A History of Patton Township (Monroeville and Pitcairn) Pennsylvania
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A History of Patton Township (Monroeville and Pitcairn) Pennsylvania Louis A. Chandler, Ph.D. Monroeville Historical Society September, 2012 Monroeville, Pa. 1 CONTENTS Chapter 1: The Frontier Era…………………………………………………………………………...4 The Widow Myers…………………………………………………………………………...5 Log Cabins…………………………………………………………………………………...5 Paths and Trails……………………………………………………………………………....7 The Johnston Family………………………………………………………………………....9 Travel in Colonial Days……………………………………………………………………..10 Waterways Creeks and Streams……………………………………………………………..12 Chapter 2: The Farming Village (The 1800s) ………………………………………………………..18 Joel Monroe…………………………………………………………………………………21 The Rising Sun Inn………………………………………………………………………….22 Life on the Farm…………………………………………………………………………….26 The Coming of the Railroads……………………………………………………………….29 The Railroad and the Borough of Pitcairn………………………………………………….32 Riding the Rails…………………………………………………………………………….34 The Coming of the Mines…………………………………………………………………..38 Patton Township and the Civil War………………………………………………………...45 Chapter 3: The Township (1900-1945)……………………………………………………………….47 The Beginnings of the “Bedroom Community”…………………………………………….47 Postal Service……………………………………………………………………...49 Community Newspapers…………………………………………………………..51 Getting Around…………………………………………………………………….52 Community Churches……………………………………………………………………….56 The Old Stone Church……………………………………………………………..57 Pitcairn’s Historic Churches……………………………………………………….59 Monroeville’s Churches……………………………………………………………61 The Community’s Schools …………………………………………………………………..63 Pitcairn’s Schools…………………………………………………………………..63 Monroeville’s Schools……………………………………………………………...67 Chapter 4: The Post War Suburbs (1945-1970)……………………………………………………….71 Garden City…………………………………………………………………………………..71 The Age of the Automobile…………………………………………………………………..72 Roadside Inns……………………………………………………………………….88 The Route 22 Corridor……………………………………………………………...90 The Borough of Monroeville (1951-1976)…………………………………………………...96 And by Air…………………………………………………………………………………..103 Building the Infrastructure ………………………………………………………………….109 The Public Library…………………………………………………………………110 Police Department………………………………………………………………….110 Fire Companies…………………………………………………………………….112 Chapter 5: The Municipality (1970-2010)…………………………………………………………….116 Travel and Transportation………………………………………………………….121 Research……………………………………………………………………………125 Retail Sales…………………………………………………………………………127 Medical Services…………………………………………………………………....132 Social and Cultural Life…………………………………………………………….134 Appendices…………………………………………………………………………………………….147 2 Introduction The Municipal Planning Commission of Monroeville once characterized the community as “ a phenomena of the automobile.” And there is no doubt that Monroeville’s location just to the east of Pittsburgh along with the modern roads growing up around it, did much to established today’s flourishing suburban community. This book tells the story of how a small farming village with horses and wagons traveling over dirt roads, grew to be a flourishing suburban community and a major commercial hub with highways and roads carrying thousands of cars, buses, and trucks every day. 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 Sarah Thompson, and Virginia Etta Myers, and Marilyn Chandler who, although not related to the present author, shared his interest in local history and collected many of the pictures shown here. Thanks are due to the staff the Monroeville Public Library, most especially Mark Hudson and Marlene Dean; to Victoria Vargo of the Braddock’s Field Historical Society, and to Judith Harvey of the Frank B. Fairbanks Archives at the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation. A special note of thanks goes to: Lynn Chandler for her support and assistance, to Monroeville’s Director of Community Development, Shelly Kaltenbaugh, and Jamie Storey from the Planning Office, and to Gene Bolch, who so generously lent his expertise in restoring photos from another era. The author is also indebted to the members of the Monroeville Historical Society whose extensive oral history project in 1986 did much to help preserve our past. Finally: a note about place names. In 1788 the western portion of what had been Westmoreland County was designated as Plum Township in the then recently-established county of Allegheny; and in the early 1800s a small farming village first appears on the maps with the name of “Monroeville.” In 1849 Plum Township was divided into two separate (north and south) entities, with the southern portion being named “Patton Township,” -- after Judge Benjamin Patton of Pittsburgh. At that time Patton Township included parts of present day Turtle Creek, Wilmerding, Wall and Pitcairn, as well as the town of Monroeville. Finally, in 1951, after the remaining entities had been established, what remained of Patton Township was then officially re-designated as the Borough of Monroeville, with the first newly-elected Borough officials taking office early the following year. Louis Chandler Monroeville Historical Society Monroeville, 2012 3 How illusory are human hopes, and how soon the places which know us so well, shall know us no more forever! -- Thomas Mellon Chapter 1: The Frontier Era 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. Robert and Kathleen Millward have described what the forests must have looked like in their work on the journeys of frontier explorer Christopher Gist: “Another problem Gist and his son had upon venturing into Pennsylvania’s backwoods was its incredibly dense forest, which offered almost no browse for horses….Huge white pine forests reaching heights of 200 feet or more would have stretched for miles, the pines’ trunks averaging 12 feet in circumference. Gist would also have navigated through enormous strands of maples, oaks, and black walnuts, their trunks averaging 18 feet in circumference as well as immense cottonwood trees growing along the banks of the rivers often reaching 45 feet in circumference. The streams flowing through this massive forest would have resembled narrow ribbons of ink during the summer because the forest canopy, which stretched across both sides of the stream, blocked out almost all sunlight.” 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 4 French by entering the three rivers confluence up through the Monongahela valley. These military expeditions left in their wakes a string of fortified encampments, trading posts, and the beginnings of settlements. The Widow Myers One of the pioneer 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. Martha Miers (1710-1805) (nee Marte Braun) was the wife of Eli (Eliezer) Miers of Bedford (Pennsylvania). Eli Miers served in the French and Indian War under Col. Bouquet when General Forbes’ British army marched towards Pittsburgh in 1758. He died in Bedford at 55 in 1765, and when, a few years later, the William Penn family opened a land office, and the Widow Miers purchased some 350 acres of land in Western Pennsylvania “situated on both sides of the Turtle Creek, and the great road leading from Ligonier to Pittsburgh.” In 1769, at 54 years of age, this pioneer grandmother moved her family west to start a new life on the frontier. The Miers’ place must have been conveniently located for travelers, because she had only been there a year or so when she had her first important guest. George Washington, in his dairy of November 1770, mentions stopping to dine at the “Widow Miers on Turtle Creek” on one of his journeys through the area. It soon became obvious to Martha Miers that her location, near the Turtle Creek and along the route to Pittsburgh, gave her the opportunity to provide food and shelter to travelers on their way west, and in 1774 she opened “Miers’ Wayside Inn.”