History of Washington County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 100

Author: Crumrine, Boyd, 1838-1916; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885; Hungerford, Austin N
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : H.L. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 1216

USA > Pennsylvania > Washington County > History of Washington County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 100

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385

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.

1814, and continuing it, with all its provisions, in force for the term of three years from the passage of the last act. Under this authority commissioners were appointed, who made an examination of the Monongahela, but nothing resulted from it in the way of improvement of the navigation of the river by the State.

In 1817 the Assembly passed an act (approved March 24th of that year) "to authorize the Governor to incorporate a company to make a lock navigation on the river Monongahela," to bear the name and style of "The President, Managers, and Company of the Monongahela Navigation Company." The act appointed Andrew Linn, Esq., and Hugh Ford, of Freeport; James Tomlinson, Elisha Hunt, George Dawson, William Hogg, Jacob Bowman, Basil Bra- shear, Joseph Thornton, and Israel Miller, of Browns- ville; James W. Nicholson and Thomas Williams, Esq., of New Geneva; Charles Bollman, Joel Butler, and James P. Stewart, of Williamsport (now Monon- gahela City); Henry P. Pearson and Joseph Alex- ander, of Fredericktown, in the county of Washing- ton, with seven gentlemen of Allegheny County and two of Greene County, to be commissioners to open books for subscriptions to the stock of the company at Pittsburgh and other points along the river. The capital stock of the company to be seventy-eight thou- sand dollars, in two thousand six hundred shares of thirty dollars each. As soon as five hundred shares should be subscribed the Governor was directed to issue the charter of the company, and it was enacted " that as soon as a company shall have been incorpo- rated by the Governor to make a lock navigation on the Monongahela River, he is hereby authorized and required to subscribe in behalf of this commonwealth for one thousand shares of the stock of said company at thirty dollars for each share, to be paid upon war- rants drawn by the Governor on the State Treasurer in favor of the President and Managers of said com- pany."

By the terms of the act of incorporation, the com- pany was required, in making their improvements on the river, "to erect at Bogg's ripple a dam of the height of three feet six inches ; at Braddock's lower ripple, a dam of the height of three feet six inches; at Braddock's upper ripple, a dam of the height of three feet six inches ; at Peters Creek ripple, a dam of the height of four feet two inches; at Baldwin's ripple, a dam of the height of four feet three inches ; at Frye's ripple, a dam of the height of three feet ten inches ; at Forsyth's ripple, a dam of the height of three feet eight inches ; at Brownsville ripple, a dam of the height of four feet six inches; at Smith's rip- ple, a dam of the height of four feet eight and a half inches ; at Heaton's ripple, a dam of the height of four feet five inches ; at Muddy Creek ripple, a dam of the height of four feet five inches; at Gilmore's ripple, a dam of the height of three feet ten inches ; at Little Whitely ripple, a dam of the height of four

feet four inches; at Geneva ripple, a dam of the height of three feet four inches; at Dunkard ripple, a dam of the height of three feet six inches; and at Cheat River ripple, a dam of the height of three feet three inches," with the privilege of raising any or all the dams not to exceed six inches above the speci- fied height, if it should be found necessary to do so. Owners of dams which had been erected at certain points on the river for mill purposes prior to the pas- sage of the act were required to raise such dams to the specified height (if they were not already up to it), and to keep them in repair; and for so doing they were empowered to collect tolls from boats and other craft passing them.

The company was required, under penalty of a for- feiture of their charter, to "proceed to carry on the said work" within five years from the date of the act, and to complete the slack-water navigation of the first section-from Pittsburgh to the mouth of Dun- lap's Creek-in seven years thereafter, and to com- plete the second section-from Dunlap's Creek to the mouth of Cheat River-in twenty-five years from the passage of the act. These conditions were not com- plied with, and forfeiture resulted in 1822. Beyond this fact, nothing has been found to show what was the extent of the operations of the old Monongahela Navigation Company during its existence, except that the books were opened in August, 1817 ; that the Gov- ernor of Pennsylvania subscribed on behalf of the Commonwealth for one thousand shares of the stock as required, subscriptions having previously been re- ceived from individuals sufficient in amount to author- ize the chartering and organization of the company under the act. It is evident that the amount of its capital stock, if fully subscribed and paid in, was in- sufficient for the purposes intended, and that even if the projected improvements had been completed, as specified in the act, they would have been wholly in- adequate to the requirements of navigation on the Monongahela.

In the spring of 1822, a few days after the expira- tion of five years from the passage of the act author- izing the Monongahela Navigation Company, an act was passed by the Assembly (approved April 2d of the year named) taking the improvement of the Monon- gahela into the hands of the State, and providing " That Solomon Krepps and Joseph Enochs, of Fay- ette County, and William Leckey, of Pittsburgh, be and they are hereby appointed commissioners, who shall have power, and it shall be their duty, to cause to be removed all obstructions which impede or injure the navigation of said river Monongahela, by making a slope or inclined navigation from the Virginia State line to its junction with the Allegheny River, and said improvement to commence at the mouth of Dun- lap's Creek in Fayette County, and for that purpose to employ suitable persons to perform said work ;" and " That ten thousand dollars of the stock sub- scribed by the Governor on behalf of this Common-

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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

wealth in the stock of the Monongahela Navigation Company be and is hereby appropriated to defray the expenses of removing the said obstructions. . . . "

By another section of the act it was provided and declared "That this act shall not go into operation until the Monongahela Navigation Company shall have first settled all accounts of said company, . . . and until the Monongahela Navigation Company shall also have relinquished their shares in the stock of said company, as well those held by individuals as those held by companies, which relinquishment shall have been certified and transmitted under the hand and seal of the president and managers of said com- pany, or a majority of them, to the Governor, stating that they relinquish all the rights, powers, and privi- leges in and to the navigation of the river Mononga- hela vested in them by an act passed the 24th of March, 1817, entitled 'An act to authorize the Governor to incorporate a company to make a lock navigation on the river Monongahela,' and from thenceforth said company shall cease and determine as if the said act had not been passed."

The persons appointed as viewers and commission- ers to examine the work done on the river by the first-named commissioners, and to report to the Gov- ernor whether or not, in their opinion, the money granted by the State had been judiciously expended, were John Brownlee, of Washington, Henry Heaton, of Fayette, and John Walker, of Allegheny County. Nothing has been found showing the nature and ex- tent of the improvements made by the commissioners under this act, or how much the navigation of the Monongahela was benefited by them, but it is evident that the expenditure of the small sum of ten thousand dollars on more than ninety miles of river channel could not have produced any very great results.

A supplement to the act of April 2, 1822, for the improvement of the Monongahela by the State, was passed and approved March 29, 1823. One of the sections of this supplementary act provided that all persons owning dams and locks on the Monongahela, which were built or begun to be built, or raised to the required height in pursuance of the provisions (before mentioned) of the act of 1817, authorizing the incor- poration of the Navigation Company, might petition the Governor, setting forth the facts, whereupon the Governor was required to appoint three commissioners to view such locks and dams, and upon their report to the Governor that the improvements had been constructed agreeably to the terms of the act, he was required to grant to the owners of such improvements authority to collect tolls from all boats passing such locks and dams.

In 1828 a report was made to the Assembly of Penn- sylvania, giving the result of a survey of the river by E. F. Gay, and favoring its improvement by the State, but nothing was done. In 1832 the late Hon. Andrew Stewart made an effort in the Congress of the United States to have the work done by the national govern-

ment, as an extension, under the act of 1824, of the improvement of the navigation of the Ohio to the National road at Brownsville. Congress provided for a survey of the river to Brownsville, which was made in 1833 by Dr. William Howard, United States civil engineer. His plan was to build locks and low dams, eight in number, of four and a half feet lift, except that No. 1 would be six feet, the object being to use them only when the river was low. Congress having declined to authorize the work, a public meeting held at Waynesburg, Greene Co., Nov. 18, 1835, recom- mended and urged the improvement by the State. The movement was at once seconded by the citizens of Pittsburgh, Brownsville, and Williamsport, and legislation was sought and obtained.

The actual improvement of the Monongahela by the formation of a practical slack-water navigation was finally accomplished by the Monongahela Navi- gation Company (second of that name and style), which was incorporated under an act of Assembly approved March 31, 1836, with an authorized capital of $300,000, in six thousand shares of $50 each, with power " to increase the number of shares to such ex- tent as shall be deemed sufficient to accomplish the work."

The persons appointed as commissioners to receive subscriptions to the stock were Thomas H. Baird, Aaron Kerr, Ephraim L. Blaine, William Briant, Sheshbazzer Bentley, Andrew Gregg, John Bowers, William Vankirk, Samuel Beatty, William Hopkins, and James Gordon, of Washington County ; George Dawson, Benedict Kimber, George Hogg, James L. Bowman, Israel Miller, David Gilmore, E. P. Oli- phant, Jeremiah Davison, Thomas Wilson, Tazewell P. Martin, George Cramer, Yates S. Conwell, Thomas Beatty, Aaron Bucher, John Harshe, Andrew Stew- art, Samuel Evans, Isaac Crow, George Vance, James C. Etington, Robert Brown, James C. Ramsey, David B. Rhoads, William Everhart, Westley Frost, and Samuel J. Krepps, of Fayette County ; and a number of 'gentlemen of Greene and Allegheny Counties. When two thousand shares were subscribed the com- pany was entitled to a charter, and might organize in not less than twenty days. Upon organization the company was empowered " to form and make, erect and set up any dams, locks, or any other device what- soever which they shall think most fit and convenient to make a complete slack-water navigation between the points herein mentioned, to wit : the city of Pitts- burgh and the Virginia State line; and that the dams which they shall so construct for the purpose of slack- water navigation shall not exceed in height four feet six inches; and that the locks for the purposes of passing steamboats, barges, and other craft up and down said river shall be of sufficient width and length to admit a safe and easy passage for steamboats, barges, and other craft up as well as down said river." This act, like that which was passed for the creation

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INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.

of the old company in 1817, authorized the company to use, lease, or sell the water-power from the dams, and conferred on the individual owners of dams pre- viously built (if by them raised to the required height) the right to collect toll from boats passing down or up the river. By the terms of the act the company was required to commence work within five years, and to complete the improvement to the Virginia line within twelve years from its passage, under penalty of for- feiture of charter.

During the year 1836 sufficient stock was subscribed to authorize the issue of a charter early in 1837, and on the 10th of February in that year the company was organized by the election of officers, as follows :

President, James Clarke; Treasurer, John D. Davis; Secretary, Jesse H. Duncan; Managers, Thomas Bakewell, James L. Bowman, John H. Ewing, John Freeman, Cephas Gregg, George Hogg, John Lyon, John Tassey, William Wade, Samuel Walker.

By the sixth section of the State act of Feb. 18, 1836, chartering the United States Bank, it was re- quired, among other burdens imposed, to subscribe to the stock of this company, then in prospect, $50,000 at the opening of its books, and $50,000 more when $100,000 of stock from other sources should have been expended on the work. The State, by act of April 14, 1838, subscribed $25,000 in stock, and by act of June 11, 1840, $100,000 more.

In the summer of 1838 a careful survey of the river was made by an engineer corps, at the head of which was W. Milnor Roberts (afterwards engineer of the Northern Pacific Railroad, and now or recently en- gaged in the service of the Brazilian government), with Nathan McDowell and Robert W. Clarke, as- sistants.

From Pittsburgh to Brownsville was found to be about 55} miles, and the ascent a little over 33} feet ; from Brownsville to the Virginia line, a little over 35 miles, ascent 41 feet ; totals, 90} miles, and 74} feet. This would have required seventeen dams of four and one-half feet lift,-one, on an average, for every five miles,-thereby causing delays and tolls which would have been unendurably vexatious, and an expenditure in construction and attendance which would have made the work wholly unremunerative. Besides, on some of the ripples the fall was three and four feet, and one, at the mouth of Cheat River, six feet. It was soon seen that this plan must be abandoned. Accordingly the Legislature, by a supplemental act, ap- proved June 24, 1839, authorized the company to con- struct the dams eight feet in height from pool to pool.

The supplemental act also repealed that section of the original act which gave to individual owners of dams on the river the right to collect tolls from boats, in consideration of constructing or raising their dams to the required height and keeping them in repair, the adoption of the later plan of higher lifts render- ing these dams useless to the navigation.

At first it was thought that ten dams of eight feet in height would be required to carry the work to the State line (five below and five above the mouth of Dunlap's Creek), but by an authorized increase of dam No. 4 to ten feet, and those above Brownsville (three in number) to whatever height the banks would allow, it was found that seven would be sufficient.

Dam and lock No. 1, a mile above Smithfield Street bridge, Pittsburgh, was let by contract, Dec. 17, 1838, to J. K. and J. B. Moorhead. No. 2, at Braddock's upper ripple, was contracted (re-let), May 17, 1839, to Coreys and Adams. Both these dams were put in use Oct. 18, 1841, though neither was entirely com- pleted at the time.

On the 15th of July, 1840, lock and dam No. 3, at Watson's Run, two miles above Elizabeth, was let to Bills & Foreman ; and No. 4, at Frey's Shoals, to Fen- lon & Patton (changed in construction to Fenlon & Lonergan). The work was under the general direc- tion of Chief Engineer Roberts. The construction of Nos. 3 and 4, from the commencement of work until May, 1841, was under the personal supervision of George W. Cass. In the contract for No. 4, the com- pany, to provide against a (not improbable) lack of funds, reserved the right to stop the work at any time, paying for what had been done. In May, 1841, for the cause which had been foreseen, they were obliged to avail themselves of this right, and for the same reason work on No. 3 was suspended at the same time.

The year 1842 brought great discouragement to the company. The United States Bank broke, and failed to subscribe and pay its second $50,000. Of the sec- ond ($100,000) subscription of the State, the company was compelled to receive a large portion in State bonds, and having received them were compelled to sell them at a loss of fifty per cent. Many of the individual subscribers for stock resisted payment, while some were unable to pay. The company owed $40,000, and had no money to pay with. Everything seizable was taken and sold on execution. In 1841 an effort was made to secure further aid from the State, but this was unsuccessful, for the condition of the State treasury would not permit the investment. In 1842 a very strong effort was made to interest cer- tain Baltimore capitalists and persuade them to re- plenish the company's treasury, so as to complete the slack-water improvement to Brownsville, and thereby make it a feeder to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which about that time was nearing Cumberland, where it was thought it would be obliged to make a long halt. But the Marylanders were too intent on push- ing their great work to the Ohio to engage in any side enterprise, especially one which they could not con- trol.

For two years the work made no progress, except to decay. The whole project became a " mortifica- tion to its friends and projectors, and a nuisance to the navigation." Its friends were almost ready to abandon it to the mercies of the floods and of an in-

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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

dignant public, when aid came from an unexpected source. The State's financial condition had become so depressed that the Legislature, by act of July 27, 1842, and again by act of April 8, 1843, directed sales of all its corporation stocks, among them its $125,000 in this company. This induced a number of men of capital, enterprise, and of unfaltering faith in the ultimate success of the improvement to buy this stock,-of course at a low figure,-and thereupon to engage to repair and complete the work to Browns- ville, upon ten-year coupon bonds, secured by a mort- gage of the improvement and its revenues to be ap- plied first to old debts, second to interest, and then to reimburse to themselves the principal of their actual expenditure. These men were James K. Moorhead, Morgan Robertson, George Schnable, Charles Avery, Thomas M. Howe, John Graham, Thomas Bakewell, J. B. Moorhead, and John Freeman. They did the work, chiefly through sub-contractors,1 under the name of Moorhead, Robertson & Co. Their contract with the company was made Nov. 9, 1843. It was July, 1844, before they could get effectively at work, but they went at it with such energy and skill, with Syl- vanus Lathrop for engineer, and J. B. Moorhead for superintendent, that on the 13th of November, 1844, -dams No. 3 and 4 being completed, and the breach in No. 1 thoroughly repaired,-the lower division of the Monongahela improvement was formally opened from Pittsburgh to Brownsville.

At the time of the opening there had been expended on the improvement (exclusive of engineering and salaries of officers) the sum of $418,000, viz .: con- struction of dams and locks Nos. 1 and 2, $160,500; repairing of damages on same, $35,000; construction of Nos. 3 and 4, $222,500.

Before the work was opened to Brownsville in 1844, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad had been completed to Cumberland. The route of travel and traffic from that place to Brownsville was over seventy-five miles of the hard, smooth National road, which then more than ever before was crowded with stage-coaches laden to the full with passengers to and from the railroad ter- minus at Cumberland, and the greater part of these passengers were now delivered to or received from the Monongahela River steamboats at Brownsville, and this continued during the navigation season in each year until the opening of the Pennsylvania Railroad to Pittsburgh in 1852. Here were eight years of a rich harvest for the slack-water and the eastern di- vision of the National road. During that time the Navigation carried between Brownsville and Pitts- burgh more than two hundred and eighty thousand through passengers, a large proportion of whom passed by stage over the great road. In the same time more than four hundred and sixty-two thousand way pas- sengers were carried between the same points; and

the total passenger tolls for that period amounted to $126,100.23. From 1845 to 1847 the revenues had almost doubled, thereby enabling the company in 1847 to nearly extinguish its old floating debt, keep down the interest, and pay $13,500 of the principal of the $231,500 of bonds which had been issued to Moor- head, Robertson & Co.

About this time there arose a strong excitement in opposition to the operations of the company, and a general demand was made that the coal tolls on the slack-water should be lowered, also that the dams should be made low enough to be "jumped" at high water. Many of those interested in the navigation of the river demanded that the dams be cut down to four and a half feet, as required by the act of 1836, and they bitterly denounced the company and the Legislature of 1839, which passed the supplemental act authorizing the raising of the dams to eight feet. It was foretold, with a great deal of gravity and ap- parent wisdom, that "if the high dams are suffered to remain as they are the coal lands up the river will always be worthless !" The agitation failed to accomplish the lowering of the dams, but the company reduced the tolls on pools Nos. 3 and 4 on coal in flat-boats in- tended to go down the Ohio. A calm succeeded, and the people were satisfied. The relations between the company and the coal-owners became harmonious, and have ever since remained so. The latter found that their predictions of the utter worthlessness of coal lands in case the high dams were allowed to remain were baseless, but that, on the contrary, those lands were rising rapidly in value from year to year. This appreciation has been continued and rapid, especially in the later years, until the present time.

Notwithstanding that the tolls from freights and passengers continued about the same for many years, such was the rapid increase of the coal trade that at the end of 1853 the entire indebtedness to Moorhead, Robertson & Co. was paid; and but for new debts in- curred in 1850 for some additional rights ($2000), and a second lock at dam No. 1 ($56,800), and in 1853-54 another lock at dam No. 2, costing about $50,000,2 rendered necessary to accommodate the increased coal trade, and the extension above Brownsville, the company could have been free of debt.

The building of the dams above Brownsville had been postponed from time to time on account of the low condition of the company's finances. From 1848 to 1853 several attempts were made to raise the necessary funds by obtaining new subscriptions to stock, but without success. The stock was nominally doubled in 1848, bringing it up to a total of $521,000, but this did not add to the company's available means. The Legislature, by act of Jan. 25, 1854, made it im- perative upon the company to put locks and dams Nos. 5 and 6 under contract, and have them com-

1 The lock at No. 3 was built by Aleton & Hanney, and the dam by John Lindsay. Lock and dam No. 4 were built by Lockhart & Thomas.

3 Alstons & Hannay were the contractors for the new lock at No. 1; Ersman & Hardy for that at No. 2.

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pleted, No. 5 before June 1, 1855, and No. 6 before Dec. 1, 1855. The improvement to the State line was required to be completed before Dec. 1, 1857, but this requirement was relaxed by act of April 8, 1857, so as not to require No. 7 to be begun until locks and dams to carry the work from the State line to Morgantown should be put under contract, and with the completion of which No. 7 was to be contemporaneous.

In compliance with the act of Jan. 25, 1854, the company promptly put Nos. 5 and 6 under contract, No. 5, just above Watkins' Bar, two miles above Brownsville, to Burns & Ross; and No. 6, at Rice's Landing, ten miles farther up, to Messrs. Dull. They were constructed at a cost (including the raising of dam No. 4 and some dredging) of about $200,000, and were completed and ready for use in November, 1856, thus opening the slack-water navigation to Geneva.

All the original locks are one hundred and ninety by fifty feet in the chambers between the points or mitres of the gates and the side-walls. The entire length of the walls is two hundred and fifty-two feet, and their height about twenty-five feet. They are ten and twelve feet thick, built of heavy blocks of dressed stone, laid in hydraulic cement and securely clamped. Except those at Nos. 1 and 6, which have rock bases, they are built upon heavy oak timber deeply laid and covered with heavy oak plank. Each of the old locks contains over five thousand three hundred perches of stone. The new ones (put in in addition to the original ones in locks Nos. 1 and 2) are larger and contain proportionately more. These are two hundred and fifty by fifty-six feet in the cham- bers, but built in other respects as were the old ones. To show the facility with which boats are passed through these locks, the following quotation is given from the report of the board of managers to the stock- holders, presented January 12th of the present year (1882), viz. : " In twenty hours between midnight of the 17th of December last and the same hour of the ensuing night there were passed through lock No. 1 forty-two coal-boats, forty-six barges, ten flats, and two fuel-boats, containing together an aggregate of 1,661,000 bushels, or about 63,118 tons of coal. A correspondingly increased amount could have been passed during the twenty-four hours had not the pas- sage of boats been suspended during four hours of that day by the refusal of the pilots of some tow-boats to pass down below out of the way of the boats seek- ing to leave the lock."

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History of Washington County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 100

Author: Crumrine, Boyd, 1838-1916; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885; Hungerford, Austin N Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Philadelphia : H.L. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 1216

Author: Crumrine, Boyd, 1838-1916; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885; Hungerford, Austin N
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : H.L. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 1216