Category: Water Under the Bridge

My favorite fellow brick collector, Jean Bear, recently received an inquiry requesting information on brick making in the Bridgeville area in the late nineteenth century. The questions were posed by a gentleman named Brendan Gallagher, who is the great-great-grandson of James Frain, a well-known local resident in his time. Mr. Frain died in 1896 at the age of fifty-two. His son “lived on Prestley Road with the Schultes and Mayers”. Family lore reports that he or his heirs sold a brick yard to C. P. Mayer. There is also a family rumor that there are bricks with the name “Frain”…

Continue reading

In March the Bridgeville Area Historical Society reverted to its traditional “last Tuesday Evening” schedule with an excellent presentation on the Whiskey Rebellion by local historian Brady Crytzer. Mr. Crytzer spoke extemporaneously, covering the “big picture” causes of this significant event in the early years of our new nation and the important role it played in defining the nation’s identity. He is a history professor at Robert Morris University; the author of seven books about local history, including one on this subject; and narrator/commentator on several television series dealing with American history in the colonial/Revolutionary War era. The speaker began…

Continue reading

Several times each year my daughter Sara takes a break from her busy routine and comes here to visit me. This year her visit coincided with a trip to Seattle by Beth and her family, and the opportunity for us to baby-sit their dog, Gunnar. It’s been well over seven years since I have had a dog; Gunnar was a welcome visitor. Recent DNA tests have reported that he is part Walker Tree Hound, part Great Dane, and part Pit Bull; I still think he is mostly Blue Tick Hound. I have been declared too feeble to take Gunnar for…

Continue reading

In recent years my favorite sport event has become the Iditarod, the sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome. It commemorates the 1925 Serum Run to Nome when relay teams of mushers and sled dogs delivered vaccines to Nome to head off a diphtheria epidemic. In 1972 three Alaskans, concerned that the advent of motor-driven snowmobiles would force sled-dogs onto the Endangered Species List, proposed a rigorous long-distance race replicating that historic event. This year’s Iditarod is its fifty-second running. It began with a ceremonial start in Anchorage, followed by an official “restart” eleven miles north, in Willow. This year…

Continue reading

Illegal immigration and/or “the Border Crisis” are major concerns and frequent topics of discussion for my “Conservative” friends. They are generally concerned that I am not specifically aware of it nor of its severity. Out of courtesy to them I have recently invested a little time gathering information on it and attempting to put it into its proper perspective. One must begin by defining terms. Most of the sources I have found define an immigrant as being someone of foreign birth residing in this country. A recent Pew Institute article reported that there are around forty million people meeting this…

Continue reading

As I reported in last week’s column, Warren Merritt’s presentation to the Bridgeville Area Historical Society contained far more information on the history of coal mining in this area than could be covered in a single column. This week we will attempt to include the other local mines that he covered and identify those in neighboring communities for which we have relevant information. We will begin with the Katie Mine. According to its mine map it worked the Pittsburgh Seam under Gould City Hill. Its tipple was located near Villars Street and served the Bridgeville and McDonald (B & M)…

Continue reading

When I was researching the history of coal mining in Bridgeville a year ago, I came across a video of a recent talk on Bethel Park’s mining history by a gentleman named Warren Merritt. I immediately contacted him and asked if he would be interested in presenting a similar program for our Historical Society. This month my efforts were rewarded when he did precisely that. Mr. Merritt, a mining engineer, is a graduate of Michigan Tech, retired from a long, productive career with CONSOL Energy Inc., currently dividing his time between consulting and researching the rich heritage of bituminous coal…

Continue reading

As the years pass and my productivity declines, I find myself dialing back on many of my activities. So far that has not included this weekly column. I still derive a lot of enjoyment from it, particularly when a specific column motivates the readers to comment on it. I try to acknowledge feedback when it is received, but my weak acknowledgements are inconsistent with its significance. For example, the recent pair of columns on Route 66 stirred memories in a number of the readers. Tom Grossi reported that he and Jerry Martincic had driven Route 66 to California in 1964…

Continue reading

We nonagenarians are frequently criticized for living in the past and failing to appreciate the pleasures that are available to us today. I certainly plead “Guilty” to that criticism; I am firmly convinced that all the cultural experiences of my young adult life are superior to those currently available. When I turned ninety, I assumed that my opportunities to see and hear world class jazz musicians in person were all in the past. How wrong I was! Since then I have been treated to live performances by Bill Charlap at Chautauqua and John Pizzarelli, at Hartwood Acres. Similarly, I assumed…

Continue reading

Last week’s column on Dick Gaetano’s talk on Route 66 piqued my interest in the 1960s television show with that eponymous title, particularly in regard to the two episodes that featured Pittsburgh. A little bit of searching on the Internet netted me the opportunity to turn the calendar back six decades and watch both of them. Episode three in the second season was entitled “Good Night, Sweet Blues”; in it Ethel Waters portrayed an aged woman whose dying wish was to re-unite, for a final time, a jazz band in which she had performed thirty years earlier. Episode nine, the same…

Continue reading