Masonry Magazine October 1975 Page. 7
A fund which encourages quality masonry-construction in the U.S. and Canada, the area is a wonderland of beautiful stone walks, garden walls, planters, river-bank retaining walls, remains of brick and stone fortifications, pools and fountains of many types of stone artistically designed by the architect and shaped into striking patterns by contemporary masonry craftsmen.
Along the Allegheny River, for example, Stone & Marble Masons, have created from huge blocks of Cleveland sandstone, a dock for excursion boats, as well as river bank theater-type seating for concerts played from a barge or as a place to sit while watching regattas and other water events.
From 1754 until 1758, the area was known as Fort Duquesne and only French was spoken. The fort occupied a small piece of land at the extreme tip of the point and had a second small fort on the bank of the Allegheny.
But in November of 1758, the British occupied the strategic location and built frontier America's most elaborate fortification-Fort Pitt. It was huge compared to old Fort Duquesne, which the French put to the torch before abandonment to Forbes Army and British rule.
Construction of Fort Pitt, further back from the point and along the higher bank of the Monongahela River, took from 1759 until 1761. As Fort Pitt developed, the old Fort
Duquesne area became Low Town. It was a hodge-podge of housing for workers, contractors, bricklayers, stonemasons and others who provided the manpower to service Fort Pitt and construct its buildings and fortifications.
Clay and shale were excavated for the on-site brick kilns and limestone was reduced in kilns to make plaster and mortar. The masonry craftsmen, for example, built soldiers' barracks of brick, and created block houses and bastion walls of brick and stone, along with other solid, nearly indestructable structures and storage areas. Many of these walls, and some of the buildings restored by their contemporary, brethern masonry-craftsmen, can be seen today at Point State Park. One of these is a stone and brick block-house built in 1764.
Another example of original and restored masonry is the lower remnants of original rampart walls of the Music Bastion and the curtain wall in which the drawbridge was located. Five bastions of Ft. Pitt were built between 1759 and 1761 by army artisans during the command of General John Stanwix.
In its hey-day, Fort Pitt was a five-sided parade ground, with five rows of buildings around the perimeter protected by five dirt mounds. On the two sides facing inland, the
Landscape borders, designating the perimeter of the original Fort Pitt, are of Pennsylvania sandstone.
dirt walls were supported by massive walls of brick and stone. Stone footings and a stone capping tied together a 15-ft high revetment.
The masonry walls were never fired on with artillery, according to the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, but did save the fort from destruction by the mighty Ohio in 1762 and 1763 when flood waters were seven feet above the parade ground and devastated much of the lower area of the fort. Those in command are quoted as regretting that the entire fort was not faced with brick to better withstand the flood waters. Indians did attack Fort Pitt in March 1763, during Pontiac's War, but were defeated by relief forces from Philadelphia, thus lifting the siege on August 10, 1763.
A focal point of the park today is the William Pitt Memorial Hall, operated by the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission for the Pennsylvania Department of Forests and Waters. It is located in the Monongahela Bastion, which was originally an earth structure, but the tourist facility was constructed of brick ramparts to conform with the brick bastions on the eastern or land side of the fort.
The red-brick museum, which blends in with the old and restored masonry seen throughout the historic site, houses a model of Fort Pitt made to the scale of 10-ft. to 1-in. A grant from the Buhl Foundation of Pittsburgh made this possible. The geographic scope covered by the model includes all of the point up to Commonwealth
The architect's intricate design for the fountain floor and other pool areas in Point State Park is seen clearly as a super-size mural.