Name-a-Day Calendar, January 19: Duquesne Dukes
Page 74 of 365
Chosen in: 1911
Chosen by: The university community
It might be news to you that Duquesne University isn’t just Duquesne University: it’s Duquesne University of the Holy Spirit. That trailing epithet harkens back to the school’s early days: it was founded in 1879 as the Pittsburgh Catholic College of the Holy Ghost.
In 1911, the college became a university and assumed its current name in honor of Michel-Ange Du Quesne de Menneville, Marquis Duquesne, who served as governor of New France from 1752–1755. France’s primary objective in North America at this time was to trade furs in the Ohio River valley; Marquis Duquesne continued serving this objective by sending a military officer (whose name is almost irrelevant to this story)1 to build a fort at the point where the Ohio River forks into the Allegheny and the Monongahela.
The result was Fort Duquesne, the completion of which angered the British, who felt France was infringing on their territory. They’d try to attack it a couple times before officially declaring war on France in 1756 and launching a successful assault on the fort in 1758. The French, knowing they were outnumbered, destroyed their own fort and mostly retreated before the British even arrived. The British would then build Fort Pitt in more or less the same spot and that was that.
Did you notice how little Marquis Duquesne had to do with that story? He never even visited the fort named in his honor2 but, for some reason, the school was under the misconception that he “first brought Catholic observances to the City of Pittsburgh”, so he’s the one they named the university for.
Because of this switch, a marquis dressed in a top hat and sash became an unofficial symbol of the school’s sports teams. Not many people knew what a marquis was, so most people just called him a duke because, y’know, basically the same thing but in English. The catchy “Duquesne Dukes” became an instant hit.
These days, Duquesne’s logo looks nothing like a marquis.
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Claude-Pierre Pécaudy de Contrecœur
William Pitt the Elder, the namesake of Fort Pitt and thus also of Pittsburgh, also never stepped foot in the area. The whole city is a monument to false gods.
i used to pronounce duquesne as do-kwez-knee
"Not many people knew what a marquis was, so most people just called him a duke because, y’know, basically the same thing but in English." this is hilarious because the peerage of the united kingdom has its own marquises (well they're called marquesses but same difference).