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Title: A goodly heritage : earliest wills on an American frontier / Ella Chalfant.
Author: Chalfant, Ella.
Pgs. 177 to 179
JOHN WILKINS - Home and lot on what is called Scotch Hill.
Dated February 6, 1808 - Recorded December 14, 1809
Scotch Hill was a section of Pittsburgh below Grants Hill toward the Monongahela where many Scotchmen lived.
MR. WILKINS was of Welsh descent. As a boy, he had been apprenticed to the saddler business in Lancaster. When his eldest son, JOHN, was two years, MR. WILKINS lived in Carlisle. Ten years later, he removed to Bedford. In 1776, when he received a commission from George Washington with instructions to “enlist a company of men and join the Army of the United States,” MR. WILKINS was made Captain in the Continental service. After the Revolution, CAPTAIN WILKINS opened a store at the northeast corner of Fourth and Wood Streets, again becoming a merchant as he had been both at Carlisle and Bedford.
The mercantile business evidently was profitable for, in the manuscript biography which CAPTAIN WILKINS left, he said:
Mark, I never got a shilling of fortune with either of my wives, yet ever since my first marriage to this day I have lived happy with them and God hath blessed me with plenty to keep my children until they were able to provide for themselves.
After Allegheny County was organized CAPTAIN WILKINS was appointed one of the Associate Judges of the Court. He served as a member of the Supreme Executive Council in 1790, was chief Burgess of Pittsburgh, Commissioner of Public Buildings, and the County Treasurer from 1794-1803. He was prominent in the town and, because it was customary for men of prominence to be mourned by their immediate family in proper mourning apparel, CAPTAIN WILKINS thought it proper to attend to that matter in the very first section of his will - $50, to purchase mourning.”
CAPTAIN JOHN WILKINS lived between Second and Third Avenues, on Wood Street. The lot next to his, No. 353, he left to his son, JOHN WILKINS, who built on it a double brick house with a kitchen added. The first insurance policy issued in Pittsburgh was on this mansion.
In later days the old Monongahela House, a hotel, stood on this lot, famous because President Lincoln addressed the assembled citizens from its balcony.
For his daughter, MATILDA DENNY, he left part of the lot on Diamond near the Markethouse:
my house and lot fronting the public square adjoining to Doctor Mowry’s building and on the one side by Joseph Davis being part of Lot No. 394 in the Borough of Pittsburgh and formerly belonging to Wm. Crogen.
To MARY ANN, his own home: “Lot No. 354 in the Plan of Pittsburgh.” To his son, WILLIAM, the adjoining lot, No. 353, between Fourth and Diamond.
To his daughter JANE:
house and lot No. 356 in Plan of Pittsburgh fronting Fourth Street and adjoining Henderson’s lot on the one side and Negley’s on the other side, and now occupied by Henry Wolf.
To ELUISA, “my youngest”:
house and lot on what is called Scotch Hill, No. 202 in the Plan of Pittsburgh adjoining Geo. Robinson’s lots to the westward a street to the Eastward and fronting the Monongahela River, now occupied by Peter Eldenhead.
To MRS. WILKINS:
the land adjoining Alex. Addison’s lands and commonly called my pasture lots in equal partnership with my son JOHN WILKINS as may be seen by my books.
His book entries directed that one-half the land was to be conveyed to his son, JOHN WILKINS, JR., “the other half he is to sell for the benefit of the younger children - purchase himself for their benefit” after MRS. WILKINS’ decease.
To each of his sons, JOHN, CHARLES, and STEWART, and to EBENEZER DENNY, husband of his daughter NANCY, he left “$50 to purchase mourning.” His daughters, MARGARET TANNEHILL and RACHEL HOLLENSWORTH, each got $200, and his daughter CATHERINE EARNEST, $300.
These two wills keep alive the names of places changed long ago and of people long gone whose descendants still live among us.
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