Pittsburgh Connnections

When I was young, I can remember my mother mentioning that some of her mother's family had often traveled to western PA to visit cousins in the Sewickley area. I knew that there was a branch of the Nevin family out there, but I never gave the idea much further thought until I recently read some background information about the Johnstown flood in 1889. As so often happens, once you find one connection, you find many and this certainly true of the people who were prominent in the society of the late 1800's and early 1900's.

The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club (hereinafter SFFHC) owned the dam that held back the waters of Lake Conemaugh, so when the dam broke in 1889 and  destroyed most of Johnstown, the members of the club were held to blame in the eyes of the public though the disaster was ultimately deemed a natural event and no official blame was laid. As Henry Clay Frick was one of the founders and charter members of the club, his connections in western PA were interesting to look at. His wife was Adelaide Howard Childs, daughter of Asa Partridge Childs and Martha Howard. The Childs family was well-established in Pittsburgh, having made their fortune in the shoe business. Adelaide's brother Howard married Elizabeth Rankin, daughter of David Nevin Rankin and Kate Irwin. Since David Nevin Rankin was my great-great-grandmother's brother, this connection becomes quite interesting to me. David Rankin's wife was the sister of Lewis Irwin, another member of SFFHC and prominent in Pittsburgh as well. Lewis Irwin was a business partner of Henry Holdship, his sister Maria's husband and fellow member of the SFFHC.

There are two books that come to mind that you might enjoy if you would like to know more about the tragedy of the flood of 1889. The first is a work of fiction by Kathleen Cambor called In Sunlight, A Beautiful Garden, and the other is David McCullough's history of the flood, both shown in the link shown below.