History of Mercer County, Pennsylvania : its past and present, Part 26

Author:
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : Brown, Runk
Number of Pages: 1288

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Mazeppa Furnace met the fate of all the others that went down under the fruitless effort to manufacture the native ore profitably. It was operated by John J. Spearman from 1853 to 1859, but with all his well-known energy and experience he could not operate it on a paying basis.

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HISTORY OF MERCER COUNTY.

Of the ten furnaces mentioned only the Sharon and Sharpsville are still in existence, and they because of the business transformations through which they have passed, and the great improvements made in the cheaper manufacture of pig metal from Lake Superior ores. Most, if not all, of these furnaces were built against elevated ground, for the purpose and convenience of handling the stock from the top yard, as hoists were not then in use. The stacks were massive stone structures from foundation to tunnel head. These have been succeeded by the modern column and casing stack.

The present manufacturing interests of Mercer County, as connected with iron and steel, are confined to the Shenango Valley, and are limited to the towns of Greenville, Sharpsville, Sharon, Wheatland and West Middlesex. In this order we shall speak of them in this chapter, excepting the two last mentioned, which we have placed in the respective histories of those. boroughs.

Greenville Rolling Mills .- In 1871 an association consisting of J. M. Mordock, Luther McGilvray, S. P. Thompson and James M. Ewing was formed. The same year they erected on their site of twenty acres lying be- tween the E. & P. and the N. Y. P. & O. Railroads, half a mile south of Green- ville, a mill 165x130, and ten tenement houses for their employes. The mill contained ten boiling and two heating furnaces, with three trains of rolls propelled by an engine. It made hoop and bar iron, and an improved car-link and pin. The first year's operation gave employment to fifty-five hands and produced about 2,000 tons. Many changes have taken place in ownership. The plant now has twenty-six single puddling furnaces, four heating furnaces and three trains of rolls, with an annual capacity of 12,000 net tons. The mills are operated by P. L. Kimberly & Co., of Sharon.

SHARPSVILLE.

The history of the Sharpsville furnace has already been given in the preceding part of this chapter.

Claire Furnace .- In 1868-69 Gen. James Pierce, of Sharpsville, and William L. Scott, of Erie, built the Mount Hickory furnaces, Nos. 1 and 2. They were built of brick and stone, in the most approved style, upon cast-iron columns. In 1886 these were taken down, and instead thereof one stack fifteen and one-half foot bosh and seventy-five feet high was erected. Like all others it uses the Lake Superior ore, and produces Bessemer and foundry pig iron. The annual capacity is 40,000 net tons. The organization consists as follows: M. A. Hanna, chairman; A. C. Saunders, treasurer, and A. M. Robbins, secretary and general manager at Cleveland. Josiah Robbins is the superintendent at Sharpsville.

Florence Furnace, under the proprietorship of the Henderson Iron Com- pany, has one stack sixty feet high and twelve foot bosh. It was erected as the Allen furnace, and subsequently called the Henderson furnace, by Henderson, Allen & Co., in 1868. It was put in blast in October of that year, and remodeled in 1882. It produces Bessemer, foundry and mill pig iron, having an annual capacity of 18,000 net tons.

The Douglas Furnaces .- In 1869 Jonas J. Pierce purchased fifty acres of land on the southwest suburb of Sharpsville, on the line of the Erie & Pitts- burgh Railroad. In 1870 the firm of Pierce & Kelly was organized, and fur- nace No. 1 built, with a stack fifty feet high and an eleven-foot bosh, and put in blast in March, 1871. The following year (1872) Gen. Pierce and son, Wallace, obtained an interest in the firm, which then became Pierce, Kelly & Co. Furnace No. 2 was erected the same year, the stack being sixty feet high and fifteen-foot bosh, and blown in February, 1873. In 1879 No. 1 was

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rebuilt and enlarged to a fifteen-foot bosh and sixty-foot stack, and in 1881 No. 2 was likewise enlarged. The Douglas was the pioneer of the upper fur- naces. Bessemer, foundry and forge pig metal are the products. The indi- vidual members of the firm are Jonas J. Pierce, George D. Kelly and Wallace Pierce, with Mr.' Kelly as general manager.

Mabel Furnaces, owned by Perkins & Co., limited, have two stacks, each sixty-five feet high, and a bosh of fourteen feet. No. 1 was built in 1872 by J. W. Ormsby & Sons. No. 2 was built in 1880. Both were rebuilt in 1883. They use as fuel block coal and coke, and have an annual capacity of about 35,000 net tons of foundry and Bessemer pig iron. The management consists of Simon Perkins, Jr., chairman and manager; L. C. Hanna, secretary and treasurer. M. A. Hanna & Co., of Cleveland, are selling agents.

Spearman Furnaces, owned and operated by the Spearman Iron Company, were built in 1872. There are two stacks, each sixty-three feet high and hav- ing fourteen foot bosh. No. 1 was blown in January 15, 1873, and No. 2, September 20, 1875. They were remodeled in 1882 and 1885, respectively. Three Whitwell hot-blast stoves are in use. The fuel consists of coke, and the product is foundry pig iron, made from Lake Superior ore. J. J. Spear- man, of Sharon, organized the company, and superintended the erection of the furnaces, and has ever since been the general manager.

In 1869 Gemmill & Hawthorn started a boiler factory in Sharpsville to do all kinds of work belonging to that industry. It has served a valuable purpose in the community.

SHARON.

Sharon has been the great manufacturing center of the county, its interests being more diversified than those of Sharpsville, though not so extensive in particular directions.

The Sharon Iron Company .- One of the first citizens of the Shenango Valley to take a lively interest in the manufacture of iron was Gen, Joel B. Curtis, of Sharon. He had formerly been a leading business man at Mercer, but removed to Sharon before it was a place of any prominence, and became active in its development. He continued to reside there until the time of his

In another part of this volume will be found a death, August 27, 1862.

sketch of his career. Early in the forties Gen. Curtis, then a heavy coal deal- er, conceived the idea of developing the iron interests of the county. This idea, however, did not materialize until 1850, when a stock company, with a capital of $20,000, was formed, and Gen. Curtis was chosen president. It

was known as the "Sharon Iron Company," and its first purpose was to establish a foundry on a large scale. Gen. Curtis was authorized, in order to secure reliable information upon the business, to visit the principal cities where such work was being executed. He went to Buffalo, Albany and other important cities in the execution of his mission.

About this time some difficulty arose in the mills at Pittsburgh. Many of the skilled workmen were desirous of uniting their forces, and becoming manufacturers themselves. Gen. Curtis regarded this a favorable oppor- tunity, and cultivated the acquaintanceship of the Pittsburgh operatives. The sequel was the securing of their co-operation in the Sharon enterprise. The iron workers took stock, and the charter was so modified as to include a rolling-mill within its scope. The works were erected before the close of the year 1850, but did not go into operation until 1851. In addition to these works, the company also erected dwellings for their hands, which fact gave a wonderful impetus to the growth of the town. The iron mill ran until 1855,

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HISTORY OF MERCER COUNTY.

when it closed. In the following year a new company took charge of the plant and fitted it up for the manufacture of steel from raw ore. This experiment . was prosecuted without adequate success until the fall of 1857, when the works were again closed until 1861, when the plant was bought by Gen. Curtis, and by him sold to William Coleman, James Westerman, C. B. Wick, Jr., and P. W. Keller, who reopened the works. In 1865 Coleman and Wick disposed of their interests, and C. H. Buhl, C. H. Andrews, W. J. Hitch- cock, P. W. Keller and James Westerman became the owners, and the name was changed to the " Westerman Iron Company." The furnace was built by this company in 1865-66, and they operated the works until March, 1874, when Mr. Westerman sold his interest to his partners. From 1865 to 1874 Mr. Westerman had the full management, and carried on the business very successfully. On the first of April, 1882, C. H. Buhl became sole owner of the plant, and no change has since occurred. It is the largest single plant in Mercer County, and furnishes employment to nearly 700 hands. F. H. Buhl is manager, and David Adams secretary and treasurer. Under Mr. Buhl's management many improvements have been made, and every department of the works brought to the highest state of efficiency.

In connection with the iron interests, this company, in 1862, built a railway from their works to a coal field belonging to them, at Brookfield, Ohio, a distance of three miles. This field, embracing some 2,000 acres, yielded an output of some 500 tons daily, involving in prosperous times the employ- ment of 400 men. The company has also operated, besides the Brier Hill block coal at Brookfield, the Home Coal Bank, with a capacity of 300 tons daily. In 1876 the company established what is known as the Sharon Iron Works store, on State Street, where an extensive trade is carried on, not only with the operatives, but with citizens generally.

The Atlantic Iron Works began in 1867, under the management and pro- prietorship of Alexander, Ashton & Co. When first started they consisted of four boiling furnaces, one heating furnace and eighteen nail machines, with a capacity of eight tons of muck bar iron per day. In 1868 P. L. Kimberly bought an interest and the firm was known as Kimberly, Ashton & Co. Various improvements were made up to February 21, 1871, when Col. James Carnes bought Ashton's interest. The firm name then was Kimberly, Carnes & Co., and so continued for more than ten years, when Carnes sold his interest to Kimberly and retired from the business. The firm name has been continued to the present day as P. L. Kimberly & Co., the individual partners being P. L. Kimberly, T. M. Sweeney, E. Roberts, R. F. Wolfkill and William Roberts.

In 1869 Samuel Kimberly & Co. built near the rolling-mill the Keel Ridge blast furnace, which has the capacity of producing thirty-five tons of pig iron daily. This firm was known under the designation of the Keel Ridge Iron Company. In 1873 the firm of Kimberly, Carnes & Co. bought this furnace and added it to their mill, and it is yet operated in connection therewith. The Atlantic Works have thirty-two puddling furnaces, eight heating furnaces, six trains of rolls and forty nail machines. They use natural gas for fuel, and produce bar, plate, hoop and rod iron, and nails.

The Stewart Iron Works, under the ownership of the Stewart Iron Com- pany, limited, date their origin in 1870, when they were established by the Otis Iron Company. Two years later the firm was changed to the Stewart Iron Company; and again on the 20th of June, 1877, the Stewart Iron Com- pany, limited. The organization embraced David Stewart, of New York, chairman; Fayette Brown, general agent, and Harvey H. Brown, assistant general agent. To these are now added Theodore F. Hicks, secretary, New

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York, and Gardner P. Lloyd, treasurer, New York. The two Browns are located in Cleveland. Hon. Samuel McClure is the general manager of the works. The plant occupies thirty acres of ground. Four acres are covered by the mill and furnaces, and the remainder by dwellings to accommodate the families of employes. The buildings consist of the rolling-mill, 60x336 feet in dimensions, machine shop, two casting houses, large stock house, office and furnaces. The furnace is double, one stack being sixty-five and the other seventy feet in height, with boshes twelve and two-thirds and thirteen and two- thirds feet respectively. The full capacity of the two furnaces is about 62, 000 net tons, but the average annual output is 55,000 net tons per year .. Lake Superior ore is consumed, with coke manufactured by the company at their own coke works, at Uniontown, Fayette County, where they have 120 ovens, employing 120 hands.

The Sharon Iron and Brass Foundry was erected in 1872 by J. W. Evans, Joseph King, Dr. J. M. Irvine and others. It continued to run until the spring of 1876, when financial stringency compelled it to suspend. It was known as the "Valley Iron Works," and stood in the south part of town, opposite the office of the Stewart Iron Works. The building is unused, being the property of Ruff & Irvine, of Pittsburgh, Pa.

The Shenango Machine Works, limited, are owned by Daniel Eagan, Frank Buhl, Joseph Riddle and Samuel McClure. The works were formerly con- ducted by William McGilvray & Co., by whom it was purchased in 1854. At that time it was a woolen factory, but was changed at once to a foundry and machine shop, known as the Sharon foundry. Mr. McGilvray carried on the business successfully until his death, July 5, 1877. In March, 1881, Daniel Eagan and Samuel McClure purchased the property, and in 1883 the present company was organized, with a capital of $40,000. The plant occupies three acres, on which are erected the buildings, seven in number. The foundry is commodious, being a brick structure 50x80, with a wing 30x30. The machine and pattern shop is a large building, originally put up for a woolen-mill. It is three stories high, and is 34x80 feet. The pattern house is a one-story building, 30x50 feet. The officers are Frank Buhl, president, and Daniel Eagan, secretary, treasurer and general manager.

The Sharon Steel Casting Company, Frank Buhl, president; Samuel McClure, vice-president; Daniel Eagan, secretary and general manager; John Forker, treasurer; B. F. Watkins, superintendent; and selling agent, S. P. Davidson, 117 Monroe Street, Chicago, was organized in February, 1887. The commodious works, located on the northern limits of the town, were erected the same year, and the first steel was made on the 26th of August. The equipment consists of one fifteen-ton Siemens-Martin open hearth fur- nace. The product is steel castings of all kinds, the annual capacity being 10,000 net tons. This is the only stecl plant in Mercer County. Though its history is yet limited, it is safe to say it is turning out the finest quality of steel castings, and its product is second to none.

Sharon Boiler Works. - This industry was started in 1868 by S. Runser, William McGilvray, and William McGilvray & Co., with a capital of $5,000. Several years afterward R. G. Morrison bought Runser's interest, and the firm became R. G. Morrison & Co. It so remained until 1878, when the business was incorporated under the laws of the State as the Sharon Boiler Works Company, limited, with a capital stock of $16,000. The organization consists of P. L. Kimberly, president; D. R. Shiras, treasurer, and R. G. Morrison, secretary and general manager.

Sharon Stove Works, R. A. Duncan & Co., proprietors, began to build their

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HISTORY OF MERCER COUNTY.

structure in the fall of 1883, and commenced active operations in January following. The town donated a tract of land and $10,000. The firm opened with about forty hands. The specialty was cooking and heating stoves. The works continued to run without interruption until November, 1887, never missing a pay-day. They then closed owing to the stringency of money affairs, P. L. Kimberly having closed a court judgment against the firm. Business has since been resumed, and the works are in active operation.

There is a small wire nail factory now operated by Henry Tresise. It was established as a tuyere factory in 1871, and has since been in successful opera- tion. In 1887 Mr. Tresise began the manufacture of wire nails.

In 1874 Messrs. McGilvray, Blount, Fisher & Co., established a furnace for the manufacture of iron from a certain kind of slag. Coke was the fuel used. The experiment proved quite successful, the daily output reaching some ten tons.

The Chain Factory, owned and operated by Victor Doutreville, was established by that gentleman in the spring of 1887. It is located immedi- ately east of the E. & P. R. R. depot, and consists of a one-story frame building, fitted up with modern appliances for the manufacture of chain. Mr. Doutreville has built up a prosperous business, and gives steady employment to quite a number of hands.

. Iron Statistics for 1887. - The production of iron and steel in Mercer County for the year 1887, as we learn by a private letter from James M. Swank, general manager of the American Iron and Steel Association, of Phila- delphia, was as follows: Pig iron, 279,236 net tons, or 249,318 gross tons. Rolled iron, including plate and sheet iron and a small quantity of iron rails, 47,519 net tons, or 42,428 gross tons. Nails, 66,625 kegs of 100 pounds each. Of this quantity, 25,882 kegs were made of steel. There are in the county seventeen blast furnaces, six rolling-mills and one open hearth steel casting plant. Of the rolling-mills, two make muck bar and blooms only, which are not included in the rolled iron production just given. From the day that Mr. Amberson made his hand wrought nails at Mercer, in 1804, to the year 1887, great changes and progress in domestic industries have been effected.

A Question of Controversy .- As stated in the early part of this chapter, the first furnaces were fed with charcoal and consumed the native ore of the county. Now either coke or natural gas is the fuel, and Lake Superior ore is the material mainly used in the manufacture of all kinds of iron. The ques- tion which has aroused considerable interest and been the cause of no small amount of controversy is: What furnace is entitled to the credit of first suc- cessfully using Lake Superior ore, and to what person or persons is the honor to be awarded ? The furnaces contesting for the honor are Sharpsville and Clay furnace, and the persons are David and J. P. Agnew and Francis Allen. By the former it is maintained that they worked the ore at the Sharpsville furnace successfully as early as 1853, while the latter maintains that it was not worked successfully until it was done in the Clay furnace after it was remodeled in October, 1856.

The whole controversy depends, it seems, upon what is meant by working ore successfully. After reading the articles published in 1877 in the Sharps- ville Advertiser by Messrs. Allen and Agnew, we have concluded that the term success must be defined to solve the difficulty. Certain things were conceded, however.

1. Lake Superior was first used in the Sharpsville furnace, thirty tons in 1853.

*For iron industries of West Middlesex and Wheatland see chapter on those boroughs.

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2. It was subsequently used at Clay furnace. The result we sball allow to be expressed by Mr. Allen in his reply to Mr. Agnew:

"As stated in a former article, we wish to accord to Mr. Agnew all honor for having worked thirty tons of Lake Superior ore mixed with native ore, and that, too, before any Lake Superior ore had ever been received at Clay fur- nace, even if it did take six days. And we now say that if it had taken six months to get this trifling amount through their furnace, we would still be willing to give them all praise for having done it. We spent three years at Clay furnace experimenting with lake ore, and notwithstanding the fact that during the whole of that time we succeeded much better than Mr. Agnew ever did at Sharpsville, we never worked it successfully until the fall of 1856."

Mr. Agnew claims that the fact that some of the iron made from the Lake Superior ore was afterward wrought into bars, nails, etc., at Sharon was evi- dence of the success claimed for the experiment. Success, then, might not be accepted as success now; but success, so he maintains, is a relative term.

The whole question, then, is one of success. Whether Lake Superior ore was worked successfully at Sharpsville in 1853 or not, it is very certain that it is worked there successfully at the present time.

COAL INTERESTS OF THE COUNTY.

The coal of the county has been, and is now, one of its important pro- ducts. A beneficent Providence, during the carboniferous age of the world, while dense forests covered the earth, among whose shady jungles crept huge reptiles, and through whose branches sported mighty pterodactyls, and while the atmosphere was heavily charged with carbonic acid gas, had in view the well-being of man, the mighty "lord of creation," and provided, in rich abundance, a fuel that could never be exhausted. He stored, within the bowels of mother earth the means by which his food could be cooked and his hearth-stone made cheerful. He who can study carefully this beautiful pro- vision and not feel deeply grateful, is lacking the primary elements of ap- preciation.

The coal districts of Mercer County seem to be three in number, viz .: 1. Those of the valley of the Shenango and its tributaries. 2. Those of the Wolf Creek region. 3. Those of the Big Sandy region. While this division may seem to be a little arbitrary, it will answer our purpose for what is to be pre- sented touching this important interest of the county.

The question is frequently asked-Who discovered the first coal in Mercer County? It is now known that citizens came from Trumbull County, Ohio, and obtained, on the farm now owned by Peter Simpkins, in the southwest part of West Salem Township, coal for blacksmithing purposes, as early as the settlements were made in that region, which occurred at the close of the last and opening of the present century. The coal was found cropping out from the rocks along the bluff of a small run. The coal has been regularly worked ever since, and furnishes a fine quality of the black diamonds. At present the mines are operated by the sons of Mr. Simpkins. In 1833-34 Joseph Loutzenhiser, residing northwest of Greenville, put down a shaft on the farm of Samuel Cannon. A shaft was put down about the same time on the Cossitt farm, southwest of Greenville. Early in 1835 croppings of coal were found near Sharon, on the lands afterward owned by Gen. Curtis. What is true of these persons is doubtless true of others -- they used coal found near at hand, and made no fuss about it.

Mercer County block coal is peculiar in its formation, being wholly unlike the black diamonds of the Pittsburgh region. It is described as possessing a

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"laminated structure, splitting into sheets, and is very difficult to break on the opposite of the lamina. The faces of the layers are often covered with a soft, dead, carbonaceous material, like charcoal, and the whole seam through- out is marked by alternate layers of dead and bright looking coal. In the act of combustion it neither smells nor changes form. In the furnace the blocks retain their shape until they fall to ashes." The characteristic qualities pos- sessed made it specially valuable in the manufacture of pig iron. For a long time it was used just as taken from the mines, and its use has only been supplanted by the cheap delivery of coke and natural gas at the furnaces.

The coal in the vicinity of Sharon was discovered in 1835. It is presumed that this means that it was found in paying quantities and subsequently opened up for inspection. It is claimed that Isaac Patterson found traces of coal as early as 1810, not a mile from the borough; but it never availed any- thing practically. The mines were, soon after discovery, opened on the lands owned by Gen. Curtis; and Charles Meek, who died at Sharon in May, 1876, was, by virtue of previous experience, called upon to take supervision. George Boyce, soon afterward, became associated with Gen. Curtis. Coal was easily obtained, but its use, at first, was only for home consumption. People were so accustomed to use wood as fuel that they were slow to substi- tute such a substance as coal. Then, too, the means for consuming it had to be invented, the ordinary fire hearths and cooking and heating stoves being ill adapted to the newly introduced fuel. Coal had to create its friends, and all the means for mining, transporting and consuming itself. This required time.

Prior to the completion of the Beaver & Erie Canal, the means of trans- portation were so imperfect that the coal mined had to go begging for a market. The construction of that medium of communication, however, gave an outlet to trade, and greatly stimulated this important industry. Shipments were made in all directions, at first with small profits, but finally with satis- factory terms to both capital and labor. The completion of the various rail- roads of the county, and especially those through the Shenango Valley, greatly stimulated its production and distribution.

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History of Mercer County, Pennsylvania : its past and present, Part 26

Author: Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : Brown, Runk Number of Pages: 1288

Author:
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : Brown, Runk
Number of Pages: 1288