History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania, Part 41

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 41
USA > Pennsylvania > Pike County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 41
USA > Pennsylvania > Wayne County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 41

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).

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WAYNE COUNTY.

Should the canal be made upon the Kingston route it would cost $1,300,- 000, the interest on which is .. .. $78,000

Boats .- The working days on the canal may be estimated at 200 in a year ; to deliver 100,000 tons, 220 boats would be necessary, allowing 5 days to the Hudson, 1 day to New York, 1 day to discharge and 6 days to return. They would cost $300 each. 66,000

4 steamboats of 50 horse-power for tow- ing on the Hudson at $25,000 each .. Teams .- For hauling coal there would be 300 working days; the 340 canal horses would be employed 200 days in hauling, in addition to which 33 five-horse teams would be necessary to deliver 100,000 tons of coal at the landing.

The cost would be 305 horses at $50 to $70, say $100. $50,500

101 wagons at $60 to $70, say 100. 10,000

101 sets of harness at $40 4,040

Tools for the mines. 2,500

$67,140

$233,140

Interest on this sum. $13,988 To renew and repair this stock, an an-

nual fund of 10 per cent. should be allowed. 23,314

Coal yard, and expense of management 3,000

Agent at the mine and his assistant .. 2,000

$122,302

Thus to pay interest- on the canal and the capital employed in bringing one hundred thousand tons to market and to apply an an- nual fund for keeping up the stock of boats, horses and wagons, and to defray the expense of coal yard, &c., &c., an income would be re- quired in lieu of tolls of $122,302 or $1.20 per ton, which added to $2.643 will make the coal cost, in New York, $3.84} per ton, less than 14 cents per bushel.

As most of the inhabitants of New York burned wood, it was calculated that fifty-eight thousand tons of coal would supply the city for a year, but the mine proprietors entertained a hope that cities and towns along the Hudson and elsewhere might make the annual demand as high as one hundred and fifty thousand tons. The Lehigh region was supplying Philadelphia with anthracite at eight dollars per ton, but it

100,000

was thought that the proposed canal would give the Lackawanna a great advantage over the Lehigh region, shipment from which by the river, by means of arks which could not be re- turned to the mines, was both uncertain and costly.

The Wurts brothers also gave the public, in pamphlet form, estimates of the cost of con- structing the canal by sections. The Lacka- waxen section of the canal, owing to the nar- rowness of the valley and the height of the river banks, it was thought, would be the most expensive of all, and it was estimated to cost $316,380. The cost of the whole canal was es- timated at $1,300,000. The quantity and qual- ity of the coal in the mines was favorably ex- hibited as being " worthy of the company pro- posed to be formed." It was about this time that Professor Griscom, of New York, was en- gaged to visit the Lackawanna mines, and he made a very laudatory report upon them.

Maurice and William Wurts had toiled as intelligently and as indefatigably as ever did pioneers in an enterprise ahead of its age. They had spent ten of the best years of their lives, ex- pended a vast amount of energy and the greater part of their private fortunes, and they saw that after all they had done there was no hope of final success, except through the co-operation of a larger capital and influence than they had thus far been able to command. Hence came the suggestion of forming what is now the mighty corporation known as the " Delaware and Hudson Canal Company." This company received the initial impetus of its life through official action, when the New York Legislature passed the incorporating act, April 23, 1823, but it did not come into fully organized being until two years later. The commissioners ap- pointed by the act to incorporate the " Delaware and Hudson Canal Company " were G. B. Vroom, Philip Hone, Lynde Catlin, Jonathan Thompson, Garret B. Abeel, George Janeway and Elisha Tibbits, of the city of New York ; George D. Wickham and Hector Craig, of Orange County ; Abraham Hasbrouck and Jolin C. Broadhead, of Ulster County.

The Messrs. Wurts wrote to the commis- sioners,-" The object of the proprictors of the

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WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

mines is to consolidate the whole concern in one company, to be formed and organized nuder the New York Act, and to transfer to that com- pany, upon such terms as may be mutually agreed upon, the rights, privileges and immun- ities granted by the Pennsylvania Legislature to Maurice Wurts, his heirs or assigns, and the bodies of coal belonging to the company."

The original act incorporating the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company authorized the company " to make a canal between tide-water, on the Hudson, and the mouth of the Lacka- waxen, the dividing line between the States of New York and Pennsylvania," and fixed eight cents per ton per mile as the maximum toll for. transporting stone-coal by it. Maurice Wurts, by the Pennsylvania act of March 13, 1823, which had authorized him to improve the naviga- tion of the river Lackawaxen, had been grant- ed the privilege " to levy a toll on all commod- ities passing down that river, if improved by slack-water navigation, of twelve and a half ceuts per ton per lock."

The act incorporating the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company further provided, " That the company by this name may sue and be sued, defend and be defended, in law and equity, in all courts whatsoever, may have and use a common seal, such as they shall devise, and the same may alter and change at pleasure, and may make and establish such by-laws, rules and regulations as shall from time to time ap- pear necessary and convenient for the good gov- ernment of said corporation and the due man- agement of their property and affairs."

A supplemental act, passed by the New York Legislature April 7, 1824, enlarged the capital of the corporation from five hundred thousand dollars to fifteen hundred thousand dollars ; and a second supplement, obtained in Novem- ber of the same year, permitted the company " to employ five hundred thousand dollars in the business of banking and to establish a bank- ing-house in the State of New York."

The projectors of the canal scheme had now a strong case with which to go into the money market. They boldly displayed their magnifi- cent scheme. They offered rich and inex- haustible mines, the exclusive command of the

coal trade in the direction of New York, and a bank charter. The profits on coal, they ar- gued, would be immense if it could be delivered in New York for less than four dollars per ton after paying all charges. It was then selling for ten or twelve dollars per chaldron. In Europe, as they represented, every canal sup- ported by the coal trade had yielded an abun- dant revenue, and their stock had risen a hun- dred, and in some cases a thousand per cent. The canal would be able to transport three hundred thousand tons per annum to market when in complete operation, and the profits of a few years would replace the capital expended. Besides, it would be in the power of the com- pany to monopolize the lumber trade of the Delaware and Lackawaxen and their tributaries. They wonld, while diverting from Philadel- phia a rich trade, augment the tolls of the canal, and at the same time aid in the commercial aggrandizement of New York. Such were, in brief, the arguments sounded persistently and earnestly before the capitalists of the metropo- lis, and backed by figures and practical expla- nations.

In the charter of the company it had been provided that " when two thousand shares of stock were subscribed and five dollars per share of one hundred dollars paid in to the com- missioners for incidental expenses, then such persons subscribing and those who may there- after subscribe to the stock of the company. . . shall be and they hereby are made and consti- tuted a body politic and corporate by the name, style and title of 'The President, Managers aud Company of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company. '"

The most sanguine anticipations of the pro- jectors were soon realized. The way had been carefully prepared and so great a furore created in favor of the scheme that capital came to its. assistance finally with a rush. The whole cap- ital stock of one million five hundred thousand dollars was quickly subscribed after the books were opened, in January, 1825, and the com- pany soon afterward became legally organized.

The date which is memorable as that of the complete organization of the company was. March 8, 1825. The stockholders then held in

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WAYNE COUNTY.

New York their first meeting and elected the following officers and managers :

President, Philip Hone ; Treasurer, Samuel Flewel- ling; Managers, John Bolton, Philip Hone, Garret B. Abeel, Samuel Whittemore, Hezekiah B. Pier- pont, Rufus L. Lord, Benjamin W. Rogers, John Hunter, Thomas Tileston, William W. Russell, Wil- liam Calder, Henry Thomas, William H. Ireland.

Pennsylvania jealousy of foreign individuals and corporations, more than once exhibited to- wards this company, officially and unofficially, manifested itself even before the organization was perfected. On the 4th of February, 1825, Mr. Duncan, chairman of the committee of the Senate of Pennsylvania, to whom was referred the resolutions relative to foreign corporations, made his report, which attracted much attention abroad. He argued " that a corporation of this State has not the power to hold lands in mort- main without the license of this commonwealth, and that lands conveyed to trustees named in the deeds of conveyance in trust, and for the uses of the company as declared in the deeds, are subject to forfeiture."

This report was significant in relation to the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, and it was thought advisable to procure the passage of a declaratory special act in their favor. This work was placed in the liands of a new character in the drama of progress. John Wurts, was sent to Harrisburg and secured the passage of a bill making it lawful for "the President, Managers and Company of the Delaware and Hudson Ca- nal Company, by and with the consent of Mau- rice Wurts, his heirs or assigns, to improve the navigation of the river Lackawaxen, and of any one of its branches, in the same manner author- ized and provided by an act entitled 'an act to improve the navigation of the river Lackawax- en,' passed the 13th day of March, 1823, and that the said company shall hold and enjoy the same, as fully and effectually as the said Mau- rice Wurts, his heirs or assigns, might or could do, &c., &c., and it shall be lawful for the said company to purchase and hold any quantity of lands, situate within ten miles of the river Lack- awanna, not exceeding five thousand acres."

Thus the company came into being with an unclouded prospect of successorship to the priv-

ileges that had been bestowed upon the pioneer projector of the mighty work.

Up to this time not a shovelful of earth had been turned toward making the canal and no definite mode of crossing the mountain barrier to the coal-mines had been decided upon. The proposed enterprise, however, had become some- thing more than a fruitful theme for discus- sion.

· After organizing, the first act of the board of managers was "to engage the services of that able and experienced engineer, Benjamin Wright, Esq., and as his assistant, J. B. Jervis, Esq., who had been trained to the profession under Judge Wright, and whose ample knowl- edge of its duties do equal credit to his tutor and to his own talents."

To these engineers the managers submitted the report of Colonel Sullivan, founded upon the survey of Mr. Mills, requesting them to examine the several routes prepared for the canal, and in due time the engineers recom- mended the construction of an independent canal, instead of a canal in part and a slack- water navigation in the Rondout, Delaware and Lackawaxen. They advised that the locks should be constructed of stone instead of wood, as had been previously suggested. The mana- gers in their first annual report (for the year 1825) said, " This more perfect navigation affording greater facilities and less liability to interruption than the original plan, to- gether with the cost of the more permanent locks, was estimated at about one million six hundred thousand dollars." They decided on prosecuting the work according to the recom- mendations of the engineers, and adopted the valley of the Rondout in which to locate the canal. They also " concluded a bargain with the members of the Lackawaxen Company for the purchase of their coal-mines in Pennsylva- nia, and the rights and privileges in that State for the suni of forty thousand dollars in cash and a deferred stock amounting to two hundred thousand dollars," and thus the individual in- terests of Maurice, William and John Wurts were merged into the common one of the com- pany.

Thirty-four sections of the canal were adver-

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WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

tised to be let on the 13th of July, 1825. On that day the president, Philip Hone, attended by a large concourse of citizens, delivered an appropriate address and performed the ceremony of opening the ground on the summit level, forty miles from the Hudson River. Contracts were at the same time made for all the sections prepared for letting, and while the contractors were preparing their tools and collecting their laborers, the engincers continued their work of locating the remainder of the line. At several subsequent periods portions of the work were let between the summit and the Hudson River, and on the 6th of December, 1825, the remain- der of the line was placed under contract. So the great work was begun and fairly under way as the first quarter of the century came to a closc. No company or corporation on the con- tinent had, under similar circumstances, ever entered upon a task of such magnitude, or one requiring so much capital, deliberation and good management to insure its successful completion.

The heavy expenditures for cutting the canal had well-nigh exhausted the funds of the com- pany, but the State of New York, guided by the wise policy of Governor De Witt Clinton, passed a bill giving a loan of the credit of the State for five hundred thousand dollars. This was granted on the ground of public utility and in recognition of the simple merits of the company and was a very encouraging assurance of the faith of the public in the vast enterprise. The board of managers, being thus relieved from financial embarrassment, put forth their best efforts in pushing the work towards com- pletion, and under these auspicious conditions the canal from the narrows of the Lackawaxen to the forks of the Dyberry-the site of Honesdale-was placed under contract.

Instead of extending the canal up the Lack- awaxen about seven miles towards the base of the Moosic Mountain and using the neighboring ponds for feeders, as had been proposed by Wurts after the preliminary surveys, it was de- cided, upon the fuller knowledge now obtained of the highlands, to make the forks the western terminus of the canal and to unite that point with the mines by a railroad about fifteen miles in length.

" The construction and use of railroads was new in our country. Only one, of a few miles' length, near Boston, had been tested by a winter's cold and another was a temporary and imperfect work." 1

In England, however, a railroad, almost ex- actly similar to that first constructed over the Moosic Mountains from Honesdale to Carbon- dale, had been built, and was in practically successful operation before the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company fully decided upon the mode of crossing the highland barrier. This was the Hetton Railroad, extending from the town of Sunderland, on the river Weir, to the Hetton collieries, in length seven miles and five furlongs. It overcame an elevation of eight hundred and twelve feet, or almost exactly the same that the Delaware and Hudson " gravity" does at present, and was operated by fixed en- gines upon planes and also by means, on the levels, of locomotives, a single one of which had drawn " a train of twenty-four chalder wag- ons containing ninety tons of coal " and in a day six hundred tons, " going nine gaits, equal to thirty-five miles, forwards and returning." The force of gravity was also taken advantage of. A profile of the Hetton Railroad bears a strik- ing resemblance to that of the Honesdale and Car- bondale Railroad. It was published in the Frank- lin Journal late in 1825 and in a Philadelphia daily newspaper in January, 1826, together with a view of the locomotive and " train of chalder wagons." Did it not suggest to the managers of the Delaware and Hudson Company the rail- road with which they surmounted the Moosic, or did it not serve to decide in their minds the adoption of a similar device ?

However this may have been, the managers did decide definitely upon building a railroad in the summer of 1826, and J. B. Jervis, a trusted engineer, made a survey for it, which, after be- ing closely examined by civil engineers-Benja- min Wright and Professor Renwick-late in October was accepted by the company.

The canal was completed in October, 1828, and the first small canal-boat made its slow way to the Hudson with a cargo of ten tons of

1 President Bolton's Report, 1828.

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WAYNE COUNTY.

inferior coal in that month. In the month fol- lowing a fleet of ten boats similarly laden passed in solemn procession as the pioneers of a mighty traffic.

The railroad was planned to transport five hundred and forty tons of coal per day, or one hundred and eight thousand tons per year, of two hundred working days, and it was expected that the new mode of shipment would surpass any sledge or wagon method upon a turnpike, however good. Prior to the building of the railroad twenty or thirty teams were engaged in conveying coal from the mines to the canal in loads of from one to two tons each. The cost was $2.20 per ton when sledges were used upon the snow and $2.75 when wagons were em- ployed. This slow and tedious means of trans- portation made the coal cost the company a total of $5.25 at tide water. Only seven thou- sand tons found its way to market during the year 1829-considerably less than is now carried over the same route in a single day.

The railroad, which was commenced in 1827, was completed in the summer of 1829. Over its imperfect track, constructed of hemlock stringers and laid with strap-rails (soon to be fully described), the first load of coal passed on October 9, 1829, to the amazement and delight of the people along the line. It was drawn on the levels by horses and moved on the planes by gravity and the power of stationary engines. This was just two months and a day after the trial trip at Honesdale of the " Stourbridge Lion," the first locomotive that ever turned a wheel in America (of which an account appears later).

Even with the aid of the railroad worked to its utmost capacity the company was, in the sec- ond year of its operation (1830), only able to carry forty-three thousand two hundred tons of anthracite over the mountain. In other words, the entire amount of coal transported during the year 1830 was less than can now be moved in four days, for a shipment of twelve thousand tons in twenty-four hours is not beyond the present capacity of the road.

The railroad, as originally constructed, was very different from the present gravity road, and, although it connected the same terminal points, much of the old track was located on

lines quite widely removed from the line now and for many years past used. As a matter of gratification to those most intimately interested in the history and workings of the road, and to those who live along its line, as well as for the benefit of the antiquarian, we preserve a min- utely circumstantial account of the road as first built.

Starting from the mouth of the mine at Car- bondale, the railroad commenced with a short inclined plane 300 feet long, ascending 30 feet (or one foot in 10), which was operated by horse- power. From the head of this plane the grade was near the natural surface of the ground a distance of 2000 feet to the foot of Steam Plane No. 1, ascending in that distance 45 feet (or 1 foot in 44). This grade was so heavy that it required one horse to each car carrying three tons of coal. The foot of Plane No. 1 was where passengers by the gravity road take the cars in Carbondale, and was at an elevation of 87 feet above the canal in Honesdale, and 1057 above the tide level.

In ascending Plane No. 1, a distance of 2000 feet, the grade was about 1 foot in 12, over- coming an elevation of 170 feet. This plane was located parallel to and along the north- western side of the turnpike to Honesdale.

From the head of Plane No. 1 the track was nearly level for 600 feet to the foot of the next plane. Plane No. 2 was 2600 feet long, as- cending 130 feet (or 1 foot in 20). This also was parallel to and along the western side of the turnpike. From the head of No. 2 the track was nearly level 2600 feet. This level part of the track crossed the turnpike, reaching the foot of Plane No. 3, on the southeast side of the turnpike, at the foot of the hill called " No. 3 Hill," about 1} miles from the foot of No. 1.

Plane No. 3 was 2550 feet long, ascending 210 fcet (or 1 foot in 12) ; then the track was near level 400 feet to the foot of Plane No. 4, which was 1800 feet long and ascended 150 feet (or 1 foot in 12).

From the head of No. 4 the track was nearly level 2000 feet to the foot of No. 5, at Racket Brook, some fifty rods below the company's reservoir dam. Planes 3 and 4, and the level between 4 and 5, were located along the south-

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WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

castern side of the turnpike, and as nearly paral- lel thereto as the meanderings of the turnpike would admit of.

Plane No. 5 was 2500 feet long, ascending 208 feet to a point on the mountain, about a half-mile from the turnpike and within Wayne County. The head of this plane was the high- est point reached, being 1915 fect above tide, and 945 above the canal in Honesdale.

From the head of No. 6 was the level called "Summit Level," 9250 feet long (or 12 miles), extending to the head of Plane No. 6 on a descending grade of 8 fcet to a mile; and crossing the turnpike about 2 of a mile west of the present " light track " summit.

When Horatio Allen ordered for the Dela- ware and Hudson Company the first three loco- motives ever brought to America, it was ex- pected that one of them would be used on this summit level.

" Plane No. 6" was 4300 feet long, descend- ing on the eastern side of the mountain 349 feet (or 1 in 12}). A few hundred feet from the head of this plane the track crossed the Honesdale turnpike.

From the foot of No. 6 was 400 feet of track, nearly level, to the head of Plane No. 7. This plane was 1500 feet long, and descended 120 feet (or 1 in 11}) to the level at Waymart. This point is 452 feet higher than the canal in Hones- dale, and 1422 feet above tide level.

From the foot of No. 7 was the long or " Six- mile Level," descending 264 feet (or 44 feet in a mile) to the head of Plane No. 8, at Prompton.

The route of the present track for loaded cars, from the middle of Plane No. 6 to the head of No. 8, at Prompton, is very nearly on the same ground as the original road, and, with the ex- ception of the part between the D. Blandin place and the canal basin, is the only part which is on the original route.

The head of Plane No. 8 was at the point where passengers going toward Honesdale take or leave the cars, on the hill in Prompton.

From this point the plane extended 1444 feet, and descended 70 feet (or 1 in 20}) to the west branch of the Lackawaxen, at the lower end of the Prompton flat.

From the foot of Plane 8 was the " Four-

mile Level, " extending to the canal basin in Honesdale, and descending 106 feet (or 26} feet per mile).

The track was constructed along, and near to, the northern (or left) bank of the west branch of the Lackawaxen, passing through what is now the Seelyville mill pond, along the northern side of and very near to Seely's saw-mill, and the Foster's tannery buildings- and close along the river side of the turnpike across the Blandin flat, and from there to the basin near the site of the present track.

The entire length of the railroad from the mines at Carbondale to the basin in Honesdale was sixteen and seven-eighths miles. At the time the road was built it was calculated to af- ford ample facilities for transporting one hun- dred thousand tons of coal per year, that quan- tity being deemed as great as it was needful to provide for.

A plan of construction was adopted, designed to accomplish the object sought, with as little outlay as practicable. As at least nine-tenths of the entire distance was through unbroken forests, where timber could be very cheaply obtained, all heavy embankments for grade were dispensed with, and as far as practicable, without too short curves, heavy excavations were avoided. When the grade was more than four fect above the natural surface, trestle work of timber was generally used, and in some parts where the grade was still nearer the sur- face, wooden posts were placed upright in holes dug in the earth three feet or more in depth, and broken stones filled in around the posts- the tops of the posts being sawn off at the proper height to receive the cross-ties upon which the rails were to rest. In other cases where the grade was near the surface, the cross- ties, which were usually ten feet distant from each other, were supported by stone piers under each end.

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History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania, Part 41

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