Source:Fleming-before-fire
George T. Fleming. "Time before the big fire is recalled: Anniversary of disaster directs attention to character of early city: The Gazette story." Pittsburgh Gazette Times, Apr. 16, 1916, sec. 6, p. 2. Newspapers.com 85458160.
SUNDAY, April 10, was the seventy-first anniversary of the fire of '45, usually spoken of by old Pittsburghers as "The Big Fire." This historical fact recalls others, among them that in the district covered by that disastrous blaze there are no buildings today that antedate that fire.
For the fire made a clean sweep of everything from Ferry street on the east side between Front street, now First avenue, and Second street, now Second avenue, and all the territory between Fourth street, now avenue, and the river.
Undoubtedly many historic buildings went down that day. The pictures of the city previous to 1840 and those of that date all show Pittsburgh downtown previous to the "big fire" as it appeared from Mt. Washington, then called Coal Hill.
There are yet Pittsburgh people who recall the fire. Controller E. S. Morrow in reciting his reminiscences of 70 years, at the last meeting of the Western Pennsylvania Historical Society, told of chasing down Smithfield street towards the appalling blaze, until he reached the corner of Fourth, whereupon some able-bodied citizen, fully aware that tots were not needed any closer, gave him what is now known as "a swift kick." Whereupon the future controller lost all further interest in the conflagration and about-faced and ran to the paternal home, then on Fifth street, now avenue, on the site of the Schmidt building—presumably his tears falling by the way, although the Controller does not admit the tears—at least he omitted mention of them in his talk.
However, Mr. Morrow was interviewed by a local contemporary last Monday and asked to fix the time the fire broke out. This he did accurately, at noon, and from the memory of getting out of school at exact noon as customary.
He also recalled the additional fact that the Allegheny Engine Company's house was on Fifth street, now avenue, on the site of the Grand Opera House, which engine house was opposite the Morrow home and that he well remembers seeing the Allegheny fireboys rush out with their hand engine and hose cart and, boy-like, he went too.
Now we have a contemporary account of the fire at hand and from it can fix the time exactly. This evidence is a copy of the Pittsburgh Gazette of April 18, 1845, reprinting the account from its issue of April 11, one week before.
The paper is printed in old-style agate type—evidently well worn stock. David N. White, the editor, makes some editorial remarks in the lead to the story of the fire under the headline: "On the 10th of April, 1845." He says:
This awful calamity from its immense and appalling magnitude is very difficult to grasp in all its details without a long and minute examination. The more the mind dwells upon it, the greater does it appear. When one ascends a mountain the higher he progresses, the wider the view which opens to him; so the more we contemplate this transcendent disaster, the more we are impressed with its magnitude.
It was sure some fire. Pittsburgh was not so big itself that a chunk of 17 blocks and parts of eight others, and Pipetown, too, could be wiped out without tears "at one fell swoop." That's what it was—a fell swoop of the fire fiend, and so regarded at the time.
But the editor moralizes some more before he gets down to his story. He continues:
To see such an amount of wealth struck out of existence—annihilated in the brief space of eight hours, is something to be mused about and treasured up in men's minds as a powerfully significant commentary upon the instability of all things earthly. The whole tremendous tragedy with its lights and shades, its effects at the moment and permanently, upon the minds and fortunes of men, is exuberantly fruitful in food for philosophical reflection. The elasticity of Mind under so heavy a blow is something too, to be carefully noted, and verily, until we saw for ourselves that men could bear so much, we would not have believed it.
The editor undoubtedly had been dazed by the events of that day and was just rounding too. It wasn't much of a fire compared with that of Chicago in 1871, Boston in 1872, Baltimore in 1905, and San Francisco in 1906, but it was some fire and some blow to the little old Pittsburgh of 1845, and as to the facts here they are as he printed them. The Gazette escaped, but the Chronicle went down in the flames. The account:
For the information of our readers abroad who did not see our paper on Friday, we will again briefly sketch the origin and progress of the fire.
It commenced on Thursday exactly five minutes past 12 M. by the clock in our office, in the Ice House of Col. Diehl, Ferry street, near the corner of Front st. It is believed to have originated by a woman building a fire in a yard adjoining it, for the purpose of washing. Be the cause what it may, the fire commenced with a building of no value. For more than two weeks previous, the weather had been parching dry—high winds prevailed every day; and between the weather, wind and dust, the city was excessively unpleasant. It was in this state of things that the Tocsin sounded—the infallible warning which is never given but when there is a cause for it;—the Bell of the Third Presbyterian Church was struck. To every one who looked at the state of the weather, the wind, &c., it was alarming, and it was but a very few minutes until sufficient cause was seen that the fear was well-founded. The fire originated in the centre of a nest of wooden buildings, and fed by the breeze, cracked, leaped, and fairly licked the dry wood. After enveloping the frames, it took across the street in different directions, but the most serious course was to the Globe Cotton Factory opposite. By looking carefully at the annexed diagram of the city showing the proportion of the city that is burnt, the reader can trace its course. It commenced on the corner of Ferry and Second; crossed to the opposite side of Ferry st., where part of a square was burned, as is shown by the black space; (the burnt district is shown by the black part of the diagram, the unburnt by the light part) about the same time, as observed above, it crossed over to the Globe Factory, and threatened the 3rd Presbyterian Church, which was saved by extraordinary exertions, and by it, at the least calculation, a dozen more squares.
It then progressed diaganally [sic] across the square bounded by Ferry, Third Market and Second streets and about equally as fast up the entire square bounded by Ferry, Second, Market and Front streets. After crossing Market st. it extended on the side down to Water street, and the other across from Third to Fourth, just behind our office. It was then four and a half squares broad, and to the end swept everything up to Grant's Hill and the Canal. The latter is the white space just above Ross street, but not named in the diagram. Here it skipped over a number of frame and other buildings, as is shown in the cut, and re-commenced, devouring everything clear up to the top of Kensington—in the Diagram, this latter place is named "Pipe town."
Nothing was spared—very little was saved. The progress of the fire as it danced and leaped with its forked tongue, from house to house, from block to block, and from square to square, was awfully magnificent. The Monongahela House did not stand more than half an hour, and the Monongahela bridge only ten minutes. The conflagration stopped for want of food finally. We have said so much in other parts of this paper we need not add more here.
Controller Morrow's memory is good. The fire started at noon on Thursday, April 10, 1845—to be exact, 12:05 p. m.
Remember the above reprint is taken from the second publication of the account, the first having been printed in The Gazette of April 11, the day after the fire. This first paper, or copies of it, must be yet in evidence.
There are also in the paper of the 18th editorials reprinted from the leading journals of the country—variously captioned: "Our Great Fire;" "Notices of the Press;" "Pittsburgh Fire;" "The Great Fire;" "The Pittsburgh Calamity;" "Relief," etc. Two in particular, one from the Philadelphia United States Gazette and the other from the Baltimore Sun, are received with thanks.
Pictures of buildings antedating the fire are rare. We have but few, some of which have been shown in these columns. The Weyman tobacco warehouse at Smithfield and Diamond alley and the Bakewell, Pears & Co. glasshouse at Grant and Webster streets have been shown. These buildings were in the path of the flames and were destroyed.
Hence we can get but glimpses of what Pittsburgh looked like prior to the "Big Fire."
Of the views of buildings that stood prior to the big fire, two were depicted in the story of March 19. These were two bricks that stood on the west side of Ferry street, between Second and Third avenues, redrawn from a chalk print made in 1888 at the time of the centennial of Allegheny county and dedication of the Court House.
The home of Col. William Butler was at the corner of Penn and Marbury streets; later, from 1868, the latter street was Third street. It is now Barbeau street. Many oldtimers will remember the property. This picture dates back to 1888.
The view of the Water street and Cherry alley buildings shown today will recall to many the fact that these buildings have but recently been razed.
A. M. Long writes that he remembers the old bricks on Ferry street. He states that in 1872 one of these houses was occupied by a man named Pickles, who kept a little grocery store there. The houses were in the middle of the block and stood until the Wabash Railroad took all of that side of Ferry street, about 1902. A family named O'Neil lived for some years in one of these historic houses.
And there were others. For many years the house at 72 Water street was pointed out as the oldest building in Pittsburgh, excepting the blockhouse.
There are some sketches of all these old buildings, but they are not such as will reproduce in newspaper illustrations as now made. They will have to be redrawn for the purpose.
Maj. Ebenezer Denny's home at the northwest corner of Markley [sic] street and Third street, now avenue, is one of these. This building was built of brick from Fort Pitt. It was a two-story brick with a high gable and roof of steep pitch and had an awning in front, possibly of wooden construction.
From the picture the house's frontage cannot be told. But it was there prior to 1814, for when James M. Riddle published his directory in 1815 he locates Maj. Denny "merchant, northwest corner Third and Market," which from the first street mentioned can carry a fair presumption that it so fronted and this deduction can be easily drawn from the picture.
This is the elegant home where William Barclay Foster, Sr., father of Stephen C. Foster, brought his bride in 1807. How long before that the house was erected we do not know, but it was probably soon after Maj. Denny's location here in 1793. We know that Fort Pitt was dismantled prior to 1791, when Fort Fayette was erected.
One of the best-known houses that came down from Colonial days and stood until the late eighties was a log house at the corner of Fourth avenue and Chancery lane on the south side of Fourth, at the eastern corner of the lane. This was originally the home of the Rev. John Wrenshal, a Methodist minister. In 1814 Riddle lists him as a merchant on the north side of Fourth between Cherry alley and Grant street.
Riddle also lists Wrenshal & Boogs [sic], merchants, on the northwest and southwest corners of Fourth and Market streets. The northwest corner is now occupied by the old Union National Bank Building. There is no clue to this Wrenshal's identity, but as no other than the one, John, is mentioned, most probably he was the man in the firm of Wrenshal & Boggs.
This old Wrenshal home which stood immediately below the Wrenshal & Boggs' store, was weather-boarded over and its original log construction hidden. The house was purchased by "Jimmy" Weeden, the prize fighter, who kept a saloon and who was killed in it while resisting arrest.
The old house was standing as late as 1888.
The two frames at Ferry and Water streets on the site of the present Hostetter building, torn down about 1904, were very old. For years they were used as a lodging house for stevadores [sic] about the wharf.
Gen. Richard Butler, who had his home on Penn near Marburk [sic] street, was one of the five fighting Butlers, brother of Col. William Butler. We have the family name commemorated in Butler street, Butler county and town. These Butler homes and the story of the Butlers belongs properly to the history that can be evolved from the consideration of the name Butler and its most worthy commemoration.
The Gen. Butler house in the picture shown in 1888 is a remarkable dwelling with two windows down stairs on the left of the door and one window to the right, with an old style shutter hanging down from a broken top hinge. There are three windows in the second story, small panes and all, a shutter on the first floor to the left keeps pace with the one on the right, but with an opposite lean.
Third street was originally the outer or eastern limit of the fort's walls.
Shady memory fails to locate this Butler home, except that it was below Penn avenue, but on what side does not occur. There are many Pittsburghers familiar with the Point district who can tell.
Riddle fails to help out with his little directory. James R. Butler, captain of the Pittsburgh Blues in the war of 1812, is listed as a gentleman residing on the west side of Penn between Hay and Pitt streets, later Fourth and Fifth, now Fancourt and Stanwix streets. Richard Butler was killed November 4, 1791, in Gen. Arthur St. Claire's [sic] disastrous campaign against the Ohio Indians.
Two four-story bricks stood for many years on Ferry street and went their way when the Wabash came to Pittsburgh. These were famous as having been used for the first free school in the ward, and generally accepted as the first free or public school in Pittsburgh. They were used for a school unitl [sic] 1850.
They were erected by the county prior to 1836 and a school opened for very poor children. That year, or possibly in 1837, the First Ward school board purchased the property.
In 1850 the Duquesne School was erected at second avenue, Short street and First avenue.
These old houses can be remembered by many. They adjoined very low buildings, one of one-story. There were a number of such shacks on Ferry street.
A part of Fifth avenue below Smithfield street is hown [sic] as it appeared in 1859. The Chronicle Building, with Rogers' ambrotype gallery upstairs, adjoins the Odd Fellows Hall, built in 1857, and on their failure to make their title good the building was turned into a theater.
It was first managed by Joseph C. Foster, but failed. Porter and McFarland succeeded, but met with no better success. Then William Coleman bought the property and the Coleman estate, so far as known, yet owns it. It is now occupied by the Grand Opera House.
The Original Odd Fellows Hall was burned in June, 1905. During the Civil War the building was known as Concert Hall.
When the old Drury Theater, lower down Fifth avenue, was demolished about 1870, Concert Hall was changed into a theater and called the Pittsburgh Opera House. Later the Diamond alley addition was made and became the opera house, and the front part used also, but for minstrel and other shows. It was later called Harris' Theater and then the Avenue Theater.
In the old days there were stores on the Fifth avenue front.
Next to this building in the picture is shown the low building now used as a business office by The Gazette Times and Chronicle Telegraph.
The name Concert Hall came into use when William Coleman changed it from a theater, but this not proving successful, he leased the building to Charley Gardner, who made it a theater again. Then success came. To go into the story of this former well-known house of entertainment would be to write much of the theatrical history of Pittsburgh.
An old time Pittsburgh rolling mill is shown today, the Pennsylvania forge and rolling Mills of Everson, Preston & Co. As the advertisement reads in Thurston's directory of 1862 and 1863, after the name and firm's name:
Second street, Eighth Ward, Pittsburgh. Manufacturers of wrought shafts, cranks, piston rods, railroad car and locomotive axles, with every description of hammered and rolled iron, also a superior article of railroad and ship spikes. Car Builders and Railroad Men are especially invited to examine our manufactures. Office No. 9 Water street.
The old mill was on Second street, now avenue, just above the bridge. The Baltimore and Ohio tracks came between the mill and the hill.
When the mill burned, about 1886, and the deal was made by the city with the railroad company resulting in the straightening of the street and the relocation of the tracks, the ruined and dismantled mill was torn away.
The Everson and Preston families were well known Pittsburgh families, the second and third generations here today.
An oldtime warehouse, dating back to 1852, is also shown. This firm (Curling Robertson & Co.) owned and operated the Fort Pitt Glass Works in Washington street, below Franklin street, now Foxhurst street, if it hasn't been changed lately.
For many years this was a chimney house and dates back of 1826. The warehouse was on the north side of Wood street, No. 17, in the block between Water and First avenue. The building likely is standing today, or remodeled.
A more modern building than any shown is the bank building that stood at Wood street and Virgin alley, now Oliver avenue. This was torn down when the McCreery Building was erected in 1903.
The recollections of old residents are most interesting, especially those who have spent their whole lives here.
Mrs. Catharine Ferguson of Mt. Washington is such a one. She is the widow of David B. Ferguson, who from boyhood was connected with the Pittsburg Gazette and one of the partners in the firm of Russell Errett & Co., which owned the paper in 1859–60. Mrs. Ferguson says:
I have certainly in the many years passed in Pittsburgh seen much of its growth, and having had good health and with my faculties unimpaired my memory of my childhood days is vivid.
I was born on Fifth street, now Fifth avenue, between Wood and Smitheld [sic] street. My earliest recollections are of that street. In the pictures of the street dated 1840 and 1845, my father's house is plainly shown about opposite old Masonic Hall.
My father was Charles Ream, not Reams, as it is most frequently printed. Next below us there lived a family named Watt, then a saloon, then the old Drury Theater, and on the corner of Wood street John D. Davis' warehouse and auction rooms.
Above my father's was a small frame occupied by a family named Hood, then the Allegheny engine house, then a feed store, a store, a saloon, and then the shed where Uriah Updegraft made edged tools. This was at the corner of Smithfield street.
Back of the engine house was a court and above that, on Diamond alley, the Second Presbyterian Church. There were some vacant lots across the street from our home, and at the corner of Smithfield street, the site of the Park Building, was the Bollman & Garrison foundry, and the children of the neighborhood liked to look in the windows and watch the moulders at work.
Not much of a business district, you may well say. While I was yet a small girl, my father removed to Liberty street, next to the corner of Hand street, since Ninth, a Renshaw building on that corner then as now. On the other side our neighbor was William M. Gormley.
There was much more stir here than on Fifth street. Across Liberty street was the Spread Eagle Hotel, subsequently the Eagle Hotel, on the site of the Seventh Avenue Hotel. This was a stage stand and there was much business with the coming and going of the daily stages, and the numerous drays and wagons made things lively along Liberty street, coming and going to the canal basin at Liberty and what is now Eleventh street.
From Liberty street we moved to Smithfield street, next to the "Brimstone Corner" Chuch [sic], as that church was then called.
On the lower side of Liberty street were many dwellings but few stores. Hare's Hotel, opposite Fifth avenue, was a busy place. There were few stores on Smithfield street and they were retail. The business thoroughfare was then Market street.
