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Getting Around: a Brief History of Monroeville, Pennsylvania

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Getting Around: a Brief History of Monroeville, Pennsylvania Getting Around: A Brief History of Monroeville, Pennsylvania Louis Chandler, Ph.D. Monroeville Historical Society, Monroeville, Pa. April 2012 _____________________________________________________________________ Contact: http://www.monroevillehistorical.org 2 Contents Part 1: The Beginnings Part 2: Paths and Trails Part 3: Waterways, Creeks and Streams Part 4: By Road and Stagecoach Part 5: The Railroads Part 6: The Age of the Automobila Part 7: Public Transit Part 8: And by Air Part 9: Today’s Monroeville Bibliography Appendix: Monroeville’s Time Line 3 Introduction This brief history focuses on travel and transportation. It tells the story of the paths and trails, streams and creeks, roads, and rails, as they led to the dominance of the automobile in today’s Monroeville. This work draws on a number of sources, including regional histories like those of Solon and Elizabeth Buck, as well as the local histories of Monroeville by Marilyn Chandler, Sarah Thompson, and Virginia Etta Myers, all of which helped to provide context. Thanks are due to the staffs of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s Pennsylvania Room, as well as the Monroeville Public Library, and especially Mark Hudson and Marlene Dean; and to Victoria Vargo of the Braddock’s Field Historical Society, and Gary Rogers of the Allegheny Foothills Historical Society; and to Judith Harvey of the Frank B. Fairbanks Archives at the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation. Historical maps of the area were especially useful in tracing the course of various streams and creeks, and in the following the evolution of the road system. A special note of thanks goes to Lynn Chandler, and to Monroeville’s Director of Community Development, Shelly Kaltenbaugh, and Jamie Storey from the Planning Office, who helped the author make sense of Monroeville’s rich and varied topography. All photos are from the Archives of the Monroeville Historical Society, unless otherwise noted; illustrations are by Rebecca Olson. Finally, the author is especially indebted to the members of the Monroeville Historical Society (most especially: Dan Nowak, Lois Lyman, and Paul Damon) who launched an extensive oral history project in 1986 to help preserve our past. The resulting interviews, give us impressions of what life was like for people facing the everyday problem of “getting around.” Louis Chandler Monroeville Historical Society Monroeville, 2007 4 Getting Around: A History of Monroeville, Pennsylvania Part 1: The Beginnings Civilization follows the waters. It has always been so. The Tigres and Euphrates, the Nile, and the Ganges, and the Yangtze, have all served as cradles of civilization. And so it was to be with the advance of European civilization in the newly-discovered lands that were to become America. The march westward of colonial America may be tracked by the exploration of rivers, their headwaters, their valleys and their tributaries and courses that flowed from one to another, providing a convenient means of travel through the rugged terrain of thick woods and seemingly impenetrable forests. Even formidable obstacles like mountains might be overcome, were river passages through them to be discovered. And it was just such a string of mountains, the Alleghenies, which represented a significant barrier to westward expansion in colonial America. By the 1700s, a conflict was shaping up between France and England over control of the destiny of the new world, and it was the land west of the mountains that was becoming the center of that conflict. The strategic value of the rivers was well- recognized: whoever controlled the rivers would control settlement in the west. In time, it became clear that the key to westward expansion was to be the land at the confluence of three rivers; the place where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers met to form the Ohio – the place later to be called Pittsburgh. Two routes to Pittsburgh were to emerge. To the north, the French were to descend on the upper Ohio from Canada, moving along the Allegheny River as it headed south toward its meeting with the Monongahela, there to establish Fort Duquesne. Meanwhile from the southeast, the English were to march westward from Virginia to eventually meet the advancing French by entering the three rivers confluence through up the Monongahela valley. These military expeditions left in their wakes a string of fortified encampments, trading posts, and the beginnings of settlements. One of the earliest posts was that of Mrs. Martha Myers, established at the mouth of the Turtle Creek about the time the British first took possession of the territory. George Washington, traveling on horseback and boat through the frontier in 1770 mentions dining at the Widow Myers, -- one of the first references to this pioneering settlement to the east of Fort Pitt. The Martha Myers and her family may have been the first landowners in what was to become Patton Township. In 1880, Eli Meyers, one of her descendents, was to be appointed postmaster in Monroeville, a post he held for many years. 5 Part 2: Paths and Trails By the latter part of the 1700s, Pittsburgh had become a bustling pioneer village with several business houses scattered among the log cabins, showing, even then, the beginnings of homegrown industries. By 1788 it had been designated as the seat of the new county of Allegheny. Settlements sprang up near Pittsburgh to become small villages in themselves, such as Wilkinsburg to the east, already a few scattered log houses and a tavern by the 1780s. But except for the river valleys, the region around, and to the east of Pittsburgh remained sparsely populated, still heavily wooded, with virgin forests largely intact. Among the first families to settle in that region, in what was to become Monroeville, were the Johnstons. They were part of a wave of Scots-Irish immigrants, many of whom, like John Johnston were encouraged by the Pennsylvania authorities to move west over the mountains and settle the frontier. Two brothers, William and Robert had both served in the Revolutionary War. The family’s original log cabin was subsequently burned in an Indian raid. In 1769 Robert Johnston applied for a land grant, and some years later, was awarded his land grant from a grateful government for his wartime service. With the approval of Captain Johnston’s grant in 1789, his family farm was established and it would become a Monroeville fixture -- one that survived and flourished being handed down through several generations well into the 20th century. Like the Johnstons, most of the early settlers were farmers, and they were largely self-sufficient. They had to be. They carved their farms out of the hilly, thickly wooded land, and grew what they needed to survive. There was little surplus crop, as transporting food crops for sale would have been a problem, given the limited transportation of the time. For such settlers like the Johnstons, travel was by foot or on horseback. As there were so few roads, frontiersmen were more likely to follow Indian paths laid down by the Amerind natives. Such trails were not marked, but often well worn by foot traffic; narrow, skirting ridges and avoiding gullies where possible, and crossing streams at the most convenient points. Old Haymaker and Logans Ferry Roads in Monroeville are said to have followed the course of such Indian paths. Both were part of a longer road following the Indian trail that came up from Turtle Creek and crossed through what is now Plum Borough before meeting the Allegheny River at New Kensington. A local ferry, operated by Alexander Logan, took passengers across the river to Springdale in the early 1800s. An early survey of the territory in 1755 had recognized the existing Indian paths, three of which defined the main east-west routes. The northern (sometimes called the Frankstown path after the town where it originated, near modern Holidaysburg) followed the northern branch of the Juniata River across the mountains to the Kiskiminetas River and then up to the Allegheny River north of Pittsburgh. The Pennsylvania canal would later follow a similar path). The central route went from Raystown (modern Bedford) through Shippensburg as it headed west towards Pittsburgh; Forbes trail would later follow a similar route. The southern route went from Frederick, Virginia through Cumberland to meet the Monongahela River at Redstone (modern Brownsville). 6 In 1910, George Donehoo set out to follow the old Indian trails wending his ways west through Western Pennsylvania, and his observations give us a hint of what it was like to follow frontier paths that were nothing more than: “…trails through the tree-covered valleys and over the rugged mountains. Far sweeping valleys, rugged mountains, grand forests, and beautiful meadows are passed by in a constantly changing panorama.” Donehoo goes on to describe his trek across the Laurel Hills: “The journey over this great mountain ridge, of about twelve miles, is over rocks, fallen trees, and through heavy laurel underbrush, in a region as wild and as uninhabited as it was in frontier days.” Riders on horseback, using these Indians paths, would have found the going slow, the hilly terrain difficult to traverse. The narrowness of the paths and steepness of the defiles, and the need to forge creeks and streams made for a journey “….often interrupted by the narrowness and obstructions of our horse paths, as they were called, for we had no roads…and these difficulties were often increased by falling trees and tying grape vines across the way…” . The military campaigns of the French and Indian War were to further delineate the routes for later trade, commerce, and settlement, with the victorious English campaign defining the major east-west routes to Pittsburgh. The first full-scale British expedition, led by General Edward Braddock, set off from Cumberland Maryland in 1755.
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