To Millie Pipman, the key to a missing piece of area history lies within a pioneer cabin in Upper Burrell.
If it was even there in the first place.
Pipman, a member of the Massy Harbison-Fort Hand Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, is working with the Tri-City Historical Society to gather information about the “Massy Harbison Cabin” in front of the Girl Scout Little House, across from Valley High School.
Massy Harbison was a pioneer woman who, in the 1790s, was taken hostage by Native Americans from her home in what is now the River Forest area of Allegheny Township.
“She may have lived there at some point, but that is not proven,” said Pipman of New Kensington. “The DAR group is hoping to find a photo of when it was built or reassembled in Upper Burrell. That would lend, for me personally, a lot of credibility.”
In 1959, the now-defunct Fort Crawford Association learned that a pioneer cabin, near Butler at Kearns Crossroads, was going to be demolished since the Route 422 Bypass was being constructed, Pipman said.
That cabin, historians say, was believed to be occupied by Harbison toward the end of her life.
Massy was 22 and several months pregnant with her fourth child when she was taken hostage. Two of her young sons were murdered and she clung onto her third as she was forced across the Allegheny River toward a Native American encampment near present-day Butler.
Some 140 years later, the Fort Crawford Association planned to build a replica of Fort Crawford and the 1777 frontier fort at a 92-acre parcel in Upper Burrell. The site is near Whitten Hollow and Turkey Ridge roads on property owned by New Kensington.
As the Route 422 Bypass was being constructed, the Fort Crawford Association asked crews to dismantle the cabin and give it to them so they could reassemble it, Pipman said.
“We know it was moved from Butler,” Pipman said. “Was it only in storage or was it actually constructed in McCrady Park?”
“The Fort Crawford Association didn’t really start moving with a replica of Fort Crawford. I’m thinking the cabin was in a state of disarray.”
The cabin would have been in Upper Burrell from around 1959 to 1976, Pipman believes.
In 1976, then-New Kensington Mayor Verle Bevan asked the Fort Crawford Association to move the cabin to the newly established Massy Harbison Park on Stevenson Boulevard to celebrate the country’s bicentennial.
The association agreed and that’s where the cabin remains today, Pipman said.
Pipman asks people with information on the cabin’s existence in Upper Burrell to email tricityhistory@gmail.com.
“Even if we can’t make the Massy Harbison connection, it would be nice to have the full story and to piece the timeline together,” she said.
It’s difficult to find records, Pipman said. They could possibly be lost, missing or destroyed.
The DAR group seeks the information because it wants to repair the cabin and open it for educational ventures. New Kensington City Council on Monday approved requesting statewide grants to restore the cabin.
“We want to get it back to at least where it’s maintained,” said Sabulsky of Lower Burrell. “It definitely needs some TLC.”
Pipman hopes the venture can spur more educational discussions in history-rich New Kensington.
“Maybe people would become more aware of historic buildings in this area, and they’d be preserved, too,” she said.