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 14
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In 1852 the Commonwealth commenced the construc- tion of a new Portage Railroad, to avoid the inclined planes, parts of the old road to be utilized and a tunnel at the summit of the Alleghenies to be built. Soon after this work was completed the main line of the canal was sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in 1857. Sto- rey says that the New Portage was finished in the fall of 1855 and was operated only in 1856 and to August, 1857.
The Portage Railroad over the Alleghenies was regard- ed at the time of its completion and long afterwards as an engineering wonder and justly so. No engineering un- dertaking anywhere up to that time had been more diffi- cult and none had been more successfully accomplished. Other difficult feats of engineering skill characterized the work of building the Pennsylvania Canal and its railroad connections, but the difficulties overcome in building the Portage Railroad surpassed them all. As already stated, there were ten inclined planes on this railroad, five on the eastern slope of the Alleghenies and five on the west- ern slope. The first railroad tunnel that was built in the United States formed a part of the Portage Railroad. Solomon W. Roberts, one of the engineers who located the road, has left this record of the tunnel in an address which he read before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania on April 8, 1878. He said : "At the staple bend of the Cone- maugh, four miles from Johnstown, a tunnel was made through a spur of the Allegheny, near which the stream makes a bend of two miles and a half. The length of the tunnel was 901 feet, and it was 20 feet wide and 19 feet high within the arch, 150 feet at each end being arched with cut stone. Its cost was about $37,500. This was the first railroad tunnel in the United States. Inclined plane No. 1, being the plane nearest to Johnstown, was located at the western end of the tunnel."
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Mr. Roberts says : "In 1838 there was published in London a book called A Sketch of the Civil Engineering of North America, by David Stevenson, a civil engineer. The author was a son of the distinguished engineer of the Bell Rock lighthouse. In his sixth chapter, when speak- ing of the Portage Railroad, he says that 'America now numbers among its many wonderful artificial lines of com- munication a mountain railway, which, in boldness of de- sign and difficulty of execution, I can compare to no mod- ern work I have ever seen, excepting perhaps the passes of the Simplon, and Mont Cenis in Sardinia; but even these remarkable passes, viewed as engineering works, did not strike me as being more wonderful than the Alleghe- ny Railway in the United States.'"' Mr. Roberts also says that "Michel Chevalier, the distinguished French engineer and political economist, visited the railroad and gave a description of it in his book on the public works of the United States which was published in Paris in 1840."
As already stated, the main line of the Pennsylvania Canal with its connecting railroads was opened for busi- ness throughout its entire length in the spring of 1834, the branches being opened at later dates. Important and val- uable as these improvements were, in the aid they gave to the development of the material resources of Pennsyl- vania and in bringing into closer relations the whole peo- ple of the Commonwealth, it is painful to record the fact that the operation of the main line and its more important branches virtually came to an end within thirty years after it began. This ever to be regretted termination of a great and useful enterprise was due primarily to the in- efficient and sometimes corrupt management of the entire system and next to the competition of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the building of which was authorized by an act of the Legislature dated April 13, 1846, and which was completed to Pittsburgh on December 10, 1852. On Au- gust 1, 1857, the State sold the whole of the main line to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company for $7,500,000, which soon abandoned the greater part of the canal.
In his History of Cambria County Storey says that Ephraim Stitt, of Blairsville, was probably the last cap-
10
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tain to bring through freight from Pittsburgh to Johns- town. He brought a cargo consigned to the Cambria Iron Company in 1859. About December 1, 1860, the Monon- gahela, of which George Rutledge was captain, brought a cargo of salt and grain from Livermore to Johnstown, and this was probably the last boat to bring a load of merchandise to the latter place. There were no lock-ten- ders at this time. On May 1, 1863, says Mr. Storey, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company abandoned the canal between Johnstown and Blairsville.
Horses and mules constituted the only power that was used in moving the boats on the Pennsylvania Canal. An experiment in the use of steam power was made on the western division from Pittsburgh to Johnstown with un- satisfactory results. A few years ago we received the following circumstantial account of this experiment from the Honorable Cyrus L. Pershing, who was in early life a resident of Johnstown. "A steamboat once made a round trip from Pittsburgh to Johnstown. This steamboat had been used as a ferry-boat, propelled by horse power, on the Monongahela river at Pittsburgh. The machinery was taken from a mill or manufacturing establishment, (not heavy, of course,) in Pittsburgh. The boat stopped at towns along the route, was tied up at night, and in the daytime was compelled to make very slow progress to avoid washing away the banks of the canal. Two weeks were consumed in reaching Johnstown, where, for some days, the boat lay in the slip on the upper side of the old brick warehouse. Captain Carothers was the commander. He was afterwards a member of a wholesale grocery firm on Liberty street, Pittsburgh. This experiment settled in the negative the practicability of using steam on the Penn- sylvania Canal." Judge Pershing thought that the event he minutely describes occurred in all probability in 1834. This date is confirmed by Storey, who says that an ac- count of the experiment appeared in the Ebensburg Sky in 1834. The judge says that the boat was named Adaline.
Reference has already been made to the first railroad tunnel that was built in the United States, four miles from Johnstown, forming part of the Portage Railroad. On the
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western division of the Pennsylvania Canal, at a place then and now called Tunnelton, in Indiana county, about half way between Johnstown and Pittsburgh, a tunnel was built between 1827 and 1829 through one of the foothills of the Alleghenies. This tunnel connected with an aqueduct over the Conemaugh river, at that point a stream of con- siderable width, and the whole effect of the united tunnel and aqueduct was most impressive. Drinker, in his great work on Tunneling, says that the first canal tunnel in the United States was built at Auburn, in Schuylkill county, Pennsylvania, by the Schuylkill Navigation Company, be- tween 1818 and 1821, and that the second canal tunnel in the United States was built near Lebanon, in Leba- non county, Pennsylvania, between 1824 and 1826, by the Union Canal Company. The tunnel at Tunnelton, above mentioned, was the third canal tunnel that was built in the United States. A tunnel through Grant's Hill at Pittsburgh, completed between 1827 and 1830, and form- ing part of the Pennsylvania Canal, was the fourth. It appears, therefore, that the first railroad tunnel and the first four canal tunnels in the United States were built in Pennsylvania.
In addition to the Pennsylvania Canal, including its branches and other connections, other canals were built in Pennsylvania in the first half of the nineteenth century, some of which have been mentioned. Of others not here- tofore described the most important is the canal of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, completed in 1829 and extending from Mauch Chunk to Easton. Gordon says of this enterprise : " The Legislature, early aware of the importance of the navigation of the Lehigh, passed an act for its improvement in 1771, and others in 1791, 1794, 1798, 1810, 1814, and 1816." · But no work of con- sequence was done under any of these acts until 1818, in August of which year the Lehigh Navigation Com- pany commenced the improvement of the Lehigh river. In 1820 the Lehigh Navigation Company and the Lehigh Coal Company were consolidated as the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, and in this year Lehigh coal was sent to Philadelphia by means of the improvement that
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had been made in the navigation of the Lehigh river, but the canal was not completed until 1829, as stated above.
The sale of the main line of the Pennsylvania Canal to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in 1857 was soon followed by the abandonment of nearly all the main line, as has already been mentioned, and by the abandon- ment or sale of such parts of the entire Pennsylvania Canal system as had not been previously abandoned or sold. In 1858 the Susquehanna, West Branch, and North Branch divisions were sold to the Sunbury and Erie Rail- road Company, which soon sold them to other companies, the net result being that in a short time large parts of these divisions were abandoned. In 1858 the Delaware division was also sold to the Sunbury and Erie Railroad Company, which sold it in the same year to the Dela- ware Division Canal Company. On August 1, 1843, the Erie Extension had been sold to the Erie Canal Com- pany, and on January 1, 1845, the Beaver division had been sold to the same company. In 1870 and 1871 this company ceased to operate both divisions, and in 1871 the whole canal from Beaver to Erie was abandoned. The Union Canal was abandoned in 1884. The Bald Eagle Canal was abandoned in 1885.
We need not further note in detail the decline of canal navigation in Pennsylvania. Only about one-third as many miles of canal are now actively or nominally in operation as were in active operation before the comple- tion of the Pennsylvania Railroad from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh in 1852. In 1840 there were about 1,000 miles of canal in Pennsylvania. In 1900 it was officially stated that there were then only four canals in operation in this State-the Delaware Division Canal, 60 miles long, extend- ing from Bristol to Easton ; the canal of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, 48 miles long, extending from Coalport, near Mauch Chunk, to Easton; the canal of the Pennsylvania Canal Company, 144 miles long, extending from Nanticoke to Columbia ; and the canal of the Schuyl- kill Navigation Company, 89.88 miles long, extending from Port Clinton to Philadelphia. The total mileage was 341.88 miles, but the larger part was only nominally operated.
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THE PENNSYLVANIA CANAL IN OPERATION.
CHAPTER XV.
THE PENNSYLVANIA CANAL IN OPERATION.
THE system of internal improvements, known as the main line of the Pennsylvania Canal, which connected the Delaware river with the Ohio river and Philadelphia with Pittsburgh, and which has been described in the preceding chapter, was undertaken in 1826 by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and completed in 1834. As already stated, it was opened for freight and passenger traffic through- out its entire length early in the latter year, long before the Pennsylvania Railroad was projected or more than dreamed of. This main line embraced a railroad from Philadelphia to Columbia, 81 miles, a canal from Colum- bia to Hollidaysburg, 179 miles, a railroad from Hollidays- burg to Johnstown, 36.44 miles, and a canal from Johns- town to Pittsburgh, 104 miles, making a total length of 400.44 miles from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. Upon the completion of important divisions of the main line, and particularly after the completion of the whole line, many transportation companies for the conveyance of freight and passengers were organized, with principal offices and warehouses at Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and branch offices and other warehouses at Columbia, Hollidaysburg, and Johnstown.
Through the courtesy of Frank L. Neall, of Philadel- phia, a gentleman of antiquarian tastes, we have had an opportunity to examine several hundred bills of lading, freight receipts, etc., issued by the transportation compa- nies and forwarding merchants that were engaged in busi- ness on the main line of the canal between 1836 and 1850. These papers were written with quill pens in ink that invariably holds its color well, and they are usually embellished with wood cuts which represent in a crude way the boats and cars and locomotives of that period. The printing business was not then one of the fine arts, as it is to-day. Cars and locomotives are at first represented
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with only four wheels, but in later years locomotives are shown with six wheels. Valuable information is contained in these papers concerning the character of the freight that was shipped in those days, the rates of freight, and the time that was required to carry it from one point to another ; also giving the names of the transportation com- panies and their facilities for hauling freight.
First, of the transportation companies. We quote from these old documents the names of the following companies which had offices and warehouses in both Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with the year or years in which they are first mentioned; also in some instances the names of their Philadelphia and Pittsburgh agents. The spelling we give is exactly as we find it. In some instances, as will be ob- served, the same company is described by more than one title. 1836-Reliance Transportation Company ; 1837- Western Transportation Company, D. Leech & Co.'s Line ; 1838-the same company, Leech & Co.'s Line; 1837-Un- ion Transportation Company, Rail Road Line; 1837-John Dougherty, Agent for Reliance Transportation Line; 1839 -John Dougherty, Agt., Reliance Transportation Com- pany's Line of Portable Iron Boats ; 1837-The Despatch Transportation Line ; 1837-The Despatch Transportation Company, John White & Co .; 1838-James O'Connor & Co.'s Portable Car Body Line, to Pittsburgh; also Pitts- burg Transportation Line, Rail Road Line of Portable Car Bodies, James O'Connor & Co .; 1840-James M. Davis & Co., Reliance Portable Boat Line ; 1841-Mechanics In- dependent Line ; 1846-Binghams' Line, and Binghams' Transportation Line ; proprietors, William Bingham, Thom- as Bingham, Jacob Dock, and W. A. Stratton ; 1846- Craig, Bellas & Co., Citizens' Portable Boat Line; 1840, 1846, and 1849-Reliance Portable Boat Line, James M. Davis & Co., Philadelphia, and John McFaden & Co., Pittsburgh ; 1841-The Pennsylvania and Ohio Transpor- tation Rail Road Line, James Steel & Co .; 1849-Penn- sylvania and Ohio Transportation Line to Pittsburgh, via Rail Roads and Canal, and Pennsylvania and Ohio Trans- portation Co .; 1846 and ·1850-Union Transportation Rail Road Line for Pittsburg.
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THE PENNSYLVANIA CANAL IN OPERATION.
In addition to the above details gleaned from Mr. Neall's papers we add that Leech's Line, Binghams' Line, the Pennsylvania and Ohio Line, and the Union Line were the leading transportation companies on the main line of the Pennsylvania Canal throughout its whole history. The Pittsburgh agents of the Pennsylvania and Ohio Line were Clark & Thaw-Thomas Clark and William Thaw; of Leech's Line, George Black; of the Union Line, Henry Graff ; and of Binghams' Line, William Bingham. These and other lines, which strictly speaking were freight car- riers, also carried passengers, chiefly immigrants going to the Great West. Other companies, called "packet lines," were exclusively devoted to the carrying of passengers.
The freight that was shipped from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh over the Pennsylvania Canal, as described in these old papers of Mr. Neall, was largely composed of queensware, earthenware, hardware, glassware, and dry goods. There can be no doubt that most of these articles were imported. We note one shipment of axes. Other articles shipped will be mentioned in another paragraph. The mention of crates and casks of queensware is of fre- quent occurrence, crates predominating. When emptied of their contents these foreign-made crates were often used in those days in winter by farmers and others as improvised sleigh bodies, placed on sled runners that may have been used for hauling wood, and sometimes placed on light runners called " Yankee jumpers."
In 1837 D. Leech & Co. promised to deliver packages of merchandise from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh "in fif- teen days, Sundays excepted." In 1838 James O'Connor & Co.'s Portable Car Body Line advertised what would be called in our day a fast freight service in boats carrying fifteen tons, through to Pittsburgh in five days, but its boats carrying thirty tons would require eight days. In 1839 a freight receipt issued by John Dougherty stipulated that the merchandise receipted for was to be delivered at Pittsburgh "within twelve days, Sundays and unavoida- ble delays excepted," but in 1846 James M. Davis & Co. agreed to deliver freight at Pittsburgh in eight days, with the same reservations, and in 1849 D. Leech & Co. had no
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better schedule to offer, while in the same year the Penn- sylvania and Ohio Line retained the twelve days' provis- ion in its freight receipts. In 1850 James M. Davis & Co. increased their time to Pittsburgh to ten days. In 1846 Binghams' Line promised to deliver at Philadelphia freight shipped at Pittsburgh "within fifteen days, Sundays ex- cepted." Eight days was about the shortest time that would ordinarily be required to deliver freight between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. It is not probable that James O'Connor & Co. ever carried freight from Philadel- phia to Pittsburgh in five days. They may have done this in six days. The name of this company was changed in the forties to Taafe & O'Connor.
The rates of freight on the Pennsylvania Canal from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh were much higher in the early years of the canal's existence than were afterwards charg- ed, and yet all these rates were very high as compared with the railroad rates with which the present business world is familiar. In 1837 the through rate on dry goods, drugs, queensware in crates, leather, hides, shoes, wool, fruits, etc., was $2.35 per 100 pounds ; on hardware, dye- stuffs, paints, etc., it was $2.10 ; on hats, bonnets, etc., $3.60; on coffee and groceries, $1.85; on furniture, $3.60; on carriages, $4.10; on fish, $1.20; and on queensware in casks, $2.85. In 1839 there were some slight reduc- tions in the rates, dry goods, etc., paying $2.25 per 100 pounds ; groceries, tin in boxes, etc., $1.65 ; hardware, queensware, etc., $2 ; and carriages, $3.75. Herring paid $2.25 per barrel and mackerel $2.50. A few rates were advanced in this year. In 1849 the rates had been much reduced below those of 1839, dry goods, bonnets, shoes, hats, etc., being charged only 90 cents per 100 pounds ; muslins in bales and burlaps, 80 cents ; queensware and codfish, 60 cents ; tin and copper in sheets, 60 cents ; cof- fee, 50 cents ; groceries, sheet iron, hoop iron and nails, hardware, machinery, etc., 70 cents ; mackerel, shad, and pickled herring per barrel, $1.25, and dry herring, $1.12}. These rates probably ruled for several years after 1849. In 1846 the rate on glassware from Pittsburgh to Philadel- phia by Binghams' Line was 83 cents per 100 pounds.
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THE PENNSYLVANIA CANAL IN OPERATION.
The wood cuts which are prominent features of the old papers we have referred to, and which were intended to illustrate the methods of transportation employed by the various companies mentioned, tell a story of their own that is very interesting. Not only are the primitive loco- motives and freight cars illustrated with a fair degree of accuracy, but, of greater interest, the extraordinary means that were then employed to carry freight between Phila- delphia and Pittsburgh are fully shown. As has already been stated, the main line of the Pennsylvania Canal in- cluded two railroads, which aggregated in length over one- fourth of the entire line. Most of the transportation com- panies used both cars and boats, necessitating the hand- ling of all freight when transferred from cars to boats or from boats to cars. From Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, or vice versa, this trans-shipment occurred three times, at Co- lumbia, Hollidaysburg, and Johnstown. But there were two transportation methods employed in carrying freight from one end of the main line to the other end without breaking bulk at any point.
The boats used by James O'Connor & Co. were hulls only, except that there was a cabin at the stern of each boat, the hulls being built of dimensions adapted to the reception of a fixed number of cars, or car bodies, which could be transferred from their trucks by windlasses that would lift them into the boats. In the same way the cars could be lifted out of the boats and placed upon trucks. The car-boats, as these boats were called, were abandoned before 1850. The other method referred to dispensed with cars entirely and embraced portable boats, divided into either three or four sections, each with the necessary bulk- heads, and each being but little longer than an ordinary freight car of that day and of practically the same width. When in the water these sections would be united by ap- propriate side fastenings, making a complete boat, the bow and stern sections being rounded as in other boats. When taken from the water they were detached and deftly mov- ed over trucks which had been run into the water upon a slightly inclined railroad track that was connected with the railroad over which the boat was to pass, a stationary
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engine pulling out the sections. When the boat would come to the end of its railroad journey it would be run into the water on its trucks and put together as we have described. The trucks were curved to fit the rounded bot- toms of the boats. Several companies used these portable boats, which were continued in use long after 1850.
Reference has been made to the packet boats on the Pennsylvania Canal which were used exclusively for car- rying passengers. In his American Notes Charles Dickens describes his experience in 1842 on one of these packets, which was not always satisfactory, but he gives us these pleasing pictures of the scenery along the line of the canal : " The exquisite beauty of the opening day, when light came gleaming off from everything ; the lazy mo- tion of the boat, when one lay idly on the deck, looking through, rather than at, the deep blue sky ; the gliding on at night, so noiselessly, past frowning hills, sullen with dark trees, and sometimes angry in one red burning spot high up where unseen men lay crouching round a fire ; the shining out of the bright stars, undisturbed by noise of wheels or steam or any sound than the liquid rippling of the water as the boat went on; all these were pure delights. Sometimes, at night, the way wound through some lonely gorge, like a mountain pass in Scot- land, shining and coldly glittering in the light of the moon, and so closed in by high steep hills all round that there seemed to be no egress save through the narrower path by which we had come, until one rugged hillside seemed to open, and, shutting out the moonlight as we passed into its gloomy throat, wrapped our new course in shade and darkness." A Pennsylvania historian once wrote as follows of the scenery along the canal in its palmy days : " The entire region through which the canal passed was one of enchantment. The beautiful rivers, then uncontami- nated by the refuse of large towns, the wooded hillsides, then almost untouched by the axe of the lumberman, the smiling villages, at long distances apart, must have brought to the traveler, as he passed by them, one long happy dream of contentment."
Packet boats on the western division of the canal,
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THE PENNSYLVANIA CANAL IN OPERATION.
from Johnstown to Pittsburgh, quit running between these places in August, 1851, but made regular trips from Lockport to Pittsburgh in 1852.
Among the old papers referred to we find two receipts issued by the " Pennsylvania Rail Road Co., Craig & Bel- las, Agents, Broad Street, Philadelphia," dated respect- ively October 12, 1850, and November 6, 1850, the first for goods shipped to Newport, Pennsylvania, and the other for goods shipped to Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company was chartered in 1846 to build a railroad from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, railroad connections already existing between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, but work on the construction of the road did not begin until 1847, and it was not until 1850 that the road was completed to Duncansville, so that the two receipts above referred to were among the earliest issued in the name of the company. In 1857 the main line was purchased by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and in a few years such portions of the line as were not ab- sorbed by the Pennsylvania Railroad as part of its road- bed were either neglected or actually abandoned. The division of the canal from Johnstown to Pittsburgh was abandoned in 1864, and the larger part of the divisions from Columbia to Hollidaysburg in more recent years, although little used throughout their entire length for many preceding years. To-day the sites of large sections of the canal proper and of its basins, feeders, wharves, aqueducts, and bridges, and also of the connecting rail- roads, are hard to find even by old men who remember all of them, while the present generation scarcely realizes that there ever was a Pennsylvania Canal.
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