USA > Pennsylvania > Blair County > Biographical and portrait cyclopedia of Blair County, Pennsylvania > Part 11
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U. S. Census.
Population.
White.
Colored.
1860
1137
1137
0
1870
1368
1368
0
1880
2011
...
1890
1116
...... ..
113
OF BLAIR COUNTY.
Pyrone Township. - This township, whose territory is better known as Sinking valley, is bounded on the north by Snyder town- ship and Huntingdon county; on the east by Huntingdon county and Catharine and Frankstown townships; on the south by Frankstown township; and on the west by Logan and Antis townships.
In 1787 the original township of Tyrone contained the following free holders :
William Johnston.
Daniel O'Hara.
Thomas Kerr.
Andrew Porter.
William Kelley.
William Porter.
Samuel Kyle.
John Porter.
Joseph Kyle.
Theo. Prigmore.
Hugh Kennedy.
Samuel Peden.
Hugh Logan. Daniel Peck.
John Lindsay.
James Parks.
William Lindsay.
Daniel Pennington.
Richard Ricketts.
James Armitage.
William Davis.
Robert Adair.
Jolm Dennison.
Edward Burke.
Abraham Elrod.
George Baxter.
Peter Fleck.
Thomas Moorehead.
Edward Ricketts.
Burgess.
Alexus Fowler.
William McCain.
David Ramsey.
Andrew Boyd.
Joseph Galbraith.
William Moore.
Alexander Ramsey.
Thomas Ball.
David Mains.
Michael Roller.
John Bell.
Joshua Burley, sr.
George Gibson.
Thos. McGonnery.
David McClure.
David Stewart.
John Burley.
Peter Graffius.
John Musser.
Richard Shorts.
Charles Bradley.
Moses Gray.
James McElroy.
William Spitler.
Henry Block.
Jacob Genner.
Peter McIntosh.
Abraham Sells.
Edward Beatty.
Peter Gilson.
John McCreery.
John Smith.
Andrew Cook.
Francis Gardner.
George Mattern.
Alex. Stewart.
William Stewart.
John Mann.
Robert Stewart. David Scott.
Peter McMullen.
Henry Moore.
George Sexton.
Giles Stephens.
John Troxel.
John Maguire.
John Tussey. Samuel Thomas.
M. Mussey.
Fred. Marcus. John Matter. Joseph Moore.
Patrick McGuire.
James Taylor.
Chas. Montgomery. George Meek.
George Templeton. William Thompson.
Joseph Drake.
Samuel Daniels. James Dickson. Thomas Donaldy. 8
James Igo.
Anthony Johnston. Henry Jervis.
Allen MeKee. Richard Nolan. Sarah Noble.
Thomas Thompson.
Luke Tipton. John Tipton.
Henry Climing. James Champion. James Creswell.
John Gray.
William Gadowner. Wm. Hendrickson. John Hays.
David Ilagon.
William Crossman. James Caldwell. Joseph Cox. John Caven.
James Coleman.
Mary Travers.
David Temple.
James Thompson.
James Crawford. William Clark. Richard Cheney. James Calderwood. Robert Craig.
Harmon Gray.
William McClellan.
John Rogers.
John Lewis.
John Roller.
Thomas MeCune.
Joseph Ross.
Absalom Gray. Jacob Gray.
Joseph MeCain.
Jacob Roller. Samuel Reaugh.
Joshua Burley, jr.
Samuel Gess.
M. McLain. Hugh Murrain.
Ulrich Hoofstotter. Jonathan Hartsock. Leonard Harthane. John Hunter. James Jackson. Benjamin Johnson. James Johnson. Joshua Igo.
David Lowry. William Laird.
-
114
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
Jesse Tipton.
Robert Wilson.
Thomas Vaughan.
John Wilson.
Zeph. Weekley.
Henry Whitsell.
James Williams.
Thomas Weston.
Single Freemen: Richard Beatty, Adam Carson, Samuel Clinton, John Dean, Alex. Ewing, Fred. Harpst, Thomas Henry, Chas. Lemon, George Mattern, John MeGonnery, Robert McCartney, George Morgan, Henry Nearhoof, Erasmus Pennington, Andrew Porter, John Parks, John McQuitty (school- master), Thomas Ricketts, Arch. Ramsey, Philip Roller, James Stewart, John Span- ogle, William Templeton, and William Weston.
The limestone soil of Sinking valley is said to be as rich as any in the world. Its nat- ural wonders, Arch Spring and Sinking run, have been described elsewhere, and it but remains, in connection with its topography and geology, to speak of its mineral wealth. The township, geologically, lies principally in formation II; or the Trenton with its veins of limestone, beds of iron ore, and de- posits of lead and zinc. The pipe iron ore of its mines is very rich and good, and has been successfully mined at McCahan's and several other places in the township.
But the main interest in the minerals of Sinking valley has centered in its zine and lead deposits, and to give the fullest infor- mation possible, we quote, at some length, from the Geology of Blair County, by Prof. Franklin Platt :
"It may be said that the valley (Sinking) occupies the center of the northern part of Blair county ; that along its northern edge, from end to end, is the Little Juniata river; on its east side is one arm of Brush mount- ain ; on its west side is another arm of Brush mountain ; and at the south the valley ter-
minates in a point, where the two arms of the mountain unite.
"The valley is therefore cove-shaped or triangular. Its trend is northeast and south- west; its width, at its broadest part, namely along its northern edge, is five miles, which is the distance from the base of one mount- ain to the base of the other. Its length is nearly ten miles, measuring in a straight line from Birmingham on the Little Juniata, to the so-called "kettle," at the extreme southern end of the valley. The surface area, exclusive of the mountain flanks, amounts to about twenty-one miles.
" The topography presents, in brief, a gently undulating plain, with a slightly ele- vated ridge or hump running lengthwise through the center. At the sides of the val- ley on the northwest and southeast are pre- cipitous but symmetrical mountain flanks, which rise a thousand feet and more above the bed of the valley, and end in the sum- mits of the same zeven shape and height. These summits steadily approach each other towards the southwest, thus gradually nar- rowing the valley surface between, until finally this is terminated at the "kettle" by the two mountains uniting into a single ridge. The average elevation of the floor of the valley above mean tide Atlantic ocean is, in round numbers, 1100 feet; its eleva- tion above the bed of the Juniata river ranges between 200 and 300 feet, the chan- nel of this stream being only a few feet below the Pennsylvania railroad, which skirts its right bank, and which at Tyrone is 907 feet above the ocean level; 866 feet at Birmingham, and 777 feet at Spruce creek. The north end of the valley is open, being cut off from the country beyond by a narrow canon-like ravine.
"The drainage is into the Juniata. The
115
OF BLAIR COUNTY.
high mountain walls on the east and west and south being unbroken, no water passes through them, but pours down their flanks into the valley below, whence it is carried into the river by means of two small streams, Sinking run and Elk run, which, heading close to one another in the " kettle," How par- allel with and at the base of the mountains. There are no cross streams ; whatever water collects on the central ridge, flows down into the depressions on either side. Some of the drainage, and perhaps a considerable amount of it, is effected by subterranean passages.
" An anticlinal axis traverses the valley lengthwise. The exact path of this axis is rendered somewhat obscure, by reason of im- perfect exposures, but it crosses the river from the Nittany valley, a little west of Birmingham; passes then close to the de- velopments of the Keystone Zinc Company, near Mr. Kinch's house ; runs past the deep shaft of the Borie farm, and so on into the "kettle," where it expires.
" Three features only of this antielinal require special mention here :
"1. That the axis is almost overturned at its crest in the vicinity of Birmingham, where one group of zine and lead fissures is found.
.. 2. That this overturn has nearly disap- peared at the deep shaft, where there is a second group of fissures.
"3. That the anticlinal sinks southwest- ward along its central line, at the rate of 600 feet to the mile; or dips, in other words, along its strike at an angle of more than 6 degrees.
" For the rest, it may be said, that from the center of the antielinal the rocks dip stead- ily, but at varying angles, toward and under the mountains on both sides. These mount-
ains are of monoclinal structure. The rocks, therefore, which make their summits and flanks are of a much later orgin than those which occupy the bed of the valley.
"The decrease in the force of the anti- elinal southwestward necessitates, of course, a constant change in the rock horizon in the same direction. The importance of this change is obvious, for while at the Key- stone mines, near Birmingham, there are only a few hundred feet of limestone, there are several thousand feet of the same ma- terial at the deep shaft near the "kettle;" and if the zinc and lead fissures are con- fined to this limestone formation, as they perhaps are, the depth of the veins at the two places would stand in the proportion nearly of 1:10.
"The rocks exposed in the valley, from the lowest to the highest, belong to the Cam- bro-Silurian and Silurian epochs. Along the river, and at the center of the anticlinal, the Potsdam sandstone, formation I, ap- pears, for a short distance above the water line. Over this, spread out in regular or- der, the limestones and dolomites of the next higher formation, II, the Calciferous, Chazy, Trenton, etc. As already intimated, these latter rocks make the greater part of the floor of the valley. They extend nearly to the base of the mountains, where they are overlapped by a deep black border of the slates of III, the Hudson river, Utica, etc .; finally formation IV, the Oneida and Medina sandstones, are piled up in regular order, stratum upon stratum, to form the high mountain ridges which make the sides of the valley.
"In April, 1778, an expedition of consid- erable strength, and under the command of General Roberdean (or Roberdeau ?), started from Carlisle for the Sinking valley, where
116
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
at lead mine was subsequently opened and worked. Small reducing works were like- wise built close by, in which the ores were treated as fast as they were mined, and the metal so obtained, was most likely shipped in flat boats down the Juniata, whenever the river was flooded.
"The Roberdeau expedition, though it continued work for some time, was in the end a failure. Various exaggerated notions, as to the probable yield of these mines, were entertained by those who had the work in charge; nor was the enterprise finally abandoned without some protestations on the part of General Roberdeau, against the slender support and assistance rendered him by the governmental authorities; a support, moreover, which seems to have been guaranteed to him at the outset of his undertaking. The failure of the enterprise may, perhaps, be ascribed as much to the expense of mining and treating the ores, as to the causes assigned for it by General Roberdeau.
" There is no record of the total amount of metal produced at this time in the Sink- ing valley, nor of the cost of it, nor of the time when the work was finally abandoned.
" After the abandonment of this enter- prise, nothing was done with the zinc and lead deposits of the Sinking valley for sev- cral years.
" But that work on them was resumed before the close of last century, is shown by an agreement between John Musser and Robert Morris, who were 'equally con- cerned in a lead mine situated in Tyrone township.' By the terms of this agreement, which is dated August 4, 1795, Musser was to drive a 'level,' for drainage purposes, through to a certain shaft on which some work had already been done, but in which
the miners had been prevented from going deeper on account of water. Of the amount of work done during this latter period, even less is known than of the Roberdeau ex- pedition, but it cannot have been extensive or there would be more evidences of it in the shape of shafts and pits.
"The third period is represented by the operations of the Keystone Zine Company. This was the period when the mineral de- posits of the valley were most fully explored and developed; indeed, it was the only period when anything of importance was done.
" The Keystone Zinc Company, an organ- ization which still exists, was incorporated in 1864; it had a comprehensive charter and abundant capital, and work was begun by it on an extensive scale. The mining operations of the company were mainly directed to the so-called 'bowlder deposits,' near Birmingham; several thousand tons of ore were mined; that large reducing works, with all the modern appliances, were erected at a considerable expense, on the south bank of the Juniata river, near Birmingham ; that zinc oxide was made in these works, not only from the ores of the valley, but also from material brought hither from a distance; and finally it may be said, with- out entering further into the history of the enterprise, that having become embarrassed financially, the company suspended opera- tions about 1870, since which time their mines have not only been idle, but, to a large extent, have fallen shut.
"So many years have elapsed since the mines were abandoned, and nothing having been done in the interval to prevent them from filling with water, or otherwise closing up, that they are now entirely inaccessible. It is unreasonable, in matters of this kind,
117
OF BLAIR COUNTY.
to admit without question, the evidence of persons not only unfamiliar with the subject of mineral deposits, but entirely unacus- tomed to make critical examinations of them ; and the evidence is still further weak- ened when it is furnished from memory, unaided by note or memorandum, and many years after the observations were made. Hleuce, in the following description, little attention is paid to the statements received from the residents of the valley, except when fully substantiated.
"But to the Keystone Zinc Company we are indebted for much information respect- ing the ore deposits, and particularly those at Birmingham. During the time covered by the operations of this company several experts were engaged to examine the mines and openings in their different stages of de- velopment, and to report upon their value. Prominent among these gentlemen, were Dr. W. Th. Roepper, of Bethlehem, an ex- pert of deservedly high reputation; Mr. Williams, of Philadelphia; Mr. Dickerson, Mr. Spillsbury, and others.
" The Birmingham fissures are on the property of the Keystone Zine Company, opposite the farm of Mr. E. Kinch, and about one-half mile southwest of Birmingham. The improvement consists of a number of shafts sunk from the top of a knoll raised about 80 feet above the township road. An adit driven from the level of the township rond, connected with these shafts, or at least with some of them, for drainage purposes. This is the same adit that was begun at the close of last century. It was afterwards continued by the Keystone Company, in a southwest direction, for a distance of 347 feet under the hill. It is now shut, its sides having recently caved in.
" The shafts were ill-advisedly sunk, and
without much attempt at system. One line of pits, however, would seem to indicate the course of a vein running northeast and southwest, or parallel to the stratification of the enclosing measures. Other shafts were sunk on both sides of the line, to the north and south of it; that to the north, or between the line and the road, went down only some forty feet, and seems to have had little success, nothing more than indications of ore having been met with; but in that to the south of the line, and some three hundred feet away from it, the results were very encouraging.
"The deposit at this place is shut up within a small area. Along the river front an examination of the rocks exhibited there reveals no trace of the veins; and in the opposite direction, towards the southwest, every effort to trace the ore beyond the neighborhood of the adit has been a failure. What may be the condition of the vein be- tween these points, its northeast and south- west limit, the work already done is not calculated to fully reveal. Mr. Williams states that the vein was disclosed for one hundred and sixty-six feet along its strike by a gallery leading from one shaft to another; but, with the exception of this, there seems to have been no effort made to connect the pits by trenches along the out- crop or by underground passage-ways, which would have served to show, not only the extent of the vein in a horizontal direction, but its exact condition and width.
"More than two thousand tons of ore were taken from the shafts during the time they were operated by the Keystone Com- pany. It is said that the shaft furthest northeast yielded a very lean ore, with barely ten per cent. of zine in it; but the specimens of ore exhibited as having come
118
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
from the main shafts, those near the adit, are of fine character, and vastly superior to the ores from the other group of veins at the southwest end of the valley.
"Nearly all the ore removed from these shafts was reduced in the works at Birm- ingham; several tons, however, remained over. An examination of these shows an ore of very even quality. Mr. Williams states that the best of the material averages 30 per cent. of metallic zinc; which statement the old dump heap at the works fully cor- roborates.
"The ore consists mainly of a mixture of the sulphides of zinc and lead, zinc blende, and galena. It is a compact, fine-grained mass of dark color, and when broken, has a waxy luster at the fracture. Some of the lumps are of the size of a man's head, from which they graduate down to fragments of all sizes. In the specimens representing the best of the ores, zinc blende largely pre- dominates; galenite is always present, but subordinate to the other; there is also usually a small amount of calamine ( hydrous silicate of zine). The gangue matter is in- considerable; there is some limestone, or rather some dolomitic limestone, and there is also some iron pyrite, but never very prominent.
"I have estimated that there have been produced about 1300 tons of rock ore ( worth about 30 per cent. for metal ), and some two thousand (2000) tons of wash or earthy ore, worth probably 8 per cent. for metal. The total cost ( as given in the pay- roll of the company, from which it is to be deducted, the surface (farm ) expenses, and those for permanent improvement), shows us that this ore has been produced at a cost not much exceeding $3.00 per ton.
" The zinc and lead deposits at the south-
west end of the valley differ in many re- spects from those near Birmingham ; par- ticularly, however, in their more extended distribution, in the character and compo- sition of the ores, in the narrowness of the fissures, and in the position these occupy in the rocks.
" Developments have been made on both sides of the valley and in the center of it ; but no two openings have yet been con- nected by a continuous cross-cut, to show the actual course of any one vein, or its extent, although the fact that the fissures chiefly cross the measures transversely to the stratification, has been sufficiently es- tablished. Moreover, the shafts sunk on the different farms have shown that the veins are vertical, or nearly so; and further, that few of the veins exceed six inches in width.
"The ore when freshly mined is a smooth, compact mass of zinc blende, Smithsonite (carbonate of zinc), and galenite in a gangue of heavy spar and dolomite. Zinc blende is usually the most prominent of the minerals, though occasionally it is replaced somewhat by the galenite.
"The geological considerations arising out of the zinc and lead-bearing deposits of the Sinking valley may be very briefly presented.
"The question first in importance is, whether they are merely segregated de- posits, pseudomorphs by replacement on an extended scale, or whether they are true fissure veins, extending indefinitely down- ward through the rocks, and owing their origin to some deep-seated mechanical cause.
"To answer this question satisfactorily would require somewhat more information about the deposits than we now possess ; but in the light of such facts as we have it
119
OF BLAIR COUNTY.
seems to us that the deposits are fissures, formed by the same agencies that originally lifted the valley above the sea level, and threw its rocks into their present antielinal structure ..
" The fact that the ores are mainly sul- pbiles, and placed in the rock ahnost en- tirely unaccompanied by clay, excludes the idea of their being merely mechanically transported into already existing cavities of the rocks. The whole mode of occurrence contradicts such a supposition, and leads, irresistibly, to the conviction that the ores were formed in the place they are now found by geologico-chemical agencies ; that the pocket shape of the lodes is merely the result of mechanical derangement and contortion of the hill, and that these poek- ets have been formed out of original true veins following the original northeast and southwest strike of the strata. It is only necessary to notice the shattered condition of the rock, and to observe the contortions exhibited by the section of the hill along the Pennsylvania railroad, readily to ac- count for the transformation of regular veins into a more or less irregular system of pockets.
"As to the process by which the fissures became in time filled up with the material we now find there, such considerations are rather chemical than geological.
" The question relating to the depths to which these veins descend, has already been sufficiently answered by what has been said above. It may, however, be repeated, that the Birmingham fissures doubtless extend to indefinite depths, though not always in the same condition as we find them in the lime- stone. But confining them to this one for- mation, they are at least 500 feet deep; and at the southwest end of the valley, there are
several thousand feet of limestone resting on the back of the antielinal, at the place where the fissures occur. Hence, their economic value will not, for the present, de- pend so much on the question of their ulti- mate depth, as upon other considerations, namely, upon their horizontal extent, their width, the character of their ores, and the cost of mining them. And upon these vital points our information is very meager. "Near Birmingham, the conditions for mining are much more simple than at the southwest end of the valley, and would in- volve considerably less expense in the pro- duction of the ore. Mr. Williams states that the ore taken out of this place by the Keystone Zinc Company, on the average, cost only $3.00 per ton; Dr. Roepper gives the cost as $4.00 per ton ; and allowing this, or even something in excess of it, there should yet be a large margin of profit in mining ores so rich in metal as the ana- lyzed samples would indicate these to be.
" Yet the attempts to work and develop them have thus far been failures, even with large reducing works close at hand, to con- vert the ores into zinc oxide as fast as they were mined, and thus save almost all cost of transportation of the raw material. If the ores maintain what is asserted of them, it is impossible to explain this failure, ex- cept by mismanagement. Without such mismanagement, fair profits must have re- sulted from working mines esteemed so valuable by every expert who examined them. Doubtless, the work will again be undertaken at some future day; when it is, the efforts should be directed to the proper development of the Birmingham fissures; and unless other deposits are found at the southwest end of the valley, more valuable than those already discovered, the work of
120
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
development in that section should cease with what has already been done."
Tyrone township contains two villages- Arch Spring and Sinking Valley, or Laurel- ville-with a population respectively of 102 and 82. Sinking Valley was founded in 1808, by Henry Henchey.
The population of Tyrone township, since the formation of the county, has been as follows:
U. S. Census.
Population.
White.
Colored.
1850
1068
1061
1860
1766
1723
43
1870
1006
1005
1
1880
1004
1890
1239 ..
Woodbury Township .- It is bounded on the north by Catharine township; on the east by Huntingdon county; on the south by Huston township; and on the west by Frankstown. This township lies between Tussey and Lock mountains, and is a part of the Great Cove, which since 1770 has been known in what is now Blair county as Morrison's Cove. The larger part of the township is in geological formation No. II, and contains some very valuable beds of iron ore.
In 1778 we have account of the following heads of families as living in the present township of Woodbury :
John Boren.
Henry Painter.
Henry Boren.
Daniel Powell.
Tyrone
1851
1857
Bellwood.
1877 before 1880
Martinsburg
1815
1832
Peter Bowers.
Samuel Prawley.
Roaring Spring
1865 before 1880
Edmund Cullins.
Peter Rench.
Gaysport
1841
East Tyrone
1873
Joseph Chapman.
David Ulrich.
Rezin Davis. Christian Wineland.
Isaac Hutson.
Frederick Herron.
Peter Wineland. Philip Walker.
Henry Wesour. Nicholas Warner. Ludwick Wesinger.
There were also the following single free- men : William and John Brumbaugh, John Doyle, Michael Fogel, John Houdurf, Nich- olas and Daniel Stull, Jacob Server, jr., and Christley Wineland.
Of the iron works that have been erected in the township: Cove forge was built by John Royer, in 1811; Springfield furnace by Daniel and John Royer, in 1815; and Franklin forge by Samuel Royer, in about 1830. The villages of Woodbury township are Cove Forge, Mines, and Royer, whose population in 1890 were, respectively, 139, 211, and 197.
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