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[LeeP]

Hello Everyone,

Today, I'm here to discuss the Architectural History of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. I'm mainly doing this because Suzanne and I went all over the county and took these pictures, so that now, on Wikipedia, the National Register of Historic Places list for Allegheny County and the city of Pittsburgh are complete with photographs of all the places on the list (I think there are 209 sites, or something like that). Also, we helped complete the list of local Pittsburgh Landmarks as it currently stands. We went to neighborhoods that were nice as well as neighborhoods that were not so nice in search of these sites. There was a particular neighborhood, Beechview, it wasn't a bad neighborhood, but the hills were terrible. I wonder if it's worse than the hills in San Francisco. I don't know how anyone could live on slopes like the one in Beechview, much less get up there in the winter time. The slopes in Fineview are steep too, and of course there's Troy Hill, Mount Washington, and the Southside Slopes. Anyway, we've pretty much been to all 89 neighborhoods in Pittsburgh now, plus a bunch of communities in the county that are outside city limits (I don't even know how many).

So, today, I am going to showcase some of these images and explain them, and I think the best thing to do is to start with the oldest known structures. As far as I know, there are only 12 confirmed buildings in Allegheny County that were built and completed before the year 1800 that are still standing today. Suzanne and I went to each of these sites to take pictures, and each site has an interesting story behind it.

Part One - Existing buildings in Allegheny County completed before the year 1800

I'll start with the oldest and most famous building first:


This is the old Fort Pitt Blockhouse, built in 1764, which was a fortified redoubt that was once an exterior portion of Fort Pitt. This is the only fully intact portion of the fort that exists today, and it can be seen in Point State Park (some portions of the fort itself were previously excavated and exposed for people to see for many years, but were re-buried in 2008 when the park was renovated because the dug-out sections made it more difficult to use the park). One passes the blockhouse every time they walk down to The Point where the three rivers meet. For the last 8 years, we've walked by this building every summer during the Three Rivers Arts Festival, and I always laughed at it because I thought it was a reconstruction. I thought it looked too well preserved to be original. Well, I was wrong. It's the real deal from 1764, before the United States even existed. This blockhouse is the oldest building west of the Allegheny Mountains. So, how do you like them apples? Hey, see those little slots on the side in the thin wooden portion between the bricks and the stone part? Those are rifle ports. You see, this little building stood outside of Fort Pitt, and was the first line of defense on that side. The reason the blockhouse was built in 1764 is because the fort was attacked by Native Americans in 1763, during Pontiac's Rebellion. The Natives nearly destroyed a whole side of the fort, so this building was built the next year in order to shore up defenses on that side. The blockhouse was never attacked though, due to treaties, smallpox and other intrigues that took place when it was being built. The lady who showed us around inside said, "If there was ever an old landmark that needed a sign saying, 'absolutely nothing happened here', this is the place." However, in the 247 years this building has existed, a lot of changes have taken place around the land where it stands: A whole country was created, steel structures built, electricity harnessed, sound barriers broken, atoms split, men on the moon, satellites in space, microprocessors developed, fiber-optic communications plus cell phones and computers linked to mass digital networks that can fit in the palm of your hand. Over the years, a baby was born in the blockhouse (Neville B. Craig, son of Isaac Craig), and at one point supposedly a distraught woman even hung herself in there. One reason it still exists today is because it was used as part of a house from 1784 until 1894, and after that it was deeded to the Daughters of the American Revolution, who have helped preserve it since that time. The other reason it still exists is, fortunately, nobody ever bothered to tear it down. Point State Park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as "Forks of the Ohio", and is a National Historic Landmark.

One of the oldest existing houses in Allegheny County is General John Neville's "Woodville":


This house was built in 1785, and is located in Collier Township on Washington Pike (PA Route 50) just south of Heidelberg. One could describe the architectural style as Vernacular and Virginia colonial (or American colonial). I think the house is in pretty good shape, given the fact that it is 225 years old and has a clapboard exterior. We walked up to the windows and looked inside, and the interior is lavishly decorated for a frontier house of its time. Neville was a rich General who fought in the Revolution (in the battles of Trenton, Princeton, Germantown, and Monmouth) and he owned a lot of land. Neville also owned about 32 slaves. Pennsylvania was the first state to outlaw slavery, due to the Abolition Act of 1780 (entitled "An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery"), but the act did not free existing slaves at that point, though led to their "Gradual Emancipation". Anyway, the house was nice inside, and Suzanne commented negatively about people having etched their names on some of the old glass window panes. But when I saw the elaborate detail of the etchings, I said, "That isn't graffiti, those names have probably been there for over 200 years." When I looked this up in Franklin Toker's book Pittsburgh: A New Portrait (2009), my notions were more than confirmed, as it was a custom for prominent guests to sign the glass, and supposedly one of the signatures at one time was made by the Marquis de Lafayette ! As I said, General Neville was rich and well known, and he owned another house nearby on Bower Hill. The house on Bower Hill was burned down in 1794, which leads me to the story of Neville and the Whiskey Rebellion. After the American Revolution, the country was in massive war debt. George Washington was President, and the United States Congress appointed General Neville as regional inspector of revenue under the new excise laws on distilled spirits that were passed to help pay for the war. The flat tax on the production of liquor typically favored the larger distillers, many of them in the east, and many of the small time farmers in the western portion of the country at that time probably didn't want to pay their taxes anyway. A number of them had fought in the Revolution too, and openly defied the laws. Well, it was Neville's job to enforce the law, so he and a U.S. Marshal went around the area to issue court summons to those who had not paid the tax. On July 15, 1794, they served a writ on William Miller, who lived in what is now South Park in Pittsburgh (I'll discuss the Oliver Miller Homestead in a later installment). After leaving the paper, Neville and the U.S. Marshal were met by an armed group of William Miller's neighbors (and probably some of Miller's relatives), and a shot was heard as they rode off, but neither man was injured. On July 16, 1794, a group of armed men surrounded Neville's house on Bower Hill demanding to see the U.S. Marshal and demanding that the court documents against them be destroyed. The armed group wouldn't take "no" for an answer, and things escalated. The confrontation led to Neville shooting and killing one of the armed protesters (who happened to be a relative of William Miller, an Oliver Miller). This further angered the group, and the next day over 500 armed protesters surrounded the house. Neville was inside with a dozen or so armed soldiers. A gunfight followed, and a few protesters and a few soldiers died. Neville escaped out the back door of his Bower Hill house, before the angry mob burned it to the ground. Somehow, Neville escaped to Woodville (the house shown above) before going to Fort Pitt for safety and reinforcements. On August 7, 1794, President George Washington decided to crack down on the Whiskey Rebels by invoking the Militia Law of 1792, and organizing a force of 12,950 men to go after the rebels and make them comply with the law. The army marched into western Pennsylvania in October 1794, lead by Henry Lee III and Alexander Hamilton, and as a result most of the Whiskey Rebels fled, while some were captured and thrown in jail. Eventually, most if not all of them were pardoned, including the Miller family. Though Neville's Bower Hill house was destroyed by fire, Woodville remains intact to this day. Neville retired to his nearby estate on Neville Island (the same island where the Showboat Becky Thatcher spent its last days), and he gave Woodville to his son, Presley Neville. Presley had also fought in the American Revolution, and he married Nancy Morgan, the daughter of the famous Revolutionary General Daniel Morgan. They raised a family in the house pictured above, and Presley served as the Chief Burgess of the Borough of Pittsburgh from 1804 to 1805. The Neville family owned the property until the 1970s. Today, the house is a museum listed on the National Register of Historic Places and it's a National Historic Landmark.

Another one of the oldest houses in Allegheny County is the Neill Log House:


Built around 1787 (or before), this log house in Pittsburgh's Schenley Park once belonged to the family of Robert Neill, and later to Col. James O'Hara and his granddaughter Mary Schenley (for whom the park is named). There is another log house in Schenley Park, called Martin's Cabin, and it's supposedly from around the same time as this one, though I haven't been able to find as much info on that one yet. The Pittsburgh Parks website says that the Neill Log House was "built between 1769 and the mid-1770s" and that Martin's Cabin is "from the same period". On page 10 of Franklin Toker's Pittsburgh: A New Portrait (2009), it says, "Martin and Neill log houses in Squirrel Hill, both from the 1760s", wow that seems kind of early, but who knows? The sign posted in front of the Neill log house indicates, "c. 1787", so that's the date I went with. These two cabins may be the two oldest houses in Pittsburgh city limits. On pages 307-308, Toker continues, "Schenley Park preserves two affecting relics of pioneer days in Pittsburgh. One survivor is the Robert Neill log house in the Schenley Park golf course, on Serpentine Drive. The assumption once was that this house was from the 1780s, but deed research at Carlisle (seat of Cumberland County, which at the time encompassed all of western Pennsylvania) now points to a construction date in 1769. The builder was Ambrose Newton; Robert Neill purchased the house in 1774. Living about five miles from the Point, the five members of the Neill family were taking their lives in their hands every time they stepped out of this doorway. The Pittsburgh Gazette for July 2, 1789, for example, carried the news that two young men who had gone fishing two miles from the Point were killed by Indians. About a half-mile away, between Schenley Park's tennis courts and its swimming pool, stands a second log house associated with Ambrose Newton, on Overlook Drive. This house probably also dates from the 1760s or 1770s. The Neill house is the more interesting of the two log houses, however, and consists of massive wooden planks infilled with mud and small fieldstones. The logs (faithful replicas, in the main) are notched at the ends and show the marks of the adze that hewed them. Internally, the building is a single room with an attic loft." In the book Landmark Architecture of Allegheny County by James D. Van Trump and Arthur P. Ziegler, Jr. (1967), it lists the Neill log house as "Neal log house", and puts its date as "1787-1795". On page 106, it says, "Built by Robert Neal on ground purchased by him in 1787, this is the oldest of the log houses in Charles Morse Stotz's Early Architecture of Western Pennsylvania." The log house is listed as "Neil House" on page 13 of A Guidebook to Historic Western Pennsylvania by George Swetnam and Helene Smith (1977), and it's also pictured on the cover of that book. The dates listed are the same as the Van Trump and Ziegler book, "between 1787 and 1795 by Robert Neil", and neither book seems to mention the other log house in Schenley Park, Martin's Cabin. Whatever the case, the Neill Log House was built in the late 1700s, and Martin's Cabin likely was too. Here's a picture of Martin's Cabin:


This brings us to what is possibly the oldest house in Allegheny County, and not only that, but it is still being lived in too. The Wyckoff-Mason House at 6133 Verona Road in Penn Hills has a sign on it that says, "Isaac Wyckoff, Builder 1774-1775". Here's a picture of the house:


Another log house in Allegheny County from the 1700s that is still being lived in is the well-preserved Linhart House:


Located at 221 Farnsworth Avenue in Wilkins Township, the Linhart House was built in 1782, and is discussed on page 341 of Walter C. Kidney's Landmark Architecture: Pittsburgh and Allegheny County (1985). From this view of the back of the house, you can see the more recent addition, and you can also see the 1794 extension (the house was "doubled in size for a married daughter"). A sign near the house says the following: "Linhart Homestead - Built in 1782 by Christian Linhart, early pioneer of Wilkins Township. Marked as a historical landmark by The Century Club, March 1969".

The John Woods House:


Located at 4604 Monongahela Street in the Hazelwood neighborhood, this vernacular style stone house was built in 1792, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. John Woods (1761-1816) was a political leader, a Federalist, and a member of a prominent founding Pittsburgh family. Woods was the son of Colonel George Woods of Bedford County, PA. The elder Woods laid out the plan for the City of Pittsburgh in 1784. John did the actual drafting, and the plan is referred to as "John Woods plan of Pittsburgh." John Woods was elected to the Pennsylvania Senate in 1797, and was elected as a Representative to the Fourteenth United States Congress, holding office from March 4, 1815 to March 3, 1817 (though, due to illness, he never attended sessions). The house stayed in the Woods family until 1885. It is said that composer Stephen Foster was friends with the Woods family, and that he composed the song "Nelly Bly" in the house.

Walker-Ewing Log House:


The Walker-Ewing Log House dates back to the 1780s or the 1790s, and is my favorite of the log houses in Allegheny County. It seems rather structurally sound and well preserved, and it's located in a peaceful area in Collier Township on Noblestown Road (State Route 3048), not far from Settler's Cabin Park. The exact date of construction is not known, but the house is named after the earliest settlers to the area (Gabriel Walker, Isaac Walker, and James Ewing). Between 1770 and 1790, Gabriel Walker built a log cabin about two miles northwest of present-day Rennerdale. That cabin is the one pictured above. In 1976, it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

There's another log house about a mile from the Walker-Ewing Log House called the Walker-Ewing-Glass Log House:


The Walker-Ewing-Glass Log House is located on Pinkerton Run Road in Settler's Cabin Park not far from the park's Maintenance Center. Settler's Cabin Park gets its name from this log house. It may have been built in the 1780s by a man named John Henry. In 1785, Isaac and Gabriel Walker acquired the land, and Gabriel built the nearby Walker-Ewing Log House around the same time.

Torrence House:


This fieldstone house located at 121 Colson Drive in Pleasant Hills was built in the 1790s by Maj. James Torrence, who fought in the Revolutionary War. The Torrence House is surrounded by trees, and inconspicuously blends in with its modern suburban setting. It is mentioned on page 32 of A Guidebook to Historic Western Pennsylvania by George Swetnam and Helene Smith (1977).

There's another old house in Pleasant Hills, a half-log and half-brick construction, located at 615 Inglefield Drive. Little is known about this house. The log portion may date back to the late 1700s or the early 1800s, and the brick portion was likely added around 1840. I haven't seen any verifiable or published information on the Inglefield Drive house yet, so, at this time, it is not included on this list.

A house that might have been able to make the list, but unfortunately is no longer standing (according to material that I've read online) is the Wallace-Nasor House (or the Wallace-Naser House), which was supposedly built after 1790 by James Irwin. It was located near the intersection of Naser Road and Mosside Boulevard in North Versailles Township near Pitcairn. This house is mentioned and pictured in the book Landmark Architecture of Allegheny County by James D. Van Trump and Arthur P. Ziegler, Jr. (1967), and it is listed in A Guidebook to Historic Western Pennsylvania by George Swetnam and Helene Smith (1977). This quarried stone vernacular farmhouse was said to have a nice view of Turtle Creek Valley.

McLaughlin House:


As one can see from the above image, the McLaughlin House is in very bad shape these days (it looks as though the roof has completely caved in). A picture of it in better days can be seen on page 342 of Walter C. Kidney's Landmark Architecture: Pittsburgh and Allegheny County (1985). In that book, it is listed as "Groton" (and "Tapawingo"), and says it has "gun ports in case of Indian attack." It is also mentioned on page 22 of A Guidebook to Historic Western Pennsylvania by George Swetnam and Helene Smith (1977). This log house was built by Edward McLaughlin in 1775, making it one of the oldest log houses in Allegheny County. It can be found near the end of Pike Street in Penn Hills Township. Hopefully something will be done to save this relic before it's too late.

To my knowledge, the final existent building in Allegheny County whose completion occurred before the year 1800 is the John Frew House:


This very well-preserved house is located at 105 Sterrett Street in Crafton, and is still in use as a home. The stone portion dates back to the 1790s, but the additional portions of the house were added on in the 1800s. So, this place only barely makes the list, but the the original stone portion was used as a house before the year 1800, and that is confirmed by my sources, so it is included on this list. The John Frew House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

As far as I know, that is it for the confirmed existent buildings in Allegheny County whose completion occurred before the year 1800. If anyone knows of any others, please contact me and I'll try and look into it.

Having said that, I want to give honorable mention to the "Old Stone Inn" (also called "Coates Tavern") located at 434 Greentree Road in the West End neighborhood of Pittsburgh, which may date back to the mid 1700s, though its original date of construction can not entirely be confirmed. There is an old date listed on the cornerstone of the Inn that indicates the year 1756, which would make it the oldest building in the county if that is true. Not only that, but it would make it the oldest building west of the Allegheny Mountains if it is really older than the Fort Pitt Blockhouse by 8 years. It may not only be fascinating for that reason, but also for the possibility that it may be the only structure that still exists from the French settlement days of Pittsburgh before the English came and built Fort Pitt. There are supposedly account ledgers from the Inn that have been found at the Carnegie Library from 1793 to 1796, but is this the same building that was there then? I don't know, but the debate about this building's age continues. Whatever the case, I think it deserves honorable mention. Here's a picture of the Old Stone Inn:


I really like 18th century Inns and taverns, perhaps because I like the old Alfred Noyes poem, "The Highwayman". The Old Stone Inn of the West End neighborhood may date back to the 1700s, and I definitely think it should be preserved for years to come. There was a place at 23 Singer Avenue in McKees Rocks called the Mann's Hotel, which may have been built in the late 1700s, though some said it was built around 1803. Unfortunately, the Mann's Hotel was torn down on October 12, 2009, by the authorities in McKees Rocks due to its "deteriorating condition". Suzanne and I just missed getting a picture of it, but when we got there it was just a pile of boards. I yelled, "We're losing our history, and no one gives a damn!" I may have said some other things too. There's another old tavern called the "Lark Inn", which is now a house located at 634 Beaver Road in Leet Township. Construction of the Lark Inn may have started in the late 1790s, but based on the sources that I've found, it was completed around 1806. So, the Old Stone Inn may be the oldest of the existing Inns and taverns in Allegheny County.

Well, that's all for now, but I will probably be back to discuss more historical things in the near future.

Take care, enjoy, and peace,

- Lee Paxton