Fort Pitt Blockhouse - The Last Piece of the Fort

Photo: en:User:Kevin Myers, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)

A stop on Spooky Pittsburgh Walk, a free self-guided tour.

Stand before this squat brick building and you are looking at the oldest structure in Pittsburgh. Colonel Henry Bouquet had it built in 1764 as a redoubt, a small outpost guarding the outer walls of Fort Pitt. Look for the narrow slots in the walls: they let soldiers inside fire muskets without stepping into the open.

The great fort around it was torn down in 1792, but the blockhouse survived for a simple reason - someone was living in it. Isaac Craig had turned it into a house in 1785. In 1894 Mary Schenley gave the deed to the Daughters of the American Revolution, who still care for it today.

Now the legend. Visitors and ghost hunters have long traded stories of footsteps crossing empty floorboards and shadows sliding past the gun slots after dark. Nobody can prove a word of it. But stand here as the light fades, with the city humming around you, and you may find yourself listening anyway.

Getting here: Start at the small brick blockhouse near the center of Point State Park, a short walk in from the Commonwealth Place entrance.

Did you know?: Henry Clay Frick once tried to buy the blockhouse and move it, but the Daughters of the American Revolution fought him in court, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in their favor.

Photo op: Step back onto the lawn so the whole blockhouse fits in the frame, with its rows of musket slots catching the low evening light.

More on Wikipedia: Fort Pitt Block House · Isaac Craig · Mary Schenley · Daughters of the American Revolution

Fort Pitt Blockhouse - The Last Piece of the Fort

Stops on this tour