USA > Pennsylvania > Schuylkill County > Blue book of Schuylkill County : who was who and why, in interior eastern Pennsylvania, in Colonial days, the Huguenots and Palatines, their service in Queen Anne's French and Indian, and Revolutionary Wars : history of the Zerbey, Schwalm, Miller, Merkle, Minnich, Staudt, and many other representative families > Part 34
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The route of this road followed the "Tulpehocken Path," and was completed early in 1771. At Pottsville it crossed the Schuylkill opposite the Pottsville Hospital and wound around the hill to East Norwegian Street, fording both branches of the river. One branch of the road ran up the hill (near the Robert Ramsey residence) and wound around where the Henry Clay monument stands, and out along the famous Indian Path to near Fifteenth and Mahan- tongo Streets, where it descended on the Arthur Sheafer grounds, then to York Farm, and finally joined the branch
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that ran along Coal Street and over the Bull's Head road to Minersville and thence to Sunbury.
THE SWATARA ROAD
At court, held November 6, 1811, in Reading, before Judge Porter, viewers reported that they had laid out a public road, in pursuance of an order from court, through the lands of Thomas Lightfoot, John Reed, Jacob Faust, Phillip Klauser, Martin Dreibelbis, to Mathias Bechtold's, on the old Sunbury road, through the Swatara Gap, a distance of four- teen miles, to the "Great Road." The first report was made August, 18II. The viewers were: George Raush, Jacob Dreher, Daniel Bensinger, William Green and George Orwig (all from the vicinity of McKeansburg). They received seventy-five cents, each per day for the work, which was afterward increased to one dollar .- (Court house records.)
THE FIRST TURNPIKE ROAD
In America was chartered, April 9, 1792. It was sixty- two miles in length and extended from Philadelphia to Lancaster. The Germantown and Perkiomen road, of twenty-five miles, and the Perkiomen and Reading road, of twenty-nine miles followed. The Centre Turnpike, of seventy-five miles, was chartered and incorporated March 25, 1805. It connected Reading with the Susquehanna at Sun- bury. Its course ran through Pottsville on what is now Centre Street, out to where the Odd Fellows' and Catholic cemeteries are located, and thence to Sunbury. Centre Street was then a vast marsh and the lowest points, from Mauch Chunk Street to the gas house, were filled in with logs and stones, the first "Corduroy Road" in this vicinity.
EARLY STAGES
John Coleman ran stages once a week from Reading to Sunbury and back, carrying the mail. On June 27, 1829, a
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daily mail commenced running between Philadelphia and Pottsville. So great was the traffic that soon after it started three wagons were required to convey the passengers and in 1830 there were three stage lines competing for the traf- fic, the "Clover," the "Reside," and the "Coleman." The time for leaving Pottsville was two o'clock in the morning and the time of arrival in Philadelphia was eight P. M. of the same day.
THE SCHUYLKILL CANAL
March 8, 1815, an Act was passed by the Pennsylvania Legislature incorporating the Schuylkill Navigation Com- pany. The work was divided into two sections extending from Philadelphia to Reading and from that city to Mill Creek, Schuylkill County. The distance was 108 2-3 miles and the canal was completed and open to navigation, 1821. In 1825 the port at Mt. Carbon was doing a large business in the shipment of lumber and merchandise.
FIRST RAILWAYS IN AMERICA
At the close of 1826 there were only two railroads in America with the following mileage: Leiper, tram road, at the stone quarries, Crum Creek, Delaware County, Penn- sylvania, mileage, one mile. Quincy, tram road, Quincy, Mass., mileage, three miles. April 8, 1826, the Danville, Northumberland County, and Pottsville, Schuylkill County. railroad was incorporated. This road passed through many misfortunes and finally became insolvent in 1842, and was sold at sheriff's sale, January 16, 1851.
In 1826 Abraham Heebner, of Port Carbon, built a rail- way one half mile in length to connect his mines with the Schuylkill Canal.
MT. CARBON RAILWAY
An Act to incorporate the Mount Carbon Railway Com- pany passed the Legislature 1829. The Mine Hill Railroad
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was chartered March 24, 1828, and was built to the canal landing, Schuylkill Haven, October 8, 1831. The main line extended from Schuylkill Haven to Locust Gap. It was leased to the Reading Company May 12, 1864. The Schuyl- kill Valley railway was built to the coal landing, Port Car- bon, 1830. The Mt. Carbon railway extended from Mt. Car- bon to Mt. Laffee and Wadesville. Horses and mules were first used. When engines were adopted the roads using them reserved the right to return to horses if the locomotives did not prove practicable. These cars for the carrying of coal and freight only, did not run faster than three or four miles an hour.
Ground was broken, 1835, for the Philadelphia and Read- ing railway, from Mt. Carbon to Philadelphia. In 1827 a dissension arose as to the name of the new borough, Potts- ville, incorporated 1828. Mt. Carbon wanted to be the main city and wanted the name of the combined settlements to be called Lewisport. January 1. 1842, the first trip of ninety- one miles, from Mt. Carbon to Fairmount, was made over the Reading railway and consumed eight hours. The cars were miniature affairs and the engines were small, and as compared with the trains of the present day, they looked like toy engines and cars.
FIRST DISCOVERY OF COAL
The Norway and Pinegrove tracts, in Norwegian and Manheim Townships, were surveyed, 1766. William3 Scull (Nicholas2, Nicholas1 Scull) was of the third generation of surveyors of that name. His father, Nicholas2 Scull, had surveyed other tracts in this township, and his grand- father, Nicholas1 Scull, was Surveyor General of Pennsyl- vania. In 1769 William Scull and William Maclay were employed to fix the boundary lines between Berks and Northampton County, and near where Ashland now stands they noticed the existence of coal. The map of his grand-
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father, Nicholas1 Scull, published 1759, contained "coal points.", (Nicholas1 Scull died 1761), which no doubt famil- iarized him with the situation. On Scull's map, published 1770, one of these "coal points" is made at "Schuylkill Gap" (Tuscarora Mountain). This was the first discovery of coal in Schuylkill County.
To two Indian chiefs from the Wyoming Valley, who visited England in 1710, and their tribes, is attributed the first discovery of "stone" or anthracite coal. They took with them to the mother country a bag of the black stones, which were experimented with for smithing purposes. The red men had rude species of mines in that valley and in 1766, six of their number, from the Mohicans and Nanticokes, vis- ited Philadelphia and told the Colonial Governor how white men came and took away from them, ore and the product of their mines. The whites made a hole forty feet long and five or six feet deep and carried away the coal in their canoes, using it for blacksmithing.
About 1790 and 1791, Nicho Allen, who lived at Big Spring on the summit of Broad Mountain, and Phillip Ginther, of Lehigh County, and one Tomlinson, of North- umberland County, all three, discovered coal, through the uprooting of trees, and as the legend goes, ignited it to warm themselves by it while out hunting.
In cutting a tail race for the Valley Furnace, in 1806, coal was discovered near Pottsville. About 1800 William Morris took a load of it from near Mill Creek to Philadelphia. (Richard, Samuel, George and John Rickert were early pio- neers in the coal business.) George Rickert and George Shoemaker loaded wagons with the black stuff and hauled them to the same destination.
FIRST SETTLERS OF NORWEGIAN TOWNSHIP
In Manheim Township, about 1768, on the site of the Seven Stars Hotel (Minnich Genealogy) lived Conrad Min-
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nich; Henry Strauch lived on the other side of the river. Others were engaged in lumbering and other enterprises be- tween there and the site of Pottsville, but lived elsewhere. John Reed and wife, Hannah, lived between Conrad Min- nich's and Neyman's (on the site of the Pottsville Hospital), in the dense forest. To Neyman, the wood sawyer for Balzar Gehr, may be accredited the honor of being the first settler of Pottsville.
On April 7, 1795, Jacob Zoll, innkeeper of Reading, pur- chased a tract of land in Orwigsburg, part of which was sub- sequently used as a tannery by his descendants. In 1796 Zoll removed to the site of the Greenwood furnace (Orchard, Pottsville), where he established a small forge. The Indians so harassed him, and his wife dying of malaria, he became discouraged and returned to Orwigsburg, selling his effects to Lewis Reese, of Reading, and Isaac Thomas, who owned tracts of land1 on the north side of "Schneid" Berg, 1796-'99. Joseph Zoll was born in the log cabin attached to the forge and next to the Neyman children was the first white child born in this vicinity. He was frequently heard remark (he died at Orwigsburg at the age of ninety-seven) that, "Potts- ville, should have been called "Zollville" and not "Butts- ville2."
The Greenwood furnace stood on the corner of what is now Coal and Mauch Chunk Streets, the Valley furnace was located between these and New Philadelphia. When Isaac Thomas, Lewis Reese and Lewis Morris, who also owned land here and came after the foregoing, enlarged and rebuilt the Zoll forge, they sent workmen here to dig a race and build a dam. Among them was John Reed, mentioned
(Note 1-James Wilson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, an owner of coal lands in Norwegian Twp., was interested with Reese and Thomas, his name appearing on a deed in possession of Jacob Spannuth, of Pottsville, Pa.)
(Note 2-Pottsville, too, it is asserted, was named for William Potts, of Pottstown, owner of coal lands, and not for John Pott (Putt), who came long after Potts.)
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above, who removed from the forest to near the site of the Pottsville Hospital, where Jeremiah Reed was born, Decem- ber 19, 1800. In 1804 John Pott bought from Lewis Reese, Isaac Thomas and Sarah Morris, the furnace and ground upon which the settlement had been made (for there were other settlers living here, at that date, who worked at the forge and grist mill, Stein's Mill). Lewis Reese had no children; Isaac Thomas had several, one of whom, Isaac Thomas, lived in a log cabin at the forks of the Schuylkill and Norwegian Creek, which he named "Norway," and from this the Norway and Norwegian tracts and subsequently the townships were named. The purchase of John Pott also included the ground of the Minnich, Zoll, Mayfield, Wilson, Moorfield and Physic tracts of land in Norwegian Township.
WHEN POTTSVILLE WAS BUILT
On April 27, 1808, Lewis Reese sold to John Pott, two hundred and twenty-seven acres of land, which covers the old site of Pottsville, and a straggling row of houses was built, 1806-'08, to accommodate the workmen. The town was laid out in 1816, to which subsequent additions were made, but Pottsville was not regularly incorporated as a Borough until 1828. John Pott removed here in 1810. He died October 23, 1827.
John White, in 1829, President of the Schuylkill Navi- gation Company, built the Kleinert mansion and the block of houses opposite, afterward included in the Mansion House block, Mt. Carbon. In 1818 Henry Donnelly built a log house where Penn Hall now stands. There was one house in the town plot, 1816, Schwoyer's, near corner of Railroad and Union Streets, when the town was laid out. Others fol- lowed, in 1818, George Dengler built a two story hotel on the site of the Allan House; a log house was put up by John Pott on the corner where the Episcopal church stands; William Casserly erected one on the corner opposite, occu-
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pied now by Miller's: an oil mill and distillery was estab- lished on the northwest corner of East Norwegian and Rail- road Streets by John Pott, Jr .; Joseph Blockley built a log house where the Reading telegraph office and N. C. Morrison's store now stand, and the Cheney's built a log house on the site of Centennial Hall; the log school house was built cor- ner of Centre and Race Streets, and others followed until 1824, when there was a straggling row along Centre Street, and other houses began to be erected on the three intersect- ing main streets until the town was incorporated, March II. 1828.
1829-Ten houses were erected on Coal Street, ten on Mahantongo, called Clinton Row, on site of the late Academy. 1830 the present Miners' Bank was erected and ten small frame houses on Coal Street, where the Pennsylvania Rail- road watchbox now stands, near Callowhill (East Arch Street) ; the two stone houses, Fifth and Mahantongo Streets; and "Pleasant Row." between Sixth and Seventh, Mahantongo Street. Jacob Alter was a prominent builder engaged on the above. John C. Offerman, above referred to, who lived and kept store where the D., P. & S.'s store now stands, corner Centre and Mahantongo Streets, built the ten small stone houses known as the "Hospital" (owing to the upper part of them having been used as such during an epi- demic of smallpox and for a short time subsequently.) John Shippen, James Beatty and James Carpenter built three brick residences where the P. & R. Company building now stands, Mahantongo, near Second Street, and E. Fister, John Ruch and A. K. Whitner followed with the three stone houses in the square above Third and Mahantongo Streets.
Job Rich and the father of Ben Erdman (who died in 1913 at the age of 97), came to Pottsville in 1824. Dr. James Carpenter came 1829. Hugh Carlin, 1832. John C. Offer- man was an early progressive citizen. He was a one armed man but did much for the advancement of the borough.
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Other progressive citizens who came later from 1828 to 1850 were: Samuel Heffner, the Gillinghams. Mardis, P. W. Sheaffer, Decatur Nice, Christopher Loeser. Charles Witman, Judge E. O. Parry (N. H.), Charlemagne Tower (N. Y.). Dr. Chichester, Charles Frailey, Samuel Lewis, George Halberstadt, M. D., Lebbeus Whitney, Thomas Walker, the Taylors, Ruchs. Hills, Mills, George M. Cumming, Francis B. Nichols, John Crosland, Benjamin Heywood, G. W. Sny- der, the Bocams, Thomas Hopkins, C. M. Baber, Samuel Sillyman, Charles M. Atkins, the Fosters ( Mass.), John Ship- pen. Bosbyshells, Hiram Parker, James Beatty, Robert Woodside, Yardleys, Charles Hill, Nathan Wetzel, Wooli- sons, Lords, Emanuel Hause, Samuel Griscom, Jacob Ulmer, and others of more recent date.
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Old Time Stories
Old Time Stories
STORIES RELATED OF JUDGE HEGINS
NE of the early jurists of the Schuylkill County Courts was Charles W. Hegins, appointed 1850. Judge Hegins had a fine legal acumen and was noted for his strict technical jurisprudence and unswerving probity of character. He was afflicted with curvature of the spine and like King Richard III, was badly humpbacked.
The court was held at the old county seat of Orwigsburg before the seat of justice was removed to Pottsville.
Pine Swamp, in Brunswick Township, was the home of a mongrel race of a bad mixture of negroes, whites and half- breed Indians, some of them runaway slaves, and criminals and fugitives from justice. They maintained themselves by hunting, fishing, basket making and stealing from the far- mers, working at intervals during haying and harvesting.
One of these, a negro, was arraigned before the court for stealing a ham and sausages from a neighboring farmer. He was sentenced by Judge Hegins to one year's imprison- ment in the county jail.
The negro could only speak Pennsylvania German and being inclined to resent the mandate of the court, shouted across the aisle in the prevailing vernacular to one of his cro- nies who was seated there:
"Wass hut der Shillgrut ksawt?" (What did the mud turtle say ?)
"Two years," said Judge Hegins.
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DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE
Judge Hegins was a bachelor and boarded at the Penn- sylvania Hall Hotel, where Washington Garrett served as mixologist. Every morning he fixed up a fancy cocktail as an eye-opener for the Judge, who was not an intemperate man but a good liver ; and "Wash" did his best to tickle his palate with a drink with all the "frills" in it.
Garrett got into trouble with a neighbor and suit was brought against him. Judge Hegins had so frequently ex- pressed his appreciation of "Wash's" efforts to please his tastes that he thought the Judge might do him a favor and he related to him the circumstances and asked him to favor him when the suit was brought up before court.
Judge Hegins replied : "Washie, you had better settle that case, I am not the same man up at that bar, if you come before me, that I am when I come before you, at your bar."
The case was settled. Judge Hegins died about 1855 and was succeeded by E. O. Parry, who was appointed Judge by the Governor.
(Washington Garrett was in the Mexican War and a good soldier.)
LONE GRAVE IN TUMBLING RUN VALLEY
On the south side of Tumbling Run Mountain (Sharp) is a lone grave in the wilds. It has a small headstone and on it a rude inscription, which deciphered states, that Nathan Webb, hunter, lies beneath the mound. The Joseph Webb family, father of Mrs. Samuel Gumpert, of Pottsville, lived in the Tumbling Run Valley. An Obadiah Webb, of Manheim Township, bought a town lot in Orwigsburg, 1795. They were of the same family, doubtless, brothers and sons of John Webb, settled on land (near McKeansburg, 1750.)
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A POTTSVILLE AMAZONIAN
Hannah Gough, who kept a hotel on the site of the Phila- delphia and Reading Railway depot, Pottsville, was a large woman and conducted her place as orderly as could be ex- pected in the early days, along in the 'sixties, with the rough element that came down from the mountain to attend court or other business and who visited Hannah Gough's in droves before going home. Often she was compelled to clear out her bar room before train time, that its patrons might sprint down Railroad Street to Union to the station. Or if on a Saturday night after pay, the crowd became too unruly, she alone and unassisted, put out the unlucky offenders.
Her fearlessness and prowess as a queller of disturb- ances was often a subject of comment. She kept a number of boarders too, and one day one of them propounded this question at the table :
"What is stronger than Hannah Gough?"
No one could answer, when he said, "Her butter."
HOW THE WOLVES WERE EXTERMINATED.
In the early history of the county wild animals abounded. Wolves, catamounts and panthers terrorized the tillers of the soil, who seldom left their humble abodes without a shot gun or rifle. The depredations of wolves about butchering time in the late Fall of the year, when they scented the odor from the freshly killed domestic animals, were particularly annoy- ing and dangerous.
After the war of 1812 the U. S. government ordered the sale of all condemned horses (a precedent established that was followed at the close of the Civil War).
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These animals were sold for a mere song and hundreds of them were bought by the Pennsylvania farmers, many of them being brought to Schuylkill County.
An old Pottsville settler (Jeremiah Reed), said that, "from close confinement in the vessels in which they were transported, these horses contracted the glanders." The far- mers worked them as long as they could, in most cases iso- lating them from their other cattle and when no longer fit to work, took them out into the woods and shot them. The wolves came in packs and devoured them, were poisoned by the score and died. This exterminated the wolves.
OLD NORTHKILL CHURCH, BERNVILLE
The old Northkill Church, built of logs, stood upon an acre of ground donated December 25, 1745, by Gottfried Fid- ler, to which Samuel Filbert subsequently gave another acre to be used for church and cemetery purposes. Each acre was in the form of a triangle, the two making a perfect square. In 1791 the old log was superseded by a brick structure, which was in turn replaced by the handsome red sandstone building erected 1897. This church was Lutheran until 1834, when the Reformed people obtained an interest in it. John Caspar Stoever was pastor of the log church, 1745.
It is related that one of the original donors of the land upon which the log church stood, committed suicide and was buried outside of the stone wall that surrounded the ceme- tery. Subsequent generations of this man discovered his tomb and on applying to the church authorities for a lot, his remains were re-interred in the cemetery to which, and to the church, he had been a generous contributor during his life time. (The "Penn Germania," January, 1913, Vol. II, No. I, contains a partial list of those persons, born prior to 1801, from inscriptions taken from the tombstones in this cemetery.)
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HOW DEVIL'S HOLE WAS NAMED
Tuyful's Loch obtained its name from an Orwigsburg peddler who traveled about the southern part of the county about 1811, soon after it was separated from Berks. As is well known the section of the country along the Blue Moun- tains, between Port Clinton and Tamaqua, is among the wildest and most picturesque to be found anywhere, either in the United States or abroad. Several spurs of the moun- tain unite here separated in the prehistoric ages by a mighty upheaval of nature and the wierd result is a huge bowl-like series of short valleys or outlets between the mountains, which tower high above them on every side, throwing their shadows on the limpid and silvery stream at the foot even on the brightest sunshiny day. The rocky declivities are covered with moss, and during the spring or after heavy rains these rocks are overflown, forming cascades and water falls adding to the scene which is one of indescribable beauty and grandeur.
The peddler with his pack had been gone on his accus- tomed trip, but not arriving home at the usual time, his family became alarmed. At last he came looking rather the worse for his experience; he had lost himself in the wilds, and on being questioned said : "Ich wahr drei tag im Tuyful's sei Loch, uhn bin yusht rouse cumma." And Devil's Hole it has been called ever since.
"SIILY BILLY" BUSINESS
The foolish claims, on the part of many persons who may, perhaps, be of the same name as some great dignitary abroad, or military chief who achieved distinction in the early wars in Europe or America, to establish a relationship with them or claim them as founders of their families, is becoming
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a craze with some in this country. The story of a Pottsville man, whom we will call Platz (it was not his name) is apropos of this foolishness. The Pottsville man had achieved some distinction and was highly popular in his home town, when he went abroad.
Traveling in Germany he heard of a Von Platz, who stood high at the German court and belonged to the Royal family. With characteristic American independence, Platz visited the royal castle and sent in his card, "Herr Platz, Pottsville, Pennsylvania, United States of America," and requested an interview with his supposed august relative (?). He could not obtain an audience with General Von Platz and the court police, or royal flunkeys, surrounded him on the return of the emissary, he had liberally tipped to represent him and he was told in the vernacular (German was his mother tongue) "to make himself scarce at once or he would be arrested and imprisoned as an imposter." Platz was cured of his desire to connect himself with the German aristocracy and no one relished the story more than Platz himself on his return.
Another story of Platz, who died some years since, was, that, like many a good man he dreaded death, and was very explicit in his directions as to what he wanted done when he was ready to "shuffle off this mortal coil." His good wife ' demurred at the multiplicity of directions he gave, as death drew near, when he remarked. "Never mind, Maria. I have to do the dying, not you."
OH! POOR NATTY MILLS
One of the good old tales handed down by a resident of Orwigsburg is to this effect:
At a political meeting held in the ancient county seat, Lawyer Neville and Natty Mills had a little tilt between
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them that gave origin to the poetical saw on Mills that was afterward so popular, appearing on the banners of his po- litical opponent and sung by the Whig Clubs as they marched along.
In the course of his speech Mr. Neville said :
"Oh! poor Natty Mills, Oh! Poor Natty Mills, We'll give him a dose of castor oil And then a dose of pills."
Not to be outdone Natty Mills, who was on the plat- form and succeeded the speaker, retorted :
"Oh! poor Lawyer Neville, A native very queer, One leg he left in Ireland, The other one is here."
Neville was a one-legged Irishman and Natty Mills a popular local Democratic politician, who kept a hotel on the corner of Second and West Arch Streets, Pottsville.
The same resident of Orwigsburg, at this writing, 1914, eighty years of age, is authority for the statement that Charlemagne Tower, Esq., of Philadelphia, late Ambassa- dor to the German Empire, was not, as claimed, born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, but in New York. The Tower family lived in Pottsville, northwest corner of Fourth and Mahantongo Streets. Mr. Tower was raised and educated in the place; before his birth, however, his mother, Mrs. Mulvina Tower, visited friends in New York and the ac- couchment took place in that State. The house in which the Tower family first lived prior to coming to Pottsville, a modest two-story frame building opposite the Evangelical Church, Orwigsburg, was razed this summer, 1914, to make way for a more modern dwelling.
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COULD NOT BE FOOLED
When the first train came up to Mount Carbon after the Reading railroad was built, January 1, 1842, it excited considerable curiosity and the people assembled along the line to see it pass.
The cars were small box cars and the engine was a miniature affair that puffed and snorted and seemed to move with great effort and the train was four hours late from Reading.
On the knoll at Auburn a crowd of people from the surrounding country waited to see the "iron monster" and discuss the merits of such locomotion.
After the train passed an old lady, much excited, jumped up and waved her arms and said: "Kannscht mich net foolah, 'sin guile unner die inchine, Ich hab sie gesehne schnaufe" ("You can't fool me, there were horses under the engine, I saw them breathing.")
Note :- When the Reading railway was completed from Reading to Mount Carbon, trucks with planks laid across them for seats, were provided for such as chose to avail them- selves of free transportation and try a ride on the new road. Many took, as they imagined, their lives in their hands when they ventured to take advantage of the new method of locomo- tion. When General Winfield Scott, commander in chief of the United States army, visited Pottsville, after the close of the Mexican War, a like privilege was afforded by the Reading Company to the people from the southern end of the county.
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HESSIAN ANCESTORS
February 22, 1776, and after, nearly 30,000 German troops were sent to aid the British during the Revolutionary War, more than half being furnished by the Prince of Hesse-Cas- sel. All were called "Hessians" by the Americans, although over 6,000 were from Brunswick and 7,000 from other smaller principalities.
Most of these men were serving compulsory terms in the German armies when they were sold by their mercenary rul- ers to the British and sent to fight the colonists. The de- scendants of some of these are among the leading families of Pennsylvania and Virginia. Some were mere students and others were men of high education and some brought their wives and children with them, all were sufferers of military despotism. In 1785, several families who were of the 1000 or more encamped as prisoners at Reading, who had deter- mined to remain in this country, crossed the Blue Mountains and after some wandering settled in the extreme western end of what is now Pottsville. They called the little village "Hesse Stettle," which name was finally merged into that of Yorkville. The Hessians were frugal and industrious and their descendants are among Pottsville's best citizens.
FROM WILLS PROBATED BEFORE 1800, NAMING EARLY SETTLERS OF SCHUYLKILL COUNTY
(Berks County Register's Office)
1795, November 2, Peter Neuschwender, Manheim Twp.
1798, August 20, Peter Buechler, Pinegrove Twp.
1799, October 15, Martin Dreibelbis, Manheim Twp.
1799, December 24, Jacob Schnell, Manheim Twp.
1785, October 19, John Dietrich Fahl, Brunswick Twp.
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1788, February 28, Ludwig Herring, Innkeeper, Bruns- wick Twp.
1793, August 27, Jacob Kimmel, Brunswick Twp.
1799, March 4, John Kopp, Pinegrove Twp.
1798, June 25, Peter Meyer, Manheim Twp.
1788, January 12, Balzer Neufang, Brunswick Twp.
1795, June 22, Matthews Reich, Manheim Twp.
1785, June 22, John Runckle, Brunswick Twp. 1793, May 4, Frederick Schnock, Pinegrove Twp.
1789, May II, Jacob Sheafer, Brunswick Twp.
1785, March 25, Richard Stephens, Brunswick Twp.
1799, October 21, Simon Strause, Manheim Twp.
1786, October 2, George Jacob Ulrich, Pinegrove Twp.
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BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
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"BLUE BOOK 1 OF SCH. (A"
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