Titusville, Pennsylvania

“ Why, sir, work was scarce in our country place, and I'm told there's a heap of building raising about Pittsburg, that's one reason; but [Pg 305] the truth is that our politics have changed a good deal in Pennsylvania of late. In a scuffle at the bar of our hotel, this last election, I got knocked down and trodden on ”

“ When the United States were yet very young, in fact, before the Federal Constitution was even proposed, before Washington was elected president, when the small cluster of log huts, protected by a stockade called Fort Pitt, was all that constituted Pittsburgh, is the time this old newspaper began its long and honorable career. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ First settlers were Scotch-Irish. Chief industries, agriculture and the mining of bituminous coal; the Pittsburgh vein of rich depth and highest coking value, and three other veins, almost as rich, namely, the Waynesburg, Freeport, and Mapletown. Oil and gas production is very valuable, there are a number of gas-pumping stations within the county. The Philadelphia Gas Company has one at Brave, said to be the largest in the world; near Brave is Jollytown, with a monument to Jesse Taylor, first Greene County soldier to fall in the Civil War. ”

“ Nearly all this country, between the crests of the Allegheny Mountains and Laurel Hills, is one vast coal field, extending over the entire length, from Maryland to Cambria County, every vein of coal from the great Pittsburgh seam down being represented. Traditions of Indian villages are in the famous Turkey Foot, Casselman River forms middle toe at town of Confluence; also in Elk Lick township, Indian arrowheads and stone implements are found. In 1749, Christopher Gist, agent of the Ohio Company, was the first white man known to have crossed Somerset County ”

“ Of the total population 51 per cent. is urban—i.e. they live in places which contain over 4,000 inhabitants, there being, in 1900, 119 such places, or more than in any other State. The average number of inhabitants to the square mile in 1900 was 140.1.
Cities. The population of the 18 largest cities in 1900 was as follows: Philadelphia, 1,293,697; Pittsburg, 321,616 ”

“ Pittsburg ought to be to the western part of the state, what Philadelphia is to the eastern: the reservoir of wealth sufficient to afford a market to the surrounding country. There is no rivalship between these cities. The prosperity of one promotes the prosperity of the other. Why then should we hesitate? New York has completed 120 miles of canal in less than two years and five months. By a line of less than half that length, the Delaware and Susquehanna are united.
Pennsylvania has been accused of want of attention to gardening, and I am afraid she must plead guilty to the charge. ”

“ Although the manufacturing interests of Philadelphia and Pittsburg are exceedingly large—those of the [Pg 420] latter without parallel on the continent, if, in the world—a visit to Reading is, nevertheless, desirable, for one who would gain a comprehensive idea of the industries of Pennsylvania. The city is not a large one, but it is almost wholly a city of workers. With the great coal and iron regions of the State at its back, their products brought to it by river, railroad and canal, its manufacturing enterprises are multiplied in numbers, and are almost Cyclopean in their proportions. ”

“ Probably the first white man to cross the county was David Zeisberger, who passed down the Allegheny River to mouth of the Tionesta, Forest County, in 1767; his journal, now on file in the Moravian Library at Bethlehem, tells of the wild beauty of the county. Farming and stock raising are gaining, but the main industry is still lumbering, with second growth of hardwoods, maple, beech, and birch, which will in time be a great nucleus of wealth. ”

“ Pittacus, one of the seven sages of Greece, born at Mitylene, in Lesbos, in the 7th century B.C.; celebrated as a warrior, a statesman, a philosopher, and a poet; expelled the tyrants from Mitylene, and held the supreme power for 10 years after by popular vote, and resigned on the establishment of social order; two proverbs are connected with his name: "It is difficult to be good," "Know the fit time."
Pittsburg (321) , second city of Pennsylvania, is 350 m. by rail W. of Philadelphia, where the junction of the Alleghany and the Monongahela Rivers forms the Ohio ”

“ Through William Penn’s liberal policy to early settlers, and later being the seat of government of the United States, many national institutions were originated here, and many more historical buildings are here than in any other city in America. It comprises the whole of Philadelphia County, and has a distinctive character of its own, reminiscent of the old Quaker life, which is given in this book in two Colonial Walks; the Revolutionary Period is given in automobile routes, framed on Washington’s itinerary ”

“ Philadelphia lost power as New York City gained it. Though the counties tributary to Philadelphia constituted the old center of population and political power, the significant fact of growth in Pennsylvania was the increasing importance of Pittsburgh at the gateway to the Ohio Valley. In the Great Valley beyond the Blue Ridge lived the descendants of those early Germans and Scotch- Irishmen who early occupied the broad and level fields of this fertile zone, the granary of Pennsylvania. ”

“ The aqueduct of the Pennsylvania canal, across the Alleghany river, is also deserving attention.
The inhabitants of Pittsburg are a mixture of English, French, Scotch, Irish, German and Swiss artisans and mechanics, as well as of native born Americans, who live together in much harmony. Industry, sobriety, morality and good order generally prevail. Extensive revivals of religion prevailed here about a year since.
The population of Western Pennsylvania is characterized for industry, frugality, economy and enterprise. Temperance principles have made considerable progress of late years. ”

“ The attention of the Legislature having been called to the neglected and suffering condition of the insane poor of the State, in 1844, there was provision made for the establishment of an asylum to be located within ten miles of the seat of Government. The citizens of Harrisburg, with the aid of a liberal appropriation by Dauphin County, purchased a farm adjoining that city, and in 1848, the commissioners appointed by the State began the construction of the first building erected by the Commonwealth for the reception and care of the indigent insane. ”

“ The deadly disease swept away whole families. Eleven persons died in one house within a day.
Philadelphia with 50,000 population in 1792 was then not only the largest and busiest city of the Nation but its seat of government. The Congress moved from the city to Germantown; President George Washington and the members of his Cabinet and their families departed the city, and every person who could afford it followed their example. ”

“ Father Andrew A. Lambing, President of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, has written useful monographs on the early history of this region, and he is one of the first authorities in that field. He has also composed books on religious subjects. E. W. Duckwell wrote "Bacteriology Applied to the Canning and Preserving of Food Products."
Richard Realf was a poet "whose songs gushed from his heart," and some of them hold a place in literature. His "Monarch of the Forges" breathes the deep spirit of industrial life as he found it in Pittsburgh. ”

“ Public spirit was more active in Pennsylvania than in New York. More roads and canals were building; a new turnpike ran from Philadelphia to Lancaster, and the great highway to Pittsburg was a more important artery of national life than was controlled by any other State. The exports of Pennsylvania amounted to $12,000,000, and the custom-house produced $1,350,000. The State contained six hundred thousand inhabitants—a population somewhat larger than that of New York. ”

“ The spirit and perseverance of Pennsylvania are such, in the matter of road making, that no doubt can remain but they will, in a little time, complete a road from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, as good as the nature of the ground will permit. ”

“ The reason of this was, all the accounts of the country north and west of the rivers, Ohio, Allegheny, and the Connewango Creek, represented it as dangerous to go into the country. In the latter part of said year I received three hundred and ninety warrants, the property of the Penn Population company for land situated in the Triangle and entered the same year in my book of entries. In 1793 I made an attempt to go; went to the mouth of Buffalo Creek to inquire of the Indians there whether they would permit me to go into my district to make surveys. ”

“ Without in the least abating the test of moral and legal standards upon the policy of industrial leadership in the great activities of western Pennsylvania, it can hardly be doubted that later generations will include the leaders in such enterprise among the master builders of modern civilization. The place of Pittsburgh in the American system of life is that of the city which in an altogether unparalleled way is made up of producers, of those whose purposes are focused in bringing to pass the creation of durable and indispensable utilities. ”

“ The natural beauty of western Pennsylvania can only be realized when one leaves the business part of the city and plunges into the districts adjacent, where conditions are found that suggest what must have existed before man's transforming had converted the earth to his own uses. It is doubtful whether any community, east or west, has done so much in so short a time, to make the surrounding country accessible. In various directions about Pittsburgh fine, hard, smooth macadam roads extend for many miles. ”

“ It is situated on Moose island in Passamaquoddy bay, and is favorably situated for an extensive traffic up the Passamaquoddy and the other rivers falling into the bay of Fundy. The principal business is afforded by the fisheries and the lumber trade. Population, two thousand eight hundred and seventy-six.
Economy, a beautiful village of Beaver county, Pennsylvania, on the Ohio, a few miles below Pittsburg. It is inhabited solely by the sect of Harmonists, under the celebrated Rapp. The village is regularly built, and the streets are laid out at right angles. ”

“ Behind the Blue mountains we saw grain and Indian corn flourish in a cultivated region, and reached Harrisburg. We delayed here about two hours, and met with a stage which had come from Pittsburgh by the southern road. Harrisburg is two hundred and nine miles from Pittsburgh, and a hundred from Philadelphia, occupies a somewhat elevated position between the left side of the Susquehanna and Paxton creek, and may contain about four thousand inhabitants. It is the metropolis and seat of government of the state of Pennsylvania, and contains a capitol, with the other necessary buildings. ”

“ Several years ago more than one thousand persons from every section of Pennsylvania, and not a few from Southern New York State, journeyed to a most out-of-the-way place up in the wilds of Potter County to do homage to the memory of a great man, and to view the scene of one of the saddest failures in the history of the settlement of our great Commonwealth. ”

“ Earliest settlers Scotch-Irish, later Germans. Chief industry agriculture, the land east is limestone and very fertile; west, slate lands prevail, abounding in pure streams and rich meadows; the Conococheague and Conodoquinet Creeks drain the central part of the county, they are crossed by many stone arch bridges of graceful architecture, the most notable is at Hiester’s Mill, three arches. ”

“ At that time a day’s production per man was one and a half reams of newspaper of the size of 20 by 30 inches. Small as was this mill, its importance can hardly be understood, for the greatest commercial metropolis of America drew its supply of printing paper from this mill.
There, in this secluded spot, away from any except the hermits who lived in the caves along the Wissahickon, and with no access to Philadelphia except by Germantown, William Rittenhouse, and his son devoted themselves with untiring industry to their useful and honorable art. ”