USA > Pennsylvania > Beaver County > History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania, and its centennial celebration, Volume I > Part 34
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The Mill Creek Valley Fair .- This agricultural association holds an annual fair at Hookstown, this county, which is always largely attended by the people of the towns and country. Its charter was granted by the court, March 15, 1886, Judge John J. Wickham presiding. The incorporators were the following: W. F. Reed, Allen McDonald, John McDonald, R. M. Swaney, J. B. Swaney, W. S. Swearingen, and R. T. Reed.
On the 7th of August, 1900, articles of association were filed in the proper office at Beaver for the Mill Creek Valley Agricul- tural Association, Limited, and under this latter name the society is now conducted.
Other farmers' associations, such as the Farmers' Alliance and the Patrons of Husbandry, or the Grange, have not gained much of a vogue in Beaver County. There are or have been,
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History of Beaver County
however, one or two of each of these organizations within its limits; an Alliance near Hookstown, is, we believe, still in exist- ence, and a Grange near Darlington; and there were Granges at Service and New Sheffield.
AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS
Within the bounds of Beaver County there are 2602 farms, valued, without the buildings, at $9,104,210; the value of its farm buildings being $3,311,440; value of implements used upon its farms, $576,930; value of all live stock, $1,231,239; gross income from its farms in 1900, $1,604,652; outlay for labor in the same year, $137,960.
The Report of the Department of Agriculture for 1899 gives the prices of farm products and live stock, with farm wages and board, for Beaver County, as follows:
FARM PRODUCTS AND LIVE STOCK
Wheat, per bushel.
$ .70
Corn
(shelled) .
.41
66
(in the ear)
.41
Oats
..
(old)
.36
(new)
.29
Potatoes
(new)
.43
Hay, clover, per ton "
(old)
8.00
Hay, timothy, per ton
. (old)
10.60
Butter, per pound (average) at store.
.24
in market. .20
Ewes (average) per head.
2.75
Lambs
2.25
Horses
80.00
Cows
25.25
Chickens (dressed) per pound.
I5
=
(live) .
.06
FARM WAGES AND BOARD
By the month (whole year), with board.
$13.50
-
for summer months only 16.50
day with regular work (with board).
.75
(without board) 1.00
month (whole year), without board.
20.13
summer months (without board).
25.00
" day, for transient work when wanted only
1.00
Harvest wages, by the day.
1.15
Household help, female, with board, by the week.
2.25
(new)
8.75
. (new)
11.50
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History of Beaver County
The prices in the foregoing table are reported by home re- porters, and are the prices at the home market.
Below we give a tabulated statement of the acreage of tim- ber land in Beaver County in 1898. This was prepared under the direction of the Commissioner of Forestry of Pennsylvania, from estimates furnished by the assessors of the different town- ships. What is classed in the table as full grown timber lands is that which is covered with a growth of timber ranging in diam- eter from ten inches upward; half grown timber is that under nine inches in diameter, and the brush lands are those which have only underbrush, but which would, under proper fire pro- tection, in a few years be classed as half-grown timber lands:
No. ACRES FULL GROWN
No. ACRES HALF GROWN
No. ACRES UNDER- BRUSH
Big Beaver township.
South
Borough “
24
. .. .
. . . .
Brighton
1,700
1,500
500
Chippewa
1,116
744
373
Darlington
1,000
1,000
.. .
Daugherty
449
450
440
Economy
500
500
300
Franklin
700
800
500
Greene
2,000
200
200
Hanover
2,866
1,900
1,000
Harmony
16
266
300
150
Hopewell
1,000
1,500
500
Independence
2,280
1, 140
1,140
Industry
900
800
393
Marion
200
120
400
Moon
66
614
300
300
Ohio
1,200
900
700
Patterson
66
75
150
25
Pulaski
50
. . .
. . . .
Raccoon
. .
1,500
500
1,000
New Sewickley
1,000
1,300
7II
North Sewickley
400
1,000
600
White
IO
40
75
Rochester
100
.
.
Baden borough
220
. . .
Frankfort Springs borough
25
Total.
20,899
15,699
10,613
454
455
906
250
100
400
The proportion of timber land to the entire acreage of the county, with the estimate of the geological survey as the basis for comparison, is 16.4.
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History of Beaver County
MINERAL RESOURCES I
But not only has Beaver County been blessed with the "precious fruits brought forth by the sun"; she has also in rich abundance the "precious things of the lasting hills,"-her min- eral resources, as we have said, being very considerable. Iron ores and limestone outcrop in many places, and are mined and shipped in limited quantities. Iron ores yield twenty to forty per cent., but demand is curtailed by cheapened transportation for lake ores. Fine building stone has been quarried in various parts of the county, as at the Park quarries on Crow's Run and New Galilee, and the Logan quarry at Freedom, the principal output being at the first two. This is known as the Mahoning sandstone. Large quantities of the Beaver River sandstone are also used in the building of railroad bridges and for curbing and other purposes, this stone belonging to the same geological formation as the Massillon stone, but being harder than that.
Fire-clays and shales are found throughout the county, prin- cipally underlying the Lower Kittanning coal vein, showing an analysis of forty-two to sixty per cent. of silica and twenty- eight to thirty-seven per cent. of alumina. Bricks made from these clays and shales have all the beautiful shades of color for building purposes, and in many cases are capable of sustain- ing a greater weight than granite. Nine different workable veins of clay are found in this vicinity, giving suitable variety for pottery and many grades of brick for house building, public street paving, bessemer open hearths, mill, work, and every purpose for which fire-bricks are used.
Beaver County lies in the center of the largest coal basin in the United States, and within the county itself are extensive fields both of bituminous and of the celebrated cannel coals.2
The production of petroleum has been one of the most lucra- tive of Beaver County's industries. For qualities of usefulness and convenience to our race, California's mines of gold were hardly to be compared with this wonderful liquid treasure, which has been found in such abundance in the region to which this county belongs. Petroleum had been known long before the wells drilled in 1859 astonished the world with their gushing fountains. The Indians used to collect it on the shores of
1 See article on "Geology of Beaver County." Appendix No. I.
2 See under "Darlington Township" account of cannel ccal industry.
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History of Beaver County
Seneca lake in New York, and on Oil Creek, Pennsylvania.1 In later times it was sold as a medicine under the name of "Seneca Oil." It was found on the waters of several creeks about the head of the Allegheny River in New York and in Pennsylvania, and the people were accustomed to secure it by spreading woolen cloths upon the water to absorb it. When the cloths were saturated with the oil, they were wrung out and the oil col- lected in vessels. Petroleum was observed as early as 1826 in the salt wells on the Little Muskingum River in Ohio, and the gas was so strong that it often interfered with the use of the wells for days together. In 1849, at Tarentum, Allegheny County, Pa., considerable oil was obtained by the drilling of a salt well.
The first attempt at sinking or boring a well for the distinct purpose of obtaining petroleum was made by Col. E. L. Drake of Connecticut, who, in December, 1857, visited Titusville, Venango County, Pa., examined the oil springs, and gave the subject of surface oil a thorough study. He was soon convinced that the oil could be abundantly obtained by boring for it into the rock strata, and, forming a company for this purpose, he im- mediately began operations. Boring through forty-seven feet of gravel and twenty-two feet of shale rocks, he struck, on the 29th of August, 1859, at the depth of seventy-five feet, an abundant quantity of petroleum. This was the beginning of the great oil excitement, and of an industry that has created fabulous fortunes, conferring at the same time untold benefits upon the world. Later, oil was discovered in Mckean, Butler, Washington, and Beaver counties, Pennsylvania, on the borders of West Virginia along the Ohio River, and in the northwestern part of Ohio.
1 The oil was used by the Seneca Indians as an unguent and in their religious worship. In Day's Historical Collections (page 637) is given an interesting quotation from a letter to General Montcalm from the commandant of Fort Duquesne, describing a weird scene created by this feature of their worship, as follows:
" I would desire to assure your Excellency that this is a most delightful land. Some of the most astonishing natural wonders have been discovered by our people. While descend- ing the Allegheny, fifteen leagues below the mouth of the Conewango, and three above Fort Venango, we were invited by the chief of the Senecas to attend a religious ceremony of his tribe. We landed and drew up our canoes on a point where a small stream entered the river. The tribe appeared unusually solemn. We marched up the stream about half a league, where the company, a large band it appeared, had arrived some days before us. Gigantic hills begirt us on every side. The scene was really sublime. The great chief then recited the conquests and heroisms of their ancestors. The surface of the stream was covered with a thick scum, which burst into a complete conflagration. The oil had been gathered and lighted with a torch. At the sight of the flames the Indians gave forth a triumphant shout that made the hills and valley re-echo again. Here then is revived the ancient fire-worship of the East .- here then are the 'Children of the Sun.' "
287
History of Beaver County
As early as 1806 the existence of petroleum in Beaver County was known. In that year an Englishman named Thomas Ashe,I visiting the county, tested some of the oil from a spring on the Ohio River, nearly opposite Georgetown, and predicted its profit- able production in this county. In the early '60's wells bored at Smith's Ferry and Glasgow (see Chapter XXVII.) developed the existence of a rich field in that region. Development of the oil territory of the county has advanced since then with varying energy, and considerable production has taken place at several points, principally at Smith's Ferry, Ohioville, Economy, and Shannopin.2
Natural gas, so extensively found in the oil regions, was for a long time regarded rather as an annoyance than as a valuable product, giving to the drillers almost as much trouble as salt water. But a wonderful change took place as its usefulness as a fuel both for domestic and manufacturing purposes and as an illuminant came to be appreciated.3 It was being largely de- veloped and used in Beaver County in the early 80's, being piped into the county from outside fields and produced in vari- ous parts of the county itself, as at Baden, New Sheffield, Wood- lawn, Shannopin, and elsewhere. Here, as in other fields, the supply has fallen off, and its use has been compulsorily aban- doned by many of the people and factories. The rôle that nat- ural gas played in the height of its use may be seen from the
1 Travels in America, performed in 1806. By Thomas Ashe, Esq., Newburyport: 1808. Another traveler was here in 1807 and thus describes the then strange phenomenon:
"About a mile above Little Beaver, in the bed of the Ohio, and near the northwestern side, a substance bubbles up, and may be collected at particular times on the surface of the water, similar to Seneca oil. When the water is not too high, it can be strongly smelt while crossing the river at Georgetown: It is presumed to rise from or through a bed of mineral coal embowelled under the bed of the river. The virtues of the Seneca oil are similar to those of the British oil, and supposed to be equally valuable in the cures of rheumatick pains, &c."-See Sketches of a Tour to the Western Country, etc., by F. Cuming Pittsburgh, 1810, page 83.
2 We have exhausted every resource in the effort to obtain the yearly and total pro- duction by fields of Beaver County, but are finally informed by Mr. Parker, the Statistician of Washington City, the highest authority in the country on this subject, that it is im- possible to secure this information. He says:
"I am sorry that it is not possible to furnish the information desired, regarding the production of petroleum, by counties. I went over this carefully with some of the principal producers, in regard to the collection of the crude petroleum statistics for the Census Office, upon which work we are now engaged, and they say it is absolutety impossible to make any such distribution. A large number of wells controlled by a single person go into one tank line, the wells being located in different counties, and there is absolutely no way of making any separation. It is, in fact, difficult to make even an approximate separation by States. This we are trying to do."
3 Natural gas is a mixture of the most volatile of the hydro-carbons of the series known in chemistry as paraffin. In that found in this region marsh-gas is the principal constituent. An interesting fact in the chemistry of the subject is this; that the composition of natural gas is found to vary not only in different wells, but in the same well on different days.
.
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History of Beaver County
fact that at that period there were in Pittsburg alone 28,000 domestic services and 900 manufacturers' services, consuming nearly 500,000,000 feet per day, and displacing 8,500,000 tons of coal per year. Its first use in iron-making was at the Leech- burg (Pa.) works of Messrs. Rogers & Burchfield about 1874. In glass-making, the Rochester Tumbler Works, at Rochester, Pa., were probably the pioneers, and in plate-glass, Mr. J. B. Ford, at the Pittsburg Plate Glass Works, at Creighton, Pa., in 1883. Salt was boiled with it at East Liverpool, Ohio, in 1860; and it was tried later in burning pottery in the same village. In 1874, or earlier, Mr. Peter Neff began the manufacture of lamp-black from gas at Gambier, Ohio. In 1875 gas was piped to Spang, Chalfant & Co.'s iron-works, at Sharpsburg, near Pitts- burg, and has been used ever since; but it was not until 1883, with the piping of the Murraysville gas, and its introduction into the industrial establishments of Pittsburg, that its use as a fuel assumed any importance.I
MANUFACTURING
The beginnings of things have always an interest to the student. We may therefore glance for a moment at the way in which the frontiersmen secured the simple articles of manufac- ture which they required, and laid the foundations of our mod- ern industrial edifice. Necessity was in their case, as it has always and everywhere been, the mother of invention. There was a scarcity of skilled mechanics, and a "plentiful lack" of the wherewithal to pay such as were to be found. So it was necessary for every man to be, on occasion, his own shoemaker, tailor, blacksmith, carpenter, or miller. But the law of natural selection operated then as always, producing men with the skill and craftsmanship required to meet the conditions. Says Doddridge :
There was in almost every neighborhood some one whose natural ingenuity enabled him to do many things for himself and his neighbors, far above what could have been reasonably expected. With the few tools which they brought with them into the country, they certainly performed wonders. Their plows, harrows with wooden teeth, and sleds were, in many instances, well made. Their cooper ware, which com- prehends everything for holding milk and water was generally pretty
1 See preceding chapter for data concerning natural gas fuel and lighting companies.
289
History of Beaver County
well executed. The cedar-ware, by having alternately a white and a red stave, was then thought beautiful. Many of their puncheon floors were very neat, their joints close, and the top even and smooth. Their looms, though heavy, did very well. Those who could not exercise these me- chanic arts were under the necessity of giving labor, or barter, to their neighbors, in exchange for the use of them, so far as their necessities required.
In milling grain there was a gradual evolution from the wooden mortar and pestle, through the hand-mill, the horse-power and water-power mills of the simpler patterns, to our modern steam roller mills. Some of the early mills were tread-mills, though run by water during a portion of the year. The place of the early mills in the life of the community is worth noticing. They were places of assembly for the scattered inhabitants of the country, where they came not only to get their wheat and corn ground, but also to hear the news, to barter, to gossip, to get that contact with their neighbors which man as a social animal requires for his happiness. Thus mills became the nuclei of villages which grew up around them and points at which post- offices were established.
The oldest mill in Beaver County is White's mill, named in the Act of Assembly which erected the county. It has been in operation for considerably more than one hundred years. The French burrs still in use in this mill were quarried from the river Seine in France. The mill is now owned by Robert Witherow.
Other early mills in Beaver County were Johnson's, Veasy's, Davis's, and McCormick's on Treadmill Run; Wilson's, Aten's (Eaton's) and Ferguson's on Reardon's Run, and White's and Bryan's on Raccoon Creek; Bryan also had a mill on Service Creek. There were many saw-mills, carding- and fulling-mills. Weaver, Patton, Thompson, McCormick, Walker, Peter Shields, and John Shaffer each had a saw-mill. Veasy and Johnson had carding-mills, and McCormick a fulling-mill. We find mention of Eakin's flour-mill near Greersburg; Martin's saw-mill in the same neighborhood; Paxton's, Caughey's, Walter's, Allin's, Todd's, and others.
There was a mill on a branch of Little Travis (sometimes Traverse) Creek, Moore's mill, where the Rev. J. R. Miller, D.D., of Philadelphia was born and reared. Harper's mill, on Big VOL. I .- 19.
290
History of Beaver County
Travis, was owned by Samuel Harper, the grandfather of James Harper, former county surveyor. He bought it in 1798 from John H. Reddick. The burrs from this mill are still in use in the steam mill at Frankfort. On the west branch of Travis was also Aaron Moore's mill. On King's Creek was Jenkins's mill. Wright's mill was at Hookstown, on Mill Creek, and on the same stream, about a mile below, was Laughlin's. There was a mill on Service Creek, owned by Robert Sterling, which did good work for more than half a century. At almost every one of the early mills there was a distillery.
Here and there throughout the county were factories of various kinds, the names of which linger in the memories of the older people and which were famous for their products in the olden time, such as Elder's cloth factory; Thomson's ' sickle shop, in Hopewell township; Cain & Shannon's sickle shop, on Service Creek in Raccoon township; and Fox's sickle factory on
FOX'S SICKLE FACTORY SITUATED ON TRAVIS CREEK, HANOVER TOWNSHIP. BUILT BEFORE 1800.
Travis Creek. There were Shane's, McCune and Goshorn's tan- neries on Raccoon Creek, John Ferguson's on Reardon's Run, and Scott's at Scottsville.
1 This was the grandfather of Seward and Frank Thomson, the well-known attorneys of Pittsburg, and of Alexander Thomson Anderson of Beaver.
-
FILE WORKS
-
3
WORKS
Kues &woodbury
Great Western File Works, Beaver Falls.
291
History of Beaver County
In 1803 Hoopes, Townsend & Co. erected a furnace at the Falls of the Beaver. In 1806 the second paper mill west of the mountains was erected on Little Beaver Creek, just within the Ohio line, by John Bever, Jacob Bowman, and John Coulter, called the Ohio Paper Mill. This was so close to Beaver County that it was identified with its local history.1 In the succeeding years of the first three decades of the century, many other mills and factories had been built about the Falls; and in 1830 the great natural advantages of the county, particularly at the Falls of the Beaver and on the Ohio, began to attract the atten- tion of outsiders, and an era of speculation set in which had disastrous results. Sherman Day, who published a history of the region shortly after this period, speaks of the times as follows :
The usual symptoms of the speculative epidemic were soon exhibited in a high degree. Lots were sold and resold at high profits-several manu- factories were built-beautiful dwellings, banks and hotels were erected -morus multicaulis plantations were started, and all went merry as a marriage bell. The fever subsided, and the ague succeeded .- the bubble burst with the United States Bank and the universal want of confidence, and the speculators returned to more useful employments. 2
But the great natural advantages were none the less here and available for the more rational development of the indus- trial life of the communities. Other influences, however, oper- ated to delay for some years the advancement of the material prosperity of the county. The two great thoroughfares for travel and transportation between the large cities of the East and the country west of the Alleghenies lay, one far to the north by way of the New York canals to the Lakes, and the other to the south over the National Turnpike from Baltimore to Wheeling. Even to travelers down the Ohio River the ad- vantages of Beaver County remained undiscovered, and these causes wrought together to keep her territory in a backward state. Moreover, before the great system of State Internal Im- provements was carried out in the early thirties, making a canal and railroad route from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, and especially before the Pennsylvania Railroad was constructed, travel and the transportation of mail and freight consumed so much time that no rapid development was possible for this region. The
1 See note under "Ohio Township," vol. ii., Chapter XXVII.
2 Historical Collections, p. 108.
292
History of Beaver County
fastest stage travel from Pittsburg to Philadelphia was about four days and nights, and the cost was high, ranging from eighteen to twenty-two dollars. Freight charges by Conestoga wagons were from three to five cents per pound. It required from eight to ten days to get an answer to a letter sent from the Beaver post-office to Philadelphia. Proximity to Pittsburg, then as now, while conferring advantages, contributed also to hinder Beaver County's material advancement; since Pitts- burgers sought to deter prospective manufacturers from locating in the Beaver valley, where the main attraction was the water- power at the Falls, by urging that engines and fuel were so cheap in Pittsburg that they would save money by building their plants there. The superior banking facilities of the city were also made an argument to the same end.I
Favorable influences on the other hand, giving an impetus to the business development of the county were the coming of the Harmony Society from Harmony, Indiana, to this county in the year 1825, the advent of the canal and the railroads, and the discovery of oil and natural gas within the limits of the county. In the year 1866 the Harmony Society made a new survey of the town of Brighton (now Beaver Falls), very much enlarging its boundaries, and appointed H. T. & J. Reeves, real estate agents, to offer for sale building lots, houses and lots and water-powers, at low prices to improvers. This caused a rapid increase of population and improvement in business in the town and in the whole valley, and led soon to the demand to have the town incorporated into a borough, which was done in 1870. The growth of manufacturing and mechanical industries through- out the county has since been steady and uninterrupted. A great variety in the lines of manufactures carried on is observ- able, there having been established at different times paper- mills, saw-mills, flouring-mills, woolen-mills, linseed-oil mills, tanneries, stove foundries, pottery and tile works, steel works,
1 As showing the hostility of the people at Pittsburg to settlement outside of that place we give an extract from a letter of Hon. Alexander Allison written March 2, 1796, from Washington, Pa., to Secretary Dallas, relating to the sale of lots at Beaver, as follows:
- "The last sale was in this town, that was not altogether right, as the land is not in this county. Yet reasons, perhaps true, and if true, sufficient, were given for not selling at Pittsburgh. The people of Pittsburgh, it was said disliked the establishment, and would have thwarted the progress of the sale and settlement of the town. They have engrossed almost all the lots in the reserved tract opposite to Pittsburgh and made use of that as an argument to remove the seat of justice from that place into Pittsburgh, and so prevented any town there. They might have been disposed to do the same thing at McIntosh (Bea- ver)."-(Penna. Arch., 2d series, vol. ix., p. 648.)
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History of Beaver County
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