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 26
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1874-At the Siberian rolling mill of Rogers & Burch- field, at Leechburg, in Armstrong county, Pennsylvania, natural gas, taken from a well 1,200 feet deep, was first used in 1874 in the manufacture of iron. For six months of this year natural gas furnished all the fuel required by this mill for puddling, heating, and making steam.
1874-The two-story bridge across the Mississippi at St. Louis was formally opened on the 4th of July of this year. It was built by the Keystone Bridge Company, of Pittsburgh, active operations having been commenced on March 19, 1868. Its centre arch is 520 feet long, and there are two other arches each 502 feet long. These arches are composed of tubes made of American steel.
1874-The Girard avenue bridge over the Schuylkill at Philadelphia was also opened to the public on July 4, 1874. It was built entirely of iron in fourteen months by Clarke, Reeves & Co., of Phoenixville. This bridge is 1,000 feet long, 100 feet wide, and is composed of five spans. When built it was the widest bridge in the world.
1874-In 1874 John Roach & Son launched for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, at their shipyard at Chester, Pennsylvania, two iron steamships, the City of Peking and the City of Tokio, twin vessels in all respects. They were each 423 feet long and had a carrying capac- ity of 5,000 tons each.
1875-The production of pig iron made with bitumi- nous coal and coke exceeded that made with anthracite.
1875-The first 60-foot rails rolled in this country were rolled by the Edgar Thomson Steel Company, at its works near Pittsburgh, in 1875, and were of steel.
1875-The Whitwell fire-brick hot-blast stove, the in- vention of Thomas Whitwell, of England, was first used in this country at Rising Fawn furnace, in Dade county, Georgia, on June 18, 1875. Its next application was at Cedar Point furnace, at Port Henry, in Essex county, New
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York, on August 12, 1875. The stoves at Cedar Point furnace were built before those at Rising Fawn furnace.
1875-The first wire nails that were made of steel wire in this country were made at Covington, Kentucky, in 1875, by Father Goebel, the pastor of St. Augustine's Catholic Church in that city, who imported a wire-nail machine from Germany. Father Goebel in the same year formed the Kentucky Wire Nail Works and ordered two more machines, he being president of the company.
1876-At the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, in 1876, the Edgar Thomson Steel Company exhibited a steel rail which at that time was the longest steel rail that had ever been rolled. It was 120 feet long and weighed 62 pounds to the yard.
1876-Malleable nickel was first made in the world in this year by Joseph Wharton from Pennsylvania nickel ore.
1877-The first set of Siemens-Cowper-Cochrane fire- brick hot-blast stoves built in this country was erected at one of the Crown Point furnaces, in Essex county, New York, in 1877; but the first set of these stoves in any part of America was erected at Londonderry, Nova Scotia, by the Steel Company of Canada, Limited, in 1876.
1878-The world's production of pig iron in 1878 was estimated by the compiler of this chronological record to have amounted to 14,118,000 gross tons, and the world's production of steel in the same year was estimated to have amounted to 3,021,000 tons.
1880-The first elevated railroad constructed in this country in connection with a regular freight and passen- ger railroad was undertaken by the Pennsylvania Rail- road Company in 1880 and finished in 1881. It consti- tutes an extension of the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad to the heart of the city of Philadelphia and is about a mile long. It was opened for freight purposes on April 25, 1881, and for passengers on December 5, 1881.
1883-The first steel suspension bridge over the East river, connecting New York with Brooklyn, was project- ed in 1865 but its construction was not actually under- taken until 1869. Its engineer was John A. Roebling, who died in this year and was succeeded by his son, Washing-
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ton A. Roebling. The bridge was completed and formally opened on May 24, 1883. The total length of the bridge and its approaches is 5,989 feet. The length of the main span is 1,595 feet. The wire cables for the bridge were made of crucible steel and some open-hearth steel, all of American manufacture.
1884-The first basic steel made in the United States was produced experimentally at Steelton, Pennsylvania, by the Pennsylvania Steel Company, on May 24, 1884, in a Bessemer converter. The steel was of excellent quality.
1884-In 1884 there were still in existence in this country four slitting mills, which were used spasmodic- ally in the conversion of plate iron into nail rods.
1886-Basic open-hearth steel was first made in this country by the Otis Iron and Steel Company, of Cleve- land .. One furnace was started on January 19, 1886.
1887-The first contract for American-made armor was made by the Navy Department with the Bethlehem Iron Company on June 1, 1887, and was for two battleships and four monitors, and called for 6,700 tons of plain steel armor, oil-tempered and annealed, at an average price of $536 per ton. But the first armor actually made under this contract was not made by this company until 1890.
1888-The manufacture of aluminum in this country was successfully established at Pittsburgh in this year by the Pittsburgh Reduction Company.
1888-The beginning of the continuous manufacture of basic steel in this country as a commercial product dates 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.
1890-The tinplate industry established in this country.
1890-In this year the United States for the first time made more pig iron than Great Britain. This leadership was steadily maintained until 1894, when it was lost, but in 1895 it was regained. In 1896 it was again lost, but it was again regained in 1897 and has since been maintained.
1890-The world's production of pig iron in this year is given in Iron in All Ages as 26,968,468 tons, and its production of steel in the same year as 12,151,255 tons.
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The percentage of pig iron produced by this country in that year was 34.1 and its percentage of steel was 35.2.
1896-The Helton Forge of W. J. Pasley, at Crumpler, Ashe county, North Carolina, was the last Catalan forge in the South to make charcoal iron bars direct from the ore. It made its last blooms in 1896.
1897-Two miles below Niagara Falls the Pennsylva- nia Steel Company, of Steelton, erected in 1897 a double- deck steel arch bridge over the Niagara river, the central arch of which is 550 feet long. This bridge and the one mentioned below are among the world's great bridges.
1897-In 1897 the A. and P. Roberts Company, of Philadelphia, erected a steel arch bridge over the Niagara river, just below the Falls. The length of the main arch span is 840 feet, and there are two approach spans of 210 feet and 190 feet respectively. The height of the bridge above the water line is 185 feet. It is 46 feet wide.
1897-First pressed steel car was built by the Schoen Pressed Steel Company, at Allegheny, Pa., in this year.
1899-In this year the British Government ordered a steel railroad bridge of American design and construc- tion, consisting of seven spans of 150 feet each, to be built across the Atbara river in the Soudan country, south of Egypt. The contract for the construction and erection of the bridge was awarded to the A. and P. Roberts Company, of Philadelphia, which rolled and fitted the steel for the bridge at its Pencoyd works. In his re- port upon the bridge in the following April Lord Cromer said : " An English firm offered to deliver the work in six and a half months at a cost of £10,490. The American firm's tender was £6,500 for delivery in forty-two days." The bridge was delivered to a British vessel at New York within the time mentioned in the contract. It was erected over the Atbara river by an erecting crew from the works of the A. and P. Roberts Company.
1899-In this year the Pennsylvania Steel Company built and erected for about $700,000 a steel viaduct 2,260 feet long and 320 feet high spanning the Gokteik Gorge, in Burma, British India, eighty miles east of Man- dalay. The steel viaduct crosses the Chungzoune river,
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which disappears into a natural tunnel just above the viaduct, the foundations of which rest partly on a natu- ral bridge formed by this tunnel. Farther down the riv- er again comes to the surface. The height from the river to the column foundations is 500 feet. The viaduct above this rises to a height of 320 feet. The bridge was erected by a crew from the Pennsylvania Steel Com- pany's works at Steelton for the Burma Railroad Com- pany. The contract was secured in competition with English bridgebuilders.
1900-Poor's Manual reports that in 1900 there were 257,853 miles of steam railroad track in the United States, including second, third, and fourth tracks, sidings, etc., and not including elevated railroads or electric roads. The same authority reports that in 1907 there were 324,033.38 miles, of which 224,382.19 miles were single track and 99,651.19 miles were second, third, and fourth tracks, sid- ings, etc. Of the total 314,713.50 miles were laid with steel rails and 9,319.88 miles were laid with iron rails.
1900-In this year the United States for the first time made more open-hearth steel than Great Britain.
1901-The Standish iron works, at Standish, Clinton county, New York, were the last works in the North to make charcoal blooms by the Catalan process direct from the ore. They were built in 1895, were last active in 1901, and were recently abandoned.
1903-The world's production of pig iron in 1903 we have estimated to have amounted to 46,368,000 tons. Of this total estimated production the United States made 18,009,252 tons, or 38.84 per cent.
1903-We have estimated the world's production of steel in 1903 to have amounted to 35,846,000 tons, of which the United States made 14,534,978 tons, or 40.55 per cent.
1905-A steel cantilever bridge, under construction in this year over the St. Lawrence river at Quebec, and to be finished in 1909, was intended to be the most remark- able structure of its kind in the world. The weight of this bridge was to be about 35,000 tons. Its total length was to be 3,300 feet. The central span of 1,800 feet was to cross the entire St. Lawrence river at a height of 150
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feet above high water and was to be the longest span in the world, the next longest span being that of the Forth Bridge in Scotland, which is 1,710 feet long. The height of the cantilever towers was 360 feet above the river. The Phoenix Bridge Company, of Phoenixville, Pennsylva- nia, received the contract for building the bridge. On Thursday, August 29, 1907, the bridge collapsed, about 80 workmen losing their lives. It was the south half that fell, all that had been erected. The abutments and piers of the bridge were not affected by the collapse. A Royal Commission of Inquiry was appointed by the Canadian Government, and on March 9, 1908, this committee pre- sented to the House of Commons an elaborate report, placing the blame for the collapse of the bridge upon the engineers who designed and approved the plan of its con- struction, but exonerating the Phoenix Bridge Company from all blame.
1906-In this year the world's production of iron ore amounted to about 125,760,000 tons, of which the Unit- ed States produced 47,749,728 tons, or 37.97 per cent .; the production of coal and lignite was 1,003,100,000 tons, of which the United States mined 369,783,284 tons, or over 36.86 per cent .; the production of pig iron was 58,- 650,000 tons, of which the United States made 25,307,- 191 tons, or 43.15 per cent .; and the production of steel ingots and castings was 51,060,000 tons, of which this country made 23,398,136 tons, or over 45.82 per cent.
1907-In 1890 this country imported 329,435 tons of tinplates and terne plates ; in 1907 it imported 57,773 tons.
1908-In 1908 the Pennsylvania Steel Company rolled grooved guard steel rails weighing 151 pounds to the yard.
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THE MUHLENBERG FAMILY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE MUHLENBERG FAMILY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
THE remainder of this volume will be devoted to sketches of some distinguished Pennsylvanians, nearly all of them Western Pennsylvanians. In this chapter we give a brief history of a family of Pennsylvania Germans which has contributed to our country as many men of prominence and distinction as any other family in any part of the United States, the justly celebrated Adams and Field families of Massachusetts not excepted.
(1.) The Rev. Heinrich Melchior Muhlenberg, D. D., the most eminent among the founders of the Lutheran Church in this country, and who is affectionately known as the Patriarch by those who have always regarded him as its real founder, was born at Eimbeck, in Hanover, Germany, on September 6, 1711. Liberally educated in German universities and subsequently ordained as a Lutheran minister he arrived in Philadelphia on November 25, 1742, to labor among the German Lutherans who had recently come to this country in large numbers. He died at his home at The Trappe, in Montgomery county, Pennsylva- nia, on October 7, 1787. He was an active minister of the Lutheran Church during the whole of his residence of forty-five years in his adopted country, in which position, as well as by reason of his exalted character and high intellectual attainments, he exercised great influence in the councils of his church and in shaping the public opinion of his day. For several years he preached in Philadelphia, but for the greater part of his active life he preached reg- ularly at The Trappe. Dr. Muhlenberg possessed execu- tive ability of a high order. He was an ardent friend of colonial independence, and because of his devotion to the patriotic cause he was subjected to much persecution and endured many privations during the Revolutionary war.
There is still standing at The Trappe, and in good condition, a stone church which was built in 1743 when
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Dr. Muhlenberg was the pastor of the Lutheran congre- gation at that place. He laid its corner-stone. Near the end of his life the degree of doctor of divinity was con- ferred upon this eminent and scholarly man by the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania. He was the master of three languages, English, German, and Dutch, which he spoke fluently, and he could also read Latin, Hebrew, Greek, French, Bohemian, and Swedish. His remains rest in the well-kept graveyard attached to the old stone church at The Trappe. There is a Muhlenberg township in Berks county which was so named in his honor.
Dr. Muhlenberg married on April 22, 1745, Anna Ma- ria, a daughter of Conrad Weiser, of Berks county, the noted representative of the provincial government in its dealings with the Indians. The doctor was the father of three gifted sons, all of whom became Lutheran ministers. These sons were John Peter Gabriel, Frederick Augustus Conrad, and Gotthilf Henry Ernestus Muhlenberg. All these sons attained honorable distinction. Like their fa- ther they were not only Lutheran ministers but they were also public-spirited citizens of commanding influence.
(2.) John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg was born at The Trappe on October 1, 1746. He and his two younger brothers, hereafter to be mentioned, were educated in part at the University of Halle, in Germany. In 1772 he be- came the pastor of a Lutheran congregation at Wood- stock, Virginia, situated in a settlement of Germans in the Shenandoah valley, most of whom had emigrated from Pennsylvania. He also ministered to other Lutheran con- gregations in this valley. In 1774 he was chosen a mem- ber of the Virginia House of Burgesses. At the outbreak of the Revolution in 1775 he was requested by Washing- ton, with whom he had become personally acquainted, to accept a colonel's commission in the Virginia Line, and this invitation he accepted. Addressing his congregation after services one Sunday he is reported to have said : " There is a time for all things-a time to preach and a time to pray, but there is also a time to fight, and that time has now come," following this remark by throwing back his clerical robe and exposing a colonel's uniform
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and reading his colonel's commission. At the door of the church he ordered the drums to beat for recruits and many members of his congregation and other Germans in the valley promptly enlisted. Nearly 300 men of the churches in the valley enlisted that day under Colonel Muhlenberg's banner. They formed part of the 8th Virginia Regiment, which was afterwards known as "the German Regiment." With Colonel Muhlenberg at its head the regiment march- ed to the relief of Charleston, South Carolina, and took part in the battle of Sullivan's Island.
Peter Muhlenberg participated with credit in many other important engagements of the Revolution. In 1777 he was commissioned a brigadier general and at the close of the war he retired from the army as a major general. He was at Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, Stony Point, Yorktown, and other places where his valor and skill were tested, and he was with his men at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777. He was a fast friend of Washing- ton during the "Conway cabal." Returning after the war to Pennsylvania, which was afterwards his home, he was in 1785 chosen vice president of the supreme executive council of that State, Benjamin Franklin being its presi- dent, and he was re-elected in 1786 and 1787. He was a member of the House of Representatives of the First and Third Congresses. In 1796 he was a Presidential elector. In 1798 he was elected a Representative in the Sixth Con- gress, serving from March 4, 1799, to March 3, 1801. On February 18, 1801, he was chosen a United States Sena- tor, but soon after taking his seat he resigned this office that he might accept the position of supervisor of the revenue for the district of Pennsylvania, an important of- fice in that day, tendered to him by President Jefferson, to whose political fortunes he was attached. In 1802 he was appointed collector of customs for the port of Phila- delphia. He died on October 1, 1807, and was buried at The Trappe beside his illustrious father. Two of his sons reflected honor on the family name after his death. Peter was a major in the regular army during our second war with Great Britain, and Francis Swaine was a Representative from Ohio in the Twentieth Congress.
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General Muhlenberg's statue is one of the two contrib- uted by Pennsylvania to Statuary Hall in the Capitol of the United States, the other being that of Robert Fulton, Muhlenberg representing the German element in the population of Pennsylvania and Fulton representing the Scotch-Irish element.
In Henry A. Muhlenberg's Life of Major General Peter Muhlenberg (1849) it is stated that "in Trumbull's paint- ing of the capitulation of Yorktown, in the rotunda of the Capitol, General Muhlenberg's is the second figure from the left and is said to be an excellent likeness." An oil portrait of the general that will arrest attention will be found among the portraits of Revolutionary worthies in Independence Hall in Philadelphia. A county in Ken- tucky was named Muhlenberg in his honor.
(3.) Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg, the sec- ond of the three sons mentioned, was born at The Trappe on January 1, 1750. Entering the Lutheran ministry his talent for public affairs soon asserted itself. Like his fa- ther and his brother Peter he was an ardent advocate of colonial independence. He was a member of the Conti- nental Congress from Pennsylvania in 1779 and 1780. In 1780 he was elected a member of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania and was Speaker of that body in 1781 and 1782. In 1787 he was a delegate to the Pennsylvania con-
vention which was called to consider the Constitution of 1787, which it ratified. He was also Speaker of that body. He was a member of the House of Representatives in the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Congresses under the new Constitution and during the whole of Washington's Ad- ministration, and was Speaker of the House in the First Congress and again in the Third Congress. In 1783 he was elected a member of the Council of Censors which was provided for under the first Constitution of Pennsylvania, adopted in 1776. In 1793 he was the unsuccessful Feder- alist candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania, receiving 10,706 votes, against 18,590 votes cast for Thomas Mifflin, the Democratic candidate. In 1796 he was again the Federalist candidate for Governor but was overwhelm- ingly defeated by Mifflin, the vote being 1,011 for Muh-
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lenberg and 30,020 for Mifflin. It is evident that in the campaign of 1796 Muhlenberg was only nominally a candidate. He died at Lancaster on June 5, 1801.
(4.) Gotthilf Henry Ernestus Muhlenberg, the youngest of the three brothers, was born at The Trappe on Novem- ber 17, 1753, and entered the Lutheran ministry at an early age. He was afterwards pastor of the Lutheran church at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for thirty-five years, from 1780 until his death in that city on May 23, 1815. He was a profound theologian and an accomplished scholar, scientific subjects absorbing his attention as far as his pastoral duties would permit. He was noted for his interest in botany, in which branch of natural history he became an authority. He was styled "the American Linnæus." He carried on an extensive correspondence with European naturalists and was a prolific writer for the public press on scientific subjects. He was a member of the American Philosophical Society and of other scien- tific societies in America and Europe. During the Revo- lution he was an active friend of the patriotic cause.
(5.) Henry Augustus Philip Muhlenberg, D. D., son of Gotthilf, was born at Lancaster on May 13, 1782, and like other members of the family entered the Lutheran ministry. He was the pastor of Trinity Lutheran church at Reading, Pennsylvania, from 1802 to 1827, when, also like others of his family, he exchanged the pulpit for po- litical office. There are few families in this country which are fitted for public life by natural endowment from gen- eration to generation and the Muhlenberg family was of this exceptional type, although all its members that have been mentioned, and others yet to be mentioned, were educated for the Christian ministry and entered upon pas- toral duties. Henry Augustus Philip was elected a Dem- ocratic Representative in Congress in 1828 and served continuously in the House by re-election from December, 1829, to February, 1838, when he resigned to become the first United States Minister to Austria, to which posi- tion he had been appointed by President Van Buren, and which office he resigned in December, 1840. Before ac- cepting the Austrian mission Mr. Muhlenberg had declined
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successively the Secretaryship of the Navy and the mis- sion to St. Petersburg which had been offered to him by Mr. Van Buren. In 1835 he headed one of two wings of the Democratic party in Pennsylvania as its candidate for Governor but was defeated. In 1844 he was the candidate of the united Democratic party for Governor and would probably have been elected if he had lived until the votes were counted, but he died at Reading on August 11 of that year. His place on the ticket was taken by Francis R. Shunk, who was elected Governor in that year and was re-elected in 1847.
Henry Augustus Philip Muhlenberg was twice married, both wives being daughters of Governor Joseph Hiester, a distinguished soldier of the Revolution, who, after a long service in Congress, was elected Governor of Pennsylvania by the Federalist party in 1820, serving three years.
Henry Augustus Muhlenberg, a son of the above-men- tioned Muhlenberg, born at Reading in 1823, was elected a member of the General Assembly in 1849 and a Repre- sentative in Congress in 1852, but died in 1854 soon after taking his seat. He was a lawyer. In 1849 he published a Life of Major General Peter Muhlenberg which contains much Revolutionary history that is both rare and valu- able. A son of this gentleman, also named Henry A. Muh- lenberg, and also a member of the bar, died at Reading on May 14, 1906. He was at one time an unsuccessful Re- publican candidate for Congress in a Democratic district.
(6.) Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, D. D., LL. D., son of Frederick Augustus Hall Muhlenberg, M. D., and grand- son of Gotthilf, was born in Lancaster on August 25, 1818, and became a Lutheran minister in early life. He was dis- tinguished as a scholar and as a college professor. He was professor of languages in Franklin College, at Lancaster, from 1839 to 1850, and of the Greek language and litera- ture in Pennsylvania College, at Gettysburg, from 1850 to 1867. In the latter year he was chosen the first president of Muhlenberg College, at Allentown, which position he filled until 1876, when he resigned to accept the Greek chair in the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, holding this position until 1888. In 1891 he accepted the
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