Pittsburgh, Alligator County

In 2019 Pittsburgh made national news when three alligators randomly appeared on various city streets within a month in South Side, Beechview and Carrick. By the time October rolled around, two more had been found: one in Shaler (because apparently the suburbs needed to be in on that hot gator action), and another in Lawrenceville. 

This is all kind of a big deal.  Alligators, you see, are not indigenous to Western Pennsylvania.

These Yinzigators, dubbed Frankie, Chomp, and Gator Doe, were abandoned former pets. Only one was traced to its owner, a man whose stash of 32 exotic animals -- including three more alligators -- was subsequently confiscated by Animal Care Control. He was charged with multiple counts of animal neglect.

Lost in all the subsequent wisecracks and commentary was historical perspective, because 2019 does not mark the first time Pittsburgh saw a proliferation of alligators. The reptiles were reported hereabouts beginning in the late 1800s. 

Sure, alligators aren't indigenous to Pittsburgh. But they have been esteemed private and public residents of the region.

The Rise of the Reptile

The American alligator can naturally be found in parts of Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Florida and New Orleans. It's the latter two places that are historically associated with popularizing the species as pets.

A mid-1880s article in the New York World blamed a newfound popularity of pet alligators on the Cotton Centennial of 1884, a world's fair held in New Orleans. Exposure to the flora and fauna of that region “.…taught Northern visitors to the French quarters to look with kindly eyes upon the lizards’ big brother.” Alligators had hitherto been valued for their commercial possibilities, and thousands were slaughtered each year for their hides and to make an oil to grease steam locomotives and cotton mill machinery. But suddenly, thanks to New Orleans mega-tourism, they were regarded as, well, kinda cute. So much so that a“little old bird store in the Rue Royale” in New Orleans reportedly sold wee gators by the dozens at 50-75¢ each, complete with travel boxes.

Many a baby NOLA gator found a home in northern United States, including in New York amongst “….that growing class of people who are always on the lookout for something new to caress or talk about.” One such person was a little girl living on Lexington Avenue who was said to keep her two year old, 14-inch alligator in a globe aquarium. She fitted with a silver collar and took it for walks on a leash.

And then she did this.

Vintage postcard from the Thurlow collection, circa early 1900s

Okay, I'm lying. That's not the same girl. But I wouldn't reject a kiddie wagon pulled by a gator as a possibility, in New York or even Pittsburgh. Alligators inspired such whimsy.

At the same time that New Orleans launched a reptile craze, Florida was also getting in on the gator trend. The latter half of the 19^th century brought railroad expansion to the state, which had previously been too wild, untamed, and inaccessible. On those trains came wealthy northern tourists, enchanted by the region's exotic plant and wildlife. The tourists took home souvenirs like chameleons, palmetto fans, bird plumes to decorate their chapeaus, orange thorns to serve as toothpicks....and alligators.

If you’ve ever had the chance to hold a wee baby alligator, you’d understand the appeal.  Than again,  maybe that’s just me. I once held a live baby alligator that had been plucked out of its nursery pod and passed around a Louisiana swamp boat. Doing so was most likely illegal, and was certainly unwise. I kept wondering where fierce Mama Gator was. She was probably submerged nearby until we left. Her progeny was a little leather tube of air, bones and claws. Definitely cute: 

Me, holding a baby gator in a Louisiana swamp

To people in the 19^th century, such a wee gator would have appealed as docilely exotic. The newspapers of the era described gators as “easily tamed” pets that could spend their days lounging around aquariums in one's personal conservatory or small pond. Feeding them every couple of days wasn’t a hardship. One 1878 Virginia newspaper recalled the writer's pet alligators had "....a habit of eating any eatable thing that was given to them." The same writer opined that "....in their first or second year, gators are pleasant pets, and no more dangerous than kittens.

Having a, uhm, kittenish pet alligator came to be associated with status, prestige, and fashionable quirkiness.

Conservation and Consumerism 

As reptile pets trended there was a growing recognition that alligators in the wild were rapidly diminishing, perhaps even nearing extinction level. Such environmental consciousness was not limited to gators, since similar observations were also being made in the late 1800s about polar bears, bison, grizzly bears, and pronghorn antelopes. But the pet trade was unique to alligators, and was cited as a significant reason for gator population decline in the late 19th century. Pittsburg Dispatch reprinted a London Standard article, "Danger of the Extinction of the Mammoth Reptile", in March 1889 which warned:

The spread of settlement, the systematic hunting of the brute for the sake of its hide, teeth, oil and musk, the slaughter of it by the powder-burning visitor to Florida, and the extensive winter tourist trade in little alligators as choice gifts for Northern friends, have all tended to thin the Southern swamps in an appreciable degree.

Conservation did not extend to consumerism, however. There were no public calls to boycott purchases of alligator leather goods in hopes of curbing population decline. Quite the contrary, as evidenced by these ads from Pittsburgh publications: 

Advertisement, Weldin's, Commercial Gazette, 12 November 1880

Advertisement from R.Hay & Son, The Bullletin, 29 December 1888

Advertisement from Solomon & Ruben department store, Pittsburg Post, 11 August 1893

Advertisement from Gusky's department store, Pittsburg Post, 1 May 1896

Advertisement from Kaufmann's department store, Pittsburg Post, 5 December 1897

Presidential Alligators

There were gators in high places. President and Mrs. Grover Cleveland were presented with two Florida alligators during a February 1888 campaign trip to that state. National newspapers joked that the animals were to be kept in White House reception rooms either to be “trained to shake hands with visiting statesmen” or “taught to distinguish between statesmen and journalistic interviewers.” The young Mrs. Cleveland was fond of animals, so it's possible she incorporated the reptiles into her existing menagerie.

President & Mrs. Grover Cleveland outside Indian River Hotel, Titusville Florida, 1888

The Clevelands weren't the first occupants of the White House to be associated with alligators. Decades earlier, President John Quincy Adams was said to have received a spare alligator from the Marquis de Lafayette, who'd acquired plenty of such odd souvenirs during his 1824-25 victory lap of the United States. Adams was said to have kept his Lafeyette-regifted gator in a White House East Wing bathtub. As delightfully specific as this story seems to be, and as oft-repeated as it's been, it is sadly only apocryphal. There are no references to Adams' alligator in any diaries, nor in contemporary accounts about Adams, Lafayette, or White House bathtubs. Alas, without contemporary evidence of its existence, the Adams Alligator is but a mythical beast.

There were also White House-adjacent alligators. In 1890, newspapers noted that President Benjamin Harrison’s son Russell had moved some gators gifted by the state of Florida into the White House conservatory, which was connected to the main floor of the mansion. These gators reportedly lived in tin foot-tubs in the White House. Decades later, President-elect Warren G. Harding was said to have accepted a “fair sized ‘gator'” from an unnamed Florida man, although that one probably never made it to the White House. President Herbert Hoover's son Allan donated his own pet alligators to the National Zoological Park in Washington a few years before Hoover was elected.

With such celebrity-status gators, how could Pittsburgh resist the lure of the saurian?

Pittsburgh Alligators

The first Pittsburgh alligator owners -- whomever they may have been -- were perhaps inspired to adopt after reading articles like this one about a pet alligator named Jim, published in 1888 in the Pittsburg Dispatch:

Pittsburg Dispatch, March 1888

We can't know when or why the first alligator came to Pittsburgh, or whether it had a relentlessly normcore name like Jim and wore doll clothing.

It took Pittsburgh a while to work up to full gator. The first mentions of alligators in local papers referenced the creatures imported to grace Henry Phipps' aquatic garden. Second-in-command of Carnegie Steel, in 1886 Henry Phipps led the way in local Gilded Age philanthropy by proposing and establishing the area's first public plant conservatory.

Phipps Conservatory in Allegheny Park, circa 1898.
From Our cities, picturesque and commercial (Pittsburgh and Allegheny)

Located in Allegheny City (today's North Side), that complex was expanded three years later in 1889 when Phipps funded the addition of an aquatic garden.

Illustration from Pittsburg Dispatch, 30 November 1890

The new addition included an aquarium room, although in the early 1890s the Phipps Allegheny Conservatory filled those tanks with mostly local fish. That might seem like a cheat, but think about it from the perspective of a century ago. The opportunity to see such creatures up close and personal, to observe their fishy ways? That was a novelty to Pittsburghers whose typical encounters with river life involved squiggly things dangling from the ends of hooks.

Illustration from Pittsburg Dispatch, 30 November 1890

Certainly the opportunity to gaze upon two “Allegheny alligators” pulled from a Monongahela River lock was a draw for the new aquatic rooms. 

That's right, Allegheny alligators. Well, sort of.

Alligators from Pittsburgh's rivers don't mind if you refer to them as snot otters, devil dogs, mud-devils, mud dogs, grampus, or hellbenders. The Eastern Hellbender Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) is the largest form of salamander in North America, and was recently recognized as the Pennsylvania Official Amphibian. This creature could once be found in waterways throughout Western Pennsylvania, including Pittsburgh's three rivers. Today the dwindling population is of concern due to the hellbender's role as an indicator species. Its absence from the waterways signals poor water quality.

Photo from Wikipedia Commons

Hellbenders were Yinzer versions of real alligators, so popular distinctions weren't always made locally in the 19th century between amphibian "Allegheny Alligators" and southern reptilian alligators. Pittsburg Dispatch noted on 27 June 1889 that Allegheny City Detective John R. Murphy was "presented with an alligator which was captured in the Ohio river by some of his friends. He will build a tank at his home and raise it." While good Detective Murphy could have been gifted with a Southern stray, it's more likely that this story referenced a hellbender.

Fact is, hellbenders are amphibians and as such are truly aquatic. Since they can't live out of water, the hellbenders wouldn't make a cuddly pet. Here's another indisputable and objective truth: Allegheny Alligators were (and are) universally regarded as butt-ugly. Real baby alligators were (and are) cuter. 

There was even trans-Pennsylvania beef about alligators. A Pittsburg Dispatch editorial from 16 May1890 responded to a Philadelphia Press article mourning the species' possible extinction. Pittsburgh apparently had no sentimental attachment to the creatures:

Aside from the excellence of its hide for certain purposes, its best friend would be puzzled to point out a single good quality in the alligator. If the alligator is going – it is usually lying still in the mud – we are glad to hear it. A few specimens of the amphibious reptile might be preserved in the zoological gardens, if for no other reason to keep the ugly brute from claiming, after the dodo’s fashion, fame for being extinct. As for the tears the Press sheds over the departing saurian, we are inclined to believe that they might have come from a crocodile.

Perhaps media speculation about alligator extinction prompted Pittsburgh public officials to consider adding a southern gator or two to the city's collection before it was too late? Regardless of whether the city fathers were inspired by species preservation efforts or being on-trend by adding exotic oddities, by the late 19th century Pittsburgh got its own (real) alligators. Pittsburgh stepped up its municipal reptile game just as Henry Phipps was providing a companion conservatory for the city of Pittsburgh in 1892.

First, Highland Park got gators. Despite a man-made lake, its own conservatory, beautifully landscaped gardens, and eventually a zoo and two reservoirs, Highland Park struggled to overcome its status in the hierarchy of urban parks. Highland ranked lower in sentimental attachment when compared to Schenley's grandeur and the legacy status of Allegheny Commons park. It was also less centrally located, despite having streetcars stopping at its front entrance. Maybe gators would help raise its profile? In April 1892, a five foot alligator acquired in Georgia was accepted by city officials for Highland Park. The plan was to house the creature at the city zoo, which existed at Schenley Park at that time,  until Highland was ready for it (Highland Park Zoo opened in 1898).

It's unclear whether this 5-foot beast ever actually came to Pittsburgh, but in August 1892 two slightly smaller gators did arrive for Highland Park. Allegheny County state representative and local political boss William Flinn received notice from the East Liberty express office that a box was waiting for him. It had been sent by one of his former Highland Park neighbors who'd relocated to Florida. Hopefully it was a generously-sized container, because inside were two alligators measuring three and four feet long. "The object was to have them put in Highland park" stated the Press. 

History does not reveal whether these gators got dumped into Reservoir No. 1 (the only existing reservoir at the time) or were accommodated at the existing Highland Park conservatory. But their existence in Pittsburgh aggravated intra-park rivalry, because there was no way that Highland Park could get alligators and Schenley Park go without! The Commercial Gazette lamented on 9 August 1892 that "The Schenley park zoo must look up or it will not be in it with Highland park. The latter was enriched yesterday by seven feet of alligators."

Later in the 1890s Schenley Park zoo would add gators in its collection. But so, too, did the new Phipps Conservatory.  That new plant palace underwritten by Henry Phipps opened its doors to the public at 9 AM on 7 December 1893.

Phipps Conservatory in Schenley Park, circa 1893

 

Commercial Gazette announced on 7 December 1893 that in addition to enjoying flora contributed by prominent citizens and a collection purchased by Phipps from the recently-closed World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, conservatory visitors would be greeted by reptilian fauna. "Keeping company with the plants in this apartment are the alligators, two of them, lazy and good-for-nothing, to be relegated to the “zoo” at the first opportunity."

Lazy, good-for-nothing reptilian fauna.

Fine, maybe the Gazette didn't think alligators belonged at the fancy new conservatory. But according to the Post, the creatures were a hit with the thousands of visitors who thronged the aisles of the new complex.

Headline, Pittsburgh Post, 11 December 1893

And if the grown-ups couldn't name the plants, at least the kids could torment the alligators:

Children do not take much interest in plants and rare specimens of nature which are to be seen in hothouses, and those children who went along to the conservatory yesterday.....were well nigh tired out before the end of their journey through the maze of plants was over. But there was an attraction for them in the hothouse, although it was the last thing they reached.

There were two pretty good sized alligators in one of the basins in the farthest building, and when the children got there they wanted to stop. The grown folks stooped, too, for everybody seemed to want to look at the scaly fellows and see what they would do. The 'gators did not care whether they were watched or not, apparently, for they did not perform any tricks for the delectation of the auditors, but lay perfectly still. The little boys and girls would throw clouds of mud, toothpicks, matches, pebbles and everything else they could get their hands on at the patient animals, who just kept the tops of their heads above the water for targets. Their heads were soon spotted with yellow mud, but they did not worry about that. They just continued to be still, and it appeared to be no job for them to do so.

Pity these poor alligators. There's a human sociological parallel to be drawn, what with these beasts being decried as lazy when all they were really doing was low-key existing - just trying to avoid mud-flinging and abuse.

The poor Phipps gator was probably trying to manage reptilian depression after being removed from its warm native habitat and forced to endure a Pittsburgh winter replete with indignities, including target practice by toothpick-wielding children. Its struggle was real.

But perhaps there was another reason for alligator laziness.

Maybe the alligators were dead. 

According to the Press, within a month of its introduction to our fair city, one of the new conservatory alligators died. It was left floating in the tank, presumably to add interest to the new building. 

Which led to an incident with That Guy. 

You know That Guy. We've all met That Guy. Here's the 1894 version:

There was a man, a few days ago, who went out to the Phipps conservatory...to see the alligators. Now as the world - or that part of it which goes to Schenley park - knows, the first alligator that was put into the tank was dead, and he floated around in a life-like manner until removed to make room for his successors. The man aforesaid had seen this dead alligator and had toyed with him in security, as he floated like a log on the water. Some days later the same man came out to the park with a friend of the other sex. He did not know that the defunct saurian had been replaced with a live one, and so he resolved to alarm the young lady by toying with the reptile. She begged him to desist, and he, with the sangfroid which comes of security, persisted. Suddenly the alligator's mouth expanded, just a second too soon to miss the man's finger. Moral....never fool with an alligator unless you know he is dead.                                                                                                     Pittsburg Press, 14 January 1894

 Pro tip: getting your finger bitten when teasing an alligator will not impress your date. Really, it won't.

Although the Schenley Zoo acquired an alligator of its own that same year, Phipps Conservatory continued to house gators for a while. In September, two additional two-foot gators were brought to Phipps to be housed in "....a box containing warm water, with a raised platform of sand and gravel, upon which they can lie and sleep." (and presumably dodge toothpick-wielding children).

By 1900 the Highland Park Zoo boasted nine alligator residents. Their genders were unrecorded and were quite possibly unknown, since the requisite naughty bits are hidden inside a vent in the gator’s nether regions. (An adult gator isn't best pleased at being flipped over so curious humans can probe its cloaca).  No alligator births at the zoo were as yet recorded so those Highland Park gators were likely all donated - they may even have been pets that grew out of the cute, kittenish stage. Two additional zoo gators died that year. (Nineteenth century life in Pittsburgh was harsh for everyone, including alligators).

Not to be outdone by the city's institutions, the wealthiest private citizens of Pittsburgh acquired their own gators. Edith Darlington Ammon (known as "Darling") was the great-granddaughter of one of Pittsburgh’s earliest captains of industry, James O’Hara, and the daughter of William Darlington, a successful attorney, historian, amateur botanist, and collector of maps and manuscripts (today housed at the University of Pittsburgh). She lived at a 235 acre estate situated between present-day Sharpsburg and Aspinwall called Guyasuta (after Seneca Indian Chief Guyasuta, original owner of the land). According to the memoirs of a family friend, Anne Hemphill Herbert, there were some pets at Guyasuta:

Darling [Edith Darlington] had two alligators which she had procured in the southern part of Florida. She kept them in a low tank in one corner of the conservatory. At feeding time Darling would often hold them in her lap and let the dogs watch them eat.  

~ Personal Memories of the Darlington Family at Guyasuta, 1949
Historic Pittsburgh Book Collection, University of Pittsburgh

Darling was fierce.

Samuel & Edith Darlington Ammon (and Smoke the Dog) outside the Guyasuta conservatory, 1889
Darlington Family Papers, University of Pittsburgh

Seriously, fierce. She became president of the local Daughters of the American Revolution and organized the preservation of the Fort Pitt Blockhouse, which had nearly been destroyed by Pennsylvania Railroad expansion. That same railroad ultimately seized and demolished the family's Guyasuta property for a through-way in 1918. Darling's attempts to save her family home and Pittsburgh’s blockhouse pitted her against one of the most powerful men in Pittsburgh, a man who owned the land surrounding the Blockhouse and who was a major shareholder in the Pennsylvania Railroad: Henry Clay Frick.

Whose son Childs and granddaughter Martha had pet alligators

According to descendant and family chronicler Martha Symington Sanger, young Childs Frick kept a menagerie at the family's Pittsburgh home of Clayton. It included dogs, kittens, a raccoon, guinea pigs, Angora bunnies...and an alligator. 

Childs Frick from a circa 1892 image.
Courtesy of The Frick Collection/Frick Art Reference Library Archives

Childs Frick grew up to become a naturalist and botanist. He maintained a research laboratory and small zoo as an adult at his own Long Island estate (which was called Clayton like his childhood home). 

Childs Frick, 1942
Courtesy of The Frick Collection/Frick Art Reference Library Archives

 

In his granddaughter Martha Symington Sanger's book The Henry Clay Frick Houses, Childs Frick's zoo was said to have housed a bear, six-foot-long gouffer snakes, and alligators. His daughter (Sanger's mother) particularly enjoyed the swimming pool on the grounds, which was basically a Frick gator playground:

Three generations of the Frick family--and some of their pets--enjoyed this pool. Childs Frick's daughter, Martha, swam her alligator here and once rescued him from the bottom, fearing he had drowned.

The Fricks and other wealthy Pittsburghs were Gilded Age snowbirds, annually traveling to Palm Beach in the 1890s during the winter months. Although there is no documentation that a young Childs Frick or younger sister Helen brought back pet alligators from Florida, many other Pittsburghers did so.

Some were just passing through, as per this story from the Post in October 1894 which adds a new level to the notion of alligator luggage. Dr. J.B. Des Roche and his wife were held by local police due to a complaint by former partner Dr. Cecil Krause, who claimed Des Roche had absconded after stealing money, medicine, and other items from their Cincinnati practice. "When Des Roche and his wife were arrested at Union station their luggage was seized….It consisted of one small and three large trunks. Inside one of them was a box containing three little alligators, pets of the doctor’s wife."  There was not enough evidence to press charges, so the Des Roches and their gators left town. 

Others were permanent residents of the Pittsburgh region. The Dispatch alerted readers in May 1889 to the case of a weird gator situation: "A young alligator in McKeesport show window tried to swallow a teacup. The excited owner barely saved its life by inverting it and vigorously thumping its system." 

And no matter what the press said about their "kittenish" qualities, alligators were definitely more dangerous than kittens. In fact, they were downright dangerous to kittens:

The Dispatch reported a gator-related Christmas cat-astrophe on 27 December 1889:

John R. Johnston’s big alligator, sent to him by Captain Doddler, of New Orleans, has been playing sad havoc in the store at No. 94 Water street. The scaly gentleman from the South has been kept chained in his big tank, but he grew so frolicsome or hungry Christmas evening that he broke the chain and crawled out of the tank. There have always been kept in the store a number of cats and kittens. They are to be found, as rat destroyers, in all the grain commission houses along Water street. In that particular house there were four half grown kittens, as cute and sprightly as could be. Mr. Johnston used to love to lie in the middle of the floor and play with them all the afternoon. He will play with them no more. When the storehouse was opened yesterday morning, the alligator was found sleeping in one corner, puffed with eating. No kittens ran to greet the opening door, but the floor was strewn with cat-fur.  

The local newspapers also helpfully printed articles about the care and keeping of alligators. One such piece appeared in May 1909 in the Press from the Brooklyn Institute Museum. It acknowledged that maintaining alligators outside of their natural environment was challenging at best: 

Every winter and spring the museum receives a crop of unfortunate young alligators, brought by unhappy owners, who, having purchased them for household pets while in Florida, find that alligators are a serious disappointment. Instead of eating, they refuse all food, they spend nearly all of their time in sleep, and, worse than either, they pine away and die. “What shall I feed him?” is the anxious query of nearly every alligator owner….

The piece went on to describe the steady diet of its two young alligators who were thriving on “their regular rations of earthworms and chopped beef” in an aquarium habitat kept at an even temperature in the mid-70s. Of course, keeping anything in the average Pittsburgh home at an even 70 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the year was a challenge.

But people still tried. The Post in March 1912 offered this vignette about Living with Gator, who seemed to be the reptilian equivalent of a pocket pet:

The pet alligator is wrapped in a lace handkerchief when he is taken to teas. Liberated and placed on the tea table he is really coy and furnished no end of amusement. When in his owner's apartment his place is in the bathtub. Here he spends his time drawn up on a shoe tree, the only floatable object his mistress as a rule brings with her, basking in the rays of an electric light. Being an amphibious animal, when his mistress wishes to make use of the receptacle, it is easy to transfer him to the floor. Altogether he makes an admirable pet. 

For the child whose parents couldn't manage the acquisition of a coveted reptile, there were always paper dolls with reptile accessories to color and clip:

Pittsburg Press, 28 January 1912

Of course, not everyone had the time or inclination to tend to a live alligator (let alone an extra shoe tree to float in their tub). In September 1887, Pittsburgh's society newsweekly The Bulletin assured East End residents that they could remain on-trend with a small dead alligator, "stuffed and mounted" and artfully displayed on a small log in a cluster of Spanish moss. Such a vignette equaled a live pet in charm, since "his chronic condition is one of absolute quiet, he loses none of his attractions when life is extinct." To cinch the deal, the paper advised that this reptilian parlor ornament could serve not only as objet d'art but as functional conversation piece: "This same alligator can be made very effective upon lace draperies, where he seems to hold them in place."

But as Pittsburgh learned in 2019, gators are prone to wandering. Daily Post claimed that a 17 inch long dead alligator was found in the water pipes of Western Penitentiary on 28 March 1880 (although it's possible that was a hellbender). 

Lawrenceville had a seven-foot long gator in 1881. Well, a dead seven-foot long gator. It was discovered floating in a box by boys swimming at the foot of Forty-first Street in the Allegheny River (which arguably is more dangerous than a live gator).

They pulled it in and found it to contain a dead alligator, fully seven feet, in length. It was very much decomposed, and emited an offensive odor. The boys dumped the corpse out on the shore, where it still lies. A number of persons went to the river to see it, but only those with strong nostrils would venture within half a square of where the dead animal lay. The alligator was no doubt  on exhibition in some upriver towns when it died and was thrown in the river.                                                                                                      ~Pittsburg Post, 16 July 1881

A few years later in December 1883 the Press reminisced about a free-range gator who'd led a colorful life downtown in the old Second Avenue Park: 

....it escaped from the Second avenue Park fountain a few years ago. This alligator was somewhat dissipated. It had a habit of leaving its native element after dark and spending the nights in slumber on the door steps of adjacent dwellings, much to the terror of peaceful domestics who encountered it in the early mornings when they went out to sweep the pavements. It is not known that it was addicted to liquor, but it certainly was accustomed to midnight rambles, which did not redound to its credit. But rumor has it that it strolled off one night up Second avenue and met its death beneath the cars at the Try street railroad crossing.

In May 1894, an Allegheny City accountant named William Gordon found himself "mourning the loss of the alligator which he received some time ago from the South." Two weeks earlier the newspapers had reported on the arrival of this 15 inch gator who "did not seem any the worse for the trip" that lasted five weeks from New Orleans. The gator was intended for Allegheny Parks but unfortunately Mr. Gordon came into work one day to discover that someone had moved aside its frame enclosure on the third floor of the office warehouse. There was just enough room for an alligator to make a break for it. Fortunately for his warehouse co-workers, this story had a happy ending two weeks later:

Often during the busy hours of the day, William would think he heard the pet romaing about and would rush frantically upstairs only to be diappointed. Thursday one of the men in moving some grain discovered the lost animal, but what a change! It was fully four feet long and twice as ugly as before. Gordon was called, and after some careful maneuvering the fellow was captured. Overjoyed at discovering his pet, Gordon secured a shawl strap and took it home, where it roams about at will, owning everything in sight. ~Pittsburg Dispatch, 7 June 1891

There was some editorial license taken with this story, because alligators can't grow from 1.5 to 4 feet in two weeks. (Then again, who knows what was in our rivers back then...). 

As with Pittsburgh's most recent reptilian wanderers, gator ownership couldn't always be established. Consider the Pittsburgh Sewer Gator of 1917:

Pittsburg Post, 17 July 1917

This 1917 Pittsburgh Sewer Gator story has everything. Not only does it fulfill one of the most enduring urban legends, that of sewer-dwelling gator in our midst, but it provides an intrepid (albeit unwise) hero. Sewer worker George Moul discovers an alligator during an inspection on the Northside, wrangles it, and walks it back to his place on Lockhart Street. All of this prompted the Gazette Times to note:

 The North Side has been famed for many things, but not even in the days when it was Allegheny City and had a distinction all its own did it put forth such a claim to notice as being the habitat of the alligator. But they have such things over there.

For all we know, a hundred years on perhaps some of the alligators that appeared during the 2019 Pittsburgh alligator plague were descendants of 1917 Sewer Gator. Too bad for them, though. The 2019 Yinzigators have been sent to Florida to establish an expatriate Pittsburgh reptile community (hopefully gated). 

But such is the lure of the saurian that you know there will be more....

Bearing Witness to a Beldam: Mother Finch of Homestead

You probably know Margaret Finch, even if you don't realize you do.

Cover, Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly, 14 July 1892

That's her in the middle of the crowd, weighted club held high, facing down the Pinkertons during the Battle of Homestead.

Well, it's maybe her.

Maybe, inspired by her.

For Mother Margaret Finch has always been one of the most inspiring and colorful characters made famous by the infamous Homestead Strike.

Mother Finch and the Homestead Strike

Henry Clay Frick, early 1890s
Stowell's Fort Frick

In 1892, a three-year contract between Carnegie Steel Company in Homestead and its unionized workers expired. Carnegie chairman Henry Clay Frick cut off negotiations and shut down the mill. Anticipating retaliation given years of managerial equivocation over wage negotiations, Frick fortified the massive site by building an 11 foot tall protective fence. He also called in armed reinforcements to protect the property, importing 300 Pinkerton guards whose military-for-hire presence would allow him to proceed with hiring non-union workers to re-open the mill.

Fort Frick look-out tower
Battle of Homestead Foundation

Upwards of 10,000 people were then living in the borough of Homestead. They called the fence around the steel works "Fort Frick" and responded to its presence by preparing for armed conflict. 

The mill, of course, was the legal property of the Carnegie Company. But the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers union and its supporters felt that they had a rightful say in its operations, earned as a matter of painful sacrifice and sweat equity. When the Pinkerton barges floated up the river in the early morning hours of 6 July 1892, nearly half the town's population was said to have shown up along the Monongahela River shoreline to assert its right to fair wages and good faith negotiations.

The women in that crowd excited commentary. Among them, defiantly and prominently, was a lady identified as Margaret Finch. Since at least 1888, Margaret had operated the Rolling Mill House at the rear of her home on 524 Fourth Avenue, within a block of the great Carnegie Steel complex. For at least some of that time, it was a licensed saloon.

Homestead Steel Works, 1890. William J. Gaughan Collection, University of Pittsburgh.

Margaret was described in various newspaper accounts of the Homestead Strike as "a white haired old beldam who has seen forty strikes in her long life" and "the leader of the Amazons whenever this dark Dahomey land of labor goes to war." While that latter description might puzzle us, it would have resonated with 19th century readers who were fascinated by the ruthless female combat corps of Dahomey, a small West African kingdom that rose to prominence as a result of its militaristic society and involvement in the Atlantic Slave Trade. Margaret's contemporaries would have understood the comparison: Mother Finch was a fierce and wild warrior.

According to breathless multi-page coverage by the Pittsburg Dispatch, when the "great whistle at the electric light plant in the center of town" blew a general alarm before dawn on 6 July 1892, Margaret ran from her home on nearby Fourth Street "brandishing the hand billy she always kept around the house for just such emergencies" (like one does). She was described as one of the leaders of a phalanx of townspeople consisting of "5,000 men women and children" who raced to challenge 300 Pinkertons intent upon disembarking from barges along the Monongahela riverfront to enter the Carnegie works. The mob  was "....a surging wild mass of human beings, rushing madly for the shore."

In his 1893 book Fort Frick, Myron R. Stowell set the scene:

The town was instantly in an uproar...not a soul was indoors. The streets were one surging, congested mass of human beings headed for the river bank, shouting, cursing, screaming and laughing. Some knew not why they were there and were amused. Others appreciated the gravity of the situation and took things very seriously. Many openly carried guns, rifles, revolvers and improvised firearms. Some had clubs which they had picked up on the street; others tore pickets from the fences as they passed along; others were empty-handed.

And so the Battle of Homestead commenced. At least ten men died, including three Pinkertons. Hundreds were wounded, on both sides.

"An Awful Battle at Homestead, Pa." Illustration from National Police Gazette, 23 July 1892

We catch glimpses of Margaret throughout that bitter day. The same Dispatch account that described her as a beldam documented her leadership:

"....The dirty black sheep, the dirty black sheep. Let me get at them. Let me get at them." High and shrill and strong for all her years as the lustiest fisherwoman who marched on Versailles, it rose in the night air and a hundred voices answered it. "Good for you, Mother Finch. Damn the black sheep. We'll send them home on stretchers."'

Harper's Weekly close-up of gauntlet from riverbank

Bloodshed escalated when the Pinkertons surrendered. After disembarking from the besieged barges and surrendering their weapons, the Pinkertons were led by an armed escort from the river through town to their temporary jail at the Opera House. As the Pinkertons passed, Homestead let its displeasure be known with rocks, bricks, brooms and fists. Some of the men were reportedly bludgeoned into unconsciousness. None passed unscathed.

If they were once an invading army, the Pinkertons were now effectively prisoners of war hemmed in by a gauntlet of enraged townspeople.
 
The presence and involvement of women along the gauntlet made good newspaper copy in 1892, as descriptions of their violent words and deeds provided titillating affronts to norms of female behavior.  Stowell's 1893 book also documented eyewitness accounts describing these wild women:

Women, too, were in the line, and they plied clubs and stones as vigorously as did the men. They made more noise, for they were hooting and continually urging the men on to the fearful work... Women and girls ran out of the lines and with sticks and clubs beat the poor wretches. One woman had a stocking filled with iron, and with it she struck one of the Pinkerton men over the head.

"The mob assailing the Pinkerton men on their way to the temporary prison."
Colorized illustration from Harper's Weekly, 6 July 1892
Battle of Homestead Foundation

The Pittsburg Press somberly informed readers that of the thirty Pinkertons taken to the town hall for medical treatment, "One of them had his eye punched out by an umbrella in the hands of a woman."

The tone of all this coverage was not complimentary of the women's behavior. In his 1893 history of the strike, Arthur G. Burgoyne informed readers that "Women, converted for the nonce into vertible furies, belabored Mr. Frick's janizaries with bludgeons, stoned them and spat upon them." The Homestead Local News, while hardly sympathetic to the Pinkertons, condemned mob violence in its 9 July 1892 issue, and noted that the local police "....pushed the crowds aside, and threatened the women with arrest, but their efforts availed little."

The Dispatch vividly described the gauntlet.

Women clad in everything from calico to silk had joined the crowed, and hooted and howled like the men....the women threw sand at them and the men spat on them...The women hit them with their umbrellas and threw whole handfuls of mud at them. Not satisfied with this, a number of brooms were taken from the boat and they struck the Pinkertons with these as they passed...

Section, Great Battle of Homestead, Kurz & Allison
Colorized lithograph by Edwin Rowe
Heinz History Center collections

When the leaders turned the bend they were confronted by a veritable wall of excited humanity. In the front ranks of this new and unexpected obstacle were a group of women armed with brooms and clubs. It looked as though no human power could prevent a collision. But thanks to the quick wit of one of the leaders, the danger was averted and what bid fair to be a bloody tragedy was transformed into comedy. It happened this way:

One woman, who appeared to be the queen of the battle, raised her broom, and in a shrill voice said "Where are the dirty blacksheep? Let's have them, boys." At this critical juncture the leader shouted.... "Why, my good woman, we want our shirts laundered and we are going to make these tramps do the job at cut rates."

Humor doesn't translate well over the decades but we can assume that in 1892 a laundry joke went over well with the mob.

In addition to widespread disapproval of the women in the crowd, there was widespread public and press condemnation of the mob's treatment of the Pinkertons. The mass violence was perceived as harming and discrediting union supporters as it reinforced perceptions that these workers couldn't be trusted. They'd badly misbehaved, after all, and thus were not worthy of negotiation. In many contemporary descriptions the mob's violence was attributed to the presence of "Slavs" or "Hungarian" laborers and their women. Since Eastern European laborers were at the bottom of the immigrant pecking order, it was inferred that these foreigners were not bound by rules of civilized behavior.

But the women who was described by the Dispatch as the "queen of the battle" -- was it Margaret?

Historians and playwrights have attributed much to the woman known as Mother Finch. Modern dramas written about the strike invariably cast her as a rabble-rousing Irishwoman, sometimes the widow of a steelworker, always a no-nonsense weapon-carrying saloon-keeper. She's been cast as the leader of the Homestead women, and perhaps for good reason. Margaret may indeed have been present at every turn. Perhaps she was the "very determined old lady" on guard duty two nights before the Pinkerton invasion, as described in this Dispatch account of an old lady spoiling for a fight and armed with a black-jack (aka sap or billy club, all words for some kind of heavy club, covered with leather, used as a weapon).

 

Excerpt from Pittsburg Dispatch, 5 July 1892

There's naught in the Pittsburg Dispatch article to identify the bent old lady as Margaret Finch, but it *could* have been her. The constant references to strikebreakers as "dirty blacksheep" is sonsistent language for Margaret. And the physical description matches a subsequent Homestead Strike trials story (transcribed below) describing Margaret as "all lamed up by rheumatism." Granted, however, a goodly number of women in Homestead likely fit the description of being "bent by the weight of gathered years."

It's all conjecture. But in the absence of definitive proof that Margaret was the "queen of the battle" skulking around town on guard duty, how is that she's become the archetype of female Pittsburgh labor resistance?

Will the Real Margaret Finch Please Stand Up

The historical record is scant on details, but a careful search of available public records lifts Margaret off the pages into real life.

According to published obituaries, Margaret was 55 when she died in 1894. That means she was 53 at the time of the Homestead Strike. Let us pause for a moment to consider the type of life that at 53 would have left Margaret a bent, white-haired crone who'd allegedly witnessed a total of forty labor strikes in her lifetime....then work backwards to recreate her life.

There are no Finches listed in the Village of Homestead in the 1880 census. Then again, there weren't a whole lot of people living in Homestead back then, period. Established on the former Amity Homestead in 1872, at first the borough grew slowly. Its expansion, both in terms of land mass and population, corresponded with the two decade enlargement of Andrew Carnegie's steel empire. Steelworks were first established there in 1881. That small mill and what was originally the Village of Homestead flourished after Andrew Carnegie purchased the plant in 1883, transforming it from a Bessemer rail mill to a highly mechanized, fully integrated heavy products mill.

Homestead Plan of Press Shop No.1, 1891. Library of Congress image.

According to census info, in the ten years between 1880 and 1890 the area's population increased from almost 600 to nearly 8000. The works were described in an 1891 directory as "....the chief cause of Homestead's prosperity."

Where were the Finches in those years? We can't know for sure, and the 1890 census that would help was mostly destroyed by fire. But there are some clues. City directories record that Margaret was the widow of John Finch. While there was a John Finch who did prosperous business as a downtown Pittsburgh liquor wholesaler, there's no known connection and our lowly Homestead Finches would only have envied his success.

The 1880 census recorded John and Margaret Finch in Larimer, Westmoreland County. Since 1854 the Larimer coal works had mined the Irwin Basin under the auspices of Westmoreland Coal Company (WCC), which thrived on the symbiotic relationship with developing natural gas companies. Although WCC enjoyed a near-monopoly of the gas coal market, when that market began to narrow in the 1880s the WCC was forced to compete with other companies supplying coke to the Pittsburgh steel market.

Larimer Mine c. 1854, from Westmoreland Mining LLC

That may have seemed as good a time as any for the Finches to make an 18 mile move up the near-by Monongahela River to explore possibilities in boomtown Homestead.

1890 Directory of Homestead, et al
Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation

This Margaret Finch of Larimer is close enough in age to be Margaret Finch of Homestead, making allowance for the discrepancies and fluidity of vital statistics found in such documents. The Larimer Finches also had two children whose names closely match two of three children identified in later records as Margaret's family: Ellen aka Nelly, and Robert.

John Finch was born in England; Margaret was born in Wales of Welsh parents. John Finch made his living as a hotel keeper, while Margaret kept house. This makes an even stronger case for identification when paired with an 1890 Dispatch description of Margaret when she sought a Homestead liquor license renewal: "Mrs. Finch kept hotel for 8 years, part of the time with a bar license."

It's likely, then, that the Finches lived their early married lives in the coal fields of nearby Westmoreland County, running a hotel, and that they moved to Homestead in the early to mid-1880s. Perhaps they didn't move willingly; perhaps it was John's death that prompted relocation. Whether widowed or not at the time of the move, Margaret was prosperous enough to own at least two properties: an eight-room double house on 524 Fourth Avenue (between Dickson and City Farm Lane and bordered by Elm Alley) along  with a lot with a smaller building in the rear. At various points in her life, records indicate that Margaret ran the Rolling Mill House as a saloon and/or grocery and took in as many as five boarders to the larger home.

The photo below, although taken eighteen years after the Homestead Strike, shows what Margaret's neighborhood would have looked like in her day. Imagine Margaret's 1890s Homestead. Squint and mentally subtract the electrical power lines, a few buildings, and that dog on the tracks (although Margaret perhas chased his ancestor from her stoop).

City Farm Lane Crossing, October 1908
Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad Company Records, University of Pittsburgh

The Finch home sat in the shadow of a great industrial complex and adjacent to the region's rural poorhouse. The vantage point of this photo is the edge of the mill looking back toward Homestead, in the same block where Margaret resided. Two streets up, railroad tracks passed through the neighborhood at Sixth and City Farm Lane, which marked the edge of property originally occupied by the 150 acre City Poor Farm. Pittsburgh's indigent, consumptive and insane residents had been housed there from 1852 to 1894, outgrowing the once bucolic site even as its valuable riverfront property was crowded and encroached upon by railroads and industries. The poor farm land near Margaret's home was sold in 1890 for a tidy $450,000 to Carnegie Steel, used for mill expansion and worker homes. It took four years to complete a new poorhouse facility so the last of the inmates at City Farm didn't leave Homestead until 1894; they witnessed the Battle of Homestead and were perhaps patrons of Margaret's Rolling Mill House.

Illustration, Pittsburgh Post, 7 June 1890

Margaret herself thus witnessed the transition of neighboring land from poorhouse property to steelworks, just as she witnessed the beginnings of the shift in Homestead from an independent workers' town to a post-1892 Carnegie company town.

Maps from 1890 and 1894 also provide an idea of the structures and lay-out of Margaret's Second Ward. (Click to enlarge maps).

1891 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map.
Margaret's property is marked Gro, for Grocery.
Library of Congress collection

1896 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map.
Rolling Mill House precisely marked.
Library of Congress collection

324 Fourth Avenue marked in blue
G.M. Hopkins Company, Plan of Homestead, 1900
University of Pittsburgh

Making Ends Meet in Homestead

Margaret would have been legally required to manage her Homestead saloon in accordance with Pennsylvania's Brooks High License Act, a prohibition law enacted in 1888 as a state response to the growing national temperance movement. As a licensed provider Margaret was required by law to limit her alcohol sales to specific hours, and to close on Sundays. Her establishment was described in records as an "eating place" with license to serve alcohol as early as 1887.

Records indicate that Margaret initially chose a prudent course as a recognized, licensed purveyor even as a majority of other barowners chose a different course. By 1892, the year of the Homestead Strike, so many saloons proliferated in Homestead Borough that it had a well-earned reputation of ill repute. The irony of the Brooks prohibition law was that even as it sought to decrease licensed bars, it caused an increase in the number of illegally operated ones. Why take the risk of operating an unlicensed speakeasy and facing steep $50 fines? Because given the competition in mill towns like Homestead, obtaining licensure was not a sure thing, even for someone with a responsible track record. 

Licensure was also expensive (between $200-500 annually, with average hovering at $100), and there was an inconvenient public ordeal involved. As per the Brooks law, every year beginning in March applicants were called before the county Licensing Court to testify to community need for their establishment that guaranteed enough custom to justify a license; prove a good record from the preceding year; and demonstrate good moral character. The latter requirement was particularly important since temperance advocates asserted that the mere temptation of alcohol in communities contributed to individual and societal degradation. Purveyors of liquor were automatically suspect, so had to be above reproach in order to obtain licenses to sell their devil's brew.

"The Mill and the Still"
Engraving illustrating the evils of demon alcohol, by Jessie Shepherd.
Harper's Weekly, August 1883

Margaret made her first appearance before Allegheny County's Licensing Court to comply with Brooks on 13 April 1888, along with 33 other Homestead applicants. Her testimony was recorded in the Pittsburg Press and cited in Homestead's Local News. Public interest in these proceedings was widespread as anti-drink organizations were formidable in their opposition to liquor sale licenses. They had plenty to complain about in Homestead. According to the Local News: "The map which the Homestead temperance people presented to the license court looks as if it had the small-pox, so thickly is it marked with black spots, indicating the location of the saloons." 

Perhaps in her favor, Margaret's was the only saloon on Fourth Avenue. The Homestead paper supported saloon restriction as a result of limited licensure, moralizing in an editorial after the hearings:

It is stated that at one time there was as high as fifty open saloons in this town...The presence of the saloon, open at midnight and on Sunday, created the enormous demand for drink, and stulted the moral sensibilities of the people and perverted the public conscience....All good citizens rejoice that the surplus saloons and low dives are wiped out....It is the best thing that has ever happened in the town, and it is the only thing that will redeem our reputation and save us from the disgrace which the saloons brought upon the fair name of our prospective city. 

Likely to the consternation of a watching gallery comprised of local pastors and virtuously grim temperance ladies, our Margaret held her own against the board's queries and accusations. The white-beribboned onlookers were described in the paper as "....Homestead's fairest flowers....a host of them....the looks of grim determination in their various colored eyes meant war right from the start. The applicants looked at them and trembled in their boots."  But let's not assume that Margaret trembled in her boots. Here's the Pittsburg Press account of Margaret testifyiung before the License Court. As a widow with children, she cited need to support herself, which was  a wise tactic since Judge Ewing had made it known he would never give a license to an unmarried woman.

Margaret Finch, a motherly-looking little woman who had been all lamed up by rheumatism, came next. Her husband has been a cripple for years, and she has had to raise her family by her own work. She has always obeyed the law to the best of her ability. She only wanted a license for one year, so that she could pay for her property. Her earnestness impressed everybody in the court room, but Attorney Price and his right hand man Fisher were not to be downed by any fair story. Fisher didn't flinch as he looked the little legislator in the eye again and said "I have seen Mrs. Finch drunk several times."
Attorney Cox--You have seen her drunk?
"Yes,sir. I have"
"Does she go on the street when she is drunk?"
"No. She usually isn't able. She lays about the house."
"Now, look here, Mr. Fisher, isn't it a fact that Mrs. Finch became intemperate in your eyes since she refused to buy an organ from you?"
"She was intemperate before that."
"But isn't it a fact that you began work against her after she refused to buy that organ?"
"Well, I tried to sell her an organ. That was business."
Mrs. Finch--Yes, and that's the only reason he testifies against me.
Judge Ewing--But is what he says true?
"Before God, there is not a word of truth in it. I have not taken a drink of anything for months and months."
"Do you ever get drunk?"
"No sir; I do not. I never did."

The Homestead Local News likewise posted notes about Margaret's testimony:

Mrs. Linch (Finch) -- Saloon, three years $100 license; has 16-year-old girl who gets fits; sold whiskey, not on Sunday for a long time before Christmas; she eloquently pleads her case; five boarders; seven rooms; denies getting drunk. D. Fisher testified that he saw Mrs. Finch drunk different times eight or ten times, too drunk to get out; saw her on the floor drunk. Attorney Cox makes witness "fess" up. Judge Ewing to applicant--Did you not drunk some this morning?

The News reported that Margaret was refused a license but the Press confirmed that she received one. The Press was likely correct since she received a reneal in the next year, with support from the community as per this 1889 hearing note in the Post: "Mrs. Finch, Fourth Avenue, is a widow and wants a license to help her get along. The neighbors would like to see her successful."

There was little in the way of scandal when it came to women of a certain class in the alcohol trade, especially those of particular ethnic or geographic origins. This region's alcohol and beer businesses were dominated by people of German, Irish/English and Italian ancestry, all cultures comparatively tolerant of women involved in such trades. This was especially true for widows, who as a matter of survival often embraced the business by picking up where their dead husbands had left off. If, by necessity, the booze business provided them with a livelihood, these women in return provided their communities with gathering spaces to exchange information and ideas. Their establishments were often the birthplaces of social and political movements, like unionization. Mother Finch's Rolling Mill House may well have served as a hub of networking and union organizing for members of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. It would have been far from the only such place in Homestead to have done so.

Margaret did not appear on the list of applicants to renew her licensure application once it expired in 1890, and henceforth her address was associated with a grocery. She may well have continued to sell liquor, opting for the legally risky route of running a speakeasy or selling under the counter. Groceries were commonly regarded as fronts for such activities.

As a licensed saloon-keeper, Margaret would have been required to follow orders. For instance, when Sheriff McCleary ordered all the saloons in Homestead and Mifflin Township closed for the duration of the 1892 unpleasantness, as a licensed provider she would have been required to shut down. But Margaret doesn't seem to have been a licensed provider in 1892. What she did behind closed doors was her business -- so long as she didn't get caught.

Homestead Steel Works, c. 1893-95. by B.H.L. Dabbs
Carnegie Museum of Art Collection

With neighborhood protection, an unlicensed Margaret may have suffered few consequences from the law. But that protection likely came at cost. She could have benefited from liquor sales no matter who worked for Carnegie Steel Company: union, non-union, or scab all could have been customers. But given her promient presence at the Battle of Homestead, Margaret may well have taken a principled and very public stand in favor of the workers.

There may have been a personal reason for her alliance with workers. In the Homestead directories she is listed as sharing her home with children Nellie and Robert. Robert, born in 1875, was in his late teens at this point and his occupation was listed as "laborer."

Whether or not Margaret was still selling booze at the time of the Homeswtead strike, the family was apparently making do with money from running a grocery out of their home, and from Robert's wages.

Wages that possibly came from Carnegie Steel Company.

Wages that in 1892 had been scaled back, for jobs that were threatened by Carnegie Steel management.

Small wonder, then, that Margaret took to the streets in protest in July 1892: the issues underlying the labor-management conflagration touched on her wallet. 

Such was the force of her personality, combined with circumstances of making ends meet in ways that the community could relate to, that the identity of every stooped, white-haired, blackjack-wielding beldam of a certain age on Homestead's streets in 1892 was became conflated with Margaret Finch.

There surely were other women who fit her physical description (which tells you rather a lot about Homestead in 1892).

But Margaret was apparently a worthy archetype.

That Margaret has been so identified with the Homestead Strike that every elderly woman associated with the protest has been given her identity speaks to her character, resiliency, and visibility in the community as an ally.

After the Homestead Strike

Margaret was back in the newspapers as a defense witness in February 1893 when trials began for Homestead residents charged in the deaths of the Pinkertons,

1889 back view of Allegheny County Courthouse & Jail, probably from Shingiss St. vantage point.
Margaret testified in courtrooms here during the Homestead Strike trials.
James Benney Photographs, Detre Library & Archives, Heinz History Center

Her testimonies were clearly directed at proving murderous intent of Pinkertons, innocence of the Homestead community, and good faith efforts of the labor leaders on the citizens advisory committee to prevent bloodshed. 

During one case, Margaret's summarized testimony fed the narrative that hapless Homestead residents were filled with anxiety about the barges, which they thought were filled with scabs sent to reopen the mill:

Mrs.M. Finch, Homestead, was examined by Mr. Erwin. She said she was a widow and had one son. On the morning of the trouble she arose at 4 o'clock. She went to the scene of the trouble, being attracted by the noise, and stood on the bank. She saw the boat land. She went to the barges and said to the men aboard: "For God's sake, if you are scabs, don't take our men's places!" One of them had a gun in his hand and witness asked him what he was going to do with it, and he replied: "I will let you see before night." Witness went up the bank, and she heard a shot and fell. She was not shot, but scared.

Margaret played the role of sweet, dear, curious lady, pleading with menacing Pinkertons. She went on to assert "The first shot came from the boat."

Courtroom in Allegheny County Courthouse, 1889.
James Benney Photographs, Detre Library & Archives, Heinz History Center

At another trial, Margaret stated she was warned away from the riverfront by concerned labor leaders O'Donnell and Coon, who were trying to stave off trouble:

Mrs. Margaret Finch, of Homestead, said she was in bed on the morning of July 6, and got up when the whistles blew, and went down to the river bank where the barges landed. O'Donnell passed her going to the bank. When she got there O'Donnell was trying to keep the people back. She heard him say, "If you go down there you will all be shot." On cross-examination she said that when O'Donnell passed her Capt. Coon was with him, and when she got there Capt. Coon was talking to the men on the barges.

Apparently no one from the prosecution had access to newspapers from six months earlier, where Margaret, beldam extraordinaire, black-jack in hand, was described as "the leader of the Amazons whenever this dark Dahomey land of labor goes to war."

The next two years were comparatively quiet ones for Margaret. On 23 March 1894, her daughter Nellie was married to Isaac Bromwich(k) by Rev. W. J. White of St. Matthew's Protestant Episcopal Church. The wedding took place in the family home with a few friends present.

A few months later, on 3 October 1894, Margaret Finch died.

Pittsburg Press, 4 October 1894

Yes, in 1894, old was 55: stooped with rheumatism, swollen with edema. The official cause of death on her burial record was asthma.

And those "many children"? When Margaret's will was probated twenty days later, only three children were mentioned: Robert, Nellie, and Elizabeth. Of Elizabeth Finch, presumed daughter of John and Margaret, there is little discernible trace in the local historical record. Homestead News identified her as Elizabeth Gregory of Colorado; hence the "far away relative" waiting to be heard from.

When she composed her will a year earlier in October 1893, Margaret had designated Robert recipient of all her worldly goods, including the rear building where she resided at 524 Fourth. The double house that Margaret owned fronting Fourth, which she had often rented out to boarders, was left equally to daughters Nellie and Elizabeth. However, Nellie's portion was left in trust to Margaret's "esteemed friend" Thomas Watkins, who was vested with the authority to manage or turn it over to Nellie as he saw fit. Watkins, close to Margaret's age and living nearby as the proprietor of a hotel on Heisel Street, was also named as Margaret's executor. She had sold property to him earlier in 1894, so the two presumably had at the very least mutual respect in business.

The trust set-up is understandable when we consider that Nellie was 23 and unmarried when Margaret wrote her will. It would have been unusual to own and solely manage property as a single young woman, especially in a rough town like Homestead. As a married woman, the mysterious Elizabeth had no such strings attached to her bequeathment.

However, there may have been other concerns which made Margaret doubt Nellie's capabilities.

Epilogue: Mother Finch's Children 

Six months after her mother's death, Nellie Finch made the newspapers.

Pittsburg Press, 1 April 1895

Indeed, what to do with Nellie Finch? Nellie, who was abandoned by her husband (misidentified above as Isaac Brumage), with an infant likely given up, plagued with a "troubled mind" and a stint in the county home already, and well-familiar with "bad company." It is perhaps a testament to the legacy of Margaret's prominence in the community that "kind-hearted ladies" took in her daughter...but such kindness wasn't enough to undo the "wreckage."

RPPC Woodville County Home, c. 1890s

Roy Schreffler collection

When Margaret testified in 1888 for her saloon license, she noted that her then-16 year old daughter "gets fits." Although that may indicate that Nellie had a seizure disorder, it might also have been a less specific way of referencing severe mood instability.

Several months later the Press reported that Nellie, after being picked up "on the streets" again, had been remanded to the county home. The Press account is filled with inaccuracies and inconsistencies. Nellie, who was 26, was identified as 23. The County Home, aka Woodville was identified as "Woodbury." Nellie was described as having lost her mother when she was but"a mere girl." Her husband was once again misidentified, this time as "Brumigen." Her history was framed as shaped by loss, abandonment and charity, with a dead mother and a husband who "several years ago deserted her and went to Europe. Since then she has subsisted on the charity of the public."

This hot mess of journalistic reporting was probably due to a combination of factors: Nellie as an unreliable narrator, either deliberately or as a result of underlying psychiatric issues; the dawning awareness of progressive thinking which tried to link environmental deprivation to social welfare; and poor fact-checking.

Nellie had another short-lived marriage in March 1903 to Henry Orthwine/Orthwein, a widower some eight years older from South Side. The marriage record recorded that Ellen Finch, born in Larimer, had not been married previously. In an era before easy fact-checking, it was probably easier to claim this status than to prove divorce to a husband who'd abandoned her. The couple was married at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in the South Hills and resided on South Side, where Henry worked as a laborer. Three years later on 26 January 1906, Henry was struck by a P&LE train at Lucas Station near Homestead. He died instantly of a fractured skull.

Widowed Nellie settled into a life lived around the edges. Admission to institutes like Woodville and Marshalsea Poor Farm (later Mayview) in this era typically occurred due to some combination of indigence, illness (medical and/or psychiatric), and/or incompetence at self-care.

Allegheny County Workhouse and Inebriate Asylum, Blawnox. Postcard c.1910.

 

People moved in and out of such facilities, and Nellie's life fits that chaotic pattern:

1.  In 1909, the widowed Ellen Orthwein spent 30 days at the Allegheny County Workhouse on a vagrancy charge. The registry recorded this stay as her second admission.

2. The 1910 census records her living at Marshalsea in a section designated for paupers, though she was soon transferred to the County Workhouse. Admitted under her maiden name of Ellen Finch, aka Ellen Orthwine, Nellie served a 30 day sentence at the Workhouse for her third conviction, this time as a "common prostitute." Vital statistics recorded at admission document that 40-year-old Nellie was 5'1", weighed 107 pounds, was dark-complected with brown hair and gray eyes. She allegedly left school at age 17 and had been orphaned by both parents before age 14.

3. She was back in the Workhouse in February 1911 as Nellie Ortwein, weighing only 99 pounds at admission. She stayed sixty days on a "disorderly conduct" charge. All of Nellie's Workhouse registry entries ticked off a description of "moderate drinker" under habits.

That last stay seems to have resulted from a lover's quarrel, as these articles from Febexplain. Despite this life lived around the edges, Nellie had clearly inherited some Mother Finch's spunk.

Pittsburgh Post, 7 February 1911

After Nellie Ortwein, 42 years old, had been sentenced yesterday at Northside station to pay a fine of $25 or serve 30 days in the workhouse she turned to Magistrate Saam and exclaimed:“What—me?”  

“Yes, you,” said the court.  

Whereupon the woman turned on a man with whom she was arrested, put an uppercut to his jaw and tried to place a right swing on his face, but Sergeant Charles Faulkner intercepted the second blow. The man was John Weir, 49 years old, who, with the Ortwein woman, has been living at 1407 Madison avenue, it was testified. He got a like sentence. They were arrested after an alleged quarrel. 

 This second article about the kerfuffle is perhaps even more colorful.

Pittsburg Press, 6 February 1911

4. Scientific, neat undercuts were seemingly no barrier to matrimony, for Nellie officially married for a third time in July 1912 to this fellow, John Weir/Weier/Weieier. They lived for nearly twenty years together in various places on the Northside, where she was a housewife and he worked a machinist/laborer. John died of pneumonia in 1937.

5. Nellie made the news again in 1939 when hospitalized for a broken leg after being struck by a car. 

6. She died of pneumonia in 1957 at the age of 87, having spent her last 13 years at Mayview State Hospital.

Robert's life in the aftermath of his mother's death was also characterized by chaos and misfortune. A week after Margaret died, the Press reported that their general notion and grocery store on Fourth had been burglarized. The Press misidentified Robert as Robert Sinch (since apparently fact-checking when it came to reporting on the Finches didn't exist), and did not make a connection to Margaret.

But the story alone was sensational enough. Upon gaining entry to the building through a back window, the bold burglars allegedly chloroformed the sleeping Robert and his companion Thomas Evans, who were sharing an upper room. It was noted that the rest of the family was not at home. In its very brief mention of the incident in the Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, Evans was identified as Robert Finch's uncle.

But a more sensationalized Press article did not stint on details: 

Headline, Pittsburg Press 16 October 1894

After the robbers had succeeded in placing the men under the influence of the drug, to make sure of their safety, they took the cap off an old gun which was standing in the corner of the bedroom and two revolvers that were lying on the dresser were thrown out the window, the thieves evidently not wanting to bother with them, as they were probably well supplied with weapons of their own. The house was then ransacked from top to bottom. The trunks and wardrobes were broken open and the contents strewn about the floor.

While it was impossible to tell what had been taken, it was discovered that $50 in cash, a silver watch and numerous articles of wearing apparel were missing this morning from the room in which the men slept. The thieves overlooked a gold watch belonging to Sinch (sic). After confiscating everything they could find of value upstairs the burglars went to the store room below. They went from one end of the room to the other and made a careful selection of the stock of groceries and notions. They carried away with them an immense quantity of goods the value of which could not well be estimated.

The proprietor, with his companion, awoke this morning with aching heads and noticing the peculiar odor in the room became aware at once of what had happened. The entire house was in a terrible state of confusion, the burglars having been evidently determined to leave nothing that was worth carrying away. Sinch(sic) came to the city this morning and notified the police authorities of the case.

1900s chloroform bottle
Curious Science

Chloroforming victims for robbery, kidnapping and assault was a popular crime fiction cliché. A cursory search of newspaper articles from the late 19th and early 20th century reveals frequent references to chloroform as an incapacitating agent by criminals. The substance was relatively easy to get or make, so its usage for nefarious purposes was certainly possible. But unadulterated chloroform as an effective knock-out drug for criminals was also exaggerated and mythologized. Chloroform-induced sedation actually requires continuous and careful dosing to be effective and safe. There's more than a suspicious whiff of chloroform to this story. Slapping chloroform-drenched handkerchiefs over two sleeping men was unlikely to result in blissful unawareness for several hours while their house was ransacked.  Perhaps, however,  two very drunk men may have been dead to the world while their house was being robbed?

Photo of front room in a comfortable home in Homestead, c. 1909, by documentary photographer Lewis Hine
From Margaret F. Byington's Homestead: The Households of a Mill Town of the Pittsburgh Survey

Luck wasn't with Robert after this incident, though at first things looked promising. In March 1895 the Press reported his marriage to Elizabeth Polask (Lizzie Rolash on their license), describing them as "two popular young people of the borough." The couple was married in the parsonage of the Homestead United Presbyterian Church by Reverend Samson in what was described as "a quiet wedding" in the Homestead News, with only Lizzie's sister for attendant and best man H. Healey.

Their honeymoon didn't last. Six months later in September 1895, the Pittsburgh papers reported that Robert's wife had abandoned him in spectacular fashion.

Headline, Pittsburg Press, 17 September 1895

Robert Finch, of Homestead, is on the warpath after a truant wife, and James Betz has joined him in the search for a runaway daughter. The women are alleged to have taken away $275 belonging to Mrs. Finch's husband and the Betz girl's father. They mysteriously disappeared from Homestead yesterday and have not been heard from since, although detectives are on their track.

A long article in the Press described how Elizabeth Finch left their home with $200 while Robert was at work at the mill. Learning that she had been seen in the company of Annie Betz, Robert and Annie's father joined forces. Neither man could account for how the women knew each another. Annie was a known offender, having absconded with family money twice in the last year. She first turned up in Allegheny City, secondly in Connecticut in the company an actor from a traveling circus. Motive for this latest "truancy" was unknown since Annie Betts had been behaving "splendidly until yesterday" and the Finches had "lived happily ever since their marriage." A particularly revealing bit in the Press account sheds light on Finch family life:

Mrs. Finch is a rather pretty blonde, about 25 years old. She has only been married about a year, and has no children. Her husband can assign no reason for her leaving him... Owing to the social standing of the Finch family in Homestead society is in confusion over the affair. By his mother's death about six months ago, Mr. Finch was left considerable money.

Mrs. Bessie Finch turned up in Braddock the next day. The Press reported that Robert had her arrested on a charge of desertion, but a day later withdrew the charge and "took her home." But this story doesn't end happily ever after.

It developed at the hearing that Mrs. Finch is matrimonially inclined. It was admitted that she two husbands living and would have had a third, but the man, after taking out a license, discovered the conditions of affairs and escaped. Mrs. Finch is a very comely-looking woman, about 24 years of age. Mr. Finch says he would be perfectly happy if he could only induce her to remain at home.

Oh, Robert. Dear, optimistic Robert. This won't end well. In fact, his relationship with Bessie/Lizzie was the beginning of a downward spiral that saw him losing everything he'd inherited from his mother Margaret.

Ten months later in July 1896, as he attempted to board a train with his valuables in a trunk, Robert was apprehended by Constable Fagan and charged with assault and battery and desertion by his wife Lizzie Finch. The case went to trial in November, and the Press account further illuminated the Finch life:

Finch was formerly a prosperous mill man in the Homestead steel works. He was economical, and although only 21 years old at the time of his marriage he was the possessor of an eight-roomed house on one of the principal streets of Homestead, valued at $2,500. Finch testified at the hearing that his wife induced him to sell his property, and that she spent the money buying rich clothes for herself. She had alleged that when all the money from the sale had been spent she was compelled to visit disorderly houses. Finch denied the allegation and said she went there from choice. She admitted that Finch bought her dresses that cost $85 and shoes at $12 a pair.

Magistrate McKenna told Finch he had a poor opinion of a man who would live on the money of a woman made in a disorderly house. He then sentenced Finch to pay a fine of $35 and costs or undergo an imprisonment of 60 days in the workhouse.

Robert Finch laid out his defense, claiming that he couldn't possibly be charged with desertion since he was not even the lawful husband of Lizzie/Bessie Polask/Rolash. Robert explained that the matrimonially inclined Lizzie had been:

....previously married to an Italian named Gerelo, in Homestead. He said she and Gerelo lived together in Homestead and Braddock for some time. He met the woman at a ball and fell in love with her. He proposed marriage and she accepted the proposal. It was not until they had been married some time that Gerelo, the first husband, turned up. Finch says he was frightened nearly to death when the Italian claimed the woman.

Afterwards, according to the story told by Finch, Mrs. Finch fell in love with a man named Harry Kelsey and was wooed and won. The wedding day was set and everything put in readiness for the nuptials but just before the clergy arrived at the house Mrs. Finch told the prospective groom that she already had a husband living. Kelsey declared the match off, but is is said that he stayed late at the house and enjoyed the festivities.

Mrs. Finch made no denial of the accusation that she has a husband living besides Finch. Finch caused his wife to take a hasty departure from the mayor's office by telling her that he would enter suit against her for bigamy.

The judge was unmoved. Robert apparently didn't have $35 to spare so he spent his sixty days in the County Workhouse on a disorderly conduct charge. He spent even more time there in 1907 for assault and battery. It's not clear what he did in the intervening years but we can hope that life stabilized a bit for Robert, for in 1900 he married (for real) a widow named Susanna Walker Evans. Thomas Evans had been described as Robert's uncle (and sleeping companion) at the time of the Finch home robbery; perhaps these families were connected. The English-born Susanna was some 15 years Robert's senior. She had immigrated in 1879 and by 1900 had six surviving children from her first marriage, ranging in age from young adulthood to age 9. During their subsequent 28 years together, the Finches moved around Pittsburgh and eventually settled in Ohio. Susanna passed away in 1928 and, along with several of her children and grandchildren, was buried in the Finch family plot in Homestead. Robert lived into the 1940s; of his burial there is no record.

Queen of Battle

Although the people won the Battle of Homestead, they lost the war. The conflict dragged on for months. In November 1892 the mill started back up again with non-union workers under management's terms. The works at Homestead would not have union representation until 1937.

"Pay line at the Homestead works, showing some of the steel corporation's stockholding employees"
Circa 1907, photographic print on stereo card
Library of Congress

Margaret Finch's life as documented in public records and histories reveals a woman who fought more than her share of battles. Whether as Leader of the Amazons patrolling the streets, armed with her trusty black-jack and engaging in mob violence, or as a widow doing her best to provide for her family, Margaret Finch was a force to be reckoned with. 

The personal was political for women like Margaret. Then as now, women who must work to support themselves don't have the luxury of entertaining philosophical debates about the performance of feminism. That Margaret Finch came to represent for Pittsburgh a kind of female archetype of labor resistance and solidarity was accidental, but Margaret as we have envisioned her wouldn't mind that association.

At the end of her life, did Margaret feel she had won against the forces arrayed against her, losing some battles but winning the war? She was prosperous enough to have drawn up a will to distribute valuable property and to make considered provisions in the hopes of providing stability for her children. In that sense, Mother Finch was a matriarch of Biblical proportions. Her struggles were uniquely her own, but the battles she fought were also representative of working class struggles in an era with few safety nets.

It likely wasn't a coincidence that Margaret's business was robbed within a week of her death. Criminals are opportunistic, and her death and funeral arrangements were well-publicized in both Pittsburgh and Homestead. It's tempting to imagine that no one would have dared try to rob the place when she was alive, black-jack at the ready.

We can't know how much Margaret fretted about her children Nellie and Robert, but there are indications that young Nellie had issues that were cause for maternal concern. There's no telling whether Margaret's stalwart presence could have helped Nellie and Robert establish interpersonal stability in adulthood. Her absence had to have been keenly felt, however. Nellie's repeated claims to social welfare officials that she had been orphaned in childhood, while not literally true when it came to her mother, may have had foundations in a perceived sense of abandonment. Robert, while chronologically a young adult, floundered once Margaret was gone and at least in his early years was no stranger to scandal and law enforcement.

Corner of Dickson in soon-to-be demolished Bottoms area where the Finches once lived. There's even a small grocery at far right.
Archives of Industrial Society Photograph Collection, University of Pittsburgh

There's nothing left today of Margaret Finch's world. It changed relatively quickly, according to Margaret F. Byington in her exhaustively-researched Homestead: The Households of a Mill Town volume of the Pittsburgh Survey. Writing in 1910, Byington noted that "....the Second Ward, except for those who owned homes there in earlier years, has been largely abandoned to the newer immigrants."  Mother Finch's part of town, abandoned to the "Hunkies" of the day, was eventually part of the eight block "slum" razed in the early 1940s as the mill expanded to ramp up wartime production. Entire streets disappeared, including Fourth Avenue in its entirety. Little may have changed in terms of housing stock from Margaret's time until the 1940s, as one Post-Gazette report noted as justification for the demolition that over half of the area's 4,551 homes were substandard, many without bathtubs or toilets. The area by then known as "The Bottoms" included a vice belt that included "The Houses" of ill repute along Sixth Avenue.

The great mill that dominated the lives of Homestead residents closed forever in 1986. Today you can park your car in a giant mall parking lot near the Waterworks open-air shopping plaza, which encompasses where 524 Fourth Avenue used to be.

Margaret was laid to rest high above the town in Homestead Cemetery. If ever there was a grave marker erected for her in Section C, it has disappeared.

There are no known photographs of Margaret Finch. Only her signature on the 1893 will is a reminder of her physical presence. But Mother Finch's place in the historical record assures that her struggles have not been forgotten.

____________________________________________________________
A note about sources:  I've chosen to dispense with citations. Please contact me if you would like specific sources for any of the data or narrative presented herein. 

Special thanks to researcher Daniel Ramseier for his support, fact-checking, and expert guidance in trolling local records and interpreting cemetery information. Thanks also to Homestead historians Mark Fallon and Tammy Hepps and the Homestead Carnegie Library for assistance with resources.