History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming counties, Pa.; with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers, Part 17

Author: Munsell, W.W., & Co., New York
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: New York, W.W. Munsell & co.
Number of Pages: 900

USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming counties, Pa.; with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers > Part 17
USA > Pennsylvania > Lackawanna County > History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming counties, Pa.; with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers > Part 17
USA > Pennsylvania > Wyoming County > History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming counties, Pa.; with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers > Part 17

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In its issue of April 26th, 1837, the Kingston paper says of the trade: "Up to April 17th fifty arks had

WATER WAYS FOR THE COAL TRADE.

been dispatched from the Plymouth banks, averaging 60 tons each. This sold along the river at an average of $4 per ton. To this date but a trifle over 3.000 tons had been shipped from Mauch Chunk, and only about twice that amount from the whole Schuylkill region. With the canal from Columbia to tide completed, and the north branch by a proper route extended into the lake country, 'Old Shawnee ' alone can send 150,000 tons to market per annum."

The commonwealth of Pennsylvania as early as 1824 provided for the appointment of a board of canal com- missioners, with instructions to explore canal routes from Harrisburg to Pittsburg by the waters of the Juniata and Conemaugh rivers; and also a route by the west branch of the Susquehanna, the Sinnamahoning and Allegheny rivers; and the country between the Schuylkill and Sus- quehanna rivers through the great valley of Chester and Lancaster counties. The trade between Philadelphia and the great and growing west attracted attention and interest, but the wilds of the north branch, in which the noblest of refugees from the wilder fury of the French Revolution had sought shelter, and the still unappreciated anthracite coal of Wyoming were little known and un- mentioned.

As early as 1796 a small book was published in Phila- delphia which by way of preface opened with a short explanation of its object as follows: "The design of these pages is to show the importance of the great na- tional canal-the river Susquehanna; the eligible situa- tion for the purposes of trade and manufactures of some places on its banks and at its mouth; its great connection with other main waters of the United States, and the ex- tensive and fertile surface of country from which it must drain the rich productions of agriculture and manufac- tures." No mention of coal !

In 1791 the Legislature appropriated several thousand pounds to improving the Susquehanna. In 1792 among the appropriations was one for a road " from Lehigh Gap in the Blue mountain across the Metchunk mountain to intersect the Nescopeck road made by Evan Owen, £200." Another "from Wilkes-Barre to Wyalusing, on the Meshoppen creek, and to the State line, £100." No word of coal !

Havre-de-Grace was to be a port for foreign and inland commerce. The author of the work referred to says :. "The whole trade of this river must center at this spot as an entrepot, or place of exportation. Whatever may be the exertions of Pennsylvania, or the monied capital of Philadelphia, the trade of this river must ever pursue its natural channel." "Seldom ever " would seem the more appropriate expression suggested by experience. When that book was written the migratory shad had a natural channel and right of way up to its spawning grounds at the head waters; and, fat with abundance of food, furnished a luxury for the tables of people living along the river, for the loss of which even anthracite is hardly compensa- tion-at least in shad season. The writer of 1796 evi- dently had no premonition of coming anthracite, or of steam wagons annihilating time and space, on iron roads;

not only along the streams, but carrying the united loads of five hundred wagons with ease over some of the highest hills which border them. The age had not yet fully developed the energies of a White, a Hazard, or of Wurts. Pardee, Packer, Scranton and Parrish were yet in the future.

The great object of improving the navigation of the Susquehanna, and opening a way to market for the pro- duce of the settlers upon the upper waters, has been accomplished, however, and by the use of its currents. Liberal appropriations followed the appointment of a canal board, and the corner stone of the first lock was laid at Harrisburg in 1827, with great rejoicings. Toward the growing west, by the valleys of the Juniata and the west branch of the Susquehanna, the public funds and energies were first directed. The north branch must take care of its own interests. Luzerne was aroused and her strongest men were selected to represent her in the State Legislature at its next session, for the purpose of securing early appropriations. Garrick Mallery and George Denison were chosen.

The canal commissioners began to place the North Branch division under contract, extending from North- umberland to the New York State line. Mr. Pearce, in his Annals of Luzerne, thus refers to it :

" The 4th day of July, 1828, was fixed upon as the day to break ground at Berwick; and the writer, then a boy, numbered one among the great multitude assembled to witness the interesting scene. The military were there with their colors and drums and gay attire. Crowds came from Wilkes-Barre, Plymouth, Kingston, North- umberland, Danville, Bloomsburg, and from all the regions round about for thirty miles or more. Old men and women were there, and the boys and girls from town and country came. And there was good cider, and a vast supply of cakes, and beer that made the eyes of the drinker snap.

" At the appointed hour the ceremonies began by plowing near the present lock at Berwick. The plow was held by Nathan Beach, Esq, and was drawn by a yoke of splendid red oxen, owned and driven by Alex- ander Jameson, Esq. The loose earth was removed in wheelbarrows, a rock was blasted, cannon were fired, and all returned to their homes happy and buoyant with the hope of a glorious future.

" In 1830 the canal was completed to Nanticoke dam, and the first boat, named the 'Wyoming,' built by the Hon. John Koons at Shickshinny, was launched and towed to Nanticoke, where she was loaded with ten tons of anthracite coal, a quantity of flour and other articles. Her destination was Philadelphia. The North Branch Canal being new and filling slowly with water, the ' Wyo- ming' passed through the Nanticoke shute and thence down the river to Northumberland, where she entered the Susquehanna division of the canal, and proceeded with considerable difficulty by way of the Union and Schuyl- kill canals to Philadelphia."

The first venture by river and canal was frozen up on the return trip, and its cargo of fifteen tons of dry goods was carred to Wilkes-Barre on sleds.

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

In 1831 the " Luzerne," built on the river bank oppo- site Wilkes-Barre by Captain Derrick Bird, took a cargo of coal to Philadelphia, floating down the river to the inlet lock at Nanticoke, and returned with merchandise to Nanticoke dam in July. In 1834. commanded by Captain Buskirk, the " Luzerne " made the first complete round trip by canal between Wilkes- Barre and Philadel- phia, the canal having been opened to Pittston.

From Pittston to the State line, a distance of ninety- four miles, the progress of the North Branch was slow, and in 1836 work upon it was indefinitely suspended. The North Branch Canal Company was incorporated in 1842 to afford an opportunity for private capital in the coal regions to invest and carry forward the much needed and long desired improvement. "Show your faith by your works, gentlemen; you who knock so clamorously at the portals of the State treasury with the plea of public benefit and necessity-you are the ones to be directly benefited by this opening of the northern coal field to market. Dig your own ditch."

But the capital was not here in proper shape for such investment. It was asking an impossibility. The farmer with his two or three hundred acres of rough land could not do more than support his family. The opening of a canal or a railroad was to him at best but creating a mar- ket for his homestead for thirty or forty dollars an acre- say eight thousand or ten thousand dollars-an event not desired; and the subscription of one third or even one tenth of that sum meant distress and ruin when pay day came. The other side of the picture-is it not seen in the bright hues reflected from a hundred thousand fires sparkling in hall and cottage over our broad common- wealth, at a cost so light as to be almost unfelt? Not a town or city but is benefited a thousand times more in proportion to population than were the scattered people of this then wild region. The fact was not so apparent at that day, although the trade had added one tenth to its first annual production of a million of tons. Now this district alone in 1879 claimed credit for two-thirds of the enornious out-put of twenty-six millions of tons sent to market. The north and west, for whose benefit the North Branch Canal was most needed, received one-third of the product of this coal field.

It was with great apparent reluctance that appropria- tions were renewed and work resumed on the northern extension. The State had transferred all its rights in the unfinished work to the company, upon condition that the line from the Lackawanna river to the New York State boundary should be completed in three years. The fin- ished portion from the lock at Solomon's creek, on Nan- ticoke pool, to the Lackawanna river was afterwards added as a bonus. The opinion freely expressed abroad that this was a useless ditch, only calculated, if not in- tended, to transfer public funds from the State treasury to the pockets of needy followers of designing politicians, was not encouraging to the capitalists of the vicinage, if such there were. But the people once more were aroused, and without regard to party united in urging its early completion, that our anthracite might have an outlet to

the cold north country which was being rapidly denuded of its forests and would need the coal for fuel, while the southern and eastern markets were amply supplied by the Lackawanna and by the middle and southern coal fields.

Preparations had been made in Pittston for trade by canal, although it will be noted that trade by the cheap transportation in arks continued long after the canal was finished. Judge Mallory, John L. Butler and Lord But- ler had opened a mine and made a railroad of a mile to the canal in Pittston, shipping coal as early as 1840. If any deserved success those gentlemen might claim it for liberal enterprise, energy and industry. They established agencies, produced excellent coal and bore all necessary expenses of tolls and transportation. The close competi- tion of the region nearer the eastern markets made returns uncertain, and unreliable agents caused pecuniary embar- rassments. In this way very noble men were worn out in waiting for the completion of the northern outlet.

The absence of northern connections was for a long time an obstacle to the progress of work, and it was finally intimated that it would be resumed upon condi- tion that the Junction canal, a link required in the chain connecting the systems of Pennsylvania and New York by the Chemung canal and Seneca lake, should be pledged to completion at the same time. A meeting was called and books opened for subscriptions to the capital stock of the Junction canal. Mr. John Arnot, of Elmira, N. Y., and Mr. George M. Hollenback of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., were present, both deeply interested. There were few men along the line at that day who had ready money or securities to pledge for it, and subscriptions lagged. After some good natured badinage between the two old friends and capitalists, Colonel Hollenback said: "You subscribe first, Mr. Arnot, and I will put down as much as you do." Mr. Arnot immediately added to his signa- ture "$100,000." Colonel Hollenback, true to his word, promptly pledged his own name for "$100,000 " and in- sured the completion of both canals. Actions like these must not be estimated by results. The gentlemen had little to'gain for themselves, but were actuated by a large- hearted public spirit. It was nobly done, but it was too late.

The North Branch extension was placed under the su- pervision of Mr. William Ross Maffet, an able engineer and an honest, efficient officer, for completion. Trade was opened in the fall of 1856, when eleven hundred and fifty tons of coal passed through it to western New York. In 1859 the trade had only increased to fifty-two thousand tons. Long delays had been fatal. Railroad construction and operation had been so perfected during the suspension of work on the canal that the railroads were enabled to compete successfully with internal water communication, closed by northern frosts and useless for half the year. The North Branch Canal was abandoned. " Sic Transit."

The Pennsylvania and New York Canal and Railroad Company was incorporated in 1865, absorbing the charter of the North Branch Canal Company, and by various supplements secured the right to occupy the bed of the

FATE OF THE NORTH BRANCH CANAL-GINTER'S COAL DISCOVERY.

canal, which its railway now follows north from Pittston through the Narrows, where therc had been scarce room for two farm wagons to pass on the way to and from market. The railway was opened to Waverly in 1869. For those who make the delightful excursion from New York and Philadelphia by the romantic Lehigh Valley route and the Susquehanna, through the Wyoming val- ley, to Niagara and the west, the change is a great im- provement in comfort and safety, however it may have · shattered the idols of a generation reared in the faith of Joshua White -- that canals were superior to any other mode of inland transportation, and that the oil which lu- bricated the wheels of a locomotive and its train would cost more than all the expense of carrying the same ton- nage on a canal. There was a great difference between the Lehigh and North Branch canals. Joshua White carried his heavy tonnage with the stream, the current aiding. The light freight and empty boats went up stream. On the Susquehanna the downward trade still continues; but the coal taken north had to encounter the resistance of the current, and it was a serious disadvantage.

What might have been the results of an early comple- tion of our canal, and the establishment of large markets at various points throughout the north and west, it is bootless now to inquire. Probably a long rivalry, and time wasted.

The State sold its interest in the canals in 1858 to the Sunbury and Erie Railroad Company, the North Branch Canal Company being party to the arrangement, taking the division from Northumberland north at $1,500,000. The canal from Northampton street in the city of Wilkes-Barre to Northumberland was sold to the Wyo- ming Canal Company, chartered in April, 1859. This company was merged in the Pennsylvania Canal Company in 1869, the name having in 1863 been changed by merger in the Wyoming Valley Canal Company. In 1878 the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, which controls this canal, reported the amount of freight in net tons in 1866 as 668,706, of which 438,821 tons was anthracite coal. The company has a fine bridge over the Nanticoke pool, connecting its mines on the east side with the Lackawanna and Bloomsburg railroad on the west side of the river, over which its trade is continued through the year; having collieries upon both sides opening some of the largest and best veins of coal in this region, from lands formerly of Colonel Washington Lee, Jameson Harvey and others.

TRADE BY THE LEHIGH.

Citizens of Wyoming were early prospectors and oper- ators in the middle coal field, engaged in efforts to intro- duce anthracite coal to tide water markets while the war of 1812 obstructed foreign trade and the price of coal was high. That the opening of those markets was of importance to Luzerne is attested now by the fact that nearly if not quite three million tons of coal was fur- nished to the trade of 1879 by this county from mines in the southern townships of Hazle, Foster, Butler and Black Creek, having outlet by the Lehigh route; besides

a fair proportion of the eight and a quarter million tons credited to the trade of the Lehigh Valley and Lehigh and Susquehanna roads, which must have been Wyoming coal.

The editors of "Coal, Iron and Oil," a work of value published in 1866, say of the early history and develop- ment of the anthracite regions: "The early history of coal in America is much less obscure and uncertain than its history in England, for obvious reasons. In fact the printers themselves were among the pioncers of our coal mines: first to advocate the value of coal, first to embark in its development and first to chronicle its success, though we cannot say they were first to profit. We may notice the examples of Cist, Miner and Bannan, whose names appear prominently in the early history of anthracite coal."

In 1840 the board of managers of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company ordered the publication of its early history in a pamphlet of some seventy pages, of which free use will be made in this chapter. This will insure both conciseness and accuracy. Mr. Daddow says in " Coal, Iron and Oil" that Nicho Allen, a noted hunter, is reported to have discovered coal on Broad mountain, in Schuylkill county, in 1790. There is no written account of it, and tradition may have blended two characters in one incident; as only a year after, in 1791, another hunter, the famous Philip Ginter, made a like discovery on the " Matchunk," or Bear mountain, about nine miles west of the site of Mauch Chunk. Philip Ginter's discovery developed into the mammoth mine of the Lehigh Com- pany at Summit Hill. Philip tells his own story as fol- lows:

" When I first came to these mountains, some years ago, I built a cabin on the east side of the mountain, and managed by hunting and trapping to support my family in a rough way. Deer and bears were pretty thick, and during the hunting season meat was plentiful; but some- times we ran short of that, and frequently were hard up for such necessaries as could only be purchased with the produce of the hunter.

" One day, after a poor season, when we were on short allowance, I had unusually bad luck, and was on my way home, empty handed and disheartened, tired and wet with the rain, which commenced falling, when I struck my foot against a stone and drove it on before me. It was nearly dusk, but light enough remained to show me that it was black and shiny. I had heard of 'stone coal ' over in Wyoming, and had frequently pried into rocks in hopes of finding it. When I saw the black rock I knew it must be stone coal, and on looking round I discovered black dirt and a great many pieces of stone coal under the roots of a tree that had been blown down. I took pieces of this coal home with me, and the next day carried them to Colonel Jacob Weiss, at Fort Allen.

"A few weeks after this Colonel Weiss sent for me, and offered to pay me for my discovery if I would tell him where the coal was found. I accordingly offered to show him the place if he would get me a small tract of land and water power for a saw-mill I had in view. This he

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

-€

readily promised and afterward performed. The place was found and a quarry opened in the coal mountain. In a few years the discovery made hundreds of fortunes, but I may say it ruined me, for my land was taken from me by a man who said he owned it before I did, and now I am still a poor man."

The history authorized by the company opens with the formation of the "Lehigh Coal Mine Company " :

"In 1793 a company was formed under the title of the Lehigh Coal Mine Company, who purchased from Jacob Weiss the tract of land on which the large opening at Summit Hill is made, and afterwards ' took up,' under warrants from the commonwealth, about ten thousand acres of land, embracing about five-sixths of the coal lands now owned hy the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company. The Coal Mine Company proceed- ed to open the mines, and made an appropriation of ten pounds ($26.67) to construct a road from the mines to the landings (nine miles). After inany fruitless attempts to get eoal to market over this nominal road, and by the Lehigh river, which in seasons of low water in its unim- proved state defied the floating of a eanoe over its rocky bed, and after calling for contributions from the stockholders until calling was useless, the Lehigh Mine Company became tired of the experiment and suffered their property to lie idle for some years.

" To encourage and hring into notice the use of their eoal, the eomp- any in December, 1807, gave a lease upon one of the eoal veins to Row- land and Butland for twenty-one years, with the privilege of digging iron ore and coal, gratis, for the manufacture of iron. This business was abandoned, together with the lease, as from some cause they did not succeed in their work.

" In December, 1813, the company made a lease for ten years of their lands to Messrs. Miner, Cist & Robinson, with the right of cutting luther on the lands for building boats; the whole consideration for this lease was to be the annual introduction into market of ten thousand hushels of coal, for the benefit of the lessces.

" Five ark loads of eoal were despatched by these gentlemen from the landing at Mauch Chunk, two of which reached Philadelphia, the others having heen wrecked in their passage."

When Colonel Weiss received the pieces of coal from the hunter he took them to Philadelphia and submitted them to the inspection of John Nicholson, Michael Hill- egas and Charles Cist, who authorized Colonel Weiss to satisfy Ginter upon his pointing out the precise location of the coal. These gentlemen united with others in forming the coal mine company, but without a charter. Mr. Maxwell includes the eminent financier of the Rev- olutionary war, Mr. Robert Morris, among the active pa- trons of the early improvement of the Lehigh, but men- tion of-his name does not occur in the early histories within reach.

Jacob Cist, a gentleman of unusually solid and brilliant scientific attainments, who had in early life removed to Wyoming, was a son of Charles Cist. In 1813 he united with Charles Miner, editor of the Gleaner, and John W. Robinson, all of Wilkes-Barre, in the lease on the Lehigh. Stephen Tuttle was a fourth. Isaac A. Chapman, after- ward editor of the Gleaner, and author of an early his- tory of Wyoming, was at one time associated in the en- terprise. He was an engineer with Milnor Roberts and Solomon W. Roberts on the upper division of the navi- gation under Canvass White, and died at Mauch Chunk while in the company's service.

A curious old contract of January 27th, 1815, " between Chas. Miner of the one part and Benjamin Smith and James Miars of the other part, witnesseth that the said Smith and Miars have agreed to haul from the great coal bed near the Lehigh, commonly called the Weiss bed, to the landing near the Lints place sixty tons of stone coal by the first day of April, 1815, for which the said Miner

is to pay them four dollars and fifty cents per ton." . If the full amount was not hauled the price was to be only four dollars.

There is also a memorandum, signed and sealed by Philip Heermans, agreeing to build arks in a workmanlike manner, ready to run by the first spring freshets in the Lehigh, ten arks for four hundred dollars. "Said Charles to find all the materials on the spot; to haul the timber, board the hands, and to furnish them a reasonable quan- tity of whiskey. Wilkes-Barre, November 23, 1814." A note added-"Mr. Heermans was a very clever fellow and had built the arks previously used. I wish he had lived to see the present development of the coal business on his native Lackawanna."

The company's history says : "Only four dollars was paid for hauling the coal over the road before referred to, and the contractor lost money. The principal part of the coal which arrived at Philadelphia was purchased at twenty-one dollars per ton by White & Hazard, who were then manufacturing wire at the falls of the Schuylkill. But cven this price did not remunerate the owners for the losses and expenses of getting the coal to market, and they were consequently compelled to abandon the prose- . cution of the business, and of course did not comply with the terms of the lease."

The venerable James A. Gordon, still hale and active, in memory and body, wrote from his home in Plymouth to the Wilkes-Barre Record of the Times, February, 1874, his recollections of this early Luzerne enterprise on the Lehigh :

"On the 17th July, 1814, with Ahial Abbott, Sterne Palmer, Strange H. Palmer (another printer), Thomas P. Beach, Joseph Thomas, Chester Dana aud Josiah Horton, shouldered knapsacks and touls for a mareh to the Lehigh to build arks for Messrs. Cist, Miner and Millhouse. (Hil- legas ? )

" Four arks were ready for loading hy the first freshet. The estimated eost of fifty tons, one ark load of eoal, was: Mining, $50 ; hauling from summit, $4.50 per ton, $225 ; cost of ark, $125 ; loading ark, $15. Total, $415.

" Lehigh pilots were on hand. The fleet moved off with the rapid eur- rent, and in fifteen minutes brought up on a reef called ' Red Rocks,' half a mile helow. One ark got through. In the ensuing December peace was declared, and coal went down to six dollars. The enterprise was a financial failure."

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History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming counties, Pa.; with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers, Part 17

Author: Munsell, W.W., & Co., New York Publication date: 1880 Publisher: New York, W.W. Munsell & co. Number of Pages: 900

Author: Munsell, W.W., & Co., New York
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: New York, W.W. Munsell & co.
Number of Pages: 900