Our recent column on the evolution of Native Americans in this area ended with the Iroquois in control of the Ohio Country at the beginning of the eighteenth century, treating it primarily as “hunting grounds”. At this point, other nations began to move back into the area – notably the Delaware being forced west by the settlers in eastern Pennsylvania and the Shawnee returning from their diaspora in the south. We will begin our discussion of this era by dealing with the Indian settlements in western Pennsylvania, and defer talking about individuals for a later column. We have chosen the…

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March means different things to different people, most of them positive. Pirate fans like spring training, when “hope springs eternal” and their team hasn’t yet been eliminated from the pennant race. Horticulturalists celebrate the return of daffodils and hyacinths after their winter dormancy. Basketball fans are thrilled by the NCAA tournament and their own “brackets”. For me March is the time for my favorite sports event – the Iditarod. My interest in this wonderful race dates back nearly two decades to an equally wonderful trip my wife and I made to Alaska. Intermingled with many other enjoyable experiences on this…

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A lot of exciting things have happened at Woodville in the past two and a half centuries – I am excited about something happening there right now! Several years ago the Neville House Associates announced “The Woodville Experience” Capital Campaign, a fund raising effort with the goal of enhancing this National Historic Landmark and create “an extraordinary living history complex”. The enhancements include an interpretive log cabin, a whisky still shelter, a fully restored field well, and a circa 1810 Belgian style barn, each faithfully restored to match the late eighteenth century feel of the Neville House. Watching the barn…

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Every time my ventures into local history come in contact with Indians, I realize how little we know about their involvement in the Charters Valley. This is an interesting subject, one that must begin with an understanding of the evolution of these people from their earliest days at Meadowcroft Rockshelter up to historic times at Catfish Creek.  The discoveries at the Meadowcroft site have challenged conventional wisdom regarding the arrival of humans in the Western Hemisphere. Dr. James Adavasio’s excavation of the site in the 1970s encountered artifacts that suggest human occupation there as much as 19,000 years ago. If…

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On February 18, 2021, PennDOT identified the bridges to be included in their new “Pathways Major Bridge Public-Private Partnership (P3) Initiative”, an ambitious program to replace or rehabilitate infrastructure components in nine major projects scattered across Pennsylvania. The only project in southwestern Pennsylvania is the Bridgeville interchange on I-79. PennDOT’s difficulties funding transportation have been well documented. In addition to 40,000 miles of highways and 25,000 bridges, the department is also responsible for public transportation authorities in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, as well as for ports and airports. There has been general agreement that PennDOT’s current annual budget for highways and…

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Through 1926, private aviation was dominated by open cockpit biplanes. Mayer Aircraft had at least four such models – the Laird Swallow, the Travel Air, the Curtiss Oriole, and the Waco 9. “Miss Pittsburgh”, on display at Pittsburgh International Airport, is a Waco 9. She made the first airmail flight, Pittsburgh to Cleveland, on April 21, 1927, taking off from Mayer Field. On May 21, 1927, Lindbergh completed the first successful solo flight across the Atlantic in the “Spirit of St. Louis” a high-wing closed cabin Ryan Brougham monoplane and ushered in a new era. Never one to be far…

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Occasionally someone will ask me where I get ideas for my column; I usually have a straightforward answer. This week’s column is an exception. I know where it started, but the path it took to get to this point is indeed convoluted. I have commented several times on the way remote communication has improved in direct response to the pandemic, and on the potential it provides for linking tiny groups of people interested in niche topics. This week’s example began with an email I received from an unknown sender, Jack Cohen, inviting me to a “Washington Trail Webinar”. My first…

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When I was searching through old newspaper archives looking for information on the Pittsburgh Board Speedway, I kept running across articles that mentioned Mayer Field and realized that that storied institution deserved a proper history. Eventually I copied several hundred articles, sufficient for several columns. The first mention of Mayer Field was in Canonsburg’s “Daily Notes”. On September 4, 1920, it reported that Bridgeville businessman C. P. Mayer had opened “Mayer Aviation Field in the Lower Chartiers Valley”. Sixteen days later the same paper reported that two local residents had flown from Bridgeville, over Canonsburg to the outskirts of Washington…

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One of my brother’s current projects is reading of the journals of our Uncle Emory Oyler and summarizing information from them. Emory began to keep a daily journal in 1901 when he went to work for the Cumberland Valley Railroad, a practice he continued until his death in 1960. In addition to being an interesting record of his life, the journals present a fascinating picture of the life of my Oyler ancestors twelve decades ago. My father was born to Adam Douglas Oyler and his wife Annie Malinda Smith Oyler on December 16, 1891. He was the youngest of six…

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Our Book Club has been reading “Faster” by Neal Bascomb this month. It is an interesting non-fiction work dealing with the development of motorsports in Europe in the early twentieth century, culminating with the 1938 Pau Grand Prix race in which a French team led by heiress Lucy Schell upset the dominant German combine of Daimler-Benz and Auto Union in a heavily nationalistic environment. Driving a Delahaye 145 for the team was Rene Dreyfus, a major victim of the anti-Semitism prevalent at the time. Most of the book takes place in France, Germany, and Italy, with one foray across the…

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