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 21
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8,125,022
27,573,420
9,006,467
Other counties
511,482
43,158
548,289
30,336
* Cameron, Clinton, Greene, and Lycoming. Also include small mines.
There are sixty-seven counties in Pennsylvania, and of these counties twenty-five produced bituminous coal in 1905 and 1906. Westmoreland and Fayette are the leading bituminous coal-producing counties, due largely to the suit- ability of the coal mined in their borders for conversion
15
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PROGRESSIVE PENNSYLVANIA.
into Connellsville coke. These coking-coal counties will long maintain their present leadership as coal producers. Allegheny, Washington, and Cambria counties come next in the production of coal. Without reference to the sta- tistical record few persons would suppose that Allegheny county, the great iron and steel centre of the world, is one of the greatest coal-producing counties of the country, its output in 1906 amounting to nearly 17,000,000 net tons. Nor would they suppose that Cambria county, in which the works of the Cambria Steel Company are located, is also a leading coal-producing county. This prominence by Cambria county has been attained within the last few years. Washington county has greatly added to its coal record from year to year. Jefferson county has also come to the front as a coal-producer within recent years, while Somerset county has started upon a coal-producing career that has already eclipsed that of Jefferson county. Clearfield has long been active as a producer of bitumi- nous coal. In Indiana and Armstrong counties a start has recently been made in the development of their bitu- minous deposits which has produced substantial results.
The earliest statistical mention of the production of bituminous coal in Pennsylvania is in the census of 1840, when it was reported to have amounted to 464,826 net tons. The census of 1860 reported 2,690,786 net tons. In 1907 the whole country produced 352,540,830 gross tons, of which Pennsylvania's share was 134,215,569 tons.
The same high authority from which we have obtained the coal statistics of Pennsylvania for 1905 and 1906 does not separate the coke production of the State by coun- ties but only by districts, the principal districts being the Connellsville in Westmoreland and Fayette counties and the Lower Connellsville in Fayette county, south of the Connellsville district proper. The Connellsville district is the most productive coke district in the world. In addi- tion to the Connellsville and Lower Connellsville districts there is another but comparatively unimportant district in Westmoreland county, which is known as the Upper Connellsville district, and which " lies north of a point a short distance south of the town of Latrobe."
227
COAL AND COKE IN PENNSYLVANIA.
The beginning of the manufacture of Connellsville coke dates commercially from the winter of 1841 and 1842, when two beehive ovens were built on the farm of John Taylor, on the Youghiogheny river, a few miles below Connellsville. The product of these ovens was shipped to Cincinnati in 1842 and there sold with much difficulty.
The production of coke in Pennsylvania in the census year 1880 was 2,317,149 net tons, made from 3,608,095 net tons of coal. In the whole country the production of coke in the same census year was 2,752,475 net tons, made from 4,360,110 net tons of coal.
The total production of coke in Pennsylvania in 1905 was 20,573,736 net tons, of which 11,365,077 tons were made in the Connellsville district proper, 3,871,310 tons in the Lower Connellsville district, and 755,946 tons in the Upper Connellsville district : total for the three districts, 15,992,333 net tons. The total production by the whole country in 1905 was 32,231,129 tons, nearly one-half of which, or 49.6 per cent., was Connellsville coke.
The total production of coke in Pennsylvania in 1906 was 23,060,511 net tons, of which 12,057,840 tons were made in the Connellsville district proper, 5,188,135 tons in the Lower Connellsville district, and 1,011,229 tons in the Upper Connellsville district: total for the three districts, 18,257,204 net tons. The total production by the whole country in 1906 was 36,401,217 net tons. The production of all the Connellsville districts in 1906 was a little more than one-half of the country's total production of coke in that year, or over 50.1 per cent. The total production of coke in 1907 was 40,779,564 net tons, of which Pennsyl- vania produced 26,513,214 tons, or over 65 per cent.
Western Pennsylvania, in which nearly all the bitu- minous coal of the State is mined, is our great bitumi- nous "black district." In the quantity of coal it annually produces it is now far in advance of the great anthracite coal region in Eastern Pennsylvania. It embraces a much larger area than its anthracite rival, and the develop- ments of the near future may somewhat widen this area. The area of anthracite development in Pennsylvania is already defined. In all the leading counties of Western
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PROGRESSIVE PENNSYLVANIA.
Pennsylvania there has recently existed the greatest min- ing activity. In nearly all the counties included in the table investors and mining engineers have lately been busily engaged in locating and securing title to valuable coal territory that had previously been wholly undevel- oped and neglected. Some of these acquisitions have al- ready been developed, while others will be held as invest- ments or to supplement fields that are now being work- ed out. The traveler on any of the railroads through the counties referred to will be amazed at the activity in the production of coal that is observable on every hand, accompanied in many localities by equal activity in the manufacture of coke.
But over all this activity-over all this "black dis- trict"-there hangs a black cloud other than that which the coal itself makes when it is converted into coke or is consumed by locomotives and the manufacturing enter- prises that it has created. A very large proportion of the population of Western Pennsylvania which is engaged in mining coal and in making coke is composed of undesir- able foreign elements, and with these are associated many undesirable negroes who have been brought from the Southern States. So numerous and oftentimes so lawless are these foreign and negro laborers that the character of whole communities has been radically changed within the last ten or fifteen years. Indiana and Somerset coun- ties, for instance, have been largely transformed by these laborers from peaceful agricultural districts into unat- tractive centres of coal-mining and coke-making activity in which dissipation and lawlessness constantly prevail. The Black Hand is not fully held in check by the State constabulary, a police force that was established solely for the purpose of keeping the lawless foreign element under control. The courts in many counties are kept busy try- ing Black Hand and other foreign-born lawbreakers. The prosperity that has brought into Western Pennsylvania the elements that we have referred to is very far from being an unmixed blessing. Similar labor conditions have long existed in the anthracite region. The principal offenders of foreign birth in Western Pennsylvania are Italians.
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INDUSTRIES DEVELOPED BY PENNSYLVANIANS.
CHAPTER XXIII.
INDUSTRIES DEVELOPED BY PENNSYLVANIANS.
PRIOR to 1835 coke had been used in a small way in forges in Pennsylvania and as a mixture with charcoal in a few blast furnaces. In that year William Firmstone, a native of England, succeeded in making good forge pig iron for one month at the end of a blast at Mary Ann furnace, in Huntingdon county, Pennsylvania, with coke from Broad Top coal. This pig iron was taken to a forge three miles distant and made into blooms. In 1837 F. H. Oliphant made at Fairchance furnace, near Uniontown, in Fayette county, Pennsylvania, a quantity of coke pig iron exceeding 20 tons and probably exceeding 100 tons.
These two experiments marked the beginning of the coke industry in this country in supplying a desirable fuel in the manufacture of pig iron. Our first continu- ous use of coke in the blast furnace was accomplished at Lonaconing furnace, in Western Maryland, in 1838 or 1839. In June, 1839, this furnace, which was built by the George's Creek Company, was making about 70 tons per week of good foundry iron. Other furnaces, particularly in Western Pennsylvania, soon afterwards used coke, but its use as a furnace fuel did not come rapidly into favor. For many years after 1840 anthracite coal was the favor- ite blast furnace fuel next to charcoal. It was not until after 1850 that the use of coke began to exert an appre- ciable influence in the manufacture of pig iron. In 1849 there was not one coke furnace in blast in Pennsylvania. In 1856 there were twenty-one furnaces in Pennsylvania, all in the western part of the State, and three in Mary- land which were using coke or were adapted to its use. After 1856 the use of coke in the blast furnace increased in Pennsylvania and was extended to other States, but it was not until 1869 that the country made more pig iron with coke than with charcoal, and not until 1875 that it made more than with anthracite. In 1907 more than 98
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per cent. of the country's total production of pig iron was made with coke, either by itself or in combination with anthracite or raw bituminous coal. Pennsylvania produces more coke than all the other States combined.
After many unsuccessful experiments with anthracite coal in the blast furnace, and a few moderately successful experiments, the use of this fuel in the manufacture of pig iron was made entirely successful in 1840 by David Thomas, who on the 3d day of July of that year blew in the first furnace of the Lehigh Crane Iron Company, at Catasauqua, Pennsylvania, with the new fuel. Water pow- er from the Lehigh river was used in blowing the furnace. On July 4 its first cast of pig iron was made. Other furnaces soon began to use anthracite coal, and in a few years the manufacture of anthracite pig iron became an important branch of the iron industry of Pennsylvania and adjoining States. In 1855 more pig iron was made with anthracite coal than with charcoal. About 1840 the use of anthracite coal in the puddling and heating fur- naces of rolling mills in Eastern Pennsylvania and in some other States became general. It had previously been used in the generation of steam. Anthracite coal is but little used in the blast furnace in this country to-day, and the most of what is used is mixed with coke. In 1907 the total quantity of pig iron made with anthracite coal alone amounted to only 36,268 tons, all of which was made in the Lehigh valley.
The use of raw bituminous coal, or uncoked coal, in the blast furnace, which is now virtually abandoned, has been chiefly confined to the Shenango and Mahoning val- leys in Pennsylvania and Ohio respectively, in which a very hard bituminous coal, known as splint coal, or block coal, is found, and which is not a good coking coal. The use of this coal in its raw state in the blast furnace dates from 1845, when Clay furnace, in Mercer county, Penn- sylvania, was successfully operated with it for some time. In the same year Mahoning furnace, in Mahoning county, Ohio, was built to use this fuel. In 1856 six furnaces in Pennsylvania and thirteen in Ohio were using it, their production in that year being 25,073 gross tons. Some
231
INDUSTRIES DEVELOPED BY PENNSYLVANIANS.
progress was afterwards made in the use of the same coal in the Hocking valley in Ohio, and also in Clay county and neighboring counties in Indiana, but since 1880 its use has gradually declined, until to-day when used in making pig iron it is always mixed with coke. In 1890 the total production with this mixture was over 300,000 tons; in 1907 it was about 100,000 tons.
The first use of Lake Superior iron ore in a blast fur- nace in this country occurred in 1853 at Sharpsville fur- nace, in Mercer county, Pennsylvania, owned by David and John Park Agnew, and in the same year it was used at Clay furnace, in the same county, owned by the Sharon Iron Company, at both furnaces successfully. Block coal was used exclusively at both furnaces. After 1856 other furnaces in Pennsylvania and in other States began the use of Lake Superior ore.
The first use anywhere of Cuban iron ore was in 1884 at furnaces in Eastern Pennsylvania owned by the Beth- lehem Iron Company and the Pennsylvania Steel Com- pany, which companies had jointly undertaken through the Juragua Iron Company, Limited, the development of the iron ore deposits of Cuba. This development has since been continued on a large scale by this company and by other companies, as is shown on page 223.
The manufacture of steel by the old-time method of cementation never attained a position of much prominence in this country, while the manufacture of crucible steel made but slow progress down to about 1860. Up to this time the country's main reliance for steel was upon Eng- lish manufacturers. The manufacture of crucible steel of the best quality was established on a firm basis when Hussey, Wells & Co. and Park, Brother & Co., of Pitts- burgh, and Gregory & Co., of Jersey City, in the years 1860, 1862, and 1863, respectively, succeeded in making it as a regular product. Dr. Curtis G. Hussey, of Pittsburgh, is entitled to the credit of having established this in- dustry in our country on a solid foundation, the firm of which he was the head having successfully, for the first time in our history, made crucible steel of the best quality as a regular product in 1860. Of the country's
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total production of 131,234 tons of crucible steel in 1907 Pennsylvania made 87,556 tons, and almost 57 per cent. of this large proportion was made in Allegheny county.
The manufacture of Bessemer steel in this country was commenced in an experimental way at Wyandotte, Michigan, in 1864, and again at Troy, New York, in 1865. The steel made at Wyandotte was made by the Kelly Pneumatic Process Company, which was largely composed of Pennsylvanians-William Kelly, James Park, Jr., and William M. Lyon, of Pittsburgh, and Daniel J. Morrell, of Johnstown. In May, 1867, the Pennsylvania Steel Com- pany made at its Steelton works the first Bessemer steel that was made in Pennsylvania. In 1867 the whole coun- try made 2,679 tons of Bessemer steel and 2,277 tons of Bessemer steel rails. The first steel rails produced in the United States in commercial quantities were rolled by the Cambria Iron Company, at Johnstown, in August, 1867, from ingots made at the works of the Pennsylvania Steel Company. Pennsylvania has been by far the most active of all the States in the development of the Bessemer steel industry. The country's total production of Besse- mer steel in 1906 was 12,275,830 tons, of which Penn- sylvania made 39.3 per cent. In 1905 it made over 41 per cent. Of the total production of Bessemer steel rails in 1905 Pennsylvania's share was 34.3 per cent., and in 1906 it was 34.2 per cent.
The manufacture of steel by the Siemens-Martin, or open-hearth, process was introduced into this country in 1868 by Cooper, Hewitt & Co., at the works of the New Jersey Steel and Iron Company, at Trenton. This enter- prise was not a commercial success. Open-hearth steel was first made in Pennsylvania by Singer, Nimick & Co., at Pittsburgh, in 1871 or 1872, and its manufacture was commercially successful. In August, 1875, there were thirteen establishments in this country which were then making open-hearth steel or were prepared to make it, and of these five were located in Pennsylvania, of which three were in Pittsburgh. The country's total production of open-hearth steel in 1875 was, however, only 8,080 tons, and ten years afterwards it was only 133,376 tons,
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INDUSTRIES DEVELOPED BY PENNSYLVANIANS.
but in 1895 it was 1,137,182 tons and in 1905 it was 8,971,376 tons. Of the total production in 1905 Pennsyl- vania's share was 6,471,818 tons, or over 72 per cent. The production of Allegheny county in 1905 was 3,410,482 tons, or over 38 per cent. of the total production. The total production of open-hearth steel in 1907 was 11,- 549,736 tons, of which Pennsylvania made 7,868,353 tons. Allegheny county's production was 3,883,014 tons.
On May 24, 1884, the Pennsylvania Steel Company made the first basic Bessemer steel that was made in this country. It was of excellent quality but its production was not continued. No basic Bessemer steel has been made in the United States since 1897, when about 69,000 tons of ingots were produced at Troy, New York, by the Troy Steel Company.
The manufacture of basic open-hearth steel was com- menced in this country in 1886 by the Otis Iron and Steel Company, at Cleveland, Ohio, which operated one furnace experimentally on basic steel for about ten weeks, when its further manufacture was discontinued. The manufac- ture of basic open-hearth steel in this country as a reg- ular commercial product dates, however, from 1888, on the 30th of March of which year basic open-hearth steel was produced at the Homestead steel works of Carnegie, Phipps & Co., Limited, at Homestead, near Pittsburgh. In 1907 the whole country's production of basic open-hearth steel amounted to 10,279,315 tons.
In 1897 Samuel T. Wellman wrote from Cleveland to the New York Railroad Gazette as follows : " The first ba- sic open-hearth steel made in this country was made at the works of the Otis Steel Company, of this city, under the immediate supervision of Mr. George W. Goetz. One furnace was started on January 19, 1886, with a mag- nesite bottom, the magnesite being imported from Aus- tria in the fall of 1885. This furnace was kept at work making basic steel until April 6, 1886, making in all some- thing over 1,000 tons of ingots. Just about that time the company became very hard pressed for steel to fill their orders and they decided to stop the manufacture of basic steel, as it was experimental."
234
PROGRESSIVE PENNSYLVANIA.
Pennsylvania was the first among the States to de- velop the petroleum industry, and for many years after the beginning of this development it possessed a virtual monopoly of the production of petroleum. The petroleum industry has added greatly to the prosperity and wealth of Pennsylvania. Western Pennsylvania has produced most of the petroleum that has been found in this State.
Stowell's Petroleum Reporter for August, 1876, says : " The earliest mention of the existence of petroleum in the United States is probably that contained in a letter of July 8, 1627, written by the French missionary, Jo- seph Delaroche, and published in Sagard's Histoire du Canada. The locality mentioned is supposed to be near the present town of Cuba, Allegany county, New York. On a map published about 1760 there appear near the site of this town the words Fontaine de Bitume. The ear- liest mention of petroleum in Pennsylvania appears to be by Charlevoix in his journal of May, 1721, who speaks on the authority of Captain de Joncaire of the existence of a fountain at the head of a branch of the Ohio (Allegheny), 'the water of which is like oil and has the taste of iron,' and was used 'to appease all manner of pain.' On a map published in 1755 the word 'petroleum' appears near the mouth of the present Oil creek on the Allegheny river."
In Appleton's Cyclopædia Professor Peckham says : " The occurrence of petroleum about the headwaters of the Allegheny river in New York and Pennsylvania was known to the early settlers. The Indians collected it on the shores of Seneca lake and it was sold as medicine by the name of Seneca or Genesee oil."
Rev. David Zeisberger, the Moravian apostle to the Indians, in his journal written in 1769, makes mention of oil, or petroleum, in what is now Forest county, Pennsyl- vania. He says: "It is used medicinally for toothache, rheumatism, etc. Sometimes it is taken internally. It is of a brown color and burns well and can be used in lamps."
Some of the early salt wells of the Kanawha valley in West Virginia produced petroleum as well as salt. The earliest mention we have found of petroleum in these wells is in 1806 ; another reference is in 1829. As early as
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INDUSTRIES DEVELOPED BY PENNSYLVANIANS.
1836 from 50 to 100 barrels of petroleum were annually collected in the Kanawha valley and sold as a medicine.
Petroleum was discovered in a salt well in Ohio in 1814. A salt well on Duck creek discharged petroleum in that year. Dr. S. P. Hildreth, of Marietta, in a contri- bution to the American Journal of Science in 1826 con- cerning the Ohio borings for salt water, says : "They have sunk two wells, which are now more than 400 feet in depth ; one of them affords a very strong and pure water. The other discharges such vast quantities of petro- leum, and besides is subject to such tremendous explosions of gas as to force out all the water and afford nothing but gas for several days, that they make but little or no salt. Nevertheless the petroleum is beginning to be in demand for lamps in workshops and manufactories."
In Johnson's Cyclopædia Professor Chandler says that " in 1829 a flowing oil well was accidentally obtained in Burkesville, Kentucky, and for two or three weeks the oil flowed over the surface of Cumberland river, and becom- ing ignited caused some apprehension of a general confla- gration."
These details show the existence of petroleum in New York in 1627; in Pennsylvania in 1721; in the Kanawha valley as early as 1806 ; in Ohio in 1814 ; and in Ken- tucky in 1829. But petroleum did not become a com- mercial product until 1859, in which year Edwin L. Drake, a native of Greenville, New York, bored an oil well on Oil creek, at Titusville, Pennsylvania. On August 31, 1859, the production of petroleum in a commercial sense began at this well, which yielded about twenty-five barrels a day by pumping. Other wells were at once bored in Pennsyl- vania, New York, West Virginia, Ohio, and other States.
Samuel M. Kier, of Pittsburgh, was the first person to demonstrate the practicability of refining petroleum. This was done by him in 1850. He had previously collected petroleum from the salt wells near Tarentum, on the Al- legheny river, and bottled it as a medicine. In the year mentioned he erected a small refinery in Pittsburgh and this enterprise was entirely successful.
As petroleum was often found in the wells that had
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been bored for salt so natural gas was often found in wells that had been bored for petroleum. Sometimes all of these products were found in the same well. Natural gas and petroleum are, however, allied products. The ex- istence of natural gas west of the Alleghenies has long been known. Its presence in the Kanawha valley is men- tioned by Jefferson in his Notes on Virginia. Soon after 1840 gas was found in many salt wells in this valley and it was used for both heating and illuminating purposes. As early as 1821 natural gas was used at Fredonia, New York, to light houses and other buildings. But natural gas was not brought into general use anywhere in this country until many years after Colonel Drake's success in boring for petroleum at Titusville in 1859. At first, when found in boring for oil, it was usually allowed to escape into the atmosphere, but subsequently its great value caused it to be directed into pipes. The first gas well in the celebrated Murrysville district in Westmore- land county, Pennsylvania, was bored in 1878 expressly for gas, but for five years the immense product of this well was allowed to go to waste because it could not be controlled. In the decade between 1870 and 1880 natu- ral gas began to be freely used in Western Pennsylvania and adjoining States for heating residences and for light- ing streets, but it was not until after 1880 that it received much attention as a fuel in manufacturing establishments. Soon after this year its use for this purpose was greatly extended. Pittsburgh did not begin the general use of natural gas in its iron and steel works until 1883, when the Murrysville gas was first used. In November, 1907, the whole number of rolling mills and steel works in the United States which used natural gas was 137, of which 53 were in Allegheny county and 37 were in other parts of Western Pennsylvania.
At the Siberian rolling mill of Rogers & Burchfield, at Leechburg, Armstrong county, Pennsylvania, natural gas, taken from a well 1,200 feet deep, was first used as fuel in the manufacture of iron. In the fall of 1874 it was stated that during the preceding six months this gas had fur- nished all the fuel required for puddling, heating, and
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INDUSTRIES DEVELOPED BY PENNSYLVANIANS.
making steam at these works. Soon after 1874 the firm of Spang, Chalfant & Co., owners of the Etna rolling mill, in Allegheny county, introduced natural gas in its works.
In Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, written in 1781-82, we find the following interesting account of a burning spring, which was without doubt supplied with natural gas : "In the low grounds of the Great Kanhaway, 7 miles above the mouth of Elk river, and 67 above that of the Kanhaway itself, is a hole in the earth of the ca- pacity of 30 or 40 gallons, from which issues constantly a bituminous vapor in so strong a current as to give the sand above the orifice the motion which it has in a boil- ing spring. On presenting a lighted candle or torch within 18 inches of the hole it flames up in a column of 18 inches in diameter and four or five feet height, which sometimes burns out in 20 minutes, and at other times has been known to continue three days and then has been still left burning. The flame is unsteady, of the density of that of burning spirits, and smells like burning pit coal. Water sometimes collects in the basin, which is remarkably cold, and is kept in ebullition by the vapor issuing through it. . . This, with the circumjacent lands, is the property of his Excellency General Washington and of General Lewis ; there is a similar one on Sandy river." In Wash- ington's will, written in 1799, he refers to the burning spring in an inventory of his lands on the Great Kana- wha as follows : "Burning Spring, 125 acres. The tract of which the 125 acres is a moiety was taken up by General Andrew Lewis and myself on account of a bituminous spring which it contains, of so inflammable a nature as to burn as freely as spirits, and is as nearly difficult to extinguish."
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