USA > Pennsylvania > Washington County > History of Washington County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 101
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" The coal business on the Monongahela," says the above-quoted report, "has increased so largely in re- cent years that the pressure for the passage of coal- boats in time of a rise of the river has become very great at dam No. 3, where there is only a single lock. As the necessity arose, a similar difficulty at locks Nos. 1 and 2 was relieved by the construction of a second and enlarged lock at each of those points. The company has, therefore, in order to meet promptly
the demands of the coal trade and afford every facility for rapid navigation, ordered a new lock, of larger dimensions than any heretofore constructed on their improvement, to be built alongside of the present lock No. 3. This work will be put under contract and completed as speedily as possible; and they have it also in contemplation to duplicate the lock at No. 4, also on an enlarged scale. These improvements will fully accommodate, for many years to come, the still rapidly-increasing coal trade out of pools Nos. 3 and 4, especially when the formation of a pool below dam No. 1 shall have been effected.
" The United States government, having completed lock and dam No. 9, at Hoard's Rock, in West Vir- ginia, are now proceeding with the construction of lock and dam No. 8, near Dunkard's Creek. If this work were completed it would only require the erec- tion of lock and dam No. 7 by this company to furnish a slack-water navigation between Pittsburgh and Mor- gantown, in West Virginia, a total distance of one hundred and two miles. This company has accord- ingly entered into a contract with Messrs. Harrold & McDonald for the immediate erection of lock and dam No. 7, which, unless the season should prove so un- favorable as to prevent it, will be completed during the present year, and which, by connecting with the government work now partly in process of construc- tion and partly completed, will fulfill the obligation of the company under its charter, and furnish a com- plete slack-water navigation not only up to but beyond the limit of the Virginia State line. This work, when completed, will furnish on the Monongahela River the longest reach of slack-water steamboat navigation in the United States, if not in the world.
Following is a statement of the number of bushels of coal and slack shipped from the several pools of the Monongahala slack-water during each month of the year 1881,1 viz. :
1 The following table from "Legislative Document No. 8" shows the number of employees and the production of coal in Washington County for the year ending December, 1881 :
Operator.
Working Persona days.
emp'd.
paid.
prod.
A. Hays Coal Company
183
54
$28,145
21,311
F. H. Coursin.
71
11,000
13,300
D. M. Anderson
234
13
5,259
8.756
Gamble & Risher.
2:25
115
72,000
68,125
Harlem Coal Company.
159
224
80,000
64,306
Miller & Co.
300
50
25,470
18,752
R. Wellington
200
34
19,000
12,000
Crowthers, Musgrave & Co.
207
120
45,808
42,558
Keystone Coal Company.
225
82
24,108
18,288
Kuob Coal Company
130
76
19,643
18,497
Blackburn & Mort.
120
29
25,000
20,672
T. J. Wood
100
48
13,000
10,000
Lindsey & Mccutcheon.
100
48
10,310
J. Allison ..
250
62
26,750
30,000
Chicago Gas Coal Company.
264
150
70,037
55,968
Patterson & Sauters
200
125
55,000
50,000
J. S. Neel
220
135
62,329
48,114
Robbins Block Coal Company ...
250
175
75,000
75,000
Pittsburgh and Walnut Hill Coal Company
220
123
40,000
40,000
W. S. White & Son.
265
6
1.400
2,774
V. Harding.
270
40
12,050
12,800
G. W. Crawford & Co.
116
25,000
18,000
John H. Ewing.
156
13
1,600
1.5
J. V. H. Conk
290
10
3,000
4.446
A. A. Hutchinson & Bro
275
180
100,000
125,000
George Crawford & Co
156
78
....
S.200
Jacob Legler.
96
19
......
1,260
Wages
Tons
390
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
Months.
Pool
Pool
Pool
Pool
Total.
No. 1.
No. 2.
No. 3.
No. 4.
January
611,000
2,429,500
395,800
233,600
3,666,900
February.
214,500
3,428,000
650,000
708,200
5,001,700
March
73,200
7,319,500
2,123,700
2,922,500
12,438,900
April
1,656,000
6,211,500
2,490,900
2,511,900
12,870,300
May ..
1,079,500
4,825,000
494,500
1,048,000
7,447,000
June.
1,828,460
7,072,500
1,429,000
1,708,400
12,038,360
July
430,000
4,045,000
972,000
1,075,900
6,522,900
August.
16,000
766,500
396,800
559,000
1,738,300
September
126,000
77,100
57,900
261,000
October.
13,000
201,000
305,100
28,400
547,500
November.
1,077,000 5,073,000
2,214,600
2,668,800
10,433,400
December.
1,714,600
6,499,000
2,599,300
2,525,500
13,288,400
Total.
8,713,260 47,944,500 14,148,800 15,448,100 86,254,660
The coke shipments by the slack-water in 1881 were as follows :
Bushels-from Pool No. 1.
134,500
=
2
66
6
229,000
Total number bushels coke
3,780,700
This gives a total of ninety million thirty-five thousand three hundred and sixty bushels of coal, coke, and slack shipped from the several pools of the Monongahela Navigation Company in the year 1881, which is a total increase of a little more than six hundred and fifty thousand bushels over the business of 1880. The passenger business of 1881 was but little more than one-third that of the preceding year, this being due to the opening of the railroad from West Brownsville to Pittsburgh in the spring of 1881. The decrease will of course continue, and grow more marked as the railroads now in process of construc- tion penetrate southward to West Virginia. But the passenger trade is an item of small and ever-lessening comparative importance to the navigation of the river. The natural resources of the country furnish its main business, and this will be the case in the future even more than it is at present. The mineral treasures lying hidden beneath the everlasting hills of the Monongahela, and as yet hardly beginning to be developed, will sustain and swell the navigation of the river, and bring surpassing prosperity to its val- ley. The Monongahela improvement, which, as its opponents forty years ago prophesied, was to render the coal lands of the upper river worthless, has, in- stead, been largely, if not principally, instrumental in making them accessible, enhancing their value far beyond the wildest dreams of that day, and making their owners wealthy. While accomplishing this, after years of disaster and discouragement, the Navi- gation Company has also achieved success for itself, and its present prosperity is certainly well merited.
The presidents of the company have been : James Clarke, elected at the organization, in February, 1837, and held till October, 1840; Thomas Bakewell, pro tempore, from October, 1840, to January, 1841, then elected and held till the following October; William Eichbaum, pro tempore, from October, 1841, to Janu- ary, 1842, then elected and held till January, 1844 ; Samuel R. Johnston, January, 1844, to January, 1845; John B. Butler, January, 1845, to July, 1846, when he entered the army as paymaster in the Mexi- can war. James K. Moorhead succeeded him as pres-
ident pro tempore, holding till January, 1847, when he was elected, and has held the office of president of the company from that time continuously for more than thirty-five years. The present officers of the Monongahela Navigation Company are :
President, J. K. Moorhead.
Secretary and Treasurer, William Bakewell.
Managers, John Harper, Felix R. Brunot, M. K. Moorhead, N. B. Hogg, William Morrison, J. B. Murdoch, Alexander Bradley, J. B. Sweitzer, Joseph Albree, A. C. Bakewell.
Steamboat navigation on the Monongahela was commenced in the year 1814, when the " Enterprise," which had been built at Brownsville by Daniel French and others, left that place under command of Henry M. Shreve, and passed down the Monongahela, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans, being the first boat that ever made the trip from Pittsburgh to that city and return. The "Dispatch" was also built by the same parties, and went down the Monongahela and Ohio not long after the "Enterprise." During the thirty years that succeeded the building of these two boats, before the opening of the slack-water from Pittsburgh to Brownsville, the Monongahela was navigated in the times of high water by a multitude of steamboats, of which it is impracticable to give the names or any connected account. Mention should be made, however, of the two brothers, Capt. William and Capt. James Parkinson, sons of Benjamin Park- inson,1 natives and residents of Washington County, who were among the most famous river-men of the early days of Monongahela River navigation, and who became almost as well known on the lower Ohio and Mississippi as on the river along whose shores they played in boyhood. They both were engaged in steamboat navigation on the Monongahela long before the opening of the slack-water improvement. In Februrary, 1841, Gen. Harrison (who was then on his way to Washington, D. C., to be inaugurated Presi- dent of the United States) traveled on Capt. William Parkinson's boat, the "Moxahalla," from Pittsburgh to Brownsville. The weather was exceedingly cold and damp, and the President-elect being called for at every landing, was compelled to go on shore and show himself bare-headed to the crowds which had col- lected to greet him. The result was a severe cold, which Capt. Parkinson always believed and declared to be the cause of the general's death, which occurred very soon after his inauguration.
Upon the completion of the slackwater improve- ment to Brownsville, the brothers Parkinson became prominent men in the company which placed the first line of steamers upon it, but after some years they
1 Benjamin Parkinson, father of William and James, was an exten- give mill owner at the mouth of Mingo Creek, and a nephew of Benja- min Parkinson, whose name frequently occurs in the annals of the " Whiskey Insurrection," and also of Joseph Parkinson, who founded the settlement at Parkinson's Ferry, now Monongahela City.
3,330,000
.
4
87,200
391
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.
disposed of their interests on the Monongahela, and ran a boat or boats of their own in the trade between Pittsburgh and St. Louis.
The first regular line boat that ran upon the Mo- nongahela slack-water after its completion between Brownsville and Pittsburgh was the side-wheeler " Louis McLane," so named for the first president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. With her, on al- ternate days, ran the "Consul," also a side-wheeler. Both these boats were regarded as fast, the "McLane" being the more so of the two. After about four years' service she was dismantled at Brownsville, and parts of her used in the building of the Pittsburgh and Wheeling packet "Diurnal."
The two line boats above mentioned were succeeded by the " Atlantic" and "Baltic," which were both built at Brownsville, and both very fast boats. They came out in 1849. After three or four years' service the " Baltic" was dismantled, and the other was put in use as a tow-boat. After a time she too was demol- ished, and her material used in building the stern- wheeler " Hercules." The "Baltic" and " Atlantic" were succeeded in the line by the "Luzerne" and " Jefferson." While the former was building, in 1852, the flood carried the hull off the ways and over the dams. It was caught at Mckeesport, and towed into the Youghiogheny, where it was completed. The " Jefferson" was built at Mckeesport, and after her tour of duty on the slack-water was dismantled at Brownsville. The "Luzerne" was taken to the Mis- sissippi, where she ran between Rock Island and Ga- lena, Ill., and was finally snagged near the Iowa shore, above Lyons. About 1854 the " Redstone" was built by John S. Pringle, now of West Brownsville. She was put on the line, but ran only a few months, when she was sold to go in the lower Ohio River trade ; but her career was ended soon afterwards by the explo- sion of her boilers near Carrollton, Ky.
The "Telegraph," built at California by McFall, ran on the line for about twelve years, and was ac- counted a "lucky" boat. After her long career on the slackwater she was dismantled at Brownsville. Some of her machinery was put in the "Scotia," re- cently built for the Ohio. The "Geneva," stern- wheeler, ran on the line for a short time about 1855. The "Dunbar" was built by John S. Pringle about 1859 for the Monongahela trade, but being a little too large to pass the locks conveniently, was sold to run on the lower Ohio and Tennessee Rivers. At the commencement of the war of 1861-65 she fell into the hands of the Confederates. After the fall of Fort Henry she with several other boats was chased up the Tennessee by the United States gun- boats "Lexington," "Conestoga," and "Tyler." She passed Pittsburgh Landing and Eastport, and a short distance above the latter escaped her pursuers by run- ning up a creek which was too shoal for the Federal gunboats to follow. But she left her bones there, for the water falling she was unable to get back to the
river, and was dismantled by the Confederates, who took her machinery overland to the Chattahoochie River, where it was used in another boat.
Among the later boats running on the line between Pittsburgh and New Geneva there have been the "Franklin," the "Gallatin," the "Fayette," the "Elisha Bennett," "Chieftain," "Elector," "John Snowdon," and the present boats of the Geneva line, -the ."James G. Blaine," "Geneva," and "Ger- mania." The "Franklin" and "Gallatin" ran to- gether on the line for a few years, after which service the "Gallatin" was sold to run as a ferry-boat be- tween Memphis, Tenn., and the Arkansas shore of the Mississippi, and the "Franklin" was taken to pièces at Brownsville, her machinery being placed in the " Geneva," which is still on the line. The "Fay- ette," which was built at Brownsville, was one of the finest boats ever running on the Monongahela, as well as one of the most successful. She was sold to go in the lower Ohio River trade, between Cairo, Ill., and Evansville, Ind. The career of the " Elisha Bennett" was disastrous, ending in her total loss in 1878. She was carried away from her wharf at Brownsville, in the night, by flood and ice, and crushed at dam No. 4. The "Chieftain" met the same fate at the same time. This last-named boat and the "Elector" were not put on the river to run in the regular Geneva line, but in the "People's Line," an opposition which was put on about 1867. This line was discontinued by their boats being purchased by the other company and run as boats of the regular line.
The " Pittsburgh, Brownsville and Geneva Packet Company" was incorporated under an act of Assem- bly passed Feb. 21, 1868, with a capital of $150,000, and authority to increase to $300,000. The corpora- tors named in the act were "Benjamin Coursin, John J. House, Mark Boreland, William Britten, Clark Breading, Samuel H. Smith, Joseph G. Ritchie, and their associates," the object for which the company was incorporated being to run steamers for the carry- ing of passengers and freight on the Monongahela River, which, however, they had been doing for years before the incorporation, this being the legalization, but not the commencement, of the enterprise, The first president /of the company was J. K. Moorhead, who was succeeded by George W. Cass, and he by Adam Jacobs. Nearly all the steamers already men- tioned as having run on the Monongahela were of this line. The present boats of the company making daily trips each way between Pittsburgh and New Geneva are the "James G. Blaine," "Geneva," and " Ger- mania." The present (December, 1881) officers of the packet company are: Managers, Adam Jacobs, presi- dent; Isaac C. Woodward, Charles E. Spear, Benja- min F. Coursin, H. B. Cock, William Parkhill, George E. Hogg ; Secretary and Treasurer, H. W. Robinson.
Railroads .- The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company was the first corporation which made any
392
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
actual movement towards the construction of a rail- way line through the valley of the Monongahela River or any part of the territory of Washington County. That company having been incorporated by the Legislature of Maryland at their December session in the year 1826, applied to the General Assembly of Pennsylvania for authority to construct their road through this State to or towards a terminus on the Ohio. To this petition the Assembly responded Feb. 27, 1828, by the passage of " An act to authorize the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company to construct a railroad through Pennsylvania, in a direction from Baltimore to the Ohio River." The act recited in its preamble that "it is in accordance with that liberal course of policy which has ever been pursued by this Commonwealth to promote the facility of trade and intercourse between the citizens of Pennsylvania and the citizens of her sister States, and no doubt is enter- tained but the same motives of policy will govern the State of Maryland should an application at any time hereafter be made by the government of this State for leave to intersect the said railroad in the State of Maryland by the construction of a railroad by the State of Pennsylvania, or any company which may by law be incorporated for such purpose." The company was required to complete its road in Penn- sylvania within fifteen years from the passage of the act, otherwise the act to be void and of no effect.
In 1829 the engineers of the company commenced the exploration of routes through Pennsylvania, and this was soon followed by preliminary surveys, extending through several years, a very thorough examination being made of a wide range of country, extending from the mouth of Dunkard Creek north- ward as far as the northern limits of Washington County. A report on the western part of the pro- posed route was made by the company's chief engi- neer, Jonathan Wright, Esq., of Washington County, in 1835, and, being favorable for the construction of the road, it awakened considerable interest and enthu- siasm among the people of the Monongahela Valley. In some of the newspapers of November, 1835, is found a report of a "Great Railroad Meeting," held at Brownsville on the 3d of that month, "to promote the immediate construction of a railroad be- tween Cumberland and Brownsville, and thence to Wheeling and Pittsburgh, at which it was announced that the chief engineer of the Baltimore and Ohio Company had made an examination of this section of country, and had made his report to the effect that a railroad could be constructed between the places men- tioned "without the use of any inclined plane." The meeting resolved that it was expedient to hold a rail- road convention at Brownsville on Thursday, the 25th of the same month, to be composed of delegates from the District of Columbia, and from towns, cities, and counties feeling an interest in the enterprise. No re- port of such a convention has been found, nor does it appear that any further public action was taken in the
premises. It is evident that the Brownsville meeting of November 3d did not convene for the purpose of adopting or considering any definite plan of action, but merely to express in general terms, approval of the project of a railroad line from the Potomac to the Ohio by way of Brownsville and Washington County.
The surveys of the Baltimore and Ohio Company were continued in 1836 to 1838, and a route was de- cided on as to its principal points. Crossing the Monongahela River at Brownsville, the route was.sur- veyed thence into the valley of Ten-Mile Creek, and up that valley to its head; from that point, crossing the dividing ridge to Templeton Run, it passed down the valleys of that stream and Wheeling Creek to the Ohio at Wheeling.1. Leaving the proposed main line near the crossing of the Monongahela, a branch road was surveyed to Pittsburgh, in accordance with the requirement of the ninth section of the act of Feb. 27, 1828, viz. : "That, as a condition on which this act is granted, it shall be the duty of the said company, in case the railroad aforesaid, made in this Commonwealth in pursuance of this act, shall not terminate at the Ohio River in the vicinity of Pitts- burgh, to construct a lateral railroad simultaneously, on the same principles and plans of the main railroad, and which shall connect the city of Pittsburgh with the main railroad."
The preparations of the Baltimore and Ohio Com- pany for the construction of a railroad through Pennsylvania embraced not only the making of elab- orate surveys, but also the making of contracts for the right of way, which they did with several hun- dred land-owners in Washington, Fayette, and Som- erset Counties. But at that time the attention of the company was engrossed and their funds absorbed in the construction of their road between Baltimore and Cumberland, and as it had become apparent that they could not complete the Pennsylvania part of the road within the required time of fifteen years from the passage of the act of 1828, they asked an extension, which was granted by the General Assembly of Penn- sylvania in a supplemental act approved June 20, 1839, by the provisions of which the time in which the company were required to finish their road or roads in Pennsylvania was extended four years, or to the 27th of February, 1847.
When the company had completed their road west- ward from Baltimore to Cumberland (in 1844) there remained less than three years in which to construct the part lying in Pennsylvania, under the require- ment of the supplemental act of 1839. A further ex- tension of time was necessary, and was applied for to the Pennsylvania Assembly; but in the mean time the Pennsylvania Railroad was being pushed west- ward to cross the Alleghenies and make Pittsburgh its western terminus, and now the business men, manu-
1 Several other surveys were made, but this was the one which was considered the most practicable, and which was adopted by Chief Engi- neer Knight.
393
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.
facturers, and people of influence in that city, who in 1828 and in 1839 were ready to do all in their power to secure a railroad, even if it were but a branch from a main line, from the seaboard to Wheeling, were now, in view of the prospective direct connection with Philadelphia by the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad (in which many of them were also stock- holders), entirely favorable to that road, and as wholly opposed to the support of a competing line commenc- ing at the Maryland metropolis, and to have its western terminus not at Pittsburgh, but at the rival city of Wheeling.
Besides the opposition of the people of Pittsburgh, the Baltimore and Ohio Company had to encounter the determined hostility of the inhabitants of the country through which their railroad was to pass. This arose principally from the belief that the pro- posed railway would supersede and ruin the National road, and consequently ruin themselves and the country. This opposition, added to the combined in- fluence of the city of Pittsburgh and of the Pennsyl- vania Railroad, proved too powerful for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company to overcome in the As- sembly of this State; and so that company, after repeated ineffectual attempts to obtain a further ex- tension of time for building their road through the State of Pennsylvania, found themselves compelled to abandon the enterprise and complete their road from Cumberland to Wheeling through the State of Virginia. Years afterwards, however, they accom- plished one of the principal objects they then had in view (the extension of their line to the city of Pitts- burgh) by leasing roads already built by companies holding charters from Pennsylvania.
The " Washington and Pittsburgh Railroad Com- pany" was incorporated in 1831, the project for build- ing a railroad between the places indicated in the title having originated in Washington. It was first brought to public notice at a meeting of the citizens of the borough held at the court-house on the 27th of December, 1830, and organized by the appointment of John Johnson, Esq., president; Capt. William Hunter, vice-president ; and Joseph Henderson and Thomas Morgan, secretaries. Hon. Thomas H. Baird addressed the meeting at length, and offered the fol- lowing resolutions, which were adopted :
" Resolved, That the town of Washington, being situated at the ex- treme northern angle of the Cumberland Road, presents the nearest point of practicable junction with the Pennsylvania Canal at Pittsburgh.
" Resolved, That a connection between these great commercial avenues is desirable, as respects the interests of this town and section of country, and also the interests of Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and the intermediate line.
" Resolved, That the inclined plane of Chartiers Creek presents a prac- ticable and direct route for a Railway, and at the least possible expense. " Resolved, That a petition be addressed to the Legislature praying the incorporation of a company to construct a Railroad from Washington to Pittsburgh, or the bank of the Monongahela opposite the debouche of the Pennsylvania Canal."
pense, local and general advantages, and to obtain releases along the line. On the 26th of February, 1831, "a Friend to the Road," in an article in the Washington Examiner, gave detailed cost of material, grading, etc., for the thirty miles (which was the length of the proposed route) as $89,267. A bill was ·brought before the Legislature of Pennsylvania ask- ing for the incorporation of the "Washington and Pittsburgh Railroad Company." It passed the House and Senate, and on the 18th of March, 1831, was approved by the Governor. Charles De Hass, a civil engineer, was employed to make a preliminary sur- vey. Two routes were surveyed, one by Chartiers Valley, a distance of thirty-three miles; the other " from a point near Mr. Cowan's mill up the valley of Scrub-Grass Run to the summit between that run and Saw-Mill Run, from thence by the latter run to the Ohio River near the toll-gate," this line being three miles shorter than the other route.
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