them to retain the
ownership of various manors throughout the State, embracing half a
million acres.

In order to relieve the people of Pittsburgh from going to Greensburg
to the court-house in their sacred right of suing and being sued, the
general assembly erected Allegheny County out of parts of Westmoreland
and Washington Counties, September 24, 1788. This county originally
comprised, in addition to its present limits, what are now Armstrong,
Beaver, Butler, Crawford, Erie, Mercer, Venango, and Warren Counties.
The Act required that the court-house and jail should be located in
Allegheny (just across the river from Pittsburgh), but as there was no
protection against Indians there, an amendment established Pittsburgh as
the county seat. The first court was held at Fort Pitt; and the next day
a ducking-stool was erected for the district, at "The Point" in the
three rivers.

In 1785, the dispute between Virginia and Pennsylvania for the
possession of Pittsburgh was settled by the award of a joint commission
in favor of Pennsylvania.

A writer says that in 1786 Pittsburgh contained thirty-six log houses,
one stone, and one frame house, and five small stores. Another records
that the population "is almost entirely Scots and Irish, who live in log
houses." A third says of these log houses: "Now and then one had assumed
the appearance of neatness and comfort."

The first newspaper, the Pittsburgh "Gazette," was established July 29,
1786. A mail route to Philadelphia, by horseback, was adopted in the
same year. On September 29, 1787, the Legislature granted a charter to
the Pittsburgh Academy, a school that has grown steadily in usefulness
and power as the Western University of Pennsylvania, and which has in
this year (July 11, 1908) appropriately altered its name to University
of Pittsburgh.

[Illustration: Anthony Wayne]

In 1791, the Indians became vindictive and dangerous, and General Arthur
St. Clair, with a force of twenty-three hundred men, was sent down the
river to punish them. Neglecting President Washington's imperative
injunction to avoid a surprise, he led his command into an ambush and
lost half of it in the most disastrous battle with the redskins since
the time of Braddock. In the general alarm that ensued, Fort Pitt being
in a state of decay, a new fort was built in Pittsburgh at Ninth and
Tenth Streets and Penn Avenue,--a stronghold that included bastions,
blockhouses, barracks, etc., and was named