History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming counties, Pa.; with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers, Part 19

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 19
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 19
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 19

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).

pletion of a slack water navigation between White Haven and Stoddardsville, which had been placed under charge of Edwin A. Douglass, Esq., engineer, in 1835.

Commissioners appointed by the governor in 1838 to inspect the work-Samuel Breck, Nathan Beach and Owen Rice-reported on the 12th day of June, after thorough examination, that "the company having now fully complied with the law, and in a manner honorable to themselves, and (as Pennsylvanians the undersigned say, with pride) most honorable to the State, we deem them entitled to a license for charging and collecting the legal toll."

It may not be out of place in this history of the coal trade to give the dimensions of one of the locks-No. 27, called Pennsylvania lock-on this once magnificent im- provement, the pride of the Lehigh, on which so many hopes of this Luzerne region had been based, as reported by the commissioners : "Twenty-seven feet thickness of solid wall at the bottom and ten feet on the top ; thirty feet lift, three feet working guard ; chamber twenty feet in width and one hundred feet in length, eighty-six feet clear of the swing of the gates, and containing nine thou- sand nine hundred and seventy-two cubic yards of ma- sonry, and two hundred and forty two thousand four hundred and nineteen feet, board measure, of timber work ; and the largest dams being of the height of fifty- eight feet and of the width of one hundred and ninety feet at the combing." This lock and dam sustained no serious injury by the great flood of June, 1862, which destroyed the navigation from White Haven to Mauch Chunk.

The Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad was completed in time for shipment of five thousand eight hundred and eighty-six tons from Wyoming in 1846.

How many active men of this region labored in early years for the Lehigh Coal and Navigation .Company, earning bread and comfortable homes and money to pay taxes, and held its name and those of Josiah White and Erskine Hazard in pleasant remembrance as household words long after the tardy action of the commonwealth had given promise and hopes for the future progress of its improvements on the Susquehanna !

The Beaver Meadow railroad, chartered in 1830, was finished in 1836, extending from the Beaver Meadow coal basin which is partly in Luzerne county, to its shipping point- on the canal six miles below Mauch Chunk, a distance of twenty-five miles to Parryville.

The Hazleton railroad, commenced in 1836, connected with the Beaver Meadow road at Weatherly, half way to the Lehigh, and the Hazleton coal was shipped on the canal at Penn Haven. The old planes are seen as you pass the mouth of the Quakake creek at Penn Haven, de- caying relics of the past, in the midst of the progress, bustle and active business rivalry of competing railroads of the present. Instead of the lonely wilderness described by Josiah White in 1818, when with Erskine Hazard they "leveled the river from Stoddardsville to Easton, the ice not having all disappeared, there being no house between the former place and Lausanne, obliging us to

Zila Bennell

THE CENTRAL RAILROAD OF NEW JERSEY-ASA PACKER'S OPERATIONS.

lie out in the woods all night," now the whistles of a hundred locomotives startle the echoes of the hills by day and by night.

Mr. White says : " Above the gap in the Blue moun- tain, there were but thirteen houses, including the towns of Lausanne and Lehighton, within sight from the river, and for thirty-five miles above Lausanne there was no sign of a human habitation; everything was in a state of nature."

The coal trade of Luzerne receives full benefit of the labors of the pioneers on the Lehigh, and its history would be but partially written and incomplete without this record of their enterprise. The various basins of anthracite coal found in the townships of Hazle, Foster, Butler, Black Creek, and possibly across the boundary lines of adjoining townships in the southern portion of the county, furnish annually between three and four mil- lions of tons to the trade, of which the Lehigh Valley Railroad, opened in 1855, perhaps carries two-thirds.

A contract was entered into between the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company and the Central Railroad Com- pany of New Jersey on the 31st day of March, 1871, by which the latter company became lessee of the railroads of the former company, agreeing to pay one-third of the gross receipts as rental. The cost of transportation of coal, the chief item of tonnage, was to be regulated by the price at which it was sold.

At the close of the year 1873 the coal lands of the company were leased to the Lehigh and Wilkes-Barre Coal Company, which was formed by the consolidation of the Honeybrook Coal Company and the Wilkes-Barre Coal and Iron Company, at a minimum rental of five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000), on a royalty of twenty-one per cent. of the price ruling at Mauch Chunk. This included lands in Luzerne as well as those upon the Lehigh. At the same time it was agreed that the Central Railroad of New Jersey should operate the canals of the Lehigh Company from Mauch Chunk to Easton and the Delaware division purchased at the sale of the State works, paying a fixed rental of $200,000 for their use.

The stroke of apoplexy which prostrated the whole civilized business world, the first attack occurring in the failure of J. Cooke & Co., in 1873, drove the Central Railroad of New Jersey into the hands of a receiver. The leased canals were abandoned and with the Lehigh coal lands passed again into the hands of the original owners, who became once more a mining and transporting com- pany.

The railroad now recognized as the Lehigh and Sus- quehanna division of the Central Railroad of New Jersey includes the Nanticoke Railroad and the Baltimore Coal and Iron Railroad, extending from Nanticoke, on the pool at the head of the Susquehanna Canal, by the foot of the planes and the light track, to its junction with the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company's Railroad at Green Ridge in the City of Scranton, now the seat of jus- tice of the new county of Lackawanna. Passing through the townships of Newport, Hanover, Wilkes-Barre, Plains, Jenkins, Pittston and Lackawanna; connecting at Wilkes-

Barre with the tracks of the Plymouth and Wilkes-Barre Railroad and Bridge Company, and opening as it does the heart of this northern coal field, the New Jersey road becomes an important factor in the problem of our future coal trade.

Near White Haven the Nescopeck branch brings ton- nage to the Central from the Upper Lehigh mines in the Green Mountain basin, and from the Sandy Run mines in the Little Black Creek basin. A few miles below the Sandy Run branch affords outlet to other mines of the Little Black Creek at Eckley, Jeddo, Milnesville, Eber- vale, Cross Creek, Highland, etc., all producing largely.

The Hazleton and Beaver Meadow road, merged in the Lehigh Valley Railroad, affords outlet from the Hazleton, a portion of the Beaver Meadow, and the Black Creek basins in southern Luzerne.

Asa Packer, native of Connecticut, a carpenter by trade, acquired in Susquehanna county, whither he had traveled on foot from his eastern home, when a young man, found work upon the Lehigh, where his keen fore- sight had play and his great energy of character and in- domitable will material to work upon. He acquired coal property and projected a railroad to carry his coal to market from the Hazleton region. Following the river, his line absorbed the Beaver Meadow road, already in operation from Parryville to Penn Haven, where it re- ceived coal from the now abandoned planes. Crossing the Lehigh at that point, the towing path of the upper navigation occupying the west bank, his road followed on the east side to a point opposite White Haven, where by a substantial bridge it joined the Lehigh and Susquehanna railroad at its southern terminus, and thus had uninter- rupted communication by rail with the great Wyoming coal field, and transportation without transhipment to tide water.

All this was not accomplished without opposition, and when, after the disastrous flood of 1862, which swept away the upper division of its navigation, the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company decided to abandon the water and extend its Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad from White Haven along its towing path to Mauch Chunk, the head of its canal, competition between the companies developed into keen rivalry for room and right of way along the narrow passes where there had been scant room for a towing path. The Lehigh Valley Company, crossing from the east to the west side above Mauch Chunk, occu- pied available space by numerous sidings to accommodate its growing trade from the Quakake branch at Penn Haven, and the Lehigh and Susquehanna road had to draw upon the east bank of the stream at low water for material to make room for its tracks in the channel, along side its rival.

The Lehigh Valley Company met this new project by pushing the road northward from White Haven to Wilkes- Barre in 1866, competing with the Lehigh and Susque- hanna road for through freight. A little incident, excit- ing at the time and now amusing, will show to what heat the friction of jarring interests had carried the immedi- ate contestants. The Lehigh Valley road united with the

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

Lehigh and Susquehanna road at grade, the bridge hav- ing been built, of course, with a view to amicable trade. A long construction train of gravel cars crossed the bridge one evening, and was shunted upon the rival road with tools of all kinds, ready to begin operations on the new road, the high bluff on the White Haven side at the crossing precluding any other arrangement. In the early morning an energetic employe of the Navigation Company observed this intrusion, and taking an old loco- motive up the track with a full head of steam, he let it loose upon the innocently offending train, and butted it into the Lehigh, a heap of ruins. The immediate result is not remembered, but it is a curious fact, illustrating, perhaps, the admiration of Judge Packer for pluck and energy, that the chief responsible actor in that day's drama has almost from that time been in the service of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company.

The navigation company improved the planes at Solo- mon's Gap, and for convenience of returning trains of empty cars, light freight and passenger traffic, made a light track for locomotive power from the head of the planes north by the Laurel Run Gap and back to the foot of the planes, a distance of thirteen miles, to overcome the steep mountain grade by the planes some three miles. The steepest grade of the back track is ninety-six feet to the mile. It was considered by many to be an almost impossible feat in engineering, but it was successfully ac- complished under the supervision of Dr. Charles F. Ingham, of Wilkes-Barre, an able and experienced en- gineer, at what cost cannot be now stated. It would be curious to compare old and modern estimates of cost and trade through Solomon's Gap and the Lehigh.

In 1833 the Legislature appointed Messrs. George M. Hollenback, Andrew Beaumont, Henry F. Lamb, W. S. Ross, Charles Mincr, Samuel Thomas, Joseph P. Le Clerc, Elias Hoyt, Benjamin A. Bidlack, E. Carey, Bate- man Downing, Ziba Bennett, Jedediah Irish, Thomas Craig, D. D. Wagner, Azariah Prior, Daniel Parry, Lewis S. Coryell, Joseph D. Murray, John C. Parry, William C. Livingston, Benjamin W. Richards, Robert G. Martin, Joshua Lippincott and Lewis Ryan commissioners of the Wyoming and Lehigh Railroad Company, who em- ployed Henry Colt and Dr. C. F. Ingham, civil engineers, to examine the route through Solomon's Gap and report. The elevation of the summit above the borough of Wilkes- Barre was found to be twelve hundred and fifty-one (1, 251) feet, and above the Lehigh six hundred and four (604) feet, and the distance between the two points about fourteen (14) miles. Grading for a double track was recommended, with a single track at first. The estimated cost of grad- ing double track on the western division, eight miles, was $20,250; from the summit to the Lehigh, six miles and a quarter, $12,850-total, $33,100; and for engineering and unforeseen contigencies (twelve per cent.) $3,962; and we have the cost of graduation, $37,062. Average cost per mile, $2,647.28. Cost of one mile of superstruc- ture, timber, iron rail plates, connecting plates and labor, with one turnout, $3,805.50. Average cost of railroad per mile, $6,452.78. Cost of 1472 miles, $91,952.11.

Cost of four inclined planes, $4,000 cach, $16,000. To- tal, $107,952.11. Estimate made in view of the use of steam for locomotives and stationary power. The com- missioners, in an address to the public, say: " Persons of intelligence and capacity to judge estimate that two hundred thousand tons of coal and three million feet of lumber, at least, will pass along this road to New York and Philadelphia from the vicinity of Wilkes-Barre, which now remain undisturbed where nature placed them ; and the great and increasing trade of the Susquehanna, which now goes to Baltimore, will be diverted to New York and Philadelphia." The estimated tolls upon coal and lum- ber would exceed $47,000. Coal could be delivered at Easton at $2.82 per ton.

At that day, with rails of wood covered with a flat strap- iron rail, operated by horse power, solid road beds were not so necessary as they are now. The Little Schuylkill railroad ran a light locomotive on such a track, but not with success. So, too, the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company with its first imported locomotive, a mere teapot in comparison with those of modern pattern, failed be- cause too heavy for the road. These estimates, ridiculous as they seem in the light of modern experience, were in accordance with the necessities of the times and the pros- pects they had of accomplishing a deliverance in that direction. The coal trade of the year preceding did not reach three hundred thousand tons from all the regions. The year before the company put their road under con- tract the trade was nearly seven hundred thousand tons.

From the beginning the course of the anthracite coal trade has seemed to baffle all calculations, even to the year 1880; and those who look back see many wrecks, while in danger themselves of meeting the same fate from want of faith in the future.

The failure of a loan in England, to meet the cost of improvements to make good its loss of the upper naviga- tion, and the sums thrown away in useless opposition to its rival roads, overwhelmed the Lehigh Coal and Navi- gation Company, and its works passed into other han ds, to be resumed as already stated. A modicum of the good sense of the early projectors might have shown them that there is room enough and market enough for all, and that competition for the coal trade must be open for the ben- efit of those most interested, the consuming millions scat- tered over the broad Union of States, from the great lakes to the gulf, and from the Atlantic far beyond the Mississippi, even to the Pacific Ocean.

The company has brighter prospects now, and may hope to realize its full share of the profits of the future.

The growth of eastern trade from the Lackawanna, which has followed and rivals that of the Lehigh, now demands attention, and will be found equally curious and interesting in its development.

THE DELAWARE AND HUDSON CANAL COMPANY.

The Wyoming coal field is the largest and most north- ern anthracite basin of Pennsylvania. In area it is some- thing under two hundred square miles, or about one hun- dred and twenty-seven thousand acres.

THE DELAWARE AND HUDSON CANAL COMPANY.

Fifty miles in length, and in breadth averaging four miles, it extends from a point above Beach Grove, on the west side of the river Susquehanna, having a course about northeast, to its terminus a few miles above Car- bondale.

Resting on the conglomerate rock of bright pebble stones cemented together, which lies in a cradle of red shale, its boundaries are easily traced along the out- croppings on the Kingston mountain on the west and the Wilkes-Barre mountain on the east, while the sincli- nal axis or trough, dipping under the river, is carried deep below the rough hills of the lower townships, ris - ing gradually with an irregular formation like solidified waves, until its measures thin out and disappear along the head waters of the Lackawanna river, having the shape of a vast canoe.

The Susquehanna forces its way through the western boundary at the middle of the basin, where it receives the waters of the Lackawanna, which have traversed the upper regions of the basin's trough, and together they leave it at Nanticoke, taking a western gorge to Shick- shinny, where the stream curves and crosses the lower point of the coal formation on its course to the ocean.

The cluster of small basins in the southern townships of Luzerne county, which are opened by the Lehigh im - provements, belong to the second or middle coal field.

While Josiah White, Erskine Hazard and other enter- prising citizens of Philadelphia were seeking the black diamond among the rugged hills of the Lehigh to its upper waters in Luzerne county, and were solving the problem of its value as a fuel, other Philadelphians were exploring the northeastern borders of the county for mineral coal, and the passes of the Moosic mountain to find an outlet by the waters of the Lackawaxen and Delaware rivers to eastern markets.

Mr. William Wurts was the pioneer "who first con- ceived the idea of transporting coal of the Lackawanna valley to market by an eastern route." A note to an ar- ticle on the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company in "The National Magazine," August, 1845, for which ac- knowledgments are due to Mr. Charles P. Wurts, of New Haven, Conn., says: "With such views, as early as 1844. and while that valley was yet an unbroken wilderness, without road or bridle path above Providence, he explored it and the passes of the Moosic mountain to find an outlet to the Lackawaxen and the Delaware rivers, selecting and purchasing such coal lands as were most eligibly situated in reference to that object."

On the 13th of March, 1823. Maurice Wurts and John Wurts, who had conceived the bold enterprise of con- structing a railroad and canal to their coal lands on the Lackawanna river in Luzerne county, procured from the Legislature of Pennsylvania an act authorizing Maurice Wurts of Philadelphia, his heirs and assigns, etc., to enter upon the river Lackawaxen, or any streams emptying into the same, "to make a good and safe descending navigation at least once in every six days, except when the same may be obstructed by ice or flood," from near Wag- ner's Gap in Luzerne, or Rix's Gap in Wayne county, to

the mouth of the said Lackawaxen, "with a channel not less than twenty feet wide and eighteen inches deep for arks and rafts, and of sufficient depth of water to float boats of the burthen of ten tons." >.Certainly a modest begin- ning.

Forty-two days after this act of Assembly was approved at Harrisburg the Legislature of New York passed "an act to incorporate the president, managers and company of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company," for the expressed purpose of forming a water communication between the rivers Delaware and Hudson, so that a sup- ply of coal might be obtained from large bodies of this valuable articie belonging to Maurice Wurts, of the State of Pennsylvania.

By an act of the Pennsylvania Legislature approved April Ist, 1825, and an act of the New York Legislature of April 20th, 1825, the two companies were consolidated and reorganized in this State as the " President, Managers and Company of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Com- pany;" with power to construct and maintain such rail- ways or other devices as may be found necessary to provide for and facilitate the transportation of coal to the canal.

Tolls upon the canal were not 'to exceed eight cents per mile "for every ton weight," and on the railroad a sum not exceeding twelve per centum per annum upon the amount of money which shall have been expended in the construction of said railroad."

Soon after the consolidation of the companies work was begun, and ground broken on the 13th of July, 1826. Parts of the New York section. upon which work was first commenced, were being finished when the contractor began work on the Pennsylvania section, which runs from Honesdale to the mouth of the Lackawaxen, a distance. of twenty-five miles, at which point it is joined to the New York section by an aqueduct over the Delaware. The length of the canal from the Delaware to the Hud- son is eighty-three miles, making the total length of canal from Honesdale to Rondout one hundred and eight miles. The act of Assembly of April Ist, 1825, limited the maximum of tolls to be charged on stone coal to one cent and a half per ton per mile, and at the same time au- thorized the company to assume all the rights originally granted to Mr. Wurts. The State had reserved the right to resume all the rights and privileges granted at the ex- piration of thirty years from the date of the law of March 13th, 1823, without compensation to the company if the tolls received had already repaid the original cost of the canal, with six per cent. upon the capital invested.

In June, 1851, a committee appointed by the Legisla- ture to investigate the affairs of the Delaware and Hud- son Canal Company met at Honesdale and examined the vice-president, Mr. Musgrave, the engineer, Mr. Russell F. Lord, Mr. Archbald, Mr. Thomas H. R. Tra- cy, superintendent of the Pennsylvania division, and others, with reference to time of completion, cost, tolls, income and capacity of the canal.

Mr. Lord testified that he had been in the employ of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company about twenty-

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

five years; that work- was commenced on the Pennsylva- nia section of their canal in 1826 or 1827, and that the contractors were at work in its construction when he came as resident engineer in 1827. Boats passed from the Hudson to the Delaware river with light cargoes in the summer of 1827, and over the whole of the New York section in 1828, when boats with very small car- goes reached Honesdale, and with large cargoes in 1829. A small quantity of coal left Honesdale in 1828. The original locks on the Pennsylvania section, of which there were thirty-seven lift locks and one guard lock used, were nine feet four inches in width, seventy-six feet long, and from nine and a half to eleven feet lift. Boats originally crossed the Delaware river by a rope ferry through the pool of the dam. The aqueduct was first used in 1849.

Mr. James Archbald testified that he had charge of the company's mines and railroad. He had been in employ- ment with the company since 1825, excepting one year. Boats on the canal originally carried from twenty-five to thirty tons. The company owned lands for reservoirs of water to supply railroads and canals in a dry season, in Luzerne and Wayne counties. There were four reservoirs at that time. They had nearly two thousand men em- ployed in the mines and on the railroad, at a cost of $1,800 to $2,000 per day. There were already over twenty-five miles of underground railroads at the mines.

Mr. Tracy said there were eight reservoirs of water for the use of the canal, independent of those named by Mr. Archbald, of from ten to three hundred acres.

Mr. Lord, re-examined, stated the number of locks on the New York section of the canal as seventy-two lift and one guard lock, fifteen feet wide, one hundred feet long, and from seven to twelve feet lift. The maximum of tolls in New York was eight cents per ton per mile; on the Pennsylvania section, one cent and a half per ton per mile. The company charged one cent and a half per ton on the New York side, and only one half cent per ton on the Pennsylvania section, making no allowance to the State for the company's own coal or other freight. The amount expended on the Pennsylvania section, including original construction, repairs and superintendence, im- provement and general enlargement of the canal from 1828 to July 17th, 1851, was $1,413,496.98. There was another aqueduct across the Lackawaxen above the Del- aware aqueduct, belonging to the Pennsylvania section. The reason given for the discrimination in tolls on the two sections was "to encourage transportation of coal by the New York and Erie railrod, which does not come so directly in competition with Hudson river markets." The Erie road passes along the Delaware, crossing the Lacka- waxen on the Pennsylvania side, and now has a branch to Honesdale, passing through Hawley, to accommodate the coal trade by the Delaware and Hudson and Penn- sylvania Coal Companies' roads.

This investigation was undertaken ostensibly with the view of resumption by the State, which had passed sev- eral acts for the improvement of the Delaware river, and had completed the Delaware division of its canals from

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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 19

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