University of Pittsburgh - Owl Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA)

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A vi«w of fh Schonloy Footm 0100 o tvnd 1904. TKo photograph wet token from the Wobtlot Moll area fifth Aronvo con bo toon going off lo the right, with SeHefiefd Arenve on the loft, forbet hold con bo toon ot the top loft, with tho Schonloy Hotol ot the top right The confer of the photograph it now occupied by rho Cofhodrol of looming. knives into their boots as they took their seats on the split log benches. The Great Fire of 1845 destroyed all records. The term ran from the end of harvest to the beginning of planting season. The schoolhouse was constructed of logs stuffed with mud, the cabin having only one room with a fireplace and a little alcove where boys could hang their guns. The school desks were boards fastened to the wall along the windows, boards which were dropped down at night when the schoolroom doubled as a schoolmaster's meeting room and as his bedroom. The seats were backless split-log benches with the split side up. After classes, the new students faced a four mile trip back across town, which meant more than an hour's hike through some of the roughest Indian country known. They normally headed for the safety of the fort, and then down Liberty Street, a dirt road lined with small taverns and wooden hut stores peddling blankets, match coats, hats, looking glasses, knives, beads and bracelets of glass, all manner of rough-hewn toys for children, guns, flints, powder and lead, and kegs of rum used to barter with the Indians. Water Street was filled with wagons loaded with vegetables on the way to the 2

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All objections clear, the bill quickly passed and the tk . phno ph. 4ot«d OcHh»» J. 190S, »h«w» lK« ignmlm wnww lor tKo lint orodrrr.ii . . ■ . . , .1 bvd r% orr rKo Ooklond (ompvr, Tho SrKool ol Mioo . A crowd ol noortir rSroo rKovtood omorrod or rKo legislators went on to more pressing work, the revision ot the MKido io. .h. imr«n ««»•«. on.nd»d by Oor» » w foirt»nk», »«. p.«ku«i i« Tod «oo» i Articles of Confederation. Their efforts were culminated the same morning that the new school opened. On September 17, 1787 the convention delegates signed the new Constitution of the United States of America. Six male students abandoned the excitement of the frontier town to attend sessions in what has become the oldest institution of learning, excepting the University of Nashville, west of the Appalachians. Sam Semple's Tavern along the Monongahela was filled with the towns leading citizens, who had stopped to talk and pick up any mail that incoming travelers may have brought them. (There was no postal service then). You could make payments in cash, country produce, or ginseng (a type of herb) at John Ormsby's General Store. He carried men's and women's cotton or worsted hose, corduroys, velvets, gloves, superfine broadcloth, snuffboxes, and an assortment of saddle ware and bar iron. His terms led a stranger to exclaim that Pittsburgh was infested by a combination of pensioned scoundrek who made a business of cheating and overcharging strangers. Only history knows who those six boys were who paid the annual tuition of $13.60 as they entered the log schoolhouse, checking their guns at the door and pushing 11

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morning market. John Scull was busy all over town distributing the Gazette. Within three years, a new postal system would perform those duties, but 'til then, Scull was the Gazette's editor, publisher, and delivery boy. The trustee-incorporators of the new school included the most distinguished citizens of the area. There were six Presbyterian ministers (five of them graduates of Princeton), four Army officers who had seen duty in the Revolutionary War, five lawyers and two physicians. Among them were the Reverend John McMillan, Colonel Pressley Neville, Dr. Nathaniel Bedford, Colonel William Butler, David Bedford (who later fled to Louisiana in 1794 for his part in the Whiskey Rebellion), James Ross (who taught at the Academy and later became an early U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania) and the Reverend Joseph Smith, known as Hell-Fire Smith . George Welch, the first principal, felt the students should A mw of DoSoto S Proof i OoUtod o»ovnd 1910. Th if'Mt mow o«om-modofot Iho Orodvot School of PvbU Hoolth Bidding com plot. Wot torn rch«t Inttirvto. Chddtont HotpttoJ. otbytocion-Un voc»i»Y Motp.tol o d tho Pwt Foot boll Stodtvm 13