USA > Pennsylvania > Cambria County > History of Cambria County, Pennsylvania, Volume I > Part 31
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53
The "Five Points" was the workshop of the Pennsylvania ยท improvements, for here were located the shops, locomotives, woodyard, boatyard, railroad, weigh-scales; the tracks running into the Basin for section boats; the "Y" for turning engines, which run from Railroad street across Fenlon street to State depot, then ont the upper leg to the Portage road. A short dis- tance above the "Y" there was also a turn-table, built in the tracks, and to let the water into the Basin through a slnice the little Conemaugh river was dammed near the head of Portage street, or about two hundred feet north of the present intersec- tion of Railroad and Centre streets.
"The Island" was the strip of ground between the Basin and the Little Conemangh river, extending from the dam to the waste wier. It was about one hundred yards in width, and on the north side of Portage street was used for the State depot and shops, for a distance of about three hundred feet below the breast of the dam; below that a parcel of ground about the same size was vacant. It was owned by Welch & Jones, as all the land on the Island was in their possession.
Below the vacant strip was a square used by the Johnstown
.
339
HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
Foundry, subsequently occupied by Pringle, Rose, and Edson, a firm of contractors and builders, composed of John P. Pringle, Wesley J. Rose, and Walter S. Edson. From this point down to the waste wier was one of the busy places of Johnstown, with its stores, offices, hotels and some residences. Headrick's Hotel, with its town pump on the sidewalk, was one of the leading inns of the village.
On the basin, or the southerly side of Portage street, Welch & Jones erected a series of docks, similar to those on the other side of the basin. The first slip above the overhead bridge, at the waste weir, was used for the packets for about thirteen years. The packet lines for hanling passengers were the Express, Good Intent, Pioneer, and Leech boats. At times emigrants and other passengers flocked across the bridge from "The Island," the former with their blankets, buckets and baggage.
On the basin side of Portage street, and above the packet slip, the first warehouse was Binghams', for their line of boats ; next to it was the Leech warehouse, for their boats; above it was Jenkin Jones' boatyard, and just beyond it a wharf, oc- cupied by Taff & O'Connor for their line of car-boats. They did not need a warehouse, as their boxes, or car-boats, as they were termed, were lifted from a barge to a truck, by a erane and vice versa.
Above the breast of the dam, at the "Five Points, " the wa- ter was about five feet deep, and extended from Prospect Hill to the Portage road, a breadth of over five hundred feet.
In those days the business center of Johnstown was on Canal street (now Washington), Clinton, Railroad and Portage streets. The Foster House on the northeast corner of Clinton and Locust streets, where the St. John's Catholic church is erected, was one of the handsomest and most popular hotels on the whole system of transportation.
On the southerly side of Railroad street were stores, hotels and residences, some of which were owned by Mrs. Catherine Curran, hotel; John Barnes; John Kingston, hotel; JJ. Flattery, R. H. Canan, Dr. Shoenberger, John Stormer, John Berlin, John Farrel, R. Brown, and Judge Murray, residences.
Probably the most popular and interesting resident on "The Island" was "Kaiser," with his inseparable companion-a dog. A few persons knew his name, Jacob Gaschnidley, but to the public he was always "Kaiser." He was a quaint character. and a favorite with every one on account of his pleasant dis-
340
HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
position, and especially with the boys and girls, who would greet him with the refrain:
"Mister Kaiser, do you want to py a dog? Hes only got dree feet, Und a leedle stumby tail. Say, Kaiser ! do you want to py a dog?"
Or this :
"Say, Kaiser, will your dog bite?"'
Washington street was then known as Canal street, and had a water frontage from Clinton street to the Cement mill, at the east end of the aqueduct, which was built by Robert Sutton and James P. White, in 1828, but was subsequently op- erated by the late Major John Linton and George Merriman. The first aqueduct was a wooden structure, with a roof like those of the covered bridges formerly in use, and had a towing path on either side with no windows or openings, except one the width of a strip of weather-boarding under the eaves. The towing path on the south side of the aqueduct and canal was used for hauling the boats until the weighlock was constructed in 1835, when a bridge was thrown across the canal near the crossing at the Pennsylvania Railroad Station, and the north side of the canal was used thereafter for that purpose. The first aqueduct was swept away by a flood in 1855, and was re- built by Wesley J. Rose, of the firm of Pringle, Rose & Edson. It was not covered, like its predecessor.
It is probable that "The Island," which, prior to the con- struction of the canal and basin, included what was afterward known as "Goose Island," was created by natural law.
There was always a run, or a little race, from a point in the Little Conemaugh river, above the "Five Points," down through the territory afterward used for the basin and canal to the aqueduct. The best proof of this is Buckwalter's grist- mill, which was erected about 1800 when Joseph Johns laid out the plan of the town, and which stood on the "Goose Island" side of the race, just below Franklin street. The house used by the late David Creed, as a dwelling and store, on the southwest corner of Washington and Franklin streets, and torn down by him a few years before the flood, was the house occupied by the Buckwalter family in connection with the running of the grist-mill.
Frequently there were from twenty to forty boats lying in
341
HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
the basin, and, when some unusual demand was made, transpor- tation facilities were as difficult to procure as now with the scarcity of freight cars.
The section boat was the invention of Captain John Dough- erty, of Hollidaysburg, who held a patent for it. As originally designed, it was in three sections, which when coupled together made it about the size of a regular line boat of seventy-five feet in length, sixteen feet in width and eight feet in depth. When brought to Young's boatyard the sections were detached and each run on a truck and hauled over the Portage Railroad to
5:01
Aqueduct Across Little Conemaugh River, 1845. George W. Storm, Artist.
Hollidaysburg, where the three parts were placed in the canal, coupled together, and taken on East.
Captain Dougherty sold his interest in the three-section plan to Peter Shoenberger for a good price, but immediately thereafter he placed a four-section boat on the market, which being a great improvement, as the carrying capacity was largely increased at a very small expense, completely supplanted the three-section plan.
The former were introduced about 1834 and the latter in 1842.
342
HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
The size of the locks was the only disadvantage in the use of the four-section boats. They had been constructed for boats about seventy-five feet in length, and the four-section class be- ing longer, encountered some difficulty in getting into a lock. But by running the boat into the lock diagonally and swinging the rudder at right angles, the feat was performed.
The section in the bow of the boat was used for the mules' feed and harness, the two middle sections for merchandise, and the last one for the living quarters of the crew. It was a room eight by ten feet and served as kitchen, dining room, parlor and chamber, with a row of bunks on either side, and lockers on the floor. The section boat was the consummation of the projectors of the great state improvements to transfer goods from Pitts- burg to Philadelphia and vice versa, without breaking bulk.
These section boats were the forerunners of the idea of bulkheads, now considered so necessary in the great liners be- tween New York and London, altho for an entirely different pur- pose. The former was for a rapid and economical method of transferring goods, while the latter is regarded as the one great method of saving life. If one part of the vessel is stoved in, the closed bulkheads, put up in sections in the hold of the ocean liners, will prevent a ship sinking.
The regular line canal boats were of one piece and were loaded and unloaded by hand and cranes, at the various slips; but there was another class of boats known as barges or car- boats. These were about seven and a-half feet square. A car- boat was loaded with through freight at Pittsburg or Philadel- phia, and brought to the basin by their respective methods-on the canal by loading several of these boxes on a barge, and on the railroad by having a single box put on a truck. At the up- per end of the basin a crane lifted the box from a barge to a truck, or vice versa without breaking bulk, and thus the car-boat passed on, either by land or water.
A barge on the canal could haul ten car-boats by placing . them in two rows, each five car-boats in length. These boats were operated by Messrs. Taff & O'Connor. A regular line freight boat was constructed to carry about forty tons of freight or three hundred and fifty barrels of flour.
Human muscle and skill moved the boats from one place to another in the basin, and to or from the basin to the weighlock. With the aid of a twenty-foot pole, a man on each side of the boat could shift the craft from place to place.
343
HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
During the operation of the canal the Laurel Hill Gap was a lively and interesting place; Johnstown was the eastern terminus, and Blairsville, four miles beyond the gap, and thirty- three miles from here was two hundred and twenty-three feet lower, therefore it was necessary to have locks and dams through the gap for the safe and proper movement of boats.
Between these points there were thirty-five locks, five dams, and two aquednets across the Conemaugh river, and a small one across Tub-Mill run at Bolivar. The old boatmen who blew the horn and snubbed the boat for and at these locks will remem- ber Patch's, which was the first one going west, and was located near the blast furnaces of the Cambria Iron Works. The old lock house built in 1833, was torn down April 28, 1894. Then they followed in this order: Ellis' lock. at Prosser's run; Per- kins'. at Coopersdale; Bolton's lock, nearly opposite Dornick Point; Stokes', Nos. 1 and 2, which were in dam No. 1; locks Nos. 1 and 2, at the One-mile dam, below Sang Hollow; Louther's lock, at Conemaugh Furnace, at Guard-lock dam, No. 2; Steel's lock, one mile west; Lawson's, at Nineveh; Logan's, one mile west : two at Abnerville -- Reilley's and Mills'; Centreville locks, Nos. 1 and 2, at Centreville ; Liggett's, opposite Lacolle; Lock- port, Nos. 1 and 2, at Lockport; Bolivar locks, Nos. 1 and 2, at Bolivar. From this point to Blairsville, a distance of eight miles through the ridge. the fall was about sixty feet, and required thirteen locks, which were: MeAbee's lock, one mile west ; Mar- ron's, or ()'Connor's, one-fourth mile west; Brantlinger's, one- fourth mile west; Walkinshaw's, one-fourth mile west; Sims', one-fourth mile west; Henderson's, one and a half miles west, at Guard-lock dam, No. 3; Nixon's lock, at the tail of the Ridge dam, No. 4, and Donnelly's, at its head; Doty's, near Blairsville Intersection ; Lowry's, three-fourths of a mile west; Grays, at Cokeville: Wolf's locks, Nos. 1 and 2, one-half mile west, and one in the slackwater of Guard-lock dam No. 5, at Blairsville. The dams were the One-mile dam, below Sang Hollow; the Three-mile dam, at Conemaugh Furnace; Ridge dam, between Sims' and Henderson's locks, and Pack-Saddle dam, in the Ridge, between Nixon's and Donnelly's locks.
While no serious accidents ever occurred to the line of passenger boats or cars, yet they did happen to freight boats, as will probably always occur when the movement of persons or goods is heavy. In the spring of 1853, the "Cambria," of the Clark & Thaw line of boats, of this city, was captain, was sunk
344
HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
at the warehouse in the basin in Pittsburg. A large quantity of flour had been placed on the second floor of the warehouse, and the big brick building collapsed while the "Cambria" was being unloaded and the debris fell on the boat, sinking it and injuring some of the crew.
The first boat to use the canal was a flatboat, commanded by Captain John Pickworth who brought it into town in Decem- ber, 1831. But it was the only one that year, and it "grounded" in the aqueduct, for the want of sufficient water to float it. However the citizens were so enthused over the fact that a boat bad come, that hundreds turned out to help the captain get his boat through, and by means of ropes fastened to the vessel the men and boys pulled her through in safety.
It must be remembered that the Pennsylvania system of traveling and transporting freighit was the most expeditious method known at that time. The average time required for a section boat to make a round trip between Pittsburg and Phila- delphia was three weeks. This, of course, included the time for loading and unloading, laying up on Sundays, detention on ac- count of a break in the canal or for the want of sufficient water, or probably, a tie-up to let some of the crew go to a country dance. Seven days was a very quick return trip for a passen- ger between these points. In this day the trip can be made in fifteen hours.
The passenger on a packet paid $3.50 for his fare and $1.50 for his meals, and had the privilege of spending thirty hours en route to Pittsburg.
Probably the last boat to bring a load of merchandise to this city was the "Monongahela," commanded by Captain George Rutledge, of Napoleon street, who brought a cargo of salt and grain from Livermore about December 1, 1860. At that date the canal system was practically abandoned, as no repairs had been made and there were no lock-tenders. Mr. Rutledge had spent from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening coming that far east, twelve hours being necessary to make the trip from Nineveh Lock to Johnstown.
On August 29, 1851, there appeared in the newspaper two items-"The Last of the Packets" and "The First Train"- containing an account of the departure of the last of the packet boats on Sunday previous, which thereafter for a short time were run from Lockport, and the passing through the town on Monday, August 25th, of the first Pennsylvania railroad train
345
HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
to Lockport. On April 18, 1855, a steamboat made her appear- ance in the basin. It was nothing more nor less than one of the Pennsylvania & Ohio line canal boats that had been made into a steamboat by placing an old Portage engine on her. She was intended to tow stone boats on the Monongahela. This was not the first steamboat that appeared on the canal. In 1834, according to the Ebensburg Sky, a steam canal boat called the " Adaline" made a trip from Allegheny to Johnstown. She was moved by a propeller in a compartment in her stern, not- withstanding which she washed the bank of the canal to such an extent that her use on the canal had to be discontinued.
Ephraim Stitt, of Blairsville, was probably the last captain to carry through freight from Pittsburg. He brought pig metal and iron to the Cambria Iron Company in 1859. Mr. George Knowlton, of Walnut Grove, one of the oldest practical boat- men on the canal, ran a flatboat between Johnstown and Cone- maugh furnace in 1860.
The flood of 1889 swept "Goose Island," "The Island," and the basin clear and clean. In that year the council of Conemaugh borough abandoned the popular and wide thorough- fare of Portage street, with all other highways north of Centre street. That street is about midway between Portage and Rail- road streets, and lengthwise across the basin from Clinton street to the "Five Points, " and, as will be observed from the accom- panying diagram, which was copied from a survey made in 1854, Portage street began three hundred feet north of Wash- ington street and extended up to the "Five Points."
The boats ran day and night, and laid up invariably on Saturday night not later than 11:59 o'clock until Monday, with one or two exceptions. The motive power was six mules or four horses, to each boat, three mules or two horses whichever were used, in service hauling the craft and the others in the bow of the boat, resting until their turn came; but in some way, boats that were not in a hurry got along with either one horse or one mule. They were changed every six hours, the term of service being called a "trick," and at the same time the steersmen and drivers exchanged places.
The boating season was usually from March 10th to De- cember, sometimes extending to Christmas.
The Laurel Hill Gap was, therefore, a very important piece of topography in a commercial sense during the operation of the canal, and it is the best opening in the mountains for a steam
346
HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
road. The nearest gap on the north is the Blacklick, and on the south the Castleman river, a tributary of the Youghiogheny, neither of which makes so direct and practical a route between the east and west as the Laurel Hill Gap.
Since 1851 the Pennsylvania railroad has occupied the south side of the gap for its main lines, and since 1887 has used a por- tion of the north side for its through freight traffic by way of Allegheny City.
The average grade between Johnstown and Blairsville In- tersection is about two and a half feet to the mile. In traveling one passes through the beautiful and romantic Pack Saddle in the Chestnut Ridge, where there is a roadway for two tracks, and no more, blasted from the rocks. At one place the tracks are about one hundred feet, almost perpendicular from the Conemaugh river; an unobserving traveler would likely believe he was crossing a bridge. On Chestnut Ridge it is from six hundred to eight hundred feet from river to peak. The land is covered with forest and rock, and the only use that has been made of these two great features is as a thoroughfare and a place from which to quarry stone. There is mountainous scenery, and little else, and at the narrowest point the pass is about three hundred feet at water line.
May 1, 1863, the Pennsylvania Railroad abandoned the canal between Johnstown and Blairsville, and to-day the Canal system of transportation in the state has almost entirely ceased to be a factor. The only ocular proof that it ever did exist in this town is the house in which the lock-keeper resided, at Ellis Lock, which is still standing at the lower end of the Fourteenth ward, and some spots of the old Feeder along the Sandyvale cemetery. The Basin has been gradually filled since its aband- onment, but it was entirely so in 1878, when stone piers were built in the bed for the erection of the Gautier Steel Depart- ment. The building now occupied by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad for a passenger station, on the corner of Franklin & Washington streets, was built in the bed of the canal in 1866.
Johnstown has lost its importance as one of the leading features of the canal system, but the canal's successors-the Pennsylvania and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroads-have done more for it. and, with the unlimited quantity of cheap fuel and other natural advantages, it remains one of the leading steel manufacturing cities of the world.
CHAPTER XVI.
OLD AND NEW PORTAGE RAILROADS.
In the whole range of the Allegheny mountains, extending from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Alabama, no county has been more generously favored with sublime scenery than Cambria. Lying as it does on the crest and western slope of these moun- tains, with Johnstown at the western base, nature had given it glorious views to reward the traveler wearied with his journey.
It will be observed in all the surveys made by the direction of the Assembly of this commonwealth, that the route from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, to connect the East with the great West by way of Johnstown, was deemed the most available and . practicable. This was so determined in 1826, when the com- missioners appointed to locate the line, reported that it was feasible and practicable for the state to own a canal from Pitts- burg to Philadelphia. so that a boat with its lading could start at the western end and deliver its cargo in bulk on the wharf at Philadelphia.
To read the brief report of the commissioners, which did not go into details, it suggests the inquiry: How could the state build a canal across the Allegheny mountains from Johnstown to Hollidaysburg, with Johnstown 1.183 feet above sea level, and Hollidaysburg 953 feet, between which rose the summit of the mountains-2,341 feet ? It did not mean a canal water way, but a canal railroad between these points.
Notwithstanding the Act of 1826, authorizing the construe- tion of the Pennsylvania public works, there seems to have been some doubt as to the best means of crossing the Allegheny mountains. On the 9th of April, 1827, Governor Shulze approved of a supplement for the extension of the canal system, in which it authorized the canal commissioners to locate and contraet for "a canal, locks, and other works necessary thereto, up the Kis- kiminetas and the Conemaugh from the western section of the Pennsylvania Canal to a point at or near Blairsville.
And the said Board shall proceed to make, or cause to be made, such examinations and surveys from Frankstown, on the Junia- ta, to Johnstown, on the Conemaugh, across the Allegheny moun-
348
HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
tains, as may enable them to determine in what manner and by what kind of works, whether by the construction of a smooth and permanent road of easy graduation, or by railway with lo- comotive or stationary engines, or otherwise, the portage or space between the said two points may be passed so as to insure the greatest publie advantage."
By virtue of this authority the plane system was adopted, and the common noun portage was thereafter raised to the proper noun Portage, from whence the road derived its name. The word means "a break in a chain of water com- munication over which goods, boats, etc., have to be carried, as from one lake, river, or canal to another;" also means "to carry."
The planes and levels were the connecting links between the Juniata and the Conemaugh. The Allegheny Portage Railroad, commencing at the "Five Points," at the upper end of the Basin, at Johnstown, and ending at Hollidaysburg, was among the first railroads constructed in this country for public pur- poses, and was finished, as a single-line road, in the fall of 1833. The canal was completed and in operation in 1832.
The old Portage road was not opened for general business in connection with the Canal until the spring of 1834, when the "only great system of rapid transit and an economical method of transportation to connect the East and the West" was open to the people.
The extreme length of the Old Portage road from Johns- town to Hollidaysburg was less than thirty-six miles. The Old Portage had ten planes and eleven levels, so called (there was only one which was level), to overcome the rise of 1.138 feet, between Johnstown and the top of the mountains, about two and one-half miles in an easterly direction from Cresson, which was the head of Plane No. 6. There were five planes and six levels or the western side of the mountain and five of each on the east- ern, the planes being numbered eastward from Johnstown. The distance to the foot of Plane No. 1, was 3.54 miles, and the plane was 1,700 feet in length. At the head of the plane there was cut through rock the only tunnel on the Old Portage. It was 900 feet long and only a few hundred yards south of bridge No. 6, on the Pennsylvania Railroad, and can be observed approaching it from the west. The long level began at the head of Plane No. 1, and extended to the foot of No. 2, a few hundred yards north- east of Portage Station, and was 13.04 miles long. Plane No. 2,
349
HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
was also 1,700 feet in length; the level from the head of No. 2 to the foot of No. 3, was 1.47 miles; the length of Plane No. 3 at Benscreek, was 1,500 feet. The level from No. 3 to No. 4, at Lilly, was 1.89 miles, and its length was 2,200 feet. The level from No. 4 to Plane No. 5 was 2.57 miles, and plane No. 5 was 2,300 feet long, being situated near the Summit, and was the longest plane on the western side of the mountains. At this point the road took an easterly course, toward Hollidaysburg, and the last level on that side-from No. 5 to Plane No. 6, at the Lemon homestead-was 1.59 miles; at its head was the highest point on the road, rise from Johnstown being 1,158 feet-twenty feet higher than at the Summit, so-called. The length of Plane No. 6 was 2,716 feet, and the distance from the foot of No. 6 to the head of No. 7 was 800 feet. Plane No. 7 was 2,600 feet long and at the head of it the altitude was 891 feet above Johnstown. From the foot of No. 7 to the head of No. 8 was 3,600 feet ; and the length of the plane was 3,100 feet. It was the longest, and with a rise of 604 feet, was the highest lift on the system. The distance from the foot of No. 8 to the head of No. 9 was 6,500 feet, with an altitude of 307 feet. Plane No. 9 was 2,600 feet in length. From the foot of No. 9 to the head of No. 10 the distance was 9.500 feet, with difference in altitude of 87 feet. Plane No. 10 the last one, was 2,300 feet long. From the foot of No. 10 to Duncansville Station it was 6,300 feet; from the station to the Duncansville "Y" was 4,700 feet, and it was 6,000 feet from there to Hollidaysburg, where the traffic was reloaded and the section boats dropped into the Juniata and proceeded eastward. Hollidaysburg is 230 feet lower than Johnstown, and about the same altitude as Blairsville.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.