History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming counties, Pa.; with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers, Part 22

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 22
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 22
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 22

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).

In 1879 the Chicago Tribune said :

"Coal sold at the lowest prices ever known, anthracite selling $1 per ton below the cheapest rate for 1878. From the beginning of the year down to May priees were steady at $6 and $6.50 for anthracite, and at $5.50 for Erie. Then there was a drop to $4.50 in the former, and to $4.75 in the latter. Those were the market quotations until August, when there was an advance of $1 per ton. Later there were further ad- vanees, and the year elosed with anthracite selling at $6.50 and $7, Erie at $7 and Wilmington at $4. For the first time in the history of the trade all sizes of hard coal have sold at a uniform price. Nut, which was formerly quoted from 25 to 75 cents per ton cheaper than the larger sizes, is now in so active demand-owing to the very general use of self- feeding stoves-that our dealers are barely able to get adequate sup- plies, and that particular size is now quoted at 50 cents per ton above other sizes."

The coal exchange in that city reported about three hundred thousand tons of anthracite up to November 3d. The trade probably reached a million of tons for the year.

The increase in western trade was no doubt in fair proportion to the total tonnage, perhaps greater, through the increased facilities for transportation in the box freight cars, returning for the magnificent grain crops of the year, and five millions of tons may have been distributed there.

Whatever may be the limit of demand or production, the larger portion of increase must be supplied from the Wyoming coal field. Up to 1850 this region had not reached an annual production of a million of tons, including the Luzerne basins on the Lehigh, in a total of three million, three hundred and fifty-eight thousand, eight hundred and ninety-nine tons. In 1879 it had increased to not less than fifteen millions in a total of twenty-six million tons.

That anthracite will be largely exported cannot be doubted. In 1874 the exports were four hundred and one thousand, nine hundred and twelve tons. Since the international expositions in Philadelphia and in Paris, American anthracite and stoves designed especially for burning it have been introduced into France, Italy and Switzerland ; and as the Reading Company is about sending an agent abroad to extend the trade, it may yet be established as a luxury in London, Vienna, St. Peters- burg and in every city of refinement in Europe.

With an annual production of one hundred and thirty

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

millions of tons, the exports from the mines of Great Britain have reached eighteen millions of tons in a year. There can be no reason why Pennsylvania anthracite should not soon reach the same proportion and afford at least four millions of tons for export, instead of the mea- gre amount reported for 1879 of 421,594 tons. Of this the British possessions took 367,544 tons ; Mexico, South America and West Indies 38,885 tons ; China nearly 2,000 tons ; while France had 940, Austria 391, Germany and England each one ton ; the remainder scattering. The figures will change slowly perhaps towards European markets, as the home consumption will command high prices and freights will be costly on eastward bound ves- sels ; unless the current of trade shall be reversed through false economy and England again supply us with manu- factured goods to an extent which would send her ships home in ballast. The four hundred and seventy square miles of Pennsylvania anthracite, with its certainly limit- ed capacity for production already approximated, must supply a territory many times greater than that of Great Britain, and a population already nearly equal in num- bers and greater in its purchasing power and ability to enjoy. Whatever the limit of production, the demand must soon be limited by the price it will bear as one of the future luxuries of life.

VALUE OF ANTHRACITE.

The value of rich deposits of anthracite coal is not to be calculated alone by cash estimates in dollars and cents; but the comfort and cleanliness increased a hun- dred fold in the home circle, the absence of smoke, the cheering and enduring warmth of its fires through long winter nights, and the indirect influence of this increased comfort through all classes of modern society, must be added to the sum total of gain.

At an early day, while the Baltimore mine was still rudely worked at its outcroppings in the bluff on Coal brook, near Wilkes-Barre, and the full size of the vein, of nearly thirty feet, was exposed to the light, a party of ladies of the Society of Friends visited the place accom- panied by others of the neighborhood. The vast cavern even at that day excavated, with its smooth floor of coal and slate, inclining downward the north ; with immense pillars of coal, sixteen or eighteen feet in height, supporting the roof ; the light from without, through various apertures, penetrating a distance along the gentle dip of the vein reflecting many hues from the bright faces of sparkling anthracite, furnished a scene well calculated to impress an intelligent mind with feelings of mingled awe and admiration. After a careful examination of the locality, with many inquiries and suggestions concerning the probable origin and dis- covery of the wonderful deposit, a profound silence set- tled upon them, inspired by the grandeur of the scene; when a clear, sweet voice floated upon the air in utter- ances of gratitude and of adoration of the Great Supreme Power which had placed such storehouses of fuel amidst the wildnerness of this cold northern clime, to be pre- served for the benefit of His people when the forests

should be swept away and their need would be sorest. The voice of Rachel Price has long been silent, as she sleeps among her kindred and friends near the shadow of some modest meeting-house in Chester county, where the precepts of peace, wisdom, and love inculcated in her sermons still retain their influence with the descendants of those who sat under her teachings. What a blessing- would be conferred if her short address at the Baltimore mine could yet be heard and heeded by those who, in pursuit of wealth, recklessly squander the precious legacy. Precept has been lost in the example of a fierce struggle for power and position until all interests have been prostrated; and now perhaps only when selfishness, from sheer necessity, is likely to be merged in justice may prudent management be hoped for.

But there is a commercial and marketable value at- tached to coal and to coal lands worthy to be viewed in a business light by the few still in possession of original titles. There are eight large transporting companies now in Pennsylvania, pretty fairly dividing among them the Anthracite coal lands, either by purchase or by leasing them of the owners. They are the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company, the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, the Central Railroad Company of New Jersey, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Com- pany, the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, the Pennsylvania Coal Company, and the New York, Lake Erie and Western Railroad Company; the railroad com- panies operating under charters incorporating coal com panies controlled by them. There are very few proper- ties of any profitable size yet remaining not directly or indirectly at the mercy of these large corporations.

The prices paid for coal lands in the northern or Wyo- ming coal field when the trade was small were very low, often less than one hundred dollars an acre for those in choice positions but yet undeveloped. The farmer who owned a large tract, from a few acres of which he suc- ceeded in gathering a frugal subsistence with hard labor, felt rich if he could sell four hundred acres for twenty or thirty dollars an acre and buy a much better farm in the growing west for half the money. Much of course de- pended on the prospects of early development of the coal and the opening of ways to market. Few of them had much faith in the coal, which had never done any good to the neighborhood; and they only valued the sur- face as yielding fair returns for labor bestowed. With few wants, the farmer out of debt was rich.

The Pennsylvania Coal Company purchased the greater part of its best lands thirty years ago, at prices ranging from $75 to $200 per acre, farms and all. When the last farms were secured, probably $300 per acre was paid to close and connect the surveys. Some years after, for small tracts from which they could take the coal through improvements already made, $1,000 per acre was reported as the price paid, which would be cheaper to the com- pany taking the coal out at once than $200 paid thirty years before, when the coal lay untouched by the miner's pick or drill.

To judge by the financial statements of the best com-

THE VALUE OF COAL LANDS.

panies (except the prudently managed Pennsylvania Coal Company), it might be judged that coal lands had cost them inany thousands of dollars an acre. But the blend- ing vast lines of transportation with lands to be developed makes it difficult to judge accurately. The experience of the one company excepted would indicate that the land was the only profitable part of the investment.

But again, what would the land be now worth without markets for the coal and means of transportation? Not more than it sold for twenty- five years ago. The Read- ing Company and the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company are the objects of most bitter attack for bad management and blundering into unnecessary expendi- tures and indebtedness. The Reading road has reached out its arms with seeming recklessness after new markets. Take the explanation made by Mr. President Gowen, in his recent annual report to the meeting of stockholders, January 12th, 1880: "The company is now prepared to transport direct, by its own cars and engines, to the harbor of New York the large amount of coal ton- nage which heretofore, at a cash cost of fully eighty-five cents per ton, had to be transported over lines of other companies. As the actual cost of moving this coal from Philadelphia to New York over the new line cannot ex- ceed forty cents per ton, the difference of forty-five cents per ton on a yearly tonnage of about a million tons, amounting to $450,000 per annum, will represent the saving of the company." Mr. Gowen estimates a business of 9,000,000 tons over his roads in 1880, and that the average price will be $1.50 per ton higher at tide water than in 1879.

The Delaware and Hudson Canal reported a deficiency on its leased lines, but its northern roads lead to new and growing markets. With the advance in prices of coal and the rapid increase in tonnage this deficiency must speedily disappear, and the leased lines will not only pay their own expenses; but every additional ton of anthracite carried north will add to the profits of the mines and to the trade of each branch employed in the transpor- tation.

Increased trade and advanced prices must soon estab)- lish the value of coal lands. Hear Mr. Maxwell on this subject:

" If a population of twenty-one millions value 5,209,000 acres of coal land at $2,000 per acre, what should a population of 11,635,000, having the same wants in proportion to number, value only 279,680 acres of coal land at per acre? Who will solve this problem satisfactorily to himself? The facts bear out its terms with all the force of mathematical truth. It is to be observed that in stating this problem the lowest price of the English coal lands is adopted as one of its terms. This leaves a wide margin against the hazard of error. England, too, is much nearer her maximum of population, manufactures and coal consumption than we are, while our coal market, in area four times as large as hers, but with half her population now, is rapidly filling up with coming millions."

Mr. Maxwell estimates 1,613 tons per acre to every foot thickness. Practical men estimate 1,000 tons to the foot, clear merchantable coal, allowing liberally for pillars and waste.

The Delaware and Hudson Canal Company say: " In Great Britain coal lands are worth from $5,000 to $7,000 per acre. In the light of these facts, why should not the consumption of anthracite continue to increase, why

should it not be mined at a profit, and why should not the value per acre of the small area of anthracite coal lands in the United States approximate that of the vast- ly larger area of coal lands in Great Britain?" Pertinent questions, which are in course of solution as rapidly as the returning good sense of the large companies will per- mit. The pioneers in the trade who yet live may hope to see it answered in the affirmative, and they deserve it.

Of the pioneers in the early development nearly all have passed away. Of these Hon. Hendrick B. Wright, in his Historical Sketches of Plymouth, a work of great local interest written in the author's best vein, makes honorable mention, so far as connected with old Shawnee trade:

"Freeman Thomas came to Plymouth from Northampton county about the year 1811, and purchased the Avondile property, to which he gave the name more than fifty years ago. Mr. Thom is was in advance of most of his neighbors in his knowledge of the co il measures. At an early day he commenced driving the ' Grand Tannel' into the moun- tain side, with the purpose of striking the coal. This was probably as early as 1828, and was the first experiment in tunneling in the Wyoming valley through rock. After three or four years of persevering labor, and with his credit alnost sunk, he struck the big red ash vein. Free- man Thomas lived to a good old age. Hedied at his home in Northum- berland county in his eighty-eighth year. Not long after the construc- tion of the Grand Tunnel Jameson Harvey discovered coal upon his premises near by, and these two coal properties, being mnost eligibly situated, were more extensively worked than any other mine in the township. William L. Lance became lessee of the Grand Tunnel proper- ty in 1851."

Col. Wright says that the red ash vein worked by the Smiths and Freeman Thomas, in Plymouth, averages twenty-six feet of pure coal, being better and thicker than the seam on the east side of the river where it crops out near the summit of the Wilkes-Barre mountain not more than eight feet in thickness. It is assumed by some that the lower vein, known as the red ash, thins out as it goes east and disappears on the Lackawanna about Scran- ton; which is not at all probable, as the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company has been in operation at Car- bondale for fifty years, chiefly on the lower veins of the measure, which are not yet exhausted. It is asserted that a nine-foot vein has been tested at Dunmore, east of Scranton, below any of the veins now worked there. The measures on the Lackawanna are not so deep as in the parts of the basin along the Susquehanna, and the large companies established above Pittston have all secured ample stores of anthracite in Kingston, Plymouth, New- port, Hanover, Wilkes-Barre and Plains townships for centuries to come, and have facilities for transportation from them both present and future. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company, on the rich properties of the late Colonel Washington Lee on the east and of Mr. Harvey on the west side of the river, has already been mentioned, with its lines of communication. The Lehigh and Wilkes- Barre Coal Company, growing from the Consolidated Coal Company through the Wilkes-Barre Coal and Iron Company is, under the management of Mr. Charles Par- rish, a pioneer in the trade of Wilkes-Barre, Hanover and Newport, fast taking a leading position. Judge Francis Lathrop, in whose hands the coal company and the Cen- tral Railroad of New Jersey are, as receiver, says that they are improving in financial condition. The principal coal tonnage of the Central is from this coal company. The

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

Erie Railway operates chiefly in Pittston, having trans- portation by the Pennsylvania Coal Company's road to Hawley, and by the Delaware and Hudson Canal Com- pany's road to Great Bend, at which point it joins its main line. The time must come when it will possess coal lands on the Susquehanna and a road of its own to carry coal out of the valley. The tonnage will be of great importance to it. The box cars of this road are seen in almost every train leaving the valley.

Fortunes have been sunk and millions lost in the early efforts to develop the mines and introduce anthracite coal to the various uses to which it is now indispensable. Few of the pioneers lived to enjoy the fruits of their labors and enterprise. Few of the living even now com- prehend the value of anthracite; either the cost value, the " exchange value," or the far greater value as one of the necessaries of life, without regard to ratio or exchange or price in open market. In the scramble for control of markets it has come to be regarded as a mere item of tonnage, by which to estimate income to rival lines of transportation. The next generation will be able to estimate it from a point of view gained through bitter experience, and will understand its full pecuniary value. The loss of one hundred lives in 1878, and the almost countless accidents resulting in loss of limbs and health, will add fearfully to the cost, which cannot be estimated.

If the estimate which places the limit of production below thirty-five millions of tons per annum shall prove correct, then will the money value soon be ascertained in the market price. New collieries are adding to produc- tive capacity in each year, to be offset by numbers which are exhausted and abandoned. In the report from the Lehigh region for 1878 the number of collieries abandoned up to the time of report had reached sixty-three, some having been over sixty years in operation.

BREAKERS AHEAD.

As a class coal miners are not provident. Like almost any other class in society it is mixed, but it may safely be asserted that as much good common sense is to be found among the men employed in this coal region as among any class of laborers, or even professional men. True, in times of excitement they are apt to be carried away by imprudent counsels and do themselves and the trade untold injury in useless efforts to right fancied wrongs, while the men they combat suffer from the same evils as severely. The miner has this excuse, if not justification: he has no influence in adjusting prices. Those who direct the trade, and who from position should understand the question of supply and demand as affect- ing markets, are as apt to be carried off their feet by waves of competition and wreck prices by careless pilot- age of cargoes; and miner and laborer must bear the loss in reduction of wages. Reflection might teach every laborer that the interest of the operator to secure good prices is as strong as is his to have high wages, and that necessity not appearing upon the surface forces a decline. Unfortunately too many operators have not deemed it a duty to make explanations to those they employ, and

without reflecting that two wrongs never make a right the men resort to the remedy they think most direct and strike.

The strike, a mere cessation from labor, might not in all cases be objectionable in itself, if not followed by in- terference with the rights of others who do not desire to leave work or who cannot afford to lie idle, which is clearly illegal. One very favorable sign of the present time is the increasing willingness of employers to yield gracefully and promptly to the unquestionable equities of labor on a rising market, as it was made full partner in misfortune. A notable instance of the beneficial results of such a system in past years was that of the collieries of Messrs Sharpe, Leisenring & Company, at Eckley, on the Lehigh. When coal prices advanced the men had their full proportion in increased wages, and when prices receded they submitted to the reduction without com- plaint; and for years there was little trouble among them, until the great strike of December, 1874, which it was a point of pride should be made general among the men in all the coal fields, and they yielded to that disastrous suspension of more than six months, from which there has been no recovery.

The exercise of all the good sense of parties concerned will be needed to secure the trade from loss in the future. Disaster may come from too sudden prosperity, as to the apparently convalescent patient from an excess of vitality. Prices must be regulated, or the goose that lays the golden egg may be killed.

Railroad construction in 1879 was more active than in any year since 1872, and fifty per cent. greater than in 1878. Iron is needed in every degree of manufacture in the construction and equipment of new roads, and this iron in every stage from the ore must be wrought by the aid of coal. To force prices too high may check the upward movement all along the line and reflect disastrously . on the coal trade. Among the select sentences in a school-book of several generations past, teaching short lessons of wisdom, was one worthy to be inscribed on tablets of brass at every colliery and workshop in the country : " Time once past never returns; the moment which is lost is lost forever." Hundreds of industrious miners and laborers, who had accumulated homes and savings deposited during prosperous days, and saw them dwindle and vanish under enforced idleness in 1875 and other long suspensions, now realize the truth and force of that maxim. They cannot desire a renewal of that sad expe- rience ; but another generation is coming upon the stage of life to direct affairs, with fresh confidence if not with increased wisdom, full of hope that they may be able to direct the storm while riding upon the whirlwind raised against capital-the natural ally rather than the antagon- ist of labor. Let the whirlwind be avoided by prudent counsels and the exercise of a spirit of conciliation on both sides.

There is a quaintly expressed maxim of the courts to the effect that one who seeks equity must do equity, worthy to be posted with the short sentence before quoted, and to be borne in mind by those who seek by

INJURIES FROM MINES FALLING IN.

89 .

violent measures to enforce their claims regardless of the rights of fellow workmen, of employers or of the larger number composing the consuming public, who suffer unjustly. Sympathy will not be wasted upon labor which allows itself to be crushed in a vain and wicked attempt to block the wheels of progress promising prosperity to all who are industrious and frugal. Wages may be adjusted with the accuracy of machinery, which without attendants in the workshop moves to its limit and reverses its motion, if a few men of experience will meet for that object with an honest purpose of agree- ment.

Pages could not record the changes of the past few years, nor can human wisdom foresee those of the coming years. Questions are arising in the courts of vast im- portance to land owners and coal operators. One is that of

DAMAGE TO SURFACE PROPERTY.

At one time the large companies had surveyed num- bers of lots to sell to their employes, but the policy seems to have changed. In many places near Wilkes- Barre, in Pittston, Hyde Park and in Kingston large areas of land undermined have subsided by the caving in of mines, in some instances causing damage to improve- ments made by purchasers of surface lots. The large brick school-house near Pittston, at the corner of the road to Yatesville, was abandoned because the walls cracked so as to be dangerous to pupils, the supports of the mines below having failed.

In Hyde Park, by the caving of the Oxford mines, some brick storehouses were injured. The question before the court is to decide who is responsible for the damage.

In most cases the surface has been purchased with knowledge of the danger incurred, and a title accepted with full release of claims for damage. Still it does not always seem just that a man's home should be wrecked by being undermined, without some recourse in damages, and in several cases recently tried in Schuylkill county damages have been awarded. In one case at West Shen- andoah several lots over the Kohinoor Colliery, in Feb- ruary, 1879, to use the words of a reporter for the Pottsville Journal, were visited by a young earthquake, and a cave-in which followed the shake carried a portion of several lots down into the colliery, cracking the walls and foundations of the dwelling houses, putting the doors and windows out of place and leaving a yawning chasm about seventy feet deep and eighty or ninety feet in diameter in the middle of the lots. To one was awarded $800, another $1,350, a third $1,200. What the final judgment will be on appeal remains to be heard, and whether the release of all claims for damage at the time of purchase, if any such were made, avails owner or operator. An important question of public policy yet underlies the question of claims for damage. If no man who needs a place for his home has power to release the land owner or the coal operator from such claim, then no land owner or operator will hereafter dispose of building

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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 22

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