Pittsfield, Massachusetts

“ New York Colony on the west, though directed largely by men of high character like Philip Schuyler, was torn by bitter political differences, the Loyalist element being strong in social and political affairs. Then, although the Berkshire towns were active from the earliest days of 1774 in sharing with other towns the plans for resistance to royal authority, they were very jealous of any continuance of unnecessary power in the Provincial Congress. Pittsfield by the quill of a cousin of Ethan Allen, the Rev. ”

“ Think of driving a stage-coach through the clouds! Seasonably in the forenoon we arrived at Pittsfield.
Pittsfield is a large village, quite shut in by mountain walls, generally extending like a rampart on all sides of it, but with insulated great hills rising here and there in the outline. The area of the town is level; its houses are handsome, mostly wooden and white; but some are of brick, painted deep red, the bricks being not of a healthy, natural color. There are handsome churches, Gothic and others, and a court-house and an academy; the court-house having a marble front. ”

“ Pittsfield, although one of the largest towns in the country, is not ambitious to try a city form of government. Five years ago a charter was procured, but no action was taken upon it. There is no disposition on the part of those who favor the plan to force it into notice before public opinion is ripe on the subject At the annual town meetings where a majority of the voters are present there have thus far been few attempts at unfair management. The best portion of the community take the most active share in the proceedings. ”

“ Not a few of that large number have acquired distinction in their distant abodes, yet still look back with that fond remembrance to their mountain-home, the first nurse of their infancy, which rejects honor both on the mother, and the children.
In the summer of 1844, the pleasing and novel suggestion was made, of re-assembling as far as possible the scattered sons of the county, to hold a season of rejoicing among the green hills of their nativity. Pittsfield, from its central position, and other advantages, was selected as the place of the proposed re-union. ”

“ Perhaps we ought to be more lenient in the case of this history of Pittsfield, in consideration of the fact that this was a public work, and, therefore, more caution had to be exercised than we would otherwise have expected. Of course no employee would like to displease even a single member of the corporation that employed him. Possibly the same argument might be raised in defence of any historian, in that the public is virtually his employer. Here, however, reasoning by analogy fails, for the public is a very large body, and will seldom take up the cudgel in defence of any single individual. ”

“ In other parts of Pittsfield broad streets, lined with tall elms and shady horse-chestnut trees, invite our footsteps. The dwelling-houses are mostly of wood, built in the cottage and villa styles of architecture; many are stately edifices; many are hospitable mansions; all show unmistakable evidence of being comfortable homes. Scattered over the township, each springing up around a mill or two, are miniature villages. Their population is largely made up of foreigners, Irish and Germans, whose condition appears to be somewhat better than that of the same class in cities. ”

“ Angry and ashamed, Pittsburg is a type of the city that has tried to be free and failed.
148A sturdy city it is, too, the second in Pennsylvania. Two rivers flow past it to make a third, the Ohio, in front, and all around and beneath it are natural gas and coal which feed a thousand furnaces that smoke all day and flame all night to make Pittsburg the Birmingham of America. Rich in natural resources, it is richest in the quality of its population. Six days and six nights these people labor, molding iron and forging steel, and they are not tired ”

“ On the head-waters of Suncook river, in the central region of New Hampshire, is the town of Pittsfield. It is limited in extent, undulating in surface, rich in the quality of its soil. Its earliest settlers were sturdy farmers, men and women who from infancy had been accustomed to the hardships and privations of pioneer life.
Among these settlers was Josiah White, who, with his wife of Scottish origin, in the spring of 1775 took up his abode in the outskirts of an unbroken forest. Years of hard labor followed, which at length brought to him and his family the comforts of a rural home. ”

“ After going through another dreamy place—a long aqueduct across the Alleghany River, which was stranger than the bridge at Harrisburg, being a vast, low, wooden chamber full of water—we emerged upon that ugly confusion of backs of buildings and crazy galleries and stairs, which always abuts on water, whether it be river, sea, canal, or ditch: and were at Pittsburg.
Pittsburg is like Birmingham in England; at least its townspeople say so. Setting aside the streets, the shops, the houses, waggons, factories, public buildings, and population, perhaps it may be. ”

“ It is, however, consoling and inspiring to believe—yes, to know—that there are in Pittsburg—as in all cities—hundreds of thousands of decent, virtuous, wholesome, toiling people; that these make up by far the larger part of the population, too, and that they will save Pittsburg, and make her as good as she is great. It is a fact stimulating to the imagination and encouraging to the soul that, in all these stores and shops and mills, there are hard-working, modest, unknown thousands who are pure and loyal, who are humanity's hope ”

“ It is 444 miles west of New York, 354 miles west by north of Philadelphia, and 468 miles east of Chicago. These distances are by rail. The mean average temperature is 53° F., the mean for January being 31° and for July, 75°. The altitude at the river level is 703 feet.
Although eleventh in population, according to the census returns. Pittsburg ranks fifth in commercial and industrial importance among the cities of the United States. ”

“ It was created a city by the legislature of Pennsylvania, at the session of 1816. The principal cause which has contributed, after its fine position, to ensure the prosperity of, Pittsburg, is the exhaustless mass of mineral coal that exists in its neighborhood. The beds are 340 feet above low water level, and about two hundred and ninety above the level of the town. The great abundance of this valuable material has converted Pittsburg into a vast workshop, and a warehouse for the immense country below, upon the Ohio and the other large rivers of the valley. ”

“ He continued his residence in Pittsfield until the spring of 1877, remaining all the while in management of the bank's affairs, while at the same time engaging in various lines of business in his own behalf. Nor did he fail to devote attention to public affairs. Never a politician, but always a stanch Democrat, he took no little interest in the success of his party, as well as the welfare of the town and community. He was frequently intrusted with official responsibilities by his fellow-citizens of Pittsfield, and represented them in the legislature in 1862 and 1863. ”

“ At Pittsfield, in the centre of the town, there is a very large elm tree, the elm being the great tree of the country, but this surpassed all its neighbours, its height being 120 feet, and the stem 90 feet before any branches sprang from it.
We reached Albany at five o'clock; and a most beautiful town it is. The great street, as well as one at right angles to it leading up to the Capitol, is [Pg 41] wider, I think, than any street we ever saw; and the shops on both sides are very splendid. The hotel is very large and good ”

“ Up at Pittsfield to-day, you may be very sure that Parson Allen is giving his people a rousing discourse on the times, wherein the sin of rebellion is treated without gloves, and the duty of citizens to submit to the powers that be, and to maintain lawful authority even to the shedding of blood, are vigorously set forth. ”

“ The manufacturing establishments include foundries and machine shops, stove and engine works, knitting mills, flour, paper, and lumber mills, breweries, terracotta and brick works, etc. Pittston is one of the leading commercial and industrial centres of this region. West Pittston (q.v.) , across the river, is more distinctly a residential section. The city maintains a public library. Laid out in 1768 and named in honor of William Pitt, Pittston was settled about 1770, was incorporated as a borough in 1803, and was chartered as a city in 1894. ”

“ However the Pittsfield experiment turns out, considered, as it should be, as a sign of the times, it tells us emphatically—first, that the present system of meekly taking whatever plays are sent on from New York by a monopolistic commercial management, for its own good, is by intelligent citizens seen to be anti-civic. ”

“ She won't even allow the kids to play baseball on a back lot on Sunday. A woman, an old friend of mine who lives in Pittsburg, said: "I think it very unfortunate that the Survey was published. It overlooks Pittsburg's good points. For instance, Pittsburg has more churches than any city of its size in America. More people of our class go to church than in any place I ever saw; more money is given to charity. People just pour out of their houses and into the churches on Sunday morning." She was quite serious—and she expressed Pittsburg, or the ruling class of Pittsburg, exactly. ”

“ This is "manufacturing Pittsburg." In four years the sale and consumption of pig iron alone was one-fourth the whole immense production of the United States; and through the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and their tributaries, its people control the shipment of goods, without breaking bulk, over twelve thousand miles of water transportation, and are thus enabled to deliver the products of their thrift in nearly four hundred counties in the territory of fifteen [Pg 342] States. There is no city of its size in the country which has so large a banking capital as Pittsburg. ”

“ This place is full of our people, yet they are scattering off nearly all the while. I expect to start tomorrow for Pittsfield, Pike county, Illinois, about forty-five miles southeast from this place. Brother George W. Robinson told me this morning that he expected that his father-in-law, Judge Higbee, and himself would go on a farm about twenty miles northeast from this place. Some of the leading men have given us {273} [that is the Saints] an invitation to settle in and about this place. Many no doubt will stay here. ”

“ In the English manufacturing towns, a fine is imposed upon those who do not consume their smoke. Incalculable would be the advantage to this place, could such a regulation be adopted." Cramer's Navigator, 1817.
"Upon the whole, I consider Pittsburgh, in every point of view, to be a very important town; and have no doubt, although its prosperity is now at a stand, and property if not declining, is not increasing in value, that it will gradually advance; and that the time must come when it will be an extensive and very populous city. ”

“ Fort Wayne and Chicago, Sheridan on the Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago and Saint Louis, and at Twenty-eighth Street on the Buffalo and Allegheny Valley division. The Pennsylvania system has a large union station at Tenth and Liberty streets, used by all its roads except the Baltimore and Ohio and the Pittsburg and Western. The Pittsburg and Lake Erie also has a line new station on the South Side.
The rivers are of great importance commercially. The Monongahela runs through the richest coal fields of the Pittsburg district, and is improved throughout its entire length. ”

“ Pittsburg is proud of the fact that she handles more tons of freight in a year than any other city in the world. Indeed, the tonnage is greater than that of New York and Chicago taken together.
The old “point” between the rivers is filled with tall buildings. Inclined railways run up the steep bluffs on the further side of each river and lead to the beautiful streets and the homes where many of the people live. For Pittsburg is not all coal and furnaces and smoke, but has fine churches, the great Carnegie Library and Museum, and many schools. ”

“ He insisted that the French had been really driven out. They certainly had been checked in their advance to the Mississippi.
Pittsburg was a conglomerate in these early days. Welsh, Irish, and English had contributed to its then small population of the few hundreds whose history and beginning were like so many other emigrants. The houses were ranged largely about the Fort for protection from the Indians. There were small crooked lanes, a few dignified by-streets, Penn Street, 12 Duquesne way, Water and Ferry streets. ”

“ Pittsburg, which has within reach both coal and iron, that is to say, the daily bread of industry, which stands at the head of the Ohio, at the starting point of steam-navigation, at the confluence of the Monongahela and the Alleghany, coming the one from the south and the other from the north; Pittsburg, which is near the great chain of lakes, appears as the pivot of a vast system of roads, railroads, and canals, several of which are already completed. ”

“ Oh, it is being civilized like all new places. We have had to work and struggle to plant towns and bring them into shape. Pittsburg has a most admirable position for traffic and abounds in iron ore as well as other minerals. ”