History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 102

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor
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The chutes of this company are at Millwood Sta- tion, seven miles east of Latrobe. The mine is located back about three miles from the road, and is reached by a tram-road over which a small locomotive brings the coal. Mr. Albert Ford has charge, and has made many improvements during the year, among which was a change in the mining cars. Formerly the large cars that were run to the chutes were sent down the shaft and to the rooms for loading. This he has changed by putting in the regular mine-wagon and dumping into the other cars at the top, enabling them to get the coal forward with more speed. New steel rails are also being laid on the tram-road. The un-

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derground works, in charge of Mr. John E. Morrison, are reached by a shaft two hundred feet deep. They have experienced considerable trouble with water and faulta, causing heavy expense, but they have now got them in good shape, being dry throughout the workings. A large pump is placed near the bottom of the shaft which will throw three hundred gallons of water per minute. The very best of machinery has been erected, and everything is working smoothly. The works are kept running steadily the year round, and just at pres- ent are well supplied with orders, shipping coal to Philadelphia. They also supply the locomotives on the Pennsylvania road, which requires a large amount of coal day and night. A number of comfortable houses have been built near the shaft for the accom- modation of the employés. Several new blocks were built during the summer. About one hundred and twenty men are employed in and about the works. The miners receive forty cents per ton for run of mine, the coal ranging from five to six feet in thick- neos.

IRWIN REGION.

The appearance of the coke region along the line of the Pennsylvania Railroad is thus described by a stranger :

" Five miles west of Greensburg are the dominions of the Penn Gas-Coal Company, where the railway runs alongside another little stream. Here they get the gas-coals that are shipped over the mountains to supply the Eastern cities. The mining is done by shafting on an extensive scale, the coal being raised to the surface by steam-power and loaded in cars for shipment. Branch lines of railway extend through the hills in all directions to the mouths of the shafts, and from Penn they will ship a thousand tons a day. Thus we run through the gas-coal region, through Manor, which is located on one of Penn's original manor tracts, past Shafton and Irwin. Here are more lands of the Penn Company, and also mines of the Shafton and Westmoreland Coal Companies. The entire region is full of coal-cars, mines, and shafts, while the little streams, in the yellow hue of their beds, show the presence of iron springs. Within a space of ten miles along this part of the railroad will be mined and sent to market probably a million and a half tons of gas-coal annually. Irwin is probably the chief village of this great settlement. The sur- face land is fertile, but the coal-mines do not permit a great amount of cultivation, though some good farming is done. As we run swiftly by these great coal measures there are also lines of smoking coke- ovens, and the railway occasionally darts through a short tunnel. There is a big nest of coke-ovens at Larimer, a mile beyond Irwin.

"Running a few miles farther we come to Walls, where they make up the accommodation trains. for the suburbs of Pittsburgh, fifteen miles from that city. As at Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Railroad here runs a great number of local trains for the ac-

commodation of suburban residents, and the railway is dotted at every mile by pretty stations. The coal- mines are thick, and at Turtle Creek we enter Alle- gheny County, the stream alongside the road zig- zagging so that we have to frequently cross it. The characteristics of Pittsburgh are evident as we ap- proach the city through the deep valleys in the even- ing, amid the overhanging clouds and smoke."

WESTMORELAND COAL COMPANY.

The first coal mined near Irwin was in 1840, on the Steele farm, just north of the present borough, which was sold for twenty-five dollars in fee. In 1852, Cole- man, Haleson & Co. (William Coleman, Mr. Haleson, and Thomas A. Scott) began mining operations, after the Pennsylvania Railroad was finished to Pittsburgh. In 1855 this firm was succeeded by J. Edgar Thom- son and Thomas A. Scott, who, in 1857, sold out to the Westmoreland Company then organized. The first superintendent was William F. Caruthers up to 1872, when he was succeeded by the present incum- bent, F. C. Shallenbarger. The paymaster from 1872 to 1877 was William F. Caruthers, then followed by the present official, G. R. Scull. The president of the company is E. C. Biddle, of Philadelphia, and the book-keeper at.the Irwin office, W. C. Richey. Its mines are: 1, the Foster mine at Penn, a slope not now in operation; 2, Shafton, employing 120 men ; 3, Shaft No. 1, near Manor, employing 300 men ; 4, North Side mine, at Irwin drift, employing 150 men ; here a locomotive runs inside of the mine and hauls the coal 1} miles; 5, South Side mine, at Irwin drift, employing 800 men ; 6, Larimer No. 1, not in opera- tion ; 7, Larimer No. 2, drift, and runs road to the railroad on a plane, employing 85 men ; 8, Larimer No. 3, at Stewartsville drift, employing 160 men, not now running; 9, Spring Hill drift, runs coal on plane to the railroad, employing 25 men. The company bas in all about 1200 men in its various works, offices, etc. Its annual product of coal is 480,000 tons, mostly shipped eastward and for gas purposes.

PENN GAS-COAL COMPANY

was organized as a corporation in 1857, and its first mine opened at Penn Station. It was a slope mine, but is not now in operation. The company still keeps its shops at Penn Station for rebuilding and repairing its cars, etc. Its second mine is Coal Run, a drift in North Huntingdon township, in full running, with 250 men. It is located just north of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and is reached by a branch railroad. Its third mine is Shafton No. 1, three-eighths of a mile east of Irwin, and employs 250 'men. The fourth mine is Shaft No. 2, one mile south of Irwin, on the Youghiogheny Railroad, employing 250 men. This railroad from Irwin to intersect the Pittsburgh Divis- ion of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at Sewickley was built in 1873 by this company, which still owns and operates it. The fifth mine, Shaft No. 3, at Mar-

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chand's Station, on Yonghiogheny Railroad, is not now in operation.

The sixth mine, Youghiogheny, No. 4, is at the junction of the Youghiogheny and Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, is a drift, and employs 250 men. The annual product of this company is over 500,000 tons of coal, chiefly shipped to the Eastern markets, and for gas-coal purposes exclusively, save what is used by its railroad. Its first superintendent was Emmett McGowan, but its present incumbent, William Wil- son, has been in office since 1862, and has been connected with the company since its organization, twenty-five years ago. The president of the company is F. A. Dingee; Secretary, S. T. Billmyer; and its Board of Directors are F. A. Dingee, of Philadelphia; Mr. Richey, Trenton, N. J .; Dr. David Hostetter, of Pittsburgh ; H. Stiles, and Mr. Hocker. Its chief engineer is John F. Wolf. . It pays for mining coal seventy cents per ton, save at Baltimore and Ohio Junction (Sewickley), where the miners receive three and a half cents per bushel. The company has erected at its mines substantial buildings and neat dwellings for all its employés. It employs between twelve and thirteen hundred men in various capaci- ties, and with the Westmoreland Company form the two largest coal companies (bituminous coal) in the State.

SEWICKLEY REGION.

Probably one of the richest coal-fields in Pennsyl- vania, and consequently in the United States, is located in Sewickley and adjoining townships. In Sewickley township alone there are eight thousand acres of the Youghiogheny or Pittsburgh vein, or the six-foot vein, of coal for sale. The Youghiogheny vein of coal un- derlies the whole of Sewickley township. Underneath this vein lies another vein of varying thickness, from ten to thirteen feet .. There are from three to four thousand acres of the six-foot vein already purchased by capitalista. Of the ten-foot vein there is yet none on the market, so that of this vein there are from eleven to twelve thousand acres awaiting the hand of capital to turn it into riches greater than the wealth of Crosus. Including these two veins this one town- ship contains more than twenty thousand acres, all of which can be had for a reasonable price, and some of which can be had for a trifle.' It is a noticeable fact, and one painfully felt by some of the large companies, that every attempt so far to strike the "drawing point" or basin of the coal hag been a failure. The Penn shaft is not far from one point of it, and another point is on the Yough River, above West Newton. A line from one of these points to the other is about on the plane of the coal basin. The point where it strikes the Little Sewickley Creek, being a little above the point where the Mount Pleasant and Pittsburgh pike crosses it, is the principal point. This point is likely crossed by another depression of the coal, running at right angles to the former. The Yough coal is known to be the best coal of its kind in the

market. Why companies will mine such coal as is mined in some of the northern counties of the State, and in some parts of adjoining States, while such vast quantities of the best are lying here, doing the country no more good than the millions of dollars of gold stored away in iron vaults, is not explainable. The first mine opened in this township was that owned by the late Charles Armstrong about thirty years ago. It was opened by the Fulton Brothers, now of Irwin. Then William Hays and Thomas Moore each opened works on the Yough. Then came the works along the Cen- tral Railroad, and on the Pittsburgh and Connellsville Railroad. The Hempfield Railroad was projected and partly built in 1858 and 1854. This road would have tapped the centre of the entire field, running as far as Wheeling. That company, however, was un- able to build the road. The Penn Gas-Coal Company attempted to get at the heart of this field by building the Youghiogheny Railroad, but only partially suc- ceeded. A railroad constructed to the very centre of this coal-field would furnish the means to almost double the coal production, and add immensely to the value of the State.

COKEVILLE REGION.

Concerning the extensive coke-works of the Isabella Iron Company at Cokeville, Westmoreland Cos, the following appeared in Seward's Circular of a recent date:

" The extensive coke-werks belonging to this company are situated " near the cpstegn terminus of the Western Pennyivanis Refiroed, in Westmoreland County, just across the Conemangh River from Blaire- ville, Indians Co., at a distance of sixty malles from the blast-furnaces. At this point over six hundred acres of coal have been purehered, and a considerable extent of surface property. The number of ovens at present beiit is two hundred, which are of the ordinary 'bee-hive' type, thirteen and one-half fest in diameter, and coven feet from hearth to crown, bulk of fire-brick leid in loam. One hundred and sixty of these are diepseed in a line along the side of an ancient bank of the river, and are besed together in front by a stone wall three fest thick, laid in mor- tar, with openings for the working doors, the sides of which are pro- tected by freg-frames. The upper surface of this wall is on a-level with the top of the ovens. The side of the hill, which has been cat down vertically in order to prepare the foundation-bed for the orens, forms this back wall, and all the space around and between them is filed with carth. When the ovens are working the door is closed with a temporary brick want.

"The yard in front of the ovens falls two feet in its width of forty foot. Its lower side is sustained by a retaining-wall two and one-half foot thick, in front of which, and eight feet below its upper surface, run the broad- gauge coke tracks, two in number, which connect with the main road.

"An immense amount of excavation and embankment was required ta constructing the oven-yard and the roadway for the coke tracks. It wes endesvored, as far as possible, co to Jeceto the line that the former should fernich sufficient material for the latter, and co successfully was this accomplished that no barrow-gits were found necessary.

"Owing to the intersection of the side bill by a ravine it became necessary to separate the remaining forty ovens from the others. They were therefore placed in a line on the farther side. The coke track being brought across the ravine upon trestle-werk, was continued along ta front of the ovena, and to come distance beyond these as a 'spar' track.

"On a terrace above the oven, at nearly the summit of the bank, is a Ilse of trestle-work, between the consecutive bents of which conl-bine are constructed capable of holding abest eno hundred and fifty bushels of cool. The cosi to bought thơm tho măng, shent o mio distant, ta el nino-cam, holding sbest thirty basbols apiece, hanled by a Night becametive over a marrow-grago (thirty-otr faches) track, which is com- thaned out over the trustle-work. The cus-discharge their load at the

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bottom Into the bias, which are provided with doors at the alde opposite to the centre of the ovens, from which the coal is let into the opening et the top of the ovens as desired by means of iron chutes. In this way all un pocomary handling of material is avoided. The narrow-gauge rall road is a model of nestaess in construction, and on its way to the mines passes over a bridge and trestie-work nearly forty fest from the ground. " Upon the top of the hill, above the ovens, is a reservoir built of helok, forty-two feet in diameter and six feet deep, capable of holding sixty-two thousand gallons, which is filled with water from the river by a large Cameron pump. On the bottom land below the ovene a number of blooks of houses and a large store have been erected for the use of the miners and coke-burners, and already quite a respectable village is caringing up in the violaity.

"The coal ceam now worked is the Pittsburgh or Connellsville, which is here over aiz fest thick, quite pare, and exceedingly soft and bitumi- nowe in its nature, containing thirty per cent. of volatile matter and atxty per cent. of fixed carbon. Itis intersected by two distinct planes of cleavage at right angles to each other, technically termed the line of "butts' and the line of the 'face.' The bearing of the latter is here N. T9º W., or nearly perpendicular to the line of upheaval of the Alle- gheny cbain. It had the same bearing at Connellsville, and at Iante' Station, at the mines of the Peamayivaais Gas-Coal Company, boro M. O9º W.

"Each oven is charged with one buudred and twenty-dve basbele of cost, and yields one hundred and forty to one hundred and fifty bushels of coke, the operation lasting thirty-six hours, one hundred ovens, or baif the entire number, being discharged and recharged every day. The cole produced is very hard and compact, and steel-gray in color, con- talning from ten to fifteen per cent. of ash, and very closely resembling the Connellsville coke, which has been proved to contain an equal amount of asb.

"About fifteen thousand bushels of coke can be produced per day. This is brought to the furnace in care of plate iron and of wood, holding from six hundred to six hundred and fifty bushels apiece.

"Car-loads of this coke have been sent to Omabe and Salt Lake City for use in masiting-works."

CHAPTER L.

CIVIL HISTORY, STATISTICS, AND MISCELLANEOUS.

Changes in the Territorial Limits of Westmoreland prior to the erection of Washington and Fayette Counties-Purchase of 1784, and changes In Township and County Lines subsequent thereto-Missiesinawa Townelip-Election Districts, 1881-Tables of Population -- List of Judges, Associates, Justices, and County Officers- County Expenses -- Dilg Frost of 1869-Centennisis of 1878 and 1875-Resolutions of 1875.

WE shall now touch upon the changes which have been made in the civil and political history of our county since it embraced the whole of Western Penn- sylvania claimed by the Penns.

By the purchase of 1768, as we have seen, the line of the Allegheny Mountains, as it now divides Bedford from Somerget, Blair from Cambria, and thence runs in an irregular line through Centre County, and so on to the Susquehanna, was the line which marked the eastern side of the purchase.

From that date, Nov. 5, 1768, those parts of West- ern Pennsylvania which acknowledged the authority of the Penns was under the civil jurisdiction of Cum- berland County, that county being at that time the westernmost county of the Province, and on the fron- tiers in this direction.

When the county of Bedford was created by act of Assembly, March 9, 1771, for erecting a part of the county of Cumberland into a separate county, the

reason assigned was "the great hardships the inhab- itants of the western parts of the county of Cumber- land lie under from being so remote from the present seat of judiosture and the public offices." The boun- daries of Bedford embraced in turn the entire south- western portion of the Province, from the West Branch of the Susquehanna and the Cove (or Tuscarora Moun- tains) westward to the Ohio or Virginia line.

When Westmoreland was formed out of Bedford, Feb. 26, 1778, it was separated from Bedford by the line of the Laurel Hill and Allegheny Mountains.1 These were its nominal boundaries, not increased or extended until in 1785, when part of the purchase of 1784 was added to the northern side, but against that time, as we shall see, some alteration had been made on its southern and southwestern boundary by the erection of new counties.

After the southern line of Pennsylvania had been determined and designated, the Legislature proceeded to organise the country thus detached from Virginia into a new county. This county thus taken off West- moreland was the county of Washington, and it was created by act of March 28, 1781. It was bounded by Virginia on the south and west, the Ohio River on the north, and the Monongahela River on the east.

The severance of Washington County from the parent county was no loes. The region of country that was embraced within its limits was, as a matter of fact, never a part of Westmoreland. The Mason and Dixon line was not run farther west than Dun- kard Creek till 1767, and this was the trivial and flimsy pretext for the lawlees community gathered there to avoid civil and military obligation, the pay- ment of taxes, the support of the Continental govern- ment, and the cause of independence, and it gave them time and prolonged the opportunity of making and hoarding the money they made by selling their whiskey and cattle to the half-clad militia under Brodhead, to erect school-houses, attend church meetings, and murder Indians whom they beguiled into their cabins for the scalp bounty. The larger proportion of their early men distinguished for worth and humanity were of Virginia extraction, and were of a different race than the great majority of its inhabitants of that period.

This region west of the Monongahela was for all general purposes, as we said, outside of Westmore- land. It might be that a few living near the borders of the rivers were amenable to the civil obligations resting upon them as citizens of Westmoreland. Some of them sat on the grand jury, but the most apparent evidence of their being a part and parcel of the politi- cal division of which they had legally been made a part, which is to be seen among the judicial records of the parent county, is in the list of slaves which

1 The commissioners appointed "to run, mark out, and designate the boundary lines between the sald counties of Bedford and Westmoreland" were Abraham Keble, Thomas Smith, and Alezander MoClean.

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their slave-holding inhabitants were obliged, by act of Assembly, to have filed in the Court of Sessions. But as a people or an integral part they were con- nected with the carly county history of Westmoreland little more than the red men beyond the Allegheny.'

It must not be taken either that Westmoreland had an actual or even a territorial jurisdiction over that part of Pennsylvania which was beyond the limits described in the terms of the purchase of 1768.

Fayette County, by act of Amembly of September the 26th, 1788, was erected out of Westmoreland, with the Younghiogheny between as the division line, to which that part of the county now northeast of that river was added by the act of Feb. 17, 1784.

The jurisdiction of Westmoreland over the southern part of Fayette County prior to the running of the Mason and Dixon line was merely nominal.

The only territorial alteration made in the matter of townships within that part of Westmoreland which was now made Fayette County was in the erection of the two townships of Wharton and Franklin. At January sessions, 1781, the court erected Wharton township, and then also in 1788 at the July sessions. In these cases the boundaries are different, and it is probable that the first order was inefficacious and did not operate. The date of 1788 is the one Judge Veech, a very good authority, gives for its formation. Little mention is made in the court records of the townships of Wharton and Franklin further than the names given of the copstables and overseers of the poor. The first notice of omcers exercising their functions is at July sessions, 1780, when the constables' names are given for the townships before mention is made of their existence. Curiously, too, the word "Franklin" was first written "Frankland," then afterwards overlined and corrected."

1 The territory of that which by the act of ho erection was made Washington County was, cecording to all evidence, a part of the district of West Augusta. In 1720 Spettayivaais County was taken from West Angauta, with Williamsburg se fts county town. In 1734 Orange Ostaty was taken from Spottyivanta, and comprised what is now known cà Western Virginia. When in 1786 Frederick and Antipasta Conaties were crested from Orange, Angasta County was to constitute all that portion of Virginia west of the Bine Ridge. Then in 1774, Danmere, Governor of Virginia, organised a county at Fort Pitt, which was claimed ly Virginia. On Her. 8, 1774, West Angaets was divided into the three counties whose names are familiar to we, -- Yokogania, Oblo, and Monon- gilla Tohoganis County embraced the northern part of the Web- ingten County of 1781, Ohio County the southern part, and Mouongals a large part of Fayette. In 1776 the lines of these three counties were affected by a conwesttes of which William Crawford was one.

" The office of chertil was held by appointment until 1899, when it be- came cisotive.

For more than three years after Fayette became a seperate county it remained weder the jurisdiction of the sheriff of Westmoreland. Ref- cranes to this, as well as to the fact that the other county cdices were at frat bold in common with Westmoreland, is found in the following coctracto from lettere written by Ephraim Douglass to President Joka Dickissen, of the Degrote Executive Council, via:

"Umertown, February 2, 17BL. . ". .. From an unhappy safeconception of the law for dividing West- muroland, this county has not an colour of any kind except tach to ware crested er contiseed by the act er appointed by the Council. Denied a separate ciestion of a member in Council and representative in Acsomeity

Wheatfield township, erected in the northern part of Ligonier Valley, and subsequently stricken off when Indiana County was formed, is first named in October sessions of 1780.ª

till the general election of the present year, they unfortunately con- cluded that this inability extended to all the other elective officers of the county, and in consequence of this belief voted for them in conjunction with Westmoreland."

" Umon Towy, 11th July, 1784.

"Bra,-In obedience to the commands of your honorable Board of the 5ch of June last, I take this opportunity of informing Council that there has yet been no sheriff for the county of Fayette separate from that of Westmoreland, the sheriff of that county continuing to do the duty of thet odice in this as before the division, and no bond has been taken for his performance of it in this cematy distinct from the other. . . . "

At the time of the erection of Fayette County, Matthew Jack was cherif of Westmoreland. On the 28th of October, 1783, Robert Orr was appointed by the Court depaty sheriff of Westmoreland, to act as cherLi of Tayette. He continued to not in that capacity till the appointment of Jemes Hammond so short of Fayette.

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History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men, Part 102

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor Publication date: Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: George Dallas Albert, editor
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages: