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    Pittsburgh's South Side
    Pittsburgh's South Side
    Pittsburgh's South Side
    Ebook174 pages40 minutes

    Pittsburgh's South Side

    By Stuart P. Boehmig

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    About this ebook

    In 1763, King George III granted 3,000 acres of bottomland on the south side of the Monongahela River to Maj. Gen. John Ormsby for his service in capturing Fort Duquesne during the French and Indian War. Just 100 years later, this flat river plain became the center of the "Workplace of the World." Powerful industrial giants such as B. F. Jones, James Laughlin, and Henry W. Oliver were drawn to the area, making it the heart of the Industrial Revolution. Immigrants came in droves from Germany, Ireland, Scotland, England, and later from central and Eastern Europe. They crowded Carson Street with the sights and sounds of different languages, customs, and fashions. These were the people who made the steel and iron that built America. Pittsburgh's South Side is their story, a story of glass factories, steel mills, incline planes, trolley cars, saloons, and the crowded row houses where they raised their families.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781439632727
    Pittsburgh's South Side
    Author

    Stuart P. Boehmig

    Stuart P. Boehmig, a retired resident of the South Side, is a fifth-generation Pittsburgher. His ancestors have lived in Troy Hill, Lawrenceville, and the South Side. He developed an interest in the area’s history while working in the Jones and Laughlin Mill as a college student.

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      Book preview

      Pittsburgh's South Side - Stuart P. Boehmig

      Side.

      INTRODUCTION

      If one were to make the journey through the wilderness of the Allegheny Mountains to visit Maj. Gen. John Ormsby at Fort Pitt in 1763, they would notice the confluence of two rivers, the Allegheny and the Monongahela, which converge to form the mighty Ohio. Starting on the Ohio, one could travel all the way to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico without ever having to paddle upstream.

      One would also notice the dominant topography of the area. There were hills; lots of steep, unusable hills, all carved by rivers and glaciers thousands of years ago. There was one exception. To the south, along the banks of the Monongahela, there were nearly 3,000 acres of flat bottom land. This was the only level ground surrounding the rivers. Less than 100 years later, this wilderness would be called the workplace of America, the heart of the great Industrial Revolution.

      The land, from the present day Smithfield Street Bridge to Beck’s Run Road, was granted to Maj. Gen. John Ormsby by King George III in 1763 for his service in capturing Fort Duquesne during the French and Indian War. He named the land Homestead Farms. Ormsby, an Irishman educated at Trinity College in Dublin, came to America in 1752 to seek his fortune. He first came to Pittsburgh with Gen. John Forbes in 1758 to fight in the French and Indian War. In 1764, the 44-year-old Ormsby married 17-year-old Jane McAllister in a ceremony at Fort Pitt. They kept a store, tavern, and ferry in Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River, near the site of what is today the concrete pads of the Monongahela Wharf parking lot.

      As far as is known, he was the first settler in this area with a higher education, and he has been called the first citizen of Pittsburgh. In this frontier community, he was described by Barbara Negley as a fine looking man of aristocratic and military bearing, a gentleman of the old school, noted for his immaculate breast and sleeve ruffles, the brightness of his shoes and knee buckles.

      In 1805, Ormsby died, and his son-in-law Dr. Nathaniel Bedford, who married Ormsby’s daughter Jane, inherited the 3,000 acres of bottom land. In 1811, he laid out a town and named it Birmingham after his hometown in England. It extended from present day Sixth Street to Seventeenth Street. By 1816, Birmingham had over 50 houses (which were mostly made of brick), one glass factory, a sawmill, and a coffee factory. It was eventually connected to Pittsburgh in 1818 by a covered bridge built at the site of the present day Smithfield Street Bridge. It cost 2¢ to walk across the bridge. Later expansion extended East Birmingham, then known as Sidneyville, from Seventeenth Street to Twenty-seventh Street, and Ormsby, extending from Twenty-seventh Street to Beck’s Run Road.

      One of Maj. Gen. Ormsby’s children was named Oliver. Oliver had seven daughters and one son. Five of the daughters and his only son, Oliver Jr., lived in estates, connected side by side in East Birmingham, between what is now Twenty-first and Twenty-fifth Streets. Each daughter had her own house and gardens branching down to the river.

      Josephine married Edward Yard, a commandant in the U.S. Navy, and lived in a house with a pillared porch, long windows, and a terraced garden overlooking the river. It was located near present day Twenty-first Street. Oliveretta, the youngest daughter, and her husband Lt. Col. Clifton Wharton, also lived there. Sidney married John Harding Page and lived at the Dingle. Sarah married Maj. Asher Phillips and lived at the Orchard, known for its rose gardens. Mary married Lt. Elias Phillips, a West Point graduate and brother of Asher Phillips, and lived in the White House. The girls’ only brother, Oliver Jr., lived on the hillside above his sisters in a place called Ormsby Manor, located at Twenty-fifth and Josephine Streets. The entrance road is now called Kosciusko Way. The manor was a country gentleman’s estate with forests, meadows, and a small private racetrack.

      Today, all that remains of the manor is single brick dwelling, which was part of the original mansion. The fireplaces have been boarded up and the large rooms have been cut into quarters by partitions. The racetrack is now a gravel parking lot. Oliver Jr. studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and died in 1832. The borough of Mount Oliver was named after him. Many of the streets in the South Side are named after the Ormsby family.

      Originally, the growth of the South Side was due to the development of the glass factories. Later, it was the steel industry which forged the community’s reputation as the steel capital of the world. The people who worked in the mills and factories lived in row houses on the flats and, if you could handle the climb, the slopes, which were accessible by hundreds of steps carved into the side of the hill.

      This is the story of the people, places, and events that made Pittsburgh’s South Side the heart

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