History of Tioga County, Pennsylvania, Part 14

Author:
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: Harrisburg : R. C. Brown
Number of Pages: 1454

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sequently passed into the hands of Phelps, Dodge & Company, and that firm pre- pared to operate the mills on a more extensive scale than the former owners. The Manchester mills, as they were named, came to be regarded as the center of a large business. The little village of Ansonia, named for Anson G. Phelps, head of the firm, grew up at the point where Marsh creek unites with Pine creek, and it still retains the name.

After the new firm became the owners of the property, Mr. Stowell managed the business for them until 1851. Ile then retired to Delmar township, where he had purchased 1,200 acres of land, settled upon it and in course of time cleared a farm of 600 acres. There he resided until his death, which occurred December 26, 1874.

Mr. Stowell was succeeded as manager by E. B. Campbell, who continued to serve the great firm in that capacity until his death at Williamsport, July 11, 1890.

Owing to the danger and uncertainty of running the manufactured lumber down line creek, the firm decided that it would be better to float the logs down the stream, secure them in a boom or harbor, and manufacture them at a point near the river. The Manchester mills therefore were abandoned, and what was known as Phelps mills were built on Pine creek, in ('linton county, near the junction of the Fall Brook and Becch Creek railroads. These mills were operated on an extensive seale until 18:1, when they were dismantled and removed to Williamsport, where still better advantages were secured for the manufacture of lumber. Scarcely a vestige now remains to mark the sites of the Manchester and Phelps mills, on Pine creek. All the parties who were active in conducting these great mills are now de- ceased, including the old members of the firm, and new men have taken their places. During the thirty-six years that these mills were operated on Pine creek, they manu- factured and sent to market hundreds of millions of feet of lumber. the greater part of which was a superior quality and commanded the highest price. But the stock of timber is now exhausted and the buzz of the busy saws is no longer heard where these great Pine creek mills once stood.

In 1870 the firm was incorporated under the name of the Pennsylvania Joint 8

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HISTORY OF TIOGA COUNTY.

Land and Lumber Company, and Gen. Jerome B. Niles, of Wellsboro, became its resident representative, a position he still holds. The company yet owns large bodies of land in Delmar and Shippen townships.

Peter Dickinson, the partner of Hezekiah Stowell, was a native of Bainbridge, New York. He was born May 1, 1797, and died January 11, 1879, and is buried in Wellsboro Cemetery. A younger brother, Samuel Dickinson, born July 22, 1805, died March 10, 1886, and is buried in the same lot. Both of these brothers were pioneer lumbermen, and are well remembered by the older lumbermen yet living. John Dickinson was a brother of Peter and Samuel.

Soon after Phelps, Dodge & Company became the owners of the Stowell & Dickinson property, Mr. Dickinson was sent to Baltimore to manage the interest of the new firm in that city, as that was the market to which they shipped their lum- ber. He did not remain very long there, for in a few years we find him back on the Susquehanna conducting a mill near Lock Haven. He was a man of "large expectations," but never realized what he so fondly cherished.

His younger brother, Samuel, was wiser. He came to Wellsboro in 1832, built a storehouse, stocked it with goods and did a large business. The storehouse was the building in which Chester and John L. Robinson-who purchased it- afterwards carried on business and later opened the bank, where the great robbery occurred in 1874. The old building is now used for a carpenter shop.

Silas Billings, an early settler and mill-owner and lumberman at Knoxville, made an investment in mills and lands in Gaines township about the time that Stowell & Dickinson began operations at Manchester, and soon became a leader among the lumbermen of the Pine Creek valley. In 1831 he purchased the John Benn mill property at Gaines, and within a few years was operating on an extensive scale, having added to his Gaines township lands large bodies of pine and hemlock lands in Elk township. During the later years of his life and after his death his ex- tensive business enterprises were managed by his son, Silas X. Billings, who soon became the leading lumberman of the county. He operated on a large scale, and through the exercise of good judgment and an intelligent oversight of his affairs was notably successful. Among the other prominent operators in this township were John L. Phoenix, Col. Dudley Hewitt, Stephen and Simeon Babcock and David Rexford.

RISKS AND CHARMS OF THE BUSINESS.

Few, if any, of the early lumbermen made any money at the business. The owners of small mills scarcely realized as much from them as a good farmer would now make on a twenty-acre farm. But lumber was about the only thing that brought any ready money into the county, and the timber had to be cleared away before the land could be cultivated. Farming, at least, in the western part of the county, was at a low ebb, none making more than enough to eke out a scanty living for a family. Men, women and children had to live, and to live decently had to have clothing, and to live at all had to have something to eat, and the men especially had to have something to drink. They could raise a little rye, which was changed into whisky at the distillery in Wellsboro; but tea and coffee and spices and cotton they could not raise, and the only business that furnished the money to buy these neces- saries was lumbering.

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INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT.

It is hard to tell whether it was sawed lumber or squared timber that brought most money back to the creek settlement; and what did come generally went to Wellsboro to pay store bills contracted during the lumbering season, never for a moment forgetting the little stone distillery across the creek in that town. Pay day was always "after rafting," and it was generally futile and very unpopular to attempt to collect a debt till after the spring floods had floated the lumber to market and its diminishing price had been brought baek.

With all the hard work and drawbacks of those days, lumbering on Pine creek had its charms. With the hardy, rugged lumbermen it made little difference whether he slept on a board, hemlock boughs, or a feather bed. Most of them pre- ferred the former.

THE TANNING INDUSTRY.

The assessment list of 1812 shows that two tanyards, one assessed to William Baker and the other to Ebenezer Jackson, were then in operation in Tioga township. As the different townships settled up local tanyards were established and the tanning of leather, for home use, became one of the recognized industries of the county. In time some of these local enterprises began to tan for shipment, and in this way ex- tended the industry. The presence of vast forests of hemlock, promising an almost inexhaustible supply of hemlock bark, essential in the tanning of leather, invited a larger investment of capital, and led to the erection of a number of great tan- neries at different points within the county. These are given proper notice in the township chapters. All of these extensive tanning plants have been erected within the past thirty years, and, with the exception of the Kingsley tannery at Mansfield, the tannery of John Gisin, at Wellsboro, and the Eberle tannery at West- field, are devoted to the production of sole leather. In May, 1893, these sole leather tanneries, except the one at Elkland, passed into the control of the Union Tanning Company, which is a member of the United States Leather Company. This great corporation now operates the tanneries at Blossburg, Tioga, Osceola, Westfield, Stokesdale, Niles Valley, Hoytville, Lectonia and Manhattan. At the time of its erection in 1883, the tannery at Hoytville was the largest steam tannery in the world, having a capacity of 1,000 hides of leather a day. The aggregate output of the tanneries of the county, when working to their full capacity, is over 1,000,000 hides of leather per annum. During later years, owing to a number of causes, the output has been greatly reduced. These various enterprises give employment to hundreds of men, not only in and around the tanneries themselves, but in the woods, getting out hemlock bark, not far from 100,000 cords of which is used annnally. A large proportion of the hides tanned come from South America. Their transpor- tation to the tanneries and from them, as leather, forms an important item in the freight traffie of the railroad companies doing business in the county.

IRON FOUNDRIES AND SMELTING WORKS.

Perhaps the very first attempt at establishing an iron foundry in the county was made by Benjamin W. Morris at Wellsboro. The year in which it was built is not clearly known, but it must have been quite early. It stood about where the glass works were erected in more modern times. William Bache says that he remembers being in the foundry. A few castings, consisting of sugar kettles,

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HISTORY OF TIOGA COUNTY.

cooking utensils, andirons, etc., were made. He obtained his iron from bog ore. As Mr. Bache was born in 1812, it must have been some years after that when the foundry was established-unless it was the ruins he saw. In that case, it might have been built about the time of his birth, or earlier.

About 1812 a small iron foundry was started at Lawrenceville, but the name of the founder has not been preserved. In later years the plant was carried on by James Kinsey.

About 1825 Judge John H. Knapp, of Elmira, New York, became interested in coal and iron lands at Blossburg, and a few years later began the erection of an iron furnace. After being owned and operated by a number of parties, usually at a loss, the plant was purchased by T. J. Mooers, in 1864, and has since been used as an iron foundry. In 1855 an iron furnace was erected at Mansfield by Charles F. Swan for the Mansfield Iron Company. It was operated until 1870, the ore being obtained from a deposit in Richmond township three miles west of Mansfield, and also from a deposit at Roseville.

Although iron foundries are still carried on successfully in many of the villages and boroughs of the county, the production of pig iron from iron ore ceased a quarter of a century ago. The iron ore, containing but about forty per cent. of iron, was not of a character to warrant a further investment of capital, in competition with other portions of the country, where the character of the ore and extent of the deposits insured a cheaper production of pig iron.

THE MANUFACTURE OF GLASS.

The presence in the same localities of glass sand-rock and of coal offered an opportunity for the investment of capital in the manufacture of glass. The first factory was established at Blossburg in 1847 and was operated for nearly forty years, first by William Dezang, of Geneva, New York, and after him by James H. Gulick, and then by Hirsch, Ely & Company. After being successfully carried on for nearly forty years it passed into the control of the United Glass Company, and was shut down. Another factory was erected about 1850 at Covington. It has also had vari- ous owners, the present ones being a local stock company. It is now being operated on the co-operative plan. In later years a factory was established in Wellsboro, but after being twice destroyed by fire, the enterprise was abandoned. All these factories were devoted to the manufacture of window glass, a fine quality of which was pro- duced. A revival and extension of this industry is looked for in the near future.

Another natural resource is moulding sand for foundries. The deposits are ex- tensive, and considerable quantities are shipped to Elmira and other places. Large quantities of glass sand are also shipped from Brownlee, in Duncan township, where a rock-crushing plant is in operation.

PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURE.

But it is to the patient and persistent labor of sturdy and stout-hearted hus- bandmen that the greater share of the present prosperity of Tioga county is to be at- tributed. This labor, begun with the felling of the first tree and the clearing of the first garden spot, has transformed the face of the county from a dense and unbroken forest wilderness, into cultivated fields, orchards and gardens, dotted with farm

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INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT.

homes, the abiding places of comfort, thrift, intelligence and happiness, and has, notwithstanding a rough and rugged surface, placed the county well up in the list of the prosperous and productive agricultural counties of the State.

At first the land in the valleys of the principal streams and their branches were settled and cleared, it being thought that those valley lands, in addition to being the most accessible, were the most fertile. But, as the county became more settled, the uplands began to be cleared and their fertility tested, and the fact established that some of the richest and most enduring soil is to be found in the more elevated sec- tions. The upland farms are now, therefore, regarded as equal, one year with an other, in productiveness, with those in the creek and river valleys.

During the earlier years of the county's history, when lumbering was largely depended on to supply ready money, agriculture did not receive the attention it has since the practical disappearance of the pine and hemlock forests. The diversified farming of the present was unknown, as well as the methods pursued by the first- class farmer of to-day. The man who owned a stumpy clearing was glad to produce enough wheat, corn, rye or oats to feed his family and the animals used in the labor of the field and the woods, the surplus that found its way to market being a very small per centage of the whole.

The fields of the present bear but a slight resemblance to those of early days. On many of them the labor of four generations-continued year after year with in- finite patience-has scarcely suffieed to free them, first of stumps and, later, of stones, so as to make possible the use of modern farm machinery. Their present condition bears eloquent witness to what ean be accomplished in the face of the most discouraging and disheartening primary conditions, and tells the story, better than words can tell it, of the sturdy and stalwart character of the men and women, who, from the earliest settlement of the county to the present, have been the main factor in its industrial growth and development.

While all the cereal grains are produced in the county, more attention is paid to oats, corn and buckwheat than to wheat, barley and rye. Considerable tobacco has also been produced, especially in the Tioga and Cowanesque river valleys, within the last twenty years, each year, until the recent decline in prices, showing an increased acreage.

The census of 1890 shows the following acreage and production of each of the leading cereal crops:

Products.

Acres,

Bus.

Products.

Acres.

Bus.

Wheat,

2,371

34,766

Corn,

4,540

137,904

Rye,

454

5,953

Buckwheat,

17,369 300,206

Oats,

.31,605

870,747

Barley, 1,757 32,113

This gives a total of 58,126 acres cultivated, with an aggregate product of 1,- 381,659 bushels. As there has been a notable increase in the acreage of eleared land since these statistica were gathered, it would be safe to assume that the total pro- duction of these cereals for 1896 would reach over 1,500,000 bushels, provided there was a proportionate increase in the acreage devoted to them. Within the past few years, however, many farmers have turned aside from the growing of the different grains to the growing of grasses for pasturage and huy, and the county is fast forging forward as a county of dairy and meadow farms. The cultivation of buckwheat,

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HISTORY OF TIOGA COUNTY.

however, still holds a prominent place, a large acreage being each year devoted to it. In 1890, as shown in the figures given, 17,369 acres produced 300,206 bushels, making Tioga and Bradford counties, which produced 506,412 bushels in the same year, two of the greatest buckwheat-producing counties in the State. The cultiva- tion of tobacco increased from 234 acres and 292,198 pounds in 1879, as shown by the census of 1880, to 457 acres and 498,752 pounds in 1889, as shown by the census of 1890. This crop, when prices are good, is a very profitable one, but during the past two years prices have fallen so low that the production has greatly decreased.

An examination of a summary of the assessment for 1896, prepared by the county commissioners for transmission to the secretary of internal affairs, as required by law, shows that there are 17,086 taxables in the county. The total number of acres of land reported is 669,576, of which 410,488 acres are cleared and 259,088 acres are timber lands. The total value of real estate is given at $16,158,685, of which $13,773,835 is taxable, and $2,384,850 is exempt from taxation. There are 9,531 horses and 14,759 neat cattle in the county. The aggregate county tax is $104,636.10, the levy being seven mills on the dollar. The aggregate state tax is $9,- 765.87, the levy being four mills on a dollar. The amount of money at in- terest is $2,437,972, and the total county debt $175,000. The total taxation for all purposes, for 1895, including bridges, roads, etc., as well as that derived from money at interest, was $306,610.70.

It is a well-known fact that there is a wide margin between the assessment value of real estate and its actual value, the former usually representing about one-third of the latter. Applying this rule to Tioga county, the present value of its real estate would reach a total of $50,000,000, a grand increase in value over that of 100 years ago, when an average of one dollar an acre would have been considered a good price to have paid for the land of the county. The present value represents not only the labor expended in clearing and cultivating the land, in erecting buildings, fences, etc., but it represents the advantage of being within easy reach of the best markets in the country, insuring a certainty of always realizing the best prices for the pro- ducts of the garden, the field and the orchard. It also represents the advantages of good schools, good churches and good society, things as desirable as fertile acres or modern farm equipments.

AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES.

The first agricultural society in the county was organized at Wellsboro as early as 1854. The names of the first officers are not obtainable, but those for 1855 were as follows: President, William B. Clymer; vice-presidents, Daniel L. Sherwood, George McLeod, B. C. Wickham, Ira Bulkley and J. S. Kingsbury; corresponding secretary, F. E. Smith; recording secretary, G. D. Smith; treasurer, John F. Don- aldson. There was a long list of names of persons composing the executive com- mittee, embracing many of the best men in the county. Efforts were made to arouse an interest in agriculture throughout the county and they were successful. Fairs were held, premiums were paid, and a stimulus given to the growing of better crops of all kinds and to the breeding and rearing of better grades of horses, cattle, hogs, sheep and poultry. In 1859 Horace Greeley delivered the annual address, which called forth a large attendance.

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COAL MINES AND MINING.

At the beginning of the Civil War the fairs were discontinued, but were resumed in 1866, and regularly held for a number of years. Among those who served as presi- dents of the society may be mentioned Hon. Stephen F. Wilson, Hon. Henry W. Williams, Hon. John I. Mitchell and Hon. Henry Sherwood. Such distinguished speakera, aside from Horace Greeley, aa Hon. Henry White and ex-Governor Pol- lock delivered annual addresses.

On November 3, 1877, the Tioga County Pomona Grange was organized with forty charter members, its hall and headquarters being in Wellsboro. It soon after- wards purchased the grounds, consisting of thirteen acres and buildings, of the Tioga County Agricultural Aid Society. Its special and annual meetings are held here, but the annual fair has been practically abandoned, not receiving paying financial support.

The Smythe Park Association at Mansfield and the Cowanesque Valley Agri- cultural Association at Westfield, have for a number of years conducted successful fairs in the boroughs named. Both organizations are well managed and embrace in their membership many of the most active, aggressive and enterprising business men of the county. They receive adequate notice in the chapters devoted to Mans- field and Westfield.

The Patrons of Husbandry are exceedingly strong in Tioga county, having in the neighborhood of fifty granges and 5,000 members, composed of both sexes. The avowed object of this order is to advance the interest and elevate the condition of agriculture and to aid those engaged therein to conduet their business in con- formity with scientific principles. The Farmers' Alliance is also represented in the county, but as yet have not obtained a strong foothold.

CHAPTER X. COAL MINES AND MINING.

THE BLOSSBURG AND GAINES COAL BASINS-THEORIES CONCERNING THEIR FOR- MATION-THEIR EXTENT AND CHARACTER-THE DISCOVERY OF COAL AT BLOSS- BURG-PIONEER MINES AND MINING-EARLY ATTEMPTS AT DEVELOPMENT-THE TIOGA NAVIGATION COMPANY-FIRST GEOLOGICAL SURVEY-THE ARBON COAL COMPANY-SIR CHARLES LYELL'S VISIT-COAL SEAMS DESCRIBED-CHARACTER AND USES OF BLOSSBURG COAL-THE MANUFACTURE OF COKE-LABOR STRIKES AND TROUBLES-RECENT STATISTICS-PAST AND PRESENT.

EOLOGISTS tell us that when the earth was many million years younger than it ia now. Tioga county presented an entirely different surface appearance from that with which those who live within its boundaries are familiar. Then the sites of the existing valleys were several thousand feet higher than the mountains that now inclose them, while the mountains themselves, especially those embraced in what are known as the Blossburg and Gaines coal basins, were much lower than at present,

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HISTORY OF TIOGA COUNTY.

and formed a series of troughs or basins, in which, as the years passed, were de- posited veins of semi-bituminous coal, varying in thickness from a few inches to several feet. Between these coal veins there was also deposited varying strata of slate, fire clay, iron ore, sand-stone and shale. The lowest of these veins-in the Blossburg basin-lies at an elevation of about 1,400 feet above tide water, and the highest at an elevation of about 1,800 feet, giving the coal measures of that basin an average thickness of between 300 and 400 feet. The highest vein in the county is in the Gaines coal basin, and is now being worked at Gurnee, at an elevation of about 2,100 feet. The thickness of the coal measures of this basin-though not so accurately determined, is about the same as that of the Blossburg coal basin. Between the lower and the upper level of the Blossburg basin-which has been ac- curately surveyed and thoroughly developed-there have been discovered no less than ten distinct veins of coal, the majority of which are too thin to be workable. The best workable vein-known as the "Bloss" vein-averages from three to five feet in thickness.

If the geologists have read and interpreted the story of the rocks aright, the mountains in which for ages this coal lay concealed-a source of heat and energy- were, when the lowest vein was formed, from 300 to 400 feet lower than at present. Instead of being mountains, they were deep mountain-inclosed basins or troughs. The erosion of ages wore away these mountain barriers, burying one coal deposit after another, and raising up the basins to a higher level. The waters flowing down the outer sides of the mountains, naturally followed the direction of the least re- sistance, and scooped out the present valleys. In this work of surface transforma- tion the greater part of the coal was washed away, and was borne on the currents of the Tioga river and of Pine creek, to the Susquehanna and the sea.

After this change in the appearance of the county had been effected, there re- mained two coal basins of limited area and extent. The larger of these, known as the "Blossburg Coal Basin," is a "canoe-shaped synclinal basin, remarkably symmet- rical, extending from a point just beyond Fall Brook, on the east," to and beyond Pine creek, west of which the basin rises out to a canoe-shaped point. The general strike of this basin is north 77 degrees east, and south 77 degrees west. Its coal de- posits are broken up into irregular tracts or patches by the headwater branches of the Tioga river, and by Babb's creek and its tributaries. There are evidences that when the different coal veins were first formed they extended in unbroken continuity over a much wider area than that covered by the existing coal-bearing tracts or patches. In scooping out their valleys, the streams washed the connecting coal away, leaving but a remnant of stored energy of a by-gone age.

It is in the Gaines coal basin, however, that this loss by erosion is most notice- able. This basin begins near the northeast corner of Jackson township, on the Bradford county line, and stretches southwest to the Potter county line. All this is left of what is supposed to have been a vast store of coal, is embraced in a few hun- dred acres in Gaines township, and a still smaller area in the northwestern part of Delmar township. The deposit in Gaines township covers perhaps 400 acres, near the northeastern corner, in what is known as the "Barrens." The coal openings here, in the mines of the Gaines Coal and Coke Company, are about 2,100 feet above

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History of Tioga County, Pennsylvania, Part 14

Author: Publication date: 1897 Publisher: Harrisburg : R. C. Brown Number of Pages: 1454

Author:
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: Harrisburg : R. C. Brown
Number of Pages: 1454