Old Blockhouse Occupant Dies: Body of Mrs. Eliza S.
Barnes Here for Interment in Allegheny Cemetery.
From The Pittsburgh Telegraph, 1 June 1914.
Memories of times when Pittsburgh was a struggling
village are revived by
the death of Mrs. Eliza S. Barnes in Kansas City, Mo., and the returning
of her body to Pittsburgh for burial. Mrs. Barnes formerly lived in the
Block House at the Point. This was many years ago. At that time the
confluence of the two rivers was farther east than it is now and the
Block House was at the water's edge. Since then, the Point has been
extended farther by artificial filling.
A "hitching post" for steamboats was placed directly in front of the
Block House and the Barnes family collected toll from all vessels tying
up there. Mrs. Barnes died December 3, 1913. Her body was placed
temporarily in a vault in Kansas City. It will be buried tomorrow in
Allegheny Cemetery. Mrs. Barnes was aged 96 years. The Barnes family came
to Pittsburgh in 1797.
Woman Who Lived in Old Blockhouse Never Returns
From The Pittsburgh Press, 31 July 1933.
Mrs. Delia C. Smith never has been back to the
Blockhouse to see what her old home looks like today.
She and her mother, Mrs. Sarah Costello, from County Galway, were the
last residents of the old landmark, before it became the property of the
Daughters of the [American] Revolution.
In those days the fort was divided into three rooms, and the basement
rented to Aunt Sibby Powers, an old Irish lady who sold candy to
neighborhood children.
Mrs. Costello posed on the steps for a famous drawing of the fort, her
daughter, Mrs. Smith, related last week at the picnic of former residents
of the Point.
She also recalls how Point children in the old days used to act as guides
to visitors, earning pennies and nickels for candy.
Mrs. Costello came from Ireland on a sailing vessel, after her parents
died, in company with a girl friend. Mrs. Smith was about 15 when she and
her mother moved away from the fort. She lives in Duquesne Heights.
