Source:Fleming-railroad-entry
George T. Fleming. "Railroad entry into city was real event: Marvelous story of past evoked by visit to the Pennsylvania station: Recalls 1877 riots." Pittsburgh Gazette Times, Dec. 3, 1916, sec. 5, p. 2. Newspapers.com 85514460.
A MARVELOUS story of the past is brought up by a visit to the vicinity of Liberty avenue and Eleventh street. The hurrying crowds today call up to old-timers the hurrying crowds of the canal days and the entry of the great Pennsylvania Railroad into Pittsburgh.
These numbered streets were once named Canal, naturally given to Eleventh, formerly the canal; O'Hara, Twelfth; Factory, Thirteenth; Walnut, Adams; Mechanic, Harrison. And before the entry of the Pennsylvania Railroad these streets ran to the hillside. There were factories and dwellings under the hill on the flat now occupied by the tracks and trainsheds, and the same process of eradication took place in the early fifties as present generations have seen on the Upper South Side in the improvements made on the Monongahela Division of the Pennsylvania system and along the lower portion of Carson street in the growth of that little giant of railroads, the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie.
Old Monongahela borough, later the Thirty-third Ward of Pittsburgh, extending from the Smithfield Street Bridge to a line below the Point Bridge, as a residence section has passed away.
So also in former East Birmingham, along Josephine street, the factories and dwellings had to go. Railroads must have room. What we have seen in this development with its antecedent destruction of buildings, occurred years before along the flat beyond the canal and under the Hill, and with that development there passed away forever the canal; and the newer, better methods of rail transportation come in its stead, and then 25 years later there came destruction again—destruction by a mob; but soon from the smoking ruins arose again the great railroad in its usual operation, with newer, better rolling stock and still again, 1899–1900, came the rebuilt terminal tracks and the handsome Pittsburgh terminal we now call the Pennsylvania station in Pittsburgh, the site of the old Union depot—destroyed July 21, 1877.
This latter designation grew into a misnomer. When opened in 1865, the name was appropriate. The lines of the Pennsylvania system, west and northwest, the Buffalo and Allegheny Valley division were independent lines. When one building was the passenger terminal for all these lines it was a union depot in reality. When the Pennsylvania system took them under control the depot was a union station of Pennsylvania lines only.
No other road but the Pittsburgh and Connellsville Railroad then entered Pittsburgh, whose passenger station was in the buildings of the old Bakewell Glass Works at the foot of Grant street. This line was taken over by the Baltimore and Ohio, when it entered Pittsburgh in 1870, the connecting line from Cumberland to Connellsville having been completed that year.
The Buffalo and Allegheny Valley Division was once the Allegheny Valley Railroad, and until just after the Civil War extended to Kittanning, only about that time it was put through to Oil City. The passenger station was at Pike and Eleventh streets and the trains of this road did not enter the Pennsylvania yards and the old Union depot until some years after the Civil War.
The Panhandle route came into Pittsburgh about 1865. Passenger trains of this system entered the Union Station, or Union Depot, following the same route as now, via the tunnel. The Union Depot, the upper stories of which were the Union Depot Hotel, was finished in 1865 and the old frame shed that served for a depot at Liberty and Grant streets was done away with. Trains from this station were backed down from the outer depot at Twenty-eighth street and backed from the station to Twenty-eighth street.
There are many persons yet here who in their journeyings departed from and arrived at all the four stations used as passenger terminals in Pittsburgh. The thousands of soldiers who left here and who passed through during the Civil War will remember the old shed station.
Old maps of Pittsburgh made by McGowin and others show various plats along the hillside and on the flat beyond the canal basins, that is, to the east of the present station at Eleventh street.
First we have recourse to the map of "His Highness," the Duke of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach, who came through Pittsburgh in his tour of America in 1825–26. One dwelling is shown on his map on the flat about opposite Walnut street in the borough of Northern Liberties, now Fourteenth street, Pittsburgh. The name Holmes appears beside the indicated dwelling, which is placed under the hill at what is now Fullerton street, formerly Fulton. The house is between two roads.
One road ed [sic] from the Rev. J. Black's at about Washington street and Wylie avenue just beyond the city line—the original borough line also for Pittsburgh in 1816 obtained its charter as a city without extending its territory. This first road curved in a bow form and terminated at some coal pits about opposite Twenty-first street.
The other road came down the hill through the Tannehill farm and made a right angle just before reaching the Holmes house and touched the curved road just beyond Holmes', continuing eastward in a straight line until it reached the spur of the hill at the coal pits.
Jean Barbeau and Louis Keyon made a map of Pittsburgh in 1830, which was engraved by N. B. Molineaux. This map was republished in 1835 by Johnston and Stockton, printers of Pittsburgh. Its title is "Pittsburgh and Its Environs, the translation of Saxe-Weimer's [sic] Plan von Pittsburgh und Umgeburgen [sic].'"
This map shows a factory next to a burying ground, the factory inscription—"Broadmeadow & Co's Steel and File Factory—First of Its Kind in America." This factory was on the site of the present Pennsylvania Station.
The city line and a manor line crossed at right angles almost in the bend of the canal to the outlet. All the land from about the present Gazette Times Building to O'Hara street, now Twelfth street, is marked "Denny–O'Hara Estate," extending to the hill from about the line of Liberty avenue.
Abutting on the line of the borough of Northern Liberties was the Adams property and then Denny and O'Hara properties again to the east, the latter afterward Schenley property.
In Barbeau and Keyon's map the hill is marked "Stone Quarry Hill." Before Grant boulevard was constructed the steep rocky sides of the old basin property of the city, now Washington Park, showed where the quarries had been worked as far as was feasible.
On the summit of the hill, as shown in these maps, about Fulton street, the plots are Holmes' and Liggitt's. On the flat beyond O'Hara street are McGowan and Patterson properties, and between them the Greensburg pike, now Penn avenue, and these properties and the B. Irwin property about Twentieth street.
There were later streets laid out along the flat to the hill. Ferguson street shown in McGowin's map of 1858, is now altogether within the yards of the railroad, from Twenty-first to Thirty-third street. It was parallel to Liberty.
Two streets existed between the tracks and the hill from Washington street east to the basin hillsides. These were Faber and Quarry streets.
Everything inflammable on these streets was burned in the riot fires of 1877. A foundry was rebuilt and stood until Grant boulevard came, but the ramshackle old frames went for good.
Our street history is concerned only with the ground occupied by the Pennsylvania Railroad in Pittsburgh. It is an interesting history.
It may be extended to include the biography of Thomas A. Scott, first superintendent of the Western Division, now the Pittsburgh division; also his chief clerk and successor, Andrew Carnegie, and Mr. Carnegie's successor, the late Robert Pitcairn.
The Pennsylvania Railroad Company was chartered February 25, 1847. Francis Rawn Shunk was then Governor of Pennsylvania, and the Mexican war was in progress. Pittsburgh's transportation facilities eastward were by canal and stage; westward by river and wagon. The building of the railroad from Harrisburg west and Pittsburgh east was begun in July, 1847. December 10, 1852, cars were run through from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, using the Portage road over the Allegheny Mountains. The line as now in use from Conemaugh to Altoona was finished February 15, 1854, and the first trains then passed through Pennsylvania without using the incline planes of the portage road.
The great barrier of the mountains was considered insurmountable by a railroad without incline planes to haul the cars to the summit and lower again on the other side. Yet the road was carried across them by engineering skill with a facility really astonishing. Today this feat is not wonderful. Railroad building has made marvelous strides, but the crossing of the Alleghenies in 1854, the work of that great engineer, John Edgar Thomson, was and remains a masterpiece of railroad construction.
It was of special importance to Pittsburgh because it was a giant step in progress. Consider the canal frozen four months in the year, the rivers also at times. How was this even then great community fed? Great stocks of foodstuffs were kept by Pittsburgh's wholesalers and it is a fact that there were more wholesale grocers in Pittsburgh in those years than now—not so great in a commercial sense when size of buildings is considered, but provident and successful merchants.
These stocks came by canal and river. The country round about contributed to the feeding of the city. Today miles of the same country round about has to be fed, as much of it does not produce much.
Of great moment then was the coming of the Pennsylvania Central Railroad into Pittsburgh. Vast was its functions; vast its import. What cared our people for the houses that were razed or the factories that passed because of its coming? There were other sites for residences and other sites for factories. The people moved to the hills above, to Lawrenceville and to Allegheny. The railroad had come to stay.
While the railroad's historians give December 10, 1852, as the date of the completion of the road into Pittsburgh references to the files of The Pittsburgh Gazette and The Pittsburgh Evening Chronicle show that the first passengers came through November 27, 1852, Saturday night.
Monday, November 27 [sic], the Chronicle, then owned and edited by James P. Barr, said editorially:
We understand the gap of 10 miles on the Pennsylvania Railroad has been closed and the first passengers from the East came through by railroad Saturday night. The connecetion [sic] is most interesting and valuable to the public as well as the company. The saving in time will amount to about four hours, the saving in annoyance incalculable. We shall be able to reach Philadelphia after December 1, at which time a new schedule will go in operation, in about 18 hours, almost through by daylight. We understand the directors in Philadelphia are making arrangements to celebrate the event by inviting the editors of this city to Philadelphia, where they will be feasted and trotted around for a few days, when the Philadelphia editors will retaliate and visit Pittsburgh, a clean, comfortable little corner of creation half of them never saw. We are satisfied, we presume; whatever is, is right.
The Gazette of November 29, the paper then edited by D. N. White, had a leading editorial and a long communication, the latter headed:
CONTINUOUS RAILROAD
THROUGH PENNSYLVANIA.
The editorial was headed:
PITTSBURGH AND PHILADELPHIA
and began:
"We have at length the pleasure of announcing that we have a continuous Railroad from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia. The staging between the East and the West is finally abolished. Last evening the passengers came through for the first time by a continuous railroad. A new era is opened to us and Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are only a long day apart."
Then followed some facts in regard to the new schedule in effect December 1. The "Express Mail, or Fast Line," left Pittsburgh at 3 a. m., arriving in Philadelphia the same day at 10:30 p. m. The second mail between the terminal cities left Pittsburgh at "11¾ a. m." to arrive in Philadelphia at 10 a. m. Trains arrived from Philadelphia at 11:08 a. m. and 4:40 a. m. Then there was also the Johnstown accommodation, leaving at 2 p. m.; returning, it left Johnstown at 3:40 a. m., arriving in Pittsburgh at 11 a. m., just ahead of the express.
Eight hours to Johnstown, 79 miles away, was quick time compared with canal speed.
Note that the word "Railroad" is capitalized in the extracts. It was some word then; it meant much.
The Gazette editorial concludes:
We have been thus particular in making these announcements for the information of the traveling public, and to exhibit to our readers the great railroad facilities we shall possess from this time forward. We shall have after tomorrow seven daily railroad passenger trains leaving this city for the East and the West and the same number arriving, besides several freight trains, all of which furnish more or less business for our citizens. It is only about 16 months since the first railroad car commenced its trips to and from this city. What wonders have been wrought already, and even this, croakers to the contrary notwithstanding, is only a beginning.
Thus a line that had stood in the time table in the papers dropped out never to return. It read:
"Only Ten Miles Staging."
This was winter, remember, and the canal was not in operation. Travel on it declined naturally when the first train came. The new time tables, winter arrangement, announced staging entirely avoided. The fare to either Philadelphia or Baltimore was $9 50. It was cheap enough, now it is $8 75.
The people who gathered at the canal terminals on this wide area now about the Pennsylvania station did so on account of business and travel. The Pennsylvania Canal, which was completed into Pittsburgh in November, 1829, had revolutionized traffic in this city, and until it was discontinued by the coming of the railroad there was always life and activity about the canal bridge and basins.
The one pretentious building on the canal was the United States Hotel, later called the Washington Hotel. Passengers for a canal trip usually gathered at this hotel and went down steps to the boats. Two packets left daily. The evening boat for Johnstown reached there the next morning—no set time.
Canal journeys were delightful and were much preferred to stage riding. Ease and comfort marked a canal boat journey, where stage riding became exceedingly tiresome. Good beds and good meals were to be had on the boat and that counted. Going east of Johnstown transfers were made, boat and all to the incline planes or Portage Railroad, and the journey resumed via canal from Hollidaysburg. Up to 1852 there was no Altoona; that town came with the railroad. As late as 1897 the writer talked to men who had cradled wheat on farms on the site of that now important city.
Altoona thus had no part in canal days. Johnstown had; as did Hollidaysburg, Freeport, Leechburg, Apollo, Blairsville—all thrived in canal days; all important points, all were in close touch with Pittsburgh.
There were always plenty of canal craft in the basins at Liberty street. Arms of the canal, or basins, extended towards O'Hara street, now Twelfth street. Life went on there in the olden days the same as it does now. There were different conditions. Business men gathered on the docks to see about their consignment and shipments. Many others gathered there to meet the incoming and speed the parting relative, friend or guest. Women and children traveling were "seen off" by all available friends and met by the same on arrival.
There was the bustle of loading and unloading baggage; there were drays, carts and busses; the shops and factories carried on their trade in a pretentious way; guests were always numerous at the hotels in the neighborhood, and business at times fairly hummed.
In the large picture the long foot bridge crossed what is now Liberty avenue, coming out at the United States Hotel, which had its side to the canal on what is now Eleventh street, and its north end on Penn street, now avenue, the rear towards Liberty street.
The second bridge at right angles to the main canal, as it came over the aqueduct crossing the river, shows a right angle also to the bridge from the United States Hotel on Penn street. A canal boat is seen in the picture, just under the bridge which crosses about where Washington street, now Washington place, formerly ended on Liberty.
The church with the white cross on it was St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, later rebuilt at Liberty avenue and Seventeenth street. The building at the right of the picture was Hunker's candy factory. The graveyard in the rear of the church in the picture was owned by the German Catholics.
On the left at the canal boat, the building was the salt warehouse owned first by Lewis Peterson, later by Samuel M. Kier. The cemetery in the center of the picture was the Methodist burying ground.
The large building with the tower on it, and smoke coming from it, was Faber's foundry and machine shop, the sign on the top reading, "Ed F. Faber."
Seventy years ago there were more than 300 houses clustered about the canal at this point. Many factories were in the neighborhood. Up to 1837 the ground was in the borough of Northern Liberties, generally called Bayardstown, pronounced By-ards-town, and so-called for Col. Stephen Bayard.
The small cemetries [sic] were considered large then. They were enclosed neatly and the graves generally marked with white stones, many stones especially inscribed with the virtues of the dead.
When the cemeteries were discontinued the bodies were carefully disinterred and reburied, many in the then new Allegheny Cemetery. There was also a Methodist burying ground on "the hill," between Webster and Bedford avenues, DeVilliers street, as now laid out, cutting through the center of it. To this burial ground some bodies were removed.
There was plenty of material to fill in the canal and canal basins when the time came. The side of the hill which sloped abruptly was dug away and the dirt dumped into the canal, debris from the dismantled cemetries [sic] and from the razed buildings went its way, also, into the mud of the canal.
Pittsburgh had Western rail facilities before it had them to the East, the Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad later the Pittsburgh, Ft. Wayne and Chicago, now the Pennsylvania main lines west—but that is another story.
