USA > Pennsylvania > Armstrong County > Armstrong County, Pennsylvania her people past and present, embracing a history of the county and a genealogical and biographical record of representative families, Volume I > Part 10
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After the completion of the Pennsylvania railroad the trade of the canal languished, and in August, 1857, the State sold the entire line of the canal, locks, etc., to the railroad for $7,500,000. That road having thus eliminated its only competitor, allowed the canal to relapse into ruin, using but a small portion of the route for a roadbed. For almost the entire length of the route through this county the if his contestants would quit fighting and per- canal is not used by the road, although upon that side of the river most of the towns are located.
The locks and dam at Leechburg, built by David Leech, caused a lake to form as far up as Apollo, where boats again entered the canal, the locks being located a short distance below if going east. Going west they entered the canal above Apollo at dam No. 2, both in Armstrong county. The dam at Leechburg was 27 feet high and 574 feet long.
The first boat that passed Leechburg on the canal in 1834 was a packet, built near Salts- burg, probably at Coal Port, which made a fine About two weeks afterward one of Leech's boats was launched and started for Pittsburgh.
A FAMOUS RACE
Soon after the breach at the Freeport aque- duct was repaired, a prize of five hundred dol- lars was offered to the proprietor of the boat that would first arrive at Pittsburgh. Harris and Leech were the contestants. The former's boat was a light packet, and the latter's-the "General Leacock"-was a much larger and heavier one. Harris was confident that his smaller and lighter boat would win the prize. On the ist of July, about four miles above Pittsburgh, Leech's was within a mile of Har- ris'. The next day Leech's men cut poles, peeled the bark off them and laid them across the canal, in which there was then only six inches of water. By the aid of one hundred men, relays of the poles, five yoke of oxen and ten horses the boat was kept up out of the mud and moved onward. When Leech's horses came abreast of Harris' boat, an exten- sive and fierce fight between the crews of the two boats began. When' Harris discovered that he had to contend with superior numbers, he proposed that he would give up the contest mit his boat to go to the rear. On a signal being given by Leech all fighting ceased, and his hundred muddy men phinged into the clear water of the Allegheny and washed. The next day all hands aided with the poles in hauling Harris' boat to the rear and starting her up the canal. On the Fourth of July tables were set in the hold and under canvas on the deck of Leech's boat, on which a sumptuous dinner was served to five hundred persons, including Gen- eral Leacock, then canal superintendent, who presided, engineers and a large number of Pittsburgh merchants.
The number of freight and passenger boats son ; "Pennsylvania," Captain Cooper ; "De Witt Clinton," Captain Joshua Leech; "Gen-
display, having on board banners and music. then built was four, "Pioneer," Captain Mon-
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HISTORY OF ARMSTRONG COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
eral Leacock," Captain Robert King. The cabin for passengers in each was in the center.
DAMAGES
A part of dam No. I at Leechburg was swept away July 7, 1831, by a sudden and heavy flood in the Kiskiminetas, causing a cessation of canal navigation for that season. A new lock and dam were located by the engineers about sixty rods below the former ones and within the limits of the town. At the letting the con- tract was awarded to Thomas Neil, of Taren- tum, Pa., for about $16,000. He had scarcely entered upon the performance of his part of the contract when the commissioners turned it into a State job, the cost of which is known to very few persons, if any. From Nov. 10, 1831, and throughout the principal part of the following winter, the weather, most of the time, was very cold, which caused a large ac- cumulation of ice in the river, which broke up Feb. 10, 1832, with a high flood that carried away the lock, the northern abutment of the dam, and did much damage elsewhere. That abutment had to be repaired and a new lock built before navigation could be resumed on the canal.
David Leech, Robert S. Hays, George return the farmers ship their produce direct
Black, George W. Harris and William F. Leech, constituting the copartnership of D. What the final result of these wonderful Leech & Co., of which David Leech was the advances of the postal facilities will be, none traveling agent, subsequently established dis- but a prophet can predict. tinct lines of freight boats and packets, or ex- clusively passenger boats, which they contin- POST OFFICES ued to run until the canal was superseded by the Pennsylvania railroad in 1864.
POSTAL FACILITIES-OLD AND NEW
There was only one post office in 1818 be- tween Kittanning and Indiana, and the weekly mail was carried by a postboy, who rode horse- back the entire distance, stopping at the sev- eral homes of the settlers en route. The roads, if it is possible to dignify the routes of those days with that title, were circuitous and only passable to wheeled vehicles in the summer.
Josiah Copley, the mail carrier in 1819, was an apprentice at the printing trade, under James McCahan, proprietor of the American, a weekly published in Indiana. Part of his apprenticeship contract was that he should carry the mail for one-half of the three-year term for McCahan, who had the mail contract. This was an economical arrangement for the contractor, who had his mails carried free, and secured a printer for the same remuneration.
Copley had many adventures in his trips through the country, and gained a wide experi- ence which served him well in the later years of his life.
The route in 1819 was from Indiana via Greensburg, Freeport, Lawrenceburg (Parker City), to Butler. The people of the vicinity of Red Bank creek also received their mail from Kittanning.
As the years passed the postal routes were extended and the mails were usually carried by the stage coaches. Then came the railroads, with their speed and. larger capacity, and the number of post offices increased rapidly as the country was settled more. The number of post offices had reached the greatest height by 1900. After that date the gradual introduction of the rural mail routes caused the abolition of the smaller of the offices, until at this date there are less post offices in the county than in 1880, but the mails are more frequent and regular.
Within the last year the introduction of the long-desired parcel post has worked a revolu- tion in the mail service. Specially built wagons and automobiles pass over the roads daily, delivering letters, packages and the daily papers to the formerly isolated farmers, and in to the city dwellers without delay or damage.
The post offices in Armstrong county in the year 1913 are : Adrian, Apollo ( with four rural routes ), Atwood, Brickchurch (one rural route ), Chicasaw, Cochran Mills, Cowanshan- noc, Cowansville (one route), Craigsville, Day- ton (three routes), Dime, Echo (two routes), Edmon, Elderton, Ford City (two routes), Fordcliff, Freeport (two routes), Girty, Johnetta, Kaylor, Kelly Station (two routes), Kittanning (seven routes), Leechburg (three routes), Logansport, Longrun, McGrann, Ma- honing (one route), Manorville, Mateer, Mos- grove (two routes), Oak Ridge, Olivet, Par- ker's Landing (six routes), Pierce, Furnace Run, Queenstown, Rimer (one route), Ross- ton, Rural Valley (one route), Sagamore, Seminole, South Bend, Spring Church, Tem- pleton, Tidal, Wattersonville, Whitesburg, Widnoon, Worthington (two routes), Yates- boro (one route). Several of these post offices will be abandoned and the patrons served by rural routes at the close of this year, 1913.
33
HISTORY OF ARMSTRONG COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
EARLY ROADS Thursday and reaching Butler at 10 o'clock A. M. on the following Saturday. That was At the early settlement of this county there were not any well-made roads. From 1805 till 1810 the court of Quarter Sessions granted orders for opening twenty-five public roads in various sections within the present limits of considered a very important line, because it opened up a direct communication between the eastern and most western counties of this State, and was then a cheap and expeditious mode of conveyance. The fare from Ebens- this county. Yet those who traversed the burg to Butler was $3.75, or six cents a mile county as late as 1821 say that most of the for way passengers, and the time between those two points was forty-three hours.
roads then afforded very poor facilities for travel and transportation of goods. Most of the traveling was done on foot and horseback, and for lack of bridges the fording of streams was often hazardous.
After the introduction of wheeled vehicles into the county there were some attempts made to build roads, but lack of knowledge prevent- ed any permanent good resulting. The State- aided roads were the Kittanning and Freeport road, in 1824; the Kittanning and Indiana road, in 1835. Other routes were the Butler and Freeport and the Kittanning and Butler turnpikes. All of these roads were "worked" or kept up with the plow and shovel, with oc- casional stone topping. Some of the turnpikes began to be made about 1815.
Prior to 1810, before the manufacture of iron was begun on the Conemaugh, and salt on the Kiskiminetas, iron was transported from Winchester. Va., and salt from Hagerstown, Md., as well as other goods from the East, on pack-horses, over the Allegheny mountains. After the commencement of the manufacture of salt and iron west of the Allegheny moun- tains, they were transported to Pittsburgh, in flatboats, down the Conemaugh, Kiskiminetas and Allegheny rivers. After the completion of the turnpike from Pittsburgh to Philadel- phia, goods purchased in the latter for this region were left at Blairsville, and distributed thence to their various places of destination. They were generally hauled by six-horse teams in large covered Conestoga wagons, bells be- ing a part of the horses' trappings. An early writer said that he had seen as many as twenty of these teams stop at a country tavern over night. The drivers, each having his own hammock, would lie in every direction in the barroom. Each prided himself on having the best team and hauling the heaviest load. When intoxicated, they would get into broils and scuffles in making good their respective claims to those merits, the resultant blackened eyes being then deemed but trivial circumstances.
As early as 1825 there was a mail stage line from Ebensburg, Cambria Co., Pa., via In- diana, Elderton and Kittanning, to Butler,
Either before or shortly after 1825 lines of stages were established extending from Free- port via Slate Lick, Worthington, Brady's Bend and Catfish, with a branch from Slate Lick via Kittanning, to Clarion, and another branch from the mouth of Mahoning to Brookville, which were withdrawn after the completion of the Allegheny Valley railroad and its branches.
There were for a while two opposition lines of stages running north from Freeport, and so brisk was the competition that passengers were carried for almost nothing, and in some in- stances furnished with meals and whiskey gratis.
While the Pennsylvania canal was closed through the winter, and the river was too low for steamboats, stages were the public con- veyances for passengers from this region to and from Pittsburgh. While the canal was open they were conveyed by packet-boats from Pittsburgh to Freeport, thence by stage -some of the time by a packet-boat towed by horses-to Kittanning and other points, and by packets also to Leechburg, Apollo and other points along the canal, and thence to their respective destinations by private con- veyances.
Those who traveled those routes know the rate of speed with which trips used to be made. But for the information of those who use modern methods of rapid transit, it may be appropriate to state, in this connection, that it required about eighteen hours to make a trip by stage and canal from Kittanning to Pitts- burgh.
One of the only good roads in the county was made by a few of the citizens of Leech- burg and Freeport after the Pennsylvania canal was abandoned. In 1878 they leased the canal from the Pennsylvania railroad for a nominal sum and graded the bed with cinder, thus creating a level and convenient driveway from Leechburg to Freeport, crossing the Allegheny on a ferry.
MODERN ROADS
At present roads are handled in the same leaving Ebensburg at 3 o'clock P. M. on slipshod manner as in the early times, except 3
34
HISTORY OF ARMSTRONG COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
in the case of those roads taken over by the Under this law and a number of amendments, State. Of these latter there are sixteen miles in Armstrong county, twelve of macadam and four of brick construction, now completed. There are 143 miles of road to be treated with concrete and brick surfaces in the future.
In the sixty-seven counties of Pennsylvania there are fifty superintendents of roads for the State. Mr. Charles E. Meals, the official in charge of this district, has all of Armstrong and half of Clarion and part of Butler coun- ties under his control.
From the reports of the constables of the townships in 1913 the following is a condensed review of the condition of the roads of the county : Ten reported the state of the roads as fairly good. Those of South Buffalo, Val- ley, Wayne and Cowanshannock were said to be poor. Bad roads were reported in Brady's Bend, Gilpin, Burrell, Manor, South Bend and Kiskiminetas. Roads at Manorville, Ford City, Wickboro and Elderton were stated to be dangerous to travel. One original genius. Albert Morrison, from North Buffalo, stated that the roads in his section were "neighborly like." Such are the problems that confront the residents of this county in these modern times of autos and good roads.
RESULTS OF BAD ROADS
Pennsylvania built the first really good road noted in the history of the Colonies-the Lan- caster Turnpike-and it was just a century ago that the old Cumberland road was being built within the borders of the State. Penn- sylvania was always to the fore in facilities for transportation, roads, canals and railroads. but latterly the people of the State have seemed to rely on its previous achievements in this respect. When New Jersey, in 1891, es- tablished State aid in the building of highways. Pennsylvanians thought it a good thing-for New Jersey. When Massachusetts inaugu- rated a system of State roads in 1894, Penn- sylvanians congratulated that State on a step which would perhaps reduce the number of abandoned farms, which at that time had be- come a menace. As other States fell in line, with State aid or State road laws, Pennsyl- vanians continued to plod through the mud. maintaining a sympathy for those States where the physical conditions required that public money be expended on the public highways.
In 1903 Pennsylvania awoke. A law was enacted creating a State Highway Department, and granting aid to counties and townships for the purpose of improving the highways.
many local roads have been improved in nearly every county in the State. Then the revolu- tion came. The automobile, originally a fad of the rich, emerged from its chrysalis. Over night the whole scheme of transportation of persons and goods was changed, and the de- velopments from the change are still continu- ing.
A study of the subject disclosed the tact that the ill-kept condition of our roads was responsible for many of the ills to which the people were subject. While the original in- spiration for this study was probably due to the automobilists, the study itself proceeded along economic lines, the interests of the whole people being taken into consideration.
A newspaper investigation conducted three years ago in Pennsylvania, showed that there were seven thousand abandoned farms in our State. They were the farms where it had proved impossible to pay the bad road tax of $1.41 on the products. When the roads are improved, and this excess of cost of market- ing is eliminated, these abandoned farms will again become productive : the land will become of substantial value and both the local com- munity and the State at large will profit.
The State has already taken over the roads, and it is necessary for the State Highway De- partment to improve them. The only method by which this can be properly accomplished is by so amending the constitution that from time to time bonds may be issued to pay the cost of such construction. It can never be done so long as Legislature appropriations must be de- pended upon.
MODERN REMEDIES
The whole American public agrees that we need better roads; the farmers' Granges are in favor of better roads: farmers themselves know that a good road in front of their prop- erty increases its value ; and all who ride in carriages, wagons or automobiles are aware of the value of good roads. So it isn't necessary to tell the people of this country that we need good roads-they are already convinced of that fact. But they want to know how to get them and at the same time not burden them- selves with future debts that will hang like a sword over the heads of their children. Bond issues are suggested and not many months past the people were permitted to express then- selves on the bond question. In that election the will of the people was strongly thrown against a bond issue that seemed to be sup-
35
HISTORY OF ARMSTRONG COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
ported by the most enterprising and prominent prevent the violent suction from tearing the citizens of the State of Pennsylvania. But road to pieces. the issue was not so much as to whether a bond Third, the heavy traction engine requires a deep, hard road, with a very substantial foun- (lation. Traction engines are really road im- provers, as they help to compact the road sur- face and counteract the injury done by the autos. issue was necessary but as to whether those who offered this method of road building were sincere in their offers of help, or merely de- sired to get their hands into the pockets of the farmer. The farmers, to a large extent, seemed to lean to the latter view.
However, it is universally accepted by those who have the building of roads at heart that the bond issue is the real remedy. The mat- ter becomes one of economics. Can we make and maintain good roads under the bond plan and be better off financially than in the past ? Under the old plan of letting each community pay for its own roads the prosperous portions of the county had good roads and kept them up with economy, while the poorer portions were compelled to do without, or at best suffer from incompetent and misdirected la- bors of local workmen. Under the State-aid plan fifty per cent of the work is paid for by the State commission, and the balance is made up by the county, all sums being raised by taxation.
But the bond issue goes further. By means of this method all of the road tax is applied to the work direct, and the proportion is ad- justed in such a manner that those who can afford to pay for good roads are automatic- ally compelled to assist those in less fortunate situations.
KINDS OF ROADS
Now about the roads themselves. Condi- tions alter the methods of road building in each community. Let us see what they are in this county. Here we have three classes of vehicles to contend with-the farm wagon, with sharp, narrow tires and heavy loads ; the automobile, with soft tires and high speed ; and the traction engine, with wide tires and great weight.
First, the farm wagon. Here we find that a road must be made of firm, hard surface, alone. but at the same time of sufficient surface To-day the motor vehicle enters into every phase of commercial and industrial life as well as the various social factors in human existence. The doctor who presides at a birth roughness to give grip to the shoes of the horses. The sharp calks of the horses and the narrow tires of the wagons soon cut into a soft surface. For this class of traffic the or is called in an emergency which might most successful road is the stone or macadam one.
Second comes the automobile, which is growing in use year by year. For this ve- hicle a road is needed that has a slightly rough surface, but the material must be bound together by a tar or other binder, in order to
Lastly, let us look upon the class of mate- rials offered by the local conditions of Arm- strong county. We have stone of three kinds, sandstone, and two kinds of limestone. We must reject the sandstone, owing to its soft and disintegrating character. And the two limestones are not much better, even though used in the form of concrete mixtures. They are too soft and liable to turn to dust after continual use. Time has proved the truth of these statements by the evidence of the present so-called roads which have been the receptacles of funds for many genera- tions, just as a deep well would be-there is no evidence to show of the money spent in the past.
But nature has not left Armstrong entirely destitute of good road material. Man needs but add his labor to the great mass of clays underlying the whole county and the product -firebrick, or vitrified brick-is the ideal road surface. It will withstand the cutting action of the wagon tire and toe-calk, the suction of the auto and the great weight of the traction engine. And the supply of raw material is almost inexhaustible, while the price compares favorably with the best of other materials. Un- doubtedly, the future roads of the county will be of brick, with a tar binder and a deep con- crete base.
THE AUTOMOBILE
Ten years ago the automobile was the rich man's toy. and there were less than 30,000 of them in the United States. To-day there are about 80,000 in the State of Pennsylvania
often mean life or death, gets there on time in his motor car, which too often was not the case with the horse. When a marriage cere- mony takes place they must have automobiles and at funerals the motor hearse and motor carriages are coming more and more in use every day. In all the necessities for a vehicle
36
HISTORY OF ARMSTRONG COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
of any kind the motor vehicle is becoming by one of which the name was changed, as paramount. The business man of one town suggested by Josiah Copley, to the Allegheny Valley railroad. Nothing was done toward making the road until about fifteen years after the granting of the original charter, when Mr. Johnston, the first president of the board of managers, and other earnest and energetic friends of the project, began to utilize the power and privileges conferred by that char- ter, and succeeded in raising a sufficient amount of stock to build it as far as Kittan- ning, to which point it was completed in Jan- uary, 1856, which was its northern terminus for about eleven years, when the late William Phillips became the leading energetic spirit in prosecuting its extension to Brady's Bend, and thence to Oil City, and in leasing other roads above, until in 1880 the company controlled lines to Brockton, N. Y., and other points on the Philadelphia & Erie. The Bennett's branch, or "Low Grade" division of this road, was built in 1874, from the mouth of Red Bank creek to Driftwood. or village with his automobile can drive a dis- tance of fifty miles or so in the morning, transact his business during the middle of the day and drive home with less effort than would be required to drive twelve or fifteen miles with a team. The merchant makes his round of customers in the country and the doctor visits his patients in one quarter of the time previously consumed. The farmer can drive ten miles to town for needed supplies almost before breakfast, while with a team and bad roads a large portion if not all the day would be required. The auto trucks en- able merchants to greatly extend their zones of delivery and to make their deliveries promptly and under all weather conditions, while under the old system there were few who went beyond the boundaries of the cities or villages. The fact that there are 1,100,000 automobiles and trucks now in use in the United States as against 30,000 ten years ago, and that 350,000 more are being built this year and that most of these are put to every possible kind of use, and that their daily area of travel is about ten times that of a horse, indicates to every person who thinks that to the traffic of ten years ago has been added a new traffic ten times as great.
It is not that the new traffic has taken the place of the old. It has in the main been added to it. Many roads that were traversed by 100 teams a day ten years ago are now traversed by 100 teams and 1,000 motor ve- hicles. It is the new travel that has created the revolution in transportation and the revo- lution has only commenced. New vehicles are constantly being devised and placed on the roads to add to the convenience of the public, and these call for more and better highway construction.
Motor trucks carrying from eight to twelve tons are already common and roads must be built to sustain their weight. Motor omni- bus lines are springing up all over the coun- try, and even trolley cars that run on the roads without rails are in use in some locali- ties, particularly in the State of New York.
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