...as the house Thomas was living at with his daughter, son in law and grandchildren was for miners I wonder if it would have been a 1 storey house or a 2 storey house? The 1900 census does not give obvious details on the street the house was down, just North fayette Township Ward 5. I assume many of the roads were not named or the enumerator did not enter the name of the roads.
Hi Ben: Unfortunately, it's impossible for me to tell you what sort of housing Thomas Musgrave lived in at the time of the 1900 U.S. census. If you have access to the actual census page on which he was enumerated, you might be able to tell something about his housing status from the number of people with whom he was counted. On the left of the census page, entries are numbered in two or three ways. Look at the column heading at the top of the page (they read sideways) and you might be able to figure out when one dwelling and its occupants ends and the next one begins.
Street, road, and avenue names are also frequently written in the far left margin of the census page (reading sideways). If you can see the census page on Ancestry, you might have to click through to preceding or following pages to find any names. If you find any street or road names and can post them, I might be able to track the location down with my Pennsylvania Atlas.
If you want to see what some more-recently built (since the 1910s or 1920s) miners' housing looks like, you can go to
http://www.coalcampusa.com/westpa/index.html. You'll reach the page for mines in the Western Pennsylvania Coalfields. Click on the Pittsburgh Field, which includes Allegheny and Washington Counties.
On the map, directly under the word Pittsburgh, you'll see the Champion Mine. There is a possibility that is where Thomas Musgrave's son-in-law was employed. It is on the northeastern edge of McDonald.
As you scroll down, you can click around to various mines but you should look at the Morris Mine, which is close to McDonald, as is the Montour Mine No. 2.
You'll notice that the miners' houses in any particular village or town are identical to one another. Some are one-story, others two. The two-story houses frequently are duplexes, meaning two families living side by side. Many of the houses have been covered with white aluminum or vinyl siding. When they were built, they were wood frame. Later many of them were covered with asphalt shingles (flexible and rubbery). Those shingles were red, green, or yellow. Some looked like brickwork, while others had a hexagonal shape. The aluminum after 1948, when the state of Pennsylvania forced mining companies to sell their housing. Usually the occupants bought them.
Let me know if you find anything on the street names.
Regards,
John
http://patheoldminer.rootsweb.ancestry.com