USA > Pennsylvania > Progressive Pennsylvania; a record of the remarkable industrial development of the Keystone state, with some account of its early and its later transportation systems, its early settlers, and its prominent men > Part 12
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EARLY NAVIGATION IN PENNSYLVANIA.
nongahela City, in the introduction to his report on the coal mines of the Monongahela region for the Second Geo- logical Survey of Pennsylvania, submitted in 1884, says : " It appears that coal was mined from Coal hill and used by the British army at Fort Pitt while that place was in command of Colonel Bouquet soon after its evacuation by the French." In 1766 the Rev. Charles Beatty, who vis- ited the fort in that year, wrote that the garrison was then " supplied with coals " from Coal hill.
In time it became necessary to improve with locks and dams the navigation of the Monongahela river as a thoroughfare for passengers seeking a connection with the National Road at Brownsville or destined for points be- tween Pittsburgh and Brownsville, but more particularly to facilitate the shipment of coal from the Monongahela valley. This improvement was undertaken by the Mo- nongahela Navigation Company, which obtained a charter from the Legislature of Pennsylvania on March 31, 1836, Congress having refused to improve the navigation of the river. The charter authorized the company to establish slackwater navigation from Pittsburgh to the Virginia line and farther if Virginia would give. permission. The com- pany was organized on February 10, 1837, and work was commenced in that year. In 1838 the State subscribed $25,000 to the stock of the company and in 1840 it sub- scribed $100,000 additional. In 1843 all this stock was sold to the company. On November 13, 1844, the Mo- nongahela river was successfully slackwatered from Pitts- burgh to Brownsville, a distance of 55} miles. The slack- water was subsequently continued to New Geneva, about 85 miles from Pittsburgh, and afterwards to Morgantown, in West Virginia, 102 miles from Pittsburgh. In 1897 the Monongahela Navigation Company disposed of all its in- terest in the locks and dams to the United States Gov- ernment, which has since made their use free to the public. Through Senator Quay's influence the act of Congress which provided for this change became a law over Presi- dent Cleveland's veto on June 3, 1896.
The improvement of the Monongahela river above re- ferred to at once gave a great impetus to the coal trade
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of the Monongahela valley, and this trade has increased from year to year. Packets for the conveyance of passen- gers still run regularly from Pittsburgh to Morgantown.
The improvement of the Youghiogheny river from its junction with the Monongahela at Mckeesport to West Newton, a distance of 18} miles, embracing two locks and two dams, was completed by the Youghiogheny Slackwa- ter Company in 1851, and this improvement contributed to the opening of many coal mines in the Youghiogheny valley. But the enterprise itself was not a permanent success. In 1861 the dams were washed out by high wa- ter and ice and in 1866 they were again destroyed, soon after which disaster the enterprise was abandoned. While this slackwater improvement was in operation packet boats regularly carried passengers from West Newton to Pittsburgh, occupying about twelve hours in making the daily trip either way. The boats were equipped with sleeping berths, and trips were made at night as well as in daylight. In the early part of the last century, until about 1820, an immense amount of freight was shipped in keel boats from West Newton.
Leaving the Monongahela and Youghiogheny valleys, which supply much the larger part of what is commer- cially known as Pittsburgh coal, while the Youghiogheny valley supplies most of the celebrated Connellsville coke, the Allegheny valley invites our attention. The coal of this valley has never been an important factor in the coal trade of Western Pennsylvania, unless recent develop- ments in some western counties whose waters drain into the Allegheny may be so considered. The Allegheny was never notably a coal-carrying river. In all the valleys mentioned the railroads have now absorbed a large part of their coal tonnage, while almost all the Connellsville coke tonnage passes over them. The Allegheny valley has, however, been a large contributor to the prosperity of Western Pennsylvania through its large production of pig iron, which sought a market at Pittsburgh in the first half of the last century, and through its still larger pro- duction of lumber, much of which has found a market at points west of Pittsburgh on the Ohio river. Shipments
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of pig iron were made in French creek boats or on rafts. Shipments of lumber were made chiefly in rafts. From 1859 until 1870 the Allegheny river was also an impor- tant channel for the transportation of petroleum from the newly developed fields of Northwestern Pennsylvania, and much of this traffic fell to the steamboats. About 1865 the railroads also began to carry petroleum. In the early days keel boats carried both freight and passengers to and from the settlements on the Allegheny river and its tributaries. Small steamboats shared in this trade soon after the beginning of the steamboat era and until after the beginning of the railroad era.
Until in very recent years no attempt had been made to improve the navigation of the Allegheny river. The United States Government has now undertaken the im- portant work of improving by dams and locks the navi- gation of both the Ohio and the Allegheny rivers, which we need not describe in detail, but from which improve- ments it is expected that the transportation of coal, lum- ber, agricultural products, and other freight on the Alle- gheny will greatly increase.
The business of boatbuilding at Pittsburgh grew rap- idly after 1800. In addition to keel boats and flatboats Pittsburgh built many vessels for ocean service. Chapman says : " The number of barges, flatboats, and similar craft runs far up into the thousands. In the year 1801 Taras- con Brothers & Co. built the Amity, a schooner of 150 tons, which was sent with a cargo of flour to St. Thomas, in the West Indies. In the same year they built the schooner Pittsburgh, of 250 tons, which was dispatched with a similar cargo to Philadelphia, and thence to Bor- deaux, in France. These first ventures in sea-going ves- sels were speedily followed by others. One of these, the brig Ann Jane, built in 1803, was one of the fastest sail- ing vessels of the day, and was run for some time as a packet between New York and New Orleans." Another of the sea-going vessels that was built at Pittsburgh was the ship Louisiana, which is elsewhere referred to in this chapter. The building of steamboats at Pittsburgh had its beginning in 1811.
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CHAPTER XII.
EARLY STEAMBOATS IN PENNSYLVANIA.
THE era of steamboat navigation in this country dates from August 17, 1807, one hundred years ago, when Fulton's steamboat, the Clermont, made its successful trial trip on the Hudson river. But Fulton was not the inventor of the steamboat; he simply perfected, with the assistance of Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, the me- chanical ideas of others. John Fitch is worthy of being especially remembered for his unrewarded labors in ap- plying steam power to the navigation of vessels before Fulton attempted the solution of the same problem. The success of the Clermont soon made steam navigation pos- sible on all the principal rivers of this country.
Robert Fulton was born in Lancaster county, Penn- sylvania, in 1765 and died in New York City in 1815. John Fitch was a native of Connecticut, born in 1743 and dying in Kentucky in 1798. Both men died young.
The introduction of steamboats on the Ohio river and its tributaries followed the general use of keel boats and the various forms of flat-bottomed boats. The first steam- boat to trouble the waters of the Ohio, or of any western river, was the New Orleans, which was built and launch- ed at Pittsburgh in 1811. Chapman says that "it was built on the right bank of the Monongahela, a short dis- tance below the mouth of Sook's run. Anthony Beelen's foundry was near. The freight warehouse of the Balti- more and Ohio Railroad now occupies the spot." Its cost was about $38,000. The New Orleans was mechanically and financially a success. The story of its career has often been told. At once other steamboats were built to ply on the Ohio and the Mississippi and their tributaries, and Pittsburgh became a great centre of steamboat building as well as of steamboat navigation.
In Hulbert's great work, The Ohio River, (1906,) we find the following account of the way in which the first
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steamboat on the Ohio river came to be built : "The steamer Clermont sailed on the Hudson river, to the won- der of all eyes, in 1807. Fulton was quick to take com- plete advantage of his triumph and immediately began to secure monopoly rights and supply other rivers with his boats. The Ohio, with its tremendous possibilities commercially, early attracted his attention. In December, 1810, the Ohio Steamboat Navigation Company was in- corporated by Daniel D. Tompkins, Robert R. Livingston, De Witt Clinton, Robert Fulton, and Nicholas J. Roosevelt. The company was to operate steamers on the western wa- ters under the Fulton-Livingston patents. The last nam- ed incorporator, Nicholas J. Roosevelt, a brother of Presi- dent Theodore Roosevelt's grandfather, seems to have been the chief promoter of the Ohio branch of Fulton's great business. The boat had a keel 138 feet long and its total burden was 300 tons: it was launched in March, 1811, and in the following October set sail for the South amid the applause of infant Pittsburgh."
Steamboats of light draft were in use on the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers soon after their introduction on the Ohio, making irregular trips in carrying both freight and passengers whenever the depth of water would per- mit, but not supplanting either the keel boat or the flat- boat. The steamboat, indeed, by facilitating the ship- ment of coal down the Ohio, through the introduction and general use of steam towboats, really increased the demand for flatboats, barges, and broadhorns, as coal-car- rying vessels have been variously called. The first steam- boat that was built in the Monongahela valley is said to have been the Enterprise, built at Bridgeport in 1814. Mor- rison says that the Enterprise was "a stern-wheel boat of 80 feet in length and 29 feet beam." He gives a full his- tory of this vessel. The Enterprise was the first steamboat which made the round trip from Pittsburgh to New Or- leans. This was in 1814 and 1815. Chapman says that "on December 1, 1814, the Enterprise left Pittsburgh for New Orleans with a cargo of cannon and guns for Jack- son's army."
On February 28, 1828, the steamboat Wm. Duncan, of
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eighty tons' capacity, ascended the Allegheny river to Franklin. In March, 1830, a small steamboat called the Allegheny was launched at Pittsburgh and on April 18 she arrived at Franklin and proceeded up the river to Warren. This vessel made seven trips up the Allegheny river in that year, at one time ascending as far as Olean, in New York. The Allegheny was equipped with two stern wheels. Most of the early steamboats were "side-wheelers."
Chapman writes of steamboat building at Pittsburgh in the following words : " Pittsburgh has lost some of the industries for which it was once famous. The first of these is steamboat building. This was a business once largely carried on here. The New Orleans was followed by the Comet, built in 1812-13, and the Vesuvius and the Aetna, built in 1813-14. The number of vessels built increased with wonderful rapidity from year to year until the record year 1857, in which 141 were built. In other years both before and after this date the vessels built fell little short of this maximum. The total number was more than 3,000. After the year 1865 the number built each year fell off rapidly, although many were still built until the year 1888, in which but two were built. In later years only an occasional steamboat has been built here. The prime cause of the decline of steamboat building and steamboat navigation is found in the lines of railroad that now lie along the banks of every navigable river in the country."
The first iron steamboat to be built in the United States was the little steamer Codorus, designed by Cap- tain John Elgar, of York, Pennsylvania, a machinist and inventor, acting for a York and Baltimore company. It was built in 1825 at the machine shops of Webb, Davis & Gardner, of York, the same firm which, in 1832, built The York, the first locomotive in the country to successfully use anthracite coal. The Codorus received its name from Codorus creek, on which York is built. A cotemporary description of the Codorus mentions the following details : " A boat of sheet iron, intended for a passage-boat from Columbia, on the Susquehanna, to Northumberland, is constructing at York, in this State. The following is an account of the boat and of the steam-engine by which it
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is to be propelled : The boat has 60 feet keel, 9 feet beam, and is 3 feet high; she is composed entirely of sheet iron, riveted with iron rivets, and the ribs, which are one foot apart, are strips of sheet iron, which, by their peculiar form, are supposed to possess thrice the strength of the same weight of iron in the square or flat form. The whole weight of iron in the boat, when she shall be finished, will be 3,400 lbs .; that of the wood work, decks, cabin, &c., will be 2,600 lbs. ; being together three tons. The steam- engine, the boiler included, will weigh two tons; making the whole weight of the boat and engine but five tons. She will draw, when launched, but five inches, and every additional ton which may be put on board of her will sink her one inch in the water. The engine is nearly complet- ed. The whole cost of the boat and engine will be 3,000 dollars." It has been erroneously stated that this vessel was built in England and put together at York.
In George R. Prowell's History of York County it is stated that the Codorus was launched in November, 1825, and at once steamed up to Harrisburg with a party of one hundred persons on board, with Captain John Elgar as commander. Subsequently it made a number of trips between York Haven and Harrisburg, and at least one trip to Bloomsburg, Wilkesbarre, and as far north as the New York State line. It was a great success. Two other steamboats were built at York by the same company for use on the Susquehanna-the Susquehanna, whose boiler exploded, and the Pioneer, which was "too heavy."
Morrison says of the Codorus : " There is no record left whether this vessel was fitted with side wheels or a stern wheel. They used wood as fuel in the boiler." The same high authority gives us the later history of this vessel as follows : " The boat remained on the Susquehanna river about two years without any permanent employment ; it was then taken to Baltimore, Maryland, and the last record left of the vessel appears that in January, 1829, she was sent to North Carolina to run between Newberne and Beaufort. A Baltimore paper in April, 1830, publish- ed under the heading of 'The First Iron Steamboat :' 'We have two or three times during the past year endeavored
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to set history right in regard to the place at which the first iron steamboat was built in America. The steam- boat Codorus was the first iron steamboat built in the United States, as has been repeatedly stated in this and other papers. It was built at York, the hull alto-
gether of iron .. The Codorus was afterwards brought to this city, where after remaining some time was taken farther south to ply on some small river.' The iron was of domestic manufacture."
From Morrison we glean the following details. In 1834 we hear of a steamboat on the Savannah river, Georgia, that had been constructed in England with an iron hull and put together at Savannah in that year. This vessel was in every way a success. It was called the John Ran- dolph. It was soon followed by several other iron-hull vessels that were built in England and put together in this country for use on southern rivers. In 1835 an iron- hull vessel was built at Poughkeepsie, New York, intend- ed to be used on the Erie Canal, but this vessel was not a success because of defects in its construction. Its trial trip was made on the canal in October, 1835. Morrison continues : " There were also built in 1836, in the western part of New York, three or four iron-hull canal boats, or barges, as an opposition line of packet boats on the Erie Canal between Rochester and Buffalo. In the next year several iron canal boats were built for transportation companies for freighting on the Pennsylvania State canals, across the Allegheny mountains to Pittsburgh, connecting the Delaware and Ohio rivers. Some of these vessels were made in several distinct sections, so that when they ar- rived at the junction of the railroad and canal they could be readily hoisted with their merchandise to a freight car, transported across the mountains, and again placed in the canal." This is an imperfect description of the boats.
These last circumstantial statements by Mr. Morrison explain the reference in a subsequent chapter of this vol- ume to the "Reliance Transportation Company's Line of Portable Iron Boats" which were in use on the Pennsyl- vania Canal in 1839. J. King McLanahan tells us that these boats were built at Coalport, on the Kiskiminitas,
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by Samuel M. Kier. The hulls were covered with sheet iron over an eighth of an inch thick, which was doubtless made at Pittsburgh. The hatches were also made of iron.
Morrison further says : "As to iron hull steamboats on the western rivers the first built in the United States was named United States, constructed by the West Point Foundry, at New York, in 1838, for service on Lake Pont- chartrain and canal at New Orleans, Louisiana. This was a double-hull boat, 110 by 26 by 3.6 feet, with a paddle wheel in the space between the hulls. The first single iron hull built in the United States was the Valley Forge, built by Robinson & Minis, steam engine builders, at Pittsburgh, and completed in December, 1839." The same author says that the Zulia River Navigation Company, of New York, contracted with the James Rees & Sons Com- pany, of Pittsburgh, in June, 1880, for a steel-hull stern- wheel steamboat named Venezuela, to open navigation on the Zulia river in Venezuela. The hull was 120 by 24 by 3 feet deep. Mr. Morrison says that " this was the first steam vessel built in the United States to have steel an- gles and floors." He further says that "this vessel may be said to be the first all-steel vessel built in this country."
From another source we learn the following details of the Valley Forge : When this vessel was built it was said that she was the first iron vessel "of any considerable size" that had been built in this country. Her dimen- sions were as follows : length on deck, 160 feet; length of keel, 140 feet; breadth of beam, 25 feet 4 inches ; depth of hold, 6 feet.
It was not until after the close of our civil war that the building of iron vessels, either for ocean voyage or for inland navigation, became an important industry in this country. In the fiscal year 1868, the first for which there is any official record of iron shipbuilding in the United States, the whole tonnage of iron vessels built was only 2,801 tons. In the calendar year 1907 there were launched in this country 157 iron and steel vessels, whose total tonnage amounted to 436,183 tons. Of the 157 iron and steel vessels built in that year 65 were built at ports on the great lakes, their tonnage amounting to 286,266 tons.
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CHAPTER XIII.
EARLY CANALS IN PENNSYLVANIA.
WE now come to the building of canals in Pennsyl- vania, including the improvement of natural waterways. Canals were known to the ancients. Historians mention the existence in remote ages of canals for transportation and for irrigation. They are not mentioned in either the Old or the New Testament, but there is abundant proof that they were in existence in Old Testament days. Both Egypt and Assyria possessed irrigation canals centuries be- fore the Christian era. Canals for transportation purposes were built by the Romans in the zenith of their power. They built canals in France and in England. China built its great canal, about a thousand miles long, but which is mainly an improvement of natural waterways, in the early centuries of the Christian era, and there were other canals in China before that period. Venice has been fa- mous for its canals since the fifth century. From the twelfth to the fifteenth century many canals were built in the Netherlands. A canal in England, uniting the Trent and the Witham rivers, was built in the twelfth century. There are many canals to-day in England and on the Continent, the most notable of which is a canal in Russia, 1,434 miles long, connecting St. Petersburg with the Cas- pian Sea, which was commenced by Peter the Great in 1700. This canal is, however, largely an improvement of river navigation. France particularly is intersected with canals leading in every direction ; Germany also has many important canals. On the Continent the tendency is now strongly toward the extension of canals for general trans- portation purposes. The Aztecs built canals in Mexico.
The subject of canal transportation and the improve- ment of river navigation received considerable attention in the colonies before the Revolution, but with a single exception there is no authentic record of the construc- tion of a canal in this country until after the treaty of
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peace. Ringwalt says that " the first canal constructed within the present limits of the United States was, ac- cording to some accounts, a short line built by Lieuten- ant-Governor Colder, in Orange county, New York, in 1750, for transporting stone." The first definite action concern- ing a survey for a canal for general transportation purposes in any of the colonies of which we can find any mention was taken in Pennsylvania several years before the Revo- lution. In 1762 a "remonstrance" from sundry merchants of Philadelphia was presented to the General Assembly, praying that "proper persons " might be appointed "to view and inspect a water passage up the west branch of the River Susquehanna, as from thence, it is thought, the portage is but short to a navigable branch of the River Ohio," so that, in the words of the "remonstrance," "the Indian commerce of the province, a most important branch of the trade thereof," might " be greatly increased." No action was taken by the Assembly to promote the wishes of the Philadelphia merchants, the petition being laid aside for further consideration. In 1769 a petition was present- ed to the Assembly praying that the Juniata river might be made navigable, so that "a tract of country, near eighty miles in extent, would have cheap and easy com- munication opened into the Susquehanna, and by this means be connected with Philadelphia." This petition also produced no immediate results. In neither of these petitions was a canal mentioned, but it would have been essential to the realization of either of the schemes pro- posed.
On April 21, 1769, the American Philosophical Society published an appeal "to the merchants and others of Philadelphia," saying that the society " have had sundry proposals before them for opening a canal between the navigable waters of the Delaware and Chesapeake bays," and recommending that a "necessary survey" of a route for the proposed canal be made, to which appeal a com- mittee of the merchants replied that "the design was highly approved, and a subscription was immediately be- gun, which already amounted to £140." This route was not surveyed until 1791. The canal was not commenced
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until 1804 and it was not completed until 1829. In 1613 Captain Samuel Argall wrote to England that he hoped to make a cut between Chesapeake bay and the Delaware.
On August 16, 1771, a report of the Philosophical So- ciety said : "Whereas, this Society, desirous to promote the inland navigation of this province, at a considerable expense made several surveys, being informed that there is a probability of joining the navigation of the Susque- hanna and the Schuylkill by a canal between the Quitta- pahilla branch of the Swatara and the Tulpehocken, and as the Assembly were pleased to appoint a committee for examining the place aforesaid, among others, the Society do therefore appoint Mr. Lukens, the Surveyor General, to attend the said committee and give all the assistance in his power. His expenses will be defrayed by several pub- lic-spirited persons." This canal was subsequently built, as will presently appear. It was called the Union Canal.
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