Pittsburgh, PA Lewis is preparing for departure down the Ohio River. Here, the region’s market is described by François André Michaux after his 1802 visit.
Market Square, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Photo by John Marino. Permission to use granted under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
Originally called “Diamond Square”—a Scottish idiom for a public commons— and located at the intersection of Market Street and Diamond Way (present-day Forbes Avenue), Pittsburgh’s Market Square held a public market, the first Allegheny County Courthouse, and the city’s first jail. After a period of decline, the center is experiencing the urban renewal reflected in the above photograph taken in 2012.[1]Brady Smith, “Let’s Learn from the Past: Market Square,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, old.post-gazette.com/pg/11342/1195199-51.stm accessed 7 December 2022.
Ohio River Market
Pittsburgh is not only the staple of the Philadelphia and Baltimore trade with the western country, but of the numerous settlements that are formed upon the Monongahela and Alleghany. The territorial produce of that part of the country finds an easy and advantageous conveyance by the Ohio and Mississippi. Corn, hams and dried pork are the principal articles sent to New Orleans, whence they are re-exported into the Carribbees. They also export for the consumption of Louisiana, bar-iron, coarse linen, bottles manufactured at Pittsburgh, whiskey, and salt butter. A great part of these provisions come from Redstone, a small commercial town, situated upon the Monongahela, about fifty miles beyond Pittsburgh.
—François André Michaux[2]François André Michaux, Travels to the West of the Alleghany Mountains (1805 reprint from London edition), p. 61 in Reuben G. Thwaites, Travels West of the Alleghanies (Cleveland: The Arthur H. … Continue reading
Early Redstone
Lewis passed—or perhaps stayed—at Redstone on his way from Harpers Ferry to Pittsburgh on or near 13 July 1803. After his 1894 pilgrimage down the Ohio in a mere skiff, Reubin Gold Thwaites provided this information about that industrious town during its formative years.
“Redstone Old Fort”—the name had reference to the aboriginal earthworks—played a part in the Fort Necessity and Braddock campaigns and in later frontier wars; and, being the western terminus of the over-mountain road known at various historic periods as Nemacolin’s Path, Braddock’s Road, and Cumberland Pike, was for many years the chief point of departure for Virginia expeditions down the Ohio River. Washington, who had large landed interests on the Ohio, knew Redstone well; and here George Rogers Clark set out (1778) upon flatboats, with his rough-and-ready Virginia volunteers, to capture the country north of the Ohio for the American arms-one of the least known, but most momentous conquests in history.
Early in the nineteenth century, Redstone became Brownsville. But, whether as Redstone or Brownsville, it was, in its day, like most “jumping off” places on the edge of civilization, a veritable Sodom. Wrote good old John Pope, in his Journal of 1790, and in the same strain scores of other veracious chroniclers: “At this Place we were detained about a Week, experiencing every Disgust which Rooks and Harpies could excite.” Here thrived extensive yards in which were built flatboats, arks, keel boats, and all that miscellaneous collection of water craft which, with their roisterly crews, were the life of the Ohio before the introduction of steam rendered vessels of deeper draught essential; whereupon much of the shipping business went down the river to better stages of water, first to Pittsburg, thence to Wheeling, and to Steubenville.
—Reubin Gold Thwaites[3]Reuben Gold Thwaites, On the Storied Ohio: An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo (Chicago: A. C. McClug & Co., 1903), 4–5.
Notes
| ↑1 | Brady Smith, “Let’s Learn from the Past: Market Square,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, old.post-gazette.com/pg/11342/1195199-51.stm accessed 7 December 2022. |
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| ↑2 | François André Michaux, Travels to the West of the Alleghany Mountains (1805 reprint from London edition), p. 61 in Reuben G. Thwaites, Travels West of the Alleghanies (Cleveland: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1904), p. 158. |
| ↑3 | Reuben Gold Thwaites, On the Storied Ohio: An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo (Chicago: A. C. McClug & Co., 1903), 4–5. |
