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 4
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He contributed to the Port Folio from 1808 to 1816. The publishers, writing to him in 1809, said "We have to acknowledge many interesting and valuable communications from you. We rank you among our most valuable cor- respondents and will hope for a continuance of your favors." His communications to this magazine were many and varied; at one time it was poetry, at another the description of some new machine, sometimes over the letters "J. C." and others over the letter "C." Many of the old settlers will still remember his sketches with pen and pencil of "Sol- omon's Falls" and "Buttermilk Falls." In the May number, 1809, is a drawing and description by him of Mr. Birde's "Columbian Spinster;" in the March number, 1811, a drawing and description of "Eve's Cotton Gin," and in the October number, 1812, an "Ode on Hope."
Jacob Cist was married, on August 25, 1807, by the Rev. Ard Hoyt, to Sarah Hollenback, daughter of Judge Matthias Hollenback, of Wilkes-Barré, Pa., whom Charles Miner at that time described as "a charming little girl, apparently about sixteen years old, the natural rose on her cheek heightened by exercise, and a sweet smile playing about her lips." On her mother's side she was descended from old New England stock. Mrs. Hollenback's father, Peleg Burritt, Jr., was a grandson of Ensign Stephen Burritt who, according to Hinman, was "a famous Indian fighter," and Commissary General to the army in King Phillip's war, and his father, William Burritt, the first of the name in this country, was an original settler in Stratford, Connecticut, prior to 1650. Her mother, whose maiden name was Deborah Beardslee was the granddaughter of Ebenezer Booth, the son of Richard Booth, by his wife Elizabeth (Hawley) who was living in Stratford, in the year 1640. Her father's grandfather was a landholder in Pennsylvania as early as 1729.
After his marriage he returned to Washington and remained there until the spring of 1808, when he removed to Wilkes-Barré and entered into partnership with his father-in-law, under the firm name of Hollenback & Cist, which existed a number of years. For three years Mr. and Mrs. Cist lived at Mill Creek, but in the fall of 1811 they moved into their new house on Bank street, now River Street, in this city. At an early day Jacob Cist's attention was at- tracted towards the uses of anthracite coal. He was a boy of ten years when his father experimented on the Lehigh coal and might possibly have seen him at work. He must often have heard his father conversing with Colonel Weiss, both in Philadelphia and Bethlehem, on the feasibility of opening their mines and making a market for the Lehigh coal, long before he was old enough to appreciate the importance of the undertaking, or the disadvantages under which these pioneers in the coal trade labored, in persuading people of the practicability of using stone coal as a fuel, though in after years, by observation and study, he saw its importance and he learned by a practical experience the labor and disappointments attendant on its introduction to use. As early as the year 1805, he conceived the idea of manufacturing a mineral black for printers' ink, leather lacquer, blacking, etc., from the Lehigh coal, and the results of his experi- ments were secured to him by patent in the year 1808.
This patent was considered to be worth upwards of five thousand dollars, but a number of law-suits, arising from a constant infringement of it by manufacturers, so annoyed Mr. Cist that he was glad to dispose of it for a less sum. It is said that after the destruction of the patent office records by fire, some one else took out a patent for the same idea, and is now working under it. After Mr. Cist had removed to Wilkes-Barre, he made a study of the adjacent coal fields, especially at the mines of the Smith Brothers, at Plymouth, and the old Lord Butler opening. He determined upon entering into the mining of coal as a business, as soon as he should feel satisfied that the right time had come to introduce it in the cities, in large enough quantities to make the adventure a profitable one. That time came in the year 1813, when the British squadron held both the Delaware and Chesapeake bays in a state of blockade. In the spring of that year, he undertook to introduce it in Baltimore and Philadelphia. The former project proved a failure, but in the summer and fall he sent several wagon loads to Binney & Ronaldson. in Philadelphia, and their success appeared to encourage the mining of anthracite upon » lar ger basis, so that in December of that year, Jacob Cist, Charles Miner and John Robinson, secured a lease from the old Lehigh Coal Mine Company of their property on the Lehigh river, near Manch Chunk. Mr. Miner, in writing in the year 1833, to Samuel I. Pasker, on the formation of this co-partner- ship, says: "Jacob Cist, of Wilkes-Barré, my intimate and much lamented friend, had derived from his father a few shares of the Lehigh Coal Company's stock. Sitting by a glowing anthracite fire one evening in his parlor, conversation turned to the Lehigh coal, and we resolved to make an examination of the mines at Mauch Chunk and the Lehigh river to satisfy ourselves whether it would be practicable to convey coal from thence by the stream to Philadelphia. Mr. Robinson, a mutual friend, active as a man of business, united with us in the enterprise. Towards the close of 1813, we visited Mauch Chunk, examined the mines, made all the enquiries suggested by prudence respecting the navigation of the Lehigh, and made up our minds to hazard the experiment, if a sufficiently liberal arrangement could be made with the company." We sent down a considerable number of arks, three out of four of which stove and sunk by the way. Heavy, however, as was the loss it was lessened by the sale, at moderate prices, of the cargoes as they lay along the shores or in the bed of the Lehigh, to the smiths of Allentown, Bethlehem, and the country around, who drew them away when the water became low. We were just learning that our arks were far too large and the loads too heavy for the stream, and were making preparations to build coal boats to carry eight or ten tons each, that would be connected together when they arrived at Easton. Much had been taught us by experience, but at a heavy cost, by the operations of 1814, 1815. Peace came and found us in the midst of our enterprise. Philadelphia was now opened to foreign commerce, and the coasting trade resumed. Liverpool and Richmond coal came in abundantly, and the hard-kindling anthracite fell to a price far below the cost of shipment. I need hardly add, the business was abandoned, leaving several hundred tons of coal at the pit's mouth, and the most costly part of the work done to take out some thousands of tons more. Our disappointment and losses were met wth the spirit of youth and enterprise. We turned our attention to other branches of industry, but on looking back on the ruins of our (not unworthy) exertions, I have not ceased to hope and believe that the Lehigh Navigation and Coal Company, when prosperity begins to reward them for their most valuable labors, would tender to us a fair compensation at least for the work done and expenditure made, which contributed directly to their advantage."
This adventure was so disastrous to the finances of Mr. Cist that he did not again engage in the practical mining of coal, though his mind was never idle in devising plans for the opening of our coal fields, and for a cheap and rapid mode of getting the coal to market, and his pen was ever busy advocating both to the general public.
As early as 1814, he corresponded with Oliver Evans as to the practicability of using a steam engine and railroad at the mines on the Lehigh. In a letter to Evans, written December, 1814, he says: "I would thank you also for an es- timate of the expense of your steam wagon for drawing out a number of low carts, say twenty to twenty-five, each contain- ing one and one-half or two tons of coal, on a wooden railroad, with a descent of about one-third of an inch in a yard" (or forty-six feet to mile); to which Mr. Evans answers from Washington, January 3, 1815: "I would suppose that a descent of one-third inch to a yard could do without cogging the ways, which would save much expense. I had devised a cheap way of rising an ascent by means of a rope, as I apprehended no company could yet be formed in this country to lay iron and cogged railways for any distance. I therefore fixed ou wooden ways, one for going, the other for coming back, as close to each other as will admit, and to cover the whole with a shed. This would, in the first making, cost little more than a Pennsylvania turnpike, and much less in ten years. I cannot state to you the expense of a carriage." Mr. Cist ran the levels from here to Mauch Chunk for one, and at the time of his death he was planning with a Mr. Mc- Cullough, of New Jersey, to organize a company to lay a railroad up the Lehigh to Wyoming Valley. One of his daughters when a little girl while at play in his study, remembers asking him "what he was so busy at." His answer was "My child, I am building a railroad to pull things on over the mountain." Mr. Mccullough, in writing to Mr Hollenback, shortly after Mr. Cist's death intimates that in the death of Mr. Cist the railroad had met with its death which was a fact.
In the year 1810, Jacob Ci t together with Jesse Fell, Mathias Hollenback, Thomas Dyer, Peleg Tracy, and others, founded the I uzerne County Agricultural Society, and he, with Dr. Robert H. Rose, was one of the first corres- ponding secretaries of the society. He did much towards the introduction of finer grades of fruit trees in our valley joining with Washington Lee, Charles Streater, E. Covel, George Cahoon and many others of the old citizens of Wilkes- Barré and vicinity, who took pride and pleasure in their fruit gardens. He was accustomed every year to get for himself and friends quantities of the choicest fruit trees. He knew the value of the New York gypsum as a fertilizer and advocated its superiority in a paper read before the state agricultural society, January 12, 1813. This article was republished in the Record of the times, at Wilkes-Barre, January 8, 1868. He was Treasurer of the County of 1 uzerne for 1816, 1817. 1818, of which he was one of the original stockholders and founders. He was one of the charter members of the old Susquehanna Bank and its first cashier, appointed 1817, at a salary of $600. He drew the designs for the notes of the
1823
place that may be closed and opened at pleastire, so constructed as to cause a brisk current of air to pass up through a small contracted grate on which they were laid. I find them more difficult to be kindled than the Virginia coal, yet a small quantity of dry wood laid on the grate under them is sufficient to ignite them, which being done they continue to burn while a sufficient quantity be added to keep up the combustion, occasionally stirring them to shake down the ashes; they however, require no more attendance than other coal, and consume away, leaving only a very light white colored ashes, producing a greater degree of heat than any other coal that I am ac- quainted with, perhaps in proportion to their weight, they being much the heaviest. They produce no smoke, contain no sulphur, and when well ignited will exhibit a vivid, bright appearance, all of which render them suitable for warming rooms, and as they do not corrode metal as much as other coals, they will probably be the more useful for steam engines, breweries, distilleries, smelting of metals, drying malt, etc. But the furnaces will require to be properly constructed, with a grate contracted to a small space, through which the air is to pass up through the coal, permitting none to pass above them into the flue of the chimney until they are well ignited, when the doors of the stove or furnace may be thrown open to enjoy the benefit of the light and radiant heat in front. A very small quantity of them is not sufficient to keep up the combustion, they require nearly a cubic foot to make a very warm fire, consuming about half a bushel in about fourteen hours.
"Philadelphia, Feb. 15th, 1803.
OLIVER EVANS."
"STATEMENT OF FRED'K GRAFF.
"Having made a trial of the Leli coal sometime in the year 1802 at the Pennsylvania bank in the large stove, I found them to answer that purpose exceeding well. They give an ex- cellent heat and burn lively. It is my opinion they are nearly equal to double the quantity of any other coal brought to this market, for durability; of course less labour is required in attending the fire. Mr. Davis, Superintendent of the Water Works of Philadelphia has also made a trial of them for the boilers of the engines imployed in that work, and found them to answer well. It must be observed a draft is necessary when first kindled. For the use of familys, the fire places can be so constructed with a small expense as to have the sufficient draft required. My opinion is they will be found cheaper than wood. They burn clean. No smell of sulphur is observed, or any dirt flying when stirred, which is a great objection to all other coal for family use. If the chim- neys for the burning of these coals are properly constructed and a trial made, I am well convinced that most of the citizens of Philadelphia would give them preference to wood.
"FRED'K. GRAFF.
"PHILADELPHIA, May Ist, 1805." "Clerk of the Water Works of Phila."
Morever, Samuel Breck, of Philadelphia, who represented his district in Congress, in 1823, made record in a diary from which, and from other documents, he compiled his "Recollections," edited by H. E. Scudder and published by Porter and Coates in 1877. That part of the record. pertinent at this time, is the following : "December 9, 1807 .- This morning I rode to Philadelphia, and purchased a newly-in- vented iron grate, calculated for coal, in which I mean to use that fuel, if it answers my expecta- tions. December 26, 1807 .- By my experiment on coal fuel I find that one fire place will burn from three to three and a half bushels per week in hard weather, and about two and a half in moderate weather. This averages three bushels for twenty-five weeks (the period of burning fires in parlors.) Three times twenty-five give seventy-five bushels for a single hearth, which, at forty-five cents, is thirty-three dollars and seventy-five cents, more than equal to six cords of oak wood at five dollars and fifty cents, and is, by consequence, no economy; but at thirty-three cents per bushel, which is the usual summer price, it will do very well."
A summary of the matter leaves no doubt that Judge Fell was not the first to successfully experiment in the burning of anthracite without a blast. . His independent discovery, however, being made in a locality where it could quickly and generally be brought into use, and the fact that he made no pretext of deriving personal benefit from the introduction of his device for the common good, mark him as a benefactor whose name will ever be mentioned in connec- tion with a mighty industry.
In its immediate effect, Judge Fell's experiment upheld the hands of those who foresaw something of the future of anthracite. After learning the success-
bridge company and of the bank. He geologized this whole section of country for miles up and down the river, finding besides manganese and clays, a number of iron beds, in many instances purchasing the land outright, in others only leasing, and at the time of his death he owned large bodies of iron lands. On his settlement at Wilkes-Barré he tried for several years to found glass works and a pottery at that point, but failed, though he found within easy distances the clays, sand manganese, etc., requisite to the successful carrying on of these enterprises. Jacob Cist did not know what it was to be idle; he was busy from sunrise until late in, the night, either at science, music, poetry or painting, and during business hours at his business; he was a man ahead of his times, and an enigma to the good people of Wilkes- Barré, who pretty generally thought him an enthusiast, who was wasting his time on bugs and stones. Many people have lived to judge differently of him, and to appreciate his worth. He died on Friday, the 30th day of December . 1825, aged forty-three years. He left to survive him the following children: Mary Ann Cist, intermarried with Nathaniel Rutter; Ellen E. Cist, first married to Rev. Robert Dunlap, D. D .. and secondly to Nathaniel Rutter; Emily L. Cist. married to Harrison Wright; Augusta Cist, married to Andrew T. McClintock; and Sarah A. Cist, intermarried with Peter T. Woodbury.
1824
ful outcome of the Fell demonstration, John Smith, a brother of Abijah, left Derby, Connecticut, and purchased a tract of one hundred and twenty acres of coal lands at Plymouth, adjoining the original Smith tract. The brothers, in the summer of 1808, loaded two more arks with coal and once again the cargo was landed at Columbia. This time, however, they were ready to demonstrate, rather than extol, the virtues of their product. Having provided themselves with several grates of the Fell pattern, they carried both grate and coal into private homes or wherever else opportunity offered, and soon a blazing fire was in evidence before the eyes of the skeptical.
None could now gainsay that the burning of stone coal was possible. Disposing of their entire cargo at a fair profit, the business of mining and ship- ping Wyoming coal was at last established on a permanent basis.
ABIJAH SMITH COAL OPENING (1807).
It must not be inferred, however, that fortunes were made or difficulties overcome in the quick fashion of later years.
In his recollections of these early struggles to introduce coal as an article of commerce, Wright in his "Sketches of Plymouth", (p 303) published in 1873, has this to say of pioneers of the trade:
"The statistical tables of the trade, which appear in the public press, date the commence- ment in 1820. It is put down in that year at three hundred and sixty-five tons, as the shipment from the Lehigh region to market.
"In this there is error, for thirteen years previous to that time, as we have already stated, Mr. Smith had shipped coal from his Plymouth mine. But in fact the article had been put in the market long previous to 1820, by other persons than the Messrs. Smith.
"Charles Miner, Jacob Cist, John W. Robinson and Stephen Tuttle, all of Wilkes-Barre, had leased the old Mauch Chunk mines. and in August, 1814, had sent an ark load of it down the Lehigh. Mr. George M. Hollenback sent two ark loads down the Susquehanna, taken from his Mill Creek mines, in 1813. The same year, Joseph Wright, of Plymouth, mined two ark loads of coal from the mines of his brother, the late Samuel G. Wright, of New Jersey, near Port Griffith, in Pittston. This was an old opening, and coal had been mined there for the smiths' forge as far back as 1775. The late Lord Butler, of Wilkes-Barre, had also shipped coal from his mines, more generally known of late years as the "Baltimore Mines," as early as 1814, and so had Crandal Wilcox, of Plains Township.
"My object in making these references is to show that the coal-trade actually began in 1807, and not in 1820, as is now generally believed.
"But while the persons I have named did not follow up the business, Abijah and John Smith, his brother, continued the business down to the period of their respective deaths; and their children continued on the trade long afterwards.
"Abijah Smith came to the valley in 1806. In 1807, he commenced mining; and coal has been taken almost yearly from the opening he made down to the present period. "In the year 1808, his brother John came to the valley. He bought the coal designated in the deed, from Wm. Curry, Jr., as 'Potts of Coal,' on the adjoining tract of one hundred and twenty acres. for the consideration of six hundred dollars. This mine was soon after opened,
1825
and workings have been uninterruptedly continued ever since. Abijah and John were partners in the coal business for many years. From the time they commenced coal operations, they con- tinued on in trade, as a means of living, for the remainder of their lives. It was their sole occu- pation. They prosecuted their employment with great energy and perseverance, and amid a great many difficulties and disappointments; and although neither of them lived to see their anticipations realized, their descendants-who are still the owners of the estates they purchased more than a half century ago-are enjoying the advantages and comforts which resulted from their ancestors' foresight and judgment.
"Abijah died in 1826. His brother John died in 1852.
"I knew them both intimately for a great number of years. They were industrious, up- right and worthy men. They started the coal trade, and their names will ever be blended with it.
"It is proper that we should examine into the details of the mode and inanner of mining and transportation, as pursued by these early pioneers in the business. There are but few now engaged in the great trade who are aware of the troubles and sacrifices which attended it in its infancy. We will look at the child when in its swathing bands: it is now a giant, but fifty years ago it was in its infancy. The experiment which was perseveringly followed up, and beset on all sides by difficulties and hazards, resulted in a grand success.
"The annual trade, which at the commencement was limited to hundreds of tons, has now become tens of millions of tons. The price of coal land of five dollars an acre, in the days of the Smith purchase, is now a thousand per acre. What the future demand for the article may be- or the annual production-the future alone can determine, human foresight cannot; nor can it be said that the field is inexhaustible. There is a limit to it; and those who will occupy our places five hundred years hence, will say that our prophecy is not entirely fiction.
"In the early process of mining, there was no powder used; this, under the present system. is the chief agency. It was all done with the pick and wedge. The miner did his labor by the day, and received from fifty to seventy-five cents. The product of his day's labor was about a ton and a half; his time was from sunrise to sunset. The coal was transported from the mine to the place of shipment, in carts and wagons, and deposited upon the banks of the river, to be put in arks, in the time of the annual spring freshets of the Susquehanna.
"The process, of mining with the pick and wedge was too slow and too expensive. Mr. Abijah Smith came to the conclusion that the ordinary powder blast might be made available in mining. He must have some one, however, who was accustomed to the quarries. There was no one here who understood the business.
"In the year 1818, he found that he could get a man for the work. This man was John Flanigan, of Milford, Connecticut. His occupation was quarrying stone with the powder blast. He wrote to Mr. Flanigan to come and make the experiment,-we say experiment, because it was contended that coal had not enough of strength and consistency to be properly mined with a blast. That the explosion would not reach far enough, and loosen and detach a sufficient quantity to make the blast economical in mining.
"In March of that year, Mr. Flanigan came on. The result of the experiment was a success. We may therefore chronicle the name of John Flanigan as the first man who ever bored a hole and applied the powder blast in the anthracite coal of Pennsylvania. An important era in the commencement of a trade that has become so immense in later years."
An average of from seven to ten arks a year was shipped by the Smitli brothers through continuous years from 1807 to 1820, inclusive. The total tonnage of these shipments was in the neighborhood of 6,000, as evidenced by records of the partnership in existence as late as 1875.
Supplemental shipments of Wyoming anthracite by many others, who en- gaged temporarily in the business during the same period, aggregated some 2,000 tons. Hence, anthracite statistics, which customarily begin in 1820, with a run of 365 tons of Lehigh coal, take into no account the well developed business of the Smith brothers before the latter year :- a business which, dealt not only with the whole length of the lower Susquehanna, but extended, by reloading at Havre de Grace on ocean bound vessels, to the city of New York. Nor do they consider the additional shipments by other less successful pioneers of Wyoming, in the same period.
The coal ark, as has been mentioned, was a crudely built vessel intended to be sold for its lumber at the end of a voyage. Hundreds of these were built on the River common at Wilkes-Barré during the early development of the coal business. Shupp's boat yard at Plymouth also did a thriving business, and later on engaged extensively in the building of canal boats. Wright (p. 313) has left the following interesting description of the old fashioned ark as he saw it built:
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