Thursday

The dagger at the center of one of Pittsburgh's greatest ghost stories

This dagger -- now on display at the Senator John Heinz History Center -- was at the center not only of one of Pittsburgh's greatest ghost stories but of the biggest news story in America at the time it was used to try to kill a powerful steel magnate.

On the afternoon of July 23, 1892, while the greatest steel strike in American history was raging against the Carnegie Steel Company, an anarchist named Alexander Berkman burst into the downtown office of the man who ran the company, Henry Clay Frick -- "the most hated man in America" -- and shot him twice in the neck and stabbed him four times with this dagger.

Frick survived the attack, and Berkman later claimed his bullets failed to hit Frick in the head because he was blinded by light coming through the office window. The only problem is, there was no light coming through the window. Mr. Frick, by any measure the most level-headed of businessman, knew the real reason he survived -- and it had to do with a ghost.

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