Allegheny Arsenal Explosion, 1862

Each year this nation stops to mourn the lives lost during the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. For most of us, witnessing the events of that day forever altered the fabric of our lives, usually to the point of ripping holes into what we'd thought were comfortable, seamless garments. I was struck recently by a question asked by my teenage daughter. She was a toddler the day the planes hit, and doesn't remember her world changing. But as she watched 9-11 coverage she wondered aloud if we would always have commemorations on that dreadful day, and what they would be like when she became an adult. Would people still remember those who were killed by name, or would the remembrances become far less personal, more a day for obligatory flag-flying?

That was one of those moments that conscientious parents dread, because I couldn't definitively answer her question. The reality is that historical precedent dictates that even life-changing events will be remembered differently as time passes.

Consider: in 1862 a total of 78 civilians, most of them women and girls engaged in munitions work, were killed in an explosion at the Allegheny Arsenal in the Lawrenceville section of Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh Daily Post, 18 September 1862

You'd be forgiven if this was news to you; for decades, such history was neglected in local school curricula. And it also was understandable that the event was overshadowed even at the time by news of the Battle of Antietam. Fought near Sharpsburg, Maryland that same day, more than 23,000 men were killed, wounded, or went missing. No article about Antietam fails to mention that 17 September 1862 was the bloodiest single day in American military history. The loss of 78 civilians some 180 miles north in Pittsburgh paled in comparison, and the Battle of Antietam even pushed the Arsenal story to page 3 in one local newspaper.

Still, the Arsenal deaths represented the worst loss of civilian life during the entire Civil War. Those victims deserve present-day honor as well.

The Allegheny Arsenal was initially designed as a supply depot during the War of 1812 for the US military during its ill-conceived attempt to invade the region we now call Canada. The military presence at the Forks of Ohio (as Pittsburgh was initially known) had progressed since the colonial era from Fort Pitt at the Point, to Fort Lafayette along the Allegheny River. The latter had been deemed inadequate and closed in 1814. Renowned architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe was commissioned to design the main building at the new Pittsburgh Arsenal. His proposed structure was greatly altered to this final form:

Allegheny Arsenal, circa 1870-1909, gelatin silver print. University of Pittsburgh Historic Photographs

The Arsenal typically employed between 100-200 people a day in various outbuildings, but production of what were termed 'military accoutrements' ramped up once the Civil War began. Nearly 1,100 employees passed by these imposing Arsenal gates each day on their way to work.

Gateway to Arsenal, circa June 1937.  Pittsburgh City Photographer Collection, University of Pittsburgh

As so often happens in wartime, many women had come to do what would in times of peace be considered men's work. Of course, in times of peace, there would not be quite the same insatiable demand for Minié balls and powder-filled cartridges.

Powder cartridges, Heinz History Center Collection

Modern representation of powder cartridge, Heinz History Center display

On 17 September 1862 there were 156 women and girls, plus some men and boys, at work in the laboratory out-buildings of the Arsenal. They were rolling .54 and .71 caliber cartridges and filling cannon shells with highly combustible black powder.

Winslow Homer engraving of women and girls rolling cartridges at a federal arsenal in Massachusetts. Harper's Weekly, July 1861.

An average day of such work would yield 800 rolled cartridges per person, for wages starting at 50¢ a day for the youngest and inexperienced. Contrast this with the 43¢ a day that Union privates received, with payment delayed for months at a time while their desperate families waited for such income. It's easy to understand why these jobs were attractive to the poor, mostly Irish immigrant girls and women of Pittsburgh. Many of Pittsburgh's poorest and most vulnerable families were left grieving the loss of their wives and daughters -- and the wages they'd earned -- when the Arsenal went up in flames.

Contemporary newspaper accounts spared no details about what horrors greeted Pittsburghers rushing to the scene. Skip the following description from the Daily Post if you are sensitive to graphic descriptions:

Of the main building nothing remained but a heap of smoking debris. The ground about was strewn with fragments of charred wood, torn clothing, balls, caps, grape shot, exploded shells, hoes, fragments of dinner baskets belonging to the inmates, steel springs from the girls’ hoop skirts, cartridge paper, sheet iron, and melted lead. Two hundred feet from the laboratory was picked up the body of one young girl, terrible mangled; another body was seen to fly in the air and separate into two parts; an arm was thrown over the wall; a foot was picked up near the gate; a piece of skull was found a hundred yards away, and pieces of intestines were scattered about the grounds. Some fled out of the ruins covered with flame, or blackened and lacerated with effects of the explosion, and either fell and expired or lingered in agony until removed. Several were conveyed to houses in the borough and to their homes in the city. Of these, four or five subsequently died.

Some victims simply vanished without a trace in the blaze. Less than half of the bodies were identifiable. The unidentifiable remains were buried in a mass grave at Allegheny Cemetery, and 15 Catholic girls were laid to rest in the adjacent St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church Cemetery.

The cause of the Arsenal explosion has never been fully determined. A coroner's inquest began immediately that evening. Long deliberations eventually determined that a spark from the combustion of either an iron horseshoe or iron-rimmed wagon wheel was ignited when the metal contacted black powder dust, which had been routinely swept onto the macadamized road in front of the Arsenal. Those roads happened to contain a material called churt, which in certain combinations contained flint. The spark that was ignited spread to the many 100 pound barrels of black powder stacked all around the Arsenal premises, and an inferno ensued.

This remains the accepted version of events, but the reasons behind the explosion and the sequence of events have always captivated and mystified. Many questions remained after that original 1862 civil inquest, which cited negligence on the part of Arsenal administrators for not stringently enforcing safety regulations. A military board of inquiry was held a month later, which exonerated the Army officials and instead blamed the wagon driver and another (deceased) employee for negligence.

In 2012 a great deal of local press coverage marked the 150 anniversary of the Arsenal explosion (see the end of this entry for partial list of coverage), and a short video was produced by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. My daughter and I attended a lecture at the Heinz History Center presented by Jim Wudarczyk and Tom Powers of the Lawrenceville Historical Society. We returned to the History Center a week later to attend a mock cold case inquiry presided over by former Allegheny County Coroner Cyril Wecht to determine the explosion's probable cause.

At the modern mock inquiry, expert witnesses were called to reconstruct history. We learned about munitions, the roles and lives of Civil War era women, the history of the Arsenal, and various military issues. All the while, a young lady with nimble fingers dressed in period costume sat to the side and rolled cartridges, just as Arsenal girls and women would have done 150 years ago.

Kate Lukascewicz portrays an Arsenal employee. Heinz History Center, September 2012

The jury in this mock trial found that the Army officials in charge were negligent in assuring the safety of the facility, much as the original coroner's inquest had done.

While the case testimonies were fascinating, what moved us was a brief commemoration in honor of those who had died. Members of the audience had been given index cards with a victim's name. Each stood and read their name aloud. My daughter was given Susan McKenna's name. We knew nothing about Miss McKenna, although we later learned that she was 18 at the time of death and that her remains were identified by a set of teeth. She was buried at St. Mary's Cemetery.

For a few moments my vibrant and beautiful 13 year old stood in silence to honor this 150 year old ghost whose life had been abruptly cut so short.

And in those moments, I think we found the answer to the questions she'd pondered about the nature of commemorations. So long as caring people honor the past and seek to learn from it, those who suffered and died will always be remembered.

The nature of the commemorations may change, but respect can always be paid. This was brought home to us when Marie Gray, a descendant of Arsenal blast victim May Collins, noted how sad it was that these victims had not received acknowledgement as heroes and patriots, and attested to how meaningful she found the History Center's belated tribute to be.

It is never too late to remember.

My daughter and I later drove to Allegheny Cemetery in Lawrenceville to visit the burial site of the explosion victims. We found Susan McKenna's name engraved on the memorial along, with other names we'd come to recognize.

This is actually the second memorial on the burial site, the original obelisk with its listing of 40 or so names having deteriorated and been replaced.

Original Allegheny Arsenal memorial. From The Allegheny Cemetery Its Origin and Early History

An engraving on the current memorial reads:

Time and its destructive elements obliterated the inscription and names on the original monument erected on this plot in 1863, which was in memory of the victims who lie buried here. The present monument was erected to keep ever sacred the memory of all seventy eight who lost their lives in this explosion.

This memorial was dedicated in 1928, having been raised by the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War and that organization's Lady's Auxiliary. All 78 victims are listed on the memorial, although only 39 coffins are buried beneath. Some fifteen people were buried on the other side of the fence in St. Mary's Cemetery. Three victims were buried at the circa-1812 Washington Burial Ground (where today's Main and Fisk Streets, Government Way and the Carnegie Library exist today). The borough voted to relieve their grieving families of the burden of burial expenses two weeks later.

Lawrenceville Borough monthly meeting minutes, October 1862
Courtesy of Pittsburgh City Archives

The victims buried there would have been reinterred at Allegheny Cemetery in the late 1880s when the Washington burial ground was repurposed.

According to a May 1928 Pittsburgh Press article, a full list of victims was compiled through research and outreach to surviving relatives. It is as complete as such research could make it, although variations in given names and recorded names exist.

I am far less interested in the causes of the explosion than I am in the lives of the victims -- lives that were so cruelly cut short. The best way, I think, to honor those who were lost that day is to pause for a moment, as we did that weekend, to read their names.

The inscription on the current memorial was copied from the original, and is followed by the list of names:
_______________________________________

Tread softly this is consecrated dust, forty-five pure patriotic victims lie here. A sacrifice to freedom and civil liberty, a horrid moment of a most wicked rebellion. Patriots! These are patriots graves, friends of humble, honest toil, these were your peers. Fervent affection kindled these hearts, honest industry employed these hands, widows and orphans tears have watered this ground. Female beauty and manhood's vigor commingle here. Identified by man known by Him who is the resurrection and the life, to be made known and loved again, when the morning cometh.

Elizabeth Ager

Mary Algeo

Mary Amarine

Hannah Baxter

Barbara Bishop

Joseph E. Bollman (father)

Mary A. Bollman (daughter)

Rose Brady

Ellen Brown

Alice Burke 

Sarah Burke

Catherine Burkhart

Bridget Clare

Emma Clowes  

Mary Collins

Melinda Colston

Mary Cranan

Agnes M. Davison

Mary A. Davison

Mary A. Donnelly

Ann Dillon

Kate Dillon

Kate Donahue

Sarah Donnell

Mary Donnelly

Magdalene Douglas

Mary A. Dripps

Catherine Dugan

Nancy Fleming

Catherine Foley

Susan Fritchley

Sarah George

David Gilliland

Virginia Hammill

Sidney Hanlon

Hester Heslip

Mary J. Jeffrey

Mrs. Mary J. Johnson

Annie Jones

Catherine Kaler 

Margaret Kelly

Uriah Laughlin

Eliza Lindsay 

Hannah Lindsay

Adaline Mahrer

Ellen Manchester

Elizabeth Markle

Elizabeth J. Maxwell

Sarah A. Maxwell

Ella McAfee

Kate McBride

Maria McCarthy

Susan McCreight

Ellen McKenna

Susan McKenna

Grace McMillan

Andrew McWhirter

Mary Ann McWhirter

Catherine Miller  

Philip Miller

Mary Murphy

Melinda Neckerman

Alice Nugent

Margaret O'Rourke

Mary Riordon

Martha Robinson

Mary Robinson

Mary S. Robinson 

Nancy Ross

Ella Rushton

Eleanor Shepard (mother)

Sarah Shepard (daughter)

Elizabeth Shook

Ellen Slattery

Mary Slattery

Robert Smith

Lucinda Truxall

Margaret A. Turney

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In September 1913, survivors of the Arsenal explosion were gathered at the dedication of a bronze tablet erected by the Historical Society of  Western Pennsylvania. That tablet today hangs in the Allegheny Arsenal Middle School.

Survivors identified from back row L to R: Miss Elizabeth J. McCandless, Mrs. George W. (Mary) Gardner, Mrs. Sophia Pearson,  Mrs. E.H. (Elizabeth D.) Carothers, Mrs. Wilson (Elizabeth) Conner, George W. Prenter, Mrs. Elizabeth A. Brown, Mrs. Elizabeth McAllister, Mrs. Mary McGraw. 
Bottom L to R: Mrs. Mary A. Wallace, Mrs. Mary Kruso, Mrs. Mary J. Durning, Mrs. Mary Quinn, Mrs. Sarah Millbach, Mrs. Mary Jeffrey
Pittsburgh Gazette Times, 25 September 1913

It was natural to remember these victims on the 150th anniversary of this event. But I hope that when the 151st anniversary comes 'round, or the 160th, 167th, or the 243rd, that we will pause to remember and honor these folks again.

I also hope that one of the oldest sections of the Arsenal, the powder magazine that dates to circa 1817, will be preserved and maintained as an architectural witness to this tragedy. The magazine now houses restrooms and a maintenance room for the Arsenal Park ballfield and playground, which are today situated near the explosion site.

Allegheny Arsenal Powder Magazine. Source: Wikipedia Commons.

It is in bad condition and very much in need of repairs. There are three other surviving buildings from the Arsenal complex, but this powder magazine is the oldest and the one physically closest to the explosion.

Sometimes all we have left to honor and preserve from the past are a few names, consecrated dust, and an old empty building. But it is never too late to remember.

My daughter on her middle school Civil War heritage day, 2013.
he chose to dress as a young Arsenal worker, not as a southern belle as did most girls in her class.

______________________________________________

For further information about the Allegheny Arsenal:

1862 newspaper account painted vivid picture of tragedy 
184 38th Street
After 150 years, cause of Allegheny Arsenal explosion may never be known
Allegheny Arsenal 150 Years Later (NPR interview)
Allegheny Arsenal Exploded 93 Years Ago
Allegheny Arsenal Explosion and the Creation of Public Memory
Allegheny Arsenal Explosion: Pittsburgh's Worst Day During the Civil War
Arsenal Explosion Recalled by Completion of New Monument
Events to recall Arsenal Explosion
Event to mark 150th Anniversary of Allegheny Arsenal Tragedy (KDKA-TV clip) 
Historic Pittsburgh Arsenal Needs Care, Official Says  
'Jury' Finds Negligence in Deadly 1862 Blast 
Mock Jury Cites Military in Deadly 1862 Allegheny Arsenal explosion 
Neglected Lawrenceville park finally has a few friends: Group works toward making 'underused' Arsenal site more inviting
Pittsburgh's Bloodiest Day
Real Heroes Remembered: Allegheny Arsenal tragedy claimed 78 workers in 1862
The Next Page: The Allegheny Arsenal Explosion Pittsburgh's Civil War Carnage
With Allegheny Arsenal Explosion as Background, Consecrated Dust Blends History and Fiction 
Women in Civil War Arsenals Project (Facebook page)

Fox, Arthur B. Pittsburgh During the American Civil War 1860-1865. Firefly Publications. 2009.
Frailey Calland, Mary.  Consecrated Dust: A Novel of the Civil War North. Dog Ear Publishing. October 2011.
Giesberg, Judith Anne. Army at Home: Women and the Civil War on the Northern Home Front. The University of North Carolina Press. September,2009.
Wudarczyk, James. Pittsburgh's Forgotten Allegheny Arsenal.  Closson Press, April 1999.  Reprint October 2009.

I am available to present an hour-long lecture about
the Allegheny Arsenal explosion. 

Please email me at historicaldilettante@gmail.com for more information.

Forgotten History: The Latrobe Family

Pittsburgh has always been this nation's industrial center. Before we were the Steel City we were the Iron City, and arguably we could also have called ourselves the City of Glass or even the Steamboat City.

All of those titles illustrate Pittsburgh's role in shaping this country, often quite literally in terms of infrastructure production. Still, unless it's about the making of steel, we tend toward a communal inferiority complex when it comes to recognizing our central place in national history. 

Everyone, at any point in time who aspired to national prominence has had a connection to Pittsburgh.  Some stayed here, some strayed; some got rich and some didn't. The list of important Americans whose careers were shaped between these three rivers is mind-boggling.

Take, for example, Benjamin Henry Boneval Latrobe, one of the first formally-trained, professional architects in the United States.

(He was also, it must be said, a hottie).

Benjamin Henry Boneval Latrobe, 1804, by Charles Willson Peale

Latrobe has been described as the "Father of American Architecture" and credited with professionalizing architecture in this country. The way he thought about building design had a profound effect on architects up until the Civil War era. He spent at least a year of his life in Pittsburgh, but that time period is usually glossed over in biographies of this man.

Charles Frederick von Breda portrait of Latrobe, c. 1790

 

Born to a Moravian minister in a small town near Leeds, England, Latrobe acquired extensive education and traveled throughout Europe. Following the death of his first wife, Lydia Sellon, he left his two surviving children and immigrated to the United States in 1796 to make his fortune. Charming and quickly connected to all the right people, and armed with stellar design and engineering skills, Latrobe was able to quickly launch a career in a country longing to establish its own grand architecture.

Latrobe knew everyone who was everyone. Here's a profile sketch he "stole" of President George Washington in 1796 while dining at Mount Vernon.

Latrobe's sketch of President Washington, 1796. Courtesy of the Frick Art Reference Library.
Original in Mt. Vernon Ladies Association collection. 

Latrobe is credited with introducing Gothic Revival style to American domestic architecture, and with creating private and public masterpieces. He also became friendly with Thomas Jefferson and is considered to be a major influence on Jefferson's design for the University of Virginia. The two men shared architectural interests and ideas, but tension existed over the predominance of Greek revival symbolism which Latrobe popularized in his designs. The White House Historical Association notes that Jefferson often contributed his own design ideas, which stressed their working relationship. Latrobe wrote on one such occasion “I am sorry that I am cramped in this design by his prejudices in favor of the old French books, out of which he fishes everything..." That's not at all surprising, given Jefferson's Francophilia.

Latrobe's White House plans, circa 1807. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Despite their differences of architectural opinion, in 1803 Jefferson appointed Latrobe to the position of "Surveyor of Public Buildings" and charged him with constructing the south wing of the Capitol Building in Washington DC. This was a much needed appointment for Latrobe, who was constantly plagued with money troubles. He also had a reputation of being a high-strung perfectionist who could be difficult to work with.

The life of an architect and engineer during this period in history was an itinerant one: you went where the work was. Latrobe worked steadily, receiving commissions for public and private buildings and infrastructure in Baltimore, Washington DC, and Philadelphia. But he needed a new gig in 1813 following the Congressional termination of his position as Surveyor of Public Buildings in DC. The War of 1812 had interrupted building projects in the cash-strapped nation, and Pittsburgh seemed to be the place to go for various reasons.

In coming to Pittsburgh, Latrobe was following a path laid out a few years earlier by his eldest daughter Lydia and his son-in-law Nicholas Roosevelt (of the Oyster Bay branch of that family). That couple had married some years earlier, a union that was against Latrobe's wishes given that Nicholas Roosevelt was his own contemporary in age and a close friend. Roosevelt had become enamored of Latrobe's daughter Lydia when she was only 12 years of age. Latrobe found the romance between his friend and the young daughter of his first marriage at best laughable and ultimately preposterous. He incredulously wrote to Roosevelt "Were you really serious?" when he broached the subject of marriage.

Serious they were. Despite various restrictions and multiple delays, the unlikely couple married in 1809 when Lydia was 17 and Roosevelt 41 years of age. Benjamin Latrobe was well-established enough in Washington society that Dolley Madison attended their wedding.

Lydia Latrobe Roosevelt, from Mr. Roosevelt's Steamboat by Mary Dohan

Latrobe had finally given his blessing to this match and passed along a formal letter of introduction to the newly-wed Nicholas Roosevelt, who came to Pittsburgh in 1809. Roosevelt had been hired to make a flatboat survey voyage down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers on behalf of Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston. The trip was meant to determine the feasibility of navigating those waters and hopefully position Pittsburgh as a center of large-scale steamboat construction. Roosevelt agreed to go for a $600 fee -- and so did Lydia Latrobe Roosevelt!

Traveling some 2500 miles during Lydia's second and third trimesters of pregnancy, the couple sailed the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and back in six months. Lydia is said to have designed and furnished comfortable living quarters aboard the flatboat. Their adventures were the stuff of legend and included encounters with potentially hostile Natives and definitely hostile alligators.  Lydia gave birth to their first child, a daughter named Roseta, in January 1810 after the couple returned to New York from their trip.

Nearly two years later, the Latrobe-Roosevelt family set off again, this time on a side-wheeler steamboat. Nicholas, an 8-months pregnant Lydia, toddler Roseta and their Newfoundland dog Tiger left Pittsburgh on the first steamboat voyage ever. Their ship, New Orleans, had been constructed at a yard at the bottom of Boyd's Hill along the banks of the Monongahela River (below where Duquesne University would later be built). This journey took 12 weeks. The Great Comet of 1811 kept them company along the way -- as did little Henry Latrobe Roosevelt, born shortly after they set out October 30, 1811. It's fair to say that the era of steamboat travel was also born on this voyage that originated from Pittsburgh. From 1811 to 1888, boatyards along the Monongahela River produced more than 3,000 steamboats.

Despite the success of the New Orleans, the relationship between the Latrobe-Roosevelts and Robert Fulton was a fractious one. Benjamin Latrobe stood up for his son-in-law in the ensuing business battles. While perhaps wary of Fulton, he remained excited about the future of steam travel and on 13 October 1813, the financially pressured Latrobe moved to Pittsburgh.

Latrobe had hopes of prospering in a steamship partnership with Robert Fulton. The relationship made sense, for Latrobe was an early proponent of steam power, having constructed various steam-powered waterworks in US cities to pipe water into homes. However, a lack of capital, managerial conflicts, competition from established steamboat builders, and a sluggish national economy doomed this Pittsburgh steamboat partnership.

As an agent for Fulton's Mississippi Navigation company, Latrobe engaged in very public disputes over steamboat technology patent rights, writing letters like this one that were published in Pittsburgh's newspapers:

Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette, 22 July 1814

But for all that, Latrobe didn't much appreciate Pittsburgh. He wrote to a friend that "Mud and smoke are the great evils of this town. Whoever can make up his mind to breathe dirt, and eat dirt, and be up to his knees in dirt, may live happily and comfortably here." 

Happy and comfortable Latrobe was not, but at least he kept busy. During the year he reluctantly lived in Pittsburgh he designed and built a theater for the Circus of Pepin and Breschard, and at least three private homes presumably incorporating his favored Greek Revival style (none are known to survive). He also expanded an existing church, built steam engines, and even designed a barge. Latrobe was also commissioned to design the United States Arsenal (later known as the Allegheny Arsenal) building in the Lawrenceville section of Pittsburgh. What was eventually constructed differed significantly from his original plans, which are housed at the Library of Congress. Today nothing remains of any of Latrobe's Pittsburgh structures.

"Sketch of the facade of the proposed Arsenal at Pittsburg. 1814. BHLatrobe." Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Latrobe and family moved back to DC to oversee reconstruction of the Capitol following the fires set by British troops in 1814.  Meanwhile, his son by his first marriage, Henry Sellon Boneval Latrobe, had become a civil engineer known for his railway bridges. In 1811, the senior Latrobe had accepted a franchise to design waterworks systems for the city of New Orleans. His son Henry had then secured the commission for the project, and moved there to began construction. Unfortunately a little war with the British intervened, so Henry fought during the War of 1812. He also found time to design a lighthouse and work on New Orleans' Charity Hospital and the French Opera House. Henry contracted yellow fever in 1817 and died in New Orleans at age 25.

A little more than a year after his son's death, and fresh from bankruptcy proceedings, Benjamin Latrobe left DC for a fresh start and to complete the job his eldest son had started. Benjamin traveled to New Orleans to complete his son's work on the water supply system, and his family joined him the following year. In New Orleans, Latrobe designed the Louisiana State Bank and the central tower with clock and bell of the Saint Louis Cathedral. This tower collapsed in 1850 during reconstruction, but the bell was reused in the new building and remains there today.

But like his son, and so many other visitors to the city, Benjamin Latrobe contracted yellow fever. He died in New Orleans on 2 September 1820. Both father and son were buried in a communal lye pit, a typical method of interment during Yellow Jack outbreaks. The Latrobes are remembered with a memorial marker in Saint Louis Cemetery #1 that was erected by their descendants. 

Latrobe Memorial, St Louis Cemetery #1, New Orleans LA

Latrobe and his second wife Mary Elizabeth Hazlehurst had one surviving daughter, Julia E. Latrobe, who never married. Although she lived to the age of 86, Julia seems not have left anything as a legacy beyond a circa-1812 manuscript in which she recorded dance steps and reminiscences of her childhood, and various party invitations and greeting cards. These items are in the collection of the Maryland Historical Society.

There were two surviving Latrobe sons. 

John Hazelhurst Boneval Latrobe was a Maryland attorney who was retained as counsel for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. He had aspired to a career in architecture, but abandoned this idea due to family financial circumstances following his father's death. He was, however, a talented landscape artist and art patron, and illustrated and wrote a drawing manual under the pseudonym E. Von Blom. He was also known to be a prominent supporter of the African colonization of Liberia, a well-intentioned but misguided antebellum movement. John H. B. Latrobe kept a journal called "Southern Travels" written during a two-month period in late 1834. In it, he chronicled his travels with his wife Charlotte from New York to Natchez (where wife had family), and the return trip by stagecoach to their Baltimore home.

John H. B. Latrobe, c.1860-90, photo from Brady negative. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Youngest son Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Jr initially studied law under big brother John, working on cases involving his late father's property disputes. He then assisted his brother in drafting provisions for the original Maryland charter of the B&O RR, which involved surveying and field work. This awakened latent mathematical abilities that he decided to pursue. Junior, as he was sometimes known, eventually became chief engineer of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, laying out the line between Washington DC and Baltimore and designing the Thomas Viaduct outside the latter city. He had a distinguished career as a civil engineer, and was the guiding force in extending the B&O into Pittsburgh by absorbing a Connellsville railroad company.

Benjamin Henry Latrobe II

 

While the Pittsburgh buildings constructed by Benjamin H. B. Latrobe are gone, Western Pennsylvania residents have an abiding connection to the Latrobe family: the town of Latrobe.

Latrobe, Pennsylvania birds-eye view map circa 1900.
Library of Congress Geography and Map Division.

Ironically, the town has but a tangential connection to the family. According to the Latrobe Historical Society, Oliver Barnes purchased a 140 acre farm in Derry Township in 1851 for the Pennsylvania Railroad, which wanted to connect the eastern part of the state with Pittsburgh and planned to build railroad yards. Pplans changed and the yards were built instead in Derry, so Mr. Barnes acquired the land for himself. He laid out streets and lots and named his new town Latrobe in honor of his friend and railroad associate, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Jr.  None of the Latrobe men are known to have set foot in the town bearing their surname.

New Orleans, Latrobe's eternal home, remembers him in other ways. Near the French Market arch at Ursulines Street is a small park dedicated to Benjamin Latrobe. The site of this park is actually the former waterworks that father and son designed and created. The park incorporates architectural remnants from the works into its sculptures and fountains.

 

And although the Louisiana State Bank Building at Royal and Conti in the French Quarter no longer functions as such, the building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1983. It has been home to many commercial enterprises over the years. As of 2014 a wedding and events business operated there on Royal, called Latrobe's.

  

 

 

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Further reading:
Baker, Jean H. Building America: The Life of Benjamin Henry Latrobe. Oxford University Press. January 2020.
Eaton, Leonard. Houses and Money: The Domestic Clients of Benjamin Henry Latrobe. William L Bauhan. January 1988.
Hamlin, Talbot. Benjamin Henry Latrobe. Oxford University Press; 1st edition. 1955.
Latrobe, Benjamin Henry. The Journals of Benjamin Henry Latrobe 1799-1820. Yale University Press. 1980.
Latrobe, John H. B. Southern Travels: Journal of John H. B. Latrobe. Historic New Orleans Collection; First Edition. 1986.
The Versatile Benjamin Latrobe
Sutcliffe, Andrea J. Steam: The Untold Story of America's First Great Invention. Palgrave Macmillan. 2004.