USA > Pennsylvania > Schuylkill County > Old Schuylkill tales, a history of interesting events, traditions and anecdotes of the early settlers of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania > Part 7
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20
Doctor McFarland, scientist, opened the first vein, in 1814, at York Farm near Pottsville. In 1818 Jacob Reed opened coal land at Minersville. The Wetherill, Cumming and Spohn
Coal Breaker
115
Old Schuylkill Cales.
tracts were considered valuable; they were located at Flowery Field, Wadesville and North America. Certain sections of Pottsville are undermined. The colliery of Pott & Bannan on Guinea Hill had a slope 400 feet deep. When the Garfield School house was built, an old entrance or manway to this mine was discovered on the ground.
Samuel Lewis opened a mine at the foot of Greenwood Hill, which ran under Centre Street near the corner of Mahan- tongo Street. At one time the old Christopher Loeser building, which was undermined, was supposed to be sinking into these old subterranean passages. These old mine passages ran north- west to the vicinity of Fifth and West Norwegian Streets.
The Lawton-Ellet operation and the Black Mine (York Farm) also ran under the town from Mt. Laurel Cemetery, south, to Sharp mountain. The railway down Market Street from this operation was built in 1836. The Salem mine at Col. Young's landing also honeycombed portions of Greenwood Hill. A small coal operation stood at the corner of Centre Street oppo- site the Gas House. On the west side of the pavement the en- trance to the slope may still be seen. It is boarded up and so small that it looks like the mouth to a spring. The Lehigh Val- ley overhead bridge runs over the spot.
After the building of the canal, which ran up to what is now corner of East Norwegian and Coal Streets, the coal from Guinea Hill was run down Second Street in small wooden box cars, and conveyed down to that point, across Centre Street. A blacksmith shop stood near the southeast corner of Second and Market Streets. Andrew Robertson, Esq., remembers when a train of these cars jumped the track and ran into the black-
116
Old Schuylkill Tales.
smith shop. The York Farm, operated by George H. Potts, as late as the later 'Fifties sent its eoal down Market Street in ears drawn by mules. The first of these ears were very small, and had wooden wheels and no brakes. They were manipulated by men who ran along the side earrying long poles to sprag them with. Later larger ears were used, and Thomas Dornan and Jaek Temple, both large owners of horses and mules, were the contraetors who furnished the motive power (mules) for eon- veying the eoal through town to the railroad. The first eoal from the Delaware was hauled over the traeks by ears drawn by mules to Mt. Carbon, or to the boat landing.
Note :- Col. Shoemaker was the father of the late James Shoemaker and Mrs. Charles Clemens and grandfather of George S. Clemens and Frank G. Clemens, of Pottsville. The Shoemaker family lived in the Tumbling Run Valley, subse- quently removing to Port Carbon. The Mt. Carbon Hotel, built by Jacob Seitzinger and completed in 1826, a small, two-story stone building, afterward torn down and rebuilt by the Mortimer brothers, and known as the Mortimer house, on the corner of West Norwegian and Centre Streets, was kept by Col. Shoe- maker. He afterward kept the Pennsylvania Hall, which was ereeted by him.
117
Old Schuylkill Tales.
THE FORMATION OF COAL
The geologists would have us believe that coal is wholly derived from vegetation. That wood was but changed from one condition to another but this theory must be sanctioned by the laws of chemistry.
The geological epochs show that the temperature of our old planet, the earth, has greatly varied from one period to another. That the primary origin of the elements had much to do with the forces that govern the world at the present time. That the solar atmosphere that surrounds the globe was govern- ed by the refrigeration of the heat, then as now confined to the earth's centre.
Chlorific sublimation followed the tendency around the earth's edges to refrigeration and the evaporation of the steam compelled the gases to form new combinations and crystalline arches resulted with the volcanic period. The solidified watery deposits made the ingredients of the soil of vegetation and with the beginning of organic life came the formation of beds of coal and the carboniferous period.
Those deeply interested in the subject will find a scientific treatment of the coal period in Leon Lesquereux's "Geological Survey of Pennsylvania; Coal Flora."
The fossil plants found by botanists in the form of coal flora are a source of endless delight to scientists. But scarcely one-fourth of these fossil species of vegetation are found in the coal measures. Most of these imprints are found upon slates. The resinous pitchy matter that goes toward the make up of pure coal is not found in these fossils.
118
Old Schuylkill Tales.
Sixty-two species of fern and mosses form an interesting class of vegetable fossils. The tree formations, of which the pitch pine is the most important are leading contributions to the coal deposit. During the coal period, marshes supported a rich vegetation that was buried in the bogs, which hardened through the fermentation of the gases and thus through a union of the laws of chemistry and vegetation bituminous coal was formed.
In anthracite coal the woody structures of the trees turned into slate and rocks and through the pressure to which it was subjected, the turpentine, oil. bitumen and resinous tar and juices which it exuded formed the strata of pure coal underneath.
To the veins of the bituniinous coal basins this article will not refer. The fat bituminous coal of West Virginia, the coal asphalt of New Brunswick, the cannel coal of Kanawha and Breckinridge, the tar coal of North Carolina, the semi-anthra- cite of Broad Top and Cumberland, all belong to the great coal combination of fuel and heat and steam power producers. But the pure anthracite coal of Schuylkill and portions of other adjacent coal-producing counties overtops them all.
In the anthracite coal basin there are from forty to fifty different veins of coal from one to fifty feet in thickness. In the Wilkes-Barre region the mammoth vein lies within forty feet of the surface, in the Schuylkill basin it is much lower and was sought for 1200 feet below ground in the famous Pottsville shaft sunk under the direction of Franklin B. Gowen and engi- neered by Col. Henry Pleasants.
The anthracite coal regions include three distinct coal fields known as the Northern, the Middle and the Southern coal
119
Old Schuylkill Tales.
field or basin. They form part of Carbon, Luzerne, Lehigh and Schuylkill Counties and a minor fraction of a small por- tion of adjacent territory.
The coal scientists agree that the castern end of the North- ern field is being rapidly exhausted. The Middle field, too, will soon be worn out while the western part of the Northern field from Pittston to the western end and the Southern field from Tamaqua to Tremont will yet yield it richest returns and supply coming generations with its inexhaustible resources.
To the scientist, a visit to the coal fields of Schuylkill County is full of interest. The fossil remains of vegetables and animals have often been found and specimens of a most perfect . and interesting character. Ncar Mine Hill Gap the remains of a stone forest have been found. It is supposed that at the time of the deluge the mountain was forced apart by the flood and the fossils taken from that vicinity ; and geological formations are like the leaves of an instructive treatise on the formation of the periods, and the extent to which the coal traffic has grown from these humble beginnings is a constant source of wonder and con- gratulation to even those who have been familiar with its inner workings from its inception.
POINTS ON COAL
In 1887 Charles Miesse, of Pottsville, wrote and compiled a work called "Points On Coal." It contains a full description of how coal was formed and gives the statistics of the anthracite
120
Old Schuylkill Tales.
coal business up to that period. Some time since, a French savant wrote a treatise on the same subject, and he copied largely from Mr. Miesse's work. The late P. W. Sheafer, Esq., who had a State reputation as a geologist and was heavily in- terested in coal operations in the county, said of the book that it would be the authority of the future on the coal in Schuylkill County.
Mr. Miesse had met with reverses in business, and his evil genius seemed to pursue him in the publication of his book. Only a few copies were completed when his firm of publishers was burned out, and the manuscript, plates, type and every- thing were destroyed.
"Points On Coal" contains a valuable and interesting paper on "The Anthracite Coal Fields of Pennsylvania," by P. W. Sheafer and read by him before the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Saratoga. The author would delight in reproducing this paper, at this point, but lack of space will not permit.
MICHAEL F. MAIZE
Michael F. Maize was born near New Berlin, Union County. He entered the ministry of the Evangelical Church when only sixteen years of age and was known through Penn- sylvania and Virginia as the "Boy Preacher." He was sta-
121
Alb Schuylkill Tales.
tioned at Orwigsburg and Pottsville about 1840, but was obliged to retire from the ministry on account of a bronchial affection.
He entered the coal business soon after, with E. Hammer and Jonathan Schultz. In company with Aug. Miller and Fisher, of Philadelphia, under the firm name of Miller, Maize and Co., they operated collieries near New Philadelphia. With the firm name of A. C. Miller & Co., he built the first houses and opened the first colliery at Shenandoah. Some years after- ward and with Levi Miller, of Pine Grove, he managed and built the Stanton colliery at Maizeville, which town was named for him. He also built and operated the West Shenandoah City Col- liery, under the firm name of Maize and Lewis, the latter being his son-in-law, W. H. Lewis, subsequently Superintendent of Wm. Penn. At this period came the big strike, the great de- pression in the coal business and the purchase by the Reading Company of the majority of the best collieries in the region.
Mr. Maize pioneered a new enterprise in Virginia and in company with G. W. Palmer and Ex-Governor Bigler, they opened a gypsum mine and mill near Saltville, and also a soft coal mine in Pulaski County, Va. There he contracted a severe cold from exposure, the result of the burning of his office and the house in which they were quartered and from which he barely escaped with his life. He returned to his home (a hand- some residence on Coal Street), where, after a continued illness for four years, he died at the age of seventy-three. He was one of the foremost and most highly respected citizens of Pottsville.
Mr. Maize was an optimist by nature. His zeal for his parent church, the Evangelical, and for the cause of religion never abated during his long and active business career. His
122
Old Schuylkill Tales.
interest in the church of that name was a direct inspiration to others and the result of his work and influence brought many of the foremost of the early business men of Pottsville into its fold.
Mr. Maize was a good collector and his services were in frequent demand to assist struggling churches to gain a foot- hold. One story told of him was that he was called upon on one occasion to raise $5,000.
The congregation was large but the people would not give. On ascending the pulpit, Mr. Maize at once requested that the doors be locked.
"You want $5000; I intend to raise it," said Mr. Maize, and the usual methods were resorted to with success. The $5000 was raised. When the amount was announced a voice said, "But you have given nothing, Mr. Maize ?"
"Well! what ought I to give ?" "Five hundred dollars," was the answer.
"Very good," said Mr. Maize; "I will give $500, but I charge $500 for my three hours work, time and traveling ex- penses. You do not expect a man to raise $5000 in cash for nothing, do you ?"
There was a general laugh all around; the account was square. Such calls were frequent and he was a large giver to his home church and the general cause.
123
Old Schuylkill Tales.
.
QUEER FREAK OF CHILD
Mr. Maize was a man of fine social instinets, very eompan- ionable and with a keen sense of all-around humor. On one oe- casion he was preaching a very effective sermon and was ap- proaehing the elimax with all the fervor he was capable of, when a small ehild that had eseaped her parents and was run- ning about the church eaught her head between the upright stieks that supported the ehaneel railings beneath the pulpit.
In vain did she try to extrieate herself. Her tongue be- eame swollen and hung out of her mouth, her features were strained, her face purple and the ehild was in danger of eon- vulsions.
Mr. Maize's nerves were already overwrought with his efforts with the sermon, and when the parents eame together, and between them, after some effort, released the ehild, he eol- lapsed entirely and sat down and buried his face in his big red silk handkerchief, not to weep over the short-eomings of his floek-but to laugh. He could not eontrol his feelings and al- ways related the above as one of the funniest cireumstanees he had ever encountered while in the ministry.
WM. H. LEWIS
William H. Lewis, former Superintendent of Wm. Penn Colliery, a retired prominent eoal operator, tells several good
124
Old Schuylkill Tales.
stories. The Wm. Penn Colliery was until a recent period owned by a firm of individuals, E. and G. Brooke, of Birdsboro, and others. It was one of the last of a chain of collieries in that basin to go into the hands of the Reading Company. Under the skillful management of Mr. Lewis the Wm. Penn enjoyed a wide reputation as being one of the most productive and skil- fully managed collieries in the anthracite coal regions. The coal mined was a white-ash of standard quality. From 1000 to 1200 tons were mined in a day and in its palmiest days 1000 men were employed. Mr. Lewis was one of the best ac- countants and a skillful manager of men. One of the secrets of his ability to keep his colliery working during strikes and on church and other holidays was that he attempted to mix nation- alities and employ men of diversified faiths and different re- ligions. If some were idle for cause, the remainder worked.
After some conversation on the coal business and the coal trade now as compared with former years, Mr. Lewis said:
"One thing that has always surprised me is the ease with which you people write up the coal trade or indeed anything relating to the coal business; and then again how gullible the readers of such articles are and how readily they swallow whole all such information."
The writer intimated that when coal trade news was wrongly given, in nine cases out of ten it was the fault of the person interviewed. Either the facts tendered were too meagre or else the party declined to be quoted or furnish any facts, and the seeker after news was bound and compelled to write some- thing, and the vaporings of his own brain often furnished the substitute. Mr. Lewis said, "I will give you two cases in point."
125
Old Schuylkill Tales.
"We had at Wm. Penn a man of some character named John Zweizig. He was a German and came there from Read- ing. He had been a Berks County school teacher, where he got into some difficulty with the school board through punishing a pupil. He could not work in the mines, but tried laboring and odd jobs and supported his family mainly through a night school. He was an intelligent man. Two of his sons have since become ministers in the Evangelical and Methodist Episcopal churches, the Revs. John and William Zweizig.
"Zweizig came to my house one day and asked me to help him write a coal article. He would be paid for it and he needed the money. I pitied the man, and after some reluctance-I was generally too busy to be interrupted in those days-I consented to give him a few facts on the mining and cutting of coal, super- induced by a general knowledge of the methods employed in our own workings and a little knowledge on the geological formation of the coal strata.
"I had forgotten all about the matter when one day Mr. Zweizig came to me with a money draft in his hand and in great glee.
"He had written the matter up in his great peaked Ger- man script hand and sent it to the German Evangelical "Bot- schafter" or the "Allgemeine Folks Freund," at Cleveland or Cincinnati, I have forgotten which, and signed it "Prof." Zweizig. The title was misleading; no doubt they thought he was a German scientist and he received $100 for the article.
"The worst of it was, the Scientific American had it trans- lated, and it made a good article, over the same signature, for its next issue."
126
Old Schuylkill Tales.
"Another instance was that of a Welsh miner who lived on our Patch. He was a singer and interested in the competitions at the Eisteddfods. He came to me one day and said that one of these festivals was to be held in Wales. There was a prize for $150 offered for the best treatise written on the formation and mining of coal, its production and market. He asked if I would assist him write one.
"I told him I had no time, but he, being a careful, studious fellow, I gave him access to my library, and pointed out such geological and other works I thought might be of assistance to him, and being a practical miner, he could supplement the rest from his own knowledge.
"Almost a year after he came to me with a letter. He had not gained the great prize, but his essay had received honorable mention, and he was the richer by a minor prize of ten dollars."
MINERSVILLE AS IT WAS
Minersville, next to Pottsville, lays claim to being the oldest coal town in Schuylkill County. In 1793 Thomas Reed, the first settler, erected a saw mill at the mouth of Wolf Creek and its union with the west branch of the Schuylkill River. A log house nearby furnished the home for his family. A tavern erected by Mr. Reed on the Sunbury turnpike, which ran up the
127
Old Schuylkill Tales.
Mahantongo valley to Gordon, was called the Half-way House, being midway between Reading and Sunbury. The tavern stood on the site of the R. C. St. Vineent De Paul ehureh. It was here that a relay of horses was made.
The locality was thiekly covered with giant trees, and the business, before the mining of coal, was lumbering. A number of saw mills were at work preparing the rough timber which was floated in rafts down the west braneh to Sehuylkill Haven. The town was laid out in 1830, and ineorporated in 1831; with the advent of the English, Welsh and Irish miner came the in- dividual eoal operator. Money was plenty, and the social features and entertainments among the leading professional people and the resident eoal barons were second to none in the eounty.
Tradition tells of the evening "parties" (now termed re- eeptions and social functions) given by this elass of residents in the olden times; Joseph Taylor (who built the old white mansion with the huge columns in front, still standing on Qual- ity Hill), his wife was a sister of Decatur Nice; Seth Geer, Esq., whose wife was a sister of Hon. James H. Campbell; Dr. U. B. Howell, and others, entertained lavishly. They were in turn attended by the Burd Patterson, James Patterson and Dr. James Carpenter families, and others from Pottsville. The Strattons, Robins, Lawrences, Burns, William Wells, Esq., who married a Miss Cram, of Minersville ; the Sehollenbergers and Shellenbergers, Joseph C. Gartley, Jacob Fox, R. F. Potter, Col. George Brown, Capt. Roads, C. N. Brumm and many others eame later and gave to Minersville a social prestige not exeeeded by any town in the county.
128
Old Schuylkill Tales.
MINERSVILLE STORIES SOME FOLKS WILL NEVER DIE
When Sandy came over from Glasgow, he joined a party of the Forty-niners who went around the Horn in a vessel from New York to the Golden Eldorado of the Great West, to dig the precious metal, gold. He returned without any, like many another, and somehow drifted to Minersville. He was a quaint old character, devil-may-care and addicted to his cups.
He sat about the tap-room of the old stone tavern at the top of the hilly street, night after night and day-times, too, when it was stormy, or he did not feel like working, which was often, for, as he said himself, "He was not 'ower fun' o' sach hard wurk." He had a horse and cart, pick and shovel, and was em- ployed on the Borough with the street hands.
How he struck the fancy of old Charlotte, who owned the tavern and other property, bequeathed her by her father, no one knew. They were never seen or heard talking to each other. Sandy was the broadest of Scotchmen and Charlotte was Ger- man and could not talk a word of English and she was at least twenty years Sandy's senior.
After they were married, Charlotte saw that tavern-keep- ing was not Sandy's forte. He was the best customer they had at the bar, insisted on giving away, free, half of their liquid stock and had frequent quarrels with the farmers and others who were the best patrons of the old stone hostelry.
129
Old Schuylkill Tales.
At the close of the year she leased the hotel and the pair retired to a small house at the rear of the tavern, and here the singular couple lived attended by an old maid, who did the housework and waited upon Charlotte, who was fast becoming very infirm and decrepit with rheumatism and a swelling of her limbs. They had a large, well-kept garden, where she, as- sisted by the maid, would totter about and work, as long as she was able, among the vegetables and flowers, which were her de- light. Sandy, disliking the confined quarters of the little house, had a bed removed to a room in the little, old, tumble-down barn, where he slept ncar his horse, which was apparently the only living thing he cared for.
Matters went on this way for several years. One morning, the "auld wife," as Sandy called her, was in her garden potter- ing about as usual. Her neat, black dress had been carefully pinned up by the maid to prevent soiling from the early dew, when her red flannel petticoat attracted a young heifer they were raising on the place, and which had managed to break through the old fence from the barnyard, and the poor old lady was thrown to the ground and badly gored before the maid could come to her rescue and drive away the infuriated beast.
Doctor Oscar Robins, a leading physician of the village, was called in, and he gave it as his opinion, that, owing to her advanced age and other infirmities, Charlotte could not survive.
Sandy housed the horse and cart in the barn, and quit work at once. He went out and bought a full suit of black clothes, including a high hat and flaming red neck-tie, all in preparation for the funeral.
The "auld wife," however, contrary to the expectations of
9
130
Old Schuylkill Tales.
the Doetor, held her own during the night. "Her pulse was feeble, her fever high, but she was living," said the Doetor to Sandy, the next morning, at the front door, where he stood dressed in his new elothes and anxiously awaiting him. This was repeated on each oeeasion of the Doctor's visits, until the third day, when he broke the news as gently as he eould, that "Charlotte was better, and would probably be as well as ever in a short time."
"Be the jumpin' Moses," said old Sandy, "sae folks 'ill ne'er dee."
When Sandy was turned seventy, Charlotte finally sue- cumbed, at the age of ninety-three, and the old maid died a few weeks after her mistress, to whom she was greatly attached. Sandy did not live long to enjoy his liberty. Just what had been predieted by the neighbors for almost a quarter of a een- tury oeeurred. A drunken man, a lighted coal oil lamp over- turned, and a barn full of new-mown hay, fodder and straw.
The barn burned to the ground, as well as the handsome eottage of the village editor of the Weekly "Sehuylkill Repub- liean," on an adjoining corner. Sandy and the horse were both reseued by the "Mountaineer" boys, who worked nobly to save the surrounding property, but he had inhaled the smoke and died from the effects of it soon after.
131
Old Schuylkill Tales.
THE JOLLY FOUR
They were four of the jolliest and most jovial men in the town of Minersville-the rotund, rosy-cheeked, happy-looking lawyer ; the retired coal operator and Captain in one of the early wars; the successful storekeeper, and the Philadelphia and Read- ing Company land agent; and all were fond of a friendly game of poker. "Jimmy's" was the rendezvous, and as many nights in the week as they could shape it, the time.
Their wives were opposed to this loss of their company and perhaps their money, and used every means within their power to keep their husbands at home, even to organizing a weekly social game and card party in their own and each other's par- lors, as an antidote to prevent the gathering at "Jimmy's." But it was of no avail.
Poker playing among the "Jolly Four" was broken up for a while. But one night it was rumored about town that the Cap- tain had been seen going in to "Jimmy's" as usual, but attired only in his red flannel underwear, feet clad in slippers and this outlandish rig overtopped with an overcoat and his usual head- gear, a silk hat. His wife had hidden his trousers to prevent his going out. This announcement proved too much for the gang, and they each broke harness and fled likewise for the rear room behind the bar.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.