Signals, May 2007
On May 28, Sewickley Valley will remember those who served and died in our nation’s wars. Few communities can equal the honor Sewickley shows its veterans, with its street parade and services in Wolcott Park, followed by the poignant ceremony and playing of taps at the Fame monument in Sewickley Cemetery.
In Edgeworth, a handsome memorial tablet in the heart of Way Park is surrounded by grass and specimen trees. Honored there are Edgeworth’s veterans of World War II. In the center of this green sward that is the soul of the borough are their names, recalling how almost every family sent one, two and even three to fight in the global conflict.
We print below the names of the 195 men and women who went forth from the small borough whose total population in 1940 was around 1,700. Many of the surnames will be familiar to our readers.
*Indicates supreme sacrifice
Seeking Information on Area Caves
The Sewickley Valley Historical Society requests any information or photographs that our members might possess concerning caves in the Sewickley and Coraopolis areas for inclusion in a new publication. The subject was last addressed in a 1991 book by Richard Taylor entitled The Bellrock Caves of Sewickley. Many of these caves have since been filled in or otherwise obstructed for safety reasons, and it is hoped that their locations and appearance can be preserved before they are lost to history.
More Aerial Photographs
J. Frederick Haworth (1866-1928), a native of Troy Hill, was living with his family at “Mosscroft” in Edgeworth when he attracted national attention with his kite photography. A son of Jehu and Anna Mary Mosscroft Dewhurst Haworth, he was a brother of Lucy Eliza Haworth, the subject of an article in the April 2007 issue of Signals. Much of Mr. Haworth’s experimenting was done over the Sewickley Valley between 1895-1905, and by the time Orville and Wilbur Wright had flown their first plane in 1903, Fred Haworth had taken hundreds of kite photographs, many of them over Pittsburgh. In addition, constant eruptions of Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano had excited international interest, and Mr. Haworth was sent there to map it by kite. He perfected the art of launching a huge box kite equipped with a camera and clicking the shutter when over the target. He also contrived a plan to keep the kite aloft, bring the camera back to earth, reload it , send it back to the kite, and take another view. The only aerial photographs taken before Haworth’s had been made from manned balloons.
The Sewickley Valley Historical Society has several of Haworth’s aerial photos in its collection, including this one of the Allegheny Country Club, taken soon after the Club was built in 1902.
Haworth’s photos are complemented by the recently acquired aerial shots of the Heights taken from the airplane of William H. “Wild Bill” Riley in the late 1930s. The Riley photo seen at left is reproduced courtesy of Glenn and Carol Bohn.
And then there’s the photo at right, brought to our attention Aby Ann Schroeder. In the foreground, we see the Singer estate in Edgeworth, with “Hillcrest” at bottom, “Harton Hall” to the left, and “Ridgewood,” the home W. L. Jones, Jr., at middle right. The doctored photo, which makes Pittsburgh look much closer than it is, was advertising copy from Time magazine, dated September 1959. The headline reads, “Wherever executive and professional families live...there you’ll find TIME,” and the caption below the picture reads “BACKGROUND: View of the Pittsburgh sky line taken from Mt. Washington. FOREGROUND: Sewickley Heights, looking east over Quaker Road.” Further copy in the ad says that “the one best way to reach the big concentration of best U. S. prospects, reach them efficiently and economically, is TIME—with 2,250,000 families in all the best places.”
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