History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania, Part 40

Author: Mathews, Alfred, 1852-1904. 4n
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : R.T. Peck & Co.
Number of Pages: 1438

USA > Pennsylvania > Monroe County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 40
USA > Pennsylvania > Pike County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 40
USA > Pennsylvania > Wayne County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 40

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

In 1802 a mail-route was established from Lancaster, by Reading, Bethlehem and Strouds- burg, to Milford, and in December, 1803, ar- rangements were entered upon to have a " post- carrier," at private expense, to convey mail matter from Stroudsburg to Bethany and re- turn once in two weeks. This arrangement went into effect early in 1804, Jesse Walker being engaged for the service.

After the removal of the courts to Bethany, as there had previously been a post-office estab- lished at Milford, mails for Bethany were sent to Milford " to be called for."

In June, 1808, an agreement was entered in- to by some of the principal business men of Bethany and Milford to take turns in carrying mail matter both ways between those towns

once in two weeks, gratuitously, and the days were designated when each was to perform the service.

Much pains have been taken to obtain ac- curate information about the first post-offices and mail accommodations in Wayne County, and it is believed the following statement is correct, unless in the matter of the month in which some post-offices were established.

The first post-office established in Wayne County (then including Pike) was Milford, es- tablished about January 1, 1803.

In 1810, as the turnpikes from Newburgh to Great Bend were being completed,'a mail-route was established "from Danbury, Conn., by Fishkill Landing and New Burgh, to Chenango Point." This was designed to follow the turnpikes named.

In February, 1811, post-offices were estab- lished on this route, at Cochecton, on the New York side of the Delaware, and at Mt. Pleasant, in Wayne County. John Granger was the first postmaster at Mt. Pleasant.

The transportation of the mails on that route began early in 1811. Very soon after this an application was made for a post-office at Bethany, and mail service from Mt. Pleasant by Bethany to Milford, returning by Salem and Providence.

Post-offices were established in May, 1811, at Bethany, with Solomon Moore, postmaster ; Lackawack (Paupuck settlement) John Ansley, postmaster; Salem, Theodore Woodbridge, post- master.

In 1813 a post-office was established at the Narrows of Lackawaxen, with Wm. Kimble postmaster.

The succeeding offices in Wayne County were :

Sterling, 1819, Phineas Howe, postmaster.

Mount Republic, 1819, Alva W. Morton, postmaster. Canaan, 1819, Horace Lee, postmaster (afterwards changed to Clarksville, and later to Waymart).

Cherry Ridge, 1824, Thomas Lindsay, postmaster. Palmyra, 1824, Royal Taft, postmaster.

Damascus, 1824, William H. Clark, postmaster.

Indian Orchard, 1828, Cornelius Coryell, postmaster. Honesdale, 1828, Charles Forbes, postmaster.

Scott, 1829, G. Williams, postmaster.

South Canaan, about 1829, John H. Beden, post- master.

Starrucca, about 1830, David Spoor, postmaster.

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WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES. PENNSYLVANIA.

Tallmanville, about 1830, Elihu Tallman, post- master.

Rileyville, 1832, John C. Riley, postmaster.

East Sterling, 1833, William Bortree, postmaster. Brompton, 1834, Edward Jenkins, postmaster.

Priceville, 1837, Stephen Price, postmaster. Big Equinunk, 1837, Francis Walker, postmaster. Eldred, 1837, James Smith, postmaster.

Paupack Eddy (now Hawley), 1837, James S. Bas- sett, postmaster.

Big Eddy (now Narrowsburg, N. Y.), 1837, John Pintler, postmaster.

Hill Top, 1837, John Richards, postmaster.

Preston, 1838, David Underwood, postmaster.

Red Rock, 1838, William Rockwell, postmaster. Summitville, 1838, Clark Gardner, postmaster.

Purdyville (discontinued in 1847), 1839, R. R. Purdy, postmaster.

South Sterling, 1839, Richard Gilpin, postmaster. Ashland, 1844, Isaac Doughty, postmaster.

Galilee, 1848, P. P. Brigham, postmaster. Buck Ridge, 1848, Williamn Stevens, postmaster. Hawley, 1849, H. B. Hayes, postmaster.

Aldenville, 1850, I. T. Alden, postmaster.

White Mills, 1850, A. M. Atkinson, postmaster. Ariel, 1851, W. L. Lesher, postmaster.

East Hawley, 1852, E. Richardson, postmaster. Rock Lake, 1854, Arthur Conner, postmaster.

Stephenson's Mills, 1854, Oliver Stephenson, post- master.

Dyberry, 1854, E. B. Kimble, postmaster.

Hopedale, 1855, Gottlieb F. Ochler, postmaster.

Berlin Centre, 1855, John W. Seaman, postmaster. Hollisterville, 1856, Alanson Hollister, postmaster. Middle Valley, 1856, Lyman Loomis, postmaster.

Purdyville (re-established), 1857, Abbot N. Purdy, postmaster.

Jericho (now Lake Como), 1858, G. Wainwright, postmaster.

Ledge Dale, 1858, Jesse B. Parker, postmaster.

Newfoundland, 1858, George Lancaster, postmaster. Cascade, 1858, G. Stephenson, postmaster. Tanner's Falls, 1858, H. Richtmyre, postmaster. Cold Spring, 1858, J. R. Mitchell, postmaster. Milanville, 1861, J. Howard Beach, postmaster. Sand Cut, 1861, John L. Simons, postmaster. Hemlock Hollow, 1868, A. J. Roloson, postmaster. West Damascus, 1869, George Welch, postmaster. Arlington, 1870, James Osborn, postmaster. White's Valley, 1871, Joseph L. Terrell, postmaster. Shuman, 1872, H. Brunig, postmaster. Hine's Corners, 1873, M. F. Hine, postmaster. Scott Centre, 1873, A. M. Earley, postmaster. Seelyville, 1873, Gustav Smith, postmaster.

Ball's Eddy, 1873, Joseph B. Stalker, postmaster. Stanton Hill (now Island Pond), 1875, S. E. Stan- ton, postmaster.

Girdland, 1876, John R. Budd, postmaster.

Haidee, 1876, Mary J. Tallman, postmaster.

Autumn Leaves, 1876, George H. Belknap, post- master.

Lizard Lake, 1877, W. Salsbury, postmaster.

Niagara, 1878, Thomas Alexander, postmaster.

Tyler Hill, 1878, David Fortman, postmaster.

Carley Brook, 1879, Frederick Brunig, postmaster.

After the construction of the leading turnpike roads the mails and passengers were principally transported by post-coaches, until the construc- tion of the railroads in the vicinity of Wayne County, when they were very generally trans- ported on such railroads to the offices near them.

Such offices as were not convenient to rail- road routes have been supplied by short cross routes either in wagons or on horseback, some daily and others varying in frequency down to weekly mails.

. THE DELAWARE AND HUDSON CANAL COMPANY .- The value of anthracite as a heat- ing agent was first successfully demonstrated by Judge Jesse Fell, of Wilkes-Barre, in 1808, but his experiments produced not the wild excite- ment they would had the future of anthracite been foreseen, and awakened only a mild inter- est throughout the valley and induced a few individuals to look with more favor than they had previously upon the "black stuff" that cropped out along the streams and littered the soil. No coal was sold in the country for a number of years, for although the blacksmiths learned to use it, they went to the places where it was exposed, gathered all they wanted and carried it away with as little concern as one now might appropriate dry leaves from the forest. Use of anthracite was stimulated by the scarcity of charcoal during and after the War of 1812.

Colonel Hollenback, of Wilkesbarre, sent two wagon-loads of " stone coal," as it was called, to Philadelphia, a portion of which was bought by William Wurts, a merchant of that city, who, with his elder brother, Maurice, was quite favorably impressed with the novel fuel. The Wurts brothers seem to have very early real- ized that anthracite must in time become an im- portant article of commerce and determined to place themselves in a position to profit by it, for as early as 1812 we find these city-born and city-bred merchants toilingly and patiently ex- ploring the mountain wilderness of Pennsyl-

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vania in a practical, painstaking search for the true philosopher's stone. Following the Le- high from Mauch Chunk far up into the for- est to its very head-waters in the Pocono marsh, only to be baffled in their search for a new and unclaimed coal-field, they struck at length into the almost equally wild and sparsely settled valley in which the Lackawanna runs, and without any previous knowledge of the region, traversed it for months, seeking every where for traces of the buried treasure. If, with clear, prophetic vision, those men toiling through heat and cold in the dreary forest that clothed mountain and valley, braving danger and pri- vation, could have seen the busy, bustling city of Scranton and all the thriving villages of the valley, and over in the valley of the Lacka- waxen another as fair as the land can boast, all to be created by the mighty and good genii they were to liberate, they could not have la- bored more zealously and effectively than they did.

Somewhere along the Lackawanna one of the Wurtses fell in with a nomadic hunter, David Nobles, who, to avoid imprisonment for debt, had fled from Wayne County and taken refuge in the woods, where he gained a precarious liv- ing with dog and rifle. Mr. Wurts aided him with money, employed him to hunt for him and to bring knapsacks of provisions from Canaan township, in Wayne County, and took upon a debt a small tract of wild land which he had owned. Apropos of this transaction, Hon. Paul S. Preston, of Stockport, wrote as follows in a letter to the Auburn (N. Y.) Daily Adver- tiser of January 19, 1849 :

"In the year 1814 I heard my father tell Maurice Wurts, in Market Street, Philadelphia, 'Maurice, thee must hold on to that lot on the Lackawanna that you took for a debt of David Nobles ; it will be very valuable some day, as it has stone-coal on it and under it.' "

After buying and obtaining the refusal of several tracts of land on which they found "black stones," the Wurtses began looking about for a route by which they could carry anthracite to the market. By measuring the distances and observing the depth and current of the streams flowing eastward from the

.Moosic Mountains, they found the Wallenpau- pack and the Lackawaxen offered the best en- couragement to the plan of reaching New York. It was the intention of the explorers. to make the greater part of their purchases in the vicinity of Providence and Capoose, but the lands there were more fertile and better culti- vated than those farther up in the valley, and their owners were unwilling to part with them for less than five dollars per acre. Hence they sought the region of the Ragged Islands and studied npon passing the mountains by Rixe's rather than Cobb's Gap, and thus it became possible for Honesdale to be developed upon the hazel and hemlock-covered ground at Dy- berry Forks. Otherwise that locality might have remained a pathless thicket until cleared for simple agricultural purposes.

Another reason which influenced the projectors of this coal enterprise to choose the more north- ern outlet was the superior advantage that it possessed over the southern or Cobb's Gap route.

By 1816 a small quantity of anthracite had been mined, a portion of which the Wurts brothers attempted to place in a reluctant mar- ket. Their friend, David Nobles, was engaged through the whole summer of that year in clearing Jones' Creek, a small westerly affluent of the Wallenpaupack, heading about eight miles from the mines, from logs and driftwood. When this had been done two sled-loads of coal, which had been drawn over the mountains, was loaded upon a raft and with much difficulty floated down the stream a short distance, when the frail craft was caught upon a projecting rock, whirled round in the rapid current and its precious cargo wrecked. It had been the purpose of the proprietor to steer the raft down the Wallenpaupack and the Lackawaxen to the Delaware and thence to Philadelphia. A some- what different and more successful attempt was made a little later. This time the coal was drawn on sledges over the old Connecticut road, a distance of twenty miles, to the Wal- lenpanpack, shipped on rafts to Wilsonville, thence conveyed in wagons to Paupack Eddy, and there, being transferred to arks, floated to Philadelphia. This mode of transporta-

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WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

tion, however, was altogether too laborious and expensive to be practicable. Hence the efforts of the indomitable pioneers in the grand drama of progress were directed solely to Rixe's Gap and the Lackawaxen. The following letter to Col. Sylvanus Secly, of Sccly's Mills, fixes the date when the final direction of the great scheme was determined :

" PHILADELPHIA, April 29, 1818. " COL. S. SEELY :

" Dear Sir : Fceling interested in the road contem- plated to be cut from the Luzerne and Wayne County line near Rixe's Gap to Kimball's Eddy 1 (which is three miles below your mill), for which an unsuc- cessful application was made to the court, perhaps a year ago, and was to be renewed last Fall, we would take it a particular favor if you would inform us, per return of mail, whether the court has granted a road to be opened on that route, and if so, say whether it is already cut or not ; if not cut out, when it will be, or if it is not granted, should like to know when thenext court will set, and your opinion of the prospects of obtaining a grant.

" Also what sum you suppose would be sufficient to open it so as to make it a good sled road. If my im- pression is correct, yourself and others computed the distance from Kimball's Eddy to Rixe's Gap at six or seven miles, as the road would run. Please say whether this is correct.

" Please also to inform us what extent of time the sledding in your neighborhood and towards Rixe's lasted for the three last winters, and what sum you should suppose it would cost per ton to cart the dis- tance of twelve miles on such a road as that would be in sledding time.

"Please also to state how the freshes have been on the Lackawaxen for the last three years; how many days in the year you suppose the water would do to run, and how many inches deep you usually run lumber down that stream, and also what length and width.

"M. AND W. WURTS.

" P. S .- We would thank you to state what length, width and depth can run the Delaware, and what it usually costs to navigate a large raft from Paupack Eddy to Philadelphia.

"Your immediate answer to this will confer a very particular favor on your assured friends.

"M. AND W. W."

The Wurtses began operations with a view to using this Rixe's Gap road, and by the autumn of 1822, in spite of almost insurmountable ob- stacles, had mined nearly a thousand tons of

coal; but the winter was mild, the snow fall light, and they succeeded in sledding only about one hundred tons over the mountains. The road lay through Cherry Ridge township, and the coal being brought over it to White Mills, was there loaded on pine rafts and floated to Philadelphia. That city, however, was more readily accessible by the coal companies which had been fostered into some degree of strength in the Lehigh and Schuylkill regions, and the market was abandoned by the Lackawanna mine-owners, who now saw that they must reach New York if they would profitably dis- pose of their commodity, and thus arose the idea which a few years later had tangible form in the Delaware and Hudson Canal.

In the mean time, in 1822, it is interesting to note that Carbondale had received its name from the Wurtses, before the spot so designated upbore upon its rocky soil a single house or cabin. The name was compounded by these gentlemen in Philadelphia, who marked upon a two-horse lumber-wagon in which they sent to the scene of their mining operations a load of tools, powder and camp paraphernalia, the le- gend " Carbondale, one hundred and forty-three miles from Philadelphia, on the Lackawanock River, Luzerne County, Penna." The driver was directed to the site of the future town by D. Yarrington, who was staying at the Mountain House, an obscure inn on the Moosic, in Rixe's Gap, and happened to remember that he had seen some strange fellows, accredited with vague notions about stone coal, digging in the woods down by the Lackawanna, and surmised that the supplies and camp equipage were designed for them.

In pursuance of their scheme of ultimately reaching the New York market, and in recogni- tion of the necessity, as a preliminary step, of lessening the danger and uncertainty of sending coal to the Delaware, these gentlemen interested themselves in procuring the passage of an act by the Pennsylvania Legislature "authorizing Maurice Wurts to improve the navigation of the river Lackawaxen." The act was duly ap- proved on the 13th of March, 1823.

Benjamin Wright, chief engineer of the Erie Canal, was engaged by Maurice and William

1 At the southern end of the borough of Honesdale.

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WAYNE COUNTY.

Wurts, in May, 1823, to take measures to have a proper survey or running level carried over the country from "tide-water of the Hudson River, at the mouth of the Wallkill, up the valley of the Rondout and thence over to the Delaware River, and thence up the same to the confluence of the Lackawaxen to a point as near to the coal mine as possible," in order to ascertain the practicability of constructing a canal along the route or providing a system of slack-water navigation, and for the purpose of securing a basis for an estimation of the cost of such work. As Mr. Wright could not well dis- engage himself from his duties in connection with Governor Clinton's favorite enterprise, he deputized Colonel J. L. Sullivan and John B. Mills, two experienced civil engineers, to make the survey. During the summer and fall of 1823 the surveys were made under the immedi- ate supervision of the coal-mine proprietors, and a map of the region and the route was shortly afterwards produced to assist in awakening the interest of Philadelphia and New York capital- ists, who had no other knowledge of the obscure coal-fields than they could gain from it.

This old map exhibited the main coal open- ing or mine as being one hundred and twenty- one miles from the Hudson, near the river Lackawaxen, and four or five miles from Keen's Pond, in the State of Pennsylvania, where were sundry tracts of land containing inexhaustible quantities of the best quality of stone coal. Seven localities were designated where coal had been discovered, five of them being around the log cabin in Carbondale, one below the falls, near Wagner's Gap (Archbald), and the remain- ing one on the farm of James Anderson, in Providence township, twelve miles below Car- bondale. The main or northern mine was within the present limits of Carbondale, on the eastern bank of the Lackawanna. Honesdale was unmapped because not in existence, and the site of the flourishing city of Scranton was des- ignated simply as " Slocum's." On the map Rixe's Gap opened immediately east of Carbon- dale, and through it flowed the waters of one of the feeders of Keen's Pond, "lying but four or five miles from the northern mine," and the re- port of Messrs. Wright and Sullivan continued :

" The distance is capable of a good road or rail- way and probably a canal. The waters of the Lackawanock (led from some distance above the valley) may possibly feed such a one ; not only connecting the mines of these proprietors but to a greater extent of navigation, as may be ap- parent on the map." Four ponds with an ag- gregate area of six hundred acres, lying east of Rixe's Gap, in Wayne County, were indicated upon the map as Savanna, Keen's, Stanton's and Hoadley's. It was the original plan of the Messrs. Wurts to run the west branch of the Lackawaxen section of the canal as far up as Captain Keen's pond, and farther still if it was found that the Lackawanock could be used as a feeder. It was even originally proposed by these gentlemen to make Cobb's Pond (Paupack Pond upon their map) the western terminus of the canal. This body of. water, fed so copiously by unseen springs as to give an outlet equal to the canal requirements of that day, lies upon the summit of the Moosic Mountain, seven miles, in a direct line, from Scranton (Slocum's of that day), and was about five miles distant from the Providence mine. The plan of utilizing it was abandoned because the coal nearest that point was considered less valuable than that at Car- bondale, and because the proprietors could de- vise no feasible way of ascending and descend- ing the steep mountain with canal-boats-that is, no way which would not have incurred an expense fatal to their project. Railroads were then unknown in America, and the Wurtses gave consideration only to the canal system of communication.

The quantity of water held in the other ponds named was calculated as sufficient "to fill a lock one hundred and eleven times a day for two hundred days." The report says, that while " the head-waters of the Vanorca Branch of the Lackawaxen all concentrate at Captain Keen's pond, the middle creek which heads even nearer the coal mine than this pond, may possibly afford a shorter and better route thian the West Branch. This will be a matter of inquiry before the work commences."

Whether to ascend the Lackawaxen or the Wallenpaupack was a seriously and long-con- sidered problem. " The Wallenpaupack," con-

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WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

tinues the report, "at the distance of three miles has high falls and noble water privileges. Above Wilsonville the stream is gentle and deep for fourteen miles, through a rich and well-cultivated country. Its course is parallel to the range of mountains, on the opposite or west side of which the coal district lies-the survey was carried through a gap to the southernmost or third mine, but is a point yet to be settled, whether this route or Rixe's Gap will best command this part of the coal range. It appears to me very probable that, on an instrumental examination, it will be found that the Lackawanock may be led to feed a short canal, from the minc to Keen's, and there would be water enough for any quantity of business, using the lift." This lift, the use of which was contemplated, was invented by Benjamin Dear- born, of Boston, and had never been built upon a large scale, but was intended to operate on the principle of a huge elevator, with weights and pulleys, to move canal-boats up or down the sides of hills or mountains where water was very scarce, or the height to be overcome so great as to make lockage impracticable. Engineer Sullivan was the agent of the inventor, and strongly urged the adoption of the lift on the ground of its time and water-saving advantages. The proprietors thought seriously of adopting this plan for the conveyance of boats over the mountain, between Carbondale and the Lacka- waxen or Wallenpaupack, before a railroad was deemed feasible, or even, so far as is now known, seriously considered.

Another measure, which the indefatigable pioneers of the Lackawanna coal region adopted to further their great project was the publica- cation of detailed estimates of the cost of pro- ducing anthracite coal, and placing it in the New York market. They undertook to prove to capitalists that coal could be delivered in New York at $3.84} per ton. Following is their presentation of the matter:

" Quarrying, now 25 cents per ton, but as the excavation will become deeper assume. .373

Hauling, the distance from four to five miles; on a turnpike road a five- horse team will perform two trips with a load of 3 tons (according to

experience in Pennsylvania). The daily expense of the team will be as follows :

Five bushels of oats, usual price 25 cents-say 37} cents $1.87}

Sixteen pounds hay for each horse is 80 pounds per day for team; the usual price, $5 to $7 per ton-say $10 ...... .36

Shoeing, $1.00 per month, each horse is for the team, $60 per annum, per day .20

Driver, per day. .75

Loading .50

The team will labor but 300 days and the keeping for 65 days must be assesssed on the working days-each day. ... Thus the hauling of 6 tons will be. .48 4.16}

Per ton .69}

The use of a railway will diminish the expenses probably one half.

Loading coal into canal boats. .10

The length of the canal is 117 miles; a boat carrying 30 tons will go to the Hudson and return to the mines in 10 days; her expenses will be as follows :

3 men, 10 days, at 75 cts. 22.50

2 horses, 10 days, at 50 cts. 10.00

Expense of keeping horses 65 days, to be assessed on the working days is

22 cents per day or per trip ... .. Shoeing, $1.00 per month, each horse is 8 cents per day. .80

2.20

For 30 tons. $35.00

Per ton. $1.18

"The canal-boats may navigate the Hudson. A steamboat of 50 horse- power will tow 10 of them, and if double-manned, will perform the trip to New York and back in two days; the distance 100 milcs.

Estimate of her Expenses.

1 captain, $30 per mo., $1.16:per day ... $2.32 1 mate, $25 per mo., 96 cts. per day .... 1.92

2 pilots, $30 each, $1.16 per day . 4.64

2 engineers, $30 each, $1.16 per day 4.64

2 firemen, $25 each, 96 cts. per day . 3.84

6 ord. hands, $12 each, 47 cts. per day 5.64

1 steward, $15 each, 58 cts. per day 1.16 1 cook, $12 47 cts. per day. .94

Provisions, 2 days, at $6.00 per day 12.00

Coal, 6 tons per trip, $3.60 21.00

For 300 tons $58.70

Per ton .19}

Discharging the boats per ton .. .10

Cost of coal delivered in New York, exclusive of tolls, is. $2.64}

or less than 9} cents per bushel.

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History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania, Part 40

Author: Mathews, Alfred, 1852-1904. 4n Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Philadelphia : R.T. Peck & Co. Number of Pages: 1438

Author: Mathews, Alfred, 1852-1904. 4n
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : R.T. Peck & Co.
Number of Pages: 1438