Behind the Art: Picnic in Monroeville's McMaster Grove

At Monroeville Public Library, several century-old, framed photographs are on display.

One of these intriguing, enlarged black-and-white photos, also featured in a book by Marilyn Grace Truan Chandler, is titled “Picnic in McMaster Grove: Circa 1900.” Below the title, it reads, “Judge Haymaker pictured in light suit with napkin.”

Shaded with many oak trees, the 30-acre McMaster Grove was known for its yearly “Harvest Homecoming,” where locals came to visit friends and neighbors.

“The farmers got out and got busy and got the grass cut and all the weeds out, and they would put up swings for the youngsters. Everybody brought food and it was just a community day,” the Sarah (Sylves) Thompson recalled for a Monroeville Historical Society oral history project.

In this photograph, Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge C. John Haymaker is seen standing toward the back in a light- colored suit.

McMaster Grove

In the center of Monroeville’s 20 square miles was originally an expanse of land that was part of a grant to William Beatty in the early 1800s. The property was transferred to the Dan McMaster family when he wed Margaret Beatty in the late 1800s. According to Chandler’s book, “Hamlet to Highways: A History of Monroeville, Pennsylvania,” which was published in 1988, the southeastern portion of land was named McMaster Grove.

The grove was destroyed during World War I when coal was stripped from the land. In 1947, the Patton School directors bought the land for $15,000 in the hopes of building a school.

Today, this particular parcel is known as Monroeville’s Miracle Mile, where the strip mall by the same name sits.

“The new shopping center was the biggest of its kind between New York and Chicago when it opened in November, 1954,” according to a brief history of Monroeville written by Louis Chandler. “Life in Monroeville changed forever with the coming of the Miracle Mile, as a rural village was launched on its way to becoming a major commercial center.”

The book

How the library acquired Chandler’s book, which includes a photo of the picnic grove, is an intriguing story.

According to Alice Rathjen, head of public relations for the library, the hardcover was extracted from a library time capsule in 1989. Photographs and artwork in the book are attributed to Chandler’s husband, Clair Burdette Chandler.

On the title page, there is a handwritten message from the Chandlers that reads, “We wish we could be there when this is opened to see if Monroeville changed as much in the next 25 years as it did in the last 25 years.”

The photos remain on display at the library, 4000 Gateway Campus Blvd.