[Illustration: PITTSBURGH IN 1790 As sketched by Lewis Brantz From Schoolcraft’s _Indian Antiquities_] PITTSBURGH A SKETCH OF ITS EARLY SOCIAL LIFE BY CHARLES W. DAHLINGER [Illustration] G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON The Knickerbocker Press 1916 COPYRIGHT, 1916 BY CHARLES W. DAHLINGER The Knickerbocker Press, New York To B. McC. D. PREFACE The purpose of these pages is to describe the early social life of Pittsburgh. The civilization of Pittsburgh was crude and vigorous, withal prescient of future culture and refinement. The place sprang into prominence after the conclusion of the French and Indian War, and upon the improvement of the military roads laid out over the Alleghany Mountains during that struggle. Pittsburgh was located on the main highway leading to the Mississippi Valley, and was the principal stopping place in the journey from the East to the Louisiana country. The story of its early social existence, interwoven as it is with contemporaneous national events, is of more than local interest. C. W. D. PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA, November, 1915. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I.--THE FORMATIVE PERIOD 1 II.--A NEW COUNTY AND A NEW BOROUGH 22 III.--THE MELTING POT 38 IV.--LIFE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 62 V.--THE SEAT OF POWER 90 VI.--PUBLIC AND PRIVATE AFFAIRS 114 VII.--A DUEL AND OTHER MATTERS 138 VIII.--ZADOK CRAMER 161 IX.--THE BROADENING OF CULTURE 184 INDEX 209 Pittsburgh CHAPTER I THE FORMATIVE PERIOD