Category: Commentary/Editorial, History || By

Last week, McKeesport Area School Board reversed its decision to name the new Seventh Ward elementary school after city founder John McKee.

The decision came after residents and alumni noted that McKee was a slaveholder. They felt --- with some justification --- that it would be borderline offensive to name a school after a slaveholder when a substantial percentage of children who will attend that school are descendants of former slaves.

This just proves that the school board needs to read Tube City Almanac. Last summer, I ran excerpts of Walter L. Riggs' "The Early History of McKeesport," which not only reported that McKee was a slaveholder, he was a mean dude who was disliked by his contemporaries.

In the vernacular of the day, McKee was what would have been called "sharp" --- meaning that he operated just barely inside the law. (Thus setting the standard in the Mon-Yough area for the next 200 years. I keed! I keed!)

. . .

The school board's replacement name is "Twin Rivers Elementary School." The new name --- obviously intended to be as inoffensive as possible --- was met on social media with a collective groan.

It says almost nothing about the McKeesport area, and besides being used by the Twin Rivers Council of Governments, "Twin Rivers" is used by literally a million other things in the United States, according to a quick Google search, including a casino, a car dealer and a golf course in Waco, Texas.

Nobody asked me, but the school board missed the boat. They could have honored people of color, native Americans, women and McKeesport's history, all at the same time.

They should have named the school for Queen Alliquippa.

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Queen Alliquippa (also spelled "Allequippa" and "Aliquippa") was a leader of the Seneca tribe during the 1700s.

Supposedly, she and her family were friends of William Penn --- founder and namesake of Pennsylvania --- and when he returned to England in 1701, Alliquippa was at the dock to see him leave.

Little else is known about her early life, but by the middle of the 18th century, Alliquippa was living in the McKeesport area, where she was queen of the Native Americans who lived along the Allegheny, Monongahela, Ohio and Youghiogheny rivers.

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When George Washington first visited what is now Western Pennsylvania in 1753, he met with Alliquippa near present-day McKeesport and the two became fast friends. She and her followers became allies of the British before the French and Indian War.

Although the Mingo Seneca did not take part in the battles, Alliquippa did send scouts to help Washington's troops at Fort Necessity in Fayette County.

Alliquippa nearly paid with her life for her decision to support the British and American colonists. When the British were routed by the French at Braddock's Field, Alliquippa and her followers were forced to flee east, to the present-day area of Altoona and Bedford. She died there in December 1754.

Her son, a Seneca known as "Newcastle," became an emissary between native Americans and the colonists. He died in 1756 while participating in peace talks in Philadelphia.

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This article in a publication called the Early America Review argues that "without Aliquippa the American Revolution might not have taken place," noting that her decisions "had great influence over Native Americans as well as the French and the British."

That seems like a bit of a stretch, though she was undoubtedly important to the early settlement of the McKeesport and Pittsburgh areas.

Although the city of Aliquippa in Beaver County is named for her, it was reportedly named by the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad, and there is nothing that actually connects Queen Alliquippa to that area.

There also is a state historical marker in McKeesport's Highland Grove neighborhood that talks about her life.

. . .

So here was a woman of color who was an important (and obviously respected) leader during an era when women often weren't allowed to have leadership roles. And she was a friend of George Washington, for whom one of McKeesport's existing elementary schools is already named.

Isn't it obvious? The new Seventh Ward school should be named for Queen Alliquippa. Yes, there is an "Aliquippa School District" in Beaver County, but there's a Cornell School District in Coraopolis, and few people ever confused it with the old Cornell Elementary School in McKeesport (which the new school will replace).

Besides, this school wouldn't be named "Aliquippa," it would be named "Queen Alliquippa." (It also could be named the "McKeesport Queen Alliquippa Elementary School," of course, to eliminate any confusion.)

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The board should scrap the bland, boring "Twin Rivers" name and give McKeesport a name of real royalty. By honoring Queen Alliquippa, the McKeesport Area School Board would recognize the city's early history while looking toward its diverse, multi-ethnic future.

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