USA > Pennsylvania > Carbon County > History of the counties of Lehigh and Carbon, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Pt. 2 > Part 45
USA > Pennsylvania > Lehigh County > History of the counties of Lehigh and Carbon, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Pt. 2 > Part 45
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After the outlines of the company had been agreed upon, they published in pamphlet form at Philadel- phia " A compendious View of the Law authorizing the Improvement of the River Lehigh," in which the following advantages were sanguinely set forth as the prospective results of the navigation by the improved plan :
"The city of Philadelphia can be supplied with coal which is aseertained to be twenty per cent. purer than any of the same species which has come to this market from any other source and at a reduced price.
" A market will be opened for an immense body of timber which is now so completely locked up as not to be considered worth stealing, owing to the expense that would attend getting it to market.
" When the first grand section of the river is im- proved (which can be done in a few months) the land carriage to the Susquehanna at Berwiek will be only thirty miles over a turnpike now made, which will immediately command the trade of that river and turn it to Philadelphia. When the second grand seetion is finished the portage will be reduced to only ten or twelve miles by a railroad contemplated to be made on excellent ground. By the Susquehanna and Lehigh the western counties of New York will be nearer in point of expense to Philadelphia than to Albany, aud consequently a large portion of the pro- duee, which now goes down the North River to New York, may be calculated on for the supply of Phila- delphia.
"The New York Grand Canal, when completed, 1
will bring the produce from the shores of Lake Erie. This produce can come from the point where the canal crosses Seneea River to Philadelphia in nearly half the time and consequently at half the expense that it can go by canal and North River to New York."
The pamphlet containing these statements was pub- lished chiefly with a view to arousing the interest of those who might become subscribers to the stock of the company, but it exerted that influence only in a limited degree.
We will remark here that the Lehigh Coal Company was incorporated by act of Oct. 21, 1818; that its leading characters were the same as those of the Navigation, White, Hazard, and Hauto; that the last named was bought out by his partners in March. 1820, and that on April 21, 1820, the two companies were consolidated under the title of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company.
The history of the mining operations being given in the chapter on Mauch Chunk, we shall confine this narrative to the improvement of the river begun by the Lehigh Navigation Company, and continued and completed by the amalgamated company above al- luded to, which is the one still in existence.
The plan, says Josiah White, who was its origina- tor, was to "improve the navigation of the river by contracting the channels funnel fashion, to bring the whole flow of water at each of the falls to as narrow a compass as the law would allow, by throwing up the round river stones into low walls not higher than we wanted to raise the water for the required depth of fifteen or eighteen inches by the natural flow, to make artificial freshets to supply the deficiency ; that is, by making ponds of water of as many acres as we could get, and letting it off periodically, say once in three days. I supposed we could gather water enough to sceure the required quantity, and thus seeure a regu- lar descending navigation. The plan for locks and gates for letting out the freshet in a proper manner was left for the present to be devised in due time if found necessary."
The artificial freshets alluded to were affected by constructing dams in the neighborhood of Mauch Chunk, in which were placed peculiarly-constructed sluice-gates invented by Josiah White, by means of which the water could be retained in the pool above, until required for use. When the dam became full and the water had run over it long enough for the river below the dam to acquire the depth of the ordinary flow of the river, the sluice-gates were let down, and the boats which were lying in the pools above passed down with the artificial flood. About twelve of these dams and sluices were made in 1819, and with what work had been done in making wing
I This description, with much of The maller which follows, is derived from the " History of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company," pub- lished in 1811, though many facts are added from Richard Richardson's " Memoir of Josiah White."
596
HISTORY OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
dams absorbed the capital of the company before the whole of the dams were completely protected from ice-freshets. They were, however, so far completed as to prove in the fall of 1819 that they were capable of producing the required depth of water from Maueh Chunk to Easton.
Disaster eame with the spring of 1820, the iee severely injuring several of the dams, and carrying away some of the sluice-gates. From the necessity for additional funds created by this damage, arose the . plan of consolidating the eoal and navigation eom- panies which, as we have before stated, was consum- mated in 1820. As one of the conditions of that union, an additional twenty thousand dollars' worth of stock was subscribed for, nearly three-fifths of which was taken by White & Hazard. The dams and sluices were repaired with this sum, and in the year 1820 the first anthracite eoal was sent to market by the artificial navigation, the whole quantity being three hundred and sixty-five1 tons, which completely glutted the Philadelphia market, and was with difhi- culty disposed of during the year. It was sold for twenty-one dollars per ton. During 1820 the com- pany again expended all of its capital. The work was done with the exception of one place at "the slates" (above Allentown), where the channel and wing walls were made over the smooth surface of slate ledges rising within a few inches of the surface of the water. It was impossible there from the na- ture of the ground, to make the wing walls remain tight enough to keep the water at the required height, and it became evident that a solid dam must be built by which the water could be raised to a sufficient height to bury the ledges completely and perma- nently. Additional subscriptions to the stock were only seeured by a sacrifice on the part of White & Hazard, who transferred as a bonus to those who would subscribe an amount of the stock held by them, equal to twenty per cent. on the new subscrip- tion. With the money thus finally secured, the dam and lock at " the slates" were erected, and one thou- sand and seventy-three tons of coal sent to Philadel- pla in 1821. An uneasiness among the stockholders with regard to their personal liabilities led to the in- corporation of the company in February, 1822. In that year new confidence being given by the charter- ing of the company, subscriptions were received amounting to nearly eighty-five thousand dollars, and the affairs of the corporation assumed a more prom- ising aspeet than they had ever worn. Two thousand two hundred and forty tons of coal were sent to market during the year.
Two years after it came in use the deseending navi- gation was inspected, and on Jan. 17, 1823, license was obtained from the Governor to take toll upon it. None was charged, however, until four years later.
The boats used in this system of navigation, com- monly called "arks," were simply great square-cor- nered boxes from sixteen to eighteen feet wide and from twenty to twenty-five feet long. At first two of these were joined together by hinges to allow them to bend up and down in passing the dams and sluices ; and as the men became accustomed to the work, and the channels were straightened and improved as ex- perience dictated, the number of sections in each boat was increased till at last their whole length reached one hundred and eighty feet. They were linked to- gether almost exactly as are railroad cars in a train. The steering was done with long oars or sweeps, as upon a raft. We are told that " machinery was de- vised for jointing and putting together the planks of which these boats were made, and the hands became so expert that five men would put one of the sections together and launch it in forty-five minutes." Boats of this description were used on the Lehigh till the end of the year 1831, when the Delaware division of the Pennsylvania Canal was partially finished. In the last year forty thousand nine hundred and sixty- six tons of coal were sent down, which required the building of so many boats that had they all been put together, end to end, they would have extended more than thirteen miles. None of the boats made more than one trip, for arriving in Philadelphia they were broken up and the planks were sold for lumber, while the spikes, hinges, and other iron work were returned to Mauch Chunk. The hands employed in running the boats walked back for a period of two or three years, when rough wagons were placed on the road by some of the tavern-keepers, on which they were car- ried for a small compensation.
This descending navigation by artificial freshets on the Lehigh was the first of which there is any record used as a permanent thing. It is stated, however, that in the expedition in 1779 under Gen. Sullivan, Gen. James Clinton successfully made use of the expedi- ent to extrieate his division of the army from some difficulty on the east branch of the Susquehanna and erected a temporary dam across the outlet of Otsego Lake, which accumulated water enough to float them when let off, and carry them down the river.
It soon became evident, so great was the consump- tion of lumber for boats, that the coal business could not be carried on, even on a small scale, without a communication by water with the pine forests about sixteen miles above Mauch Chunk, on the upper sec- tion of the Lehigh. But to effeet this was very difli- cult, as the river in that distance had a fall of about three hundred feet over a very rough, rocky bed, with shores so forbidding that in only two places above Lausanne had horses been got down to the river. To improve the navigation it became necessary to begin operations at the upper end, and to cart all the tools and provisions by a circuitous and rough road through the wilderness, and then to build a boat for each load to be sent down to the place where the hands were
1 In the chapter upon Manch Chunk township the total shipments for each succeeding year down to 1885 are given.
597
PROGRESS OF SETTLEMENT AND INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.
at work by the channels which they had previously prepared. Before these channels were effected an at- tempt was made to send down planks, singly, from the pine region, but they became bruised and broken upon the rocks before they reached Mauch Chunk. The plan of sending down single logs was then re- sorted to, and men were sent along the river to clear them from the rocks when they became lodged, but it frequently happened that when they got near Mauch Chunk a sudden freshet would sweep them over the dam, and they would be lost. These difli- eulties were overcome in 1823 by the construction of the channels to which allusion has just been made. The work gave rise to an increase of the capital stock of ninety-six thousand and thirty dollars, making the total amount subscribed five hundred thousand dollars.
By the conclusion of the year 1825, when the com- pany sent down the river twenty-eight thousand three hundred and ninety-three tons of anthracite, it be- came evident that the business could not be extended fast enough to keep apace with the demand of the market as long as the company was compelled to build a new boat for each load of coal they shipped. The pine forest, too, was being whittled away at the rate of more than four hundred acres per year, which in- dicated that it would soon entirely disappear, as the demand npon it must increase.
These considerations, in conjunction with the faet that the Schuylkill region had an uninterrupted slack-water navigation, which allowed the upward as well as the downward passage of boats,-admit- ting, of course, of any desired extension of the coal traffic,-led the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Com- pany to embark upon a seheme for securing a per- manent ascending navigation.
The Slack-Water or Ascending Navigation of the Lehigh .- The first plan for the aseending navigation of the Lehigh was one which eontem- plated the use of steamboats. The acting man- agers ( White and Hazard) provided for a steamboat navigation with locks one hundred and thirty feet long and thirty feet wide, which would accommodate a steamboat carrying one hundred and fifty tons of coal. These locks were constructed peculiarly and adapted to river navigation. The gates operated upon the same principle with the sluice-gates in the dams for making artificial freshets, and were raised or let down by the application or removal of a hy- drostatic pressure below them. The first mile of the river below Mauch Chunk was arranged for this kind of navigation. The locks proved to be perfectly effective, and could be filled or emptied, notwith- standing their magnitude, in three minutes, or about half the time of the ordinary lock. Application was then made to the Legislature for an act for the int- provement of the river Delaware upon this plan, but the authorities decided upon the construction of a canal along that river, and this, of course, put an
end to the project of putting steamboats upon the Lehigh.
Early in the year 1827 it was finally decided to go on with a canal and slack-water navigation from Mauch Chunk to Easton. For that purpose the com- pany employed Canvass White as the principal engi- neer. Ile was a gentleman of fine character and much experience, who had occupied a prominent position on the corps which had surveyed for and constructed the Erie of New York. He recom- mended the construction of a canal of the then ordi- nary size capable of accommodating boats of twenty- five tons burden. Messrs. Josiah White and Erskine Hazard, however, argued that the same number of hands could manage a much larger boat, and the only items of inerease 'in expense would be for the original construction and perhaps an additional horse for towing. Every ton of coal transported could be carried cheaper by this arrangement than by the one which contemplated smaller boats. Finally, Canvass White made two estimates, one for a canal forty feet wide, and the other for one sixty feet wide. The difference in the estimates being only about thirty thousand dollars, the company decided upon the construction of the larger one. The dimensions of the navigation were fixed at sixty feet wide on the surface and five feet deep, and the locks one hundred feet long and twenty-two feet wide, adapted to boats of one hundred and twenty tons.
The work was at once laid out and let to contractors, who commenced their operations about midsummer. The engineer corps, under Canvass White, was com- posed as follows : On the upper division, commencing one mile below Mauch Chunk, Isaae A. Chapman, of Wilkesbarre, and W. Milner Roberts and Solomon WV. Roberts, of Philadelphia; on the middle division were Anthony B. Warford, of New York, Benjamin Ayerigg, of New Jersey, and Ashbel Welch; on the lower division were John Hopkins and George E. Hoffman, both of New York, and William K. Hutl'- nagle, of Philadelphia. Edward Miller, of Philadel- phia, soon afterward joined the corps. Instructions were given the chief engineer by the company to make canals in lieu of river improvements only when they would be cheaper and more effective. His report stated that " the length of the canal would be thirty-four and three-fourths miles, and ten miles of pools with tow-paths the whole distance, and the estimate of the expense seven hundred and eighty- one thousand three hundred and three dollars."
"The improved navigation," says the author of the memoir of Josiah White, " was commenced in 1827, and vigorously prosecuted and completed in two years." . Commissioners were appointed by the Gov- ernor in June, 1829, who reported on the 3d of the following month that the work was completed, ac- cording to law, as far as Manch Chunk. "We are, indeed, surprised," they said, "to find a new canal forty-five feet wide at the bottom, sixty feet wide at the
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598
HISTORY OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
top, calculated for five feet depth of water, stand as well as this has done. Whenever there is any danger to be apprehended to the bank, from the rise of water in the river, the bank of the canal is protected by good slope-walls. The locks are composed of good stone laid in hydraulic cement. Notwithstanding the size of the loeks, everything being new, and the gate- keepers inexperienced, the average time of passing the locks was about five minutes. There are forty- five lift-locks, in number of six, seven, eight, and nine feet fall, all of twenty-two feet by one hundred feet, except the four upper ones, near Manch Chunk, which are thirty feet by one hundred and thirty feet, overcoming a fall of three hundred and sixty and eighty-seven one-hundredths feet in a distance of forty-six and three-fourths miles, and there are also six guard-locks. The dams are eight in number ; they are built of timber and stone in a very substantial manner, with stone abutments, and of the following height : five, thirteen, eight, sixteen, twelve, six, seven and one-half, and ten feet from surface to surface. On the whole the work appears to have been con- structed with a view to service and durability, and the corporation, in our opinion, is entitled to much com- mendation for the promptness and energy displayed in the prosecution and completion of this great public improvement."
By this time a total change had taken place in the views of the community respecting the undertaking of the Lehigh Company. The improvement of the river had been demonstrated to be perfectly practi- cable, and the extensive coal field owned by the com- pany was no longer to be regarded as of problematical value. The Legislature of 1818 was now censured for having granted such valuable privileges, and all of the "craziness" of the original enterprise was lost sight of. Hence applications to the Legislature for a change in their charter (for the purpose of increasing the capital, as was deemed necessary to carry on the work) were thwarted by the influence of adverse in- terests. It was evident that such a change as the company desired could not be secured without a sae. rifice of some of the valuable privileges scented by the charter. Therefore resort was had to loans, to : enable the company to complete the work required by law, and these were readily procured, in conse- quence of the good faith always evinced in the busi- ness of the company, and their evidently prosperous circumstances.
The Delaware division was not regularly opened for navigation until three years after the Lehigh im- provement was made, and the delay caused the loss of eight dividends to the Lehigh Company, they being compelled to use temporary boats which were very expensively moved upon the Lehigh Canal. This not only prevented the increase of the company's coal business on the Lehigh, but also turned the at- tention of persons desirous of entering into the coal business to the Schuylkill coal region, which caused
Pottsville to spring up with great rapidity and fur- nish numerous dealers to spread the Schuylkill coal through the market, while the company was the only dealer in Lehigh coal. In this manner the Schuyl- kill coal trade got in advance of that of the Lehigh.
In the mean time the company had built the gravity railroad from the Summit Mines to the river, which is fully described in the chapter on Mauch Chunk, and in 1831 they constructed a similar railroad from Nes- gnehoning to the landing.
As the time at which the original act of the Legis- lature required the navigation improvement to be completed to Stoddartsville was now approaching, and the attention of the publie was attracted to the Second or Beaver Meadow coal region, it became ne- cessary to look to the commencement of that work. It was evident that the descending navigation by artificial freshets would not be satisfactory to the Leg- islature, who had reserved the right of compelling the construction of a complete slack-water navigation. The extraordinary fall in the upper section of the Lehigh rendered its improvement by locks of the ordinary lift impracticable, as the locks would have been so close together, and would have caused so much detention in their use, as to render the naviga- tion too expensive to be available to the public. The plan of high lifts was proposed by the managers as one that would overcome this difficulty, and in 1835, Edwin A. Douglass was appointed as engineer to carry it into execution. The work as high as the mouth of the Quakake was put under contract in June, 1835, and from thence to White Haven in October of the same year. The descending navigation above Wright's Creek was also put under contract in the same year.
On the 13th of March, 1837, the Legislature passed an act authorizing the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company to construct a railroad to connect the North Braneli Division of the Pennsylvania Canal with the slack-water navigation of the Lehigh, and increasing their capital to one million six hundred thousand dol- lars, at the same time repealing so much of the former act as required or provided for the completion of a slack-water navigation between Wright's Creek (near White llaven ) and Stoddartsville. This act was ac- cepted by the stockholders of the company on May 10, 1837.
The whole work of the navigation required by the acts of the Legislature was completed, and the Gov- ernor's commission given to the inspectors to examine the last of it on March 19, 1838. The commissioners appointed, Samuel Breck, N. Beach, and Owen Rice, made their report, showing a highly satisfactory con- dition, on the 12th of June following. The descend- ing navigation from Stoddartsville with " beartrap"1 loeks to connect with the ascending navigation at White Haven made a continnous line of communica-
1 For the definition of this term, or rather the account of its original application, see chapter on Manch Chunk borough.
PROGRESS OF SETTLEMENT AND INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.
599
tion and traffic from the head-waters of the Lehigh to Easton on the Delaware, and from thence by the Dela- ware Canal to tide-water at Bristol, a distance of one hundred and forty-four miles.
The original plan in the minds of the originators of the works was to connect their navigation at White Haven, on the Lehigh, by eanal with the Susquehanna River at Berwiek, along the valley of Nescopeek Creek, and by railroad with Wilkesbarre on the same river. The early law authorizing the canal was revived in 1834, and the route was surveyed and estimates made by E. A. Douglass in 1836. But as the fall to be over- come both ways was so great (one thousand and thirty- eight feet), and water scarce on the mountains, the idea was abandoned.
In 1837 it was determined by the company to pro- eeed with the construction of the railroad, and it was put under contraet the same year, after a very thor- ough examination of the country by Mr. Douglass, in order to ascertain the best location for it through the very rough and mountainous country over which it was to pass between the two rivers. To build this road required some very bold engineering, ineluding a tunnel one thousand seven hundred and forty-three feet long, and three inelined planes from the top of the mountain down through "Solomon's Gap" into the valley of the Susquehanna, These three planes were very substantially built. The loaded coal-ears were drawn upon their tracks out of the valley by powerful stationary engines, and then taken over the railroad to the Lehigh, where their contents were transferred to boats. The height the coal was raised was about one thousand feet, and the planes were re- spectively four thousand eight hundred and ninety- four, three thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, and four thousand three hundred and sixty-one feet in length,-on the first the grade being about five feet to the hundred, on the second, eight and six-tenths feet, and on the third, nine feet. This road and its tunnel (nearly one-third of a mile in length), the planes and heavy machinery were finally completed and put in use, after some delay in consequence of the damage to the canal by the freshet of 1811, and answered all of the purposes intended. It was a work unprecedented at the time in the United States.
Following is a tabular statement of the tonnage of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, by the Lehigh Canal, since the commencement of the coal trade in 1820:
Venr.
Tonnage.
1820
365
1821
1,073
1822
2,210
1823
5,823
1824
9,541
1825
28,893
1826.
31,280
1827
32,071
1828
30,252
1829
23,110
1830
11,750
1831
40,960
1832
70,000
1833
123,000
1834
106,244
1835.
131,250
Year.
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