USA > Pennsylvania > Schuylkill County > History of Schuylkill County, Pa. with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 6
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PIONEERING IN SCHUYLKILL COUNTY.
in greater luxuriance, is the spot where he sleeps un- known; but his memory is kept alive by all who ever heard his name, in the traditions that make the unwrit- ten history of every town and county. No portion of any State or Territory has been exempt from these hard- ships and privations, these terrible experiences. But there has been a compensation for it all in the growth of individual courage, of greater power of endurance, and of a restless enterprise that has impelled successive generations to move onward and onward, wave after wave, bearing everything down that obstructed their progress.
It cannot be determined with certainty when the first residents crossed the Kittatinny and established them- selves in the valley of the Little Schuylkill and of the main streams above the gap. Whether the advance was made by the settlers on the Tulpehocken or from Alle- mingle is equally uncertain. The purchase of the lands on the Tulpehocken by Thomas Penn in 1732, and those north of the Kittatinny from the Susquehanna to the Delaware in 1749, gave them the right to the soil, which they had not before possessed; and it is probable that many adventurous spirits took advantage of this addi- tional security against marauding Indians to become permanent settlers along the streams north of the Blue mountain. The want of roads and the absence of all means of transportation by wagons would prevent them from going far from previous settlements, and there is no very authentic evidence that any one had penetrated the wilds as far as the head waters of the Schuylkill, for the purpose of settling there, till after the close of the French and Indian war. Indeed, up to that time only a few families occupied the land along the streams and in the valleys just above the Kittatinny, and they had made but little progress in clearing the lands for agricultural purposes. The pioneer ususally has scant means at his disposal; his effort is more for a living than ac- cumulation; consequently he clears at first only enough ground to plant such seeds as will give to him and the family he hopes to rear the most substantial sup- port. Corn, potatoes, turnips, and a few things to fill the little patch he calls a garden, constitute the crops that fill the measure of his harvest hopes. When he first arrives at the place where he intends to build his future home, he looks about for a sunny exposure, and a cool, unfailing spring, which his practiced eye is not long in discovering among the ferns that grow rank and green among the old forest trees in the little ravine that its waters have eroded from the sloping land. Here at first he erects a cabin to shelter himself from storms, that are always sudden and severe in the primal forests, and pro- tect his little stores from predatory animals that scent them from their dens in the hills or their lairs in the dense undergrowth of the swamps. The cabin is formed by placing a pole in the forks of upright saplings of suit- able height from the surface, either of natural growth or planted in the ground a few feet apart. Other saplings are cut and leaned against this ridge-pole, at a slope which gives a breadth of base sufficient for a small room,
in which he is to sleep, cook, and keep his supplies. The openings between the poles are closed with clay, bark, or anything that will keep out at least a portion of the search- ing rain and cold. His bed is at the end, which has been closed by driving stakes into the ground and binding them to the slopes with withes made of young hickory, and consists of sticks laid together on supports a few inches from the ground, upon which are laid the aromatic hemlock boughs, and the skins of such animals as his trusty rifle has enabled him to take for food and other uses. Having secured a place of shelter, he next attacks the sturdy oaks, tall pines, and other trees that densely cover the land. The heavy blows of lis keen ax are heard afar in the still morning air, and at high noon, and when the sun is low, and the dews fall, and the stars come out. He does not go to his toil at the sound of a bell or horn, nor does he take note of the passing hours. He works till hunger prompts him to stop and eat, or thirst leads him to the head of the little stream that runs by his cabin door. Here, as he stoops to drink from the little pool he has made, he sees his dishevelled hair and uncropped beard, and wonders how soon he may venture to bring to that lonely place the one who is to be the partner of his life, and whose nimble fingers will trim this roughness away and bring out the lineaments of beauty that were admired in many a social circle beyond the mountains or in the fatherland across the sea. But he does not linger long to dream ; his sturdy blows are again heard, and soon a tall pine sways to and fro, and falls with a crash that echoes far through the forest, and the beasts tremble, and the Indian hunter stops in his trail to listen and take note of the intruder. If the tree is too large for his time and strength to fell, he " girdles " it, by cutting off the supply of sap, and its foliage droops, and it dies where it stands, and no shadow falls upon his crop to blight it. The timber suitable for the log house he intends to build is carefully laid aside, and what can be made into shingles is split and shaved, taken to the nearest stream, rafted with his logs to the distant town and exchanged for needed supplies. The remainder is gathered together for burning, and thus his first field is cleared and made ready for the seed. He prepares the surface as best he can, and plants his grain and vege- tables with an abiding faith that Providence will bless his fields and give him a plentiful harvest.
As the weeks and months go by his prospects improve, and with the help of others, who have been attracted to the locality by the quality of his shingles, he erects the log house that has, from the first, held prominence in all his day dreams. It is a rude structure, made by cutting the logs into equal lengths and forming a notch near the end in each one, so that when one is laid upon the other they will be interlocked and held in place. Spaces are left for the doors and windows by using shorter logs, sawed square at the ends and having no notches ; these are confined to their proper places by fastenings to the window and door frames. As a general thing in con- structing a log house provision is made for many con- templated improvements that are not consummated ;
32
HISTORY OF SCHUYLKILL COUNTY.
CHAPTER III.
TOPOGRAPHY OF SCHUYLKILL COUNTV.
BY R. A. WILDER.
OWHERE else in Pennsylvania are the sur- face features so peculiar and full of interest as those presented by the topography of Schuylkill county. Beginning at the Kitta- tinny or Blue mountain, the crest of which bounds it on the southeast, it consists of a suc- cession of hills and valleys and mountain chains, nearly parallel with each other, and ranging northeast and southwest throughout its whole extent. These hills and valleys are generally a group of grand telluric waves, forming synclinal and anticlinal axes of the strata, and they appear to have been caused by the immense upheaving forces commencing at the ancient coast line of the ocean, and pressing forward toward the northwest with such tremendous power as to throw most of the then horizontal strata into a vertical position for a great dis- tance inland, till they began to weaken in strength, and finally ceased to act, and left, with their expiring throes, the great convolutions which enfold the wealth of an empire.
These ranges of hills and mountains have local names to distinguish them from each other, and though they may vary to some extent in different parts of the county, it is easy to trace any one of them. Following the course of the Schuylkill river from where it breaks through the gorge of the Blue mountain, and of its tri- butaries to their sources in the plateau of the Broad mountain, and the still smaller streams which run into them through the valleys formed by the parallel hills, at nearly right angles to the general courses of the princi- pal ones, which flow through the dark ravines of the mountains, we find the causes which have operated to change the uniformity of the great convolutions into diversified scenery of surpassing beauty and grandeur. The whole country is eroded to an unusual extent, and the work of denudation has not been confined to the streams; frost and vapors, charged more or less with sul- phuric acid, have disintegrated the rocky strata where the rains of centuries have washed them bare of their earthy coverings, and the sand and gravel thus formed, together with the earth washings, have been precipitated into the valleys, elevating them and depressing the moun tains and hills to an extent which cannot be estimated, because vast quantities have been moved onward by the floods and finally found a resting place in the new coast line of the ocean.
east, but does not attain any considerable elevation at any place.
Second mountain is the first of the principal moun- tains of the county, and rises from five to seven hundred feet above the bed of the streams that break through it, or from twelve to thirteen hundred feet above mean tide at Philadelphia. This mountain has in many places two crests, caused by the eroding effects of springs near the summit upon the loose red shale which has been washed down into the streams flowing through the gap. This characteristic has suggested the local name of "Gobel Berk," or Fork mountain.
The next considerable elevation is the Sharp moun- tain, which rises about six hundred feet above the bed of the streams breaking through it. It is rendered more interesting than any other of the ranges of mountains, by being the southern boundary of the anthracite coal field; though the coal seams found in it are thin and broken, owing doubtless to the tremendous pressure that turned the underlying strata to the north of the vertical line, or caused the carbonaceous material to slip back into the basin below while the terrible convulsion was in active operation. It is a clearly defined wall or dike extending across the county from west to east, and presents no break in the uniformity of its crest except where the Swatara, the west branch of the Schuylkill, the Schuyl- kill and Little Schuylkill have gradually deepened and widened some primal fissures to the superficial base of the wall; but this occurred long after the denudation of the mountains had covered the carbonaceous strata so deeply as to prevent any wastage of coal from this cause, except the portions of veins stretching across the present gorges.
From the Sharp mountain to Mine hill, which is the next regular range of elevation, there are no ridges of importance, except the one known as Red mountain, ex- tending from the west branch of the Schuylkill to the western line of the county. There are undulations of the strata which have, to a considerable extent, shaped the surface and added to the beauty of the topography in rounding the angles of elevation and softening the contour of the interwinding valleys. Mine hill is the great anticlinal axis of the Schuylkill coal field. It has been forced upward through the whole superincumbent strata, and shows in many denuded places the great con- glomerate floor of the carbonaceous structure. At the gap north of Minersville a grand arch of conglomerate extending from the southern to the northern base of the mountain is presented to the observer. The Swatara, Middle creek, Little Swatara, Muddy Branch, West Branch, Mill creek, and some smaller streams to the east, which have their sources in the narrow valleys be- tween the Mine hill and Broad mountain, break through this solid wall of hardest rock at as many different points, and fall in picturesque cascades, and over boul-
Between the Blue mountain and the Second mountain there are no elevations of importance; Summer hill, be- ders that have rolled ages ago from the crest, in a manner low Schuylkill Haven, is a clearly defined range extending to make them very attractive to visitors, and the scene of for several miles. Lime ridge, crossing at Schuylkill many a summer pic-nic. But the great practical utility of these deep gorges is the advantage they present for Haven, is easily traced through the county from west to
MOUNTAINS AND STREAMS OF SCHUYLKILL COUNTY.
33
passing the rocky barrier, without tunnels, with railroads to transport the products of the northern mines.
Broad mountain is an elevated plateau about sixteen to eighteen hundred feet above tide, and contains an area of seventy to eighty square miles in Schuylkill county. It is the great water shed of the region for the Susquehanna, the Schuylkill, and the Lehigh rivers. The Mammoth and some smaller veins of coal underlie its southern slopes, but with the exception of a few small narrow;basins, not very reliable, on the summit, it contains no other coal or mineral of any kind. It is the source of numerous small streams which will become very val. uable in the course of time for supplying the wants of a rapidly growing population, in a district where so much of this essential element is poisoned by impregnations of the mines. For a long time this mountain presented an impassable barrier to the products of the middle coal field, but finally it was crossed by railways, with a system of inclined planes, which have proved very economical and efficient. Fifty years ago this mountain was covered with a dense growth of heavy timber, consisting of yellow pine, hemlock, and oak; but this has long since been transferred to the support of the rude galleries of the coal measures, and used in the erection of structures for colliery purposes. It is not probable that it will ever be covered with a second growth, for the soil is not fertile, and the forest fires sweep over it, as over all the other mountain ranges in the spring, with relentless fury. The north slope of this plateau is much steeper than the southern, and this face is deeply indented by small rapidly eroding streams which flow toward the Susquehanna, and break it into numerous spurs. At the eastern end of the county the waters from this mountain drain into the Little Schuylkill, and the tributaries of the Lehigh. Its characteristics are not there as clearly defined as at the middle portion just de- scribed, and which is made more interesting by the passage of the railway systems that develop the middle coal field.
The Mahanoy mountain "is next in order of succession, and becomes interesting as the southern wall of the mid- dle coal field. It is lower than the Broad mountain, and in general features bears a striking resemblance to Sharp mountain, which is the southern wall of the Potts- ville basin. It has but two gorges in the county, both near Ashland, where the Mahanoy creek and Big run have broken through and eroded it to its bases. Leav- ing the line of Schuylkill county it sweeps off to the west and unites with Big mountain in Northumberland county, which forms the northern edge of the sharp pointed, canoe-shaped basin of the middle coal field. The strata of Mahanoy mountain are nearly vertical, and, as it contains the great vein of the coal measures, this position has made it difficult to work, and a vast amount of waste has resulted; but the quantity of coal taken out above water level has been greater than from any other mountain range, and below water level its yield is still very great. Between this and the Locust mountain, several ridges have been thrown up, bearing the local names of Locust ridge, Bear ridge, etc., but
they do not extend very far, and may be regarded as spurs, formed out of the higher range by erosion. They have no other distinction than as favorable sites for collieries.
The Locust mountain extends from Northumberland county into the northern portion of Schuylkill, where it soon acquires the local name of North Mahanoy, and forms the northern boundary of its coal. Many valuable collieries are located upon its southern slopes, near Shen- andoah city, from the royalties of which the Girard Trust derives a large income annually. The lands of all this section of the county are only valuable for the coal they contain. No other mineral deposits have ever been found, and they have long since been stripped of their timber which, thirty years ago, was exceedingly heavy and valuable. The washings from the mountain slopes were mostly carried away by the swollen floods, and left no fertilizing properties in the soil for the agriculturist. The same is true of all the southern coal fields. From the Second mountain north there are not a dozen farms worth cultivating as an investment, and the great wonder is that any man could ever be induced to enter the region for such a purpose; and it is more than probable that the few who have made agriculture a business were at- tracted here first by other considerations. Between the Second and Blue mountains, and beyond the bounds of the coal formation, in the extreme western and northern angles of the county, the valleys are wider, and the streams which flow through them less turbulent, and there the farmer has some hope of reward for his labor; but if all he has expended were charged against the land, and it were credited with what it has produced, the average balances to profit and loss would be on the debtor side.
The streams of this county are numerous, and some of them, like the Schuylkill, the Little Schuylkill, the Swa- tara and Mahanoy, have wide beds of sufficient depth to carry large bodies of water; but while the rainfall is equal to or greater than that in many parts of the State, the sources are near, and at great elevations, and the ac- cumulations from rainfalls and melting snows are sud- denly precipitated into the beds of the streams and car- ried away in floods, and the fall is nearly as sudden as the rise. Under such conditions no water power can be utilized for extensive manufacturing, and none has been attempted. Saw-mills and grist-mills, and here and there a powder-mill, and a small manufactory of woolen goods, are the only industries utilizing the vast bodies of water flowing from the water sheds of this county. Some portion of the surplus waters has been stored up by the erection of the Tumbling run and Silver creek reservoirs, to supply the Schuylkill canal with sufficient water to keep the coal tonnage afloat during the dry sea- son which usually prevails every year, from the causes here stated; and also in the smaller ones built to secure the necessary quantity for the towns and the great num- bers of steam engines employed in mining, preparing and transporting anthracite coal.
In geological structure this county belongs to the Upper Silurian and Devonian systems, and above these is the
5
32
HISTORY OF SCHUYLKILL COUNTY.
CHAPTER III.
TOPOGRAPHY OF SCHUYLKILL COUNTY.
BY R. A. WILDER.
OWHERE else in Pennsylvania are the sur- face features so peculiar and full of interest as those presented by the topography of Schuylkill county. Beginning at the Kitta- tinny or Blue mountain, the crest of which bounds it on the southeast, it consists of a suc- cession of hills and valleys and mountain chains, nearly parallel with each other, and ranging northeast and southwest throughout its whole extent. These hills and valleys are generally a group of grand telluric waves, forming synclinal and anticlinal axes of the strata, and they appear to have been caused by the immense upheaving forces commencing at the ancient coast line of the ocean, and pressing forward toward the northwest with such tremendous power as to throw most of the then horizontal strata into a vertical position for a great dis- tance inland, till they began to weaken in strength, and finally ceased to act, and left, with their expiring throes, the great convolutions which enfold the wealth of an empire.
These ranges of hills and mountains have local names to distinguish them from each other, and though they may vary to some extent in different parts of the county, it is easy to trace any one of them. Following the course of the Schuylkill river from where it breaks through the gorge of the Blue mountain, and of its tri- butaries to their sources in the plateau of the Broad mountain, and the still smaller streams which run into them through the valleys formed by the parallel hills, at nearly right angles to the general courses of the princi- pal ones, which flow through the dark ravines of the mountains, we find the causes which have operated to change the uniformity of the great convolutions into diversified scenery of surpassing beauty and grandeur. The whole country is eroded to an unusual extent, and the work of denudation has not been confined to the streams; frost and vapors, charged more or less with sul- phuric acid, have disintegrated the rocky strata where the rains of centuries have washed them bare of their earthy coverings, and the sand and gravel thus formed, together with the earth washings, have been precipitated into the valleys, elevating them and depressing the moun tains and hills to an extent which cannot be estimated, because vast quantities have been moved onward by the floods and finally found a resting place in the new coast line of the ocean.
.
east, but does not attain any considerable elevation at any place.
Second mountain is the first of the principal moun- tains of the county, and rises from five to seven hundred feet above the bed of the streams that break through it, or from twelve to thirteen hundred feet above mean tide at Philadelphia. This mountain has in many places two crests, caused by the eroding effects of springs near the summit upon the loose red shale which has been washed down into the streams flowing through the gap. This characteristic has suggested the local name of "Gobel Berk," or Fork mountain.
The next considerable elevation is the Sharp moun- tain, which rises about six hundred feet above the bed of the streams breaking through it. It is rendered more interesting than any other of the ranges of mountains, by being the southern boundary of the anthracite coal field; though the coal seams found in it are thin and broken, owing doubtless to the tremendous pressure that turned the underlying strata to the north of the vertical line, or caused the carbonaceous material to slip back into the basin below while the terrible convulsion was in active operation. It is a clearly defined wall or dike extending across the county from west to east, and presents no break in the uniformity of its crest except where the Swatara, the west branch of the Schuylkill, the Schuyl- kill and Little Schuylkill have gradually deepened and widened some primal fissures to the superficial base of the wall; but this occurred long after the denudation of the mountains had covered the carbonaceous strata so deeply as to prevent any wastage of coal from this cause, except the portions of veins stretching across the present gorges.
From the Sharp mountain to Mine hill, which is the next regular range of elevation, there are no ridges of importance, except the one known as Red mountain, ex- tending from the west branch of the Schuylkill to the western line of the county. There are undulations of the strata which have, to a considerable extent, shaped the surface and added to the beauty of the topography in rounding the angles of elevation and softening the contour of the interwinding valleys. Mine hill is the great anticlinal axis of the Schuylkill coal field. It has been forced upward through the whole superincumbent strata, and shows in many denuded places the great con- glomerate floor of the carbonaceous structure. At the gap north of Minersville a grand arch of conglomerate extending from the southern to the northern base of the mountain is presented to the observer. The Swatara, Middle creek, Little Swatara, Muddy Branch, West Branch, Mill creek, and some smaller streams to the east, which have their sources in the narrow valleys be- tween the Mine hill and Broad mountain, break through this solid wall of hardest rock at as many different points, and fall in picturesque cascades, and over boul- ders that have rolled ages ago from the crest, in a manner to make them very attractive to visitors, and the scene of many a summer pic-nic. But the great practical utility
Between the Blue mountain and the Second mountain there are no elevations of importance; Summer hill, be- low Schuylkill Haven, is a clearly defined range extending for several miles. Lime ridge, crossing at Schuylkill Haven, is easily traced through the county from west to of these deep gorges is the advantage they present for
33
MOUNTAINS AND STREAMS OF SCHUYLKILL COUNTY.
passing the rocky barrier, without tunnels, with railroads to transport the products of the northern mines.
Broad mountain is an elevated plateau about sixteen to eighteen hundred feet above tide, and contains an area of seventy to eighty square miles in Schuylkill county. It is the great water shed of the region for the Susquehanna, the Schuylkill, and the Lehigh rivers. The Mammoth and some smaller veins of coal underlie its southern slopes, but with the exception of a few small narrow,basins, not very reliable, on the summit, it contains no other coal or mineral of any kind. It is the source of numerous small streams which will become very val uable in the course of time for supplying the wants of a rapidly growing population, in a district where so much of this essential element is poisoned by impregnations of the mines. For a long time this mountain presented an impassable barrier to the products of the middle coal field, but finally it was crossed by railways, with a system of inclined planes, which have proved very economical and efficient. Fifty years ago this mountain was covered with a dense growth of heavy timber, consisting of yellow pine, hemlock, and oak; but this has long since been transferred to the support of the rude galleries of the coal measures, and used in the erection of structures for colliery purposes. It is not probable that it will ever be covered with a second growth, for the soil is not fertile, and the forest fires sweep over it, as over all the other mountain ranges in the spring, with relentless fury. The north slope of this plateau is much steeper than the southern, and this face is deeply indented by small rapidly eroding streams which flow toward the Susquehanna, and break it into numerous spurs. At the eastern end of the county the waters from this mountain drain into the Little Schuylkill, and the tributaries of the Lehigh. Its characteristics are not there as clearly defined as at the middle portion just de- scribed, and which is made more interesting by the passage of the railway systems that develop the middle coal field.
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