divided into three
rooms, two facing on Ferry Street, and the third, a large room, on Water
Street, and in this latter room was placed, in the year of Washington's
stop there, the first billiard table ever brought to Pittsburgh. The
mahogany steps from the first to the second floors, which were once the
pride of the place, are still in the house.[B] According to Washington's
journal, there were in Pittsburgh in 1770 twenty houses situated on
Water Street, facing the Monongahela River. These were occupied by
traders and their families. The population at that time is estimated at
one hundred and twenty-six men, women, and children, besides a garrison
consisting of two companies of British troops.

[Footnote B: On going again to look at this house, which I have seen
many times, I find that it was recently demolished to make room for
railway improvements.]

In October, 1772, Fort Pitt was ordered abandoned. The works about
Pittsburgh, from first to last, had cost the British Crown some three
hundred thousand dollars, but the salvage on the stone, brick, and iron
of the existing redoubts amounted to only two hundred and fifty dollars.
The Blockhouse was repaired and occupied for a time by Dr. John
Connelly; and during the Revolution it was constantly used by our
Colonial troops.

X

With the French out of the country, and with William Pitt out of office
and incapacitated by age, the Colonies began to feel the oppression of a
British policy which British statesmen and British historians to-day
most bitterly condemn. America's opposition to tyranny found its natural
expression in the Battle of Lexington, April 19, 1775. The fires of
patriotism leapt through the continent and the little settlement at
Pittsburgh was quickly aflame with the national spirit. On May 16th a
convention was held at Pittsburgh, which resolved that

This committee have the highest sense of the spirited behavior of
their brethren in New England, and do most cordially approve of
their opposing the invaders of American rights and privileges to
the utmost extreme, and that each member of this committee,
respectively, will animate and encourage their neighborhood to
follow the brave example.

No foreign soldiers were sent over the mountains to Pittsburgh, but a
more merciless foe, who would attack and harass with remorseless
cruelty, was impressed into the English service, despite the horrified
protests of some of her