Depreciation Lands Museum Brings History to Life

Imagine cooking dinner over an open fire, changing your horse's shoes instead of your car's tires, or crafting your own eating utensils. That was life in the North Hills 200 or so years ago.

This Sunday, May 15, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., you can step back into time and see firsthand how our pioneer ancestors lived during Friendship Day at the Depreciation Lands Museum.  Admission is free all day.

Friendship Day features a number of special programs for visitors, including classes in the schoolhouse, blacksmithing demonstrations, concerts featuring songs popular in the Pittsburgh area during the mid-1800s and many other displays and reenactments.

The museum is located in Hampton, but a number of Richland residents are involved as volunteers and re-enactors, including and her family. Her husband, Kevin, demonstrates beekeeping; her son, Tim, is a blacksmith; and she and her daughter Kelly demonstrate the day-to-day lives of women of the era.

Richland artist Dave Hughes, a silversmith and early American craftsman, will also demonstrate calligraphy and display his work.

As Parsons points out, the Depreciation Lands Museum is part of the history of all of Western Pennsylvania, as the Depreciation Lands encompassed the entire North Hills up to about 4.5 miles north of Butler.

"Most people don't know what the Depreciation Lands are, and many people don't know the museum exists," says Parsons.

For those who've never heard the term "Depreciation Lands," here's a brief history lesson, courtesy of the museum:

During the Revolutionary War, the dollar, originally backed by gold, depreciated to about 1/72 of its original value. In 1780, the state of Pennsylvania began issuing “Depreciation Certificates” to soldiers to make up the difference in pay. The certificates could be used as cash to purchase land anywhere in the state.

Realizing that available land was limited, however, in 1783 the state purchased 720,000 acres -- about 1,125 square miles -- of Indian territory in Western Pennsylvania from the Iroquois Nation in a treaty with its leader, Cornplanter.  This land, bordered on the south by the Ohio and Allegheny Rivers, extended north 33 miles from the Point in Pittsburgh, to 4 1/2 miles north of the present city of Butler.

The area encompassed parts of Allegheny, Butler, Beaver, Lawrence and Armstrong counties. The land was surveyed into lots of 200 to 350 acres, and the lots were offered for sale at auction in Philadelphia.  When sales flagged, the land was opened for homesteading in 1792.

Hampton Township created the Depreciation Lands Museum in 1973 to preserve and interpret this early history. The site includes the Pine Creek Covenanter Church, built in 1837, and the associated cemetery. It also includes the Armstrong log house, built in 1803, an herb garden, a replica school, circa 1885, working blacksmith shop, wagon house that houses a Conestoga wagon and displays, and a meeting building.

The museum is open from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. every Sunday from May to October. It is located off Route 8 at 4743 South Pioneer Road. General admission is $3 adults and $1 children, but everyone gets in free on Friendship Day.