Source:Fleming-colonial
George T. Fleming. "Colonial history recalled by street names: Doughty, Dinwiddie, McKean and Miffline are some of the interesting historical figures." Pittsburgh Gazette Times, Jan. 10, 1915, sec. 3, p. 6. Newspapers.com 85750887.
THE STORY of Pittsburgh's streets becomes more and more interesting as it develops. The naming of communities, localities, streets, postoffices and other public places is much like the naming of individuals—the original names intended to last. The individual dies; the family and the family name survive, and oft the latter endures for ages, unless the line runs out, as in Washington's case.
Names of families are not changed at the whim or caprice of whosoever may will. The family name is maintained—sometimes its spelling is modified—often in the case of foreign names, the name is Anglicized—Americanized rather—as Klein to Little, etc.
The given name is not so important. Men keep their given names or use initials. Women change their names, Alice to Alyce or Alyss and Mame to Mayme, and we meet other high falutin and namby pamby designations.
The family name must stand. To change it requires a decree of a court of record after due publication, etc.; to arbitrarily change a family name is not wise. Such a change immediately leads to a presumption of turpitude—not always a right presumption.
We have the well known case of the late John H. Mitchell, for several terms a senator from Oregon, a former Butler county man, who adopted his middle name and thus transposed his middle and family name. His enemies found this out and raised a loud cry upon his first election, but it developed he had parted from his first wife through marital infelicity and he lived thereafter as John Hipple Mitchell.
The rule of retention of family names does not hold with streets and often localities are affected. We have Chicora for Millerstown; Coraopolis for Middletown; Carnegie for Mansfield, and many more changes to conform to the postoffice designations, the postal officials not permitting two offices of the same name in a state.
Rule as to Streets.
The same rule is as necessary and just applied to street names. The point is made that the original names as applied by our forefathers should have been retained in street names and the later designations changed. Thus we have Washington street—Washington place; and this street, which is one of the original in William Woods and Thomas Vickroy's plan of Pittsburgh of 1784, loses its distinctive name. It is a street, has always been a street, and is not a "place."
Old Franklin, an early Pittsburgh street, had to waive its right to endure in favor of the Allegheny—North Side—duplicate.
Washington avenue, in the Allentown district, by reason of the multiplicity of Washingtons, has been named Warrington. Diligent search has failed to discover who Warrington was, where he came from and what he ever did for Pittsburgh and how early he was on the ground. It is believed he was not even a member at any time of the old councilmanic bodies.
However, the name starts with W; even the second letter is the same as in Washington, and the third, r, is the next letter in alphabetical order, or only one removed from s—pause here to admire the beauty and simplicity of the system and remember it was adopted to keep people from getting tangled up in memory—a great and well-devised scheme of mnemonics, and so helpful. W for Washington; W for Warington [sic]; a next to help out. Need more be said?
Then, too, in the same manner we have Chateau for Chartiers in the North Side and Fullerton for Fulton street on the "Hill;" in the latter the addition of a syllable. This is pretty near Fulton, but the street having the title before the street that has retained the name Fulton should have by right of priority been preferred. Other well-known names in the Manchester district were dropped and fanciful names adopted. Why did "Fulton" stick there?
Now as to Chateau—Just here rises up the "oldest inhabitant" with cheerful alacrity and avers solemnly that here is no chateau on the street or near the street, and there was never a chateau in the vicinity, the term is Frenchy also, he says, and does very well in that war-worn land and in Switzerland.
Just as Good.
Well, Chartiers was French and a renegade half breed trader. Isn't Chateau just as good? And then the first three letters are the same and there's your reminder—what more could be asked?
The original and best meaning of chateau is castle. Dear old Noah Webster tells us and he quotes "chateaux en espagne," "castles in Spain." Spain was the land of romance, hence castles in the air. All the old Manchester district of Allegheny has to do is to come forward with some romances and the name is entirely appropriate.
Judge John M. Kirkpatrick, now deceased, used to lecture on "Castles in Spain," and he lived in Allegheny, and then too, Mrs. Mary Roberts Rinehart resides not far aawy [sic] and she surely writes romances. This clinches the name's appropriateness, and there is not the least doubt the committee bestowing street names took all these facts into consideration. The "oldest" exceptions must be dismissed as not well taken.
When one looks into "all the facts in the case" the "system" and its simplicity really appeal. What would "the oldest" have said if the street had been dubbed Hypolite, or Gazeno or Mar Vista—names actually bestowed? Happy Chateau, with with [sic] or without castles. The query is old—"What's in a name anyhow? Gazeno for instance.
But we want to know too much. Let's leave the now despised and once overworked street renamers without further thumps and proceed to some historical names that have been permitted to remain with us and some that once were. In doing so it is in the sincere hope that we will not "mar" the "Vista" or trouble Hypolite et al (How do you pronounce it and where is it)?
Old Hero Honored.
It develops from consultation of the directory of 1864 that there was a street named for Gen. Stanwix in the Point district. This was previously known as Point street and numbered First, now vacated, the directory stating it was "between Water and Duquesne streets." It lay through part of old Fort Pitt and was an eminently proper and fitting name in that Gen. Stanwix ordered and designed the fort.
It develops also that in addition to Carroll and the name of the Pennsylvania signers to the Declaration of Independence, except George Ross, applied to streets in the old Ninth Ward, afterward the Twelfth Ward, there is, in addition to Franklin, a signer of the immortal declaration still commemorated in a Pittsburgh street name—Thomas McKean, who represented Delaware in the Second Continental Congress.
To be sure the street in South Pittsburgh or the old Thirtieth Ward is not much of a street, but the name is there (or was lately.)
Thomas McKean was born in New London, Chester county, Pennsylvania, in 1734; admitted to the bar in 1757; served as clerk to the General Assembly; served also as a member for 17 years; served in the Continental Congress from 1774–1783, the only man continuously a member during the whole period of the war.
Active for Declaration.
He was a resident in those years of New Castle, Delaware county. He was more active in procuring a unanimous vote for the declaration; was one of the committee that drew up the articles of Confederation. From 1777 to 1779 he held the office of president of the "State of Delaware." He executed the duties, also, of chief justice of Pennsylvania. The colony of Delaware, it must be remembered, was under the governor of Pennsyvania [sic] until 1776, when the inhabitants declared it an independent state.
McKean was governor of Pennsylvania from 1799 to 1808. He died in Philadelphia in 1817. We commemorate his name also in McKean county.
But to get back to a name that begins our history we must go to Virginia and dig up that of Robert Dinwiddie, who came to that colony from the West Indies in 1752. Dinwiddie was born in Scotland about 1690 and died in England in 1770 full of years, but not honor.
Dinwiddie started his official life as a clerk to a collector of customs in the West Indies. Discovering what we now term great crookedness in his principal, he exposed him and was rewarded with the office of surveyor of customs, and afterwards promoted to that of lieutenant governor of Virginia. So far virtue was following the beaten path in the reward route.
Path Gets Crooked.
In Virginia the route changed. The rapaciousness and unscrupulousness of the man found full bend. In the governing process, however, he discovered George Washington whom he made adjutant general of one of the four military districts of the colony. Owing to the exaction of enormous fees authorized by the Board of Trade for the issue of land patents, Dinwiddie gained the ill will of the people of Virginia and when he called for money to resist the encroachments of the French in the Ohio valley the Virginia House of Burgesses paid no attention to his expressed wishes.
Meanwhile he had sent Washington on his mission to St. Pierre at Ft. Le Boeuf and here our history begins. The captain's command enlisted by Dinwiddie began the little fort at the forks of the Ohio; Capt. Trent, Ensign Ward, Braddock, Halkey [sic], Boquet, Forbes et al, appear in succession. Fort Pitt arises alongside of the smoking ruins of Duquesne.
New Names Appear.
The lilies of Franch [sic] float no longer to the breeze. Behold the cross of St. George. Enter also Stanwix, Hand, Irwin, Craig, Neville, Wayne, St. Clair and the pioneers and patroits [sic] of Revolutionary days. The subject is vast; its sequel vaster. It has been written. It is well-known history.
But Dinwiddie was a man of action, aggressive, loyal to the king, hating his hereditary enemies, the French, fighting the marauding redskins. Dinwiddie was alive to the issues and met them. A man of his stamp makes enemies, rightly or not. Arrogant to an extremity, ill tempered, surly, given to caprices and folly, it was but natural that Dinwiddie should clash with the burgesses. He had given Washington many a weary hour and vexed the whole colony.
So Dinwiddie, aged and worn with trouble, went down under a cloud. He was recalled in 1758; the charge against him was that he had appropriated £20,000 placed in his hands for compensation to the Virginians for money expended by them in the public service; that is, the expenditures in excess of their proper share of the warfare in which Dinwiddie had involved them—but of necessity. He never satisfactorily accounted for this fund.
So in these twentieth century days the thousands who hear his name in our street commemoration think nothing of the man or his times; as little of his unlovely character. He may or not have been a rascal.
When the "embattled farmers fired the shots heard 'round the world" in 1775, this doughty and aggressive old grouch had been dead nearly five years.
Writers, especially headliners and cartoonists, are fond of "Father Pitt." How about Father Dinwiddie? Alongside of Gov. Dinwiddie Pitt is a two-spot in our makeup story.
Pitt and Dinwiddie.
But then Pitt was lovely in his life and in death cannot be forgotten. But let us give some credit to the French-hating, Indian-fighting, rancorous, grabbing and greedy old Scotchman. He builded more wisely than he knew.
We pass now to a much more lovable character—Thomas Mifflin, a native Pennsylvanian, born in Philadelphia in 1744 of Quaker parentage. A man of education, a merchant in his native city, a lawmaker in the provincial Assembly; a member of the First Continental Congress in 1774; major in the first regiment raised in Philadelphia for service against the king; aide-de-camp to Washington at Cambride [sic]; a faithful and efficient officer throughout the war, attaining the rank of major general.
Here we have a native son worthy of commemoration. Eloquent in speech, arousing his countrymen to prompt action; traversing Pennsylvania he rallied large numbers to the cause of independence, and reinforced the little army of Washington prior to the attack on the enemy at Trenton.
Gen. Mifflin served as quartermaster general and was a member of the Board of War. One spot mars his record. He was one of Conway's Cabal, the disgruntled band who sought to displace Washington with Horatio Gates.
Elected to Congress.
In 1782 Mifflin wyas [sic] elected to Congress and was president of that body when Washington resigned his commission into their hands. Mifflin was a delegate to the convention that framed the National Constitution in 1787. For the next three years he was president of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania.
He presided over the convention that gave this commonwealth its first constitution. He was governor of the state from 1791–1800. He was efficient in quelling the Whisky Insurrection in our midst in 1794. He died in Lancaster, Pa., January 20, 1800.
A simple matter of subtraction tells us that today he has been dead 115 years, less a week. His name lives in Mifflin county, in Mifflin, the county seat of Juniata county, and Mifflinburg, the county seat of Union county. We are more used to it locally in Mifflin township. We have also Mifflin street in the Bloomfield district.
The story of Gen. Hand appeared in the issue of The Gazette Times of Sunday, December 27, 1914. Today a picture of Hand is printed. It shows him apparently in his old age. The picture of Hand street once named and later numbered Ninth, and now Sandusky, from its North Side designation, was taken about 1870, and has been furnished by Ad. M. Foerster, who was born in his parents' residence on that street and who passed his boyhood and youth there.
In Old Hand Street.
The entrances to the old wooden bridge are easily discernable in the photograph. The church steeple on the right marks St. Andrew's Protestant Episcopal Church, a stone structure razed within 10 years. The lower corner building at Penn avenue was the Dickson drug store—the site now occupied by the building of the Western National Bank.
The Renshaw Building, demolished for a better structure which later burned, is seen at the corner of Liberty street, the houses between it and Penn avenue giving way to the Johnston and Publication Buildings now on those sites. The large sign on the left marked the shop of John T. Gray, a well known contracting painter in those years.
From Penn to Liberty on this side the buildings shown were razed for the Westinghouse and Second National Bank buildings. The bank's original building is shown at the upper left-hand corner and there was a building, and quite a good one, erected in place of the building shown in the picture that gave way for the present structure a few years ago.
The building shown at the corner of Wood street and Fifth avenue is the second building of the First National Bank. The basement and two upper stories were occupied by the Western Union Telegraph Company.
Early Down Town Corner.
The date of this picture is 1880; subsequently this building was gutted by fire and two additional stories appeared in rebuilding. The building was torn down to have in its place the present skyscraper, the first story standing alone for several years after its erection.
The picture at Fourth avenue and Wood street shows the Albree shoe store on the right-hand corner, now occupied by the Arrott Building. On the opposite corner is the Tradesmen's National Bank, absorbed by the Columbia National Bank, whose present edifice stands on the site and that of Lafayette Hall adjoining.
At Fourth avenue and Liberty street Neville Hall is shown and above in Fourth is the Eagle Engine House, the pioneer fire company of Pittsburgh.
Neville Hall, so called in further commemoration of the pioneer Neville family, was one of the several round corners that are so well known in Liberty street.