PITTSBURGH AND CASTLE SHANNON RAILROAD
BIRTH OF THE PITTSBURGH AND CASTLE SHANNON RAILROAD
Carrick’s most famous resident was John M. Phillips and Overbrook’s was Milton Hays. Milton was born in 1844. He was the son of Jacob and Jane Updegraff Hays. He left home at the age of sixteen. At 22, he was elected director of the Farmers and Mechanics Bank on the South Side and later became the bank’s Vice-President. Mr. Hays resided in the South Bank area of Fairhaven. In 1863, he again left the area for California, passing a year there, and returning to Pittsburgh to take an interest in his father’s lumber business on the South Side.
When Milton Hays was just 27 years old he organized and became the first president of the Pittsburgh and Castle Shannon Railroad. On July 4, 1866 mass meetings were held in Finleyville and Monongahela to get support for the railroad project. To attract a crowd, balloon ascension was carried out. Following the flight, citizens gathered in the town hall to hear plans for the railroad to be made public. In an article written for The Dispatch, Mr. Hays recalled that when he and Captain Thomas Briggs were driving from South Bank to Monongahela for one of the mass meetings, they passed the farm of Jacob Horning (now the property around St. Norbert Street), and he asked them where they were going. “We are going to Monongahela to start a fund to build a railroad right down through your meadow”, the two men said. They asked him if he wanted to buy some stock. The farmer replied that on Saturday he sold a load of hay for $50, and that he would give them two loads for two shares of stock. Whereupon, Jacob Horning, of Fairhaven, became the first stockholder of the new railroad.
The company was incorporated in 1871. The Pittsburgh and Castle Shannon Railroad had a stormy and relatively brief existence, but was very important in the early expansion of the Fairhaven community. Although its creation was for the sole purpose of transporting the coal which it mined from the area to the markets at Pittsburgh, the company’s charter required that it likewise provide passenger service. Initially, the company constructed a six mile long, 40 inch gauge track from Carson Street in Pittsburgh to Castle Shannon. Railroad cars were transported from the South Side by way of the Castle Shannon Incline.
Because its charter required the company to provide transit service, the Pittsburgh and Castle Shannon Railroad entered into the business of real estate and developed a hilltop above the railroad right-of-way and named it Fairhaven. A Pittsburgh Evening Chronicle article dated April 17, 1872, states that 60 lots, formerly owned by F. Briggs, would be offered for sale on April 27 at one o’clock, placing them within reach financially of all. Prospective buyers would need ten percent and five dollars thereafter, with interest. Plans of the lots were on display at the company office. It further stated that the company was offering these lots for their workmen and those who desire to locate conveniently to the new mines. Mining operations were rapidly converging on this area and Fairhaven was to be for years to come the central point of this mining district.
Around this same time, camp ground meetings were established at Castle Shannon. It all began in 1874, when a group of Pittsburgh Methodist Protestant ministers and laymen met to discuss the advisability of purchasing property for a camp meeting ground. Milton Hays, president of the railroad proposed to sell the association 10 acres of land for $5,000. Acres of farmland were purchased and the Castle Shannon Camp Meeting was formed. Later the name was changed to the Arlington Camp Meeting Association. The early association had very strict rules. No dogs were permitted and no smoking within the circle of the tabernacle. People came by way of the Pgh. & Castle Shannon Railroad through Fairhaven. Trains ran every thirty minutes from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. The fair was 35c for a round trip.
In spite of offering inexpensive lots and a way to get to their place of worship, the railroad did not take an upward turn and it was decided to create an amusement grove at Castle Shannon. The Zoological Gardens of Castle Shannon was established by Memorial Day in 1872. A Professor Bagley, a graduate of Mt. Union College and a native of the island of St. Helena, and whose grandfather was the keeper of the exiled Napoleon, was induced to come to Castle Shannon to take charge of the Zoological Gardens. He was a noted lecturer and used his talents to draw people to the area. He traveled from school to school gravely impressing on the students that the animals that he was telling them about were found at the Gardens. The bait was swallowed and the young people had their parents bring them to the gardens on Saturdays and Sundays the railroad took in the fares.
As the Camp Meeting grounds, the Zoological Gardens and the building of homes expanded, the saw mills in and around Fairhaven flourished. Among the thousands of rare curiosities to be found in the museum on the grounds of the Zoological Gardens on July 3, 1877 were: A lock of hair cut from Napoleon Bonaparte by the person that nursed him, the only picture of Napoleon as he lay in state at Longwood, St. Helena, a cane cut from the hedge around his tomb, a piece of his coffin and of the plaster from his room in which he died. Over one hundred varieties of animals were housed at the Castle Shannon Zoo. In August of 1876 two porcupines, one white groundhog, one raccoon and three pheasants were added.
In 1881, a man by the name of Perry went to the camp meeting at Arlington and was converted. He thought it would be nice to have a church or Sunday school in Fairhaven, so he organized a Sunday school in the old school building. The church got so strong on temperance that they were forced to leave the school building. Mr. Perry carried the organ home on his back. Mrs. Thompson, who lived above the archway on Frederick St. (Glenbury), gave the congregation enough property to build a church in 1890. Edward Provost and a Mr. Dilla worked on the church as carpenters and some of the young ladies of the town helped to drive the nails. The church was known as the Fairhaven Methodist Protestant Church. In 1907 a new church was built on the same site it occupies today.
EARLY BUSINESS AND SOCIAL LIFE
Eventually, Milton Hays wanting to expand the railroad line to Washington, Pa. and Morgantown, West Virginia, created another rail company called the Pittsburgh Southern. At the stockholder meeting on August 1, 1878, Hays was chastised that operating the second company was a conflict of interest with his role as President of the Pgh. & Castle Shannon. Two weeks later, Hays resigned in return for having the conflict of interest charges dropped. As a result, the subsidiary broke away and the Pgh. & Castle Shannon saw its holdings go into receivership from 1879 to 1880. At the zenith of its success during the late 1880’s the railroad ran 23 passenger trains per day along with the many coal deliveries it made to the marketplace at the top of the Castle Shannon Incline. In 1900, Robert McDonald Lloyd of the Pittsburgh Coal Company arranged the buyout of 7,756 of 9,628 shares of the P&CS stock—80% of the railroad. The new controlling interest gutted the P&CS. It assumed operation of the mines, transportation of coal to market and the passenger service. On August 25, 1905, all property pf the P&CS was leased to the Pittsburgh Railways Company, the forerunner to the Port Authority.
Among early businesses in Fairhaven were the gristmill, a saw mill, the Fairhaven Post Office, Galley’s General Store, Brawdy’s Grocery Store, Carcella’s Butcher Shop, Clara Fish’s Dry Goods Store, Muelhorn’s Bakery, Bakey’s Auto Repair, Luffy’s Bowling Alley, and Provost Lumber Company. A cigar factory briefly operated in Fairhaven at the railroad station.
Community life for resident railroad worker spare time, many would entertain themselves at any one of the many saloons in town, dance at the ballroom or visit one of the three brothels in Fairhaven. Residents of neighboring communities nicknamed Fairhaven “Hell’s Hole” in response to what they considered the “immoral behavior” occurring at these popular nightspots. The fire company sponsored carnivals annually and there were many plays performed by budding actors and actresses of the community on weekends.
