The members of the “Clapboard Row Junto” were men of dual capacity. Their energies were devoted to their private affairs and to politics with equal intensity. In politics the smallest details received careful attention. Many of the methods employed by modern Pittsburgh politicians were inherited from “Clapboard Row.” One of the schemes for increasing the party vote, which originated with “Clapboard Row,” was to encourage and assist the aliens who settled in Pittsburgh to become naturalized. This was done through the medium of a committee composed of Thomas Baird, James Riddle, and Joseph McClurg.[216] Dr. Scott was high in the favor of the Republican leaders, and on the death of George Adams on April 1, 1801, was appointed postmaster, and established the post office in his store, continuing the practice of medicine and the sale of drugs as before. William Gazzam was an aggressive Irishman, who had been in the country only a few years, but by dint of perseverance had pressed well forward in politics, perhaps to the detriment of his business, as he failed early in his career. He was brigade inspector of the Allegheny County militia, and justice of the peace. He aroused the ire of General Fowler, when with other “Clapboard Row” politicians he refused to support Fowler for Congress. The controversy was amusing. In the communications which Fowler published in the _Pittsburgh Gazette_ about his wrongs, he designated Gazzam as a “little man--in the most emphatic sense.” He declared that under “the cloak of Republicanism and religion,” Gazzam was “artfully aiming at offices.”[217] The allusion to Gazzam’s “religion” referred to the gentleman’s well known activity in the affairs of the Presbyterian Church, which he afterward left, owing, it was alleged, to the fact that the minister, the Rev. Robert Steele, gave out “two lines of a stanza to be sung, instead of the time-honored one.”[218] Fowler enlarged on Gazzam’s reputed yearning for office. He enumerated the offices which Gazzam had held, and the others that he desired. He claimed that Gazzam was an applicant for the post office on the demise of George Adams; that he hoped to be county commissioner; that he was scheming to become a member of the General Assembly.[219] To this abuse Gazzam replied with equal venom. He said General Fowler had been drunk on the last occasion that he had asked his support for Congress, and that he had abused him in a very ungentlemanly manner.[220]