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 57
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"Vulcan Iron Works, South Main Street.
"Dickson Manufacturing Co., Canal Street.
"Wyoming Valley Manufacturing Co., South Main Street.
"Adam Behee, foundry, Butler alley.
"J. W. Brock, wire screen works, Union Street.
"N. G. Seitzinger, wire screen works, Union Street.
"Hazard Wire Works, Ross Street, near Canal.
"Stephen Lee, Wyoming Planing Mill, Canal Street.
"C. B. Price, planing mill, Canal Street.
"John Laning, planing mill, Canal Street.
"Keystone Flour and Feed Mill, South Main Street.
"John Hamilton, rope walk, South Street.
"Perry Organ Co., North Main Street."
At that time the principal hotels enumerated were the Wyoming Valley conducted by J. B. Stark; the Luzerne House, conducted by Sylvester Bristol; Exchange Hotel, M. J. Philbin; Bristol House, Laycock Bros; White Horse
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Hotel, trustee of the late L. B. Perrin; Washington Hotel, John Raeder; First National Hotel, Capt. J. Quinn; North Wilkes-Barre Hotel, W. P. Gardner; Mansion House, T. L. Kemmerer; Forest House, Alvin Perrin; VanLeer House, N. Farr.
A list of banks, published in connection with census statistics for that year is interesting owing to the large number of private banks which were then in operation. The list follows:
"Wyoming National, First National, Second National, Peoples Savings Bank, Wilkes-Barre Deposit Bank, Miners Savings Bank, Rockafellow & Co., Wood, Flannigan & Co., Bennett, Phelps & Co., Wilkes-Barre Savings Bank, Myer's Bank."
In addition to the above, the private banking firm of Brown and Gray was then in process of liquidation. This bank, founded in 1868 by Joseph Brown a successful business man of the community who had removed from Mauch Chunk to Wilkes-Barré in 1840, in partnership with Alexander Gray, managing head of the Baltimore Coal Company, had been hard hit by the failure of the New York banking firm of Henry Clews & Company as well as by the crash of Jay Cooke & Company in 1873. Both partners had placed their entire resources at the disposal of the local institution after the New York failures and it seemed that the firm might again establish itself in public confidence. After a five year struggle against heavy odds, the firm on May 16, 1878, closed its doors never to reopen them and its depositors were forced to share net losses of the concern to the extent of some $50,000.
From this period on, the private bank gradually lost its prestige. Its affairs were not held liable to supervision as were those of banks chartered by state and nation and it was merely the character of the local banker himself that served as a guarantee of integrity. The later failure of the Rockafellow institution served to check for all time further efforts at private banking in competition with institutions of known capital and surplus whose books at stated intervals were open to investigation by experts of the government. The Rockafellow institution had been founded in 1869 by F. V. Rockafellow, E. P. Darling and Thomas Blake.
As years went on the two partners of Mr. Rockafellow dropped out of all active connection with the bank and, as was later shown in suits brought against their estates, had severed their financial connection with the institution as well.
On February 2, 1893 the crash of the Rockafellow bank came out of a clear sky. It had been considered a community institution and the funds of estates as well as a wide number of corporation and individual accounts were numbered among the miscellaneous deposits. The failure proved to be the most disastrous financial blow the community had ever received and, from the stand- point of percentage of returns to its depositors, it proved one of the most costly failures recorded in state reports.
When something of calmness was restored, William Stoddard was appointed receiver of the institution and the work of salvaging the wreck proceeded.
The receiver later testified that when he took charge, less than $35,000 in cash could be counted among the assets of the bank and this, added to what securities of value remained, gave him some $46,000 on hand to meet deposits aggregating more than $450,000. Ten years later the last of a number of suits and counter-suits relative to affairs of the bank was threshed out. It was the case of Louis Tisch vs. the estate of E. P. Darling. This case disclosed that Mr.
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Rockafellow and E. P. Darling had each advanced $25,000 as capital for the bank when it opened but that articles of agreement drawn at that time limited each partner's liability to his lifetime. Mr. Darling having died prior to the crash and being nowise responsible for the direct management of the institution's affairs, it was held that his estate was exempt from liability for the subsequent acts of his partner and depositors eventually accepted what the receiver had to offer. The friends of Mr. Rockafellow who remained loyal to him declared that the tangle into which the bank was eventually drawn was due to lack of judg- ment on the part of the chief responsible figure. Others held differently and criminal proceedings having been instituted against him, Mr. Rockafellow was later found guilty of misapplying trust funds and suffered accordingly.
To what extent the manufacturing census of 1880 proved an incentive to greater activity in that direction or how much of this increased activity in augmenting diversified industries of the community in that and the following decade may be traced to the energy and ability of Charles Parrish, Wilkes-Barré's most distinguished citizen of that period, is a matter of conjecture.
It was a period when a great proportion of Wilkes-Barré's present industries of major importance were founded. And, as the name of Charles Parrish was inseparably linked with their establishment and management, the inference is plain that he brought to the service of the community an unbounded enthusiasm, a genius for organization and a contagious optimism which made him the out- standing figure of his time .*
*CHARLES PARRISH was born in Dundaff, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, August 27, 1826. At the tim- of his death, December 27, 1896, he was 71 years of age. His father was not overburdened with the wealth of this world and whatever prominence the son obtained came by his own indomitable energy and perseverance. His father was Archippus Parrish, who soon after the birth of Charles moved to Wilkes-Barre and conducted a hostelry on Public Square where the Osterhout building now stands. Charles was placed in the Wilkes-Barre grammar school and there received the rudiments of an education. Mr. Parrish's first commercial education was received in the store of George Slocum. He remained there only a short time, and at the age of 15 years went into the store of Ziba Bennett. The store was situated on North Main street where the present Bennett building now stands. So industrious was the youth that in 1848, he was taken into partnership with Ziba Bennett under the firm name of Bennett, Parrish & Co., the other partner being Elias Robins. Here Mr. Parrish remained for a number of years.
It was about this time that the coal interests of the Wyoming Valley began attracting attention. coal having come into use as a necessary household commodity. It was known that the Wyoming Valley was underlaid with rich deposits of coal and the public mind was just beginning to grasp the great commercial value of anthracite. As yet everything was dormant and there were few hardy enough to risk their money or their energy in developing what it was supposed could be at most a hazardous, venturesome enterprise, Mr. Parrish was a man of deep thought, but of few words. He went out among the hills and valleys and discovered every- where evidence of the presence of coal in vast quantities. But Mr. Parrish knew that in order to develop the industry, markets must be opened up in the outside world and means of transportation, which then were very much limited, must be provided. In short, a market must be created, railroads and canals must be built, mines must be opened, breakers must be built and the thousand and one details for inaugur- ating a new industry of great magnitude must be attended to. Mr. Parrish was not a man of great wealth, but as he sur- veyed these projects he had pluck and ambition enough to counteract all other disadvantages and he at once set out upon this stupendous work, devoting his whole energy to the task and surmounting obstacles that seemed mountain high. Others stood by and wondered while Mr. Parrish went on and on. stopping only when the whole Wyoming Valley was dotted with coal breakers, when miles upon miles of subterranean tunnels ran under the river and hill, railroads and canals were sending the product of the mines to all corners of this great nation, and when thousands upon thousands of men earned their daily bread largely as a result of his enterprise.
It was about 1858 that Mr. Parrish began the organi- zation of a number of coal companies. He went to Phila- delphia and interested such men as John Brown, John Ely, Richard Plumbly and others in his schemes. He told them of the growing use and value of coal and pointed out to them CHARLES PARRISH the great future that lay in developing anthracite and sending it to market. The men hesitated at first, hut Mr. Parrish held one consultation after another with them and he finally persuaded them to interest themselves in the Wyoming Valley coal development.
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It is but natural that the activities of Mr. Parrish and others associated with him should turn the thought of those not possessed, as he was, with unlimited ability as an organizer, to the organization of a trade association intended to concert the efforts of a number of its members into active channels of community welfare. With this in view, the Board of Trade of Wilkes-Barre was organized
As a result of this perseverance, the Kimbleton Coal Company was organized, the mine was opened and a breaker was built just below Sugar Notch. This was run for several years and the venture proved eminently successful. The company was later absorbed by the Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coal Company and the breaker is being operated to this day. The coal was transported by means of a canal that ran from Northampton street in Wilkes-Barre to Havre de- Gras, Maryland.
About this time a project was set on foot by a party of New York capitalists, mainly living in the City of Elmira to buy up the canals of this State, which would also mean the absorption of the canal by means of which Mr. Parrish and Company transported their coal to market. Mr. Parrish at once set himself to fighting this scheme and then began one of the most remarkable legal battles ever fought in this State or nation. Mr. Parrish set up one contention after another against the claim of the New Yorkers and the same indefatigable energy that marked the beginning of the Wyoming Valley coal industry characterized the fight against control of these canals. The New York parties finally secured control of the canal that ran north of Wilkes-Barre, while Mr. Parrish and the capitalists with him controlled the canal running south. Mr. Parrish was president of the canal company and its general manager for a number of years, until the Pennsylvania Railroad Company bought and secured control of it.
About the time Mr. Parrish got control of the canal, he organized another coal company in addition to the one having its interest at Sugar Notch. The new one was the Pine Ridge Coal Company. In this company Mr. Parrish. W. L. Conyngham and Mr. Thomas of the Thomas Iron Company of Catasauqua and vicinity, were partners. The colliery which was built is situated near the town of Plains. This colliery was later secured and is now operated by the Delaware & Hudson Coal Company.
Mr. Parrish's ideas, practically demonstrated, were all that he claimed for them and the way was now paved for the upbuilding of the coal business to almost limitless extent. It was then that the commercial future of Wilkes-Barre and the Wyoming Valley was actually assured.
From 1868 to 1870 Charles Par.ish became interested in forming the Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coal Company, one of the greatest coal corporations in the world. He saw that a more embracing and more powerful company was necessary in order to keep abreast with the growing market, and, his coat still off, he sailed into the work. The company grew step by step, until to-day its mines are all over Luzerne County and it owns and leases thousands of acres of coal land. Mr. Parrish interested a number of outside capitalists in the company and most of them to this day retain their valuable holdings, together with those of the railroad over which the coal is sent. Every acre of the great domain of this company west of the mountains was purchased under Mr. Parrish's direction, and the combination of the diff- erent companies, mines, railroads and canal was the conception of his brain and the work of his hands, and it was the culmination of the ambition and work of years. For twenty years Mr. Parrish remained president of the Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coal Company until the presidency was taken by Mr. Maxwell, president of the Central Railroad Com- pany. Mr. Parrish up to the time of his death remained a di. ector of the company.
Mr. Parrish was one of those who were chiefly interested in building the railroad of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company, now leased by the New Jersey Central Railroad Company, extending from Scranton to Easton. This rail- road was built for transporting coal to metropolitan markets and all of the coal of the Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coal Company was shipped over it. Mr. Parrish became a director in this company, and remained so up to the time of his death.
Mr. Parrish also organized the Parrish Coal Company and the mines at Buttonwood and Plymouth are still being operated. Mr. Parrish was at the time of his death president of this company.
Mr. Parrish also secured control of a large part of the stock of the Sunbury branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, which branch runs from Wilkes-Barre to Sunbury, and he became a director of the branch. This was also built for the purpose of widening the coal market, and Mr. Parrish brought about its construction.
Instrumental in bringing the Hazard Manufacturing Company to Wilkes-Barre, Mr. Parrish became its first local president and continued in office until his death.
Mr. Parrish also formed the Union Coal Company. About this time the project to build the Union Railroad Company for the purpose of opening a Northern market for the coal was set on foot. It was decided to build the rail- road from Wilkes-Barre to Scranton, and Mr. Parrish was given the contract for its construction. It was later secured by the D. & H. R. R. Co., and is still operated by it.
While Mr. Parrish was president of the Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coal Company, he asked all of the many employes to set aside the wages of one day in each year, to be employed as a fund for the ase of men disabled in the mines. This was on condition that the company would set aside the proceeds of a day's earnings of the company. In this way the year,y sum of some $15,000 was amassed, and Mr. Parrish's idea became a great boon to many a disabled miner's family.
But not only to the mines and railroads did Mr. Parrish devote his busy mind, widespreading as those interests were. He wanted to see Wilkes-Barre grow. He had seen it a dull borough and wanted his influence to penetrate that also. For some years he was president of the Borough council, and his progressive ideas at once started a line of improvements that has been kept up ever since. He was president of the Borough council from May, 1866 to June, 1871, and of the city council from June, 1871, to April. 1874, when he was succeeded by Hon Charles A. Miner. While he was head of council the first well-paved and well-lighted streets and efficient fire department and apparatus and a creditable police department became evidences of his enterprise. From 1861 to 1865 he also took an active part in equipping volunteers for the wai of the rebellion, and no man in this city did more in this line than he.
For twenty years Mr. Parrish was president of the First National Bank. He was interested likewise, in bringing many of the most prominent industries to Wilkes-Barre, among which of late years was the Sheldon Axle Works. Mr. Parrish saw the need for a large, commodious hotel in Wilkes-Barre, and it was through him that the Wyoming Valley Hotel was built, he himself putting $15,000 into it.
Mr. Parrish married June 31, 1864, Miss Mary Conyngham, eldest daughter of Judge John N. Conyngham of Wilkes-Barre, and three children, together with Mrs. Parrish, survived him. Mr. Parrish's father, Archippus Parrish, and his mother lived with him during the latter years of their lives. His mother was 90 years of age when she died, and his father was also quite aged.
George H. Parrish was a brother and Mrs. Hunt, mother of Charles P. Hunt was a sister. Gould P. Parrish was also a brother
Mr. Parrish in 1870 built the marble front mansion on South River street now occupied by John N. Conyngham. In the final year of his life, the health of Mr. Parrish failed steadily and he was compelled to relinquish all of his business interests and free his mind as much as possible. Several weeks before his death his family went to Hotel Stenton at Philadelphia, contemplating a trip South later in the winter. There he died suddenly, December 27, 1896.
Charles Parrish was descended from Dr. Thomas Parrish, who was born in England in 1612, and who came to this country in 1635. He was a noted physician. One of his sons, Thomas, was graduated from Harvard College in 1659. Another son, John, from whom Charles Parrish is directly descended, was one of the original proprietors of Groton, Massachusetts. He was a selectman, delegate to the general court and a man of many honors, both civil and military. His son Isaac served as a lieutenant throughout the French and Indian wars. From Isaac Parrish descended three generations of sons named Archippus. The last of the three born in Windham, Connecticut, in 1773, was the father of Charles Parrish. Archippus Parrish was married in 1806 to Phoebe Miller, whose ancestry was dis- tinguished in the Revolutionary War. He came to the Wyoming Valley in 1810, the possessor of what was in those days a large fortune, most of this he lost by unfortunate investments. He became afterwards proprietor of the most
famous hostelry in the Wyoming Valley.
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April 21, 1884 and regularly chartered as a corporation "not for profit" on the same date.
Its charter members were:
"T. S. Hillard, Wm. H. DeMun, J. K. Bogert, E. Constine, C. Morgan & Son, M. H. Post, F. V. Rockafellow, Isaac Long, R. F. Walsh, S. L. Ansbacher, C. B. Metzger, Elias Robins, Geo. A. Wells, John M. Ward."
The early years of this organization were apparently without much tangible outcome, Mr. Parrish himself being somewhat indifferent to its suggestions and inclined to act the part of the free lance which suited his temperament and initiative to much better advantage. Minutes of early meetings of the Board record words of encouragement and sometimes of advice to major undertakings of the period, but no active identification of the organization with the rapid advancement of community affairs of the time of Mr. Parrish are traceable through press accounts narrating this advancement.
With the earlier industries of Wyoming, a former Chapter has dealt. Of the industries enumerated in 1880, the Hazard Manufacturing Company was classed with the Vulcan Iron Works and the Dickson Manufacturing Com- pany as a concern of major importance.
Erskine Hazard established the first wire mill of the United States near the Falls of the Schuylkill in the latter part of the eighteenth century. It was one of the first concerns, as has been stated, to use anthracite under its boilers for generating steam. In 1848, having become extensively interested in anthracite production, Fisher Hazard, the son, founded a duplicate of his father's enterprise at Mauch Chunk. Interesting other local capital with him, Mr. Parrish secured a controlling interest in the Mauch Chunk concern, reorganized it on a much larger basis and moved the machinery and headquarters of the business to Wilkes-Barré. Theretofore it had been an unincorporated enterprise.
In December, 1867, the business was reorganized as the Hazard Manufactur- ing Company with Fisher Hazard, president, E. B. Leisering, treasurer and T. C. North, superintendent. Early in 1868 the company established itself in two small buildings which had been formerly occupied by the American Scale Works (which had in 1859 removed to Harford, Susquehanna county) at the corner of Ross and Fell streets and from that time forth the business of the concern has ranked not less than second among plants of the country in its line of products. It manufactures iron, steel and galvanized wire rope, wire strand and seizing, telegraph and telephone wire, wire rope clamps, clips and thimbles, fastenings and fittings, as well as insulated electric wires and cables. It issues several handsome catalogues in which may be found a complete resume of its high-grade products.
In 1903, following an increase in its capital stock to $1,000,000, the com- pany more than doubled its manufacturing capacity by the addition of a large plant on the northerly side of Ross street, connected to the original plant by an overhead structure. Again in 1925, Mr. William H. Conyngham, its president, announced that the company intended to erect other substantial additions to the newer plant on ground recently acquired for that purpose. It was stated that the proposed new addition would add some sixty thousand square feet of floor space and that the industry would then be housed in seventeen buildings con- taining approximately four hundred thousand square feet available for manu- facturing.
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While much of the fame of the Hazard company is based upon the manu- facture of wire rope and this continues to be a chief product, its reports for recent years indicate that the demand for insulated wires has outrun its market for cables, the average annual output of the former now being about 112,000,000 pounds to some 20,000,000 pounds of the latter. The Hazard company employs some one thousand skilled men, its product being valued at over $5,000,000 annually and its payroll being one of the dependable assets of the community. With branch offices and agencies in approximately fifty larger cities of the country, the name Hazard has become perhaps the best known of all Wyoming's manufacturing establishments.
Another industry whose removal to Wilkes-Barré was largely the result of the foresight and initiative of Charles Parrish was the Sheldon Axle Company. This concern was established in 1865 at Auburn, New York, by Charles L. Sheldon.
SHELDON AXLE WORKS
Incorporated as Sheldon and Company in 1883, the business was deemed by Mr. Parrish and his associates to have a promising future. In the spring of 1885, negotiations were opened with the Sheldon interests for the removal of the plant to Wilkes-Barré and on November 1, 1885, ground was broken for the main building of the present plant on Conyngham avenue. The first shipment of products from the new plant was made November 16, 1886. The business was incorporated as the Sheldon Axle Company, with a capital stock of $350,000, increased in later years to $750,000.
Up until the decline in manufacture of animal drawn vehicles, the Sheldon was classified as the largest plant in the United States manufacturing axles and springs. In 1919, stockholders of the plant announced its sale to the Spicer Manufacturing Company of Plainfield, New Jersey, the community hoping that the change might secure the same prestige in the automotive industry that the Sheldon had once enjoyed in the field of other vehicles. Lack of capital,
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which evidently handicapped the parent organization in bringing the Sheldon concern to a point where it could compete in a modern sense with others in the manufacturing of automobile axles and springs, caused heavy losses in operations of the plant in succeeding years and in 1925, overtures were made to the Spicer company for the repurchase of the business by local capitalists in the hope of restoring it to its former place as a leader of industry in its line. These negotia- tions were successful and on May 29, 1925, it was announced that the company and its business had again passed to local control and would thereafter be con- ducted as an independent industry with an assuring promise before it. With the change in ownership the following officers of the company were elected:
"President, H. B. Schooley; vice president and chief executive officer, George M. Wall; general manager, Alfred Weiland; secretary, Fred Armstrong, and treasurer, Charles F. Griesman. "The board of directors, in addition to President Schooley and Vice President Wall, includes H. J. Prichard, P. F. O'Neil, William H. Conyngham, William T. Payne, S. T. Nicholson, George W. Wilmot, George M. Wall and W. E. Lewis."
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