National Aviary

Stories

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From 1826 to 1880, the Aviary’s location on the North Side was occupied by Western Penitentiary, the so-called sister to Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. The prison was alleged to be less brutal than its notorious counterpart.

The Aviary site touched American history again when, in August 1863, it was pressed into service to house Confederate prisoners of war.

Cavalrymen serving under Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan were captured after a 1,000-mile raid that ran from Tennessee to northeast Ohio. Ignoring orders from Robert E. Lee, Morgan and nearly 2,500 troops destroyed bridges, disrupted railways, and waged a campaign of terror, seizing food and supplies as they tore through the countryside. Morgan’s Raid made it farther north than any other Confederate incursion in the Civil War, ending with capture by Union forces about 40 miles from Pittsburgh. (Despite his defeat, Morgan’s Raid turned the Kentucky enslaver into a daring folk legend, though his memorial in Lexington was relocated in 2018.)

More than 100 of “Morgan’s Men” were held in Western Penitentiary, with various accounts of deaths that winter and an escape attempt. A list of the “rebel prisoners” names was published in the Daily Pittsburgh Gazette, noting almost all were officers hailing from Kentucky. The soldiers were transferred to a New Jersey military fort seven months later, “well-clothed” and “looking hale and hearty,” the Pittsburgh Gazette wrote, in March 1864.

Since its opening and reopening (which also required unearthing a subterranean dungeon), people have experienced odd happenings in the building. In Haunted Western Pennsylvania, Patty A. Wilson reports Aviary staff have seen “shadowy figures that dart around” and heard “phantom footsteps through the halls” and banging noises in the basement. Birds react to unseen phenomena. Radios malfunction. In the 2013 book, Wilson recounts an oft-repeated story from a staff member who was preparing birds’ food in the morning and saw a radio flip on by itself, its dial moving “as if a ghostly hand was turning it.”

Added by: sdonley on 03/30/2025 DB#: 1693
Source(s): https://www.pghcitypaper.com/specials-guides/ghost...

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