USA > Pennsylvania > Carbon County > History of the counties of Lehigh and Carbon, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Pt. 2 > Part 62
USA > Pennsylvania > Lehigh County > History of the counties of Lehigh and Carbon, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Pt. 2 > Part 62
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Among the names of the residents appear those of the managers, Josiah White and Erskine Hazard, and, in addition, a number not given in the list of 1824, among them those of Isaac A. Chapman, Joseph H. Chapman, Asa L. Foster, Daniel Bertsch, and William Butler.
In 1830 the population of Mauch Chunk proper was only about seven hundred, and in 1840 it was twelve hundred.
First among the pioneers chronologieally and in other respects were White and Hazard, through whose enterprise the town was built.
Josiah White was born at Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N. J., March 4, 1781, and was the son of John and Rebecca White. He was descended from Thomas White, of Omneu, Cumberland Co., England, whose son, Christopher White, with his wife, Elizabeth, emigrated to America in 1677. Josiah White's father had a small fulling-mill at Mount Holly, and there the attention of the boy was probably first directed to mechanies. His father dying while he was quite young, the boy found employment in a hardware- store in Philadelphia, where he acquired such knowl- edge that he was able to succeed his employer in business as soon as he was able to set up for himself. Having acquired sufficient means to satisfy his mod- crate wants, he retired from business and settled at the Falls of Schuylkill, about five miles from Phila- delphia, where he bought a country-place with a water-power, which his engineering ability was soon exercised in improving. He built a dam across the river, and a large lock of cut stone for passing river- boats, which was the first constructed on the river. le built a mill for the manufacture of wire, which was burned down, but immediately rebuilt, and he swung a wire suspension bridge of four hundred feet span across the river from the mill to the opposite bank. At that time Philadelphia was supplied with water pumped by expensive steam machinery, using wood for fuel. Josiah White proposed to contract to supply the city at a greatly reduced rate by the sub- stitution of water-power for steam, and his proposi- tion resulted, after long negotiations, in the under- taking of the work by the city, White, with his partner, Gillingham, selling the power for one hun- dred and fifty thousand dollars. The Fairmount Water-Works were then constructed. The wire manufactory, which for a number of years was very profitable, became less so after the war of 1812, and White, with his partner, Erskine Hazard, then sought
other enterprises in which to exert their energies. They had successfully experimented on the wire-mill with the Lehigh coal, and that experiment led them to the undertaking of mining it, of forming the Le- high Coal and Navigation Company, and eventually accomplishing the mighty work which is detailed in the first pages of this chapter. In those operations Josiah White's perseverance, pluck, skill, and fertility of invention, coupled with great financial ability, were the leading forces. He was the pioneer in canal de- velopment in Pennsylvania, as DeWitt Clinton was in New York. His name will ever be inseparably linked with the improvement of the Lehigh, with the building of important railroads, the first successful mining of anthracite coal, and its first successful use in the manufacture of iron, a history of which ap- pears in the chapter of this work devoted to Cata- saugna. Josiah White's residence in Manch Chunk extended from 1818 to 1831, when, the works of the company being so far completed as not to require his constant attention, he removed with his family (who had come here in 1821) to Philadelphia, where they settled at the corner of Arch and Seventh Streets. He died in that city, Nov. 14, 1850, in the seventieth year of his age. He was by birth a member of the Society of Friends, and all his life retained connec- tion with that sect, being governed by its teachings, and following in dress and habits the customs of its members. He was a man of sterling worth and in- tegrity, and in the latter part of his life, when he had the means to follow his benevolent inclinations, gave largely to many excellent charities, and founded two manual labor schools in the States of Indiana and lowa.
Erskine Hazard was scarcely second to White as a promoter of the several enterprises along the Lehigh. He was a man of great ingenuity and an excellent machinist. He had been in partnership with White at the Falls of Schuylkill, in the manufacture of wire, as early as 1811, and in later years, when the great work of opening the mines and putting coal in the market had been performed, his mind seems to have reverted to the handling of iron. In 1839 he went to Wales to learn all that was known of the smelting of iron by the use of anthracite, and it was through that trip that the Lehigh Crane Iron-Works, the first to successfully use anthracite in this country, were brought into existence. (See history of Catasangna.) He had previously experimented with anthracite as a fuel for smelting iron at Mauch Chunk, as is related elsewhere in this chapter. He also conceived the idea and made the first drafts of a machine for making wire rope, which was afterwards erceted in the old stone mill-building by E. A. Douglass, superin- tendent of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Com- pany, and which made all the wire rope used by that company for many years. He invented a propeller screw, several improvements in firearms, the first spark-arrester used on the Camden and Amboy Rail-
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BOROUGH OF MAUCH CHUNK.
road, and a number of other articles of practical valne. HIe wrote largely on topics of scientific and general interest, his articles appearing in the Philadelphia Publie Ledger and in the Journal of the Franklin In- stitute. He was also a deep thinker on the varions topics of political economy, and when the war broke out, in 1861, it is said that it was he who gave Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, the idea of the United States notes and greenback currency. A writer has said of him, " His life was spent in endeavors to ad- vance the public good, and though, as years advanced, he retired from all active business, except as one of the managers of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Com- pany and of the Crane Iron Company, his thoughts and pen were always busy." He died suddenly, of heart- disease, Feb. 26, 1865, a little over seventy-five years of age. Erskine Hazard was a son of Ebenezer Haz- ard, Postmaster-General of the United States (1782- 89), and was born in New York, Nov. 30, 1789. Eben- ezer Hazard (who was descended from a certain Thomas Hazard, who became a freeman of Boston in 1636) removed with his family to Philadelphia in 1790 or 1791, and it was there and in college at Princeton, N. J., that the subject of our brief sketch received the education which was to enable him to be of such great use to his fellow-men. A son, Fisher Hazard, remains in Manch Chunk.
John Ruddle, a native of England, who had ar- rived in this country in 1818, came here two years later as a clerk for the Coal and Navigation Company, and remained in the employ of the company as chief book-keeper until the time of his death, which oc- curred in 1865. He was a man of character and ability. He left a daughter, Ann, who was the wife of A. W. Leisenring, and son, George Ruddle, who has been for many years real estate agent for the company, and was the first burgess of East Mauch Chunk.
Isaac Salkeld, one of Mauch Chunk's early inhab- itants, was born Feb. 2, 1780, and spent most of his time till 1809 in Philadelphia, when he moved to the Falls of Schuylkill, where Messrs. Josiah White and Erskine Hazard started their rolling-mill, nail and wire factory, and took the superintendeney of these works for Messrs. White & Hazard. He remained in charge of these works till 1821, when they were obliged to discontinue on account of the building of Fairmount dam at Philadelphia, which overflowed their works. He then went back to Philadelphia, where he engaged in the rolling-mill business in what he called the eity works. On March 6, 1823, he with his wife and chil- dren-Jacob IT., Isaac, Jr., George Washington, Anna, and Maria B .- left Philadelphia in a two-horse car- riage for Maueh Chunk, where they arrived March 9th, having traveled the lines of what are now the North Penn and Lehigh Valley Railroads. Upon reaching Mauch Chunk, he and his family moved into what was then No. 7 Broadway, a stone house south of the "willow-tree." Mr. Salkeld became one of
the "bosses" of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, and superintended the building of the Mansion House, the stone mill (now the office of the Munch Chunk Democrat), and other buildings of the company. He was also superintendent of the com- pany's boat-yard, and is still remembered by some, riding his gray mule, in the discharge of his work. The old Nesquehoning Railroad was built under his management, and he at one time had charge of the old Mauch Chunk Foundry, which was one of the first foundries in the State outside of Philadelphia. Mr. Salkeld died in Easton, Pa., May 4, 1839, while there on business for the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, and is buried in the Upper Maueh Chunk Cemetery.
Of his children, Maria B. never married, but is well remembered by the good work she was always willing to do. Anna, the eldest daughter, married John Fat- zinger, who was prominently connected with old Maueh Clnink, and who represented the county in the Legislature for several years. Isaac Salkeld, Jr., was employed at the foundry, married Juliet, daughter of John Leisenring, Sr. He died in Mauch Chunk, Dec. 26, 1839, aged twenty-six years. George Wash- ington Salkeld, during the greater part of his work- ing life, was in the employ of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, and was a civil engineer by profession, and was under Mr. E. A. Douglass, su- perintendent, instrumental in making many of the engineering achievements during the middle period of the company's history. llis brain and hands are still seen in Mount Pisgah and Mount Jefferson Planes, on the gravity road, and in the Switchback scheme, and also in the first wire-rope machine used by the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company. During the last few years of his life he was associated in the foundry business with his brother, Jacob, and Samuel Bradley. For ten years prior to his death Mr. Salkeld was a sufferer from consumption, but notwithstanding this he was known to all as a man of unusual energy and geniality. He died Feb. 6, 1861, in his forty-fifth year.
Jacob 11. Salkell, the oldest son, was born in Phila- delphia, June 7, 1807, and moved with his parents to Mauch Chunk in 1823, when in his sixteenth year. Ilis early education in Mauch Chunk was taken charge of by Mr. James Nolan, one of the early edu- cators there, whose school was then held just above the foundry dam. During the summer months, when there was vacation, he worked with his father on the various buildings the company was then erecting. For a few years during his minority he worked at the trade of a carpenter with one John O'Neil, in Phila- delphia, on the old University of Pennsylvania, and also in a foundry operated by Sedgly & Johnson, near the corner of Broad and Filbert Streets, where the new Masonie Temple now stands. He was afterwards ent- ployed in the pattern-shop and foundry of the old Mauch Chunk Foundry, and in August, 1829, when
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672
HISTORY OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company desired to give up their foundry, he and his brother-in-law, John Fatzinger, took it, and under the name of Fat- zinger & Salkeld operated it for a number of years, till Mr. Fatzinger removed from Mauch Chunk to Water- loo, N. Y. After this he continued in the foundry business (having associated with him various part- ners) with little interruption till 1880, when he re- moved to Boston, Mass., where he now lives (January, 1884) in his seventy-seventh year. Mr. Salkeld was for many years a direetor in the First National Bank, the Mauch Chunk Water Company, and Mauch Chunk Gas Company, and was always willing to help the town and the people as much as was in his power. He was twice married, his first wife being Catharine, sister of John Fatzinger, Esq., and his second wife being Caroline Fatzinger Patterson, widow of Dr. O. S. Patterson, of Waterloo, N. Y., and another sister of Mr. Fatzinger.
George Belford was one of the company's first em- ployés, and followed his trade of carpentering until the Upper Lehigh navigation improvement was com- pleted, when he became a contractor, and with his several partners began coal-mining at Summit Hill in 1842. He was very successful there and at Eekley. Ile was elected the first president of the Mauch Chunk Bank in 1855. He died in February, 1873, leaving a number of sons, among whom is the well-known Dr. Belford.
Abraham Stroh, father of William H. and Amos Stroh, eame here in 1824, from Milton, and entered the employ of the company as a millwright. He built the mill at Rockport, and completed the old stone mill in this place. He lost his life through injuries received in a great water-wheel which he was engaged in repairing.
Others who were here as early as 1824 were Samuel Lippineott, chief elerk of the company from its or- ganization to the day of his death; Benjamin Mears, who was for a number of years chief book-keeper in the company's store department; Isaac Dodson, boat- builder, and afterwards a prominent merchant; Wil- liam Zano, the company's " boss" carpenter; and Thomas Brelsford, a shoemaker, who died only a few years since. About the same time as these came Abiel Abbott, for a time the company's superintendent.
Alexander Lockhart came as a teamster in 1826, and afterwards was a successful contractor.
James McCrea, wheelwright, came in 1826, or the following year, and Michael Malone, a contractor on the first railroad, in 1827. The latter died a few years ago in Lancaster, at the age of eighty-eight years.
William Butler, of Lycoming County, was an ar- rival of 1826, and originally one of the company's employés, like all others who were here prior to 1831. He was subsequently a contractor, and was frequently elected tax collector. He was one of the founders of St. Mark's Church. His death occurred in 1842. Ifis oldest son, Joseph Butler, long since deceased, was a |
prominent character in " old Mauch Chunk," a justice for many years, associate judge, and one of the first Methodists of the town. The family of William Butler was large, but now only four remain, -Wil- liam, Robert Q., Alexander W., and a sister.
Isaac A. Chapman, the first engineer of the com- pany, a native of Connecticut, came to Mauch Chunk from Wilkesbarre in 1826. His death occurred in 1827, and there are now no immediate representatives of his family in the place, though a son, Charles I. A. Chapman, lives at Port Blanchard (Pittston post- office), Luzerne Co. Isaac A. Chapman had, as here- tofore at length related, traversed the Mauch Chunk eoal region during and after the war of 1812, when Cist, Miner & Co. undertook the work of getting out coal, and did in fact succeed in sending a small quan- tity to Philadelphia.
Joseph HI. Chapman, a nephew of the man whom we have just mentioned, was here as a boy with his grandfather, Joseph Chapman, in 1816, and came as a settler in 1828. IIe entered the employ of the com- pany, and soon went to the cement-works at Lehigh Gap, where he superintended the work of the Dela- ware Cement Company, which was engaged in making eement for the Delaware Division of the Pennsylvania Canal. In 1831 he returned to Mauch Chunk, but soon after went to Philadelphia. He married there, in 1883, Miss Martha Wooley, and in the following year came to Mauch Chunk to reside permanently. From that time to the present he has made his home in this place, and been absent but very little, though in 1840 he superintended the laying of the first twenty- six miles of the Erie Railroad in New York State. He was the master-carpenter and mechanie of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, but since 1862 has been in charge of the coal shipping, which important duty he now daily attends to, though over eighty years of age. Mr. Chapman, who was born in Massachusetts in 1803, is the only person now living of whom we have any knowledge who beheld the site of Mauch Chunk before a house was built upon it, and has passed more years of adult life here than any other resident.
ITis eldest son, Lansford F. Chapman, who was col- onel of the Twenty-eighth Pennsylvania Volunteers, was killed at Chaneellorsville. His second son, Charles W., is the superintendent and engineer of the Catasauqua and Fogelsville Railroad, upon which his third son, Willard J., lost his life. Two daughters, Mary (Worthington ) and Grace (Shaffer), live respect- ively in the State of Iowa and Alleghany County, Pa.
Asa Lansford Foster, who has been honored by the application of his middle name to the prosperous bor- ough in the western part of Mauch Chunk township, eame here in 1827, and was the founder of the first newspaper in the town, The Lehigh Pioncer and Mauch Chunk Courier (now the Coal Gazette), of which an account will presently be given. He was a native of
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RESIDENCE OF M. S. KEMMERER, MAUGH CHUNK, PA.
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BOROUGH OF MAUCH CHUNK.
Massachusetts, born in 1798, and at the age of twenty had settled in Berwick, Columbia Co., in which place and in Bloomsburg, where he went into business, he spent eight years of his life. In 1826 he went into a large store in Philadelphia, from whence he came to this place a year later, well qualified by experience for the place which he accepted, that of the " Lehigh Company's storekeeper." He held the position until the department was discontinued. Subsequently he became one of the leading men of the region. He was a prominent merchant until 1837, when he be- came one of the organizers and the superintendent of the Buck Mountain Coal Company, which enrried on very extensive operations. Later in life he was interested at Eckley. He died in 1868, while on a visit in Wilkesbarre, leaving two sons,-Thomas L. and Charles E., of whom the senior is president of the Second National Bank.
Daniel Bertsch moved here in 1827 from Loekport, Northampton Co., and entered the employ of the com- pany as a blacksmith. He afterwards bceame a eon- tractor npon the eanal and in coal mining, and in 1833 built the Broadway House. He died here in February, 1877, leaving a son, who bears his name, and two daughters,-Mrs. Polk and Mrs. Price. His oldest daughter, Caroline, now deceased, was the wife of John Leisenring.
Thomas Patterson was the first weighmaster of the Lehigh Company before the construction of the weight- lock.
William H. Sayre, who came here in 1829, was the surveyor and builder of the " back track" on Mount Pisgah, and of the Panther Creek Valley Railroad. He was also chief clerk and cashier of the weigh- lock, to which position his son, Francis R., succeeded upon his death, holding it until very recently.
Asa Packer, a native of Conectient, whose name and fame belong to the State of Pennsylvania as well as this locality, came here in 1833. His name has been connected with almost every important enter- prise of the valley, and will ever be revered as that of the founder of Lehigh University, and the door of other great and good deeds. Elsewhere in this vol- nme is an extended sketch, in which the operations which led up to the building of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, and the development of the character of the judge, representative, and Congressman, the use- ful and revered citizen, are outlined.
Jolin Leisenring, originally from Whitehall town- ship, Lehigh Co., but for a number of years a resi- dent of Philadelphia, where he learned the eurrier's trade, came to Mauch Chunk in 1833. He had been a soldier in the war of 1812. The first occupation he followed here was that of a landlord, keeping the Mansion House very successfully for a number of years. Later he became a merchant and general business man. He died in 1854, aged abont sixty years. His oldest son, who bears his full name, was engaged as an engineer on the Upper Lehigh naviga-
tion improvement; was afterwards chief engineer and general manager of the Lehigh Coal and Navi- gation Company, and still later chief engineer of the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad. Another son, A. W. Leisenring, is president of the First National Bank, and a danghter is.the wife of A. A. Douglass.
James 1. Blakslee came to Mauch Chunk from Susquehanna County in 1833, for the purpose of boat- ing on the canal, but he soon went into Asa Packer's store. He was more or less connected with all of Judge Packer's mining, shipping, mercantile, and building operations until the Lehigh Valley Railroad was completed in 1855. He was then appointed con- ductor, and ran the first passenger train on the road. Ile continued in that position until after the Maha- noy Branch was commenced, when he was appointed its superintendent. He is now superintendent of the coal branches. On April 3, 1883, the fiftieth anni- versary of his arrival here, he was made the recipient of a handsome testimonial from a number of the ofli- cers and employes of the railroad company, and the occasion was otherwise appropriately made memora- ble.
John Painter, a native of Sunbury, Northumber- land Co., came here from Columbia County in 1831, remained until the following year, and returned to settle permanently in 1836. Two years later he mar- ried Elizabeth Brink, who can now claim longer resi- denee here than any other person. Mr. Painter pub- lished the Courier for a number of years, and was the second sheriff of the county, serving from 1846 to 1849. Since 1869 he has been borongh constable.
Henry Ebert, the first citizen of German birth, eame here about 1834, and followed watchmaking and den- tistry. He died in 1850.
Mention must be made, before we arrive at too recent a period, of other early residents, of whom few details, however, can be given. There was William Knowles, superintendent for several years of the Le- high Coal and Navigation Company ; L. D. Knowles, boat-builder ; Dr. Benjamin Rush McConnell,1 the company's physician ; Samuel B. Hutchinson, for many years cashier of the company ; George Fegley, merchant, who removed to Penn Haven, but returned and ended his days in the town of his carly choice ; Abraham Shortz, himberman, merchant, county com- missioner, etc .; Patrick Sharkey, who came as a plasterer, and was subsegently a prominent merchant and county treasurer; Ezekiel Harlan, James Brod- erick, Samuel Holland, John MeMurtrie, Samuel Crawford, and George 11. Davis, contractors ; Alex- ander Steadman and George Esser, prominent hotel men ; Cornelius Connor, first proprietor of the Ameri- can House; Thomas Hasely, who drove the Hackel- bernie tunnel; John Fatzinger, proprietor of the first foundry; Canvass White and his son, Charles L. White, at different periods the company's engineers,
1 See chapter on the Medical Profession.
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674
HISTORY OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
and the latter subsequently connected with the Le- high Valley Railroad; Nathan Patterson, for many years the company's cashier; Harry Wilbur, mer- chant; and the two physicians, Thompson and Righ- ter, both of whom lost their lives by cholera during the epidemic of 1854. There, too, were the prominent attorneys, J. H. Siewers ( father of E. W. Siewers), who was the pioneer of an advanced system of education, M. M. Dimmick, who became a member of Congress, Samuel MeLane, who moved to Montana, and was elected delegate to Congress in 1860, and Gen. Al- bright, all of whom are represented in the chapter upon the Bench aud Bar.
One of the most active of the comparatively early settlers was Col. John Lentz, a native of Lehigh County, born in 1793. He was a soldier in the war of 1812, and afterwards took much interest in militia matters. After removing to Mauch Chunk he took a prominent part in the agitation of the county division project, which resulted in the setting off of Carbon County in 1843. He was elected a county eommis- sioner in 1847, sheriff in 1852, and associate judge in 1857. He was also a prominent hotel-keeper. He died in 1875, leaving a son, Lafayette, and a daughter, wife of Hon. Robert Klotz.
Robert Klotz came to Mauch Chunk in 1833, to drive horses on the tow-path of the canal. His father, Christian Klotz, had made his home at the Landing Tavern as early as 1821, and was one of the first men engaged in building rafts and boats to run down the river. Robert Klotz was born in Mahoning about three years before his father came to the river to seek a livelihood, and in the vieinity of a farm where his mother's father, Robert MeDaniel, had settled during the Revolutionary war. The young man pros- percd in the place he had chosen for a home in 1833, and ten years later was elected register and recorder. In 1846 he went as a soldier to Mexico, returned, and was elected to the Legislature in 1849; beeame a settler in Kansas in 1854, and again becoming a citi- zen of Mauch Chunk, enlisted in the three-months' service in 1861. In 1878 he was elected to Congress.
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