USA > Pennsylvania > Schuylkill County > History of Schuylkill County, Pa. with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 85
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A gangway on the Mammoth vein was started, and a blacksmith shop and a boarding house for employes were built. In 1865 the gangways on the Holmes and Mam- moth veins were pushed forward, houses were built, a saw-mill was in operation in April, and a monkey breaker in August. For the rest of that year coal was shipped at the average rate of sixteen cars a day. Clearings were made and roads were opened on the premises and out to the Shenandoah and Pottsville road.
Jacob Shelly, who planned and superintended the erection of breakers, was appointed superintendent of the colliery in the fall of 1865. Like other superintend-
dared not refuse work to a bad class of applicants, and was allowed to resign his position in order to end his responsibility and save his life.
The large breaker was completed in April, 1866, and was among the largest in the county. its construction required over a million feet of timber and lumber. Its storage capacity was about 1,565 tons, and its shipping capacity one hundred and fifty cars a day. Additional dwellings were also built.
In 1866 the supply of coal above water level proved inadequate, and it became necessary to obtain a longer lease and one permitting mining below water level. On the completion of the large breaker Henry A. Hunter and Horace Griscom, of Reading, were appointed sales agents for Philadelphia and the line of the Reading Rail- road; and Wannemacher & Co. agents for sales by the cargo for eastern markets. Mr. Griscom took the great- est pains to have his product well prepared, and it com- manded the best priccs. Shipments during 1866 and 1867 averaged about sixty-three cars a day.
A Sunday-school was established among the employes in 1866, with the aid of S. E. Griscom; and a general store was started in 1867, by Theodore H. Bechtel and Chalk- ley Griscom, the latter a brother of the senior partner. .
A fifteen-years lease of the property was obtained, the original lease having been for only five years. The sink- ing of a vertical shaft was begun in November, 1868. In the preceding February was formed the Mahanoy and Locust Mountain Coal Association, in which Mr. Griscom represented William Penn colliery. He proposed and was chairman of the committee which effected the organ- ization of the Anthracite Board of Trade, Mr. Griscom becoming its vice-president. On the passage of the eight- hour law in 1868, the managers of the William Penn an- nounced that the weekly wages of their employes would be paid for ten hours' labor each day except Saturday, when eight hours would be the time. Excited mobs, clamoring for ten hours' pay for eight hours' work, there- upon stopped operations at the colliery on the 6th of July, and work was not resumed till August 25th. The eight-hour law was not complied with. Mr. Griscom, al- ways desirous of adjusting equitably any grievances of his employes, on several occasions attended by invitation meetings of the Workingmen's Benevolent Association.
By October, 1869, the shaft had reached its full depth, having pierced the bottom slate of the Mammoth vein at a depth of 256 feet and opened the way to 3,000,000 tons of prepared coal. An electric battery on the surface was used to fire blasts during the excavations-among the first used in the county. A section of the shaft measured 24 feet by 13, and it was divided into three equal parts, two for hoisting ways and one for air and pump way. It was supplied with two seventy horse hoisting engines, capable of hoisting a car of coal per
59
370
HISTORY OF SCHUYLKILL COUNTY.
minute; and later with a Griscom steam pump, raising a six-inch column of water-the patented invention of Lewis, John P. and Chalkley Griscom.
In 1869, through the efforts of Mr. S. E. Griscom, passenger trains were put on the line from Mahanoy Plane to Shenandoah, and a telegraph line over the same route, with an instrument in the colliery office. Further troubles with disaffected workingmen were experienced in 1870, and a drouth, cutting off the supply of water for the engines, together with the occurrence of " faults " in the workings, conspired to make operations compara- tively expen ive and unproductive. In June, 1871, a Bradford coal jig was placed in the breaker-the first one used in the Schuylkill coal region-affording su- perior and economical preparation of the coal.
In February, 1872, Mr. Griscom sold his interest to his partners, but consented to remain in the management through that year, when William H. Lewis, of Pottsville, was, on Mr. Griscom's recommendation, appointed his successor.
The colliery, on the relinquishment of its management by Mr. Griscom, was in a position to take its place in the first rank among the colleries of the county. The sub- stantial basis that was to enable it to take and keep this position lay in the five principal coal veins which this property contains, which a careful estimate shows are capable of yielding as follows:
Veins.
Length of
Run.
Basin to
Outcrop.
Thick.
Total Coal.
Estimated Product.
I'ds.
Yds.
Yds. Cu. Yds.
Tons.
Orchard
2,650
250
123
1, 104,165
552,000
Primrose
2,650
300
3
2,385,000
1, 192,000
Holmes .
2,650
400
22 3
2,826,666
1,413,000
Mammoth
2,650
650
17,225,000
8,612,000
Buck Mountain.
2,650
Soo
3
6,360,000
3,180,000
14.949,000
SCHOOLS OF WEST MAHANOY.
Educational interests have not been forgotten or ne- glected, and there is not a mining "patch " in the town- ship, large enough to support one, without a well conduct- ed public school. The whole number of buildings is eight, including the high school at Lost Creek, and they con- tain, with the latter, seventeen schools and the same number of teachers. The whole number of scholars in attendance is 1,060. The Lost Creek high school build- ing was erected in 1880, and it is a handsome, convenient building, costing, furnished, about $5,000, and accommo- dating three schools with seating capacity for 225 schol- ars. It is an ornament to the place and a credit to the township.
RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES.
The Church of St. Mary Magdalen was organized on the 24th of December, 1879, at Lost Creek. The con- gregation worshiped in a public hall until Christmas, 1880. Father Walsh is the present pastor. The church edifice, erected in 1880, is a frame building, 102 by 42 feet, in the Gothic style, and it was paid for when fin- ished.
The Lost Creek Union Sunday-School Association was chartered by the court of Schuylkill county September 4th, 1876. The first officers were: President, Capt. L. S. Hay; secretary, A. D. Brown; treasurer, J. W. Bed- ford. The object of this association was to erect a build- ing for the promotion of the "Protestant Christian reli- gion." Ground was broken for this purpose May 10th, 1876. A neat chapel was erected, with seating capacity for 225 persons, at a cost of $1,500, and opened for reli- gious meetings Sunday September 17th, 1876. The pres- ent officers are: President, J. W. Bedford; secretary, J. R. Porter; treasurer, A. D. Brown.
Lost Creek Union Sunday-School was organized March 26th, 1876, by Rev. Stephen Torrey, of Honesdale, Pa., with 40 members. The first officers were: Superintend- ent, A. H. Bromley; treasurer, Mrs. J. W. Bedford; sec- retary, Miss Einma Miller. Average attendance in 1876, 82; 1877, 87; 1878, 90; 1879, 163. The present officers are: Superintendent, A. H. Bromley; treasurer, Mrs. J. W. Bedford; secretary, T. W. Taylor.
Upon this foundation proportionate improvements had been erected. They consisted of a shaft on the Mam- noth vein, with a "lift " capable of yielding 3,000,000 tons of prepared coal, provided with machinery with a hoisting capacity of about six hundred mine cars per day. SECRET SOCIETIES. and with gangways, schutes, headings, &c., already driven, opening up sufficient ground to yield about 163,- Lost Creek Section, No. 18, Cadets of Temperance was organized April 26th, 1879, with twenty-three charter members. It meets every Friday night at Lost Creek S. S. building. First officers: Patrons, D. P. Brown, I. WV. Moister, Miss I. B. Porter, Daniel Ogden, A. H. Bromley, Mrs. S. H. Brady; W. A., J. Claude Brown. The successive presiding officers have been William Moyer, Harry Groff, William Donaldson, and Claude Bedford. oco tons prepared coal; with a breaker with a capacity for properly preparing for market one hundred and fifty railroad cars (750 tons) per day; a small or monkey breaker, with a capacity of about fifty cars (150 tons) per dry; a saw-mill capable of cutting 150 M per month; seventy miners' dwellings, stables, offices, drift cars and a full equipment of all requisite tools. The yearly tonnage of the colliery up to this time has been as follows: 1865, 9,085 tons; 1866, 59,917; 1867, 65.448; 1868, 28,295; Lost Creek Band of Hope No. 1 organized June 12th, 1880, with thirty-six members. The first president was Mary Markle, and vice-president J. Alonzo Metz. The 1869, 27,002; 1870, 35,363; 1871, 53,558; 1872, 85,602; 1873, 141, 116; 1874, 146,402; 1875, 106,636; 1876, 118,- 268; 1877, 164,496; 1878, 120,344; 1879, 178,318; 1880, president in 18So was Hannah Price; vice-president, J. 173,000. A. Metz. Total membership in September, 1880, 88.
371
THOMAS SANGER-THOMAS UREN-D. P. BROWN.
Lost Creek Division, No. 9, Sons of Temperance was or- ganized July 22nd, 1878, with thirty-six charter mem- bers. The first officers were: W. P., D. P. Brown; W. A., I. W. Moister; R. S., T. W. Taylor; A. R. S., A. H. Bromley; treasurer, S. H. Brady: F. S., B. R. Severn; chaplain, J. D. Ledden; C., Fred Hopkins; A. C., Wil- liam Owens; I. S., W. H. Kaercher; O. S., Robert Peel; P. W. P., John Hallman. The successive presiding offi- cers have been Isaac W. Moister, Joseph Rees, David Thompson, A. H. Bromley, A. D. Brown, John W. Scott and F. G. Clemens. The present officers are: W. P., F. G. Clemens; W. A., S. H. Brady; R. S., T. W. Taylor; A. R. S., James A. Pott; treasurer, John Hallman; F. S., W. H. Zweizig; chaplain, Samuel Smaill; C., B. R. Severn; A. C., F. Barlow; I. S., Ed. McGovern; O. S., George Dunston; P. W. P., A. D. Brown.
THE DEATH OF SANGER AND UREN.
criminals, Charles McAllister and Thomas Munley, who were arrested February roth, 1876, and subsequently convicted and executed.
Thomas Sanger and Thomas Uren were friends and respectable young men who had been for several years in the employ of the Cuyler colliery, the former as mine boss. On the morning of the ist of September, 1875, they left Sanger's residence, at which Uren boarded, bidding Mrs. Sanger a playful farewell at the garden gate, and started for the colliery. As they approached the breaker five strangers confronted them and fired a volley, at which both fell wounded. The villain whose bullet had stricken Sanger walked up to him, turned his bleeding body over and coolly sent another ball into it. Robert Heaton, one of the colliery owners, hearing the firing, rushed from his breakfast table and pursued the assassins, emptying the chambers of his revolver without effect, the murderers returning his fire. A crowd of the workmen had gathered, and so boldly had the miscreants' work been done that had Mr. Heaton's efforts been seconded with any promptness or courage they might all have been captured; but the crowd seemed paralyzed by the audacity of the attack, and no pursuit was com- menced until too late to effect its purpose. The wounded men were taken to the house of a neighbor and the best surgical assistance secured; but the work had been too Colonel David Percy Brown, superintendent for the Philadelphia Coal Company, has been a resident of Lost Creek since 1875. He was born in Shillbottle, North- umberland, England, February 14th, 1825, and is a son of David W. Brown and Elizabeth Percy-both natives of that place. well done, and both expired soon after. Sanger had, like all the other bosses, been warned to leave the country by the " coffin letters " of the Mollie Maguires; but, regarding them as mere bravado, had remained quietly at work, and, excepting the causeless malice of that band of ruffians, had no enemies. His unfortunate David W. Brown, who had been at school, was at the age of fourteen years sent into the mines by the death of his father, who was suffocated by choke damp. He continued to work as a miner until August, 1829, when, with his wife and three children, he came to America, landing in Boston October 16th, 1829. Thence he came to Pottsville by vessel and canal boat and settled at Oak Hill, where he resided until his death, April 5th, 1846. acquaintance, Uren, whose death was due simply to his being in company with the boss, was also a quiet, inof- fensive workman. Some of the murderers were recog- nized to such an extent that they were suspected; and one of them, Charles O'Donnell, met a bloody death at the Wiggan's Patch affair soon after, at the hands of unknown assailants. The whole affair, it seemed, was, even before its occurrence, under the surveillance The subject of this sketch was taught to read and write by his parents, as there were no schools nearer his home than at Pottsville, four miles distant. He went of the detective McParlan, who was unable to give a warning in time to prevent the crime, but who gave evidence that identified and convicted two of the into the mines when about eight years old, worked about
372
HISTORY OF SCHUYLKILL COUNTY.
the colliery as a boy for six years, at the age of fourteen became a miner, and four years later was made a foreman. In 1846, owing to his father's death, he became his exec- utor, and, with his brother William, sunk a shaft to the Primrose vein, one of the first perpendicular shafts ever put down in the State. After conducting some extensive developments he removed to Pottsville in 1851, and resided there up to the date of his removal to his present residence. During that and the following year he opened the Brown & White colliery, at Swatara, in which he retained an interest until 1860. In the year 1855 he be- came a part owner in the Mount Pleasant colliery, which proved an unfortunate venture and led to complications that caused the sacrifice of the large property which he had accumulated, and reduced him from the position of one of the heaviest operators in the county to that of a manager at the Swatara mines.
Immediately after President Lincoln's first call for volunteers in 1861 he joined the Tower Guards, of Pottsville, and on the 17th of April left with the com- pany for Harrisburg. There the Guards were formed into two companies and mustered into the 6th Pennsyl- ity which this work describes.
vania volunteers. Mr. Brown receiving from Gover- nor Curtin a commission as first lieutenant of company D.
On the expiration of his term of service in April, 1862, an arrangement with the creditors of his old firm was ef- fected, and one of the old collieries was purchased and operated until 1865. It was known as the Price Wetherill Colliery, and yielded largely, at profitable rates. This fortunate venture relieved Brown & Co. of their financial embarrassments, and as the old mine became nearly ex- hausted the machinery and renewed lease were sold to a Boston company which operated under the name of the Norwegian Coal Company. In 1866 Colonel Brown sailed for Glasgow, and spent a season in England and Wales, visiting the principal mining districts, and on his return accepting the position of superintendent and manager of the collieries of the Philadelphia Coal Com- pany, which he still occupies. Colonel Brown is actively identified with the best interests of the community in which he has made his home, and is in every sense a representative man of the wide-awake, enterprising local-
FRACKVILLE BOROUGH.
HE discovery and mining of coal north of Broad mountain attracted and nec- essarily caused the settlement of a large population at the immediate base of opera- tions. At Frackville the coal product of the valley is collected, and hoisted over the plane to the mountain top by costly and powerful ma- chinery, about 10,000 tons passing in that way daily over the weighmaster's scales at Frackville. The population in 1880 was 1,727.
Daniel Frack, one of the original settlers liere, settled in St. Clair in 1833, and engaged in the hotel business, accumulating a considerable property during his residence there. While the coal developments of the Mahanoy valley were yet in their infancy, and the business pros- pects of the locality were, to men of less sanguine tem- perament, too uncertain to warrant investments, Mr. Frack, with that keen foresight that marks the successful pioneer, purchased a tract of one hundred and sixty-six acres at what was then called Girard Place, and removed his family to his new possessions in 1852, opening a hotel. In 1861 he laid off a part of his land in town lots, which were rapidly disposed of and added largely to the development of the village.
Samuel Haupt, a native of Columbia county and one of the pioneers of Pottsville, having settled there in 1825, purchased in 1854 a farm at this point, and subsequently laid off a part of it into a town plot with broad avenues, and it went by the name of the " Mountain City proper- ty," now constituting a very desirable portion of the bor- ough. Prior to its purchase by Mr. Haupt the Mountain City estate was owned by James C. Stephens. The five- acre park that forms one of the chief attractions of the place was projected by Samuel Haupt's son D. P. IIaupt, a prominent business man. The borough comprises 366 acres, and was surveyed by John Haupt, formerly of the engineering department of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company, now a merchant in the place, whose store is the oldest business house in the village.
The borough government was established by a charter granted April 10th, 1876, and on May 25th of that year the first charter election was held, resulting in the choice of D. P. Haupt as chief burgess, and Henry Parton, A. Bone, Reuben Wagner, Robert McNealy, William E. Dei- sher and H. C. Wagner as councilmen. H. Widenhold was the first town clerk. The borough officers for 1880 were: Chief burgess, P. Zimmerman; councilmen, John O'Hallen, James Madeira, James Cowan, Lewis Behmer, James Blackwell and W. R. Nice.
The first school-house was erected in 1862, on a lot donated by Mr. Haupt. The schools, four in number,
are now kept in a fine building, creditable to the public spirit of this enterprising little borough.
Good water, pure air and fine scenery are among the attractions to settlers at Frackville, while the low price of lands, moderate taxation and the liberality of the land owners, form valuable inducements to immigration; and the wisdom of this policy has been proven by the rapid growth of the population in the last decade. The rail- way terminating here is a popular line for travelers who wish to make a "short cut " between the county seat and any point north of the mountain, as it connects, by a line of stages established and operated by D. P. Haupt, with the railways at Mahanoy Plane and Shenandoah, the former station being only a mile distant.
CHURCHES.
Trinity Church of the Evangelical Association was or- ganized in the spring of 1874, with six members-Williani Y. Antrim, Mary A. Antrim, John Kaley, Matilda Kaley, Valeria Moll, and Sophia Buck. The first preacher was Rev. George W. Lawry, who was followed by Rev. Jacob N. Metzgar, and he in turn succeeded by Rev. Leidy N. Worman, the present pastor.
The church building was erected by the Methodist Episcopal church, but owing to financial embarrassment fell into the sheriff's hands, and was purchased in an un- finished state by Rev. Thomas Bowman, presiding elder of the Pottsville district, for $1,400. A board of trus- tees, consisting of Revs. T. Bowman, A. M. Steick, and G. M. Lawry, was appointed, which also served as a building committee. The building was completed and dedicated in 1874. It is a neat and commodious edifice, occupying a commanding position, and at present valued at $2,000.
About two weeks after the dedication of the church a Sunday-school of about eighty members was organized, with the pastor, Rev. George Lawry, as superintendent. The school now numbers over two hundred members. The church, still under the care of the Missionary Society of the East Penn Conference, numbered in ISSo one hundred and twenty-seven members, and is in a healthy condition.
Rev. Leidy N. Worman is a native of Bucks county, where he was born August 24th, 1830. After working as a farmer until about twenty-eight years of age he fitted himself for a public school teacher, graduating at the Bucks County Normal School, and teaching for seven years. Called to the work of gospel ministry, he entered on a course of theological study, and in 1866 was or- dained. In 1876 he visited continental Europe and the Holy Land, and he has made his researches there the
374
HISTORY OF SCHUYLKILL COUNTY.
subject of lectures that are doing much to excite an in- ings of the class, and on the 27th of June opened a Sun- terest in the missionary work of his church. He married day-school, of which Frederick Weeks, of Gilberton, was Sarah L. Shutt, of Schuylkill county. elected superintendent. Its sessions are held in Haugh-
Methodist Episcopal Church .- During the year 1872 Rev. ton's Hall. Services are held in the same building semi- A. L. Urban organized a class at Frackville consisting of weekly. The church consists of C. L. Chillson, class leader; Mary M. Chillson, William James, Elizabeth James, Elizabeth Bainbridge, Elizabeth Gunning, Mark L. Gunning, Elvira L. Myers, Francis Eckersley, and Richard Morgan. Steps are being taken toward the ten members, with E. B. Gray as leader. A lot was se- cured and a church building erected, but owing to finan- cial embarrassment it was sold to the Evangelical Society. No further attempts were made until 1880, when Rev. WV. W. Wisegarver, of Mahanoy Plane, revived the meet- erection of a church edifice.
GILBERTON BOROUGH.
HIS borough was formed from a part of West Mahanoy lying north of the Broad mountain and in the valley of the Mahanoy creek, and was chartered in 1873. The first borough election was held March Ist of that year. The officers elected were: E. S. Seaman, chief burgess; Joseph Byers, John Hilihan, John Shandy, John Brennan and William Ryan, councilmen. The chief burgesses since have been Daniel Becker, 1875; and George Burchill, the present burgess, 1879. The first school directors were: J. H. Olhausen, president; Jere- miah O'Connor, secretary; William Agin, P. McLaughlin and Joseph Zimmerman.
The borough is divided into three wards, known as the east, middle and west wards. The assessed valuation in the borough in 1880 was $545,725. The population in 1880 was 3,173.
MAHANOY PLANE.
This, the principal village in the borough, was named from the inclined plane that, running to the top of Broad mountain, connects the Mill Creek railway with the Mahanoy and Shamokin branch of the Philadelphia and Reading road. The building of the roads drew here a few of their employes, and in 1859 a school-house was built by the township of Mahanoy. Immediately follow- ing the completion of the plane, in 1861, the collieries of the adjoining country drew the attention of speculators and operators to this vicinity, and in 1865 the abandon- ed tunnel which was driven by Stephen Girard in 1833 was taken possession of, and Bear Ridge collieries were established. Meanwhile coal shipments over the plane had commenced, railroad repair shops and engine house had been erected, and the plane made the headquarters of a division of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. The hotel known as the Union House was built in 1863, at which time the place contained about two hundred in- habitants. William Edwards was the first merchant, and his store was located near the coal schutes. The Shen- andoah branch railroad was built during the same year,
and the offices of the resident engineer and superinten- dent of the railroad. From 1865 the growth of the place was rapid, three large collieries having been opened, and the transfer of coal up the mountain to Frackville became an important industry. In 1880 the place had grown to a prosperous village of 1,000 in- habitants, with a number of fine stores, three hotels, two churches and an intelligent and orderly population. During the time of the labor troubles a "body " of Mol- lie Maguires was located here, and the usual measures adopted to cripple the operators and employers.
A building and loan association was attempted some years since, but it is now in the hands of a receiver. A fine public school is located here, in a convenient build- ing, which was erected in 1874, at a cost of about $5,000.
The high school building at Mahanoy Plane was erected in 1874 and 1875. During 1879 a new school- house was built at Gilberton. The number of school- houses in 1880 was three, with five schools.
SINKS.
One of the most exciting incidents in the history of the village occurred a few years since, when the houses and furniture of two families named Wynn and Jambries were engulfed entire by a sink in the workings of the Lawrence colliery. The families had only time to leave them and escape to surer foundation when a shower of stones and dust filled the air; and where, five minutes before, two pleasant homes, representing the savings of their owners' lives, had stood, was only a vast depression, filling with water from the surface. Occasional sinks as early as 1868 had warned the people of what might be expected, but it was believed that these buildings were not in danger. From that time to the present these sinks have been fre quent, and property owners are pro- tecting themselves by procuring injunctions against the mine operators, which compel them to purchase the buildings or improvements if they desire to continue working.
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