In order to relieve the people of Pittsburgh from going to Greensburg to the court-house in their sacred right of suing and being sued, the general assembly erected Allegheny County out of parts of Westmoreland and Washington Counties, September 24, 1788. This county originally comprised, in addition to its present limits, what are now Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Crawford, Erie, Mercer, Venango, and Warren Counties. The Act required that the court-house and jail should be located in Allegheny (just across the river from Pittsburgh), but as there was no protection against Indians there, an amendment established Pittsburgh as the county seat. The first court was held at Fort Pitt; and the next day a ducking-stool was erected for the district, at "The Point" in the three rivers. In 1785, the dispute between Virginia and Pennsylvania for the possession of Pittsburgh was settled by the award of a joint commission in favor of Pennsylvania. A writer says that in 1786 Pittsburgh contained thirty-six log houses, one stone, and one frame house, and five small stores. Another records that the population "is almost entirely Scots and Irish, who live in log houses." A third says of these log houses: "Now and then one had assumed the appearance of neatness and comfort." The first newspaper, the Pittsburgh "Gazette," was established July 29, 1786. A mail route to Philadelphia, by horseback, was adopted in the same year. On September 29, 1787, the Legislature granted a charter to the Pittsburgh Academy, a school that has grown steadily in usefulness and power as the Western University of Pennsylvania, and which has in this year (July 11, 1908) appropriately altered its name to University of Pittsburgh. [Illustration: Anthony Wayne] In 1791, the Indians became vindictive and dangerous, and General Arthur St. Clair, with a force of twenty-three hundred men, was sent down the river to punish them. Neglecting President Washington's imperative injunction to avoid a surprise, he led his command into an ambush and lost half of it in the most disastrous battle with the redskins since the time of Braddock. In the general alarm that ensued, Fort Pitt being in a state of decay, a new fort was built in Pittsburgh at Ninth and Tenth Streets and Penn Avenue,--a stronghold that included bastions, blockhouses, barracks, etc., and was named Fort Lafayette. General Anthony Wayne was then selected to command another expedition against the savages, and he arrived in Pittsburgh in June, 1792. After drilling his troops and making preparations for two years, in the course of which he erected several forts in the West, including Fort Defiance and Fort Wayne, he fought the Indians and crushed their strength and spirit. On his return a lasting peace was made with them, and there were no further raids about Pittsburgh. XI