Robert Pitcairn

The Pitcairn family home was at the corner of Ellsworth and Amberson avenues in the Shadyside section of Pittsburgh.

Pitcairn's first job was as a messenger boy for the Eastern Telegraph Company where he worked alongside future steel magnate Andrew Carnegie.

In 1853, when Carnegie left to work for the Pennsylvania Railroad, he got Pitcairn a job as a ticket agent at the Mountain House at Hollidaysburg, from there he was transferred to Altoona.

The club, founded by Henry Clay Frick and composed of wealthy Pittsburgh industrialists including Carnegie, Andrew Mellon and Philander Knox, owned the South Fork Dam which collapsed on May 31, 1889, causing the Johnstown Flood.

[3] While serving as superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Pitcairn was instrumental in implementing a policy that every worker who had been with the company at least 25 years should be pensioned upon reaching the age of 70.