great fieets of barges carry coal and other heavy freight, such as steel rails, cotton t1es, sheet iron, wire and nails, down the Olno in the winter and spring A ship canal to rovide water communication between Pittsburg and Lake Erie has been projected. The railways have a heavy tonnage of coal, coke and iron and steel products, and a large portion of the iron ore that is produced in the Lake Superior region is brought to Pittsburg. In 1908 the river traffic amounted to 9,090,146 tons, most of which was carried on barges down the Ohio. Pittsburg is also a port of entry; in 1907 the value of its imports amounted to $2,416,367, and in 1909 to $2,062,162.
The value of the factory products in 1905 was $165,428,88I, and to this may be added $45,830,272 for those of the city of Allegheny, making a total of $21 1,259,1 53. In the manufacture of iron and steel products Pittsburg ranks first among the cities of the United States, the value of these products amounting in 1905 to $88,250,805 or 53-3 % of the total for all manufactures; if the manufactures of Allegheny be added they amounted to $92,939,860 or 43-7%. Several neighbouring cities and towns are also extensively engaged in the same industry, and in 1902 Allegheny county produced about 24% of the pig-iron, nearly 34 % of the Bessemer steel, more than 44% of the open-hearth steel, more than 53% of the crucible steel, more then 24% of the steel rails, and more than 59% of the structural shapes that were made in that year in the United States. In 1905 the value of P1ttsburg's foundry and machine shop-products was $9,631, 514; of the product of steam railway repair shops, $3,7 26,990 (being 424 8% more than in 1900); of malt liquors, $3,166,829; of slaughtering and meat-packing products, $2,732,027; of cigars and cigarettes, $2,297,228; 'of glass, $2,130,540; and of tin and terne plate, $I,64§ ,5'/O. Electrical machinery, apparatus and supplies were manufactured largely in the city (value in 1905, $1,796,557), and there was another large plant for their manufacture immediately outside of the city limits. Coke, cut cork, rolled brass and copper were other important products in 1905. In 1900, and for a long period preceding, Pittsburg ranked first among American cities in the manufacture of glass, but in 1905 it was outranked in this industry by Muncie, Indiana, Millville, New ]ersey, and Washington, Pennsylvania; but in the district outside of the city limits of Pittsburg much glass is manufactured, so that the Pittsburg glass district is the greatest in the country, and there are large glass factories at Washington (18 m. south-west), Charleroi (20 m. south) and Tarentum (15 rn. north-east). In Pittsburg or the immediate vicinity are the more important plants of the United States Steel Corporation, including that of the Carnegie Company. Here, too. are the plants of the Westinghouse Company for the manufacture of electrical apparatus, of air brakes invented by George Westinghouse (born 1846), and of devices for railway signals which he also invented. In the Allegheny district the H. I. Heinz Company has its main pickle plant, the largest establishment of -he kind in the country.
The Pittsburg charter of 1816 vested the more important powers of the city government in a common council of I5 members and a select council of 9 members, and until 1834 the mayor was appointed annually by these city councils from their own number. By the Wallace Act of the state legislature in 1874 a form of government was provided for cities of three classes, and Pittsburg became a city of the second class (population between 100,000 and 300,000); under the act of 1895 a new classification was made, under which Pittsburg remains in the second class. An act of 1887 had amended the provisions of the Wallace 'ict in regard to second class cities by changing the terms of select councilmen from two to four years and of common councilmen from one to two years. In 1901 a new act was passed for the government of cities of the second class. It provided that the executive be a “ city recorder ”; this provision was repealed in 1903, when the title of mayor again came into use. The mayor holds office for three years, has the powers and jurisdiction of a justice of the peace, appoints the heads of departments (public safety, public works, collector of delinquent taxes, assessors, city treasurer, law, charities and correction, l
and sinking fund commission), and may remove any of the officers he has appointed, by a written order, showing cause, to the select council. The city controller is elected by popular vote. The legislative bodies are the select and common council, elected under the law of 1887; by a three-iifths vote it may pass resolutions or ordinances over the mayor's veto. The department of public safety controls the bureaus of police, detectives, iire, health, electricity and building inspection, the department of public works controls bureaus of surveys, construction, highways and sewers, City property, water, assessment of water rents, parks, deed registry, bridges and light. In 1909 the taxable valuation was $100,771,321, and the tax rate was 13 8 mills for city property, 9-2 mills on rural property and 6-9 mills on agricultural property. The tax rate for separate indebtedness varied from 6 mills in Allegheny to 16-2 mills in the 43rd ward. The water-supply of Pittsburg is taken from the Allegheny river and pumped into reservoirs, the highest of which, in Highland Park, is 367 ft. above the river; and there is a slow sand filtration plant for the filtration of the entire supply.
Pittsburg owed its origin to the strategic value of its site in the struggle between the English and the French for the possession of the North American continent. A few Frenchmen attempted to establish a settlement here in 1731, but were soon driven away by the Indians. In 1753, after the French had laid formal claim to this region and the Ohio Land Company had been formed with a view to establishing a settlement within it, Robert Dinwiddie, governor of Virginia and a shareholder in the Ohio Company, sent George Washington with a letter to “ the commandant of the French forces on the Ohio ” (then stationed at Fort Le Boeuf, near the present Waterford, about 115 m. north of the head-waters of that river) asking him to account for his invasion of territory claimed by the English. This was Washington's first important public service. He reached the present site of Pittsburg on the 24th of November 1753, and subsequently reported* that what is now called “ The Point, ” i.e. the tongue of land formed by the confidence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers, was a much more favourable situation for a fort and trading post than the one about two miles up the Monongahela (near the present site of McKees Rocks) which had been tentatively selected by the Ohio Company. Accordingly, on the 17th of February 1754, a detachment of about 40 soldiers, under the command of Captain William Trent,2 reached “ The Point, ” and began to build a fortification (under the auspices of the Ohio Company), which it seems to have been the intention to call Fort Trent, and which was the beginning of the permanent settlement here by whites. On the 17th of the following April, however, Ensign Edward Ward, commanding the soldiers, in the absence of Captain Trent, was forced to evacuate the unfinished fortification by a party of about 1000 French and Indians, under Captain Contrecoeur, who immediately occupied the works, which he enlarged and completed, and named Fort Duquesne, in honour of Duquesne de Menneville, governor of New France in 1752-1755. In the following summer Washington attempted to recover this fort, in a campaign which included the skirmish 1 His Journal, published in 1754, gives a concise and lucid account of this expedition.
2 William Trent (c. 1715-1778) was a native of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, became a captain in the state militia in 1746 and serve against the French and Indians, was for many ears, after 1749, a justice of the court of common pleas and general)/sessions of the peace for Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, and in 1750-1726 was the partner of George Crogan in an extensive trade with t e Indians. According to one account, he visited the site of Pittsburg, and examined its availability for fortification, in August 1753* before the arrival of Washington. In 1 55 he became a member of the council of Lieut.-Governor Robert H. Morris, and in 1758 he accompanied General Forbes's expedition against Fort Duquesne. He acted many times as Indian agent; his lucrative trade with the Indians, conducted from a trading house near Fort Pitt, was ruined during Pontiac's conspiracy. At the beginning of the War of Independence he was given a major's commission to raise troops in Western Pennsylvania. See Journal of Captam Wzllzam Trent (Cincinnati, Ohio, 1871), edited by Alfred T. Goodman.
