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Mike Burke, assistant director of the Fort Pitt Museum, poses in front of the flag of Col. John Proctor\u2019s 1st Battalion of Westmoreland County. The flag is one of the oldest Revolutionary War artifacts. Photo by Roman Hladio.<\/p>\nWhile Pittsburgh isn\u2019t quite as integral to the American Revolution as Philadelphia or Lexington, the three rivers and Fort Pitt\u2019s title, \u201cthe gateway to the west,\u201d tie the region to the United States\u2019 inception in little-known ways.<\/p>\n
The Fort Pitt Museum\u2019s latest exhibit, \u201cPittsburgh\u2019s Revolution,\u201d is open now and digs up the region\u2019s Revolutionary-era history \u2014 literally.<\/p>\n
Mike Burke, assistant director of the Fort Pitt Museum, says it was important for the museum to create an exhibit that highlighted Pittsburgh\u2019s longstanding connections to history and tradition dating back to the founding of the nation. \u201cPittsburgh\u2019s Revolution\u201d was crafted to disseminate those themes to the visitors drawn to the city by the upcoming NFL Draft in April and the United States\u2019 250th anniversary in July.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy the time of the American Revolution, Fort Pitt is absolutely critical to the broader expansion of America and support for Native diplomacy,\u201d Burke says. \u201cWhen they come here for the draft and the 250th, we want people to visit the museum, check that out, get a sense of that history, understand that the revolution isn\u2019t something that just takes place in the east \u2014 it has a very important place out here in the west as well \u2014 and it helps to shape the city that develops after the war.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burke says the exhibit includes a mix of the museum\u2019s core objects plus some that have never before been hosted at Fort Pitt.<\/p>\n
Mike Burke, assistant director of the Fort Pitt Museum, poses in front of the flag of Col. John Proctor\u2019s 1st Battalion of Westmoreland County. The flag is one of the oldest Revolutionary War artifacts. Photo by Roman Hladio.<\/p>\n
Sitting front and center in the exhibit\u2019s entryway is the flag of Col. John Proctor\u2019s 1st Battalion of Westmoreland County from 1775 \u2014 one of the rarest local American Revolution artifacts. Its main body displays a rattlesnake and the revolutionary slogan \u201cDon\u2019t tread on me,\u201d but it also has a Union Jack in the upper-left corner \u2014 a stark reminder that the Battalion\u2019s members were still British citizens at the time.<\/p>\n
Burke says Proctor\u2019s flag is displayed in the summer months \u2014 with a replica on display the rest of the year \u2014 due to light sensitivity.<\/p>\n
On display for the first time are a trunk and tea canister belonging to John Boreman, a Revolutionary paymaster, which were donated by his descendants.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea in the family story is that Boreman smuggled the currency \u2026 needed to pay the troops out here in this trunk and in this tea cannister, and he disguised himself as a peddler so he wouldn\u2019t get robbed on the road out to Fort Pitt,\u201d Burke says.<\/p>\n
He adds that the Heinz History Center \u2014 the larger entity that the Fort Pitt Museum exists under \u2014 also owns Boreman\u2019s account book, which reveals that Boreman would carry some $200,000 in cash to pay troops.<\/p>\n
To Burke, some of the most impressive artifacts on display are from Hanna\u2019s Town, which was the seat of Westmoreland County until it was destroyed by a Native and British force in 1782.<\/p>\n
The objects were excavated from the former village grounds and maintained by the Westmoreland County Historical Society. Burke says they provide key insights into what life on the frontier was like.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at these objects, these are some of the things that people at Hanna\u2019s Town had and used on a daily basis,\u201d Burke says. \u201cThere\u2019s export porcelain from China; there\u2019s English creamware, tea sets, all sorts of domestic goods, glass bottles, table knives, combs and a variety of personal adornments.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/PXL_20260305_163049964.MP_-scaled.jpg\")
John Boreman, a paymaster, smuggled soldiers\u2019 pay to them in this trunk and accompanying tea canister. According to associated documents, he carried as much as $200,000 at a time. Photo by Roman Hladio.<\/p>\n
Burke adds that dozens of ornate buttons and cufflinks were found on-site as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think of, sometimes, the frontier as being this place where everyone\u2019s clad in buckskins and rough-and-tumble,\u201d he says. \u201cClearly, people in Hanna\u2019s Town were not like that \u2014 they spent their money on luxury goods.\u201d<\/p>\n
While \u201cPittsburgh\u2019s Revolution\u201d opens amid a broader push to prepare for the country\u2019s 250th anniversary this July, it\u2019s designed to be a longstanding fixture of the Fort Pitt Museum \u2014 though the displayed artifacts may change in the future, museum officials say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Pittsburgh isn\u2019t quite as integral to the American Revolution as Philadelphia or Lexington, the three rivers and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[16654,73,75,74],"class_list":["post-130638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-fort-pitt-museum","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}