[52] F. A. MICHAUX. _Travels to the Westward of the Alleghany Mountains_, London, 1805, p. 30. [53] _Harris’s Pittsburgh and Allegheny Directory_, for 1839, p. 3; _ibid._, for 1841. [54] _Pittsburgh Gazette_, May 3, 1794. [55] Ordinance City of Pittsburgh, September 7, 1816, _Pittsburgh Digest_, 1849, p. 238. [56] MAJOR SAMUEL S. FORMAN. “Autobiography,” _The Historical Magazine_, Morrisania, N. Y., 1869, vol. vi., PP. 324–325. [57] S. JONES. _Pittsburgh in the Year 1826_, Pittsburgh, 1826, pp. 39–41. CHAPTER III THE MELTING POT The population of Pittsburgh was composed of various nationalities; those speaking the English language predominated. In addition to the Germans and Swiss-Germans, there were French and a few Italians. The majority of the English-speaking inhabitants were of Irish or Scotch birth, or immediate extraction. Of those born in Ireland or Scotland, some were old residents--so considered if they had lived in Pittsburgh for ten years or more--while others were recent immigrants. The Germans and French had come as early as the Irish and Scotch. The Italians were later arrivals. There was also a sprinkling of Welsh. The place contained a number of negroes, nearly all of whom were slaves, there being in 1800 sixty-four negro slaves in Allegheny County,[58] most of whom were in Pittsburgh and the immediate vicinity. A majority of the negroes had been brought into the village in the early days by emigrants from Virginia and Maryland. Their number was gradually decreasing. By Act of the General Assembly of March 1, 1780, all negroes and mulattoes born after that date, of slave mothers, became free upon arriving at the age of twenty-eight years. Then on March 29, 1788, it was enacted that any slaves brought into the State by persons resident thereof, or intending to become such, should immediately be free.[59] Also public sentiment was growing hostile to the institution of negro slavery. The few free negroes in Pittsburgh were engaged in menial occupations, and the name of only one, whose vocation was somewhat higher, has been handed down to the present time. This was Charles Richards, commonly called “Black Charley,” who conducted an inn in the log house, at the northwest corner of Second and Ferry Streets. Among themselves the Germans and the French spoke the language of their fathers, but in their intercourse with their English-speaking neighbors they used English. The language of the street varied from the English of New England and Virginia, to the brogue of the Irish and Scotch, or the broken enunciation of the newer Germans and French. Being in a majority the English-speaking population controlled to a considerable extent the destinies of the community. Their manufactories were the most extensive, the merchandise in their stores was in greater variety, and the stocks larger than those carried in other establishments.