I usually try save these old articles and post them on Lost Monongahela on the same date as they were published decades ago but I just couldn’t wait with this piece. It was written by the publisher and editor of the Monongahela Republican, Captain Chillion (Chill) W. Hazzard and was published in the Pittsburgh Daily Gazette and Advertiser. Hazzard’s intent must have been to encourage readers to visit Monongahela for the July 4th holiday but since the river was low (ruling out travel by packet boat) and the railroad didn’t reach Monongahela City yet, it would have been a major undertaking to travel from Pittsburgh to Monongahela by any other means.
from the Pittsburgh Daily Gazette and Advertiser – July 3, 1868
A Gushing Invitation
Who can withstand this gushing invitation from the editor of the Monongahela Republican, addressed to our citizens. He says:
“Come up here, ye who dwell upon that baked biscuit, hot and puffy, where the streets smell like a furnace flue, and the air is
filled with dust and coal tar, ye smoked and tired dwellers in Pittsburgh, come up here and see us. Come up the Monongahela, where groves are breezy and cool; where bright streams braid their silver chains along the vales, where hills rise rugged, woody, majestic, frowning, but inviting with green smiles the brave-hearted to their gracious solitudes; where torrents flash and foam, where wild flowers peep from mossy banks; where the partridges drum and the quails whistles in quiet spots where great elms swing their graceful boughs, where the sugar maple sheds her liberal blood in spring; but none the less heaps up her magnificent pyramids of verdure, pile on pile in the summer, or when the pine tree shakes her beautiful green hair, tossing her murmurous cones in the morning breeze, and scents all the groves with her fragrant breath, where there is a meeting-house or two, with ambitious spires struggling up towards the heavens; where there are old-fashioned Sabbath bells, and clean, shaded streets, and plenty of village maids – Yes, come and see us!”
Just think, all this invitation at a time when navigation is closed on the river, and Monongahela City is beyond the reach of the other world.
Now wasn’t that awesome!
