History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Part 30

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1534

USA > Pennsylvania > Montgomery County > History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania > Part 30

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This affair reached the heads of the government, wherenpon the Hon. James Logan, president of the Council, issued a proclamation and a warrant, April 25, 1738, for the arrest of the "rioters," who are "to be proceeded against according to law, and that they, the said justices, exert the powers wherewith they are invested for the preservation of his Majesty's peace and the good order of government in those parts where the late tumult arose, or others may be likely to arise. And the sheriff's of the said counties of Philadelphia and Chester, respectively, are hereby

enjoined and required, with a sufficient assistance, if need be, to cause the warrants to be duly executed." This is the last official act we have been enabled to find on the subject, from whence we conclude that the shoremen, after contending for half a century, to some extent at least gave way before the majesty of the law, and the navigators, the fish, and the waters of the Schuylkill were permitted, till a recent time, to pass on less obstructed. Mingo, Pickering, and Perkiomen Creeks still retain their time-honored names. The same islands and channels are there, but the people are changed. The inhabitants of Limerick and Upper and Lower Providence town- ships, with those on the opposite side of the river, are reckoned now among our most peaceable citizens. The contest between the navigators and shoremen is long, long past,-it might be said long, long forgotten, -but the wand of the antiquary is mighty. Out of old musty tomes it may recreate a world to live again in imagination, as it once did in reality.

That considerable importance was attached to the navigation of the Schuylkill at an early period has been already shown in the contest between the navi- gators and the shoremen. Even William Penn, in his proposals for a second settlement in the province of Pennsylvania, published in 1690, alludes to the practicability of effecting a communication by water between a branch of the Schuylkill and the Susque- hanna. This, the reader should remember, was over half a century before canals were known in Great Britain. However, nothing was done, we believe, to- wards improving its navigation for a considerable length of time, though the matter was occasionally agitated. To promote the same an act was passed by the Assembly, March 14, 1761, from which we give the following extract: "Whereas, the river Schuyl- kill is navigable for rafts, boats, and other small craft in times of high freshes only, occasioned by the ob- struction of rocks and bars of sand and gravel in divers parts of the same ; and whereas, the improving of the navigation of said river, so as to make it pass- able at all times, will be very advantageous to the poor, greatly conductive to the promotion of indus- try, and beneficial to the inhabitants residing on or near said river, by enabling them to bring the pro- duce of the country to the market of the city of Phila- delphia, and thereby increase the trade and commerce of the province; and whereas, divers of the inhabi- tants of this province, desirous to promote the welfare of the public, have subscribed large sums of money for the purpose aforesaid, and, by petition to the As- sembly, have requested that commissioners may be appointed by law to take, receive, and collect the said subscriptions, and such others as shall hereafter be given or subscribed, and to apply and appropriate the same for and towards the clearing, scouring, and rendering the said river navigable as aforesaid."

To carry out this measure Joseph Fox, John Hughs, Samuel Rhoads, John Potts, William Palmer,

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David Davis, Mordecai Moore, Henry Pawling, James Coultas, Jonathan Coates, Joseph Millard, Willian Bird, Francis Parvin, Benjamin Lightfoot, and Isaac Levan were appointed commissioners. This act had also for its object the preservation of fish, especially the shad, herring, and rockfish, which ascended this stream annually in great shoals from the sea. For this purpose the commissioners were empowered not only to destroy but to prevent the erection of all wears, racks, fish-dams, and baskets within the same. Several of the commissioners mentioned having died, a new board was appointed by the Assembly in 1773 to carry out the measures contained in the act of 1761. For this purpose David Rittenhouse, Anthony Levering, John Roberts, William Dewees, Jr., David Thomas, James Hockley, Thomas Potts, Mark Bird, James Starr, Jacob Kern, aud John Pawling, Jr., were selected. Several of this number, with David Rittenhouse, proceeded in 1773 to an examination of the channel, and estimated the cost of clearing the river from the Falls above Philadelphia to Reading at eleven hundred and forty-seven pounds. This amount included the sum of one hundred and ninety-two pounds from the Falls to Spring Mill, a distance of over seven miles, regarded the most expensive por- tion. It is supposed that but little was done at this time towards the improvement of its navigation, which the approaching troubles of the Revolution must have checked.

We hear of nothing further on this subject until during the encampment of Washington and his army at Valley Forge, when it became a question as to a means of procuring supplies. Charles Pettit thus wrote from the camp, May 16, 1778, to Thomas Whar- ton, Jr., president of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania: "The necessary transportation of stores and forage is so great that we wish to improve the little water-carriage left in our power to the best advantage. For this end we have got a number of boats now in use on the Schuylkill, which answer the purpose very well when the river is pretty full, but it is now so low that the navigation is much obstructed. Maj. Eyre has surveyed the river from Reading hither, and informs me it may without difficulty be rendered navigable through the summer season for the boats lately constructed, which are calculated to draw but little water in proportion to the burden they carry. The river is now so low, and if a number of the people of the counties bordering on the river could be assembled at each of the passes nearest to their respective habitations, the work might be com- pleted in a very few days. Maj. Eyre informs me the expense will not probably exceed two thousand pounds."

Accompanying Mr. Pettit's communication was a - report on the condition of the several fords of Schuyl- kill between Reading and Valley Forge. We extract that portion relating to Montgomery County as pos- sessing interest in showing the changes that may have

since been made at these several places above a cen- tury ago : "Jacob Floyd's Ford, 21 miles below Read- ing, 14 inches of water ; Pottsgrove Ford, 2 miles, 14 inches; Mr. Bechtel's, 1 mile, 6 inches ; Mr. Potts' Dam, 4 miles, 5 inches ; Bombay Ilook Ford, 6 inches; John Heisler's Ford, 2 miles, 12 inches; Daniel Matts' Shoals, I mile, 10 inches; Edward Barker's Ford, I mile, 6 inches, with small rocks; Barker's Shoals, { mile, 6 inches ; George Ross' Fish-dam, 13 miles, 12 inches ; Erasmus Lewis' Shoals, 1} miles, 6 inches, rocky ; Frederick Lower's Shoals, } mile, 6 inches, rocky ; Lawrence Nipple's Ford, } mile, 6 inches, level bottom ; Adam Ifallman's Long Shoals, 23 miles, 7 inches ; Black Rock, 4 to 20 feet; John Buckwalter's Fish-dam, 2 miles, 6 inches ; Gordon's Ford, 7 to 15 inches; French Creek, 1 mile, and Moore Hall, 9 inches; Richardson's Ford, I mile, 7 inches, rocky ; Pennypacker's, } mile, 7 inches; Paw- ling's Ford, 7 inches ; Sullivan's Bridge, 8 to 12 inches, stony."

An account of the early fords and ferrying-places of the Schuylkill as an aid to traveling facilities be- fore the construction of bridges is an interesting sub- ject to the antiquary, and will be more fully treated in the history of the several townships and boroughs, where they more properly belong. During high water fording was rendered dangerons from the greater depth and velocity of the water, and with the increase of travel ferriage became more common, being made likewise less dangerous during the winter season from the masses of floating ice, or when not of sufficient thickness to permit wagons to cross upon it. Swedes' Ford was a noted fording-place even back to 1730. A tavern was there in 1760, and on its sigu was a rep- resentation of a ferry. A rope was here stretched across the river in a sloping direction, securely fast- ened to a tree or a post or building on either shore. To this a stout iron ring was secured, to which the boat or scow would be fastened, while it would slide along, propelled more or less by the current. These ropes, so necessary in securely transporting passen- gers, horses, wagons, and freight, were occasionally cut and purloined by some evil-disposed persons. In consequence the ferrymen petitioned the Assem- bly for protection from these outrages on their prop- erty, when an act was passed Feb. 8, 1766, making such offenses along the Schuylkill finable iu the sum of ten pounds to each. The first bridges to cross the river within the county were built at Flat Rock and Pawling's about 1810, at Pottstown, 1819, and at Norristown in 1829, not until more than a century had elapsed since its settlement, so slow was the spirit of enterprise.

John Adlum and Benjamiu Rittenhouse, who had been appointed commissioners to examine into the feasibility of still further improving the navigation of the Schuylkill, proceeded on this labor in the fall of 1789 and the following year. Their report, ad- dressed to Thomas Mifflin, president of the Supreme

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Executive Council, was printed in 1791, from which we condense the following: "We conceived it most advisable to examine that part of the Schuylkill lying between Spring Mill and the Great Falls, being that part of the river said to be the most dangerous to the navigation of boats from Reading to this city. The 2d of November we began at Spring Mill, and pro- ceeded down the river, carefully noting every obstruc- tion to be removed and necessary improvements to be made, with the probable expense attending the same. On the 7th we set off for Hamburg, near the foot of the Blue Mountain, and proceeded down towards Reading, taking the courses, measuring the distance, and taking the quantity of fall in the river down to the ford opposite said town, carefully noting the fish- dams, the rocks, and other obstructions necessary to be removed. As it appears probable the principal advantages that can accrue from that part of the river, at least for some time, will be in rafting of lumber down to the city, little more is necessary at present than removing a few rocks, some fixed and others loose, lying in the channel, as the expense will be small to render the passage safe for that purpose. At Reading we hired a boat, and came down the Schuylkill to where we first began, and it is with great pleasure we can say we have, on a careful ex- amination, found the Schuylkill River an object of much greater consequence to the State than we be- fore had an idea of. The channel we find alinost uniformly on the east side, in one instance near two miles without variation, generally very near the shore, and we are of opinion that it be made navigable for boats of eight or ten tons burthen at all seasons, ex- cept when obstructed by ice, at the expense esti- mated.

"We conclude our report by remarking that we have in the prosecution of this business observed with regret the great number of fishing-dams erected in defiance of the law, as a nuisance of the worst kind. In many instances, where they have been continued for a number of years, the sand and gravel has gradu- ally settled amongst the stones, and by that means formed a firm bar or shoal from one side of the river to the other, which will be expensive to remove. We therefore are of opinion that if an effectual stop is not put to that mischievous practice every attempt to render the navigation beneficial will be abortive. The only certain method we can conceive to put a stop to the practice in future will be to lay a heavy penalty on the proprietors of the lands where such dams shall be erected." The expense estimated iu this report from Philadelphia to Reading was £1519 13%., which sum included £270 for clearing the Schuylkill from the Falls to Spring Mill. Through these efforts, besides the removal of rocks and other obstructions, dams were made at various places to deepen the water and increase the volume of its cur- rent, so that boats of a greater dranght could be nsed.

An act was passed the 29th of September, 1791, to

incorporate a company to connect the Schuylkill with the Susquehanna by a canal and slack-water naviga- tion, and also to improve the navigable waters of the Schuylkill from the Lower Falls, a few miles above Philadelphia, to Reading, for which purpose the Assembly appropriated two thousand five hundred pounds as an encouragement to the enterprise. A company was also incorporated April 10, 1792, to make a canal from Norristown to the river Delaware at Philadelphia. From the former place the Schuyl- kill was to be temporarily improved, and thus form with the works of the former company an uninter- rupted water communication with the interior of the State. One of the objects, also, in constructing the canal from Norristown was by this means to furnish Philadelphia with water. The undertaking was com- menced by the two companies, and at the close of 1794 they had expended four hundred and forty thousand dollars, and had nearly completed fifteen miles of the most difficult part of the two works, six miles of which was on the east bank of the Schuylkill. Some of the principal stockholders having become involved at the time in commercial difficulties, and declining to pay in their installments, they were compelled to suspend operations. As an additional inducement to revive the companies the State passed an act April 17, 1795, to empower them to raise by way of lottery the addi- tional sum of four hundred thousand dollars, for the purpose of completing their works, as mentioned in the acts of incorporation. Naught availed, though this offer induced several abortive attempts, which only tended to continue in these companies a languish- ing existence. Below Norristown, beginning near the Swedes' Ford bridge, by the banks of the Schuylkill, may still be seen the excavation made for this canal for some distance above the river. It remains there, a monument of an undertaking commenced in 1792, but never finished.

In the year 1811 the two companies were united as the Union Canal Company, and in 1819 and 1821 the State granted further aid by a guarantee of interest and a monopoly of the lottery privilege. In conse- quence of this legislative encouragement, there were additional subscriptions obtained to the stock of the company to resume operations in 1821. The line was relocated, the dimensions of the canal changed, and the whole work finished in about six years from this period, after thirty-seven years had elapsed from the commencement of the work and sixty-five from the date of the first survey by David Rittenhouse and Rev. William Smith. This canal is eighty miles in length, extending from the Schuylkill four miles below Reading, where it connects with the works of the Schuylkill Navigation Company, thence up the Tulpehocken Creek to the Swatara, and thence down the same to Middletown, on the Susquehanna, thus connecting the two rivers. which William Penn con- ceived in 1690, but which required an interval of one hundred and thirty-seven years to be put into prac-

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tical operation. The whole cost of this work was about two million dollars.

The Schuylkill Navigation Company was incorpo- rated under the act of the 8th of March, 1815, by which they were required to commence operations at each end of the route simultaneously ; their labors, in consequence, were rendered nearly useless until the whole line would be completed. This certainly was an ingenious plan in the Assembly to insure the com- pletion of the undertaking. This work is about one hundred and ten miles in length, beginning at Fair- mount, Philadelphia, and extending to Mill Creek, at Port Carbon, in Schuylkill County. It consists of a series of canals sixty-three miles in length, and slack- water-pools for forty-seven miles, produced by thirty- four dams, which feed the canals. This work in its whole length was made three and a half feet deep, with a width of no less than thirty-six feet at the surface. There were one hundred and nine locks, of six hundred and twenty feet ascent, each eighty feet long and seventeen broad, and one tunnel three hun- dred and eighty-five feet in length, the first, it is said, attempted in the United States. The whole cost of the line was two million nine hundred and sixty-six thousand one hundred and eighty dollars. It was commenced immediately after its incorporation, and finished in 1826. In 1818 it was sufficiently com- pleted to allow the descent of a few boats, on which tolls were collected to the amount of two hundred and thirty dollars, which comprised the total of its first year's receipts.

In consequence chiefly of the great increase of the coal trade, it was determined to enlarge the capacity of the canal for a greater amount of business, which was accordingly done in 1846. Hitherto it had only admitted the passage of boats of sixty-six tons, but by the enlargement boats of one hundred and eighty- six tons are enabled to pass through its whole length of one hundred and ten miles, being one of the grandest works of the kind in the Union. As will be observed, a great improvement was made. The locks were reduced in number from one hundred and nine to seventy-one, and enlarged to one hundred and ten by eighteen feet, the width of its canals to not less than sixty feet, with a depth of at least five and a half feet. To guard against the danger of a deficiency of water, to which the navigation is exposed in dry seasons, the company has erected several large dams upon tributary streams at the head of navigation from which to draw supplies in cases of deficiency. The dam at Silver Creek covers nearly sixty acres, and is estimated to hold sufficient water of itself to float about 120,000 tons of coal annually to market. As may be expected, the business of this great work has increased wonderfully. In 1825 this line brought about 5000 tons of coal to market; in 1827, 31,300 tons; and in 1857 it was 1,275,988 tons, showing that forty tons had now gone over the works to one thirty years previously. It is stated on reliable authority

that the coal consumed by the various furnaces, forges, and manufactories in the valley of the Schuylkill amounted in 1860 to 500,000 tons annually, and now no doubt has reached double that amount. Thus we see how greatly important this trade has become. We have said that the Schuylkill flows by Montgomery County about forty miles, in which distance the Navi- gation Company has erected six dams across it, which at Norristown and Conshohocken afford valuable water-power. This great work has been leased by the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company for several years, under whose management it is now conducted.

After having treated on the several means adopted for the improvement of the navigation of the Schuyl- kill, it now becomes us to give some account of the various kinds of craft used for this purpose. In the prosecution of the beaver trade by the Dutch and the Indians the canoe must have been their chief de- pendence for travel and freight. We know that some of these were so large as to carry in periods of high water as much as one hundred and forty bushels of wheat before 1732 to Philadelphia from a distance of at least ten miles beyond the upper limits of the pres- ent county. The Swedish settlers of Morlatton had a strong attachment to the Schuylkill, and were skilled in its navigation with the canoe some time even before 1716, transporting themselves and their produce chiefly by this means to the mill, the store, the church, and the market. We even ascertain that to their weddings and funerals they were frequently thus conveyed. As has been stated, with the greatest care they were therein at almost any time liable to accident Abraham Adams was drowned in the Per- kiomen Creek hy falling out of his canoe, April 5, 1738. Thomas Lewis, in an advertisement in 1752 of his mill property for sale near the mouth of Mingo Creek, mentions among its advantages that "loaded canoes can come to the mill-door."

With the improvement of the navigation the " Read- ing boat," as it was called, became more and more in- troduced, as a decided improvement over the clumsier canoe, for the general purposes of transportation. By the Revolution it had been largely substituted as much more convenient and expeditious. These boats were long and narrow, sharp at both ends, and carried from seventy-five to one hundred barrels of flour. From their size were chiefly used in freshets or high water, and for their management required a crew of from three to five men. Coming generally from Read- ing, they were besides called "long boats." They drifted down rapidly with the current; but to take them back was chiefly done with poles shod with iron, which was laborious work. Their return cargoes in consequence had to be light. Between Spring Mill and the Lower Falls the river descended twenty-four feet in about six miles, and it was here, at the most difficult places, as at Flat Rock, an exciting scene to see these boats shoot rapidly through the turbulent

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current, at times almost lost to siglit. The down-trip took from one to two days, and the return sometimes as many as five or six. They carried flour, grain, pro- visions, and other articles, besides, occasionally, pas- sengers. During the war of 1812, Capt. Daniel D. B. Keim's company of soldiers from Reading and Capt. Hanley's, of Pottstown, were transported in this man- ner to Philadelphia,

In 1858, Rachel Roberts, of Bridgeport, then in her seventy-eighth year, informed the writer that in her youth she went with her father to Philadelphia in a canoe, and in passing through the Falls became greatly frightened from the danger attending its un- steady motion and velocity. In returning, it had to be poled the greater portion of the distance. Canoes, Reading boats, and rafts were quite common in the river at that time, but the people had no knowl-

upwards of one hundred and sixty tons, and would require, in the present condition of the roads, at least one hundred and sixty teams of good horses to haul the same to market."

Owing to the abundance of pine and hemlock tim- ber among the mountains and sources of the Schuyl- kill, the first settlers, excepting a few hunters, came hither to avail themselves of this means for a liveli- hond. At first rafts were entirely constructed of logs, seldom over twelve feet in width and generally six- teen feet in length. Sometimes ten such rafts or sec- tions would be fastened behind each other and laden with shingles ; being yielding, though of so consider- ahle a length, would readily, in favorable stages of water, pass over the shallowest places. When saw- mills became more numerous, these rafts were more and more constructed of boards placed crossways to

FLAT ROCK DAM ON THE SCHUYLKILL, 1828.

edge of bateaux. Strange to say, she stated that there were taverns then along the shore for the especial ac- commodation of voyagers, which were known as boat- houses ; although travelers carried their provisions along, yet they were often obliged to resort to these public-houses for lodging and other necessaries. My informant was the great-granddaughter of Mats and Breta Holstein, among the early settlers of Upper Merion. This canoe-trip was probably made about 1790. Some knowledge of the commerce on the river may be gained from a statement made in a Reading newspaper under date of March 6, 1802: “Within the present week were taken down on the Schuylkill to the mills and city of Philadelphia in the boats of this place in one day the following articles : 1201 bar- rels of flour, 1425 bushels of wheat, 17 tons of barr iron, 1492 gallons of whiskey, 365 pounds of butter, and 500 pounds of snuff. The whole amounted to

each other in alternate layers, securely fastened to- gether by hickory withes. When the whole was ar- ranged, a long oar was placed at each end for direct- ing its course through the windings of the stream and where its channel was the safest. On these, shingles would also be piled and no inconsiderable quantities of lathe and scantling, until they would draw a depth rarely exceeding fifteen inches. Two or three men would be attached to one raft, and on a favorable rise of the water their provisions and other comforts would be burried on board, and the hardy adventu- rers would proceed on their voyage to the distant market from the vicinity of the present towns of Port Carbon, Pottsville, and other sections of Schuylkill County, as well as the adjoining portion of Berks. The distance to Spring Mill would be often made in a day and a half, and to Reading in six or seven hours, a distance of nearly forty miles. Of course the

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History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Part 30

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901 Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck Number of Pages: 1534

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1534