USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Wilkes-Barre > A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania : from its first beginnings to the present time, including chapters of newly-discovered early Wyoming Valley history, together with many biographical sketches and much genealogical material. Volume IV > Part 1
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UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
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Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2009 with funding from University of Pittsburgh Library System
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Faites rr
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THE HARVEY COAT OF ARMS
A HISTORY OF
WILKES-BARRE
LUZERNE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
FROM ITS FIRST BEGINNINGS TO THE PRESENT TIME; INCLUDING CHAPTERS OF NEWLY-DISCOVERED
EARLY WYOMING VALLEY HISTORY
TOGETHER WITH MANY BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES AND MUCH GENEALOGICAL MATERIAL
BEGUN BY
OSCAR JEWELL HARVEY, A. M.
AUTHOR OF "A HISTORY OF LODGE NO. 61, F. & A. M.", "THE HARVEY BOOK", "A HISTORY OF IREM TEMPLE", ETC.
AND COMPLETED BY
ERNEST GRAY SMITH, M. S., LL. B.
PRESIDENT AND EDITOR OF THE WILKES-BARRE TIMES-LEADER
ILLUSTRATED WITH MANY PORTRAITS, MAPS, FACSIMILES, ORIGINAL DRAWINGS AND CONTEMPORARY VIEWS
COMPLETE IN FOUR VOLUMES
VOLUME IV WILKES-BARRE, PA. 1929
q: F159 W8H34 1
1
COPYRIGHT 1929, BY ERNEST G. SMITH
THE SMITH BENNETT CORP. Wilkes-Barre, Penna.
+
Contents of Volume IV
CHAPTER XL.
DIM AGES WHEN THE WYOMING VALLEY WAS FIRST A TROPICAL JUNGLE AND THEN A POLAR ZONE-THE FORMATION OF COAL AND ITS PARTIAL DESTRUCTION BY PRODIGIOUS PRO- CESSES OF NATURE-HOW MAN BEGAN TO DEVELOP THE RESIDUE-WYOMING THE SEAT OF DISCOVERY OF ANTHRACITE-ITS FIRST ADAPTATION TO A COMMERCIAL USE- JESSE FELL, HIS EXPERIMENTAL GRATE AND HIS BENEFACTION TO MANKIND-FIRST SHIPMENTS FROM THE VALLEY-EXPERIENCES IN INTRODUCING AN INNOVATION IN FUEL TO THE WORLD -- THE CONQUEST OF PERSEVERANCE-SUMMARY OF RESULTS. . . . 1803
CHAPTER XLI.
LUZERNE, THE "MOTHER OF COUNTIES" -- SUSQUEHANNA, BRADFORD, WYOMING AND LACKAWANNA SET OFF-THE MARKET STREET BRIDGE-ITS DESTRUCTION AND RE- BUILDING-THE "CITY OF ROME" BUBBLE-THE FIRST CIRCUS-THE YEAR WITHOUT A SUMMER-THE COUNTY'S FIRST STRIKE-EARLY SHOPS AND STORES-HARD TIMES- THE FIRST SUNDAY SCHOOL-VIOLENT CHURCH DISSENTIONS-EPISCOPALIANS AND PRESBYTERIANS LEAVE THE " OLD SHIP ZION"- DEATH OF JUDGE MATHIAS HOLLENBACK. 1831
CHAPTER XLII.
TRANSPORTATION AS THE GREAT AMERICAN PROBLEM -- THE PACK HORSE AND " CONESTOGA" WAGON-THE ROLLICKING STAGE COACH DAYS OF WILKES-BARRE-THE FATE OF STODDARDSVILLE-CANAL CHALLENGES HIGHWAY-WILKES-BARRE HAS PACKET BOATS DAILY TO PHILADELPHIA-THIE REDOUBT BASIN-MILL CREEK AQUEDUCT-WYO- MING'S FIRST RAILWAY-NAVIGATION OF THE SUSQUEHANNA BY STEAMBOAT-ITS TRAGEDY AND ITS FAILURE . 1868
CHAPTER XLIII.
CIVIC EVENTS 1825-1850-THE WYOMING BANK-STAGE COACH AND CANAL TAVERNS - THE PHOENIX HOTEL-THE "BUCKET BRIGADE" AND THE " DAVY CROCKETT"-SLOW BEGINNINGS OF THE WILKES-BARRE FIRE DEPARTMENT-ROSTERS OF EARLY FIRE COMPANIES-FAMOUS FIRES -- BOROUGH TREASURY BANKRUPT -PUBLIC SQUARE IN- DICTED AS A NUISANCE-THE NEW ACADEMY-TREATMENT OF AN EARLY ABOLITIONIST - WILKES-BARRE INSTITUTE-WYOMING SEMINARY-WYOMING ARTILLERISTS IN THE MEXICAN WAR
. 1908
CHAPTER XLIV.
INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT OF WYOMING-ITS DIVERSIFIED MANUFACTURES-COMING OF THE EMIGRANT-THE CELTIC, TEUTONIC AND JEWISH WAVES IN TURN-ESTABLISH- MENT OF NEW CHURCHES AND INAUGURATION OF NEW CUSTOMS-WYOMING'S FIRST STEAM ENGINE-ITS AMBITIOUS IRON WORKS-THE LUMBER INDUSTRY-ANTHRACITE'S SECOND EPOCH-COAL LANDS AT FORTY DOLLARS PER ACRE-ENTRANCE OF OUTSIDE CAPITAL-RUMBLINGS OF CIVIL WAR 1964
CHAPTER XLV.
WILKES-BARRE'S FIRST PUBLIC UTILITIES-THE TELEGRAPH BREAKS DOWN MOUNTAIN BARRIERS-GAS ILLUMINATES THE STREETS-COMMUNITY WELLS GIVE PLACE TO WATER MAINS -- TYPHOID EPIDEMIC BREAKS OUT-THE FIRST DAILY NEWSPAPER- WYOMING HISTORICAL AND GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY ORGANIZED-BEGINNINGS OF THE CHILDRENS' HOME-LUZERNE COUNTY'S THIRD COURT HOUSE-PASSING OF THE BOROUGII "GRAVE YARD"-THE "GREAT FLOOD" AND OTHER WAR TIME FRESHETS. . 1998
CHAPTER XLVI.
OUTBREAK OF THE CIVIL WAR-UNPREPAREDNESS OF PENNSYLVANIA-WYOMING ARTILLER- ISTS AND OTHER LOCAL UNITS MERGE TO FORM LUZERNE'S FIRST SERVICE REGIMENT SUCCESSIVE CALLS OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN-RECRUITMENT OF WYOMING'S MANY VOLUNTEER COMPANIES-ROSTERS OF THEIR MEMBERS-INVASION OF PENNSYLVANIA- GRANT ASSUMES COMMAND-TIDE OF THE CONFEDERACY TURNS-THE STRATEGY OF FINAL CAMPAIGNS-APPOMATTOX. 2043
CHAPTER XLVII.
EARLY MINING DISASTERS-RAILROADS ENTER WYOMING-STREET CARS-WILKES-BARRE BECOMES A CITY-EARLY WELFARE ORGANIZATIONS-RAILROAD STRIKES-STORY OF WYOMING MONUMENT-CENTENARY OF THE BATTLE-LACKAWANNA COUNTY ERECTED-FIRST TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE-THE ROCKAFELLOW FAILURE-IN- DUSTRIAL EXPANSION-THE CYCLONE OF 1890 2089
CHAPTER XLVIII.
PASSING EVENTS OF THE NINETIES-BOARD OF TRADE ACTIVITIES-BOYS INDUSTRIAL ASSOCIATION-SUCCESSFUL FIGHT FOR NEW POST OFFICE-WELFARE INSTITUTIONS TAKE FORM-IREM TEMPLE-LATTIMER RIOTS-NINTHI INFANTRY N. G. P. ORGAN- IZED -- SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR -- INDUSTRIAL STRIKES-THIRD RAIL SYSTEMS COM- PLETED-PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S VISIT-WILKES-BARRE CELEBRATES-PARK DE- VELOPMENT-A NEW COURT HOUSE-MATERIAL PROGRESS OF THE NEW CENTURY- BORDER TROUBLES-THE WORLD WAR. 2164
CHAPTER XL.
DIM AGES WHEN THE WYOMING VALLEY WAS FIRST A TROPICAL JUNGLE AND THEN A POLAR ZONE-THE FORMATION OF COAL AND ITS PARTIAL DE- STRUCTION BY PRODIGIOUS PROCESSES OF NATURE-HOW MAN BE- GAN TO DEVELOP THE RESIDUE-WYOMING THE SEAT OF DIS- COVERY OF ANTHRACITE-ITS FIRST ADAPTATION TO A COM- MERCIAL USE-JESSE FELL, HIS EXPERIMENTAL GRATE AND HIS BENEFACTION TO MANKIND-FIRST SHIPMENTS FROM THE VALLEY-EXPERIENCES IN INTRODUC- ING AN INNOVATION IN FUEL TO THE WORLD- THE CONQUEST OF PERSEVERANCE- SUMMARY OF RESULTS.
"Yea, they did wrong thee foully-they who mocked Thy honest face, and said thou wouldst not burn; Of hewing thee to chimney-pieces talked, And grew profane, and swore, in bitter scorn, That men might to thy inner caves retire, And there, unsinged, abide the day of fire.
"For thou shalt forge vast railways, and shalt heat The hissing rivers into steam, and drive
Huge masses from thy mines, on iron feet, Walking their steady way, as if alive,
Northward, till everlasting iee besets thee, And south as far as the grim Spaniard lets thee.
"Then we will laugh at winter when we hear The grim old churl about our dwellings rave;
Thou, from that 'ruler of the inverted year,' Shalt pluck the knotty sceptre Cowper gave, And pull him from his sledge, and drag him in And melt the icieles from off his chin."
William Cullen Bryant.
When the world was young, dense tropical jungle covered the entire region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Prodigious processes of nature which event- ually submerged this jungle and other mystifying processes which transformed these forest strata into coal, are left to the geologist to describe. Positive proof is advanced by recognized authorities on geological matters, that coal measures of the east once rivaled in extent those areas which have survived to the present
1803
1804
in the immense bituminous fields of western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.
Then followed gradual swings in the position of the earth's axis which converted tropical regions into polar zones. The last of these swings is figured to have occured between 250,000 and 1,000,000 years before man recorded anything of the continent of North America. The most recent of these "Ages of Ice" left its indelible impression upon a vast basin now drained by the Hudson, Delaware, Lehigh and Susquehanna rivers.
To him who knows even a smattering of geology, a journey over any of the roads, which radiate in all directions from the Wyoming Valley, will dis- close ancient lake beds as well as the positions and effects of glaciers as they once lay on our mountain sides. Moreover, the deposits of moraines as the ice receded ale apparent on every hand. Underneath these surface indications, further proof is available of geological phenomena. In the vicinity of the Wyo- ming coal basin, the ice cap of an ancient period is estimated to have been about 2,000 feet in thickness.
A VIEW IN GLACIER NATIONAL PARK
As is usual with glaciers. the whole mass moved southward, gouging and plowing the surface, scratching and rending asunder ridges of rock, and trans- porting boulders of all sizes, sometimes to great distances.
The tendency of slate composition, usually found above coal measures of the anthracite field, to fossilize the remains of animal and vegetable life of periods following the deposit of embryonic coal strata, is manifest not only throughout those districts of Luzerne County, where anthracite is now mined, but many of these fossils have been carried to considerable distances elsewhere by action of ice. To the student of geology, a varied and representative collection of these fossils may be found in the rooms of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society. To others, the following news item appearing in the Record of the Times,
,
1805
under date of August 4, 1858, will disclose the nature and extent of interesting discoveries of such fossils which occur with frequency :
"On Wednesday last, we saw one of the greatest natural curiosities of the coal field, while attending some ladies on a visit to the Baltimore Coal Mines* near the Borough. It will be re- membered that ten or twelve acres of the mine which had been worked fell in a year or two ago, crushing the pillars left for support, and filling that portion with rock and state from the roof. Through these masses of rock, the superintendent of the mines, Mr. Frederick Landmesser, has explored and discovered the remains of a forest of trees which had been embedded in the slate rock above the large vein, fragments of which, by the fall, had been detached, and now lie in con- fusion-stumps, roots, limbs and impressions of bark, in the mine.
"Among the curiosities are two huge stumps as perfect as if just drawn from the earth by a stump machine, the roots cut off where they had entered the ground, and the surface looking as if the bark had been taken off while the sap was running. In the rock above can be traced the ends of the logs from which the stumps have fallen, and in one place the body of the tree protrudes the surface presenting the impression of bark."
In addition to exposing and often removing strata of fossils, the glacial age left its own traces in the deposit of "drift" and "glacial till" consisting of
A
BOULDER LEFT BY GLACIER ON SUMMIT OF PENOBSCOT KNOB, FOUR MILES SOUTH OF WILKES-BARRE It lies on glacial surface of Pocono sandstone.
*"The Old Opening" (a photographic reproduction of "The Old Opening," may be found on page 467 of this History) lives hardly now in the memory of any, yet it once had more than local fame, not only as showing the earliest outcrop of anthracite, but as a rich, well nigh inexhaustible bed of fossils. Little Old Wilkes-Barre did not go away to spend her summers; she stayed at home in her unspoiled valley and entertained her city friend s. Most of her gaieties were summer gaieties; in winter time, the sewing societies-held in private houses-formed for a large part her wildest dissipations. When the summer guests came, they were always taken to the Old Opening, where they loaded up with "rainbow coal" and shell, fern and other fossils. Those among the visitors who had a soul for natural beauty as well as for natural curiosities rejoiced in the enchanting ravine into which the worked-out Baltimore outcrop opened. When I now drive to Bear Creek over the Mountain Boulevard, and reach the top of the hill above East End, I look with a distinct sadness down over a seamed and jumbled tract that suggests earthquake or direct volcanic destruction, and involuntarily my mind reconstructs one of the loveliest and strangest of scenes-a ravine not much more than an eighth of a mile in length nor more than thirty feet wide, splitting the hill eastward and opening at the upper end to give a view of the Wilkes-Barre mountain. The floor of the narrow gorge was paved with flat rocks, over which flowed in summer time a little stream, doubtless quite covering them during the spring and autumn floods. On the left side a thickly wooded wall gave a soft green relief to the perpendicular yellow cliff opposite, the cliff pierced with teu square openings that showed like vast black doorways fit for giants of the elder world, leading into a vast cave floored with coal and yellow rock, and supported by huge pillars of coal. Within this artificial cavern, once solidly filled with anthracite, remarkable fossils might be picked up without digging for them, while outside, on the ledge or shelf that bordered the stream, they also lay in abundance. Although this great outcropping vein was worked out, yet one could by walking underground for a distance reach the new Baltimore workings, where a shaft had been sunk, back of Coalbrook (East End.)
Little by little the great coal pillars were "robbed," causing the cliff to fall in To complete the tragedy. a fire broke out in the southern mine that proved inextinguishable unless the strong draught through the Old Opening were cut off. And so came the final ruin of the Giant's Cave, its picturesque beauty and weird charm destroyed by being broken up to furnish its own stuffing. The thing could have been done, I believe, without this utter wiping out of a spot of highest historic and aesthetic interest. In a more civilized land it would never have been sacrificed thus. The harmful draught could have been cut off farther back, leaving the outer part of the cavernous space untouched and a few of the front row of pillars standing. One must have coal, to be sure, but one must have beauty, too. Are we not told that where there is no vision the people perish? Right valuations should teach us when to save and when saving is more extravagant than deliberate sacrifice.
From "Little Old Wilkes-Barre as I knew It," by Miss Edith Brower, published, Vol. XVIII : 12. Proceedings of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society.
.
1806
various layers of sand and gravel, intermixed with boulders of variable sizes, all more or less rounding by the action of melting water and movable debris.
As can be gathered from illustrations accompanying this Chapter, con- clusive evidence of these glacial and post-glacial deposits may be seen near at hand, where the subsequent excavations of our own generation have exposed them to view. In other sections, deep channels, undoubtedly worn by streams which issued from beneath the melting ice, are in evidence.
CROSS BEDDED SAND AND GRAVEL OF OLD HIGH CHANNEL AT KINGSTON No. 2 COLLIERY, LOOKING WEST
One of such channels extends under the whole of the present Wyoming Valley. To engineers, the existence of this buried channel has been a source of study and concern in mine operations. An abundance of water which once covered the valley, as its overflow eroded a deep chasm through the ridge of rock, whose exposed surface is still fighting this erosive process at Nanticoke Falls, made deposit of strata of gravel, silt and quicksand, varying in depth from eighty to two hundred feet, above bed rock. From the core disclosures of bore holes sunk in various parts of the valley, Mr. William Griffith, in 1901, was able to construct an approximate map of these bedrock foundations, and their over- lying deposits of the Wyoming coal basin, the data of which furnish a fairly accurate source of information, in planning the safety of modern day mining beneath the bedrock formation. One grave danger exists in these mining oper- ations which science has been unable to overcome, in spite of careful explor- ation. The ice and water which gouged a path through rocky barriers on the surface, also sunk shafts to various depths through the then exposed rock floors. To these shafts, the term "pot-holes" is generally applied. The formation of these pot-holes, whose destructive tendencies have often cost the anthracite . industry a heavy toll of life and treasure, is interestingly described by Mr. Griffith in an article referred to in the footnote .*
*See "An Investigation of the Buried Valley of Wyoming", by William Griffith, published in Vol. VI: 27, Pro- ceedings of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Socety, 1901.
1807
"A glacial pot-hole," says Mr. Griffith, "is a deep shaft, well or hole, worn in the solid rock, by action of water falling from a height (probably through a crevice in the ice) on the solid bedrock, thus, by the aid of fragments of stone and boulders, which are kept in continual motion on the bottom of the hole, wearing the well deeper and larger with time; the size and depth of the well depending on the volume of water and the height of its fall."
SUPPOSED TILL ON DRIFT JUST EAST OF EMPIRE COLLIERY IN SOUTHERN PART OF WILKES-BARRE
In passing, it might be remarked that the first discovery of one of these pot-holes in the anthracite field, was made in 1884, in the Eton colliery at Arch- bald, Lackawanna County. A chamber of the mine was driven against a mass of round stones of all sizes. Investigation disclosed that the bottom of a pot- hole, varying in diameter from twenty to forty feet, had thus been opened which had cut its way through overlying coal measures.
This pot-hole, extending to the surface after being cleared of debris, is still in use as an air shaft by the operating company.
Two serious accidents in the Wyoming Valley have been directly attributed to the existence of similar pot-holes worn through an otherwise secure roof of rock above coal measures, then being inined.
On December 18, 1885, a sudden rush of water, sand and gravel from a chamber supposed to contain nothing but anthracite, buried twenty six mine employees, and filled up over one hundred thousand cubic yards of workings, at the Nanticoke mine of the Susquehanna Coal Company.
The extent of this shaft, worn by nature, has never been investigated, as certain workings had to be abandoned to prevent further inrushes from sources it drained, and the bodies of miners entombed, have never been recovered.
A second accident, attributable to the same cause, occurred in the Mt. Lookout mines at Wyoming, on March 1, 1897. Fortunately, in this case, the
1808
mines were idle, and no casulties resulted. A first warning of danger came from the surface, when the post office building in the borough of Wyoming,. began to settle. The investigation which followed, disclosed that debris from this pot- hole, which nature had sunk to a distance of some seventy feet beneath the rock foundation of the valley, and had tapped a coal seam then being worked, had admitted a flood of water, sand and rounded masses of rock and coal to a large portion of the mine.
SALAKNECK MY
BULL HILL
WEST POINT
CROWE NE ST
STORM KING MY
CAST
atom
1.
CROSS SECTION OF GLACIAL DEPOSITS UNDER HUDSON RIVER NEAR WEST POINT
Whatever dangers these influences of the "Age of Ice" may have added to the hazards that pertain to the mining of anthracite under ordinary circum- stances, geologists agree that ice erosions, in robbing the once huge fields under- laid by coal measures of nearly 85 per cent of their natural wealth, probably changed many of the currents of commerce and industry which enter so vitally into affairs of modern civilization. The same tremendous ice pressure which converted what were once fields of bituminous coal into anthracite and which caused the upending and upheaval of many of the once level rock strata and coal measures of eastern Pennsylvania, took heavy toll of our richest deposits, leaving of a once magnificient area only four basins or sources of anthracite at isolated points of this area. The geological survey of Pennsylvania, 1885, separates the remains of this huge deposit into four regions now generally accepted by en- gineers as defining anthracite deposits. They are as follows:
1. The Southern or Pottsville field extends from Lehigh River at Mauch Chunk, southwest to within a few miles of the Susquehanna River, and thence nearly north to Harrisburg, comprising the territory of Carbon, Schuylkill and Dauphin Counties. The eastern end of this field, known as the Lower Lehigh or Panther Creek basin, between Tamaqua, on the Little Schuylkill, and Mauch Chunk, has generally been included by the coal trade in the Lehigh field, from the fact that its coal more closely resembles that obtained in the Upper Lehigh region,
1809
than that in the Pottsville field, west of Tamaqua, and also from the fact that shipments from it to market have been made largely through the Lehigh Valley.
2. The Western Middle or Mahanoy and Shamokin field, lies between the easternmost headwaters of Little Schuylkill, Columbia and Northumber- land Counties. These two coal fields (1 and 2) are frequently designated in a general way, as the Schuylkill region, althoughi parts of them are better known by the trade names defining the districts from which coals of special character- istics are mined.
3. The Eastern Middle or Upper Lehigh field lies between Lehigh River and Catawissa Creek, and principally in Luzerne County, with limited areas extending into Carbon, Schuylkill and Columbia Counties.
4. The Northern or Wyoming and Lackawanna field, in the two valleys from which it derives its name, is embraced almost entirely by Luzerne and Lacka- wanna Counties. A small area in the extreme eastern end extends into Wayne and Susquehanna Counties.
The Loyalsock and Mehoopany field, within the areas drained by the head- waters of the Loyalsock and Mehoopany Creeks, is included in Sullivan and Wyoming Counties. This field is from twenty to twenty-five miles northwest of the western end of the northen field. Its geological structure closely re- sembles that of the bituminous field, in which it has until recently been included, although the composition of much of its coal entitles it to rank with that of the anthracite region generally.
The geographical divisions of the anthracite coal fields above mentioned, are also, for trade purposes, sometimes grouped as follows:
The Wyoming, embracing the whole of the northern and Loyalsock fields; the Lehigh, embracing all of the eastern and part of the southern field; the Schuylkill, embracing the western and part of the southern field. The Wyoming, is by far, the most important of these regions, fully fifty per cent of the total output of anthracite coming from it. The Schuylkill provides approximately thirty five per cent. of the output, and the Lehigh region about fifteen per cent.
Many and often divergent estimates have been made of the extent and value of anthracite deposits, which remained in the now well defined areas of Pennsylvania, after their tribute was paid to the glaciated age. A recent, and certainly an authoritative statement on this score, was made in an address delivered in Boston, November 27, 1923, by Joseph J. Walsh, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Mines, as follows:
"The original anthracite deposits in Pennsylvania, according to the best estimates avail- able, amounted to about 21,000,000,000 tons. Of this amount, about 3,500,000,000 tons have been mined, and at the present rate of production, after allowances are made for the necessary losses, the remaining deposits will last for about 150 years."
So much by way of mention, of the geological beginnings of the "Age of Coal" which has played so vital a part in later affairs of Wyoming. It is not for the historian, to refer to more than an outline of those phenomena of world affairs responsible for tropical growth or glacial age. Rather, he is expected to narrate events which have to do with the activities of man in the development of resources which nature stored against the coming of a people who were to reap rewards of initiative, in the development of these resources. This narrative will therefore, proceed with a study of the discovery and use of the "stone coal" of Wyoming which leads into as interesting fields of romance and achievement as are recorded of any other industry in American annals.
.
1810
Of discussion and dispute, as to who discovered anthracite, and who first harnessed its heat in various ways for the service of the world, there have been no end. Civic celebrations in various parts of the field, revive these discussions at frequent intervals, and occasionally the subject passes to the larger forum of state and national legislative bodies. During the 1891 session of the Pennsyl- vania legislature, a bill introduced by Senator Rapsher of Carbon County, reached third reading in the House, but there, met the fate it deserved. In part, the bill read as follows :
"AN ACT appropriating the sum of $2,000 for the erection of a monument to the memory of Philip Ginter, the discoverer of anthracite coal in Pennsylvania.
"SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the senate and house of representatives of the Common- wealth of Pennsylvania in general assembly met, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, that the sum of $2,000 be appropriated toward the erection of a suitable monument to commemorate the memory of Philip Ginter, the first discoverer of anthracite coal in Pennsylvania, to be paid to the committee in charge upon the warrant of the auditor-general."
A portion of the debate which resulted in the Senate side when the measure was under fire there is worthy of notice, since it indicates what little study of a subject is given on the part not only of legislators, but of many others who have written and spoken on the matter of anthracite discoveries.
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