Sportsmen's Association of Western Pennsylvania

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Sportsmen’s Association of Western Pennsylvania

Although South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club member Benjamin Ruff protested that the title “Sportsmen’s Association of Western Pennsylvania” was incorrect when reviewing testimony regarding the dam vis a vis the Flood, the fact remains that just such an organization not only existed but persisted for at least six years following the Flood. Although Club members abandoned the Lake Connemagh location after the disaster (after all there was not much reason to return to a dry lake bed and to repair it would have caused undue attention) the Club continued at a Pittsburgh location, Sixth and Smithfield Streets.

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“The Pittsburgh and Allegheny Blue Book of 1895" (Volume 9) lists, on page 21 and 22, the Sportsmen’s Association of Western Pennsylvania with 244 members. 34 of them are members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. The clubs are likely one and the same, by 1895 “all grown up” and filled out with other leading Pittsburghers.

Because there has been inadequate documentation about Andrew Carnegie’s membership of the S F F & H C, it is noteworthy that Andrew Carnegie is listed as one of the 1895 members of the Sportsmen’s Association of Western Pennsylvania. By that time Carnegie had more or less abandoned Pittsburgh for New York and his summers in Scotland. There would have been scant reason for him to belong to a Western Pennsylvania club unless he had been a member for some time, and his membership in the club persisted long after he ceased to call Pittsburgh his home.

Here are the members of the Sportsmen’s Association of Western Pennsylvania (1895) who were also members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club:

James W Brown
John Caldwell Jr
Andrew Carnegie
John W. Chalfant
Charles J Clarke
W T Dunn
A French
H C Frick
W F Fundenberg
John A Harper
Howard Hartley
Henry Holdship
A V Holmes
Durbin Horne
Lewis Irwin
P C Knox
J H Lippincott
F T McClintock
W L McClintock
W A McIntosh
H Sellers McKee
Andrew W Mellon
M K Moorhead
D C Phillips
H Phipps, Jr

Robert Pitcairn
B F Ruff
C B Shea
Benj Thaw
Calvin Wells
Jas B White
J Wilcox
W K Woodwell
H C Yeager