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 22
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Pennsylvania is to-day and has always been the larg- est consumer of natural gas of all the States, the most of which it has itself produced. In 1906 the whole country produced natural gas of the estimated value of $46,873,- 932, of which the product of Pennsylvania was valued at $18,558,245, West Virginia coming next with $13,735,343. A large part of the annual product of West Virginia is consumed in Pennsylvania.
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Pennsylvania has lost its supremacy in the production of petroleum, as has been shown in the chapter relating to the great industries of Pennsylvania. It has also lost its early prominence in the manufacture of salt, also an industry of Western Pennsylvania. Major S. S. Jamison, of Saltsburg, Indiana county, who died in 1887 in his 80th year, says in his reminiscences : "In the early days, say from 1800 up to 1812, all the iron, salt, etc., to sup- ply the wants of the people of this county was brought from the East on pack-horses. In the fall of the year they would start east, each man with three horses and pack-saddles loaded with linen, cloth, flax, etc., and return with iron and salt. The latter was purchased at McCon- nellsburg, Pennsylvania, and Hagerstown, Maryland, and the former at different places."
Egle's History of Pennsylvania contains the following account of the discovery of salt in Western Pennsylva- nia : "About the year 1812 or 1813 an old lady named Deemer discovered an oozing of salt water at low-water mark on the Indiana side of the Conemaugh river, about two miles above the present site of Saltsburg. Prompted by curiosity she gathered some of the water to use for cooking purposes, and with a portion of it made mush, which she found to be quite palatable. About the year 1813 William Johnson, an enterprising young man from Franklin county, commenced boring a well at the spot where Mrs. Deemer made the discovery, and at the depth of 287 feet found an abundance of salt water. The salt sold at $5 per bushel, retail, but as the wells multiplied the price came down to $4. Seven wells along the river on the Westmoreland side were all put down prior to 1820 and 1822; and from that date till 1830 the group of hills on both sides of the river was like a great beehive."
In the sketch from which the above extract is taken 21 salt works, embracing 24 wells, are enumerated as hav- ing once been in operation on the Conemaugh river, in Westmoreland and Indiana counties, all of which works, except three, had been abandoned in 1876. The manu- facture of salt was actively carried on in Westmoreland, Indiana, Armstrong, and Erie counties in 1820. In 1826
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there were 35 salt works on the Conemaugh and Kiski- minitas rivers, 3 on the Allegheny, and others in progress elsewhere. In 1840 Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, and McKean counties manufactured salt in addition to the counties named above, except Erie, which had then dropped out of the business. The salt industry in Penn- sylvania reached its culmination in 1860. Since 1889 it has been confined to one works in Allegheny City. It may be classed among the lost industries of Pennsylvania.
In 1811 salt works were erected on Sinnemahoning creek, probably in the present county of Cameron. A handbill announced in 1811 that "considerable quan- tities of salt have been already manufactured." In 1820 John Mitchell, of Bellefonte, bored a salt well in Karthaus township, Clearfield county, and made considerable quan- tities of salt for several years. Salt has been found in Susquehanna, Tioga, Cambria, and a few other counties.
Prior to 1796 all the salt used in Western Pennsyl- vania was imported and packed or hauled from eastern cities. In that year General James O'Hara, of Pittsburgh, opened communication with the Onondaga salt works in New York, and he continued to supply Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania with salt down to the discovery of salt in the Conemaugh valley. But until Western Penn- sylvania began to make its own salt much of the salt used by the pioneers was obtained in eastern markets. The charter for at least one of the early turnpikes lead- ing to Pittsburgh stipulated that west-bound wagons haul- ing salt should not be subject to the payment of toll.
In the first half of the nineteenth century Juniata iron, Pittsburgh coal, iron, and glass, Conemaugh salt, and Alle- gheny lumber were important factors in the development of Western Pennsylvania, aided by favorable transporta- tion facilities, but in the second half of that century Juni- ata iron and Conemaugh salt virtually disappeared from the markets and in their place there was developed the petroleum trade, the widespread use of natural gas, and the general substitution of steel for iron. To-day West- ern Pennsylvania is noted for its immense production of pig iron and steel, bituminous coal, and coke.
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CHAPTER XXIV.
INDUSTRIES CREATED BY PENNSYLVANIANS.
ALTHOUGH successful experiments in the manufacture of tinplates had been made in this country before 1890 most of them had been abandoned because tariff duties were too low. The manufacture of tinplates and terne plates was not established until the tariff of 1890 increas- ed the duty on both these products from one cent to two and two-tenths cents per pound. The new duty did not take effect, however, until July 1, 1891, but our manufac- turers a year before confidently looked for only favora- ble results. Pennsylvania early took advantage of the new tariff legislation in supplying the country's general mar- ket with tinplates and terne plates; indeed this legislation could not have been secured at the time it was enacted, if ever, but for the work of Pennsylvanians in creating a public sentiment in its favor. The United States Iron and Tin Plate Company, of Allegheny county, was the first to engage in the manufacture of tinplates in 1890. Early in that year, anticipating the passage of the bill enacting the new duty, this company, led by one of its members, Mr. W. C. Cronemeyer, who had been active in advocating the new duty, commenced the manufacture of tinplates of the best quality from sheets of its own make, and be- fore the year closed the company had manufactured and sold about fifty tons of tinplates. This company contin- ued to manufacture tinplates of a superior quality as a regular product. In the same year and in the following year other companies in Pennsylvania actively engaged in the manufacture of tinplates and terne plates. In the census year 1904 the whole country produced 387,289 tons of tinplates, valued at $28,429,971, of which Pennsyl- vania produced 234,333 tons, valued at $16,547,120, and in the same year the country produced 70,919 tons of terne plates, valued at $6,119,572, of which Pennsylvania pro- duced 26,202 tons, valued at $2,381,277. No later census
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statistics are available at this time, but it is certain that Pennsylvania's leadership in the production of both tin- plates and terne plates has been greatly strengthened in the intervening years.
The manufacture in this country of armor plate and other heavy forgings for naval vessels is exclusively con- fined to Pennsylvania. Down to 1904 there had been es- tablished only two armor plate works, one at South Beth- lehem and the other at Homestead, the first by the Beth- lehem Iron Company and the other by the firm of Car- negie, Phipps & Co., Limited, afterwards the Carnegie Steel Company, but in the year mentioned the Midvale Steel Company, of Philadelphia, began the manufacture of armor plate. The conception of the project to establish the Bethlehem armor plant, the pioneer plant, originated with Joseph Wharton, the leading stockholder in the Beth- lehem Iron Company, the builder and successful manager of the plant being John Fritz, the chief engineer and gen- eral superintendent of all the company's works. The first contract for armor with the Bethlehem Iron Company was made by the Navy Department on June 1, 1887, and the first contract for armor with Carnegie, Phipps & Co. was made by the Department on November 20, 1890. The armor plate industry of this country, both in magnitude and in the character of its products, embodies the highest achievements of American metallurgical skill, and we owe it all to the enterprise and skill of Pennsylvanians. The American navy would have made but a sorry display in our recent war with Spain if the demand for armor for the "new navy" had not been fully met by the Bethle- hem and the Carnegie companies.
Spelter, as crude metallic zinc is called, had never before 1859 been produced in the United States upon such conditions as to encourage the hope that its manufacture would become a staple industry. In 1856 the Lehigh Zinc Company, of South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, built a spel- ter furnace of the Silesian type at its zinc mine near Frie- densville, four miles south of Bethlehem, but this furnace did not yield any zinc. Samuel Wetherill, the patentee of valuable improvements in the manufacture of zinc oxide,
16
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also experimented at South Bethlehem in the production of metallic zinc and produced a small quantity as early as 1858, but, although he persevered for about two years, and made in all about fifty tons of excellent spelter, the cost of production was too high and his enterprise was abandoned. The first sheet zinc made in this country was rolled by Alan Wood & Sons, of Philadelphia, from an ingot of Mr. Wetherill's spelter. In 1859 Joseph Wharton, of Philadelphia, built for the Lehigh Zinc Company, with which he had been associated since 1851 as stockholder and afterwards as manager, a Belgian spelter furnace of about 45 retorts, which he operated with the aid of sev- eral workmen imported for the purpose. The fuel used was Pennsylvania anthracite, and the ore was obtained from the Lehigh Zinc Company's mine near Friedensville. The spelter produced amounted to 34,063 pounds. This successful enterprise of Mr. Wharton was the beginning of the manufacture of metallic zinc in this country as a com- mercial product. Immediately after this successful experi- ment Mr. Wharton built at his own risk at the works of the Lehigh Zinc Company a complete spelter plant of 16 Belgian furnaces, which he operated for his own account under lease from the company with absolutely unbroken success until 1863, when he retired from the business.
Mr. Wharton is also entitled to credit as the pioneer in the manufacture of refined nickel. In 1864 he purchas- ed the abandoned Gap nickel mine in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, and from its ores made metallic nickel and nickel-copper alloy at works he had erected at Camden, New Jersey. In 1876 he produced pure malleable nickel which he made into various useful articles, being the first person in the world to accomplish this result. For many years he was the only producer of refined nickel in this country, his Gap mine, although now virtually exhausted, being for a quarter of a century the only nickel mine in operation on the American continent. Practically all the nickel that is now made in the United States is obtained from nickel matte produced in Canada. Mr. Wharton's en- terprise gave to the Government a cheap supply of nickel that was essential to its nickel coinage, and he gave to
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the whole country an abundant supply of a metal then much needed for making German silver as well as for coinage, and which is now imperatively needed in much larger quantities for making the nickel steel so largely used for armor plates, gun forgings, etc.
An enterprising Pennsylvanian, Dr. Curtis G. Hussey, of Pittsburgh, who is referred to in a preceding chapter, was the first person to develop the rich copper deposits of the Lake Superior region and afterwards to produce ingots of copper from the ore and sheets of copper from ingots. We condense from the Magazine of Western History for 1892 the following circumstantial account of Dr. Hussey's enterprise. It says : " Dr. C. G. Hussey, of Pittsburgh, was the pioneer in opening the first copper mine on Lake Su- perior and also in the erection of the first works for smelt- ing Lake Superior copper, and he built the first copper mill west of the Alleghenies. In 1843 he sent John Hays into the far-away region to see what discoveries he could make. During his exploring tour Mr. Hays purchased for Dr. Hussey a one-sixth interest in the first three permits ever granted by the United States for mining in that region. They had been taken out originally by Messrs. Talmage and Raymond, of New York, and Mr. Ansley, of Dubuque, Iowa, each one-third. Thomas M. Howe, of Pittsburgh, afterwards a member of Congress, purchased a part of this one-sixth interest. Later in 1843 other pur- chases were made by Dr. Hussey and his friends, giving them a controlling interest. The permits covered three miles square, the first being located at Copper Harbor, the second at Eagle River, and the third some three miles west of the second, but, being off the copper belt, was never worked.
" In the winter of 1843-4 the Pittsburgh and Boston Mining Company was organized, and in the spring of 1844 it sent Mr. Hays into its newly acquired territory, accom- panied by a competent geologist and a small party of miners, who prosecuted mining at Copper Harbor until autumn. Dr. Hussey made his own first visit to that re- gion in July to September of the same year. He landed at Copper Harbor. The next year further explorations
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were made and mining operations were transferred from Copper Harbor to Eagle River, where a wonderfully rich vein of mass copper was discovered and which soon be- came known as the Cliff mine. The Pittsburgh and Bos- ton Mining Company thus opened the first mine in the copper region, and it was the first to demonstrate that the metal could be procured in paying quantities. This mine, the famous Cliff, cost its owners, in assessments, $110,000 and paid them in dividends $2,280,000 before it gave out. A large proportion of the copper in the Cliff mine was found in huge masses. The transfers at Sault Ste. Marie were slow, laborious, and expensive until the opening of the great Soo Canal in June, 1855.
" The first president of the company, upon its organi- zation in 1844, was the Rev. Charles Avery, of Pittsburgh, who retained the office until his death on January 17, 1858. Dr. Hussey was then elected to the position and held it until the final winding up. The Hon. Thomas M. Howe was the secretary and treasurer until his death on July 20, 1877. Active mining operations ceased in 1870, the property was all disposed of within the next few years, and the affairs of the company were entirely closed up by a final distribution of assets in 1879.
" Much difficulty was at first experienced in securing the smelting of such large masses of copper, none of the existing copper furnaces in the country being adapted to work of this character. It occurred to Dr. Hussey that a furnace could be built with a movable top, and this proved to be a simple solution of the whole difficulty. In 1848 he erected a reverberatory furnace at Pittsburgh. The cover was lifted to one side, the masses were hoisted by a crane and let down into their bed upon the bottom, the cover was replaced, and the thing was done. The first ingots cast were in every respect as good as those now made. The next thing to be done was to erect a mill to roll the ingots into sheets, and a mill for this purpose was built at Pittsburgh in 1849 and 1850, and on July 1, 1850, copper rolling was commenced. In both the enterprises at Pittsburgh Mr. Howe was Dr. Hussey's partner, the firm name being C. G. Hussey & Co."
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In Mr. Williams's biographical sketch of Peter White, (1907,) which gives an account of the important part taken by John Hays in the development of the Lake Superior copper region, the specific statement is made that Mr. Hays discovered the Cliff mine on November 18, 1844.
One of the newest and most interesting industries of this country is the manufacture of aluminum, a metal used in the production of domestic and other articles, ma- chinery included, which combine lightness with strength; as an alloy with steel and other metals; and also for the transmission of electric currents as a substitute for cop- per. Fifty years ago aluminum was a chemical curiosity. Soon afterwards small quantities were produced in Europe for commercial purposes by various processes, but the production abroad did not enter largely into the arts until after the manufacture of aluminum on a large scale was developed in the United States through the invention in 1886 of the electrolytic process by Charles M. Hall, a na- tive of Thompson, Geauga county, Ohio. This process is now in universal use and it is exclusively used in this country. In a report of the United States Geological Sur- vey for '1892 the statement was made that "practically all the pure aluminum which has been made in the United States has been made in accordance with the electrolytic process covered by Hall's patents." Mr. Hall's process has so reduced the cost of aluminum that the metal is now in common use. The production in the United States in 1883, before Mr. Hall's invention, was only 83 pounds, a purely laboratory product, but in 1903 it amounted to 7,500,000 pounds. In 1906 the consumption of alumi- num in the United States was 14,910,000 pounds and in 1907 it was 17,211,000 pounds.
In August, 1888, the Pittsburgh Reduction Company was organized solely to manufacture aluminum under Mr. Hall's patents, and works for this purpose were built in that year at Pittsburgh and put in operation in November. The name of the company has been changed to the Aluminum Company of America. It is the only com- pany in the United States that is engaged in the manu- facture of aluminum. The works at Pittsburgh were lo-
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cated on Smallman street, between 32d and 33d streets. In 1890 these works were greatly enlarged and in the fol- lowing year they were moved to New Kensington, a sub- urb of Pittsburgh, and were again enlarged in 1893. They are still in active operation. This plant was still further enlarged in 1907. Other works now operated by the company are located at Niagara Falls, at Massena in St. Lawrence county, New York, and at Shawinigan Falls in the Province of Quebec. The first works at Niagara Falls were started in 1895 and in 1896 they were enlarged and new works were built.
Alumina made from Greenland cryolite was at first used by the Pittsburgh Reduction Company in the manufacture of aluminum, but very soon bauxite from Alabama and Georgia was substituted and its use has produced the best results. The bauxite is to-day purified at works at East St. Louis, Illinois, owned by the Aluminum Company of America, and thence taken to the various manufacturing plants of the company and converted into pig aluminum. In 1896 the manufacture of pig aluminum at New Ken- sington was abandoned. The works at that place have since been devoted to converting pig aluminum into more or less finished forms.
The first president of the Pittsburgh Reduction Com- pany was the widely-known Pittsburgh engineer, Captain Alfred E. Hunt, who remained its president until his death in 1899. The original capital subscribed was Pittsburgh capital and the business was entirely a Pittsburgh enter- prise. Mr. Hall went to Pittsburgh in 1888, when the company was organized, and he has been identified with it ever since, at present as vice president. Since Captain Hunt's death R. B. Mellon, the well-known banker of Pitts- burgh, has been president of the company, and Arthur V. Davis, its secretary and general manager, has been its active executive head. The original capital was $20,000, but the present capital is $3,800,000.
When first put on the market aluminum was used only in the manufacture of optical instruments, dental plates, and similar light articles. In 1890 the manufacture of aluminum cooking utensils was commenced. One of the
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earlier uses of aluminum was as an alloy in the manufac- ture of steel, aluminum being added to the extent of one-tenth of one per cent., or less, to remove the dissolved gases and make the steel solid both for castings and for steel plates. It is so used to-day.
Prior to Mr. Hall's invention in 1886 the price of im- ported aluminum in our markets was not less than $15 per pound. In 1888, when the works of the Pittsburgh Reduction Company were started, the price of imported aluminum dropped to $4 per pound. A short time pre- viously the price had been $7 and $8 per pound. The Pittsburgh Reduction Company soon reduced the price of aluminum to $2 per pound, and in 1893 the price ranged from 65 to 75 cents per pound. In the early part of 1907 it was 36 cents and early in 1908 it was 33 cents.
The establishment of the aluminum industry in this country twenty years ago by the Pittsburgh Reduction Company has not only given to our country a new and useful industry, but, as has been shown above, it has greatly reduced the price of aluminum to consumers, again illustrating the truth which has been so often emphasized that prices of manufactured products always fall when we cease to be dependent on foreigners for their supply. The manufacture of aluminum is to-day one of the impor- tant and necessary industries of this country, and for its existence we are indebted first to Charles M. Hall, the inventor of the electrolytic process, next to the engineer- ing skill and executive ability of Captain Alfred E. Hunt, and lastly to the good management of Arthur V. Davis.
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CHAPTER XXV.
EARLY CHAIN AND WIRE BRIDGES.
WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA is entitled to the honor of having introduced the chain suspension bridge into our country, and at a time when it was largely an unsettled frontier part of the State. A chain bridge across Jacob's creek, which forms part of the boundary between Fayette and Westmoreland counties, was described in The Farmers Register, of Greensburg, Westmoreland county, on May 22, 1802, as follows, under the caption, "Iron Bridge."
The bridge which Judge Finley (near this place) had undertaken to erect across Jacob's creek, at the expense of Fayette and Westmoreland counties, near Judge Mason's, on the great road leading from Uniontown to Greensburg, is now completed. Its construction is on principles entire- ly new, and is perhaps the only one of the kind in the world. It is solely supported by two iron chains, extended over four piers, 14 feet higher than the bridge, fastened in the ground at the ends, describing a curve line, touching the level of the bridge in the centre. The first tier of joists are hung to the chains by iron pendants or stirrups of different lengths, so as to form a level of the whole. The bridge is of 70 feet span and 13 feet wide ; the chains are of an inch square bar, in links from five to ten feet long ; but so that there is a joint where each pendant must bear. The projector has made many experiments to ascertain the real strength of iron, and asserts that an inch square bar of tolerable iron in this position will bear between 30 and 40 tons; and, of course, less than one-eighth part of the iron employed in this bridge would be sufficient to bear the net weight thereof, being about 12 or 13 tons.
Mr. Finley embarked in this business at his own risque and engaged that the work would endure at least 50 years, (except what should be nec- essary for repairs of flooring,) for the moderate sum of 600 dollars. He farther observes that a bridge of the same width and 280 feet span would be about 50 tons weight ; the chains double as strong as the foregoing. The whole of the iron required would then amount to six tons, and say the smith work to half its value. The piers 46 feet eight inches high. These chains so placed would support 240 tons ; deduct its own weight of tim- ber, and so much of the iron as falls between the piers, say 53 tons ; re- mainder, 237 tons. Should any startle at the expense let them be informed of the bridge at the falls of the Potomack, which is but of 140 feet span, and is said to have cost at least 50,000 dollars, and materials entirely of timber, and therefore subjected to but a temporary duration.
Mr. Finley was an associate judge of Fayette county. He died in 1828. The chain bridge over Jacob's creek was built by him in 1801 and it was the first of its kind
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in this country, but it was not the first in the world. Chain bridges are said to have been used at an early day in China. Charles Bender says that in 1734 " the army of the Palatinate of Saxony, in Germany, built a chain bridge across the Oder river, near Glorywitz, in Prussia." In Johnson's Cyclopedia it is stated that "in 1741 the first European chain bridge was built in England across the Tees. It was a rude work, attracting no attention at the time, and not until 1814 did English engineers ap- ply themselves to their construction." In the meantime Judge Finley built the Jacob's creek bridge and it was followed by others in this country which were built on his plans. In 1808 James Finley, as stated by Thomas Pope, took out a patent for a "patent chain bridge."
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