Source:Fleming-court-house-2
George T. Fleming. "Old court house place of noted meetings: Two great outpourings of the populace of Pittsburgh told of: Politics in war days." Pittsburgh Gazette Times, Nov. 5, 1916, sec. 6, p. 2. Newspapers.com 85412272.
THE stories of two historic buildings in Pittsburgh, the second court house and the first government-owned postoffice, have awakened many fond memories. Regarding the court house first, there is the story of the battle ground and that was told in the story of Grant street. The tablet on the wall at Grant street and Fifth avenue tells of Maj. Grant's defeat September 14, 1758.
Many famous cases were tried in the building. Eminent attorneys practiced at our bar in the 40 years the second court house stood, and into the history of Pennsylvania's jurisprudence there has been written more than a score of leading cases originally tried in Allegheny county.
Again, there is the story of some famous meetings—mass meetings; outpourings of the people of this community. One acquired national fame becauset [sic] it was the first determined stand against rebellion, a great mass meeting, voicing a protest that became thunderous and was effective.
This notable meeting was held December 27, 1860. Lincoln had been elected; the term of James Buchanan as president was drawing to a close. Action was taken at this meeting to prevent the shipment of any more ordnance, especially heavy ordnance, from the Allegheny arsenal in Lawrenceville to distant points in the South.
Four distinguished Pittsburghers, two of whom had adorned the bench, one had been governor of Pennsylvania and the other a member of Congress, signed a telegram to President Buchanan which read:
"Sir—An order issued by the War Department to transfer the effective munitions of war from the arsenal in this city to Southern military posts has created great excitement in the public mind. We would advise that the order be immediately countermanded. We speak at the instance of the people and if not done, cannot answer for the consequences."
The signers were the venerable Judge William Wilkins, ex-Governor William F. Johnston, Thomas Williams, an attorney, and Judge Charles Shaler, almost as venerable as his predecessor, Judge Wilkins, on the bench of the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny county.
The order was countermanded. The guns did not go. All this is old history to old Pittsburghers. Later we have read and coming generations can read the tablet erected by the Women's Historical Society on the wall at Diamond and Grant streets. It states:
"On this site a mass meeting was held December 27, 1860, to protest against removing munitions from Allegheny Arsenal to the South. The order was countermanded by President James Buchanan. Erected by the Women's Historical Society of Pennsylvania June 1, 1916."
The signers were all members of the Allegheny county bar. Judge Wilkins at the time was 81 years of age. He was active throughout the war, speaking and working for the Union. He lived to see the Union preserved, dying at his home on what is now Penn avenue, Homewood, June 23, 1865, aged 86 years. In his honor and that of the distinguished Wilkins family we have Wilkinsburg, Wilkins township, and Wilkins avenue.
Judge Shaler served 11 years on the common pleas bench, 1824 to 1835, and was an associate judge of the old District Court of Allegheny county from 1841–1844. At the time of the attempted removal of the guns Judge Shaler was aged 72. He died in Newark, N. J., March 5, 1869, aged 81. In his honor we have the local name Shalerville, once his property, and Shaler street, in that section of the West End.
William Freame Johnston was elected governor of Pennsylvania in 1848 by the narrow majority of 297. He was a Whig, defeating Morris Longstreth, Democrat; the vote standing Johnston 168,522, Longstreth 168,225, with 72 votes scattered. Gov. Johnston had by virtue of his office as president of the State Senate succeeded to the gubernatorial chair on the resignation of Gov. Shunk and served six months in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of 1838 then in force. Shunk, a former Pittsburgher, died a few weeks after his resignation. Johnston was swept into office by the tidal wave that elected Taylor and Fillmore in 1848. Gov. Johnston was a native of Greensburg, Pa. He died in Pittsburgh in 1872, aged 64 years.
Thomas Williams was one of Pittsburgh's most noted pleaders. He served several terms in Congress; during the war he was the colleague of James K. Moorhead from Pittsburgh, Williams representing the north side of the county with Butler and Armstrong counties attached. Mr. Williams was one of the prosecutors of Andrew Johnson at the attempted impeachment of that President.
The quartet who signed this effective protest were strong men in the community of Pittsburgh, men of highest culture, talent and honor. Well may the tablet tell of that historic meeting and equally historic protest. The story of the tablet is gone into here and the records of the signers also to show that if in no other instance this one meeting in those perilous days could have made our second court house a historic building and fit to be mentioned among the great historic buildings of America.
For years a weather-stained and torn poster remained upon one of the fluted columns at the entrance of the second story or main court room story. This poster announced a great union mass meeting in favor of Lincoln and Johnson, stating that Thaddeus Stevens and other celebrities, including Simon Cameron and Carl Schurz, would address the meeting.
The meeting was held September 29, 1864. There was a great parade, with Gen. James S. Negley chief marshal. It rained heavily all day, but the meeting and parade were successes.
This was in the war days when the Democratic party in the North was a peace-at-any-price party, denouncing the war as a failure, yet nominating Gen. McClellan for president, who received but 21 electoral votes, those of New Jersey, Delaware and Kentucky. The Democratic party in the South was not a peace party.
Next Tuesday will mark the close of an animated presidential campaign, conducted with some asperity. Old-timers will smile and say: "Mild, tame; little rancor; little venom; slight invective."
It does not even approach the Blaine–Cleveland campaign in 1884, and as for the Hayes–Tilden campaign of 1876—well, that came perilously near to civil war again. Only a strong man in the White House, U. S. Grant, prevented. That, at least, is the verdict of those who supported Hayes and look back upon a crisis in our national life. The bitterness of the partisanship of those days has not been seen since.
So the remembrances of that old poster and the Lincoln days—the last days of the troubled and sorrowing President—call up remembrances of other elections and other political crises.
The lessons of patriotism that can be recited from memories recalled from even a slight glance at pictures of Allegheny county's second Court House may be boiled down to a few words, and these will refer to the preservation of the Union. The stories of the two mass meetings agree on this.
Then again the second Court House as a building had some other political history. It was the meeting place of many county conventions under the delegate system, long since abandoned. On the days these county conventions would meet the courts would adjourn. The court rooms were needed by the "representatives of the people in convention assembled." Vast crowds surrounded the building and at times excitement rose high.
Often a convention would last late into the night and often after a prolonged and futile contest would adjourn without a nomination. At first the county ticket as a whole was nominated by a single convention. This plan gave great opportunity for trading votes. Eventually with the growth in the number of offices numerous conventions were held. Thus, congressional, legislative, judiciary and county tickets were named in different conventions. The number of delegates was increased vastly and crowds in and about the Court House became larger. The convention system has gone, but the memories that cling around the photographs of our second Court House are alive and will remain so until all those have passed who were in any way connected with conventions held there. Old timers cannot think of the second Court House without reverting in mind to stirring politics.
The ground about the old building was in itself political in story. It was long a gathering place of the people of Pittsburgh.
It appears that the lot bounded by Diamond and Ross streets, Fourth avenue and Grant street, for two decades later than 1840, was used for political gatherings.
William E. von Bonnhorst, son of former Postmaster Sidney F. von Bonnhorst of Pittsburgh, whom President Lincoln appointed early in 1861, writes The Gazette Times as follows:
I was very much interested in the story of the old Court House and its surroundings. In it you speak of political mass meetings having been held on the ground now occupied by the new City and County Building "as late as 1840." One of my earliest recollections—living as I did at that time where the Berger Building now stands at the corner of Grant street and Fourth avenue—was of a large and enthusiastic Republican meeting being held during the Fremont campaign of 1856 on that part of the ground nearest Fourth avenue between Grant and Ross streets, and of numerous meetings held there during the first Lincoln campaign. The property was then known in the neighborhood as the "Oregon lot." The Grant street front, where the Fulton Law Building afterward stood, was a favorite spot for George Stevenson, a well-known street preacher of his day, to hold forth on Sunday afternoons to crowds which quickly gathered when he appeared.
The name "Oregon Lot" was fastened upon the ground from the "Oregon House," an old-time tavern that stood across Diamond street from the Court House, about the middle of the square, about where a little church stood, long used as the Court House annex, remembered by some thousands of married folks as the place where marriage licenses were issued for several years. Pertinent to the story of the second court house and supplemented to the story of patriotism evoked by the recital of the historic meetings, is the story of the part the bar of Allegheny county had in the military record of the country, 1861–1865.
Judge Charles F. McKenna and his colleagues on the committee to commemorate the patriotism of the bar of the country has found that 108 bar members served in the military service of the United States for longer or shorter terms during the four years of the Civil War.
Some were not members of the bar at enlistment, not having begun or completed their legal studies; some mere boys.
Of the 108 18 survive. Of these two are judges, James W. Over, in the Orphans' Court and Judge McKenna, in the County Court; one, ex-Gov. William A. Stone, is prothonotary of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania; six only continue to practice, namely: John H. Kerr, Joseph Forsythe, James T. Buchanan, A. B. Hay, William K. Jennings and A. S. Miller.
Of these 108 soldiers, five were entitled to be called general: Alfred L. Pearson, Frederick H. Collier, Jacob Bowman Sweitzer, Alfred B. McCalmont and Joseph B. Kiddoo; seven were colonels, Samuel W. Black, Oliver H. Rippey, Cyrus O. Loomis, Richard Biddle Roberts, Thomas M. Bayne, James K. Kerr and John Glenn, Loomis in command of Michigan and Glenn of Kentucky troops; five were lieutenant colonels, Peter C. Shannon, S. Duncan Oliphant, Levi Bird Duff, Archibald Blakeley and William Blakeley.
There were seven majors, three adjutants, three quartermasters, two chaplains, 16 captains, nine first lieutenants, seven second lieutenants and 44 were enlisted men, several in the Navy.
Well may the Bar Committee quote the words of Garfield and head their roll of honor:
"There is a heritage of heroic example and noble obligation not reckoned in the wealth of nations, but essential to the nation's life."
Coming back to the record of the citizens' mass meeting of December 27, 1860, it is well to remember it was not a partisan meeting. It was a patriot's meeting. From The Gazette of December 28 we get a full account of it and also the ringing resolutions adopted. The account begins:
Yesterday at 2 o'clock the meeting recommended in the call published the same morning, was held. A long time before the hour the sidewalks on Fifth street (avenue) leading to the Court House were thronged with masses of people going to the meeting, filling the Supreme Court room, the rotunda, the area in front of the colonnade and even the space around the steps. We do not wish to indulge in declamatory remarks, nor to publish a sensational article for readers aboard [sic]; disclaiming everything of this sort, we candidly state that within our knowledge no such meeting has ever been convened in Pittsburgh. It was held without distinction of party, prominent Democrats having from the outset taken the leading steps in the matter and made common cause with the Republicans. It consisted of every class of citizens, merchants, farmers, mechanics and laboring men, all of whom seemed to be intensely excited upon the subject to consult upon which had brought them together. It was also observable that not only all the wealthy and intelligent members of the community were present, but also our more venerable, those who seldom mingle in political gatherings, who have long ago forgone active participation in the current events of the day, and who can only be drawn out by something of unusual moment.
On Christmas Day a preliminary meeting had been held, the proceedings of which were published in The Gazette on December 27, there having been no paper on December 26 on account of the holiday.
Gen. William Robinson was chairman of the first meeting. Gov. Johnston, Judge Shaler, Col. Edward Simpson and Robert H. Patterson, vice presidents; Col. J. Herron Foster, Sidney F. Von Bonnhorst and George W. Leonard, secretaries. These same officers presided at the second meeting. The call for the second meeting was issued by Mayor George Wilson. The Gazette's account gives Gen. Robinson also as one of the signers of the protest to President Buchanan.
The second meeting, December 27, soon overflowed the Supreme Court room and the crowd by general consent adjourned to the front yard facing Grant street. Here The Gazette's account of the preliminary meeting was read by Congressman Moorhead. Thomas Williams presented the resolutions signed by himself as chairman of the committee, and by John W. Riddel, an attorney, Robert H. Patterson, J. K. Moorhead and George W. Jackson. The concluding resolution is good reading now and as worth heeding as then. It reads:
That while Pennsylvania is on guard at the Federal capitol, it is her especial duty to look to the fidelity of her sons, and in that view we call upon the President of the United States, as a citizen of this Commonwealth, to see that the republic receives non detriment while it continues in his hands.
The Gazette at that time was under control of Russell Errett, the publishing firm of Russell Errett & Co.
A list of the munitions proposed to be removed was printed in The Gazette December 28, 1860, as follows, as reported by Maj. John Symington, commander in the Arsenal:
For the fort on Ship Island, Miss.—Twenty-one 10-inch columbiads, 20 8-inch columbiads, 4 32-pounder iron guns, a total of 533,000 pounds.
For the fort in Galveston harbor, Texas.—Twenty-three 10-inch columbiads, 48 8-inch columbiads, 7 32-pounder iron guns; total weight, 843,870 pounds.
Both shipments total 1,376,870 pounds, or 688½ tons.
There is much more history to be written of the second Court House and of the forensic efforts of able pleaders, the knightly Sam. Black, the brilliant Marshall Swartzwelder, the eloquent Oliver H. Rippey—the famous lawyers of ante bellum days—A. W. Loomis, Richard Biddle, Edwin M. Stanton, Thomas Mellon and a score more.
