History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 62

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1358

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One of the interesting reminiscences of his student life with Agassiz may not improperly be given herc. It was in the summer of 1855 or 1856, while spend- ing his vacation at the private laboratory which was attached to Agassiz's summer residence at Nahant, that one day, after dinner, the professor appeared in the laboratory, holding a letter in his hand which he had just received, and exhibiting evidence of some pleasurable excitement in his countenance. The letter was an autograph note from Louis Napoleon, which, beginning with "You are a Frenchman," tendercd him the chair of paleontology in the Jardin des Plantes, the highest scientific position in the gift of France; also a scat in the French Senate. It was a pardonable pride which lit up his countenance, but he did not hesitate a moment to reject such extra- ordinary honors, and his reply was immediately trans- mitted to the emperor. Ile declined the offer in such terms as were due to so distinguished a patron of science, and begged to assure the emperor that while it was true his ancestors were Frenchmen, he was a native of Switzerland, and still remained a citizen of that republic, and that he had come to America to spend the remainder of his days, pursuant to a reso- lution immutably decided on years before.

During some months in 1859, Mr. Harrison was en- gaged under the State geologist, Professor Swallow, in tho geological survey of Missouri, and in 1871 he was appointed by Governor B. Gratz Brown a member of the board of managers of the Missouri Geological Survey, and continued to be reappointed and to hold the office until the end of the survey, under the in- cumbency of Governor Hardin.

From 1860 to 1862, Mr. Harrison lived in New Mexico as a Santa Fé merchant. Since 1865 he has been the president of various manufacturing and mining companies and other institutions, including the Iron Mountain Company, Laclede Rolling-Mills (Chouteau, Harrison & Vallé Iron Company), St. Louis Smelting and Refining Company, the Manu- facturers' and Miners' Association, Mercantile Library Association, St. Luke's Hospital Association, Mis- souri Historical Society, and others. He is also a director and actively interested in the Carbondale Coal and Coke Company and its associated lincs of railroad in Southern Illinois, in the Harrison Wire-Works, the St. Louis Fair Association, and the Hope and Granite Mining Companies, whose valuable mines are located in Montana.

In 1867, before the founding of the city of Lead- ville, he, in the interest of the St. Louis Smelting and Refining Company, visited the famous California Gulch (on which the city is now loeatcd), and de-

termincd to erect smelting-works there. This con- clusion becoming known produced a rush of fortune- hunters, who located around the site he had selected for the furnaces, and before the Harrison Reduction- Works (whosc erection he superintended in person) were completed, which was during the summer of that year, a population of several thousand adventurous souls had concentrated and named the town Lead- ville, because of the extensive discoveries of lead-bear- ing silver orcs made in the neighborhood.

Mr. Harrison was made a Freemason in Montc- zuma Lodge, Santa Fé, in 1861. He is now a mem- ber of the Benevolent Order of Elks, and of the St. Louis Legion of Honor. He has been a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and of the St. Louis Academy of Sciences for twenty-five years, and is also a member of the American Association of Mining Engineers, and other societies of that character, and various clubs.

Having enjoyed educational advantages of large ex. tent and variety, it is proper to add that Mr. Harri- son has proved one of the most intelligent and public- spirited citizens of St. Louis. Most of his enter- prises have involved the employment of large bodies of men, and have embraced the solution of some in- teresting problems of transportation, particularly during the early days of Leadville. In this direction he has donc much to advanee the interests of this city, and has assisted others in doing much. Philanthropic and educational enterprises have found him a sympa- thetic and generous patron. For some years he has been a director of Washington University; and in 1878-79, his attention having been called to the de- sirability of incorporating the manual feature in edu- eation, he is said to have built and given to the uni- versity the building now occupied by the " Manual Training-School," and has been intrusted with the chairmanship of the board of managers of the school.

Mr. Harrison was married Nov. 13, 18:3, to Miss Laura E. Sterne, of Glasgow, Mo. Two children, James and Louise, make up the family.

Mr. Harrison is a gentleman of tall physique and affable manners, and of a benevolent and enterprising disposition. He is unassuming and undemonstrative in his daily life, and is a modest recipient of the honors bestowed upon him so freely by his fellow-citizens. In social life he is esteemed by a very large circle of friends, who have learned to appreciate and esteem the sterling qualitics which have caused him not only to be loved at his own fireside, but also admired and respected among his business associates as one of the most worthy citizens of St. Louis.

The Republican of Feb. 19, 1845, announced that

Edwin Harrison

LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY ... NOUS.

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"the company who now own this important mass of iron ore (Iron Mountain) have commenced operations in the erection of furnaces, and will in the course of the present year be fully under way," and on the 30th of October, 1846, the same paper added that " the first shipment of pig-iron from the Iron Mountain Company's works in this State, about four and a half tons, was received here Wednesday per steamer ' Men- dota.' It was taken by Messrs. Gaty, McCune & Glasby, at whose foundry its quality will be tested. The works now in progress will, when fully completed, as we are informed, run from sixteen to twenty tons of pig-iron per day, and the supply of ore is inex- haustible."

On the 14th of the following November it was stated that " on Wednesday some pig-iron from the Iron Mountain in this State was for the second time tested, and that very thoroughly, at the foundry of Messrs. Kingsland & Lithner, of this city. It was found to be very malleable and easily filed, and was pronounced equal in all respects to the best Tennessee iron."

In 1853 the total consumption of coal was put down at two million eight hundred and thirty-seven thousand eight hundred and eighteen bushels,-one hundred and thirteen thousand five hundred tons,- of which only twelve thousand tons was used in the iron manufacture. But Mr. Hogan, writing at this time, was strenuously urging his fellow-citizens to press forward the iron industry and make the profit out of it which other communities were reaping the benefit of with resources not near so great.

" No country in the world," he showed, "of the same extent has so abundant and accessible supply of iron as Missouri .... " I say that our State and city should have the most extensive iron manufactures in the United States, and as evidence thereof it is only necessary to instance some of the vast formations of this metal in our State. And first of these formations I notice the Iron Mountain, situated in St. Francis County, about eighty miles south of St. Louis. This is one of the most won- derful metalliferous formations in the world, and, with the other vast bodies in its immediate vicinity, is worthy of the investi- gation of all lovers of science, all students of nature. The ore of the Iron Mountain covers an area of some five hundred acres, and is in the centre of a possession of twenty thousand " arpens belonging to the same parties. It rises to a height of some two hundred and sixty fect above the general level of the country, and is estimated to contain above the surface over two hundred million tons of ore. Here is an objeet for laborers that is capable of supplying the demands even of English furnaces for generations without going below the general surface of the country. The ore is found in lumps from the size of pebbles of a few ounees to those of two or three hundred pounds in weight, and is gathered from the surface from base to summit to the extent of thousands of tons without any difficulty. The ore of this mountain, and, indeed, of those contiguous, is known as the specular oxide, and usually yields some sixty-eight to seventy per cent. of pure iron, and it is so free from injurious substances

as to present no obstacle to working it directly into blooms. The metal is so excellent that much of it, and also that from the Pilot Knob, is now used by the manufacturers on the Ohio for mixing with the ores found there, and is especially esteemed for making nails. There are now in operation at the mountain two blast furnaces, producing from one hundred to one hundred and twenty tons per month; a third one is building, and will soon be working, estimated to be capable of making sixty to seventy tons per week, which, when all completed, will produec from seven thousand to seven thousand five hundred tons of metal annually.

" These furnaces, as also the mountain and its complement of timber land, belong to Messrs. Chouteau, Harrison & Vallé, the owners also of the extensive rolling-mill in the upper part of the eity. They do not eontemplate the erection of any more furnaces at the mountain, but they expect to have in the south- ern part of the city both furnaces and forges on the completion of the Iron Mountain Railroad, and will bring up the ore, where they ean have an abundant supply of coal with which to manufacture it. The amount of ore above the surface would seem to preclude the necessity of looking any deeper, nor, in- decd, except as a matter of geological investigation, will it probably ever be necessary; yet the enterprising proprietors have been making some experiments in order to test the nature of the foundation on which their superstructure stands. . And as the public may have some curiosity on this subject, and with a view of exemplifying the greatness of our mineral wealth, I have obtained the result of the borings made by their order alongside the base of the mountain. The shaft has already been sunk to the depth of one hundred and forty-four feet. In that distanee they have fifteen feet of clay and ore, thirty fect of white sandstone, thirty-three feet of blue porphyry, and fifty- three feet of pure iron ore, in which they are still at work. How much thieker this vein is, of course, can only be known in the progressive investigation, but this is sufficient; the balance of the distance is composed of narrow layers of rock and gravel. Thus we see partly what is below the surface to the depth of only one hundred and forty-four feet ; and this bed of iron ore would itself be immensely valuable, even if there was none above.

. " Next to the ' Iron Mountain,' and only some six or eight miles farther from St. Louis, is another very remarkable forma- tion known as the 'Pilot Knob,' which is also of iron. The Knob covers about the same area as the Mountain, but is more elevated ; it is eonieal, and rises some seven hundred feet above the general surface, and is visible for many miles in every di- rection.

" The Pilot Knob is the property of Mr. Lewis V. Bogy and others, incorporated as the ' Madison Iron-Mining Company.' They own some twenty-five thousand acres of land, including the Knob, the Shepherd Mountain, and some eight other valu- able iron deposits, all in the same vicinity in Madison County, some eighty-five or ninety miles south of St. Louis, on the line of the Iron Mountain Railroad.

" These several deposits, although in the immediate vicinity of each other, materially differ in their characteristies, and produce iron adapted to various purposes, and each of them dissimilar in some particulars from the metal at the Iron Moun- tain, so that very good quality of iron may be easily produced in Missouri by such admixtures as may be found desirable.

" The Madison Company have now at work four stcam-en- gines; one of these is used to operate a saw-mill, the others are connected with the iron-works. They have now in operation one blast furnaec, and are building another on a more extended scale. When this is completed they will make some twenty tons of metal per day. They have also a forge working eight fires, and making blooms dircet from the ore, about twenty-five

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tons per week, and also making some bar-iron. The ore is quarried out of the side of the hill some three hundred feet above the surface, and now presents the remarkable appear- ance of an iron wall, some fifty feet high by about two hundred feet long, and the ore of same richness rises as high as the top, and doubtless sinks deep beneath the foundation of the Knob."

Professor Swallow, State geologist of Missouri, says of the iron-fields of this State that

"if Missouri will work up her iron and coal she may become as powerful and rich as England. She has more territory and better soil, more and better iron, and quite as much coal.

"People who work iron partake of its strong and hardy nature. They move the world and shape its destinies. The re- gion tributary to St. Louis has far more of the very best varieties of iron ore than can be found available for any other locality in the known world, and the facilities for working these vast deposits are unsurpassed. The country is well watered, timber is abundant, and all is surrounded by inexhaustible eoal-beds. These facts alone will make St. Louis the great iron mart of the country."

In commenting upon the various ores and oxides of this metal accessible to Missouri, he says of the specular oxide of iron that it is one of the most abundant and valuable ores in the State. Iron Moun- tain is the largest mass observed. It is two hundred feet high and covers an area of five hundred aeres, and is made up almost entirely of this ore in its purest form. The quantity above the surface of the valley is estimated at two hundred million tons. But this is only a fraction of the ore here, as it descends to unknown depths, and every foot of the descent will yield some three million tons. Veins of this ore eut the porphyry at the shut-in, the location of the first iron furnace erected in this region. Fine beds of this ore were also found at the Buford ore-bed at the Big Bogy Mountains, at Russell Mountain, at the James Iron-Works, and other localities in Phelps County, and in sections two, three, ten, and eleven of township thirty-five, range four, west in Dent County, on the Southwest Pacific Railroad, and in several other localities in that county. There are several important deposits in Crawford, Phelps, and Pulaski Counties.

The silicious specular oxide exists in vast quantity and very pure in Pilot Knob, interstratified with slates and porphyry. The Shepherd Mountain abounds in magnetic and specular oxide. Pilot Knob and Iron Mountain, it is estimated, could furnish a million tons of manufactured iron per annum for two hundred years, all suitable for casting, for Catalan blooms, and Bessemer steel.

Bog iron abounds in the swamps of Southeast Missouri.

Hematite ores are generally distributed .over the southern part of the State, enough to supply many generations.

Spathic ore, very pure, is found in numerous large beds among the tertiary deposits.

Adjoining States possess large iron deposits imme- diately available for the industries of St. Louis.

But the most extensive iron-bed yet observed is . on the Missouri River, eropping out in the bluffs on both banks of the river for a distance of more than twenty-five miles. These beds are on the river, and many million tons could be mined and put on boats for less than one dollar per ton, and the expense of. carrying to St. Louis down stream would be very small.

Other localities might be mentioned, but we have shown the position of enough of the various varieties of iron ore to supply any possible demand of any possible manufacturing eity for the next thousand years, and all is so located as to be tributary to St. Louis.

"The simple fact that such quantities of iron ore do exist," says Professor Swallow, " so near, and in places so accessible, will compel this young and vigorous eity to become the iron mart. The iron furnaces at Iron Mountain, Pilot Knob, Iron- dale, Moselle Works, James Works, St. Louis, and Carondelet, fifteen in all, with a capacity of one hundred and thirty thou- sand tons, and two rolling-mills with a capacity of forty thou- sand tons, and the numerous foundries and machine-shops, are the growth of a few years, a mere beginning of the great work of utilizing our iron ores. These will increase in a rapid ratio until a hundred furnaces pour forth the molten metal, a seore of mills roll it into rails and bars and plates, and a hundred foundries mould it into the ten thousand shapes and forms de- manded by human industry. Then shall we see the millenium of iron men, and our people be prepared to appreciate the value of our iron-beds."

This was written in 1870, sinee which date the pre- dietion has in part been realized.

One of the most active and energetie spirits in the development of the Iron Mountain property was the late distinguished merehant and valued citizen Jules Vallé. Mr. Vallé was the grandson of Col. Jean Baptiste Vallé, Sr., the last Spanish and French eom- mandant of the port of Ste. Genevieve, in Upper Louis- iana, and was the son of John B. Vallé, Jr., of the firm of Menard & Vallé, the oldest house in the Mis- sissippi valley. He was born in Ste. Genevieve, Mo., Jan. 15, 1819, and graduated in 1840 or 1841 at the Catholic Theologieal Seminary ealled the " Barrens," located near Perryville, Mo. Shortly afterwards he was, despite his youth, appointed superintendent of Vallé's mines, in St. François County, Mo., which position he filled about two years. He then became associated with his unele, Felix Janis, in the dry- goods business at Ste. Genevieve, the firm bearing the name of Janis & Vallé, successors to the old house of Menard & Vallé. On the 17th of January, 1843, he

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was married to Miss Isabella Sargent, of Ste. Gene- vieve. In 1852, having become one of the owners of the Iron Mountain Company, he removed to St. Louis to take the position of seeretary of the eom- pany, and shortly afterwards was elected viee-president. He was also a partner in the firm of Chouteau, Har- rison & Vallé, and at the death of James Harrison in 1870 became president of the Iron Mountain and Chouteau, Harrison & Vallé Companies. He also originated the scheme for the organization of what became the Vulean Steel-Works, in Carondelet. When he became connected with the Iron Mountain Com- pany the annual produet was only three thousand tons of iron, and when he died it was three hundred and fifty thousand tons. As one of the pioneers in develop- ing the mineral resources of the Iron Mountain region, he performed inestimable services to Southeastern Mis- souri, and his labors naturally tended to the immediate advantage of St. Louis, in whose prosperity he took a deep interest, as was shown on numerous oeeasions when her interests seemed at stake. He was a diree- tor in the Meehanies' Bank and the St. Louis Mutual Insurance Company.

Mr. Vallé was a gentleman of generous impulses and social disposition. He died Mareh 3, 1872, leaving a wife and seven ehildren.

In 1856, Henry Cobb1 estimated the yearly pro- duets of the iron manufactures of St. Louis as aver- aging $5,000,000, and stated that there were thirty iron-works in St. Louis; that the five oldest works, viz. : Mississippi Foundry of Gaty, MeCune & Co., Broad- way Foundry of Kingsland & Cuddy, Eagle Foundry of Clark, Renfrew & Co., Empire Stove-Works of Bridge & Brother, and Excelsior Stove-Works of Giles F. Filley, together employed 870 men, and paid for wages $450,000 ; that the value of their products was $1,900,000, and that the thirty iron-works of St. Louis employed 2266 men, and paid wages amounting to $1,000,000.

Notwithstanding the vast eoal and iron deposits contiguous to the eity of St. Louis, the development of the iron interest is of comparatively reeent date. The great difficulty that impeded the iron furnace business was in the character of the eoal. The his- tory of the Carondelet Furnace will illustrate the em- barrassments and disappointments which attended the smelting business. This furnace was ereeted in 1864, near the first station in Carondelet. When finished it was leased in November, 1864, to A. M. Brown, of Pennsylvania, who ran it for three months, using a coal got out at Dry Hill, St. Louis Co. The iron

produeed was poor and meagre in quantity ; the enter- prise did not pay and was abandoned, and the furnace lay idle till some time in 1866, when it was leased by J. H. MeKernan, of Indianapolis, who commeneed running it with a eoal taken up at a place ealled Bra- zil, in Indiana. It was operated for six months with indifferent sueeess by MeKernan, and in January, 1867, Mr. Lilly, of Pennsylvania, bought an interest, and the furnace was kept going by them till July, 1868. Then Lilly sold out to T. A. MeNair and Wil- liam Speer, who took hold of it with an energy that showed a determination to work out the problem of its eapaeity to make iron. MeNair caused several changes to be made in the furnace, which, although Mr. MeNair was not what would be termed " an iron man," turned out to be very valuable improvements to the furnace, inereasing its yield and the quality of the iron produeed.

The year 1868, when Mr. MeNair took charge of the furnace, was the year in which the Board of Trade of St. Louis aided in developing the Illinois eoal from near Springfield, in Sangamon County, to Big Muddy, in Jackson County, by furnishing nine thousand dol- lars to seeure an experiment in the manufacture of iron at the furnaee in Carondelet, " which experiment has resulted in complete suecess and given a new im- pulse to the iron business of Missouri, and has already directed additional hundreds of thousands of dollars to the investment in furnaces and iron-works in Jef- ferson and St. Louis Counties." ?

Prior to the experiments on Big Muddy coal the mining of iron had reached important figures.

Up to 1850 the total production of pig-metal in the State was estimated to have been nearly 40,000 tons, and the amount of iron mined about 100,000 tons. From 1850 to 1860 the amount of pig-metal is es- timated to have been 110,000 tons, and the amount of ore mined to have been about 310,000 tons. From 1860, and ineluding 1869, the amount of pig-metal made was about 210,000 tons, and the amount of ore mined 615,000 tons (more than double the amount of the previous deeade), of which about 300,000 tons were shipped out of the State, principally to the Ohio River, the yield and strength of fibre rendering it desirable to mix with the ores "raised" in Pennsylvania. In two years of the last decade-1870-71-the amount of pig-metal produced was about 150,000 tons, or only 60,000 tons less than in the whole of the pre- vious decade, and the amount of ore mined about 550,000 tons (only 75,000 tons less than the entire produet of the preceding ten years), of which about

2 Industrial Interests of Missouri, by Henry Cobb, 1870.

1 Western Journal and Civilian, vol. xv. p. 202.

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290,000 tons were shipped outside of the State, the shipments ineluding lots to Indiana and Tennessee, as well as to the Ohio River, one small consignment having even gone to Seotland.

Considerable additions were made in 1869-70 to the iron-works in South St. Louis, and the Lewis Iron- Works were completed, as well as the South St. Louis Works. The different establishments in operation in 1870, with their capacities, were:

The Kingsland Works, 2 furnaces; capacity, 68 tons per day.

The Lewis Iron Company, 2 furnaces ; eapaeity, 68 tons per day.

The South St. Louis Company, 2 furnaces ; eapaeity, 68 tons per day.

The Carondelet Iron Company, 1 furnace ; capacity, 16 tons per day.

The amount of metal produced was about twenty- eight thousand tons, of which one-half was sold in St. Louis, and the balance taken at Chicago, Evansville, and other points.

Establishments embraced under the head of ma- chine-shops and foundries are not only numerous but do a large business, and the operations of 1882 were on the whole quite successful. The manufacture of heavy machinery is increasing greatly, and the work turned out here is as fine and satisfactory as that of any city in the country. Most of the powerful snag- machines now being made use of by the United States government in removing obstructions from Western rivers were built in this eity, as well as the vessels on which they are operated. The heavy cotton-com- pressing machinery used here and all through the South is the product of St. Louis shops, as well as cotton-seed oil and hydraulic presses. Much of the machinery of the Crystal Plate-Glass Company's works was made in St. Louis. The finest engines, and in faet every variety of iron produets, are turned out. All of the leading shops also operate foundries of their own. As yet the manufacture of mining machinery is in its infaney at this point, and, in view of the faet that St. Louis is so well situated for supplying the camps, there is a good opening here for capitalists who may wish to invest money in mining-machinery works. Immense quantities of this machinery are sold here, but the dealers buy elsewhere. The number of ma- chine-shops and foundries in St. Louis in 1882 was 27; number of hands employed, 2067; capital in- vested, $994,000 ; value of product, $3,855,000.

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History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 62

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898 Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts Number of Pages: 1358

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1358