Where the name of the city of Pittsburgh (PA) came from?

I will let "ya" know. First time I tried to scratch with my dirty nails in the history of that city, which was risen on the banks of two rivers, at the "pointe" where one of them, tired of having taken care of its waters for a so long way, gets rid of them into the other, I tried first to know the people's opinions. So I accosted the first person I ran across and asked him:

"Excuse me, sir, do you know anything about “Pittssburgh?”"

His answer came in a rush.

”Pittssburgh? Pittssburgh? What the heck is that?" (Well, he did not say exactly as quoted here, but more or less, I do not want to have any problem with the censorship, you understand.

You know? That ending “h” in the name of the city. It has been taken away and put back so often, that, at one point in the history of the city it was about becoming national "rock-'n'-roll" champion.

This city, which foundations are in the place where the ancient Fort Du Quesne used to be, was first named by my old friend General John Forbes (well, old today, I mean, then we were young, handsome men, think it was running the year of 1,758.)

It had happened that, one upon a time, George Washington (or George Washington D.C., as I do not ever remember his family name) had passed nearby years ago, and in his memories there was one reminding him how marvelous place was that place for fishing.

That guy was terribly capricious, he had to get everything he liked. He did not care about waiting for it more or less time, but he finally had to get it.

But the place was already occupied. The French and its allies the Indians had had the same idea. But they were very noisy and a bit recalcitrant. George who, by the way, was very clever thought: “Well, let’s think that I start fishing, and then those guys start making noises, ones singing “La Marseillese”, the others dancing the rain dance". I will then tell them: “Hey! Stop making noises. You are frightening the fish off!”

"But, how the deuce ...?" I do not know French at all, far from it Delawarean or any of the Iroquoian dialects. Then they will do some grimaces as the one unable to understand a word, and will continue to make noises. The fish will go away and I will have wasted my time. Hell! He started thinking, and thinking, and ..., and three years later he got it. The big idea came to his mind.

"Eureka, eureka, I got it!” he was shouting while jumping back and forth the green fields of his natal Virginia. “I will send Johnnie there (John Forbes). As he knows French he will ask them very politely to go to any other place to horse around while I am fishing there".

And so he did.

Johnnie left for that place and was so tired when he arrived in it that he tried to take a short nap before carrying the transcendental mission his boss had entrusted him.

He lied beneath a tree trying to get to sleep, but he could not because of the noise the French and Indians were making.

He got up very irritated and screamed loudly:

"HO!* This BURG is the PICKS*"

The French and their allies, the Indians, got away in a hurry scared to death of the loud tone of his voice, giving possession of the fort to Forbes’ forces which, at the same time could not understand what they were hearing.

This surprising fact made the phrase to pass from mouth to mouth making that place to be known as “Picksburg” from then on. A “Picksburg” variation of every where else’s “y’all” or an funny contraction of “you ones” but “”yunz” is singular having “yunzes” reserved for the plural. Amazing, “ain’t” it?

(*) Well, he did not simply said “HO!” (Note from the author.)

(*)The PICKs” is an old exclamation barely heard nowadays but very common then to refer to a place where, for any reason, sleeping was strictly forbidden from 7-9 A.M. and from 4-6 P.M, Mon. thru Fri. Left side sleeping only. (Note from the author.)

(*) Also a derivative from “picking the nose”. (Note from the author.)

 And now for real:

General John Forbes named the city in honor of William Pitt, the Elder. After obliging the French to burn and abandon Fort Du Quesne, on Nov, 25th, 1758, taking possession of it on Nov, 26th, 1758.

The letter to Pitt states in part:

Pittsbourgh, 27th Novemr. 1758.

Sir,

... So give me leave to congratulate you upon this great Event, of having totally expelled the French from this prodigious tract of Country, and of having reconciled the various tribes of Indians inhabiting it to His Majesty’s Government.

...I have used the freedom of giving your name to Fort Du Quesne, as I hope it was in some measure the being actuated by your spirits that now makes us Masters of the place...

Burgh and bourgh are variants of “borough”, obsolete in ordinary English since the 17th Century, but continued in Scotland. General Forbes was a Scot.

The ending “h” in the name of the city has been taken away, and put back again for many times.

The last was in 1890, when the United States Board on Geographic Names decided that the final “h” was to be dropped in the names of all cities and towns ending in “burgh”. (Throughout the period 1890-1911 city ordinances and council minutes retained the “h”.) In 1911, after protest from citizens who wished to preserve the historic spelling, the United States Board on Geographic Names reversed its decision and restored the “h” to Pittsburgh.