"Mount Lebanon Gets a Name"

by Wallace F. Workmaster

 
 
A major mountain range in a region of the once-mighty Ottoman Empire between the Mediterranean Sea and the Bekaa Valley, on the slopes of which Cedar of Lebanon trees grow natively, provided the inspiration for the name of Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvania.

Today, Mount Lebanon is one of the four geographic regions in the Republic of Lebanon and it is a major governmental administrative region.  

The cedar forests of Lebanon are considered to be the oldest documented forests in history since they are mentioned in Sumerian cuneform writings and the names of Lebanon and its mountain range were used by King Nebuchednezzar of Babylonia.

In the ancient world, products from the Cedars of Lebanon often were used for special purposes.  Kings, emperors, priests, and shipbuilders coveted them as valuable commodities and their export to Egypt by the Phoenicians was described early in the Third Millennium, BC.  Their oil was used to anoint, their pitch was a remedy for toothaches, their sawdust was used in mummification or to keep snakes away, and their wood was fashioned into furniture, chests, ceremonial barges, palaces, temples, and sarcophagi.*

Cedar of Lebanon trees also are mentioned frequently in the Bible and at least part of the Temple of Solomon was built from their wood.  Babylonians, Assyrians, Greeks, Persians, Macedonians, and Romans in turn avidly sought wood from trees that symbolized beauty, strength, endurance, and pride.

About 1850, the Rev. Joseph Clokey, the fourth minister of the Associate Reformed Congregation of Saw Mill Run (in 1858, St. Clair United Presbyterian Church and, in 1919, the Mount Lebanon United Presbyterian Church) made a trip to the Near East.  He returned with two small Cedar of Lebanon trees which he planted in the front yard of his home off Bower Hill Road.**
 
Most of the residents of the surrounding area attended Mr. Clokey's church and he must have informed his congregation of the Biblical associations of Cedars of Lebanon as well as their place of origin.  The relatively prominent hill, once mistakenly thought to be the highest in Allegheny County, upon which Mr. Clokey's church, nearby residence, and his two Cedar of Lebanon trees stood undoubtedly contributed to the choice of the name for the first post office in the area.
 
The name for the new post office and, ultimately, for the surrounding geographic area was not derived from Mr. Clokey's two Cedar of Lebanon trees, but rather from the mountainous area where Cedars of Lebanon originally grew natively.***  
 
The first official use in this area of the name "Mount Lebanon" discovered to date appears to have occurred when Joseph T. McKnight was appointed as the first local postmaster by President Franklin Pierce on May 25, 1855.
 
Located for many years in a general store at the intersection of Washington and Bower Hill Roads, the Mount Lebanon Post Office was closed in November, 1901, when Rural Free Delivery service was extended to the area, but streetcar service to and from Pittsburgh had been initiated on July 1 of that year and the transition of Mount Lebanon from rural countryside into a suburban community had begun.  The first subdivision, the "Mt. Lebanon Plan," was approved in November, 1901, only four months after the first streetcar arrived.
 
Another Mount Lebanon Post Office was opened in 1907 at Lusden B. Finley's drug store in a building that still stands next to the former Denis Theater on Washington Road.  By then, the name "Mount Lebanon" commonly was used to identify a considerable part of the eastern portion or Second District of Scott Township, which had been formed from part of Upper St. Clair Township in 1861.
 
A controversy arose in 1909 when people who lived or owned businesses along the axis of the old Pittsburgh & Washington Road (now West Liberty Avenue) north of McFarland Road wanted to use the name for a new borough they planned to incorporate.
 
Residents south of McFarland Road took the matter to court where it was found that neither of the two post offices which had used the name "Mount Lebanon" were within the boundaries of the proposed borough.  As a result, founders of the new borough were prohibited from using the name and a new one, Dormont, was devised for the intended borough.
 
When residents and business people in most of the eastern or Second District of Scott Township formed their own local government in 1912, it was designated the "Township of Mount Lebanon."  In Pennsylvania's governmental parlance of the time, it was classified as "a township of the first class."    
 
Until about 1975, it was preferred practice to use the name in its full form whenever space or time permitted, although it did appear in its contracted form with the abbreviation "Mt." instead of "Mount" in newspapers and other places.  An early example of the shortened form, "Mt.," appears in an 1878 timetable of the long-vanished Pittsburgh Southern Railroad.
 
The full form may be seen over the front door to the original section of the high school built in 1930, while it appears in its shortened form on the tower of the Municipal Building completed in the same year.  Students in the local school system were taught that the full form always should be used in formal writing or even on college application forms.
 
Spurred by various print media and the modern penchant for forms with inadequate short spaces, the local government officially adopted the abbreviation "Mt." in approximately 1975, although "Mount" continues to be found commonly on maps or in other places.  The Historical Society of Mount Lebanon chose to adopt the unabbreviated form of the word when it was established in 1998 to reflect the original official name of the community.
 
The word "Lebo" is a still more recent slang term that reportedly first was used by a sports writer in a local newspaper to save further space in his articles.  The term falls into the category of Pittsburghese.   
 
The term "Municipality of Mt. Lebanon" arose as a result of legislation by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the 1980's that permitted designation of "home rule" communities.
 
What's in a name?  In this case, it's a tradition running back to the mountain range known as "Mount Lebanon" thousands of miles away from where Mr. Clokey's trees once matured.
 
 
   *  Botanically speaking, there are four true species of cedar trees, including the Cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani), all of which originated in the Mediterranean region.  The others are the Atlas cedar (Cedrus atlantica), the Deodar cedar (Cedrus deodara), and the Cyprus cedar (Cedrus brevifolia).  The cone-shaped Japanese cedar, often seen in modern landscape plantings, is a "false cedar."  See Hugh Johnson, The International Book of Trees:  A Guide and Tribute to the Trees of Our Forests and Gardens (London:  Mitchell Beazley Publishers, Ltd., 1973), pp. 90 - 91. 
 
 **  The Emperor Hadrian made the first effort to protect Cedars of Lebanon in the Second Century, A.D.  Seedlings were imported into France and Great Britain in the 18th Century.  Lancelot "Capability" Brown, the eminent landscape gardener, frequently used them in his designs for large country estates.  Cedars of Lebanon mature slowly and require 40 years before they produce seeds;  therefore, the stands of trees in their original environment became badly depleted by those people seeking religiously related souvenirs, as Mr. Clokey did, and indiscriminate cutting.  In 1876, Queen Victoria provided a stone wall to protect the oldest grove and in 1880 the governor of the region issued a decree to prohibit removal of seeds or seedlings there.  Cutting of Cedars of Lebanon was continued elsewhere by the Ottoman Turks through World War I, particularly to fuel lime kilns and wood-burning locomotives, but it now is strictly prohibited and the Forest of the Cedars of God is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  A friends group has been established to safeguard the remaining Cedars of Lebanon in the Lebanese preserves.
 
***  Mr. Clokey's two Cedar of Lebanon trees stood until the 1950's or 60's when they were cut down because the local property owner feared limbs would be broken off or the trees would fall.  In Lebanon, similar trees are reputed to have lived for up to 3,000 years.  Wood from Mr. Clokey's two trees was used to make three gavels, one each for the Mount Lebanon Township Board of Commissioners, the Mount Lebanon United Presbyterian Church, and the Mount Lebanon Women's Club.