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A87941569 The Pittsburgh City Directory of 1815: Everything You Never Knew You Wanted to Know
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Done.

I even started looking at it.
'1815, the year after the War of 1812 ended' <- We could change this to 'officially ended' as though the treaty was signed in December 1814, it took time for news to filter through to everyone in those days before e-mail and text messages, so fighting in the New Orleans region only ended in February 1815.


'about 300 miles W. by N. from Philadelphia, 250 from Washington City, and 1,100 (by land) from New Orleans'
It is currently 305 miles from Philadelphia, 245 from Washington and 1,090.8 miles from New Orleans. Just thought I'd let you know.

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(And 3,693 miles from Sandown, Isle of Wight.)

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Okay to the first one - you're right, most people probably won't realise when the War of 1812 officially ended. Did I have a link in there to the 'Battle of New Orleans'? That might help.

Hm, I wonder where they're measuring from? Anyway, don't mess up my elegant prose about tectonic shifts. Just add a footnote that says:

According to modern measurements, Pittsburgh is currently 305 miles from Philadelphia, 245 from Washington, 1,090.8 miles from New Orleans, and 3,693 miles from Sandown, Isle of Wight.

'where the Mai! is large' - <- Should this be Mail? Or is there indeed a large Mai! ?

Air foundries might deserve a footnote I found some air too

Incidentally, I wasn't going to include the distances in the entry, it was just for your information and I was curious about how accurate the directory is, and for rounding to the nearest 5 or 10 miles it is indeed accurate. But I can add it if you really want.

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'Mail' is large. How did I even do that? (How did even I do that?)

How about: '... at which castings of every description, from a cannon to a spider, are extensively and handsomely executed. In connection with the Foundry of Messrs. McClurgs and McKnight, is a mill for boring Cannon.'

And no, I don't know what they did with the interesting cannon. Nor do I have the slightest idea what an 'air foundry' was.

You're right - that's pretty accurate considering that they didn't have a fleet of satellites. Your call whether to put the footnote it.

I'm still curious about the air foundry. It makes sense that at time of war you get an increase in the manufacturer of weapons. (And you wouldn't want excitable, explosive weapons ready to go off at the slightest moment, so Messrs. McClurgs and McKnight's mill for boring Cannon so they end up nice and lethargic until the moment to play the 1812 Overture on them comes.) So yes, casting cannon makes sense. But the sentence ' castings of every description, from a cannon to a spider, are extensively and handsomely executed' is tarantula tantalisingly – was the a secret weapon? Were the British/Canadian opposition notoriously arachnophobic? Will we ever know?

Anyway, ignore me waffling on about whatever it was, would you like a thorough read through and let me know what you think?

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Yeah, me, too. I wonder if Pinniped knows anything about that stuff? He has engineering knowledge.

I read it through, and everything was fine except for the Robert Bruce footnote. It was ungrammatical and needed repunctuating. Also, it was confusing because it wasn't clear if the two men were related.

Now, I don't know if the Reverend Doctor Bruce was related to Robert the Bruce or not, but I do know he was a formidable historical figure in his own right. So I dove in and 'fixed' that footnote. It is now longer and has a link to another guide entry. Hope that's okay with you.

And I love the '3d' link. Poetry, that is.

So if you're happy, I'm happy.

Got to agree that that link makes sense, and I must admit that if I see the name 'Robert Bruce' I automatically think first of the Monty Python sketch where everyone is called 'Bruce', and secondly of King Robert the Bruce and the tweaks to the clarify the connection.

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The guid Scots people of Pittsburgh would have approved.

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