Last month the Bridgeville Area Historical Society diverged from its traditional program format by staging a dramatic reading of an original play based on a key event during the Whiskey Rebellion. Entitled “Interrogation”, the play examines in detail Alexander Hamilton’s attempt to indict Pittsburgh’s most prominent citizen, Attorney Hugh Henry Brackenridge, for treason. Production of this play is the Society’s contribution to “USA250”, our nation’s celebration of the semiquincentennial (two hundred and fiftieth) anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The dramatic reading version of the play is designed to facilitate its presentation by cultural institutions without extensive…

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I suspect most people forced to drive across Pennsylvania on the Turnpike consider that to be a boring, unpleasant chore. I am not in that category and the opportunity for me to ride, as a passenger, the 270 miles east from Monroeville to King of Prussia on the ‘Pike’ on Friday, and to retrace the trip west on Sunday was a great thrill. The purpose of the trip was for us to attend my granddaughter Rachael’s graduation from Bryn Mawr, and to retrieve her belongings. Consequently, Beth and Mike chose to borrow my van, a request I honored in return…

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Last weekend featured an exciting event in our family, my granddaughter Rachael’s graduation from Bryn Mawr. I was thrilled four years ago when I learned she had been admitted to such a prestigious school, a thrill that was reinforced when we visited its lovely campus that Fall. It turned out to be a perfect fit for her at this stage in her life, as is evidenced by the way she has matured while a student there. I have been involved in many college graduation ceremonies, in many different roles – student, parent, faculty mentor, and grandparent – and am impressed…

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It is hard to believe my mother has been gone for three and a half decades; the impact she had on my life is still frequently evident. Every time I retrace my steps to retrieve something I have forgotten, I can hear her saying “If you don’t have it in your head, you better have in your feet!” Margaret Mary Klees was born near the end of the nineteenth century and lived well into the final decade of the twentieth. Her birthplace was Emporium, the county seat of Cameron County, the least populated county in Pennsylvania. Shoe-horned in at the…

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The April program for the Bridgeville Area Historical Society was a lively presentation on the history of the Bridgeville Volunteer Fire Department by its current Fire Chief, Ray Costain. Chief Costain was as comfortable speaking before a public audience as he is directing firefighting activities at a major conflagration. Bridgeville has a history of fires fromits earliest days — the Shaffer fulling mill in 1876, A. J. Schulte’s coal tipple in 1890, and C. P. Mayer’s store and lumber yard in 1898. In 1904 Dr. Fife’s home was burned to the ground; neighbors saved the next-door Presbyterian parsonage using garden…

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Last week was a busy one for the Senior Design Project program at Pitt’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, dominated by final presentations by all the graduating seniors. Senior Design is the capstone event for our students, an opportunity for them to synthesize the course work they have taken for the past four years into one integrated project. This semester we had sixty-two students, subdivided into twelve teams implementing a wide variety of design projects. Each project was based on a real-world example; each team was supported by a faculty mentor for technical guidance and an industry mentor for…

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It was my privilege last Saturday to be invited to the Opening Reception of the Fifth Annual Sculpture Exhibition at the Bridgeville Public Library (Bill and Grace McDivitt Center). The Pittsburgh Society of Sculptors is a nationally known organization of Western Pennsylvania sculptors working in a broad variety of media. Their partnership with Public Art Bridgeville has contributed heavily to the cultural environment of the community. This year twenty artists contributed forty-two pieces to the exhibition. It is traditional for outstanding exhibits to be given special awards each year at this exhibition. Three of the winners of the awards were…

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Last week Kevin Abt, an ex-student and dear friend of mine, was in town for a visit and offered me the opportunity to spend a day exploring industrial archaeology in Mercer County, an opportunity I was eager to accept. Kevin has had a distinguished career working as an engineer/project manager in the Virginia Beach area for the past two and a half decades and has a keen interest in everything technical and historical. He currently is finishing an engagement as Project Manager for a new tunnel under the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel Commission….

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I have just returned from an enjoyable visit with my daughter Sara and her family in Fort Collins, Colorado. It is always great to see them and interesting to spend time in an environment that is quite different from ours. Fort Collins is a pleasant city, about half the size of Pittsburgh, located at the edge of the foothills, the boundary between the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains. Jim and Sara moved there in 1993 when she enrolled at Colorado State University to pursue her Doctorate in Wildlife Ecology. After graduating in 1999 she joined the United States Geological…

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When we studied world history in high school, we learned that the evolution of civilization had a major setback in the fifth century AD when the Barbarians overthrew the Roman Empire and Europe entered the Dark Ages. All attempts at learning and science were suspended and massive amounts of knowledge were lost forever. It took a millennium and the arrival of the Renaissance for it to get back on track. Recently I have learned that this perception may have been grossly exaggerated. This realization began with watching “The Dig”, an excellent recent British movie. It documents an important archaeological excavation…

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