An Old Bridgeville Scrapbook May 18, 2017

Copyright © 2017          John F. Oyler

May 18, 2017

An Old Bridgeville Scrapbook

Old scrapbooks are valuable sources of historical information. Ed Wolf, the very capable archivist for the Bridgeville Area Historical Society, recently found one in the Society’s archives that is a treasure house of information.

The origin of the scrapbook is unknown, but the old newspaper clippings it contains tell us a lot about many of the legends upon which our current perception of Bridgeville’s early history is based. All of us history buffs realize that we never do know the true story of what happened in the past; instead we know what our predecessors have told us, orally and in written words.

Our understanding of early Bridgeville history is influenced heavily by stories from the Lesnett family heritage as reported by Daniel M. Bennett and by stories from the Poellott family that were repeated to Jimmy Patton by his uncle John Poellott. The Poellott information is well documented in correspondence between them. This scrapbook contains equally well documented information from the Lesnett/Bennett source in the form of old newspaper clippings.

One clipping, a reprint of an article originally published in the December 16, 1920, Carnegie Signal-Item, recounts a description of Bridgeville in 1855 as reported by Mrs. John Caldwell to her daughter, Mrs. Bennett. It contains two historic gems – confirmation of my long time wish that the Bridgeville bridges had been covered bridges, and a clarification of the function of the toll house on Washington Avenue.

According to Mrs. Caldwell, a descendant of the original Lesnett family in this area, “As you entered he village from the southern side, it was over an old covered bridge whose boards were so loose and made so much noise that you imagined your next step would precipitate you into the water of Chartiers Creek below”.

And, from the same article, “As you left the village at north or ‘lower end’, it was over a covered bridge”. Since these statements are included in an article which contains so many of the other trivia from Bridgeville’s early history, we feel justified concluding that the classic structures that gave our community its name were indeed covered bridges.

This gives me the opportunity to speculate on the specific type of covered bridge these might have been. Ithiel Town patented his “Town Lattice Truss” in 1820. It depends upon a large number of intersecting diagonals that give the appearance of a diamond shaped lattice. The same year Theodore Burr patented his “Burr Arch Truss” which combines an elegant arch with a conventional King Post truss. Both designs were popular at a time early enough to produce a bridge described as “old” in 1855. I think I will be greedy and pretend that the south bridge was a Town Truss and the north one a Burr Arch Truss.

The other interesting detail in this specific article was a description of the toll gate on the Pittsburgh and Washington Turnpike in the heart of the village in 1855. Just north of James Street, on the east side of the Pike, “The next place was the toll gate and the residence and shoe shop of Thomas Roach, grandfather of the Roaches in the vicinity. The toll gate and the customary long pole, which descended and barred your way, until you had paid the desired nickel of those days, and Mr. Roach, who was also the gatekeeper, was very alert as to his duties”.

It certainly is easy to wonder about the logistics of toll collecting. Was the toll gate applicable for foot traffic, or did it just apply to wagons and carts? At a nickel a car, a toll gate across Washington Avenue in front of La Bella Bean would generate a handsome revenue stream for the borough.

Although he didn’t mention the toll gate, John Poellott’s description of Bridgeville in 1859, as recorded on page 21 of the Historical Society book “Bridgeville”, is remarkably similar to this Caldwell/Bennett account.

We will report on some other interesting information from this scrapbook in a future column. Suffice it to say these two items alone make it a significant artifact. We are grateful to the unknown donor of this scrapbook and hope its example encourages others to consider the Historical Society when it comes time to clean house and discard things of this nature.

The Roberto Clemente Museum May 11, 2017

Copyright © 2017          John F. Oyler

May 11, 2017

The Roberto Clemente Museum

The Bridgeville Area Historical Society program meeting for April was a presentation on the Roberto Clemente Museum by Vince Mariotti. Located in the rehabilitated Pittsburgh Fire Department Engine House 25, in Lawrenceville, the museum houses “the world’s largest exhibited collection of baseball artifacts, works of art, literature, photographs, memorabilia, and related materials which focus on Roberto Clemente, his teammates, his personal life, and his humanitarian causes.”

The engine house was originally acquired by Duane Rieder and renovated for his use as a photographic studio. When the Pirates hosted the 1994 All-Star Game at Three Rivers Stadium, they decided to sponsor a special exhibit honoring Clemente. Mr. Rieder visited the Clemente family in Puerto Rico and was able to borrow an impressive collection of artifacts and memorabilia for the exhibit.

In 2006 the Pirates hosted the All-Star Game in their newly completed PNC Park home. As part of the festivities Commissioner Bud Selig presented the Commissioner’s Historic Achievement Award to Clemente’s widow, Vera, who had come to Pittsburgh for the ceremony, accompanied by her three sons. Rieder’s reunion with the Clemente family led to the decision to establish a museum in Pittsburgh in honor of Clemente’s baseball and humanitarian careers.

The speaker began by recounting the strange story of how the Pirates acquired the twenty year old Clemente in the 1954 rookie draft. He had been heavily scouted by the Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Giants, and Milwaukee Braves as a youthful “phenom” in his native Puerto Rico. Brooklyn signed him as a “bonus baby”, a player whose signing was for an amount greater than the permitted $6,000 (Clemente’s bonus was $4,000), realizing this obligated them to keeping him on the major league roster for two years or run the risk of losing him in the rookie draft.

The ’54 Dodger roster was full of outstanding players, none of whom they were willing to sacrifice for an unproven rookie, so they sent him to Montreal in the hope that no one would recognize his potential. Pirate pitching coach scouted the Montreal Royals that summer, in an effort to evaluate another Dodger prospect, Joe Black. While there he observed Clemente’s skills throwing and batting in practice and wondered why he wasn’t playing in regular games.

Sukeforth advised Montreal manager Max Macon that he suspected subterfuge and told him the Pirates would surely use their first pick in the upcoming rookie draft to select Clemente. Once that news was out, the Royals inserted him in their lineup and his immediate success ensured his forthcoming transfer to the Pirates.

The Pirates did indeed draft him that Fall and had no difficulty finding a room for him on their major league roster. He played well enough in 1955 to earn a starting position in the lineup of a mediocre team. By 1960 he had begun to display his potential and the Pirate team had improved enough to earn a spot in the World Series against the New York Yankees. The story of their classic “underdog beats favorite” performance, capped by Bill Mazeroski’s dramatic ninth inning home run is well known to all local sports fans.

According to the speaker those early years in Pittsburgh were difficult for Clemente. He did not interface well with the local media personnel, partly because of his aloof personality and his broken English, which they ridiculed. The Pirate roster was full of fan favorites – All-American boys like Dick Groat, Vernon Law, Bob Friend, and Mazeroski; folk hero types like Smoky Burgess and Bob Skinner; and outright oddballs like Dick Stuart and Rocky Nelson.

Following the World Series win, Clemente was reported as being resentful of the fan adulation received by Mazeroski and Groat. The next year he won the first of four batting titles and began his remarkable streak of twelve straight years winning a Gold Glove, in recognition of being the best fielding right fielder in the league.

Mr. Mariotti related an example of Clemente’s difficulties with the press. He supposedly asked veteran sports writer Joe Tronzo if he was the best right fielder Tronzo had seen. Tronzo replied, “Of course not, you are the third best.” When asked who the first two were, the writer replied, “Paul Waner, sober; and Paul Waner, dead drunk”.

That story rang a bell with me. Long after Waner had retired from the major leagues, he played sandlot ball with Dormont in the Greater Pittsburgh League. I have his autograph which I acquired after watching him play in an exhibition game in Bridgeville. And my recollection was that he was indeed inebriated in that game. Casey Stengel is reported to have claimed that Waner was the best base runner he had ever seen. “He can slide into second base without breaking the pint whiskey bottle in his back pocket!”

Through the 1960s Clemente’s performance day in and day out was outstanding, both at bat and in the field. He continued to have problems with Pirate management regarding his salary. His total reimbursement for eighteen years of stardom was less than three quarters of a million dollars. Of course he was not alone in this situation; fellow Pirate Elroy Face had to work as a carpenter in the off season to make ends meet.

The speaker exemplified Clemente’s pride in his talent by recounting an incident from the filming of the movie “The Odd Couple”. A key episode in the film required the Pirates to hit into a “5-4-3” triple play against Oscar Madison’s favorite team, the New York Mets. Clemente was selected to be the batter, but each time they filmed the play his pride did not permit him to run slow enough to be thrown out at first. Eventually he was replaced as the batter by Bill Mazeroski.

The climax of Clemente’s career was his remarkable performance in the 1971 World Series against the Baltimore Orioles. Someone commented that the films of that Series looked very much like a Roberto Clemente highlight reel. The next year he thrilled his fans by getting his 3000^th hit, a distinction achieved by only eleven players before him. One of the eleven was Paul Waner.

Late in December 1972 the capital of Nicaragua, Managua, was devastated by a severe earthquake. Clemente immediately began organizing emergency relief aid flights. When the first three flights were diverted to allegedly corrupt governmental officials, he decided to accompany the fourth one and ensure the supplies got to the needy people. He chartered a Douglas DC-7, which had a questionable maintenance history and an equally questionable flight crew. The plane was overloaded by 4200 pounds and barely was able to take off. Ten minutes later it crashed violently into the ocean, killing everyone aboard.

Clemente’s best friend, Orlando Cepeda; his Pirate team-mate and protégé. Manny Sanguillen; and Caribbean League team-mate Tom Walker all had offered to make the trip with him, but had other commitments that spared them his fate. Walker, of course, is the father of ex-Pirate second baseman Neil Walker.

The next Spring the Baseball Writers’ Association of America held a special election to posthumously elect Clemente into the Baseball Hall of Fame, waiving the mandatory five year waiting period due to the circumstances of his death. The only other player to receive such a waiver was Lou Gehrig.

The May program meeting for the Historical Society will feature Dr. Carelton Young, discussing the subject of his book “Voices from the Attic – the Williamstown Boys in the Civil War”. The meeting will be held at 7:30 pm, Tuesday, May 30, 2017, in the Chartiers Room of the Bridgeville Volunteer Fire Department, on Commercial Street.

These Young People Today May 4, 2017

Copyright © 2017          John F. Oyler

May 4, 2017

The Class of 2017

One of my responsibilities with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh is coordination of our Senior Design Projects program. In their final semester our Seniors are required to participate in a semester long team design project. Ideally these projects are based on real world problems, constraints, and data.

Most semesters we have between forty and fifty students each semester, subdivided into six multi-discipline teams. The students specialize in one of six disciplines – Construction Management, Structures, Environmental Engineering, Transportation, Geotechnical Engineering, and Water Resources. Matching the requirements of each project to the specialties available on the assigned team is always a challenge.

On the final day of class we hold a day-long Colloquium in which each team has the opportunity to spend an hour presenting the results of their efforts to a large audience of students, faculty, family members, and visiting engineering practitioners. This year’s Colloquium was particularly impressive, and I am extremely proud of the students and their accomplishments.

Perhaps the most impressive of this semester’s projects was implemented by a team of Environmental Engineering students who studied a problem of great interest to me – the pollution of Chartiers Creek by abandoned mine drainage. They selected two nearby sources – Scrubgrass Run and Woodville – and designed a practical, cost effective system to remediate them.

The reddish-orange color in the polluted streams leading into Chartiers Creek is produced by tiny particles of ferric iron oxyhydroxide, the same mineral as normal rust. Remediating the pollution requires oxidizing ferrous iron to ferric, producing the oxyhydroxide, and then allowing the tiny particles to settle out in large settling basins, and then trapping the even smaller particles in vegetation in constructed wetlands.

The team proposed to capture the discharge from the two sources, totaling about 400 gallons per minute, and transport it in a system of pipelines to a three acre site near the confluence of the old creek channel and the current one, just south of Heidelberg. Introducing the flow into the settling ponds over a series of weirs will introduce enough oxygen to convert the ferrous iron to ferric; several days of retention time in the settling ponds and wetlands should be sufficient to remove almost all of the solids.

The technology for this process is currently working very effectively at the Wingfield Pines remediation site between Bridgeville and Mayview, where over 1500 gallons per minute are successfully processed. The team estimated that their system could be installed for about $500,000, an investment that certainly appears to be warranted.

Another team, composed primarily of Geotechnical Engineering students, did a comprehensive design of the site-work, underground mine remediation, and foundation design required for a hypothetic commercial/light industrial complex to be constructed close to the Parkway West. It was based on an actual project recently completed by an engineering firm which employs three of our recent alumni as Geotechnical Engineers.

These alumni provided the team with the actual data they used for their project, including the soil and rock samples from the test borings they made. They also mentored the team throughout the term, following a chronological sequence identical to that of the real-world project. The resulting design included shallow foundations, drilled caissons, removal of semi-hazardous soil, grout injection into an abandoned mine, design of two MSE (mechanically stabilized earth) retaining walls, and slope stability analyses.

A team of Structural and Transportation students expressed an interest in designing a parking garage. They met with the University Facilities engineers and were advised to investigate a site on O’Hara Street adjacent to Thaw Hall and the intersection with Parkman Avenue. They then proceeded to design two alternative garages – a conventional precast concrete garage housing 530 vehicles and a steel frame structure equipped with an automatic stacking system that would handle about 1050 vehicles.

Thanks to our contacts with the Massaro Construction Company, the team was able to tour the new precast concrete garage being erected near Heinz Field and get a first-hand view of its design details. Their cost comparison of the two alternatives indicated that the cost per parking spot was fairly similar independent of the design concept.

A multi-discipline team tackled the challenge of connecting the popular Duck Hollow hiking/biking trail with Hazlewood and, consequently, the network of trails throughout the rest of the city. Their solution is a double switch-back ramp leading from the trail to the deck of the Glenwood Bridge and then on into Hazlewood or to the new Almono site development.

Coincidentally a day later, approval of the new switch-back to connect the Eliza Furnace trail with the riverside trail to the Point was announced. It will be quite interesting to follow its development and compare its detailed design with the one our students produced. The closer our projects come to real-world projects, the more rewarding they become.

Another real-world problem locally is congestion on the Parkway East approaching the Squirrel Hill Tunnel, partly because of conflict between vehicles trying to exit the Parkway onto Beechwood Boulevard and vehicles entering the Parkway a few hundred feet before the exit. A multi-discipline team studied that problem and produced what appears to be a feasible solution to it.

Their design begins with a round-about at the south end of the new Greenfield Bridge, feeding an access ramp to the Parkway descending along the side of hill to a point which significantly increases the weave distance between the two points of conflict. There has been considerable discussion regarding the use of the round-about, a concept with which most local people are unfamiliar. Closer to home, it will be interesting to see how well this concept works when it is installed at the intersection of Lesnett and McMillan Roads with McLaughlin Run Road.

The final project was the design of a workable potable water treatment system for an indigenous village in Panama. It consists of a roughing filter (primarily layers of crushed stone) and three slow sand filters, with a daily capacity of 5,000 gallons. The team built a successful pilot plant in our hydraulics lab to confirm the adequacy of their design.

Our faculty is deservedly proud of the Senior Design program and the students who pass through it. Every effort is made to motivate the students to apply the skills they have acquired to real-world problems they have not previously encountered and to develop innovative solutions to the problems.

In contrast, I recently received a newsletter from my (graduate school) alma mater reporting on CMU’s equivalent senior design project program. Last Fall their seniors “designed and built a dragon containment system that allowed the tethered dragon to roam freely within a 20 foot radius while not allowing movement of the structure itself”. Included was a photograph of one of the projects – a piece of pipe sticking out of a pile of sandbags. I am reminded of my mother’s advice – “If you haven’t anything good to say about something, it is best that you remain silent”.

My continued optimism about the future is reinforced by my observation of this group of very special young people (our Pitt students, not their CMU colleagues).  They are admirably equipped to make a positive contribution to our society and almost certainly to all the different cultures that make up Planet Earth.

A Brand New Borough April 24, 2017

Copyright © 2017          John F. Oyler

April 24, 2017

Bridgeville Borough Secedes from Upper St. Clair

The April “Second Tuesday” workshop at the Bridgeville Area Historical Society’s History Center was an exploration of Bridgeville in 1901, at the time the local residents elected to secede from Upper St. Clair Township and be incorporated as an independent borough.

The facilitator began the discussion with an in-depth description of Bridgeville in those days – an ambitious community of about two thousand residents that functioned as the commercial and social capital of an area including the adjacent parts of four adjoining townships, Upper St. Clair, South Fayette, Collier, and Scott.

Located at the extreme northwest corner of Upper St. Clair Township, Bridgeville was indeed the “tail that wagged the dog”. There probably were only four or five hundred people in the rest of the township, primarily farmers and miners in a couple of coal patch towns.  A newspaper clipping from that era reported that “the incorporators of the borough propose to get a police force, a volunteer fire department, a better school building, and a complete system of sewerage”.

Apparently the township residents outside Bridgeville resisted any efforts for modernization. Karen Godwin reported that, as late as 1955, they were unwilling to install indoor plumbing in McMillan School; it still had outhouses when she was a child. It is easy for us to forget how recent the modernization of the township is – their high school didn’t exist until 1957.

Another newspaper clipping reports that ninety eight of the one hundred and thirty three resident freeholders (tax paying property owners) had signed the petition requesting incorporation, including twenty nine of the thirty five freeholders with property on Washington Avenue. Attorney George P. Murray, who was also Solicitor for Allegheny County, presented the petition to Judge Elliot Rodgers and is credited with its successful acceptance.

The facilitator passed out copies of the 1905 G. M. Hopkins map of Bridgeville in an effort to provide a picture of the significant development that had occurred in the community by the turn of the century. He also displayed the list of citizens who had signed the aforementioned petition. It included many familiar names – George Baird, S. H. Collins, Isaac Cox, S. A. Foster, John Hosack, Dr. Kiddoo, Martha J. Lesnett,  Macedonia Maioli, eight members of the Poellott family, and W. F. Russell among others.

A very useful tool in determining who these early leaders were is the 1907 R. L. Polk Directory which lists residents and businesses; the address and occupation of several of the unfamiliar names on the petition were identified in it. The History Center has an impressive collective of these directories, an excellent reference source for all of us. They also have copies of the available census records. The one for 1900 is virtually illegible; we were unable to decipher many of the names on it.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the roster of petitioners was the absence of several prominent citizens, including C. P. Mayer, Joseph Lutz, and Amos Fryer. It has been suggested that this episode may well have been the beginning of the political rivalry that has prospered ever since. It has been reported that the petition was sponsored by and heavily supported by Republicans, and it is well known that Mr. Mayer was a passionate Democrat.

The facilitator read several columns from his “Water Under the Bridge, Volume VIII”, which reinforced this premise. The columns were based on minutes from the Bridgeville Borough Council Meetings from the very beginning of the borough, as reported by Clerk J. E. Franks. The Council was reorganized every year, and Mr. Mayer’s presence and frequent dismissals certainly suggest major conflicts between the parties.

To those of us accustomed to the current relationship between Bridgeville and its neighboring townships it is intriguing to examine the situation in 1900. One wonders what might have happened if Bridgeville had remained part of Upper St. Clair all these years.   

Next month’s “Second Tuesday” workshop will be the first of a series dedicated to the history of Bridgeville High School, beginning in its earlies days and moving forward chronologically.

The Pittsburgh and Castle Shannon Railroad April 17, 2017

Copyright © 2017          John F. Oyler

April 17, 2017

The Pittsburgh and Castle Shannon Railroad

During his presentation on the “Great Castle Shannon Bank Robbery” last month the speaker projected a map of Castle Shannon in 1917 on the screen. When I realized it showed several railroads, my interest peaked. I am in the process of writing a chapter on local railroads for an upcoming book on the Civil Engineering Heritage of Western Pennsylvania, and I need all the help I can get.

I immediately resolved to corner the speaker after his talk and request a copy of the map he was showing, then realized that this is indeed 2017. I promptly pulled out my trusty I-Phone and took a picture of the screen. I was rewarded by a photo that was sharp enough to provide the information I needed.

Sure enough, the Pittsburgh and Castle Shannon Railroad was clearly shown, snaking its way through Castle Shannon on the same right-of-way currently used by the Blue Line on Pittsburgh’s Light Rail system. In the heart of Castle Shannon the P & CSRR had a wye, permitting engines to be turned around, and shops for engine repair. The line continued a short distance to Arlington Station, located about where Lebanon Shops are today.

The history of this line is quite interesting and serves to provide us with an excellent picture of the early development of this general area in the nineteenth century. Beginning around 1825 Jacob Beltzhoover opened a coal mine on the north face of Mt. Washington, then known as “Coal Hill”.  The mine entrance was high on the hill just west of the current Liberty Tunnel.

When it was “mined out”, it was extended through the south face of Mt. Washington and, in 1861 sold to the Pittsburgh Coal Company, to provide access to mines along the Saw Mill Run valley. They built a narrow gauge railroad, the Coal Hill Coal Railroad, to move coal from the new mines to Carson Street via the old tunnel and an inclined plane on the Pittsburgh side of Mt. Washington.  On the south face of the mountain it descended to the Saw Mill Run valley via a long horseshoe curve just east of the current South Hills Junction on today’s light rail system.

In 1871 a group of investors, headed by Milton Hayes, formed the Pittsburgh & Castle Shannon Railroad to promote development of communities along Saw Mill Run, including Castle Shannon. They purchased the Coal Hill Coal Railroad and extended it up Saw Mill Run, still as a narrow gage (forty inches) line. In addition to coal cars they began running passenger cars through the old mine tunnel. The cars have been described as similar to those on amusement park trains, to get through the tunnel that had an overhead clearance of sixty five inches.

They quickly realized the potential for passenger business to supplement their coal hauling function and enlarged the tunnel to make it possible for conventional locomotives and passenger cars to negotiate it. At that point the passengers transferred to the incline to be transported down to Carson Street.

As was common in the nineteenth century the railroad constructed tourist attractions to build up its passenger business. First was the Linden Grove, a destination aimed at German picnickers, followed by several other picnic groves. Then came a zoological garden, featuring several hundred birds and animals, and two camp-meeting grounds, complete with overnight cabins and public buildings. By 1877 the railroad was running nine passenger trains a day, each way.

In 1891 a new incline was designed and built by the P & CSRR Chief Engineer, Samuel Diescher. Named the Castle Shannon Incline, its cars were large enough to haul wagons (and eventually automobiles) as well as passengers. The old incline it replaced continued to be used for transporting coal to the Carson Street transfer facilities. It was coupled with a new incline on the south face of Mt. Washington, providing passengers with an easy passage over the mountain. The Castle Shannon Incline operated until 1964.

In 1900 after a long conflict with the Pittsburgh Southern Railroad for a route south to Washington, Pa., the P & CSRR was sold to the Pittsburgh Coal Company. In 1905 Pittsburgh Railways leased the track and added standard gauge rails to permit the use of streetcars. For a few years streetcars and passenger trains used the track during the day, and coal trains operated on it at night.

The coal hauling business ended in 1912, and three years later passenger service using steam locomotives also ceased. Since then the route has been dedicated to interurban trolleys and eventually to the current light rail system.

Once again I wish we could roll back the calendar and take a ride into South Hills Junction from Castle Shannon, and then up and over Mt. Washington via two inclines.

The Great Castle Shannon Bank Robbery April 12, 2017

Copyright © 2017          John F. Oyler

April 12, 2017

The Great Castle Shannon Bank Robbery

The March program meeting for the Bridgeville Area Historical Society was a very entertaining talk by retired Keystone Oaks middle school history teacher Edd Hale, entitled “The Great Castle Shannon Bank Robbery”. When I first heard the title, I thought it would be more appropriate for a British comedy starring Alec Guinness or perhaps an Abbot and Costello film, rather than for a presentation to an audience of history buffs.

Turns out I wasn’t far wrong. Although the event was tragic – five men eventually died – it was peppered with absurd incidents that did indeed, as Mr. Hale commented, “smack of the Keystone Kops”. His ability to communicate an interesting bit of local (at least to the South Hills) history in a humorous fashion appealed greatly to his audience.

The event occurred almost a century ago, on May 14, 1917. At the time the research was done for this presentation (twenty years ago), there were still a few people around who remembered it, including a lady who had witnessed much of it from a window in her home, when she was a child.

The chief villain in the story is a Russian immigrant named Mikhail Titov who lived in Pittsburgh’s Soho District and worked as a laborer in one of the steel mills. He happened to stop in Castle Shannon one day and have lunch at the Waterman Hotel, a popular watering hole located at the intersection of Castle Shannon Boulevard and Route 88. While there his view included the Castle Shannon First National Bank, on Poplar Street, just beyond the P & WV trestle.

In those days Castle Shannon was a busy little community far enough from Pittsburgh to be considered almost rural. Its principal industry was coal mining, and the bank served a valuable function serving the miners and their employers.

Back in the city Titov began to discuss the idea of robbing this specific bank with three other Russian immigrants – Sam Barcons, John Tush, and Haraska Garason. They concluded it was a good idea, but that they needed an automobile to pull it off. Their landlady, who may well have been in on the scheme, suggested they contact Nick Kemanos, an acquaintance of hers who had just purchased a new Maxwell. One of its luxury accessories was an electric starter. The elimination of the necessity to crank the vehicle to get it started made it an ideal getaway car.

The gang hired Kemanos to chauffeur them all day for seven dollars. He claimed, later, that he had no knowledge of the plan and was just an innocent bystander. On the appointed day he picked up the four desperadoes and headed for Castle Shannon. Not wanting to arrive until some predetermined time the gang stopped at a bar and imbibed enough alcohol to measurably impair them.

They drove into Castle Shannon through Mt. Lebanon, parking the car (headed away from Castle Shannon) at the end of the paved street. All the Castle Shannon streets were still dirt at that time. The parking spot was in front of “Dr. Brown’s house”, about where the Ice Castle is today. The gang piled out of the car, leaving Kemanos behind. The bank was about two blocks away, down Washington Avenue (now Castle Shannon Boulevard), then up Poplar Street.

Each member of the gang was carrying a 38 semi-automatic pistol. When they entered the bank they found one customer in it, a gentleman named Stanley Rawa, who coincidentally spoke Russian. He was engaged with teller Frank Erbe. Also coincidentally Erbe had had a premonition that morning and had brought his pistol with him when he came to work.

The robbers announced the purpose of their mission and instructed Rawa, in English and in Russian, to leave the teller’s window and retire to a chair in the corner. Tush magically produced a piece of rope and tied him up. Erbe took advantage of the interruption to dive behind a desk and begin shooting at the intruders. Although they reportedly were inebriated, they returned the fire and hit him five times, rendering him “hors de combat”.

At this point Head Cashier Daniel McLean came out of the vault and was startled at the uproar. He raised the large ledger he was carrying in front of his face; a single shot went through it into his forehead, killing him instantly. With both adversaries out of the way the robbers then proceeded to empty the vault and attempt their getaway.

In the interim all the citizens in the immediate vicinity responded to the gunfire in the bank by digging out their personal hardware and ventured out into the streets to investigate. The local justice of the peace, “Squire” George Beltzhoover, appropriated someone’s shotgun and advanced toward the bank, arriving there just as the robbers were leaving. When they ignored his command to stop and throw up their hands, he pulled the trigger and was shocked to realize the weapon was unloaded.

The Squire threw down the gun and ran around the bank. Two of the desperadoes, Barcons and Tush, ran around the other side and immediately encountered him at the bank. One of them hit him in the face with a bag full of silver dollars, breaking his nose and seriously impairing his motivation to arrest them. Not knowing for sure where the car was, they set off on foot toward the Castle Shannon Golf Course, with several armed civilians at their heels.

Realizing they were eventually going to be apprehended both robbers decided to commit suicide. Tush was successful; Barcons, despite having the muzzle of the pistol in his mouth, missed his brain and only blew off part of his face. He was taken into custody by the posse, who had a difficult time protecting him from irate Castle Shannonites who wanted to lynch him.

Meanwhile Titov and Garason were high-tailing it back to the getaway car. Eventually they were able to awaken the sleeping Kemanos and get the Maxwell onto the highway, heading for Pittsburgh. Their pursuers immediately looked for cars to chase them and eventually settled on Laughlin Funeral Home’s hearse. After several slapstick moments eleven of them piled into the hearse and zoomed down Washington Avenue in hot pursuit.

With the horn honking and other vehicles scattering out of their way they sped through Mt. Lebanon and onto Greentree Road. Lo and behold, they spotted the Maxwell in the distance, chugging along at a normal speed. When they caught up with it, they were dismayed to learn that Kemanos was alone in it. He reported that his riders had gotten out two or three miles back. He was arrested, as an accomplice, and the Maxwell appropriated.

About half of the $17,000 stolen from the bank was recovered with Barcons and Tush; the remainder and both Titov and Garason were never heard from again. Barcons was convicted of murder and died in the electric chair. Kemanos was acquitted of one murder, then convicted of the other (Erbe died from his wounds two days after the robbery). While in jail awaiting appeal of the second conviction, on double jeopardy grounds, he died during the 1918 Flu Epidemic.

The speaker reported several conjectural theories that the two escapees had managed to find their way back to Russia with enough stolen money to live comfortably. An interesting theory, but did anyone manage to live comfortably in Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution?

In retrospect, despite the tragedy of five deaths, the combination of four inebriated, bumbling robbers encountering a community full of equally bumbling civilians armed with deer rifles and handguns did manage to produce a drama filled with comedic episodes.

Next month’s program dealing with “The Clemente Museum and the Memorial to Roberto Clemente” will be presented by Vince Mariotti, a docent at the aforementioned museum. It will occur at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, April 25, 2017, in the Chartiers Room of the Bridgeville Volunteer Fire Department on Commercial Street. The public is cordially invited.

Historic Maps, Part 2 April 5, 2017

Copyright © 2017          John F. Oyler

April 5, 2017

Historic Maps, Part 2

Two months ago we wrote a column on the first of four historic maps of Pennsylvania that Dana Spriggs recently donated to the Bridgeville Area Historical Society, and promised to discuss the others in future columns.

The second map is entitled “Pennsylvania, entworfen von D. F. Sotzman” with a subtitle “Hamburg bey Carl Ernst Bohn, 1797.” Daniel Friederich Sotzmann was a prominent German mapmaker in the late 1800s; Herr Bohn ran a publishing firm in Hamburg. This map was one of their best-known products.

It is indeed a beauty. The legend (explanation or “erklarung” in German) is full of interesting detail. Roads varying from “Bridle Road” to “County Line” are each shown differently. All manner of colonial era industrial facilities are shown – forge (eisenhammer), grist mill (kornmuhle), saw mill (sagemuhle), etc., as well as Indian towns and Indian paths.

By 1797 Pennsylvania’s boundary disputes had all been resolved; the map shows the boundaries as they exist today, including “the Erie Triangle”, the portion of New York containing Presque Isle that we acquired in return for renouncing our claims to northeastern Ohio. In effect, we traded Cleveland for Erie.

In this part of the state the counties have been organized; the mapmaker calls them grafschafts, the German name for regions that have been the property of counts (grafs). The border between Greene (“Green” on the map) and Washington Counties is an east-west line, close to the irregular border that exists today. “Alleghany” County includes all the land north of the Ohio River and west of the Allegheny, all the way to Lake Erie.

The portion immediately north of the Ohio River and bounded by an east-west line several miles north of Butler is designated “Depreciation Lands”. The Depreciation Lands referred to tracts that were sold to raise money to underwrite depreciation certificates given to Revolutionary War soldiers who had received depreciated currency for pay, primarily men who had served in the Pennsylvania Line or the Pennsylvania Navy.

The rest of northwestern Pennsylvania was designated “Donation Lands”. These were tracts of land ranging from 250 acres to 500 acres that were awarded to Pennsylvanians who remained in the Continental Army or the Navy until the end of the Revolutionary War. Both the Depreciation Lands and the Donation Lands had been acquired from the Iroquois (Six Nations) as a result of the 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix. It is interesting that the area currently occupied by the (Seneca) Cornplanter Reservation is outlined on this map.

In this area, Chartiers Creek is well mapped, along with its major tributaries – Millers Run and Robinson Run. Both Neville mansions – Bower Hill and Woodville – are shown, although Bower Hill had been destroyed in the Whiskey Rebellion a few years before the date of the map. Also shown is a house on Thoms Run with the name “Craig”, probably referring to Isaac Craig. He owned property in this area and eventually married John Neville’s daughter Amelia. In 1802 he became Burgess of Pittsburgh.

The Black Horse Trail is shown, crossing Chartiers Creek twice at Bridgeville and again at Woodville, before heading up through Greentree to Pittsburgh’s West End. Another trail is shown to the east, approximately along the route currently followed by Route 19. A grist mill is shown on Robinson’s Run with the name “Nobles”; we can assume Colonel Noble’s complex there had been established. However, there is no indication of Noble’s Trace leading east to McKessport, through Bridgeville; apparently it was laid out later.

At this time St. Clair Township occupied the area bounded by the Monongahela and Ohio rivers on the north; Chartiers Creek to the west; Washington County to the south; and a southwest to northeast line generally following Streets Run, to the east. Moon Township was west of St. Clair; Mifflin Township, to the east.

As happens frequently, this map introduces another puzzle. The name “Fowler” is prominently shown, roughly where Upper St. Clair High School is located. We have been unable to find any mention of a family by that name so far. Perhaps some reader of this column can solve this riddle for us.

All maps are interesting; old maps are fascinating. The 1797 Sotzman map of Pennsylvania is a classic. Our thanks to Dana for his thoughtfulness.