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 33
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The room occupied by the company "on the Public Square" is not mentioned in any of the earlier notices of its selection as a terminus, but through an adver- tisement appearing in October, 1853, when it doubtless remained in its original location, we find that the "office of Morse's Magnetic Telegraph is at the drug store of Seth Tuck, Public Square, Wilkesbarré, now headquarters of the Phila- delphia and Wilkesbarré Company as well as that of the Susquehanna West and North Branch Telegraph Company." A few years later, both of these com- panies were absorbed by the Delaware River Telegraph Company, extensions being made in the system to include Carbondale. After the completion of the Atlantic cable and its opening on September 1, 1858, the way was paved for the consolidation on a big scale of many theretofore independent companies. This task was undertaken by the Western Union, chartered April 4, 1856 which, by the year 1866 had acquired practically all the telegraph lines of the east, con- trolling more than 75,000 miles of wire.
Up until the appearance of the telegraph, Wilkes-Barré was without the services of a single corporation to-day classed as a public utility.
"Every house hoisted water from a well by a windlass and crank, showing that there were cranks as far back as 1830." Samuel H. Lynch, Esq., somewhat facetiously remarked in an address "Reminiscences of Early Wilkes-Barré" delivered before the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, October 18, 1901. Continuing his description, the same historian states; "the water from these wells was of various quality, mostly too hard for Monday's wash day,
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to obviate which, barrels and hogsheads were used to catch the water from roofs; also utilized to raise mosquitoes until old enough to raise themselves by trans- formation."
The town pump, on Market Street, has been hereinbefore mentioned as a source of water supply in case of fire.
The first attempt of the community to secure a water supply other than that fur- nished by its wells is found in an Act of Assembly of May 5, 1832 which chartered the Wilkes- barré Water and Insurance Com- pany. Nearly three years later, a meeting of those interested was held in the hotel of Col J. J. Dennis, at which time Andrew Beaumont, John Myers, Ziba Bennett and H. F. Lamb were named a committee to open subscription books. As no fur- ther mention of this enterprise can be found in records of that time or later, it is natural to im- agine that the community did not then feel the need of a water supply to the extent of risking money in a dubious venture.
HOTEL OF COL. J. J. DENNIS, SOUTH MAIN STREET
The subject, however, would not remain quiescent. In its edition of Jan- uary 24, 1844, the Advocate thus sums up what activities were then on foot:
"We perceive that anxiety on the part of our citizens to have the Borough supplied with water, has not subsided. We hope it will not, until the object is accomplished. The project is feasible, and the means necessary, under proper arrangement might be raised.
"By request of a number of citizens George W. Leuffer, Esq., a competent Engineer, and of much experience for one of his age, assisted by Messrs. Alexander, Dickinson, Maffet and Bennett, have made surveys, etc. which are now completed, and which establish the practic- ability of the project. Explorations have been made, and levels taken, on two routes; one from Coal Brook, and one from Laurel Run, either of which may be adopted. Mr. Leuffer has prepared a draft or sketch of both Routes, exhibiting in miniature the shape of the ground, together with the descent or fall on each route. This sketch may be seen by calling at his office on Franklin street. He is decidedly of the opinion that the water on one of these routes is sufficiently abundant to supply the town (with a greatly increased population) and that the ground admits of bringing the water into the Borough with a reasonable expenditure. Those interested, who are acquainted with Mr Leuffer, will place great confidence in his judgment, and be pleased to learn that the ground is so favorable.
"It is hoped the subject will be kept in view, and that our citizens will unitedly put forth exertion until the important, the necessary object is accomplished."
A month later, on February 24th, a meeting of citizens is reported by the same publication in the Phoenix Hotel, George M. Hollenback being named chairinan and Eleazer Carey secretary of the gathering.
From that time forward for a period of four years what, if any, activities were in evidence were not subjects of publicity. That Mr. Hollenback was im- pressed with the practicability of the scheme may be judged from the following mention of the Record of the Times under date of October 13, 1848:
"Col. G. M. Hollenback, we know has had the question of bringing water into Wilkes- Barré under consideration for some years, and has had surveys made and estimates of the probable
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expense. Even with all the heavy interests now requiring his attention, we shall not be surprised soon to hear that he has determined to construct the works at his own expense. knowing as he does, that the investment will not lie idle."
But it was not until the year 1850 that a step was taken which was event- ually to provide the community with an adequate supply of water.
By an Act of February 12th of that year legislative permission was granted to organize the Wilkes-Barre Water Company.
The corporators were: George M. Hollenback, Samuel P. Collings, Henry M. Fuller, W. J. Woodward, Lord Butler, Thomas W. Miner, Peter C. McGilchrist, Harrison Wright, Calvin Parsons, Ziba Bennett, George P. Steel, Samuel Puter- baugh, Oliver B. Hillard, Edward M. Covell, Sharp D. Lewis, Francis L. Bowman and Joseph LeClerc; President, Hendrick B Wright; Secretary and Treasurer, Isaac S. Osterhout; Managers, Alexander Gray, John Orquhart, William Wood, Charles Parrish, John Reichard and Samuel R. Marshall. The original capital stock was $40,000, with the privilege of increasing it to $80,000. By subsequent amendments it has been increased from time to time. In 1879 it amounted to $220,000, and in 1887 to $440,000.
Books were opened at the Phoenix Hotel and secondary surveys, conducted by engineer C. F. Ingram, followed the course of several streams deemed suitable as a source of supply.
These being finished, a meeting of those interested was called in Cahoon's hall in the Spring of 1858, when decisive action was demanded by those who felt that delay was no longer justified, particularly in view of the fact that the charter of 1850 required completion of the work by 1860. Laurel Run was fav- ored by a majority as the stream to be tapped, in spite of assertions made by members of the minority that "the stream ran dry in summer and froze solid in winter." To overcome both of these objections the company authorized the construction of a stone dam for storage purposes and let the contract for approx- imately three miles of 10 inch mains, the material of which was sheet iron lined with cement, to be furnished by the Patent Water and Gas Pipe Company of Jersey City.
These mains reached the borough line at North Street and from them six inch taps of the same variety of pipe were carried under the principal streets. On June 15, 1859 it was announced that the sum of $23,000 had been subscribed toward the capital of the company and that the laying of mains was in progress. Records of the original company, now in possession of the Spring Brook Water Supply Company, state briefly that "water was turned on September, 1859." This is obviously an error, as mains had not reached the borough line at that time. The exact date of this event, as disclosed by newspapers of the period, was September 19, 1860, one of them describing the incident as follows .:
"The long looked for Laurel Run water came running through town today. The force was sufficient to throw a stream from a three-fourth inch nozzle as high as the three story brick store of the south side of the Square."
In spite of prophesies to the contrary, the company from the start was a financial success. Attachments were made to the mains on the part of some three hundred customers the first year, and lines were extended to meet districts not incorporated in the first survey. By 1869 an additional source of supply was in demand. This was met by diverting a portion of the waters of Mill Creek to the Laurel Run reservoir, the stream being carried by means of flumes and open
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ditches, and the work being completed on September 16, 1869. To overcome evaporation in the three mile stretch of open ditch which, in times of drought had a noticeable effect on the supply, the company, in 1876, laid a sixteen inch terra cotta connection between the two streams. The growing use for its product forced the company in 1874 to duplicate its connections between reservoir and the city, a fourteen inch main of iron pipe being laid which took care of the "Heights" district as well as augmented the supply of central city users.
A final step taken by the company to complete its Laurel Run unit of supply soon followed. A long summer's drought indicated that the two streams feeding the Laurel Run basin would not adequately meet the situation. As an auxiliary source of supply it was deemed advisable to tap the Susquehanna above the mouth of Mill Creek. A pumping station, still in existence, but now unused, was thereupon constructed and on July 24, 1877, a steam pump, having a capacity of 800,000 gallons per day, was used to augment the reservoir supply in case of emergency.
It is not the intention of this Chapter to narrate in detail the organization of subsequent corporations which supplied water to other portions of the Wyoming Valley nor trace the development of the original company in later times. The capital of this and other corporations furnishing a like service was increased from time to time as new sources of supply were needed and new districts of the community connected to their mains. Only once in the history of the original company was an epidemic of sickness traced to its supply. From the very nature of the water shed and its occupancy, Laurel Run was to prove an unsafe source. In 1889, just as had happened in Plymouth five years before, an unexpected and violent outbreak of typhoid fever startled the community. Between June 20th and August 1st, two hundred and twenty-nine cases of the dread disease were reported.
August added one hundred and ninety-seven more cases to the list, Sep- tember ninety-two cases and October forty additional cases. To those reported in the city, forty-two cases in hospitals must be added as well as fifty cases in Parsons and Miners Mills.
A careful survey of the situation disclosed that practically all the six hun- dred and fifty cases then existing occurred in districts provided with water from the Laurel Run reservoir, This discovery led to the use of a water supply from a small reservoir at Pine Run supplemented by water pumped from the river which, followed by boiling the water before use, checked the contagion. To avoid its repetition stockholders of the Wilkes-Barré Water Company made overtures to the Spring Brook Water Company, a Scranton concern then supply- ing water to both Scranton and Pittston and having a far greater capacity for the storage of its supply than the local company. The consequences of these overtures will hereinafter be noted.
The earlier typhoid outbreak at Plymouth, above referred to, was on an even greater and more deadly scale than the later epidemic at Wilkes-Barré.
The source of contagion in the former case was so unusual and its effects could be traced with such accuracy as to command wide attention at the hands of the medical fraternity. During the summer of 1885, typhoid cases in the Plymouth District multiplied so rapidly that the community soon realized that it was dealing not alone with an epidemic but with a catastrophe.
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Before the source of contagion could be definitely fixed and its cause rem- edied, one thousand one hundred and four severe cases had developed, resulting in one hundred and fourteen deaths.
Located on a slope of the watershed from which the Plymouth Water company secured its supply were two houses, an occupant of one of which, returning from Philadelphia, found that he had contracted the disease in the latter city. No attention was paid to the sanitation of the premises and germs of the disease from this isolated case were washed into the lower Coal Creek reservoir.
The primary outbreak came from this source. A secondary stage of the epidemic followed when people, warned of danger in the company's supply, turned to abandoned wells and the river for water, only to find both sources as badly contaminated as was the original. The removal of the patient from the offending house and the razing of all residences formerly permitted to exist on the slope of the water shed averred further danger of contamination from that quarter and restored the confidence of consumers.
It remained for the Spring Brook Water Supply Company to consolidate various units in the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valleys which had theretofore furnished water to some forty-five different localities of the anthracite country.
Chartered March 2, 1896, with an authorized capital stock of $5,000,000 and the authority to issue bonds in like amount, the new corporation proceeded rapidly with its plans of consolidation. In only three cases were the charters of the affiliated companies discontinued, the remaining forty-two companies concerned retaining their original franchises and being operated by the parent organization by stock control or perpetual lease.
Starting with only four reservoirs of any useful proportion in 1896, the four being Spring Brook, Huntsville, Pine Run and Crystal Lake and a new auxillery pumping station from the river above the mouth of the Lackawanna, the company now controls forty-two reservoirs, including intakes; has a present storage capacity of over nine billion gallons of water, which will be increased to approximately eleven billion gallons upon completion of the Watres reservoir along Spring Brook.
Upon legislation sanction of the merger, the new company laid a thirty inch main along Wyoming Avenue connecting its main at Pittston with inains on both the east and west sides of the Susquehanna, thus giving the entire community an abundant supply of pure water which has been increased from time to time to meet the public's needs. Officers serving the company at the close of 1924 were, Louis A. Watres, President; Lawrence H. Watres, Vice- President and General Counsel: L. W. Healy, Vice President and General Manager, S. H. Hicks, Secretary-Treasurer.
The first locally promoted and locally owned public utility to actually offer its services to the community was the Wilkes-Barré Gas Company, chartered Octobe .: 26, 1854. The original incorporators were George M. Hollenback, Hon. George B. Steele, Oliver B. Hillard, S. H. Puterbaugh, P. McGilchrist, Harrison Wright, John Reichard, Ziba Bennett, Charles Denison and Alexander Gray.
The financial success of like ventures elsewhere brought subscribers to the $50,000 capital stock of the new venture much more quickly than in the case of any other local corporation thus far formed.
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The spring following receipt of the charter of this company found the site of Alexander Gray's sawmill and plaster works adjoining the northern limits of the River common already decided upon as a location for the necessary structures of the plant and in less than a year from the date of charter the following cheerful item appeared in the columns of the Record of the Times:
"In the report of boats, pub- lished in this issue, it will be seen that one left Philadelphia Monday (October 15, 1855) loaded with gas pipes. This looks like getting gas in our midst very soon and a glori- ous thing it will be. It is almost im- possible to navigate some of our streets on a cloudy night."
Another item in the same publication under date of November 28, 1855, states that "gas pipes are being rapidly laid in our streets" while still further mention on January 29, 1856, fixed the status of the company then as follows: "Gas is being burned at the works, but has not yet been turned on in the town."
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The experience of con- sumers after February 1, 1856, COL. L. A. WATRES when the new product was actually turned into the mains is summed up in the following story of the Record of the Times dated February 6th.
"The long looked light has burst upon us. A new era of improvement has come. Stores, offices and parlors are beautifully illuminated with a brilliant and pleasant flame of gas. What can be more delightful after groping our way so long in comparative darkness?
"Everybody says we have always had gas enough in Wilkes-Barré, but if we have, it has never before been put to any good use. The company has given us a kind that is of some service. On Friday afternoon, Feb. 1, 1856, the meters were arranged and quite an excitement created by a general lighting up of innumerable burners. It took of course, one or two nights to get the air out of the pipes, during which time the flame was a dim one; but by Saturday night it burned pretty well, and on Monday night nothing could be prettier. The only material used in the manu- facture is the Pittsburg bituminous coal. In its combustion, the gas accumulated is conducted by pipes for the purpose, into the receiver, and from there through the main pipes into the town. The tar is conveyed into a cellar made for the purpose. This, simple as it may seem is the whole operation of manufacturing that useful article, which is to prove so great a benefit to our town.
"Bituminous coal is easily obtained from Pittsburg. The calculation is, that each burner will consume from 312 to 4 feet per hour, which at $4 per thousand, will be a little less than two cents an hour for each burner. The gas did not flow until Thursday, Jan. 31st, when we first had the light in our reading room-not very good, however. Friday somewhat brighter. Saturday we took down the old lamp. Monday very good, light enough, but some air in pipes yet."
That the company proved financially successful from the start may be predicated upon the fact that four dollars per thousand cubic feet was the first price established, this price being raised to five dollars for a like unit during Civil War times S. R. Dickson, of Schuylkill County, erected the plant and continued as its manager for about a year after completion.
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In the Fall of 1857, Marcus Smith, a former manager of the gas plant at Honesdale, succeeded Mr. Dickson and became a well known figure in the community thereafter in connection with the management and merger of various lighting utilities.
Strange as it may now seem, the lighting of streets in 1857 was deemed a matter for private enterprise, rather than a public duty on the part of council. As a consequence, some of the community's thoroughfares were lighted, while others preserved their pristine gloominess after nightfall. Some that were lighted refused to remain so after popular subscriptions for that purpose failed. Thus, in the Record of the Times, under date of July 29, 1857, appears the following:
"The gas lamps along Market street are useless these dark nights. They were put up and lighted a year by contributions raised by the exertions of C. A. Lane, Esq. Mr. Lane is away and the gas stopped with the supplies. Must we continue to grope in darkness, or will not the Borough fathers take the case into consideration, and light the lamps again? It is a public benefit and the public should pay for it."
The "Borough Fathers" did take the lighting project in hand for several sessions and on December 30th, adopted the following compromise measure- "Resolved, that the Borough put gas lights at such street corners as may be furn- ished with iron posts and lamps at the expense of citizens desiring same, to be placed in position to be approved by the committee on gas, and the dog tax, with fines and licenses, are specially appropriated toward the expense of gas."
While the original Gas Company earned large dividends for its share- holders, its methods of doing business brought down the wrath of consumers about its ears on more than one occasion. It was not until 1892, however, that this opposition assumed practical form in the incorporation of the Consumers' Gas Company which was granted the right to lay mains under streets of the city on June 7th. The stock control of the new company was vested in Abram Nesbitt, its first president, Edward C. Jones of New York, vice president, Jesse T. Morgan, secretary, E. W. Mulligan, Liddon Flick and John Flanagan, the latter members of the first board of directors.
After a lively competition for business with the older company resulting in lowering the price of gas to $1.10 per thousand feet, it became apparent that a consolidation of interests would best serve the community. Whereupon it was announced June 10, 1898, that such consolidation had actually been effected by prominent stockholders of the new company securing control of the old with an understanding that minority holders in both companies had the right to dis- pose of their holdings at prices paid for the majority interests. As an index of the earning power of shares of the original company at the time of merger, it may be stated that the holders of 2,600 shares whose par value at $50 per share represented $130,000 capital stock, received some $450,000 for their interests.
Nor was consolidation to end with the merger of the two local gas cor- porations under the name of the Gas Company of Luzerne County with a capital stock of $750,000 and a franchise giving it the exclusive right to furnish gas to the city and many of its environs.
A motive leading to the consolidation outlined above came from an in- creasing use of electricity for lighting purposes, thus throwing it into direct competition with the product of two gas producing organizations which were fighting each other for business. United, they could meet this competition to better advantage.
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While Sir Humphrey Davy had given to the world the results of his ex- periments in producing light by directing a current of electricity through two separated pieces of charcoal as early as 1807, nearly three quarters of a century were to pass before the arc light demonstrated an ability to adapt itself to com- mercial advantage. The first exhibition of this light in Wilkes-Barré was given in the Dickson plant on Canal Street on May 28, 1879. There a dynamo was erected and lights installed. The exhibition attracted wide attention and se- cured the interest of such men as George H. Parish and Charles P. Hunt, but no steps were taken at that time to continue the lighting arrangement beyond the thirty day period of the exhibition. In December, 1880, nearly a year and a half after the exhibition was a closed chapter, officers of the Dickson plant decided to install a dynamo for the purpose of thoroughly testing out the new lighting principle. Consequently an Arnoux and Hochhausen dynamo of six lights capacity was procured, two of these lights being burned in the shops, one in- stalled in the Reading and Hunt hardware store, another carried on temporary wires to the Square and West Market Street and still another was hung at the intersection of South Main Street and the Square. The invention of the in- candescent lamp by Thomas A. Edison in 1879 and the demonstration that cur- rent for both the arc lamp as well as for the incandescent could be manufactured under one roof, lent encouragement to the formation of the Wilkes-Barré Electric Light Company, incorporated January 24, 1883, with a capital of $50,000.
The corporators of the company were the following: J. H. Swoyer, George H. Parrish, Charles P. Hunt, William M. Miller, William J. Harvey, S. L. Brown, Isaac Long, William Penn Ryman.
This company almost immediately began fitting up a plant on Butler alley, installing seven dynamo units of fifteen lights each. On July 16th of the same year a contract was made with the City Council to place sixteen arc lamps at as many street intersections, same to be burned nightly for a period of one year.
The price named in this first contract was for the sum of $2,000, or at the yearly rate of $125 per light.
The first public use of the incandescent lamps which press references of the time seem to recognize, was at the Armory fair in May, 1886. The company, in order to popularize the use of the new lamp, went to the expense of wiring the building as well as furnishing the current for that purpose without charge to the fair promoters.
The next public utility in point of time to extend its services to the public was the Wilkes-Barré Heat, Light and Motor Company, chartered April 28, 1886, its corporators being the following: John G. Wood, Joseph Birbeck, J. J. Rob- bins, B. G. Carpenter, John J. Shonk, George W. Shonk and Albert S. Orr.
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