1842, Charles Dickens
1848, Henry Clay
1849, President Taylor and Governor Johnston
1852, Louis Kossuth
1860, Prince of Wales (now King Edward VII)
1861, President Lincoln
1866, President Johnson, Admiral Farragut, General Grant,
and Secretaries Seward and Welles

In 1845 (April 10th), a great fire destroyed about one third of the
total area of the city, including most of the large business houses and
factories, the bridge over the Monongahela River, the large hotel known
as the Monongahela House, and several churches, in all about eleven
hundred buildings. The Legislature appropriated $50,000 for the relief
of the sufferers.

In 1889, the great flood at Johnstown, accompanied by a frightful loss
of life and destruction of property, touched the common heart of
humanity all over the world. The closeness of Johnstown geographically
made the sorrow at Pittsburgh most poignant and profound. In a few hours
almost the whole population had brought its offerings for the stricken
community, and besides clothing, provisions, and every conceivable thing
necessary for relief and comfort, the people of Pittsburgh contributed
$250,000 to restore so far as possible the material portion of the
loss.

In the autumn of 1908 a series of imposing celebrations was held to
commemorate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of
Pittsburgh.

XVI

In 1877, the municipal government being, in its personnel, at the
moment, incompetent to preserve the fundamental principles on which it
was established, permitted a strike of railroad employees to grow
without restriction as to the observance of law and order until it
became an insurrection. Four million dollars' worth of property was
destroyed by riot and incendiarism in a few hours. When at last outraged
authority was properly shifted from the supine city chieftains to the
indomitable State itself, it became necessary, before order could be
restored, for troops to fire, with a sacrifice of human life.

For some months preceding the riots at Pittsburgh disturbances among the
railroad employees, especially the engineers and brakemen of
freight-trains, had been frequent on railroads west and east of this
city. These disturbances arose mainly from resistance to reductions in
the rates of wages, made or proposed by the executive officers of the
various railroads, and also from objections of train crews to
regulations governing the tra