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 V, Part 14

Author: Harvey, Oscar Jewell, 1851-1922; Smith, Ernest Gray
Publication date: 1909
Publisher: Wilkes-Barre : Raeder Press
Number of Pages: 734

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 V > Part 14

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der ; power (one electric plant furnishing power to 200 communities, over a radius of one hundred miles) ; printing (a recent merger of two large plants promising, it is said, to give Wilkes-Barre the largest printing establishment in northeastern Pennsylvania, another plant being fully occupied in the print- ing of colored supplements for Sunday papers) ; shovels; shirts; silks; snow guards ; springs; steel drums; stove castings, stoves and ranges, sugar machinery, tobacco; toilet preparations ; umbrellas, underwear, violins, ven- tilators, wire rope.

Altogether, Luzerne County's manufacturing industries, at the time of the taking of the last Federal industrial census (1919), numbered five hundred and seventy-nine, employing an average of 24,856 ivorkers, whose earnings were $21,400,673. Value of products was $94,702,494. The value of the coal output of Luzerne County is about twice as much ($199,289,572, in 1924), but the foregoing is sufficient to indicate that the manufacturing industries are by no means negligible factors in the industrial life of the Wyoming Valley. The coal measures may have become exhausted a century hence, or reduced to such small volume as to be no longer the dominant industry, but the probability is that long ere that industrial change takes place, the other industries will have so far increased as to be able to provide satisfactorily for the majority of the workers of the region, thus keeping the former coal region in the prosperous industrial state to which it had been so long accustomed. Indeed, the proba- bility is that the change will take place unnoticed. a gradual dwindling of mining importance being counterbalanced by gradual increase in manufactur- ing activity. It is generally recognized that anthracite mining, after some more decades of peak activity, will gradually diminish, but recent expansion of other industries indicates that as an industrial manufacturing centre Wilkes- Barre's future is bright.

In substantiation, the recent history of the silk industry in Luzerne County might be cited. There was only one silk mill in the county forty years ago, and few in Pennsylvania. In 1919, Pennsylvania, for the first time, led all the states in the value of silk textile products. Luzerne County's share in Penn- sylvania's textile development was fifty of three hundred and seventy-three establishments. And there has been considerable expansion since 1919. In the last six years it is estimated that the silk throwing industry of Luzerne County has expanded twenty-five per cent., now providing for an average of about 12,000 operatives, the frequent labor strikes at Paterson, New Jersey, reacting to the benefit of Wilkes-Barre.

The pioneer silk company in the Wilkes-Barre district was the Hess- Goldsmith Company, which established a plant on Waller Street in 1886. It is now one of the largest. In 1899 the Duplan Silk Company built the first mill at Hazleton. Fifteen years later it was putting out annually about 7,000,000 yards of broad silks. Now Hazleton has five silk mills, and the Wilkes-Barre district is forging ahead, seriously challenging, if not having recently taken, Paterson's place as the chief silk manufacturing center of America.

The Wyoming Valley silk companies in 1927 are: The Anthracite Silk Throwing Company, Wyoming; Avoca Silk Co., Avoca; Bentley Silk Corp., Pittston; Century Throwing Co., Wilkes-Barre; Crane Bros., Kingston; David B. Edmund Silk Mill, Wilkes-Barre; Dorranceton Silk Works, King- ston : Duryea Silk Throwing Co., Duryea; Empire Silk Co., Wilkes-Barre ; Fashion Silk Co., Plymouth ; Forty Fort Silk Co., Forty Fort and Swovers- ville; Franklin Mill, Wilkes-Barre; Fromberg Silk Co., Kingston; George- town Silk Co., Wilkes-Barre; Gillis-Krych Silk Co., Edwardsville; Gillis Krych Silk Corp., Pittston; Goebel Silk Throwing Co., Wilkes-Barre; Wes- ton E. Good Co., Pittston; Guaranty Silk Corp., Nanticoke; Hamilton Silk Co., Swoyersville; Henry R. Heitman, Inc., Wilkes-Barre; Hess, Goldsmith

& Co., Inc., Wilkes-Barre, Kingston, and Plymouth ; Kingston Silk Throwing Co., Kingston : Klots Throwing Co., Moosic ; Leon-Ferenbach Silk Co., Sugar Notch, Parsons and Wilkes-Barre; Liberty Throwing Co., Nanticoke; Nanti- coke Silk Throwing Co., Nanticoke; Newark Silk Co., Wilkes-Barre; Patricia Silk Co., Pittston ; Plains Silk Throwing Co., Plains; Post & Sheldon Silk Corp., Dupont ; Puritan Silk Co. (Duplan Silk Co.), Wilkes-Barre; Ramsey Silk Co., Avoca: Rosedale Silk Co., Wyoming: Schwarzenbach-IIuber Co .. Inc., Wilkes-Barre ; Sheldon-Robertson Silk Co., Plymouth and Wilkes-Barre : Sheridan Silk Mill. Pittston; Tamor Silk Mills, Inc., Pittston; Universal Industrial Corp., Duryea; Verigood Silk Throwing Co., Pittston; Wallace- Wilson Hosiery Co., Kingston; West Pittston Silk Throwing Co., West Pittston ; Wilkes-Barre Silk Co., Wilkes-Barre.

The advantage that the Wyoming Valley possessed in this manufacturing industry was demonstrated during the coal strikes of 1922 and 1925. Then, the labor of the 10,000 or 12,000 young women who constitute the bulk of the mill operatives went a long way to sustain thousands of families wherein the male members were forced to endure idleness for many months.

The silk throwing industry finds an ideal center in the coal regions. Fuel is at hand at first cost, and in a populous region wherein the dominant industry-coal-can find employment only for males, they find abundance of labor of the type they want-female operatives. Thus it happens that the silk and other textile industries are increasing so rapidly in the Wyoming Valley.

Altogether, of the about 60,000 operatives of the Wilkes-Barre district, about 35,000 find employment in other industries than coal mining. These are estimated figures for the year 1926. The Federal statistics for the last census year, 1920, giving the figures for the manufacturing industries in 1919, credit Luzerne County with only 24,856 operatives in these industries. The expansion in other industries than coal mining must, therefore, have been substantial during the last seven years. A few more years will bring us to another Federal census year. Meanwhile, for purposes of record, it might be well to spread here some more statistics of the 1919 census. Quoting from the tables for cities and boroughs of 10,000 inhabitants, or more, we find that the average number of wage-earners in manufacturing industries of Hazleton in 1919 were 3,815; of Nanticoke, 1,029; of Pittston, 974; of Plymouth, 588; of Wilkes-Barre, 9,408. The majority of these worked between 48 and 54 hours a week. Hazleton possessed 74 manufacturing establishments, including four valued at $500,000 or more; Nanticoke had 36 plants, including four valued at $100,000 or more ; Pittston had 40 plants, including twelve valued at $100,- 000 or more; Plymouth had 21 plants, including five valued at $100,000 to $500,000; and Wilkes-Barre had 179 plants, including 44 valued at $20,000 to $100,000, 29 worth from $100,000 to $500,000, six worth from $500,000 to $1,000,000, and eight plants valued at more than $1,000,000. The value of products in 1919 was : Hazleton, $14,830,168; Nanticoke, $2,015,014; Pittston, $3,835,864 ; Plymouth, $1,285,256; Wilkes-Barre, $41,986,203. Included in the Wilkes-Barre figures were silk goods valued at $6,023,928.

Wireless Telegraphy Pioneer-The dawn of the twentieth century wit- nessed the introduction into the world of science of that most mystifying yet stupendously valuable discovery-wireless telegraphy, and the succeeding years have been filled with progressive activities in the practical application of this marvel. First applied to ships at sea it revolutionized maritime trade and travel and of recent years has been the basic principle for the great strides which have been made in radio broadcasting, trans-Atlantic telephone service, and pictorial transmission.

As one of the pioneers in the perfection of wireless telegraphy, the Rev- erend Joseph Murgas, of Wilkes-Barre, stands out prominently for his origi-

nal and valuable contributions to the development of this remarkable innova- tion in the annals of scientific history. Father Murgas, a man of great crea- tive genius, devised a system of tone transmission which was an incomparable improvement over previous methods, and on October 2, 1903, applied to the United States Patent Office, Washington, D. C., for patent letter covering his first invention, which patent was granted under date of May 10, 1904, desig- nated as No. 759,825, "Wireless Telegraphy Apparatus," and No. 759,826, "Method of Communicating Intelligence by Wireless Telegraphy."

The first, "Wireless Telegraphy Apparatus," contains a description of a revolving imperfect contact receiving apparatus for wireless telegraphy in which apparatus, a steel needle slowly rotates by clock work touching some small carbons forming an imperfect contact, which in proper connection with one cell battery and a telephone receiver reproduces faithfully and perfectly the signals emitted from a wireless sending station.

The second patent letter describes a new method of wireless communica- tion, the so-called tone system. The invention consists of the construction in proper relation of the units of the so-called oscillatory circuit apparatus in the sending station, comprising the condensers, inductances, the spark gap and by a given electrical energy adjusting the same permanently in such a way that they emit a musical tone of a certain pitch. By selecting properly the units of the mentioned closed circuit in the sending station, it is possible to obtain at will several tones of different pitch, of which can be formed the alphabet replacing the Morse signals, the dot with one tone and the dash with another tone of different pitch. Because the tones thus obtained to form the Morse * code do not depend upon time duration, the musical tones emitted are all of short duration, but differ in pitch, thus making it possible to send and receive signals with greater ease and certainty. However, this property of utilizing tones is not the only factor in establishing Father Murgas' system as superior to all rivals, as one of the greatest advantages is the perfect reception of sig- nals from long distances. By negotiating a common sender in a sending station, the spark emitted from the spark gap has irregular crackling noises, and in receiving the same from a distance, the noise is similar to the ever- present static interfering therefore with the clear reading of the signals. On the other hand, in signals employing the musical tones, the pitch of the tone is clearly distinguished from the static noises, thus making possible direct mes- sages between points of greater remoteness.

The electrical energy for this system was delivered at first from a large, self-made induction coil, using various interruptors, and was replaced later by another invention of which the application was filed October 7, 1905, and patented on April 6, 1909, bearing the name, "Wireless Telegraphy," Patent No. 917,103. The patent letter describes the apparatus necessary for feeding the sending station with alternating current of higher frequency than the usual lighting circuit. Soon as the first patent letter was obtained, a company was formed in Philadelphia, "The Universal Aether Company." to place the system in practical operation. According to the contract which Father Murgas signed, the company was to furnish the necessary money for the erection of a laboratory and two aerial stations two hundred feet high in Wilkes-Barre and in Scranton. Father Murgas was obliged to show his system in practical operation and, in September, 1905, the public test was witnessed by Lieutenant Robinson, of the United States Navy, and by several guests from Wilkes- Barre and Scranton. The Universal Aether Company also witnessed the test with full satisfaction and proposed plans for the erection of several stations for commercial use, but unexpected circumstances occurred which prevented further developments. Two of the most prominent members of the organiza- tion died the same year, while about the same time, the station in Scranton

PUBLIC WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY TEST BETWEEN WILKES-BARRE AND SCRANTON, SEPTEMBER, 1905

was destroyed by a gale, causing the company to abandon its plans for further building.

It is proper to mention here that the Fessenden and Marconi companies evolved this system still further, improving the alternators to emit much higher cycles, but using only one tone for signaling, and calling the improve- ment the sonorous system. In 1913, and again in 1914, the two companies started a law suit in the New York Supreme Court regarding the priority of the invention, and both concerns sent expert engineers to Father Murgas' laboratory to investigate the apparatus, especially the special alternator. After their findings were communicated to the judge, the case was thrown out of court, leaving the priority of the invention to Father Murgas alone.

In addition to the aforementioned three patents, Father Murgas invented several other innovations in wireless telegraphy, on which for eleven different inventions patents were granted. Thus in his "Means for Producing Electro- magnetic Waves" (application filed January 4, 1905, patented January 14, 1908), the discovery comprises a direct current source of high voltage (from 300 volts up) which through an adjustable inductance coil feeds the closed oscillatory circuit of which the primary coil with the secondary forms an air core transformer, the secondary being connected through a second spark gap to the aerial and to the ground, respectively, and very sharp selectivity is obtained in this manner. Another invention deals with underground antennae and bears the name "Wireless Telegraphy." application filed May 17, 1907, patented March 23, 1909. The invention comprises two patents. The aerial wires are dispensed with and are replaced by an adjustable capacity and inductance. The ground wire leads to the ground and is insulated from the same. This invention when built on a small scale proved to operate with excellent success, but their construction on a large scale aroused many dif- ficulties regarding the insulation, so that the experiment on account of heavy expenses was abandoned.

Still another invention bearing the name, "Method and Apparatus for Producing Electric Oscillations for Alternating Current," was filed on April 23, 1909, and patented (patent not at hand), in which the spark gap forming the closed oscillatory circuit is affected by a strong air blast which unites its discharge in one single thick discharge which is purely oscillatory in character of a very high frequency and practically noiseless. Two other patents relate to a magnetic detector apparatus (application filed March 17, 1909, patented August 10, 1909), in which a rotating magnetic wire solenoid (preferably iron) is rotated in a magnetic field and connected to the antenna and to the ground. Around this solenoid is a stationary wire bobbin at ninety degrees connected to the telephone. Another invention of this type shows a magnetic field of proper zone whereon is rotated a disc made from magnetic material sur- rounded by a stationary wire bobbin of wire connected to the antenna, ground and telephone. The balance of the patents contains a wave meter, patented April 2, 1907, in which a so-called talking condenser is applied, and in the patent "Electric Transformer," patented April 2, 1907, is designed a new oscillatory transformer for the closed circuit in the sending station.

CHAPTER LIV. EDUCATION.

More than fifty years before free education became general in Pennsyl- vania, free schools were being conducted in the Wyoming Valley. This state- ment will surprise the average Luzerne County resident. Only the well- informed, historically, will know that free schools in the Wyoming Valley, in colonial times, merely meant that the region was functioning normally, in its local government. They will remember that the Wyoming Valley was then a part of Connecticut, not of Pennsylvania, or rather that the Wyoming Valley was then peopled by men from New England who recognized the govern- mental authority of Connecticut, not that of Pennsylvania. They will also know that the New England plan of local government called for the estab- lishment of free schools in every settled community.

In the early days of the Plymouth Colony, in Massachusetts, it was pro- vided "that all such profits as might, or should, annually accrue to the Colony from time to time from fishing with nets or seines at Cape Cod for mackerel, bass, or herring, should be improved for, and towards, a free school in some town of the jurisdiction." In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Puritans went farther. In 1642, the General Court passed a law requiring that those chosen to manage "the prudentials of every town in the several precincts and quarters where they dwelt, shall have a vigilant eye over their neighbors, to see, first, that none of them shall suffer so much barbarism in any of their families as not to endeavor to teach by themselves, or others, their children and apprentices so much learning as may enable them to read perfectly the English tongue, and a knowledge of the capital laws, upon penalty of twenty shillings for each neglect therein." Pennsylvania and Massachusetts are far apart ; nevertheless, a century and a quarter or so later "prudentials" were elected to care for the governmental affairs of townships then being organized in the Wyoming Valley.

In 1647 the Puritans took more positive steps to establish a free school system. Then the General Court of Massachusetts passed an act which pro- vided for the establishment of a free public school in every town of fifty house- holders. Larger towns, those in which there were domiciled one hundred families, or more, were required to do more. Therein must be maintained a secondary school-"a grammar school, taught by a schoolmaster who could impart instruction in Latin and mathematics." In course of time, all land grants for township organization were made conditional upon the establish- ment of a church and a school within the town projected.

This, substantially, was the governmental principle followed by the Con- necticut settlers of the Wyoming Valley. The Connecticut law of township organization made provision for the maintenance of schools. Accordingly, when the townships were surveyed in the Wyoming Valley, one full lot- five hundred acres-in each township was set apart for school purposes. This, in time, would provide a school fund; meanwhile the settlers were not to evade their moral liability to have the rudiments of academies taught to their children.

Thus it happens that the settlement records for 1773 show that "the town voted a tax of three pence on the pound in support of a free school in each township." And thus it came about that Luzerne County might rightly claim pioneer place in the establishment of a free common school system in Penn- sylvania.

In 1682, William Penn had, it is true, directed his deputy-governor and provincial council to "erect and order all publick schools and encourage and reward the authors of useful sciences and laudable inventions." A year or so later, in considering "ye instruction and sober education of youth," he had summoned Enoch Flower, a schoolmaster, and had prevailed upon him to establish a school, in which pupils might be taught and fed for £io a year ; but this-the William Penn Charter School-was not a common school. It is true that the Provincial Assembly of Pennsylvania, at its first session, passed an act to compel parents and guardians to educate the children ; but no free schools, maintained by township taxes, were organized. It is true that the first State Constitution of Pennsylvania, that of 1776, directed that "a school or schools shall be established in each county by the Legislature for the convenient instruction of youth, with such salaries to the masters paid by the public, as may enable them to instruct youth at low prices; but this was no more than the subsidization of the schoolmaster by the State. It was not a system of free schools. Not until 1834, when the Common School Law was passed, did Pennsylvania adopt a system of free education.

The unique place that the Wyoming Valley holds in the history of educa- tion in Pennsylvania is, therefore, not difficult to see. Just as easy is it to see that she owes her distinctive place to the fact that her townships were organ- ized under Connecticut law, not Pennsylvanian. The Wyoming Valley pioneers may not have been superior in intellect to those of other parts of Pennsylvania, but they had grown up under a governmental system which inexorably linked free schools and State-aided churches with local government; so they natu- rally thought of no other educational system than one free to all children, and maintained out of township funds.

It seems that, in 1774, a committee of sixteen elders of Westmoreland Township-which at that time embraced all of the Wyoming Valley, and much more besides-headed by Captain Lazarus Stewart, "was appointed with power to erect schoolhouses and employ teachers."

The several settlements that were soon to become separate townships of Westmoreland County, Connecticut, were then merely "districts," or pre- cincts, of Westmoreland Township. Wilkes-Barre and Kingston records show that action to establish schools was taken in these districts in 1774, and most probably other districts also took steps to meet their liability. The set- tlers were beset by many difficulties, but, to a New Englander, church and school were inescapable charges upon the town, and no self-respecting parent would chafe at the imposition of a school tax. Nevertheless, one can hardly hold back admiration of these rugged pioneers who so courageously faced their liabilities. Miner, in his history of the region, writes: "It may be justly regarded equally honorable and extraordinary that a people just commencing a settlement in the wilderness, wrestling steadily with the yet rude and unbroken soil for bread, surrounded by so many intrinsic difficulties and causes of aların and disquiet, should be found so zealously adopting and so steadily pursuing measures to provide free schools throughout the settlement."

The school system was not substantially changed in Luzerne County dur- ing the next fifty years. Miner writes: "This system substantially continued in operation in the Wyoming region up to the time of the adoption of the common school system in 1834, when, with little change and no disturbance, it was merged into it; and, as the nearest approach to our modern public schools of any class or schools then known in Pennsylvania, it had consider- able influence in shaping the school legislation which culminated in the act of 1834. It was Timothy Pickering, of Luzerne, .... who, in the Constitu- tion Convention of 1790, secured the adoption of the article on education upon which was subsequently based the whole body of laws relating to common schools in Pennsylvania, up to the year 1874; and by so doing saved the con-

vention from the threatened danger of committing itself to a much narrower policy."

The Constitution of 1790 provided for the free education of those children whose parents were too poor to pay for tuition. This half-measure was not a success, and in ten years the State was called upon to pay only $3,000 for the education of poor children of Luzerne. The settlers, in general, had little money, but they objected to the stigma of pauperism suggested by the con- stitutional article of 1790. They would prefer to meet school expenditures by township tax. At the most, this would not be an overwhelming liability. There were not many teachers in Luzerne County in 1790, and not many scholars ; indeed, the county has alnost as many teachers today as she had inhabitants just after the Revolution. In 1790, when the first Federal census was taken, Luzerne County had a population of 4,904. In 1927 the schools of Wilkes-Barre City alone had a teaching staff of 480.

Wilkes-Barre possessed a school, if not a schoolhouse, before 1781, when the first public school in Pittston was opened. Charles Miner writes : "Through- out the year 1777 schools engaged the greatest attention. They levied an extra penny to the pound for free schools. Each township was to establish a legal school district with power to sell the lands sequestered by the Susque- hanna Company therein for the use of schools, and also to receive of the school committee appointed by their town their part of the money according to their respective rates."

The first Wilkes-Barre school building stood "on the east side of the public square." Later, one was built "on the plains near the Cortright residence." The third building was on Dr. Covell's farm, near the railroad station. Bradsby writes: "The earliest teachers remembered were Godlove N. Lutyens, a German university graduate. In 1802, Asher Miner was a teacher. . .. Prior to 1806, select schools had been successfully taught. Mr. Parmaly had opened a school in the old stillhouse on Main Street. Another was on East Union Street, taught by William Wright. This continued to be a prosperous school until the time of Mr. Wright's death, 1816. Mrs. Jabez Fish had a juvenile school, taught only in summer. This was on the river bank, at the lower end of the commons. It is said the chief purpose of her old-fashioned Puritan school was to teach the Westminster Catechism from the John Rogers Primer."

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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 V, Part 14

Author: Harvey, Oscar Jewell, 1851-1922; Smith, Ernest Gray Publication date: 1909 Publisher: Wilkes-Barre : Raeder Press Number of Pages: 734

Author: Harvey, Oscar Jewell, 1851-1922; Smith, Ernest Gray
Publication date: 1909
Publisher: Wilkes-Barre : Raeder Press
Number of Pages: 734