Source:Fleming-lacock
George T. Fleming. "Lacock street named for statesman: Canal builder, legislator, orator and surveyor performed great service: For public schools." Pittsburgh Gazette Times, Aug. 27, 1916, sec. 5, p. 2. Newspapers.com 85777718.
ONE OLD NAME borne by a North Side street commemorates a pioneer statesman, Gen. Abner Lacock.
Lacock street runs from Madison avenue to old School street, now Scotland street. It is the second street crossing Federal north of the Federal or Sixth Street Bridge. All old directories and maps show it, notably George H. Thurston's.
Abner Lacock has found space in more than one American biography. Thus in Charles Lanman's Biographical Annals of the Civil Government of the United States (1876) Gen. Lacock's career is epitomized briefly:
Abner Lacock—Born in Virginia in 1770. Without the advantage of much early education, he raised himself by his talents to eminence as a legislator, statesman and civilian. He filled various publi stations for a period of nearly 40 years; was a representative in Congress from Pennsylvania from 1811 to 1813 and United States senator from 1813 to 1819. He died in Beaver county, Pennsylvania, April 12, 1837.
Though many thousands are familiar with Lacock street at no time within recent years perhaps were many acquainted with the history of the man commemorated in the street name.
Abner Lacock was a colleague and friend of the Fathers of the Nation and was such a father himself. He often was honored with the highest offices in the gift of his neighbors and of the people of his adopted state.
Although Gen. Lacock's name is commemorated in the North Side so long and so well known, he was not a resident of either the former borough or City of Allegheny, nor of Allegheny county, except when Beaver county was part of Allegheny county, prior to 1800.
Abner Lacock was a native of Virginia. He was born in Cub Run near Alexandria, July 9, 1770. His title came from his militia service and he had no other military career.
Gen. Lacock's father was a native of England and his mother of France. He was a small boy when his father emigrated to Western Pennsylvania and settled on a farm in Washington county.
Abner Lacock moved to the new town of Beaver, then in Allegheny county, in 1796. He was one of the first settlers in that historic place, the site of the frontier fort, McIntosh. His public career was begun almost immediately with his settlement in Beaver. His first public office was justice of the peace for Pitt township, Allegheny county, which included part of what is now Beaver county. He was the first justice of the peace within Beaver county, which was formed out of Allegheny and Washington counties, March 12, 1800. Gen. Lacock's first commission was issued by Gov. Thomas Mifflin.
William Henry, editor of the old Western Argus of Beaver, Pa., states that as a justice of the peace Abner Lacock showed such a natural strength of mind and sound intelligence that he was selected by his fellow citizens in 1801 as the first representative to the Pennsylvania Legislature from Beaver county, serving as such until 1803. That year he was appointed the first associate judge of Beaver county.
This office he was obliged to vacate the next year, when he answered the earnest call of the people who again had elected him to the lower branch of the General Assembly of the state.
Mr. Lacock continued to represent the county in the lower branch for four consecutive sessions. In 1808 he was elected to the Senate of Pennsylvania from the district composed of Allegheny, Beaver and Butler counties. In that body he was a leading and influential member.
When Gen. Lacock was associate judge of Beaver county there was no court house in the county, hence the first court was held in his house in Beaver, February 6, 1804.
When Gen. Lacock was a member of the Pennsylvania Senate the first ominous sound of the coming war with Great Britain were disturbing the nation. Editor Henry says of this:
In 1810 the question of a war with Great Britain agitated the country in every quarter, and the strong feeling of indignation in the minds of the people against the usurpations of that government, the repeated insults she had cast upon our flag impressing our seamen, and crippling our commerce, brought many men of high character and talents into the National Councils and among them was Abner Lacock. The people of his district called him out as the war candidate, and secured his election by a triumphant majority.
His friends were not deceived in their expectations. In Congress he took a bold stand for war measures, and in that period of glom and despondency stood firmly by the Democratic administration of James Madison in the noble effort to sustain the character and independence of the Republic and the rights of our citizens.
While in the House he took part in the proceedings on most questions of public policy and at all times showed forth with good effect the natural sound sense and statesmanlike views of his strong and vigorous mind. In that body he possessed great influence, with the Chief Magistrate to an extraordinary degree. So honorably had he acquitted himself in the House that in the spring of 1813 the Legislature of Pennsylvania unanimously elected him senator of the United States, which station he filled with credit and ability for six years.
During all this time when not called from home in the public service, with true republican plainness, like Cincinnatus of old, he followed the plow and tilled the soil with laborious assiduity, attending steadily to all the duties of the American farmer; at the same time endeavoring by observation and extensive reading to make up for the want of an early education.
Gen. Lacock served in the House in the Twelfth Congress, and as a senator in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Congresses. He was a warm friend of Madison and Monroe and a bitter political enemy of Andrew Jackson.
In later years Gen. Lacock became an Adams-and-Henry Clay Whig. During his last year in the Senate he was chairman of a committee which investigated the conduct of Gen. Jackson in connection with the Seminole War and was the author of the report which censured Jackson severely.
The editor of the Magazine of History comments that the correspondence which in 1832 resulted from Gen. Lacock's having occupied the position of chairman of this investigating committee forms one of the most interesting chapters in political history that it has been his good fortune to meet with, and shows Gen. Lacock to have been a man of the highest principle.
Editor Henry examined the files of Niles' Register, a voluminous weekly that appeared for many years, and also the files of the National Intelligencer that were published during Gen. Lacock's congressional career. These revealed that during these eight years, Gen. Lacock frequently participated in the debates and occupied a position of undoubted prominence among his colleagues.
Gen. Lacock must have had more than ordinary qualifications as a presiding officer for it appeared that on one occasion in 1813 when our difficulties with Great Britain were under discussion in the House, the Speaker, Henry Clay, called Mr. Lacock to the chair. As this signal honor was awarded him while serving his first and only term in the House, and he was therefore a "new member," the inference is plain that the award was one of merit.
Gen. Lacock's name is remembered best by students of Pennsylvania history for his enthusiastic and self-sacrificing devotion to the cause of internal improvements in the state canals. Soon after he left the United States Senate he entered with all his earnest nature into the plan of uniting the Delaware and the Ohio rivers, by a state line of canals and railroads. He was one of the first and most active advocates of the construction of these public improvements. He urged the plan forcibly and ably.
Five commissioners were appointed April 11, 1825, to make a complete survey of a route for the contemplated improvements. These commissioners were Gen. Lacock, John Sergeant, William Darlington, David Scott and Robert M. Patterson.
Gen. Lacock's commission was signed by Gov. Schulze, May 16, 1825. The act of the Assembly, February 25, 1825, authorized the commencement of the work, $30,000 being appropriated.
Gen. Lacock was appointed by the board as the acting commissioner to supervise the construction of the Western division of the canal from Johnstown to Pittsburgh. This was an enormous task and under his direction mainly the work was successfully completed.
Gen. Lacock's name has gone into our local history also by reason of having been bestowed upon the first canal boat built or run west of the Allegheny Mountains. This boat, the Abner Lacock, was built at Apollo by Philip Dally, under the direction of Patrick Leonard of Pittsburgh. It was the first boat to enter Pittsburgh. This was November 10, 1829.
The services of Gen. Lacock as canal commissioner ended in 1829, but he was repeatedly returned to the lower branch of the Legislature from Beaver county.
In 1836 Gen. Lacock was appointed commissioner to survey and construct the Pennsylvania and Ohio canal, known as the "Crosscut Canal," connecting the Erie division of the Pennsylvania canal with the Portsmouth and Ohio canal. In this service Gen. Lacock contracted his last illness. He was offered many other public positions than those mentioned. In 1820, upon the expiration of his term in the United States Senate, he was appointed by the general government the commissioner to survey and lay out a "national road" from Wheeling to the Misissippi [sic]. This celebrated highway has a home sound to Fayette and Washington county folks. In 1825 he was appointed by the secretary of the United States treasury examiner of the land offices for Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. He performed this duty in the fall and winter of 1825.
In 1836 he was appointed superintendent of the Green River Slackwater Improvement Company of Kentucky. This office he did not accept.
In 1807 Gen. Lacock was a brigadier general in the Pennsylvania Militia, commanding a brigade in Beaver and Butler counties. While the second war with Great Britain was in progress he was in Congress.
Without early educational advantages, Gen. Lacock became, while a young man, an expert surveyor. This made him a valuable member of the various commissions on which he served. He became a good public speaker and an accomplished writer. He wrote a letter to David Scott, president of the Board of Canal Commissioners of Pennsylvania, reviewing the report of James S. Stevenson, one of the board. This letter was printed in pamphlet form in 1830. It shows the author to have been a master of the art of controversy.
Gen. Lacock was a book lover. He had an extensive and rare library for his times. This was destroyed by the great flood of 1832 along with other of his possessions.
Not only was Gen. Lacock prominent in the canal development of Pennsylvania, but he was also the friend and champion of the common school system which was proposed first in the latter years of his life. With the support and approval of this measure came his first unpopularity, for the common, or public schools, as we known them, were not established without bitter opposition.
Gen. Lacock's strong advocacy of the free schools brought upon him and the cause many bitter personal attacks. His services in securing the adoption of these schools rank him with Gov. Wolf, Thaddeus Stevens, and Samuel Breck, the great champions of the system.
The Twelfth Congress was from 1811 to 1813. Gen. Lacock's district consisted of the counties of Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Mercer, Venango, Warren, Crawford and Erie. Venango contained most of what is now Forest and Lawrence was included in Mercer and Beaver. The vote in 1810 was small. There were three candidates, Gen. Lacock, Gen. Adamson Tannehill of Pittsburgh and Samuel Smith. The vote resulted: Lacock, 2,897; Tannehill, 2,455; Smith, 326. Tannehill had a large majority in Allegheny county, the vote being 1,390 to 349 for Lacock and 99 for Smith.
Tannehill was successful two years later. Lacock, having been elected to the Senate, was not a candidate.
Gen. Lacock was of medium height and well-proportioned, strong and athletic. His hair was brown, his eyes blue and his complexion ruddy. In the oil painting from which the picture was made he looks the typical gentleman that he undoubtedly was. His wife was endowed with sterling traits and gifted with more than ordinary intelligence. Gen. Lacock's public duties took him away from home for long periods, but his large estate was always well managed by his wife during his absence.
Gen. Lacock was the father of a large family. When Swank wrote his biography in 1880 one of Gen. Lacock's sons and two of his daughters were living; one son died while a cadet at West Point, October 15, 1818, and was buried there.
Gen. Lacock died at his home near Freedom, April 22, 1837, after a long and painful illness.
Swank concludes his brief memoir:
How few of the present generation of Pennsylvanians know that this man who did so much for the honor of our state, and to advance the welfare, ever lived within its borders!—so evanescent is fame. Yet Pennsylvania may well be proud of Gen. Lacock's character and public services, and Beaver county would honor itself by erecting a statute [sic] of its most eminent citizen in its beautiful town of Beaver—the Fort McIntosh of a hundred years ago.
Perhaps the statue has not been erected. Recently J. Linnenbrink of Rochester, Pa., wrote The Gazette Times that he knew Gen. William Robinson, Jr., quite well, that he remembered the Robinson mansion at Federal street and the Allegheny River and suggesting that a sketch of the life of Gen. Lacock appear herein, since Gens. Lacock and Robinson had been intimate friends and the streets bearing their names are parallel.
Mr. Linnenbrink has more than a passing interest in the mention of Gen. Lacock, since his wife is the general's granddaughter.
