History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 93

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 1314

USA > Pennsylvania > Fayette County > History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 93

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From this point on, we might proceed recounting the struggles and conquests of this man, but our space is too limited to permit much detail. Many have not forgotten the time, not long after the railroad was finished, when a mob of Connellsville people of "high respectability" threatened dire things against Mr. Davidson on account of sundry bonds connected with the building of the road, and to pay money loaned on which, to the matter of twenty thousand dol- lars or so, it was feared they were to be heavily taxed. How they raged and fumed is a matter of history, as well as how Dan laid a plan by which they were lightly taxed, and the bonds gotten back by him into their hands in indemnity, they severally receiving bonds in proportion to the amount of their taxes; and how some tore tbeirs up or burned them in rage and con- tempt and punished themselves, while others kept theirs and eventually profited by them some six hundred per cent.

And while we are talking of railways, it must not be forgotten that in later years it was this same Dan who was a principal promoter of the Fayette County Railroad, which took the county-seat and its adjuncts out of the night of decay that was settling down upon them and gave them new life, while many gave him the encouragement of gibes and scoffs, sneeringly de- claring that a four-horse coach could carry all the pas- sengers the railroad would ever convey ! The county also owes to Mr. Davidson more than to any other man the advantages which she has for years enjoyed through the Southwest Pennsylvania Railroad. He was the originator of the project of its building, ren- dered indispensable services in obtaining its charter or charters, and gave his time and talents whenever needed to the work.

Before Mr. Davidson left his farm as a place of family residence, indeed early in life, he foresaw what a mighty work would yet be done in the coking coal fields of Fayette County. We cannot go into detail here, but it is meet that we make note that he started in the business (first helping others to enter upon it before seeking to secure especial advantages to him- self, however) when everybody said he was crazy for so doing. (He has always been " insane !") He was one of the great prime movers in the vast enterprise of developing on a huge scale the mineral resources of the county; indeed, he was the one intellectual power which moved it. Others furnished brawn and ignorant energy. In his time he has owned more ex- tensive coking coal lands than any one else who can be named. In the measure of upbuilding the busi- ness of Fayette County through her coal-beds, he ran against the popular "judgment," as he had done in many other matters, but, as in this case, he always car- ried his measures to final popular approval and in- dorsement.

But we are giving this article the full length of a preface to the book which might be written of the man and the great part which Daniel Davidson has played in the world, and when we took up our pen we had no purpose to do more than make a synopsis of a preface; but the subject is an inspiring one, and the material concerning it voluminous. The labor is not in expanding but in coming to a halt; for every year of Davidson's life for the last four decades would build a volume of record. It is not easy to biographize the living, since regarding them one may not be so direct and personal as if talking of the dead. Too much truth about either, a stupid public (general readers) will not usually bear, but whoever shall live to write of Davidson when he shall have gone will have a subject full worthy of the greatest pen, and may write the full truth about whatever may be his faults and failings ; but to the writer of this Mr. Davidson's faults seem quite unworthy of notice, as really no part of him,-incidents of his life, not ontgrowths of his character, not of the man any more than his worn- out and torn boots or old coat. There are some men whom faults do not blemish more than do spots of thin rust a tried Toledo blade. They are the current records or telling symbols, not vital parts of a great life of sturdy warfare. Indeed, there have been and are men whom crimes do not sully. Bacon was one of them. But meannesses too low for the law to clas- sify into misdemeanors even, these are the things which stain the soul, or the rather, they are the exponents of essential natures, proofs that the soul guilty of enacting them is not great, whatever the man's frontispiece before the world. Of such the world acenses not Davidson ; and while the history of Fay- of her illustrious dead for one native born the su- perior of Davidson in all that goes to make great manhood, so among the living of Fayette County

Mr. Davidson resided for years on his farm near Con- nellsville, and became universally sought for counsel in business, politics, and confidential affairs. It is prob- able that he settled more neighborhood and domestic difficulties than did all other men during his time in Connellsville. In politics he became a great diploma- tist. In extensive and subtle combinations in political fields, in making men see things as he saw them, and in pointing out the way to easy, safe, and self-sustain- ing victories, he became recognized among leaders as a power long before the gray hairs began to creep into his locks. He liked politics intensely for the : ette County will be searched in vain in the chapters field it opened for the play of his forces, but he cared not for office. Indeed, he has been pressed to take important offices, but has always refused.

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CONNELLSVILLE BOROUGH AND TOWNSHIP.

and of Western Pennsylvania a similar search would surely also be vain. He has onee been aspersed and thrust into the civil courts, and he came out thor- oughly a vietor, and justly and nobly triumphant over the attempted wrong and persecution.

Mr. Davidson has a wide acquaintanceship among the leading men of the country, especially those of the South and West, and commands their esteem, as he does that of the people of his own State. Where, when, or how in his strong-willed, successful career he has gathered to himself the funds of information which he possesses upon many topics is unknown to the writer, for he cannot learn that Mr. Davidson has been a close student of books. But Carlyle, it is said, could exhaust five octavo volumes a day. He turned over the leaves of a book, read here and there a page, caught the key-note, and saw the manner of treatment of a subject, and could talk more wisely then of the book than another man who had spent three weeks in reading it. Mr. Davidson evidently possesses some such power or art, and we are told that his memory is prodigious. But over all his powerful, logieal brain reigns ; and we are inclined to think that out of the depths of his own being, by the accretions of his own mind, more than from acquire- ments of any sort, is it that the successes of Daniel Davidson have been builded. But however made, or created, or modified, sure it is that no son of Fay- ette County was ever his superior in intellectual and moral forces, in mental equipoise, in quiet but tre- mendous energy given to great works of a practical character for the well-being of the county; in that mental forecast which amounts to prophecy in the power to move and persuade men by gentle means, opening their eyes that they may see, and, seeing, be- lieve the things in practical life hidden to them, but clear to his keen vision. In these and many other things Davidson stands unsurpassed, felt as to his power in every part of the county, but yet "un- known," save only to the wise few, but by them un- derstood but partially, and careless, we think, as to whether or not he shall ever be understood by the masses. 1

EDWARD K. HYNDMAN.

Edward K. Hyndman, though a native of Carbon Co., Pa., and present resident of Pittsburgh, resided in Fayette County for a period of about eight years, and holds large business interests therein.

Mr. Hyndman is of Scotch-Irish descent, being the son of Hugh Hyndman, who was born in the north of Ireland in 1800, and Catharine Huff, a native of Danville, Pa., born in 1805, both still living in vigor- ous old age. He was born in Mauch Chunk, Pa., the great anthracite coal region, in 1844, and growing up there became a civil engineer at about eighteen years of age, and was engaged more or less in the construc- tion and operation of railroads in their various de-

partments until at twenty-five years of age he became the superintendent of the Lehigh and Sus- quehanna Railroad, from Easton to Seranton (now a part of the New Jersey Central Railroad system), in the superintendency of which he continued till 1872, when he resigned his post to take the superin- tendeney of the Pittsburgh and Connellsville Rail- road (now the Pittsburgh Division of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad), in charge of which he remained, residing at Connellsville, for the period of eight years.

In his official position, while living there in charge of the railroad, Mr. Hyndman enjoyed peculiar opportunities for studying the Connellsville coke business and the extent and position of the coking coal field, and was so impressed with the vast pres- ent and future importance of the business that he took measures to secure some eight thousand acres of the best of coal lands in one body, and organized a company under the name of the Connellsville Coke and Iron Company, with IIon. John Leisenring as president, and other of his old Eastern anthracite coal friends as members, with a capital stock of one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, for the pur- pose of developing the coal property. He then re- signed the superintendency of the railroad, and ac- cepted the position of general manager of the above- named company. Mr. Hyndman remained in that position until the company was thoroughly estab- lished and in working order, he finding meanwhile that his early experience in the anthracite district availed him much in the new field. He then re- signed the management of the company, though still its consulting engineer, and removing to Pittsburgh, accepted (in June, 1881) the office of general man- ager of the Pittsburgh and Western Railroad, which office he now holds, together with that of president of the Pittsburgh Junction Railroad.

Mr. Hyndman is also largely interested in various enterprises in and out of the State. Among these may be mentioned that of the Virginia Coal and Iron Company and the Holston Steel and Iron Company, having their centre of operations in Southwestern Virginia, and in which Mr. Leisenring and others of the Connellsville Coke and Iron Company are also interested. The above-named Virginia Coal and Iron Company possesses over 70,000 acres of coal and iron lands, upon the development of which they have already entered, having commenced the construction of a railroad seventy miles in length in order to reach their new fields from Bristol, Tenn. The coke to be manufactured in this field will readily supply mar- kets not accessible from the Connellsville coke region.

Feb. 25, 1873, Mr. Hyndman married at Phila- delphia, Miss Gulielma A. Brown, daughter of the late William Brown, Esq., of Bethlehem, Pa., and Mrs. Susan I. Brown, his widow, who now resides in Philadelphia. Mr. and Mrs. Hyndman have two sons

410

HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

JOHN LEISENRING.

Among the many eminent business men and capi- talists whom the treasures of the Connellsville coal basin have attracted from other regions, to make large investments in mineral lands, mining, and the mann- facture of coke in Fayette County, one of the most widely known and prominent is the president of the Connellsville Coke and Iron Company, Hon. Jolın Leisenring, whose home is at Mauch Chunk, Pa., but who is a native of Philadelphia. He was born in 1819, his paternal ancestors being of Saxon descent, and his maternal ancestors Scotch. His great-grand- father came to America and settled in Whitehall township, Lehigh County, on the Lehigh River, in A.D. 1765, on a farm bought from the original proprie- tors, while Indians still occupied that portion of the State. This farm still remains in the possession of his descendants. At the time of John Leisenring's birth his father was a morocco-dresser in Philadelphia, which business he left to engage in the war of 1812. In 1828 he removed to Mauch Chunk, where the family have since resided. John's education was di- reeted with especial reference to the profession of civil engineer, which he entered at an early age, under the direction of E. A. Donglas, principal engineer of the L. C. & N. Co., then controlled by Josiah White and Erskine Hazard, who were engaged in construct- ing a slack-water navigation of the Lehigh River from Manch Chunk to White Haven, and also building a railroad from White Haven to Wilkesbarre.

Mr. Leisenring, at the age of seventeen years, had full charge of a division of the canal and railroad, while George Law and Asa Packer were contractors on the same division, and remained in charge until its completion. After completing this work, the Mor- ris Canal Company, who were then enlarging their canal from Easton to Jersey City, through their chief engineer, Mr. E. A. Douglas, secured his services as assistant, and he was placed in charge of the division between Dover, N. J., and Jersey City. He was also engaged in locating and surveying the railroad now known as the Belvidere Delaware Railroad, in which work he was associated with E. A. Douglas and Gen. II. M. Negley, who now lives in California. About this time he engaged in the coal business, then in its infancy, which he saw was to be the controlling busi- ness of the region. He also built the Sharp Mountain planes, on the property of the Lehigh Coal and Navi- gation Company, for conveying the coal which he and others mined. From Ashton, Carbon Co., where he had lived nine years, he removed in 1854 to Eckley, Luzerne Co., where he opened the Conneil Ridge mines, which are now operated by him, as well as many others in the same locality, he being especially identified with the coal from Buck Mountain vein, producing together in 1881 about one million tons. He organized and is still president of the Upper Le- high Coal Company, known as one of the most sue- cessful anthracite mining companies in the country.

On the death of E. A. Douglas he was chosen as his successor in charge of the works of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, during which the naviga- tion from White Haven down was almost totally de- stroyed by the great freshet of June, 1862. The works fron Mauch Chunk to Easton were repaired with wonderful rapidity, and Mr. Leisenring's energy and efficiency in their reconstruction were on all hands commended. The navigation from Manch Chunk to White Haven was not restored, because in the judgment of the subject of this article the de- struction to life and property had been so great as to be sufficient ground for declining to inenr the risk of a repetition, and in order to retain the business he suggested and recommended the building of a rail- road between the same points.

After completing this work, which gave the com- pany a line of railroad from Wilkesbarre to Mauch Chunk, Mr. Leisenring saw that to secure the full benefit of this road it would be necessary to have a railroad from Mauch Chunk to Easton, to conneet with roads in New Jersey, so that the operations of the company need not be suspended during the winter months, but that business could go on continuously. In carrying out this plan, which was promptly adopted, the road was laid out and completed with steel rails, which were the first importation of any consequence, and the whole fifty miles are still in use and doing good service, showing the forecast and sound judgment of its promoter. The iron bridges crossing the two rivers, Lehigh and Delaware, at Easton have been considered a masterly piece of engineering, both in their location and construction. In view of the large business which he expected from the Wyoming region, he designed and built the three inclined planes which were used to raise the coal from the Wyoming Valley, a height of about 1000 feet, divided in planes of about a mile in length each. These planes are constructed with a capacity to raise 2000 cars, or 10,000 to 12,000 tons, daily, at a cost of bnt little more than the mini- mum cost per mile of transportation on a railroad of ordinary grade, thus saving to the company over four- fifths of the cost of hauling the same coal in cars by locomotives, as it would have required over thirteen miles of railroad to overcome the same elevation. These are thought to be the most effective planes in the world.

Having brought to a successful issue all these plans for the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company's canals and roads, the increasing cares of his varions enter- prises made it necessary for him to resign the active charge of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company's extended business; and the company being loath to lose his services, urged upon his acceptance the posi- tion of consulting engineer and member of the board of managers, which latter position he still holds. About this time there came a struggle among trans- porting companies to secure control of coal lands, in which, owing to his well-known familiarity with the

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CONNELLSVILLE BOROUGH AND TOWNSHIP.

geological formations in the coal regions, Mr. Leisen- ring was invited to join the Central Railroad Company of New Jersey, of which he was elected a director, and whose large terminal facilities were such as to enable them to compete successfully for a large busi- ness. A lease was secured by the Central Railroad Company of New Jersey of the canal and roads of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, securing thereby the tonnage of the mines owned by that com- pany and others, including those of the Wilkesbarre Coal and Iron Company. The mines of the latter company, together with other purchases, were merged into the property of the company now known as the Lehigh and Wilkesbarre Coal and Iron Company. In gathering these properties the advice and counsel of Mr. Leisenring was sought, and he, together with Charles Parrish, selected the lands, which are now conceded to be as valuable as any, and to be the finest body of connected coal land owned by any of the corporations in the same neighborhood, and having all of the best veins of coal in perfection.

The near approach of the time when the anthra cite coal-fields would be unable to supply the increas- ing demands upon them, and the necessity of pro- viding new avennes for business operations, led him to the consideration of coke as a fuel for iron and other manufactures. With this end in view an ex- amination was made of several tracts, from which he and his associates selected, the property which now belongs to the Connellsville Coke and Iron Company.

The following extracts, taken from the first annual report of the directors to the stockholders, dated Feb. 10, 1881, will show the operations of the company to that date. Their property covers ahout 8500 acres of land, every foot of which contains the celebrated Connellsville seam of coking coal :

"The company was duly organized on the 31st of January, 1880. At a subsequent meeting of the stockholders, beld March 13, 1880, the charter granted by the authorities of the State of Pennsylvania, dated March 5, 1880, was adopted and accepted by the stockholders, together with a code of by-laws for the management and government of the company.

"Operations for the development of the property, by sinking a shaft, building evens, and erecting tenement-houses, were commeneed Mareb 27, 1880, and have been continued with but slight interruption to the present time.

"The shaft has been sunk to the celebrated Connellsville seam ef coking cool, a distance of 375 feet from the surface.

"The vein was struck aboot the centre of the basin and found to be 9} feet thick and of an excellent quality, surpass- ing in point of comparative freeness from sulphur, in density, in richness in carbon and smaller quantity of ash the products of the surrounding properties located upon the outerops of the başin.

" 'fhe faet ef the shaft having been driven to the coal in the centre of the basin and to the greatest depth yet attained in that coal-field, with the results nforesaid, bas very much en- hanced the value of the company's and surrounding property, by the demonstrated fact that the deeper the coal is buried with superincumbent strata the purer and better it is found.

mediate gearing), and capable of hoisting 1500 to 2000 tons of coal per day, have been erected, put in operation, and work admirably. They were furnished by the Diekson Manufacturing Company, of Seranton, Pa., a corperation well known for the excellence of its work.

"The second opening, for ventilating purposes and for the escape of the miners in ease of accident to the main shaft, has been commenced. This opening is required by law, as well as for the safe and economical working of the mines, and will be prosecuted to an early completion.

" Additional houses for the accommodatien of the workmen, also eoke-evens, tracks, etc., necessary for the prosecution of the business will be commeneed early the coming spring.

"The present selling prices of coke at the ovens afford a handsome profit to the producer, and the marketing of which is limited only by the means of transportation, which it is re- ported are entirely inadequate to do the business that effers. We are informed, however, that the carrying companies are arranging to greatly augment their rolling-stuek.

"Within the last three er four months an entirely new mar- ket has been found for coke by the introduction of machinery for breaking. screening, and sizing it, to be used for domestic purposes in competition with anthracite coal. It is believed it will hereafter become a very important factor in the net profit account of coke producers ; doubtless the company will find it to be to its interest, in the near fotore, to combine with its regular coke bosiness this new industry.

"The branch railroad being constructed by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company to connect our works with their mais line is progressing rapidly towards completion, and we are assured that it will be connected with our tracks at the ovens by the Ist of May, and by the Ist of Jane the company will probably be able to ship coke from their mines in a moderate way.

" The board desire to congratulate the stockholders on the possession of so fine a property in Fayette County ; doubtless it is among the best tracts of coking eval land in the State, and probably in the world. Its value has already appreciated to nearly or quite double its original cost, when compared with the prices at which coke lands have recently been sold in the vicinity, and when the limited amount of this kind of property is considered, and the rapid increase in the consumption of coke is taken into account, your property has the elements for one of the best future paying enterprises in the country.

"The Connellsville coking coal basin is about thirty miles leng by an average of two and one-half miles wide. The com- pany's property occupies about six miles in length of the heart of this basin, and lies as nearly as may be about midway in the longitudinal axis of the same. The coal is very unlike that in the adjacent basins, although geologieally the same sheet of con!, but thinning out as it rolls over the antielinals into the contiguous basins on either side, losing at the same time its coking qualities and turning into a gas and steam coal, costing to mine from seventy-five to eighty-five cents per ton, whilst the Connellsville eval is readily produced at a ce-t for mining of only twenty-five to thirty cents per ton. Furthermore, the coal produced outside of the Connellsville basin requires (owing to the large percentage of sulphur with which it is charged) to be crushed and washed to rid it of a portion of the sulphor before subjecting it to the coking process, whilst the coal contained in your property, owing to its moderate percentage of sulpbur, is taken di eetly from the mine and dumped into the ovens, with- out any desulphurizing process whatever. The cost of producing Connellsville coke is therefore at least fifty cents per ton less than that of the neighboring regions located as before stated. These facts, together with the advantages before mentioned,

" A pair of hoisting-engines werking direct (without inter -. . demonstrate the great value of the company's estate."

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HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

Shaft No. 1, located at " Leisenring," near the east- ern end of the property, is now in operation, furnish- ing coal for about 200 ovens. The construction of 200 additional ovens is now under way, and will be com- pleted by June next, and 300 more will be added by the close of this year.

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History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 93

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885 Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 1314

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 1314