Gas lighting, a distinguished visitor and the start of one of the nation's worst economic depressions all came to Pittsburgh in spring 1837. However, it was May, not April, that turned out to be the cruelest month.

"Last night, for the first time, several of our city streets, many of our stores, &c, were lighted by gas," The Pittsburgh Gazette reported on April 6, 1837. "Although the evening was dull and gloomy, yet that portion of the city within the limits of the gas pipes laid down, was well lighted, and many of our citizens traversed the streets, gratified with the great improvement and addition to our comfort."

"We visited the Exchange Hotel, and found it most brilliantly lighted up ... The gas lights burn, certainly, with as much purity and brilliancy, as any that we have ever seen."

When Sen. Daniel Webster visited Pittsburgh the next month, the nation was ensnared in a credit crisis that was followed by a five-year depression. "A very general desire to hear his opinions in relation to the present distressing crisis in the pecuniary affairs of our country existed," the Gazette said on May 13.

Webster, famous for his oratorical skills, had split with former President Andrew Jackson and President Martin Van Buren, who had been inaugurated just two months earlier, over the issue of supporting a national bank.

During his stop in Pittsburgh, Webster was invited to speak at a "Public Entertainment" to be organized by more than three dozen merchants and politicians.

"Your kindness has awakened grateful and lively recollection of a former occasion on which I had the pleasure of meeting many of [Pittsburgh's] citizens, making their acquaintance, and of enjoying their hospitality," Webster replied. But he said no. "You will allow me, gentlemen, most respectfully, to decline the honor of a public dinner."

Several years earlier, Jackson had vetoed a measure to recharter the Second Bank of the United States. Jackson disliked this early version of a central bank, favoring instead what his enemies called his "pet" state banks.

Economists say that what became known as the Panic of 1837 had at least two causes. One was a federal policy requiring that most purchases of western lands be made with specie -- gold or silver money -- rather than bank notes. The second was a decision by the struggling Second Bank to call in many of its outstanding loans after Jackson withdrew federal deposits from the institution. The results were less credit, a shrinking money supply, business bankruptcies and rising unemployment.

Seeking to stop a "run" by depositors who would withdraw all their money, banks in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and other eastern cities stopped paying customers with gold and silver coinage. Within a few days, that policy spread to Pittsburgh.

On May 15, the Gazette reported on resolutions adopted at a public meeting in the Allegheny County Court House. "[U]nder the existing circumstances of commercial and manufacturing embarrassments, it has become expedient that the banks of this city, following the example already set them by the banking institutions of other great commercial cities in the Union, should suspend specie payments ..."

Merchants promised to "receive the notes of the Banks of Pittsburgh in all payments and business transactions ... and that we recommend to our fellow citizens in town and country to give them credit and circulation as fully as though they were paid in gold and silver on demand."

Not everybody was on board. The newspaper reported May 17 that the U.S. Postmaster General had ordered local postmasters "to take nothing but specie in payment for letters, &c, and he is directed not to make deposits in any of the Banks here, but to keep it in his own possession."

"Truly matters have come to a pretty pass, when every Deputy Postmaster in the country is to become a treasurer or keeper of public monies," The Gazette complained.

Local bankers were doing their own spinning in an effort to keep up public confidence in their bank notes.

"The following anecdote was this morning relayed by one of the officers of the Bank of Pittsburgh," the Gazette reported May 16. "Yesterday a stranger went up to the counter of the paying teller in that institution, and told him that he had from one to two hundred dollars in specie, for which he wished to get the notes of the Bank of Pittsburgh. ... The sense of justice and fair dealing of the teller recoiled at the thought of taking the specie for notes ... and after consultation with another officer of the institution, he informed the applicant that the bank had stopped paying specie."

"Still the applicant persisted in his wish to exchange his specie for the notes of the bank."

However dubious the story, that anonymous depositor's confidence was well placed. The Bank of Pittsburgh survived the Panic of 1837, and continued to do business until 1931, when it closed during the Great Depression.