and horses trod on men's toes, and booths fell down on people's heads! There was Crowder with his fiddle and his votaries, making the dust fly with a four-handed or rather four-footed reel; and a little further on was Dennis Loughy, the blind poet, like Homer casting his pearls before swine, chanting his master-piece in a tone part nasal and part guttural

"Come, gentlemen, gentlemen all,

Genral Sincleer shall rem'ber'd be,
For he lost thirteen hundred men all
In the Western Tari-to-ree."

All at once the cry, To horse! to horse! suspended every other business or amusement as ef fectually as the summons of the faithful. There was a rush towards the starting post, while many betook themselves to the station best fitted for the enjoyment of the animating sight. On a scaffold, elevated above the heads of the people, were placed the patres patriæ, as judges of the race, and—but I am not about to describe the races: my object was merely to call to mind the spot where they were formerly executed; yet my pen on this occasion was near running away with me, like the dull cart-horse on the course, who feels a new fire kindled under his ribs, and, from seeing others scamper, is seized with a desire of trying his heels also. The Dutch church, after some time spent in searching, was found by me; but as for the race field, it is now covered with three-story brick buildings, canal basins, and great warehouses—instead of temporary booths, erected with forks, and covered with boughs just cut from the woods.

It will be the business of the annalist, or of the historian, to trace the gradual progress of increase, or the various changes which the city has undergone. Who would imagine, on beholding the concourse of country merchants from all quarters, laying in their supplies of merchandise for the purpose of retail, that, but a few years ago, the business was done in small shops, part cash and part country produce, that is, for skins, tallow, beeswax, and maple sugar? Who would imagine that the arrival and encampment of Cornplanter Indians on the bank of the Allegheny, would make a great stir among the merchants? It was quite a cheering sight, and one which made brisk times, to see the squaws coming in with their packs on their backs, and to whom the business of selling as high, and buying as cheap as possible, was intrusted. Now an Indian is not to be seen, unless it be some one caught in the woods a thousand miles off, and sent to Washington in a cage to make a treaty for the sale of lands.

I can still remember when the mountains were crossed by pack-horses only, and they might be seen in long files, arriving and departing with their burdens swung on pack-saddles. Wagons and wagon roads were used in the slow progress of things, and then the wonder of the west, a turnpike, was made over the big hills; and now, canals and railways are about to bring us as near to Philadelphia and Baltimore, as the Susquehanna was in those times. The western insurrection is not so much a matter of wonder, and there is no trifling excuse for the dissatisfaction of the west, when we reflect on their situation at that period. The two essentials of civilized and half-civilized life, iron and salt, were almost the only articles they could procure. And how could they procure them? There was no sale for their grain down the Ohio and Mississippi, on account of the Indian war, and the possession of New Orleans by the Spaniards. There was no possibility of transporting their produce across the mountains, for sale or barter. There was but one article by means of which they could contrive to obtain their supplies, and that was whiskey! A few kegs were placed on each side of a horse, transported several hundred miles, and a little salt and iron brought back in their place. Is it any wonder that the excise, in addition to the expense of transportation, almost cut them off even from this miserable resource?

Before my time, Black Charles kept the first hotel in the place; when I can first remember, the sign of General Butler, kept by Patrick Murphy, was the head tavern; and afterwards the Green Tree, on the bank of the Monongahela, kept by William Morrow. The General Butler was continued by Molly Murphy, for some years after the death of Paddy. She was the friend of my boyhood and youth; and although as rough a Christian as ever I knew, I verily believe that a better Christian heart-one more generous and benevolent, as well as sturdy and fearlessnever beat in Christian bosom. Many an orphan-many a friendless one-many a wretched one, has shed, in secret, the tear of gratitude over the memory of Molly Murphy.

But it could not be said of Fort Pitt that there was a want of private hospitality, any more than there was of the public. It so happened, that after the revolutionary war, a number of families of the first respectability, principally of officers of the army, were attracted to this spot; and hence a degree of refinement, elegance of manners, and polished society, not often found in the extreme frontier. The Butlers, the O'Haras, the Craigs, the Kirkpatricks, the Stevensons, the Wilkinses, the Nevilles, are names which will long be handed down by tradition. Col. Neville was indeed the model of a perfect gentleman-as elegant in his person, and finished in his manners and education, as he was generous and noble in his feelings. His house was the temple of hospitality, to which all respectable strangers repaired. He was during the revolution the aid of Lafayette, and at the close of it married the daughter of the celebrated Gen. Morgan, an elegant and accomplished lady, who blessed him with an offspring as numerous and beautiful as the children of Niobe. Pittsburg could furnish at that day its dramatis personæ of original char.

acters; and its local history is full of curious incident, which it might be worth while to rescue from oblivion. My esteemed friend Morgan Neville, in his admirable productions, "Mike Fink," the "Last of the Boatmen," ," "Chevalier Dubac," and others, has clearly proved this. I must, however, correct an inaccuracy he has fallen into in relation to the Chevalier Dubac. It was not a monkey which he consulted in presence of his country customers, about the lowest price of his goods-it was a racoon. What should we think of the historian, who would write that Scipio Africanus consulted a sheep instead of an antelope? It ought also to be put on record, that the racoon used sometimes (like a sans culotte as he was) to aspire to be free. On these occasions the chevalier was much annoyed by the boys, who would run to him, crying out, “M. Dubac, M, Dubac, your racoon has got loose-your racoon has got loose!" to this he would rather petulantly, yet slowly, and with a most polite motion of the head and hands, repeat, “Late eem go-late eem go."

This town being the key or rather the gate of the west, was frequently visited by travellers of distinction, who remained a few days making preparations for their voyage. This circumstance, together with others which I might enumerate, gave a peculiar character and interest to the place. I have a distinct recollection of the present king of France and his two brothers, who were on their way to New Orleans. They were plain modest young men, whose simplicity of manners was favorably contrasted with those of the showy city gentlemen, with fair top boots and ratan, who found nothing good enough for them at the tavern, although at home content with an undivided portion of an attic chamber, and a meal hastily snatched.

The ensuing extract from the Cincinnati Gazette was published in 1829. The contrast between the early trade and the modern is now still greater. The main line of canal and railway over the mountains was first opened entirely through in 1834, and occasioned an immense augmentation in the business of Pittsburg. Harris's Directory for 1841 contains a list of 89 steamboats owned entirely or in part within the district of Pittsburg.

The first boat built on the western waters, of which the writer of this article has any record, was the New Orleans, built at Pittsburg in 1811. He has no account of more than seven or eight built previously to 1817. From that period they have been rapidly increasing in number, character, model, and style of workmanship, until 1825; when two or three boats, built about that period, were declared by common consent to be the first in the world. Since that time, we are informed that some of the New York and Chesapeake boats rival and probably surpass us in richness and beauty of internal decoration. As late as 1816, the practicability of navigating the Ohio with steamboats was esteemed doubtful; none but the most sanguine augured favorably. The writer of this well remembers that in 1816, observing, in company with a number of gentlemen, the long struggles of a stern-wheel boat to ascend Horse-tail ripple, (five miles below Pittsburg,) it was the unanimous opinion that "such a contrivance" might conquer the difficulties of the Mississippi, as high as Natchez; but that we of the Ohio must wait for some more happy "century of inventions." In 1817, the bold and enterprising Capt. Shreve, (whose late discovery of a mode for destroying snags and improving western navigation entitles him to the reputation of a public benefactor,) made a trip from New Orleans to Louisville in 25 days. The event was celebrated by rejoicing, and by a public dinner to the daring individual who had achieved the miracle. Previous to that period, the ordinary passages by barges, propelled by oars and sails, was three months. A revolution in western commerce was at once effected. Every article of merchandise began to ascend the Mississippi, until we have seen a package delivered at the wharf of Cincinnati, from Philadelphia, via New Orleans, at one cent per pound. From the period of Capt. Shreve's celebrated voyage till 1827, the time necessary for the trip has been gradually diminishing. During that year the Tecumseh entered the port of Louisville from New Orleans in eight days and two hours from port to port!

*

*

We cannot better illustrate the magnitude of the change in every thing connected with western commerce and navigation, than by contrasting the foregoing statement with the situation of things at the time of the adoption of steam transportation, say in 1817. About 20 barges, aver. aging 100 tons each, comprised the whole of the commercial facilities for transporting merchandise from New Orleans to the "upper country." Each of these performed one trip down and up again to Louisville and Cincinnati, within the year. The number of keel-boats employed on the upper Ohio cannot be ascertained, but it is presumed that 150 is a sufficiently large calculation to embrace the whole number. These averaged 30 tons each, and employed one month to make the voyage from Louisville to Pittsburg; while the more noble and dignified barge of the Mississippi made her trip in the space of 100 days, if no extraordinary accident happened to check her progress. Not a dollar was expended for wood in a space of 2000 miles, and the squatter on the banks of the Ohio thought himself lucky if the reckless boatman would give the smallest trifle for the eggs and chickens which formed almost the only salcable articles on a soil whose only

fault is its too great fertility. Such was the case twelve years since. The Mississippi boats now make five trips within the year, and are enabled, if necessary, in that period to afford to that trade 135,000 tons. Eight or nine days are sufficient, on upper Ohio, to perform the trip from Louisville to Pittsburg and back. In short, if the steamboat has not realized the hyperbole of the poet, in "annihilating time and space," it has produced results scarcely surpassed by the introduction of the art of printing.—Cincinnati Gazette.

"Among others whose attention was drawn to the new field of enterprise opened on the lakes, after Wayne's treaty, was Gen. James O'Hara, a distinguished citizen of Pittsburg. He entered into a contract with the government to supply Oswego with provisions, which could then be fur. nished from Pittsburg cheaper than from the settlements on the Mohawk. Gen. O'Hara was a far-sighted calculator; he had obtained correct information in relation to the manufacture of salt at Salina; and in his contract for provisioning the garrison, he had in view the supplying of the western country with salt from Onondaga. This was a project that few men would have thought of, and fewer undertaken. The means of transportation had to be created on the whole line; boats and teams had to be provided to get the salt from the works to Oswego; a vessel built to transport it to the landing below the falls; wagons procured to carry it to Schlosser-then boats constructed to carry it to Black Rock. There another vessel was required to transport it to Erie. The road to the head of French creek had to be improved, and the salt carried in wagons across the portage; and finally, boats provided to float it to Pittsburg. It required no ordinary sagacity and perseverance to give success to this speculation. Gen. O'Hara, however, could execute as well as plan. He packed his flour and provisions in barrels suitable for salt. These were reserved in his contract. Arrangements were made with the manufacturers, and the necessary advances paid to secure a supply of salt. Two vessels were built, one on Lake Erie and one on Lake Ontario; and the means of transportation on all the various sections of the line were secured. The plan fully succeeded, and salt of a pretty fair quality was delivered at Pittsburg, and sold at four dollars per bushel-just half the price of the salt obtained by packing across the mountains. The vocation of the packers was gone. The trade opened by this man, whose success was equal to his merits, and who led the way in every great enterprise of the day, was extensively prosecuted by others. A large amount of capital was invested in the salt trade, and the means of transportation so greatly increased, that in a few years the Pittsburg market was supplied with Onondaga salt at twelve dollars per barrel of five bushels."-Judge Wilkeson, in American Pioneer.

The conspicuous rank which Pittsburg held, as the metropolis of the West, drew to the place many young men of eminent talents. As Mr. Hall, in his sketches, justly remarks

"When this settlement was young and insulated, and the savage yet prowled in its vicinity, legal science flourished with a vigor unusual in rude societies. The bench and bar exhibited a galaxy of eloquence and learning.

"Judge Addison, who first presided in this circuit under the present system, possessed a fine mind and great attainments. He was an accomplished scholar, deeply versed in every branch of classical learning. In law and theology he was great; but although he explored the depths of science with unwearied assiduity, he could sport in the sunbeams of literature, and cull with nice discrimination the flowers of poesy. He was succeeded by Judge Roberts, an excellent lawyer, and a man of great integrity and benevolence.

"Judge Wilkins, who succeeded Judge Roberts, has long been a prominent man. As an advocate he was distinguished for his graceful and easy style of speaking, and his acuteness in the development of testimony. He brought to the bench an active mind, much legal experience, and an intimate knowledge of the practice of the court. His public spirit and capacity for business have thrown him into a multitude of offices."

"There were at the bar in the olden time many illustrious pillars of the law: Steel Semple, long since deceased, a man of stupendous genius, spoken of by his contemporaries as a prodigy of eloquence and legal attainments; James Ross, who is still on the stage, and very generally known as a great statesman and an eminent advocate-who, for depth of thought, beauty of language, melody of voice, and dignity of manners, has few equals; Breckenridge, the eccentric and highly gifted author of "Modern Chivalry," celebrated for his wit, his singular habits, his frolicsome propensities and strange adventures, and who, though a successful advocate and an able judge, cracked his jokes at the bar and on the bench of the supreme court as freely as at his own fireside; Woods, Collins, Campbell, and Mountain, who would have shone at any bar; Henry Baldwin, an eminent lawyer, a rough but powerful and acute speaker, conspicuous in congress as chairman of the committee on domestic manufactures, and as the author of the celebrated tariff bill-with others, whose history has not reached me. This constellation of wit and learning, illumining a dusky atmosphere, presented a singular contrast to the wild and untutored spirits around them; and the collision of such opposite characters, together with the unsettled state of the country, produced a mass of curious incidents, many of which are still preserved, and circulate at the bar in the hours of forensic leisure."

Of the gentlemen noticed by Mr. Hall, there are still living, the Hon. James Ross, now the most venerable patriarch of the city; the Hon. Henry Baldwin, who adorns the bench of the U. S. supreme court; and the Hon. William Wilkins, who was a few years since minister to Russia, and now resides at his splendid mansion near Wilkinsburg, a few miles from the city. Mr. Ross has held a distinguished rank in the politics of Pennsylvania ever since the revolution. He was a prominent member of the convention for forming the constitution of 1790; was an able defender of the new constitution of the United States at its first presentation; and took a bold and open stand on the side of order during the great whiskey insurrection, being appointed a commissioner by Gen. Washington to treat with the insurgents. He was the candidate of the federal party of that day for governor, in opposition to Thomas M'Kean, in 1799 and 1802; and again in 1808, in opposition to Simon Snyder. Retiring from political life with the decline of his party, he stood for many years at the head of the bar in Allegheny county; and is now passing the evening of an honorable life, enjoying the sincere esteem of his fellow-citizens of all parties.

Hon. Judge Baldwin is a native of New Haven, Conn., where he graduated at Yale College, in 1797, and prepared himself for admission to the bar. His father was a highly respectable farmer, possessing a powerful intellect a quality which seems to have been inherited by his children, who have nearly all been eminent in public life. An elder brother of the judge was a distinguished member of congress from Georgia; another was an eminent statesman of Ohio-perhaps also a member of congress. One of the sisters was the lady of Hon. Joel Barlow, the poet, and ambassador to France; and a younger brother held for many years a public office under the U. S. in New Haven. Judge Baldwin's boyhood was spent amid the toils of agricultural life, to which circumstance he undoubtedly owes that mens sana in corpore sano, that strong mind in a vigorous frame, which has marked his later years. We have heard him boast that he drove the cart for "Jemmy Hillhouse" to plant that noble avenue of elms that now forms the pride of his beautiful native city; and Mr. Hillhouse used afterwards to delight in introducing Mr. Baldwin to his friends in Philadelphia as "a ploughboy of his." This "Jemmy Hillhouse," by the way, was a member of the convention for forming the constitution of the U. S., and a distinguished member of the U. S. senate for many years afterwards.

Judge Baldwin was attracted to the west by the influence of his brother, of Ohio, and eventually settled in Pittsburg. His legal practice, however, extended far beyond the Ohio river, and the early citizens of Columbus, Ohio, had frequent occasions to admire his eloquence. He was appointed to his present office by Gen. Jackson; but he is still living, and this is neither the time nor the place to write his biography.

The following sketch is abridged from an able article in the Southern Literary Messenger for 1842.

Hugh Henry Brackenridge (or Breckenridge, as the name is most usually spelt,) was born in Scotland in the year 1750. When he was five years of age, his father emigrated to the barrens of York co., Pa., then a new settlement. Hugh's father was a poor farmer, but Scotch boys always find an education, rich or poor. With a few ragged books, bor

rowed here and there, by an occasional recitation to the clergyman, and diligent study by the dim light of chips and splinters thrown on a winter's fire, Hugh mastered learning enough to become a teacher himself; and with the scanty earnings of that employment, found himself, at the age of 18, in Princeton College. He agreed to teach two classes, on condition of being permitted to pursue his studies in the others. He was very ambitious. After having graduated, he remained some time as a tutor; was afterwards licensed to preach, and took charge of an academy in Maryland, where he continued until the revolution. About the year 1776, he edited the U. S. Magazine, a political work, in Philadelphia. It abounded in appeals to American patriotism, and occasionally plied the lash of satire. In 1777 he joined the revolutionary army as chaplain to a regiment; lived in camp, preached to the soldiers, and attended them to the battle-field as in the time of the Covenanters. His sermons were of course political. He soon after abandoned the clerical profession, becoming somewhat skeptical as regarded the tenets of certain sects, and studied law with Judge Chase, of the Supreme Court of the U. S. He crossed the mountains to Pittsburg in 1781, and was not long in establishing a reputation in the western counties; and sometime afterwards, in 1788, when the county of Allegheny was established, he was already at the head of the bar of western Pennsylvania.

In a few years he was elected to the legislature, where he took an active part in favor of instructing congress to demand the free navigation of the Mississippi. When the great struggle for and against the federal constitution came on, he "fought a hard battle in its defence." Findlay, Gallatin, and others, with whom he afterwards acted in the western insurrection, were in the opposition.

Mr. Brackenridge prospered in his profession, laid the foundation of a large fortune, married, and was universally respected for his integrity and talents. He was popular, and was looked up to as the champion of popular rights. He adhered, after the adoption of the constitution, to the republican, or democratic party. At the date of the great whiskey insurrection, Mr. Brackenridge was about in the forty-fourth year of his age. In this affair he took an important, dangerous, but honorable part, although his conduct at the time was misrepresented by his enemies, and was, for a while, misunderstood. The part which he played in this great crisis was to appear to side with the insurgents-not for the purpose of betraying them, but-to gain their confidence, and get the lead in their movements in such a way as to moderate their impetuosity, and keep them, as far as possible, within the bounds of reason and law, and eventually to bring about a reconciliation, without bloodshed, with the general government. In this he eventually succeeded; but he himself had like to have been arraigned for high treason, until his conduct was satisfactorily explained.

Two years after the insurrection, Mr. Brackenridge published the first volume of Modern Chivalry, a comic and satirical work, but abounding in great political and philosophical views under the guise of pleasantry, in which many traces of those times may be discovered. His object was to indoctrinate the people in the true principles of a democratic republic. He was one of the most active and efficient in bringing about the revolution of party in the years 1799-1800. On the election of Gov. McKean,