Skip Colussy December 29, 2016

Copyright © 2016       John F. Oyler

December 29, 2016

Skip Colussy

Curtis Copeland Jr. did a fine job convincing us that his father was indeed “Bridgeville’s Favorite Son”; the passing of Skip Colussy has me wondering if there is room for more than one person to claim that distinction.

I was three years behind Skip at Bridgeville High School, a Freshman when he was a Senior. I remember being particularly impressed that someone I knew was on the football team. His mother sponsored some sort of youth group at the Bethany Church, and we occasionally met at the Colussy home, so it was easy for me to consider Skip a friend.

The expression “easy for me to consider Skip a friend” could be his epitaph. Throughout his long, productive life he was typified by his easy going manner, his constant grin, and his inherent capability of making everyone feel he was their friend.

Skip went off to W and J after high school and then into the Army for a tour of duty in Korea. Upon his return from military service he married Virginia Keefner and went to work in the family business, Colussy Motor Company. In 1968 he took over the business from his father and shepherded its transition into one of the largest auto dealerships in the area. He was certainly the antithesis to our stereotype automobile salesman. Skip retired in 2000, turning the business over to his sons Tim and Jonathan.

Virginia was the perfect mate for Skip, his soulmate for fifty nine years until her death in 2012. She was a great lady and the perfect matriarch for that branch of the Colussy clan. I knew her when the Keefners first moved to Bridgeville and she became part of our Bethany clique. In fact I believe I took her to her first formal dance at Bridgeville High School. I remember feeling overwhelmed that my date for this affair was this beautiful, gracious young lady.

Folks of our generation are well aware of the popularity of nicknames in those days. I suspect a lot of people would have difficulty remembering that Skip had been named for his grandfather, Louis, and I am not sure he would have responded automatically if someone had addressed him as Louis.

There is a theory that the nickname Skip refers to a skipped generation, a situation like this one in which a grandson inherits his grandfather’s name rather than his father’s. It does seem logical.

Among the poignant photographs and artifacts at the funeral home for Skip’s viewing was a manikin dressed in an Army Sergeant’s uniform. The campaign ribbons were familiar to me. At the time Skip was coming home, I was going into the service and eventually ended up in the Far East. Although the cease-fire in Korea had occurred, those of us with cushy assignments in Japan still qualified for the same campaign ribbons.

Skip’s Korean service ribbon, however, also included three battle stars. I have no knowledge of his experience in Koran during the war; legitimate service heroes are consistently reticent about such events. According to the “News Obituary”, Skip ran a motor pool in Korea. I suspect there is a more significant story behind those three battle stars.

After his active retirement from the auto agency Skip continued his service to Bridgeville, including a term on the Borough Council. I was fortunate to have considerable contact with him related to his involvement in the Bridgeville Area Historical Society. His chairmanship of the Society’s Board of Directors brought a much needed business perspective to a struggling non-profit organization.

The last time I saw Skip was at the “Second Tuesday” workshop on the Greenwood neighborhood. We will miss his cheerful demeanor and relevant comments.

Christmas at the Neville House December 22, 2016

Copyright © 2016       John F. Oyler

December 22, 2016

Woodville Plantation

I have been aware of the Neville House since I was a child and have visited it many times since it became available to the general public. Nonetheless I seldom pass up the opportunity to go there. Their pre-Christmas Open House this year, “Christmas through the Centuries” was such an opportunity.

Originally constructed in the late nineteenth century, it is now known as Woodville Plantation and is owned and maintained by a non-profit volunteer organization, the Neville House Associates, as “a living history museum”.

John Neville purchased a block of land “five miles from Fort Pitt” in 1774; he became commandant at Fort Pitt (then known as Fort Dunmore) the following year. Construction of the house, then called Woodville, began at this time. It is believed that the original house was square, twenty five feet on a side, the part of the house that makes up the dining room and the middle hallway and stairs.

The kitchen was a separate building beyond the south wall. Eventually the space between it and the main house was enclosed, and an extension (the current parlor) added to the north wall. Associated with the house were numerous outbuildings and a beehive oven. The Nevilles occupied the house until 1814 when it was sold to Christopher Cowan for $14,000.

In 1835 Mary Ann Cowan Wrenshall inherited the house following her father’s death. Her ancestors occupied it until 1975, when it was acquired by the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation and opened to the public as a museum, and eventually transferred to the Neville House Associates.

The pre-Christmas Open House was structured to demonstrate the evolution of Christmas celebrations in this area in the early days. The parlor was sparsely decorated with a few sprigs of greenery on the mantle and on the pianoforte, as was typical of English society in the 1780s. Christmas was still treated as a solemn, sacred holiday, although Virginians like the Nevilles were prone to use it as an excuse for dinners and dancing.

The docent entertained us visitors by singing a carol, accompanied by the pianoforte, then illustrated a simple formal dance of the time. We were pleased to see that the pianist was an old friend, “Kiki” Barley, the director of the Pittsburgh Music Academy and the summer music camp my grand-daughter has attended.

Our next stop was the hallway, where a small German inspired table-top Christmas tree (Weihnachtsbaum) decorated with gingerbread men and paper chains signaled the gradual transition from the earlier Puritan approach that occurred at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

The dining room illustrated the traditions of the Victorian era, with a full-size floor mounted tree ringed with strings of popcorn and cranberries, overseeing a modest collection of old-fashioned toys beneath it, awaiting the arrival of the younger children in the family. The table settings were both formal and elegant, as was the custom of the time.

Our tour continued to the kitchen and its extremely impressive collection of colonial era cookware. Cooking over an open fire in a very large fireplace must have been a challenging task.    

Finally we went outdoors and entered the Still House, a reconstructed outbuilding whose walls are covered with relevant artwork and historic artifacts. I was particularly interested in a framed map that was inaccessible at the time. Later, when I inquired about it, I was advised that I could inspect it close up the next time I visited the Neville House.

I took advantage of this offer the following Sunday afternoon and was greeted by a very courteous lady, Susan O’Toole. With her blessing, I conducted my own tour of the Still House and was pleased to find that the framed document was actually an original survey of some of the land in that vicinity. The map clearly shows “the Washington Turnpike” from the bridge at the north end of Bridgeville to another bridge over Chartiers Creek at the northern end of Heidelberg.

When I returned to the office, I inquired about paying for a tour and explained that I was planning to write a column about the Neville House. “That isn’t necessary” she advised me before producing an admission sticker and writing “Press” on it. I have retained my Press pass and will attempt to exploit this special privilege in the future.

Our visit to “Christmas through the Centuries” was an appropriate demonstration of the evolution of customs for this wonderful holiday. I do wonder however how the early settlers in this region who were from Germany celebrated Christmas in the late eighteenth century. I suspect the Lesnetts and the Hickmans had Christmas trees and that their children looked forward for visits from Belsnickel and Saint Nicholas, even though their gifts were modest.

Curtis Copeland December 15, 2016

Copyright © 2016       John F. Oyler

December 15, 2016

Curtis Copeland

A record crowd turned out for the Bridgeville Area Historical Society’s November program meeting, confirming Curtis Copeland. Jr.’s assertion that his father was indeed “Bridgeville’s Favorite Son”. Although his presentation focused on Curtis Copeland, Sr.’s experience in the Korean War and the influence it had on his later life, it necessarily covered the entire life of this remarkable man.

Curtis was a year ahead of me in high school, graduating in 1948 and entering an adult world that was not particularly welcoming to a young African American boy. The economy was weak and jobs were hard to come by. I remember playing softball behind the high school with a group of young men who sarcastically described it as “the Unemployment League”.

Although the rest of us weren’t especially aware of it, there were still many areas in which African Americans were not treated as equals in those days, even in Bridgeville. My brother has a vivid memory of our father coming home one evening and being visibly upset because he had just learned that “a black man can’t be served in a restaurant in Bridgeville!”

Another ominous occurrence in 1948 was the escalation of the Cold War and the growing realization that there might well be another “shooting war” in the near future. The Soviets had blockaded Berlin and we had responded with the Berlin Airlift and the resumption of the draft, requiring compulsory service in the Army.

Faced with this environment an eighteen year-old Curtis Copeland elected to enlist in the U. S. Navy. After the normal routine of basic training, he was trained as an Operating Room Technician and earned the rating of Pharmacist’s Mate Third Class. When the Korean War broke out, June 25, 1950, he was given a cram course in triage and assigned to the First Marine Division as a battlefield medic.

The First Marine Division had an exemplary record in World War II, especially in the Guadalcanal, Pelieu, and Okinawa campaigns. They continued this performance in Korea, initially in the Pusan Perimeter, then in the Inchon invasion and the drive north to the Chosin Reservoir, and ultimately in the heavy fighting around the 38^th Parallel. In this conflict their casualties were 4004 dead, including 108 medics, and over 25,000 wounded.

Like most servicemen who have been involved in wartime combat, Curtis was reluctant to discuss his experiences with his family – only a few episodes were ever mentioned, but they were sufficient to clearly communicate the incredible horror of war.

The speaker began his presentation by recounting his father’s numerous accomplishments in the Bridgeville community after he came home, in an effort to justify the “Favorite Son” appellation, an un-necessary effort and a classic example of “preaching to the choir”. He then postulated that the character traits that his father consistently demonstrated were the consequence of three factors – his upbringing in a highly functional family, his Christian faith, and his Navy training and battlefield experience in Korea.

It is easy to agree with this proposition, but I would like to consider an additional factor. When his service was over and he was about to re-enter civilian life, he met a very special lady in New England and somehow managed to persuade her to marry him and return to Bridgeville with him.

When my wife was working in Bridgeville for the Greater Pittsburgh Guild for the Blind, she was responsible for identifying appropriate candidates for rehabilitation and facilitating their entry into the Guild’s program.  At some point she established a relationship with an agency in the Virgin Islands which resulted in a series of young adventitiously blinded Virgin Islanders coming to Bridgeville.

There is a significant psychological component to rehabilitation of visually handicapped persons, and she was justifiably concerned about the additional complications of introducing young black persons into an unfamiliar environment dominated by white folks. Almost immediately she reported she had a solution – “I’ll just call the Copelands!”

Eventually I realized “the Copelands” were Curtis and his wife Betty and that her problem was indeed in good hands. As volunteers at the Guild they were a powerful resource, always ready to take on any assignment without question. Their ability to make these frightened young trainees feel at home in a foreign environment was a major factor in the success of their rehabilitation.

I suspect Curtis’ “better half” was another major factor in forging his character. Betty is equally well known for her service to the community, whether it be neighborhood, church, or the Library. I am a firm believer in the synergy of a true marriage, its ability to be much more effective than the sum of the two individuals in it. Curtis and Betty Copeland are a perfect example of this concept.

The audience was duly appreciative of Curtis Jr.’s presentation and grateful to him for his sharing his perceptions of his father, indeed Bridgeville’s Favorite Son.

The next program in the Society’s series will be presented at 1:30 pm on Sunday, January 29, 2017, in the Chartiers Room at the Bridgeville Volunteer Fire Department, on Commercial Street. Dr. Jack Aupperle will discuss World War II naval hero, Admiral William Halsey. The public is welcome, as always.

 
 

 

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps December 8, 2016

Copyright © 2016       John F. Oyler

December 8, 2016

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps –1924 and 1931

Dana Spriggs has been a major contributor of artifacts to the Bridgeville Area Historical Society since its earliest days. Most recently he sent us full size copies of the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps for Bridgeville for 1907, 1913, 1924, and 1931. Produced primarily as a source of information for insurance companies, these large scale (one inch equals 100 feet) maps are sufficiently detailed to provide a wealth of information on our community in those years. We already had the 1907 and 1913 maps, but the two later ones are brand new to us and are extremely well appreciated.

The 1924 map shows a movie theater (“the Old Show”) on Station Street; the Rankin Theater (“the New Show”) on Washington Avenue has arrived by the 1931 map. Actually the earlier map still labels Station Street as Foster Street. Up the hill from the Old Show is a building identified as “Tailor”. In 1913 the J. H. Rankin store had been called a haberdasher’s.

Panizza’s  soft drinks bottling works is shown on Washington Avenue, a new arrival since the 1913 map. A dance hall is shown on Hickman Street, next door to an auto repair facility and a large garage on the corner with Washington Avenue. The 1931 map shows an auto sales facility in the building which had housed the dance hall, signaling the end of the Roaring Twenties, no doubt.

I was surprised to see two buildings adjacent to Washington School in 1924, each identified as “portable school rooms”.  By 1931 Lincoln High School had been built and put into operation on Gregg Avenue, but there still is shown one portable school room on the Washington School property.

The 1913 map shows two manufacturing facilities in the Coulter Street vicinity. The Frederick-Elder Company, “Manufacturers of Metal Specialties”, was located across Coulter from (then) St. Agatha’s Roman Catholic Church. By 1924 the site was described as “Fire Ruins”. The 1931 map shows a swimming pool (Crystal) at that location.

Similarly the 1913 map shows the Standard Steel Box Company across Villars (now an extension of Hickman Street) adjacent to the railroad. On the 1924 map the building is identified as “Vacant Factory”. Nothing is shown on that site on the 1931 map. These sequential maps provide an excellent opportunity for us to track the changes in every neighborhood.

Despite our interest in other things on the maps, it is still interesting to note the comments regarding fire safety scattered throughout them. The Mayer Building on the corner of Washington Avenue and Station Street includes a bakery on the Station Street side. It includes a notation “with portable oven”, an obvious reminder of a potential fire hazard.

Each of the maps includes coverage of the industrial facilities in nearby Collier Township – the C. P. Mayer Brick Company, the General Electric Glass Plant, Flannery Bolt, the Vanadium Corporation, and Universal Steel Corporation. For the General Electric facility the maps state “day and night watchman, approved auto sprinkler system, etc.” Interestingly, the Universal plant is described as “Admittance refused, no insurance”.

For the first time, the 1924 map includes a full page with considerable detail on Mayview, which is called “City of Pittsburgh Poor Farm”. Even more detail is shown on the 1931 map, with the name now becoming “Pittsburgh City Home and Hospitals”.

By 1924 Baldwin Street had been completely developed, although very few of the businesses there are identified, probably because they were store fronts in residences. One would think that that information would have valuable to insurance companies. The original St. George’s church on McLaughlin Run Road is designated “Syrian School”. There is no building on that site on the 1913 map; the one there on the 1931 map is unidentified. I was surprised to see the area between Greenwood and Baldwin Street described as “steep hillside”, a rare mention of topography.

It is also interesting to trace the evolution of street names during the years between 1913 and 1931. Today’s Bower Hill Road was Painters Run Road in 1913, at least as far as its intersection with (today’s) McLaughlin Run Road. The portion of today’s Bower Hill Road from Washington avenue to that intersection was known as the McKeysport and Noblestown Road, which then turned right and followed today’s McLaughlin Run Road to today’s Ridge Road, then went up that route and on to McMillan Road. This dates back to the original route of Noble’s Trace two hundred years ago.

By 1931 the borough had expanded south as far as Elizabeth Street where twelve houses had been built, as well as four on Chartiers Street. The Weise homestead is shown on that map as well as the Godwin greenhouse complex farther out Mayview Road.

Another gem on the 1931 is the depiction of the Board Speedway between Chartiers Creek and Millers Run Road. The one-half mile track is clearly shown, as well as grandstands and bleachers and the “Contribution Building”. A surprise to me was the fact that, inside the auto track, the facility boasted a quarter-mile dog track and kennels.

When I mentioned the dog track to my octogenarian friends, both Sam Capozzoli and Don Toney reported that they remembered it well. I suppose I can attribute this to the fact that they are both native born Bridgeville boys, while I didn’t immigrate here until 1934.

These four sets of maps are invaluable resources for all of us who are interested in Bridgeville history and are a welcome addition to the History Center’s archives. We are indebted to Dana Spriggs for providing them.

 

Kentuck Knob December 1, 2016

Copyright © 2016       John F. Oyler

December 1, 2016

Kentuck Knob

Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece Fallingwater has long been a treasured asset of this region and a “must-see” destination for visitors here.  Recently a second Wright showplace, Kentuck Knob, has become available for public tours. Located near Chalk Hill on Route 40, east of Uniontown, it was constructed in the late 1950s and has been lovingly maintained ever since.

The I. N. Hagan family, of Uniontown, were close friends of the Edgar Kaufmann family and frequently visited them at Fallingwater. Through the Kaufmanns they were able to interest Mr. Wright in designing a deluxe Usonian house for them on a beautiful 80 acres site overlooking the Conemaugh Gorge.

Despite being heavily involved in designing the Guggenheim Museum the eighty six year old architect accepted the commission and produced another remarkable design, despite seeing the site only briefly during construction.

Wright coined the term Usonian to describe a concept of simple affordable homes constructed of local materials and being an integral part of their surroundings. His goal, in 1936, was to design a house with a floor plan of 1200 square feet that could be built for $6,000. Twenty years later the Hagans’ deluxe version cost $96,000 and provided 2300 square feet of floor space.

For cost comparison, in 1937 Jim Wallace designed and Sam Barzan built our house on Lafayette Street for $5,700. In 1964 my wife and I purchased a very respectable three bedroom house in Mt. Lebanon for $18,500. I suspect $96,000 would have put us in Virginia Manor in those days.

The Hagans enjoyed Kentuck Knob for thirty years before selling it to an English Lord, Peter Palumbo in 1986. Fortunately he has followed the English concept of historic property management by making the house available for public tours.

We had an excellent guide on our recent tour of Kentuck Knob, a young lady who was extremely knowledgeable and courteously patient with all of our questions. What a difference that makes in any tour!

The Hagans originally wanted their house to be located on the summit of Kentuck Knob; Wright insisted on building it into the hillside. He wanted it to be “of the hill, not on the hill”. His vision was vindicated by the final result.

The house consists of two low-roofed wings, meeting at a taller hexagonal central core. The wings are not at right angles to each other; in fact our guide challenged us to find any corner in the house that was at right angles. The core itself enclosed the kitchen. It was not a regular hexagon; I measured one side at nine and a half feet, an adjacent one at twelve feet. The architect was never bothered by orthodoxy.

A flat roof extended, again at an obtuse angle, from one wing, covering spaces for parking vehicles. Our guide informed us that Mr. Wright had coined the term, “carport”. She also showed us a small enclosed room in that wing that had been designed as a studio for Mrs. Hagan, an amateur painter. When she realized it had no windows at all, it was converted into a storage room.

The walls are constructed of Pottsville sandstone, layered in such a fashion that it suggests the natural strata of the rocks in the hillside. Grantsville flagstones make up the floor, with hot water pipes below them providing radiant heating. The woodwork throughout is tidewater red cypress, an exception to the architect’s preference for local building materials. After all, this has been designated deluxe.

One wing is dedicated to living space and features windows along one wall, providing a marvelous view down the hillside. The opposite wall has a continuous bench along it and clerestory windows high above eye level, to provide natural lighting.  The wing is filled with different Wright designed furniture, including a chair from the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo and a Mission style sofa from his famous Prairie House.

A particularly attractive feature of the house is the deck running the length of this wing, covered by an overhang from the roof, filled with open hexagonal skylights. The integration of interior spaces with the natural outdoor environment reaches its peak here. At the end of the deck there is a seamless transition to a beautiful flagstone patio, backed by a small waterfall.

The architect originally designed the end wall of this wing to be solid, a decision to which Mrs. Hagan objected, wanting to be able to see the long driveway leading up to the house, so she could anticipate the arrival of visitors. Wright compromised by adding an “invisible window”, a sheet of glass with no mullions nor frame. The result is the appearance that there is an unglazed opening in the wall.

The other wing contains an expansive master bedroom and a second bedroom used by the Hagans’ son. Wright had intended to limit the ceiling in the bedrooms to six feet, but relented when he learned the son’s height was six feet, three inches. Apparently the master architect mellowed when he became an octogenarian; he made numerous concessions to the Hagans’ wishes.

The dining room is adjacent to the central core and is also hexagonal. It too has the advantage of the marvelous view to the southeast through the extension of the deck. When the Hagans acquired the property it was mostly open farm land. They planted thousands of seedlings which have become a very impressive forest.

It is interesting to compare and contrast Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob and wonder how much Mr. Wright’s philosophies changed in the twenty years separating their construction. The Hagans’ house is certainly seems much more livable, while Fallingwater seems more like a monument, “a great place to visit, but….”.

At any rate we are quite fortunate to have both these treasures in our region; a visit to Kentuck Knob can be quite rewarding.

Sergeant Santo Magliocca November 24, 2016

Copyright © 2016       John F. Oyler

November 24, 2016

Staff Sergeant Santo Magliocca

This month’s presentation in the Bridgeville Area Historical Society’s “Second Tuesday” series was a salute to the Greatest Generation and World War II, in honor of Veterans Day. It was held a day late because the focus of the program, ninety-one year old ex-B 24 ball turret gunner Staff Sergeant Santo Magliocca, was busy on Election Day, working at the polls.

The program began with a brief discussion of the contribution of the Greatest Generation, both at home and at the front, during the War. Then Joe Oyler summarized a small part of his book “Almost Forgotten” by recognizing the ten local airmen who lost their lives in that conflict. He then reprised the story of the three Bridgeville neighbors who were shot down in separate engagements and ended up together in the same Prisoner of War camp – George Shady and George Abood (who were cousins), and Peter Calabro.

Then the facilitator began to relate the experiences of Sergeant Magliocca, who grew up in the Cubbage Hill neighborhood of Carnegie, graduated from Carnegie High School in 1943, and enlisted in the Air Force. At this point Sergeant Magliocca was asked to elaborate on his training before going overseas. The audience was rewarded with a verbatim description of his very exciting experience.

After rigorous Basic Training he was sent to Clemson College for specialized training, where one of his fellow cadets was Ed Schneider, an equally young airman from Bridgeville. Sergeant Magliocca’s next stop was armament school where he was trained to be a gunner and eventually assigned as a crewman on a Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber. Next came an ocean cruise on a Liberty Ship, courtesy of Uncle Sam.

In early December 1944 he and his crew found themselves as part of the 727^th Squadron of the 451^st Bombardment Group at the Castellucci airstrip, which was part of the massive complex of the Fifteenth Air Force centered in Foggia, Italy. Part of a ten man crew of a plane they nicknamed “Sloppy But Safe”, his job was to man a pair of fifty caliber machine guns in a ball turret lowered down from the underside of the fuselage once the plane was airborne.

Their baptism of fire came quickly, a difficult mission to Obertal, Germany. The audience was interested to see that his log of his twenty one missions – their destination and date – was recorded on two pieces of Army money. Obertal was heavily defended with anti-aircraft guns and enemy fighter planes; he and his unseasoned colleagues were startled to see B-24’s hit and explode on either side of them.

Sergeant Magliocca apparently did a good job of fending off fighters attacking the underside of his plane, but eventually one of their four engines was damaged so severely that it became useless, requiring them to start the flight home at a greatly reduced speed. The rest of the formation had to leave them behind, at the mercy of the enemy fighters.

Just when everything looked hopeless, the pilot excitedly announced “Here come three red-tails to escort us!”  These were Tuskegee Airmen, in distinctively marked North American P-51 Mustangs, easily a match for the enemy aircraft. Sergeant Magliocca chuckled and said he was always tempted to give a Tuskegee Airman a hug any time he saw one after that.

It is impossible for us to imagine the horror of assignments like that. According to the history of the 451^st Bombardment Group, they lost 135 planes on a total of 215 missions. Imagine going off on a mission with forty other planes and realizing that one of them probably would not make it back. Sergeant Magliocca reported that after that first mission his crew was convinced they would never survive the necessary twenty five missions and make it home.

Fortunately he and his crew-mates did successfully get through twenty more missions safely before the end of the war in Europe brought an end to their commitment. Sergeant Magliocca shared these experiences with the audience as well as his adventures on leave trying to locate his parents’ relatives in Italy, and his flight home via Casablanca, Marrakech, the Azores, and Newfoundland. The audience was duly appreciative of his service.

Although the B-24 was indeed the work-horse of the Air Force, it never achieved the popularity with the public than the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress reached. The B-17 was more stream-lined, had a low wing in contrast with the B-24’s high wing, had a better knick-name, and apparently received much better publicity from print and radio journalists.

In reality the two planes were quite comparable. Both had a payload of eight thousand pounds of bombs. Because of the difference in design of the wings, the B-17 had a significantly higher service altitude, at the expense of its service speed being significantly lower than the B-24. Eighteen thousand B-24’s were produced during the War, compared to twelve thousand B-17’s.

It certainly was appropriate for the Society to honor our veterans during the days leading up to Veterans Day, and Sergeant Magliocca was certainly an appropriate representative of the Greatest Generation. Our gratitude to him and to them is boundless.

Next month we plan to get back on our standard “Second Tuesday” schedule by meeting at the History Center at 7:00 pm on Tuesday, December 13, 2016. Our subject will be the C. P. Mayer Brick Company, with almost certainly diversions into Mr. Mayer’s life and our hobby of brick collecting.

 

Mason Dixon Line November 17, 2016

Copyright © 2016       John F. Oyler

November 17, 2016

Mason Dixon Line

On another lovely Autumn Saturday I drove to “the Original Mason-Dixon Historical Park”, in Core, West Virginia, to participate in a short hike to the point where surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon crossed Dunkard Creek for the third time, prior to ending their monumental survey at the peak of nearby Brown’s Hill.

The park is jointly owned by Monongalia County, West Virginia, and Greene County, Pennsylvania. This particular event was the 249^th anniversary of the termination of their survey; there are plans to have a major festival next year to celebrate the milestone anniversary.

Finding the Park was an adventure. I had no difficulty going down I-79 and getting into Mt. Morris. There are only five ways to get out of the village – it took me three false starts to find the one that led to the Park. The effort was worthwhile.

We have written several columns previously regarding the Mason-Dixon Line survey, but a brief summary is still relevant. The necessity for the survey was a long-standing dispute between the colonies of Pennsylvania and Maryland regarding the location of the border between them.

The misunderstanding occurred because of ambiguities in the charters originally given to the Penns and Calverts, proprietors of the respective colonies. The Crown’s basis for awarding charters was a map produced years earlier (1612) by John Smith, which indicated that the latitude of the northern end of Chesapeake Bay to be forty degrees. The current latitude is about thirty  nine and a half degrees – an error of about thirty five miles.

In 1681 King Charles I granted a charter to William Penn granting him land described as "The said Lands to extend westwards five degrees in longitude, to bee computed from the said Easterne Bounds”. Based on Smith’s map, the southeastern corner of Pennsylvania (Easterne Bounds) was defined as being the intersection of the fortieth parallel and a circular arc with its center in New Castle, Delaware, and a radius of twelve miles.  Since the fortieth parallel is much farther than twelve miles north of New Castle, the two lines never meet.

In fact, when a proper survey was finally made, it turned out that the fortieth parallel actually passed through Philadelphia, the large city that Penns had constructed, assuming it was well within their territory. The dispute between Pennsylvania and Maryland continued for many years until the parties settled on a compromise, an east-west line at a latitude fifteen miles south of the southernmost building in Philadelphia.

This line would indeed intersect the arc defining Delaware’s boundary with Pennsylvania, which had never been correctly surveyed. Eventually the proprietors hired Mason and Dixon to bring a kit of “leading edge” astronomical and surveying tools from England and perform a survey that would settle the issue permanently.  They arrived on November 15, 1763 and immediately went to work. My son John reminded me that this journey has been commemorated by Mark Knopfler’s song “Sailing to Philadelphia”.

Mason was the assistant to Royal Astronomer James Bradley at the Greenwich Observatory, a skilled astronomer. Dixon was an accomplished surveyor who had worked with Mason before, on an aborted effort to record a transit of Venus across the sun, in Sumatra. In addition to surveying instruments and astronomical telescopes, their equipment included a precision chronometer based on the clock developed by John Harrison, the heralded winner of Parliament’s 20,000 pounds prize for conquering the challenge of determining longitude.

Their first task was to resolve confusion regarding Delaware’s boundary with Maryland. They then precisely established the latitude of the southernmost point in Philadelphia. Next they surveyed a line due west thirty one miles to Embreeville, Pennsylvania, where they established an observatory and set a reference stone, eventually dubbed “the Stargazer’s Stone”; it is still in existence.

From there they surveyed due south fifteen miles and established the correct latitude of the Mason-Dixon Line (39 degrees, 43 minutes, 17.4 seconds). They then proceeded to survey an east-west line by laying out a series of chords of a great circle comprising ten minutes of arc (about twelve miles long) intersecting the parallel. At the end of each chord, astronomical observations were made to determine the true position of the parallel.

The survey of “the West Line” began on April 5, 1765.By early October they had surveyed about 117 miles and had passed Conococheague Creek in what is now Franklin County, Pennsylvania. At this point they retraced their route eastward, establishing correct boundary posts on the parallel.

Surveying began again in early April 1766, following the same procedure. They proceeded up and over South Mountain, North Mountain, Sideling Hill, and Great Warrior Mountain, reaching the 165 milepost before returning east to set boundary posts and perform some additional surveying in Delaware. A note in their journal reports that they had passed the narrowest part of Maryland, with the Potomac River only a mile and a half south of the parallel.

Surveying in 1767 was delayed until July 13, mostly because of concern regarding permission from the Iroquois to proceed west. At this point they were joined by eleven Mohawks, three Onondagas, and interpreter Hugh Crawford. They reached the top of Savage Mountain (Allegheny) at 168 miles and Braddock’s Road at 189 miles.

By September they had crossed the Youghiogheny River, Cheat River, and the Monongahela River, each of which was shallow enough to wade across. On October 9 they were advised by the leader of their Indian escort that they had reached the limit of the area controlled by the Iroquois and that they should now turn back, lest they anger the Shawnee and Delaware Indians who controlled the lands to the West,

Mason and Dixon concluded their survey at the top of Brown’s Hill, just beyond Mile Post 233 on October 15, took astronomical readings there, and made the necessary corrections. They then turned back eastward and concentrated on setting boundary posts at the correct locations. The next summer the two surveyors stayed in the colonies until September, performing research on the dimensions of the earth on behalf of the Royal Society.

The coordinator of the event was an enthusiastic volunteer named Peter Zapadka. He gave a brief summary of the Mason-Dixon Survey, focusing primarily on their activities at its western extremity, then led us on a short walk to the point where the line crossed Dunkard Creek for the final time. We were accompanied by Doug Wood, a Native American re-enactor portraying a Cherokee brave named Ostenaco.

When we reached the meadow adjacent to Dunkard Creek, Ostenaco was hailed by four other re-enactors led by Don Robey, portraying a Delaware chief named Tingooqua. This quickly attracted my attention, as I knew Tingooqua as Catfish, for whom Catfish Camp and the Catfish Path were named. The additional information I gained from this experience will be the subject of a future column.

The encounter with the Delawares was a simulation of a real meeting between the Delawares and the Mason-Dixon party two hundred and forty nine years ago, a meeting which probably contributed to the decision to terminate the survey at Brown’s Hill.

The 250^th anniversary celebration next October is a project that deserves our support. It promises to be educational as well as entertaining, featuring re-enactments of the surveying operation as well as their contact with the Native Americans, demonstrations of surveying and astronomical procedures and equipment of the time period, and the usual complement of food and vendor booths,

All told, it was an excellent experience in a lovely setting on a perfect Autumn day. A friend of mine, Norm Voigt, who is a legitimate expert on the history of surveying, had joined me at the Park. Afterwards we drove back into Mt. Morris where we had lunch at a delightful restaurant, Rising Creek Bakery.