effect on the individual and on the com- munity: the family was a unit in which many cooperative tasks were carried out, and when this unit was inadequate for the task it com- bined with others in cooperative effort and, incidentally, in reciprocal enjoyment. Farm tasks such as butchering and cornhusking were almost always done with the help of neighbors when settlers were near enough together to call themselves neighbors. At butchering time the men gathered at the designated house soon after breakfast and, contesting with each other as marksmen, shot the hogs. After the butchers had dressed and cut up the carcasses and had eaten a hearty dinner, they spent the afternoon at games, sports, and shooting contests, while the women worked busily rendering lard, pickling pigs' feet, and making liverwurst, scrapple, puddings, and sausage. In the rather difficult work of stuffing sausages, the men usually assisted. Finally after a good supper the guests departed, to meet again shortly at another farm for another "butchering party." The cornhuskings were usually held at night with the men shucking and shelling corn in the torch-lit barn, their work enlivened by con- tests in speed and output, by stories, and by practical jokes, while the women joined in a spinning or a quilting bee within the house and kept not only their hands but their tongues busy. After a supper served at midnight the guests departed if the host was a strict Presby- terian; if not, those who cared to do so remained for a dance or a "play-party." Usually there was a fiddler in the community to furnish music, but if instrumental accompaniment was lacking, the guests sang, clapping their hands and stamping their feet to mark the time, and enjoyed their jigs and reels almost as well as when they were danced to the tune of the fiddle. Among the Germans especially, the apple-butter bee in the fall was an occasion for a party. A large iron kettle filled with cider was hung on the crane, or, if the night was fair and moonlit, over a fire kindled 354 Community Life outside the cabin. Meanwhile young men and girls joined in the apple "snitzin'," (doubtless a corruption of the German word "schnitten," to cut). The apples were pared, those to be used for butter were quartered and cored, and others were cut in discs and strung on thread to be festooned around the fireplace to dry. When the cider had boiled down sufficiently, the quartered apples were added to it, and young couples took turns in stirring the mixture with a long paddle, while the rest of the party played games indoors. The joyful opportunity of stirring the butter by moonlight with the girl of his choice more than counterbalanced for the bashful swain the awkwardness of having to ask a particular young lady to stir with him. Many a country court- ship must have been forwarded by the apple-butter bee. The fulling party or "kicking bee" was a more hilarious and noisy occasion. After a housewife had woven a piece of woolen cloth it must be fulled to soften, shrink, and thicken it. For this operation, neigh- bors were invited in in the evening, and the men, barefooted, sat on chairs in a circle and held a rope that ran from man to man. The piece of cloth was placed on the floor within the ring, hot soapsuds were poured upon it, and the kicking began. It was kept up for a period of ten or fifteen minutes; then after an interval of rest and conversa- tion more soapsuds were poured on and the kicking began again. In this way the bee progressed for three hours or so, until the process was completed, when the cloth was hung out on the fence to dry and the floor was "scrubbed up." Then, after partaking of a good supper, the neighbors departed, the men "rejoicing in the fact that their feet were unusually clean." Logrollings or house-raisings were also bees in which the community participated. For these the standard dish for both dinner and supper was a large potpie made of whatever game the country afforded, and throughout the day the whiskey barrel and the cider keg were avail- able for the quenching of thirst. There were a few parties in the country, however, at which the guests were not asked to work. One of these was the kissing party, an important event in the eyes of the young people. Invited to while away a winter evening, they played games and sang verses that are considered children's songs today-"King William was King James's son," "Under the juniper tree," "Oats, peas, beans, and barley grows," and the like-and the climax of each verse was a choice and a kiss. 355 Western Pennsylvania Each song usually continued until every girl present had been kissed at least once, but the triumph of being among the first chosen must have made some of the girls' hearts beat high under the folds of their homemade red flannel dresses. Food was served at such parties, and sometimes in the less strict households there was dancing after the midnight supper. Other occasions at which no work was required of the guests were weddings, celebrated differently in different communities. The Scotch wedding was a sober affair, in which feasting and moderate drinking were the chief amusements. It was held in the home of the bride and was followed the next day by an "infare" at which the newly married couple and their friends, including the bride's relatives, were enter- tained by the groom's parents. When the couple moved into their own cabin there was usually a "housewarming," but the climax of the wedding came on the first Sunday after it, when the bride and groom "made their appearance" in church. Dressed in their wedding finery and accompanied by their bridal attendants, the couple entered church just as the service was about to begin, swept down the center aisle, no matter where their pews were, and finally reached their seats. This public appearance set the seal, both religious and social, on the consummated marriage. Among the Virginians and the Germans, weddings were not such decorous affairs. The missionary David McClure has recorded his im- pressions of a wedding at which he officiated near the Youghiogheny in 1772: "Attended a marriage, where the guests were all Virginians. It was a scene of wild and confused merriment. The log house, which was large, was filled. They were dancing to the music of a fiddle. They took little or no notice of me, on my entrance. After setting a while at the fire, I arose and desired the music and dancing to cease, & requested the Bride and the Bridegroom to come forward. They came snickering and very merry. I desired the company who still appeared to be mirthful & noisy, to attend with becoming seriousness, the solemnity. As soon as the ceremony was over, the music struck up, and the dancing was renewed. While I sat wondering at their wild merriment. The Lady of a Mr. Stevenson, sent her husband to me, with her compliments requesting me to dance a minuit with her. My declining the honor, on the principle that I was unacquainted with it, was scarcely accepted. He still politely urged, until I totally refused." 356 Community Life At such a wedding a barrel of whiskey and a gourd for drinking stood outside the door. A favorite prank involved ambushing the groom's party as it rode to the wedding, or delaying it by felling trees and tying grapevines across the road. When the party was within about a mile of the bride's house, the groom's companions began a race to see who could reach the house first. The prize was a bottle of whiskey, from which the winner was expected to treat the party, ceremoniously passing the prize first to the bride and then to the groom. After the wedding there was more horseplay, with the women trying to steal the bride away and the men attempting to kidnap the groom. The newly married couple must eat and drink everything offered them, and the offers of "Black Betty," a drink composed largely of whiskey, were as numerous as the guests at the wedding. Finally about nine o'clock the bride and groom were put to bed in the loft, while the party continued below, and occasionally an intruder made his way above. The German wedding was perhaps more decorous in the matters of drinking and of reverence for the rites of the church, but it was also an occasion of unrestrained jollity. The Germans had an inter- esting custom of "throwing the stocking," somewhat analogous to the modern tossing of the bridal bouquet. The girls of the party stood with their backs to the bride and in turn threw a stocking over their shoulders and toward her; the first one to hit the bride's head or cap was thought to be marked for the next marriage. Then the young men did the same with the groom. Among both Germans and Irish the charivari, although not called by that name, was a part of the wedding gaiety. This was a burlesque serenading of the young couple after they had moved into their new home. Tin pans, horns, and cowbells were pressed into service, and the din subsided only when the serenaders were invited into the house to eat and drink and perhaps to dance. Although the Presbyterians made little or nothing of Christmas, the Virginians and the Germans celebrated that season in the English and Teutonic traditions. To call David McClure again as witness, soon after New Year's Day in 1773 he preached to a gathering of Virginians, and disapprovingly wrote: "Several present, appeared almost intoxicated. Christmas & New Year holly days, are seasons of wild mirth & disorder here." The German Christmas was a family festival. However busy the father might be, he took the time some 357 Western Pennsylvania days before Christmas to go hunting and usually was able to provide a turkey for the Christmas feast. Some of the chestnuts, hickory nuts, and walnuts gathered by the children in the fall had been saved for the occasion, as had also maple-sugar cakes made in the previous spring. On Christmas Eve the Christmas story was solemnly told to the children, and then they were directed to hang up their stockings for "the Belznickel man"-Santa Claus-to fill. Into the stockings went the nuts and sugar, sometimes doughnuts, and apples when the orchards were old enough to bear. Toys were seldom given as presents, although occasionally a new and exceptionally charming "rag baby" might go into the stocking of a small girl. Sometimes when related families lived not too far apart, they joined in celebrating Christmas at the home of one of them. In that case the different families went to the house on the afternoon before Christmas, and in the evening one of the men dressed up as the Belznickel man for the children's benefit. The costume might consist of a black bear- skin cap, a mask, and a large panther skin worn as a cloak, the tail trailing on the floor. After much bellowing and talking and pulling of ears, the apparition wished the children a merry Christmas, told them to hang up their stockings, and warned them to get to bed early, as he would not come into the house to fill their stockings if a light were burning. Even today in the rural parts of western Pennsylvania among some families of German descent, the Belznickel man is almost as familiar as Santa Claus. The amusements of the town were naturally somewhat more sophis- ticated than those of the country districts. Christmas was generally celebrated with eating and drinking, but there were more delicacies available in town than in the country. Such foods as oysters, ice cream, and lemons could be had in Pittsburgh by i8Io, and before 18oo00 a "confectionery" had been established. After the Revolutionary War, the Fourth of July and Washington's Birthday were frequently celebrated in the towns. In 1786 near Wash- ington "a considerable number of the most respectable inhabitants of the county" met to celebrate the Fourth "at a fountain issuing from the side of a hill overshadowed by a grove of spreading oaks, sugar-tree locust, &c." The table was "plentifully furnished with pig, lamb, and other decorations, suitable to the occasion." Thirteen toasts "were drank with decorum" and at each toast "the section" of militia 358 Community Life discharged a volley. On July 4, 1787, a party of gentlemen of Pitts- burgh, "joined by some accidental travellers," met at the Tannehill tavern, ate an elaborate dinner, and drank thirteen toasts "accom- panied with a discharge of cannon to each." The day "closed with the utmost harmony and decorum." Ten years later the citizens of Pittsburgh and the surrounding country "assembled on the bank of the Allegheny river, under an elegant bower erected for the occasion." After dinner, sixteen toasts were drunk, accompanied by the guns of Fort Fayette. In 1798 in Pittsburgh "the Independent Corps of Cavalry, Artillery and In- fantry paraded in their Uniforms, and made an appearance truly military-At three o'clock a company of 300 persons all wearing the National Cockade sat down to a well prepared repast." The sixteen toasts began as usual with "The Day," paid respects to the president and Congress, to Washington and the Constitution, included the "population of our country-may no scions be engrafted on our Oak, but those which imbibe the juice of the parent tree," and ended with the "fair daughters of America, may they love none but those who truly and sincerely love their country." In the same year Washington's Birthday had been celebrated at Pittsburgh "with unusual eclat" at a ball in Morrow's tavern, which "displayed a blaze of beauty unrivalled in any village of equal extent in the union." The assembly was "honored by the presence of the Commander in Chief [General Wilkinson] and a long list of respect- able citizens," and after an "elegant repast" served at eleven o'clock, "the effusions of an heart-felt, veritable Americanism were uttered in a variety of toasts and sentiments amidst the applauses of the guests and the bursts of a military band in full concert." Among the toasts was one to President Adams-"may the radiance of his virtues and intelligence dissipate the exotic vapours which infect our political atmosphere, and restore to us the salutary breezes of patriotism which wafted the National Bark into the port of Independence and Prosperity." From the first, the army posts, Fort Pitt especially, had contributed much to the social gaiety of Pittsburgh. During the Revolution, says a writer of 1783, the garrisons at Forts McIntosh and Henry (at Wheeling) helped to support Pittsburgh "and even enlivened it, for during the war there were balls, plays, concerts, and comedies here, 359 Western Pennsylvania and other stone demonstrate the neolithic culture. The chief differ- ences between the Mound Builders and their later Indian successors in the region seem to have been that the former paid more attention to the disposal of their dead and that they may have been a more . S T -M"nB.d. i i TRE 0EBRI N ( ) SIA SHRINE BURIAL CHAMBER A sacred ground enclosed by palisades and crematory. As a part of a ritual, the struc- sometimes roofed with thatch was used by tures were eventually burned and the the Mound Builders as a burial ground and mounds built up over the sacred grounds. sedentary people, occupying their village sites more continuously than did the later and more nomadic tribes. Within historic time the region of western Pennsylvania has ex- perienced two distinct periods of Indian occupation with an interval between them of nearly three-quarters of a century during which it was devoid of inhabitants. When the light of history is first turned upon the region about the middle of the seventeenth century, it is disclosed, in the Jesuit Relations, as a dwelling place of the Erie In- dians--or, as the Jesuits translated the Seneca name for these Indians, which probably meant raccoon, the "nation of the cat." These Erie Indians were not the descendants of the Mound Builders, for the Erie were of Iroquoian stock and the remains of the Mound Builders indi- cate that they were Algonquian. The Erie occupied the region south of Lake Erie, extending eastward from the Maumee Valley in Ohio to 22 Western Pennsylvania 400 miles west of the ocean. Therefore the Pittsburg ladies cannot but behold with troubled hearts the withdrawal of so many fine gentlemen, and the cessation of so many diversions." Though this writer was mistaken in his belief that Fort Pitt would be permanently abandoned shortly after 1783, the garrison and the number of officers there were greatly reduced; in 1785 there were only a captain and six men occupying Fort Pitt. With the erection of Fort Fayette in 1792, however, the small garrison of Fort Pitt moved to the new quarters, and the number of officers and men stationed there was increased, so that the social life of the town was once more enlivened by the presence of numerous officers and men. At the inauguration of President Jefferson in I8oi a difficult social situation arose in Pittsburgh. Most of the officers at Fort Fayette and many of the leading citizens of the town had been bitterly opposed to Jefferson, yet the army men felt it incumbent upon them to celebrate the inaugural. The difficulty was to get the townspeople to co6perate in the celebration. The commandant at Fort Fayette, Colonel Ham- tramck, was a relative newcomer to Pittsburgh, and his wife may have feared that the town ladies would refuse her invitation to a function in honor of Jefferson. After experience at the western posts of Detroit and Fort Wayne, perhaps she felt inadequate to deal with Pittsburgh society, in which politics was so burning an issue that Federalist ladies refused to pay calls on Democratic families. General Wilkinson, at this time commander in chief of the army, had gone to Washington for the inauguration. Mrs. Wilkinson, however, remained at Fort Fayette, and possible difficulty was averted by Colonel Hamtramck's inviting the officers and the influential gentlemen of town to a dinner held in the afternoon, an invitation the men were unlikely to refuse, while Mrs. Wilkinson invited "a large collection of ladies" to a re- ception and a display of fireworks, at which they were joined by the men. Thus by the social prestige of Mrs. Wilkinson possible awkward- ness was avoided and the inauguration of the hated Jefferson was duly celebrated-a triumph of tact on the frontier. Not all the recreations of Pittsburgh were so sophisticated as the dinners, balls, and evening receptions. Henry M. Brackenridge in his Recollections speaks interestingly of Sunday afternoon promenades on the "beautiful green eminence" of Grant's Hill, where well-dressed ladies, gentlemen, and children sauntered about, talking and perhaps 360 Community Life taking stock of one another's appearance and clothing. To modern minds, the paying of calls hardly appears as recreation, but the as- siduity with which the punctilios were observed in this respect shows the older generation to have been either incredible martyrs to duty or real lovers of social formality. The fact that a continual stream of travelers flowed through Pitts- burgh seems to have made its citizens rather indifferent to visitors who came without introductions, but those with recommendations were well entertained. Mrs. Mary Dewees of Philadelphia mentions in her journal a pleasant stop in Pittsburgh in 1787. The boat in which her party traveled from McKee's ferry at the mouth of the Youghio- gheny arrived at Pittsburgh before the baggage wagon; and Mrs. Dewees was somewhat embarrassed when the fine ladies of town called upon her with invitations to come ashore. "We have declined all," she says, "as the trunks with our clothes is not come up, and we in our travelling dress, not fit to make our appearance in that gay I Z STYLES OF DRESS ABOUT I8OO CAMBRIC AND MUSLIN GOWNS BUSINESS DRESS SUMMER COSTUME OF STRAW HAT AND MUSLIN GOWN place." Later, however, "Mr. and Mrs. O'Harra waited on us and insisted on our going to their house, which in Compliance to their several invitations we were obliged to accept, and find them very polite and agreeable; we staid and Supp'd with them, nor would they suffer us to go on board while we Continued at this place." Other 36I Western Pennsylvania callers were "Col. Butler and his lady," and when Mrs. Dewees re- turned the call she "saw a very handsome parlour, elegantly papered and well furnished, it appeared more like Philadelphia than any I have seen since I left that place." In 1813 Elbridge Gerry, Jr., said of Pittsburgh: "A want of intro- ductory letters deprived us of the advantage of visiting. The acquain- tance of a new friend repaired the defect on my part, and by his attention, I soon was introduced to many ladies. Their education and accomplishments are much attended to, and their manners are easy and sociable, and very attentive to strangers." Henry M. Brackenridge implies that to those who came with recom- mendations to the "inner circle" the town was very cordial indeed. "It so happened," he writes, "that, after the revolutionary war, a number of families of the first respectability, principally of officers of the army, were attracted to this spot, and hence a degree of refine- ment, elegance of manners and polished society, not often found in the extreme frontier.... Colonel Neville was indeed the model of an accomplished gentleman, as elegant in his person and finished in his manners and education, as he was generous and noble in his feelings. His house was the temple of hospitality, to which all respectable strangers repaired." An interesting example of Neville's hospitality occurred in Pitts- burgh at the turn of the century, when he was host to the Duke of Orleans, afterwards to become the king of France, and his two brothers, exiled at the time by the French Revolution. Hearing of their intended visit, Gabriel du Bac went to Neville and persuaded him to receive the town's distinguished guests. Before the three young Bourbons continued their journey down river to New Orleans they had made a conquest of the town and in particular of old Pierre Cabot, a humble French-Canadian whom Du Bac had introduced to the visitors and who exulted that he had had the honor of chatting with "Monseigneur" in the public street. From 1790 to I820 the most popular type of commercial entertain- ment was undoubtedly horse racing. The races, held in or near towns, attracted almost all the townspeople and many of the countryfolk of Virginia extraction. The Virginia influence is almost certainly ac- countable for the inauguration of this sport and for its popularity. Between 1786 and I812 races were held at Pittsburgh, at the "bullock 362 Community Life pens" six miles east of Pittsburgh, at McKeesport, at Greensburg, and doubtless at other towns in the region. The races usually lasted for three days. The prizes offered consisted of purses ranging from $40 to $12zo for the winners on the first two days and of a sweepstakes of "all the Entrance Money" on the third day. In 1786 the "Jocky Club" of Pittsburgh ruled that "No Jocky will be permitted to ride unless he has some genteel Jocky Habit." Perhaps the jockeys were less genteel than their habits; for in 18 11 the managers of the McKees- port races warned that riders "must expect to confine themselves to the principles of Racing, so far as to avoid any intention of jockeying, jostling, or any thing that may appear unfair." Sally Hastings notes in October, 18oo00: "There are public Races in Greensburg; and the Beaux are flocking into Town by dozens. It seems singular to me, that they are principally in Uniform, and have the air of Gentlemen." The races were often combined with fairs, and advertisements grouped horse racing with such attractions as acrobatics, tightrope dancing, "the Italian Shades and Mr. Saunders and his Merry Men." The most vivid description of early horse racing is found in the reminiscences of Henry M. Brackenridge, who remarks that all ordi- nary occupations were neglected in Pittsburgh while the races were being run. "The whole town was daily poured forth to witness the Olympian games, many of all ages and sexes as spectators, and many more either directly or indirectly interested in a hundred different ways. The plain within the course, and near it, was filled with booths as at a fair, where everything was said, and done, and sold, and eaten or drunk-where every fifteen or twenty minutes there was a rush to some part, to witness a fisticuff-where dogs barked and bit, and horses trod on men's toes, and booths fell down on people's heads! There was Crowder with his fiddle and his votaries, making the dust fly with a four-handed or rather four-footed reel; and a little farther on was Dennis Loughy, the blind poet, like Homer, casting his pearls before swine, chanting his master-piece, in a tone part nasal and part guttural,- 'Come, gentlemen, gentlemen all, Ginral Sincleer shall remem-ber-ed be, For he lost thirteen hundred men all, In the Western Tari-to-ree!' "All at once the cry, To horse! to horse! suspended every other 363 Western Pennsylvania business or amusement as effectually as the summons of the faithful. There was a rush toward the starting-post, while many betook them- selves to the station best fitted for the enjoyment of the animating sight. On a scaffold, elevated above the heads of the people, were placed the patres patriae, as judges of the race." Music was one of the social influences available to soothe the fron- tiersmen's savage breasts, particularly those that were covered with the cambric and fine linen of the town. In 1786 an advertisement addressed to musicians notified them that "a man who understands Vocal Music, and who can teach it with propriety" would "meet with good encouragement" in Pittsburgh. Somewhat later a teacher ap- peared, an elderly Britisher named Tyler, who had formerly been a chorister in an English cathedral. Fortescue Cuming notes that a party of young men and women met at McCullough's tavern in the evening to practice singing under Tyler's direction and "displayed taste and harmony enough to do honour to their venerable teacher." The Apollonian Society was organized in the early years of the nineteenth century under the direction of S. H. Dearborn, who had gone to Pittsburgh as an artist but had turned to music and the theater when he found that the town could not support a resident painter. Cuming attended a performance of the society in the house of "Mr. F. Amelung the acting President," where "about a dozen gentlemen of the town" played instrumental music "with a degree of taste and execution" not to be "expected in so remote a place." Many persons who were not musicians joined this society for the opportunity of attending its concerts. Pittsburgh soon had several music teachers and at least two stores selling sheet music, one of which also sold violins. The demand for instruments is indicated by the fact that in 1809 a violinmaker was in business in the town, and in 1816 "a shop for making Piano Fortes" was actually established. Public concerts or recitals were held occa- sionally in the assembly room of one of the taverns. These included a recital by two musicians in 1799, a performance by the pupils of one Peter Declary in I8oI, and a concert by a military band, also in i8o. Though there was little prejudice against music on the part of most of the religious sects, instrumental music was practically con- fined to the towns, because facilities for instruction in it were lacking in the rural districts. "Singing schools" were established in both town 364 Community Life and country-in the country devoted almost entirely to the singing of hymns-and were very popular with the younger generation as opportunities for acquaintanceship or courting. The appreciation of instrumental music and its availability almost inevitably led to the idea of dancing, and here opinion and social toler- ance were sharply split, with the stricter citizens clinging tenaciously to the belief that in dancing Satan but found mischief for idle feet to do. The Brackenridges, the Nevilles, and their like, however, re- garded dancing as a gentleman's accomplishment and had their sons taught by dancing masters. With the foremost gentlemen in town thus favoring the art, others were bound to follow their social lead, and opposition to dancing was confined to the religious of no social pre- tensions and to a few distinguished persons whose inconvenient con- sciences prevented them from following the prevailing trend. Most of the churches frowned upon dancing, however, and culprits were some- times given public notice of suspension from Communion for this fault. In 1798 B. Holdich advertised his ability to teach country dances, the minuet cotillion, the Scotch minuet, the plain minuet, the "Minuet de la Cour," and the "City Cotillion, as taught ... in Philadelphia, New York and Baltimore." In the same year one Haughton, a rival, announced a ball, with tickets at a dollar a couple, and added, "The company of his Pupils Parents will be very agreeable to him, as they will have an opportunity of witnessing the improvement made by their Children." Henry M. Brackenridge recalls that after his second quarter of instruction, he and Morgan Neville were chosen "to ex- hibit a hornpipe, which was then considered the ne plus ultra of the saltatory science." Peter Declary, the music master, in i8oo arranged to have his musical recital followed by a ball, the tickets for which were fifty cents. The concert was to begin "precisely at six o'clock" -in those days Pittsburghers began their entertainments at early hours. By 1816, when a dancing master named Boudet gave his "first Practising Ball," it was necessary to lay down rules in the interest of decorum: no gentleman might be admitted unless introduced by a lady known to Boudet, nor would any gentleman "be permitted to dance in boots." The professional theater was not particularly successful in Pitts- burgh or elsewhere in western Pennsylvania in the early days. One reason for this situation was the rooted Presbyterian opposition to 365 Western Pennsylvania plays and particularly to "play-actors," an opposition that derived from the Puritan suppression of the theater in England and from the license of the Restoration drama after that suppression had been re- moved. Moreover, among the elements of the population that did not disapprove of the stage there were relatively few with the literary and cultural background to make them capable of appreciating any drama more intellectual than a Punch and Judy show. Literary cul- ture could and did flourish on the frontier, for such culture can exist in a relatively small circle, but the circle must be large to furnish an appreciative and profitable audience for the commercial stage. As late as 1816, a performance of "Hamlet" with a good eastern actor in the title role fell rather flat in Pittsburgh; and the next night a burlesque of it, with the theater manager playing Hamlet and with Ophelia carrying a bouquet of turnips and carrots, was gravely viewed by citizens trying to decide whether the actor or the manager made the better prince of Denmark. Amateur theatricals, however, appear to have had a certain vogue on the frontier. A German traveler says that plays were performed at Fort Pitt during the Revolutionary War. The first direct evidence of theatrical activity in Pittsburgh is a fragment of an advertisement in a mutilated copy of the Gazette of 179o announcing the perfor- mance on April zo of "Cato"-Joseph Addison's famous tragedy- and a farce, "All the World's a Stage." Such double bills, consisting of a tragedy or a romantic drama followed by a comedy or a farce to lighten the tension or please the less lettered members of the audience, were common in the theater at that time. In 179o also came the first presentation of amateur theatricals in Washington, when Thomson's "Tancred and Sigismunda" and a farce, "The Register," were pro- duced. In 1797 the Washington amateurs presented a comedy called "Trick upon Trick, or the Vintner in the Suds"; the charge for ad- mission was twenty-five cents, and the proceeds were donated to the local academy. Except for two plays given by the students at the academy in i8oi, no notices of dramatic performances in Pittsburgh have come to light for the years between 179o and 1803. In 1803, however, dramatic activities were remarkable. Five-possibly six-theatrical perform- ances were given in the first three months of that year, beginning with a New Year's Day presentation of scenes from "The Poor Soldier," 366 Community Life and of "The Mad Actor" and "The Merry Girl." Other bills pre- sented in January included "Trick upon Trick," "The Jealous Hus- band," "The Sailor's Landlady," and "The Gamester." The offerings of January were by Bromley and Arnold, apparently professionals. In February "the Young Gentlemen of the Town" presented the com- plete comic opera of "The Poor Soldier," and a farce, "The Appren- tice." Tickets were fifty cents for the gallery, and for "Box and Pitt, Three Quarter Dollars." The bill was so successful that it was repeated for charity three weeks later. So far as is known, all these dramatic performances were staged in the courthouse. In 1807 Cuming saw a play given in a large room in the upper story of the courthouse, where the smaller rooms served as dressing rooms and greenrooms, and where the indefatigable Dearborn turned his talents to scene-painting, make-up work, and even acting. Cuming reports that the young men who took women's parts were "deficient of that grace and modest vivacity, which are natural to the fair sex, and which their grosser lords and masters vainly attempt to copy." By the time Cuming made his observations there were two regular "dramatick societies" in Pittsburgh, one made up of law students and the other of "respect- able mechanicks." As early as I803 groups of touring actors visited Pittsburgh from the East; these usually supplied only the leading parts for a play and cast the other parts among members of the amateur societies. In I812 a third amateur society, the Thespians, composed of both young men and young women students, was organized and gave such plays as "She Stoops to Conquer," "Romeo and Juliet," and "The Merchant of Venice." In i8z1 also, William Turner, whose wife was an actress and singer, collected subscriptions to build the Pittsburgh Theater, a house seating four hundred. The theater was opened sometime in 1813; on August 27 a performance was advertised for the next day, offering Holcroft's "Celebrated Melo Drama, of the Tale of Mystery," with a farce, "The Spoil'd Child," and an afterpiece entitled "Little Pickle," to say nothing of songs and features by Mrs. Turner. The next week an actor from the East named Webster appeared for three nights in Mrs. Inchbold's "To Marry or Not to Marry," and a farce, "The Irishman in London." The season of 1814-15, although it did bring a presentation of "King Lear," was less promising; and on November 12, 1816, the Commonwealth reported that, although 367 Western Pennsylvania the theater had been open for almost two weeks, it had failed to earn expenses. The editor added, more in sorrow than in anger, "This is a severe satire on the taste of the place." Among other opportunities for amusement and social intercourse were the mineral springs, which offered quite as much social gaiety as health. In 1789 "Federal Springs," near Pittsburgh in Washington County advertised bathing, dressing rooms, two plunging and two shower baths, public bathhouses, and private lodgings. In i8o8 Bed- ford Springs advertised in Cramer's Magazine Almanack the curative value of its "medicinal waters." By 1811 Bedford had become "a no- table watering-place," and at the springs John Melish found "a vast concourse of people collected from different places, some of them very distant." The water, impregnated with magnesia and sulphur, was drunk in great quantities. At these springs there were a bathhouse and a large boarding house, with rates at five to six dollars a week. The situation is described as "very romantic and truly delightful." Museums, menageries, panoramas, and waxworks did not appear generally until after the War of 18z1, but there were occasional ex- hibits such as the waxworks displayed at Pittsburgh in I8oz, showing life-size representations of Franklin, Bonaparte, Voltaire, and other personages, or the exhibit at Greensburg noted by a party of travelers in I8o8: "It was court week and the town was crowded. An elephant was on exhibition." About a month later the Gazette advertised that this same elephant would appear in Pittsburgh, and the public was warned that "the present generation may never have the opportunity of seeing an Elephant again, as this is the only one in the United States, and is perhaps the only visit to this Borough." In 1814 a "museum of living animals" was shown in the city, among its speci- mens an African ape, a "long tail Marmozett," and a tiger, "the only animal in the world that dare face the Lion, except the Americans!" The show business in Pittsburgh may have been somewhat discour- aged by a borough ordinance of 1804 providing a fine of fifty dollars and costs for producing a "Theatrical Entertainment, Show, Specta- cle, or Public Exhibition" without a license, and fixing the license rate at ten dollars for each day of exhibition. The taverns or public houses not only catered to travelers and fur- nished assembly rooms for meetings, concerts, and balls, but also afforded possibilities of less formal amusement and social intercourse 368 Community Life to townsmen. It was apparently a regular custom, especially in the smaller towns, for residents to drop in at the tavern and discuss with travelers the events of the time. Cuming records such a conversation at Greensburg, in which "a Mr. Holly, a doctor, and another gentle- man, residents of the town" were among the six who joined in a "long political discussion, originating on the subject of Col. Burr's projects." No two of the six "agreed in sentiment," but the talk "was both amus- ing and instructive; some of the party, particularly Mr. Holly, a New England man, being possessed of very good information, and the argu- ments were conducted with cool, dispassionate reasoning." According to the Magazine Almanack of 1804, in Pittsburgh the "stranger may now seat himself at a table equal to any in Europe; and find the conversation move with as much grace, ease and rationality, as in any part of the world." Henry M. Brackenridge speaks of the pleasant and cultured conversation he heard around the table at the boarding house of Mrs. Earl in Pittsburgh. The taverns also afforded opportunities for the sociability of "dining out," some offering to accommodate gentlemen with oyster suppers. A curious advertise- ment of I811 announces that "Mrs. Anna Sheldon has just recom- menced brewing Spruce Beer and Mead, baking queen or sponge Cakes, pound cakes and ginger bread" and concludes with the note that "the Turtle Soup parties will commence about the middle of May ensuing." In Pittsburgh, Semple's tavern in 1770 possessed the luxury of a billiard table, and "Beaumont's Hotel and Ohio Coffee- House" in 1789 assured prospective patrons that newspapers from Philadelphia and other eastern cities might be regularly read there. As liquor was sold at all the taverns, it is not surprising that some of them laid themselves open to the charge of encouraging or permit- ting drunken revels on the premises. In I8oo00 Sally Hastings wrote, just west of Chestnut Ridge, "The Landlord here is a confirmed Drunkard.... Last night was a jovial one. The Landlady had collected a number of persons to husk Corn; and, when their Business was finished, they devoted the night to Dancing, Singing, and other Exer- cises, the names of which my Ear did not communicate; though, in regard to their nature, it was very officious. Unfortunately, the Room immediately under my Bedchamber was the scene of this Bacchanal; and I frankly confess, that I wished them either less happy, or that their Happiness consisted in Enjoyments similar to mine." 369 The Indian Regime the upper Genesee River in New York and probably rangingwell south of the Allegheny River in Pennsylvania. There is reason for believing that the Erie had many villages in this region, and their number has been estimated at more than fourteen thousand. According to the traditions of the Five Nations, or Iroquois, an at- tempt at the union of all the Iroquoian tribes was initiated by the Onondaga in New York, but only that tribe and the Mohawk, Oneida, Cayuga, and Seneca sent representatives to effect a union. Out of this union grew the Iroquois confederacy, the militant "Long House," of which the Mohawk guarded the eastern and the Seneca the western door. Then, still according to the Iroquois version, the tribes of Iro- quoian stock that had refused to join the confederacy became sus- picious and jealous of its success. This suspicion and jealousy led to war involving the Iroquois successively with the Huron to the north, the Susquehannock or Andaste to the south, and the Erie to the west. Perhaps the Iroquois traditions as to the causes of this warfare should be taken with a grain of salt: even among civilized nations the prac- tice of justifying aggressive warfare as defensive has not been un- known. In 1603 began the struggle between the Iroquois and the Huron, a warfare that was to be important historically because the French, friendly to the Huron, assisted them and thereby incurred the enmity of the Iroquois, who turned first to the Dutch and then to the English for allies. On July 6, I609, Champlain attacked the Mohawk at Ti- conderoga and completely routed the red men, at that time unused to firearms. Other victories of the French and their Huron allies fol- MOUND-BUILDER ARTIFACTS OF BONE, SHELL, CLAY, AND STONE 23 Western Pennsylvania At Greensburg Mrs. Hastings discovered that "the Town was full of riotous People" attracted by races and a "Public Review" of the militia. Although she went to an inn outside the town, she found there "most of the Officers of the Battalions... refreshing themselves, after the Fatigues of the day, in all the various Exercises which the martial Spirit of Man could invent, or a convivial Bottle inspire." Everyone but the landlord was drunk; the host, however, "assured us that, except Noise and want of Sleep, we had no other Inconven- ience to expect in his House; for, though it might appear paradoxical to assert it, every Man under his roof was a Gentleman and Man of Honor." Mrs. Hastings adds, "I must acknowledge, they were a Com- pany of the most active and handsome Men I ever saw." Drinking led to quarreling and the clash of swords, until one of the senior offi- cers, observing the travelers' distress, roared "Attention!" to the group, and addressed them "on the Indecorum of Fighting in the presence of Ladies. ... He concluded by reminding them, 'that In- toxication, though excusable in a Gentleman, under certain Circum- stances, was by no means an Apology for a Breach of the Laws of Good-breeding; and the Respect which every Gentleman felt himself bound, in Honor and in Duty, to pay to the Female Sex.' " Other travelers mention similar incidents, indicating that drinking shaded more often into actual drunkenness among the Virginians than among the Scotch and the Irish. Perhaps the Scotch had the harder heads for hard liquor. The Germans, with their traditional predilection for beer and cider, are never accused of insobriety. If drinking may be called an amusement, it was undoubtedly the most common recreation in the region. Of other amusements, it may be said that those requiring artistic or intellectual culture on the part of the participants were rare in the country throughout the period, and that even in the towns those demanding intellectual attainments were not popular. The lives of most people both in country and in town were devoted to the ends of material success, and opportunities for recreation, until I8oo at least, were not common. When they did occur, the reaction from strenuous work often found expression in a hilarity that astonished the more staid observers. This too was in part a frontier characteristic, destined to become less common as the frontier moved on to regions farther west. Thus by 1815 the individualistic existence of the family in the fron- 370 Community Life tier cabin had been, at least in part of the region, supplanted by life in the larger social community, whether rural or urban. Frontier isola- tion still existed in the mountainous sections and in the sparsely set- tled northwestern area, but elsewhere community life was well estab- lished. In the more populous rural districts this life was more demo- cratic and more nearly all-inclusive than in the cities, where diversity of occupation and fortune tended to develop class distinction and social discrimination. In both city and country, however, political, religious, and racial differences were still strongly divisive forces in community life. 371 xvI. Intellectual Life HE first pioneers who felled the forests and built new homes in the wilderness were engaged-perhaps unconsciously-in establishing on the frontier the folkways and material cul- ture of Europe or of the Atlantic seaboard. In their wake came pioneers of a different type, engaged in transplanting the germs of culture, in the narrower sense of intellectual achievement, from Europe and the eastern centers of settlement to the western country. Probably few of these pioneers of culture were fully conscious of their function in this respect. Certainly the lawyers, physicians, and schoolteachers who went west were motivated by the desire to advance themselves as truly as were the farmers and the mechanics. Among the ministers only might one find instances of selfless devotion to a cause, and even among them, human beings as they were, the motive of economic advancement was often present though perhaps not dominant. The earliest of these pioneers of intellectual culture naturally re- ceived their impetus and training from eastern sources, either from the near east of the Atlantic seaboard or from the far east of western Europe, but in a very short time these men were training a consider- able proportion of their successors. A survey of the backgrounds of the men who achieved prominence in the learned professions in western Pennsylvania before 181o discloses a wide variety of cultural heritage. Fourteen of the lawyers, judges, and physicians included in the survey were educated abroad, six at Princeton, two at Dickinson College (or Carlisle Academy), two at Jefferson College (or Canons- burg Academy), and sixteen at miscellaneous or unknown institutions. A far larger proportion of the ministers were educated in the West. Of eighty-three whose formal schooling is known, forty-four were trained at Canonsburg Academy, Jefferson College, or Washington College, and two at Greersburg Academy; eleven were educated at Princeton, eight at Dickinson or Carlisle, and eight at other schools 372 Intellectual Life or colleges in the United States; and ten received their training abroad. Of ninety-nine clergymen whose birthplace is known, nine- teen were born in western Pennsylvania, thirty-one in eastern Penn- sylvania, twenty-four abroad (seventeen of these in Ireland), eight in New Jersey, six in Maryland, and eleven in other parts of the United States. About a third of the ministers born in the East were educated in old Canonsburg Academy or Jefferson College; about half of those born abroad were educated abroad before coming to America. The Irish-born ministers generally received their theologi- cal training in Edinburgh or Glasgow-an illustration of the close cultural ties between Scotland and the north of Ireland. The "transit of civilization" to western Pennsylvania and its adap- tation and development in the region may be observed in the records of individual pioneers of culture. Of first importance in the formative period was Hugh Henry Brackenridge, a native of Scotland, who came to America with his parents as a boy, attended a grammar school near his home in eastern Pennsylvania, and was graduated from Princeton, then the College of New Jersey, in 1771. Among his college- mates were James Madison, Aaron Burr, Henry Lee, Gunning Bed- ford, and Philip Freneau, in collaboration with the last of whom he wrote a poem and a novel. Brackenridge received the degree of master of arts from Princeton in 1774, studied theology, was director of a school in Maryland, and was an army chaplain during the early years of the Revolutionary War. He read law with Samuel Chase and was admitted to the Philadelphia bar in December, 1780. Migrating al- most immediately to Pittsburgh, he was admitted to the Westmore- land County bar in April, 1781. He lived at Pittsburgh until i8oi, when he removed to Carlisle. His career as lawyer, representative in the state legislature, writer, and promoter of the western country is inextricably interwoven with the history of the region. James Ross, another prominent and successful lawyer and political leader, was born in York County, Pennsylvania, in 1762, was edu- cated in part at Canonsburg Academy, studied law in Philadelphia, commenced the practice of law at Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1784, and later removed to Pittsburgh. He, like Brackenridge, had many interests aside from politics and his profession; both men were incorporators of the Pittsburgh Academy and both were active in other matters affecting the intellectual life of the region. 373 Western Pennsylvania John McMillan, the founder of Canonsburg Academy and for many years perhaps the most influential clergyman in the region, was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 175z and went first to a local school, then to the Pequea grammar school, under the direction of the Reverend Joseph Smith, and then to Princeton, whence he was graduated in 1772. After his graduation he went back to Pequea to study theology under the Reverend Robert Smith. His career in western Pennsylvania began with a missionary tour in 1775 and he settled there in 1778. Concerning the education of the men trained in whole or in part in Europe, complete information is often lacking. Alexander Addison, lawyer and judge, was graduated- from either the University of Aber- deen or the University of Edinburgh, was admitted to the ministry in Scotland, and read law in Washington, Pennsylvania, with David Redick. Dr. Felix Brunot, a highly respected physician in Pittsburgh from 1797 on, was born in France and was probably educated there; came to America with Lafayette during the Revolution; and was listed in the census of 179o as a "shopkeeper" in Philadelphia (pre- sumably he kept an apothecary's shop). Thomas Collins, who began to practice law in Pittsburgh in 1794, had received his degree from Trinity College in Dublin. Christoph F. Schewe, pastor of the German church in Pittsburgh in I807 and an instructor in the Pittsburgh Academy, had been professor of northern European languages and of drawing in the Lyce Academique in Paris. Such men as these demonstrate the cultural debt of western Pennsylvania to Europe. Two examples will perhaps serve to represent the group of men whose training was acquired wholly or mainly within the western country itself. Dr. Peter Mowry was born in Pittsburgh in 1770 and at fourteen was apprenticed to Dr. Nathaniel Bedford, "to be taught the Science and Art of Medicine and Surgery." So far as is known Mowry had no further education, and the fact that later, when he was preparing his nephew for the practice of medicine, he sent the lad to Jefferson College and then took him as an apprentice seems to in- dicate that Mowry felt that western training was adequate. By i8oo Dr. Mowry was living in a brick house at the corner of Market and Front Streets and had probably the most extensive medical practice in Pittsburgh. Zadok Cramer, a native of New Jersey, emigrated to Washington, 374 Intellectual Life Pennsylvania, in his youth and there served his apprenticeship in the business of printing and bookbinding. In March, 18oo, he arrived in Pittsburgh and set up a bindery. He was soon able to buy the stock of a deceased bookseller and thus to enter the book business. From that it was a short step to publishing almanacs and river-guides for the benefit of incoming and outgoing pioneers, and from this not a long step to entering the general publishing business. In 1811, suf- fering from a "pulmonary complaint," Cramer removed to Natchez, Mississippi, where he established a business in publishing and book- selling. In 1813 a short stay in Pittsburgh impaired his health still further; he went south again and died in Pensacola, Florida, the fol- lowing year. His Pittsburgh business was carried on by his wife and others of his associates and continued to play a large part even after his death in the dissemination of culture in the upper Ohio Valley. The increasing stream of cultural influence may be measured in part by the increase in the number of professional men in the region during the period. To take Pittsburgh as an example, Brackenridge's "Observations" in the Gazette in 1786 indicate that there were then two physicians and two lawyers in the town; in 1807 there were four physicians and by 1809 three others. Cramer's Navigator of 18o8 announces that there were then twelve schoolmasters and four school- mistresses in Pittsburgh. The 1815 directory lists among the popula- tion sixteen "gentlemen," some of whom were retired army officers or other professional men; twelve lawyers; twelve schoolteachers; eight physicians; eight army officers; seven clergymen with charges in town; two other clergymen, one the principal of the Pittsburgh Academy and the other the proprietor of a bookstore; six engineers; three edi- tors; two musicians; and one architect-the distinguished Benjamin H. Latrobe, who lived in Pittsburgh from 1813 to 1815. In thirty years there had occurred a considerable increase both in the number of professional men and in the variety of their activities. As the number of men of culture in the region grew, they naturally formed associations for their own professional advancement and for the dissemination of knowledge. In Pittsburgh in I8Io the "Colum- bian Society of Virtuosi" was founded, to collect specimens for a "Western Museum." Possibly out of the mineralogical interests of this group came the series of lectures on chemistry delivered in the winter of i8I I-Iz by "Dr. Fr. Aigster," a former professor of chemis- 375 Western Pennsylvania try at Dickinson College. Subscriptions, payable in advance, were twenty dollars for men and ten dollars for women. The lectures were adapted to the popular demand for practical knowledge in that they showed the application of chemistry to such industries as agriculture, mining, tanning, papermaking, brewing, and cooking. In 1813 the "Chymical and Physiological Society of Pittsburgh," the third of its kind in the United States, was formed; in 1814 it had "a Library, Chemical and Philosophical apparatus, and a valuable cabinet of mineralogy." The difficulty of maintaining such an organization in an immature section is indicated by the remark of a traveler of 1816 that "a society for the promotion of useful knowledge" had been be- gun about three years before, but "the dispersion of some of the mem- bers, and a want of zeal in others" had led to its decline. He was shown the "Cabinet of Mineralogy" by the "politeness of A. Bolton, one of its most active members." In 1813 the Western Medical Society was organized and held its first meeting at Washington; David G. Mit- chel, John Murdoch, John Smith, and J. LeMoyne were elected officers. Newspapers also served as channels through which the cultural and intellectual interests of the East and of Europe flowed into the new country. Western Pennsylvania was fortunate in obtaining in 1786 the first newspaper west of the Allegheny Mountains. In this, as in many other enterprises that fostered intellectual activity in the region, Hugh Henry Brackenridge was the promoter. He is credited with having urged the establishment of the paper, and it is probable that he secured some kind of subsidy for it from Federalist sympa- thizers. Certainly relations between him and young John Scull, the Pittsburgh Gazette's first editor, were for some years very cordial. The paper championed the Federalist cause and opened its columns to Brackenridge's political and literary contributions until after the Whiskey Insurrection, when the Gazette continued as a Federalist organ and Brackenridge went over to the opposition. Though the story of the founding of the Gazette has been told and retold, the imagination is still caught by the vision of Scull and his partner, with high hopes in their hearts and few shillings in their pockets, anxiously waiting at the door of their log house for the arrival of their press and type over the dangerous roads from Philadelphia, so that they might begin printing their newspaper. 376 u .7t~ TH !Ct E Le ,' , i- PITTSBURGH GAZETTE Pui' Ssuee £ A T U R D A Y, AVUoG t t11 .[ Foregug t Jnell etc. much fck with this hMe 111fl3ee of Kemeeiry In oendcrV: thehref. ilnitcrf6duect "ftWft%t%0%%f ootheIr MAN tl-ej we,every clefliousirau tuorth that the cltfzen wQI pioalify frx*ael enk = A coturpoJcrwith ittrlt hends ir Ergland. Since tha. finlly. the ceti.ioeso(ehe~wWpe A Ii K. 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A"u . !dob earem- 0411f04li to sfmin6titfV1 11t0o th at OCT.am wh:ch rnet:n,a%cingerwou,C 'urkion at Conntntij e e nvent Ale sagaihf"Wamtrcadly tooaeinSdy impatl pannelaffintgallrn. wh:hre:e sIrgmouareitetstCohsno ~rfecut;ng crfaepstwete Ifxtted In rhe scigeof hei-erto to lIdands Ito the wontcordal ser"a. X"r. t-st JiW ff eirac , to occrlon allthetes' til p the raceed teod tr clore ofise tweftb An eerrtmod Jeeoutit&beoivied. so it iasy by niere.ft hrtytohe tp seti& onior es eery Te. The count de ? .n;as a captsih of on onion bctren thelcr ifvr.d%ihqthtfCtc.-t of ~eS.eci Ce fs~.%a t oil r rteftio~n. ) orhfe ootech b* emebt Qvdr. tuher. ie os sbeeme tt c Intryi oftl.ifct.cr, ard tt 3',.J.Ps haeJAu th"1ble op in thir hotelsettopyftl. lettterftolol 09fer Clton, to tie the rkesswid Areaat*% oAhehd4gdu cbet h-rfelhb coful a e& dcepstchctJ hsi. msUiof CWemtht., eof .teib0847*$iD e. ?fpV tOfboth- 1i A D I I .fh Apo 4. 'MyLors. DUBL' . .4nir fr Tfum:W ert%aft to Atrekas have bere Ir. TMT&OR Ahoam callkm v ew I A rion tril w:1come on et "r.stLh Wore tisi i.e* obowno: c jrce-errWh a Ateyiad%oofth r eiftete"A eisewliggrA,bt #4.).l,e.tj4Logt*% in Frses. A3 zd.cmw oltfit'. e srisWJylft. Tbcy rs Wr Bar- obs, Adams,Auire,q hoIs d oWtaoi byshekingdtheiafrkWagc horiler !Iwhoitreae d -0 l g.ewil uthtie ie Staute atOEtist, srsidorfrtbls SartsttheUf Angda)l metetlold temetmen wasatidy, eitu ooa1" Cr CtKCwrs tthte. Ther-lwyorof Pe htsfWary pad bai d shi ivsth cpdeedAdIc t s a poltems, had long=ade s pt&t&=d "ero, to r*wtae fp rieahathe eatror of - rr. I thoghit my duty bmeirc4cumsoniai c*eoelrswkhekri 6 I d1t sod ets4e of AWtik% Two othc AW-f absaquait nohrdLdispt hr. Tuirsoouasm bad a crrine sd Nit AP cc:b V to Lraf s ra eenI b t therthee two mothr, oothew codastoO fsrtheiindiateesformaiLoeofahiag o s perlo o(quo'iny; antimawedhiid .7110=1 fooLer b&r-cnzeofReam!. Thethmefcof L.& jy .concilgovess". thatyou maybeware ty. etheri sms.es or f..a hchasaf. thatfer" foscqc!m f..r Aie, Web rhsvi to w to effeea .b o(thbstfei hvebecome dopesee tohi a mgoA CAiaLniestrtthat poera t e Uated l . s. m Ibeteethb onnrto hr. Ac. I radit ar rric to decamp e!T the Morin -1 Wteot, Semdey . c(;GDON. after tht tem"yi-asorforrin gd amllrtdf. N A F L E , (tsV) ith is. n4hr.Wd11sec." his the o rlu&e!asbFart" aiscl at wereu A few dys Fre noeecnce took ;acimthisid. The MarquisofCarethe"ionf-mraddict4tthe befood t?. Oociw to busesame, thougli it happiyted h3 ri htorb oed r Condst.rdo 'Vciwtk. A ibcrerrved?eetyby ai terttaeaf dile sOtisfollicl. AMuaeg=saafqu%Jheiytcieg%.o Iate, smdaat lbel-d -1 Ciamaritn. t cyfote Leots ort nwhe othenti1l wtirm. Ilti en--moucs!lofesirlofneior rol-. Actrentind clstatyaiy obil, MIT .:ss. Vc: ryeao to reiy. con-anothe followqne 5ihorYt. The marqtiiof-.-oomefatateo LORD CARIMARTIEia c(,nt6hiicmrIi part2e iteligne: Itet Mr. Paitt soda subeh !ecOm fo diWatsnagoru, natiisnce, whicbo(iatl- srttbold idGee ga- nd irle- e tea le, of thi tgrdom. oftw in Lordti. hivrhidu lif 904dte fe th2at ereahebornid reolaerofd- &thpewsAA or theis- -aiohn hayeaay. fertl rcfeeoes touchineg the s*"nr of Ieteodi rig theawhrofbieilereofife. sdrndhe at b tHea Lood O -go*dol the refultnof which isdeaw0d8s;r a-.vot afthe pfebrbed aifetria to pMeose ph"onlah- ,.yI Preda plesaree tee. tio afbbo-fa f Ce of i.wmw- E -rI. rV&pei nrik .to to h atbAcer4 a goodPearG d whwasatdiwemWittehimatobkrvcd. a Hvingarneeymrpofttelig day, aseepyof of the lr.Aprivytcoeadl are to Itein Let.dotsir that hd arery psrtaiTeltzc: ad a-byliian be- a letter, A. fgid 0. Godo. allertingethat I was'coot:The tim6.0immnifierbngdetinedeaps +LLr~ra, hcfriPicobtrapqnc c rth o(-p .cdo of wWcniaWi inell4"X% th U jobs Ados, the lettr writ ., to cay thi e. his faoo ite incat'wa tirg fet for,he foundi it tohbe impi c9atelwith pt-poogrdoadrbeneletihalhhm h orrwler,tcryh hfaetnmas f.m bfc.ltcints foi rcowmwMigthcPo iuwg& orpolre, has his falary pAid his quatrI by the througb bhlebovtes, is pfl aot is wiU. in ndlented wih fuccrfs: bat the prcipue Cih e of pt dAdhaa, rthe Frstch aoafbfdlet ptoor e A I%e Tootb cnvneced the bnhbirry fathe of etasi" l e1form farridm of thetse eie of the ea No;cy4nfaul thmthe efeftofhe Voifor. whibbaofollows: O a k 1 A G 0 K S. Afmek it. Hes 3icilss ra.city' duty a hId a IsIba the henor of bring Inteoduced by 0 be. fdvc1clnfiVIV1100ieWtLhe dV OfAtiers. heat i quids=vs bymereeracd len. to hiod leorp w- A IRA A URN T. cordig to the dfptcesrrceived. rothir has Tc dn, in Boad.Mm. We Sega I eo BhreiU o y i been c o.cludeJup^ andindeed thete si ot uc oibocr~, Ithcuko crn - W~/ EN Too. an' p-caft yawhomr. ow to t icdt ollieeeboute whnre.IntheouaffeOfCOUC11f11011. hc"W st or them wie nobody inati but hoe. of teerb: sttwithldandiingwhich* the dep. I happsd to meitoa thaIbard from a gt pwnegr eogl.iwnb abunch of white foattemArl. rY cireed h ofefwih all the foreand rW th wahor n tw I haevmeitione to thepardes that e Ithe drt olrertoh d ofaatsr.Lappinga asydes. brei'msoa pol.fie naionrhetstsatowith a c Am*A lcsticbstor. aer.beatl, wasldabtf%h scitkNingthem Sly f llratr";-hemfacd aheday. teat bret tshe rench ambafidor. rsatftty pi&ureIfid mystel Toby- Se th.e rg hilider woutd confent to pay tOd.ous, Witboutany fatherithority the abofpbli. hdfual fueutio%Tii, ane badad leator. nete;b whichhedar@J todemied aderthe ame of foeayse. I cavebe woldto judge hofwr cy jr:.ts he Wou'd ure ll the force of hs ousalf bit l 14d? #aeduftt corlcnt With Foprlety. -Shire wofrd, .in p-e yur eyener. frew r zot qury to 4c!cJ hit tu.as sitrft epiaci e I sin, q . os bamble ikvaoet tor, a. seil asfrm hairdhys sil C-te anci- OtAlistire .buttoocehimstorreom14"go MI T39 t7-. . TUITTS." I eut n tIe. ory ef shet-pom ficdleeflor Saissd.eeagedeaahy th orfa' I Do rrelafey h3s eilrlh fond hat waterbedl- which r'rtdmeslt a hetof dore. (aid rst oi:,nd L 0 X D 0 N. ArMi ?. til to the poduaio of infiammabe ar, rend that fomedinnalwlnter' soning. whbsyotor hoor ie Accostarg o the acaert seathe galleon-offie It tfial n when lnen"lhoeoMerl the burertheyithe to:dyou. withatheeieft of sptsr sothat theehasbeeen =gteiJrom Aaeiea UontAulty1C ootr thit they will Aitit i1s thd rtms ftory.fo ittak-rprf efit-. Inpecieth Is, deltanoffilver. ge. the rcucit. emdSfthe pcateft4e. *deevn irough thepore s Then do not foet,rrm. rhid myowesTcr. ftoufthelotw e peupwtdsofor l Astwo ofeihsfret Thisdi'niety. ltltho;bt uwill Anegrohatefoul. eo picafeyourbet, fad she 1budeejaslsp, ty td pe og Irtt. Ths beoreat importccesi tlb% hen btawbasofetbo opotal...douinngiy. So erte proof sot AmeliCli tetASadttbI Ss 1 m not muchvced, corrorat. qeor inW0 Cn, it !an tch Iticgreeso hsbecstInJ61bt 111911P 71f ooraI:trr frooIftgo. Aru er. Tary. In thirgeofthis ineb hee Pe-pe i. O 1 ; au'seJ, ein Orr ato debradeh rTAM of a Ther- preTheeoft eers,ilssoi tha iIstheBi wouldotleebl withoutonea,aiymr*thee rome oal lie n with thmb. e ofthea Rtesof Hond. the nmeandof " theore-.. coseeyolsee eae* PlehIr&, lasothkcitywll betiforldtoteprceftedt- -4a would be putnft6te fdl o emthebeea, olhe;LdaelarcMinYha . whic rchitod hoder ,ed sellot alffredthbthe Sndiboldrioefmol - aeeher. qeoth thorporl - ge erreysosolyutawtelitqa. s r taendly notflltoplobthe Ith o -My Itwrould, fldstouncleTby. ogalre ypinr ai-J lnelttlasof Mr. yo. ho h M the ts. o tean*[l revlewof te builhars. Why. tho. in' pleai our honvr, oa bto was of thEocy of ualtets. The Oilp bad the Tis 0II31 W06detCl y Ynet tke plI NGWIth@t mnchteoreo.-Lwotetlhn swh4eftI betlttoCt31Cteorenchrtmehaniasan the Afte the pmefce o h tillrehent h, wbe IoIs in fame cigw9noreur. fell sep arne* Toy- GPtheCtliC -deto Mr.YDeamAnted&osh . xm(wshoob)hJfta Is ackllrseEth*teysta t! i Only, crieda the corpwr, shing hird, be. Paof ii i. Atsteclokeof(the*Wsht-POIfM ogh UlgaCarbloosg""tt"yri t l steandee cfclhchaeooeeee to[ltanedsol forher- hi. A to *pr:# with ir sjtool. whichbefatbfilly ed f2lu Ir at on da. t'hatra0s thieryetut. qvothmyancle Thy, wic 6 Thes tisisaorWyclitfptroonmeofuectht. recommettsherto potection. anhr brethenwith ft-ad to6cwesetrr thesipsaiy T@ M ifthe rmAnnAcuntene salbroive oydnly the br__-*ij the eeutaoe*f war which his pt tahewhip ebiiod to dertifeISeIihePari0I Istg amte Iothg into out hand, how-where it ORGY bebreatr. Ifs to.1aIr0h dedilaoeit.be tecidedabe blkM tirsmIthtt"St0ee thies sl (Cleldhet vnknowrl bib whetteltwim, tebe,n Trees Wefkem chest tilnge Feo. Inhs slaekesep elapc"d)willgratiayftberttroope will notaue It uekirdy.P him tilat t sw 000" to tothatofugrocht, toaksethe horlhoes fiti o GI od (,1if arid 11wrtemptroee!.MUca,fefilooed isare Iss. w a fociety4 - I&II&Chis, had upoe his heart 1'Prrr kItnIA InthatreamssFortof010KO, the prvtncefUmlit hsout a fu11Citnoe I Up eisC!Tobym Iyywiihb speshi.hOt. 1106erooko IlegewspmyatmPtieirksi , fee fihocb 1T a1 FIRST PAGE OF THE THIRD ISSUE OF THE "(PITTSBURGH GAZETTE)) Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society and the "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" Western Pennsylvania For nine years the Pittsburgh Gazette was the only newspaper in western Pennsylvania. It acted not only as a pioneer in its region but as an agent for the spread of the press still farther west, for in the spring of 1787 the brother of an editor who planned to establish a press in Lexington, Kentucky, spent some months in Scull's office learning the trade of printer, and in June he sailed down the Ohio carrying with him to the Kentucky printing office types that he had bought from Scull. Between 1795 and I8oo, inclusive, were founded in Pennsylvania west of the mountains the Western Telegraphe, a Fed- eralist journal, and the Herald of Liberty, a Democratic paper, at Washington; the Federalist Fayette Gazette at Uniontown; the Farmers Register, of Jeffersonian sympathies, at Greensburg; and the Tree of Liberty, a Democratic organ, at Pittsburgh. A German edi- tion of the Farmers Register, the first German paper published west of the mountains, made its appearance at Greensburg. In the first twelve years of the new century other papers appeared in the larger towns to compete with journals already in existence there, and the frontier of the press in western Pennsylvania was extended to the north and to the southeast of the first centers of printing. Three new journals were founded at Washington and two at Pittsburgh; and Greensburg acquired a Federalist paper. Towns in which papers were first established during this period were Browns- ville, with three journals; Somerset, with one paper printed in Ger- man and one in German and English; Beaver, with two journals; and Bedford, Meadville, Erie, and Mercer, with one apiece. Two of these early newspapers are still in existence-the Wash- ington Reporter (now the Observer-Reporter, a daily) and the Bedford Gazette; two of them, the Pittsburgh Gazette and the Com- monwealth, were ancestors of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; and one, the Farmers Register, was an ancestor of the Westmoreland Demo- crat. A few of the others survived for periods of from thirty to thirty- five years, but most of them were very short-lived. The papers were all weeklies; each issue was a sheet of four pages, usually smaller than those of the modern "tabloid." The largest sheet before I8iz was that of the Crawford Weekly Messenger of Meadville, seventeen by twenty inches, and the smallest to be published for any length of time was that of the reduced Farmers Register, nine and a half by thirteen inches. On the first page were usually advertisements 378 Intellectual Life and foreign news, and on the second page appeared frequently a news- letter from the East, containing information mainly political. The rest of the paper consisted of political polemics, literary effusions, recipes, hints on the treatment of diseases, notices of meetings, more advertisements, and sometimes articles puffing the town or the region served by the journal. Although the foreign news was from four to seven months old and the domestic news from Philadelphia about a month old, the journals kept their readers in touch with and in- terested in events outside the western region. Much of the other ma- terial, also, was clipped from exchanges and reflected eastern rather than indigenous culture; and some residents of the region subscribed for journals published in Philadelphia and other eastern cities. There was little local news in the early journals, save articles describing formal celebrations of such holidays as Washington's Birthday and the Fourth of July. Local events can be inferred, how- ever, from advertisements and notices of meetings. Perhaps the early editor felt that in a small community, where everyone knew as well as the editor what had happened, was happening, and might be expected to happen, there was no need for the publication of local news. Per- haps he was merely too busy to write local items. The editor was al- most invariably the printer; he was also the advertising agent, the subscription manager, and the purchasing department. That the problem of securing supplies was difficult at first is indi- cated by the fact that Scull reduced the size of some issues of the Gazette because of scarcity of paper and several times was forced to borrow or buy from the army commissary cartridge paper on which to print his journal. The paper mill established near Brownsville in 1797 was no doubt partly responsible for the mushroom crop of jour- nals that sprang up soon thereafter, but during the summers, when the water was too low for the mill to operate, the Genius of Liberty and doubtless other journals were forced to stop publication pending rains and high water. The financial difficulties of the newspapers are frequently in evi- dence. In the Pittsburgh Gazette of the early years are many notices from the editor requesting subscribers in arrears to settle their bills and thanking those who had paid. The Commonwealth in 1809 car- ried a caustic notice to subscribers: "Such as intend to pay, the edi- tor hopes will pay soon-and such as do not intend to pay, or who 379 Western Pennsylvania lowed, but it was not long before the Iroquois equipped themselves with firearms from the Dutch and turned the tables. In the decade from 1640 to 1650 the Iroquois completed their conquest of the Huron and forced them to flee from their country east of Lake Huron to the region beyond Lake Michigan. Some of the Huron who made sub- mission were adopted by the Iroquois-a favorite practice with this nation to recruit its man power after serious wars. With the Huron problem settled, the Iroquois were ready to ex- tend their conquests. The Neutral Indians, an Iroquoian tribe living on both sides of the Niagara River, were destroyed or made captive because, although they had, true to their tradition, remained neutral in the Huron-Iroquois strife, they had received kindly many refugee Huron after the Iroquois conquest. Next the Iroquois turned their attention to the Erie, with whom relations were strained because they too had succored and protected several thousand fugitive Huron. In 1653 the Erie sent to the Seneca thirty ambassadors to confirm the peace existing between the tribes. One of the ambassadors, whether intentionally or not, killed a Seneca Indian. Here was an early Sara- jevo incident-the Seneca immediately retaliated by attempting to kill the whole Erie embassy and actually killed all but five, who escaped. When these refugees brought the news to their tribesmen, the Erie realized that war was inevitable. They struck first: burned a Seneca town and attacked a Seneca expedition homeward bound through Erie territory. Next they captured Annenraes, a loved and honored Onondaga chief, taking him prisoner before he even knew that war had broken out between his people and the Erie. In an attempt at a politic gesture, the Erie chiefs gave Annenraes to a mother who had lost her son in the ill-fated embassy, hoping that her adoption of An- nenraes would bring peace between the tribes. To their consternation, she refused to adopt him and ordered him put to torture. Indian law and etiquette could find no alternative, and Annenraes was duly burned at the stake. Raging for revenge, Iroquois war parties soon reached Rique, an Erie town generally thought to have been at or near the present site of Erie. Before this fortified village the Iroquois demanded complete surrender and when the Erie refused they stormed the place. The Onondaga, bent on avenging their chief, entered the village and turned 24 Western Pennsylvania subscribed with the intention never to pay, are desired to let us know, as soon as possible, that such is their intention." After the establish- ment of paper mills in the region the average subscription rate was two dollars a year. Advertisements then as now helped to swell the revenues of the paper. Advertisements not exceeding "a square" were inserted three times for a dollar, and larger ones at proportionate rates. Though advertisements took up from a third to a half of the space in the early journals, it is doubtful if they brought in revenue relatively as great as that which the modern newspaper derives from its smaller proportion of space devoted to advertisements. Some of the early journals had a surprisingly extensive, though not necessarily a large, circulation. By 1790 the Pittsburgh Gazette was widely distributed among the sixty thousand inhabitants of Alle- gheny, Fayette, Washington, and Westmoreland counties. The Farmers Register served, among other places, New Alexandria, Con- nellsville, Mount Pleasant, the Ligonier Valley, and the "Forks of the Yough." Its German edition had subscribers in Uniontown, Pitts- burgh, Washington, and Morganza; and across the mountains in Strasburg, Greencastle, and Chambersburg. The Commonwealth of Pittsburgh was circulated in almost every county of western Penn- sylvania; it was received in the Panhandle of Virginia, found its way back east to Carlisle, and had subscribers in Detroit. The circulation of the Mirror of Erie, small though it was, extended to Chautauqua in New York, to Meadville and Mercer, and as far south as Butler. The early newspapers were, of course, not perfect mediums for the transmission and diffusion of culture. Though the style of Scull and many other editors was certainly as good as most modern editorial style, very little of the material in the early papers could pass as belles-lettres. Prose was now too stilted, now too rhetorical, now far too flowery in comparison with the better prose of the day; poetry often dripped with sentimentality or swelled with flatulent bombast; political polemics were more notable for personal virulence than for reasonable argument. Measured by sophisticated standards, very few of the papers contributed much to intellectual uplift; but, measured in relation to the opportunities of the people they served, they are far from negligible. The early establishment of newspapers, probably more than anything else, kept the inhabitants of the region in in- tellectual contact with one another and with the outside world. 380 Intellectual Life Even in the early days western Pennsylvania had its writers, and the newspaper press was of course their first medium of publication. The verse contributed to the newspapers by local poetasters was in general of rather poor quality and was printed either unsigned or under pen names. Many poems are humorous treatments of such sub- jects as domestic life and the weather. Serious poems celebrate virtue, liberty, and the peopling of the West. A poem on this last topic, prob- ably locally written, concludes: Ohio, on thy fertile shores Those beautious scenes in embryo lye, Or faint the infant prospect pours With smiling lustre on the eye. But thy rich banks, in future days, Shall wake the poets sounding lyre; From thy gay fields he'll pluck the bays, And sing with animated fire. The two outstanding local writers of poetry for the newspress were "The Scots-Irishman," David Bruce, and "The Recluse," the Rever- end Robert Patterson. Bruce printed frequently in the Western Tele- graphe verses written in the tradition of Burns, with the simplicity and force of the Scottish dialect. Most of his poems were political satire, directed at such supporters of Democracy and France as Brack- enridge and Albert Gallatin. Other poems treat of the joys of bachelor- hood, the whiskey jug, and frontier experiences and conditions. In i80o a collection of Bruce's verse was published in book form in Wash- ington. Robert Patterson was principal of the Pittsburgh Academy from 1807 to 18io, proprietor of a bookstore and a paper manufactory from I8Io to 1836, and during most of this time preacher at the Hi- lands Church, some seven miles from Pittsburgh. He frequently sent verse to the Gazette, and in 1817 he published under his pseudonym a book of collected poems. Patterson's verse was smoother and more "literary" than Bruce's, though less spirited. One of the best of his poems, significant because it implies a circle of readers familiar with the original, is a "Parody of Gray's Celebrated Elegy... Scene-Semi- nary Range." In another interesting production the poet and the type- setter combine to give an impression of George Washington's emi- nence: 381 Western Pennsylvania High Above The broad base Of vulgar dust, Washington descry Raised by a people's love, In whose fatherly embrace Is closely lodged a nation's trust. Point of that great Pyramid, whose height Renders conspicuous every act of thine, Rather be mantled in the shades of night, Than trust thy aged feet upon the steep decline. Though others round the extensive base securely stray, How great thy fall should one false step o'ertread the narrow way! Another important local writer was William Findley, a representa- tive of Westmoreland County in the state legislature and later for many years a member of Congress. In the eary period he engaged in a number of protracted newspaper controversies with Hugh Henry Brackenridge. Findley's published books and pamphlets deal with political and patriotic subjects; he wrote a history of the Whiskey Insurrection and a curious philosophical, religious, and patriotic miscellany entitled Observations on "The Two Sons of Oil": Contain- ing a Vindication of the American Constitutions and Defending the Blessings of Religious Liberty and Toleration, against the Illiberal Strictures of the Rev. Samuel B. Wylie. This book of 378 pages was printed in Pittsburgh in 1812 and was an answer to a sermon by a Philadelphia Covenanter, printed in Greensburg in 1803, which de- clared that the true Christian could not yield obedience to civil au- thority because the federal constitution did not "even recognize the existence of God" and the state constitution permitted freedom of worship. Hugh Henry Brackenridge, easily the most distinguished of the early western writers, made frequent contributions to the Gazette, many of which were issued in book form in I8o6 as Gazette Publica- tions. These range in subject matter from rhapsodies on the beauties of Pittsburgh to political satires, poems, and serious though not al- ways temperate discussions of current political issues. Besides his early literary experiments with heroic verse, the novel, and plays, Brackenridge wrote treatises on legal subjects and a history of the 382 Intellectual Life Whiskey Insurrection, in part an apologia. His literary bent, however, was for satire, and is best exemplified in his novel, Modern Chivalry, the third volume of which was published in Pittsburgh in 1793 and was the first book printed west of the mountains. This novel is a plotless but highly entertaining work of the pica- resque type, reminiscent partly of Smollett and partly of Cervantes. Its central character, Teague O'Regan, the illiterate Irish servant of Captain Farrago, affords opportunity for Brackenridge's satire on the ignorance and excesses of the unlettered voter and on the snobbery and toadyism of higher society, while the author supplies a running commentary, sometimes in his own person and sometimes through Captain Farrago. As the gallant captain and his servant travel about through Pennsylvania, Teague gets into humorous scrapes and the captain gets him out of them. In one episode they form a new state on the extreme frontier, and Farrago is elected governor. Although "some thought there were typographical errors enough in the world," a newspaper called the "Twilight" is established because "the pas- sions having their vent in a gazette, saves battery and bloodshed." A treaty with the Indians is held, in which Teague as commissioner negotiates with "Red Jacket, Blue Jacket, Yellow Jacket, Rattle- snake, Terrapin, Half Moon, and Half King.... The bulwark of the Christian religion underhandedly, by means of traders, who passed for Indians, having assumed their dress, and could speak something of their language, secretly opposed the treaty; but with the aid of a few kegs of whiskey, it was carried against them." Interspersed with Brackenridge's satire are realistic descriptions of the life and environ- ment of the day. Brackenridge's son, Henry Marie, was also a writer of some distinc- tion. His Views of Louisiana, History of the Late War, and Voyage to South America were published in Pittsburgh in I8Iz, 1815, and 1818 respectively, and his Recollections of Persons and Places in the West, published later, is rich in historical material. Sally Anderson Hastings, another writer, at the age of twenty-seven removed in i8oo from Lan- caster to a farm near Cross Creek, in Washington County. From 1805 to 1807 she was again in eastern Pennsylvania, and then, returning to Washington, she kept house for her brother, Robert Anderson, sheriff of Washington County, until her death in I82z. Her book of poems, together with "A Descriptive Account of a Family Tour to 383 Western Pennsylvania the West; in the Year, 18oo00," was published in Lancaster in 18o8, and its list of subscribers includes many good Presbyterians of Lan- caster and Donegal, as well as of Washington County. The poetry, though conventional, is readable; but more significant at the present day is the account of her journey and of her impressions of people and places on the road. Few works of belles-lettres were published in the region before 1815. Volume 3 of Modern Chivalry seems to have been a lone exception in Scull's publishing ventures. His output consisted chiefly of sermons and catechisms, and possibly spelling books and arithmetics. Cramer's publishing, too, was largely in the religious field, with the addition of a few travel accounts, such as those of Cuming and Ashe, and of the notable series of Cramer's Pittsburgh Almanack and his Ohio and Mississippi Navigator. Altogether, from I8oo to the end of the year 1815, Cramer's firm published about seventy books and pamphlets- no mean accomplishment for any American publisher of the day. The Pittsburgh Almanack was issued yearly beginning presumably in 18oi. Scull had printed almanacs earlier, but his efforts were quite overshadowed by Cramer, who printed not only an almanac but, beginning in 1803, a Magazine Almanack as well, the latter a consid- erably larger and more elaborate book, with literary selections, some culled from eastern sources and some locally written. In 18I I Cramer began publication also of a series of the Louisiana and Mississippi Almanack, which differed from the Pittsburgh almanacs only in changes in calculations for the different locality. In i8Iz Patterson and Hopkins began a series entitled the Pittsburgh Town & Country Almanac for Rogues and Honest Folks. The next year Patterson pub- lished under the title of the Honest Man's Almanac, and then for the three further issues he resumed the first title. The earliest edition of Cramer's Navigator to have been preserved, that of I8oz, mentions "two large previous editions," which dealt only with the Ohio, including of course the Allegheny and the Mononga- hela. Cramer announced in the spring of 18oz that shortly there would be added to the Ohio Navigator "The Navigation of the Mississippi (with an account of the Missouri)." In the various issues of the Navi- gator Cramer included not only directions for navigating the rivers but also descriptions of various river towns and statistics of their population, trade, and industries. In I8o6 he added a description of 384 Intellectual Life Louisiana; in 1807 he published separately the Journal of Patrick Gass, the first printed account of the Lewis and Clark expedition. From this journal he drew the material on the Missouri and Columbia rivers that appears in the Navigator of i8o8. The most elaborate work that Cramer published was the Diction- ary of the Holy Bible by the Reverend John Brown of Haddington, Scotland, which was issued in 1807 as the "Second American Edition" and again in 1811 as the "Second Pittsburgh Edition." The 1807 edi- tion, in two leather-bound volumes, contains 1,376 pages and is illus- trated with twenty-six maps and plates, the work of a Philadelphia engraver. The subscription price was six dollars, and some twenty- two hundred subscribers, including Thomas Jefferson, are listed in the work. Those from Washington County were the most numerous; then came those from Allegheny, Fayette, Westmoreland, Butler, Beaver, Greene, and Mercer counties in the order named. Persons in Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee subscribed for a fourth of the total number of copies-an interesting sidelight on the extent of Cramer's "trade territory." Two literary magazines, made up largely of the lucubrations of their editors and excerpts from other publications were launched in Pittsburgh near the end of the frontier period. The first of these, which appeared in 1812, was the Pioneer, a monthly in the style of Addison, edited by the Reverend David Graham; and the other was the Western Gleaner, founded by Cramer in 1813 as a "repository for arts, sciences and literature." Each of these magazines lived but a short time. A carefully prepared list of Pittsburgh imprints notes a few more than a hundred titles published before 1816. About one-fourth are sermons and religious books (to which should be added, perhaps, six catechisms and one hymnal), and another fourth are almanacs. There are twelve publications, mostly short pamphlets, dealing with politi- cal and legal matters, eight editions of Cramer's Navigator, six school textbooks, four biographical works, four travel accounts, one direc- tory, one book on science-Aigster's introductory lecture on chemis- try, with a syllabus of the course-and only eight books that can be classified as belles-lettres. The first pieces of literature not of local authorship to be published were Allan Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd, issued in 18z12 by Patterson and Hopkins, and Goldsmith's Vicar of 385 Western Pennsylvania Wakefield, published in the same year by Cramer, Spear, and Eich- baum. In 1813 the latter firm brought out the Poetical Works of Gold- smith and Pope's Essay on Man. In the early period the publication of books west of the mountains was fostered by the facts that high freight rates added materially to the cost of books from the East and that books were perishable articles subject to damage in wagon trans- portation. The type of book published was doubtless determined partly by popular demand and partly by a consideration of what books could be produced without too great expense. The reading of the people of western Pennsylvania more than a cen- tury ago was not, however, necessarily confined to the newspapers and the few works published or written in the region. Private li- braries were early available, and a bookstore and circulating library was established near the turn of the century. It is impossible, of course, to determine how many of the people read books or what type of read- ing matter was preferred; but advertisements and records of sales reflect a larger interest in belles-lettres, law, and the classics than is implied in the local publications. Copies of Pope and Sterne were advertised as having been lent in 1787, and lists of private libraries to be sold at auction in 1797 included such authors as Hume, Smollett, Locke, Dr. Johnson, Pope, and Gibbon. Bookstore advertisements frequently listed Paine's works, Moore's travels, Morse's geography, Peter Pindar's poems, the Bible, and biographies of American heroes. The bookstore and library business was precarious, even in Pitts- burgh. In 1788 John Boyd, Scull's partner in the Gazette, tried to establish a circulating library. He advertised that as soon as a hundred subscribers could be procured, he would furnish "all the new publica- tions of America, the different Magazines, Museums, &c. throughout the continent, and all the political or other pamphlets, published in, or interesting to, the state of Pennsylvania." About two weeks later Boyd committed suicide; whether or not because of the failure of his plans for a library is unknown. In 1798 John Gilkison, a relative of Brackenridge, set up in a wing of Brackenridge's house the first bookstore and rental library in west- ern Pennsylvania. During the year he apparently sold forty-six books or sets of books, with history, philosophy, lawbooks, and textbooks in Greek and Latin making up the bulk of sales. Three copies of Mod- ern Chivalry were sold, and three other novels. Authors familiar to 386 Intellectual Life the modern reader are Coke, Blackstone, Hume, Goldsmith, and William Godwin. Thirty-three items during the year's accounts are listed as "to hire of books" or "to reading," but the only titles men- tioned are The Fool of Quality and Rollin's History. In 18oo00 Gilkison died, and Brackenridge, who had financed him, sold his stock to Cramer, Pittsburgh's second bookseller and librarian. After purchasing the stock, Cramer advertised the eight hundred mis- cellaneous volumes for sale. By I809 he had a much larger stock. In the Magazine Almanack for I8Io a list of Cramer's books for sale takes up eight double-column pages. Two pages are devoted to re- ligious titles, one page to lawbooks, one to plays, maps, and prints, and one to children's books and textbooks. The other three pages are devoted to the classics, philosophy, history, and belles-lettres, with Shakespeare, Locke, and the chief English writers of the eighteenth century well represented, and with Boileau, Kotzebue, and Goethe also offered. The publisher Carey of Philadelphia invaded the book- selling business in Pittsburgh, and in I809 he advertised his stock for sale at a ten per cent discount. After Cramer had left Pittsburgh, John M. Snowden established a bookstore in the spring of I812, but in time Robert Patterson's shop, which was opened in 18o0, became the chief bookstore in Pittsburgh. Cramer, with characteristic business acumen, advanced the circu- lating library considerably. He instituted membership fees, and dur- ing the first six months of his administration of the library the num- ber of its members was almost doubled. It is not certain how long Cramer's library continued. A circulating library is mentioned in the Gazette of I813, and in 1814 the "Pittsburgh Library Company," which Cramer had organized, was merged with another library com- pany to form the "Pittsburgh Permanent Library." Some of its sub- scribers "deposited on loan a certain number of volumes which, in addition to those that have been purchased, amount to about zooo" -according to the Pittsburgh directory of 1815. In 1816, however, a traveler commented that although the library was said to contain this number he found only five hundred-"well-chosen," however, "and of the best editions." Libraries are known to have been organized at a few other places during the period: at Fredericktown, Washington County, in 1795; at the Welsh settlement near the present Ebensburg in 1798; at 387 Western Pennsylvania Washington in 1811; and at Beulah, near the site of Wilkinsburg, in 1814. College libraries, now often an important part of the intellectual resources of their communities, were then almost negligible, although there were libraries at a theological school in Beaver County and at Jefferson and Washington colleges. As the college curriculum of the time included much more of the classics and religion than of science and modern literature it is likely that the larger groups in all these libraries were in the fields of Latin, Greek, and divinity. The most conscious attempt at the transplantation of culture to the western region was in the field of education. Naturally adopting the ideals of Europe concerning education, the colonials at first looked on schooling as a function not of the state but of the family and of the church; and the first schools of the region were established by parental or clerical initiative. It was found, however, that such a sys- tem did not work well in the new environment. Even in the East, diversity of race, language, and creed and the scattered distribution of the population made difficulties. In the West all these difficulties were intensified. Early provisions for colonial and state education in Pennsylvania reflect a pious hope rather than its realization. A clause in the Frame of Government of the colony providing for the establishment of com- pulsory universal education at the expense in part of parents was never really enforced, and its ideal was soon lost to view. A clause in the state constitution of 1776 providing for the public education of youth "at low prices" was nullified by the Revolutionary War. When the con- stitution of 1790 was being framed, William Findley, representing western sentiment, actively supported a proposal for free education for the poor, but his efforts were nullified by the revision of the sec- tion to read: "The Legislature shall, as soon as conveniently may be, provide by law for the establishment of schools throughout the State, in such a manner that the poor may be taught gratis." In practice it appeared that the poor could not be "conveniently" educated gratis for some time to come. Three state laws passed between i8oo and 18io attempted to provide for the teaching of poor children in exist- ing schools at the expense of the local government. These, however, partially failed of their purpose because many parents were unwilling to accept charity even in the form of education for their children. The educational theories of religious and racial groups in western 388 THE 4HALFWAY HOUSE NEAR BLAIRSVILLE A LOG HOUSE NEAR SEWICKLEY Illustrations from Stotz, "Early Architecture of Western Pennsylvania" The Indian Regime it into a shambles in such a massacre that the Jesuit Relations record that in some places the ground was knee-deep in blood. By 1656 the conquest of the Erie was completed, and, although the Iroquois suf- fered tremendous losses, the Erie were even more shattered. Those who survived either fled to the distant West or were adopted by the Iroquois. Thus the region of western Pennsylvania became an unin- habited country, claimed by the Iroquois by right of conquest and IROQUOIS MASKS To ward off evil spirits the Indians trusted whose members each spring and autumn as a rule to certain religious societies or donned grotesque masks and exorcised clubs. The best known society, though not from the village the demons responsible most important, was the False Face, for human disease. reserved by them as a hunting ground and a dismantled zone through which they could reach their enemies to the south and west. The first quarter of the eighteenth century saw changes in the region and the beginnings of a sparse Indian settlement. In eastern Pennsyl- vania the tribes were beginning to feel with discomfort the pressure of white advance from the seaboard. The various clans of the Delaware Indians, a tribe of Algonquian stock, which had formerly occupied most of what is now New Jersey and Delaware, part of Maryland, and the Delaware Valley in New York and Pennsylvania, had sold to the whites much of their territory. Indian conception of land ownership was always rather vague, but once the Delawares had permitted the newcomers to occupy the land they discovered that the white man's plow spoiled the Indian hunting grounds. 25 A BARN NEAR VINCO THE RHODES HOUSE NEAR McKEESPORT THE MORRIS TAVERN IN HOPWOOD THE BLOCKHOUSE IN PITTSBURGH THE MILLER HOUSE IN SOUTH PARK THE GANTZ HOUSE NEAR LONE PINE BUILT IN 1814 Illustrations from Stotz, "Early Architecture of Western Pennsylvania" Intellectual Life Pennsylvania varied considerably. The Quakers favored elementary schooling but were not much interested in higher education. Germans, both Catholic and Protestant, wanted education, especially religious and German. The Catholic Germans and some Protestant Germans desired higher education for the clergy. The Scotch and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians were determined to have elementary education in order that their children might be able to read the Bible. They also were wholly in sympathy with the demand of their church for higher edu- cation for the ministry-no Scot could respect a minister who was not learned! Others of less pietistic tendency argued for education as "favorable to liberty" and necessary for the existence of a free govern- ment. A writer in the Pittsburgh Gazette of 1787, pursuing this argu- ment, presented an elaborate plan for education in Pennsylvania, which provided for a university at the capital; for colleges in Philadel- phia, Carlisle, Lancaster, and Pittsburgh; for an academy in each county; and for free schools in each township or district of one hun- dred families. This writer (perhaps Brackenridge) urged the reserva- tion of sixty thousand acres of land to be divided twenty years later among the free schools and suggested in the meantime support by general taxation. The first schools in the West were established by the initiative of private individuals, of parents desiring education for their children, of persons thinking themselves qualified to teach, and of church bodies wishing to give both religious and secular education to the children of their members. Doubtless before any schools were established in the region, parents taught their children what they could at home, although they must often have lacked time and teaching ability. As local churches were organized, they almost invariably made provision for schools in or near their buildings. These church schools were doubtless superior to any others of the early day, for the teachers in them were either the ministers or, among the Lutherans and Catho- lics, persons selected by the clergy and with education superior to that of the usual itinerant frontier schoolmaster. As early as 1772 a group of German Lutherans established a school at the Herold settlement near Greensburg, with Balthaser Meyer, their lay preacher, as school- master. In Washington County, three Presbyterian ministers, John McMillan at Chartiers, Thaddeus Dod at Ten Mile, and Joseph Smith at Buffalo established between 1780 and 1790 schools that were 389 Western Pennsylvania chiefly elementary, though with occasional instruction in the classics and mathematics. Catholics had established schools in Unity Town- ship near Greensburg by 179o, at Waynesburg by 1798, and in the Gallitzin settlement near Loretto by 18oo. Most church schools were open to children not belonging to the congregations, but denominational prejudice probably prevented many parents from taking advantage of this opportunity. The church schools, moreover, were by no means accessible to all the children of the congregations. Families that could make a pilgrimage to a dis- tant church on the Sabbath often could not find means to send their children daily to the church or the school near it, and the "neighbor- hood school" offered an opportunity of education for such children. The first school of any sort in the region was probably the neighbor- hood school started at Pittsburgh in 1761. As recorded in a contempo- rary journal: "Many of ye Inhabitants here have hired a School Mas- ter & Subscrib'd above Sixty Pounds for this Year to him, he has about Twenty Schollars." This school was held at the house of Colonel James Burd, "on ye Hill without ye fort." There is a notice of a neigh- borhood school at Sewickley Creek near Greensburg about 1780. Such schools were usually formed when opportunity came, in the person of a possible schoolmaster. The meager salary of the teacher was col- lected by assessments on the patrons, but the children of parents unable to pay tuition were usually admitted without charge. Although these were "pay" or "subscription" schools, they were the foundation of free education in the state. By no means all the children of the region were reached by church or neighborhood schools. As late as 1816 a traveler stopping at an inn some twenty or thirty miles south of Meadville on the road to Pitts- burgh saw "a smart little boy, of ten or twelve years of age," who said that he had never gone to school. The traveler adds, "We think no child, back along this road for thirty miles, would declare the reverse; and we draw this inference from seeing no building which we could believe to be a school house." It should be remembered, however, that in many ways the frontier home offered valuable education. The in- dustries carried on there, in which the children took part, taught them manual skills and co6peration with others, and the close association of children with their parents in their work must have tended to bring an early maturity of thought and action. 390 Intellectual Life The typical frontier schoolhouse was a rude log cabin not unlike the dwelling houses of the settlers. Such a structure as a rule had a puncheon floor and windows contrived by leaving out one log for the entire length of each side of the building and covering the aperture with greased paper. The older children, called "writers," faced the windows and wrote on a shelf running around the sides of the building. The little children sat in the middle of the cabin, on benches with neither backs nor footrests. In the elementary schools of the region (other than the foreign- language schools) the texts first used were books written in England and republished in Philadelphia, such as Dilworth's Schoolmaster's Assistant-an arithmetic-and Lindley Murray's grammar and read- ers. An early textbook published in the region was Dilworth's spelling book, printed by Colerick, Hunter, and Beaumont in Washington in 1796. In 1811 Patterson and Hopkins published in Pittsburgh an abridgement of Murray's grammar, and in 1813 Cramer's firm brought out the same author's Sequel to the English Reader. The grammar, reader, and spelling book of Noah Webster, published in New England, were not widely used in the region. The most popular "speller" was the United States Spelling Book, by "sundry experi- enced teachers," the fourteenth edition of which was published in Pittsburgh in 1816. Michael Walsh's New System of Mercantile Arithmetic was reprinted four times in Pittsburgh between I8o6 and 1814. Special but often ephemeral facilities for elementary education were available, mainly in the towns, for those who could afford them. Brackenridge and doubtless a few other well-to-do citizens hired pri- vate tutors for their children. Gilkison, Henry Marie Brackenridge's tutor, includes an item in his accounts for 1799, "for part of a quarters schooling learning french." In 18o02 an advertiser in the Pittsburgh Gazette offered his services, including instruction in French, as tutor in a country family. Private schools were set up by individuals in the towns. In 1788 Thomas Tousey advertised his school in Pittsburgh "at the House of Mr. M'Nickel, in Front street," and announced his curriculum to be "the Latin Language, Reading English Grammati- cally, Writing, and Arithmetic." Other individuals advertised similar schools at Pittsburgh, Greensburg, Hannastown, Pleasant Hill, Wash- ington, and Somerset. Although some of these and other schoolmas- 39' Western Pennsylvania ters professed to teach Latin and mathematics, it is doubtful if any of their schools were much more than elementary; at least their pres- ence in the region did not prevent activity in the establishment of academies. Other schools in the towns were evening schools-an early step toward "adult education"-writing schools, fencing schools, and the schools of dancing and music noted in another chapter. In- struction in French was frequently offered. In the country districts girls were admitted with boys to the ele- mentary schools; it remained for the towns to provide separate "fe- male education." The first school announcement in the Pittsburgh Gazette is that of Mrs. Mary Pride's school for young ladies. In 1786 Mrs. Pride was prepared to teach "Plain Work, Coloured ditto, Flowering, Lace, both by the bobbin & needle, Fringing, Dresden, Tabouring, and Embroidering. Also, Reading English, and knitting if required." Her school was still in operation in Pittsburgh in 1815, and at least two other schools for girls were then in existence at that place. None of the few girls' schools established before 1816 offered more than the elementary subjects, together with music, drawing, sewing, and French. Emphasis was laid on the acquirement of domes- tic arts and graces. In 1814 a schoolmistress of Allegheny offered to "take twelve young ladies to board." They were to be taught "to cut, make, & repair their own clothes"; they might visit their parents once a week but might "receive no young visitors, unless attended by a servant." The cost of board was $125 a year, and tuition was four dollars a quarter, with extra fees for music and drawing. In I815 a Young Ladies' Seminary was advertised in the Gazette, with tuition rates at five to eight dollars a quarter and with a curriculum of French, drawing, music, geography, "Ancient and Modern History," em- broidery, and "Elements of Polite Literature." Despite the establish- ment of a few boarding schools, the day of real secondary and higher education for "females" was yet far off, and articles in the newspapers poking fun at the "bluestocking" indicate that the males at least were quite content to have it so. Like the elementary schools, the academies of the region came into being in various ways, and the best of them during the period were those that resulted from civic or denominational efforts and had the support of influential citizens or religious bodies. Washington and Jefferson academies grew out of the elementary schools founded by 392 Intellectual Life Smith, Dod, and McMillan, which were coardinated efforts at in- stituting education in the region and temporary expedients to prepare the way for higher education. In 1782 McMillan was teaching Greek and Latin at his school near Canonsburg, though elementary instruc- tion was also given. Five years later the three clergymen joined with others to secure a charter for Washington Academy, and in the spring of 1789 the school was opened with Dod as principal and with twenty or thirty students. A notice in the Pittsburgh Gazette in the fall of that year announced that "David Johnson, A. M. late Teacher of the English Language in the University of Pennsylvania, has accepted the same Office in Washington Academy." Dod continued to teach the learned languages and mathematics. Tuition rates were twenty- five shillings a year, and boarding was available "in reputable houses at about thirty dollars for the year." The notice points out that "the established reputation of the Masters, gives the most favorable pros- pects of the growth of Learning, Morality and Religion in this Semi- nary." Meanwhile McMillan's school near Canonsburg continued its ac- tivities. The thrifty and strictly Presbyterian farmers who were its patrons desired more advanced education for those of their sons destined for the ministry and were willing to make sacrifices for the realization of their educational and religious ideals. In 1791 the court- house at Washington, in which the Washington Academy classes were held, was burned down, and the school was temporarily closed. While the citizens were moving rather slowly in finding a site in Washing- ton for an academy building, Colonel Canon provided a site and advanced some of the funds for a stone academy building at Canons- burg. Subscriptions taken among the neighboring farmers included grain, whiskey, linen, and small sums of money. The building was opened with appropriate ceremony in July, 179i-and with one stu- dent, Robert Patterson, who later graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and entered the ministry. Piqued at the action of the Canonsburg group at a time when their own academy was suspended, Washington citizens refused to aid the Canonsburg project and later bought a site, now part of the Washington and Jefferson College campus, and erected a building of their own. In 1791 the Presbyterian Synod of Virginia provided for a school in Washington County under the supervision of the Redstone Presby- 393 Western Pennsylvania tery and under the direct guidance of John McMillan. This was ap- parently a recognition of McMillan's school already in operation at Canonsburg and a formal indorsement of it as a Presbyterian school. The learned languages, "the usual circle of sciences," and religion were to be taught, and the synod was to defray the expenses of able but needy students who were candidates for the ministry. The synod urged "the pious and benevolent" to give for this purpose and re- quired that youths so educated should agree to refund the money after graduation. With such support, Canonsburg Academy forged ahead rapidly. Pittsburgh was not to be outdone by its rivals in setting up a school of academic grade. In 1785 the advent of the Reverend Samuel Barr, a graduate of the University of Glasgow, gave impetus to a movement for the establishment of an academy. Barr was ably seconded by Brackenridge, who, in an article in the Gazette the next year, set forth the advantages of an academy, cited a provision in the constitution of 1776 that schools should be erected in every county, and stated that the legislature should endow a school at Pittsburgh as a center of education for the western region. The school nearest to Pittsburgh, he said, was at Carlisle. In this statement he blandly ignored the schools at Washington and Canonsburg, perhaps because they were not yet chartered or perhaps because of their de- nominational character. After Brackenridge was elected to the legislature, he induced that body in 1787 to pass an act incorporating the Pittsburgh Academy, and he obtained a grant of land from the Penns for its site. The legis- lature made no provision for endowment, however, and Brackenridge and Findley in one of their periodic tilts in the Gazette, blamed each other for the omission. At the next session Brackenridge succeeded in getting a grant of five thousand acres of unappropriated land. This was later laid off in Lawrence and Butler counties, and between 18o6 and 1823 a total of about nineteen thousand dollars was realized from sales. A direct grant of five thousand dollars was made by the legis- lature in 1798. The twenty-one incorporators of the Pittsburgh Academy were men of standing and influence in the region; among them were six Presbyterian ministers (five of them graduates of Princeton), four former army officers, five lawyers, and two physicians. The more 394 Intellectual Life familiar names are those of John Gibson, Presley Neville, William Butler, Stephen Bayard, James Ross, David Bradford, Alexander Fowler, the Reverend Messrs. Barr, Finley, McMillan, and Smith, and Doctors Nathaniel Bedford and Thomas Parker. In 1788 ap- peared a notice in the Gazette calling the first trustees' meeting for March 18 "at the house of Mr. David Duncan in the town of Pitts- burgh... to consider of some business of importance." In April, 1789, the trustees announced that they had engaged George Welch as teacher, to begin instruction on April 13, and that children would be taught "the Learned Languages, English, and the Mathematicks." It is not possible to reconstruct completely the history of the Pitts- burgh Academy, as a fire in 1845 destroyed all the early records. Among the first principals of the academy were James Mountain, the Reverend John Taylor, the Reverend Robert Patterson, and the Reverend Joseph Stockton. From a Gazette notice of 1794 it appears that the trustees made provision for boarding at twenty pounds a year; so by that time the school must have been drawing students from out of town. Just when it changed from a "one-man school" to a school with more than one teacher is uncertain. In 1795, however, the Gazette notes that pupils "are to be taught to read English ac- cording to the most approved method, and English grammar; Writ- ing, Arithmetic, and Book-keeping; the Latin, Greek, and French Languages; Rhetoric, and the Belles Lettres; Geography, and the most useful parts of the Mathematics: to Which will be added an Intro- duction to Natural, Civil, and Ecclesiastical History, Astronomy, Natural Philosophy, Logic, Moral Philosophy, and Chronology"- a heavy teaching load for one man. In the next year the trustees appointed to the faculty Robert An- drews, a former teacher in the Royal Military and Marine Academy of Dublin. In outlining the curriculum, the trustees explained that "the lower classes will be taught Orthography agreeable to the stand- ards of the first taste," and that "Reading and a just pronunciation will be a peculiar object of Mr. Andrews personal attention." Mer- cantile arithmetic, navigation, and surveying were new subjects offered that must have appealed to western youths, but the trustees did not forget "the usual branches of classical education, with a suc- cinct view of the histories of Ancient Greece and Rome, as detailed by Rollin, Mellot, and Goldsmith." A concession to fashion is in- 395 Western Pennsylvania dicated by the statement that "a French and Dancing Master will also attend, for those who may wish their children instructed in those graceful parts of a polite education." Apparently the salaries paid to teachers reflected the somewhat insecure finances of the school; at least a writer to the Gazette in 1807 urged higher salaries and implied that the tuition should be raised to make these possible-"even in the mountains of Virginia tuition is rated at 40 and 50 dollars annually, while in Pittsburgh the same is expected for zo dollars!!" Financial difficulties are indicated sporadically throughout the period. A Gazette notice of 1793, for instance, warned persons who had subscribed for the academy build- ing to pay their subscriptions and threatened legal action against delinquents. In 181, in order to raise money, the trustees sold at a very low price a valuable piece of property on Smithfield Street, be- tween the present Second and Third avenues. At the turn of the century, when the northwestern part of the region was divided into new counties, the legislature began to take a more active interest in the establishment of academies. Thus in I8oo the surveyor general was directed to lay off five hundred acres near the town of Beaver to be used in aid of an academy at the county seat. The provisions for Crawford County named Meadville as the county seat on condition that the citizens or proprietors should raise four thousand dollars in money or land for an academy. To furnish part of this amount David Mead deeded to the trustees the blockhouse in which a school was then being held and the lot on which it stood. In 1805 the trustees erected a building; in 1807 the academy was incorporated; and three years later the legislature granted it an appropriation of one thousand dollars. An interesting phenomenon was the incorporation in i8oz of a female seminary at Meadville and a grant of one thousand dollars to it in i8o6, the only grant made for the education of girls before the institution of the public school sys- tem. The female seminary was closely affiliated with Meadville Academy; at the time the building for the latter was constructed, its trustees sold the old blockhouse lot for the benefit of the female seminary. The extension of state aid to new academies gave impetus to at- tempts at gaining such aid for schools already established. For ex- ample, the Union School, which had been established by Bishop As- 396 THE COLONEL EDWARD COOK HOUSE NEAR FAYETTE CITY BUILT 1772-76 THE JAMES MILLER HOUSE IN SOUTH PARK, ALLEGHENY COUNTY BUILT ABOUT 1808 Illustrations from Stotz, "Early Architecture of Western Pennsylvania" Western Pennsylvania Difficulties for the Delawares were increased by the fact that they had become subject to the Iroquois, according to the Iroquois by conquest, but according to the Delawares by trickery whereby the Iroquois persuaded the Delawares that that strong nation should dis- arm and act as peacemaker among the warring tribes. In the first quarter of the eighteenth century some of the Delawares began to migrate westward, settling at Wyoming on the Susquehanna River and at other points west of their original territory, including the especially important location of Shamokin, on the site of Sunbury. From these points it was a relatively easy journey to the headwaters MAKING A DUGOUT CANOE A fire was built around the base of a suitable lengths by the same process. The suitable tree, and when it was burned to outside of the boat was shaped with the some depth the felling was completed with ax and the inside was hollowed out by the a stone ax. The tree was then cut into use of fire and the stone adz. of the Allegheny; in fact, the first settlement of the Delawares upon that river, probably at Kittanning, is said to have been made as early as 1724, and from time to time other bands made their way across the mountains to western Pennsylvania and later to Ohio. Desire to re- move themselves from the white advance and to be more distant from the sovereign Iroquois was doubtless the main motive of the migra- tion. Another important and powerful tribe living in eastern Pennsyl- vania and crowded out bywhite advance in the eighteenth centurywas the warlike Shawnee. The Shawnee, Shawanoe, or Shawanese Indians, 26 6MOUNT BRADDOCK, 1 THE ISAAC MEASON HOUSE NEAR UNIONTOWN BUILT IN I802 PLANTATION PLENTY,9 THE ISAAC MANCHESTER HOUSE NEAR WEST MIDDLETOWN. BUILT IN 1815 Illustrations from Stotz, "Early Architecture of Western Pennsylvania" Intellectual Life bury at Uniontown in 1792 and had after a time been closed, was revived as an academy incorporated by the state in I8o8, with a grant of two thousand dollars. Greersburg Academy in Beaver County, which had been opened in I8o0 by the Reverend Thomas Hughes with the aid of the Erie Presbytery, was chartered by the legislature in I806 and given a grant of six hundred dollars. Whether or not this academy promulgated high thinking, it certainly gave its boarders plain living: for breakfast, "bread, with butter or meat and coffee"; for dinner, bread and meat with sauce; and for supper, bread and milk. About twenty academies in all were incorporated for the region before 1816, and most of them received some sort of state aid. Not all of them, however, were in operation at the end of the period. Figures for the enrollment in the early academies are not available; but, as secondary education was costly and as it was usually acquired only by those interested in entering the professions at a time when farming might be quite as profitable, it is not likely that the enroll- ment was impressively large. In almost every academy the curriculum was based on the tradi- tional "academic" educational practices familiar in the East. There was, however, in the West, an increasing emphasis on such subjects as mathematics and surveying, which would help the students to earn a living; and the classics were respected not only for the culture they provided but also for their direct vocational value in the case of future ministers and perhaps lawyers. Before 18oo modern science and mechanics were in their infancy, chemistry and electricity were just beginning to be investigated, and there was no machinery more complicated than that of the watch. Under these conditions it is not surprising that little attention was paid to science in the curriculums of the secondary schools. By 1815 two colleges had been established in western Pennsylvania, and two others were soon to be founded. In I802 Canonsburg Academy, under the principalship of the Reverend John Watson, a young Princeton graduate, became Jefferson College. Four years later Washington Academy emerged from the chrysalis as Washington College. Its students were not long in importing from the East "col- legiate" customs--or costumes; the boys wore as class uniforms flan- nel coats, green for the freshmen, blue for the sophomores, and red for the juniors; and the insignia for the seniors were top hats. The 397 Western Pennsylvania early catalogues show the costs of living at Washington College to have been from a dollar to nearly two dollars a week for board, fifty cents a month for laundry, three cents a bushel for coal, and half a shilling a pound for candles. Rates for room rent are not specified, but one needy student rented a room in the outskirts of town for twenty- five cents a week. The same strong Presbyterian influence that had molded the academies guided the destinies of these two colleges. The church trend is indicated by the fact that up to 1839, half the gradu- ates of Jefferson College had entered the ministry. The two other colleges in the region to be chartered before 18zo20 were Allegheny College at Meadville and the Western University of Pennsylvania at Pittsburgh. Allegheny College was founded on paper in 1815; was provided with a president, the Reverend Timothy Alden, in 1817; and was equipped with a building in I8zo. Of the colleges in the region, it was the only heir to the New England cultural in- heritance: its first president was the third of a line of Harvard gradu- ates; and its library, far surpassing those of the other colleges, repre- sented the New Englander's conviction of the necessity of books and was mainly gathered by Alden through donations from New England. In I819, seventeen years after Jefferson College was established, the legislature incorporated the Western University of Pennsylvania and transferred to it "all the property and rights and privileges of the Pittsburgh Academy." The name of the new institution embodied the prevalent sectional feeling in the word "Western" and the sec- tional desire to become as important as the East in the word "Uni- versity"-a misnomer for many years to come. There was little opportunity at this time for formal professional training in the region, except for the ministry, but even in the East a man then became a lawyer not by going to a law college but by "reading law" in the office of a practitioner of the profession. Though some western Pennsylvanians read law in the East, more went into the offices of local lawyers. The training of lawyers in the East dif- fered from that in the West chiefly in that a relatively larger propor- tion of the eastern aspirants for the profession took college degrees before beginning their professional training. In the medical profes- sion, the custom of apprenticing boys to surgeons and doctors was fol- lowed extensively both in the East and in the West. The medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, however, gave undoubtedly the 398 Intellectual Life best training available in America for the profession, and in 1814 the Pittsburgh Gazette recommended this school to prospective stu- dents. No professional training for teaching or for engineering was available anywhere at the time; indeed, the profession of engineering was in its infancy. For vocational aid the teacher relied on a general education with emphasis on mathematics and the classics; the engi- neer was schooled in mathematics and surveying. Beyond this, their training was to be had only in the school of professional practice. For the clergymen some training was available in the region. Mc- Millan sent some of his Canonsburg graduates to Princeton for college work and then took them back at Canonsburg to study theology with him. He also trained in the same way graduates of Canonsburg Acad- emy who had not had the advantage of college education. By the turn of the century many Presbyterian clergymen in Western Pennsylvania, especially in the frontier districts, had had their professional train- ing only from Canonsburg and from McMillan's theological lectures. In 1794 the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church established a theological seminary at Mill Creek (later Service), in Beaver County, with the local pastor as professor of theology. Within the next few years Service Seminary produced a number of ministers, most of whom remained in the West. Another institution that gave opportunity for college education in the West, although outside of western Pennsylvania, was Transyl- vania College at Lexington, Kentucky, founded in 1798. This college was advertised in the Pittsburgh Gazette in 18OO, but how many stu- dents it drew from western Pennsylvania is unknown. Throughout the early period, of course, a few sons of wealthy families went east to college, especially in cases where their fathers had had college edu- cations in the East. Morgan Neville and Henry M. Brackenridge, for instance, were sent to Princeton. It is safe to say, however, that the planting of academies and colleges in the region made education pos- sible for many who could not have taken advantage of opportunities for education elsewhere. The period under consideration represents only the beginning of cultural growth in the region, but it is interesting to note how many seeds were planted, and the diversification of the cultural crop. The general and necessary preoccupation with mere livelihood during the first part of the period had yielded to some extent and sometimes 399 Western Pennsylvania grudgingly to other interests: scientific curiosity had been awakened; newspapers had been established; books were being printed and read; libraries, though not yet free libraries, had been instituted; and schools, though not yet free schools, were available. Economic forces, as always, tended to affect cultural development. The establishment in the region of newspapers and of the publishing business, of higher schools and of colleges, was no doubt stimulated by the fact that transportation over the mountains was slow and expensive. The growth of libraries and the development of literary and scientific cul- ture, on the other hand, were perhaps hampered by the difficulty of procuring books published in the East, as well as by the fact that economic conditions had not yet operated to produce much wealth that could be spared from productive enterprise or much leisure for reading. Economic forces, too, were doubtless responsible for the fact that the new western culture was directed more definitely toward practical ends than was culture in older and more leisurely civiliza- tions. On the whole, however, it appears that the frontier environment exerted comparatively little influence on the type of cultural and in- tellectual activity that went on in the region. Aside from the subject- matter of a few of the poems and a part of Brackenridge's Modern Chivalry, the frontier apparently had no direct effect on creative writ- ing. The newspapers were very similar in character and content to those of eastern Pennsylvania, and, except for the Navigator, there was little that was distinctive about the books published or sold west of the mountains. In the field of education, despite the slightly greater emphasis on practical subjects, the methods and objectives remained almost identical with those that prevailed in the eastern part of the state. All the pioneers of culture, in fact, seem to have been bent on transmitting their cultural inheritances almost unchanged to the new region. There was, it is true, considerable diversity in these inherit- ances, and their projections were destined ultimately to influence one another and to be affected by the environment; but there was little that was indigenous about the intellectual culture of western Penn- sylvania prior to 1815. 400 xvII. Religion HE characteristics of the religious institutions and practices that developed in western Pennsylvania were, like those of the other aspects of life in the region, determined partly by in- fluences that flowed in from Europe and the East and partly by the frontier environment. The basic element in these influences was un- doubtedly the religious beliefs and habits that the settlers brought with them when they crossed the mountains to their new homes in the West, but those beliefs and habits were strengthened and developed by the conscious efforts of the governing bodies of the various de- nominations and were modified, sometimes temporarily, sometimes with permanent results, by the ever-present exigencies of frontier existence. A notable feature of the religious heritage of the immigrants was its great diversity. This was due in part to the fact that the settlers came either directly or indirectly from such widely separated regions as Ireland and Germany in the Old World, Virginia and New England in the New, and in part to the multiplicity of religious beliefs that prevailed in eastern Pennsylvania as a result of a similar diversity of origins and of the spirit of toleration that had been a striking charac- teristic of the province from its beginning. The isolation of frontier life and the resultant lack of opportunlity and incentive for maintain- ing religious observances tended, however, to weaken the interest of many of the settlers in what had been for them the orthodox expres- sion of a belief in God. A considerable proportion of them drifted away from organized religion and were never reclaimed by the church; others were easily drawn into the first denomination that began to function effectively in their communities. European influences were stronger in some denominations than in others. The Associate and the Reformed Presbyterian churches-bet- 401 Western Pennsylvania ter known as the "Seceders" and the "Covenanters"-clung so tena- ciously to the traditions of their churches in Scotland that, despite their small numbers, they persisted in organizing their own congrega- tions. Scottish influence was further exerted through the hierarchy of the governing bodies of these denominations. The regular Presby- terians, though adhering loyally to the basic principles of their de- nomination, became practically independent of Scotland when they set up the Synod of New York and Philadelphia in 1758 and entirely so when the constitution of the American church was drawn up in 1788. The European tradition was strong among the members of the Lutheran and the Reformed churches, nearly all of whom were Ger- mans, but their organizations were freed from European control soon after the Revolution. The same was true of the Episcopal Church, to which many of the settlers in western Pennsylvania had owed at least nominal allegiance before their migration. The Methodist Episcopal Church in America was of English origin but was independently or- ganized in 1784 in a form suited to frontier evangelization. Each Bap- tist church managed its own affairs, subject only to the advice and informal supervision of the "Association," but the Welsh and German Baptists may have maintained some contacts with European churches. The tie with Europe among the Catholics was necessarily strong, and the most effective Catholic worker in western Pennsyl- vania, the priest Gallitzin, was of Russian noble birth. The influence of the eastern part of the country on religion in the West was naturally more direct and more continuous than that of Europe. The religious ideas of most of the settlers had been molded in their old homes in the East, and the more devout of them wished to shape in the old pattern the religious institutions of the new region. The eastern presbyteries and synods of all the various Presbyterian denominations, the eastern Ministerium and Coetus of the German churches, the eastern bishops of the Catholic Church, all assumed at first some responsibility for work across the mountains. The mission- aries and the clergymen who first went out to the western region usually went by the orders or with the approval of some eastern church body; most of them had done some preaching in the East, and many of them had had their theological training there. Even after some denominations began to educate their own ministers in the West, the occasional candidate for the ministry who went east for his edu- 402 Religion cation was respected as especially well trained. Among the denomina- tions such as the Methodists and the Baptists which did not require formal training for the ministry, the self-made preachers of the West still had to look back across the mountains for licensing and ordina- tion. Thus, though the stream of religious influence flowing into the West had its fountainhead in Europe, it received most of its volume from the East. Moreover the stream did not cease to flow, despite the development of springs of religious influence within the region. The earliest religious services in the western country were per- formed by the Catholic priests and the Protestant ministers who accompanied the successive French and English military expeditions into the region and who, when called upon to do so, administered the last rites to the dying and performed marriages and baptisms among the Indians and the few civilians. Such men were Father Denys Baron at Fort Duquesne and Charles Beatty, who accompanied the Forbes expedition and preached the first Protestant sermon on the site of Pittsburgh. After the English title was made good, occasional Protes- tant missionaries to the Indians went into the region, preaching and performing the rites of the church for such settlers as they met. No regularly ordained minister, however, settled west of the mountains until 1776, and many of the earlier inhabitants had by that time lived so long without the authority of the church that the region had ac- quired a reputation of godlessness no doubt in part deserved. Minis- ters traveling through western Pennsylvania in the early period refer to it as a "frontier of depravity" and a region "far from God." There were, however, some local efforts on the part of the early settlers to provide religious services of a public nature. One of the first of these is reported from Fort Pitt in the diary of James Kenny of 1761. "Ye Soberer sort of People," Kenny wrote, "seemes to Long for some publick way of Worship, so ye School Master Reads ye Lit- tany & Common Prayer on ye first Days [Sundays] to a Congregation of different Principels (he being a Prisbiterant) where they behave very Grave (as I hear), on ye occasion ye Children also are brought to Church as they Call it." In rural districts, where persons of the same racial origin and consequently of similar religion tended to take up adjacent land, there were some spontaneous efforts at establishing religion. Thus by 1772 the Germans at Herold's settlement near Greensburg, some belonging to the Lutheran and some to the Re- 403 Western Pennsylvania formed Church, had united in a congregation under their school- teacher, Balthaser Meyer, who acted as lay preacher. The devout Scotch Presbyterians continued family worship in their own homes, and often several families living in the same neighborhood formed themselves into a "praying society," which was the nucleus for a later church. In many settlements, church buildings were erected some time before there were resident pastors, and the builders began to address petitions to synods and other church bodies east of the mountains, asking them to send out preaching "supplies." Meanwhile the Presbyterian Church in the East was not inactive. In 1763 the Synod of New York and Philadelphia recommended that each presbytery propose one or more of its candidates for service on the frontier, and made plans for financing such work. The Indian war prevented immediate activity, but in 1766 Charles Beatty and George Duffield preached at various places in the western region, including Fort Pitt and the town around it. They then went farther west and worked among the Indians. In 1768 the synod shifted the responsi- bility for western work to the Presbytery of Donegal; the next year it ordered the presbytery to supply the frontier "with ten sabbaths of ministerial labor"; and two years later it granted the presbytery fifteen pounds for missionary activities. In 1772 two New England Con- gregationalists, David McClure and Levi Frisbie, went to the western country with the intention of doing missionary work among the In- dians but decided instead to "spend some months among the vacant & new settlements" in western Pennsylvania, "where the numbers are daily increasing" and where on their westward journey they had preached to some "who had not heard a sermon for 14 years." A letter from the Presbytery of Donegal authorized McClure and Frisbie to preach in the region, and they ministered to a number of congrega- tions from Ligonier to Pittsburgh until June, 1773. Of their stay, McClure wrote, "We had the satisfaction ... of planting the seeds of some future churches, by forming several settlements into something like ecclesiastical order, during 7 or 8 months of our preaching among them." With the exception of a Baptist who went to the region as a farmer and was subsequently ordained to preach to a congregation of six members, the first clergymen to settle permanently in the region were the Presbyterians John McMillan, James Power, Thaddeus Dod, and 404 JOHN HECKEWELDER DEMETRIUS A. GALLITZIN DAVID ZEISBERGER JOHN McMILLAN The Indian Regime unlike the Delawares, were recent immigrants into the region. In the seventeenth century their principal habitat appears to have been the lower Ohio and Cumberland valleys, where they were attacked by the wide-ranging Iroquois. Some of them joined La Salle's Indian colony around Fort St. Louis in the Illinois Valley and others moved up the Tennessee Valley to Georgia and the southern coastal section. In 1692 a number of Shawnee accompanied by a Frenchman, Martin Chartier, who had been at Fort St. Louis, settled in Maryland near the mouth of the Susquehanna, and a few years later they moved up the river into Pennsylvania. Another band of Shawnee, said to number about seven hundred, accompanied Arnout Viele, a Dutch trader, on his return from the Ohio Valley in I694 and, having made their peace with the Iroquois, were permitted to dwell near their kindred, the Delawares, on the upper Delaware River. Later some of the Shawnee settled in the Wyoming Valley on the upper Susquehanna, where they were living at the time of the Delaware migration thither. Soon after the Delawares had established themselves in the upper Ohio region a band of the Shawnee crossed the mountains and settled on the site of Taren- tum at what was later known as Chartier's Town. Other bands fol- lowed, and by the close of the French and Indian War most of the tribe had left eastern Pennsylvania. About 1730 the Asswikale or Sewickley band of Shawnee, who had come up from the South and had been living on the upper Potomac, crossed the mountains and established a village on the Youghiogheny near the mouth of Big Sewickley Creek, from which they spread to the Allegheny and Ohio valleys. While the Delawares and the Shawnee were establishing themselves on the Allegheny, bands of Iroquois, mostly Seneca, drifted down from New York and settled at various points on that stream, the Ohio, and the Beaver, some in the villages of the Delawares or Shaw- nee and some in villages of their own. These western Iroquois were usually known as Mingo. At first, the head men of the Iroquois, now the Six Nations by the inclusion of the Tuscarora about 1740, looked upon these settlements of their tribesmen and subject peoples in their hunting grounds as temporary and made some efforts to recall the wanderers, but in 1747, during King George's War, they sent two Oneida chiefs, Tanacharison and Scarouady, to maintain their au- thority in the region. Tanacharison, who was usually called the Half 27 SACRAMENTAL SCENE IN A WESTERN FOREST A TYPICAL LOG HOUSE IN WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA Illustrations from Smith, "Old Redstone" Religion Joseph Smith. In the summer of 1774 Power made a missionary tour among the settlers; in the next year McMillan visited the country, crossed the Monongahela, and carried the gospel to Chartiers and "Pidgeon Creek." In October, 1775, the congregations at these two places sent to the Presbytery of Donegal a request for McMillan's services, and in the spring of 1776 he accepted the call. Although the danger from the Indians prevented him from taking his family west until 1778, he visited his congregations occasionally in the meantime. In 1776 Power took his wife and his small daughters across the moun- tains to Dunlaps Creek in what is now Fayette County and began to minister to several embryo congregations in the vicinity. By 1781 he had become the regular pastor of the churches at Sewickley and Mount Pleasant in Westmoreland County. Both McMillan and Power served the cause of Presbyterianism in the region for many years. Dod, a native of New Jersey, preached to settlers from that state along Ten Mile Creek in what is now Washington County in 1777 and soon organized two congregations, Upper and Lower Ten-Mile, of which he became the pastor. Smith made a missionary journey to the western country in the spring of 1779 and soon thereafter received, among calls from several congregations, one from Upper Buffalo and Cross Creek in the western part of the present Washington County. Smith accepted this call and moved to the West in December, 1780. Neither Smith nor Dod survived the hardships of frontier life as long as did Power and McMillan; Smith died in 1792 and Dod in the following year. With the arrival of Smith in western Pennsylvania, a western pres- bytery became practicable. The settlements were distant in place and time from the most western of the eastern presbyteries; and in religion, as in other fields of endeavor, remote control was undesirable. In 1781 the Synod of New York and Philadelphia, upon the request of the four pioneer preachers, erected the Presbytery of Redstone. No boundaries were indicated, but it was directed that the first meet- ing of the presbytery should be held at "Laurel Hill Church" on the third Wednesday in September. "Incursions of the savages," however, made it dangerous for the preachers west of the mountains to go so far from home, and the meeting place was therefore changed to Pigeon Creek. McMillan, Power, Dod, and three elders were present. In 1789, after the establishment of the independent Presbyterian Church in 405 Western Pennsylvania America, the United States was divided into four synods and the Synod of Virginia was given jurisdiction over the Presbytery of Red- stone. The pioneer churches in the region were centers from which re- ligious influence radiated throughout the region, and Washington and Canonsburg academies, established in the decade of the eighties, to- gether with the theological training offered by McMillan to candi- dates for the ministry, provided a personnel to carry on the work. New churches were established not only in the older settlements but also in the frontier regions to the west and north, with the result that in 1793 the synod erected the Presbytery of Ohio west of the Monon- gahela River, and in 1801 the Presbytery of Erie in the territory north and west of the Ohio and the Allegheny. The extent to which western religious life was becoming independent of eastern or European sources is indicated by the fact that of the five ministers originally included in the Presbytery of Erie all were products of Canonsburg Academy and McMillan's lectures on theology; only one of them, Thomas Hughes, had had in addition a college training in the East. The growing independence from the East was further promoted in I8oz when the General Assembly erected the three western presby- teries into the Synod of Pittsburgh, thus giving the region home rule in all but the most important matters. At this time Redstone Presby- tery.had eleven ministers, four with one church and seven with two; Ohio had sixteen ministers, seven with single charges and nine with two; while Erie had nine ministers, all with more than one charge. In addition, the presbyteries reported the existence of eleven congrega- tions or groups of congregations that were without a pastor but able to support one and of about thirty congregations that were unable to support a minister, twelve of the latter in Erie Presbytery. The new synod endeavored not only to supply a rapidly growing region with sufficient religious instruction and supervision but also to send emissaries to regions beyond its boundaries, particularly to the Indian country. At its first meeting the synod constituted itself "The Western Missionary Society," the object of which was "to diffuse the knowledge of the gospel among the inhabitants of the new settle- ments, the Indian tribes, and, if need be, among some of the interior inhabitants, where they are not able to support the gospel." Although some successful missionary work was done among the Wyandot on 406 Religion the Sandusky, it was largely nullified by the War of I8iz. The work among the settlers, however, resulted in the organization in 18o8 of the Presbytery of Hartford in the region west of the Beaver River, in- cluding the Western Reserve and other territory in Ohio. The other denominations, though considerably smaller, were vocal and active. Akin to the regular Presbyterians but distinctly at vari- ance with them were the Covenanters and the Seceders. Although in 1769 a group of Covenanters under the leadership of James and Zac- cheus Willson settled between the Youghiogheny and the Monon- gahela rivers, in what is now Elizabeth Township, no Covenanter minister visited the region until ten years later, when John Cuthbert- son, one of the three ministers of this denomination in America at that time, toured the western country, baptized fifty children, and received twelve hundred persons into the church. After his visit, vari- ous praying societies in the region began to send delegates or "cor- respondents" to a conference held regularly at Willson's settlement (the "Forks of the Yough"), and to petition the Reformed Presby- tery for preaching supplies. Matthew Linn, another of the three Cove- nanter ministers, visited the region late in 1780, and various mis- sionaries sent direct from Scotland passed through it occasionally. No Covenanter minister lived in western Pennsylvania, however, until I8oo00, when John Black was installed as pastor of the "Pittsburgh Reformed Presbyterian congregation and other adherent societies." Black ministered to groups of Covenanters scattered from Canons- burg in Washington County to New Galilee in the northwestern part of Beaver County, Zelienople in Butler County, and New Alexandria and Greensburg in Westmoreland County. In 1804 Matthew Wil- liams, who had been graduated from Jefferson Academy and had studied theology under Black, was licensed to preach and began mis- sionary work in Butler County; and in 1807 he was ordained and installed as pastor of three societies there. No other Covenanter minister was installed in the region until I816, but David Graham, who had been ordained and deposed in Ireland and then restored at Milton, Pennsylvania, was called to Canonsburg in I8Io. Before he could be installed he was arraigned for "withdrawing his profession of repentence and employing his ministry to the injury of the Church," and, after a trial at Pittsburgh, which lasted eight days and attracted much attention, he was again deposed. 407 Western Pennsylvania The Seceders were more numerous and stronger in the United States than were the Covenanters, and this difference was reflected in western Pennsylvania. Seceders were sufficiently numerous in "Mo- nongahela" to make appeals to their presbytery for preaching in 1773; that autumn two missionaries were sent out; and a year later five praying societies had been established. In 1775 Matthew Henderson preached in the district and organized two congregations, Chartiers and Speer's Spring; and in 1781 he cast his lot with the western coun- try and assumed the charge of Chartiers and Buffalo. He also minis- tered occasionally to other congregations. John Anderson joined the work in Beaver County in 1792 and soon began to train candidates for the ministry in a seminary at Mill Creek. The number of Seceder churches grew, and in June, 18oo00, Chartiers Presbytery, centered at Canonsburg, was organized under the newly created Synod of North America. In 1782, in an attempt to unite the Seceders and the Covenanters and to furnish more regular services to members of both churches, the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church was set up; but, since some of the members and clergy of each of the churches refused to accept the terms of union, the result was merely to increase the varieties of Presbyterianism. Most of the Covenanters in western Pennsylvania at that time appear to have joined the Associate Reformed Church willingly; Matthew Henderson, the influential Seceder clergyman, also joined with his congregations, but in 1789 he went back to his old church and took his congregations with him. The Associate Reformed Church never flourished in western Pennsylvania, for dis- sensions caused withdrawals from its ranks about as fast as additions were made. The church is interesting, however, as a battleground in which the deeply cherished European traditions of its two compo- nent sects clashed with the leveling and unifying power of frontier necessity. Devout Germans in western Pennsylvania, although they were of two faiths, the Reformed and the Lutheran, did not make a fetish of their differences. Union congregations of members of both denomina- tions were the rule rather than the exception; the terms of union were drawn up in writing and specified in greater or less detail the equal rights and duties of each denomination. The earliest of these agree- ments to have been preserved are the one drawn up in 1773 by Jacob's 408 Religion Church in German Township, Fayette County, and that drawn up in 1777 by the congregation at Brother's Valley, now Berlin, in Somer- set County. Such congregations were frequently organized before the presence of a regular pastor was even a remote possibility. The Brother's Valley Church, however, had the guidance of John Wolf Lizel, a Holland Lutheran who had been licensed in New York; he referred to himself as "a teacher and preacher of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, holding to the Augsburg Confession." The Minis- terium of Pennsylvania of the Lutheran Church and the Coetus, or conference, of the Reformed Church, unable to supply the frontier with ministers, sent encouragement and sometimes a book of sermons and advised the people to do what many of them were already doing -gather in the schoolhouse on Sunday under the leadership of the schoolmaster to pray and hear a good sermon read. Only three German Reformed pastors appear to have served in western Pennsylvania before 82iz, although others probably visited the region. These three were John William Weber, who arrived in the region in 1782 and had congregations at various points in West- moreland County and at Pittsburgh; Cyriacus Spangenburg, who served Berlin and the neighboring congregations until he was hanged for stabbing one of his parishioners; and Henry Giesey, who succeeded Spangenburg in 1797 and served Berlin, Bedford, and Salisbury. Lutheran ministers were somewhat more numerous in the region, but most of them had at first no connection with the Ministerium. Even so, there were never more than three of them in the region at the same time in the period between 1782 and I8o6. Anton Ulrich Luetge began to labor in Westmoreland and Fayette counties in 1782 and was succeeded in 1791 by John Michael Steck. Both of these men were licensed some time after their arrival. Johannes Stauch was active in Fayette County from 1793 on, first as a catechist, then as a candidate, and after 1804 as an ordained minister. His main charge was Jacob's Church, but he visited ten places regularly every four weeks, traveling over a hundred miles to do so. The only Lutheran minister with regular standing to enter the region before i8o6 was Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Lange, who worked in Fayette and West- moreland counties from 1797 to 1811 and who had congregations at Indian Head and at Donegal. After 18o6, Lutheran pastors were more numerous in western Pennsylvania, and a traveling ministry set up 409 Western Pennsylvania by the Ministerium promoted the expansion of the church into the new frontier settlements. As the Society of Friends had no regular clergy, meetings for wor- ship sprang up wherever several Quakers settled in the same neighbor- hood. Such meetings needed no blessing nor assistance from any eastern body in order to function. The first Quakers came into the region under the leadership of Henry Beeson about 1769; and in 1773 two visiting missionaries reported attending meetings in six different places, including Pittsburgh, Redstone, and Jacob Beeson's (near Uniontown). Some of these were not regular meetings for worship since nonbelievers were present, especially at Pittsburgh, where "the most reputable people attended." Independent spiritually, these Quaker meetings were subject in discipline and church government to the jurisdiction of a hierarchy of meetings in the East-the Hope- well (Virginia) Monthly Meeting, the Fairfax (Virginia) Quarterly Meeting, and the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. In 1782, however, the Quakers in southwestern Pennsylvania asked the Hopewell Monthly Meeting for the privilege of setting up a preparative meet- ing, and three years later they organized the Westland Monthly Meeting, which met alternately on the east and the west sides of the Monongahela. In 1793, Redstone Monthly Meeting was erected with jurisdiction over the meetings on the east side of the river, while West- land continued over those on the west side. In 1797 Redstone Quar- terly Meeting was set up with jurisdiction over the whole section. Partly because of their aversion to proselyting and partly because of a tendency to move farther west, the Quakers attained no great numbers in the section. Throughout the period, however, they were of great assistance to their brethren who passed through western Pennsylvania on their way from the slave states of Virginia and the Carolinas to the new free lands of Ohio. Methodism was a new denomination during the early part of the period of settlement in western Pennsylvania; it was not until 1784 at a conference in Baltimore that the Methodist Episcopal Church in America was organized. Although societies sprang up over a wide area before that time, the Revolutionary War hampered their growth, and western Pennsylvania was barely touched. Reason Pumphreys, a class leader in his old home in Maryland, migrated into the region in 1772 with a group of neighbors, to whom he preached both on the way 410 Religion out and after their arrival; but he returned east in 1776. About 1780 Robert Wooster preached through the Redstone country, and there is evidence that other services were held before 1784 in several homes in the region. After the organization of the American church the Methodists were ready to launch an aggressive campaign for converts. A system of circuits, with a minister or ministers assigned to each, was instituted. These ministers organized societies or classes, and an outstanding member designated as class leader performed such pastoral duties as were necessary between visits of the preacher. Because of their utilization of local assistance and their relaxation of the rules and formalities of the Church of England, Methodists found a hearty response to their teachings in many a frontier region. Western Pennsylvania, however, was not so responsive to Method- ism as were other sections, probably because the Presbyterians were already so well entrenched there. Bishop Francis Asbury, neverthe- less, made frequent trips through the region between 1784 and 1815. On several of his trips he was accompanied by Henry Boehm, one of the numerous German-speaking preachers of Methodism, who preached to his compatriots at Berlin, Uniontown, Middletown, Con- nellsville, and other points. The Redstone circuit, embracing western Pennsylvania and western Virginia, was one of the original circuits set up in 1784; in 1788 the Pittsburgh circuit, consisting of territory north of that generally covered by the Redstone riders, was organized, and for seven of its first eight years Charles Conway traveled in it. By 1793 there were 151 members in the Pittsburgh circuit, but that any of these were in Pittsburgh itself is doubtful. In 1798 the Shenango cir- cuit, which included Beaver and Butler counties, was organized. During the early period of the settlement of western Pennsylvania the Baptists in America were a loosely integrated group with no or- ganization comparable to that of the Methodists for spreading the gospel. Each congregation was self-governing; the only superior body was the "association," an organization of the churches in a given region with advisory but not governing powers over the congregations. The preachers were usually "inspired" individuals who rose from the ranks without passing through any special training. Typical of Baptist pro- cedure is the case of Isaac Sutton, farmer and leader of a group of Baptists who emigrated from Virginia to escape persecution and set- tled near Uniontown. In 1770 Henry Crosbye, a Baptist minister, 411 Western Pennsylvania visited this group and licensed Sutton, their "gifted Brother," to preach to them; two days later Crosbye constituted the Great Bethel Church in Uniontown, the first church of any denomination in west- ern Pennsylvania that was destined to have a continuous existence to the present. In 1772 a Baptist missionary to the Ohio country passed through western Pennsylvania and reported that "the rever- end Isaac Sutton ... is an ordained minister." He mentioned also "three candidates for the ministry, whose names are mess. John Corbly, John Swinglar, and John Whitticur." Corbly was to serve as a minister in the region for many years. As immigration increased, Baptist congregations sprang up at various points, many of them offshoots or subdivisions of their predecessors, and by 1776 there were enough of them to warrant the setting up of Redstone Association. By I8o8 the number of churches had increased to about thirty, but the average membership was less than fifty. Of all the leading Protestant denominations the Church of Eng- land was least adapted to the needs of the frontier settlers and paid the least attention to western Pennsylvania. During the Revolution and the years just preceding it the church was too closely identified with English loyalty to be popular. The American Episcopal Church was organized in 1784, but it had so many obstacles to surmount that it could not assume obligations on the frontier. Joseph Doddridge estimated that, "taking the western country in its whole extent, at least one half of its population was originally of Episcopalian paren- tage." Though such a ratio may not have held good in western Penn- sylvania, it cannot be questioned that many in the region would have supported the Church had they had the chance. The first Episcopal church in western Pennsylvania was probably the one established by John Neville at Woodville, near Pittsburgh, about 1774, of which Francis Reno, a prot6g6 of Neville, later became the rector; but the most important center of Episcopalianism in the region was the Brownsville district where Robert Ayres, who had formerly been a Methodist minister, served several congregations from 1789 on. John Taylor ministered to a church in Beaver County from 1797 to 18oo, when he removed to Pittsburgh. The establishment of Roman Catholic churches in western Pennsyl- vania was especially difficult because their absolute dependence on the presence of priests made spontaneous organization impossible. There 412 EVOLUTION OF THE WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA CHURCH STRUCTURE From Smith, "Old Redstone" Western Pennsylvania King by the English, looked after the Delawares, and Scarouady after the Shawnee. Still other tribes were represented in the region by smaller numbers, the most notable being the Wyandot, remnants of the Huron, who spread eastward from Ohio into the Beaver Valley about 1748. In the eighteenth century, then, the Indian population of western Pennsylvania was sparse even for Indian occupancy and was very INDIAN ARTIFACTS OF STONE DISCOIDAL STONES AX HEADS SINEW SCRAPER BIRD STONES USED CLUB HEAD AS ORNAMENTS mixed as to tribal origins. Even in the same villages representatives of different tribes were to be found, and many villages were not so much permanent homes as temporary camps established by various groups during the long migration from eastern Pennsylvania to the Ohio country. The less sparsely inhabited sections were those along the Allegheny, Ohio, and Beaver rivers. Whereas the Mound Builders, coming probably from the Ohio Valley, made their most populous settlements on the Monongahela and the Youghiogheny, the later Indian immigrants, coming from the east, and mostly by the northern routes, tended to settle on the Allegheny and the Ohio and to use the rich southwestern area only as a hunting ground. The hostility of Catawba and Cherokee to the south may also have deterred the Pennsylvania Indians from placing their villages in that more exposed quarter. 28 DINING ROOM OF THE ALBERT GALLATIN HOUSE NEAR NEW GENEVA. BUILT IN 1789 INTERIOR OF UNION LOG CHURCH NEAR SCHELLSBURG. BUILT IN I8O6 Illustrations from Stotz, "Early Architecture of Western Pennsylvania" Religion is a long hiatus between the withdrawal of the priests that served at the French forts and the visit of Father John B. Causey to the Catholic settlement near Greensburg in 1789, when the first Mass in a perma- nent settlement in western Pennsylvania was celebrated. In the next year Father Theodore Browers arrived to serve the settlement. He died soon after, and his will, leaving considerable property for the sup- port of whatever priest should succeed him, drew a succession of unworthy aspirants to the place. It was not until 1799 that the parish, under Father Peter Heilbron, began to prosper spiritually. By that time it had seventy-five communicants, and in I8Io a large log church was erected there. In 1799 Father Demetrius Gallitzin began to minister to the Catho- lic settlement in Cambria County, and the next year he wrote that he had at Loretto a congregation "of about forty families, but there is no end to the Catholics in all the settlements round about." In i811 the Easter communicants at Loretto numbered 424, and in the sum- mer of that year Bishop Egan came from Philadelphia, administered the first confirmation in western Pennsylvania, and admitted 185 to the church in Gallitzin's district. The only other priest to remain any length of time in the region during the period was Father F. X. O'Brien, who arrived in Brownsville in I8o6 and removed to Pitts- burgh in 18o8. All the priests appear to have done mission work, but Gallitzin was especially active and traveled to Ebensburg, Franks- town, Bedford, Uniontown, and other places to celebrate Mass for distant groups of Catholics. Other sects of minor importance in the region during the period were the United Brethren in Christ, an offshoot of the German Re- formed Church; the Campbellites and the Cumberland Presby- terians; the Swedenborgians; the "Halcyons"; the Rhodianites; the Mennonites; and the New Lights. The most interesting of the numeri- cally unimportant sects is the Harmonites, whose communistic set- tlement in Butler County was founded on the verse of the Acts: "And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common." During the early period, religion was a predominantly rural insti- tution, with the churches mainly in the open country. Thus the first church in the town of Washington, a Presbyterian church, was not 413 Western Pennsylvania established until 1793, although Presbyterian congregations had been organized within the county as early as 1775. Bishop Asbury in 1786 wrote of the "little town called Washington-wicked enough at all times, but especially now at court time." Early commentators cen- sured severely the lack of religion in Pittsburgh. David McClure in 1773 referred to "drinking, debauchery, & all kinds of vice"; John Wilkins in 1783 said there were "no signs of religion among the people"; and as late as 1789, when Bishop Asbury preached for the first time in Pittsburgh, he reported that "the people were very atten- tive; but alas! they are far from God, and too near the savages in situ- ation and manners." In 1794 a traveler reported of Bedford that "the inhabitants appear to be a heathenish, grovelling sort of people," and that "although a county town there is not a church in it; no preaching but the Methodist." Joseph Smith commented, "Had a traveler... confined his visits and his observations to towns and villages he might have inferred that he had got into a heathenish land." The first church of any denomination in Pittsburgh was the Ger- man congregation of which John William Weber became pastor in 1782. Yet, as has been noted, in 1761 a schoolmaster had acted as lay reader for a "Congregation of different Principels" there, and in 1773 "the most reputable people attended" a Quaker meeting in the town. Pittsburgh as the metropolis of the region had citizens of varied re- ligious inheritance or conviction, and according to Hugh Henry Brackenridge in 1786 there were not enough of one denomination to support a church. In 1784 Pittsburgh citizens applied to Redstone Presbytery for preaching supplies, and Joseph Smith preached twice in the town. The next year the Reverend Samuel Barr, a Presbyterian from the north of Ireland, having heard in Chester County that a minister was needed in Pittsburgh, went there on his own initiative. Brackenridge, who had arranged with the Penns for a grant of land for a church if one should be chartered by the legislature, was eager to have the church called a "Religious Christian Society." When the chartering bill was introduced with the word "Presbyterian" in it, he charged Barr with bad faith in having had the bill so drawn. In 1787 the church was incorporated as a Presbyterian church and re- ceived the grant. Its log building was erected in the same year--more than a decade after the erection of the first Presbyterian meeting- houses in Washington County. 414 Religion Other denominations, too, with the exception of the German union congregation, were slower in establishing a foothold in the benighted town of Pittsburgh than in the country districts. Though the first resi- dent minister of the Covenanters, John Black, who arrived in 1800, was also the first resident minister of that faith in the entire region, the country praying societies had been organized before the congrega- tion in town. The first Seceder preacher in Pittsburgh, Ebenezer Henderson, appeared in I8OI, twenty years after his father, Matthew Henderson, had settled in the region. The Methodists of the town had no local preacher until 1796 and their church lot was not acquired until 18io. It was not until I8iz that the first Baptist congregation in Pittsburgh was organized, with twelve members. John Taylor, the first resident Episcopal clergyman, had been a country pastor in Beaver County before his arrival in Pittsburgh in 18oo. Father O'Brien, the first resident Catholic priest, did not arrive in Pittsburgh until 18o8, and his church was not built until 18I I. Different though the denominations were from one another in creed and in numbers and strength in the region, they all had certain fron- tier characteristics that distinguished them from the kindred bodies in the East. Few were the churches throughout the pioneer period that could command the entire time of a preacher. This was due in part to the inadequacy of the supply but more to the poverty of the people. At first it was the invariable custom for two Presbyterian congrega- tions to unite in calling a preacher, and as late as I8oz there were only about a dozen ministers with single charges. Even by 81iz this situa- tion was not greatly changed, and few if any preachers of other de- nominations had single congregations. Because their charges were widely separated, preachers had to spend much time on the road, and there was a lack of regularity in the services. The meeting places, too, reflected the frontier environment. At first the pioneer settlers gathered in one another's cabins or in open groves for their religious services, and in some cases they continued to do this for years. It was not uncommon for German communities to erect a schoolhouse that could be used on Sundays by the union con- gregation; this was done, for example, at Herold's settlement. In other communities also a schoolhouse frequently preceded a church, and such congregations as existed used it in turn. Sometimes one de- nomination erected a building that others used as well. Near the end 415 Western Pennsylvania of the period, the Seceders in Pittsburgh worshiped in the German church while their own church was being built. The various forts, including Fort Pitt, served as convenient meeting places, as did the courthouses at Pittsburgh, Mercer, Washington, Bedford, and other county seats. Such accommodations were unsatisfactory, however, and their use might lead to the sort of competition that occurred at the courthouse in Mercer, where rival preachers, one using the grand jury room and the other the courtroom, tried to outshout each other. At Pittsburgh the courthouse was much in demand. When Asbury was there in 1803 he preached to about four hundred people in it, and "would have preached again but the Episcopalians occupied the house" and refused to give it up. "It is time we had a house of our own," he wrote. The disadvantages of all such makeshifts were indeed obvious. Congregations were eager to have their own meetinghouses, and a number of them succeeded in doing so at a comparatively early date; the Germans at Jacob's Creek in Fayette County, for instance, built a church in 1773, although they had no regular pastor for eighteen years thereafter. The first church buildings differed little except in size from the cabins of the settlers. Built of round unhewn logs, they frequently lacked windows and floors. Later churches were more sightly; hewn logs, shingled roofs, and windows became characteristic. In time, glass windowpanes and chimneys were introduced. Where there was a supply of native stone, a stone church might be built; Ayres preached in such a structure on Muddy Creek in 1794. Brick was being used toward the end of the period; in 1805 the Presbyterians in Pittsburgh erected a brick church around their old squared log house and then tore down the old one. The interiors and furniture of the churches were at first rude and plain. In the earliest period, the seats were sometimes made of puncheons supported by uprights. A balcony was in some cases pro- vided for slaves, as at St. Thomas' Episcopal Church near Browns- ville. The arrangement of the interiors varied. Gallitzin's chapel at Loretto had no benches at all, merely a few stools for the aged or in- firm. All Quaker meetinghouses had separate seating sections for men and women. The second meetinghouse of the Mingo Creek Presby- terian Church was square, with alcoves on two sides, one for the pul- pit, the other for the bachelors. The church at Lebanon had doors on 416 Religion three sides, with an aisle leading from each. The problem of heating churches was difficult in the northwestern section. The meetinghouse at Fairview on Lake Erie had no chimney, and an attempt to heat it with an iron kettle containing burning charcoal almost resulted dis- astrously when several women inhaled "carbonic acid gas" and fainted. The prejudice against stoves was eliminated as time went on: Ayres bought a stove for his church in 1794, and ten-plate stoves became popular, especially in the region north of the Ohio. FOOTWARMERS FIRED BY CHARCOAL Funds for building were raised sometimes by subscription, some- times by assessment. Work on the building was often compulsory for church members. A minute of the Great Bethel Baptists of 1784 is illustrative of this fact: "Resolved that the members shall work at the meeting house every day that is appointed. . . under penalty of five shillings for neglect." In other cases contracts for erecting church buildings were let. The Presbyterian church at Pittsburgh in 1805 attempted to raise funds for its building by a lottery, a venture that involved the congregation in various troubles. Much has been written of the influence of the pioneer preachers on the people with whom they associated. Of Methodist itinerants it was said that "their very presence checked levity in all around them," and this generally holds true of the early clergy of all denominations. The difficulties of the work on the frontier seem to have attracted or developed men of extraordinary ability and forceful personality. Most of the preachers were virtuous and well meaning men, who took their work and their religion seriously and who exemplified their principles. 417 Western Pennsylvania The ease with which a layman might become a clergyman in some denominations, however, opened the way for the entrance into the ministry of weak and incapable men as well as of outright charlatans. The Baptists, whose requirements were the least rigorous, were espe- cially beset with this difficulty, and in 1782 the Redstone Association earnestly advised "the several churches to be very cautious in admit- ting strangers to preach among them, except they come well recom- mended, or have satisfactory credentials." Other denominations had to take similar precautions. The educational requirements and the licensing process of the Presbyterians reduced this problem consider- ably for them, as did the more rigid ordaining processes of the Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches for those denominations. Despite the sharing of ministers by two or more congregations, the problem of supporting them was always urgent. The priest Gallitzin was probably the only clergyman in the region who did not have to worry about a livelihood. It is not known how the volunteer ministers who wandered into the region in the early part of the period were financed. David McClure met "a dutch preacher from Holland, a Mr. Kalls," at Ligonier and asked him how he was supported; "he replied, Qui Deo confisus, nunquam confusus. (He who confides in God will never be confounded.)" The Baptists were the only denomi- nation that believed in an unpaid ministry, and their growing doubts of the wisdom of this policy are indicated by the affirmative answer given by the Redstone Association to the question "Whether a Minis- ter of the gospel ought not be acquitted of the incumerances of the world so as to give himself wholely to the work of the ministry." The salaries of ministers of the other denominations were meager and frequently were not paid in full. The salary of the Methodist itinerant was fixed by the General Conference; in 1784 it was set at sixty-four dollars a year, out of which the itinerant had to pay his own expenses; but in i8oo it was raised to eighty dollars, with an allowance of the same amount for a wife, sixteen dollars for each child under seven, and twenty-four dollars for each child between seven and fourteen. The salary of the minister in churches of other denomina- tions was a matter of individual agreement in each case. In 1782, when several German Reformed congregations invited Weber to be- come their pastor, they offered him " 116 pounds in money, one hun- dred bushels of wheat, a free house, and firewood, annually"; but, as 418 Religion they were unable to fulfill their promises, he had to buy a farm, and it was eighteen years before he was out of debt. Among the Presbyterians five hundred dollars a year was con- sidered a generous salary, although there was some increase toward the end of the period. One observer said that the people were both un- willing and unable to give a minister adequate support. At first money was so scarce that salaries were often paid in commodities. During the Revolution the inflation of currency made values so fluctuating that it became necessary to take this into account, as the congregation at Upper Buffalo did when it pledged a salary of i 15owith the stipula- tion, "Whereas money has become of less value and every article has risen to an extravagant price, therefore we do hereby agree that the said sums shall be annually regulated by five men, chosen in each congregation, and shall be made equal in value to what said sums would have been in 1774." Salaries were nearly always in arrears. The minutes of Dunlaps Creek session indicate that in March, 1795, settlement was made with Jacob Jennings for his salary for 1793 and 1794. Power charged that he was once owed $1,015; and he had to leave the congregation at Unity because it could not pay him. Once, when Smith's salary was several years in arrears, an aged elder ac- companied by two young men of his congregation made the long journey down the river to New Orleans to sell wheat and walked all the distance back with the money to pay the debt. Since the ministers seldom received a living wage from their spir- itual labors, they frequently had to turn to other means of support. Many of the Presbyterian preachers had farms, in caring for which their families assisted; the wife of James Power managed his farm at Mount Pleasant so skillfully that he could devote all his time to his ministerial duties. Schoolteaching augmented the income of some, though others thought the practice of medicine "more consistent with the ministerial character." Robert Roberts, a Methodist, built a mill to support his family, and the first Baptist preacher in Pittsburgh was a glassworker. If his diary reflects his interests, Ayres devoted more thought and attention, at least in the spring, to his farm near Brownsville than he did to his preaching. There was much discussion during the period as to the advisability of a preacher's having a re- munerative secular position. Such a position, it was argued, took time that should be devoted to pastoral duties such as visiting parishioners 419 Western Pennsylvania and catechizing their children. In 1813 the Pittsburgh Synod debated the question and decided that a preacher might hold another position if absolutely necessary "for the support of himself and family." Church services in pioneer days were as a rule long and soporific. Among the Presbyterians, Sunday was inaugurated with family wor- ship, after which everyone from the oldest to the youngest went to church. "Soon after ten o'clock in the morning," writes one of their historians, "the people began to assemble, and it was nearly night when they returned home. Long psalms or hymns were sung; long prayers were offered up and very long sermons were preached." Both forenoon and afternoon services were of considerable length. Sleepi- ness often overtook even the most pious, and to ward it off they would stand in their pews or even walk about. The services had little or no aesthetic appeal. Hymns were "lined out" by the clerks, one or two lines at a time, after which the congregation sang the portion that had been read; then the process was repeated. The Germans appear to have enjoyed their singing. One of the first members of Jacob's Church included among the advantages of having a church the pleasure of listening "to Barbara Brandeburg sing." Methodist services especially had a popular appeal: the sermons were directed toward the hearers' desire for salvation, and the hymns used were filled with a martial evangelical spirit that carried many to emotional heights or depths. Quaker services were held on "first" and "fourth" days and were con- ducted in traditional Quaker fashion, without music and without any regular order or plan. The Catholic priests followed the ritual of their church as nearly as possible with their limited facilities. Communion services were affairs of great solemnity. Because they could be celebrated only by ordained ministers, they were held less frequently and less regularly than in older settlements. Every Baptist congregation decided for itself how often such a service should be held; "Rule 8" of the Turkeyfoot Baptists specified "that Comunion shall be held quarterly." Among the Methodists, especially during the early years of their work in the region, the service was held very irregularly and not necessarily on Sunday, but it always constituted a part of the celebration of quarterly meeting. Regular Presbyterian congregations held Communion services semiannually, in the early summer and in the fall, whenever possible. When the preachers had more than one congregation, however, the services were held only once 420 Religion in each, with all the members of the congregations and many from outside partaking. Seceders and Covenanters appear to have held Communion three times a year. The houses of those who lived near the site of the services were usually filled to overflowing during the Com- munion season. Among the Presbyterians, the Thursday preceding Communion Sunday was observed as a fast day or at least as a day of prayer, with abstinence from labor and usually with a sermon by a visiting mini- ster. On Saturday a preparatory sermon was preached "to fix the truths," and church members in good standing and those who wished to join were given "tokens"-bits of lead inscribed with the initials of the congregation-to admit them to Communion on the morrow. Since no meetinghouse was large enough to accommodate all the com- municants, the services were held occasionally in a barn but usually in an open grove. The preachers-always two and frequently three or four-stood on a covered platform known as the "tent" at one end of the grove; in front of the tent were set the Communion tables, made of hewn logs raised on supports. The benches on which the communi- cants sat were of similar construction. The services were long and ex- hausting. An "action sermon" by the regular pastor came first, an elaborate exposition of the vicarious sacrifice of Christ. This was followed by hymns and prayers. Then came the ceremony of "fencing the tables," which often occupied an hour or more. This consisted of barring sinners from Communion, with a review of all the sins for- bidden in the Ten Commandments, and many others as well. The Seceders went to greater lengths in this ceremony than did the regular Presbyterians; a Seceder minister might "debar from this table and communion at this time, all who lay a cent on their thumbs, and toss it up, saying head or tail." These proceedings were followed by a welcome to the Communion delivered by another minister, who, it has been remarked, brought back into grace all those whom his predecessor had excluded. A minute of the Dunlaps Creek session of June 24, 1787, contains a list of the communicants, and the cryptic comment "though many was absent who should have been admitted." The Monday following Communion was a day for joyful celebration. The Quarterly Meeting, the Methodist counterpart of the Presby- terian sacramental season, was a gathering of all the preachers and many of the people in a district. Its character is well indicated in a 421 The Indian Regime High up the Allegheny near the New York line were two Seneca villages within the limits of what is now Warren County: Conewango at the mouth of Conewango Creek, and Buckaloons a few miles to the west at the mouth of Brokenstraw Creek. Some Delawares also dwelt at Buckaloons. Within the present limits of Forest County the Delawares had a village known as Hickorytown at the mouth of Hickory Creek and three villages near the mouth of Tionesta Creek, which were known collectively as Goshgoshunk. Venango, at the mouth of French Creek, and Cussewago, up that stream at the site of Meadville, were also Delaware villages, and both of them were re- ferred to at different times as Custaloga's Town. Kittanning was on the site of the modern city of that name, and eastward along the Shamokin Path were two other Delaware villages, Punxsutawney, on the Mahoning, and Chinklaclamoose, on the site of Clearfield. The Shawnee village called Chartier's Town on the site of Tarentum was one of the termini of the Frankstown Path, and the Delaware village of Kiskiminetas was at the point where the path crossed the stream of that name, about seven miles from its mouth. Blackleg's Town and Kickenapawling, near the site of Saltsburg, Conemaugh at the site of Johnstown, and Loyalhanna (Ligonier) on the Raystown Path, were probably temporary villages of Shawnee and Delawares. On the east bank of the Allegheny about two miles above its mouth was the Dela- ware village known as Shannopin's Town. The vicinity of the mouth of Chartier's Creek on the south side of the Ohio a few miles below the forks, now McKees Rocks, was evi- dently a favorite site with the Indians. For many years it was occupied by a small band of Seneca over whom Queen Allaquippa was reputed to reign "with great authority." In 1753, however, the queen was liv- ing on the Monongahela at the mouth of the Youghiogheny (McKees- port) and her former home was occupied by a band of Delawares under Shingas. On the east bank of the Ohio about eighteen miles below the forks and near the site of Ambridge was Logstown, the most important village in the region in the critical period between 1747 and 1753. Here lived Shawnee (probably the first occupants), Delawares, and Mingo; here was the residence of Scarouady, the Iroquois vice- gerent over the Shawnee, and probably also that of Tanacharison, the Half King; here were the headquarters of many of the English traders; and here were negotiated the treaties with the Indians of the region. 29 Western Pennsylvania terse recital of Ayres, who in 1787 was serving as a Methodist preacher in the Redstone region. "Set out to Go to the place of Q. M. when we came, Br. Smith was Preaching. I had some deep Exercise of mind; the Cong. was very large, we then proceeding to the qr. Visitation at wc I felt my Heart oft times affected. after some temporal Business, We had some Comfortable Conversation, & so pas'd the Night." The next day, Sunday, "We all Rose in health, & the people began to come together at 7 & a half past 8 we began Worship & had a most Glorious Meeting, Sacrament, & Lovefeast, being Over, the Brethren Began to Speake in a very feeling manner Insomuch that a Sacred Flame seem'd to pass from Breast to Breast,-our Society Meeting Being over, We began to Publish Preaching about twelve, I Preach'd first To nearly Iooo people wt little Satisfaction, Being Oblig'd to Stand upon a pair of Stairs in such a manner that the people up stairs & down might all hear. Br. Matson then spoke, & Br. Smith Conclud'd." Sermons varied widely in merit. Sometimes the ministers used the printed sermons of noted church fathers--on the theory that such discourses contained messages worth repeating. Of the sermons that the preachers themselves wrote, those by the Presbyterians were probably somewhat superior to the others in scholarship and literary merit. Books from which materials for sermons might be drawn were scarce, however, and it was said of many of the younger Presbyterian ministers that their only "book" was a handwritten copy of McMil- lan's notes on theology. Consequently their tendency was to draw their sermons from a limited number of texts that they understood well, and even to use the same sermon repeatedly. Methodist itiner- ants had an especially good opportunity to repeat their sermons, as did ministers with more than one congregation. McMillan wrote his ser- mons out and memorized them; others, such as Elisha Macurdy, spoke extemporaneously, not even using notes. Most of the sermons appealed to the individual on texts such as "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord" or on topics such as "the great salvation." An observer in I8Iz wrote that the preaching in the West was "rather exhortatory, than doctrinal," a fact that made for sameness. The type of sermon popular in the region is discussed in a letter written from Cross Creek in I8oi by Sally Hastings to her mother in Donegal. Speaking of Thomas Marquis, she writes: "To hear him is harmony, Though he often gives us the lash of the law in all its 422 Religion severity. He has before now fairly made me jump off my Seat with terrer and slapping the pulpit.... But the people here would not like him if he would preach in moderation, he is the Dreadfulest Thunderer I ever heard Nothing Seems more at varience than his preaching and his Countenance, one is all Terror tother all Sweetness and Mild persuation.... But you donnegall people would not bear him at all if he would take a fit of sending you to the D-1 I and that he would do without any Ceremony, for things you would scarce think you merited Sutch rough treatment. Oh how he would handle your Danc- ing and singing your Dressing and Gay conversations your giddy round of-visits your state and refinements, your preparations for Company, and all the etceras of your Fations. I just wish to hear him at you. Yet he would do it so nicely, and with sutch a grace, you would love him." Emotional appeals were made by all the denominations, and on the occasion of his first visit to the region McMillan noted with pleas- ure that "a few tears were shed by some." Methodists and Baptists went to greater emotional lengths, however, than the Presbyterians, one of whom wrote that the Baptists had a mistaken notion of the meaning of "spirit" and that their object was to "excite the passions; to terrify and raise into transports of joy, rather than to inform the mind, convince the understanding, convict the heart." The Episcopal clergyman John Taylor preached sermons that were said to be "good moral lectures well adapted to the understanding of his hearers." Despite the fact that most of the early clergymen had two or more charges, many of them managed to perform pastoral duties aside from preaching that were of great social value on the frontier. The visits of the Methodist itinerants in the scattered settlements and the periodic or occasional visits of the preachers of other denominations were anticipated by the settlers as opportunities for seeing their dis- tant neighbors and for talking to as well as listening to the preacher. Advance notice of such visits was usually sent, and the people were assembled when the preacher arrived. Bad weather was no deterrent to such ministerial activity, and stormy days brought the proverbial saying that nothing was out "but crows and Methodist preachers." Traveling preachers usually put up at the homes of interested laymen, and in these homes had contacts with the families and with neighbors that must have been as valuable for the people as were the sermons 423 Western Pennsylvania preached. To the members of organized congregations, pastoral visits were great occasions when, in addition to the satisfaction of entertain- ing the most important man in the community, the families had the pleasure of learning neighborhood news and of having sympathetic attention given to their own joys and sorrows. Among the Presby- terians such visits also gave opportunity for testing the children's pro- ficiency in the shorter catechism. Consolation to the sick was also offered on pastoral visits; Robert Ayres writes that in an interview with a sick parishioner, he "spoke closely to her about the state of her soul, & had prayers with her." The activities of laymen were especially important in the frontier church. Impelled by the necessities of the situation, leading laymen assumed responsibility for performing such duties as conducting serv- ices and prayer meetings in the absence of the preacher, encouraging prayer, visiting, and keeping a watchful eye on the congregations. Even among the Catholics such men as Michael McGuire, who set- tled near Loretto, and as John Propst, John Young, Patrick Archbald, and the brothers Ruffner, in Unity Township near Greensburg, kept up lay activity in behalf of the church before the arrival of priests by encouraging the coming of settlers of their own faith, donating land for church purposes, and appealing to the Eastern bishops for the extension of the benefits of the church. The women, too, seem to have played more prominent roles in re- ligious work on the frontier than in the older communities. The Pres- byterians gave them the least freedom, and it is said that among them no woman dared lift her voice on a church question. Nevertheless, they frequently conducted family worship in the absence of the father and guided the children in their study of the catechism. Among the Methodists, women sometimes rose to positions of leadership. This fact occasionally led to difficulties, as is indicated by Ayres in an entry of 1786 concerning the class at Muddy Creek: "Met Class and endeavor'd to heal a Breach that had grown to some great hight in Society, for want of a proper Leader. I had appoint'd a woman, of an excellent gift to open Prayer Meeting In the absence of the proper Leader, but ye Society (many of them) got tempted against her, and would not endure her for a Leader, being (I fear) too proud to submit to a Woman-Teacher, tho' I believe able to Teach any of them." In the Society of Friends, women were in a position of com- 424 Religion plete equality with men, and numbers of them spoke in meetings in western Pennsylvania. Ayres heard Deborah Darby talk in Browns- ville in 1794 and commented that "she made a wonderful discourse." An interesting indication of the position of women among the Baptists appears in the agreement constituting the Great Bethel Bap- tist Church. The names of three men are affixed to the agreement and then come the words: "Because we are few we allow our sisters to sign." Then follow the names of the three women thus honored. Another frontier manifestation in the religious field was the revival meeting, which seems to have been introduced in the region, curiously enough, by the relatively conservative Presbyterians. During the Revolution, revivals were held among the settlers gathered in Vance's Fort and Wells's Fort, under the influence of pious laymen, whose prayers and exhortations prepared the way for the preaching of James Power and Joseph Smith and the subsequent organization of churches by them. Another revival of the Revolutionary period occurred under the auspices of Thaddeus Dod at Lindley's Fort, on the middle fork of Ten Mile Creek. In 1781 McMillan's congregation at Chartiers ex- perienced a "remarkable season of the outpouring of the spirit"; a similar revival in 1795 resulted in the addition of about fifty members, some of whom later became ministers; and another in 1799 added about sixty to the church rolls. According to McMillan these revivals were "carried on without much external appearance, except a solemn attention and silent weeping under the preaching of the word." An- other important revival took place in the church of Thomas Hughes in Beaver County in 1799. The Great Revival began in Kentucky in 1797, spread through Tennessee, the Carolinas, and western Virginia, and reached western Pennsylvania in I802. Its promulgator in the region was the Presby- terian Elisha Macurdy, pastor of Three Springs and Cross Roads, on Cross Creek in Washington County. After some preliminary meetings and a Communion service held at Cross Roads with eight hundred participating, a Communion was arranged for Upper Buffalo on the second Sabbath of November. Fifteen ministers, all members of the Synod of Pittsburgh, were in attendance, and contemporary accounts estimate the crowd at ten thousand. People had come from great dis- tances, carrying food and bedding in their wagons. Before the Com- munion on Sunday Macurdy preached the most famous sermon of his 425 Western Pennsylvania career. Many hearers fell to the ground at his words, and irreverent individuals who reported that he "popped them down like pigeons" were themselves later affected in the same way. On Monday the whole assembly was addressed by one speaker; the "falling work" began again after he had concluded. One writer reports, "Some hundreds were... convinced of their sin and misery; many of them sunk down and cried bitterly and incessantly for several hours. Some fell sud- denly; some lost their strength gradually; some lay quiet and silent; some were violently agitated; and many sat silently weeping, who were not exercised with any bodily affections." Even after the con- clusion of the exercises on Tuesday, many were reluctant to leave. The meeting at Upper Buffalo was the climax of the revival in west- ern Pennsylvania. Interest did not lag, however, for several months, and in church after church there were "outpourings" of the "spirit." The "falling work" and the bodily exercises that accompanied the revival meetings in western Pennsylvania did not reach the excesses of the Kentucky meetings. Jerking and twitching of the muscles and the practice of barking and jumping about like a dog were not charac- teristic of the meetings in western Pennsylvania. Many persons "fell," however, before the oratorical onslaughts of the ministers as they preached on sin and the saving grace of Christ. Sometimes people were stricken while at home or on the roads. Scoffers, moreover, fre- quently "fell" along with those concerned with the state of their souls. Those who were thus smitten were powerless to help themselves, and at large meetings the afflicted were carried away from the crowd for safety and were laid out on the floor or the ground. Mass hysteria and the power of suggestion doubtless contributed greatly to the "falling work." Some preachers tried to check these demonstrations. George M. Scott, pastor at Mill Creek, said: "When the bodily exercise first appeared, I considered the whole to be a delusion. I supposed these excitements were produced by preachers thundering the terrors of the law; and I thought I could check it by preaching the invitations of the gospel, and the way of salvation through Christ; but I soon found that instead of stopping the work, this kind of preaching only increased it." Elisha Macurdy made the observation, "There it was and we could do nothing with it." The immediate effect of the revival on Presbyterianism in western Pennsylvania was an increase in church membership and a strength- 426 Religion ening of the church. The General Assembly of 1803 heard "with more than common satisfaction" of the state of the churches and rejoiced "that the state and prospects of vital religion in our country are more favorable and encouraging than at any period within the last forty years." The Assembly declined, however, to express an opinion on the physical accompaniments of the revival, and conservative church- men generally frowned on them. Some denominations opposed the Great Revival. The Seceders be- lieved it the work of the devil. Four members of the Associate Pres- bytery of Pennsylvania issued a pamphlet entitled Evils of the Work Now Prevailing in the United States of America under the Name of Revival of Religion. Johannes Stauch, of the Lutheran ministry, wrote that at a meeting at Jacob's Church in October, 18oz, "some twenty persons fell in their seats, while others left their seats and hurried out of the house, some with indignation and others from fear. ... the results of these exercises and this protracted meeting led to painful divisions of the congregations. For a number of persons and a number of the congregations shortly after this separated themselves from the church, and employed a Rev. Kittlebaugh to preach at M. G. Riffle's, in sight of my meeting house, at the same hour that I preached in the church." Methodists held a few camp meetings during the Great Revival, but the camp meeting was neither so characteristic of the sect nor so emotional as it was to be farther west. In 1803 "an aged Presbyterian" asked Bishop Asbury's opinion of the "falling work," and Asbury replied that "any person who could not give an account of the convincing and converting power of God, might be mistaken; falling down would not do." Although no extant accounts of revival meetings in Baptist churches have been noted, the numbers of that denomination in the Redstone Association increased from 729 in 18Oi to 1,176 a few years later. In spite of all the activities of preachers, laymen, and revivalists, however, the number of church members at the end of the period was not impressively large. Statistics for many denominational groups are lacking, but rough estimates may be made for most of them. The early preimption of the religious field by the Presbyterians and the strong Scotch and Protestant Irish groups among the settlers made the Pres- byterian Church the leading denomination in western Pennsylvania, especially in the thickly settled counties of Washington, Westmore- 427 Western Pennsylvania land, and Allegheny. "The public, and men of information and in- fluence, are decidedly in favor of Presbyterianism," reported John F. Schermerhorn, an agent of the Missionary Society of Connecticut, in i8Iz. There were, he wrote, approximately a hundred and fifty Pres- byterian congregations and societies in western Pennsylvania, one third of them without pastors. Many of these had very few members, and the largest had from two hundred to two hundred and fifty. If the average church membership be estimated at a hundred and fifty- a very liberal estimate-the conclusion is reached that there were about twenty-two thousand Presbyterians in the region. It should be noted, moreover, that Schermerhorn classed as Presbyterians "the Congregationalists, Associate Reformed Church, Associate Synod, Covenanters, and those churches in connection with the 'General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States' . . . for those minor considerations, concerning the externals of religion, which now separate them, and which originated in causes generally not existing in this country, do not appear of sufficient consequence, in a missionary point of view, to merit separate notice." Partial figures are available for some other denominations. Scher- merhorn set the number of Methodists at 3,787-possibly a low figure. The number of Baptists in the region at the end of the period was probably not more than two thousand; the I81 Quaker families probably did not include more than six hundred church members; it is doubtful if the Catholics numbered more than a thousand. For the German denominations, even estimates are unavailable. Schermer- horn reports that there were "a few German societies in Somerset, Fayette, and Westmoreland," and that in Somerset there was "not one church supplied with preaching." It seems almost certain that the total membership in denominations other than those classified by Schermerhorn as Presbyterians could not have been more than half of that of the Presbyterian churches. This indicates a maximum esti- mate of thirty-three thousand church members in the region, or less than one in six of the total population. As devout families would usually have at least two church members, and more than two when the older children were of age for membership, it would appear that more than half of the families in western Pennsylvania were without church ties. This does not mean, however, that the greater part of the popula- 428 Religion tion was uninfluenced by religion. Many there were, doubtless, who remained outside the fold because no church of the preferred denomi- nation was available. Even the nonbelievers, of whom there were certainly some in the region, must have been affected by the moral influence of the clergy and of good church members. Curiosity, if no higher motive, would draw many nonmembers to church services, and at the end of the period there were probably fewer in western Penn- sylvania who "had not heard a sermon for 14 years" than there were at the time of McClure's visit. In some cases, doubtless, those who came to scoff remained to pray, and in other cases they left with sincere respect for the church as a symbol of the orderly civilization being evolved on the frontier. 429 xvIII. Local Government and Community Control ON any frontier the establishment of "law and order" is neces- sarily not one of the first steps in the planting of civilization. Individual pioneers must 'come in, clear land, and settle in sufficient numbers for local self-government before the law can be anything but a function administered from afar and with consequent ineffectiveness. Even the first settlers of western Pennsylvania, how- ever, were not merely a horde of individuals: they were members of a body politic--either the province of Pennsylvania or the colony of Virginia-and had the rights, privileges, and obligations of such mem- bers and of subjects of the king of England. Most of them, moreover, expected and desired the establishment of local government, with its twofold purpose of acting for the general welfare in matters in which the individual could not effectively act alone and of limiting the liberties of individuals in so far as these might infringe upon rights of other individuals or of the community. Jealous though the frontiersmen were for their individual liberties, they were capable of united action for community welfare even before the establishment of local governments. All neighbors were expected, on pain of general ill repute, to help at cabin raisings and harvest tasks. In time of war or when there was danger of Indian attack all able-bodied men were obligated to do their share in defending the community, and any who did not were branded as cowards. Obliga- tions of debt were, of course, rare. When they did exist they were usually occasioned by loans of food or tools, and failure to meet them made worthless the credit of the delinquent. Another group of pre-legal customs on the frontier-those con- cerned with land claims-grew up because settlement took place before legally valid titles could be obtained. Though "squatters" were denounced and threatened, the proprietors' desire for new colonists 430 Local Government and Community Control led them to encourage immigration and eventually to look kindly on claims acquired by actual improvement of the land. The extralegal activities of the frontiersmen in protecting holders of settlement rights are well illustrated by the procedure in a section of what later became Greene County. The first settlers had fled at the time of the Indian outbreak of 1763, and when they began to return to their abandoned claims other squatters were making their appearance and disputes arose. As the section had not yet been opened to settlement, legal titles were unobtainable. The settlers, therefore, annually elected three "Fair-Play Men," and new settlers were required to apply to this "court" for permission to take up vacant land. The decisions of the "Fair-Play Men" are said to have been all that the name implies, and when settlement was legalized their rulings were received as evi- dence of ownership of property and were confirmed by the courts. Before legal titles were obtainable it was not uncommon for a set- tler to discover that his claim was disputed by a holder of a "toma- hawk right"-that is, a person who at some earlier time had blazed a few trees near a spring or at some other vantage point and had marked a tree with his initials. Many of the settlers, to avoid trouble, bought the tomahawk rights; a few, relying on public opinion to sus- tain them in their occupancy, elected to fight. At times the disputes took a form similar to the medieval trial by combat. One such battle was fought by George Teagarden, who about 1769 had blazed a claim to a thousand acres on Ten Mile Creek in what is now Greene County and had gone back to Redstone Old Fort to be married. When he returned with his bride and began, with the aid of neighbors, to erect a cabin, another claimant to the land appeared and challenged Tea- garden to a fist fight for possession. After the challenger had lost the battle, he turned to and helped with the cabin raising; later he took up adjacent land and maintained friendly relations with Teagarden. In the course of time there came to the communities of western Pennsylvania the authority of government. It came in the shape of courts, militia, prothonotaries, sheriffs, justices of the peace, sur- veyors, recorders, coroners, and other officials. In functioning for the public welfare, the government dealt with problems of land, public finance, roads, bridges and ferries, taverns, and the defense of the community against dangers from without. In functioning to restrain individual liberties in the interest of the community, judicial machin- 431 Western Pennsylvania At the mouth of the Beaver and extending for some distance along the north bank of the Ohio was the important Delaware settlement of Sawcunk. This was the principal residence of Shingas, who was made head chief of the Delawares by the Half King in 1752, and of his brother, King Beaver. The Half King himself may have lived part of the time in this village. Up the Beaver in the vicinity of the site of New Castle were three of four villages known indiscriminately as Kuskuski and occupied by Mingo and Delawares. Shenango, on the stream of that name, was probably established by the Wyandot, and Pymatuning, farther up the stream, appears to have been a Delaware village. Except for Queen Allaquippa's village of 1753-54 and the Shawnee settlement of Sewickley on the Youghiogheny, there appear to have been no Indian villages on the southern tributaries of the Ohio, though there were doubtless numerous camps in the region, such as Catfish Camp on the site of Washington, which were occupied during the hunting season. In these villages and a few others of less importance lived the Indians of western Pennsylvania in the eighteenth century. To form a true picture of their life and character is difficult because most of the unprejudiced observers accepted Indian life as it was without discus- sion. The missionaries were usually prejudiced in favor of the Indians and read their own ideals into the behavior of their converts, while people who had been taken captive by the Indians were likely to be bitter toward them. Furthermore, no amount of unprejudiced white observation of Indians can give a true picture of Indian culture before it was affected by contact with the whites, and contact with the whites necessarily modified Indian morals and mores. It is therefore difficult to determine where the truth lies between the theory of the "noble savage" and the theory of the "vicious redskin," but it is quite likely that the truth does lie somewhere between these two conceptions of Indian character. Truth has a way of avoiding extremes. Certainly it may be said that, far from being a lawless savage, the Indian had quite definite standards of social conduct and lived up to his standards better than the white man does--perhaps because the white man's standards are more difficult of achievement by faulty human nature. The Indian conceived himself as one of the animal kingdom, an especially favored member, as was demonstrated by his superiority over the beasts of the chase and the fact that they seemed created for 30 Western Pennsylvania ery began its interminable work of meting out punishments to offenders against the law and of settling quarrels between neighbor and neighbor, debtor and creditor, employer and servant. Probably the governmental service that the first settlers considered most important was the confirmation of their land titles. Hence it was natural that the offering of land for sale in 1769 was the first defi- nite service rendered by the province of Pennsylvania to its transmon- tane citizens. The process of acquiring title was, however, cumber- some. Applications or official warrants for land had to be presented in Philadelphia. On approval of the application or warrant, the land office authorized the surveyor general to survey the land involved. The surveyor general then sent transcripts of the application and the authorization to a deputy surveyor in the district in which the appli- cant lived. The survey was to be made within six months, and the recording of the survey gave security to the claimant even though the land might not be paid for and the patent obtained for many years. In the case of claimants under Virginia law, titles were con- firmed by a less cumbrous procedure. After Pennsylvania and Virginia had agreed on the boundary, a Virginia commission went to the re- gion, heard the land claims of the settlers, and issued certificates of title, which were later recognized by Pennsylvania. The rush of settlers after the opening of the region to legal occupa- tion necessitated the establishment of the intricate machinery of local government and of the courts. Counties, townships, and boroughs were more than mere geographical units; they were political entities made up of great numbers of officials, jurisdictions, and regulations; they were social agencies through which each community as a whole and also the province or state operated to protect the people, to promote the general welfare, and to regulate individual conduct. New counties were established in Pennsylvania by legislative ac- tion, sometimes following a petition by the inhabitants of the pro- posed new jurisdiction. The establishing act always described the boundaries of the new county and usually designated the county seat and empowered certain persons resident in the region to act as trus- tees during the period of county organization. The duties of the trustees varied in different counties; they were empowered sometimes to fix the county seat, usually to acquire land for county buildings, and occasionally to divide the county into its original townships and ar- 432 Local Government and Community Control range for the holding of the first elections. These functions were ap- parently recognized as appropriate for local control, for when they were not granted to trustees they were, as a rule, exercised by the court of the new county or by that of the older county from which the new was being set off. The chief county officers were the prothonotary, the clerk, the sheriff, the coroner, three county commissioners, the county treasurer, the recorder of deeds, the register of wills, and the county lieutenant of militia. The voters of the county had a voice in the choosing of some of these officers. They elected "two fit persons" for each of the positions of sheriff and coroner, one of whom was commissioned by the executive (the supreme executive council from 1776 to 1790 and the governor thereafter). Each year the voters elected one county com- missioner for a term of three years, and the county commissioners ap- pointed the county treasurer. The prothonotary and the clerk were appointed by the executive throughout the period under considera- tion. The appointment of the recorder and the register (often appar- ently the same person) was vested in the assembly from 1776 to 1790 and in the governor thereafter. Because of Quaker aversion to an established militia the position of county lieutenant of militia was not created until 1777; this post was filled by executive appointment. The original townships of a county were designated before the first county election; later townships were set off by the county court upon petition of an adequate number of the inhabitants. During the period before I8Io the more important township officials were two road supervisors, an assessor, and two assistant assessors, all elected by the voters of the township; a collector of taxes, appointed by the county commissioners from two freeholders nominated by the asses- sor; and a constable, appointed by the county court from two persons elected by the voters. The borough was more elaborately organized than the township. As settlement increased and became less uniformly rural in character, the larger villages needed something more than township adminis- tration. It had long been the custom of the legislature to incorporate such villages as boroughs. Each was dealt with in a separate law. Upon favorable reception of a petition from the voters in the pro- posed borough, an act was passed specifying the boundaries and providing for the election of officials. The number of these varied; in 433 Western Pennsylvania the case of Pittsburgh, first incorporated in 1794, two chief burgesses, four assistant burgesses, two assessors, and two supervisors were elected; a law reincorporating the borough in 1804 provided for the election of one burgess, a collector of taxes, and a council of thirteen. The act incorporating Connellsville provided for the election of one burgess, a town council of seven, and a "high constable." The burgess and council of each borough might acquire property for public pur- poses, levy taxes, make by-laws and ordinances for the borough, regulate the market, keep streets and alleys in order, and make build- ing regulations. Frequently town meetings were called to ascertain the popular feeling on such questions. In a river-town such as Pitts- burgh wharf-control was a special function of the council. Not many boroughs were incorporated before I812 in western Pennsylvania, and only Pittsburgh, Bedford, Uniontown, and Greensburg became boroughs before i8oo. Canonsburg and Beaver were incorporated in 1802, Connellsville in 1806, and Washington in i8io. The Virginia counties that were set up in the region were less elaborately organized than those of Pennsylvania. None of the few officers was elected; the chief officials-the county lieutenant in com- mand of the militia, the coroner, and the sheriff-were appointed by the governor, the last named usually from one of three persons nomi- nated by the justices of the peace from among their own body. Minor officials such as constables and road overseers were appointed by the county courts. In the older counties of Virginia the parishes had some of the functions of the Pennsylvania townships. During the period of Virginia occupation, however, the parish of Augusta extended from the Blue Ridge to the Mississippi; and the county courts appear to have exercised most of the functions of the parish in western Pennsyl- vania. In 1775 the West Augusta court ordered a boy to be bound out "by the church wardens of Augusta Parish," but in later cases the courts themselves bound out orphans. The Yohogania court took security in 1777 for the payment "at the laying of the Next Parrish Levey" of a fine for swearing and in 1780 "to Indemnify the Parrish" for maintaining an illegitimate child. These are the only references to the parish in the extant court records. Apparently the only subdivi- sions of the counties were the militia districts established by the county lieutenant, but these districts were sometimes used by the courts in the assignment of constables and the listing of tithables. 434 Local Government and Community Control The cornerstone in the structure of the administration of justice in Pennsylvania was the justice of the peace. Before 1776 the justices were appointed by the governor; from 1776 to 1790 the voters in each township elected two men, one of whom the supreme executive council commissioned as justice; and in 1790 the appointment by the governor was resumed. The title of the justice was derived from one of his important functions, that of binding persons to keep the peace, pending trial of some specific breach of the peace of which they were accused. Justices also were responsible for returning runaway servants to their masters, for issuing certificates of marriage, for suppressing drunkenness, for making attachments on the property of persons who left their usual residence without satisfying their creditors, for settling disputes between master and servant, for paying wolf and squirrel bounties, for receiving reports of the birth of bastards, and for en- forcing the act against riotous sports, plays, and games. The justices, individually, had jurisdiction only in cases of debt, attachment, or trespass involving relatively small sums. Civil cases involving larger amounts as well as cases appealed from justices' de- cisions were tried in the county court of common pleas; minor crimi- nal cases were tried in the county court of quarter sessions, and more serious ones in a court of oyer and terminer. Until 1791 the court of quarter sessions was made up of any of the justices of the peace in attendance; the court of common pleas and the orphans court were composed of certain of the justices of the peace specially commis- sioned by the governor or the council as judges for these courts; the courts of oyer and terminer were held by judges of the supreme court on circuit; and a register's court, which dealt with the administration of wills, was composed of the register of wills and two of the justices of the county. After 1790 the justices of the peace ceased to be ex officio judges of the county courts, and the governor appointed three or four judges for each county, who constituted the courts of quarter sessions and the orphans court and who served with a president of courts, ap- pointed for a circuit of from three to six counties, as the county court of common pleas and as a court of oyer and terminer. Apparently, however, the judges of the supreme court continued to hold circuit courts in the counties for the trial of some of the more important criminal cases. The register's court after 1790 consisted of the regis- 435 Western Pennsylvania ter and any two of the judges. An act of 1804 made provision for the trial of cases involving not more than one hundred dollars by arbitra- tors appointed by the parties and presided over by a justice of the peace. The courts of common pleas and quarter sessions met quar- terly, and trials were by jury unless the jury was dispensed with by agreement. Appeals could be taken to the supreme court and in some cases to the high court of errors and appeals. By a law of I8o6 provi- sion was made for holding one session of the supreme court in Pitts- burgh each year. Under the constitution of 1776 judges were ap- pointed for terms of seven years, but after 1790 they held office for life or during good behavior. The Virginia courts that sat in the region from 1775 to 1780 were made up, like those of Pennsylvania in that period, of justices of the peace. The Virginia justices for each county were appointed by the governor. Apparently there was no fixed number; thirty-one were commissioned for Yohogania County when it was established in 1776, but only fourteen of them were sworn in at the first meeting of the county court. All the justices were eligible to sit in the court, but four constituted a quorum and the attendance in Yohogania County rarely exceeded eight. The court was supposed to meet monthly at the coun- ty seat, but actually the Yohogania court met in only thirty-three of the forty-four months from January, 1777, until its last session in August, 1780. Minor cases, as in Pennsylvania, were heard by in- dividual justices. The county courts had jurisdiction in all common law and chancery cases except those involving capital punishment or outlawry, and they also acted as courts of administration (probate courts) and orphans courts. Appeal from the county court might be taken to the general court, which met twice a year. If a defendant in any criminal case demanded a jury, he might be tried by a petit jury of six or twelve persons; sometimes the judges so ordered without the defendant's motion. Both the Pennsylvania and the Virginia county courts had admin- istrative as well as judicial functions-in fact in the Virginia counties every aspect of local government except the militia centered in the courts. In both cases the care of the poor fell on the courts, although a Pennsylvania law of 1771 provided for two overseers of the poor in each township, to be appointed by the court of quarter sessions. This same law provided for the erection of poorhouses, but such in- 436 Local Government and Community Control stitutions were not in existence in the western region before I815. In the records of the Virginia courts of the region during the Revolu- tion are frequent entries of grants in aid of wives or widows of poor soldiers of the Revolutionary army. The courts also bound out in- digent orphans and settled disputes between servants and masters. The regulation of inns and taverns was another function of the coun- ty court. The Virginia courts issued licenses to them and fixed their rates; the Pennsylvania courts determined the number and distribu- tion of taverns necessary for the county and recommended them for licensing to the provincial or state authorities. The justices were expected to examine the establishments to make sure that they con- formed to the laws and regulations. The Virginia courts also issued licenses for ferries; in Pennsylvania, however, at least after 1780, the right to keep a ferry was granted by legislative enactment. Another matter of routine business for the early courts was the provision of jails, stocks, whipping posts, and pillories-the equip- ment necessary for executing the sentences imposed. In 1775 the Vir- ginia court designated the guardroom at Fort Dunmore "as a Goal for this Part of the County" and ordered "that the Sheriff Imploy a Workman to build a Ducking Stool at the Confluence of the OHio with the Monongohale." When the Yohogania County court was es- tablished on the farm of Andrew Heath, near Elizabeth, a combina- tion jail and courthouse was erected of logs, and in 1778 the court provided for the erection of "a pair of stocks, whiping post and Pil- liory." The first jail of Fayette County was a log building erected in 1784; it was replaced by a stone jail in 1787. It appears to have re- quired no great ingenuity to escape from any of the county jails; in fact, the number of reports of successful jail-breaking indicates a high ratio of escapes to permanent incarcerations. The jails at Bedford and Hannastown were notoriously unfit. In 1775 the Westmoreland Coun- ty jail was found "not fit nor sufficient to confine any Person in with out Endangering the life of any Person so confined." A man sentenced to the penitentiary had to be taken to Philadelphia for confinement. After 18oo, the need for a penitentiary in western Pennsylvania was almost constantly before the public. The primary agency for public defense was the militia, which, after 1777, was organized in Pennsylvania by counties and townships on a democratic basis. Though the county lieutenant and sometimes a 437 Western Pennsylvania sublieutenant were appointed by the executive, each militia unit elected its own officers and to a large extent controlled its own activi- ties. In theory all free white men between the ages of eighteen and fifty-three, with the exception of ministers, state officials, college teachers, and members of sects with conscientious scruples against bearing arms, were subject to militia call. Substitutes were allowed, however, and after 1798 a man might have his name left off the militia rolls by paying six dollars annually to the state. The county lieuten- ants received from the constable of each township a list of the per- sons subject to militia duty and summoned them to meet and elect their officers. An act of 1803 authorized the organization of volunteer companies, and thereafter a number of such companies were formed, especially in the boroughs. In Virginia the governor appointed not only the county lieutenant of militia, with the rank of colonel, but also-at least in the West-the other officers, even down to the ensigns. The frequent musters required by law, besides keep- ing the community prepared, in a measure, to defend itself, fur- nished opportunities for discussion of local, state, and national prob- lems and even for the formal expression of community sentiments. That such activities were not always conducive to the maintenance of "law and order" was demonstrated during the Whiskey Insurrec- tion. Politicians were not slow to discover the possibilities of using the militia muster as a sounding board for their oratory and of in- fluencing the voters through the militia officers. One of the most important and far-reaching functions of local gov- ernment was the levying and collection of taxes, and in Pennsylvania the machinery for the performance of this function was controlled by the people. The central administrative body, a board of three county commissioners, was elective, as were also the assessors for each town- ship. The other officials concerned with taxation-the county treasurer and the collector for each township-were appointed by these elected officials. Every fall, one month after the general election, the three com- missioners met to estimate county expenses for the ensuing year. Two weeks later in every third year they instructed the township assessors to compile lists of taxable persons and property in the town- ships, with detailed estimates of property values. Using these lists, the commissioners were able to estimate the total property value in 438 Local Government and Community Control the county, to determine the tax rate, and, by comparing property values in the different townships, to decide what proportion of the total levy each township should bear. Transcripts of the township quotas were then sent to the tax collectors with a statement of the tax rate. The collector then notified each taxpayer of his assessment and at the same time appointed a day and place for appeals. The com- missioners themselves, acting as a board of equalization, heard the appeals and prepared a revised list. They then issued warrants against the taxpayers and presented them to the collectors, who in six weeks were to deposit with the county treasurer all the moneys collected. At that time the commissioners again met to "make abatements or allowances for mistakes, or indigent persons." The collectors then were given thirty days in which to complete their collections, and after that time court proceedings against the delinquents might be instituted. The main subjects of taxation were lands, houses, and ground rents. The assessors were instructed also to enumerate all mills, fur- naces, forges, bloomeries, distilleries, sugar and malt houses, breweries, tanyards, ferries, slaves, horses, and cattle more than four years old. There was also a tax on "all offices and posts of profit, trades and occupations," with the exception of the ministry and schoolteaching. The assessors were to value each piece of property on the basis of "what they think it will bona fide sell for in ready money." In fixing the occupational tax they were to use their discretion, with "due re- gard to the profits arising from such trades and occupations, as well as to the amount of taxes to be raised." To insure against corruption and injustice in collecting taxes,various precautions were taken. Tenure of office was restricted; assessors and collectors were elected or appointed every year; and county treasurers, though they had three-year terms, were permitted to serve for only three years in every six and were under bond. Collectors had no power to relieve any one from paying taxes and were subject to the seizure of their own property, real and personal, for failure to turn collections over to the county treasurer. Regulations for auditing the books of commissioners, assessors, and treasurers became gradually more strin- gent. Before 1791 the books were merely presented yearly to the jus- tices of the court of quarter sessions and to the grand jury. Thereafter the court of quarter sessions was required to appoint three auditors 439 Western Pennsylvania with power to examine all books and papers relating to the public accounts, to summon witnesses if necessary, and to report their find- ings to the court of common pleas, which was to prosecute any delin- quency. In 1809 the auditors' office became elective, and in I8Io the reviewing of the accounts of sheriffs and coroners was included in the auditors' duties. In the Virginia counties the tax system was less democratically administered and less equitable, according to modern standards, than in the Pennsylvania counties. The county court fixed the amount of the levy, which was then divided by the number of "tithables" in the county to determine the flat rate to be paid by each as a poll tax. Ministers, paupers, young children, and aged or infirm persons were exempt, but the man of large means paid no more than the poor man unless he had slaves or indented servants, who were subject to the poll tax. The justices made up the lists of tithables, and in western Pennsylvania one of them was assigned the task in each militia dis- trict. The sheriff of the county was responsible for the collection of taxes and the forwarding of the general tax to the treasurer of the colony or commonwealth. In Yohogania County the tax laid in 1778 was twelve shillings per poll, and that in 1779 was forty-eight shillings. Another important function of the county was the recording of deeds and of papers relating to transfers of title, mortgages, and the like. Strict precautions were taken in Pennsylvania against inac- curacies and frauds in the work of the county recorder. The law provided that the records should be orderly, comprehensible, and at all times accessible to the public. Fees were fixed by law. The recorder was bonded, and grand juries might at any time scrutinize his office with a view to indictment or impeachment. Guarantees of the accuracy of boundaries, the authenticity of signatures, and the identity of per- sons involved were required. As a further precaution all written in- struments to be recorded had to be signed by a justice of the peace. In the Virginia counties the clerk of thle court acted as a recorder, and the contracts, deeds, and mortgages were proved or acknowledged before the court. The local machinery for the establishment and maintenance of roads was composed in Pennsylvania partly of township and partly of county officials. Upon petition for a new road, the court of quarter sessions of the county appointed six men as a board of viewers to in- 440 Local Government and Community Control spect the route proposed. If a majority of this board agreed, they were to lay out the road, following as closely as possible the route requested by the petitioners. If the court approved their report, the road was entered in the records and became a legal road or highway. In 1765 responsibility for the maintenance of roads passed into the hands of two supervisors of roads elected in each township, who were em- powered to levy taxes for road repairs (subject to the approval of a justice of the peace). An act of 1802 directed that, if the cost of con- structing causeways and bridges was too great for a township to bear, the county commissioners should undertake the work at county ex- pense. The Virginia system of laying out roads was much the same as that of Pennsylvania. A board of viewers was appointed by the court to investigate the route and "make a report of Conveniences and Inconveniences to the next Court." As a rule the court accepted the report of the board of viewers, appointed one or more surveyors, and directed that the tithables within three miles of either side of the road should "work on and keep the sd. Road in repair." That there was considerable disorder and lawlessness in western Pennsylvania, especially during the eighteenth century, is well at- tested. On each of the successive American frontiers certain attributes and attitudes that made for the success of the individual settler were developed, and these attributes and attitudes, tenaciously cherished in a later period when the law had caught up with settlement, were often not conformable to the established customs of more orderly civilization. In estimating the force of this frontier influence in west- ern Pennsylvania it must be remembered that most of the earliest settlers came of families that had dwelt on other frontiers with the same lack of legal restraint and perhaps had lived for some generations in the tradition of fighting their own battles and settling their own disputes. In the frontier code, assault and battery, swearing, drunken- ness, and Sabbath-breaking were neither high crimes nor misde- meanors, and when the colonial law and later settlers caught up with the frontiersman he was not inclined to give up his cherished freedom to fight, swear, and drink, and to make maple sugar on any day that suited his convenience. It is impossible to determine how much lawlessness there was in the region as compared with the regions farther east and with the newer frontiers to the west. There were undoubtedly certain elements 44' The Indian Regime his support-but still a member of a balanced life in nature. To main- tain that balance seemed to him part of his duty-therefore, until the advent of white traders, insatiable for skins and furs, the Indian never killed more game than sufficed for his own needs. To support a culture based mainly on the chase takes many more acres of land per capita than to support an agricultural society; hence the inter-tribal wars among the Indians and hence their common and bitter resentment of the advance of the agricultural white civilization. Conceiving of all men, or at least of all their own tribe, as common sharers of nature's bounty, it is not surprising that the Indians developed a communal system of living. In the white man's culture at its apogee not even water is free to all-in the Indian's, air, water, land, and food were looked upon as common to all; the offering of food to visitors was automatic and its acceptance obligatory to avoid offense. James Smith of Pennsylvania, a captive among the Indians in Pennsylvania and Ohio from 1755 to 1759, gives a clear picture of this bit of Indian etiquette, especially in the following episode: "While we were here Tontileaugo went out to hunt, and when he was gone a Wiandot came to our camp; I gave him a shoulder of venison which I had by the fire well roasted, and he received it gladly, told me he was hungry, and thanked me for my kindness. When Tontileaugo came home, I told him that a Wiandot had been at camp, and that I gave him a shoulder of roasted venison; he said that was very well, and I suppose you gave him also sugar and bears oil, to eat with his venison. I told him I did not; as the sugar and bears oil was down in the canoe and I did not go for it. He replied you have behaved just like a Dutch- man. Do you not know that when strangers come to our camp, we ought always to give them the best we have? I acknowledged that I was wrong. He said that he could excuse this, as I was but young; but I must learn to behave like a warrior, and do great things, and never be found in any such little actions." This collectivism manifested itself also in a common type of dwell- ing. The long house of the Iroquois, sheltering a whole village or all the families of one clan, was from fifty to one hundred feet long and from fifteen to twenty feet wide, with an inside passageway down the center in which fires were built and which gave entrance to compart- ments six to eight feet square housing the separate family groups. The Delawares built a house for each family, says Zeisberger, the Mora- 31 Western Pennsylvania in the population that were prone to disorder. Though the Presby- terian Church controlled many of the Scotch and Irish in the region, there were some outside its pale; and the traditional unruliness of the Irish seems to have cropped out frequently. Some of the Virginians had not only acquired the extreme individualism of the frontier but had also shaken off the restraints of religion. The Germans are said to have been more sober and self-restrained, but at least one traveler -a New England spinster, to be sure--commented on the lack of sobriety and decorum among Germans east of the Alleghenies. Occupa- tional groups that made for disorder were in the earliest period the hangers-on of the Indian trade and later the rivermen and the wagoners, whose boorishness, hot temper, and recklessness drew severe criticism from the sober-minded. It is also beyond dispute that there were in the early population some criminals who had fled from the better-policed eastern areas to find "liberty" on the frontier. A further complication that for some time militated against order in the region was the territorial dispute between Virginia and Pennsylvania, which made the rival courts more interested in asserting their author- ity than in exercising their normal function of preserving order. There were, however, certain forces among the frontiersmen that worked for law and order even before the coming of the courts. Joseph Doddridge, who lived as a boy in what is now Wash- ington County, asserts that most of the early settlers felt an aversion to "the turpitude of vice" and a respect for "the majesty of moral virtue." These sentiments were made effective in the community by the application of extralegal measures. For "idleness, lying, dis- honesty, and ill fame generally" there was the custom of "hating the offender out," which "commonly resulted either in the reformation or banishment" of the culprit. Petty thievery was punished by thir- teen lashes; but, says Doddridge, "If the theft was of something of some value, a kind of jury of the neighbourhood, after hearing the testimony would condemn the culprit to Moses Law, that is to Forty stripes, save one.... Able hands were selected to execute the sentence, so that the stripes were sure to be well laid on. This punishment was followed by a sentence of exile." For a more heinous crime such as seduction the community sanctioned the blood feud, with a brother or other relative of the victim as the avenger. The most powerful force for law and order in the region, aside from 442 Local Government and Community Control the courts themselves, was unquestionably the church. Although its authority extended only over its own membership, its example tended to create respect for order among nonmembers as well. As a writer in the Pittsburgh Gazette of 1786 expressed it: "The black cloth, the sedate and grave presence of a divine, the idea of dignity and rev- erence, from common opinion, annexed to his character, restrains the disorderly in the streets where he walks, or in the neighbourhood where he lives. . ... Human nature is insensibly actuated by these secret springs and touches, and we see a people where a church is established, even where there is not great devotion evident, never- theless more orderly, temperate and industrious than elsewhere." More effective, however, was the actual discipline exercised by the various churches over their members. In the Methodist Church the "form of discipline" was enforced locally by the preacher and the church officers, from whose decision it was possible after 1796 to take appeal to the quarterly meeting. Quaker rules of conduct were en- forced by the preparative meetings, subject to the approval of the monthly meeting and with the right of appeal to the quarterly meeting and thence to the yearly meeting. A committee of two or more Friends was appointed for each case and kept it in charge "according to the discipline." Baptist congregations usually pledged themselves to "watch over each others life and conversation," and at their weekly business meetings passed judgment on their fellows. The German union congregations also adopted rules for self-government and specifications as to personal conduct. Presbyterians were subject to the jurisdiction of the sessions of their respective churches, with the right of appeal to the presbytery, thence to the synod, and in rare cases to the General Assembly. Trials by Presbyterian bodies, like civil trials, involved the calling of witnesses and the presentation of evidence. Since the churches could not deprive wrongdoers of civil rights, they used as a disciplinary measure the denial of religious privileges. Thus a man in Dunlaps Creek congregation desiring to have his children baptised was charged with using "unguarded expression" at different times. When he acknowledged his guilt, professed his sorrow, and promised to reform, the session declared the way open for bap- tism. First offenders, unless the offense was heinous, were usually let off with admonition or reprimand after acknowledgement of their guilt 443 Western Pennsylvania and profession of repentance. Frequently the facts were "published" in the congregation to add to the humiliation of the sinner and to prevent the spread of evil. Suspension from the privileges of the church "till Satisfaction be Made to the Church" or until the cul- prit gave "satisfactory evidence of repentence" was an effective curb to wrongdoing. Only the Quakers, among whom discipline was most severe, made frequent use of permanent removal from the church rolls. The other denominations reserved this punishment for such sins as accepting the teaching of another sect, fornication, and adultery. The church contributed much to orderly marital relations on the frontier. The ministers who went earliest into the region frequently married couples who had perforce been living together without benefit of clergy. More significant service was the regulation by the churches of marriage among their own members. Publishing the banns or giving notice of intent to marry was required in practically all the churches. Among the Quakers the procedure was especially strict. The following minutes from the Westland monthly meeting of 1792 are typical of Quaker methods. On August 8, "Joseph Lenick [Benock?] and Hannah Dickson appeared here and signified their intentions of taking each other in Marriage. Her parents are Consenting thereto. The young man is desired to produce his Mother's consent to next meeting. Wm. Willson and Abraham Smith are appointed to make the needful enquiry into the young man's clearness from Marriage engagements with others and report to next Meeting." At the next meeting, the young man produced his mother's consent to the marriage, and "no obstruction appearing they are at liberty to accomplish the same." And at the next meeting, "The Friends appointed to attend the Marriage of Joseph Benock and Hannah Dixon report it was in a good degree orderly accomplished and the Certificate is returned." Preachers also assisted in reconciling differences between man and wife, for among good church members divorce was unthinkable. Re- hoboth session received the apology of a member "for having Struck his wife Some time ago." Similar instances of church control of marital relations are scattered through sessional and presbyterial records. Irregular sexual relations were punished by suspension or excommunication. Cases involving such lapses appear frequently in Presbyterian and Quaker records-relatively more frequently than in the regular court records. Between 1793 and 1811, the Redstone 444 Local Government and Community Control monthly meeting of the Quakers disowned forty persons for fornica- tion or adultery. The observation of the Sabbath was almost a fetish among the strictest church members, especially the Presbyterians, who tried offenders for traveling or making maple sugar on the Sabbath. The fact that postmasters were expected to open the mails on Sundays did not excuse Presbyterians for so doing, and for this fault the postmaster at Washington was excluded "from the special privileges of the church." But in spite of all efforts to enforce general Sabbath observ- ance, in 1812, according to the missionary Schermerhorn, traveling, visiting, hunting, and fishing on Sunday were common. Conduct of church members throughout the week was also subject to strict regulation. Quakers, Presbyterians, and Baptists disciplined their fellow members for "attending places of diversion," "promiscu- ous dancing," "getting angry and fighting and speaking unadvisedly," "mischievous lying," and slander. During the earliest period most of the churches did not try to restrict the use of intoxicating liquors. For such religious or semireligious rites as weddings, funerals, and chris- tenings, liquor was considered essential. Total abstinence was ex- pected of no one, not even of the preachers. As time went on, however, sentiment against the use of liquor be- came somewhat stronger. Presbyterian sessions occasionally charged members with "over-drunkenness," especially in connection with "unchristian conduct and conversation," or "using profane language." Soon after the turn of the century, John Anderson, pastor of the Buffalo congregation, took the lead in promoting a "temperance" movement among the Presbyterians. He and his session pledged themselves to total abstinence and tried to dissuade others from using liquor, even in harvest. Anderson joined with Elisha Macurdy and James Hughes in stopping the serving of spirits at meetings of the presbytery, and Macurdy preached a sermon on "Whiskey at Fu- nerals," which ended its use on such occasions in his neighborhood. Between I8oo and I8I, however, two ministers of the Presbytery of Ohio were dismissed for habitual intemperance. Churches occasionally extended their control even into the domain of the civil authorities. Thus the Westland preparative meeting of the Quakers disowned two women for "opening the Door of a House when the Family were absent, and going in where they had no real 445 Western Pennsylvania business and taking several things out." The Presbyterian session of Rehoboth investigated charges that John Blaine had stolen some flour from Mrs. Furier's mill. Having heard the testimony, examined the witnesses, and given Blaine "every opportunity of defence," the session decided that the charge was proved and that Blaine should be deprived of church privileges until he gave satisfactory evidence of repentance. Church members, moreover, were expected to be honest in business. The Methodist discipline provided that if a member failed in business his accounts should be investigated and that if he were found to have been dishonest or to have knowingly borrowed without the ability to repay he should be expelled from the church. In 1799 a member of the Laurel Hill congregation of Associate Reformed Presbyterians was accused of having misrepresented the age of a horse he had sold. The presbytery finally induced buyer and seller to drop the dispute because "a judicial discussion thereof would be highly prejudicial to their respective domestik and religious connections." In the one major disorder in western Pennsylvania before 181z- the Whiskey Insurrection-the churches took the side of order and the federal government, and their attitude probably contributed to the collapse of the movement. Robert Ayres, the Episcopal clergy- man, rebuked the participants in a "liberty-tree" demonstration in Brownsville. Presbyterian elders frequently denounced open rebel- lion, and Presbyterian ministers tried to dissuade their parishioners from active participation in it. McMillan postponed a Communion service in September, 1794, with the idea of excluding those who re- fused to pledge submission to the government; and the members of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Synod declared "their un- equivocal detestation" of the rebellion. One of the leaders of the insur- gents, however, was John Corbly, a Baptist minister. The supervision of the churches over the lives of their members was supplemented by that of virtuous individuals who joined them- selves into "watch and ward" societies. One of the first of these socie- ties was organized in 1799 under the leadership of the "Yough Church," Elizabeth Township, Allegheny County, and soon there- after several similar organizations were formed. Their declared pur- pose was to aid enforcement of "the laws which at present exist, or may hereafter be enacted for the suppression of vice and immor- 446 Local Government and Community Control ality." They proposed to campaign particularly against "the profana- tion of the Lord's day . . . tippling-houses,-gambling-houses,- riotous or disorderly assemblages of persons,-profane cursing and swearing, and taking the name of God in vain." This sentiment reached even the town of Pittsburgh. In an address published in the Gazette of August 16, 1809, Ebenezer Denny, as chairman of the Pittsburgh Moral Society, pointed out that, although vice was prob- ably no more common in Pittsburgh than in other youthful towns, nevertheless much might be done to combat it by ministers and mag- istrates and by keepers of taverns and ferries. He made an especial appeal to parents and guardians to secure more strict observation of the Sabbath. The main instrumentality in the punishment of crime and the sup- pression of disorder was, however, the courts. The sessions of the fron- tier courts were sometimes sober and decorous and sometimes occa- sions for roistering and brawling. In 1784 Ephraim Douglass wrote to President Dickinson of the first meeting of the Fayette County court, "the gathering of people was pretty numerous, and I was not alone in fearing that we should have had frequent proofs of that tur- bulence of spirit with which they have been so generally, perhaps so justly, stigmatized, but I now take great satisfaction in doing them the justice to say that they behaved to a man with good order and decency." In Somerset County in 1795 the grand jury upheld its re- spectability by indicting one of its members for intoxication and in- ability to take part in its business. A trial resulted in a conviction and a five-dollar fine for the erring brother. At the first court held in But- ler, according to an eyewitness, a newly erected cabin, without doors and windows, was used as a courtroom; and some spectators, finding the floor crowded, proceeded to climb up the walls and sit on the joists or hang with hands and feet in the openings between the logs. When the presiding judge ordered the sheriff to clear the walls and joists, Big John McJunkin defied the order. He was finally brought down and was sentenced to two hours in the county jail for contempt of court. Since there was no county jail the sheriff set out with his prisoner toward a convenient pigpen, but the prisoner escaped en route. As might be expected from the frontier psychology of the inhabi- tants, the crimes that most frequently engaged the attention of the early courts were assault and battery, breach of the peace, and the 447 Western Pennsylvania swearing of "prophane oaths." The usual fine for swearing was five shillings an oath; thus in 1777 the Virginia court fined one James Johnston twenty shillings for swearing "two profane oaths and two profane Cusses." It is uncertain what effect such fines had; the wagoners at least were notorious for profanity. Indictments for drunkenness alone are rare in court records, but drunkenness accom- panied by assault or other breach of the peace was punished by a fine and the culprit was usually put under bond to keep the peace. Problems of sexual conduct were affected somewhat by the frontier environment. Early marriage and economic necessity left little incen- tive or leisure for sexual irregularity. Bastardy was more common among indentured servants than among freemen, probably not so much because of higher morals of the freemen as because servants could not marry during their terms of indenture. Bastardy among freemen was punished in the Yohogania court by requiring the mother to pay a fine of fifty shillings and the father to give security for the mainte- nance of the child. Marital difficulties were not often before the courts, in part because on the frontier marriage was not only an emotional union but also a mutually advantageous economic partnership. At first there was no provision for divorce except for adultery, but under a Pennsylvania law a man's estate might be seized for the support of his wife and children if he deserted them. A case before the Yohogania court in 1779 involved a woman who "cannot live with her Husband on acct. of Ill Treatment"; the court enjoined the husband "to show cause if any why part of his Estate should not be applied for her seperate maintainence." The exigencies of life in a new country, however, where a husband was almost an economic necessity for a woman and where children were economic assets both to the parents and to the state, contributed to the passage of a Pennsylvania law in 1785 permitting divorce on grounds of impotence, bigamy, adultery, or "wilful and malicious desertion" for a period of four years. The crime of larceny appears to have been committed with con- siderable frequency. As early as 1761, James Kenny commented on the many "Roberies" near Fort Pitt, and on one occasion he re- ported that a thousand pounds had been stolen from Colonel Bou- quet's room. A small part of this sum was later found "in one of ye Great Guns" of the fort. Cases of theft appear frequently in the early 448 Local Government and Community Control court records, and the articles stolen were various-a hog, a "Plow & Irons with several other Utensels of Husbandry and Household fur- nitur," two pounds of coffee. After the founding of the Pittsburgk Gazette the theft of articles was often advertised in it; in 1788 the owner of a watch offered six dollars for its return, and sometime later a shopkeeper described six watches that had been stolen. The editor occasionally gave warning to the public of the presence of "a number of very suspicious characters about," or of "housebreakers." Severe penalties for larceny were imposed by the early courts. Restoration of stolen property, payment of a fine and court costs, and a public whipping with lashes "well laid on" was the usual sentence. Under the English criminal code, felonies such as horse-stealing, highway robbery, and murder were punishable by death. During the early period of settlement in western Pennsylvania this code was somewhat modified, but not until 1794 was the death penalty abolished for all crimes except wilful murder. The most common felony in the western region was horse-stealing. In 1767 a Pennsyl- vania law provided that a convicted horse thief should pay all costs, restore the horse, pay the governor a sum equal to the value of the horse, stand in the pillory for an hour, be publicly whipped with thirty-nine lashes, and be committed to jail for a period not exceeding six months. For a second offense the jail sentence was increased to three years at hard labor. In 1780 there was added to the punishment for the first offense the cutting off of the criminal's ears and for the second offense the branding of the criminal "on the forehead, in a plain and visible manner, with the letters H. T." In 1790 these more barbarous penalties were eliminated and the prison sentence was raised to seven years at hard labor. Penalties under the law of 1780 were imposed both in Bedford and Westmoreland counties; a similar sentence had been imposed in 1773 by the court at Hannastown. The Virginia court of Yohogania County, in a case of a prisoner "charged with felloniously stealing a horse," rendered the decision "that he is not guilty but that he is a person of bad character, and therefore that he give Security for his good behaviour for three years himself C Ioo and his two Securities £ 5oo each." In the early eighties a band of outlaws known as the Doan gang made its headquarters somewhere in the hills of Washington County and engaged in the theft of horses, negroes, and other valuable prop- 449 Western Pennsylvania erty. The leaders of this gang, having been driven out of Bucks Coun- ty, with true pioneering spirit had gone west to continue their nefari- ous activities. They seem to have been adept at jail-breaking; in 1783 Abraham and Levi Doan were apprehended and put into the custody of Mary Hay, wife of the under-sheriff of Bedford County, to be transported to the Lancaster jail because of "insecurity here" -but in 1784 they were at large again. In that year after a horse- stealing foray by the gang the militia was called out and pursued the outlaws a hundred miles toward Detroit. Abraham Doan, Thomas Richardson, and "two women who profess themselves wives to some of the party" were captured. The prisoners had to be strongly guarded, the jail "being insuffi- cient, and this same Abraham Doane having been rescued from it once before by an armed party." In some way Abraham appears to have broken jail again, but Richardson was tried, convicted, and sen- tenced to death. A report of the trial was forwarded to the supreme executive council, which ordered that the sentence be carried out "at the most proper and public place." Richardson was driven in a cart to "Gallows Hill," now within the limits of Washington but then a little southeast of the village. There, before a crowd of spectators, a noose was put about the condemned man's neck and the rope was passed over a branch of a tree. The cart was then driven away, and Richardson was duly hanged. Abraham and Levi Doan were finally captured and held and were executed in Philadelphia in 1788. Just after the Whiskey Insurrection, Washington County experi- enced a variety of "racketeering." Notices were posted during the night on houses and barns ordering the owners to pay money and threatening the burning of their property if they failed to do so. Several of the threats were carried out. Finally, when one victim swore out a warrant against the man whom he thought to be the ringleader of "the Burners," the suspected man fled precipitately, and the burnings stopped. Arson in Pennsylvania was punishable by death until 1794, when the penalty was made five to twelve years in the penitentiary. In 1775 the Virginia court at Fort Dunmore pro- nounced a man who burned a house "guilty of a High Misdemeanor" and committed him to jail until he and two others should give in all two hundred pounds as security for his good behavior for a year. Disputes about land titles were not always settled so peacefully as 450 Local Government and Community Control by the judgments of the "Fair-Play Men" or the fisticuffs of Tea- garden. An incident of 1807 significantly illustrates the popular atti- tude toward the authorities in such disputes. The federal circuit court, following a precedent established by the United States Supreme Court, had decided for the plaintiff an ejectment suit brought by a land company against William Foulkes, who had occupied his claim in Beaver County for seventeen years. When a posse of men led by the deputy marshal attempted to dispossess Foulkes, a group of his neighbors fired on the men and one of them was killed. Nathaniel Aitkin was charged with complicity and imprisoned at Beaver, but his sympathizers forced the jail and released him. A witness against him was anonymously threatened. The incident ended with Aitkin's surrender, trial, and acquittal. In 1815 an attempted eviction in But- ler County led to the shooting of one of the claimants to the prop- erty, and a serious clash between officers and settlers was barely averted. Such episodes induced the land companies to modify their tactics and to compromise with settlers rather than to attempt to eject them. Manslaughter and murder were infrequent crimes, or at least ap- pear infrequently in court records. In 1775 three murder cases were tried by the Virginia court in the district of West Augusta. In the first of these, James Clark was acquitted of the murder of a boy, Silas Tucker. In the second, a case arising out of the Virginia-Pennsylvania dispute, Devereaux Smith was held for trial in the general court for the murder of Captain George Aston. In the third case, Thomas Glenn was examined and held for trial for the murder of his servant. The court ordered him "to be removed to the Pub Goal in the City of Wmsburg" to await trial by the general court in the fall. Four days later, on his lawyer's contention that the proceedings of the court were irregular and that Glenn was illegally confined, the court ordered his release from imprisonment; a month thereafter a called court decided Glenn not guilty of murder but "Guilty of beating his Servant Ill" and held him for the "Grandjury Court" under bond of two thou- sand pounds. More than a year afterwards, as no prosecutor nor wit- ness appeared against Glenn, he was discharged. One widely noted trial occurred in 1785, that of a Delaware Indian, Mamachtaga, who when drunk had killed two white men near Pitts- burgh. During his incarceration in the guardhouse at Fort Pitt, several 45' The Planting of Civilization in Western Pennsylvania. By Solon J. Buck and Elizabeth Hawthorn Buck. ILLUSTRATED FROM THE DRAWINGS OF CLARENCE McWILLIAMS & FROM PHOTOGRAPHS CONTEMPORARY PICTURES & MAPS. University of Pittsburgh Press Pittsburgh and London Western Pennsylvania vian missionary, "not a few" of which were log cabins, but most of which were presumably of the type of Indian wigwam common in the woodland section, in which saplings are fixed firmly in the ground, bent over and joined to make a rounded top, strengthened by weav- ing split poles crosswise among them, and then covered with bark or brush. Smith describes an interesting "winter cabbin" built by a party of Wyandot on their winter hunt and somewhat reminiscent of Iroquois construction, although the walls of the Iroquois house were higher and made of poles set upright in the ground: "They cut logs about fifteen feet long, and laid these logs upon each other, and drove posts in the ground at each end to keep them together; the posts they tied to- gether at the top with bark, and by this means raised a wall fifteen feet long, and about four feet high, and in the same manner they raised another wall opposite to this, at about twelve feet distance; then they drove forks in the ground in the centre of each end, and laid a strong pole from end to end on these forks; and from these walls to the poles, they set up poles instead of rafters, and on these they tied small poles in place of laths; and a cover was made of lynn bark which will run even in the winter season .... At the end of these walls they set up split timber, so that they had timber all round, excepting a door at each end. At the top, in place of a chimney, they left an open place, and for bedding they laid down the aforesaid kind of bark, on which they spread bear skins. From end to end of this hut along the middle there were fires, which the squaws made of dry split wood, and the holes or open places that appeared, the squaws stopped with moss, which they collected from old logs; and at the door they hung a bear skin; and nothwithstanding the winters are hard here, our lodging was much better than what I expected." In this winter dwelling lived eighteen hunters and thirteen squaws and children. In a region abounding in deer, buckskin was the staple material for Indian clothing. Tanned and worked to a remarkable softness by the women, and sewed with sinew, it was fashioned into the hunting shirt, breechcloth, leggings, and moccasins that made up the typical male costume, and the loose, short-sleeved upper garment, waistcloth or apron, and leggings and moccasins worn by the women. The men usually shaved their scalps with the exception of the center, where the hair was allowed to grow long and was braided into an elaborate 32 Western Pennsylvania attempts were made to lynch him. Hugh Henry Brackenridge con- ducted the defense, despite attempts to force him to abandon the case, but the Indian was hanged by due process of law. In a sensational trial in Bedford County in 1795, Cyriacus Spangenburg, the German Reformed minister, was convicted of fatally stabbing one of his parishioners during a church meeting. In the next year the murder of ten-year-old Mary Stewart proved an unsolved mystery in Wash- ington County; the coroner's jury found a verdict of death at the hands of a person unknown, but neighbors, perhaps more suspicious than just, thereafter shunned the girl's stepfather as a murderer. In 1807 Fortescue Cuming found every one at Somerset discussing the murder of one David Pollock. Upon discovering the crime, the in- habitants had armed themselves and pursued two French strangers; one of the foreigners had been shot resisting arrest, and the other was lodged in the Somerset jail. Cuming went to see this man and later acted as interpreter for a young lawyer who undertook the defense, "although it was so unpopular as not to be unattended with personal danger, in the irritated state of mind of the country." The man was hanged after the next court, though he denied his guilt to the last. Altogether, however, there is scant record of serious crime on the frontier. Murder, bastardy, and horse-stealing seem to have been relatively less frequent toward the close of the period than in the early years. Fighting, swearing, and drunkenness are mentioned by travelers throughout the period but were probably no more common in the later years west of the mountains than they were in eastern Pennsylvania, with the exception of Philadelphia. In 18Io, when Margaret Dwight reached Shippensburg on her journey to the West, she noted as a remarkable exception "a handsome young gentleman who was both a dutchman & Pennsylvanian" and who yet did not "make use of a single oath or prophane word.... Prophanity," she adds sadly, "is the characteristic of a Pennsylvanian." At the end of the period the institutions of local government had been firmly established and were functioning normally throughout western Pennsylvania. In the main they were institutions that had been slowly evolved in England and in eastern Pennsylvania rather than creations or even adaptations designed to meet local needs of the region. The youthful society that had grown up west of the mountains, though physically isolated, was nevertheless an extension of the com- 452 Local Government and Community Control monwealth of Pennsylvania and was subject to its constitution and laws. Unlike the new states farther west, it did not have the oppor- tunity to determine its own governmental institutions. Fortunately, however, it had much in common with certain other sections and ele- ments in Pennsylvania, and by co6perating with them it was able to exert a considerable influence in the framing of laws and constitu- tions for the commonwealth. 453 xix. Frontier Radicalism and Rebellion HE political attitudes of the people of western Pennsylvania during the eighteenth century were essentially those of fron- tiersmen and consequently had much in common with the attitudes of the inhabitants of the other new settlements that ex- tended along the back of the older settlements from Maine to Georgia. This frontier region, which still included much of the "Old West" between the coastal settlements and the mountains as well as the transmontane settlements, was, during the later colonial and revolu- tionary periods, the seat of a society democratic in fact as well as in convictions, and its inhabitants frequently found themselves at odds with the more conservative easterners. The settlers west of the moun- tains were, as a rule, even more radically democratic than the fron- tiersmen of the Old West, for their settlements were newer and their isolation from the centers of conservatism was greater. As new terri- tories and states were created in the interior, their inhabitants were enabled, in a considerable measure, to govern themselves; but the people of western Pennsylvania suffered under the disability of liv- ing in the western section of an eastern state and could achieve their desires only through political cooperation with like-minded people east of the mountains. Sectionalism explains much of the political history of Pennsylvania in the eighteenth century. Prior to the Revolution the Quaker aristoc- racy, firmly seated in the southeastern counties and linked in political alliance with the eastern Germans, who belonged mainly to the paci- fist sects, dominated the province through control of the assembly. This control was maintained, in spite of the rise of a more numerous non-Quaker population in the interior and in the city of Philadelphia, by restricting the representation from the new counties and by prop- erty qualifications for voting. The natural dissatisfaction of the west- 454 Frontier Radicalism and Rebellion erners over their lack of political power was enhanced by the failure of the assembly to adopt measures that they considered essential for their welfare. The Indian policy of the province, especially during the French and Indian War and Pontiac's rebellion, seemed to the fron- tiersmen to be dictated by concern for the profits of the fur trade, in which many of the leading Quakers were interested, rather than for the property and lives of the settlers. They also objected to the parsi- mony of the assembly in the matter of providing transportation facili- ties to the new settlements, and their lack of currency led them to favor a cheap money policy, which met Tvith opposition in the East. Although the westerners probably felt their grievances against the eastern conservatives more intensely than they did the grievances against the mother country, the democratic philosophy of the Revo- lution appealed to them and they were shrewd enough to see that the movement offered an opportunity for increasing their political power. The establishment of Westmoreland County in 1773 enabled the people of western Pennsylvania to take an active part in the political events of the Revolutionary period. The new county sent two dele- gates to the provincial conference that met in Philadelphia in July, 1774; and, when the conservative majority of the assembly failed to join forces with the revolutionary elements in other colonies, the Westmorelanders welcomed the opportunity to cooperate with east- ern democrats in establishing a new state government. Two delegates from Westmoreland County attended the provincial conference that met in June, 1776, and issued the call for a consti- tutional convention; and one of them, Edward Cook, served on the committee that proposed the plan, adopted by the conference, for equal delegations from each of the counties and the city of Philadel- phia in the convention. As Westmoreland County had at that time only one-fourth as many representatives in the assembly as had each of the three southeastern counties, its people doubtless approved of the proposed arrangement. They probably approved also of the ex- tension of the franchise to include all associators (members of the revolutionary associations) who had paid or had been assessed for taxes, especially as the last provision was not applied to Westmore- land County, which, when organized in 1773, had been given an exemption from taxes for three years. The representatives of Westmoreland County in the constitutional 455 Western Pennsylvania convention of 1776 co6perated with the democrats from the rest of the state in framing an ultrademocratic constitution. The franchise was extended to all free white male citizens; all legislative power was lodged in a unicameral assembly, the members of which were to be apportioned in accordance with the number of taxables; a supreme executive council composed of one member from each county, elected by the voters of that county, was to administer the government; and a council of censors, in which also the counties were to have equal representation, was to be elected every seven years for a term of one year. This council was to "enquire whether the constitution has been preserved inviolate in every part; and whether the legislative and executive branches of governmerit have performed their duty, as guardians of the people, or assumed to themselves or exercised other or greater powers than they are entitled to by the constitution." The constitution could be amended only by a convention called by the council of censors. The document was signed by seventy-two of the ninety-five delegates who attended the convention, and among the signers were the seven delegates from Westmoreland County. Support of and opposition to the constitution of 1776 supplied the basis for the first political alignments in the commonwealth of Penn- sylvania. The Constitutionalists were strong in the West and in the city of Philadelphia, and the Anti-Constitutionalists, or Republicans, as they called themselves, were most numerous in the eastern coun- ties. The exigencies of the Revolution and the disfranchisement of Tories helped the Constitutionalists to maintain control of the gov- ernment for a decade, though they lost ground in the assembly in 1780 and 1781. In 1779 they defeated a movement in the assembly to call a new constitutional convention and pushed through the Di- vesting Act, by which most of the property of the Penns was trans- ferred to the commonwealth. The representatives from Westmoreland County voted with the majority on these measures, but most of them opposed the act of 1780 for the gradual emancipation of slaves. Back of the political differences between the factions were of course more fundamental differences on economic questions, and these also tended to divide the people on the lines of sectional cleavage. The westerners wanted land available on easy terms to actual settlers, they wanted cheap money with which to pay their debts, and they had a natural aversion to taxes. The merchants, financiers, and large land- 456 Frontier Radicalism and Rebellion owners of the East, on the other hand, wanted to maintain or enhance the value of their property and in particular felt the need of a sound and stable currency. The large issues of currency during the early years of the Revolution had tended to undermine the credit of the commonwealth and of the nation, and to make difficult the purchase of provisions for the army. To meet this situation a group of financiers, under the leadership of Robert Morris and James Wilson, in 1780 organized a private bank in Philadelphia, which in the following year was reorganized as the Bank of North America with a charter from the Congress of the Confederation. There was doubt, however, as to the right of the Congress to charter a bank, and in 1782 the promoters persuaded the Pennsylvania Assembly to grant them a state charter, which validated the federal charter. Morris had been designated as superintendent of finance by the Congress in 1781, and he and his associates, who controlled the bank, were accused of using their finan- cial powers to strengthen the hands of the Anti-Constitutionalists in Pennsylvania politics. The establishment of two new counties in western Pennsylvania, Washington in 1781 and Fayette in 1783,while a logical result of the set- tlement of the boundary controversy with Virginia and the increase of population in the region, served to strengthen the hold of the Con- stitutionalists, especially in the executive council and in the prospec- tive meeting of the council of censors. Their cause was also aided and the influence of western Pennsylvania in the affairs of the common- wealth was increased by the emergence about this time of two very able democratic politicians, William Findley of Westmoreland Coun- ty and John Smilie of Fayette. Both of these men had been born in Ireland of Scotch parents and had migrated to Pennsylvania in time to take part in Revolutionary activities, and both had removed to the country west of the mountains before the close of the Revolution. Findley had been a member of the committee of safety of Cumberland County, and Smilie had represented Lancaster County in the assem- bly. The leaders of the Anti-Constitutionalists exerted themselves to the utmost to win the election of 1783. They hoped that by controlling the assembly they could put through legislation desired by the com- mercial and financial elements and that by capturing the council of censors they could obtain a new constitution under which it would be 457 Western Pennsylvania easier to protect their interests. They made considerable gains in the counties east of the mountains and even carried Philadelphia, but the counties of western Pennsylvania elected solid democratic delega- tions. Nevertheless the conservatives had majorities both in the as- sembly and in the council of censors at its first session, which extended from November io, 1783, to January 24, 1784. The council of censors, on January 2, 1784, voted twelve to ten to approve a report of its committee on the constitution, declaring "that some articles of the constitution of this commonwealth, are materially defective, and absolutely require alteration and amendment." The principal changes proposed were the substitution of a governor for the supreme executive council and the addition to the legislature of a second house apportioned not by counties but by taxables. For- tunately for the opposition, the constitution provided that a vote of two-thirds of the censors was necessary to call a convention, and nine of them, under the leadership of Findley and Smilie with Whitehill of Lancaster County and including all members from west of the mountains, persistently blocked the call. The deadlocked council adjourned until June I, 1784. During the recess two eastern conserva- tives, of whom one died and the other resigned, were replaced by radi- cals, and the organization of Fayette County enabled the transmon- tane settlers to add two more radicals to their delegation. As a result of these changes the Constitutionalist minority was transformed into a majority, and the council, instead of picking flaws in the constitution, denounced the legislature for reputed violations of it, including its vali- dation of the federal charter of the Bank of North America. That the shift to the left in the council of censors was approved by the electorate was demonstrated in the election of 1784, for the Con- stitutionalists again won a large majority in the assembly. When that body met in 1785, Findley and Smilie, backed by a solid delegation from western Pennsylvania, played leading roles in pushing through the program of the party. The assembly first approved the report of the council of censors, thus casting doubt on the validity of the federal charter of the bank, and then repealed the bank's Pennsylvania charter. The objective of the radicals in these moves apparently was to destroy the bank or so weaken it that it could no longer control the value of the state currency. The bank continued to function, however, and either as a result of manipulations on its part or of the genuine 458 Frontier Radicalism and Rebellion fear of a collapse of the credit of the state, the currency depreciated rapidly. As a consequence the conservatives made large gains in the election of 1785, but the anti-bank party, with the support of another solid delegation from across the mountains, was able to prevent the restoration of the charter in the session of 1786. The year 1786 witnessed two events that may be taken to mark the beginning of the rise of a conservative opposition in western Penn- sylvania. The first was the establishment of the Pittsburgh Gazette and the second was the entrance of Hugh Henry Brackenridge into the political arena. Though John Scull, the editor of the Gazette, opened its columns freely to all communications for a number of years, he was mildly conservative and the paper served as a medium for the dissemination of conservative ideas among the people. Bracken- ridge, though philosophically a democrat, was an aristocrat by nature and did not always conceal his contempt for the lack of erudition of the frontier farmers and especially of their outstanding leader, William Findley. Pittsburgh had been increasing in population since the close of the war, and its active group of merchants and professional men resented the fact that the townsmen had little influence in political affairs. Brackenridge proposed to change this situation by bringing about the organization of a new county with Pittsburgh as its seat, and on September 9, 1786, he announced in the Gazette his candidacy for one of Westmoreland County's seats in the assembly. Among the outstanding problems that affected the people of west- ern Pennsylvania at this time were those of obtaining patents for their lands and of opening the Mississippi River as an outlet for the dis- posal of their products. The land act of 1781 had provided that, if payments due on land were not made before April 1o, 1787, the land would be sold for the arrearages. Many farmers had not been able to accumulate enough money to make the payments, and they demanded that the depreciated bills of credit of the commonwealth be accepted at their face value for a part at least of the payments. The Mississippi had been closed to American commerce by Spain in 1784, though the restrictions were occasionally relaxed for favored shippers, and a strong element in the East was favoring acquiescence in this closure in return for commercial privileges from Spain. By declaring himself for the acceptance of the bills of credit in payment for land and for a vigorous policy to bring about the reopening of the Mississippi, Brack- 459 Western Pennsylvania enridge gained sufficient support from the farmers to enable him to win the election, despite the fact that he expressed doubt about the wisdom of the repeal of the bank charter. The radicalism and particularism of the Revolutionary period was receding at this time in all the eastern sections of the country in favor of conservatism and nationalism, and the election of 1786 resulted in a clear-cut victory for the Anti-Constitutionalists in Pennsylvania. The frontier farmers of western Pennsylvania, however, had not abated their radicalism, and, with the exception of Brackenridge, their representatives in the assembly lined up solidly in the opposi- tion, with Findley as their leader. Smilie had a seat in the supreme executive council. At the sessions of this assembly in 1786 and 1787, Brackenridge pushed through his bill for the organization of Allegheny County; but, despite an eloquent speech on the prospective greatness of the western country, he was unable to persuade the assembly to adopt a resolution condemning the proposed treaty with Spain. To the dis- gust of many of his constituents, he yielded to the blandishments of the cultured conservatives of the East and helped to defeat the bill to permit the use of the bills of credit in payment for land. His ex- planation, as published in the Gazette, was that he had come to the conclusion that the measure would not help the settlers-the bills would appreciate so much that the settlers would be unable to pur- chase them, and only speculators would profit. This explanation did not satisfy his constituents, and they were still more incensed when he alone of the assemblymen from western Pennsylvania voted to restore the charter of the bank and supported the bill for the prompt calling of a convention to consider the ratification of the new federal Constitution. The movement to provide a strong central government for the na- tion was supported in Pennsylvania by the same conservatives who had struggled vainly to displace the ultrademocratic state constitution of 1776. As they had control of the assembly, no representative of the back-country democracy was included in Pennsylvania's delegation to the federal Convention, though Findley afterwards asserted that he re- fused an offered election because he could not afford the expense in- volved. When, on September 17, 1787, the framing of the new Consti- tution was completed, a copy of it was transmitted unofficially to the 460 Frontier Radicalism and Rebellion assembly of Pennsylvania, which was nearing the end of a session; and the assemblymen from the transmontane counties, with the ex- ception of Brackenridge, were soon aligned with the other radicals in efforts to prevent or at least delay its ratification. On September 2z8, the day before the session was scheduled to ad- journ, a resolution to call a convention to consider the proposed Con- stitution was adopted by a vote of 43 to I9. Since no date was fixed in the resolution for the election of delegates to the convention, fur- ther action was necessary; and the nineteen dissenters attempted to prevent such action by absenting themselves and thus making it im- possible to assemble a quorum. On the next day, however, two of the recalcitrants were dragged in by the sergeant at arms, with the aid of a local mob, and a motion by Brackenridge to hold the election on the first Tuesday in November was adopted. Some justification for the tactics of the opposition may be found in the fact that the elec- tion was called for so early a date that a full discussion of the issues involved was impossible. That the representatives from the transmontane counties correctly interpreted the sentiments of their constituents is indicated by the vote for delegates in those counties, for seven of the nine elected were avowed opponents of ratification. Brackenridge, who offered him- self as a candidate, was defeated; but two advocates of ratification, John Neville and Thomas Scott, were elected along with Findley and Smilie and other exponents of frontier radicalism. Findley was one of the leaders of the opposition in the convention and was able to hold his own in debate with the redoubtable James Wilson, but the Federalists, as the supporters of the Constitution were called, had a large majority, and the ratifying resolution was adopted on Decem- ber I2. The seven radicals from western Pennsylvania voted against the resolution, and five of them joined with the other dissenters in publishing an address explaining their opposition on the grounds, among others, that the proposed Constitution contained no bill of rights, that the federal government was given too much power in comparison with that of the states, that the standing army would make the federal government supreme, and that the power of the president to call out the state militia would destroy the liberty of the states and of individuals. The controversy over the merits of the proposed Constitution con- 461 The Indian Regime "scalp lock." After the white traders had made contact with the Indians, strouds and blankets were much in demand as articles of clothing. The food of the Indians would seem somewhat monotonous to those brought up in the era of cold storage, refrigerator cars, and accessible dairy farms, but it was no more monotonous than the later pioneer winter diet of "hog and hominy." The general fare, with seasonal variations, is well described by Smith: "As the Indians on their return from the winter hunt, bring with them large quantities of bears oil, sugar, dried venison, &c., at this time they have plenty, and do not spare eating or giving-thus they make way with their provision as quick as possible. They have no such thing as regular meals, break- fast, dinner or supper; but if any one, even the town folks, would go INDIAN UTENSILS BARK BOWL PLANTING BASKET BARK TRAY AND BARK LADLB DOUBLE-POCKET PLANTING BASKET DEER JAW SCRAPER FOR GREEN CORN WOODBN EATING BOWL the same house, several times in one day, he would be invited to eat of the best-and with them it is bad manners to refuse to eat when it is offered.... "At this time homony, plentifully mixed with bears oil and sugar; or dried venison, bears oil and sugar, is what they offer to every one who comes in any time of the day; and so they go on until their sugar, bear's oil and venison is all gone, and then they have to eat homony 33 Western Pennsylvania tinued to seethe in western Pennsylvania, at least in the columns of the Pittsburgh Gazette, until after the ratification by the necessary ninth state, New Hampshire, on June 21, 1788. Brackenridge seems to have furnished most of the literary ammunition on the Federalist side, but it is clear that there was considerable support for the Con- stitution in Washington County and in Pittsburgh. Neville and Scott had represented Washington County in the ratifying convention, and their two colleagues had refused to sign the address of the minor- ity. In Pittsburgh the final adoption of the Constitution was cele- brated somewhat prematurely on June zo, on the strength of a rumor that Virginia had ratified. A concourse of fifteen hundred people, ac- cording to the Gazette, assembled.on Grant's Hill and listened to an exultant address by Brackenridge, in which the "opponents of the new system" were characterized as "frogs of the marsh, local dema- gogues, insidious declaimers," whose pond was "about to be dried up." The celebration was closed by the lighting of nine piles of wood repre- senting the ratifying states, from which the flames spread to the four piles representing the other states. The "frogs of the marsh" continued to croak, however, especially in Fayette County and in Westmoreland outside of Pittsburgh, and their croakings took the form of a demand for amendments to the Constitution. On August 5 a meeting was held in Greensburg at which the old Revolutionary device of a county committee of correspond- ence was revived to agitate for a bill of rights, and on August I8 a similar meeting in Uniontown chose delegates to attend a convention that had been called to meet at Harrisburg on September 3 to propose amendments to the Constitution. One of these delegates was Albert Gallatin, whose ability, education, social background, and political acumen made him a valuable addition to the group of leaders of the democracy of western Pennsylvania. The demands of the Harrisburg convention for a bill of rights and similar demands from other states were finally met by the adoption of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, but other proposals of the convention looking toward a weakening of the federal government were ignored. The strength of the opposition to the ratification of the Federal Constitution in western Pennsylvania was probably due in part to a conviction that a victory of the conservatives on that issue would be followed by a renewed attack on the ultrademocratic state constitu- 462 Frontier Radicalism and Rebellion tion. If so, the conviction was justified, for in 1789 the assembly, with six of the seven members from the transmontane counties in the oppo- sition, made provision for the holding of a constitutional convention. This was a flagrant violation of the constitution of 1776, according to which such a convention could be called only by a two-thirds vote of the council of censors; and the conservatives, ironically enough, were forced to fall back on the Revolutionary philosophy of the "inalien- able rights of man" and "the consent of the governed" to justify the measure. Gallatin and some of the other western democrats tried at first to prevent the election of delegates in their counties on the ground that the call was unconstitutional, but in this they were un- successful. Of the eight delegates chosen in the four counties of western Pennsylvania (Allegheny County had completed its organi- zation), six were radicals, and they included Findley, Smilie, and Gallatin. The other two, one elected in Washington County and the other in Allegheny, were rising young Federalist lawyers destined to play important parts in the political history of the region-Alexander Addison and James Ross. When the convention assembled on November 24, 1789, it was obvious that the conservatives had a majority; and, as a consequence, the radicals, under the leadership of Findley, worked for conciliation and compromise, with a view to saving as much as possible of their democratic principles. In this policy they were reasonably successful -for example, Ross's proposal that the members of the upper house of the legislature should be elected by the lower house instead of by the people, as Gallatin urged, was defeated-and all the western dele- gates signed the completed document. The constitution of 1790 provided for a governor elected by the people for a term of three years, a bicameral legislature with the members of the house of representatives elected annually and those of the senate for terms of four years, and a supreme court with life tenure for the judges. The advantage that the western counties had had of overrepresentation in the supreme executive council and in the council of censors was lost, but the franchise was still a privilege of all free white male citizens. The form of government was sufficiently democratic to allow the western radicals to make headway against their conservative opponents by coiperating with democrats in the East and especially in the city of Philadelphia. 463 Western Pennsylvania In the western counties themselves, however, conservative influ- ence was growing, though many years were to elapse before it was to dominate the region. The number and wealth of the merchants and lawyers in the towns were increasing, and their interests tended to conflict with those of the small farmers, as did the interests of the land speculators and the few wealthy planters. Prominent among the con- servative leaders were the members of the "Neville Connection," which included John Neville, who had a large plantation known as "Bower Hill" near Pittsburgh; Presley Neville, his son, who engaged in land speculation; Isaac Craig, his son-in-law, a merchant and man- ufacturer and deputy quartermaster general of the army for the West; and John Woods, his attorney, whose father, George Woods, was land agent for the Penns in western Pennsylvania. James Ross, the con- servative lawyer of Washington, who had been admitted to the bar of Allegheny County in 1788 and who removed to Pittsburgh in 1795, was a son-in-law of George Woods. These men and others of the same class looked upon themselves as "gentlemen" and cooper- ated in politics with the conservative and aristocratic elements in eastern Pennsylvania and in the national government. Their wealth, background, and position enabled them to wield great influence in Pittsburgh; but most of the pioneer farmers, who comprised the great majority of the population, preferred to follow Findley and Smilie, who were men of their own kind, or the brilliant Gallatin, whose demo- cratic manners and philosophy appealed to them. The only resident of western Pennsylvania elected to the first Con- gress in 1789 was Thomas Scott, who had voted in convention for the ratification of the federal Constitution; but he was elected on a general ticket by the voters of the state as a whole. Although his attitude on the Constitution was not in accord with that of the majority of the people of his region, his vote in Congress against the assumption of the debts of the states was undoubtedly approved by most of the westerners. The legislative elections of 179o demonstrated the fact that the majority of the people of western Pennsylvania were still inclined to support their democratic leaders. Five radicals, including Findley and Gallatin, and two conservatives, one of whom was John Neville, were elected as representatives; and three radicals, including Smilie, were sent to the senate. Although the conservatives had a majority in the first legislature, party lines were not drawn, and Find- 464 HUGH HENRY BRACKENRIDGE From the portrait by Gilbert Stuart ALBERT GALLATIN From a portrait in pastel by James Sharples WILLIAM FINDLEY JAMES ROSS From the portrait by Charles Willson Peale From an. engraving of the portrait by T. Sully Frontier Radicalism and Rebellion ley and Gallatin in the house and Smilie in the senate played leading roles in organizing the two houses and in framing legislation. The voters of the western congressional district sent Findley to Congress at the first opportunity, in 1791, but Smilie and Gallatin remained in the legislature. Gallatin's colleagues were so impressed by his ability that in 1793 they elected him to the United States Senate, but the Federalists in that body prevented him from serving, on the technical point that he had not been nine years a citizen. Despite the prominence of the leaders of the western democracy in the general assembly, they were unable to bring about many of the changes ardently desired by their constituents, and the small farmers of western Pennsylvania were becoming more and more dissatisfied with their lot. Their inherited individualism and antipathy to external control had been strengthened by their frontier environment, by the political philosophy of the Revolution, and by their share in the vic- tories over the conservatives in state politics from 1776 to 1786; and they had been untouched by the influences and developments that had transformed many of the eastern radicals of the Revolutionary period into conservatives. Most of them were still engaged in clearing land to enlarge their fields, but there was no market for the surpluses that they were already producing, and they were beginning to feel that the expectation of achieving an advance in economic and social status, which had lured them to the frontier, was a chimera. The frontier democrats of western Pennsylvania had opposed the Bank of North America, but without success; they had opposed the setting up of a strong central government for the nation, and they had lost; they had opposed the adoption of a new state constitution, and again they had lost. Now it seemed to them that the evils they had anticipated from these changes were upon them. The governments of both state and nation were in the hands of the conservatives, and many of the frontiersmen felt that those governments not only were doing nothing to advance their welfare but were actually op- pressing them. The Mississippi outlet for western surpluses was still closed by Spain except to a few favored shippers, and the eastern commercial interests were inclined to acquiesce in the closure. The Indians of the Northwest still committed depredations and blocked the advance of the frontier, and neither the state nor the federal government did anything effective to suppress them. The land laws 465 Western Pennsylvania seemed to operate in the interest of large owners and speculators rather than of pioneer settlers, and the shortage of currency, for which the banks were blamed, made it difficult for settlers to make payments on their lands and to pay their tax assessments. Of all the grievances of the frontiersmen of western Pennsylvania, the one about which they were the most sensitive was the excise tax on spirits imposed by the new federal government in 1791. The state had had such an excise tax on the statute books for many years, but the feeble attempts that were made to enforce it west of the moun- tains had been effectively resisted, and the law was repealed in the very year in which the federal tax was imposed. The enactment of the federal excise tax was a part of Alexander Hamilton's far-reaching nationalistic program. The money was needed to provide for the as- sumption of the debts of the states and the expenses of the new military establishment. From Hamilton's point of view the tax had the further advantage that it would bring the power of the federal government to the individual citizens in the states. The measure was opposed by democrats everywhere, because they were opposed to the whole program for strengthening the federal government, but the westerners opposed the tax for the additional reason that they ab- horred an excise. Thomas Scott voted for the measure in Congress, but even John Neville supported Gallatin's resolution against it in the general assembly while it was still pending in Congress, and Findley and later Smilie labored in Congress for its repeal. The reasons for the violent opposition to the excise on spirits in western Pennsylvania are not difficult to discover. In Scotland and Ireland the excise had been a symbol of English oppression, and many Englishmen had agreed with Dr. Johnson's definition of it as a "hate- ful tax"; opposition to the excise and scorn of excisemen were ingrained in the cultural heritage of most of the people of the region. Moreover the tax seemed to the westerners to be an infringement on their per- sonal liberty. Whiskey was the chief drink of the region; orchards and vineyards were rare and brewing was not well understood, but grain was plentiful and many of the farmers knew how to turn it into whiskey. They asserted, in one of their petitions, that it was " a neces- sary means of engaging" the services of agricultural laborers and that "we are supplied with this necessary article, much upon the same conditions that our mills furnish us with flour; and why we should 466 Frontier Radicalism and Rebellion be made subject to a duty for drinking our grain more than eating it, seems a matter of astonishment to every reflecting mind." There were, however, even more valid objections to the excise law west of the mountains. The tax, which amounted to about seven cents a gallon in 1792, was perhaps a quarter of the average selling price in the West but only an eighth of that in the East. Thus the ad valorem rate of the tax was highest in the region where specie for tax payments was scarcest. Moreover, in view of the lack of good roads across the mountains and the closure of the Mississippi, whiskey was the only form in which the surplus grain of western Pennsylvania could be marketed outside the region. Many of the farmers relied upon whis- key, transported over the mountains by pack horses, as a means of obtaining the few essential commodities that had to be imported; and the tax imposed a heavy burden on this trade. The fact that stills were required to be registered and were to be taxed according to their capacity, in addition to the tax on the product, was a further griev- ance; and another feature of the law that was bitterly resented was the requirement that the trial of anyone charged with violation must be held in the federal courts, which sat only east of the mountains. It was charged that the expenses of such a trial would amount to the selling price of an average western farm. The excise was only one of many grievances of the frontier farmers, but it was something tangible on which they could seize and around which they could mobilize their opposition to the conservative East. The tactics as well as the philosophy of the opponents of the excise were similar to those of the patriots in the controversy with England that preceded the American Revolution. By preventing the enforce- ment of the act and making it appear odious, they hoped to bring about its repeal. They called mass meetings "to consider the means of redressing their grievances"; they organized committees of cor- respondence to distribute circular letters; and they declared that "any person who had accepted or might accept an office under Congress in order to carry the excise law into effect should be considered inimical to the interests of the country" and should, therefore, be treated "with contempt." The resolutions adopted at a meeting in September, 1791, in the manner of the pre-Revolutionary documents, not only demanded the repeal of the excise but also denounced "the exorbitant salaries of 467 Western Pennsylvania officers, the unreasonable interest of the public debt, and the making no discriminations between the original holders of public securities and the transferees." The establishment of a national bank "on the doctrine of implication" was also condemned, and the excise tax was declared to be "a base offspring of the funding system." An "Associa- tion" organized in the Mingo Creek region of Washington County to agitate against the excise was said to have five hundred members by the summer of 1793. The most active leader against the excise was David Bradford, a wealthy lawyer of the town of Washington, who seems to have had aspirations to be the Washington of a western revo- lution, but even such level-headed men as Gallatin and Smilie partici- pated in a meeting in 1792 at which somewhat intemperate resolutions were adopted. Little attempt was made to enforce the excise law in the region in 1791, as the office of inspection could not be opened by June, the month set for the registration of stills, and as it was difficult to find men willing to act as deputies in the various counties. One deputy inspector was appointed, but he was promptly tarred and feathered. In 1792 and 1793 the objectors followed in the main a policy of refus- ing to register their stills, coupled with the terrorizing, by threats and occasional violence, of men who had been indiscreet enough to rent space for registration offices or to accept commissions as deputy in- spectors. In 1793 the law appeared to be gaining ground. The proprie- tors of the large distilleries were tempted to register their stills and pay their taxes in order that they might profit by making cash sales to Wayne's army, and some of them were convinced that the law if enforced would drive their smaller rivals out of business. It is quite possible that serious rioting would not have occurred had it not been for the impact of the French Revolution on western Pennsylvania. The proclamation of a republic in France in January, 1793, and the outbreak of war between France and England in April aroused great enthusiasm in the United States and revived a waning interest in democracy, even in the East. A Democratic society was organized in Philadelphia in May, on the model of the Jacobin clubs in France, and promptly took steps that led to the establishment of a dozen or more such societies in other states. Two Democratic so- cieties were organized in Washington County in 1793 or 1794, one at Washington and one at Mingo Creek, and there may have been 468 Frontier Radicalism and Rebellion one at the "mouth of the Yough" in Allegheny County. David Brad- ford was a prominent member of the Washington society, but the one at Mingo Creek, which was in effect a reorganization of the original association against the excise, was the larger and more powerful. In fact it seems to have embraced the entire community and to have governed it during 1794 as a pure democracy. Whether or not the Democratic societies were responsible, resist- ance to the enforcement of the law increased, especially in Washing- ton County, in the spring of 1794. Liberty poles bearing radical mottoes made their appearance, threatening letters were received by men who were not whole-souled in opposition to the excise, and stills of those who paid the tax were "mended" by "Tom the Tinker's men," in other words, shot full of holes. Most of the old democratic leaders such as Findley, Smilie, and Gallatin disapproved of these violent measures, though they continued to denounce the excise; but the radicals such as Bradford were able by influence or intimida- tion to control a considerable part of the population. The spark that set fire to the tinder was the serving in July, 1794, on distillers who had not complied with the law in 1793, of warrants that required the distillers' appearance in the United States district court at Philadelphia. The law had been amended in June to permit trials to be held in state courts when the defendants lived more than fifty miles from a federal court, but these warrants, which had been issued before the passage of the amendment, were not changed. Most of the warrants were served without difficulty, but when the marshal, accompanied by John Neville, who had accepted appointment as inspector of the excise in the western counties, served one on a farmer living near the Mingo Creek settlement, shots were fired by a group of drunken harvest hands, and the marshal and Neville were forced to flee. The next morning a group of forty or fifty men surrounded Neville's house, Bower Hill, intending to seize and destroy the writs. Learning that the marshal had carried the writs to Pittsburgh, the men demanded that Neville resign his commission as inspector. He refused, shots were exchanged, and one of the assailants was mortally wounded. The countryside was now aroused, and the following day the attack was renewed by a force of four or five hundred men. Neville had fled, but the house was defended by a file of soldiers, who had been summoned from Pittsburgh. James McFarlane, the leader of 469 Western Pennsylvania by itself, without bread, salt, or any thing else; yet, still they invite every one that comes in, to eat whilst they have any thing to give.... "When the warriors left this town [about the end of June] we had neither meat, sugar, or bears oil, left. All that we had then to live on was corn pounded into coarse meal or small homony-this they boiled in water, which appeared like well-thickened soup, with- out salt or any thing else. For some time, we had plenty of this kind of homony; at length we were brought to very short allowance, and as the warriors did not return as soon as they expected, we were in a starving condition, and but one gun in the town, and very little ammunition. The old lame Wiandot concluded that he would go a hunting in a canoe, and take me with him, and try to kill a deer in the water, as it was then watering time. We went up Sandusky a few miles, then turned up a creek and encamped. We had lights prepared, as we were to hunt in the night, and also a piece of bark and some bushes set up in the canoe, in order to conceal ourselves from the deer. A little boy that was with us, held the light, I worked the canoe, and the old man, who had his gun loaded with large shot, when we came near the deer, fired, and in this manner killed three deer, in part of one night. We went to our fire, ate heartily, and in the morning returned to town, in order to relieve the hungry and distressed. "When we came to town, the children were crying bitterly on account of pinching hunger. We delivered what we had taken, and though it was little among so many, it was divided according to the strictest rules of justice. We immediately set out for another hunt, but before we returned a part of the warriors had come in, and brought with them on horse-back, a quantity of meat.... "About the time that these warriors came in, the green corn was beginning to be of use; so that we had either green corn or venison, and sometimes both-which was comparatively high living. When we could have plenty of green corn, or roasting-ears, the hunters became lazy, spent their time as already mentioned, in singing and dancing &c. They appeared to be fulfilling the scriptures beyond those who profess to believe them, in that of taking no thought of to-morrow: and also in living in love, peace and friendship together, without dis- putes. In this respect they shame those who profess Christianity. "In this manner we lived, until October, then the geese, swans, ducks, cranes, &c. came from the north, and alighted on this little 34 Western Pennsylvania the insurgents, was killed in an attempt to parley with the defenders, after which the infuriated mob captured and burned the house. Now ensued a period of confusion and cross-purposes within the re- gion. The insurgents strove to persuade or coerce the populace to com- mend or condone their violence. Men not in sympathy with rebel- lion attended meetings called by the insurgents, some from fear of opposing them and some with the hope of moderating their activities. Bradford instigated the robbing of the mail to the East to discover what reports were being forwarded, and it was thereby disclosed that prominent Pittsburghers were denouncing the rebellion. The insur- gents demanded that the town "exile" the writers of the obnoxious letters, and the town hastened to comply with the request. The climax of the drama was a muster of the militia of the western counties, held at Braddock's Field near Pittsburgh on August I. The muster had been called by Bradford and his friends with a view to seizing Fort Fayette and possibly burning Pittsburgh, but the militia from Pitts- burgh met and fraternized with their country cousins and caused them to relent in their purpose. The next day the whole body of five thousand men marched through Pittsburgh, and the Washington County contingent was ferried across the Monongahela. The food and whiskey served by the Pittsburghers had averted what might have been a calamity for all concerned. A meeting of zz6 delegates elected by townships was held at Park- inson's Ferry, now Monongahela City, on August 14. Efforts had been made by the moderates, such as Findley in Westmoreland Coun- ty and Gallatin in Fayette, to bring about the election of delegates who would work to circumvent the radicals. The Pittsburgh dele- gation was definitely instructed to press for the adoption of a peti- tion to the government for amnesty. The delegates at the meeting were surrounded, however, by an even larger number of the more radical insurgents, and advance toward peace and submission had to be made by devious paths. Gallatin was the only delegate who dared openly to oppose the plans of the rebels, and he accomplished less than did Brackenridge, who by pretending to support the cause succeeded in referring a set of revolutionary resolutions to a redrafting committee, which managed to moderate them appreciably. A stand- ing committee of two delegates from each township was elected to take further measures. During the meeting, word was received that 470 Frontier Radicalism and Rebellion commissioners appointed by President Washington to treat with the insurgents were at the mouth of the Youghiogheny, and a proc- lamation was read by which the president had called out the militia to march to the seat of the disturbances. At Brackenridge's suggestion a committee was appointed to confer with the commissioners, and the meeting was adjourned. The three United States commissioners and two appointed by the governor of Pennsylvania met on August zo with the conference com- mittee appointed at the Parkinson's Ferry meeting, and it was finally agreed that the conference committee should recommend to the standing committee a policy of submission and the acceptance of an amnesty. At a stormy meeting of the standing committee at Browns- ville, in which Gallatin and Brackenridge advocated submission and Bradford favored resistance, a secret ballot on the commissioners' terms was taken. The count showed thirty-four votes for submission and twenty-three against. Further conferences with the commis- sioners resulted in provision for a popular referendum on September i i in which citizens should vote yea or nay on submission to the laws of the United States. Moreover, those voting yea were to be required to promise that they would not "oppose the execution of the acts for raising a revenue on distilled spirits and stills" and that they would "support, as far as the law requires, the civil authority in affording the protection due to all officers and other citizens." This was a further humiliation for the West. On the day appointed for signing the submission, groups of men terrorized the voters in some localities; and, as the balloting was not secret, many who really fa- vored submission were afraid to sign the pledge. Other voters absented themselves from the polls, believing that the fact that they had taken no part in the insurrection made it unnecessary for them to signify their submission. The United States commissioners reported on Sep- tember 24 that, although the majority in western Pennsylvania fa- vored submission, a determined minority was ruling by terror and would have to be dealt with by force. The tide of revolution, however, was now rapidly ebbing. The militia of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia was mustering in eastern centers, and the appetite of the fireeaters grew less keen with the prospect of large rations. From this time on, the former incendiaries were busy recanting their heresies or denying 471 Western Pennsylvania their part in the rebellion or quietly decamping from the region by way of the Ohio and the westward trails. David Bradford fled the country to Natchez, in Spanish territory, and it is said that more than two thousand lesser figures in the revolt took to the mountains when the army appeared and did not return until after the military had left. The citizens of Pittsburgh hastened to meet on September zo and to rescind the proscriptions expelling certain citizens "during the late disturbances, in which necessity and policy led to a temporary ac- quiescence on the part of the town." The delegates of the townships met on October z at Parkinson's Ferry and resolved unanimously that the temper of the country was in favor of submission and that the delegates would not directly or indirectly oppose the excise law. Wil- liam Findley and David Redick were appointed commissioners to the president and the governor "to explain to government the present state of this country, and detail such circumstances as may enable the President to judge whether an armed force be now necessary to sup- port the civil authority." The mission was unsuccessful, and a militia army of about thirteen thousand men came into the West. On November 9 simultaneous arrests occurred in various parts of the region, and in some cases prisoners were harshly treated. Governor Henry Lee of Virginia, in command of the troops, Alexander Hamilton, and a federal judge, Richard Peters, acted as a court of inquiry to investigate the charges against the prisoners. The examinations seem, on the whole, to have been temperately conducted, though Gallatin and Findley charged that Hamilton was especially eager to unearth evidence against them. Of the less important offenders some were reprimanded and dismissed and some were turned over to the state courts for prosecution. By November 19 the army began its march back to the East, leaving fifteen hundred men, a part of them recruited in the region, to preserve order during the winter. New oaths of allegiance had been admini- stered by magistrates soon after the arrival of the army, and a general pardon was issued to all save those against whom legal actions were pending, those who had fled the country, and certain other specified "public enemies." Twenty prisoners were taken to Philadelphia for treason trials, but only two were convicted and they were pardoned by Washington. The Whiskey Insurrection was more than a contest over the excise 472 Frontier Radicalism and Rebellion tax. It was the culmination of a long struggle between the forces of frontier democracy and individualism and those of eastern conserva- tism, temporarily in control of both state and national governments. The insurrection was crushed, but the radicalism of the western farmers was not thereby abated. It was tempered, however, by the improvement of their economic and political status during the next few years. Curiously enough the very means that were used to sup- press the rebellion helped to remove one of the grievances of the rebels -the purchase of supplies for the army that was sent against them increased the amount of currency in circulation in the West. The defeat of the Indians by Wayne and the agreement of England to surrender the Northwest posts in 1794, followed by the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, made possible a rapid advance of the frontier in northwestern Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio; and the flood of settlers from the East left an alluvial deposit of money in the older trans- montane settlements. Then came the removal of restrictions on the navigation of the Mississippi as a result of Pinckney's Treaty of 1795, and the problem of surplus crops was largely solved. Fully as impor- tant as the economic improvements in promoting the satisfaction of the western farmers was the rise of the Democratic-Republican party and its sweep to victory in state and nation in the closing years of the decade. Frontier radicalism found a haven of refuge in the democracy of Thomas Jefferson. 473 xx. Jeffersonian Democracy HE struggle over the ratification of the federal Constitution had divided the American people into two sharply opposed groups, but, when it was over, most of the Anti-Federalists were disposed to acquiesce in the result and give the "new roof" a trial. Washington attempted to administer the government on a non- partisan basis, but the efforts of Hamilton to base the new federal structure on the interests and influence of the men of wealth and position soon aroused a vigorous opposition on the part of the ad- vocates of democracy. As early as 1791 Hamilton and Jefferson were recognized as leaders of opposing factions in the cabinet and in Con- gress, and their respective followers were designated as Federalists and Democrats or Republicans. Several years of organization were necessary, however, before the two political parties were firmly es- tablished, even among the office holders, and it is evident that many of the voters long refused to be regimented. The old struggle between radicalism and conservatism in Pennsyl- vania provided a background for the development of the parties in that state. The conservatives or Federalists were in control of the state government, but they recognized the necessity of strengthening themselves in the West, the hotbed of radicalism, if they were to main- tain their hold. They courted the westerners in the legislature, ex- pressed interest in frontier problems, and distributed the federal patronage of the region where they thought it would do the most good, principally to members of the "Neville Connection." The election of Gallatin to the United States Senate in 1793 may have been a bid for western votes, as was certainly the election in 1794 of James Ross to occupy the seat that Gallatin was not permitted to hold. Federalist militia officers made use of the musters to promote the party, and Federalist preachers, such as John McMillan, did not hesitate to advise their congregations on political matters. 474 Jeffersonian Democracy The Republicans, however, because their principles were more ac- ceptable to the small farmers, were more successful in building an effective organization in the West. In this work Gallatin took the lead in the region. From 1792 on, he was in constant correspondence with Alexander J. Dallas, a prominent Republican leader in Philadelphia, who sent him pamphlets and other propaganda material for distribu- tion, and he exchanged letters with many of the political leaders in the western counties. The most effective agent in the crystallization of the political parties in the region was the Whiskey Insurrection. It not only stim- ulated interest in politics, especially national politics, but it con- vinced many on both sides that political organization and activities were the best means of attaining their desires. From 1794 on, the men elected to office could usually be classified as Federalists or Republi- cans, though the ability or personality of a candidate frequently counted for more than his political affiliation in influencing the voters. The election of 1794 took place on October 14, after the insurrection had collapsed but before the army had arrived. Republican candidates were elected to the legislature in all the counties except Allegheny, and Findley was returned to Congress from the district composed of Westmoreland and Fayette counties. The new district composed of Allegheny and Washington counties elected Gallatin as its Congress- man, despite the fact that his residence was outside the district; and stranger still, he seems to have owed his election largely to the in- fluence of a Federalist-John McMillan, the "Presbyterian Pope." The successes of the national administration in 1794 and 1795 in subduing the Indians and in persuading England to agree to give up the Northwest posts and Spain to agree to open the Mississippi to navigation undoubtedly strengthened the Federalist party in western Pennsylvania, and the controversy over Jay's Treaty that developed in the House of Representatives probably weakened the Republicans. The commercial provisions of the treaty were unfavorable to the United States and were denounced by the Republicans everywhere, and the treaty was ratified in the Senate only by a very close vote. An appropriation was necessary to give effect to the treaty, and the Republicans in the House, asserting that the president and the Senate had no constitutional right to obligate that body, attempted to defeat the bill. Gallatin played a prominent part in the opposition to the 475 Western Pennsylvania appropriation. Although many of his constituents agreed with him on the constitutional issue, most of them, because of their hope that the surrender of the western posts would put an end to the Indian troubles, apparently wanted the treaty to go into effect. Gallatin was deluged with letters and petitions urging him to vote for the appropri- ation. McMillan took a poll of the members of his congregation after a Sunday sermon and notified Gallatin that they favored the treaty. Nevertheless Gallatin persisted in his opposition and voted with the minority against the appropriation. His part in this struggle helped to make him one of the leaders of the Republican party in the House, but it almost cost him his seat in Congress in the election of 1796. The Federalists gained additional recruits in the nation and in western Pennsylvania in 1798 as a result of the "X Y Z Affair" with France. The affront to the American commissioners was deeply re- sented, war with France was thought to be imminent, and the Re- publican leaders, who had been friends of France and the French revolutionary ideas, were under a cloud. The Federalists of Pittsburgh and Washington were confident of defeating Gallatin in the election of 1798, but unfortunately for them they were unable to agree upon a candidate until the last moment, a situation for which the wily Brackenridge appears to have been responsible. John Woods carried Allegheny County, but Gallatin's majority in the district was larger than it was in 1796. Findley retired temporarily from politics, but the Republicans of his district had no difficulty in electing Smilie to suc- ceed him. Senator Ross asserted at this time that there was no Feder- alist party in Westmoreland County and only a small one in Fayette. The Federalist party was at high tide in the nation in 1798, but the growing rift between President Adams and Hamilton and the un- popularity of the Alien and Sedition Acts gave hope to the Repub- licans that they might elect Jefferson to the presidency in I8oo. The state election in Pennsylvania in 1799 served as a rehearsal for the greater event to come. The Republicans nominated Thomas McKean, a former chief justice of the state supreme court, for governor; and the Federalists selected as their candidate Senator Ross of Pittsburgh, a man who could be counted on to win votes for them in the western counties. The lack of Republican party discipline rather than a change in sentiment was probably responsible for the fact that Ross carried not only Allegheny County but also Fayette and was not far behind 476 Jeffersonian Democracy his opponent in Washington and Westmoreland. McKean had a majority of 6,669 votes in the state. In the presidential election of 18oo, the people of Pennsylvania had no opportunity to vote, because the Federalists, in control of the state senate, forced the designation of the electors by the legislature; but the clean sweep made by the Republicans that year in the legislative and congressional elections in western Pennsylvania, even including Allegheny County, is evi- dence that the victory of Jefferson was a welcome one to a large majority of the voters in that region. The party of Jefferson was now in control of the government, both in the state and in the nation, and naturally it undertook to con- solidate its position. As soon as McKean took office, he began to fill appointive positions with deserving and on the whole well-qualified Democrats. He rewarded Brackenridge for his services in the cam- paign by appointing him a judge of the state supreme court, and he selected John B. Lucas, a French emigrd and a graduate of the law department of the University of Caen, to be associate judge of the court of common pleas of Allegheny County. As judges held office for life, the judicial field did not give the governor wide scope for appoint- ments. County prothonotaries, registers, and justices of the peace were appointed, however; and a large field for such appointments was opened by the creation in I8oo of a block of nine counties in north- western Pennsylvania. Under the Federalist regime, it had been im- possible to organize any new counties in the democratic West, for the Federalists feared that to do so would increase the Republican repre- sentation in the general assembly. Now, the Republicans proceeded gleefully to organize more counties in the region than were needed at the time. To offset its Federalist strength in congressional elections, Allegheny County was combined in I8oz in a district with Beaver, Butler, Crawford, Mercer, Venango, Warren, and Erie counties. Washington County became a congressional district by itself, Greene was joined with Fayette, and Somerset and Armstrong were joined with Westmoreland. The life tenure of judges was a stumbling block to the Republican party. The judicial branch of the government was naturally strongly Federalist, and the victorious party was irritated to see its enemies sitting complacently on the bench and sometimes using their power and prestige for political ends. Both in state and in nation the more 477 Western Pennsylvania radical of the Republicans moved to displace some of the judges by impeachment. In Pennsylvania, Alexander Addison of Washington was the first victim. Addison made a practice of delivering Federalist speeches in his charges to the grand juries of the democratic West. In I8oo, in the presence of his colleague, the newly appointed John Lucas, he delivered from the bench a diatribe against French Re- publicanism, which deeply offended Lucas. In the following year he repeated the offense, and when Lucas attempted to reply Addison asserted that the privilege of addressing the jury belonged only to the presiding judge. Lucas appealed to the state supreme court, which ruled that he did have the right to address the jury, but that, as Addison had showed no "malice" in preventing his speaking, no crime had been committed. Lucas and his friends then turned to the state legislature: the house impeached Addison; and in 1803 the senate convicted him by a party vote of twenty to four, removed him from office, and forever disqualified him from holding the office of judge in the commonwealth. In 1804, the house of representatives prepared articles of impeach- ment against the Federalist judges of the state supreme court, alleging that in convicting one Thomas Passmore of contempt of court the judges had arbitrarily violated the Bill of Rights. The trial in the sen- ate resulted in a vote of thirteen to eleven for removal-less than the two-thirds necessary to oust the judges. An entertaining interlude was provided when Brackenridge, who had not participated in the decision of the Passmore case but had been present when sentence was passed, demanded to be impeached with the others. Affronted by such in- dividualistic action and shocked at Brackenridge's lack of "party regularity," the house addressed a resolution to Governor McKean urging him to remove Brackenridge. McKean refused to do so, and, to a house committee contending that the constitutional provision to the effect that the governor "may remove" a judge on address of the legislature should be construed "must remove," McKean replied that he would have them know that "may" sometimes meant "won't." Hostility to courts and lawyers, a recurrent phenomenon of American politics, was thus early expressed in radical action, which found hearty approval on the frontier. New political leaders came on the scene in the West after the turn of the century, and those of the older generation began to drop out. 478 Jeffersonian Democracy Among the Federalists, James Ross was still an accepted leader, and as United States Senator until 1803 he played a prominent part in the opposition to the Republican program. William Hoge of Washington was elected to Congress as a Federalist in 18oo, I802, and I8o6; and Roger Alden, a graduate of Harvard College, appeared as the leader of a new group of Federalists at Meadville. On the whole, however, the Federalist party was moribund, and only the personality and local prestige of such men as Ross, Hoge, and Alden made possible its occasional successes. Of the older Republican leaders, Brackenridge removed to Carlisle after his appointment to the supreme court; Gallatin, as secretary of the treasury and later as a diplomat, was out of the sphere of local politics; Findley and Smilie, to be sure, remained active and militant though somewhat more conservative with advancing age. In Pitts- burgh a trio of young leaders was carrying the battle of democracy into the citadel of its foes. These bold knights-errant were Henry Baldwin and Walter Forward, lawyers of promising reputation, and the even more brilliant Tarleton Bates, scion of a Virginia family, who went to Pittsburgh in 1793, was appointed prothonotary of Allegheny County in I8oo00, and held that office until his death in a political duel in 18o6. These three men were leaders in the much-denounced "Clap- board Row Junto," a group of merchants and professional men living on Market Street, who aligned themselves with the Republicans. The members of the junto controlled the policy of Pittsburgh's Repub- lican newspaper, the Tree of Liberty, which was established in I8oo, they nominated candidates for borough offices, some of whom were elected; they interested themselves in federal and state patronage; and-worst of all from their opponents' point of view-they formed a committee to help aliens become naturalized and to urge the incom- ing Irishmen to vote the Republican ticket. Thus early in the history of the West was the urban political machine installed. The impetus of Republican success led to an easy victory for McKean in his re-election in i8oz. This time Ross was badly beaten; he carried only three of the thirty-six counties in the state, and none of the western counties. The Republican sweep in the West was due partly, no doubt, to the tightening of party organization that had been achieved during McKean's first term and partly to the fact that the creation of new counties in the sparsely settled northwestern 479 The Indian Regime Lake, without number or innumerable.... As our hunters were now tired with indolence, and fond of their own kind of exercise, they all turned out to fowling, and in this could scarce miss of success; so that we now had plenty of homony and the best of fowls; and sometimes as a rarity we had a little bread, which was made of Indian corn meal, pounded in a homony-block, mixed with boiled beans, and baked in cakes under the ashes. "This, with us was called good living, though not equal to our fat, roasted and boiled venison, when we went to the woods in the fall; or bears meat and beaver in the winter; or sugar, bears oil, and dry venison in the spring." Though this description was of the food of Wyandot living near the p'resent site of Sandusky, the same animals and the same climate resulted in similar conditions in western Pennsylvania-and, indeed, some of these same Indians hunted on Beaver Creek during one winter of Smith's captivity. There was an Arcadian quality in Indian life as it existed in western Pennsylvania in the second quarter of the eighteenth century. It was a life of leisure, of hospitality, of a simple social honesty. The harvest- ing of corn was made a festival and the rigors of the hunt became an adventure. The women were not, as is often claimed, treated as slaves, but merely performed the more menial tasks, and performed them cheerfully because the tasks were not numerous and because the active physical life made the women strong. In fact, the Indian women had great influence within the tribe. Inheritance was through the women rather than through the men, and under the clan system the husband went to live with his wife's clan and their children were members of her clan. The domestic life of the Indian was as a rule harmonious. Children were very rarely whipped; Indians expressed horror at the way the white men mistreated their children. A frequent punishment for disobedient children was a ducking or a dash of cold water in the face to cool off their hot tempers; ridicule or grave reproof were other methods adopted. In support of the "vicious redskin" theory, it must be admitted that, from the white man's point of view, Indian methods of warfare and treatment of prisoners were barbarous. From the Indian point of view they were sane and logical. Warfare among Indian tribes had been carried on for untold centuries in the same manner--the sort of 35 Western Pennsylvania region made polling places accessible to many settlers who had been disfranchised by distance in 1799. The victory of I8oz was so decisive in western Pennsylvania that in 1803 the disheartened Federalists did not even put a complete ticket in the field. Both in that year and in 1804 what efforts they made to keep their heads above water were nullified by the strong and sweeping tide of Republican votes. An attempt was made, however, by the Federalists in Congress to use the issue of the navigation of the Mississippi to strengthen their party in the interior. By 8oz0 the Mississippi trade had assumed large proportions and was of great economic importance to the West. Using the right of deposit at New Orleans, westerners had built up a flourish- ing export trade to the West Indies, the staple of which was flour. The secret retrocession of Louisiana from Spain to France in I800 had become known in the United States, although France had not at- tempted to take possession, and when in i8oz the Spanish authorities at New Orleans revoked the right of deposit the people of the West were filled with wrath. The Federalist leaders saw in this situation an opportunity to em- barrass the administration and to win to their support the irate west- erners. Using as their spokesman James Ross, the only Federalist Senator from the West, they launched a campaign for drastic action. In February, 1803, Ross offered a set of resolutions authorizing the president to call out fifty thousand militia from the West and South and to seize land on the island of New Orleans as a place of deposit for American goods. The object of the Federalist tactics was to impale Jefferson on the horns of a dilemma. If he called out the militia the act meant war and the sacrifice of any possibility of success for Monroe, who three months before had been appointed to treat with France for the purchase of New Orleans. If Jefferson did not choose war, it was hoped that the westerners could be persuaded that he had sacrificed their interests and the manifest destiny of the United States. The western Senators, however, were cold to Ross's proposal. They trusted Jefferson, not the Federalists; and after the defeat of Ross's resolutions they supported milder ones offered by Breckenridge of Kentucky, which authorized the president to call out eighty thousand militia if he saw fit-the militia to be drawn from all the states-and which said no word of seizing any part of Louisiana. In May of 1803 the negotiations at Paris came to an unexpectedly successful termination 480 Jeffersonian Democracy in the Louisiana Purchase, and, with the navigation-and, better still, the possession--of the Mississippi assured to the United States, the issue vanished. If any western Democrats had been wavering from their allegiance to the Republican party-and there is no evidence that any had-the Louisiana Purchase bound them once more to the chariot of Jeffersonian democracy. In Pennsylvania, however, a rift was developing among the followers of Jefferson, which was to become an open break in the election of I805. The more radical Republicans, especially in the western region, felt that McKean was too conservative. Two burning issues in their minds were fused into one-the land problem and the reform of the judiciary. The actual settlers felt that, whatever the law might read, they and not the land companies should have title to the land, and the fact that the courts often upheld the land companies made the settlers feel that courts and lawyers were instruments to thwart the will of the people and to set property rights above human rights. The land question touched, directly or indirectly, every citizen of west- ern Pennsylvania; it was of prime importance to the agricultural settlers; it affected the fortunes of merchants and manufacturers and, less directly, the prosperity of professional men and financiers. Land was the economic base for the livelihood of many; it was also the chief object of investment and of speculation. Very early there grew up a cleavage between the westerners, who wished to restrict holdings to actual settlers, and the speculators, mostly easterners or foreigners, who wished to buy land as an investment and hold it until they might sell advantageously. This cleavage on the land question was by no means confined to Pennsylvania; the debates of the early Congresses on the disposal of lands in the Northwest Territory reflect the same points of view and the same sectional bias. In general, eastern members of Congress were in favor of land companies; western members in favor of actual set- tlers. The Congressmen from western Pennsylvania left no doubt in the minds of their constituents as to where they stood on this ques- tion. In 1789, Thomas Scott, Federalist though he was, had arisen to criticize the government's policy of selling land only in large quantities and to advocate the opening of a land office in the West to deal directly with the settlers. In 1796, when the question had again been agitated, Gallatin and Findley had supported a move to provide for 481 Western Pennsylvania opening federal land offices in the West and to require actual settle- ment on each tract of land sold before title should pass. They con- tended that not the raising of revenue but the welfare of its citizens should be the aim of the government in land sales, and that if land were sold slowly in small tracts to actual settlers the ultimate realiza- tion from sales would be greater than under the prevailing method. In I8Io, Smilie spoke for a bill to extend the time of payment for public lands, and all four representatives from western Pennsylvania voted for it. Almost every citizen of western Pennsylvania who had a little capi- tal speculated in land in a small way. Tarleton Bates, for instance, re- corded in 1804 that he had paid "xo50$ cash for twenty acres of land on Grant's Hill in sight of the borough," had bought "a donation tract of zoo acres for as many dollars with a little expense of brokerage," and was about to pay "Ioo$ for 7 acres of hill and I /2 acres of bottom land below Robinson's on the Allegheny River nearly opposite its con- fluence with the Ohio." Such minor speculations, however, were not condemned by the western farmers, many of whom were holding more land themselves than they expected to use; it was the large land com- panies and the absentee owners in the East and abroad that evoked the patriotic and provincial wrath of the western men. The Holland Land Company and the Pennsylvania Population Company, the two concerns with the most extensive holdings in west- ern Pennsylvania, were the chief objects of popular hatred. The aid of the state for the protection of settlers against the land companies was invoked in McKean's first term of office. The state board of property reversed the policy of the former board and reinterpreted the controversial land act of 1792 to the effect that the companies were not entitled, as they claimed they were, to patents for land on which they had been prevented by Indian hostilities from making settlements. The state supreme court upheld the board's action, but this decision did not prevent many later decisions in favor of the companies on legal technicalities. Then in 1805 the United States Supreme Court decided a case in accordance with the companies' in- terpretation of the act of 1792. Popular feeling, therefore, looked to the legislature for relief from adverse court decisions, and agitation against the judiciary continued. Other sources of dissatisfaction with the state's judicial system were 482 Jeffersonian Democracy the delays and the expense involved in the trial of cases, particularly in northwestern Pennsylvania. No new judicial district was set up when the new counties were organized, and for several years court was held in the section only at Meadville and only infrequently. For many of the settlers the trip to Meadville was a long and difficult one under frontier conditions of travel. As partial relief the radical Republicans advocated the extension of the jurisdiction of justices of the peace, the establishment of a system of arbitration, and the restriction of the right of appeal to the circuit courts. Temporary legislation of this sort, enacted in 1794 and 1799 had lapsed, and in I8oz McKean vetoed a bill to extend the jurisdiction of justices of the peace to cases involving not over one hundred dollars on the ground that the justices were "persons of incompetent skill in the law." In 1804 a "hundred dollar bill," effective for three years finally be- came a law. It gave to the justices original jurisdiction over many cases of demands for damages and debts not exceeding one hundred dollars, and it permitted the hearing of such cases by arbitrators, whose decisions were to be final if not more than fifty-three dollars was involved. Radical distrust of legal technicalities expressed itself in the provision "that the proceedings of a justice of the peace shall not be set aside or reversed on certiorari for want of formality in the same." The bill was passed by large majorities in both houses; significant of western feeling is the fact that in the house of representatives only three votes from the western counties were cast against it. Knowing that a veto would be overridden, McKean allowed the bill to become a law without his signature. In the spring of 1805, however, McKean vetoed a bill dividing the state into nine judicial districts, four of which were to be in the West, because it restricted the terms of judges. The governor had often urged the creation of new districts as a means of improving the judi- cial system, but many persons in the West, distrusting the courts, preferred systems of arbitration or the further extension of the powers of the justices of the peace. Legislative support of this measure was less strong than that of the hundred dollar act, and McKean's veto was upheld. The failure of the radicals to make much headway with legislation not only aroused their antagonism to McKean but also convinced many of them that a revision of the constitution would be necessary 483 Western Pennsylvania to put the judicial branch in its proper place in the government. The issue was drawn between the "Constitutionalists," who supported McKean in the election of 1805, and the "Friends of the People," who insisted on constitutional revision and supported Simon Snyder of Northumberland County, a "dirt farmer" of German descent. The radicals claimed to be the real Republican party and nicknamed their opponents "Quids," to imply that they were, a tertium quid in the body politic. In western Pennsylvania, most of the established Repub- lican leaders and the Tree of Liberty, which they controlled, sup- ported McKean; the friends of Snyder, therefore, in 1805 founded at Pittsburgh the Commonwealth, a more radical paper. The Federalists, fearing the radicals more than the Quids, made no nomination and joined the conservative Republicans in supporting McKean. McKean was re-elected, but by a small majority. Snyder carried all the northwestern counties except Beaver and also carried Washington and Greene counties by substantial majorities. McKean carried Somerset, Allegheny, Fayette, and Westmoreland, with substantial margins in the last two. Commenting on McKean's victory, Tarleton Bates wrote to his brother, "We have carried McKean by about 5000, nearly the same as in 1799, though not the same persons. The feds act- ing nobly." Smilie and Findley, McKean supporters, were returned to Congress, but John Hamilton of Washington and Samuel Smith of Erie, radical Republicans, were also elected Congressmen. Fayette and Westmoreland, two of the older counties of the West, were begin- ning to show signs of conservatism. As prosperity increased and greater economic security prevailed, the frontier of radicalism tended to move farther north and west. The election of McKean by so narrow a margin made even his sup- porters realize that something more must be done to improve the judicial system. The governor, serving the last term permitted him by the constitution, was ready to veto radical legislation aimed at the judiciary; he made no objection, however, to an act of i8o6 that in- creased the circuit districts of the state from five to ten and provided for one annual session of the state supreme court in Pittsburgh. In 1807 a bill making perpetual the hundred dollar act of 1804, with some changes, became a law without McKean's signature. This act per- mitted justices to take cognizance in cases exceeding one hundred dollars by consent of the parties involved. Another experiment with 484 Jeffersonian Democracy judicial procedure, begun tentatively in I8o6, was a system of arbitra- tion of any disputes or controversies, even those already pending in the courts, provided the two parties should mutually agree to such a procedure. This act was to be in force for three years. In the election of I8o8 the coalition between Federalists and con- servative Republicans split on an issue of national politics. The Re- publican Congressmen from western Pennsylvania supported the Embargo Act even after its effects began to be felt in falling prices for farm products cut off from their usual export outlet. The tosses of eastern shipowners and the unemployment of seamen did not seriously disturb them. In 1807, Smilie, supporting the embargo, declared it to be just as hard on farmers as on fishermen and merchants, but neces- sary. "The man who in this country wanted bread, must be a man who did not deserve it. If men could not find subsistence on the water, their country was blessed with an abundant soil." Of his opponents he said that if they thought "the power of making money was more valuable than our national rights, let them openly express it." The Federalists in Pennsylvania, as elsewhere, opposed the Embargo Act and made it an issue in the campaign, in which their candidate for governor was that hardy perennial, James Ross. The result was that, though the Quids had a candidate, John Spayd, most of the Republicans voted for Simon Snyder and he was elected. All the western counties, even Allegheny, cast majorities for Snyder, and Spayd received only sixty- five votes west of the mountains. Under Snyder's first administration, the judicial reforms obtained by the radicals despite the opposition of McKean were extended and consolidated. In I8Io, the general arbitration act, which had lapsed, was revived and made perpetual; and in the same year the hundred dollar law was amended and codified. The vote on this measure in the house was 65 to 22, and all the western members voted for it. Another change in the judicial system long advocated by the radicals was ac- complished by an act of I8Io prohibiting the citing of British prece- dents made after July 4, 1776, with the exception of those dealing with maritime law or the law of nations. For the next ten years or more there were no great changes in judi- cial procedure. The radicals had now succeeded in altering many of the features of the judicial system that had been objectionable to them. Judges, to be sure, still held office for life, but western litigants 485 Western Pennsylvania were now able to carry cases to the supreme court without having to travel to Philadelphia; the judicial organization of the counties of the Northwest brought that section into closer touch with the courts; and above all the hundred dollar act and the system of arbitration provided a means for the "little fellow" to recover debts and gain a judicial hearing without prohibitive expense. As the advantages of these reforms began to accrue to the citizens of western Pennsylvania, agitation for constitutional change diminished; and even to the more thorough-going radicals the constitution was less objectionable when they themselves comprised the party in power. On the whole the attack on the judiciary foreshadowed the typical American pattern: obvious abuses and injustices created resentment, which led to pro- posals for sweeping change; these proposals were at first blocked by conservatives and then, when the pressure became irresistible, some of them were adopted; the resultant compromise satisfied enough of the discontented so that the threat of more radical action was averted. With the election of Snyder in I8o8 the land companies began to be somewhat more conciliatory and sought to compromise with set- tlers rather than to eject them. Petitions to the legislature from dis- tressed settlers continued to pour in, however, and relief by legislation continued to be fought by the companies. Finally, in 18i I, an act was passed to promote compromises. The state agreed to confirm the title of either land company or settler in any case in which one had bought out the claims of the other. In case a tract was in dispute between set- tler and warrantee, the state was to confirm the title of the warrantee to 250 acres and of the settler to 150 acres including his improvements, provided that the warrantee and settler were willing so to compro- mise. In case a tract for which a land company held a warrant was still unoccupied, the company was given until June, 1813, to find a set- tler, and the settler was to receive I50 acres of the tract. By a series of supplements to this act the time limit within which the companies must settle or forfeit their lands was extended to 1825. Governor Snyder was re-elected by large majorities in 181 and 1814. He encountered little opposition in the western counties, though the rising industrialism in the region was weaning its people somewhat from the agrarian philosophy of the frontier. The War of I8Iz met with general support in western Pennsylvania. The Republicans naturally favored the war, as they cherished the Revolutionary tradi- 486 Jeffersonian Democracy tion of hatred for England and sympathy with France. The few Feder- alists of the region, though they did not oppose the war as did the Federalists of New England, were moved to point out incompetence in Republican policy preceding the war and in the prosecution of hostili- ties. Altogether, however, the period from I8o8 to 1815 was one of relative calm in the political arena. The war stimulated manufactur- ing in the region and temporarily increased its prosperity. New leaders such as Baldwin and Forward were consolidating their positions and preparing to play important roles in national politics in the future. The old issues of judicial reform and land ownership were on the way to settlement; and no burning new ones had arisen. The party founded by Thomas Jefferson was triumphant in the nation, the state, and the region, but it was ceasing to be the proponent of radical democracy. 487 xxI. The Pattern of Culture URING the second quarter of the eighteenth century, the cul- tural pattern that prevailed in what is now western Penn- sylvania was that of the American Indian, but its aboriginal character was already modified in many respects by contact with European culture transplanted to America. The decade and a half following the middle of the century was a period of transition, and when it was over the Indians and their culture had been largely elimi- nated from the region, though the pattern of life of the incoming Europeans was to be considerably affected by contacts with them for many years. The half century from about 1765 to 1815 witnessed the permanent planting in western Pennsylvania of civilization, as the culture of the whites may perhaps be designated in contrast to the more primitive one of the Indians. The incoming culture was one that had developed over the centuries in western Europe, especially in the British Isles, and in America east of the mountains; and it was still in the process of development. The carriers of that culture were primarily the minds, conscious and subconscious, of the people who migrated; but books, newspapers, messages, and material objects had a part in the process. The transformation of a wilderness, broken only by scattered Indian villages and a few military posts and isolated from the older settle- ments by mountain chains, into a relatively populous region of farms, towns, and commercial and industrial cities was accomplished in a remarkably short space of time. In the process of this transformation there developed in the region a pattern of life, a set of mores not quite like that of the older East-a frontier culture, which was to affect profoundly the development of western Pennsylvania in the years to come and which was to repeat itself, with variations incident to region and time and racial strains in the population, across the continent. 488 The Pattern of Culture Certain virtues and niceties that had been accepted as elements of civilization, crowded out by other virtues that were necessary for existence in the struggle on the frontier, tended to disappear or strove only weakly for expression. Struggle is indeed the background of the pattern of life in western Pennsylvania during the pioneer period. First came the struggle to attain even a foothold in the hostile wilderness-struggle with cold and hunger, with the great forests that covered the region and hemmed in the little clearings so painfully made by human hands puny in contrast with the huge trunks, the giant limbs they felled or lopped away. Then came the struggle of warfare-warfare with the British, and, lasting almost to the end of the century, sporadic war- fare with the Indians wherever settlement was new enough, sparse enough, remote enough, to offer the possibility of success to Indian raids. After the Revolution was over and the Indians were subdued, the frontier farmers found themselves involved in another struggle -a political and economic contest against the dominance of the mer- cantile and financial interests of the East, whose attitude toward the western provinces mirrored the earlier attitude of the British toward the colonies. Into this battle the westerners threw themselves with all the zeal they had formerly shown against the British and the redskins. And while these struggles between man and man were going on, the struggle between man and nature was never long suspended; clearings must be enlarged, crops grown, existence maintained. If the new land was a land of promise it was also a land of labor-a land sternly to be subdued before it would yield its promise. Seen in the light of these struggles, certain unlovely features of pioneer life take on new meaning and a justification born of necessity. Many a pioneer family suffered from filth and vermin, not because it enjoyed these plagues but because it used its strength for contending with enemies more dangerous. Better a dirty cabin than a cabin burned by Indians; better vermin in the bedding than emptiness in the belly; better a body grimed with sweat and unwashed dirt than a tree unfelled, a field untilled. Even the teeming fecundity of the women, wearing out their lives with the strain of frequent childbearing amid incessant physical labor, appears as an unconscious part of this struggle-the rearing up of new recruits to reinforce the ranks already in the fray. To the agricultural settlers the prime consideration was 489 Western Pennsylvania courage that despises the ambush and the sudden raid appeared as foolhardiness to the Indian. Indian warfare was usually a matter of raids-a swoop on an unsuspecting enemy, followed by a swift retreat to safer territory with all the plunder and prisoners it was possible to collect. War, with the Indian, was war to the death, and he could see no more reason for sparing women and children than for sparing warriors. Children were potential warriors and women were potential breeders of warriors: why, then, asked the naive Indian, should they be spared? It must be remembered that the Indians had never been exposed to the historical influence of medieval chivalry, which had made so strong an impression on all the European races. In the treatment of prisoners, the Indian method differed from the white-but it is interesting to note that the whites after a schooling in Indian warfare were often no more merciful than the Indians them- selves. Torture was not so general as is popularly supposed. Only a few of the many captives were burned at the stake, and the procedure had some of the characteristics of a religious rite. At times the flesh and especially the heart of a victim were eaten in the belief that thus the strength and courage of the enemy might be absorbed. To counter- balance these inhuman practices, there was the Indian habit of adop- tion of prisoners of war, a habit much more humane than any ever practiced among the whites toward their Indian captives. Often such prisoners were first forced to run the gantlet, a custom, as a Delaware explained, indicating no malice but simply "like white man say how- do-you-do." Hazing of newcomers by adolescents in a modern school is comparable to it. After a prisoner was once adopted into an Indian family he was treated exactly as were other members of the family, as far as food and clothing went, though naturally at first he was not allowed the weapons and the liberty of movement accorded to members who had lived longer in the tribe. It is an interesting commentary on Indian domestic life that later, when the Indians of this region were defeated by the whites and agreed to surrender their prisoners, they did so with all evidence of personal grief and that many of the prisoners, especially women and children, expressed great reluctance to part with their captors and some even escaped to rejoin their red friends. Furthermore, Indian relations with their white women captives were in one respect above reproach; the Chryseis and Briseis of the Iliad 36 Western Pennsylvania the making of the farm, not the beauty or grace of the life to be lived there. When the farm had been made and the land brought into pro- ductive use, when the agricultural plant had been equipped to turn out surplus goods, then-if the surplus could be marketed and if the habit of work had not become too deeply ingrained to be eradicated -then there would be time for the finer things of life. Throughout most of the period, it is true, religion and education shed some ameliorative influence on the harsh lines of the pattern; and simple pleasures, usually connected with and of service to the work of the farm household, wove little threads of color through the texture of existence. In general, however, leisure was unknown, educa- tion was scanty, cultivation of the amenities was rare. Slight varia- tions in the pattern occurred also in the different racial strains of the settlers of the region: thus the Virginia-born English were gayer; the Germans more industrious, sober, and cleanly; the Scotch more pious and at the same time more hard-headed than other elements in the population. These variations, however, were unimportant in compari- son with the features of the pattern that were common to all the set- tlers; and by the end of the period, through contact and intermarriage, they were diminishing. Frontier life developed its own peculiar ideals and virtues. The strongest ideal was undoubtedly that of independence and self-suffi- ciency. To succeed in the struggle, to get on in the world, to acquire material possessions not for oneself, perhaps, but at least for one's chil- dren-this was the motivating force behind the ax-stroke, the rifle- shot, the plough-thrust. And thereby the acquisitive instinct was nurtured and made strong. Consciously or unconsciously the farmer labored to put himself in the position where he might exploit the land. Physical strength was necessary for the attainment of this ideal; therefore physical strength became a virtue; and the display of it, at leaping, wrestling, or even fisticuffs, brought community acclaim. The less rugged sons of the frontier families became craftsmen or school- teachers, or were piously dedicated to the ministry, a profession for which the farmers had a deep respect coupled with the realization that in it intellectual attainments might compensate for physical frailties. Hard-headed practicality was another frontier virtue, ac- quired by years of applying the pragmatic test to implements, pro- cesses, and ways of life. Not "is it pleasing?" but "will it work?" 490 The Pattern of Culture was the touchstone for trying any new thing; and one suspects that this was the criterion whereby men chose not only their tools but also their wives. Independence, acquisitiveness, physical strength, and practicality-these were perhaps the chief qualities of the fron- tiersman, and they were the progenitors of the rugged individualism of later generations. Even in the towns and cities that grew up in western Pennsylvania during the period, this pattern of life is manifest, though somewhat less completely dominant. Here a small group of professional men- clergymen, lawyers, editors, educators-paid more than lip service to spiritual and intellectual ideals; and some mercantile families had by 18oo attained enough wealth to provide leisure and cultivation at least for their womenfolk. The emerging captains of industry in the towns, however, found the struggle to equip themselves for the suc- cessful exploitation of the natural resources of the region fully as diffi- cult as did the farmers. The problem of the industrialists was more complex than that of the farmers: not only must they build factories and find raw materials and a supply of competent labor, but for ex- tensive operations they must also develop a source of power and ac- cumulate or borrow working capital. Moreover, the solution of the problem demanded and developed qualities similar to those that char- acterized the agricultural frontier. Perhaps there was a little less emphasis in the towns on independence and physical strength, a little more on the acquisitive instinct and hard-headed practicality, but all these qualities were necessary in some degree. The time had not yet come when a weakling could run a factory or a group of stock- holders own one. Nor were these qualities, this pattern of life, confined to the owners of the industrial plants of the region. The slitter in the nailery, the blower in the glassworks, the molder in the iron manufactory-each of these had the opportunity, if he held fast to the frontier virtues, of accumulating capital, setting up for himself, and becoming in time a master of men. The artisan in the shop might eventually establish his own shop, the printer's boy become the editor, the clerk in the store set up a store for himself. In the fluid society of the new region there was no limit to the possibilities of a man's advancement or of his acquisition of material possessions, save the limit set by his own ac- quisitiveness, his own physique, his own mentality. 491 Western Pennsylvania Thus the people of western Pennsylvania stood, on the threshold of the nineteenth century. Farmers, merchants, industrialists, and artisans, they had struggled or were struggling for the possession of capital and plant that would enable them to exploit the resources of a region rich not only in land but in lumber and coal, and in yet un- suspected supplies of oil and gas. Frontier tradition and frontier inheritance had equipped them with just the right qualities for success in the labors that still lay before them. How well they and their de- scendants performed their task of exploitation is shown today in the farms, the mines, the blast furnaces, the steel mills, the glassworks of western Pennsylvania; and also in its eroded farm lands, its scarred hillsides, its slag dumps, and its abandoned mines and factories. 492 Index Index Abercrombie, James, 87, 89 Acheson, David and John, 295 Adams, George, 257 Adams, Henry, I29 Addison, Alexander, 374, 463; impeachment, 478 Advertisements in early newspapers, 380 Agriculture, 262-274; 1790o-185, 288-291 Agricultural societies, 272 Aigster, Dr. Fr., 375, 385 Aitkin, Nathaniel, 451 Alden, Roger, zIo Alden, Rev. Timothy, zIo, 398 Algonquian Indians, 19, 22-25 Alien and Sedition Acts, 476 Allaquippa, Iroquois Indian queen, 29, 30 Allegheny, 219 Allegheny College, 398 Allegheny County, resources and industries, 14, 267, 304, 309; population, 148, 152-154, 214, 216, 280; organization, 172, 219, 460 Allegheny Ridge, I, 2, 5 Allegheny River, 3, 83 Alliance Iron Works, 304 Ambridge, 29 Amherst, Jeffrey, 87, 97, Io, 102, 105, 107 Anderson, Rev. John, 408, 445 Anderson, Robert, 383 Andrews, Robert, 395 Anheuser, Father -, 83 Annenraes, Onondaga chief, 24 Anshutz, George, 304 Anti-Constitutionalists, 456-458, 460 Appalachian Mountains, 2 Appalachian Plateau, 4-6 Apollonian Society, 364 Archbald, Patrick, 424 Architecture, 319-325 Armstrong, George, go Armstrong, John, 85, 89 Armstrong County, 214-216 Arthur, James, 310o, 316 Asbury, Bishop Francis, 396, 411, 414, 416, 427 Ashe, Thomas, quoted, 339 Associate Presbyterian Church, Izo, 401, 407, 408, 415, 421 Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, 120, 352, 399, 407, 4o8, 415, 446 Associators. See Eighth Penna. Regiment Aston, George, 451 Atkin, Edmund, 89 Aubry, Charles P., 93 Aughwick Creek settlements, 137 Augusta County, 164 Authors, 381-383 Ayres, Rev. Robert, 412z, 419, 422, 424, 425, 446 Bailey, Henry, 48 Baily, Francis, 294 Bakewell, Benjamin, 308 Baldwin, Henry, 314 Baltimore, George Calvert, baron, 159, 16I Bank of North America, 457, 458 465 Bank of Pennsylvania, 298, 299 Baptist Church, 402, 411, 412, 415, 428, 443, 445 Baron, Father Denys, 83, 403 Barr, Rev. Samuel, 394, 395, 414 Bartram, John, 128 Bates, Tarleton, 482, 484 Bausman, Jacob, 238 Bayard, Stephen, 148, 395 Bayardstown, 218 Baynton, Wharton and Morgan, So, og9, 14o, 184 495 Index Beal, Widow -, z8o Beall, Ninian, 90o Beatty, Charles, 95, 403, 404 Beaujeu, Daniel Lienard de, 81 Beaver, established, 219, 434; activities, 297, 378 Beaver County, 304; population, 148, 215, 216; organized, 214, 219 Beaver River, 4 Beaver Road, 235 Bedford, Dr. Nathaniel, 338, 350, 374, 395 Bedford, population and growth, 15o, 218, 219, 368; established, 158, 434; activities, 378, 409, 414, 437 Bedford County, 158, 309; population, 15o, 190, 214, 28o "Bedford Gazette," 378 Bees, See Recreation Beeson, Henry, 15o, 410 Beeson, Jacob, 410 Berlin, 151, 219, 409 Beulah, 219, 388 Bible Society, 351 Big Cove settlement, 137 Birkbeck, Morris, quoted, 290 Birmingham, 218 Black, John, 407, 415 Blackleg's Town, 29 Blacksmithing, 278, 284, 285, 302, facing 304, and 305 Blaine, John, 446 Blair, John, 247 Blair County, 151, 190, 214 Blane, Archibald, lo4 Board of Trade, 88, 111 Boats and boatbuilding, 26, 52, 244-251, 284, 300 Boehm, Henry, 411 Bolton, A., 376 Bonnecamps, Joseph Pierre de, 58 Book stores and binderies, 311, 386, 387 Boone, Daniel, 176 Boroughs, functions, 432, 433 Boudet, Mr. -, dancing master, 365 Boundary lines, 169, 174. See also Pennsyl- vania-Virginia boundary controversy Bouquet, Henry, 85, 350; in Forbes's expedi- tion, 89, 90, 91, 93, 96-98; and settlement in Indian country, 102, 141, 157; expedi- tions against the Indians, 105-107, facing io8 Bower Hill, 323, 464, 469 Boyd, John, 386 Brackenridge, Hugh Henry, 373, 381, 452, facing 465; civic activities and comments, 147, 232, 329, 338, 376, 389, 394, 414; liter- ary activities, 382, 383, 387, 4oo; in politics, 459-462, 476; in Whiskey Insurrection, 47o, 471 Brackenridge, Henry Marie, on social life, 338, 360, 362, 363, 365, 369; literary activi- ties, 383; on education, 391, 398 Braddock, Edward, expedition and defeat, 79- 82, facing 84, 86 Braddock Road, 82, go, 98, 14o, 142, 232 Bradford, David, 395, 468-472 Bradstreet, John, 89, 107 Brady, Samuel, 193 Brant, Joseph, Mohawk chief, zoo Brantz, Lewis, 148 Breading, Nathaniel, z8o Bridgeport, 218 Bridges, 238, 239 Brison, James, 256 British, colonial system, 3, 67, 68; rivalry with French, 46-66, 70-75, 96-99; and In- dians, 23, 1o4, 110-I14, 177; during Revo- lutionary War, 175-200, 473, 475 Brodhead, Daniel, 145, 185, 190, 193, 195, 196, 198 Brother's Valley Church, 4o09 Brother's Valley settlement, 151 Browers, Father Theodore, 413 Brown, Rev. John, 385 Brown, Wendell, 139 Brownsville, 73, 98, 149, 218, 297, 300, 378 Brownsville Steel Factory, 306 Bruce, David, 381 Brunerstown, 151 Brunot, Felix, 350, 374 Buckaloons, 29 Buffalo Valley settlement, 329 Burd, James, road building, 79, 98; in Forbes's campaign, 89, 91, 93, 94 Burd's Road, 79, 82, 90, 98, 232 Burr, Aaron, 369 Bushy Run Battle, facing loo, Io6 Bushy Run settlement, 141 496 Index Butler, James, 351 Butler, William, 362, 395 Butler County, 14, 2o6, 304, 447; population, 214-216 Byrd, William, 89 Byerly, Andrew, 141 Cabot, Pierre, 362 Caltroon, John, 28o Cambria County, 151, 214 Campbellites, 413 Campbell, Terrence, 283 Campbell, John, 14o, 18o Candle-making, 279, 282, 283, 326 Cannon foundry, 305 Canon, John, 148, 393 Canonsburg, 148, 406, 434 Canonsburg Academy, 394, 397, 399, 406 Carleton, Guy, 199 Carlisle, 105, 231 Cartlidge, Edmund, 48 Catfish Camp, 30 Catholic Church, 83, 402, 412, 413, 418, 428; and education, 389, 390; lay activities, 352, 424 Causey, Father John B., 413 Cavet, James, 167, 179 Cavilier, -, French Indian interpreter, 51 Cayuga Indians, 23 Celoron de Blainville, Pierre Joseph, expedi- tion, 58-6i, facing 8o Chartier, Martin, 27, 48 Chartier, Peter, 48, 53 Chartier's Town, 27, 29 Chartiers congregations, 405, 4o8 Cheat River settlement, 143 Chemical societies, 351, 376 Cherry Valley massacre, 193 Chestnut Ridge, 5, 6 Chinklaclamoose, 29 Chinklacamoose Trail, 234 Chippewa Indians, 187, 2oo00 Christmas celebrations, 353, 357, 358 Churches on frontier, 412, 420-422, 442-447; meetinghouses, 414-418 Clapham, William, 10o4, 141 Clarion County, 14, 17 Clarion River, 3 Clark, George Rogers, 175, 188, 191, 192, 196, 199 Clark, James, 451 Clarkson, Matthew, quoted, 252 Clearfield County, 214-216 Climate, 14-17 Clothing, 275-277, 336-338, 361 Coal industry, 5, 13, 308, 3Io Collet, Father - , 83 Collins, Thomas, 374 Colonies proposed in West, I56-158 "Columbian Magazine," quoted, 262-264 Commerce, 1790o-815, 284-298. See also Transportation and Travel "Commonwealth," 378, 379, 484 Conemaugh River, 29, 219 Conewango Creek, 4, 29, 83 Congress of U. S., 171; Indian relations, 182, I85, 188, I90, 191 Conneaut Lake, 6 Connecticut claims, 157, i6o, 173 Connellsville, 139, 218, 434 Connolly, John, in Pennsylvania-Virginia boundary dispute, x63-165, 167, 168; in Dunmore's War, 176, 177; Tory activities, i80o, i8I, 89 Constitutionalists, 456-458 Contreceur, Pierre de, 52, 58, 74, 75, 81 Conway, Charles, 411 Cook, Edward, 28o, 455; house, 323, facing 396 Cooper, Benjamin B., 2zo Cooper, Frederick, 28o Coopering, 3Io, 312 Copeland, Thomas, 316 Copper works, 3 o10 Coraopolis, 218 Corbly, John, 412 Cornplanter, Seneca chief, oo, o202, 203 Cornstalk, Shawnee chief, 177, 187, 188 Coshocton, 196 Coulon de Villiers, See Louis de Villiers Council of censors, 456, 457, 458 Council for New England, 159, I6o Counties, population, 148-151; organization and officers, 214-216, 432-433 Courts, 435-437, 447; reform, 483-486 Covenanters. See Associate Reformed Pres- byterian Church 497 Index Cowan, Christopher, 305 Coxe, Tench, zio Craig, Isaac, 248, 256, 2z8o, 307, 464 Cramer Zadok, 248, 374; literary activities, 384-387, 391. See also "Navigator" Cramer, Spear, and Eichbaum, 386 Crawford, William, 16z, 178, 198 Crawford County, zo, 21zI, 206; population, 214-216 "Crawford Weekly Messenger," 378 Cresap, Michael, 176, 183 Cresap, Thomas, 56, 66 Cresswell, Nicholas, quoted, 18o Crime, 437, 441, 442, 447-452 Croghan, George, 54, 55, 167, 350; Indian affairs, 6o-65, 70, 71, 73, 75, 80, 85, 87, 88, 100-102, 108, 109, 112, 113; and land tracts and settlers, 138-140, 142, 144, 163; in Dunmore's War, 165, 177 Crosbye, Henry, 411 Cross Creek Church, 405, 422 Cross Roads congregations, 425 Crumrine Barn, facing 320 Culture on frontier, 372-375; literary activi- ties, 380-384, 386, 388 Cumberland, 57, 231 Cumberland County, 137, 158 Cumberland Road, 218, 234, 235 Cumberland Valley, 105, 136 Cuming, Fortescue, quoted, 237, 255, 329, 364, 367, 369, 452 Currency and money value, 419, 457,466 Cussewago, 29, 2o02 Custaloga, Delaware chief, 70, 103 Custaloga's Town, 29 Cuthbertson, John, 407 Dallas, Alexander J., 475 Darby, Deborah, 425 Davenport, Jonas, 48 Davidson, John, 72 Dearborn, S. H., 364, 367 Declary, Peter, 364, 365 Delaware Indians, 25-30, 40, 48, 5i, 183; alignment, 75, 78, 85; territorial rights, 1oo, 137, 191, zoo; hostile activities, 103, 177, 187, 196, 199 Democratic societies, 468, 469 Democratic-Republican party, 473-487 Denny, Ebenezer, 85, 87, 202, 447 Detroit, and Indian affairs, 51, 53, 54, 6o, 61, Ioo, 104, 184, 190, 194, 199, o200 Dewees, Mrs. Mary, quoted, 361 Dieskau, Baron -, 86 Dinwiddie, Robert, 66, 71, 73, 79, 8z Distilling industry, 279, 310, 466, 467. See aLso Whiskey Insurrection Divesting Act, 456 Doan, Abraham and Levi, 450 Dod, Rev. Thaddeus, 389, 393, 404, 405, 425 Doddridge, Rev. Joseph, 13, 412, 442 Dollier de Casson, Brother - , 46 Domestic life and activities, 133, 274-286, facing 321, 322, 333, 335, 340. See also Houses and furnishings Donation lands, 205-207 Douglass, Ephraim, 199, zoo, 447 Douthet, Thomas, 150 Drunkenness, 38, 369, 370, 448 Dubac, Gabriel, 350, 362 Duffield, George, 404 Dumas, Jean Daniel, 81, 84 Dunbar, Thomas, So, 82 Duncan, David, 395 Dunkard's Creek settlement, 139 Dunlaps Creek congregations, 405, 419, 421 Dunmore's War, 113, 144, 176-178, 182 Dunmore, John Murray, earl, 163, 168, 178 Duquesne, Ange Marquis de, 68, 74, 80 Dutch settlers, 23, 46 Dwight, Margaret, quoted, 452 Eagle Fire Company, 351 East Liberty, 218 Ebensburg, 219, 387 Eckerlin brothers, 139 Ecuyer, Simeon, o104-1o6, 350 Education on frontier, 347, 375, 388-399 Egan, Bishop - , 413 Eichbaum, William, 281, 305, 307 Eighth Pennsylvania Regiment, 185, i9o, 191 Elizabeth Town, 148, zi8, 247, 300 Elliot, Matthew, 190 Ellicott, Andrew, 203 Elk County, 14 England, in I8th century, 116-I19 498 Index English settlers, 152-155 "Enterprise," vessel, 251 Episcopal church, 402, 412, 418 Erie, 258, 297, 300, 378 Erie Indians, zz22-25 Erie Road, 235, 237 Erie Triangle, 173, 202 Erie County, 20, 21, 214-216 Erigen River, 6 European backgrounds, 115-125 Evans, George and Oliver, 316 Evans, Lewis, 61, 157 Ewalt, Samuel, 253 Exports, 286, 287, 290, 291. See also Com- merce Excise tax, 466, 467. See also Whiskey Rebel- lion Fairfax, George, 56 Fair Play Men, 431, 451 Fairview meetinghouse, 417 Fallen Timbers Battle, 203, 209, 282 Family, on frontier, 329-332 Farmers and Mechanics Bank of Pittsburgh, 299 "Farmers Register," 378, 380 Farming. See Agriculture "Fayette Gazette," quoted, 378 Fayette County, resources and industries, 14, 267, 304, 306; population, 20o, 66, 139, 149, 152-154, 214, 279, z80; government, 172, 437, 447, 457, 458, 462 Fearon, Henry, quoted, 242 Federalist party, 474-487 Ferries, 54, 238, 437 Financial activities, 298, 299, 311, 430 Findley, William, 21I, 382, 388, facing 465; political activities, 457-461, 463, 464, 481, 484; in Whiskey Insurrection, 466, 469, 470, 472 Fink, Mike, 246 Finley, James, 171, 239, 280, 395 First Presbyterian Church (Pittsburgh), 414, 417 Five Nations Indians. See Iroquois Indians and Six Nations Flint, James, quoted, 290 Flint, Timothy, quoted, 289 Food on frontier, 332-335 Forbes, John, facing 85; expedition, 87-97 Forbes Road, 3, 90, 91, 98, 14o, 141, 151, 152, 232, 233 Forest County, 29 Forks of the Ohio, 72 Fort Armstrong, 193 Fort Bedford, 90o, facing 92, 97, 104, 140, 141 Fort Burd, 98, 1o4, 141, 149 Fort de Chartres, io8, Iog, 1 1'4 Fort Crawford, 192 Fort Cumberland, 79 Fort Dunmore, 164, 437 Fort Duquesne, 17, 75, facing 81, 83, 84, 91, 93, 95, 137, 140 Fort Fayette, 22o, 359, 360 Fort Fincastle, 178 Fort Franklin, 202 Fort Frontenac, 89 Fort Hand, 193 Fort Harmar, 201 Fort Henry, 187, 197, 199, 359 Fort Laurens, 192, 193 Fort Le Boeuf, 69, 70, 83, 95, 97, 99, 104, 185, 202 Fort Ligonier, go, facing 93, 94, 96, 97, 140 Fort Louisburg, 86, 87 Fort Machault, 74, 95, 97 Fort McIntosh, 175, 192, zoo, 2zo, 219, 359 Fort Necessity, 76, 77, 139 Fort Necessity Battle, 76, 77 Fort Niagara, 50, 52, 74, 86, 97, 199 Fort Oswego, 50o, 86, 89 Fort Pitt, 17, 96-99, facing Io1, 104-106, 112- 114, 140, 147, 163, 164, 168, 175, 178, 181, 182, 186, 190, 195, 201, 202, 359, 360, 366, facing 389, 403, 416 Fort Presque Isle, 69, 95, 97, 99, 104, 185 Fort Prince George, 66, 73-75 Fort Randolph, 188 Fort Redstone, 140 Fort St. Louis, 27 Fort Stanwix. See Treaties of Fort Stanwix Fort Ticonderoga, 89 Fort Venango, 70, 99, 1o4 Fort Washington, 201 Fort William Henry, 86 Forward, Walter, 314 Foulkes, William, 451 499 MANUFACTURE OF FLINT AND STONE IMPLEMENTS After a group in the National Museum Left to right: (I) prying up boulders; (2) breaking up boulders preparatory to selecting fragments for implements; (3) roughing out form of implements by means of quick sharp blows with a boulder hammer; (4) trimming the edges and shaping up the thin blades with an implement of bone or antler set in wooden shaft. Flaking is accomplished by setting point of implement against edge of roughed-out blade and pressing downward with a quick strong move- ment. (5) Chipping out notches and flaking point by means of a small flaker of bone that is pressed down on sharp edge and "takes hold." Then by a quick push flake is driven off. Index Fourth of July celebrations, 358 Fowler, Alexander, 395 Franklin, Benjamin, 78, 79, 128, 156 Franks, David, and Company, 5o Frankstown, 219 Frankstown Path, 3, 29, 48, 234 Fraser, John, 54, 59, 6o, 70, 74 Frederick (Md.), 231 Fredericktown, zI8, 387 French, 23, 103, 231; rivalry with England, 46-71, 74, 8o, 93, 97, 99 French Creek, 4, 83; valley, 289 French settlers, 125 French and Indian War, 61, 75-79, 82-87, 96- 99 French Revolution, 468 Friends of the People, 484 Friedensstadt, 41, 42 Friedenshiitten, 4o Frisbie, Levi, 4o4 Frontier culture, 454, 488-491 Fry, Joshua, 73, 75, 76 Fur trade, 38, 47, 48, 50-53, 58, 6I, Oi, 157, 230. See also Natural Resources Gage, Thomas, io7 Galinee, Brother - , 46 Gallatin, Albert, 208, 218, 381, facing 465; house, facing 413; political activities, 462- 465, 474-476, 481; in Whiskey Insurrection, 466, 468-472 Gallitzin, Demetrius, 402, facing 404, 413, 416, 418 Gallitzin settlement, 390 Gantz house, facing 389 Gass, Patrick, 385 "Gazette Publications," 382 "Genius of Liberty," 378, 379 George III, II9 German Lutheran Church, 352, 389, 408, 443 German Reformed Church, 408 German settlers, 124, 127, 129-131, 334, 356- 358, 389, 408 Gerry, Elbridge, Jr., quoted, 289, 315, 362 Gibson, George, I86 Gibson, John, I81, 192, 395 Giesey, Henry, 409 Gilkison, John, 386, 387, 391 Girty, Simon, 19o Gist, Christopher, Ohio Company activities, 63-66, 71, 72, 75; plantation, 76, 77, 139 Glade Road. See Burd Road Glass industry, 307, 308, 311 Glenn, Thomas, 451 Gnadenhiitten, 41 Goe, William, 28o Gordon, Harry, 93, 97-99 Goshgoshunk, 29 Graham, Rev. David, 385, 407 Grand Ohio Company, 158 Grant, James, 91, 92 Grant's Hill, 92, 255, 360 Great Bethel Baptist Church, 412, 417, 425 Great Meadows, 75 Great Revival, 425-427 Greene County, 14, 177, 431; organization and poulation, 139, 148, 214 Greensboro, 149, 2I8 Greensburg, 149, 218, 363, 378, 391, 434 Greersburg Academy, 397 Griffith, William, 212 Guyasuta, Mingo chief, 1o3, 198 Hagerstown (Md.), 231 Halcyons, 413 Half-King. See Tanacharison Halfway House, facing 388 Hall, John, 28o Hamilton, z18 Hamilton, Alexander, 466, 472, 474 Hamilton, Henry, at Detroit, 184, i85, 187, i89, 190, 192 Hamilton, James, royal governor of Pennsyl- vania, 61-63, 70 Hamilton, John, 484 Hamtramck, J., at Fort Fayette, in 0Sox, 360 Hanbury, John, 56 Hand, Edward, 169, 186-i89, facing i90 Hanna, Robert, x58, 167, 179 Hannastown, 149, 158, 164, 179, 198, 391, 437 Harmar, Josiah, 20 Harmony Society, 290, 309, 413 Harris, Thaddeus M., quoted, 242, 339, 341 Harrisburg, 231 Harrisburg and Pittsburgh Turnpike Com- pany, 237 500 Index Harvie, John, 179 Hastings, Sally, quoted, 315, 329, 363, 369, 370, 383, 422 Hay, Mary, 450 Hazard, Samuel, 156 Headright system, 138 Health conditions on frontier, 338-347, 350, 352 Heath, Andrews, 169 Heckewelder, John, 40, 41, facing 404 Heilbron, Father Peter, 413 Henderson, Rev. Ebenezer, 415 Henderson, Rev. Matthew, 408, 415 Hennen, Abel, 295 "Herald of Liberty," 378 Herald's settlement, 389, 403, 415 Heron, James G., 235 Hibernian Society, 350 Hickorytown, 29, 41 Hilands Church, 381 Hill, Joseph, Sr., z8o Hillsborough, Lord, II i Hockley, Richard, 54 Holdich, B., 365 Holland Land Company, zo8-213, 482 Hollidaysburg, 219 "Honest Man's Almanac," 384 Hopwood, 218 Houses and furnishings, 318-327, 329, 335, 345, 355. See also Architecture Hughes family, 128 Hughes, Rev. Thomas, 397, 406, 425, 445 Huidekoper, Harm Jan, 212, 213 Huntingdon Pike, 234 Husband, Harmon, 151 Huron Indians, 23, 28, 48. See also Wyandot Indians Hutchins, Thomas, 157 Hutton, Margaret, 279 Illinois country, 97, 99, 175 Immigration, 125-127, 135, 144-146, 261, 262 Indentured servants, 126, 127 Indian traders, 48-50o, 60, 171 Indians, trails, 2-4, 229, 230; culture, 25, 26, 28-45, 48-50, 55, 59, facing 65, 406, 488; lands, 88, 1oo-1o3, 136, 137, 142; relations with French and English, 46-66, 68, 71, 78, 8o, 84, 87, 90; trade, io8-Iio; at Albany Congress, III, 156, 178; 1774-95, 146, 175 179, 181-203; U. S. policy, 455, 465, 475. See also various Indians Indiana Company, 157, 170 Indiana County, 214-216 Indian Head congregations, 4o9 Industrial growth, 284-287, 299-317, 491, 492. See also various industries. Inns and taverns, 241, 252-256, 359, 368, 369, facing 389, 437 Irish settlers, 121-123, 127, 152-154, 350, 357 Iron industry, 278, 301-306, 311, 331 Iroquois Indians, land, 22-28, 46, 48, 137, 176, 183; long houses, 42, facing 64; relations with French, English, and Americans, 5o, 51, 68, 75, 78, 192, 194, 202, 203 Irvine, William, 173, 190, 198, I99, 206 Jackson and Sharpless, 3o6 Jacob's Creek Church, 4o8, 409, 416, 420o Jay's Treaty, 203, 475 Jefferson, Thomas, 196, 360, 473, 474 Jefferson College, 388, 397, 398 Jefferson County, 214-216, 218 Jennings, Jacob, 419 Johnson, Sir John, zoo Johnson, Sir William, Indian affairs, 60o, 85, 86, 88, 96, IOI, 102, 107, 108, 112, 142 Johnson, William, 296 Johnstown, 29, 151, 219 Jolliet, Louis, 47 Joncaire, Daniel (Chabert) de, 58, 60o, 74 Joncaire, Louis Thomas de, 5o, 51 Joncaire, Phillipe Thomas de, 58, 60o, 62, 7o, 72 Jones Mills, 218 Johnson, David, 393 Jumonville. See Joseph de Villiers Juniata River, 2 Juniata Valley 137, 306 Kenny, James, quoted, 101, 403, 448 Kentucky country, settlement, 144, 145, 163, 175, 176, 183, 282; defense, 188, 197 Kentucky Traders, 294 Kickenapawling Town, 29 501 Index King Beaver, Delaware chief, 30 King George's War, 53, 55 Kiskiminetas, 29 Kiskiminetas-Conemaugh River, 4 Kittanning, 26, 29, 177, 185, 186; Arm- strong's expedition, 85, 89 Knox, John, 120, I21 Kuskuski, 30, 87 Labor problems on frontier, 273, 279-281, 311-315 La Demoiselle, Indian chief, 61 La Jonquiere, marquis de, 60 Land companies, 204-213 Land problems, grants and cessions, 57, 78, 88, 143, zoo; Penn family policies, 135-137; Pennsylvania policies, 156, 173, 204-207, 211-213, 456, 465, 481, 482, 486; Virginia settlers, 169; speculation, 207-213; titles, 430-432, 450, 451, 459, 460 Lange, Johann F. W., 409 Langlade, Charles-Michael de, 61 La Salle, Rene R. C., Sieur de, 46 Latrobe, Benjamin H., 375 Laughlin, John, 28o Laughlintown, 218 Laurel Hill congregation, 405, 446 Laurel Ridge, 5, 6 Lawrence County, zo6 Lawrenceville, 218 Leard, Zacharias, 309 Lebanon church, 415 Lee, Henry, 472 Lee, Thomas, 56 Legionville, 2zo02 LeMoyne, J., 376 Lery, Joseph-Gaspard Chaussegros de, 52, 8o Le Tort, James, 48 Lewis, Andrew, 178 Lewis and Clark expedition, 385 Lichtenau, 41, 196 Ligneris, FranCois Marchand de, 91, 92, 94 Ligonier, 29, 104, 218 Ligonier Valley, 149 Lincoln Highway, 233 Lindley's Fort, 425 Linn, Rev. Matthew, 407 Linn, William, 186 Little Meadows, 80 Lizel, John W., 409 Local government, 431-434 Lochry, Archibald, 195, 196 Logan, Mingo chief, 177 Log houses, 319-321, 355, facing 405 Logstown, 29, 54, 62, 75, 82, o02; Indian con- ferences, 55, 65, 73 London Company, 159 Loudoun, John Campbell, Earl of, 86 Loretto, 219, 413 Longueuil, Baron de, 52 Louisiana, 99, 297 "Louisiana and Mississippi Almanac," 384 Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, 362 Lowrey, James, 6o Loyalhanna, 29, 88 Luetge, Anton Ulrich, 409 Lutheran Church, 402, 409 Lycoming County, 214 McClure, Rev. David, 42, 152, 356, 357, 404, 414, 418 McClurg, Joseph, 305 M'Dermott, William, 306 McDonald, John, 247 McFarland, James, 469 McFarlane, Andrew, 186 McGuire, Michael, 424 M'Gunegle, George, 303 McIntosh, Lachlan, 190, 191 Mackay, Aeneas, 76, 141, 164, 185 Mackay, Samuel, 148 McKean, Thomas, political activities, 2II, 212, 476-479, 481-485 McKean County, 14, 214-216 McKee, Alexander, 189 McKees Rocks, 29, 66 McKeesport, 29, 218, 363 McMaster, John, 350 McMillan, Rev. John, 374, facing 404; edu- cational activities, 389, 393-395, 399 and Presbyterian church, 404-406, 422, 423, 446; political activities, 446, 474-476 McNair brothers, 2o10, 235 McNairstown, 218 Macurdy, Rev. Elisha, 422, 425, 445 "Magazine Almanac," 384, 387 502 Index Mahoning River, 3 Mamachtaga, Delaware Indian, 451 Manchester, Isaac, 323, 325; house, facing 397 Manufacturinig. See Industrial growth Maple-sugar industry, 8, 274, 275 Marie, John, tavern-keeper, 255 Marin, Pierre Paul de, 69, 72 Markets, 281-284, 291-295, 311 Marmie, Peter, 304 Marquis, Thomas, 422 Marriage customs and relations, 327-329, 332, 444, 448 Martinsburg, 219 Maryland, traders and settlers, 55, 56, 74, 149, 15I; boundaries, 159, 161 Mason and Dixon's Line, 161, 165 Masonic organizations, 350 Massachusetts, territorial claims, i6o Matthews, Dr. Increase, 350 May, John, 294; quoted, o10, 17 Mead, David, 396 Meadville, 29, 2o2, 212, 297, 378, 396 Meason, Isaac, 280, 304; house, 323 facing 397 Mechanical societies, 313, 350 Medical society, 351 Medicine. See Health conditions Melish, John, quoted, 241, 256, 288, 289, 368 Mennonites, 413 Mercer, 378 Mercer County, 206, 214-216 Mercer, Hugh, 89, 96, ioo Le Mercier, Capt. -, 69, 75 Methodist Episcopal Church, 119, 402, 410, 41I, 415, 417, 418, 421, 428; lay activities, 423, 443 Meyer, Balthaser, 389, 404 Miami Indians, 48, 61, 62 Michaux, Andre, quoted, 339, 343, 344 Michaux, FranCois A., quoted, 244, 255, 315 Middletown, z218 Miles Pennsylvania Rifle Regiment, 183 Military dress, 201 Militia, 433, 437, 472 Miller, James, house, facing 389 and 396 Milling, 300-303 Mineral resources, 13-15 Mineral springs, 368 Mingo Creek Presbyterian Church, 416 Mingo Indians, 27, 29, 30, Ioo, 1o3; Dun- more's War, 177, 178; raids during Revolu- tion, 186, 187 "Mirror" (Erie), 380 Missionary activities, among Indians, 39-43; societies, 350, 428 Mississippi River, free trade and navigation, 99, 282, 296, 459, 465, 473, 475 Mississippi Steam Boat Company, 248 Mississippi Steam Engine Company, 316 Mitchell, David G., 376 "Modern Chivalry," 383, 396, 4oo Mohawk Indians, 23 Monckton, Robert, 98 Montcalm, Louis Joseph, Marquis de Saint- Veran, 86, 89, 99 Monongahela City, 218 "Monongahela Farmer," vessel, 300 Monongahela River, 4 Monongahela Valley, settlement, 65, 66, 287, 288; under Virginia, 138, 168 Monongalia County, 169 Monroe, 218 Montgomery, John, 89 Montour, Andrew, 62, 65, 71 Moorhead, Samuel, 186 Moravia, 41 Moravian Church, missions, 39-43 Moravian Indians, 40-42, I96 Morgan, Abraham, 328 Morgan, George, 140, 184-i86, 189, 191 Morgan, Zackwill, 189 Morris, Robert, 82, 85, 208, 209, 457 Mound Builders, 19-22, 28 Mount Braddock, 139, facing 397 Mount Pleasant, 218, 405 Mountain, James, 395 Mowry, Dr. Peter, 350, 374 Muddy Creek congregation, 416, 424 Munster, z29 Murdoch, John, 376 Myers, Jacob, 247 National origins, 152-155 Natural resources, 6-15; power, 303, 315-317 "Navigator," 245, 248, facing 256, 257, 384, 385, 400 Nelson, Thomas, 56 503 Index Nemacolin, Delaware chief, 66 Neptune Fire Company, 351 Neutral Indians, 24 Neville, John, at Fort Pitt, 168, 182; social and domestic life, 271, z8o, 323, 324, 326, 350, 362, 365, 412; political activities, 461, 462, 464; in Whiskey Insurrection, 466, 469 Neville, Morgan, 365, 399 Neville, Presley, 28o, 323, 350, 395, 464 Neville family, 464, 474 New France, 67 New Geneva, 218 New Lights, religious group, 413 New Orleans trade, 292, 293, 295-298 "New Orleans," vessel, 248, 250, 251, 316 New Purchase, I114, 214, 219 Newry, 219 New Year's Day celebration, 353 New York, and French in Ohio Valley, 74; boundary, 172-174 Newspapers, 376-381 Nicholson, John, 2o8 Nicolas, Wyandot chief, 54 North American Land Company, 208 North Carolina, 74 Northwestern Pennsylvania, settlement, 212- 214 Northwest Territory, zo, 282, 294, 481 Norment, John Daniel, 84 O'Brien, Father F. X., 413, 415 O'Bryan, Dennis, 328 O'Hara, James, 297, 361; glassworks, 307, 311 Ohio Company, organization, 56, 57, 62; early settlement, 63-66, 73, 77, 102o, 139; after French and Indian War, 156-158, 231; at Marietta, 294 Ohio Company, exporters, 298 Ohio County, 169 Ohio River, 3, 251; Indian boundary, 182, 199 Ohio Valley, 46, 77, 174 Old Britain, Indian chief, 61 Oldtown (Md.), 231 Old West, 129, 130, 132-134, 454 Oneida Indians, 23 Onondaga Indians, 23, 24 Ormsby, John, 238, 254 Ottawa Indians, 187, 20oo Pack-horse transportation, 230, 231, facing 240 Paper industry, 3o6, 307, 379 Parish, function, 434 Parker, Thomas, 350, 395 Parkinson's Ferry, 218 Path Valley settlement, 137 Patterson and Hopkins, 384, 385, 391 Patterson, Rev. Robert, 381, 387, 393, 395 Pean, Michael, 69 Penn, John, io8, 142, 166 Penn, William, 46, 125, 16o Penn family, land problems, III, 112, 114, 135-137, 143, 156, 456 Pennsylvania, and Ohio country, 51, 54, 6o, 74, 84; rivalry with Virginia, 61-66; in Pontiac's War, 107; land problems, 114, 142, 16o, 195, 432; and convict settlers, 126; and roads, 251; and schools, 388 Pennsylvania Germans. See German settlers and Old West Pennsylvania-Virginia boundary controversy, 138, 159-170, 442 Pennsylvania constitution, 1776, 455, 456; 179o, 462, 463 Pennsylvania Population Company, 208, zlo, 482 Pennsylvania Road, 232, 233, 240 Perry, James, z66 Perryopolis, 300 Peters, Richard, 54, 137, 472 De Peyster, commandant at Detroit, 198 Philadelphia, 128 Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike, 237 Phillips, Theophilus, 169 Physiography, 2-5 Pickawillanee, 54, 6o-62, 66 Pigeon Creek Church, 405 Pinckney's Treaty, 286, 473 "Pioneer," monthly magazine, 385 Pioneers, European backgrounds, I15-125 Pitt, William, 86, 157 Pittsburgh, climate, 16, 17; name, 94, 95; early days, 110, 140, 141, 147; Pennsyl- vania-Virginia boundary controversy, 163, 166; and Indian affairs, 175, 182, 188, oz2; during Revolutionary War, 179, 181; de- scribed, 1790-r8oo, 217, 239, 247, 266, 283, 284, 287, 300, 308, 347, 352, 363, 364, 375, 504 Index 390, 391, 410, 414, 415; incorporation and plan, 434, facing 464; during Whiskey In- surrection, 470 Pittsburgh Academy, 350, 381, 394-396 "Pittsburgh Almanack," 272, 384 Pittsburgh Branch, Bank of Pennsylvania,299 "Pittsburgh Commonwealth," 316 "Pittsburgh Directory," 250, facing 256 Pittsburgh Fire Company, 351 "Pittsburgh Gazette," 247, 376-380, 389, 459; quoted, z58, 266, 272, 295, 296, 300, 306, 341, 346, 351, 391, 393, 396, 399, 443, 449 Pittsburgh Humane Society, 351 Pittsburgh imprints, 385, 386 Pittsburgh Library Company, 387 "Pittsburgh Magazine Almanack," quoted, 289 Pittsburgh Manufacturing Company, 299 Pittsburgh Moral Society, 447 Pittsburgh Permanent Library, 387 "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette," 378 Pittsburgh Reformed Presbyterian congre- gation, 407 Pittsburgh Steam Engine Company, 316 Pittsburgh Steam Flour Mill, 316 "Pittsburgh Town and Country Almanac for Rogues and Honest Folks," 384 Pittsylvania, 157 Plantation Plenty, facing 397 Pleasant Hill, 391 Point Pleasant Battle, 178 Political issues, 458-462 Pollock, David, 452 Population, 144, 146, 152-155, 214 Pontiac's War, 1o3-1o9, 137 Post, Christian F., 41, 87, 88 Postal service, 240, 256-259 Potawatomi Indians, 47 Potter County, 214, 216-217 Power, Rev. James, 404, 4o5, 419, 425 Pre-emptive right, 146 Presbyterian church, 120, 353, 389, 402o, 404- 406, 413, 418, 421, 424, 427, 428, 442, 445; synods: Virginia, 393; New York and Phil- adelphia, 4o4; presbyteries: Erie, 399, 406; Donegal, 404, 405, 4o9; Redstone, 393, 405, 406; Ohio, 4o6; Hartford, 407. See also various churches Presque Isle, 83, 185. See Fort Presque Isle Pride, Mrs. Mary, 392 Proclamation Line of z763, IIx-II3 Proctor's Independent Battalion, I8o Professional men and organizations, 350, 351, 375, 376 Propst, John, 424 Publishing industry, 384-386, 391 Pumphreys, Rev. Reason, 410 Punxsutawney, 29 Pymatuning, 3o Quaker Church, 149, 150, 389, 4io, 414, 428, 433; rules of conduct, 443-445 Quakers, political activity, 61, 85, I28, 129, 454 Quebec (province), 178 Queen Anne's War, 50o Queret, Father - , 52 Quids, 484 Quitrents, 136, 146 Rapp, George, 290o Rattlesnake flag, i8o Rawlings, Moses, 193 Raystown, 137 Raystown Path, 3, 48, 79, 234 Recreation, in the country, 353-358; in the town, 358-362; commercial, 362-368, 396 Red Bank River, 3 Redick, David, 374, 472 "Redstone," vessel, 300 Redstone Baptist Association, 412, 418, 427 Redstone Old Fort, 98 Redstone Paper Mill, 3o6 Redstone settlements, 141 Reformed Presbyterian Church, 20zo, 4o0, 4oz, 407 Religion, 132, 382; influence of Europe and East, 401-403; services, 403-404; Presby- terians, 404-407; other Protestants, 407- 412; Roman Catholics, 412, 413; minor sects, 413; rural character, 413-417; clergy, 417-420; lay activities, 4zo-425; revivals, 425-427; church membership, 427-429. See also various churches Reno, Francis, 412 "Reporter" (Washington), 378 505 Index Republican party, 456, 474, 475. See also Democratic-Republican party Revolutionary War, 144-146, 175-200, 358 Rhodes House (McKeesport), facing 389 Rhodiamites, 413 Richardson, Thomas, 450 Riddle and Murray, "Pittsburgh Directory," facing 256 Riqu', Indian village, 24 Ritchie, Matthew, 35o Rivers, 5, 17 Roads, 231-238, 44o. See also various roads and highways Fort Robertdeau, facing 191 Roberts, Robert, 419 Roberts, Samuel, 314 Rogers, David, 188, 194 Rogers, Robert, 99, xoo Roman Catholic church. See Catholic Church Roosevelt, Nicholas, 248 Ross, James, 323, 373, 395, facing 465; politi- cal activities, 463, 464, 474, 476, 485 Routes to the West, 151, 152 Ruffner brothers, 424 Rush, Dr. Benjamin, quoted, 262-264, 346 Russell and Company, 14o Ryan, Timothy, 266 Sabbath observance, 353, 445, 447 St. Clair, Arthur, facing 85, 323, 325; in Pennsylvania-Virginia boundary contro- versy, 158, 163, 165, 168; Indian affairs, 177, 184, 201, 20o St. Clair, John, 89 St. Mary, Mary Louisa, 84 St. Pierre, Legardeur de, 72, 74 St. Thomas' Episcopal Church, 416 Salisbury, 219, 409 Salt industry, 14, 245, 247, 296, 297 Saltsburg, 29 Sandusky council, i99, 200oo Sawcunk, 30 Sawmills, 284, 310o Scarouady, Oneida chief, 27, 29, 70, 71, 75, So Schermerhorn, John F., 428, 445 Schewe, Christoph F., 374 Schoepf, Johann, quoted, 147, 242, 253, 254, 271 Schnbrunn, 41 Schools and schooling. See Education Schultz, Christian, Jr., quoted, I I, 236, 247, 324 Scotch settlers, 152-154, 334, 356, 389 Scotch-Irish settlers, 123, 124, 131, 152-154, 389 Scotland, 119-121 Scott, George M., 426 Scott, Dr. Hugh, 258 Scott, Thomas, 461, 462, 464, 466, 481 Scull, John, 384, 459; postmaster, 257, 258; and "Pittsburgh Gazette," 148, 376, 379 Seceders. See Associate Presbyterian Church Sectionalism, 454, 455 Semple's tavern, 367 Seneca Indian oil, 341 Seneca Indians, 14, 23, 24, 27, 40, 103, 183, 193, 194, 20oo, o202 Senseman, Gottlieb, 4o Service Seminary, 399 Settlement, in Indian territory, 96, 1oz, 137; English policy, Io-I 4; pre-Revolution, 138-144; and land companies, 204-213 Settlers, character, 126, 127, 132-134, 262- 265; national origins, 151-155 Seven Ranges, surveyed, 2zo Seven Years War, 68, 86 Seventh Virginia Regiment, 183 Sewickley, 30, 390, 405 Sewickley Creek school, 390 Sewickley log house, facing 388 Shamokin Path, 3, 26, 48 Shannopin's Town, 29, 74 Shawnee Indians, 26-30, 47, 48, 51, 137; alignment, 53, 78, 85, 1oo, Io3; in Dun- more's War, 176-178; relations with U. S., 187, 194, 199 Shelburne, William P. Lansdowne, earl, iii Shellsburg, 219 Shenango, 30 Shenango River, 4 Sherman's Valley settlement, 137 Shingas, Delaware chief, 29, 30 Shippen and Lawrence, 54 Shoemaking industry, 284, 313, 314 Sinking Valley, lead mines, 146 Six Nations, 27, 51, 56, 103. See also Iroquois Indians 506 Index Slave labor, 145, 264, 279-281, 456 Smilie, John, political activities, 457, 458, 460, 461, 463, 464, 482, 484, 485; in Whiskey Insurrection, 466, 468, 469, 476 Smith, Devereaux, 168, 451 Smith, James, 31, 32 Smith, John, 376 Smith, Rev. JoSeph, 405, 414, 419, 425; and elementary schools, 389, 393, 395 Smith, Samuel, 484 Smithfield, 219 Snowden, John M., 387 Snyder, Simon, 484, 486 Soap and candle making, 279, 310 Social life, 127-129, 349-351. See also Recrea- tion Society of Friends. See Quaker church and Quakers Somerfield, 219 Somerset, I5I, 219, 378, 391 Somerset County, 150, 214, 447 Spain, in North America, 46, 99, 296 Spangenberg, Cyriacus, 409, 452 Spazd, John, 485 Speer's Spring congregation, 408 Squatters, 113, 136, 145, zoo Squaw Campaign, 188, 189 Stage lines, 240-242 Stamp Act riots, II2 Stanwix, John, 97, 98 Stauch, Johannes, 409, 427 Steamboats. See boats and boatbuilding Steam engine factories, 305, 315-317 Steck, John Michael, 409 Steel industry, beginnings, 306. See also Iron industry Steele, Rev. John, 142 Stewart, Mary, 452 Stewart, William, 139 Stewart's Crossing, 139, 141, 143. See also Connellsville Stirling, Capt. -, I19 Stobo, Robert, 77 Stockley, Nechimia, 28o Stockton, Rev. Joseph, 395 Stoyestown, 219 Sullivan, John, 193 Sunbury, 26 Superstitions, 344, 347, 348 Sutton, Isaac, 411I Swan family, 148 Swedenborgians, 413 Swinglar, John, 412 Symonds, Joseph, i8o Tammany Society, 350 Tanacharison, Onieda chief, 27, 29, 30, 70, 71, 75, 76, 80 Tannehill's tavern, 359 Tarasgon Brothers, James Berthoud and Company, 300 Tarentum, 27, 29, 53 Taylor, Rev. John, 395, 412, 415, 423 Tax levies and collections, 438-440, 456 Teagarden, George, 431 Tea riot in Pittsburgh, 18o Tedyuskung, 85, 87 Ten Mile Creek, congregations, 405 Textile industry, 309, 310o, 312. See also Weaving Thaw, John, 299 Theaters, 365-368 Thirteenth Virginia Regiment, i86, 19o, 191 Three Springs, congregations, 425 Tilton, William, 257 "Tom the Tinker," 469 Tomahawk rights, 138, 431 Tories, 145, x68, 178, 181, 195, 456 Tousey, Thomas, 391 Trade. See Commerce Transportation and travel, 4, 48, 53, 229, 230, 231, 239, 244-252, 259 Transylvania College, 399 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 55 Treaty of Easton, 88 Treaties of Fort Stanwix, 114, 139, 143, 149, 163, 175, 176, 200, 2zo Treaty with Great Britain, 1783, 199 Treaty of Greenville, 203, 473 Treaty of Pittsburgh, second, I82, 183, 185 Treaty of Utrecht, 50 Treaty of Fort Harmar, 202 Treaty of Lancaster, 53, 56, 57, 65 Treaties of Logstown, 55, 65 "Tree of Liberty," 378, 484 Trent, Simon and Franks, 101 Trent, William, 54, 66, 71, 73, 74 507 Index Truman, Morris, and Company, 306 Tucker, Silas, 451 Tulikens, John, 98 Turnbull, William, 304 Turkeyfoot Baptists, 420 Turkey Foot settlement, 141, 151 Tuscarora, 27 Union Furnace, 304 Union Log Church (Schellsburg), facing 413 Union School, 396 Uniontown, 150, 218, 397, 434 United Brethren in Christ, 413 United States Constitution, 460-462 Unity Township, 390 University of Pennsylvania, 398 Upper Buffalo congregations, 405, 419 Van Braam, Jacob, 77, 73 Vance's Fort, 425 Vandalia, 158 Vandalia Company, 170 Vaudreuil, Marquis de, 51 Venango, 29, 54, 59 Venango County, 14, 214-216, 311 Vernet, Father - , 52 Viele, Arnout, 27, 47 Vigilant Fire Company, 351 de Villiers, Joseph Coulon de, 58, 76, 77 de Villiers, Louis Coulon de,-76 Vincennes, captured, 192 Vinco barn, facing 389 Virginia, land claims, 47, 56-58, 61-66, I14, 136, 188, 191; and French and Indians, 55, 73-79, 84, 181; land policies, 138, 142, 432, 434, 436; Pennsylvania boundary dispute, 158-170; Dunmore's War, 176-178 Virginia settlers, 149, 334, 356, 363 Voting qualifications, 454 Wagons and carriages, 231, 239, 240, facing 241, 242, 243, 310 Walker, Gideon, 267 Wallace, Herbert, 28o Wallace, J. B., 212 Walpole Company, I58 War of 1812, 213, 298, 486 Ward, Edward, 75 Warren County, 14, 29, 214-216 Washington, 148, 218, 378, 388, 391, 414, 434 Washington Academy, 388, 393, 397, 406 Washington, Augustine, 56 Washington, George, 358, 382, 471; mission to French, 30, 71-73; in French and Indian War, 75-77, 79-82, 84, 89, 91, 94, 139, 232; speculation in land, 143, 147, 264; mill at Perryopolis, 300, facing 320 Washington, Lawrence, 56 Washington County, 450, 462, 469; natural resources, 14, 267, 315; organization and population, 148, 152-154, 171, 172, 214, 280, 457; Indian raids, 197, 199; industry, 276, 303),309 "Washington," vessel, 300 Washington and Jefferson College, 392 Watch and ward societies, 446 Waterford, 202 Watson, Rev. John, 397 Wayne, Anthony, 202, 203, 473 Waynesburg, 149, 218, 390 Weaving industry, 275-278, z8o, 309, 342, 355 Weber, John W., 409, 414, 418 Webster, John, 255 Weddings on frontier, 356, 357 Weiser, Conrad, 55, facing 85 Welch, George, 395 Welfare activities, 351-353 Wells's Fort, 425 Welsh, settlers, 152-154 Wesley, John, 119. West Alexander, 218 West Augusta Committee of Correspondence, 180, 18i West Augusta, County, 169 "Western Gleaner," 385 Western Missionary Society, 406 Western Pennsylvania, defined, 1 Western Pennsylvania Penitentiary, 437 "Western Telegraphe," 378 Western University of Pennsylvania, 398 Westmoreland Association, 179 Westmoreland County, 14, 267, 382; popula- lation, 20, 149-154, 214, 280; government, 158, 172, 437; Indian raids, 177, 186, 193 194; industry, 276, 304; politics, 455-6, 462 508 "Westmoreland Democrat," 378 Westsylvania, 170-172 Wharton, Samuel, 158 Wheeler, Dr. Charles, 338 Wheeling (W. Va.), 187, 197, 199 Whiskey Insurrection, 286, 382, 383, 466-473 White Eyes, Delaware chief, 183 "White Swan" barroom, facing 413 Whitticur, John, 412 Wilson, James, 457 Wilkins, John, 414 Wilkins, John, Jr., 298, 299 Wilkins, William, 299, 351 Wilkinsburg, 218 Wilkinson, James, 359, 360 Williamsburg, 219 Williamson, David, 197 Willing, James, 188 Index William Penn Highway, 234 Wills Crpek, 57 Willson, James and Zacheus, 407 Wilson, James, zo8, 461 Wilson, William, 185 446, Winebiddle, Conrad, 327, 330 Women on frontier, 312, 330, 392, 424 Wood, James, 182 Wood, Rev. Williams, 333 Woods, George, 147, 464 Woods, John, 464, 476 Woodstock, 218 Woodville, 323 Wooster, Robert, 411 Wyoming Massacre, 193 Wyoming Valley, 27 Wyandot Indians, 28, 30, 48, 61, 187, 194, 199, 200 509 Western Pennsylvania were unknown: when white women were adopted by Indians they were taken as daughters or wives and not as concubines. The barbarous conduct of the Indians in their wars with the whites was not without provocation on the part of representatives of the more civilized race. Not all, not perhaps even the majority of white traders, were unjust to the Indians, unless the exchange of mirrors and beads that had cost a few cents in Philadelphia for valuable beaver pelts and deerskins be considered injustice. But a large number of the traders did introduce rum among the Indians despite the protests of the older and wiser of the savages, and many an Indian woke up after a debauch to realize that he had traded a whole winter's work for only a gun, a few articles of clothing, and a few days of drunkenness. It must be remembered, too, that the Indians had not the white men's hereditary tolerance of alcoholic liquors: they themselves recognized this and were likely before a drinking party to select some of their number to stay sober, conceal the firearms, and try to prevent quarrels among the rest. Too often, however, the Indians returned to con- sciousness after a debauch to discover that their newly acquired guns had killed their oldest friends and that their new clothes and blankets had been torn or burned in a drunken melee. As the rich profits pos- sible from the Indian trade became apparent and competition in- creased, unscrupulous traders took more and more advantage of this weakness. The Indians themselves complained that such traders, bringing only a little flour and a great deal of rum, would secure from them their whole season's catch of peltry so that the regular traders, to whom they were indebted for advances, would receive nothing and the Indians themselves would have neither guns nor clothing for the ensuing season. The white men in general also had to bear the responsibility for the vices and diseases that some of them introduced among the Indians. Many of these of course were unwittingly introduced; but the Indians, with no inherited immunity to diseases endemic among white men for centuries, fell victim in large numbers to such plagues as smallpox and measles-and did not thank the whites for their introduction. The debauching of women and the spread of venereal disease among the Indians was a real and terrible grievance. There were of course decent white men among the Indians, notably the missionaries and some few upright traders. But the Indians, honest themselves and naive in 38 Maps THE OHIO INDIAN COUNTRY The Upper Ohio Valley in the 18th Century With Important Purchases from the Indians Purchase Lines o s25 so 7s 100oo Modern State Lines --- --- SCALE OF MILES MICH I GAN Detroit *Crawfords Defeat 512 513 ~II 00 i 514 PITTSBURGH about 1800 showing also FQRTs DUQUESNE andPITT SCALE IN FEET * eo.. 0oe@ 0500 000 I Hororkof Fori Dqoln 2 barracks 3 CommrndowhHose 4 Powdr majazines 5 Strehouse 6 Wels 7 Castnales 8 Sallyport 9 bmq-WL 1* Redoull 10 Col. Via. Bat,:z wiCowo n 11 Geo Richar4Dullei3 widow IZ Wilamo Cecil 13 DrNathaniel bcird 14 Gen Wayne's headqaorlers 15 James "O'Hara 16 Abraham Klrkpatrick 17 John Irwin B Roobl ;later a dwl!iA 19 loaacCraid 20 John Nevilk, 21 Repuid localion of fir3lpoel offict zz dnGibson 23 Sernpll Taverolalor Jborniy 24 John Orm4sy 25 Jail 26 Preslef Neville 27 John 5e11 28 Aemoon Tannehill 29 Green Tree TaverrFrcourlhouse 30 Watson's Tavern once used as a 31 HqHenrl dg 33 John Wilkins, Sr. 34 John Irwin's storn 35 William Irwin,s3Tavern, once used a a cocrthouse 36 Courihoun 37 Markethocig 38 BlackearlTavern 39 Hendermont Ferry 40 Alexander Addion 41 JohnWilkini, Jr 42 Presbyterian Church 43 (rnan church 44 Marie's Tavern,lahrbnmoi 45 waynteIIable LJamens Rosn 46 Srl A 47 Jao obnn 48 (YlaraCraik dlas3works A9 Jones's 50 black s 51 D&uSo7an3 52 PfiIbj 4h Acabrny 53 Markeft- o'Se. Crr. w A PORTION OF MAP OF THE OF PENNSYLVANIA BY RIEADING HOWELL. 3MDCCII 517 ;( I, ~ - ToI~a~ 518 A PORTION OF MAP OF THE OF PENNSYLVANIA BY READING HOWELL. MD cccx. 519 The Indian Regime accepting white men at their own valuation, were inclined to judge the whole race by the actions of its less desirable members. This atti- tude is easy to understand when one realizes that among Indian tribes or clans the guilt of one was held to be the guilt of all, and injury done by an individual was felt to be done by his clan or his tribe. INDIAN ARTIFACTS OF STONE ARROW-MAKER'S STONE GORGETS HAMMER STONES PERFORATORS FLAT CELT OR HAND AX ARROW HEADS SPEAR HEADS MORTAR AND PBSTLES Even if Indian contacts with whites had been confined entirely to the decent element, it is unlikely that the two cultures could have met without conflict. No race with a simple hunting and fishing culture can live in contact with a complex agricultural civilization without being greatly affected by it. The uprooting or undermining of a racial cul- ture must mean at best a temporary loss to the race thus beset, a grop- ing and bewilderment in the search for new standards, and an emo- tional resentment at the abolition of the old. The experience of the Moravian missionaries in their attempt to civilize the Delawares and Shawnee well illustrates this. The missionaries were probably the noblest white men with whom the Indians came in contact; at least they were the only ones with no ax to grind. Yet the results of their heroic expenditure of time, energy, and emotion were pitifully small, unless measured in those spiritual scales whereby the saving of one lost lamb outweighs the preservation of the other ninety and nine. The missionaries of the Moravian Church, a German sect with 39 HISTORY The Planting of Civilization in Western Pennsylvania By Solon J. and Elizabeth Hawthorn Buck Here in paperback is a well-rounded and definitive account of every aspect of western Pennsylvania's life and development up to the War of 1812. The book opens with a narrative ac- count of the formative years of the region. Succeeding chap- ters deal with the development of agriculture, industry, educa- tion, religion, social customs, and law and order-all based upon the results of the work of the Western Pennsylvania His- torical Survey. The book is useful alike as a narrative, a text, and a reference book, and has become a standard work on the subject. Among the more than one hundred illustrations included in the book are reproductions of contemporary pictures, maps, plans of forts, portraits, architectural photographs, and draw- ings of equipment and utensils. The late Dr. Solon Buck came to Pittsburgh to direct the Historical Survey of Western Pennsylvania. After four years with the Survey, he joined the newly established National Ar- chives in Washington as director of publications and research, and later became Archivist of the United States and Assistant Librarian of the Library of Congress. Mrs. Buck, also de- ceased, was a historical researcher and writer, and the author of several historical novels. University of Pittsburgh Press Pittsburgh, Pa. 15260 ISBN 0-8229-5202-5 9 781822 952022 Cover design by Gary Gore Western Pennsylvania headquarters at Bethlehem and Nazareth in eastern Pennsylvania, had early come into contact with the Delaware Indians; and, after missions had been established in eastern Pennsylvania, emissaries were sent across the mountains to the Indians who had migrated to western Pennsylvania. Memorable among these devoted missionaries are David Zeisberger, John Heckewelder, and Christian Frederick Post; the last, however, did no strictly missionary work within west- ern Pennsylvania. In 1767, starting out from Friedenshiitten, a Mora- vian mission town on the Susquehanna about two miles below the present Wyalusing, Zeisberger, accompanied by two Christian In- dians, made his way to the Tioga River and thence by way of the Cowanesque and through a miry swamp to the headwaters of the Allegheny in Potter County. Passing through various Seneca towns on the river, some apparently within the limits of New York state, the missionary reached the second of the three straggling villages of Delawares known as Goshgoshunk. After a week of preaching and argument, the council of the village decided to ask Zeisberger to found a mission there, although the hostility of Wangomen, "the sorcerer," was evident. Full of joy, Zeisberger departed for Friedenshiitten and Bethlehem, to return the next spring bringing with him Gottlieb Senseman and three Christianized Indian families. With these as a nucleus, he laid out a mission a half mile away from the village and began to work. It SENECA EARTHENWARE was not long before the opposition of Wangomen and other medicine men manifested itself. Not only were threatening messages received by the Delawares, purporting to have come from the Seneca and from Delaware chieftains elsewhere, but the medicine men predicted dis- aster to the crops of corn, nuts, and wild fruit. A plot to murder Zeis- 40 The Indian Regime berger was detected, and open threats were made against his life. The situation grew so ominous that the mission was removed in the spring of 1769 to a site farther up the Allegheny, probably near the village of Hickorytown. Only four families of Indians accompanied Zeisberger to this site, including, presumably, the three that had followed him from Friedenshiitten; but here he was more successful in making In- INDIAN PIPES CARVED FROM STONE MODELED FROM CLAY dian converts. In April, 1770, accepting an invitation from three Dela- ware chiefs to move to the Beaver Valley, the members of the mission, traveling in fifteen canoes, went down the Allegheny to Pittsburgh, on down the Ohio, and up the Beaver to a site on the east bank be- tween Slippery Rock Creek and the Shenango River, where the mis- sion village of Friedensstadt was founded. In July the village was moved across the Beaver to a place near the site of Moravia. The next year Heckewelder came to assist in the work at Friedensstadt and Zeisberger's adoption into the Munsee clan of the Delawares increased the influence and authority of the mission. In 1772 the Moravians, at the invitation of the Delawares in Ohio, removed the Christianized Indians on the Susquehanna to the Tus- carawas Valley, establishing Sch6nbrunn, about two miles southeast of the present New Philadelphia, and later Gnadenhiitten, within the limits of the present town so named. Troubles at Friedensstadt with intoxicated heathen Indians led to the removal of that mission to the Ohio country in 1773, when its inhabitants were distributed in Schon- brunn and Gnadenhiitten. A third mission, Lichtenau, was estab- lished in 1776 south of the other two on the Muskingum about two 41 This book is one of a series relating Western Penn- sylvania history, written under the direction of the Western Pennsylvania Historical Survey sponsored jointly by The Buhl Foundation, the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania and the University of Pittsburgh. Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15260 Copyright, 1939, University of Pittsburgh Press Copyright @ 1967, Elizabeth H. Buck All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Printed on acid-free paper First printing, 1939 Second printing, 1955 Paperback reissue, 1968 Second paperback printing, 1979 Third paperback printing, 1995 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 39-25307 ISBN 0-8229-5202-5 A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Eurospan, London Western Pennsylvania and a half miles below the site of Coschocton. Some progress was made by the missionaries during the first few years in Ohio, but it was in- terrupted by the Indian wars of the Revolutionary period. The paci- fist principles of the Moravians and their converts caused them to be suspected both by the British and their Indian allies and by the Americans; and in 178z the converted Indians, men, women, and INTERIOR OF IROQUOIS LONGHOUSE Shown are earthenware and snowshoes on the shelf over the beds, corn hung over rafters, and a woman grinding corn. children, were massacred by a band of frontiersmen from Pennsyl- vania. Thus ended the most promising attempt to Christianize and civilize the Indians of the upper Ohio Valley. The Reverend David McClure, a Presbyterian missionary who visited Friedensstadt in 1772, reported that it was "a neat Moravian village, consisting of one street and houses pretty compact, on each side, with gardens back. There was a convenient log church, with a small bell, in which the Indians assembled for morning and evening prayer." He was "surprised to find so devout & orderly a congregation of christian Indians in the wilderness" and believed that the Mora- 42 The Indian Regime vians had "adopted the best mode of christianizing the Indians." The missionaries were wiser than some who have subsequently attempted to proselyte among the Indians. They encouraged the Indians' sports, all except warfare, went with them on hunting and fishing trips, and as far as possible lived the life of their Indian friends. In bringing the gospel to them they addressed the tribes in their own dialects, trans- lated parts of the church liturgy into the Indian tongue, and taught the converts the rudiments of reading and writing their own language. Building on the simple agricultural practices that the Indians already knew, they tried to counteract the improvidence of the Indians by in- troducing concepts of thrift and property ownership, the latter espe- cially in connection with maintenance of livestock. The Christian Indians, however, were surrounded by far more numerous pagans, their own kinsmen, who mocked at them for doing women's work, who under the influence of liquor insulted and injured them, and who even in sober moments rebuked and condemned them for deserting the folkways of their tribe. Moreover, old ideals die hard, and the ideal of warfare for glory or revenge was one of the cardinal points of Indian virtue. Among Christians themselves, with centuries of their religion behind them, only a few sects practice literally the pacifism of turning the other cheek. The Indians saw and admired the consistency with which the missionaries practiced their own doc- trines, but it must have been hard for them to credit the power of the white man's religion when they saw people professing that religion engaged in bloody wars and even attempting to enlist the Indians against their enemies. Under the circumstances, the fact that the missionaries failed is not so astonishing as is the fact that they did make even a few converts. The causes of conflict between the two races were fundamental. The Indians used the wilderness; the white men exploited it. The Indians met the exploiters in the persons of the fur traders, even the most upright of whom were pursuing a system that would inevitably lead to the extinction of game and the exhaustion of the Indians' food supply. The Indians could not understand the white conception of land ownership; they regarded land as a range rather than as a basis of agriculture, and in their misunderstandings with the whites on this score they exhibited an attitude not unlike that of the later cattlemen of the West toward the advancing farmers. The only significant fea- 43 Western Pennsylvania tures of the white man's system that the Indians adopted were his addiction to rum, his use of firearms, and his willingness to slaughter animals for the immediate proceeds from their furs and skins. In other matters in which the two races came into contact it was the whites who adapted themselves to the Indian manner. The emissaries of governments soon learned to conduct business in the Indian fashion, to hold councils with lofty and figurative oratory, to give presents and belts of wampum and even to make reparation for the murder of Indians by sending gifts to the family of the deceased and to the tribe. The earliest white frontiersmen adopted an existence outwardly at least much like that of the Indians: they hunted and trapped exten- sively, depending more on the chase than on agriculture; they wore the buckskin clothes of the Indians; they followed the Indian paths and trails; and many of them adopted the Indian method of warfare. They even went so far in their adaptation as to acquire the Indian practice of taking scalps and of boasting about them. But, although certain adaptations of life were made by both cul- tures, the two were too unlike to merge. Indian culture wilted before the steady advance of agricultural settlement. It survived as long as it did only because its simplicity made it extremely mobile, so that whole nations could in the course of a few years take up new hunting grounds hundreds of miles away. The fatal efficiency of the white man's weapons introduced to the Indians complications that their simple life could not survive. The musket enlarged the area of the Indian hunting grounds, and this brought the Indians into conflict with neighboring tribes, who must in self defense be likewise armed with the new and more efficient weapon. Above all, however, the use of this weapon made the Indians utterly dependent on the whites. The Indians themselves could not replace the gun nor repair it, nor, indeed, provide it with ammunition: they could only have recourse to the trader and the gunsmith. This, of course, meant that the Indians could not resist the whites at all unless they had other whites as allies. Unfortunately for the Indians of western Pennsylvania, as the subsequent narrative will show, they sided with the losers, first the French against the British, and then the British against the Americans. Yet the logic with which they chose these allies was almost inescapable. Realizing instinctively that the hunting culture could not exist side by side with the more 44 The Indian Regime complicated agricultural civilization, they chose each time the ally less threatening to their culture. The French were less likely to make agricultural settlements than the British; the British were less likely to do so than the Americans. And in each case the stronger side, against which the Indians fought, was made strong because it had behind it the irresistible backing of agricultural settlements. Thus, philosophically viewed, the conflict between white and Indian was a conflict between a simple and a complex culture, with the complex, more resourceful, more adaptable culture inevitably triumphant. 45 III. Forerunners of White Occupation T HE largest area of unexplored country east of the Mississippi in the early years of the eighteenth century was the upper Ohio Valley, including western Pennsylvania. The English had occupied the Atlantic coast plain, the Spanish the Floridas, and the French the St. Lawrence and Mississippi valleys and the upper Great Lakes region, but as yet no establishments had been made by white men in the great Appalachian Plateau that stretched westward from the mountains to the lake and prairie plains. The reasons for the delay in the exploration of this region are fairly obvious. The English on the coast were shut off from it by the broad belt of the Appalachian Mountains, and the French were barred from the natural entrance into the region through Lake Erie by the opposition of the powerful Iroquois. More effective, however, than either of these obstacles was the fact that the region had been stripped of its Indian inhabitants by the Iroquois conquests and so lacked attractions for traders or mission- aries, the usual forerunners of the white advance. Although the Appalachian Plateau was unoccupied it was not un- claimed by Europeans. The English, basing their claims on the ex- plorations of the Cabots along the Atlantic coast, expressed them in their sea-to-sea charters and in the grant of 1681 to William Penn extending five degrees west of the Delaware River. About a year after the chartering of Pennsylvania, La Salle, by a ceremony at the mouth of the Mississippi, took formal possession in the name of the king of France of all the land drained by that river and its tributaries. Years before this, however, the French in the St. Lawrence Valley and the Dutch on the Hudson had learned of the upper Ohio country from the Indians. In 1669 La Salle and two Sulpicians, Dollier de Casson and Galinee, set out from Montreal with twenty-one men, intending to go to the West by way of the Ohio River. They made their way 46 Forerunners of White Occupation south from Lake Ontario to a Seneca village, where they hoped to obtain guides to the Ohio, but the Indians not only refused the guides but also discouraged the explorers by dwelling on the dangers of the route. The party then turned back to Lake Ontario, skirted its south- ern shore past the mouth of the Niagara River to Burlington Bay, and started for Lake Erie by way of the Grand River. In the same year Jolliet had gone west by the Ottawa River route to search for copper on Lake Superior and had returned along the north shore of Lake Erie, the first white man, so far as is known, to see that lake. The two parties met in the woods between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Jolliet told the priests about the Potawatomi Indians in the vicinity of Detroit, and they decided to push on and found a mission among them. In October they encamped for the winter on the north shore of Lake Erie and there they took formal possession for the king of France of the lake and surrounding territory "as of an unoccupied country" by erecting a cross and affixing the royal arms at its foot. Thus the French claim to a part of western Pennsylvania was asserted twelve years before the grant to Penn, but the English charters to Virginia and to other colonies had covered the same region many years before. La Salle did not accompany the Sulpicians to Lake Erie in 1669 but turned back with Jolliet, and little authentic information is avail- able about his activities during the next few years. Some years later the claim was put forth that during this period he made a trip down the Allegheny and Ohio rivers, but that claim is now rejected by the more careful students of his career. The first white man who is known to have traversed western Pennsylvania was neither a Frenchman nor an Englishman but a Dutchman named Arnout Viele, who with a number of other "Christians" was sent in I692 by the governor of New York to accompany some Shawnee to their home in the lower Ohio Valley. The party appears to have traveled up the Susquehanna and Tioga rivers and across the divide to the upper Allegheny, then down that stream and the Ohio. The purpose of the expedition was doubtless to bring the Shawnee within the English sphere of influence, and when Viele returned in 1694 he was accompanied by a large band of these Indians, who settled in the Minisink country on the upper Delaware. Other wandering traders may have entered western Pennsylvania 47 Western Pennsylvania during the thirty years that followed Viele's expedition, and the re- gion undoubtedly was visited by bands of Iroquois hunters and by war parties on their way to fight with the Catawba or Cherokee in the South. The settlement of Delawares and Shawnee in the Allegheny Valley, beginning about 1724, quickly changed the situation, however. These Indians were accustomed to exchange the products of the chase for goods supplied by traders, and a number of the men who had traded with them in eastern Pennsylvania promptly followed them across the mountains, if, indeed, they did not accompany them. One of the first of the Pennsylvania traders to operate on the Allegheny was James Le Tort, the son of a Huguenot refugee who had come to the colony from London in 1686. About 1725 he established a trading house at the forks of the Susquehanna and by 1727 he was trading with the Indians who had crossed the mountains. Other traders from the Susquehanna who began operations in the Allegheny Valley about the same time were Edmund Cartlidge, Jonas Daven- port, Henry Bailey, and Peter Chartier. Chartier was the half-breed son of the Martin Chartier who had led the first band of Shawnee to the Susquehanna Valley in 1692, and about 1734 he took up his resi- dence among the Shawnee on the Allegheny. These Pennsylvania traders were the forerunners of English civili- zation in western Pennsylvania. Crossing the mountains with trains of pack horses by the Shamokin Path, the Frankstown Path, and later by the Raystown or Traders' Path, they brought to the Indians guns and ammunition; shirts, hats, shoes, and blankets; hatchets, knives, scissors, awl-blades, and needles; pots and kettles; combs, looking-glasses, ribbon, rings, beads, and vermilion; pipes and to- bacco; dolls and other toys for the children; and rum in large quanti- ties. In exchange for these commodities the traders received from the Indians the products of their hunting, mostly deerskins with some beaver, fox, raccoon, and other furs. As the present state of Ohio began to be occupied again by Indians-Shawnee in the south, Wyandot (Huron) in the north, and Miami in the west-the Pennsylvania traders pushed westward with their pack trains to the villages of these Indians. Most of the traders appear to have built one or more cabins in or near the Indian villages, which served as temporary residences, trading posts, storehouses, and sometimes as blacksmith shops where the guns and implements of the Indians could be re- 48 xp INDIAN WAR CLUBS AND TOMAHAWKS BALL OR KNOB-HEADED WAR CLUBS GUNSTOCK TYPE OF WAR CLUB PIPE TOMAHAWKS Western Pennsylvania paired. As a rule the traders spent the winter at their homes in the East and the summer in the interior, but some of them occasionally wintered among the Indians. The commodities used in the Indian trade, with the exception of rum, were mainly imported from England by the mercantile firms of Philadelphia and Lancaster, such as Baynton and Wharton and David Franks and Company; and these firms received the peltries and consigned them to London. By the middle of the century this trade was making a large contribution to the prosperity of Philadel- phia. The business was carried on by credit, however, and from time to time serious losses were sustained by the merchants and the traders. Many of the traders were individual operators, often frontiersmen with little capital, and sometimes these harbingers of civilization carried little except rum to the Indians. The bulk of the trade, how- ever, was probably carried on by a few enterprising men, who formed shifting partnerships among themselves and with the merchants and who employed a considerable number of helpers or "servants" in their operations. This extension of the English sphere of influence into the upper Ohio Valley by the Pennsylvania traders was naturally viewed with alarm by the French in Canada, and they did everything in their power to check it. For many years the French and the English had been rivals for the trade and friendship of the powerful Iroquois tribes. By the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht, which brought Queen Anne's War to a close in 1713, the Iroquois were declared to be "subject to the dominion of Great Britain," and on this basis the English set up claims to all the territory covered by the Iroquois conquests. The Indians themselves, however, recognized no overlordship of the Eng- lish, and the French could point to another article of the Treaty of Utrecht which declared that the Indians should have liberty "to resort, as they please, to the British and French Colonies, for promot- ing trade on the one side or the other." In 1724 Governor Burnet of New York, with the consent of the Indians, established a post at Oswego on Lake Ontario to corral a share of the trade of the western Indians that was going to Montreal. Through the influence of Louis Thomas de Joncaire, who had been adopted by the Seneca and had been trading for some time at Niagara, the Indians were induced to allow the French to build a fort at that 50 Forerunners of White Occupation place in 1726. Thus at about the time that the Delawares and the Shawnee were beginning to occupy the Allegheny Valley, the French had established themselves at a point from which there was easy access to that region. The Shawnee had formerly been under French influence in their old home in the West, and efforts were made at once to regain their allegiance. As early as 1724 Governor Vaudreuil sent an interpreter named Cavilier among the Indians on the Alle- gheny; from time to time various chiefs were induced to go to Mon- treal for conferences with the governor; and from 1732 until his death in 1739 Joncaire appears to have spent a part of nearly every year on the Allegheny, trading with the Indians, distributing presents among them, and trying to induce them to exclude the English traders. From 1736 on, the French made repeated efforts to get the Shawnee to remove to the vicinity of Detroit, where they would be less accessi- ble to the English traders. In this commercial and diplomatic struggle the advantage lay on the whole with the English. The support of French officials and the nearness of Fort Niagara were not sufficient to counteract the cheap- ness and superior quality of the English goods and the initiative and resourcefulness of the Pennsylvania traders. Moreover, the Delawares and the Shawnee still recognized the overlordship of the Iroquois and the claims of that tribe to the territory they occupied. The Iroquois were much more amenable to English than to French influence, and any attempt on the part of the Indians in western Pennsylvania to break with the English would have brought down upon their heads the wrath of the powerful Six Nations. The government of Pennsylvania, during the early period, dis- played less interest than did that of New France in the Indians west of the mountains. Traders were occasionally summoned before the governor and council to report on conditions in the interior and were sometimes sent back with presents for Indian chiefs to induce them to go to Philadelphia for conferences. Efforts were made to persuade the Shawnee to return to a reservation that was set apart for them west of the Susquehanna, in which the half-hearted assistance of the Iroquois was enlisted, but the Shawnee preferred to remain in the West. The Indians were not averse to receiving presents from both the French and the English and refused to exclude the emissaries of either, but the bulk of their trade was with the Pennsylvanians. 5' Foreword Pennsylvania in all its aspects down to the War of I8I2. Since the outstanding achievement of humanity in relation to the region during that period appears to have been the planting therein of civilization, that process is the dominant theme of the book, but all significant phases of human activity in the region bear some relation to that process and none of them has been consciously neglected. Despite its geographical and chronological limitations, the subject is so extensive, so little reliable research has been done on it, and the materials for such research are so widely scattered that it has been impossible in the time and with the resources available to achieve more than a reconnaissance. Such reliable monographs as exist have been used freely and the original materials have been dipped into in so far as they have been available, but an examination of all the evi- dence-the ideal of the research historian-has been out of the ques- tion. If the book supplies the general reader-for whom it is intended -with a reasonably accurate conception of what is now known or readily knowable about the early history of the region, it will have served its purpose. If, in addition, it helps to clear the path or point the way to further research that will result in more extensive and more accurate knowledge and ultimately in better syntheses and interpre- tations, that will be clear gain. Although the undersigned assume full responsibility for the results, the work is in effect a product of the Western Pennsylvania Historical Survey, of which the senior author was the director from 193I to 1935; and so many associates on that survey have contributed to it that it has the character of a coiperative enterprise. Leland D. Baldwin, Randolph C. Downes, Russell J. Ferguson, Alston G. Field, and Marian Silveus, all assembled data and drafted chapters or sections for the work; and not only facts and interpretations but also, in some V Western Pennsylvania The first military expedition through western Pennsylvania under white auspices was probably that of 1739. It has been claimed that in 1729 Chaussegros de Lery, the engineer who had superintended the construction of the fort at Niagara, led a detachment of French troops down the Allegheny and the Ohio; but, since no contemporary record of such an expedition has been found and it is certain that De Lry's son was a member of the expedition of 1739, it is probable that the claim originated in a mistake in date. The object of the ex- pedition of 1739 was to assist the French of Louisiana in a campaign against the Chickasaw, and it seems to have had no relation to condi- tions and developments in the Ohio region. The party, which started from Montreal, consisted of 44z men under the command of the Baron de Longueuil. Most of them were - - , .... .. . -'% '"-S - ' 1, BARK CANOE Birch bark was the best material for ca- noes, but the bark of the bitternut hickory and the red elm was also used. The bark was taken from the tree, the rough outside was removed, and the bark was shaped into the form of a canoe. White ash or other pliable wood was used for rim pieces both inside and out and was stitched to the bark with bark rope or bast twine. Ribs were made of narrow strips of ash placed about a foot apart along the bot- tom, turned up the sides, and secured under the rim. At each end of the canoe the sides were brought together and stitched to upright sticks, forming a sharp vertical prow. The canoes varied from those twelve feet in length, which held two men, to those forty feet long, with a capacity for thirty men. In a craft that held more than two men they were seated alternately upon each side. Such canoes were very light and the smaller ones easily carried on a portage, as shown above. One Indian is carrying furs on a burden frame and making use of a burden strap. Canadian Indians, but there were twenty-four soldiers and forty-five habitants to manage the canoes. Among the officers was Contrecceur, who was later to command at Fort Duquesne. The two priests, Fathers Vernet and Queret, and the surgeon who accompanied the expedition were probably the first representatives of their professions in western 52 Forerunners of White Occupation Pennsylvania. Unfortunately no journal of this expedition appears to have been preserved. Its principal significance for the history of the upper Ohio country is that it was an exercise of French authority in the region and an indication of the growing appreciation by the French of the importance of the upper Ohio as a link between Canada and Louisiana. The engineer De Lery surveyed the courses of the rivers and noted the positions of Indian villages, and the results of his work soon made their appearance on French maps. With the outbreak of King George's War in 1744, the French blood of Peter Chartier, whose license as a Pennsylvania trader had just been renewed, reasserted itself, and he accepted a French commission. In April, 1745, he led or instigated an attack by a band of Shawnee on two Pennsylvania traders on the Allegheny, who were robbed of goods and horses valued at £ 1,6oo. Soon thereafter, on the advice of the French, he led a considerable band of Shawnee down the Ohio, probably to the Wabash country. The Shawnee town on the site of Tarentum was abandoned at this time and thereafter it was referred to as Chartier's Old Town. Of the inhabitants who did not accompany Chartier, some probably settled at the mouth of the Scioto and the others with the Mingo at Logstown. A few years later the Shawnee of Chartier's band returned to their brothers on the Scioto and, at the Treaty of Lancaster in 1748, they re-established relations with the English. The defection of Chartier and a part of the Shawnee was of small consequence to the English traders, for the war in general greatly increased the advantages they enjoyed over the traders from Canada. The activities of the English navy made it impossible for the French to get an adequate supply of goods, and prices rose as much as I50 per cent. One French trader is said to have been killed by an Indian for offering him only one charge of powder and a bullet in exchange for a beaver pelt. Moreover the energies of New France were needed for the warfare in the East, and the West was left to shift for itself. The result was a great increase in the operations of the Pennsylvania traders and an expansion of English influence in the Ohio Valley. The traders extended their activities along the south shore of Lake Erie almost to the gates of Detroit; established relations with the Wyan- dot, Ottawa, and Miami; and threatened the French control of the Maumee-Wabash route. 53 Western Pennsylvania It was in this period that George Croghan rose to the acknowledged position of "King of the Traders." An Irishman from Dublin, but an Episcopalian, Croghan came to Pennsylvania in 1741 and soon there- after established himself at the parting of the Frankstown and Rays- town paths west of Harris' Ferry (Harrisburg). Soon he was actively engaged in the western trade and by 1746 he had extended his opera- tions to the south shore of Lake Erie. Croghan's western headquarters were at the mouth of Pine Creek on the Allegheny, where Etna is now situated. There he had a number of log buildings, a boat yard, and cleared and fenced fields for raising corn and pasturing his pack horses. Croghan also had a somewhat similar establishment near Sewickley Creek on the Youghiogheny and storehouses or trading houses at Logstown, at the mouth of the Beaver, on the Muskingum, on Lake Erie, and after 1748 at Pickawillanee on the Miami. He traded at Venango, in competition with John Fraser, who had a blacksmith shop there, and in the early fifties he sent parties down the Ohio and into West Virginia and Kentucky. Probably one or more men were stationed at each of Croghan's posts to protect the property and carry on the local trade. His employees exceeded twenty-five in number, and he had over a hundred pack horses. Many of his later ventures were conducted in partnership with William Trent, his brother-in-law, and with other traders. The firm of Shippen and Lawrence at Phila- delphia and Lancaster were factors for Croghan, and he was supplied with capital by Richard Hockley, receiver-general of quitrents, and by Richard Peters, secretary of the provincial council. Croghan was naturally interested in extending the influence of Pennsylvania and weakening that of the French over the Indians of the West. He may have had a hand in instigating the abortive plot of Nicolas, a Wyandot chief whose village was near Sandusky, for. a general uprising of Indians against the French in 1747. At any rate he wrote and forwarded to Secretary Peters a letter, dated May 16, 1747, purporting to be from three Iroquois chieftains near Lake Erie, announcing that they had killed five Frenchmen near Detroit. Ten days later Croghan wrote Peters that the Indians of the Lake Erie region had turned against the French and suggested that powder and lead be sent to them to engage them in the English interests. The council was hesitant to send presents to Indians about whom so little was known, but in the fall, after consultation with Conrad 54 Forerunners of White Occupation Weiser, who had for many years assisted the province in negotiations with the Iroquois, a decision was reached to send a present to all the western Indians, to be distributed at Logstown. Maryland and Vir- ginia were invited to join in the gesture, and Virginia appropriated two hundred pounds for its share, which made the total available more than one thousand pounds. Conrad Weiser was selected as the am- bassador to deliver the present, but, because of delays in the arrange- ments, Croghan was sent ahead in April, 1748, with a preliminary present, which he distributed at Logstown. After Weiser arrived in August, large delegations of Delawares, Shawnee, Iroquois, and Wyandot assembled at Logstown to receive the presents. Weiser raised the British flag, held separate councils with each group, and strengthened the Indians' allegiance to the English. This first treaty of Logstown marks the high point of English and especially of Pennsylvania influence in the Ohio Valley before the French and Indian War. Later in the same year King George's War was ended by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, and thereafter the situa- tion in the West changed rapidly. The treaty settled nothing with INDIAN CEREMONIAL EQUIPMENT SMALL DRUMS AND STICKS WAMPUM BELTS HORN GOURD BARK RATTLE RATTLES RATTLE "Their beads are their money and of these there are two sorts, blue beads and white beads. The first is their gold, the second their silver. These they make out of shells to adorn the persons of principal men and women, as belts, girdles, tablets, borders for their women's hair, bracelets, neck- laces, and links to hang in their ears." From Josselyn, quoted by William M. Beauchamp in "Wampum and Shell Ar- ticles," in New York State Museum Bulle- tin, No. 4r. 55 Western Pennsylvania regard to the rival claims in the Ohio Valley, and the struggle for trade and influence went on. The Pennsylvania traders continued to expand their operations for some years, but they now had to face not only a revived competition and a more aggressive policy on the part of the French but also the competition of traders from Virginia and Mary- land. Moreover, their own province failed to support them, and the leadership in promoting English interests in the upper Ohio country passed to Virginia. Because of the vagueness of the boundary provisions in the charter of Pennsylvania and the lack of surveys, the Virginians believed that much of what is now western Pennsylvania lay within the limits of the southern colony. It was not, however, until the Pennsylvania traders had demonstrated that profits were to be had in the upper Ohio coun- try and until the opportunities forlarge-scale speculation in virgin lands east of the mountains had been considerably reduced that Virginians manifested much interest in this hinterland. At a treaty with repre- sentatives of the Six Nations at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1744, Virginia commissioners induced the Indians to surrender their claims to all land within the province to "the setting sun." The Indians later asserted that by this expression they had understood that the ridge of the Allegheny Mountains was meant, and certainly they had no idea that they were giving up the Ohio Valley. This treaty, however, was to serve as a basis for Virginia land operations in the region. In 1747 a group of Virginia gentlemen, including Thomas Lee and Thomas Nelson of the council, Lawrence and Augustine Washington, and George Fairfax, together with Colonel Thomas Cresap, a Mary- land frontiersman, and John Hanbury, a London merchant, organized a partnership under the name of the Ohio Company and applied to Governor Gooch of Virginia for a large grant of land west of the moun- tains. The governor and council had the right to make such grants, but the company desired special terms and the governor feared that the grant might give "umbrage to the French"; therefore, on Novem- ber 6, 1747, he referred the request to the home government. The proposal met with no opposition in England, and about a year later instructions were drafted for the governor to make the grant. Before they were sent, however, the members of the company peti- tioned the king for the grant on somewhat different terms from those originally asked. Forerunners of White Occupation The petition of the Ohio Company to the king asserted Virginia's claim under the Treaty of Lancaster; declared that most of the In- dians of the West desired to trade with the Virginians, which would promote the consumption of British manufactures; pointed out that the waters of the Mississippi and the Potomac might be connected by a short land carriage; and announced the intention of the company to bring in foreign Protestants as settlers. The partners asked that the governor of Virginia be instructed to grant them five hundred thou- sand acres of land "betwixt Romanettos [Kiskiminetas] and Buffalo's Creek on the South side of the River Aligane otherwise the Ohio and betwixt the two Creeks and the Yellow Creek on the North side of the said River or in such parts to the West of the said Mountains as shall be adjudged most proper by your Petitioners for that purpose." It was proposed that two hundred thousand acres should be granted immediately upon condition of the petitioners settling a hundred families on them within seven years, that the land should be free of quitrent for ten years upon condition of the company's building and garrisoning a fort to protect the settlers, and that as soon as these conditions were fulfilled the additional three hundred thousand acres should be granted under similar conditions. The petition was very skillfully drawn to appeal to the mercan- tilistic imperialists of England, and the instructions, modified to ac- cord with its terms, were dispatched in February, 1749. The idea of large grants of land to companies or to individual speculators as a means of extending settlement and holding territory against rival claimants was no new thing in Virginia or in the British colonial sys- tem in general. It should be noted, however, that the Ohio Company was not a chartered corporation but a partnership and that its project involved not the establishment of a new colony but the extension of settlement in Virginia. The instructions were received in Virginia in July, 1749, and the company was at once given leave to survey and take up the first two hundred thousand acres of land. An order was sent to Hanbury for a cargo of goods for the Indian trade, a storehouse was erected on the Potomac opposite the present site of Cumberland, Maryland, where Wills Creek enters from the north, negotiations were begun with the proprietors of Maryland and Pennsylvania for a right of way across the mountains, and in September, 1749, men were sent out to look for 57 Western Pennsylvania land and to get in touch with the Indians. Despite the promise of cheaper and more abundant goods, the Indians, influenced perhaps by the warnings of the French and the Pennsylvania traders as well as by their natural opposition to the extension of settlement, did not look with favor upon the project, and the company was obliged to dispose of its goods in large part to independent traders and to such Indians as could be induced to come to Wills Creek. In the meantime the French in Canada, alarmed by the progress of the Pennsylvania traders during the war and probably also by in- formation about the project of the Ohio Company, were making determined efforts to exclude the English from the Ohio Valley. These efforts took the form in 1749 of an expedition under Celoron de Blain- ville designed to reassert the French claim to the upper Ohio Valley and to establish French influence over the Indians of the region. This expedition, consisting of more than 250 French and Indians, left La Chine, near Montreal, on June 15 in twenty-three canoes. Among the officers were Contreceur and Jumonville, who were to play important parts in the history of western Pennsylvania a few years later. The chaplain of the expedition was Fr. Pierre Joseph de Bon- necamps, a professor of hydrography in the Jesuit College at Quebec, who added to his religious duties the making of observations of lati- tude and who later drew a map of the region traversed. For negotia- tions with the Indians, Celoron relied principally on two sons of the elder Joncaire, Philippe Thomas and Daniel (Chabert). The French soldiers numbered only 20, but there were i8o Canadians and 30 Iroquois and 25 Abenaki Indians in the expedition. Both Celoron and Bonnecamps kept journals, which have been preserved. On July 16 the expedition landed at the Chautauqua portage on Lake Erie and made its way over the difficult portage to Chautauqua Lake, down Conewango Creek to the Allegheny, down the Allegheny and Ohio to the Miami, and up that stream and down the Maumee to Lake Erie. The reassertion of the French claim took the form of cere- moniously burying inscribed lead plates and affixing the royal arms on trees at the mouths of various streams along the route. The recep- tion of the French by the resident Indians was nowhere cordial. Those of the first village visited fled to the woods, and thereafter Celoron sent one of the Joncaires on ahead to assure the Indians of his pacific intentions. At the councils with the Indians C6loron warned them Forerunners of White Occupation that the English were planning to settle their lands and crowd them out as they had done east of the mountains and demanded that they exclude the English traders from the region. The Indians were urged to visit their "father" in Canada in the spring and were assured that he METHOD OF MAKING A WAMPUM BELT FROM SHELL BEADS The most common width of a wampum belt was three fingers, or seven beads, and it varied from two to six feet in length. Eight strands or cords of bark thread are first twisted from slippery elm fibers of the requisite length, after which they are passed through a strip of deerskin to separate them at equal distances from each other in parallel lines. A splint is then sprung in the form of a bow to which each end of the several strings is secured, and by which all of them are held in ten- sion, like warp threads on a loom. Seven beads, these making the intended width-of the belt, are then run upon a thread by means of a needle, and are passed under the cords at right angles so as to bring one bead lengthwise between each cord and the one next in position. The thread is then passed back along the upper side of the cords and again through each of the beads, so that each bead is held firmly in its place by means of two threads, one passing under and one above the cords. This process is continued until the belt reaches its intended length, when the ends of the cords are tied, the end of the belt covered and trimmed with ribbons. In ancient times both the cord and thread were of sinew. From Lewis H. Morgan, "League of the Ho-de-no-san-nee or Iro- quois. would provide for their wants. The assertion that the land belonged to the French could hardly have been pleasing to the Indians, and Celoron was embarrassed when they pointed out to him that if they drove away the traders and especially the English blacksmith (Fraser at Venango), they would have difficulty in maintaining themselves until spring. The simple fact was that the Indians were dependent on the Eng- lish, and the French had as yet made no adequate provision to meet their needs. In order, doubtless, to get the presents that Celoron was prepared to distribute, most of the Indians agreed to the French demands. At several places Celoron rounded up the English traders, ordered them to withdraw, and threatened them with seizure and con- 59 Western Pennsylvania fiscation of goods if they returned. By them he sent two letters to the governor of Pennsylvania, in which he asserted that the trade was contrary to the terms of the treaty of peace and demanded that it be forbidden. The traders perforce feigned acquiescence. Celoron had little faith in the promises of the Indians or of the traders. At Logs- town he believed that he was in serious danger of an attack and re- doubled the guards to prevent it. Although the expedition got through without the loss of a man, it could hardly be regarded as a success, and the French realized that more vigorous measures would have to be taken if they were to exclude the English from the Ohio Valley. In an attempt to follow up Celoron's expedition, the governor of New France sent one of the Joncaire brothers, probably Philippe Thomas, into the Allegheny Valley in 1750 with more presents for the Indians, and either he or his brother Chabert appears to have been in the region almost continuously during the next three years. French trade goods were also sent in in an effort to meet the English competi- tion, and plans were made for erecting a fortified trading post, but these seem to have met with opposition from the Indians. The French also redoubled their efforts to extend their influence among the Iro- quois of New York, with some success; they strengthened their posts in the interior and erected a number of new ones, including one above the carrying place on the Niagara River. In May, 1750, two employees of John Fraser, who had been trading with the Miami, were captured by French Indians and taken to Detroit. After being kept at forced labor for a farmer for three months they were sent east and on Lake Ontario they effected their escape. They made their way to Colonel Johnson, the New York Indian agent, where they reported that a reward of a thousand pounds had been offered for the scalps of George Croghan and James Lowrey, the most influential of the Pennsylvania traders in the Miami country. In the fall of 1750 Governor La Jonquiere sent detachments of troops to Detroit and other places in the West with instructions to enlist the support of the local Indians, effect a juncture in the spring, suppress the conspiracy that was being fomented by the English among the tribes of the Wabash region, wipe out the growing Miami town of Pickawillanee on the Miami River, where Croghan was said to be building a stone trading house, and then advance against the Indians and the English traders of the upper Ohio. This ambitious 60o Forerunners of White Occupation project was thwarted by the inadequacy of the forces available and the unwillingness of the Indians in the vicinity of Detroit to partici- pate. In December, 1751, and January, 1752, however, four more Pennsylvania traders were captured in the West, and three of them were ultimately sent to France, where they were imprisoned at Rochelle. Although the British ambassador eventually obtained their release, their case attracted a great deal of attention in England and helped to prepare the public mind for the coming war. Finally, in June, 1752, Charles de Langlade of Green Bay, with a large band of Indians from the upper lakes region, swept down upon Pickawillanee, destroyed the town, killed about thirty Indians and one trader, made prisoners of five traders, and confiscated goods valued at three thousand pounds, about one-third of which was the property of Croghan. La Demoiselle or Old Britain, the chief of the band and a firm friend of the English, was boiled and eaten. Thus was struck what might be considered the first blow in the French and Indian War, and it put an end to English trade and influence in west- ern Ohio and the Wabash country. The Pennsylvania traders were well aware of the double threat to their profits by the French to the north and the Virginians to the south,and they had the backing of the governor and council, represent- ing the proprietors. The Quakers, who controlled the assembly, were also interested in the profits of the fur trade, and the assembly was willing to appropriate money for presents to the Indians but not to support military measures. As soon as news of the advance of Celoron reached him, Governor Hamilton sent Croghan to Logstown to coun- teract the French influence. Arriving there soon after the departure of the French, he found the Indians still firm in the English interest. Deputies were dispatched by Croghan to assure the Miami and the Wyandot of English support against the French, and a present was promised to the Miami. In June, 1750, plans were made to send Lewis Evans on a secret exploring expedition through the western part of the province, with instructions to observe its extent with reference to the rivers and Lake Erie; to make note of routes of travel, portages, Indian towns, sites for forts and trading houses, places suitable for settlement, soil and mineral resources; and to make a map based on his observations and the information he could collect from others. It is significant that he was also instructed to "Get informed of the Stock Foreword cases, the language of their drafts has been incorporated in the book. Elisabeth M. Sellers has assisted throughout in the tasks of checking quotations and doubtful statements and of stylistic revision, and Dr. Baldwin, as editor of the University of Pittsburgh Press, has made many valuable suggestions. The illustrations have been prepared or selected under his direction. SOLON AND ELIZABETH BUCK May, 1939 vi Western Pennsylvania and Scheme of the Virginia Co., trading to Ohio, and what Disadvan- tages they labour under, or advantages they now or hereafter may enjoy more than we from their Situation." Whether or not Evans made the trip is unknown, but it is probable that he made some ex- plorations, and the map was in existence by February 4, 1751. On that date the governor in a letter to the Board of Trade asserted that the province extended to Lake Erie and that Logstown was within its boundaries. In October, 175o, Hamilton informed the assembly of the capture of the two traders who had escaped through New York, and that body promptly made provision for a large present to be sent to the western Indians in the spring. Croghan was then sent to the West with a small present to the Miami and instructions to invite all the tribes to come to Logstown in the spring for a treaty. From the Ohio he wrote to the governor in November concerning the activities of Joncaire, the fears of the Indians, and their desire for an English fort in the region. He then went on to Pickawillanee, stopping on the way for confer- ences, and doubtless to supervise the operations of his traders, at Wyandot, Delaware, and Shawnee towns. While Croghan was at Pickawillanee he had the satisfaction of witnessing the rejection by the local Miami of an invitation to trade with the French delivered by a delegation of French Indians and of receiving representatives of two tribes living beyond the Wabash who were admitted into the English alliance. When Croghan returned to Philadelphia about May I, 1751, he was immediately sent back to Logstown to conduct the negotiations with the Indians and to distribute the present, which had been as- sembled at a cost of seven hundred pounds. Accompanied by Andrew Montour, an interpreter, and ten other English traders, he reached Logstown, where he found a large body of Indians assembled. Two days later Joncaire arrived and held a council with the Indians, at which, according to Croghan's account, the French demand that the Indians exclude the English traders was rejected with scorn. After further delegations of Indians had arrived and after consultations with the Iroquois, the grand council was assembled on May 28 and Croghan made separate addresses to the Delawares, the Shawnee, the Wyandot, the Miami, and the Iroquois, and the present was then distributed. The next day the council reassembled and the Indian 62 Forerunners of White Occupation speakers pledged their allegiance to the English. According to Crog- han's report, the speaker for the Iroquois made the significant declara- tion: "We expect that you our Brother will build a strong House on the River Ohio, that if we should be obliged to engage in a War that we should have a Place to secure our Wives and Children, likewise to secure our Brothers that come to trade with us, for without our Brothers supply us with Goods we cannot live." Several months earlier the proprietors of Pennsylvania, alarmed at the news of French aggressions, had notified the governor of their willingness to contribute four hundred pounds toward the erection of a fort on the Ohio and one hundred pounds annually toward its maintenance. Hamilton, after sounding out the leaders of the assem- bly and finding them opposed to the measure, had asked Croghan to ascertain the sentiments of the Indians in a private manner. In his message transmitting Croghan's journal to the assembly he called attention to the desire of the Indians for "a strong Trading House" and presented the offer of the proprietors. The assembly in reply expressed doubt as to the authenticity of that part of Croghan's jour- nal referring to the proposed fort and to the Indians' apprehensions of danger from the French and suggested that the proprietors contribute to the expense of presents to the Indians, which it believed to be "the best means of securing their Friendship." Despite accumulating evi- dence of the intentions of the French to establish exclusive control in the region west of the mountains, the assembly could not be induced to change its position, and the Indians, some of the leading Penn- sylvania traders, and even the governor of the province began to look to Virginia and the Ohio Company to save the situation. That the British government also looked to Virginia for leadership in the rivalry with the French for influence over the western Indians is indicated by the dispatch to that colony in the summer of 1750 of a royal present for distribution to the Indians. In the fall of 1750 the Ohio Company determined to make another effort to select its lands and to establish friendly relations with the Indians. For this purpose it selected as its agent a surveyor named Christopher Gist, who had recently removed from Baltimore to the North Carolina frontier. From his journals it is evident that Gist was a man of some education, considerable native ability, and good char- acter. It is clear that he was an experienced woodsman, but there is 63 Western Pennsylvania no indication that he had ever been in the Ohio region before. Gist's instructions, dated September II, authorized him to take as many men with him as he thought necessary and to explore the lands on the Ohio as far down as the falls. He was to note the passes in the mountains, the courses of the streams, the character of the soil, the strength of the Indians, and with whom they traded. He was specifi- cally directed to "find a large Quantity of good, level Land, such as you think will suit the company . .. the nearer in the Land lies, the better, provided it be good 8c level, but we had rather go quite down the Mississippi than take mean broken Land." This would seem to indicate that land speculation was the main interest of the company. Gist started from Cresap's home at Old Town on the Potomac on October 31, 1750, went north along an Indian trail until he struck the Raystown Path, and followed it across the mountains through Loyal- hanna to Shannopin's Town near the forks of the Ohio. The land thus far he found "mean stony and broken, here and there good Spots upon the Creeks and Branches but no Body of it." After crossing the Alle- gheny he proceeded to Logstown where he found "a Parcel of repro- bate Indian Traders," and learned that Croghan and Montour had recently passed through on their mission to the Miami. To allay sus- picions that he "was come to settle the Indian's Lands," he announced that he was seeking Montour, the interpreter, in order to deliver a message from the king to the Indians, and he then hastened west to the Wyandot town on the Muskingum, where he caught up with Crog- han and Montour. From this point Gist accompanied Croghan to Pickawillanee, where he witnessed the treaty with the western tribes. He then turned southward to the Ohio but did not go down to the falls because of rumors of French Indians in their vicinity. Crossing the Ohio, he made his way through Kentucky, eighteen years before Daniel Boone entered the region, to his home in North Carolina, which he reached on May 18, 1751. Gist had found plenty of good level land in what is now the state of Ohio, but it was evident to the members of the Ohio Company that the attitude of the Indians and the aggressiveness of the French would make it impossible for them to take up their grant in that region. They determined therefore to send Gist on another expedition to explore the region south of the Ohio. Moreover the Indians, in re- sponse to the invitations extended by Gist, and probably by others, 64 IROQUOIS LONG HOUSES The one at the left illustrates the method of construction a pot, the third is roasting corn, and the fourth is sitting from poles and bark. Note the coverings over the smoke by an open food pit where corn and other supplies are holes above the completed house. In the foreground the stored. Braids of corn are hanging over the drying pole. woman at the left is grinding corn, the next one is making BARK WIGWAMS These were used largely by Algonquian tribes. The method of construction is also shown here. In the foreground the woman at the left is stretching a deerskin preparatory to curing it with smoke, the man just behind her is making a fire with a bow and drill, and the woman at the right is weaving a mat from bast fibers or rushes. Forerunners of White Occupation to come to Winchester for a conference and to get the king's present, had said that they would prefer to hold the conference and receive the present at Logstown. Gist was directed, therefore, to notify the Indians that commissioners from the colony would meet with them at Logstown in May, 1752. The instructions from the Ohio Company to Gist for his second expedition directed him "to look out & observe the nearest & most convenient road You can find from the Company's Store at Will's Creek to a Landing at Mohongeyela." He was then to proceed as far down the Ohio as the Kanawha and up that stream noting "every Parcel of good Land," even small ones conveniently situated for trading houses. Gist started out from Wills Creek on November 4, 1751, and re- turned on March 29, 1752. He crossed the Allegheny Ridge through a gap "several Miles nearer than that the Traders commonly pass thro, and a much better Way," which "with some pains might be made a good Waggon Road." After cutting his way through several laurel thickets and noting extensive tracts of good land in the Monon- gahela Valley, he explored the creeks flowing into the Ohio from the south as far down as the Kanawha. To the Indians, some of whom he encountered in their hunting, he gave notice of the projected confer- ence at Logstown and from them he acquired "a good many skins." At one of their camps he was told by an Indian that the Delaware chiefs "desired to know where the Indian's Land lay, for that the French claimed all the Land on one side the River Ohio & the English on the other Side." Gist was embarrassed by the question, but he finally replied that the Indians and the English were "all one King's People," that the Indians might take up land as the white people did, "and to hunt You have Liberty every where so that You dont kill the White Peoples Cattle & Hogs." The Indian went away and returned in two days with the report that the chiefs said that Gist might come and live on the Monongahela where he pleased. In June, 1752, three commissioners appointed by the governor of Virginia, together with Christopher Gist representing the Ohio Com- pany, met with the Indians at Logstown and distributed the king's present to them. The Indians denied the validity of the Virginia in- terpretation of the Lancaster treaty of 1744, but, with the assistance of Croghan and of Montour, who acted as interpreter, they were finally induced to consent to the building of two forts on the Ohio and Western Pennsylvania to the making of settlements south of that stream. They were assured that such an arrangement would enable the Ohio Company to supply them with cheaper and more plentiful goods than would otherwise be available. At the close of the treaty William Trent was sent from Logs- town to deliver a share of the present to the Miami at Pickawillanee, but before he arrived, the place had been destroyed by the French Indians. He succeeded, however, in getting in touch with some of the refugees and delivered the present to them. The Ohio Company apparently decided, following Gist's second expedition, to begin its settlement in the Monongahela Valley near the forks, and it petitioned the governor to be allowed to take up the first two hundred thousand acres in separate tracts between the Kis- kiminetas and the Kanawha. Governor Dinwiddie, who had arrived in Virginia in November, 1751, and the council refused to allow the land to be taken up in separate tracts, and difficulties were encoun- tered in obtaining the services of an official surveyor. Gist and Cresap, with the assistance of Nemacolin, a Delaware Indian, supervised the cutting of a wagon road across the mountains from Wills Creek to the Youghiogheny, probably in 1752, and the next summer Gist started a plantation just west of Chestnut Ridge in what is now Fayette County. Application was made to the Board of Trade for cannon for the proposed fort on the Ohio, and in July, 1753, Cresap, Trent, and Gist were authorized to employ workmen to build the fort at the mouth of Chartier's Creek, where McKees Rocks is now located, and to lay out a town adjoining it. The party was not ready to advance, however, until late in the year, and by that time the French had begun the occupation of western Pennsylvania. The struggle for spheres of influence in the region west of the mountains had become a contest for the actual possession of the land and was soon to develop into open warfare between France and England. 66 Iv. The French Occupation WITH two expanding colonial empires situated as were those of France and England in North America at the middle of the eighteenth century, conflict over the upper Ohio Valley was inevitable. The character of the struggle was greatly influenced, however, and to a large extent its outcome was determined, by differ- ences between those colonial empires. New France consisted of a small agricultural settlement in the St. Lawrence Valley, a still smaller one on the lower Mississippi, and a few villages at wide intervals from one another in the interior. The character of French colonization is indi- cated by its typical institutions-the trading post, the fort, and the mission--one or more of which was to be found in each settlement, while others occupied isolated sites in the wilderness. The natural increase among the habitants was large, but immigration, restricted to French Catholics, was very small. The total white population of New France, including Louisiana, probably did not exceed eighty thousand. The English colonies occupied a more restricted territory stretching along the coast from New Hampshire to Georgia and hemmed in on the west by the mountains. Already the first mountain barrier, the Blue Ridge, had been crossed, and the frontiersmen were knocking at the portals of the Allegheny Front. The original English, Dutch, and Swedish settlers had multiplied rapidly, and large accessions of immi- grants from Europe, especially of Germans and Scotch-Irish, had brought the total white population to about a million and a quarter. Both Virginia and Pennsylvania, the two colonies most concerned in this story, had a population several times as large as that of all New France. The typical institutions of the English colonies were the farm, the plantation, and the commercial town. Indian traders operated on the frontier, as has been seen, but the main interest of the settlers in the English colonies was the establishment of permanent homes where they could sustain themselves by agricultural operations. 67 Western Pennsylvania The advantage of the English in numbers was offset to some extent by disadvantages in other respects. They were divided into thirteen separate and largely self-governing colonies, each jealous of its neigh- bors and most of them torn by internal conflicts between the execu- tive, representing the king or the proprietor, and the legislature, elected by the people and controlling the purse. The government of New France, on the other hand, was autocratic in character, and an efficient governor-general could quickly mobilize the available re- sources. The French had the advantage also of controlling the two natural entrances to the interior of the continent, the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi rivers, while the English could reach the disputed area of the upper Ohio only by crossing the mountains. Another factor in the situation was the Indian. While the Iroquois, on the whole, maintained their English alliance, and the support of the French by the resident Indians of the upper Ohio was never more than half- hearted, the French were able at times to enlist the aid of considerable numbers of warriors from Canada and the upper lakes region. The political and strategic advantages of the French enabled them to occupy and hold western Pennsylvania for several years, and their expulsion was greatly facilitated by the developments of the Seven Years War in other parts of the world, but it is difficult to believe that the French could have held this region indefinitely against the expan- sive force of Anglo-American colonization. The French occupation of western Pennsylvania was the work of the Marquis Duquesne, an able and vigorous naval officer, who was appointed governor of New France in 1752. The instructions given to Duquesne asserted that the Ohio River and its tributaries belonged indisputably to France and directed him "to arrest the progress of the pretensions and expeditions of the English in that quarter." The means of accomplishing this were left for Duquesne to determine, and he wisely decided that the only effective procedure would be the military occupation of the region and the construction of a line of forts at strategic points. Before this could be accomplished it was necessary to reorganize the militia and to expand and strengthen the regular army. So energetically was this work carried on that by the spring of 1753 Duquesne had available an army of six thousand, com- posed mainly of militia but including four hundred regulars and six hundred Indians. 68 The French Occupation In April, 1753, a party of about zSo men began the construction of a fort at the Chautauqua portage, but when the Chevalier Marin, the commander of the expedition, arrived, he was so dissatisfied with the site because of the lack of a harbor that he sent out the engineer Le Mercier to look for a better place. His discovery of the fine natural harbor at Presque Isle (Erie) resulted in a decision to make that place the starting point of the expedition. The first detachments were landed there in April or May, and the work of constructing a fort was begun at once under the direction of Le Mercier. Fort Presque Isle consisted of an inclosure about nzo feet square made of chestnut logs with a log house at each angle. While it was building the engineer ex- plored the surrounding country and decided that the most convenient point on the navigable waters of the Ohio was at Lake Le Boeuf (Waterford) on French Creek, fifteen miles from Presque Isle. Work was begun on a second log fort at this point and on the construction of a road between the two forts. The main body of the expedition with most of the supplies and equipment left Montreal in April under Michel Pean, who was second in command to Marin. Pean was instructed to lead a detach- ment of thirteen hundred men from the principal fort, to be construct- ed on the Ohio, presumably at Logstown, down the Ohio to the Illi- nois country and back to Montreal via Detroit and Niagara. Ap- parently it was expected that all this would be accomplished in one season, but Duquesne had not fully realized the difficulties in- volved in getting large quantities of goods over the portages. It was the end of June before the La Chine rapids were passed; the Niagara portage delayed the expedition until September, although P6an pushed on to Presque Isle for a conference with Marin and Le Mercier in August; and it was not until the first of October that the last of the goods were transported over the road to Fort Le Boeuf. The wilder- ness had taken its toll of the expedition. Exposure, overexertion, and lack of proper food had resulted in sickness, death, and desertion, so that of the 2,300 men who had left Montreal only 8oo remained fit for duty. Marin himself was seriously ill. Despite these obstacles and the lateness of the season, Pean would have pushed on but for the fact that the water in French Creek was too low to float the boats, of which large numbers had been constructed at Fort Le Boeuf. Arrange- ments were made, therefore, for wintering as many as possible of the 69 Contents FOREWORD V ILLUSTRATIONS Xi MAPS AND PLANS Xiv I. THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT I Physiography - Geological History - Natural Resources - Climate - Rainfall II. THE INDIAN REGIME 19 The Mound Builders - The Erie - The Iroquois Conquest - The Dela- wares - The Shawnee - The Mingo - Indian Villages - Indian Culture - The Influence of Traders and of Missionaries - The Conflict of White and Indian Cultures III. FORERUNNERS OF WHITE OCCUPATION 46 The Conflicting Claims of France and England - Trade Rivalry - George Croghan's Activities - Pennsylvania-Virginia Rivalry - French Efforts to Exclude English - Pennsylvania Efforts to Extend Its Influence - Chris- topher Gist's Activities on Behalf of the Ohio Company of Virginia IV. THE FRENCH OCCUPATION 67 French versus English Colonial Systems - French Advance in the West - English Efforts to Block French - The Outbreak of War - Braddock's Campaign - The Progress of the War - Forbes's Expedition V. THE INDIAN RESERVATION 96 English Victory - The Treaty of Peace - Indian Relations - The Con- spiracy of Pontiac - The Resumption of Indian Trade - The Restriction of Settlement - The Regulation of Trade - Squatters - The Treaty of Fort Stanwix - The "New Purchase" vii Western Pennsylvania troops at Le Boeuf, Presque Isle, and Niagara, and P6an was sent back to Montreal with the remainder, including the sick. While Fort Le Boeuf was under construction, a scouting detach- ment had been sent to Venango at the mouth of French Creek, where it was decided to build the third fort. At this point were located the Delaware village of Chief Custaloga and the trading post of John Fraser. Two of Fraser's men were surrendered to the French by Custaloga, and Fraser abandoned the post and established himself on the Monongahela at the mouth of Turtle Creek. Late in the fall Captain Philippe Joncaire with two other officers and about fifty men took possession of Fraser's house and raised the French flag over it. This was the limit of French occupation in 1753, although small parties went down the rivers as far as Logstown. The westward movement of French troops in the spring of 1753 was observed by the English garrison at Oswego on Lake Ontario, and news of the movement was promptly forwarded to the governors of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. Governor Hamilton of Pennsylvania at once sent a messenger to warn the traders on the Ohio. Before this messenger arrived, however, many of the traders, alarmed by the attacks of French or French Indians at various points, had retreated to Croghan's post at Pine Creek. There on May 7 they received word from Fraser at Venango that the French were coming in force, and five days later the governor's message arrived. The news was spread among the Indians and every effort made to strengthen their allegiance to the English. The Delawares at Venango sent a delegation to the French at Niagara to give them formal notice not to advance beyond that point. As this had no effect, the council at Logstown sent some of the principal chiefs to deliver a second warning, probably at Fort Le Boeuf, to which the French replied that it was their intention to build four forts on the Allegheny and the upper Ohio and to drive the English out of the territory west of the moun- tains. When this answer was received at Logstown another council of the various tribes was held there, at which it was decided to divide into two parties, one led by the Half King to go to the French with a third demand for removal, and another under Scarouady, the Iroquois vicegerent over the Shawnee, to go to Virginia and Pennsylvania to appeal for assistance and to get the presents that had been provided for them by those provinces. 70 The French Occupation The second detachment, consisting of Iroquois, Delaware, Shawnee, Miami, and Wyandot Indians, conferred with the Virginia commis- sioner at Winchester in September and was doubtless informed of the English plans for building a fort on the Ohio. A small present was distributed, but the bulk of the arms and ammunition intended for the Indians was turned over to Trent, Gist, and Montour for later distribution to them if they did not turn to the French interest. From Winchester the delegation went to Carlisle, where the Indians were met by Pennsylvania commissioners, received a part of the present in- tended for them, and were told that the remainder would be given them by Croghan at some future time. At this conference Scarouady asked that white people be prevented from settling west of the moun- tains, that the traders be reduced in number and confined to three posts on the Ohio, and that the sale of rum be restricted. While the conference was in session information was received that the demand of the Half King and his delegation had been treated with contempt by the French, and the Indians declared that, as the traditional third notice had now been given, there was nothing left for them to do but to take up the hatchet against the invaders. Despite this show of bravery, it is clear that the Indians of western Pennsylvania were very much afraid of the French. Some of them had already been in- duced to assist the French troops in carrying goods over the portages, and the remainder were inclined to wait for English assistance before attempting hostile measures. The news of the French advance had been promptly forwarded to England, of course, and in August the ministry dispatched instruc- tions to the several governors directing them to demand the with- drawal of the French and, if that failed "to repel Force by Force ... within the undoubted Limits of his Majestie's Dominions." Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia was also authorized to build forts on the Ohio at the expense of the colony. These instructions were received in the colonies in October, but Dinwiddie was the only one of the governors to act promptly. Feeling that the summons to the French to withdraw should be delivered by a gentleman rather than by a trader, he se- lected the youthful George Washington, whose brothers were mem- bers of the Ohio Company. Washington had had some experience with the wilderness as a surveyor, and he was adjutant general of a militia district with the rank of major. 71 Western Pennsylvania Washington set out on horseback from Wills Creek about the middle of November, with Christopher Gist as a guide, Jacob Van Braam as French interpreter and four "servitors," two of whom were Indian traders. Later he had the assistance of John Davidson as In- dian interpreter. The little party spent one night at Gist's "house in the new settlement" and another at Fraser's post at the mouth of Turtle Creek and arrived at the forks of the Ohio on November 23. Washington examined the site with some care and noted in his jour- nal that it was "extremely well situated for a fort." Several days were spent with the Indians at Logstown, where the Half King and three other Indians joined the party. Guided by the Indians, Washington and his associates made their way overland with much difficulty to Venango, where they were hospitably entertained by Joncaire and sent on to Fort Le Boeuf. At Venango the French officers declared that "it was their absolute Design to take Possession of the Ohio, and by G- they would do it." Admitting the numerical superiority of the English, they declared that "they knew their Motions were too slow and dilatory to prevent any Undertaking of theirs." Arrived at Fort Le Boeuf, Washington was politely received by Legardeur de St. Pierre, who had succeeded Marin as commander. To Dinwiddie's let- ter asking by what authority the French had invaded English terri- tory with armed forces and demanding their peaceable departure, St. Pierre penned a reply to the effect that the letter would be forwarded to Duquesne and that he should continue to obey his orders. The purposes of this expedition appear to have included, in addi- tion to the giving of formal notice, the collecting of information about the situation and plans of the French. Washington and his associ- ates made notes of the strength of the fort and the garrison and espe- cially of the large number of canoes that had been built apparently with a view to an advance to the Ohio in the spring. On the return journey, because the weakened condition of the horses was causing delay, Washington and Gist pushed ahead on foot, with the result that on two separate occasions the leader nearly lost his life. First he was shot at by an Indian and then, in attempting to cross the Allegheny on a raft amidst floating ice, near where the Washington Crossing Bridge in Pittsburgh is now located, he fell into the stream. Having bought a horse at Gist's settlement, Washington pushed on rapidly to Williamsburg, where he arrived on January I6 72 The French Occupation and delivered his journal and the letter of St. Pierre to the governor. Dinwiddie promptly had the journal printed and sent copies of it to the other colonies and to England. It was republished in England and in many of the colonial newspapers, and it not only helped to arouse England and the colonies to the menace of the French advance but also brought the future father of his country for the first time to the attention of the world. While Washington was absent on his mission, the Ohio Company, with the support of Dinwiddie, was busily engaged in forwarding its plans to occupy the Ohio country. Apparently a decision had been reached to build at the forks of the Ohio instead of at the mouth of Chartier's Creek. On November 24, 1753, Dinwiddie wrote that work- men had been sent out to build a fort at the forks; and Washington, on his return journey, met this party or another one with "seventeen horses loaded with material and stores for a fort at the forks," about a day's journey west of Wills Creek. This was on January 6, and the next day Washington met "some families going out to settle." It was probably these workmen who constructed the storehouse for the Ohio Company at the mouth of Redstone Creek on the Monongahela, where Brownsville is now situated. When Washington returned, Dinwiddie directed him to recruit two hundred men in Frederick and Augusta counties for service on the frontier. A commission as captain was sent to William Trent, who had been enlisting the workmen for the Ohio Company, with directions to enroll the workmen and traders in a company and to proceed with the erection of a fort at the forks. Trent arrived there with workmen, tools, and presents for the Indians about February I. Croghan, who had just been holding a conference with the Indians at Logstown on behalf of Pennsylvania, helped Trent with the distribution of the presents. The Indians declared themselves well pleased to have a fort built by the Virginians at that point, and work was begun on the structure, to which was given the name of Fort Prince George in honor of the future George III. In February Dinwiddie succeeded in extracting an appropriation of ten thousand pounds from the reluctant assembly and proceeded at once to raise six more companies. Joshua Fry was made colonel of the regiment with Washington, who had received a commission as lieu- tenant colonel, second in command; and the regiment was mobilized 73 Western Pennsylvania at Alexandria. Dinwiddie also appealed to the other colonies for aid in carrying out the king's orders, but, despite the exertions of the gov- ernors, the only favorable response was from North Carolina. The assemblies of New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland even went so far as to express doubts that British territory had been invaded. A supply of military stores, including thirty cannon, was received from England, and the three independent companies of regular troops that were in the colonies, two in New York and one in South Carolina, were ordered to Virginia. The recruiting went forward very slowly and great difficulties were experienced in assembling the necessary supplies and equipment, so that it was not until April z that Washington was able to advance from Alexandria with a part of the Virginia regiment. His purpose was to strengthen Trent's forces, but before he reached Wills Creek he learned that the French were in possession of the forks. Had the Marquis Duquesne waited for the opening of spring before starting his expedition of 1754, his troops would have found the Eng- lish strongly established at the forks of the Ohio. On January 15, however, five hundred men started west from Quebec under the command of Contrecaeur, who was to succeed St. Pierre. At Montreal they were reinforced by three hundred militia, and on February 3 they set out on a difficult winter journey along the St. Lawrence and the north shore of Lake Ontario. Provisions and equipment were dragged on sleds by the soldiers. Niagara was reached on February 25, and, after leaving one hundred men to strengthen the garrison there, the remainder went on in bateaux and canoes to Presque Isle, where they arrived on March 8. Twelve days were required to drag the artillery over the road to Le Boeuf and more delays were experienced in going down French Creek, but on April 4 the expedition reached Venango, where Chabert Joncaire, who had been sent from Niagara earlier in the spring, was completing the construction of Fort Machault. Realizing apparently that he was engaged in a race against the Vir- ginians, Contrecoeur pushed on down the Allegheny and on April 16 landed his force of between five and six hundred men at Shannopin's Town. The next day the French moved down the river to the point, disembarked four cannon, which they trained on the uncompleted Fort Prince George, and sent a summons demanding its surrender. At this time Captain Trent was at Wills Creek in search of food and supplies for his men, Lieutenant Fraser was at his trading post on 74 The French Occupation Turtle Creek, and Edward Ward, an ensign, was in command at the fort. As he had only forty-one men with him, resistance was out of the question, and he promptly surrendered the fort. Contrecceur not only permitted the English to withdraw with their arms and tools but he generously supplied them with three days' provisions. This bloodless victory of the French at the site of the future Pitts- burgh was the first encounter between the military forces of France and England in the struggle that was to become the French and Indian War. The French promptly destroyed Fort Prince George and, after exploring the Ohio for some distance, probably as far as Logstown, began the erection of their principal fort at the forks. This fort, which was appropriately named Fort Duquesne, was built under the direc- tion of Le Mercier and was a much more elaborate structure than the other French forts on Pennsylvania soil. Situated at the point, it was protected by the rivers on two sides; and the walls on the land side, constructed of two layers of squared logs with earth between, were twelve feet thick. Outside the fort was a deep ditch and beyond that a stockade of logs. The English traders, of course, abandoned their posts at Pine Creek, Turtle Creek, and Logstown, and in June Sca- rouady burned the huts at Logstown and led about two hundred of the Iroquois and Delawares who remained faithful to the English to Croghan's home at Aughwick in the Juniata Valley. Despite the fact that he had lost the race for the Ohio, Washington was determined to challenge the French. At a council of war at Wills Creek it was decided to push on across the mountains, opening the road for the more extensive forces that were to follow under Colonel Fry, and, if possible, to build a fort at the mouth of Redstone Creek. The advance was necessarily slow and it was not until May 24 that the little force of some 150 men reached an open place known as the Great Meadows about four miles east of Chestnut Ridge, where an encampment was made. Here Washington received word from the Half King that a French force was marching toward him from Fort Duquesne; a few days later Gist arrived and reported that a detach- ment of about fifty French soldiers had stopped at his plantation; and on May 27 the Half King reported that the French had secreted them- selves in a rocky ravine on Chestnut Ridge a few miles north of his camp. Leaving forty men to guard the camp, Washington marched in the 75 Western Pennsylvania night toward the ravine. At sunrise he was joined by the Half King and his Indians, and soon thereafter he encountered the French and opened fire on them. This was Washington's first battle and the first battle of the French and Indian War. Ten of the French were killed, including the commander, Coulon de Jumonville, and twenty-one were taken prisoners. The English loss was one killed and one wounded. One Frenchman escaped and carried the news to Fort Duquesne. The French afterwards claimed that Jumonville had been sent with a summons to the English, similar to the one Washington had carried to Le Boeuf, and termed his killing an assassination. It is true that he carried such a summons, but he also had instructions not to deliver it until he had sent back word of the strength and loca- tion of the English, and Washington felt that the fact that the French had been in the vicinity of his camp for several days and had concealed themselves justified his attack. The prisoners were sent to Williams- burg, where they were kept in confinement. Washington returned to his camp at the Great Meadows, where he proceeded to erect a small fortification. Early in June the remainder of the Virginia regiment arrived, followed soon afterwards by the independent company from South Carolina under Captain Mackay, which brought the total force to about 360 men. Colonel Fry had died at Wills Creek, and Washington was now in command of the Virginia regiment. Leaving the independent company to guard the stores in the fort, he pushed forward with the regiment to Gist's plantation. The distance was only thirteen miles but it took thirteen days to cut the road and drag the wagons and cannon across the ridge. At Gist's it was learned that a large force was advancing from Fort Duquesne. Plans were made for fortifying the place and Mackay's company was sent for, but after it arrived a council of war decided on a retreat. The artillery and supplies were dragged back across the ridge, and by the time the Great Meadows was reached the men were so exhausted and the provisions so low that it was decided to make a stand at that place. The men were put to work enlarging and strengthening the stockade, to which was appropriately given the name of Fort Necessity. When the news of the defeat of Jumonville reached Fort Duquesne, Contrecoeur, whose garrison now consisted of about fourteen hundred men, made plans to send a force of five hundred against the English. Just as it was about to depart, Coulon de Villiers, brother of Jumon- 76 The French Occupation ville, arrived with some four hundred Canadian Indians; these rein- forcements were attached to the expedition, and Villiers was given the command. The expedition went by water to the mouth of the Redstone and thence overland by way of Gist's plantation and the road that Washington had cut over Chestnut Ridge. Shortly before noon on July 3 the French and Indians took possession of two wooded hills, from which they could fire on the fort. The battle lasted about nine hours but it was fought at such long range that the losses were small. The steady rain that was falling doubtless added to the difficul- ties on both sides. By eight o'clock both the French and the English were nearly out of ammunition and the Indians were threatening to desert the French. Villiers then proposed a parley, which Washington at first refused as he was unwilling to allow a French officer to observe his situation. When the request was repeated, Captain Van Braam was sent out to the French. After a long delay he returned with articles of capitulation, and, as they appeared to be the best terms that could be obtained, they were signed by Washington and Mackay. The English were allowed to retire with the honors of war but were required to give two hostages, Captains Van Braam and Stobo, for the return of the prisoners that had been captured at the battle with Jumonville, and to agree not to work on any post west of the moun- tains for a year. Washington later discovered that in signing the articles he had inadvertently confessed to the "assassination" of Jumonville. On July 4, 1754, the little army started for Wills Creek. The horses and oxen had been killed by the Indians, and the supplies and wounded men had to be carried on foot over the mountain road, which had been made worse by heavy rains. Villiers and his army destroyed Fort Necessity and, on the way back to Fort Duquesne, burned the abandoned buildings at Gist's settlement, the Ohio Com- pany's warehouse at Redstone, and "all the settlements" they found on the way down the Monongahela. The French had made good their boast that the English, despite their greater numbers, were "too slow and dilatory" to prevent Frenchmen from occupying the upper Ohio country. The English were slow partly because most of the people in the colonies were not yet convinced that they had any interest in the country west of the mountains. Even in Virginia the feeling was wide- spread that the attempt to occupy the Ohio country was the enter- 77 Western Pennsylvania prise of a group of gentlemen speculators with whom the governor was associated and that the people at large were little concerned in it. The governors and a few of the leading men in the colonies were doing their best, however, to bring about united and effective action. When the news that the French had driven the Virginians away from the forks of the Ohio reached Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin pub- lished in his Gazette of May 9, 1754, his famous cartoon of a snake cut into thirteen pieces with the motto "Join or Die." Already, at the suggestion of the ministry, plans had been made for a conference of representatives of the colonies at Albany to effect a general alliance with the Indians, especially the Iroquois, and to obtain their co-opera- tion and that of the colonies in measures of defense. The Albany Con- gress, which met on June 19, 1754, and was attended by representa- tives of the New England colonies, New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, is most famous for its abortive plan of union, which was acceptable neither to the colonies nor to the home government. The alliance with the Iroquois was renewed and strengthened, but the Indians could not be persuaded to take up the hatchet against the French. The representatives of Pennsylvania seized the opportunity afforded by the Albany Congress to purchase from the Iroquois on behalf of the proprietors an enormous tract of land in the western part of the province. Previous to this the only land west of the Susque- hanna that had been purchased from the Indians was the triangle between the river and the Kittatinny or Blue Mountains. Squatters had been pushing out into the Juniata Valley, however, and the efforts to remove them had not been very effective. In order to eliminate this cause of friction with the Indians and, probably, to strengthen the claim of Pennsylvania as against Virginia, the Pennsylvanians pur- chased all the land in the province south of a line drawn northwest by west from a point on the Susquehanna a mile above the mouth of Penn's Creek and only a few miles below the forks (Sunbury). In- stead of strengthening the friendship of the Indians this purchase had the opposite effect; for the Iroquois discovered that they had in- advertently sold much of their best hunting territory on the west branch of the Susquehanna, and the Delawares and Shawnee learned that the territory they were occupying on the Allegheny and the Ohio had been sold by their overlords. It is not strange that these Indians 78 The French Occupation were inclined to throw off the yoke of the Iroquois and to listen to the blandishments of the French, who had driven the English back across the mountains. Dinwiddie refused to be bound by the terms of the capitulation of Fort Necessity, retained the prisoners, and left the hostages to shift for themselves. He even attempted to arrange for a fall campaign against the French, but the men and resources available were inade- quate, and he appealed to England for assistance. Though neither Eng- land nor France was yet ready to declare war, both were making ac- tive preparations for it. When the news of Washington's defeat reached England, the ministry decided to appoint a commander-in-chief of all the forces in the colonies and to send over two regiments of Irish troops. General Edward Braddock, who was selected as the com- mander, was a brave and experienced officer but was lacking in adapt- ability to unfamiliar conditions. The plans for the campaign included not only the expedition against Fort Duquesne, but also operations against Niagara and Crown Point and in Nova Scotia. Governor Sharpe of Maryland, who had been given a temporary appointment as commander-in-chief, and Dinwiddie brought about the construction of Fort Cumberland on the Maryland side of the Potomac at Wills Creek in the fall of 1754. Braddock arrived in Virginia in February, 1755, followed by the transports containing the troops, ordnance, and supplies, which were landed at Alexandria. His total force, including the available colonial troops, mostly Virginians, amounted to about twenty-two hundred men. Washington, who had resigned his Virginia commission because of a dispute about rank, was invited to serve as an aide-de-camp to the general, and he accepted with alacrity. From the outset great difficul- ties were experienced in obtaining wagons and horses for transport. The services of Benjamin Franklin were enlisted to tap the rich re- sources of Pennsylvania, and by a judicious mixture of liberal terms and threats of impressment he succeeded in assembling several hundred wagons and horses at Fort Cumberland, where the troops were being mobilized. Braddock insisted that he must have a road across the mountains in Pennsylvania to connect with his road to Fort Duquesne so that he could draw supplies and provisions from that province, and the assembly reluctantly made provision for it. The road was opened under the direction of James Burd along the Raystown Path from 79