A Short History of Duquesne, Pa. by Mary Zella Butler, September, 1959

"From the dense forest, intermingled here and there with swamp and thicket, has risen a municipality of stability and grandeur; a municipality whose praises are being sounded in the ears of the civilized world, "Duquesne". Its rise has not been characterised by the use of mushroom advertising of the schemes of land speculators. It has been a steady, even growth. The history of Duquesne is closely allied with that of Allegheny County and a review of its rise will necessarily contain much that had to do with the early development of the community about the junction of the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers. Among the aborigines Duquesne was probably that tribe of Indians known as the "Talligewe" who were succeeded by the "Lenni Lenape" or Delaware Indians. The latter were in turn succeeded by the "Five Nations", the strongest of the Indian tribes. Among the proofs of the existence of the aborigines in present city of Duquesne were tow mounds evidently built during the early part of the eighteenth century by the Mound Builders. They were located near the corner of River Avenue and Peach Alley and were about twelve feet high and about forty feet in diameter. The outline of the mounds could be seen until the town was well established and quite a number of Indian relics, such as bones and arrowheads, have been dug up at different times. Indian burying grounds were established near the north end of the Monongahela railway bridge over Oliver Hollow and on the McElheny Farm. In stories of the early days, handed down by word of mouth through generations there is a tale that the Indians called the ground from the present McKeesport Bridge to the Homestead Junction "The Lodge" and gathered from far and near every summer to enjoy the cool breezes along the river. Another story goes on to relate that General Braddock, on the night before his defeat at the hands of the French and Indians, rowed across the river and buried a chest of gold pieces somewhere in the Duquesne area. The day of the Battle of Braddock was to have been payday for the English soldiers and Braddock feared that if they were paid before the battle the soldiers would find some whiskey and be in no condition for the coming skirmish. The chest was never found although people dug for it even as late as 1890. Permanent possession by the white man of Duquesne (named for the Marquis de Quesne, a friend of William Pitt) dates from the grant of the charter on May 23, 1609 to Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury. Later, however, the round now occupied by the city of Duquesne was included in a charter granted to William Penn by Charles II, the date of the document being March 4, 1681. Just who was the first resident within the present boundaries of Duquesne is a difficult matter to determine. The first patent for land here was issued to Benjamin Tate as the result of an application filed by him on April 3, 1769. It embraced all that part of town now included in the First Ward and known to Duquesneites for many years as the "Oliver Farm". The tract was known as "Hamilton Hall" in the patent issued to Tate. On July 16, 1770, Tate transferred the tract to General William Thompson who in turn sold it to Thomas Duncan for four hundred and thirty one pounds. Whether the Tates, Thompsons or Duncans ever occupied the tract is not definitely known but it is possible that they did. It is positively known that the Marquise de Luziere, a noble French refugee, didi live here and that he erected what was known as the Oliver homestead, probably in 1791. He entertained lavishly and during the stay of the United States troops at Braddock during the Whiskey Insurrection of 1794 he was host to the officers at dinner. The Marquis also threw open his grounds to the soldiers and they often drilled on the flat near Oliver Station. The Frenchman, however, was not a good business man and soon mortgaged and lost his holdings. The land came into the possession of Mr. Van Bonnhorst, a native of Prussia, who was a great admirer of sheep and established a sheep farm on his newly acquired acres. He found, however, that Merino sheep did not do well in this climate and his business failed in about nine years. The property by a series of sales then came into possession of the Olivers on March 6, 1841, and part of it remains in Oliver hands today. This past summer a greatgranddaughter, Mrs. Matlock, came to Duquesne for a visit and to settle business pertaining to this land. She is almost blind and is now eighty-two. Her present home is in Atlanta City. All the part of Duquesne bounded by the Monongahela river and West Grant Avenue Aurilles street and Crawford Street was originally known as McKee's Choice", in a warrant issued to john McKee, the founder of McKeesport, in 1770. By another patent issued in 1779, his brother, James McKee, became the owner of three hundred acres to the West and South, now known as the "Crawford Plan." The McKee brothers sold three hundred and thirty acres of their land to Daniel and Catherine Risher who in turn sold two hundred and seventy acres, on March 30, 1791 to Samuel Cochran, my great-great-great-grandfather. A part of this land at present is occupied by Butler Brothers Drugstore at the corner of Grant Avenue and First Street. Frederick Pirl bought part of the Crawford land as did Mrs. Lamp and others including John Neel, the father of General John Neel of the Pennsylvania State Militia. (The Duquesne Hardware is at present owned and operated by Frederick Pirl's heirs and is the oldest established business in the city.) By 1853, there were forty or fifty farms including the farm of Mrs. Priscilla Kennedy and the Schulte and Bost farms in the part of Duquesne then known as "Dutchtown." In 1876 the village had grown to such an extent that a number of the leading Methodists of the Mon Valley established Camp Meeting Grounds in a beautiful grove on the Patterson land near the river. The grove was enclosed in a high board fence, three wells were dug and scores of the Methodists, from up and down the valley, built a hundred or more cottages in the grounds. The meetings were held in August of each year until 1891. The fame of the beautiful grove spread far and near and at times monster crowds were attracted to the place. Excursions were run over the P.V.C.R.R. and large numbers were brought by steamboats on the river. Some Sundays ten thousand people attended. Admission was ten cents per person or twenty-five cents for carriages (and there was no hot dog concession). The last camp cottage was torn down in 1901. Prior to the establishment of the original Duquesne Steel Company and the coming of Andrew Carnegie the land now occupied by our present city was used chiefly for farming purposes. On the Oliver farm were three fine apple orchards and one pear orchard covering more than thirty five acres. During the year, according to old account books, six hundred barrels of apples were picked in these orchards. In 1890 the orchards yielded four hundred barrels of apples and much garden truck as well as forty tons of hay. This farm was a good example of all the farms in the vicinity. The Crawford family was the first to welcome industry by selling twenty acres of choice river land to the Howard Plate Glass Company for the establishment of a Glass house. Prior to the sale the land had been used as a cornfield. Manufacture of glass began on October 2, 1889, with a force of about three hundred hands. The company manufactured a superior quality of plate glass and its product found a ready market throughout the country. In 1898 the company yielded its property to the growing "Carnegie Steel Company" and its machinery went to different parts of the glass combine to which it had sold its interests. The Olivers also sold part of their land (twenty acres) to a group wishing to start a "Tube Works" in Duquesne. For a time the venture prospered and gave employment to a hundred men and boys but the company was caught in the Panic of 1893 and was forced to close its doors never again to reopen. The construction work on the Steel Plant was started on May 28, 1885, and the country village became the booming industrial town. With the mills came the business men to cater to those who worked in the mills; the churches, the lodges, the boarding houses and hotels, to take care of the men who made steel, and the schools to educate the children of these men. A building boom naturally followed, houses sprung up in numbers in the lower part of town below Second Street and the population rapidly increased. Many of the newcomers were very rough and much disorder followed. Robberies were numerous and not a few fires occurred. According to a "History of Duquesne" issued by the "Times Observer" in March of 1902, it was no unusual sight to see a group of men and boys playing poker over a beer keg along Duquesne Avenue any hour of the day or evening. The use of intoxicants was very common and it was dangerous for anyone to appear about the present First National Bank corner with a keg of beer on his shoulder. He was certain to be knocked over and his liquor stolen. It was a cold night when a scrap was not started at the corner of Grant and Duquesne Avenues in which some person was roughly handled. Law and order were cast to the winds and a state bordering on anarchy prevailed. As a matter of protection some of the older citizens organised a vigilance committee and the more thickly populated sections were patrolled at night. These men soon tired of their work, however, and William Linn and Charles Helfrick were appointed the first policemen. As of September 12, 1891, Duquesne became a borough and as the years went on it was gradually incorporated into the beautiful city that we know today. Since that time Duquesne's history is one of achievement and expansion. Our churches and schools are second to none in the valley; the early mills have become the vast electrified industrial plant of the present time. Our homes reflect the prosperity that came with industry as do our banking institutions, our business and professional associations, and our civic projects and organizations. We sent our quota of men to every war since Lincoln called for volunteers and our young men and women have done us honor in the finest colleges and universities of the country. Shortly after the First World War Duquesne erected a beautiful memorial to its boys in the service. This was located on a plot of ground on Grant Avenue and a few years later the city purchased several adjoining feet of ground and established a Memorial Park. Even before this, in 1913, a playground was established at South Second Street. This playground was a gift to the town from the Carnegie Steel Company and in the magazines and papers of the day it was hailed as the "newest and most modern experiment in Community Recreation." We certainly enjoyed it this summer during "Homecoming Week." Located only a few hundred yards from our city limits is Kennywood Park, the second largest amusement park in the world. This park was originally "Kenny's Grove" where early residents of Duquesne took their baskets for family picnics. In the Medical world Duquesne is known as the place whose mill hospital first used the "Doctor Sherman Treatment for Burns." This treatment is a spraying of warm wax over the afflicted parts and is now nationally accepted. I am told that when the King and Queen of Belgium visited the city in 1919 they spent more than an hour in the mill hospital observing this treatment. The Queen was a registered physician and wished to learn the method sufficiently well to take it back to her own country. In the Pharmaceutical world, so closely allied to Medicine, Duquesne is known as the home of the Royal Manufacturing Company, a patent medicine business owned and operated by the Kovac family for many years. Recently the business has passed into the hands of a group of Pittsburgh men. In the Fall of 1941 the government housing units, "Riverview Project" were ready for occupancy. The people who formerly lived on the lands which were originally the old Oliver farm and the Patterson and Crawford lands near the river lost their homes oweing to a necessary expansion of the Steel Plant, now called the "Carnegie Illinois." These people found homes out over the hills or in the project. The erection of the first housing units was shortly followed by the building of two other Projects, "Burns Heights" and "Cochrandale." These developments, together with Kenwood Manor, Duquesne Place, Lavine Village, and the newly chartered West Mifflin Borough, all expansions of Duquesne proper, offer a new challenge and new opportunities to business and the professions in our city. Duquesne is justly proud of her many distinguished sons and daughters. The first composition of Charles Wakefield Cadman, the noted Composer, was the "Kennedy School March" which he played at an evening entertainment given by the Methodist Ladies Aid. Doctor Edward McCague, the nationally known kidney specialist, whose books are accepted college texts, earned his way through medical school by clerking in Youngbloods store on East Duquesne Avenue. Margaret Cannon publishes delightful verse. James and Samuel Regester follow in the footsteps of their grandfather and uncle in the Presbyterian Ministry. Edward Crawford was the president of the McKeesport Tinplate. (His widow lives in Quaker Valley. She and Miss Tillie Crawford, now living in Pittsburgh, are the only surviving members of the Crawford family.) Earl Hines, the "Jive" pianist, who travels with his own orchestra, has been enthusiastically received both in this country and in Paris. Senator Crawford was the first to be sent from Duquesne to help make the laws and Cyrus Young was a member of the staff of the American Ambassador in Rome. John Carey was president of the Bolinger Construction Company of Oakmont. Kenneth Scholter, by his vision and faith in the future of aviation, has the first privately owned and operated airport in the State. Miss Pound, after resigning her teaching position at Duquesne High, is teaching at the University of Pittsburgh. Catherine Butler is Superintendent of the Homestead Library, the first woman to hold such a position in the American Library Association. Claggett, the sculptor, is one of our boys as is Yoroshuk, the talented violinist, who has his own orchestra in New York City. Rosina Magee, after serving abroad in the Nurse Army Corps in World War II is Educational Director in charge of Cadet Nursing Courses at the United States Veterans Hospital in Columbia, South Carolina. Father William Hastings heads a Youth Guidance Clinic in the Erie Diocese. Doctor Glenn Dunmire is a noted surgeon at the West Penn Hospital and is related by marriage to the Botkin Family who have given five medical doctors and a dentist to the practice of medicine in Duquesne and its vicinity. Arthur Kidd, after serving as the Dean and Registrar of Florida A. and M. College at Tallassee did Administrative work with the Army of Occupation in Germany following World War II. Of course Duquesne has produced its full quota of Ne'erdowells and scalawags but we cover them with the cloak of loyalty and insist that they "come from such nice people." Duquesne was also, for many years, the adopted home of "Chicago Mike" whose main activity was the salvaging of cigarette butts and who died in a cave on a nearby hillside. He always said that our town was the best spot in the world in which to just sit around and do nothing. In 1916 we celebrated our "Silver Jubilee"; in 1941 we marked the years in gold and in 1966 we shall be the "Jewel of the Valley" unless the atomic bomb has reduced Duquesne to its original state of virgin wilderness.

	Updated on Saturday, 01-Jul-2000 18:10:07 MDT