History of the counties of Dauphin and Lebanon : in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania ; biographical and genealogical, Part 111

Author: Egle, William Henry, 1830-1901
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1046

USA > Pennsylvania > Dauphin County > History of the counties of Dauphin and Lebanon : in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania ; biographical and genealogical > Part 111
USA > Pennsylvania > Lebanon County > History of the counties of Dauphin and Lebanon : in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania ; biographical and genealogical > Part 111

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METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH .- Dauphin Cir- euit was cut off of Halifax Circuit in 1838, since which time the pastor, have been : 1838, D. Sheets; 1839, V. Gray, William MeCombs; 1840, H. E. Gil- roy, William McCombs; 1841-43, William Cooper, T. W. Arthur; 1848, R. M. Greenbank, J. M. Wyeth ; 1844, R. M. Greenbank, T. A. Fernley : 1545, William L. Gray, George D. Brown; 1846, Eliphalet Reed; 1847, John C. Thomas; 1848-50, C. R. Brooks: 1550- 52, Henry Sutton ; 1852. H. Sanderson, C. R. Curry ; 1853, H. Sanderson, J. J. Lane; 1854, S. R. Gilling- ham, H. H. Hickman ; 1855-57, Valentine Gray, E. J. Pepper: 1857-59, William Dalrymple; 1859-61, George G. Rake,traw ; 1861-63, Abel Howard ; 1863- 65, S. L. Kemble; 1865-67, G. T. Hurlock; 1867, Gideon Barr; 1868-70, T. Montgomery ; 1870-72,

John Stringer ; 1872, J. Robison ; 1874-76, Frederick Illman ; 1876-79, Ephraim Potts ; 1879 to the present time, R. C. Wood. The church edifice, a commo- dious frame structure, was erected in 1837. The cir- enit embraces Dauphin, Rockville, Coxestown, and Paxtang, a preaching appointment four miles from Harrisburg and near the residence of Judge Hies- ter.

ZION'S LUTHERAN CHURCH .- This congregation before 1849 had worshiped in the old " Hill Church," | but on September 5th of that year it resolved to erect a new church edifice in the town. The joint build- ing committee then appointed were Daniel Poffen- berger, Elias Fertig, Il. C. Sponsler, George Kinter, George W. Urbin, Nelson C. Hyde. It was built on a lot of Mrs. Gross by the Lutheran and Reformed congregations jointly. The corner-stone was laid Aug. 10, 1850, and the building dedicated Feb. 2, 1851, with a dedicatory sermon by Rev. A. H. Loch- man. The pastors have been: 1851, Rev. C. F. Stoever; 1852-56, Rev. C. Nittenhaner ; 1856-68, Rev. George J. Martz; 1868-70, Rev. Kurtz ; 1870-80, Rev. D. P. Rosenmiller, who died in 1880, and since then the congregation have had no regular pastor.

EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION CHURCH .- This con- gregation was organized prior to 1872. when the church building was built. Before then services were occasionally held in the school-house. The pastors have been : 1872-75, Rev. J. A. Fager ; 1875-77, Rev. Le-lie; 1877-78, Rev. A. Markley; 1878-80, Rev. John Hoover; 1880, the present incumbent, Rev. H. M. Copp. This circuit embraces two other churches,- Zion's, some two miles from town, and which was or- ganized in 1862, and the one at Fishing Creek, or- ganized in 1831. The Halifax Church was an off- shoot of Zion's, and was instituted to accommodate the town members.

BERRY'S MOUNTAIN MILLS, near Berry's Moun- tain, in Middle Paxtang township, were built in 1797, the large saw-mill by Mr. Barr. They were after- wards operated by Mr. Rutter, and later by Loomis & Kingsbury. In 1834 and 1835 they transacted a large business. Shurr's mill was a short distance above.

LYKENS VALLEY.

THE Wiconisco or Lykens Valley includes that seetion of the " Upper End" of the county of Dan- phin that is watered by the Wiconi-co Creek and its branches, save where local names bave been given to certain portions, such as Williams Valley, etc. As much of the history of the townships is so closely allied, we purpose to give such facts relating thereto

as do not specially belong to the townships proper. It may be here stated that locally Lykens Valley is but a -mall part of Wiconiseo Valley, and yet we are compelled to designate the " Upper End" by that general title.

The early history of the Wiconiseo Valley is one of interest, inasmuch as the individual for whom the

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LYKENS VALLEY.

entire valley now takes its name was among the first settlers. In 1732, Andrew Lycans inot Lycan ; settled on the Swatara Creek, where he took up two hundred and fifty acres of land, adjoining lands of Robert Young and Lazaru- Stewart, and which was surveyed to him on the 4th of April, 1737. About 1740 he seems to have sold out and removed, with a number of others, to the west side of the Susquehanna, where he settled and made some improvements on a tract of land between Sherman's Creek and the Juniata, in then Cumberland County. Thi- not being included in the last Indian purchase, the Shawanese, who had a few scattered villages on the Juniata, complained of the encroachments of these settlers and demanded their removal. To pacify the Indians the Provincial authorities sent, in 1748, the sheriff of Lancaster County, with three magistrates, accompanied by Con - rad Weiser, to warn the people to leave at once. But. notwithstanding all this, the settlers remained, deter- mined not to be driven away, at least by threats.

On the 22d of May, 1750, after more decisive meas- ures had been decided upon by the Provincial gov- ernment, a number of high dignitaries who had been appointed by the Lieutenant-Governor held a confer- ence at the house of George Croghan, in Pennsborough township, Cumberland Co. Subsequently, accom- panied by the under-sheriff of that county, they went to the place where Lycans and others lived, and after taking the settlers into custody burned their cabins to the number of five or six.1

They were subsequently released by order of the Governor of the Province, when Andrew Lycans re- moved with his family to the east side of the Su-que- hanna beyond the Kittochtinny Mountains. and by per- mission of the authorities " settled on a tract of about two hundred acres, situated on the northerly side of Whiconescong Creek." Here he made " considerable improvements," which we learn from a document in our possession.

Until the spring of 1756 these pioneers on the Wiconi-co were not disturbed in their homes, but fol- lowing the defeat of Braddock, everywhere along the frontier the savages began their work of devastation and death. Their implaeable cruelty was stimulated by the promise of reward for -calps on the part of the French, beside the further one of being put into pos- session of their lands. On the morning of the 7th of March, 1756, Andrew Lycans and John Rewalt went

out early to fodder their cattle, when two guns were fired at them. Neither being harmed, they ran into the house and prepared themselves for defense in ca-e of an attack. The Indians then got under cover of a hog-house near the dwelling-house, when John Ly- cans, a son of Andrew, John Rewalt, and Ludwig Shott, a neighbor, crept out of the house in order to get a shot at them, but were fired upon by the savazes, and all wounded, the latter Shott . in the abdomen. At this moment Andrew Lycans aw one of the Iu- dians over the hog-house, and also two white men running out of the same and get a little distance therefrom. Upon this Lyeans and his party attempted to escape, but were porsned by the Indians to the number of sixteen or upwards. John Lycans and Rewalt being badly wounded and not able to do any- thing, with a negro who was with them, made off. leaving Andrew Lycans, Shott, and a boy engaged with the Indians. The savages pursued them so closely that one of them, coming up to the boy, was going to strike his tomahawk into him, when Ludwig Shott turned and shot him dead, while Lycans killed two more and wounded several in addition. At last. being exhausted and wounded, they sat down on a log to rest themselves ; but the Indian- were somewhat cautious, and stood some distance from them, and consequently returned to look after their own wounded. Lyeans and all his party managed to get over the mountains into Hanover township, where they were properly cared for. Here Andrew Lycans died, leav- ing a wife, Jane Lycans, and children,-John. Su- sanna, Rebecca, Elizabeth, Mary, and Margaret. It is not known when Lycans' family, with the other settlers, returned to their homes in the Wiconisco Valley, but not until all danger was over ; and al- thoughi on a number of occasions they were obliged to leave all and flee before the marauding -avages, yet the one alluded to was the only occasion where they so narrowly escaped with their live -. Besides, the erection of the forts at Shamokin ;Sunbury', and at Armstrong's ( Halifaxi, and at McKee's, at the foot of Berry's Mountain, was perchance ample protection from the annual maraud- of the Indians, which up to the year 1764 kept the frontier inhabitants in a ter- rible state of apprehension and fear.

John Lycans, son of Andrew, became an officer of the Provincial service, commissioned July 12, 1762. In June, 1764, he was stationed at Manada Gap. It is probable he removed from the valley prior to the Rev- olution. His mother, Jane Lycans. in February, 1735. had a patent issued to her for the land on which her husband had located. The Lycan- cabin stood until abont twenty years ago on Mcclure's farm, owned at present by H. L. Lark. Ludwig Shott died about 1790, and left a large family ; some of his descendants remain in the valley. Rewalt subsequently remove l to the now thickly-settled portion of the Province.

Andrew Lycans has given his name to the beautiful valley of the Wiconi-co, owing perchance to the ter-

1 We have before us the "account of Andrew Work, sheriff of Lan- caster, for removal of trespassers at Juniata," which is as follows:

" Dr. Province of Pennsylvania to Andrew Work, Sheriff of the County of Lancaster and Cumberland1.

"To ten days attend ince on the Secretary Magistrates of the County of Cumberland, by his Hon's, the G .Veruor's command to remove sandry persons settled to the Northward of the Kichitania Mountains :

" To paid the Messenger sent from Lancaster my own Expenses, 3: 7: 0

" To the Under-sheriff's Attendance on the like service, eight days: " To his Expenses in taking down An trew Lycan to Prisen to Lancas- ter other Expenses in the Journey, 2: 10: 0.

" Augt., 1750.

AND. WORK, Sher."

----

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HISTORY OF DAUPHIN COUNTY.

rible encounter with the Indians as narrated. The orthography has been changed within the last fifty years, but we have not learned the reason therefor. Whether Lykens or Lycans, we trust that no attempt may ever be made to deprive the first pioneer of the name which has been appropriately given to it.

After Andrew Lycans' the first house built at Oak- Dale Forge was erected by Henry Shotstall for Joel Ferree, of Lancaster County, then owner of the Ly- cans' tract, about the year 1771. Its location was about seventy-five yards northwest of where the pres- ent bridge crosses the Wiconisco Creek. The prop- erty was purchased by Mr. Ferree from Jane Lycans. the widow of the old pioneer. On the death of the former it became the property of Isaac Ferree, of Lancaster County, whose son, Isaac, Jr., moved into it in 1800. At the period when Andrew Lycans lived on the Forge property there was an Indian village on the land now owned by Henry Bohner, and the spring at his house is the head of the run which empties into the head of the Forge dam and called the " Indian Town Run." This Indian town property, when it was abandoned by the Indians, was taken up by Joel Ferree, first named.

When the house was built by Mr. Shoff-tall, there were few settlers in the neighborhood. There were, however, Shott (now Kottka', George Buffington, near Buffington's Church, John Nicholas Hoffman, and Philip Umholtz, near Gratz. In Williams Val- ley the nearest person was Conrad Updegraff, at (now) Williamstown, and next Daniel Williams, who had a grist-mill there, at or on the property now owned by Martin Blum, east of Williamstown. Another person about this time, by the name of Daniel Hain, built a saw-mill where the Summit Branch Railroad crosses the creek at Lykens, taking the water from Rattling Creek by a race to Wiconisco Creek.

Oak-Dale Forge was built about the year 1828, by James Buchanan, who at the same time, or the year following, built six or seven houses for his workmen. The houses were located on the south side of the creek, and were occupied by John Hinter, Thomas Nutt, George Conner, Samuel Boou, Joseph Dunlap, and others. Mr. Buchanan came from Harrisburg. He subsequently removed to Baltimore, where he died. He kept a store at the Forge, and also the post-office, which latter was established about 1830, the mail being carried by pack-horse. Previous to that time the post-office was at Millersburg, each neighbor taking his turn to bring the mail from there weekly.

From 1795 to 1800 there were only three houses built between the Forge and Lyken -. One was lo- cated on the property now of Henry Bohner. and then occupied by Joel Ferree, the younger, who died at Baltimore, in the War of 1812. The second house was built by George cetzler on the property now of Isaac Seebolt. The third on property now owned by John Wallace, erected by Peter Shoffstall and occu-

pied by him for a time, subsequently by Peter Min- nich. This cabin stood near the old house on Wal- lace's farm, and was in later years occupied by Solomon Shoffstall, who erected the present old log house on the premises.

The first election held in the valley, or in Lykens township, was probably in Gratz. about the year 1815. Hoffman's Church was the first place of religions worship.

The importance of Lykens Valley may be dated from the year 1825. In that year coal was discovered by Jacob Burd, Sr., and Peter Kimes, then living near the lower end of the Short Mountain, in what was then Lykens township. They had gone out one Sunday morning to take a walk, and reaching the top of the mountain they paused, one of them having a stick in his hand, carefully dug into the earth, when it revealed black dirt. This gave rise to the opinion that there must be coal in the mountain. A short time afterwards a wagon road was made, ~ Jen commenced to dig. This was the first beginning of the coal operations which gave rise to the Lykens Valley, Short Mountain, and Franklin Coal Com- panies. This was in the same year that anthracite coal was first burned successfully in Philadelphia, and its advocates, after having undergone the usual derision that men of new and progressive ideas have to contend with, began to reap their reward. No doubt this combination of circumstances determined the action of the shrewd Simon Gratz. He at once bought the land in and east of the Gap from one Frey, its owner up to that time.

Professor Sheafer, of Pottsville, who was a native of the "Upper End," furnishes us the subsequent his- tory of this enterprise. The Wiconisco Coal Com- pany was organized in 1831, composed of six mem- bers,-Simon Gratz, Samuel Richard-, George H. Thompson, Charles Roekland Thompson, all of Phil- adelphia, and Henry Schreiner and Henry Sheafer, both of Dauphin County.

They began work at opening their mines by drifts in the gap at Bear Creek, a tributary of Wiconisco Creek, and sold coal in the vicinity in 1:32. The first miners were three Englishmen, James Todotf, John Brown, and William Hall, who came in from Schuylkill County.

The Lykens Valley Railroad, the fourth railroad in the United States to carry anthracite coal, and the first in Dauphin County, was located by Mr. Ashwin, an English civil engineer, and extended from the mines in Bear Gap, sixteen miles, to the Susquehanna River, along the north foot of Berry's Mountain. This road was constructed under the direction of John Paul, civil engineer, Henry Sheafer, superintendent. and Simon Sallade, director. The road was completed and began transporting coal in 1534, by horse-power. on a flat strap-rail. A number of ark-load- of coal were shipped from Millersburg in March and April, 1834. Then the coal-cars were boated across the Sus-

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quehanna from the terminus of the railroad at Mil- lersburg to Mount Patrick, on the opposite side of the river, in Perry County. This site was formerly owned by Peter Ritner, brother of Governor Ritner. Here the Lykens Valley Company had a set of chutes on the Pennsylvania Canal, where they shipped their coal to market. The first boat-load of Lykens Val- ley coal was sent on Saturday, April 19, 1834, by boat "76," forty-three tons, Capt. C. Faunce, consigned to Thomas Borbridge, Columbia, P'a.

Shipments continued in this manner until 1845, when the railroad was worn out and abandoned until 1848. Then a portion of the railroad was regraded, and all laid with a new T-rail. The Wiconisco Canal, connecting the Pennsylvania Canal at Clark's Ferry with Millersburg, was built and shipments resumed in 1848, and have continued ever since. Up to and including 1858 the total shipment of coal from the Lykens Valley mines. from the beginning, amounted to eight hundred and forty-eight thousand seven hundred and eighty-one tons, and the grand total shipments on the Susquehanna were three mil- lions two hundred and thirty-four thousand seven hundred and eighty-one tons, which included ship- ments of coal by the Union Canal and other avenues as follows: The Shamokin Railroad was opened in 1839, the Dauphin and Susquehanna in 1854, the Trevorton Railroad in 1855.

At that early day of the coal trade this portion of the country was wild and seemed far removed in the woods. Lykens Valley is the broad expanse, three to five miles in width, of fertile, red-shale soil between Mahantango Mountain on the north and Berry's Mountain ou the south, with the Susquehanna River as its boundary on the west. Its eastern portion is a distance of twelve miles from the river, and is sub- divided into two -maller valleys, the main or northern one extending some ten miles east to the valley of the Mahanoy Creek. The south portion is named after its early settler, Williams, who built a grist-mill near Williamstown, also named after him.

ance of the public, who want a rail connection be- tween the two counties, joining the two rivers, the Schuylkill on the east and the Susquehanna on the west. This mountain is again tapped at Bear Gap, the original mine- above referred to. The North Mountain was penetrated by a tunnel directly north of the gap, but thus far has not been very productive of coal. In fact, what seems singular in this connec- tion is that only two beds, the very lowest in the series, are productive here, one being farther east, too small for working, while the great mammoth bed, the great productive bed of the eastern district, is hardly known here. These two lower inter-con- glomerates, one eight and the other four feet thick. are dissimilar from other anthracite coals in their lustreless appearance, and their cubic fracture shows its western approach to the semi-bituminous coals farther west. It is a free-burning, red-ash coal, but free from impurities, ready of ignition, and the most popular coal (especially for domestic purposes) of all the anthracites. The lands in the vicinity of the old mines were controlled by the following ownership : The western portion, by Thomas P. Cope, a well- known merchant of Philadelphia; afterwards it be- came the lands of the Short Mountain Coal Company, controlled by Job R. Tyson, the son-in-law of MIr. Cope, a well-known attorney of Philadelphia. J. Edgar Thomson, the famous president of the Penn- sylvania Railroad Company, took an interest in said company, and had their first breaker built under the direction of Professor Sheafer, whose education in coa! began at the old Lykens Valley mines. The lands covering Bear Gap and North Mountain were owned by the Wiconisco, afterwards the Lykens Valley, Coal Company, of which Simon Gratz, a prominent mer- chant of Philadelphia, was the president and prin- cipal owner.

Adjoining said lands on the east was the coal ter- ritory of Mes-rs. Elder & Haldeman, both prominent residents and landowners of Harrisburg. These three bodies of land are now in the ownership of the Sum- mit Branch Coal Company, controlled by the Penn- sylvania Railroad Company.

This valley, hardly a mile in width. extends east from its junction with Lykens Valley ten miles, with the Short Mountain on the north and Berry's Moun- The popularity of this coal, first opened by Henry Sheafer, led to the opening of the Short Mountain Coal Company's mines in 1854, after the sale of the Elder & Haldeman lands to the Summit Branch com- pany. They extended a branch road eastward from side of the mountain by a tunnel, cutting coal in great perfection, and where they have mined, pre- pared, and shipped one thousand tons of coal per diem for several years in succession. The same large shipments are now being made just east of the Sum- mit Branch mines, at the Brook-ide colliery of the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company. The same beds of Lykens Valley coal, and the same coal in all its peculiarities, is now mined in Stony Mountain, at the Kalmia colliery of Phillips & tain on the south, to a point where it coalesces with Clark's Valley, the. two headed off by Broad Moun- tain, beyond Tower City. This Short, or Coal Moun- tain, is a prong of the southern anthracite coal-field, forming a narrow basin, hardly more than a mile ' the town of Lyken-, where they penetrated the south wide. The southern side of the basin, or north dip, is the only one worked. It is now pierced at Tower City, where it is extensively worked by the Philadel- phia and Reading Coal and Iron Company, and again at Williamstown, by the Summit Branch Coal Com- pany, the lands of which two companies adjoin at the county line between Schuylkill and Dauphin. where a willful wall of the Pennsylvania Company and the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company prevents a junction, much to the annoy-

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HISTORY OF DAUPHIN COUNTY.

Sheafer, south of Tower City. All the above col- lieries, except Kalmia, have sunk deep slopes under water-level. The future of the Lykens Valley dis- triet must, ere many years, be transferred to the south dip, on the north side of the mountain, where the saine bed lies intact for twelve miles, more or less, mostly below water-level. Before another century begins, the active shipments of coal must come from that side, through the old works in the South Moun- tain, or from independent collieries along the north foot of the North Mountain, where railroads must be built, one leading west to the Susquehanna, and another east to the Schuylkill, through Klinger's Gap, where the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company have a large body of lands, and a site for a grand colliery above water-level.

There are four collieries open and in working con- dition in Upper Dauphin,-Big Run, by James Fen- nel (it is a land-sale colliery, shipping none by rail ) ; the other collieries are known as Short Mountain, Lykens Valley, and Summit Branch or Williams- towu. Big Lick colliery is not now in operation.

Dependent on these collieries are the towns of Wil- , enterprise of the early pioneers.

liamstown, Wieonisco, Lykens Borough, and some two or three small villages, with a population num- bering between eight and ten thousand persons. Eighty per cent. of the dwellings in this onee pros- perous valley are the property of working-men, the result of hard toil, self-denial, and privation.

One familiar with the picture of Bear Gap and its wild surroundings in 1832, all forest, its lofty monu- tains and rushing streams, no work of the hands of man apparent, no sound but the roaring of the erecks, the streets of the town of Wiconisco, as located by Henry Sheafer, and those of Lykens, by Isaac Ferree, Sr. (an intelligent emigrant from Lancaster County), can appreciate the great development. Fifty years of earnest labor has sent millions of tons of coal from its long-sealed tomb to land and sea, build- ing towns, railroads, canals, churches, and schools, and lighting and warming all the people with its cheerful glow. But few of the original parties who began this enterprise remain among us. It but remains for us to make this brief record of their work, that our citizens may know somewhat of the

LYKENS TOWNSHIP.

Upox the petition of inhabitants of Upper Pax- tang township asking for a division of said township, the court issued an order at their January sessions, 1810, to three commissioners to inquire into the pro- priety of granting said prayer, and to make a plot or draft of the township, etc. The commissioners re- ported in favor of a division of the township by the following line, to wit :

" Beginning at a pine-tree in the Halifax township line on the summit of Berry's Mountain at Peter Richert's Gap; thenee north ten degrees east along and near a public road which leads from Halifax to Sunbury through Hains' Gap, four hundred and sixty perches to a post on the north side of Wieonisco Creek near the said road ; thence north eighty perches to a pine; thence running along the public road afore- said north five degrees west four hundred and seventy perches to Buffington's Church, leaving the said church on the westward; thence a course north ten degrees west, leaving the dwelling of John Hopple westward eleven hundred and fifty perches to Mahantango Creek," ete.

The report then follows the lines around the two divisions of Upper Paxtang as they were after taking off Halifax town-hip (running the lines across the river). It is therefore unnecessary to follow them further here, as the line given above shows the division

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History of the counties of Dauphin and Lebanon : in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania ; biographical and genealogical, Part 111

Author: Egle, William Henry, 1830-1901 Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Peck Number of Pages: 1046

Author: Egle, William Henry, 1830-1901
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1046