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 32
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"About 1853 the rolls and breakers were introduced with screens to separate the different sizes of coal. About this time, too, they commenced sinking shafts and working below water level, which made an entire revolution of the coal business, Among the notable men who came to the front about this time were such prominent figures as Charles Parrish, William L. Conyngham, Joseph Stickney, Harry Swoyer, Thomas Brodrick, Lewis Landmesser and many others. The most notable figure of all the men engaged in the development of the coal industry in the vicinity was Charles Parrish."
From still another source and referring to a period in the next decade, the North American and U. S. Gazette of Philadelphia published, on December 23, 1855, the following account of mining operations furnished by a Wilkes-Barré contirbutor :
"The Baltimore Company, whose property lies just above the town of Wilkes-Barre, is in the highest degree prosperous under the management of Mr. Gray, a gentleman whose practical knowledge of mining is equalled by his accurate and extensive knowledge of the region. The outlay of this Company for lands and improvements is about $150,000; and although its market is a most exclusively the southern, by no means equal to the northern, where the winters are longer and manufacturing interests larger and more active, yet this Company clears annually $60,000. Several smaller operations are in the vicinity of the Baltimore Co., and the North Pennsylvania Company is in progress of development not far distant. This Company is formed of Philadelphians, who were the first to discover the value of the land hereabouts. Passing below the town, one encounters the lands of the Empire Coal Company, which belong almost exclusively to Phila- delphians, 16 or 17 gentlemen (one at Wilkes-Barre) having purchased and paid for the whole tract, and subscribed a sufficient sum to develop it, which they are doing with the greatest energy, con- tinuing the work night and day, to be in readiness for the next season's bus- iness. Their property has a front of 1150 feet on the canal, and will connect in the rear by a short road with the Lehigh Company's road. They have cut the top, or seven foot vein, twenty- feet below the surface, and having from two to three hundred tons of coal ex- cavated already. Their purpose is to reach the Baltimore or great vein of the valley by the 1st of March. Their whole operation is for cash, and no debt of any kind impedes them Next is Stanton & Co's., improvement, which is also in Philadelphia interest, and is being pushed with energy and ability. The Wilkes- WEST MARKET STREET-CIRCA 1858 Barre Company is next. I believe it is
principally held in New York, and is doing a successful business this year. Its coal
*Editor's Note. The fire above referred to is, in 1924, still burning in the outcrop vein of this mine and effects of the fire can be seen by pedestrians and motorists from the East End boulevard along the ledge east of that thorough- fare. * * * *
+The Red Ash Coal Company is (1924) contending with a very serious fire near where this stripping was made on Wilkes-Barre mountain.
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is of excellent quality, and deservedly popular in the market. The Hartford Coal Company's property lies at the foot of the plain, on the Lehigh Company's road, and is in active preparation for a large business. The New York and Wyoming Coal Co., is a new and energetic organization of the Rose Mill property; is owned in New York, and will be prosecuted with the usual energy of that city. The William Penn Coal Co., is a new Philadelphia enterprise, including three gentle- men here. It belongs, principally, to the Quakers in the city, who with their habitual prudence, have paid for the whole property, subscribed the money to develop it, which will be done at once the Company being clear of debt of any kind. Below, and adjoining the William Penn, are the lands of the Kimberton Coal Company. also owned in Philadelphia, including two or three gentle- men of Wilkes-Barre. This property is wholly paid for, and no debt of any sort encumbers it. Near this, is the Dundee Coal Co., also a Philadelphia and Wilkes-Barre interest. But the largest and most important among the new enterprises of the Valley, is the Consolidated Coal Co., owned by gentlemen of Philadelphia, New York Wilkes-Barre and New England. This, is, perhaps, one of the most extensive Anthracite investments made by a single company in the State. It comprises over 800 acres, all coal land, extending from the back, or mountain road, to the river, on both sides of the canal, and running along the Lehigh Company's railroad, near the foot of the first plain. These lands lie about equa-distant from the Empire and William Penn and Kim- berton Coal Co's., belonging, in part, to the same owners, by whom they will be held clear of debt, for the land or improvements. Without disparagement to any others, it may be safely said that these four companies, the Enpire, William Penn, Kimberton and Consolidated Company have a basis not subject to fluctuations, all of their lands being first class coal lands, selected with great care, belonging to efficient business men, by whom they have been brought for investment, and who will develop them on a cash basis.
"The purchase of these four tracts is in pursuance of an object for some time cherished by certain of our citizens, viz: to place sufficient active capital in this part of the Wyoming Valley to justify the Lehigh Railroad in ample expenditure for improvements to facilitate the commerce of the valley, which improvements the Lehigh Company promptly began the moment they were assured of bona fide investments for development. These four companies have invested about $800,000, and they will own in feet not less than 2300 acres, all coal, including all the im- portant veins, measuring probably one hundred millions tons, lying contiguous to all the avenues to market. The canal, the Lehigh Railroad (and those projected) pass through parts of the prop- erty.
"Each company will be, as stated, clear of debt, and under its own direction, but having a unity of interest and combination of effort that must secure success."
The use of mechanical contrivances as an aid to mining gained ground, but slowly.
The "stone coal" offered problems as to blasting, crushing and screening, which did not handicap the producer of the bituminous variety. Until the Smiths, in 1818, in their Plymouth mine exploded the theory, it was a matter of general opinion that anthracite, owing to its lack of cleavage, could not be successfully blasted. Early shipments were all in run of mine form. It was left to the purchaser to break up the lumps into whatever sizes he needed-a staggering task to the uninitiate as anyone who has tried it will testify. The Baltimore company was the first to attempt to prepare its product for the con- sumers' needs. These experiments, however, did not follow until 1842. They consisted of merely the crudest attempts of a hand wielded sledge accomplishing the breaking of large lumps placed upon an iron plate through the perforations of which shattered remnants of coal passed.
It was the call for a graded size of coal for use on locomotives that finally turned the attention of operators to inore scientific methods of anthracite prep- aration. In 1843, practically all locomotives were wood burners. The sparks thus generated became so menacing to buildings and forests along the way that the legislature of Pennsylvania in that year appointed a commission "to enquire into the practicability and expediency of using mineral coal exclusively as fuel for locomotives and of prohibiting by law the use of any other fuel for such pur- pose." After gathering much testimony on the subject it was found that an- thracite was successfully burned by locomotives of the Beaver Meadow railroad. S. D. Ingam, who made the report for this railrod made plain to the commission that ordinary run of mine coal, while readily ignited, would not burn for a long period unless the locomotive was in motion, thus supplying a forced draft for
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the coal. Not being able to extend the height of the stack, as was possible to secure a better draft in a stationary boiler, Mr. Ingam gave, as his opinion, that by the use of anthracite broken to proper size, the difficulty would be overcome. .
While other devices than the crude methods of the Baltimore company were devised in succeeding years, it was not until the year 1853 that the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad installed at Scranton a device for elevating coal to a level high above ground and breaking it for the use of its locomotives by mechanical means as it slid through an inclined chute. The modern coal breaker is an evolution of the railroad's successful experiment.
George B. Markle of Hazleton is credited with applying many devices to his breakers in the nature of labor saving machinery and Eckley B. Coxe, an eminent engineer who with his brothers successfully engaged in the coal business at Drifton in 1865, built the first breaker of the anthracite field in which iron constituted the chief material of the structure.
The purpose of presenting various descriptions from different sources of the development of anthracite mining in the period from 1820 to Civil War times has been to give the reader opportunity to reach conclusions of his own as to foundations upon which the basic industry of the community has been reared.
The discouraging task of introducing anthracite to general use was a story in itself. Having been introduced, the next great task was one of transportation of the supply to points where the demand existed. Having supplemented the river by canal and the canal, in turn, by railroad facilities, the task then remained of changing mining methods to meet conditions imposed by the law of supply and demand. The second epoch of anthracite which we are now considering, saw the business expand from a wedge and shovel stage to a point where large amounts of capital were employed in single operations and where machinery, however crude as judged by present standards, was called upon to assist in the undertaking.
To secure capital necessary for the industry's development was a task in itself. One may wonder today as to prices paid for land in that period: prices which seem ridiculously low in light of the present. But prices as well as con- ditions of the business at the period mentioned must be taken into consideration. Editor Collins in the Republican Farmer of May 16, 1838, touches upon this very point as follows:
"A new era we verily think and hope is dawning upon the fortunes of this hitherto torpid region. The stationary character of the business of this section. remaining for years past as it has about the same maximumn, has been attributed to the lack of energy and enterprise of our citizens. This we consider to have been a very harsh judgment, and not warranted by the premises. An enterprising disposition exists to a paramount degree in all American communities. It gen- erally lies dormant however, and very properly unless inducements in the shape of well founded expectations of profit call it forth. There has been heretofore few or no inducements for capitalists to step forward and make investments in any enterprise. To the great coal deposits is looked as the source of great wealth and prosperity. And it may at this time be very justly regarded in this light, as avenues are opening in all directions for carrying it off. But as it was heretofore situated by the mean contrivances of Philadelphia, land locked on every side, it was almost valueless to the people, except the quantity consumed by themselves, as tho' it were in the moon. small quantities, it is true, were carried on the Spring and Fall freshets of the Susquehanna, and more recently on our state canal, but its value was for a long time unknown, and as a large supply of wood fuel still remained, it was difficult to introduce it into use generally. Predjudices have been gradually overcome, however. The supply of wood is decreasing, but still along the region accessable by means of state improvements at present furnished the demand in proportion to the quantity that could readily be furnished is exceedingly limited. The market is quickly glutted,
WILKES-BARRE FROM ROSS HILL, 1859
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and as a consequence, the price is so reduced as to make engaging in it as a regular business, no object. Where then we would ask, was the inducements to enterprise for this people. They learned by bitter experience that it was a sacrifice of time and money engaging in the coal busi- ness and it got into disrepute. It was justly considered folly to persist merely for the sake of enter- prise. The people were ever ready to dispose of their coal lands almost for nothing to those who were desirous of entering into the business. This was certainly a most sure indication of an enterprising disposition as it was holding out every inducement for investments by capitalists."
It was the same low valuation of land that first interested capital from Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and New England.
In 1830 the population of Luzerne County was 27,399. Ten years later it had grown to 44,006. The half century mark found it 56,070. The year 1860 found the mark at 90,244. Among the original settlers and their families were few men of any great wealth. Only a small number of the larger mining operations were, or could, from the circumstances if the case, be locally owned or locally controlled.
Those who looked ahead, realized that the investment of outside capital would prove the only means available of placing the industry on a substantial basis, of bringing men to the community fitted by knowledge and experience for handing large enterpises, and, as this combination of capital and new blood opened addition mines and acquired additional lands, it was patent to them that population would increase rapidly and general prosperity increase proportion- ately. Yankee shrewdness thus played no unimportant role in laying the found- ations of a great enterprise.
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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 CHIL- DRENS' HOME-LUZERNE COUNTY'S THIRD COURT HOUSE- PASSING OF THE BOROUGH "GRAVE YARD"-THE "GREAT FLOOD" AND OTHER WAR TIME FRESHETS.
"Vast Ages rolled. Man smote a spark And lit a torch to pierce the dark, The glory brightened, flame by flame, Until triumphant Science came! Then blazed from street and storied height A myriad Suns. 'And there wa light.' " -Frederick Moxon.
"Lo, on every side are found Graven stone and grassy mound, Shaded hillock, dale and slope, Sanctified by Faith and Hope." -J. II. Woods, 1894.
"See how the noble river's swelling tide, Augmented by the mountain's melting snows, Breaks from its banks and o'er the region flows." -Blackman.
The period naturally included in the present Chapter is a period unique in many respects as compared with other eras of local history.
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It embraces, roughly, a span of fifteen years, beginning with the appearance of the community's first public utilities and ending with the immediate echoes of the Civil war.
In the main, it was an age of materialism. Prosperity had set its seal in no uncertain terms upon citizen and community alike. In 1850, the population of Luzerne County was numbered at 56,072. The census of 1860, at the very threshold of a titanic civil conflict showed an amazing increase to 90,244.
The increase in urban population was not as noticeable as in the larger area, due to the fact that wide development of the anthracite business meant the gathering of substantial population centers near the scenes of mining oper- ations and lack of transportation between these outlying centers and the county seat itself permitted but little intercourse, commercial or otherwise, between them. Wilkes-Barre grew, however, on firm foundations. And in the growing, it demanded refinements and conveniences of life that had featured no earlier period of its existence.
Long before the question of slavery was to reach its tragic processes of settle- ment in the actual theater of war, the telegraphi had reached Wilkes-Barré. Evidencing rapid advancement in wealth and population figures, the character of the Public Square was to be almost wholly changed by the erection of a new court house, occupying almost the entire area of that territorial heritage from the community's original survey and crowding out the thien dilapidated buildings which had marked the Borough's first strides in civic improvement.
While discussions raged as to the location and even as to the advisability of a new court house, manufactured gas was to supplant thie crude lighting facilities of both home and street within the Borough.
The company supplying it was the first locally promoted and locally owned public utility.
Coincident with the initial sounds of internecine conflict, the first water supply corporation of the community turned into its mains what was then, and still continues to be, one of the most adequate and healthful gravity water services of the state.
These pioneers in the field, as the chapter will disclose, were the foundation stones upon which subsequent mergers of all water supply, lighting and heating utilities were based and the tremendous corporations of a present day established .
Expansion, once begun, gathered dimensions like the proverbial snowball. But the times had not yet produced the men or perhaps the occasion for such refinements as spring from generous impulse or from an appreciation of responsi- bility on the part of individuals as to the humanities of community life, which were to leave their impress in later periods. In fact, with the exception of the founding, in a small way, of the Home for Friendless Children and a rather unusual incident, or, perhaps, coincident, leading to the establishment of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, no otlier welfare projects are a product of the period.
It was an age dealing with material problems in a material way but halted, as will be seen, by the startling and revolutionary effects of the Civil war.
A review of certain phases of the war itself and a narrative of the generous assistance in men and means which Luzerne County lent to the country in its darkest hours, constitute a story in itself and will be reserved for the next succeed- ing Chapter.
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The age was one rich in scientific discoveries and distinguished by invent- tions which were to add to the comfort and convenience of community life as well as influence the habits and customs of individuals. Aside from the canal and turnpike, Wilkes-Barré, in 1850, was an isolated community. In that year came the telegraph, annihilating time and space insofar as communication was concerned.
In the year 1835, Morse crowned years of interesting experiment in the electrical field by perfecting a crude instrument for recording dots and dashes produced by making and breaking the electrical circuit of a similar instrument, the whole being coupled up by the use of wires. The arrangement of a code, understood by both sender and receiver, was a matter of detail.
While there is but scant mention in the press of that period as to telegraph lines which were rapidly stretching over the country, the Wyoming Valley must have shared this interest. What meager records exist of such an event as the opening of a telegraph office at Wilkes-Barré proved, have been examined by the present writer with but slight satisfaction. Archives of the Western Union Telegraph Company, a successor of the first local company and of many like it the country over, throw but little light on the subject. The memory of no person living in the community when this is written reverts back to an anxious moment when some unknown operator listened for the first "tick" of a message from the outside world.
The first mention of preliminaries to interesting the Borough in the tele- graph is found in the Advocate of November 15, 1848. That publication narrates that "a gentleman of Washington visited the village the early part of the week for the purpose of enquiring into the practicability of establishing a Magnetic Telegraph Line to connect with Philadelphia. * * To insure tlie ex- tension of the line from that place to this it is necessary to raise subscriptions to stock here to the amount of $4,800.00."
Whether this unnamed visitor was then successful in his promotion ideas and shared in the subsequent organization of a corporation is not known.
The operating company was of Philadelphia origin but its promoters succeeded in securing the cooperation as well as the financial assistance of prom- inent residents of various communities through which its line was to pass. Tlie charter bears date of March 29, 1849, the title of the corporation being the Philadelphia and Wilkes-Barré Telegraph Company. Those actively associated with the venture are named as corporators in the charter as follows:
SECTION I. 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 James Cox, Samuel D. Moore, J. Gilligham Fell, Josiah White, Erskine Hazzard, Mathew L. Bevan, Mathew Newkirk, John Brock George Abbott, Henry Cope, W. D. Cox, F. A. Comly, James Page, Jenkins Ross, Joseph Fisher, Edwin Walter, Louis Audenreid, Richard Jones, M. C. Jenkins, Charles Ferguson, W. S. B. Smith, George R. Field, James Rowlant, William Wallace, C. E. Spangler, J. R. White, George H. Hart, F. B. Haas, F. N. Buck, J. L Baum, Samuel L. Davis, F. A. Hinchman, and A. C. Goell, and John Thomason of Philadelphia, Samuel D. Ingham, James S. Rich, John Fox, Henry Chapman, Thomas Ross, Caleb E. Wright, John Davis, Henry J. C. Taylor, Caleb N. Taylor, Charles H. Mathews, James L. Shaw, Samuel A. Smith, William S. Hendrie, William Carr, John Buckman, John S. Bryan, of Bucks County, James N. Porter, Alexander E. Brown, Henry D. Maxwell, Anthony M'Coy, Richard Brodhead, Philip Goell, and Charles Luckenbach of Northampton County, Henry S. King, John S. Gibbons, and John D. Morris of Lehigh County, Asa Packer and E. A. Douglas of Carbon County and Hendrick B. Wright, John N. Conyngham, Luther Kidder, Chester Butler. G. W. Hollenback, Harrison Wright, E. D. Mallory, E. W. Reynolds, A. C. Jauney, G. Bennett, A. T. M'Clintock, J. S. Slocum, and W. G. Gilhurst of Luzerne County, and such other persons as may hereafter become stockholders in the company called "The Philadelphia and Wilkes-Barré Telegraph Company," their successors and assigns, shall be and they hereby are made and constituted a
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body politic and corporate for the purpose of making, using and maintaining telegraph lines and communications between the city of Philadelphia and the borough of Wilkes-Barré, and inter- mediate towns and villages by the name, style and title of "The Philadelphia and Wilkes-Barré Telegraph Company."
Following issuance of the charter, agents of the company were prompt in reaching Wilkes-Barré in the solicitation of stock sales. From the Advocate of June 6, 1849, we learn that "an agent is busy in procuring subscriptions. * *
* In Easton and Bethlehem he was very successful. In the latter place stock was taken to the amount of $2,500."
The line itself, it is learned from other sources, followed the turnpike from Wilkes-Barré, through Hazleton, Mauch Chunk, Allentown, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Easton and Doylestown, to Philadelphia. The real work of construc- tion, owing to weather conditions, was not begun until the Spring of 1850, when it was pushed through with considerable rapidity. On May 15th, it appears that stock subscriptions in Wilkes-Barré had reached a point sufficient to complete the last section and that "only a few hundred dollars are now needed." That these final subscriptions were shortly forthcoming may be gleaned from the following cheerful newspaper description which appeared under date of July 17th, the margins of which paper, are so worn by time that its name is not distinguish- able:
"On Friday of last week (July 9, 1850) to the surprise of many and the gratification of all the Telegraph came stalking up Main street of the Borough and housed itself on the North side * of Public Square. *
* The enterprise and energy of the gentlemanly constructors of this line, Dr. A. C. Goell and James L. Shaw, Esq., cannot be sufficiently commended; both for their despatch and the rapid completion of their work of unrivalled excellence. It will be seen that our Borough is now placed in communication with the whole telegraphic world through Philadelphia and a separate line has been constructed to Berwick and Danville. The greater part of the stock has been taken to extend it to Pittston and the work is already commenced."
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