USA > Pennsylvania > Schuylkill County > History of Schuylkill County, Pa. with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 61
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valley of the West Norwegian creek has been known for forty years by the name of Fishback. The origin of the name, as applied to the locality, cannot be traced to any certain source.
That part of Norway west of the Navigation tract is called, from its shape, "the Square tract."
The title to the tract of land surveyed on the warrant of Michael Bright, adjoining the Physick or Pomona tract, on the west, in the year 1830, became vested in Joseph Wood and others, who laid out on it that part of the town plot of Pottsville known as Wood's Addition. Be- fore Wood's Addition was laid out this land was known as the Eyre tract.
Part of the Minnich and Zoll tract, adjoining Morris's Addition on the south, in the year 1830 became vested in N. Thomon, who laid out a plan of lots called Thomon's Addition.
A copy of the original town plot of Pottsville, and ad- dition thereto by John Pott, and of drafts of the pur- parts with which his real estate was divided can be found in "Orphans' Court Docket No. 7, page 275, A seg." in the office of the clerk of the Orphans' Court of Schuyl- kill county.
The original town plot and the addition made to it by John Pott in his life time, and the several additions above mentioned, excepting the Norwegian Addition, are laid down in Fisher's Plan of Pottsville, published in the
EARLY EXPLORATIONS .- COAL.
About 1,800 acres of these lands were owned or con- trolled by Samuel and Thomas Potts, of Pottstown, and they associated with themselves General Arthur St. Clair, Jesse Potts, Samuel Baird, Thomas Rutter, and Thomas Maybury as a company to explore and develop the prop- erty. Of the character and extent of their labors very little is known, but the landmarks they left when they abandoned the experiment and dissolved the company, about 1798, indicated that a saw-mill on Norwegian creek and a few rafts down the river were the limit of the enterprise. It was while these lumbermen were here that the first anthracite was found, says a local tradition ; but the efforts to burn it were not successful, and the explorers were persuaded that it was only a kind of rock, and so all notice of it was lost until John Pott, sen., was erecting the Greenwood furnace and forge in 1807, when another and more satisfactory experiment was made with the " black rock " as a fuel. This discovery was followed three years later by the opening of a vein of anthracite nine feet thick, while the same Mr. Pott was sinking the foundations for Orchard grist-mill. To these fortuitous circumstances, which unexpectedly attended the business operations of the first ten years of this century, the im- portance-and it may as well be written the existence-of Pottsville is due.
The coal development having been made the subject of a previous chapter no farther mention of it need be made here; but these early accidents are of local import- ance as determining where first should commence the
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HISTORY OF SCHUYLKILL COUNTY.
great industry which secures, now and for years to come, the wealth and importance of Schuylkill county.
FIRST PERMANENT SETTLERS.
The operations of John Pott, sen., were carried on at Pottsville prior to 18to by John Pott, jr., and Daniel Focht, as his superintendents. They found here the Reed house, previously mentioned; a log house occupied by one Alspach, where Charles Baber's residence now is; one occupied by Anthony Schutt,on Lawton Hill; Thomas Swoyer's house, which stood where the livery stable on Union street now is; Nathan Taylor's house, on the present site of the Philadelphia and Reading freight depot, and the old Neiman house-or what remained of it.
The reader is now familiar with all, or nearly all, the family names at Pottsville prior to 1809. The Pott furnace was completed in 1808, and the proprietor fitted up the Alspach house as a residence for himself and family, and in 1810 he came here to reside. His family record included these names: Maria, his wife, and their children, John, jr., Magdalina, Benjamin, James, Abra- ham, Mary, Catherine, William, and Jacob. This family constituted no small accession to the population of the place, which, by this time, included the families of several workmen who were attracted here by the prospects of profitable labor in the furnace.
The Alspach house, orignally built of logs, was sided and painted, and was made the home of three generations of this old family. Here was born Benjamin Pott's daughter Hannah, the first white girl in the settlement.
EARLY BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS.
There was very little need of merchants in Pottsville as it was in 1824, when the place contained less than a dozen houses, but before June, 1831, the number of houses had increased to over five hundred, and within that period several commercial enterprises were under- taken. A few quotations from notices in a very rare copy of the Miners' Journal will show some facts worth recording. The old paper is No. 24, vol. III., and bears date September 8th, 1827.
"New Store adjoining Morris's Tavern .- The sub- scribers beg leave to inform the public that they con- tinue business in the store occupied by Sillyman, Fister & Co. Just received: a general assortment of dry goods, groceries, hardware, glass and queen's ware, &c, which they will sell for cash or country produce.
Thomas Sillyman." Samuel Sillyman."
"New store-Dry Goods and Groceries. At the former stand of John C. Offerman, in the town of Pottsville. Daniel Stall." This was a two story-framed house on the present site of R. R. Morris's elegant brick block.
" Pottsville Hardware Store .- The subscriber has re- ceived an assortment of knives, anvils, forks, nails, razors, files, plane irons, shears, locks, chisels, &c., which he will dispose of at Philadelphia prices. Samuel J. Potts."
posit bank, was the first hardware store in the place. Fairchild Hodgeson and Charles Clemens were also early merchants in this line.
" John C. Offerman informs the public that he contin- ues the commission and transportation business at his storehouse at Mount Carbon, having sold his retail store at Pottsville. Also that he runs a line of covered boats to Philadelphia." Freight was $4.377/2 to $5.00 per ton.
"William Locker has taken the large dwelling house of Mr. Alter, opposite Miller & Rex's store, where he in- tends to keep a genteel boarding house."
The old York store stood for years where Charles M. Atkins's residence is. It was a company store in connec- tion with the coal company operating at the York farm.
Neil and Patrick Crosby kept a primitive store in a log building near the present Bright & Co.'s hardware store.
MUNICIPAL ORGANIZATION.
In 1827, by reason of the increase of population, a more convenient system of local government was found desirable, and the subject of incorporating a borough was earnestly discussed. The inhabitants of Pottsville wished to have the town as then bounded incorporated into a borough and given the original name of the town, in honor of one of its oldest and most prominent fami- lies; but their Mount Carbon neighbors wished to have their town included in the borough. They also insisted on dropping the name the town had always borne, and styling the new borough Mount Carbon, in allusion to its local resources. Much ill-feeling was engendered by this discussion, but the borough line was finally settled to exclude Mount Carbon, and this town was incorporated by act of the General Assembly opposed by Governor Andrew J. Shulze, on the 19th of February, 1828. The corporate name given by the act was " the burgess and inhabitants of the town of Pottsville, in the county of Schuylkill." The first borough election was held at the house of John Weaver, on Monday, May 7th, 1828, when Francis B. Nichols was elected chief burgess; John Pott, assistant burgess; Daniel Hill, high constable; Samuel Rex, clerk; and Jacob Kline, John Strouch, Benjamin Thurston, David Phillips and Samuel Brooks, councilmen. The first meeting of the council was at the house of George Shoemaker, May 9th, 1828. The As- sembly of 1831 put a little more of that soul of wit called brevity into the name, and erected the town of Pottsville into a borough styled the corporation of the borough of Pottsville.
The principal borough officers have been as follows:
Chief Burgesses .- George Shoemaker, 1829; F.B. Nich- ols, 1830-32; John C. Ernst, 1833; Jacob Seitzinger, 1834; John P. Shinkle, 1835, 1836; Benjamin Coombe, 1837; Jacob Reed, 1838-40; Daniel Klapp, 1841; John M. Crossland, 1842; William F. Dean, 1843; Andrew Mortimer, 1844; Charles W. Clemens, 1845; Jacob Reed, 1846, 1847; B. T. Taylor, 1848, 1849; John C. Lessig, 1850; Jacob Reed, 1851; Jacob Kline, 1852; Jacob Reed, 1853; Nicholas Fox, 1854; George Jennings, 1855; Nich- olas Fox, 1856; Daniel B. Christ, 1857-59; Samuel
Mr. Potts came to Pottsville in December pre- vious. His store, which was on the site of the Safe De- |Chrisman, 1860, 1861; Daniel B. Christ, 1862; M. B.
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POTTSVILLE BOROUGH OFFICERS-HOTELS-THE PRESS.
Bell, 1863-68; Daniel Christian, sen., 1869-72; N. Fox, 1873; William M. McAdams, 1874; M. B. Bell, 1875-80; Joseph Derr, 1881.
Treasurers .- Samuel Sillyman, 1828-44, 1846, 1847; Thomas Foster, 1845; William Fox, 1848-51; Hiram Rigg, 1852, 1855-57; Alexander S. Morehead, 1853, 1854; Adam Shertel, 1858-76; Daniel R. Shertel, appointed to fill vacancy; Samuel M. Mortimer, appointed to vacancy, 1877; elected 1878-81.
Solicitors .- Christopher Loeser, 1828; Thomas Mor- ris, 1829; Edward Owen Parry, 1830, 1831, 1836-41, 1843- 48, 1856-68; David Candor, 1832; William F. Dean, 1833-35; F. W. Hughes, 1842; James H. Campbell, 1849; Benjamin W. Cummings, 1850-54; Robert M. Palmer, 1855; B. Bryson McCool, 1869-81.
Surveyors .- Enoch Lewis, Samuel B. Fisher, Samuel Lewis, Kinber Cleaver, Jesse S. Hawley, A. B. Cochran.
Town Clerks .- Samuel Rex, 1828; Samuel J. Potts, 1829; Robert Woodside, 1830; David Candor, 1831; William F. Dean, 1832; Jacob Eyer, 1833, 1834; William F. Dean, 1835; Edward Owen Parry, 1836-41; Francis W. Hughes, 1842; Isaac Beck, 1843-45; Samuel Hartz, 1846-48; John H. Downing, 1849-51; James A. Mc. Barron, 1852, 1853; Samuel Hartz, 1854-58; William L. Whitney, 1859, resigned in June and was succeeded by A. R. Whitner, who was re-elected 17 years; Daniel L. Krebs, 1875-81.
Census returns for fifty years show the steady growth of the borough in population. They are as follows: 1830, 2,464; 1840, 4,337: 1850, 7,575; 1860, 9,444; 1870, 12,384; 1880, 13,246.
HOTELS.
The first hotel at Pottsville was erected in 1818, by George Dengler, and was known as the " White Horse Tavern." The sign-a figure said to represent a white horse-was executed in a high style of native art; and, although it was often mistaken by vulgar people for a white hog, it remained in its place while landlords, and loungers, and even the house itself, changed beyond rec- ognition.
Samuel Sillyman bought the house in 1840, and added a brick front. From 1848 to 1856 the late William Matz leased it, and after a few years bought it for $21,000, and put William Matz, his son, and Jesse Drumheller into it as landlords. Colonel Joseph M. Feger, now the popular host at the St. Elmo in Philadelphia, kept this hotel for several years. Reist & Co. leased it in 1880, and it is now known as the Merchants' Hotel.
Some idea can be formed of the remarkable growth of the town from the fact that, while in 1829 there were but three hotels in the place, three years later the number had increased to twenty-five, and they were all doing a good business.
Pennsylvania Hall, which was the first first class hotel in Pottsville, was opened in 1831 by George Shoemaker. The following persons have officiated as landlords: Rich- ard Bishop, J. Haughawout, F. D'Estimanville, John Weaver, Jacob Peters, William P. Johnson, Herman Baird, Daniel B. Christ, F. B. Kaercher and William Whitney. Since 1872 William M. Reed has been the proprietor.
The Mortimer House was built for a residence in 1823, and in 1825 converted into a hotel by Peter and Jacob
Seitzinger. It soon passed into the hands of William Mortimer, sen., and was owned in his family until 1875, when it was sold for $40,000, and razed to make room for the Mountain City Bank building.
The old Pottsville House, which stood where D. L. Esterley's hardware store is, was a hotel in 1830. Crosby Brothers built it in 1827, and Mrs. Old kept it as a board- ing house for three years. George W. Slater was the last landlord in it.
The Exchange Hotel, now kept by Samuel Parrett, was built about 1830, by Jacob Seitzinger, and was then called the National. Joseph Weaver, from Orwigsburg, kept it for several years, and at that time it was the stage headquarters, and known as the Exchange. During the war it became known as the Union Hotel, being the headquarters of the Union League.
The Buckwalter tavern was built in 1828, by Jacob Buckwalter, and it is now a part of the Northwestern, which is kept by Cyrus Sheets. After the death of Mr. Buckwalter it was sold to Samuel Sillyman. who built the four-story brick addition which is now the main part of the hotel. Daniel Hill, William Stannard, William Glassmire, Levi Pearhart, Jerry Seigler, and A. K. Helms are remembered by those who have frequented this house.
The Northeastern was built for a bakery, in 1830, by John Fellnagle, and in 1836 it came into possession of the present landlord, Captain Peter Woll.
The Rising Sun was on the site of Leonard's Hotel until the fire of 1873. John Leonard bought it in 1864, and in 1870 leased it to John Reber, who called it the Farmers' and Drovers' Hotel.
The Trap was built by Nathan J. Mills in 1829, and was burned in 1850. The Lamb was an early hotel in North Centre street, abandoned in 1861.
The American House was built in 1845 by Jacob Geiss. Colonel John C. Lessig, William M. Reed and Colonel C. F. Jackson were among the lessees of this house.
Bernard Glunz's old house is the oldest framed build- ing on Market street. It was used for a tavern by a Mr. Mills, and the cellar for a school.
There was then an old stone house belonging to York farm These two were the only houses above Tenth street until after 1840.
The Eagle Hotel was another of those that sprang into existence as if by magic in the speculating period between 1828 and 1833. It was at first a two-story framed house. The Moyer House, on the southwest corner of Market and Centre streets, was built in 1828-30 by Daniel Moyer.
THE PRESS OF POTTSVILLE.
For more than half a century Pottsville has been well supplied with local papers, but the large and well equip- ed printing establishments of to-day bear very little re- semblance to the dingy corner wherein was hatched that winged messenger of intelligence which flew out, to find its first alighting place among the English-reading people of Pottsville, on the morning of the 31st of March, 1825. That effort of George Taylor to inform the people of the events of the week, by the use of coarse brown paper and
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HISTORY OF SCHUYLKILL COUNTY.
an old Ramage press, although more of a success than the newspaper talk of Messrs. White, Ridgeway and others during two or three preceding years, was far be- hind the journalistic feats of the present day.
This printing office stood on the present site of the First Presbyterian church, but the tenure of its standing was rendered precarious by Mr. Taylor's defense of the rights of corporations. He found one morning that frail props had taken the place of the wall on the lower side of his building, and arrangements were quite complete for capsizing the concern. The offenders had only re- frained from "pieing" the whole establishment on re- flecting that the building also contained the post-office, and that they might be incurring especial hazard.
Mr. Taylor disappeared from the field of local jour- nalism about that time, and in October, 1827, a Mr. Bradford appeared as editor. Sergeant Hall soon suc- ceeded him, and in April, 1829, the office passed under the management of the man who was to make it for years the leading paper of the anthracite region.
Benjamin Bannan found the Journal in a very preca- rious state of existence, and in the hands of the sheriff. He bought the establishment at private sale for $800, and to its list of 250 subscribers he sent his first paper on the 29th of April, 1829. Devoting his personal atten- tion to the compilation of coal statistics, he very soon gave the paper a right to its name-the Miners' Journal and Schuylkill Coal and Navigation Register. The posi- tion of the Journal as an advocate of a protective tariff made it a very acceptable exponent of the interests of the producers in the coal and iron fields, while the sta- tistical tables, fresh and complete, made it authority in two continents.
While Mr. Bannan was a vigorous writer on the various public questions that arose, it was well for the interests of the editorial columns that he associated with him such writers as James S. Wallace, Benjamin W. Cummings, George Stouch, E. Bowen, Christopher Little, A. M ., and F. B. Wallace. James S. Wallace, who had been en- gaged on the Louisville Courier- Journal, was a natural humorist, and brought to the paper much of the George D. Prentice style of wit.
From the 10th of January to October 20th, 1838, the Journal was issued semi- weekly.
For a few years after and including 1842 the business was nominally out of Mr. Bannan's hands, by reason of financial embarrasments, but he continued to edit and publish the paper as agent for the proprietors. His bus- iness course has been quite largely followed by the pub- lishers in Pottsville, for a number of them have received the degree of A. G. T., while it is noticeable that the sheriff has been connected ex officio with several of the numerous newspapers hereafter mentioned.
Appearing again in 1848 as proprietor, Mr. Bannan materially improved the paper and added to its formid- able title "and Pottsville Advertiser." Politically, the Jour- nal was Whig until party revolution made the opportunity for it to become the leading Republican paper of the county. On the Ist of July, 1866, the late Colonel H.
Ramsey purchased a half interest with Mr. Bannan. This element in the business management threw new life into the concern, and Mr. Ramsey at once undertook to se- cure for the place a daily paper, something Mr. Bannan had advocated, and even advertised, thirty years before, but never ventured to undertake. The effort was suc- cessful, and on the evening of September Ist, 1869, the Daily Miners' Journal, a bright, newsy sheet, 20x80, made its first bow to an appreciative public.
Early in 1873 Colonel Ramsey purchased the remain- ing half of the business, but Mr. Bannan continued to contribute articles until shortly before his death, July 31st, 1875. W. R. Cole became business manager for Mr. Ramsey in November, 1873, and continued in that capacity until after Mr. Ramsey's death, June Ist, 1876.
The Journal, together with the Miners' Journal build- ing, which Mr. Ramsey had erected at a cost of $55,000, became the property of P. W. Sheafer and Frank Carter, who organized the Miners' Journal Publishing Company May 14th, 1877. Before the close of the year Mr. Sheafer sold his two-thirds interest in the Miners' Journal Pub- lishing Company to J. C. Bright, who soon sold it to W. R. Cole, the present editor.
Since the Daily Fournal was established Charles D. Elliott, F. B. Wallace, Philip Lindsley, Walter Rose and Thomas B. Fielders have been connected with the paper editorially. The news department is ably edited by Henry C. Sheafer, a clear and concise writer, and the lo- cal columns are judiciously managed and well filled by Frank C. Donnelly, who has been local editor since 1879.
The death of Mr. Bannan terminated the Journal's uninterrupted ascendency as a leading authority on coal matters, and not until Mr. Cole gave his undivided atten- tion to this department did the paper regain its place as standard authority in matters of coal development and kindred industries.
Schuylkill county, being the daughter of " old Berks," contained at the time of its formation, and yet contains, a population largely composed of people of German descent, who preserve the language of the fatherland. No doubt actuated by this fact, the late Benjamin Ban- nan of the Miners' Fournal, commenced the publication of a $1.00 German newspaper in Pottsville, in January, 1832. It was called the Schuylkill County Bauer, and, as the name Bauer (farmer) indicates, was devoted chiefly to agricultural interests. Orwigsburg being yet the county seat the political organs were published there.
The Stimme des Volks (voice of the people), founded in 1828, was the official organ of the Democratic party, while the Demokratische Freiheits Presse (Democratic Liberty Press) advocated the principles of the Whig party. The proprietor of the latter, John I. Werner, in the year 1837, removed his printing office to Pottsville, whose growing importance as well as the attachment of a majority of its inhabitants to the principles of the Whig party attracted him there. The Bauer had discon- tinued, and thus Mr. Werner as the publisher of a Ger- man paper had the Pottsville field to himself for several years. Being elected sheriff of the county in 1846, he
JOURNALISM AT POTTSVILLE.
269
disposed of his printing establishment in the following year to John P. Bertram.
That year the publication of the Pottsville Adler was begun by C. G. Guenther, who in 1850 sold it to Lorenz Brentano, a political refugee from the old country, who changed the name to the Leuchtthurm (Lighthouse). Not finding the encouragement he probably expected, Mr. Brentano sold his paper in the following year to George P. Lippe, a practical printer, who again changed its name to Schuylkill Demokrat, and made it a Demo- cratic organ. The county seat had in the meantime been removed to Pottsville, and the proprietor of the other German Democratic newspaper, the Stimme des Volks, published at Orwigsburg, not finding its publica- tion profitable after the removal of the county seat, sold it in 1854 to Mr. Lippe, who published both papers under the titles of Schuylkill Demokrat and Stimme des Volks.
About this time the Whig party passed out of existence. The proprietor of its German organ in Pottsville, Mr. Bertram, therefore gladly embraced an opportunity to sell out in the summer of 1855. The negotiations were made by a number of Democrats, who were dissatisfied with the political course pursued by the proprietor of the Schuylkill Demokrat. The purchase of the Demokratis- che Freiheits Presse was effected, and the first number of the new paper, called the Jefferson Demokrat, appeared on August 9th, 1855; it was published by three Philadel- phia gentlemen, Gross, Kretschmar, and Rumberg, who disposed of their interests in January, 1856, to Hendler & Schrader. The new proprietors soon acquired a large circulation, and the publisher of the Schuylkill Demokrat, finding that he could no longer successfully compete with his rivals, sold his newspaper establishment to them on March 12th, 1864. Hendler & Schrader bought the English Democratic newspaper the Pottsville Standard, on April Ist, 1869. H. J. Hendler, who had been elected treasurer in the fall of 1863, and served as acting treas- urer for several of his successors, retired from the busi- ness on April Ist, 1873. The remaining partner, J. William Schrader, disposed of the English newspaper to F. A. Burr, has since successfully conducted the publi- cation of the Jefferson Demokrat alone.
It is an historical fact that when the Whig party be- came disintegrated it was succeeded by the Know Noth- ing party, which subsequently gave place to the Repub- lican party. The latter party at once saw the necessity of having a German organ in Pottsville, and in Septem- ber, 1855, the first number of the Amerikanische Repub- likaner (American Republican) was issued from the Miners' Journal office, nominally by an employe of the Journal, named Heisler. Some months later the new newspaper was transferred to John P. Bertram and A. E. Snyder, who announced that their paper would be independent in politics, but it soon went over to the Republican camp. The partnership continued until 1864, when Mr. Bertram, having received an appoint- ment as internal revenue assessor, retired. In the fol- lowing year Mr. Snyder took another partner, Casper Liebner, who remained a member of the firm of Snyder
& Liebner until 1873, when Mr. Bertram bought him out, but Mr. Snyder conducted the newspaper till his death, which occured on March 10th, 1880.
The Pottsville Volksblatt, an independent Democratic newspaper, was started by Angust Knecht in July, 1871, but suspended publication in May, 1873. Two years later Mr. Knecht assumed editorial charge of the Amer- ikanische Republikaner and since the death of Mr. Snyder has continued its publication, being a practical printer as well as a careful writer.
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