Vandergrift High School - Spectator Yearbook (Vandergrift, PA)

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24 THE SPECTATOR This new fort was situated on the same strip of land between the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers as was Duquesne. This fort was capable of sheltering a thousand men. A five angled moat surrounded the fort and on its walls were eighteen cannon. Its taking four years to build it, caused it to be considered a great stronghold for the British. In 1763 “Pontiac’s Conspiracy”, the best organized effort ever made by the American Indians to withstand the impressment of the white men was organized. Only because of the second arrival by Colonel Bouquet did this fort stand the five day attack of the enemy. While preparing for further attacks the Colonel ordered the erection of the little blockhouse in order to protect the moat on the northside where the river sometimes runs dry. Our little blockhouse is all that remains today of Fort Pitt and is the only monument of British occupancy in the surrounding country. —Annamay Risher, ’24. I LOVE TO LISTEN TO GRANDPA I love to listen to Grandpa, His tales are always so good; When he tells about himself In the days of his boyhood. Grandpa with the big white whiskers And a beard of snowy grey, Can always tell the best of stories When it comes the close of day. Grandpa sure has lots to tell you And its nothing but the truth, Stories of great adventures About when Grandpa was a youth. Soon my Grandpa will be leaving For a better place than earth, How I will miss those stories That he told me by the hearth. —Grant Marks, ’25.

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THE SPECTATOR 23 may fail to do him justice, but the instinct of mankind will not fail. The real hero needs not books to give him worshippers. George Washington will alw’ays receive the love and reverence of men, because they see embodied in him the noblest possibilities of humanity. —Tresa Ferrari, ’28. GENERAL ROBERT LEE OBERT Lee wras a son of the Famous Light Horse Harry Lee. He was born on the nineteenth of January, 1807 in Westmoreland County, Virginia, on the Potomac River. He was a brave, strong, manly lad and was always in love with his mother. His father moved from his native State to Washington near the National Capitol. Here Robert w'ent to school. When he was eleven years old his father died. He resolved to hold up his father’s honor, so he went to West Point on the Hudson River. Four years later he graduated as Lieutenant Lee. He joined the Engineering Corps and was stationed on the Atlantic Coast. On the third day of June, thirty-three years later, he was made General of the Army of Virginia. He w'on the Battle of Malvern Hill and second Battle of Bull Run. However, at Gettysburg, Pa., in the following year, he was defeated by General Meade. He kept the Union soldiers out of Richmond for three yeai-s and he fought many other battles. At last he was defeated by General U. S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, on the ninth day of April, 1865. Here the war ended; the South w’as a waste. For five years he wfas President of Washington College. He died on the twelfth day of October, five years after his surrender and he is honored to this day. —Leland Balsiger, ’28. “THE OLD BLOCK HOUSE” wonder how many of the readers of this paper ever knew' that it was unnecessary to go a hundred or more miles to see a place of national interest? How many could find within the walls of Pittsburgh at least one place of interest? How' many ever heard of “The Old Block House”, in Pittsburgh? Suppose the next time you go shopping you look for it. It is a tiny brick building, a five sided construction, such as we see in our history books when viewing pictures of the Revolutionary days. It is about thirty-five feet wide and has an underground passage running to the fort and one out to the river. It is built of brick, a pagoda in shape, having two floors each showing a row of horizontal slits as loopholes. Over the door there is a stone upon which is inscribed: COL. BOUQUET 1764 In 1785 the structure was converted into a dwelling and continued to be so for 109 years, when the building and surrounding sites were deeded to the Daughters of the American Revolution, who restored it to its original state. Upon entering, one steps back two centuries as he steps down the two steps at the entrance. The interior, paved with flag stone, contains a narrow, twisting staircase leading to the second floor and has a vault-like appearance. A few' historical facts would do no harm. Upon this site rested one of the six places that determined the geographical and political institution wre call the United States. In 1754 the French began building forts to show their power west of the Alleghanies. The two most military dominions of that interior wrere at Niagara and Pittsburgh, but strange as it seems, no fort was made at Pittsburgh until the Virginians had made a fort there in 1754. Gov. Dinwiddie of Virginia, decided to investigate these activities and sent George Washington with a letter asking the French to cease operation on English-American soil but the French politely refused. The following year a body of Virginians were defeated and the French then erected Fort Duquesne. In 1758 the French left this fort in the face of their enemies and the English arriving a few days later began Fort Pitt, naming it in honor of the Prime Minister.

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THE SPECTATOR Poetry WHY WORRY Hello thex-e! why what’s wrong Jack, You don’t look the same to me, Your brow is puckered, your hair is gray, Why what’s wrong, buddy? I know what it is; I need not look twice, You’i-e down in your luck, And you make it concise. You’ve had tx-oubles, great and many, Since the time we all came back. From that field of strife and death. Of which e’en now no dread we lack. I heard you hastened home fhat day, To your mother and brothers dear, You found, alas, your aged mother gone. And your brothers too—many a year. t You went to your former employers And they hail no room for you, You went to othex-s, and then anothei-, But everywhere there was nothing to do. Fortunately you got a place, Though for it, you had no intex-est, You seemed to be in the way of all, Your deeds abx-oad, merely a jest. And now—but cheer up, Jack, Why worry, why spend your day With the past, that unfortunate past. When thex-e is the future to pay. You have been gassed in the ti’enches, For which your health is not now the best, But think of all the women and kiddies Whose lives, by your deeds, have been blessed. Think of the terror we have moved from the land Defeated the foe and vanquished the wx-ong We have dealt out justice, sevex-e and hard. But think of the joy we have brought to the throng. Again, I say, why woi-ry? Do away with those lines on your brow,