Husband Gen. James O'Hara 1 2 3 4 5
Born: Abt 1752 - Ireland
Christened:
Died: 21 Dec 1819 - Pittsburgh, Allegheny Co, PA 1 6 7
Buried:
Father: Sir Charles O'Hara ( - ) 4
Mother:
Marriage:
• Biographical Sketch: John W. Jordan, LL.D., Colonial and Revolutionary Families of Pennsylvania (New York, Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1911).
To read this brief biographical sketch of his life and career, click here.
Wife Mary Carson 2 8 9
Born: Abt 1761
Christened:
Died: 8 Apr 1834 6 7
Buried:
Father: William Carson ( - ) 8
Mother:
Children
1 M James O'Hara 10
Born:
Christened:
Died: Bef Dec 1819
Buried:
2 F Mary O'Hara 6 10 11
Born:
Christened:
Died: 25 Oct 1827 11
Buried:
Spouse: William Croghan, Jr. ( -1850) 10 11
Marr: 1821 11
3 F Elizabeth Febiger O'Hara 2 3 4 13 14 15
AKA: Elizabeth P. O'Hara 12
Born: 31 Dec 1796 4
Christened:
Died: 19 Jan 1878 4 16 17 18
Buried:
Spouse: Hon. Harmar Denny (1794-1852) 3 13 15 16 19 20 21
Marr: 25 Nov 1817 2 14
4 M William Carson O'Hara 6
Born:
Christened:
Died: Bef Dec 1819
Buried:
5 M Charles O'Hara 6
Born:
Christened:
Died: Bef Dec 1819
Buried:
6 M Richard Butler O'Hara 6
Born: - Pittsburgh, Allegheny Co, PA
Christened:
Died: - Pittsburgh, Allegheny Co, PA
Buried:
Spouse: Mary Boyd ( - ) 6
General Notes: Husband - Gen. James O'Hara
He had hanging in his house the coat-of-arms of the barony of Tyrawley, in recognition of his descent from the ancestors of the barons of the O'Hara family of county Mayo\emdash vert, on a pale radiant, or, a lion rampant sable.
He was the pioneer glass manufacturer of western Pennsylvania. In conjunction with Maj. Isaac Craig he established the first glasshouse at Pittsburgh in 1798. As a soldier he participated in the various Indian expeditions terminating in Wayne's victories. He owned a large tract of land in what came to be called O'Hara township.
He was a native of Ireland, who immigrated to America when quite young. He came to Fort Pitt in 1773, and was an Indian trader there before the revolutionary war. He entered the army as a private, and became a captain in the 9th Virginia regiment. His superior business qualities and activity made him necessary to the quartermaster's department, and he served as assistant quartermaster.
After the Revolutionary War he was actively engaged in business, among other things filling large contracts with the government for supplying the western armies, and acted as purchasing agent for Indian supplies. When the town of Pittsburgh was laid out, and afterward the reserve tract opposite Pittsburgh, on the north side of the Allegheny river, he made large purchases of property at the low prices offered by the Penns and the state of Pennsylvania. He also acquired large landed property in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. He was foremost and led the way in every enterprise calculated to promote the business interests and growth of Pittsburgh. In his various active movements his life was constantly exposed and in danger. The Indians in the interest of the British had planned to murder him at Schoenbrum, one of the Moravian towns. The Moravians discovered the plot, and sent one of their most trusty Indians, called Anthony, to guide him by night through the woods, avoiding the trail, to Fort Pitt, which place he safely reached, although hotly pursued by eleven Hurons.
In 1788 Mr. O'Hara was a presidential elector, and cast his vote for George Washington at the first presidential election.
In 1792 he was appointed quartermaster-general in the United States army, and served as such during the whisky insurrection of 1794, the first armed rebellion against the United States, to suppress which Washington himself drew the sword and marched at the head of fifteen thousand men as far as Bedford.
In 1795 Gen. O'Hara, as quartermaster-general, marched with Gen. Anthony Wayne in the memorable campaign which put an end to Indian hostilities at the battle of the Fallen Timbers and the treaty of Greenville.
In 1797 Gen. O'Hara, in partnership with Maj. Isaac Craig, erected the first Pittsburgh glassworks. It was a stone building on the south side of the Monongahela river, nearly opposite the Point. Peter William Eichbaum was brought from Germany to superintend the works. Green glass bottles were made. In a note of Gen. O'Hara found among his papers after his death he says: "To-day we made the first bottle, at a cost of thirty thousand dollars." About this time he built his own ships and loaded them, some with furs and peltries from the great northwest for Liverpool, others with flour for South America and the West Indies. A bushel of salt had been worth a cow and a calf at Pittsburgh, and men were not allowed to walk across the floor when salt was being measured.
After Wayne's treaty Gen. O'Hara entered into a contract with the government to supply Oswego with provisions, which were then cheaper at Pittsburgh than in the settlements on the Mohawk. Gen. O'Hara was a far-sighted calculator; he had obtained correct information in relation to the manufacture of salt at Salina, and in his contract for provisioning the garrison he had in view the supplying of the western country with salt from Onondaga. This was a project that few men would have thought of, and at that time hardly anyone else would have undertaken. The means of transportation had to be created on the whole line. Boats and teams must be provided to get the salt from the works to Oswego. A vessel was built to transport it to the landing below the falls of Niagara, wagons procured to carry it to Schlosser, then boats constructed to carry it to Black Rock. There another vessel was required to transport it to Erie. The road from Erie to the head of French creek had to be improved, the country through which it passed being mostly swampy, and the salt carried in wagons across the portage; and finally boats provided to float it down French creek and the Allegheny river to Pittsburgh. It required no ordinary capacity and perseverance to give success to this enterprise. Gen. O'Hara could execute as well as plan. He packed his flour and provisions in barrels suitable for salt. These barrels were reserved in his contract. Arrangements were made with the manufacturers, and the necessary advances paid to secure a supply of salt. Two vessels were built, one on Lake Ontario and one on Lake Erie, and the means of transportation on the various sections of the line were secured. The plan fully succeeded, and salt of fair quality was delivered at Pittsburgh and sold at four dollars a bushel. The vocation of those who brought salt across the mountains on packhorses was gone as the trade opened by this man, was extensively prosecuted by others. A large amount of capital was invested in the salt trade, and the means of transportation so greatly increased that in a few years the Pittsburgh market was supplied with Onondaga salt at two dollars and forty cents per bushel.
In 1804 Gen. O'Hara was appointed a director of the branch of the Bank of Pennsylvania established that year at Pittsburgh. This was the first bank west of the Alleghany mountains. The "Miami Exporting Company" was not then a bank and did not become so until afterward. Gen. John Wilkins, Jr., was the first president, and he was succeeded by Gen. O'Hara, who was the president when the Branch Bank of Pennsylvania was transferred to and merged in the office of the Bank of the United States.
James O'Hara, while as enterprising as Astor or Girard, was as large hearted and magnanimous as Abraham. John Henry Hopkins, a young Irishman, afterward bishop of Vermont, came to the United States in the early part of this century, and about 1811 to Pittsburgh, poor, but full of intelligence and activity. Gen. O'Hara, pleased with Hopkins' business qualifications, took him into partnership in an iron-works he established at Ligonier, and gave him the management. This business, through no fault of Hopkins, failed, as, indeed, did all business after the War of 1812. Hopkins was overwhelmed, and his hopes apparently blasted for life by his share of the debt which hung over him. O'Hara said to him, "Give yourself no concern. You have done your best. I will pay all the debts." He gave Hopkins a clear acquittance and settled up all the debts. This incident was told by Bishop Hopkins himself.
Gen. O'Hara died at his home on the bank of the Monongahela in 1819, wealthy and full of years. A patriotic soldier, an enterprising business-man and a charitable Christian.
In the spring of 1795 the first glassworks were started at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, by James O'Hara and Isaac Craig. James O'Hara was apparently, at this time, a citizen of Detroit, but afterward took up his residence in Pittsburgh. He was well acquainted with Gen. Washington, and was the quartermaster-general of the army brought to Pittsburgh to put down the whisky insurrection. He rendered efficient service during the Revolution, which accounts for his acquaintance with Washington and for the confidence of the latter in him. His name became familiar to Pittsburghers, not merely for his connection with the first glasshouse, but more particularly for his being the founder of sundry large estates which have not been a marked advantage to Pittsburgh, but which speak well for his thrift and carefulness.
He must have been a resident of Pittsburgh at the time or after the survey of the manor of Pittsburgh and the laying out of the towns of Pittsburgh and Allegheny, for it was in all of these he picked up the lands constituting his estate. The three acres at the Point, lying between the old Fort Pitt and the Allegheny, or between Penn and the Allegheny river, and between Water and Marbury streets, purchased, after the manor was surveyed by Craig and Bayard, from the Penns, were afterward sold by them to O'Hara, and the latter also acquired, by purchase from the Penns, lots in several parts of the town of Pittsburgh, including one or two blocks on Market street. O'Hara also purchased from the Penns large tracts of land in the manor of Pittsburgh, beginning at Two-Mile run, on the Allegheny, and extending across to the Monongahela, and he also bought a large number of lots in Allegheny when that town was laid off by the state, together with a tract on the South Side, on the extreme western line of the manor, and a portion of the "Guyasuta plain," above Sharpsburg. These large acquisitions, now extremely valuable, were only relatively so then. Their selection indicates the shrewdness of his judgment, and his faith in the future prosperity of the place; but there was a time before his death when his large and judicious investments placed him in a very straitened condition. There is a condition out west known as being "land poor," that is poor from having too much unproductive land, and O'Hara had his last days embittered by being in this condition. After the War of 1812 was over the nation passed through one of its periodical panics or business depressions, which culminated about 1817. Money was scarce, industry was paralyzed, enterprise was torpid and business at a standstill. No one would build, or buy or rent a lot, and very few were willing to pay their debts, if they could avoid it. This stagnation of trade struck O'Hara when he had many irons in the fire, for he was an active, enterprising man, and, although he had a large and nominally valuable estate, he found himself so pressed for means as to be on the verge of bankruptcy.
In this hour of distress he found a helping friend in James Ross, Esq. It was the peculiarity of Mr. Ross to be the friend of men in trouble, and when he had money to lend he was ready to help anyone in whom he had confidence. And he was no Shylock. He never exacted a heavy rate of interest. When money was worth 20 to 30 per cent he stuck to the legal rate of 6 per cent. He never demanded more, and would accept of nothing less. And he always got his money back, or its equivalent in land. His kindness was shown, not in giving, but in helping, and he helped many a one, both then and long afterward. Among others he helped O'Hara, and delivered him from the fear of the sheriff and from the agony which pecuniary pressure brings. Ross tided him over that terrible depression, and when O'Hara came to die he was able to make a careful division of his huge estate, free from the burden which would have broken him down had Ross not lifted its weight from him.
O'Hara, at the time of his death, had three children, one son and two daughters, between whom he divided, as equally as he could, the various parts of his estate. One-third went to his son James; another to his daughter Mary, and another to his other daughter, Elizabeth. In his will he was careful to balance one corner lot to Mary with another to Elizabeth, one next to the corner to the one, and one next to another corner to the other, the value of each lot being duly weighed, so as to make the division equal. The "Springfield" farm, on the Allegheny, went to Elizabeth, and the "Smithfield" farm, on the Monongahela, to Mary. His will showed extraordinary care and impartiality. It appeared that the devise to Mary was entailed upon her son; but if so, providence broke the entail by the early death of this son, so that her daughter inherited, not from her mother, but as the heir of her brother. Mary married William Croghan, Jr., a brother of Gen. George Croghan, and Elizabeth married Harmar Denny; thus, from these three children, sprang the O'Hara, the Croghan (now Schenley) and the Denny estates.
He emigrated to America about 1772, landed in Philadelphia and soon found his way to Western Pennsylvania, where he was engaged as an Indian trader by a Philadelphia firm. From December, 1773, to March, 1774, he was in the service of Devereux Smith and Ephraim Douglas, of Pittsburgh, as an Indian trader in what is now Lawrence county. His accounts were kept with the Indians in buck, does' and fawns' skins.
After March, 1774, James O'Hara was government agent among the Indians until the commencement of the Revolutionary war. Having been three years in the British army as an ensign, he was thought capable of commanding a company. He raised and equipped a company of volunteers; the equipment those days consisted of usual dress hunting shirt, buckskin breeches and the rifle, which always hung on the wall, ready for use. This company was first sent to Fort Canhawa, now Kanawa, which was erected by the state of Virginia. This was to be protected and provisioned by Captain O'Hara and company, who remained there until 1779. He then accompanied Major Clark on his western expedition, through the Wabash country. O'Hara speaking the Indian dialect was of great service to Clark. In 1779 Captain O'Hara's company having nearly all been killed or lost among the Indians of the west (being reduced to but twenty-nine men), Fort Canhawa was abandoned and the garrison, cattle and horses removed to Pittsburgh, while the few surviving men were annexed to the Ninth Virginia Regulars, under General Broadhead December 13, 1779. Captain O'Hara was sent to headquarters with a letter from General Broadhead to General Washington and James Wilkinson asking for a supply of clothing for the soldiers. Captain O'Hara was made commissary for the General Hospital and remained at Carlisle until 1780. In 1781 he was made assistant quartermaster. After the Revolution had ended General O'Hara took the contract of furnishing provisions for the Western army under command of General Harmar. General O'Hara was not only contractor for furnishing the supplies for the army, but was also appointed to act as quartermaster and treasurer for the payment of the soldiers, pro tem. His accounts were kept with the most careful exactness, as his reports in the treasury department will now testify. He served as quartermaster general until May, 1796, and was succeeded by Lieutenant-Colonel John Wilkins, who held the position until 1802. In the spring of 1796 General O'Hara built a saw-mill in Allegheny and made plans with lajor Isaac Craig to erect glass works. Thirty thousand dollars were expended before a single bottle was made. But later it became a paying enterprise. Subsequently O'Hara operated the plant alone. In 1805 he built the ship "General Butler," which made several ocean voyages to Europe and the Indies. In 1789 he was one of the presidential electors and cast his vote for George \\Vashington. He assisted General Wilkinson in building the First Presbyterian church of Pittsburg. He also donated a handsome chandelier which illuminated the edifice many a year. In 1802-04 he was a candidate for congress, but was defeated by Lucas, a Democrat. In 1804 he was appointed a director of the Branch Bank of Pennsylvania at Pittsburg. In 1811 he was a partner with John Henry Hopkins in an iron works at Ligonier, Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania. It failed. He made many extensive land purchases in Allegheny and other counties. His first tract was bought in 1773 and consisted of four hundred acres on Coalpit Run.