Upper St. Clair Township History June 14, 2018

Copyright © 2018                               John F. Oyler

June 14, 2018

Early Upper St. Clair Township History

The May program meeting of the Bridgeville Area Historical Society focused on the early history of Upper St. Clair Township with a presentation by Marjorie Stein entitled “Memory Lane”. She prefaced her talk with the statement that her information was based on family lore and was not necessarily historically correct.

She began by recounting the history of what is now Upper St. Clair Township. The original St. Clair Township, one of six in Allegheny County, was bounded by Chartiers Creek, the Ohio and Monongahela Rivers, Streets Run, and the Washington County border. The first division was into Lower and Upper St. Clair Townships, with the Lower St. Clair Township including the portions of the City of Pittsburgh south of the Ohio and Monongahela Rivers. Down through the years most of the South Hills communities, including Dormont, Mt. Lebanon, and Bridgeville were spun off as independent municipalities.

Mrs. Stein is a descendant of John Fife, the first permanent settler in what is Upper St. Clair today; much of her presentation was based on Fife family lore. The Fife family was living in Fifeshire, Scotland, in the early eighteenth century when William and John Fife were born. The brothers emigrated to Ireland and lived near Londonderry.

According to the speaker they served in the English army and were awarded grants of land in the colonies in North America. John Fife came to Winchester, Virginia, in 1756, where he earned his living as a tailor. At some point he settled in western Pennsylvania and acquired a significant amount of land in what is now Upper St. Clair. The Upper St. Clair Township website states that this occurred in 1762; this is probably incorrect; no settlement was permitted west of Allegheny Mountain until the Treaty of Fort Stanwix late in 1768.

John Fife probably came here in 1769, as did Christian Lesnett and his sons, Frederick and Frank. The speaker told a cute tale of John Fife being given instructions to the location of his new property – “take a boat up Chartiers Creek a certain distance (ten miles?) to a stand of white oak trees and look a certain direction (due north?) and spot the nearest hilltop”.

She also reported that he found an Indian village there and purchased his land from an Indian for a pair of buckskins and some firewater. This too is highly unlikely; there is certainly no record anywhere else of Indian habitation anywhere in this area. Confirmation of such a village would be a significant addition to our knowledge of the early history in this region.

John Fife’s brother William came to America in 1770 and settled in Philadelphia. In 1776 he relocated to western Pennsylvania and settled near his brother. By the time the Ohio Company and the colonies of Pennsylvania and Virginia settled their boundary disputes, the Fifes had acquired significant holdings locally.

 The Allegheny County Warrantee Atlas shows a warrant of 397 acres for “Cremona” to John Fife in the area along Route 19 south of Upper St. Clair Country Club. South of it is “Fifers’ Delight, 386 acres warranted to William Fife. “Fife’s Utility”, 126 acres east of it was originally warranted to John Fife, but patented to Robert Gillespie in 1808.

Mrs. Stein showed a number of interesting photographs of the Fife farm in the early twentieth century, located in the Old Washington Pike/Johnson Road vicinity.

She also discussed Reverend John McMillan, another distant relative, and his involvement in the establishment of Bethel Church. She reported that the Bethel Church contains graves of fourteen Revolutionary War veterans, seven of whom are Fifes. McMillan was certainly one of the most significant citizens of this area in the late eighteenth century.

The speaker related a family story involving Reverend McMillan. According to it he and George Washington were friends and “every time Washington came here to collect rents from tenants on his farms, McMillan would entertain him lavishly to distract him from this task.” This too is unlikely. McMillan came here in 1774; the only visit Washington made after that was the well documented trip in 1784 to confront David Reed and the Seceders.

She ended her talk with a discussion of the first years of Upper St. Clair High School, a subject of great personal interest to a number of folks in the audience, including Lou DeLach and Karen and Larry Godwin. I was struck by the fact that this occurred after the final year of Bridgeville High School. When does history morph into current events?

This particular program highlighted the fact that we students of history are obligated to retain the distinction between well documented historical facts and hearsay. Every family has interesting tales which are fun to hear, but are unlikely candidates to be recorded as history.

The next Historical Society program meeting is scheduled for 7:30 pm, Tuesday, June 26, 2018, at the Chartiers Room, Bridgeville Volunteer Fire Department. Kathleen Lugarich, Director of Education at the Fort Pitt Museum will discuss “Point of Empire, A Brief Overview of Fort Pitt”. This presentation will of special interest to those of us participating in the “Second Tuesday” series of workshops on Washington in western Pennsylvania.