In the mean time, Pittsburgh had been rapidly increasing its population and business. Already a printing-office had been established by John Scull and Joseph Hall, two industrious young men, who had embarked their whole means in the enterprise. On the 29th of July, 1786, they had issued the first number of the "Pittsburgh Gazette," and the first newspaper printed west of the mountains,* and more than a year before the first newspaper was printed in Kentucky. It was not until March, 1787, that a town meeting in Pittsburgh first resolved to establish a weekly market, and to erect a market-house.

[A.D. 1788.] As late as the year 1788, Pittsburgh was a small frontier town, thirty miles distant from the county seat of Westmoreland county, to which it pertained. Hannahstown was the county seat, to which the people of Pittsburgh had to repair on county business, twelve miles east of Chestnut Ridge. On the 24th of September of that year they were released from these journeys by the organization of " Alleghany county," taken from Westmoreland and Washington counties. From that time Pittsburgh became the county seat for Alleghany county, and began to assume importance as a trading and manufacturing town; mercantile and trading establishments began to appear, mechanics flocked to it for employment, and manufactures and trade began to extend. The inhabitants on the Monongahela and Yough had already found agriculture a profitable employment; and the produce of their fields, in the form of flour, whisky, and other surplus products of a new country, had already passed Pittsburgh, and found its way down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans. A new class of hardy pioneers, under the name of "boatmen," now sprang up, who carried the products of the Monongahela and its tributaries to the more recent settlements of Kentucky, and to the Spanish provinces of Louisiana and West Florida. Thus commenced the first regular trade between Pittsburgh and New Orleans.

Manufactures had already begun to flourish in Western Pennsylvania. Iron had been found in great abundance from its first settlement, and the great demand for it, connected with the difficulty of transporting it from the east side of the mountains, soon prompted the erection of furnaces and iron-works. The first blast-furnace west of the mountains was " Union Fur+ Idem, p. 306.

* American Pioneer, vol. i., p. 305.

66

nace," on Dunbar Creek, fifteen miles east of Brownsville. It was erected by Colonel Isaac Meason, John Gibson, and Moses Dillon. The increasing population in the West, and especially in Kentucky, created a demand which caused others to spring up in different sections of the country. Forges were erected for the manufacture of bar iron. A few years elapsed, when more than twenty forges were in operation upon the waters of the Monongahela.* As these multiplied, they gave rise to every variety of factories for the manufacture of iron into the implements of husbandry, house-building, and all the mechanic arts. Excellent mills and machinery of all kinds, propelled by water power, were early introduced upon all the branches of 'the Yough, from its sources near the Laurel Hill to its junction with the Monongahela. The same valuable manufactories had extended down Cheat River, from its sources near the Alleghany range in Virginia down the Monongahela to Brownsville.

[A.D. 1789.] Notwithstanding the treaties concluded by the United States with the northwestern tribes of Indians in the year 1785-86, they became impatient of the advance of the whites upon the Ohio and Alleghany Rivers. Settlements had already been made upon the west side of the Ohio, and the natives plainly foresaw their approaching destruction. For several years past lawless bands of savages had infested the Ohio River, committing frequent murders and robberies upon the emigrants, who were continually descending the river to Kentucky. The main body of the tribes had scarcely refrained from similar acts of hostility; and now these aggressions, on the part of the Indians, had become so frequent and audacious, that it was evident that a general hostile movement of the savages against the advancing settlements was contemplated. To avoid any such occurrence, negotiations had been resorted to ineffectually, and the Federal government had resolved to invade the Indian country with a strong military force.

[A.D. 1790.] At length, early in the year 1790, troops began to advance from the east by way of Bedford and Cumberland, and to concentrate at Fort Pitt, as a general rendezvous and dépôt for military stores and munitions of war, preparatory to an invasion of the Indian country west of the Ohio.† It was at this time that the town of Pittsburgh began to assume a de+ Idem, p. 59-62.

* See American Pioneer, vol. ii., p. 64.

gree of importance heretofore unknown. It became the general store-house for all the western posts, and the grand dépôt for the western army. It was also the point at which military supplies were procured, and where the principal disbursements of public moneys was made for the use of the army, as well as the distribution of annuities and supplies for the friendly Indian tribes.

[A.D. 1791.] As yet the Alleghany River was the remote frontier limit of the Pennsylvania settlements, and all its northwestern tributaries were wholly within the Indian country. A few settlements had been made near the river for forty miles above Pittsburgh by the more fearless and inconsiderate. But they paid with their lives the forfeit of their temerity. The whole of these settlements were broken up about the 9th of February, 1791, soon after the outbreak of the Indian war. On that day the settlements were simultaneously assailed and exterminated by one hundred and fifty warriors, distributed in bands assigned for the extermination of their respective neighborhoods. The settlements in this quarter were entirely broken up; some were killed, some were taken prisoners, and others escaped with their lives.*

[A.D. 1792.] Notwithstanding all the difficulties encountered in the West, the settlements on the Yough and Monongahela, comprised in the western portions of Pennsylvania and Virginia, had become prosperous and enterprising. They had extended arts and manufactures, and were rapidly increasing in numbers. The manufacture of iron had become extensive; smelting-furnaces, forges, and founderies existed in every important settlement, and the hills yielded abundance of ore. Agriculture had increased, until scarcity and want had been driven from the settlements, and the Ohio formed a magnificent outlet for their surplus products of all kinds to the new settlements, which were rapidly extending into Kentucky and the northwestern territory. Such was the abundance of the agricultural products and of manufactures, that the new settlements on the lower tributaries of the Ohio failed to afford an adequate market, and the more enterprising extended their trading voyages to the rich settlements of Spain on the Lower Mississippi. Thus a commerce, which had first sprung up in 1786, in five years had become an important item in the prosperity

See American Pioneer, vol. i., p. 40-43.