USA > Pennsylvania > Carbon County > History of the counties of Lehigh and Carbon, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Pt. 2 > Part 70
USA > Pennsylvania > Lehigh County > History of the counties of Lehigh and Carbon, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Pt. 2 > Part 70
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ROBERT ASA PACKER.
Mr. Packer was the son of Asa and Sarah Blakslee Paeker, and born on the 19th of November, 1842, at Mauch Chunk, Pa. After receiving a fair English education he became a member of a corps of engi- neers of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, then locating a portion of the Wyoming division, be- tween White Haven Junetion and Wilkesbarre. On its completion he was appointed superintendent of that division, and acted in that capacity until a short time after the completion of the Pennsylvania and New York Canal and Railroad Company's line, when Mr. Packer, upon the death of John P. Cox, became superintendent of this railroad. On entering upon the duties of the office he removed to Towanda, and after- wards to Sayre, Pa., making the latter point his per- manent abode. He was elected, in 1881, president of the latter rond, and also to the same responsible office in connection with the Geneva, Ithaca and Sayre Railroad, which was a part of the Lehigh Valley system. He was also president of the Lehigh Valley Transportation Company, owning a line of lake steamers plying between Buffalo and Chicago, and president of the Lehigh Valley Railway Company (running from Lancaster to Buffalo). Mr. Packer was also a member of the board of directors of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, chairman of its executive committee, a trustee of the Lehigh Uni- versity, und one of the trustees of the estate of his father (deceased). In 1883 he was appointed man- aging director of the Southern Central Railroad. Mr. Packer possessed a natural tact for railroad man-
agement, and directed the affairs of several lines with which he was connected with marked ability. He was in politics a Demoerat, and active in the political contests of the day as a defender of the principles of his party, and not from ambition for office. Although several nominations for office were tendered him he steadfastly refused their acceptance, preferring rather to join the excitements of a campaign in behalf of some other candidate. Mr. Packer possessed a genial, whole-souled nature that won him many friends and added greatly to his popularity. He did much to build up and beautify the town of Sayre, where he resided, aud was no less identified with its material than its religious and educational advancement. He was united in marriage to Miss Emilie Piollet, the only daughter of Hon. Victor E. Piollet, who sur- vived him. The death of Robert A. Packer occurred on the 20th of February, 1883, at his winter home, in Jacksonville, Fla.
HARRY ELDRED PACKER.
Harry Eldred Packer, the youngest son of Asa and Sarah Blakslee Packer, was born on the 4th of June, 1850, at Mauch Chunk, Carbon Co., Pa., and named in honor of Hon. Nathaniel B. Eldred, president judge of Carbon County during his father's official term as associate judge. He received his early edu- eation under the direction of Professor Charles Bow- man, and finished his studies at the Lehigh Univer- sity, so liberally endowed by Asa Packer. Having spent his life at the home of his parents, he became thoroughly eonversant with the great interests which his father had so successfully established, and received that training which eminently fitted him for the prominent position he was ealled to fill on the death of the latter. At the age of twenty-nine he became actively identified with the coal and railroad interests of the State; was elected a director of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company ; appointed general super- intendent of a division of this prosperous corporation, and soon after chosen to fill the office of vice-presi- dent. In January, 1888, he was elected to the presi- deney of the railroad, and in January of the following year re-elected to the same position. Mr. Packer suc- eeeded his father as one of the vestry of St. Mark's Church, of Mauch Chunk. He was nominated for the office of associate judge of the county by the Demo- cratie party, of which he was an influential leader, and elected without opposition from the opposing party. He was commissioned ou Jan. 1, 1882, by Governor Hoyt, and took his seat upon the bench soon after. Mr. Packer was largely interested in coal enterprises, and an important factor in the develop- ment of this great product of the State. He evinced much attachment for the locality of his birth, and in the erection of buildings and by generous contribu- tions to worthy objects added greatly to the growth and prosperity of Mauel Chunk. As a citizen he
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706
HISTORY OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
was publie-spirited and enterprising, as a friend, loyal and unselfish, traits that inspired many tender mem- ories on the occasion of his death, which occurred on the 1st of February, 1884, in his thirty-fourth year. He was, on the 29th of August, 1872, mited in mar- riage to Miss Angusta Lockhart, danghter of the late Alexander Lockhart, who survives him.
HON. JOHN LEISENRING.
Hon. John Leisenring, Maueh Chunk's highly- estecmed eitizen and widely-known business man, was born in 1819, at Philadelphia, Pa., his paternal ances- tors being of Saxon descent, and his maternal ancestors Scotch. His great-grandfather came to America in 1765, and settled in Whitehall township, Lehigh Co., on the Lehigh River, in A.D. 1765, on a farm bought from the original proprietors, while the native In- dians still occupied that portion of the State. This farm still remains in possession of his descendants. The judge's father was a morocco-dresser in Philadel- phia, which business he left to engage in the war of 1812. In 1828 he removed with his family to Manch Chunk, where the family has since resided. His edu- eation was directed with special reference to the pro- fession of civil engineering, which he adopted at an early age, under the direction of E. A. Douglass, principal engineer of the Lehigh Coal and Naviga- tion Company, then controlled by Josiah White and Erskine Hazard, who were engaged in constructing a slack-water navigation of the Lehigh River, from Mauch Chunk to White Haven, and also in building a railroad from White Haven to Wilkesbarre. John Leisenring, at the age of seventeen years, had full charge of a division of the canal and railroad, while George Law and Asa Packer were contractors on the same division, and he remained in charge until its completion. After completing this work the Morris Canal Company, who were then enlarging their canal from Easton to Jersey City, through their chief engineer, secured his services as assistant, and he was placed in charge of the division between Dover, N. J., and Jersey City. He was also engaged in locating and surveying the railroad now known as the Belvi- dere Delaware Railroad, in which work he was asso- ciated with E. A. Douglass and Gen. H. M. Negley, who now resides in California.
About this time he engaged in the coal business, then in its infancy, which he saw was to be the eon- trolling business of the region. He also built Sharp Mountain planes, on the property of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, for conveying the coal which he and others mined. This interesting en- gineering feature, which, christened the Switchbaek Railroad, after being used for many years, was aban- doned at the completion of the Nesquehoning Valley Railroad tunnel into the Panther Creek Valley.
In 1854 he removed from Ashton, now Lansford,
Carbon Co., where he had lived for nine years, to Eckly, Luzerne Co., where he opened the Council Ridge mines, which are now operated by him, as well as many other mines in the same locality, he being spe- cially identified with the production of coal from the Buck Mountain vein, producing in 1881, in all, about one million tons. He organized, and is still president of, the Upper Lehigh Coal Company, known as one of the most successful mining companies in the country. On the death of E. A. Douglass, in 1859, he was chosen as his successor in charge of the works of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, during which the navigation from White Haven down was almost totally destroyed by the great freshet of June, in 1862. The works from Mauch Chunk to Easton were repaired with wonderful rapidity, and the judge's energy and efficiency in their construction was on all hands eommended.
The navigation from White Haven to Mauch Chunk was not restored, because, in the judgment of the sub- jeet of this article, the destruction to life and property was so great as to be sufficient ground for declining to ineur the risk of a repetition, and in order to retain the business he suggested and recommended the build- ing of a railroad between the same points.
After completing this work, which gave the com- pany a line of railroad from Wilkesbarre to Mauch Chunk, Mr. Leisenring saw that to secure the full benefit of this road it would be necessary to have a railroad from Mauch Chunk to Easton, to connect with roads in New Jersey, so that the operations of the company need not be suspended during the winter months, but that business could go on continuously. In carrying out this plan, which was promptly adopted by the company, the road was laid out and completed with steel rails, which were the first importation of any consequence, and the whole fifty miles are still in use and doing good service, showing the forethought and sound judgment of its promoter.
The iron bridges crossing the two rivers, Lehigh and Delaware, at Easton have been considered a masterly piece of engineering, both in their location and construction. In view of the large business which he expected from the Wyoming region, he designed and built three inclined planes, which were used to raise the coal from the Wyoming Valley, a perpen- dicular height of about one thousand fect, divided iu planes of about a mile in length cach. These planes are constructed with a capacity to raise two thousand cars, or ten thousand to twelve thousand tons, daily, at a cost of but little more than the minimum cost per mile of transportation on a railroad of ordinary grade, thus saving to the company over four-fifths of the cost of hauling the same coal in cars by locomo- tives, as it would have required over thirteen miles of railroad to overcome the same elevation. These are thought to be the most effective planes in the world.
Ilaving brought to a successful issue all these plans for the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company's canals'
)
I. Lecitouring
707
BOROUGH OF MAUCH CHUNK.
and railroad, the increasing eares of his various en- terprises made it necessary for him to resign the active charge of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company's extended business; and the company being loath to lose his services, urged upon his ac- ceptance the position of consulting engineer and member of the board of managers, which latter posi- tion he still holds.
About this time there came a struggle among trans- porting companies to secure control of coal lands, in which, owing to his well-known familiarity with the geological formations in the coal regions, Mr. Leisen- ring was invited to join the Central Railroad Com- pany of New Jersey, of which he was elected a director, and whose terminal facilities were such as to enable them to compete successfully for a large business. A lease was seeured by the Central Rail- road Company of New Jersey of the eanal and roads of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, se- curing thereby the tonnage of the mines owned by that company and others, including those of the Wilkesbarre Coal and Iron Company. The mines of the latter company, together with other purchases, were merged into the property of the company, now known as the Lehigh and Wilkesbarre Coal and Iron Company. In gathering these properties the advice and counsel of Mr. Leisenring was songht, and he selected the lands, which are now conceded to be as valuable as any, and to be the finest body of con- nected coal land owned by any of the corporations in the same neighborhood, and having all of the best veins of coal in perfection.
Mr. Leisenring was also a director of this latter company, and was appointed its consulting engineer. He originated the Lehigh and Luzerne Coal Com- pany, which purchased three thousand acres of excel- lent coal land in Newport township, Luzerne Co., and was made its president, which oflice he continued until the property passed into the possession of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company by an advan- tageous sale. This property afterward was merged into the Lehigh and Wilkesbarre Coal and Iron Company. The near approach of the time when the anthracite coal fields would be unable to supply the inereasing demands made upon them, and the neces- sity of providing new avenues for business operations, led him to the consideration of coke as a fuel for the manufacture of iron, steel, and other manufactures. With this end in view an examination was made of several tracts, from which he and his associates se- lected the property which now belongs to the Con- nellsville Coke and fron Company.
The Connellsville coking-coal basin is about thirty miles long, by an average of two and one-half miles wide.
The company's property occupies about six miles ; a trusted member of the party and citizen of the com-
in length of the heart of this basin, covering eight thousand five hundred acres of land, every foot of which contains the celebrated seam of coking-coal.
These facts, together with other advantages, demon- strate the great value of this company's estate. Judge Leisenring is president of the board of directors.
After the dissolution of the Carbon Iron Company, at Parryville, in 1876, which was cansed by the finan- cial panie of 1873, Judge Leisenring, together with others, bought in the property and organized the Carbon Iron and Pipe Company, which has since been doing a prosperous business.
Among the more recent and extensive enterprises he has engaged in is the organization of the Virginia Coal and Iron Company, in 1881, under the laws of the State of Virginia, he being elected president of the same.
The property bought by this company embraces one hundred thousand acres of land located in Vir- ginia, near the Tennessee and Kentucky border lines, covering a fine agricultural country, and containing large quantities of hematite and fossil iron ore, to- gether with six veins of different varieties of coal, among others a rich vein of cannel coal, which until late years was imported and sold at an exorbitant price. There is enough coal above the water-level on this land alone to supply the market with one million tons a year for one thousand years. It also contains large quantities of valuable black-walnut and white- oak. In the following year the Holsten Steel and Iron Company was organized, with Judge Leisenring as president, its object being to utilize the products of the above company in preparing them for market. They are now building a narrow-gange railroad from Bristol, Tenn., sixty-five miles long, which when completed will give them an outlet for their products. He is also owner of a tract of land that contains large beds of Tennessee marble, and one of the originators and heaviest stockholders of the Shenandoah National Bank, which has just been incorporated.
In the year 1861, Mr. Leisenring returned to Manch Chunk, taking up his abode in his present beautiful residence, which, together with its desirable location and handsomely laid-out and well-cared-for grounds, places it among the most elegant homes in the State.
Being a man of generous heart, his acts of kind- ness and benevolence have been many. His sympa- thies and assistance have always been with the citizens of Mauch Chunk in their hour of need, or when any public improvement was desired. In him we have a man who is universally esteemed, honored, and re- spected by all who know him. He has no desire for political advancement, preferring the more congenial walks of private lite, though he accepted the office of associate judge, to which he was elected in 1871, for a five-year term, by a very handsome majority. The Republican State Convention, which met at Harris- burg, Pa., May 16, 1884, showed its appreciation of monwealth by placing his name at the head of the list of Presidential electors.
He married, on May 12, 1844, Caroline, eldest
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708
HISTORY OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
daughter of Daniel and Katherine Bertseh, five children being the issue of their union, three dangh- ters and two sons.
JAMES I. BLAKSLEE.
Mr. Blakslee is of Scotch antecedents, his parents being Zopher and Abigail Taylor Blakslee, who re- sided in Susquehanna County, Pa., though the former was a native of Vermont. Among their ten children was James I., born Feb. 10, 1815, in Susquehanna County, where his youth until eighteen was spent upon the farm of his father, amid the varied employ- ments of a farmer's son, alternating with periods at the neighboring country school. In 1833 he removed with his brother-in-law, Asa Paeker, to Mauch Chunk, and devoted the first two years to the occupation of a boatman on the Lchigh Canal. The four years fol- lowing were spent as clerk in a country store, after which, in 1839, he engaged in the mining and ship- ping of coal in Schuylkill County. Returning again to Mauch Chunk in 1844, from that date until the beginning of the construction of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, in 1851, Mr. Blakslee was engaged in the preparation and shipping of coal from the Nesque- honing mines, worked by Messrs. Mapes, Packer & Harlan, under contract with the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company. He also superintended the building of what is known as the "Stone Row," in Manch Chunk, and "Packer's Corner," a building occupied by Judge Packer previons to the erection of the mansion where he subsequently resided, and where his death oceurred.
Mr. Blakslee assisted in the construction of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, and was conductor of the first coal-train that ran over the road, subsequently acting as conductor for eight years of a passenger- train on the same road. In the spring of 1863 he was made superintendent of the Mahanoy Division of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, which position he still holds. In 1871 he was elected and still officiates as president of the Montrose Railroad, extending from Tunkhannock, Wyoming Co., to Montrose, Susque- hanna Co., the construction of which he personally superintended. He was in 1878 elected a director of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, and has been for years a member of the executive committee of its board of directors. Mr. Blakslee during much of his life has been identified with important business enterprises, which have not, however, so absorbed his attention as to make him indifferent to the prosperity of his home. He has manifested reasonable public spirit in his sympathy with the interests of Mauch Chunk, and, as a trustee of Lehigh University, exerts his influence in favor of education. He is also a trustee of the estate of the late Asa Packer, having been appointed to fill the vacaney occasioned by the death of HI. E. Packer. He is in politics a Demo-
crat, and, though indifferent to official honors, was in 1851 elected treasurer of Carbon County. He is in his religious faith an Episcopalian, and has been since 1846 a vestryman of St. Mark's Protestant Episcopal Church, and also a member of the standing committee of the diocese. Mr. Blakslee was married in April, 1838, to Caroline, dangliter of Charles Ash- ley, of Grant County, Wis., and formerly of Susque- hanna County, Pa.
ROBERT KLOTZ.
Jacob Klotz, the great-grandfather of Robert Klotz, came to America in the year 1749 from Würtemberg, Germany, and settled in Lowhill township, North- ampton (now Lehigh) Co., Pa., and as early as 1767 located lands there. His son, John, a few years later, married Fronia Crous, and also located lands in the same township, where he lived during his lifetime, and where his death occurred. Christian Klotz, a son of the latter, was born in 1789, and about the year 1814 left his native township and soon after settled in Mahoning township, now Carbon County. Here, in 1816, he married Elizabeth, the daughter of Robert MacDaniel, whose wife was Elizabeth Hicks, a Qnak- eress. Robert Klotz, their second son, and the subject of this biographical sketch, was born in Northampton (now Carbon) County, Pa., Oet. 27, 1819. HIe re- ceived only such education as the winter country sehools afforded, with the exception of six months at a private school in Easton, after his twenty-third year. He utilized his spare opportunities so success- fully that, at the age of twenty-four, he was elected the first Register and Recorder of Carbon County. In 1846 he enlisted for the Mexican war as lieutenant of Company K, Second Pennsylvania Volunteers, and was afterwards made adjutant of same regiment, under Col. John W. Geary, serving at Vera Cruz, first and second battles of Cerro Gordo, at the National Bridge, HInamantla (where Walker fell), and at Puebla (to relieve Col. Reilly, who was surrounded by Santa Anna's forces), and in other engagements. In the engagement at the second battle of Cerro Gordo he is honorably mentioned in the War Department Rec- ords, No. 411, by the commanding officer in the affair, and to his experience and enthusiasm is due mainly the success, as is alleged by the officers and men, in the warm engagement of the National Bridge, in August, 1847. Lieut. Alonzo Loring, of Wheeling, Va., who served with him in that memorable charge, is well known to the writer, and is also honorably mentioned in the War Records. It was here that Lieut. Klotz was placed under arrest for disobedience of orders, the disobedience consisting in refusing,. together with Lieut. George Decatur Twiggs, to obey orders to spike the cannon, which they two were man- ning, and retreat. Klotz's reply was, " -- , I didn't come to Mexico to spike cannon." Poor Twiggs had just fallen at the piece. Klotz was relieved the next
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James IBlaBles
709
BOROUGH OF MAUCH CHUNK.
morning and sent with the command to dislodge the enemy at the affair at Cerro Gordo. On his return home, in 1848, he was elected to the Pennsylvania Legislature, and re-elected in 1849. In 1854 he re- moved to Kansas by especial invitation of Governor Reeder, located the town of Pawnee, and was elected president of its building association. He helped to build the first hotel in Leavenworth-the old Shaw- nec House-in the fall of 1854, and in 1855 built the first hotel in Western Kansas, at Pawnee. This house was the stopping-place of both parties to the celebrated Free State discussion in Kansas in those early days, and in lively controversy frequently met around his hospitable board Jim Lane, Reeder, String- fellow, Woodson, Atchison, Conway, Gen. Coffee, and all the leading spirits of the then struggling Territory of Kansas, when the first session of the Legislature adjourned from Shawnee Mission to Pawnee.
He was a member of the Topeka Constitutional Convention, being the first signer of that constitution, and, after its adoption, was appointed, as a Democrat, Secretary of State, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the absence of Hon. Philip C. Schuyler, under Gov- ernor Robinson's administration. In 1856 he was one of the celebrated "Committee of Safety" to pro- teet the State from invasion, and was appointed brig- adier-general of the State troops at Lawrence, where he was associated with Maj. G. W. Dietzler, Gaius Jenkins, Governor Charles Robinson, and others.
He was one of the important factors in the selee- tion of Topeka as the capital of the State, having by his personal influenee carried the entire western por- tion of Kansas in favor of that place, and other important measures then pending.
He returned to his native State in 1857, and in 1859 was elected treasurer of Carbon County. At the breaking out of the Rebellion, in 1861, he engaged in the United States service for three months under Gen. Patterson. In 1862 he was made colonel of the Nine- teenth Pennsylvania Regiment (organized September 15th and discharged September 27th of the same year), serving, among other places, at Chambersburg " in the emergency."
Mr. Klotz has been a busy man all his matured life, having had constantly on hand from one to half a dozen commercial enterprises. At present he is one of the trustees of the Lehigh University, at Bethle- hem, one of the board of managers of the Laflin & Rand Powder Company, of New York, besides having various enterprises under his supervision and presi- deney.
One of the Mexican veterans himself, and one of the vice-presidents for Pennsylvania of the " National Association of Mexican Veterans" ever since its or- ganization, he has evidenced his interest in the wel- fare of his old comrades by his ceaseless activity in their behalf in and out of Congress. During the extra session of the Forty-sixth Congress he prepared and introduced a bill for pensioning surviving soldiers,
or the families of deceased soldiers, of the Mexican war. The bill was referred to the Committee on Pen- sions, who, during the present session, have presented a bill embodying its main features. His chief legis- lative efforts have been to benefit the sokliers of the United States, as, indeed, have all his activities been engaged in any capacity he has filled.
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