Log Cabin (University of Pittsburgh)

The Log Cabin at the University of Pittsburgh is located near Forbes Avenue, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, adjacent to the Cathedral of Learning. The 19th-century log cabin symbolizes Pitt’s original log cabin home through the school's founding to the construction of a brick building in the 1790s. [ [http://digital.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=pittmiscpubs;cc=pittmiscpubs;idno=00c50130m;node=00c50130m%3A8;frm=frameset;view=image;seq=30;page=root;size=s Assorted University of Pittsburgh Publications ] ] This particular cabin, from Yatesboro, Pennsylvania, was purchased at an auction for $1,000 by Charles Fagan III, who donated it to the university due to his wife, Ann Ebbert Fagan (CAS 1962), who graduated from the University. [ [http://www.pitt.edu/commencement/visitors/tour.html Visitors | Commencement 2008 | University of Pittsburgh ] ] To commemorate the university's approaching bicentennial in 1987, the cabin was transported to Pittsburgh and reconstruction was begun on September 10, 1986. [ [http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=PI&s_site=philly&p_multi=PI&p_theme=realcities&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB29B8C826EB34A&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM Search Results ] ] For a time after its completion, through at least the 1990s, the log cabin served as an information center.

History and legend

Tradition of the university, then the Pittsburgh Academy in the 1780s, and scattered evidence suggests that the school began life in a log cabin. A lack of concrete information of Pitt's early days can be blamed on the fires of 1845 and 1849 that wiped out most of Downtown Pittsburgh, where the school was then located. For this reason, very few records about Pitt's early days exist, and definitive information on classes being held in a log cabin is scarce. Records do exist of a gathering of individuals discussing the need for a new school, which was to become Pittsburgh Academy, occurring in a log house near the Point (this meeting was known to take place but the records from the meeting were lost). [ [http://digital.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=pittmiscpubs;cc=pittmiscpubs;g=documentingpitt;xc=1;xg=1;q1=log;rgn=full%20text;idno=00afj8718m;didno=00afj8718m;view=image;seq=0025 Documenting Pitt ] ] According to Pitt historian Agnes Lynch Starrett, there is "plenty of evidence that classes were held in a log building, even before the charter was granted". [http://digital.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=pittmiscpubs;cc=pittmiscpubs;g=documentingpitt;xc=1;xg=1;q1=log;rgn=full%20text;idno=00afj8718m;didno=00afj8718m;view=image;seq=0048] Most structures in 1787 Pittsburgh, then the frontier of America, were wooden structures or log cabins. Further, it appears other schools in the area, such as Washington and Jefferson College whose first building was known to be a log cabin, also operated out of similar structures. It is a reasonable conjecture this could have been the case for Pitt. By 1790s, a two-story, three-room, brick building was erected for Pitt Academy on the south side of Third Street and Cherry Alley. It is also known, that the school owned both its brick building and a log house next to it that served as the home to its principal. [ [http://digital.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=pittmiscpubs;cc=pittmiscpubs;g=documentingpitt;xc=1;xg=1;q1=log;rgn=full%20text;idno=00afj8718m;didno=00afj8718m;view=image;seq=53;page=root;size=s;frm=frameset; Documenting Pitt ] ] It seems in the very least that it can be inferred that Pitt Academy had an early log building in its possession. Even if the history of the school starting in a log cabin is factually unclear, it has been a tradition told within the university for over 100 years and at least represents the era of Pitt's founding, if not the actual 1st meeting in a log cabin to discuss its creation.

External links

* [http://www.tour.pitt.edu/tour-300.html Log Cabin on Pitt's Virtual Tour]

References

*cite book | author=Starrett, Agnes Lynch | title=Through One Hundred and Fifty Years: The University of Pittsburgh | location=Pittsburgh | publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press | year=1937
*cite book | author=Alberts, Robert C. | title=Pitt: The Story of the University of Pittsburgh 1787-1987 | location=Pittsburgh | publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press | year=1987 | id=ISBN 0-8229-1150-7

*reflist