History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania, Part 44

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 44
USA > Pennsylvania > Pike County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 44
USA > Pennsylvania > Wayne County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 44

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).

President, Robert M. Olyphant, New York City ; Vice-President, Le Grand B. Cannon, New York City ; Treasurer and General Sales Agent, James C. Hartt, New York City ; Assistant Treasurer, Charles A. Walker, New York City ; Secretary, F. Murray Olyphant, New York City; General Manager,1 Horace

G. Young, Albany, N. Y .; General Agent of Real Estate Department, E. W. Weston, Providence, Pa .; Superintendent of Coal Department, A. H. Vand- ling, Providence, Pa .; Superintendent of Pennsyl- vania Division, R. Manville, Carbondale, Pa .; Sales Agent Southern and Western Department, Joseph J. Albright, Scranton, Pa .; Superintendent Canal De- partment, L. O. Rose, Honesdale, Pa .; Superin- tendent Rondout Department, S. S. Smith, Rondout, N. Y .; General Sales Agent Western and Sonthern Sales Department, Joseph J. Albright, Scranton, Pa. ; Superintendent Northern Railroad Department, C. D. Hammond, Albany, N. Y.

The result of the business of the company for the year ending December 31, 1884, one of general depression, was as follows :

Tons. Tons.

Coal produced at the

mines of the company .. 3,362,679.16

Transported for others ... 623,697.04

Total tons.

3,986,377.00

The gross receipts were ... $16,379,021.06

Expenses 11,549,871.46

$4,829,149.60

Less taxes, interest and

rentals 3,341,055.53

Leaving net earnings ...

$1,488,094.07

Or a fraction over 65 per cent.

A condensed balance sheet for the same year exhibited the following figures :

Assets.

Canal $6,339,210.49

Railroad and equipment. 6,468,683.96

Real estate. 9,325,365.39

Mine improvements .. 2,388,709.02

Mine fixtures and equipment. 403,708.29

Boats, barges and steamboats. 617,889.09

Coal-yards and fixtures. 172,889.94

Lackawanna and Snsqnehanna Railroad

1,022,938.15.

Cherry Valley, Sharon and Albany Railroad. 300,000.00

New York and Canada Railroad.

3,597,074.48.

Lackawanna Palace Car Company. 28,300.00.

Mechanicville and Fort Edward Rail-

road

51,927.88.

Schenectady and Mechanicville Rail- road.

211,527.85

Telegraph lines. 14,734.80

Supplies on hand.

1,611,253.96

Coal on hand 892,804.36.

Advances to leased lines.

1,502,789.59

Miscellaneous assets, viz. :

Bonds 148,608.59

1 Coe F. Young, appointed general manager in 1869, held that office until July, 1885, when he resigned, and his son, Horace G. Young, appointed assistant general manager in 1882, was, on the 80th of September, 1885, promoted to fill the vacancy.

Eng th AH Putchie

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WAYNE COUNTY.

Stocks as follows :

Albany and Susque- hanna Railroad,

8540 shares

$854,000.00

Rensselaer and Sara-

toga Railroad, 16,-

077 shares

1,607,700.00

Delaware and Hudson

Canal Company

6161 shares

616,100.00

Sundry stocks

145,650.84

3,223,450.84

Advances on coal

698,125.80

Cash

1,122,648.20

Bills and accounts receivable

1,701,164.30

$41,843,804.98

Capital stock.

$23,500,000.00

Bonds :

1891

$5,549,000.00

1894

4,829,000.00

1917 5,000,000.00

15,378,000.00

Interest and dividends payable Janu- ary, 1885.

579,175.00

Depositors.

148,516.13

Dividends and interest unclaimed.

50,382.01

Surplus or dividend fund

2,187,731.84

$41,843,804.98

COE F. YOUNG, for many years the general manager of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, is a descendant of an old English family, of Scotch extraction, whose representa- tives emigrated to this country at an early period in its history, and settled in Connec- ticut, where they became identified with the pioneer development of that State. There was born William Young, his paternal grandfather, who left his native State and early established himself in Orange County, N. Y. His son, Isaac Young, was the father of the subject of this sketch and a farmer by occupation. He was a man of excellent judgment and great force of character, and not only engaged in till- ing the soil, but drew contracts and deeds, and acted as the adviser and business confidant of many of his friends. He married Sarah Rob- bins, a native of Orange County, and had a family of seven children, of whom Coe F. Young was the sixth and only surviving mem- ber.

The latter was born near Mount Hope, Orange County, N. Y., May 15, 1824. His

early education was obtained at the district schools of his locality, and was completed at the Kingston (N. Y.) Academy, and the semi- nary at Amenia, Dutchess County, N. Y. When only thirteen years of age he began the performance of the duties of life by driving on the tow-path of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, as so many of our successful and prominent men have done. Before he at- tained his majority he served as a clerk in the store of Thomas W. Cornell & Co., at Eddy- ville, Ulster County, N. Y., and subsequently with their successor, Martin J. Merchant. Soon af- ter, the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company began enlarging the canal, and the construction of the Erie Railway was undertaken. With the ambition of youth, and the energy and busi- ness sagacity that has since characterized his life, he resolved to profit by the opening trade and removed to Barryville, N. Y., where, in connection with Calvin P. Fuller, he estab- lished a store, the firm doing business under the name and style of Fuller & Young. In the spring of 1852 he bought of Major Cornell a half-interest in the canal freight line between New York and Northeastern Pennsylvania. The firm of Thomas Cornell & Co. was organized, and Mr. Young removed to Honesdale, Pa., where he has since resided. After five years he became, by purchase, the sole proprietor of the line, and operated it alone for seven years longer. At that time the transportation facili- ties of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Com- pany included only the canal and gravity railroad, and the mines of the company were only being moderately worked. On January 1, 1864, at the solicitation of George Talbot Oly- phant, president of the company, and Thomas Dickson, general superintendent, Mr. Young entered the service of that company as superin- tendent of the Canal Department ; and in 1865 the Rondout and Weehawken Department was placed under his supervision. In 1869 Mr. Olyphant resigned as president of the company and was succceded by Mr. Dickson. Mr. Young was then made general superintendent, and, after three years, became general manager, a position in which he served until the deatlı of Mr. Dickson, in July, 1884, when he was elected

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WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

vice-president and general manager of the com- pany, Robert Olyphant being then, as now, the president. This responsible executive position was occupied by him until October 1, 1885, when he resigned, and Le Grand B. Can- non was made vice-president, and his son, Horace G. Young, general manager.

Besides his connection with the affairs of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, Mr. Young has sustained a very .intimate relation to the general development and improvement of the locality in which he so early made his home. In 1863 he purchased nearly ten thousand acres of land a few miles north of Honesdale, including the tannery property at Tanner's Falls, which he still owns. He is the president of the Albany and Susquehanna Railroad, having succeeded James H. Ramsay, and vice- president of the Cherry Valley and Susque- hanna Railroad, and of the Schenectady and Waynesburg road, both under lease to the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company. He has been president of the Honesdale National Bank for several years past. He is a man of strong convictions, positive in his nature, of rare executive ability and of sterling integrity. It is not improper to say that the rapid devel- opment and successful manipulation of the affairs of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, in this section, is due to his broad and comprehensive management, and is the result of his conscientious and intelligent per- formance of his official duties. During his management the productive coal capacity of the company has been increased from eight hundred thousand tons annually to four and one-half millions, and the railway appendages of the company have all been added. By close and attentive reading and study he has acquired an education far in advance of what his school advantages afforded, and has become a thor- oughly self-educated man. He entertains liberal views upon religious subjects, but supports with a free hand the schools, churches and other elevating institutions of his day, and is held in general respect and esteem by a large circle of friends. He married, January 17, 1849, Miss Mary A., daughter of Peter Cornell, of Ron- dout, New York, and has four children living.

Of these, Cornelia Alice is the wife of George W. Barnes, now of Colorado; Horace G., by profession a civil engineer and a graduate of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute of Troy, N. Y., is the general manager of the company, and resides at Albany, N. Y .; Edwin is a graduate of Yale College, and of the Columbia College . Law School, New York, and is the attorney of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, liv- ing at Albany ; and Mary Augusta is the wife of Joseph B. Dickson, of New York, youngest son of the late President Dickson.

Horace G. Young, above mentioned, was ap- pointed general manager of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company on September 30, 1885. The Honesdale Citizen, speaking of this appoint- ment, editorially, says,-

" While there is a cordial recognition of the new official's experience and proved ability as amply vin- dicating this appointment, it is not without a certain element of unexpectedness, due to the contrast in years between the appointee and his predecessor. To compare a civil with a military career, it is much like the selection of the youthful Bonaparte to command the army of Italy ; and it is not too much to predict that a further parallel will be found in successful re- sults. The new general manager was born in Hones- dale, January 26, 1854. After due preparation for college, he entered the Rensselaer Polytechnic Insti- tute, at Troy, N. Y. There he received a thorough scientific course, and was graduated with honor. In 1879 he entered the Delaware and Hudson service as assistant to the general manager. Here, bringing to the task the scientific acquirements gained at the Poly- technic, and with the valuable counsel of the general manager in their application to the work in hand, he rapidly mastered the complicated details of railroad and canal operations. In July, 1882, he was promoted to the position of assistant general manager, and took in special charge the Northern Railroad Department. This embraced the Albany and Susquehanna road, the New York and Canada, the Rensselaer and Sara- toga, the Duanesburg and Schenectady, the Utica, Clinton and Binghamton, and the Cherry Valley Branch, with upward of six hundred miles of track ; and of these roads he was practically the superin- tendent. In this position he proved himself a thor- oughly practical railroad manager, of unusual energy, judgment and administrative ability. His success in the direction of this department was fully appreciated by the Delaware and Hudson directory, and the most conclusive proof of a practical recognition of his mer- its is seen in his appointment to the position so long and so ably filled by his father. This confidence in his ability rests on a substantial basis, and in the bril-

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WAYNE COUNTY.

liant career on which he has entered he has the best wishes of a host of friends."

JACOB B. FITCH, of Hawley, is one of the oldest employees of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, having been in its service forty- one years. His father, Benjamin Fitch, a native of Connecticut, served as lieutenant under General Brown, in the War of 1812, and while commanding his company at the battle of Bridgewater, was wounded in the side while bearing aloft the colors of the regiment, which

requiring many weeks to perform. He returned finally to Sherburne, N.Y., where both himself and wife are buried. She died in 1846, leaving children,-Jacob B., subject of this sketch ; Sarah A., wife of Hollis Rowland, of Sher- burne; Thaddeus S., resided in Sherburne, and came to Hawley, Pa., in 1843, with his older brother, Jacob B., and now resides in Honesdale ; and Sanford C. Fitch, of Rockford, Ill.

At the time of the death of his father, Jacob B. Fitch was only thirteen years of age, having

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ultimately caused his death in 1832, at the age | been born November 22, 1818. Being the of forty-five years. After peace was declared, eldest of the family, and very little means of subsistence being left at his father's death, much devolved upon the mother and himself by way of providing for the support of the family. Al- though young in years, he possessed a resolute will and knew that industry and economy must be carefully practiced in the management of their affairs. He met the obstacles incident to straitened circumstances and earned by his own labor the money to support the family for he went to Burlington, Otsego County, N. Y., where he married Content M. Fox, whose par- ents had removed from the same vicinity in New England in which the Fitches resided. After his marriage he was still officially connected with the army in Connecticut, and he accom- panied the army afterwards to Council Bluffs, Mo., with his family, and returned the entire way with a team, a long and tedious journey,

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WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

many years. On September 23, 1841, he mar- ried Lucy (1821 - 68), a daughter of Jamcs and Sibyl (Curtis) Aldrich, of Sherburne, N. Y., and began keeping house, taking his mother to his own home. Jacob had during these years learned the trade of a carpenter and joiner. In 1843 he came to Wayne County, Pa., for the purpose of working at his trade; but finding an opportunity to enter the employ of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, himself and brother engaged with that company and began building locks and doing general carpenter work. After two years he was made foreman of the construction and repair department on a part of the Pennsylvania Division of the canal, and from 1846 to 1849 he was at Lackawaxen, engaged in the construction of the aqueducts at that place, and feeders of the canal. In the latter year he settled with his family at Hawley and continued in charge of the same work for the company until the death of T. H. R. Tracy, the superintendent of the Pennsylvania Division of the canal, in 1856, when Mr. Fitch was se- lected to fill this vacancy, and until the fall of 1884, the time of his resignation on account of ill health, a period of forty-one years since his first engagement with the company, he has been a trusted and efficient employee and official whose honor and integrity in all his business relations are beyond reproach. He has during this time erected several residences for the company, en- gaged in lumbering, and he erected his present residence, on the southeastern slope of the Lacka- waxen, at Hawley, in 1850.

Mr. Fitch has spent an active life and sought to do his part well. His opportunities when a boy for book knowledge were very limited ; yet, in after-years, he largely made up this deficiency by reading. He is a man of practical ideas, good judgment, fine physique and correct habits, and has won his way to a competence by his own personal efforts. While a young man he was fond of military life. He enlisted at the age of sixteen years in an artillery regiment ; served as orderly-sergeant, adjutant and subsequently as colonel, commanding his regiment on general training-days during the old militia gatherings in Chenango County, N. Y. He has been a member of the society of the Presbyterian

Church and contributed liberally to church and kindred interests.

His children are Lewis B., a member, secre- tary and treasurer of the Skaneateles Paper Company, at Skaneateles, N. Y .; Sila A., mar- ried, first, B. F. Martin, of Livingston County, N. Y., and after his deatlı became the wife of Prof. L. A. Freeman, of Palmyra, N. Y., who is now superintendent of the schools of Shenan . doah, Pa.

THE PENNSYLVANIA COAL COMPANY'S GRAVITY RAILROAD from Dunmore, in Lacka- wanna County, to Hawley, in Wayne (of which town it was the creator, just as the Delaware and Hudson Company was the cause of Hones- dale's existence), was built in 1849-50 and has ever since been in active operation until super- seded by the Erie and Wyoming Railroad, in the fall of 1885.

The company absorbed the powers and privi- leges of several other organizations before it secured strength enough to carry out the pur- pose of its creation and become a powerful agent in the marketing of Lackawanna coal.

Two charters, approved by the Legislature April 16, 1838, granted the authority of the State to the organization of the Washington Coal Company and the Pennsylvania Coal Company. The former was composed of citi- zens of Honesdalc, prominent among them be- ing William H. Dimmick, Esq., had a capital of three hundred thousand dollars and was em- powered to hold two thousand acres of land in the coal basin. The other company had au- thority of similar character and extent, and actually commenced the mining of coal, though on a small scale, in Pittston township, and planned to reach the Delaware and Hudson Canal by a railroad at a point on the Lacka- waxen. Nothing of note was accomplished for years, and the charter of the Washington Coal Company, after lying idle for nine years, was sold to William and Charles Wurts and others, of Philadelphia, in 1847.

In 1846 the movement toward connecting the mines in the vicinity of Scranton with the canal, and thus seeking the Eastern market, brought about the incorporation of the Luzerne and Wayne County Railroad Company, vested with

253

WAYNE COUNTY.

power to build a railroad from the Lackawanna to the Lackawaxen. The act of incorporation appointed a large board of commissioners, of whom those residing in Wayne County were Richard Lancaster, Russell F. Lord, Zenas H. Russell and T. H. R. Tracy.

Before this company manifested organic life, however, its charter, 'as well as that of the Washington Coal Company, obtained from the Wurtses, were, under an act of April 1, 1849, merged in the Pennsylvania Coal Company, which afterwards also absorbed the rights of the Wyoming Coal Association, chartered February 15, 1851.

This company then enlarged its possessions by purchase of large tracts of land in certified Pittston township, on the Susquehanna, and in Providence and Dunmore, on the Lackawanna, and prepared to build a double-track gravity railroad from Pittston to the Lackawaxen, by way of Cobb's Gap, forty-seven miles in length.

Ground was broken for this road in 1847, but not much practical work was done until 1848, and the track was finished in May, 1850, substantially as it has since been operated, the planes and levels remaining unchanged, except in some unimportant particulars.

The mouth of Middle Creek was fixed upon as the place of touching the canal and there the thriving village of Hawley grew up as a result of the opening of this new route from the coal-fields, and in time the same enterprise which gave it origin linked it with the main line of that great trunk railroad, the Erie, and still fur- ther fostered its growth.

The railroad traverses the Moosic range at one of its most rugged and picturesque regions, and has been noted as one of the most remarka- bly attractive passenger routes in Pennsylvania or the Eastern States. Still, it is as a coal-ship- ping road that ninety-nine one-hundredths of its successfulness has been attained, and as a suffi- cient proof of that, stands the fact that it has paid for years dividends of twenty per cent. and sometimes even thirty per cent. upon its stock.

In 1850 it was estimated that the road car- ried 111,119 tons of coal, and in 1879, the

amount was computed as 1,372,739 tons. Mr. John B. Smith, of Dunmore, has been engaged as master mechanic and general superinten- dent of the Pennsylvania Coal Company's Rail- road for many years, and to him is due in a large measure the practical success which it at- tained.

The road was abandoned in the fall of 1885, under the provisions of the contract for the building of the Erie and Wyoming Valley Railroad-a locomotive road-now in opera- tion.

THE ERIE RAILROAD, although not actu- ally touching with its main line the soil of Wayne County, skirts a long distance its eastern border, separated from it only by the narrow channel of the Delaware, and affords marked advantages of travel and transportation to its people. An outline of its history is therefore here given. It is interesting from the fact of its very early inception, if for no other reason. As early as 1825 (the Erie Canal having been opened in 1824) the New York Legislature di- rected that a survey for a "State road " should be made at public expense through the south- ern tier of counties from the Hudson River to Lake Erie. The unfavorable profile exhibited by the survey, which was duly made, the dis- cordant views and interests, resulted in the aball- donment of this particular project, but the subject, in a general way, continued to occupy the atten- tion of many public-spirited and enterprising men.

After several ineffective efforts had been made, the New York and Lake Erie Railroad Com- pany was incorporated by the Legislature on the 24th of April, 1832, with power " to con- struct a railroad from the city of New York, or some point near, to Lake Erie, to transport per- sons and property thereon and to regulate their own charges for transportation." Up to the time of the incorporation the question as to whether animal or locomotive power should be used on the contemplated railroad was an open question, vigorously argued pro and con. A road for locomotives, it was commonly conceded, must cost from twelve to fourteen thousand dol- lars per mile, while one for horses could be built for five or six thousand dollars per mile,

of 10

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WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

and as it was a portion of the latter plan to al- low individuals to use their private conveyances upon the road, it was argued that the company would be at no expense for engines, carriages, ctc., should that project be adopted. Let the reader imagine for himself what the Eric Rail- road would be as a toll tramway ! By the tinie that the company was incorporated, however, something approximating to the modern locomo- tive railroad had been decided upon.

In the summer of 1832 a reconnoisance or preliminary examination of the country through which it was proposed to build the road was conducted under the authority of the govern- ment of the United States, by Colonel De Witt Clinton, Jr., and it resulted in presenting strong inducements for obtaining a complete and ac- curate instrumental survey. In 1833 one mil- lion dollars was subscribed to the capital stock, and the company organized in August of that year by the election of officers and directors. A year passed, during which the company did not receive enough from its stockholders and others to make a survey, and in 1834 the aid of the State was invoked and the Legislature passed a bill appropriating fifteen thousand dollars for that purpose. Governor Marcy appointed Benjamin Wright, Esq., to conduct the survey. During the year he and his assistants made a survey of the whole line, four hundred and eighty-three miles, and as the work was done under the authority of the State government, the report, estimates and maps of Judge Wright were deposited by him with the secretary of the commonwealth. Much had been said in the Legislature and many of the public prints to discourage the undertaking ; but the results of the State survey were so favorable as to dis- pel all reasonable doubts as to the feasibility of the improvement, and measures were taken to advance the project. Subscriptions were stimulated to so great an extent that the capital stock of the company was increased to the land- some amount of over two million three hundred and sixty-two thousand dollars.

In 1836 the entire route was re-surveyed, a portion of the road located and work upon it commenced, but the financial stringency which began to be felt in that year, and intensified in

the panic of 1837, compelled a suspension of operations until 1838. In that year the Legis- lature granted to the company, in aid of its con- struction of the road, a loan of the credit of the State for three million dollars. At the session of the Legislature in 1840 the loan bill was further amplified, and this, together with the collections on the stock subscriptions, enabled the company to vigorously prosecute the work. The first portion, a section of forty-six miles, from Pier- mont to Goshen, was put in operation on the 23d of September, 1841. But the following ycar complicated embarrassments, arising from the nature and amount of its indebtedness, made it necessary that the business of the company should be placed in the hands of assignees, and it was not until May 14, 1845, when the Leg- islature passed an act releasing the State claim, that the outlook again became propitious. Then the directors entered with a new feeling of con- fidence upon the work of resuscitating the pro- ject and presented a plan to the public which placed the work in a position to be successfully completed. In response to their appeal for as- sistance, the merchants and business men of New York soon subscribed the sum of three millions dollars to the capital stock. Work was re- commenced and successive portions of the road were put in operation from time to time. The opening of the main line as far as Binghamton, N. Y., occurred December 27, 1848, and in the spring of 1851 (May 14th), "amid the firing of cannon that reverberated through all of the southern tier of counties, and the shouts of hun- dreds of thousands of the inhabitants, who lined the road at all stations," the entire route was formally opened to travel and traffic. Two trains of cars passed over the line on that mem- orable occasion, " bearing the President of the United States, Daniel Webster and a large and noble company of the most distinguished citizens of America as guests of the gratified and justly proud directors of the road, from the Hudson to Lake Erie." 1

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History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania, Part 44

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