Fort Duquesne and Fort Pitt; Early Names of Pittsburgh StreetsDaughters of the American Revolution. Pittsburgh Chapter (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
History
Fort Duquesne and Fort Pitt; Early Names of Pittsburgh Streets
Daughters of the American Revolution. Pittsburgh Chapter (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
Fort Duquesne (Pa.) -- History; Pittsburgh (Pa.) -- History
From the eastern slopes of the Endless Hills to the unknown and
unbounded "Indian Country" that lay beyond the Forks of the Ohio, such
was the region into which Washington, Braddock, Forbes and Bouquet led
their "forlorn hopes," In days when a less utilitarian spirit prevailed,
and association was still powerful, the City of Pittsburgh acknowledged
its debt of gratitude to the soldiers, statesmen and early settlers who
made its unexampled prosperity possible, by naming for them many of its
streets and suburbs. Its early history can be traced thereby, much as
the historian and archaeologist discovers the successive Roman, Saxon,
Danish and Norman occupations of London and other English towns.
Aliquippa, Mingo, Shannopin, Shinghiss, Guyasuta and Killbuck recall the
Indian tribes and chiefs who once possessed the country; Gist, Montour,
Girty, McKee, Chartiers, and Van Braam the guides and traders who first
penetrated the wilderness. Dinwiddie brings to mind the crusty but
far-seeing Scotch Governor of Virginia, who first comprehended the value
of the disputed land. Forbes, Bouquet, Ligonier, Halket, Grant, Stanwix,
Neville, Crawford, Hay, Marbury, Ormsby, Tannehill, O'Hara, Butler,
Wayne, Bayard, Stobo, Steuben, St. Clair, Craig, Smallman and Irwin
recall, or did recall, the soldiers and commandants who won the West.
Duquesne, St. Pierre, and Jumonville speak of the French governor of
Canada, the officer who received Washington at Fort Le Boeuf, and the
Captain who fell at Great Meadows. Smithfield owes its name to Devereaux
Smith, prominent in colonial and revolutionary days; and Wood Street was
called for George Woods, surveyor.
In Penn avenue, or street, as it used to be and still ought to be
called, the name of the founder of the Commonwealth, the Quaker feudal
proprietor, is preserved; and the great city itself, as well as two
shabby, sooty little streets, forever immortalizes William Pitt, the
friend of America, and makes him a splendid and enduring monument.
But let us dig into the lowest historical stratum, and discover the real
local relationships of names and places with the first occupants of the
land. Aliquippa tells of the great queen of the Delawares, who lived at
the mouth of the Youghiogheny, where McKeesport now is, and whom it must
be remembered Washington visited on his first memorable journey to the
Ohio. From what he relates to us she could not have been a very
temperate sovereign lady, but she was a celebrity and a power in her
day, with a prestige that long survived her; and when, in full savage
regalia, surrounded by her warriors, she granted an audience to the
young Virginian, she was doubtless most impressing and condescending.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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