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Subject: [PAWASHIN-L] This Date in History
Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2000 16:37:55 EDT
Features - Vignettes - Sunday, October 15, 2000
THIS DATE IN HISTORY
By Robert B. Van Atta
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
A wide variety of events have taken place on Oct. 15 in bygone years.
The Western Pennsylvania Institute for the Blind opened in Pittsburgh's
Oakland district in 1890.
The year 1925 brought both disaster and joy. The Pirates that day defeated
the Washington Senators, 9-7, in the final and deciding seventh game of the
World Series before 42,856 at Forbes Field.
On the other hand, three Ohio men were killed when an ``obsolete'' plane
crashed at New Salem in Fayette County in bad weather.
The Oakdale-McDonald streetcar line, an independent one operated by West Penn
Railways, shut down on this date in 1927.
In 1932, U.S. President Herbert Hoover was at Pittsburgh in his unsuccessful
re-election effort, and in 1960 John F. Kennedy was at Indiana in his
successful one.
Ground was broken for Crooked Creek Dam in 1937, and excavation started for
three Gateway Center buildings at Pittsburgh in 1950.
On this date in 1953, the Parkway West at Pittsburgh was opened and
dedicated.
On the other hand, when Oct. 15 arrived in 1954, a one-day rainfall of 3.56
inches caused much flooding and cancellation of Friday night events. A record
flood saturated the areas along the Youghiogheny River.
A million-dollar fire leveled a large aluminum siding plant at South
Greensburg in 1957.
======================================================
Debate continues over British use of germ warfare in 1763
By Robert B. Van Atta
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
An oft-repeated canon that germ warfare dates back to British deeds at Fort
Pitt in 1763 needs more evidential examination rather than further
repetition.
This is an analysis offered by Hunter College professor Philip Ranlet in the
Summer 2000 issue of Pennsylvania History, a quarterly journal of the state
historical association.
The persistent story has been used in college textbooks and other reference
materials after it came to light. That occurred in 1870 when a researcher
uncovered it in correspondence between British Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Amherst and
Col. Henry Bouquet of local French and Indian War action.
The material was supported by a statement found and published in 1924 in a
journal of an Indian trader.
The exchange of letters between Amherst and Bouquet suggested that Indians be
infected with smallpox via contaminated blankets.
An entry for June 24, 1763, by William Trent, an Indian trader at Fort Pitt,
included this passage about a meeting with two Delaware Indians at the fort:
``Out of our regard for them, we gave them two blankets and a handkerchief
out of the smallpox hospital. We hope it will have the desired effect.''
In the Amherst-Bouquet exchange, Amherst asked, ``Could it not be contrived
to send the smallpox among those disaffected tribes of Indians?''
``I will try to inoculate the Indians,'' Bouquet responded, ``with some
blankets which may fall into their hands, and take care not to get the
disease myself.'' Amherst, in his reply, urged him to go ahead with the
blankets and ``to try every other method.''
There are a variety of results in various historians' and scholars'
interpretations of the event, many in recent years. Evidence of the intent of
the British officers is generally accepted, based on further research that
verifies the actual effort, in Bouquet's papers.
However, the results have found considerable disagreement. British officers
in general were known to have a great distaste for the Indians.
It is also known that Indian trader Trent had granted credit to some Indian
customers and was not paid.
There remain questions about Indian immunity to smallpox, whether any virus
on the blankets would survive long enough to infect anyone, and no evidence
that the Indians were weakened by smallpox at the pivotal Battle of Bushy Run
that summer of 1763.
There was an outbreak of smallpox in the spring of 1763 at Fort Pitt, and
some question about how it could have been carried to the isolated fort at
the Point.
Some research says that there was an outbreak among the Indians, and other
evidence is to the contrary.
What is clear amid this confusion, however, is that the real conquest of the
Indians with respect to Fort Pitt came with the results at Bushy Run.
======================================================
PLENTY OF SQUIRRELS
A perceived overabundance of squirrels this fall does not rival the fuss
created by the diminutive creatures hereabouts in 1783.
That year, a mass migration of squirrels eastward from southwestern
Pennsylvania over the mountains was attributed to the failure of nut and
acorn crops that fall.
Squirrel was served at every meal at many taverns and inns along the roads to
Pittsburgh. Masses of squirrels crossing the rivers halted boats for hours.
======================================================
SULFUR FAVORABLE?
An assessment of the health situation at Pittsburgh in an 1889 history has a
conclusion that would find little support from the years since. Said that
history:
``It is not pretended that Pittsburgh is a sanitarium or health resort. It is
hot in summer and cold in winter, and has all the dirty characteristics of a
great manufacturing place, but still its citizens feel much pride in its
reputation as a healthy place.''
``The cholera, in its visits of 1832 and 1854, although severe in its
visitations, was not so fatal here as in many other cities ... other
epidemics such as smallpox have yielded easily to municipal control and have
been confined to the neighborhoods where they first broke out.''
``There have been local outbreaks of typhoid fever ... but a severe
discipline has kept them within their original bounds ... this hill country
of western Pennsylvania has always been free from diseases of malarial
origin, and the sulfur in the air of a coal-consuming city has been favorable
rather than unfavorable to lung diseases.''
IMMIGRANT TRAINS
Several inquiries have been received recently about the immigrant trains from
Greensburg and a building used at the city's railroad station.
When the Southwest Branch Railroad from Greensburg to Uniontown was built in
the early 1870s, the developing coal and coke industry brought in immigrant
workers by train for labor.
To accommodate the almost daily group of workers, a wooden building was
erected at the rail station, called Castle Gardens, where the immigrants
awaited the train to southern Westmoreland and Fayette mines. It was
demolished in 1909 when the new station was built.
The mine operators met them at the various way stations, and the then mostly
eastern Europeans became miners and other workers.
======================================================
COMMUNITY CAPSULES
Walchalk (Armstrong) had an early drum band which a prominent pioneer
observed that if he had commanded it, he would make the members ``walk
chalk.''
A grindstone incorporated during construction into a schoolhouse gable
produced the name for Grindstone (Fayette).
Freeport (Greene) was originally a borough, but changed into a township in
1932 to qualify for state aid for streets and roads.
The coal town of Coral (Indiana) received that label, it is said, from a
statement about ``coal being as valuable as coral.''
A town in Jefferson County's lumbering past was named Blowhard for the
bragging lumbermen there.
A Somerset coal village, Raineytown, between Berlin and Garrett, was known as
Red Raineytown because so many houses there were painted that color.
Daisytown (Washington) was laid out about 1900 by a surveyor at a time of the
year an abundance of flowers of that name was in full bloom.
Still another coal town, Peanut in Westmoreland, had its small size noted in
its name. ``Pea'' and ``nut'' were the two smallest sizes of coal.
The Troy Hill section of Pittsburgh was at one time informally known as ``the
salad bowl'' because of the many truck farms there.
Chalk Hill (Fayette) took that identity from white clay adhering to National
Road workmen's shovels in the 1820s.
The town of Jefferson (Greene), was laid out about 1795, about half taking
that name and the other half the name of Hamilton, due to national political
beliefs. In 1828, when it was chartered as a borough, state authorities
picked one name.
Because an Indiana County town's post office was established at a residence
in 1834, it was given the name of Home.
======================================================
SPORTS HISTORY
Beaver Stadium at Penn State University would undoubtedly have a different
name if the governor of Pennsylvania for whom it was named had acted
differently in 1880.
James Beaver was a Civil War officer who rose to the rank of brigadier
general before a severe wound necessitated amputation of one of his legs.
In 1880, the Washington & Jefferson College graduate declined the Republican
convention offer of the U.S. vice presidency on the ticket with James A.
Garfield. Had he accepted and the election had the same result, Gen. Beaver
would have become president when Garfied was assassinated the next year.
Instead, he ultimately ran for Pennsylvania governor in 1886 and became the
only one-legged man to hold the post of this state's chief executive.
His major achievements came in education as he promoted establishment of high
schools in all cities and boroughs (many were founded in the 1880s and 1890s
as a result).
He also served on Penn State's board of trustees for 30 years, and as interim
president. His support for getting money for facilities, including athletics,
brought the stadium naming for him. An attorney at Bellefonte, Beaver also
served as a state superior court justice.
Robert B. Van Atta is history editor of the Tribune-Review.
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