Source:Fleming-vickroy
George T. Fleming. "Vickroy tells of surveying new city: Laying out of Market, Liberty and other arteries in Pittsburgh detailed: Much speculation." Pittsburgh Gazette Times, Apr. 1, 1917, sec. 5, p. 2. Newspapers.com 85873662.
RESEARCHES into the history of our downtown streets along the lines followed in last week's story show a wonderful development in all, notably Market and Liberty streets. Fifth avenue, originally Fifth street, likewise, but that has been written of, especially its union with the old Fourth street road, now outer Fifth avenue, to Point Breeze.
Liberty street grew in length and above Eleventh street in width. Market street we have today as laid out in Col. Wood's plan of Pittsburgh, and it is more than 80 years since Market street saw its palmy days, when it was the main business thoroughfare of the city. Its decline came first with the removal of the postoffice from Philo Hall, above Market, on Third avenue, to Fifth and Smithfield street in 1852.
Old Market street played a great part in the city's history. Prominent men lived there, great business houses for the frontier town were located there, stores and dwellings mingled, newspaper offices, lawyers' offices, taverns, the market, the new court house as the building in the Diamond square was first called "tailor" shops, doctors' shops, printing shops, and even a publishing house, made Market street a lively thoroughfare in the first growth of the town of Pittsburgh and in the early days of the city.
The first plan of lots in Pittsburgh laid out by the military authorities in 1764 and known as Campbell's plan, from Col. John Campbell, the surveyor, consisted of four blocks bounded by Water street, Second street (now Second avenue), Market and Ferry streets, intersected by Chancery lane. These lots faced in the direction of the Monongahela River and the first shaping of the hamlet about the fort (Pitt) began in this plan. It is often referred to as the "military plan of Pittsburgh."
In 1784 when Tench Francis, agent for the Penn heirs, authorized Col. Woods and Thomas Vickroy to survey the land about the fort they recognized the Campbell plan as a permanent plan and it stands to this day. The land in the fort and within its walls was not included.
In December, 1841, Thomas Vickroy was visited at his home in Bedford county by Moses Hampton, later judge of the District Court of Allegheny county, in 1841 solicitor of the city of Pittsburgh, and James S. Craft, an attorney. Mr. Vickroy at that time made a long deposition regarding Col. Wood's survey. Several histories of Pittsburgh print this deposition. All do not give the reasons for taking the deposition. This is essential. It is best given from the court records:
"And now to wit, Aug. 21, 1841, in the matter of the petition of Moses Hampton, Esq., solicitor of the city of Pittsburgh to perpetuate the testimony regarding the true location and extent and width of Grant street, Water street, Cherry alley and other streets, lanes and alleys in the city of Pittsburgh, under an act of Assembly of April 21, 1841, the court appointed John Mower, Esq., of Bedford county, Pennsylvania, commissioner to take the testimony of witnesses under the act aforesaid."
Mr. Vickroy lived at Alum Bank in Bedford county and thither the commissioner and others interested repaired. Among other things Mr. Vickroy deposed that there was much conferring before any surveying was begun, "to fix on the best plan to lay out the town with the greatest convenience."
"There had been lots laid out before," continued Vickroy, " as I understand, called military lots, said to be laid out by Mr. Campbell"—then enumerating the plan's boundaries as recited above. Mr. Woods expressed a desire to remodel those small streets so as to make them larger, especially Market street.
A number of inhabitants had small houses on these lots as they were laid out. These persons remonstrated and objected and gathered in a body together and would not have it done, saying it would destroy their property. Eventually Mr. Woods acquiesced in their wishes and laid out the four squares as they had been before.
Vickroy then tells of going to Samuel Ewalt's house, which stood on what is now Market and Water streets and beginning there taking their range from some houses that stood on the bank of the Monongahela River, viz John Ormsby's Galbraith and others, and then measured below Ewalt's some distance, "perhaps as far as the military lots," he says, "and laid them out and staked them."
"We then returned and again took Ewalt's house and laid out Market street and the Diamond and continued Market street to a certain point. We then commenced and laid off Liberty street."
The plan of lots laid out by John Campbell, thus adopted and made part of the original and authorized survey of Pittsburgh, presents some anomalies as usually printed and raises some questions, also some presumptions of fact in answer to these questions.
By looking at this plan as shown today we first note the site of Fort Pitt, not included in the plan, and two streets leading from the fort, Penn and Liberty. We also note the angle made by these streets with the Monongahela River and find that Liberty, if extended, would cross Ferry street at First, now First avenue. This is a wide divergence, as Ferry intersects Liberty at Diamond street, opposite Fifth street, now Stanwix. Similarly Penn street, now avenue, extended, would cross Ferry street between First and Second avenues. Equally erroneous. Penn and Ferry do not meet. Evidently the fort and the two streets, Penn and Liberty, have been put in as an exhibit and do not belong to the Campbell plan.
Again it is impossible that Presly [sic] Neville could have owned the lot on the northwest corner of Water and Market streets. Col. Neville was born in 1755; the plan was made in 1764. John Neville, father of Presly [sic] Neville, came to Fort Pitt in 1774, 10 years after Campbell's survey. It is clear that Pressly Neville's name has been interpolated. He could not have been a freeholder at 9 years of age and 10 years before his father came. He himself came to Pittsburgh in 1792, though living in the vicity [sic] some years earlier.
Then the street names: the original name of First avenue was Front street, which continued for nearly a half century, yet we have it in Campbell's plan as First street. It is to be presumed that these names were written in years afterward.
William G. Johnston in his "Life and Remniniscences [sic]," prints a plan of Pittsburgh in 1761, purporting to have been drawn to accompany a report from Col. William Clapham to Col. Henry Bouquet in that year. This plan shows Grant street and Hoggs Pond, Liberty street and Market street.
This plan is stated to be of the "upper and lower town of Pittsburgh, April 14, 1761; number of inhabitants, 233; number of houses, 104." Washington in 1770 enumerates 20 houses. The houses outside of the fort, however, that Clapham mentions were destroyed in Pontiac's war in 1763, and Clapham himself was one of the first victims here. It seems evident that the street names on this small exhibit, for it never had any official standing as a plan, must have been added in later years for the sake of making clear the ground covered. Thus the upper town began on Water street and continued to Market street. Three locations are marked, George Croghan's, nearest the fort; E. Blaine's, midway, and J. Adams', near Market street. The Hogg family, which gave the name to the big pond extending from Third avenue to Sixth avenue, does not figure that early in Pittsburgh history.
Again, why a Market street years before a market? And a Ferry street years before a ferry? The street that led to the market became Market street in Wood's plan, and the street leading to the ferry naturally became Ferry street. These names we are not sure did not exist before Col. Wood's survey was made. They did afterward and he first officially gave the names. Now we have Ferry street without a ferry, but the market is still good. When we come to look over the map of Pittsburgh in 1795 the street names are to be recognized as permanent. Pittsburgh became a borough in 1794 and hence was empowered legally to bestow names and hence adopted the most of Wood's designations.
In the 1815 directory we note some changes. Hammond alley between Fourth and Fifth, James M. Riddle, the directory publisher, states in parenthesis, "generally called Diamond alley." Irwins alley is placed between Irwin and Hand streets, later Seventh and Ninth streets. Irwins alley is what was subsequently Eighth street. The three small alleys between St. Clair, Sixth street and Hand (Ninth) do not occur on the map of 1795 and are not mentioned by Vickeroy [sic] or Riddle. We know these best by the old names, Barkers, Scotts and Maddocks alleys. Garrison alley is marked on the plan of 1795 to the east of Fort Fayette, the Greensburg pike leading off Liberty street almost opposite Smithfield street and crossing Washington street, which at first extended to the Allegheny River. The pike crossed Penn just beyond Washington street and made a big curve.
Vickroy tells us that the survey was made in accordance with a well-formed plan. Vickroy made a draft of the whole plot in Mr. Woods' presence, throwing it into a large scale to see how it would answer to lay out in lots and streets. There was a "good deal of conversation," Vickroy says. Consultation, he means; planning and scheming.
No doubt Campbell's old plan embarrassed Woods and Vickroy and could they have resurveyed it we would have had streets of uniform width. Vickroy states they made Wood, Smithfield and Grant streets 60 feet wide. They made Fourth street (avenue) 40 feet wide, conforming to the width of First, Second and Third streets (avenues), but Fifth, Sixth and Seventh streets (avenues) they made 60 feet wide, conforming to Wood, Smithfield and Grant. Grant was the last street in that direction and the boundary of the town. Ross came later and was made uniform with the parallel streets.
Penn street was made 60 feet but Liberty 80. Vickroy states Liberty street had been surveyed. His exact language on this point is:
"We made Washington street to run from the Allegheny River to Liberty street where it ended. The reason we stopped at Liberty street was, that if we had run across, it would have run through a public street. Liberty street had been run, and when we run (ran?) Grant street we stopped it at Liberty as running to a public street, and when we run Washington we stopped at Liberty for the same reason. Washington was 60 feet wide."
We see now why Market and Ferry streets and First, Second, Third and Fourth avenues are 40 feet in width and short streets like Barbeau (Third), Fancourt (Fourth) and those parallel, are of the uniform width of 60 feet. They are so in accordance with Woods' plan. Washington, too, the eastern boundary—some regularity—here.
The peculiarities of this plan have been often discussed. The varying widths one of these peculiarities, the lots facing towards the Monongahela River another. Warner's History of Allegheny county speculates on these peculiarities. Chapter XXII, one of the contributions of Russell Errett, contains these remarks regarding the lots all facing the river:
"This may have been the result of Campbell's plan. These lots were laid out in 1764 and faced the Monongahela, Front and Second streets, and the surveyors having adopted this as part of their plan, may have made all the rest of their plot to correspond. If the proprietors had any plan separate from this, its general purpose, if speculation indulged in further on is correct, may have coincided so well with Campbell's plot as to lead them to incorporate his with theirs, and make the two correspond. (The lots on Penn and Library [sic], it will be noted, face on these streets, respectively, and are not included in the speculations hereinafter indulged in.)
Mr. Errett continues:
"The second peculiarity, the varying width of the streets, can be solved only by guessing. The first impulse of the owner of a desirable town site is to lay it out with streets of the same width throughout. This will be seen in the plan of the old city of Philadelphia laid out by the Penns. The streets in this plan were all the same width, except Market street, and that, unlike our Market street, was made wide because it was a market street. The plan involved the idea of open, but roofed, market houses, down the middle of the street, with the street on each side. In the case of our Market street, the Diamond was undoubtedly reserved for a market place, but why in that case was the street left so narrow? Possibly because Campbell designed it that way; and if squatters had built on the upper side of the street, leaving but a narrow lane for the street, the surveyors of the Penns would not feel willing to disturb existing lines. This would account for the streets running at right angles from the Monongahela; but how account for the varying widths of Penn and Liberty and the widths of the numbered avenues?
"Guessing only can supply the answer, and in that case, it may be urged, one guess is as good as another. So it is, if accompanied with a satisfactory reason, and the reader is at liberty to adopt the guess here given, or reject it, as the reason may or may not have been satisfactory."
A few pages on in the chapter from which these extracts are taken Mr. Errett incorporates Thomas Vickroy's deposition verbatim—bad spelling and false syntax. Vickroy specifically states that they felt compelled to adopt Campbell's plan to prevent trouble. His exact language has been quoted again: "Mr. Woods expressed a desire to newly model those small streets and lots so as to make them larger, especially Market street." The lot holders remonstrated. Eventually Mr. Woods acquiesced in their wishes and laid out the four squares as they were before. No guessing here.
The same trouble came with the laying out of Water street. Vickroy tells it thus: "In laying out Water street there was another murmuring of the inhabitants, complaining that the street was too narrow. Mr. Woods said they would be digging cellars and then they would fill up the gulleys and make a fine street."
The Water street width stood. There were squatters on the wharf, and these were ultimately dispossessed after long litigation. There were squatters on Campbell's plan also, and some of the first applications for lots in Wood's plan came from these squatters. The demand for lots exceeded what was needed for their wants. Wood's lots were 60 × 240 feet and there was room in every lot for six lots 20 × 120 feet, larger than lots average now, in the business part of the city especially. In the course of years Wood's lots have been gradually subdivided.
The Philadelphia market houses in the street found place in Pittsburgh. The wide place in Second avenue between Grant and Ross streets was the site of Scotch Hill Market, the market houses burned in the fire of 1845.
Mr. Errett speculates further on the laying out of the town of Pittsburgh. He says:
"The value of Pittsburgh as a town site in 1784 depended entirely upon its position at the head of the Ohio and at the mouth of its influents, the only routes to the West then practicable. For it must be remembered the Penns were acting upon the knowledge they then had and not upon the experience of after years. The waterways then were the great highways of travel, trade and intercourse. There were two routes over the mountains to the East and Pittsburgh was the natural terminus of both, because both connected here with the Ohio. The town would consequently be laid out with a view to accommodate the trade that would naturally center at a spot with such great natural advantages. The lots were made to face the river because the river was the great highway of traffic. Emigrants arriving here by water, as many did, taking boats on the Youghiogheny and Monongahela, would stop in front of the town, and emigrants arriving by land would take boats here; all freight arriving here from the East would also have to be reshipped if going West. Hence we find the streets arranged for the carrying trade as it then existed.
Penn street was then the principal route to the East, and its width, having been probably fixed before the survey was made, would not be changed. But Liberty street, the only one parallel to it, was left wide expressly to accommodate the wagons and horses that would come into it to unload.
"Market street terminated at the river at a high bluff. It could not be used as a way to the river and was left undisturbed in its narrowness. But there was a low place in the river at the foot of Wood street by which access to the river was easy. Hence Wood was made wider than Market. The lots were each 60 feet by 240 feet in depth, affording room for a garden and stable on each lot. The inhabitants, it might be supposed, would prefer the numbered streets nearest the river for private residences, but from Fifth (avenue) eastward the horse and wagon traffic would begin to concentrate in connection with Liberty, and these streets were consequently left wider."
Much of this is speculation. It may be true in part but why Fourth avenue was left the same width as Third, and Fifth and Sixth and Seventh, and even Eighth street that once existed (beyond Seventh avenue), were made 10 feet wider can not be explained except by the whim or caprice of the surveyors. Why the short streets from Liberty to the Allegheny the same width as Fifth, Wood, Grant and Smithfield? These short streets invited no vehicle traffic. They were residence streets.
It is true that up to the opening of the Pennsylvania Canal here in 1829 traffic took the course indicated by Mr. Errett. There were bluffs along the Monongahela wharf and a "gut" at Wood street. Neville B. Craig fully describes this in his history. The entrance to Hogg's Pond or the outlet was at Wood street.
