Bigham House, Chatham Village

Today this house is used as a clubhouse for residents of Chatham Village. It was built in 1844 or 1849 (Father Pitt has seen both dates) for Thomas James Bigham, a notorious abolitionist who was rumored to harbor fugitive slaves here. Fortunately for him, there was not much sympathy for slave laws in these parts: Pittsburgh was riddled with Underground Railroad stations.

These pictures were taken in late evening light (individual pictures taken with a Canon PowerShot S45, then stitched with Hugin to produce the wide angles you see here). There’s a fair amount of grain if you look closely. Low-light performance is one aspect of digital cameras that has definitely improved, and Father Pitt would do much better in low light with a more recent camera. He would also pay about a thousand dollars for a more or less equivalent camera, rather than the six dollars he paid for the old Canon.

The Charles Avery Memorial in Allegheny Cemetery

Unfortunately this memorial was executed in soft stone that has decayed considerably over the last century and a half. It’s still impressive, though, and the erosion gives one the sense of confronting the distant past face to face.

Avery was a notable abolitionist who founded the Allegheny Institute and Mission Church, later Avery College, whose mission was to provide an education meeting the highest standards for free black students of both sexes. (The rumor had it that it was also a stop on the Underground Railroad, which is quite likely, given Avery’s strong feelings about slavery.) Avery’s monument is decorated with allegorical sculptures whose mutilation over the years makes their meaning hard to interpret. This blindfolded woman has lost her right hand and whatever she was holding in it. Was she Justice?

This young mother, again, has lost part of her right hand, and probably some allegorical attribute with it.

This mutilated relief may depict Avery College in the background; though it survived till about 1970 in Dutchtown, Father Pitt has not found a picture of the building. The headless figure at right has the rotund torso of the Rev. Charles Avery; the other figures seem to be some of the Negro citizens who benefited from his work. Father Pitt is not sure what the ship has to do with the story; Avery was not one of those colonizationists who believed in sending Africans back to Africa. He believed that education would make the Negro an equal citizen in the United States. He did, however, sponsor missions to Africa, and perhaps the ship represents those.