USA > Pennsylvania > Erie County > A twentieth century history of Erie County, Pennsylvania : a narrative account of its historic progress, its people, and its principal interests, Volume I > Part 78
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Philip Diefenbach had to learn the craft, just as Mr. Schwengel did. From all accounts he was an apt pupil. It is stated as a fact that
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the profits of Mr. Diefenbach's first year's business were sufficient to pay for the farm and factory outfit. For several years Mr. Diefenbach continued to make oil cloths on the farm, but at length decided to move into town, where he set up a factory on the square between Sassafras and Myrtle and Twenty-first and Twenty-second. It is only proper to state that the site chosen was at that time no part of the city, and that Twenty-first street (or even Simpson street, as it was originally called), was not opened until long afterwards. In this new location the factory proved a winner until the oil cloth industry was suddenly wiped out.
When Mr. Woelmer imparted the secrets of his craft to Mr. Schwengel it was the beginning of a spread of human knowledge far beyond what he had any idea of. Like every other secret; once let escape there seemed to be no end of its course. In the space of a few years, in and about Erie there were perhaps a dozen manufactories of table oil cloths. Out in the country both Chris. and George Rilling engaged in the business. In Erie there were, besides Mr. Diefenbach, Mr. Buseck, Mr. Schaaf, Edward Camphausen, and Mr. Beckers; and Frederick Curtze, the artist who made the designs, also engaged in the business and prospered. And yet the business was not overdone. The supply did not, as a matter of fact, equal the demand. There was no going out to seek a market on the part of the manufacturer. The trade came to the factory and took the goods as fast as they could be turned out, and, as has already been stated, paid for them then and there.
The salesmen, having decided upon a route, the goods were for- warded to certain points, by steamer generally. The salesmen fol- lowed after. Generally his estimate of the amount required for any locality was pretty nearly accurate. If any remained unsold they were forwarded to the next stopping place, and the result was that before he returned the traveling merchant had disposed of all his stock, and sold it for cash. The territory covered chiefly was the south and south- west, as far as St. Louis and New Orleans, and judgment was exercised in choosing the season when money was most plenty. As the south was an agricultural region, the time of financial ease was that of har- vest.
Now, as far as appearances went, the oil cloth industry was not of great importance. All the factories in town put together would not begin to make the fuss and stir that one such plant as the Blancon mill did. It is quite likely the Old Furnace, or the New Furnace, in- dividually employed more hands than the total of all the oil cloth fac- tories in town. And yet the making of oil cloths produced more ready money than all the other manufactories of Erie combined. The oil cloth men were the bankers of the time, and many a man won a com- petence for himself and family out of the modest little plant employ- ing a few hands.
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The breaking out of the Civil war was like a blow upon the face to the oil cloth industry. Its first effect was to daze the manufacturers. They were at sea. They dared not hazard a guess at the consequences. Their only course was to wait. Waiting eventually resulted in aban- doning the operations altogether.
The oil cloth industry has been forgotten, save by a few Erie people. There are other local industries also relegated to the limbo of the gone before : industries that cut an important figure in affairs in Erie, too. There was the smelting of iron here, that had been mined in this county, for example. To be sure, the iron was "bog" iron. but even at that the statement that such a thing was done as to dig iron out of a swamp and produce good and hard metal from it would be re- garded as a romance. Yet it was done here at Erie.
And talking about the smelting of iron, many in Erie have no knowledge of the fact that in the beginning of the seventies there was a blast furnace of fair proportions in Erie, and that it was among the earliest attempts to work out on the lake shore the iron ore from up the lakes, instead of sending it to Pittsburg or "down the valley." The Erie blast furnace was prophetic, but like the true prophet, did not survive to witness the fulfillment of its predictions. Today there are many iron furnaces on the shores of this and other lakes.
The blast furnace stood on the shore of the bay at the foot of Sas- safras street. The block of brick tenements on Short street, a little west of Sassafras, is the only relic of that enterprise that remains at this day. The furnace was one of the numerous ventures with which Orange Noble was identified. If ever there lived a man of enterprise and public spirit Orange Noble was one, and entitled to royal distinc- tion along that line. No man of his day did more to advance Erie than he did, and no man profited so little. Mr. Noble spent, or invested, a fortune in Erie. He died a poor man.
At first the iron was produced by the old fashioned method of smelting with soft coal. Later an attempt was made to produce "char- coal iron," the charcoal being produced from wood on the premises in a large collection of mammoth ovens. After being operated a few years the works were abandoned and gradually fell into decay. Twen- ty years ago much of the original large brick buildings remained. Now the only trace of the enterprise to be seen in Erie is, as has already been stated, that block of tenements at the top of the hill, above where the furnace stood. Besides Mr. Noble, Mr. Rawle, the Delamaters, of Meadville, and some others were interested in the unfortunate furnace venture.
Few iron industries have failed in Erie ; the rule has been, on the contrary, that their growth to even mammoth proportions has been steady. Practically every iron works in Erie had exceedingly modest
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beginnings, some having started, as the Skinner engine works did, in the corner of a little shop, their whole career being fresh in the minds of many still living. The rolling mill of the Mt. Hickory Iron Com- pany is one of the enterprises of large proportions that went under ; that, however, resulting from a disastrous fire.
Among the lines of manufacture that have gone out, leaving not a single trace, is that of making woolen fabrics. For a long time this was a very important branch of manufacturing in Erie, and among the earliest. The first woolen mill stood about where the Fairmount mill now stands, on Eighth street. Originally built in 1810 as a saw- mill and a grist mill, in 1822 George. Moore took the property and made a fulling mill of it, but in process of time it was again converted and at length once more became a flouring mill, the Crouches having had control of it from 1859 until the present time. In 1822 Alvah Flint established a mill for the manufacture of cloth, on Eleventh street, near the corner of French, and conducted the business with suc- cess until 1840. Another woolen factory was that of John Glover, built in 1830, at the corner of Tenth and Myrtle streets and operated until 1840. The fourth of the woolen mills was that in which Thomas Mehaffy and A. WV. Brewster were interested. It was a large building, and in its time one of Erie's most important industries. The great frame structure, three stories high, stood until a comparatively recent date near the middle of the square between the railroad and Sixteenth street, east of Peach. When it was in operation the power required was obtained from a mill-race fed in large measure by Ichabod run, a stream at one time of considerable proportions that started near the western limits of the present city, but which now can be traced only by the tracts of peaty soil that here and there are found doing duty as celery gardens. It is related of the installation of the machinery in the Brewster-Mehaffy mill that when it arrived it came piecemeal, and the managers were in despair, as they knew of no one in Erie who could set it up. In their strait Joab Slocum came forward and offered his services. It was not known that he had any experience with such ma- chinery. But he was a pretty clever Yankee, and the need of the hour was pressing, so he was turned loose among the shafts and cogwheels. He proved equal to the undertaking. The entire outfit was set up and worked to perfection, though, when the work was completed Mr. Slo- cum was free to acknowledge he had never seen machinery of this kind before.
For many years the woolen industry has been dead in Erie. The last lingering effort in that line was Mr. Albrecht's, in the Happy Val- ley mill. There nothing but a picturesque ruin remains, a memento of once busy days and occasional prosperous times. The manufacture of woolen cloth, with its kindred arts and crafts, contributed much to the
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development of Erie at one period in the city's history. But it went out, and the story of that, as the story of the Blancon mill, told in an- other chapter, itself in its time also identified with spinning and weav- ing, is the story of what was, but is no more, except in blessed memory.
A line of industry that for nearly fifty years thrived in Erie, but that is now gone past recall, is the manufacture of soap. For a long time there was associated with it a branch that provided the "light of other days," but that branch died early, knocked out by the advent of a new illuminant that relegated the candle of our grandfathers' days to "innocuous desuetude." Today not one in a thousand, perhaps, can guess at the meaning of "sixes or eights," but there was a time when the chandler was a man of substance and his wares one of the principal of household necessities. And the manufacture of candles was always associated with the making of soap.
In remote times all the soap used and all the candles employed for providing a cheerful glow in the evening were of home manufacture. The housewife counted it one of her duties to provide these. Carefully husbanding her wood ashes to obtain lye, and saving the grease of every sort that domestic economy produced, they were skillfully com- bined to produce the necessary household article. Just as great care was taken to collect the heavier fats-the tallow of beef or mintton- to be converted into candles, either by the process of dipping or by the more modern device of employing moulds, and this feature of the housewife's work continued until communities had attained sufficient size to warrant the work being done by a specialist.
It was somewhere in the '40s that Erie had attained to sufficient proportions to warrant any one to venture into the business of manu- facturing what had hitherto been domestic products. Then Frederick Schneider decided to embark in that line and established the first Erie soap and candle factory on Fourth street, between State and French. For a considerable time he prospered, and at length erected the build- ing on the corner of State and Fourth streets opposite his factory. It was a store and dwelling combined. After a time he engaged in the business of a grocer, in which he thrived, but later he left that quarter of town and followed the same business at the corner of Sixteenth and Peach streets, where the Blass brothers are conducting a grocery at the present day. Mr. Schneider was one of the first Germans to settle in Erie and was long one of the most influential of his nationality in the city, a leader in public and church affairs, honored alike by his compatriots and those of the English race.
In 1852 G. F. Brevillier came to Erie from Germany, and em- barked in business, his choice being the manufacture of soap and can- dles. He was a young man, and though he had but little capital he had a large stock of energy, the industry characteristic of his race, and a
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liberal measure of patience and sound sense. His first factory was built at the corner of Sixth and Holland streets, a frame structure 18 by 24 feet in size. In 1854 he built a new factory 40 by 52 feet in size, and having bought out Mr. Schneider, was the sole manufacturer in his line in Erie. The profits were not large, but Mr. Brevillier's ability as a business manager was such that he made steady progress. In 1871 he sold out his business to Joseph W. Swalley, and went to his old home in Germany for a visit, which lasted until 1875.
Mr. Swalley continued the business in the old factory for a few years, and then erected the fine brick building on Peach street, near Twelfth, that now accommodates George L. Siegel's seed store. Mar- tin Warfel became a partner of Mr. Swalley in the new location, and for a considerable time there was a large business done, the product of the factory finding its way beyond the limits of the city, and into the general market. Sometime about the beginning of the '90s the Swalley soap factory was in the large frame building at the corner of Eighteenth and Plum streets, built for the Noble Sewing Machine Company, and in the course of a comparatively short time Mr. Swalley retired, disposing of his interest to Wright & Brown. The destruction of the old sewing machine factory by fire in 1894, wiped out this in- dustry that had been a contributor to Erie's business development for half a century. Soap making is among Erie's vanished industries.
Many years ago the white mulberry was a common tree in Erie. It was often met with on the borders of streets, and there were a num- ber of places where mulberry plantations of rather large extent were found. In times gone by there was a mulberry orchard of considerable extent just beyond the canal, extending from Sixth street to Seventh, occupying a considerable portion of the square south of Sixth street and east of Chestnut and extending westward, including what is now Chestnut street, to near the middle of the square west of that street. The trees were cultivated to feed silkworms, and the business of "growing silk" at one time was carried on in Erie to a considerable ex- tent. Somewhere about the year 1840 the state of Pennsylvania, in order to encourage the production of raw silk, offered a bounty to the producers. This course had the effect of stimulating the desire to ob- tain the state's money, if nothing more. It was the cause of the plant- ing of the mulberry orchard ; it accounted for the presence in so many places in Erie of trees of the species morus alba.
But there really was more to the industry of producing silk than the planting of mulberry trees, and there was even a degree of man- ufacture. And this industry did not have to depend on the state bounty ; as a matter of fact in one instance the bounty act was repealed the year after the business was begun, but, depending entirely upon the proceeds of the sales the trade and manufacture were kept up. Vol. I-46
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The account of this is from Mrs. L. C. Dowler, whose mother, Mrs. Chandler L. Munn, fed the worms, collected the silk, twisted it into thread for sewing, and sold it to the merchants.
Mrs. Munn lived at the corner of Twelfth and State streets, in a house that was surrounded by a piece of ground about a quarter of a square in extent. It was the corner now occupied by the Eichenlaub block, but then all that portion of the square was a garden. Mrs. Munn obtained her silkworms from Miss Jane McNair, who lived at the cor- ner of Sassafras and Eighteenth streets, in a house still standing which has long been a land-mark. Miss McNair had obtained her stock, in the egg stage, from Philadelphia, and had achieved considerable suc- cess in the production of silk, having been engaged in the work for some years before Mrs. Munn took it up.
When it was decided by Mrs. Munn to try her hand at silk pro- duction, she went about it in real earnest. The front room of the house was appropriated for the purpose, and it was surrounded by shelves or benches that left but small space in the center in which to move about in the work of feeding, these benches being provided for the accommo- dation of the worms. Upon these fresh leaves were kept and the nec- essary attention was given to keep the surroundings of the caterpillars clean and the creatures themselves in healthy condition. Upon the walls, when the worms had about reached their maturity, sheets were hung, and into the creases or folds of these the worms repaired when the time had come for them to prepare for the transformation, and there they spun their cocoons. These were properly treated, careful attention being paid so that the silk should not be ruined by the emerg- ence of the moth. Sometimes prevention was effected by placing the cocoons in a hot oven. Again a large number, sometimes as many as a hundred, were placed in hot soap suds. In the latter case the cocoons were carefully gone over by hand so that the ends could be found and then, uniting the delicate fibres from the whole mass into one strand. the silk was wound upon a reel. Later this strand was twisted upon a "swift" into sewing silk, and dyed whatever color was desired. Put up into skeins it was now ready for the market. This was the way in which sewing silk was made in the early days, before the time of spin- ning by machinery and winding upon spools.
It was not an extensive industry in Erie, but endured for seven years or more, Mrs. Munn finding pretty ready sale for her product at the stores of the town. There is still to be found in Erie, articles made of Mrs. Munn's silk, such as knitted mitts and other things, and many of them are still in good state of preservation, demonstrating the fact that the silk produced in those days was honest goods, well made. The changes that came in methods of manufacture at length displaced the home-made silk thread, and there was not enough demand for the raw material, so Erie's silk industry went out. For a long time the mul-
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berry trees survived, and even at this late day a chance individual tree is to be found here and there, remnants of what once was; mementoes of what at one time seemed to be a promise of great things.
Erie had the chance of its history to become great and wealthy in the decade of the '60s, and indeed, made a brave start. But the bottom fell out ; the business went flat, and to this day the fact is sincerely mourned by many whose prophetic eyes had once seen the approach- ing glory of Erie. The factor that was to have so greatly boomed Erie was petroleum, and it is not overstating the truth to say that by only a narrow margin was the chance lost of Erie becoming a rival of Cleve- land and Buffalo. For this city was the logical center of the oil in- dustry. It was less than fifty miles from the heart of the original oil region, the territory that for many years was the richest in oil produc- tion in the world. It was in the adjoining county of Crawford that the greatest wells then ever heard of were to be found, and it was only natural therefore that to Erie, the nearest city, the business of refining should come. At the time of the great oil discovery, there were no railroads anywhere near the center of interest, which was on Oil creek, a stream that rising near the Erie county line flows southward through eastern Crawford county to the Allegheny river which it joins at what afterwards became Oil City. The nearest railroads were the Philadel- phia & Erie and the Atlantic & Great Western. Neither of these ap- proached much closer to the territory that was then being drilled than Union City, and the only means of communication open to it was by wagon and stage over the worst roads in the whole country. At the start the oil in barrels was teamed across country from Titusville, Pe- troleum Center, Tarr Farm and the various localities that in short space stood so thickly together that there was scareely room on the map to indicate them all, to Union City, whence it came into Erie. Here it was refined, and converted into the illuminant that was at first known as roek oil and coal oil.
That was in the first years of the '60's. The business of refining petroleum began here very soon after the discovery of oil in the vicin- ity of Titusville. Undoubtedly the first refinery built here was that started by Harvey Ely in 1860. It was located on French street, near Second. Mr. Ely had been an adventurer in many different lines, and was sorrowfully unfortunate. He, it is said, opened the iron mining industry at Marquette on the south shore of Lake Superior. But he made a business failure, though fabulous wealth has come from that identical place sinee he was compelled to abandon it. He also en- gaged in the business of milling at Rochester, operating a mill that turned out 300 barrels of flour a day, it is said ; but though he had the advantage of shipping by canal to New York, he failed in business. It was after that failure that he came to Erie, in 1860. He brought with
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him Adam Hamberger, now living on West Fifth street. Mr. Hamber- ger had been employed in an extensive chemical laboratory in Germany and had a pretty good working knowledge of chemistry, and Ely brought him to Erie with the purpose of employing that knowledge in the business of refining the rock oil that had lately been discovered in the adjoining county.
In those early days in the history of oil the process of refining was a secret that was carefully guarded. Strict watch was kept upon every- one who came near and none were permitted to enter the place where the refining was in process except those who belonged there. Few were employed in or about the refinery. In Mr. Ely's plant there were but two besides himself, Mr. Hamberger and a Mr. Steen. It was a small affair, and notwithstanding the high price oil commanded, bus- iness did not thrive there. It was the belief of Mr. Ely that the work was done upon too small a scale to yield profits, and he therefore decid- ed to enlarge, and also to find a location nearer a railroad. The site was secured on Sixth street, near the Philadelphia & Erie Railroad-where Wayne street now crosses Sixth-and there two stills were set up and machinery adequate to treat the distilled oil with the acids and alka- lies necessary to purify it. Mr. Ely, however, lacked capital. The road to the city was so bad that a team could haul but two barrels at a time : the railroad then boasted but a single track, and being the main line for the passenger and freight station was at the foot of State street, it was not available for loading and unloading. Besides, Mr. Ely's funds were so limited that he could not afford to construct any sort of device that would facilitate either the receiving or the shipping of the oil-then the transportation of both the crude oil and the re- fined was in barrels. In process of time, and that very brief, Mr. Ely went under.
But he had started an industry that rapidly grew into great pro- portions. He was succeeded immediately by W. L. Cleveland, a man of splendid business ability, and the refinery that had failed under Mr. Ely quickly grew to great proportions under Mr. Cleveland. At once others were ready to embark in the same line, and it was not very long before Asa Whittier had a refinery on Fifth street, just below the Cleveland plant ; B. F. Sloan had one farther down, about where Third street was surveyed-its former site is now a part of the Soldiers' Home grounds-and a fourth, the Parsons refinery, was located at Tenth street on the P. & E. Railroad. Then Mill creek attracted attention, and from Seventeenth street down to Fourteenth the refineries stood as thickly as space would permit, while near the mouth of the creek there was another. It is well nigh impossible at this late day to give the names of all who were engaged in the refining of petroleum on that stream. Among them, however, were Kennedy & Buseck, Murray & Co., W. J. Watkins, David T. Jones, the Thayers, and Henry Stahi.
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For a time Michael Liebel, Sr., was interested in oil refining, and the most extensive plant in the city probably was that of Victory M. Thompson, which was located by the side of the canal about where Ninth and Walnut streets now intersect. From first to last there were, it is said, 22 oil refineries in Erie, and at one period 15 were in opera- tion at the same time. There was no other city in the country that then refined as much oil as Erie did.
But why did the business not continue? The railroads killed it, some say. Perhaps. And yet that may be a mistake, although a very peculiar state of affairs is reported. It was this: During the height of the business it used to be the practice of the railroad to announce at frequent periods that no more oil could be received for shipment. For several days at a time, therefore, the refineries either had to shut down or accumulate their product. Then would come the notice that oil could again be received, and one who well remembers the circumstances -Mr. Hamberger -- states that it was a spectacle worth going to see when the teamsters by the score crowded to get place at the freight house to unload the barrels of oil that were seeking transportation. Often a single day-sometimes less than that-so congested the traffic that again the avenue was closed and many were compelled to hanl their oil away again. Think of such a state of affairs-that a railroad company could not rise to a business emergency such as this. It is scarcely to be wondered at that some arrived at the conclusion that the railroads were disposed to discourage the business. It must not be overlooked, however, that the railroads of that time were not as well organized as they are at present.
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