"Perhaps of all the wonders of Pittsburg, the greatest is the glass factories. About twenty years have elapsed since the first glass-house was erected in that town, and at this moment every kind of glass, from a porter bottle or window pane, to the most elegant cut crystal glass, are now manufactured. There are four large glass-houses, in which are now manufactured, at least, to the amount of 200,000 dollars annually." _Darby's Emigrant's guide, 1818._ "Walter Forward, the great lawyer of Pittsburg in his day, had addressed a large audience in the court house on December 28, 1816. In speaking of the rapidly growing iron business of Pittsburg, he said, that the iron interests were then consuming about 1800 tons of pig iron; that the business employed about 150 hands, and the product was valued at $250,000. Of wrought iron there was annually worked up about 2000 tons, the products from which were, according to the best estimates, worth about $1,300,000." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ "The first furnace or foundry in the town which had a permanent existence was established in 1803 by Joseph McClurg. This was the celebrated Fort Pitt foundry.... Here were cast cannon that boomed over Lake Erie in the war of 1812 and thundered before Mexico in 1847. A large part of Commodore Perry's equipment came from here." _Magazine of western history, 1885._ "The first rolling mill of Pittsburg was built by a Scotch-Irishman in 1811 and 1812. It was called the Pittsburg Rolling Mill.... This extensive mill stood on the corner of Penn street and Cecil alley, and is referred to by early writers as the Stackpole and Whiting mill. They were two Boston iron workers named respectively William Stackpole and Ruggles Whiting. They introduced nail cutting machines which both cut and headed the nails. They operated the mill during the hard times which followed the War of 1812, and strange to say, failed financially in 1819, when business of all kinds had somewhat revived." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ "The slitting and rolling mill, together with the nail factory of _Stackpole & Whiting_, is moved by a steam engine of seventy-horse power. These we visited with much satisfaction. On entering the south-west door, the eye catches the majestic swing of the beam; and at the same instant, nine nailing-machines, all in rapid motion, burst on the view. Bewildered by the varying velocity of so many new objects, we stand astonished at this sublime effort of human ingenuity." _Thomas's Travels through the western country in 1816._ "At the close of the first quarter of the nineteenth century Pittsburg had surpassed all other parts of the West in the production of nails. A patent nail machine had been introduced extensively, and it had revolutionized the manufacture. Some of the factories were built in connection with the rolling mills." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._