Pitcairn High School - Retrospect Yearbook (Pitcairn, PA)

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Right Here In Pitcairn In the night view of Pitcairn from the top of the Sixth Street steps, there is a curious magic which works its spell upon all who find pleasure in glimpsing into the past. The myriad lights, creek, and darkened hills somehow conjure scenes of real living char- acters long enshrouded in the mists of the years. Through the lights and shadows of the valley can be visioned the solitary form of old John Frazier, Chief Pontiac and his motley tribes of murderous Indians, gayly decked Scottish Ilighlanders marching under the banner of the gallant Bouquet, and Colonel McKay looking wistfully over his broad acres, as he hears the call of General VVashington to fight and die for his country. These pages are written in an attempt to recover certain facts, either lost or forgotten, to travel again the old Indian Trail beaten out by moccasiu feet, and to bring forward into clearer view certain persons and events forgot- ten in the land of long ago. Ilntrodden by the feet of White men lay the Turtle Creek Valley of two hundred years ago. However, about 1744 certain shadows be- gan to fall on the long day of Indian supre- macy. The white man was moving in, first the ever-moving hunters, trappers, and trad- ers, then the soldiers, and lastly the settler, hewing out his rude cabin in the wilderness. Since the story of Pitcairn carries us back two centuries we shall write of four segments of time of fifty years each. Chapter I-1744-1794 Since the Atlantic Seaboard was first set- tled in 1607, why was Western Pennsylvania, including the Turtle Creek Valley which was only about 300 miles to the west, allowed to remain unknown and neglected for 137 years? The answer is three fold: mountain barriers, savage Indians, and tangled claims of Na- tional and State ownership. The wall of the Allegheny Mountains seem- ed to hold back the men of the Eastern Shores just as effectively as did the Great Wall of China bar the way of the yellow hordes. Embittered and revengeful, the Indians, driven by the white men from their hunting grounds in the East, moved their tribes in great numbers over the mountains into West- ern Pennsylvania. Into this hornets-nest of Indian savagery the early settlers of Eastern Pennsylvania, the Quakers, the Germans, and the Dutch, refused to venture. However, other new settlers were beginning to make their presence known both in Eastern and 1Vestern Pennsylvania. These were the Scotch Irish who came first about 1700 from Ireland. This group of pio- neers were fitted for life on the frontier. They were not men of peace, like the Quakers, Ger- mans, and Dutch, but men ready to fight their way, whether it be with their peaceful neigh- bor in the East or tl1e savage Redskin of the Vlfest. These born pioneers were quite ready to invade the wilderness, and when the land beyond the Alleghenies was opened to set- tlers they pushed forward into it, carrying the frontier of Pennsylvania far towards its western border. Neither wild beasts nor savage Indians could stop them, for they came of a fighting race. They were the best people to endure the hardship Eillfl danger of the frontiers, and the strength and energy they developed made them just the men to face the struggles that were to come. The third cause of our slow development was that of tangled claims of ownership. France claimed ownership through early French discoveries in the north along tl1e headwaters of the Allegheny River. England asserted its claim because of English explor- ations along the eastern shore. The English claim was complicated further by both Vir- ginia and Pennsylvania claiming almost the whole of Allegheny County, each state set- ting up its own system of government, which they attempted to force on our early settlers. Then, of course, the oldest and perhaps the most just claim of ownership was that of the Indians. This, for many years, they asserted i11 the wake of burning cabins and scalping knives. It can thus be seen that our own Turtle Creek Valley, being in the center of all the above complications, was not an inviting spot for the pioneer. Had we been alive two hundred years ago, then as now, the burden of our conversation would have been about NVar. For i11 1744, war between England and France involved America. But in the Turtle Creek Valley something then seemingly unimportant was happening. White men were beginning to mingle their foot prints with those of the Indian. fConti11ued on page 112 nine

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Robert Pitcairn For Whom the Town W'czs Named eight

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PITCAIRN IN 1889 Before Creek was Changed PITCAIRN 1907 , Jr , A After Hump Was Constructed Both Pictures were taken from about the same location