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 23
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However, only time proved this. After the Welsh prospectors had dis- covered coal at Beaver Meadows, the mineral was not allowed to lie long unexploited. At first the operations followed the primitive methods used at Mauch Chunk and in the Wyoming coalfield. To mine the coal was simple. but to transport it to southern markets was exceedingly difficult. Indeed, the situation at Beaver Meadows was such that other means of transportation than by teams had to be found. And the new way was so new that it was hardly more than experimental. In 1827, the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, operators of the Mauch Chunk mines (or drifts as they all were in in those early days) built a railway-or tramway-from their mines on the Mauch Chunk Mountain to the river. Soon. the Beaver Meadows operators followed their example. In 1830 the Beaver Meadow Railroad and Coal Company was chartered, and in 1833. Ario Pardee, a young civil engineer of the staff of Canvass White-who had built the Erie Canal, and had become a consultant on all matters of canalization and railroad construction-was sent by Mr. White to Beaver Meadows, Pennsylvania, "to make the survey and location of the Beaver Meadow Railroad, from the mines of that company to the Lehigh Canal at Mauch Chunck." This quotation is from a letter written
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by Mr. Pardee more than forty years later (April 6, 1876), to Dr. W. C. Cat- tell. Mr. Pardee's letter continues: "After several changes in the engineer- ing corps the entire charge of the road was given to me, and in the fall of 1836 it was finished and the shipment of coal commenced, when I resigned my position." The railroad built to Beaver Meadows crossed the mountains by planes, "as it was then supposed engines could not be built to haul trains up steep grades."
All this had happened before Hazleton had even begun its existence. Beaver Meadows was a railroad terminus, a mining center, the only promis- ing village, in fact, of that region. But when Ario Pardee resigned his Beaver Meadows position, in 1836, he did so with a particular purpose well in mind. He was to have part in the founding of Hazleton. While he was at Beaver Meadows, he was told that John Charles (Fitzgerald), a Conyngham blacksmith, had discovered coal outcropping at what is now known as the "Old Hazleton Mine." Pardee was sent, or went, to verify the report, espe- cially as to the quality of the coal which the Conyngham blacksmith had found and had tested in his forge. The outcome was the organization of a company to mine the coal and build a railroad from the Hazleton mines to the Beaver Meadow Railroad at Weatherly.
Mr. Pardee, in the letter before quoted, states that, after visiting his par- ents in Michigan, he returned to carry forward the work he had begun at Hazleton. His letter reads : after visiting my parents, who had moved to Michigan, I, in the month of February, 1837, took up my quarters at Hazleton, having previously located a railroad from the Hazleton coal mines to the Beaver Meadow Railroad at Weatherly. We finished the road, and commenced shipping coal in the spring of 1838, and I continued in the employ of the Hazleton Coal Company, as their superintendent, until 1840, when I commenced business as a coal operator."
This is authentic record; and in the same catagory must be placed the diary of Robert Miner, of Wilkes-Barre, who went from the latter place in 1836 to Hazleton, to enter the employ of the Hazleton Coal Company as clerk. The following quotations from Mr. Miner's valuable diary give the founda- tion facts of Hazleton's history quite conclusively :
"The Hazleton Coal Company was incorporated March 18, 1836."
"November 1, 1836. Came to Hazleton to be clerk for a company on trial; no terms fixed. Board at the old Drumheller house tavern, kept by Lewis Davenport. The company's office is in the lower room of an addition built on the east end of the old house. Railroad located and contract just assigned. Village laid out."
"November 10, 1836. Town lots were laid out and sold by company. Wages offered for 'good hands' are $16 a month with board on Sundays."
"1837. First dwelling put up and occupied by Charles Edson, on lot No. 9, Sq. II. Then by S. Yost, F. Santee, T. Peeler. Store and house by L. H. and J. Ingham. R. Miner hotel." "4th of July (1837). Moved my family from Wyoming Valley, Plaines, to Hazleton, in house I have just finished on corner of Broad and Poplar streets."
"L. Davenport moved to hotel 23rd October, W. Apple taking the old house."
"First birth of child in Hazleton, October 9-W. Apple's; born in house at junction of old state road and turnpike-daughter ; 2nd, child of F. Santee, blacksmith; 3rd, my son, John Howard Miner."
"First corpse interred in graveyard was wife of Th. B. Worthington in the fall of 1837." "Locomotive Hazleton on the railroad."
It is quite obvious from these quotations that Hazleton had its beginning in 1836. Two years earlier, there were only four houses in the vicinity. Lewis Davenport had settled in 1832, occupying the old Drumheller house, appar- ently continuing the tavern service. Old Jacob Drumheller, who may be looked upon as the first blacksmith as well as the first tavern-keeper at Hazle- ton, had probably passed out of the reckoning by this time. That he had been a leading townsman in his day is testified by one record of Sugarloaf Town- ship, which since 1809 had had jurisdiction over all the territory that is now in
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Butler, Hazle and Black Creek townships, as well as over its own area. Drum- heller, in 1822, was captain of the Sugarloaf Rifle Company, an appointment that signified as high a communal standing in those days as the office of mayor would in these. By the way, several of the early families of Hazleton may be found in the lists of taxables of Sugarloaf Township, as Conyngham Village was a comparatively important center to draw upon for labor in the first years of the new mining town.
Lewis Davenport vacated the Drumheller Tavern in the fall of 1837, having built the Exchange Hotel. His account books from 1835 to 1850 give the fol- lowing names, presumably, of Hazleton people: John Andrews, Lewis Comp- ton, Charles Edson, Tobias Smith, William Engle, Henry Seybert, Thomas Peler, John Jones, John Mickgagins, William Apple, Samuel Yost, Samuel Cox, David Richards, George and Isaac Hughes, Dr. Bols, Jonathan and G. Ingham, Samuel Dever McCullum, Nathan Cortright, John Newbold, Jona- than Cooper, Ario Pardee, Edward Vauzen, Jacob Hausneack, William Bron- son, Mikel Grover, William Hunt, J. G. Fell, A. Foster; also the following firms: Cooper & Sons, Sugar Loaf Company, Pardee, Miner and Hunt. In the 'forties, the accounts were of the firm of Davenport and Jacobs. They show the following names : S. B. Markel, David T. Jones, Doct. Scot, George Fenstamacher, J. H. Baldwin, John R. Miller, Robert Nealy, Jonathan Moore, Jacob Hues, Lewis Ketchman, Joseph Greenawalt, Samuel Colans, Kier Powell, R. S. Weaver, Thomas Worthington, and Norman Denis. The fol- lowing company names appear: Hazleton Coal Company, Craig & Bro., Hanes & Miller, A. S. & E. Roberts, Gracey & Bro.
Robert Miner did not continue his diary, and very little other pioneer testimony is available by which a consecutive history of the village years of Hazleton might be written. Ario Pardee is again the most informative. An affidavit, made by him for court purposes, many years later, corroborates the statement already given, as to his service to the Hazleton Coal Company, as "engineer and superintendent," from 1837 to 1840. Then, testified Mr. Par- dee, "in connection with Robert Miner and William Hunt (I) formed the company-Pardee, Miner & Co .- to mine coal and transport it to Penn Haven, to load on boats. This continued three years, Miner and Hunt having left the firm, when J. Gillingham Fell became partner. In 1842 we undertook to market the coal; we took part and marketed it. The Hazleton Company marketed the rest, paying us a fixed sum on their part of the coal. This con- tinued until 1844; then we made them an arrangement to pay them a royalty, which continued as long as the Hazleton Company exisited and after it was merged and became the Lehigh Valley's (Railroad Company's) property." Apparently, the original operators, the Hazleton Coal Company, were the landowners, and Pardee and Company seem to have been the first operators in that section to mine coal on royalty. For almost fifty years thereafter the firm of A. Pardee & Company "was the largest individual shipper of anthra- cite coal in Pennsylvania." For more than fifty years, Ario Pardee unosten- tatiously went his way between his mine office and his home in Hazleton, asking no homage, but silently pursuing his great operations, accumulating vast wealth for himself, but at the same time providing employment for very many Hazleton residents. Either as a firm, or as an individual, Ario Pardee, during his lifetime, which ended in 1892, was at some time connected with mines at Hazleton, Cranberry, Sugarloaf, Crystal Ridge, Jeddo, Highland, Lattimer, Hollywood, and Mount Pleasant, all in the vicinity of Hazleton, and all contributing to the prosperity of that borough. At the time of his death, the local newspaper, the "Plain Speaker," thus wrote of the deceased, who had done so much for Hazleton, but whom so few of his fellow-townsmen had known intimately: "This was our master man. For more than fifty years he has been foremost in the development of the community. The history of
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the mining of anthracite coal in this field would be told if the life work of Ario Pardee were set out in detail . . .. he worked as giants worked. . He was our master workman ; he has done the work of a hundred men . . . . ; his work is done- the silent man' will no more walk slowly from his house to his workshop." Long before his last years, Ario Pardee was known as a multi- inillionaire; and, as is usual in such cases, he was a man of multitudinous industrial interests ; but he never swerved from control of his main interests, which were in Hazleton.
Other great men have contributed to the industrial prosperity of Hazle- ton. The Markles, the Haydens, and the Coxes loom large in Hazleton his- tory. But Ario Pardee, the great silent giant who gripped the reins of indus- try with steady strong hand in the early days when the road was rough, the way dangerous, and the goal by no means sure, seems entitled to first place in the industrial records of the city. He opened the first mine, laid out the town, opened the way to market, marketed the product, and maintained firm grip of the industrial reins while the little mining town he had founded advanced from village to borough, and from borough to city.
A little further information as to the first years of Hazleton may be culled from testimony of a few of the early residents. Mrs. A. M. Eby, daughter of Lewis Davenport, testified in 1892 that her father settled in the vicinity in 1832, "first living at the old Bird Hotel, just below the present Lehigh sta- tion ; house still standing (1892)"; also that her father built the Hazleton House, at the corner of Wyoming and Broad streets. She knew the "Old State House," on Vine and Broad streets, and also the tollhouse kept by Peter Starr on the old turnpike in the southern part of the village. As she remem- bered the village "as a little girl," Hazleton was "strung along the turnpike" in this order: "Pardee's house, then Markles', Dr. Lewis', Blackwell's, then the Hazleton Tavern." Also, "there were a few houses on Mine Street, occu- pied by Irish families mostly." The Irish, is seems, were the first miners in the Ilazleton region. Quite possibly they came in first as railroad builders, introduced by Pardee, through Canvass White, who had employed so many Irish immigrants on the "Big Ditch" (Erie Canal) and subsequent canal and railroad construction.
William Kisner settled in Hazleton in 1840. His recollection fifty years later was that in 1840 "there were about ten houses in the place." At that time, he said, the company (Hazleton Coal Company) was working two mines, one in Lower Hazleton and the other at Laurel Hill, or Upper Hazleton. Stage coaches at that time ran daily to Wilkes-Barre and Mauch Chunk.
Another old resident to testify at the same time (1892) was Mrs. Rosanna (Charles) Greenawalt. She was then about seventy years old, and said that she had come to Hazleton with her father when she was "a little girl." Her father was John Charles, who is said to have been the first to find the coal outcropping at Hazleton ; his name, as such, appears on the list of taxables of Sugarloaf Township in 1822, though his full name, it is said, was John Charles Fitzgerald-evidentally an Irish patronymic. Of the early residents of Hazle- ton, Mrs. Greenawalt recalled the names of Samuel Barenger, Thomas H. Worthington, and John Hurst, all of whom lived near the "upper mine." "Two German families (one was Heckroth) lived in the east part of town." Across the street from Davenport's Hotel lived Anthony Fisher.
The Hazleton Hotel was burned to the ground subsequently, but was soon rebuilt. The tenth house on the village plot was Heckroth's, a dwelling house which still stands on the south side of Mine Street, between Wyoming and Pine, "just below what was Fox's restaurant, and until recently was occupied by Davis' candy store," wrote Miss Anne Baum, in an interesting sketch of Hazleton history, in 1925. This house of Heckroth's was, it seems, put to pub-
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lic use. "It had a dance hall in the rear, where all people went to dances." It was built in 1838.
A year earlier, in 1837, the Hazleton Coal Company had put up a building which was intended to serve all communal purposes-as schoolhouse, meeting house, town hall, concert hall, and so forth. Singularly enough, the site of this pioneer municipal building was the one later chosen, and still used, for city purposes-the northwestern corner of Church and Green streets, where, in place of the little one-room frame building, a magnificent pile of masonry. impressively architectured and topped by a tower and belfry that make it a landmark, now gives the city government an administration building com- mensurate with the magnitude of their work and the dignity of their offices. However, the little schoolhouse served all the community needs of its day. The first to teach school in it was Miss Fannie Blackman.
Of the pioneers, Jacob Drumheller was the pioneer blacksmith, William Apple the first carpenter, the Ingham brothers the first storekeepers, John Megargell following them closely, however. Dr. Lewis Lewis was the first physician, and although it is not known who first preached in Hazleton, the first church society to hold meetings in the little frame schoolhouse was of the Presbyterian denomination.
When, to comply with the school law, it became necessary to separate the school from "company" sponsorship and bring it under township direction, a schoolhouse was built; but the first decade of school history centers in the little village hall that the company had built in 1837. The immediate succes- sors of Miss Blackman, as teacher, in this schoolhouse were N. D. Cortright and Isaac H. Baldwin. Lewis Ketchum, later a member of the Senate of California, was the pedagogue in 1843 and 1844, his brother, H. H. Ketchum, succeeding to the responsibility in 1845. The school year was very short, and the school was maintained wholly by private contributions. In 1847, Ario Pardee built another schoolhouse, seemingly with the intention of making it a higher school. The building stood on the south side of Broad Street, between Wyoming and Laurel. In it, for two years, a private school was conducted. The first township schoolhouse in Hazleton stood on the northeast corner of Cedar Street and Spruce Alley. In 1853, the pioneer schoolhouse on the city hall plot was burned. While a new schoolhouse was being erected, the store that stood where the American Bank and Trust Company Building now is, at Broad and Wyoming streets, was rented for school purposes. In February, 1855, the new schoolhouse, of brick, erected on the north side of Green Street. between Church and Laurel streets, was ready for use. Abel Marcy was then principal, and in this schoolhouse. it is said, the first graded school in Luzerne County was organized. This assertion was made by a county historian. Bradsby, in a survey of Luzerne County school history. That it was a graded school is not doubted, for Mr. Marcy was assisted by four teachers. Meri- torious service as principal of Hazleton school brought Mr. Marcy advance- ment to the responsibility of county superintendent of schools in 1860. His place as principal of Hazleton School was taken by C. L. Rynearson. Since 1857, the place had been a borough, and school affairs. consequently, were under the direction of a municipal school board. The first Hazleton School Board was elected in the spring of 1857. Another phase of Hazleton's school history had its beginning in 1874, when a parochial schoolhouse was built, under Roman Catholic auspices, on Wyoming Street. Sisters of the Catholic Order of Mercy came in that year to conduct the school.
An indication of the growth of Hazleton is seen in the expansion of its school system. When the borough was organized in 1857, Hazleton had one schoolhouse, one school principal and four teachers. Seventy years later, in 1927, the city possessed twenty schoolhouses (including one senior high, three junior high school buildings and three parochial schools) and more than two
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hundred and fifty teachers. In its schools 7,631 children were enrolled in 1926, the facilities including a vocational school.
Hazleton was incorporated as a borough by Act of Assembly on April 3, 1851. At least, that was the date on which the act was passed. For some reason, however, the movement went no farther until after passage of supple- mental act of April 22, 1856. Even then the residents did not hurry. The first election was not held until March 27, 1857. The place of election was the house of Thomas Lawall. Abraham Jones, who became the first burgess of Hazleton, was a brother-in-law of Ario Pardee, and by trade a tailor. "He kept a tailoring shop where Honig's store now stands." The members of the first borough council were: George Brown, John Schreck, Andrew Rin- glebew, Joseph Hamburger, and George B. Markle. F. A. Whitaker was sec- retary ; Charles H. Myers was treasurer, and John Kahler was supervisor.
Being now a borough, Hazleton could no longer tolerate the village "lock-up," which place of incarceration of the unruly had been "a coal car turned upside down, back of Adam Schmauch's property on East Broad Street." This primitive jail could gather no added prestige from the hyphen- ated name, "Smith-Fulton," by which it was commonly known, for the name carried no recommendation, investigation showing that the house name merely connected the names of those two law breakers who were its first reluctant guests. To those respectable citizens who, in 1857, were entrusted with the safety of the municipality, it seemed that continued use of such a primitive prison would be a breach of faith with the Commonwealth, the Pennsylvania Legislature, in granting corporate powers to the village, having manifested confidence in Hazleton's power to govern itself. So Hazleton's first municipal fathers made haste to erect a jail of stone, at the corner of Mine and Cedar streets. It was ready for occupancy in 1857. Whether occu- pants were to be had is not stated.
Further improvement came in 1868. A municipal building, of brick con- struction, two stories high, was built at 53-56 North Wyoming Street. It was planned to accommodate all municipal departments in this building. In addi- tion, quarters were to be provided in it for the fire engine and fire-fighting equipment, and also for all the law-breakers who had to be kept behind bars. The building served all the purposes intended, and its jail was rarely over- crowded, notwithstanding that that was a somewhat restless, lawless period- the natural reaction after four years of war, such a reaction, indeed, as the world is now experiencing after the recent upheaval, the World War.
While on the subject of wars, it may here be interjected that Hazleton, and its environs, did as nobly in National service during the Civil War as during the World War. In 1860, its population was only about 4,000, but 800 went into service. Those of their families who remained at home had to depend upon Ario Pardee for almost all news from the front. Hazleton had no newspaper then, and all news came to Pardee, to be bulletined out to the inhabitants through his "company" store.
This emergency news agency served the emergency need, but very soon after hostilities ceased, plans were made to provide Hazleton with a news- paper. On January 18, 1866, the first number of the Hazleton "Sentinel" made its bow to the reading public. It was a seven-column folio, published weekly by a Civil War veteran, John C. Stokes. It passed from him to the bankers, Pardee, Markle, and Grier, two years later, and from them to others. Indeed, it followed the course of the usual local journal through a precarious infancy, bringing more of labor than of recompense to its editors. In 1870 it became a daily, and although always a reliable news service, many, many years had to pass before it became what it latterly has been-a lucrative investment of time and money. The "Plain Speaker," which is its sister journal, or its chief contemporary, covering the afternoon field, was founded on February 6, 1882,
NEW CITY HALL, HAZLETON
MASONIC
TEMPLE
NEW MASONIC TEMPLE, HAZLETON
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by Dershuck and Lewis. The latter stayed with the enterprise only a few months, but John Dershuck stuck to the paper. He had had some previous drilling in the vicissitudes of newspaper publishing, and was prepared to plod on, giving much for little, as he had been doing for a decade. The Hazleton "Volksblatt" had been launched in April, 1872, by the publishers of the "Sen- tinel" (Moore and Sanders), to serve the German people of that part of Luzerne, but a year later had passed to John Dershuck, who carried it for- ward for some years before embarking on the "Plain Speaker." Of the latter, he was the publisher until his death, in 1889. Undoubtedly, his journalistic experience, liard, disappointing, ill-requited, killed him. He was only thirty- three years old at the time of his death and all his adult years had been spent in thankless public service which he hoped would build his paper. Of course, he was not the exception ; what happened to John Dershuck has happened to hundreds of newspaper publishers before and since his time. Mighty journals have been slowly built, but generally so slowly that the founders have spent all their vital forces before the reward has come-to others. However, in this case, the journal has stayed in the founding family, the present owners of the Hazleton "Plain Speaker," also the "Sentinel," being J. R. Dershuck and Henry Walser. The "Sentinel," or the "Standard-Sentinel," as it now is, absorbed the "Standard," which began as a semi-weekly in 1885, but seven years later became a daily. There are five other Hazleton weekly journals, covering special fields.
As the decades passed, Hazleton, under municipal government, increased its public services. A fire company was organized in 1866; waterworks had been built by the Lehigh Company, in 1862, and its water piped to the borough streets; a banking house, that of Pardee, Markle and Grier, opened for busi- ness in 1867; a library association was formed in 1872; a gas company was organized in 1872, and before the end of that year gas was the illuminant in many Hazleton homes; an electric lighting plant was set up in 1882-83, the first domestic use of electricity, as illuminant, in Hazleton being in February, 1883; a larger water works was built in 1887; a hospital was opened in 1889; and an opera house in 1892. These were some of the principal municipal improvements of the borough period. There were, of course, several other service agencies, several other organizations of public or semi-public purpose and communal interest. The religious societies were vigorous, the Civil War soldiers had had their local post since (Robinson Post of the G. A. R) 1866, singing societies had been functioning since 1854, when the Germania Society was formed, the next being the Concordia Singing Society, in 1860; the Hazle- ton Liberty Cornet Band was organized in 1856; the Young Men's Christian Association began its work in Hazleton in 1879, erecting its own building in 1897; Hazle Hall was built in 1866-67; the Father Mathew T. A. B. Society of Hazleton came into existence in 1869, with forty members; and in all prob- ability several of the major fraternal orders were represented in the borough. All these agencies pointed in the right direction, and the borough went for- ward to greater place in the county and Commonwealth.
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