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 8
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of our country for the purpose of studying and enjoying its scenery, they never fail to praise it. A ride from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh over the Pennsylvania Rail- road, or from Philadelphia to Harrisburg by way of the Schuylkill and Lebanon valleys, or up the Delaware val- ley, or through the historic Wyoming valley, will reveal many extensive prospects of graceful woodland alternat- ing with cultivated fields and broad meadows as level almost as a western prairie, with constant glimpses of mountain ridges, and frequently of quiet streams to em- phasize the fact that no landscape is perfect without a lake, or river, or even a rivulet. The scenery above re- ferred to is typical of that of the whole State-placid beauty on the one hand, rugged grandeur on the other.
The journal of Rufus Putnam, who traveled with some friends from his home in Connecticut to Marietta, Ohio, in 1794 and 1795, describes in glowing terms the scenery of the Allegheny mountains in Southwestern Pennsylvania as he admiringly beheld it in December, 1794, while crossing these mountains from Somerset county to Bedford county. He says that from the top of a high mountain he looked down into a vast valley, the whole constituting "a most delightful landscape," which he describes, and then adds : "In short, the one comprehensive view was the most pic- turesque that my eyes ever beheld." The valley referred to was the upper part of the Juniata valley, threaded by the Raystown branch of the "Blue Juniata."
In the letter from William Penn to the Duke of Or- monde, written in 1683, to which we have already referred, Penn describes as follows the surface of Pennsylvania that he had seen, the crops that the land would produce, the cli- mate, and the flora and fauna with which he had become acquainted. We quote from Notes and Queries. He says :
" I thank God I am safely arrived in the province that the providence of God and bounty of the king hath made myne, and which the credit, prudence, and industry of the people concerned with me must render considerable. I was received by the ancient inhabitants with much kindness and respect and the rest brought it with them. There may be about four thousand soules in all. I speak, I think,
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within compass. We expect an increase from France, Hol- land, and Germany, as well as our native country.
" The land is generally good, well water'd, and not so thick of wood as imagin'd ; there are also many open places that have been old Indian fields. The trees that grow here are the mulberry, white and red, walnut, black, gray, and hickery, poplar, cedar, cyprus, chestnut, ash, sassafras, gum, pine, spruce, oake, black, white, red, Span- ish chestnut, and swamp, which has a leaf like a willow and is most lasting. The food the woods yield is your elks, deer, raccoons, beaver, rabbits, turkeys, pheasants, heath-birds, pigeons, and partredges, innumerably ; we need no setting dogs to ketch; they run by droves into the house in cold weather. Our rivers have also plenty of ex- cellent fish and water fowl, as sturgeon, rock, shad, herring, catfish or flatheads, sheepsheads, roach, and perch, and trout in inland streames; of fowls, the swan, white, gray, and black goose, and brands, the best duck and teal I ever ate, and the snipe and the curlue with the snow-bird are also excellent.
" The aire is sweet and cleare, which makes a sereen and steady sky, as in the more southern parts of France. Our summers and winters are commonly once in three years in extreames ; but the winters seldom last above ten weeks and rarely begin till the latter end of Decem- ber ; the days are above two hours longer and the sun much hotter here than with you, which makes some rec- ompense for the sharp nights of the winter season, as well as the woods that make cheap and great fires. We have of grain wheat, maize, rye, barley, oats, several excel- lent sorts of beans and peas, pumpkins, water and musk- melons, all English roots and garden stuff, good fruit and. excellent cider ; the peach we have in divers kinds, and very good, and in great abundance. The vine (of severall sorts and the sign with us of rich land) is very fruitful, and tho not so sweet as some I have eaten in Europe yet it makes a good wine, and the worst good vinegar. I have observed three sorts, the great grape that has green, red, and black, all ripe on the same tree, the muskedell, and black little grape which is the best, and
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may be improved to an excellent wine. These are spon- taneous. Of cattle we have the horse, not very hand- some, but good. Cow cattle and hogs in much plenty, and sheep increase apace."
In the same year, 1683, Penn wrote a letter to the Free Society of Traders, dated 16th of 8th month, to be found in Watson's Annals, in which he describes the cli- mate, field and garden products, beasts, birds, fishes, etc., of Pennsylvania in terms similar to those used in his let- ter to the Duke of Ormonde. In both letters the impres- sion is clearly conveyed that the part of Pennsylvania lying along the Delaware was very far from being an uninhabited wilderness in 1683.
Penn's favorable opinion of the climate of his province has not been confirmed by the experience of those who have come after him and who have seen more of Pennsyl- vania than he had become familiar with in 1683. The cli- mate of Philadelphia and the adjacent territory, of which he formed favorable impressions, is, however, much mild- er than that of the mountain sections of the State. A glance at the map will show that Philadelphia is not only remote from the mountains but that it is farther south than Wheeling, which was formerly known as a Southern city, within slave territory. The climate of Pennsylvania taken as a whole is really very changeable and in the win- ter months is severe and trying to delicate constitutions, although, as has been stated, its summers and autumns are delightful, except, of course, when the conjunction of high temperature and excessive humidity in the summer months creates great discomfort, especially in the large cities. In Philadelphia, with a population of a million and a half, the combination of high temperature and great hu- midity is most oppressive and the cause of great suffering. The autumn in Pennsylvania is usually pleasant, even in November, when we have Indian summer, but spring is often delayed until May. The division of the year into seasons in our almanacs is not correct for Pennsylvania or for some other parts of our country. March is not usually in this State a spring month, but a winter month, and April is proverbially capricious and often wintry. And
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yet, so changeable and uncertain is the climate of Penn- sylvania that in March, 1907, the temperature in Phila- delphia rose to 85 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, while on the 14th of June of the same year snow fell in con- siderable quantities in several of its mountain counties.
Colonel Buell comments as follows on Penn's favorable opinion of the climate of Pennsylvania: " This would not be recognized as the climate of Philadelphia and its neigh- borhood at the beginning of the twentieth century. There is probably no locality on earth where the deforestation of the surrounding country has so banefully affected the cli- mate as the tidewater estuary of the Delaware. And these malign conditions seem to culminate at the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill. In Penn's time the south winds blew over a primeval forest that covered all South Jersey. The great trees absorbed the humidity which the gulf stream spreads all along its wake, and the southerly and southeasterly breezes reached Philadelphia with all their miasma sucked out of them. Now they blow over half-tide lagoons, back-water creeks, and marshes fetid with rotting vegetation and morbific with malarial germs; or they sift through hot sand barrens, supporting a scrub growth of leafless and half-burned second-crop pine or old fields exhausted by slovenly tillage, baked by a blazing sun or steamed by hot humidity, and covered with a scant shrubbery of dwarf bushes and enfeebled briers wherever the sand-drifts will let shrubs grow. The result is a cli- mate-or rather the total absence of one-that in summer amounts to a vast gridiron for the broiling of mankind, while the so-called spring and autumn are likely to exhibit three changes of season in forty-eight hours. The alleged winter is divided into about three parts slush and one part blizzard. This is as different from the climate Penn describes as darkness differs from light, and it is all due to deforestation."
Colonel Buell's last phrase is too sweeping. There is another cause than deforestation for the excessive hu- midity of the climate of Philadelphia. In summer some of the deadly humidity of that city and its neighborhood is certainly due to the proximity of the Delaware and
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PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PENNSYLVANIA.
Schuylkill rivers, from the surface of which a vast amount of moisture is lifted into the atmosphere by the sun's hot rays. The sea breezes never reach Philadelphia.
Penn's cousin, Markham, writing home to England in December, 1681, describing Pennsylvania, says : "It is a fine country if it were not so overgrown with woods, and very healthy. Here people live to be over 100 years of age." Nearly all of Pennsylvania when it was first set- tled by white men was covered with forests. To-day it may still be said of it that it is a heavily wooded sec- tion. Most of its mountain ranges are covered with trees, and centuries must elapse before it would be possible to entirely denude these ranges. Throughout the State trees are, indeed, everywhere to be seen. Its authorities are wisely preserving great stretches of native forest which have been purchased expressly that they may not pass into the hands of the destructive lumberman.
The Appalachian system, which embraces all the east- ern mountains of the United States from Northern Maine to Alabama, attains its greatest width in Pennsylvania, and that part of it lying in this State has always pos- sessed great interest for geologists. J. D. Whitney says that in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland "the system has its greatest width and most intricate and interesting topographical features," and that "it is not until Penn- sylvania is reached that this part of the system becomes of importance." Of the topography of the Pennsylvania division of the system H. D. Rogers says : "It is a com- plex chain of long, narrow, very level mountain ridges, separated by long, narrow, parallel valleys. These ridges sometimes end abruptly in swelling knobs and sometimes taper off in long slender points. Their slopes are singu- larly uniform, being in many cases unvaried by ravine or gully for many miles; in other instances they are trench- ed at equal intervals with great regularity. Their crests are for the most part sharp, and they preserve an extraor- dinarily equable elevation, being only here and there in- terrupted by notches or gaps, .which sometimes descend to the water-level so as to give passage to the rivers. In many instances two narrow, contiguous parallel mountain
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crests unite at their extremities and inclose a narrow, oval valley, which with its sharp mountain sides bears not unfrequently a marked resemblance to a long, slender, sharp-pointed canoe." J. P. Lesley says : "Nowhere else on the known earth is its counterpart for the richness and definiteness of geographical detail. It is the very home of the picturesque in science as in scenery. Its landscapes on the Susquehanna, on the Juniata, and Po- tomac are unrivaled of their kind in the world. Equally beautiful to the artist is a faithful representation of their symmetrical, compound, and complicated curves upon a map."
Although Pennsylvania is a mountainous State, with the Appalachian system passing through all of the three divisions already mentioned, it is not noted for such tow- ering elevations as characterize many other States. In the western part of North Carolina and in the eastern part of Tennessee are to be found the highest peaks of the Appalachian system, many of which are more than twice as high as the highest peaks in Pennsylvania. Much high- er peaks than are found in Pennsylvania are also to be found in the Green mountains of Vermont, the White mountains of New Hampshire, the extreme northwestern corner of Massachusetts, and in the Adirondacks of New York. Mount Katahdin, in Maine, is also higher than any peak in Pennsylvania. A few years ago it was believed that the highest point in this State was Big Bald Knob, on the line between Somerset and Bedford counties, about fifteen and a half miles northwest from the town of Bed- ford, its elevation above tidewater being 3,000.7 feet. It has since been determined by the United States Geolog- ical Survey that there is at least one point in the Alleghe- nies in Pennsylvania that is somewhat higher than Big Bald Knob. Blue Knob, in the extreme northern part of Bedford county, is reported by the Survey to be 3,136 feet high. The highest elevations in Pennsylvania which are occupied by towns or settlements are rarely 2,000 feet above tidewater. Somerset is 2,250 feet; Cresson and Ebensburg each 2,022 feet; Gallitzin, 2,165 feet; Berlin, 2,163 feet ; and Pocahontas, in the southeastern part of
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Somerset county, is 2,660 feet. Chestnut ridge, in West- moreland and Fayette counties, is said by Professor Les- ley to be "the last mountain the traveler, going west, sees this side of the Rocky mountains." Before the traveler reaches the western boundary of Pennsylvania he will see many very high foothills of the Alleghenies, Laurel hill, west of Johnstown, as well as Chestnut ridge, rising to a great height. In the Youghiogheny valley, southeast of Pittsburgh, are very high mountain ridges.
Of the rivers of Pennsylvania it is sufficient to quote the following description : " The Susquehanna, a river of great length, rises far northward, in New York, and takes a devious course through Pennsylvania into Chesapeake bay. The Juniata flows eastward into the Susquehanna, through a region of great beauty. The point where the Delaware breaks through the Blue ridge, known as the Water Gap, is famed for its bold scenery. The river rush- es through a deep gorge between perpendicular cliffs more than a thousand feet high. The Delaware forms the east- ern boundary of the State and receives the Schuylkill at Philadelphia. In the west the Allegheny river, flowing from the north, and the Monongahela, from the south, unite to form the Ohio, thus opening navigation to the Mississippi." The writer might have added that the Le- high, as a tributary of the Delaware, the Kiskiminitas and the Clarion, as tributaries of the Allegheny, and the Youghiogheny, as a tributary of the Monongahela, are also important streams. Few Pennsylvania rivers are naviga- ble for any considerable distance without artificial aid.
None of the lakes of Pennsylvania are large, nor, as has been said, are there many of them. They are most numerous in the northern part of the State. Conneaut lake, in Crawford county, is the most important. It is a beautiful sheet of water, about four miles long by about two miles wide. There are two other small lakes in the same county. Probably the next most important lake is Promised Land lake, in Pike county, which is several miles in circumference and a mile or two wide. There are a number of other lakes in Pike county and in Wayne county, which adjoins Pike, that rival in scenic beauty the
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famous lakes of Switzerland and Scotland. Harvey's lake, in Luzerne county, is about one and a half miles long by about half a mile wide. As is well known, only a small part of the coast line of Lake Erie, five or six miles long, was included in the original boundaries of Pennsylvania. It was not until 1792 that the triangular piece of land which embraces the present coast line of Pennsylvania on Lake Erie was acquired from the United States for the sum of $151,640.25. The Indian title to the triangle had been purchased by Pennsylvania from Cornplanter and other chiefs of the Six Nations in 1789 for $6,000. The triangle embraces 202,187 acres.
Henry Gannett, the geographer of the United States Geological Survey, advises us that revised measurements and computations show that the total area of Pennsyl- vania amounts to 45,126 square miles, of which 44,832 miles represent the land surface and 294 miles the water surface. Many other States, both old and new, exceed Pennsylvania in area. We are also advised by Mr. Gan- nett that the extreme length of Pennsylvania from its western boundary at the West Virginia line to the most easterly bend in the Delaware river is 305 miles, and that its width from Mason and Dixon's line northward to the southern boundary of New York is 157 miles.
It is worthy of note that Western Pennsylvania, be- ginning at the summit of the Alleghenies in Cambria, Somerset, and Bedford counties, is really in the Ohio valley. All its streams flow westward, and their waters, after uniting to form the Ohio river at Pittsburgh, even- tually reach the Gulf of Mexico.
As incidental to the physical characteristics of Penn- sylvania its population may be again referred to. The census of 1900 gives the population of Pennsylvania in that year as amounting to 6,302,115, which was only exceeded by that of New York, with a population of 7,268,894. The population of Pennsylvania in 1908 is certainly above 7,500,000. Of this total considerably over 1,000,000 are foreign born.
In connection with the general subject of this chapter we append a list of the sixty-seven counties of Pennsyl-
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PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PENNSYLVANIA.
vania, with the date of their formation by the General Assembly. This list has been verified for this chapter by the Hon. Henry Houck, Secretary of the Department of Internal Affairs of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
1. Adams, January 22, 1800, formed from a part of York.
2. Allegheny, September 24, 1788, formed from a part of Westmoreland and Washington.
3. Armstrong, March 12, 1800, formed from a part of Allegheny, West- moreland, and Lycoming.
4. Beaver, March 12, 1800, formed from a part of Allegheny and Wash- ington.
5. Bedford, March 9, 1771, formed from a part of Cumberland.
6. Berks, March 11, 1752, formed from a part of Philadelphia, Chester, and Lancaster.
7. Blair, February 26, 1846, formed from a part of Huntingdon and Bedford.
8. Bradford, February 21, 1810, formed from a part of Luzerne and Ly- coming. Previous to March 24, 1812, this county was called Ontario, but its name was changed to Bradford on that day.
9. Bucks, one of the original counties of the Province. This county was one of the three original counties established in 1682 at the first set- tlement of the Province, the other two being Philadelphia and Chester. Bucks county was first called Buckingham, and it was so styled by William Penn in a letter to the Free Society of Traders, written on August 6, 1683, to be found in Janney's Life of William Penn.
10. Butler, March 12, 1800, formed from a part of Allegheny.
11. Cambria, March 26, 1804, formed from a part of Huntingdon, Somer- set, and Bedford.
12. Cameron, March 29, 1860, formed from a part of Clinton, Elk, McKean, and Potter.
13. Carbon, March 13, 1843, formed from a part of Northampton and Monroe.
14. Centre, February 13, 1800, formed from a part of Mifflin, Northumber- land, Lycoming, and Huntingdon.
15. Chester, one of the original counties established at the first settlement of the Province.
16. Clarion, March 11, 1839, formed from a part of Venango and Armstrong.
17. Clearfield, March 26, 1804, formed from a part of Lycoming, Hunting- don, and Northumberland.
18. Clinton, June 21, 1839, formed from a part of Lycoming and Centre.
19. Columbia, March 22, 1813, formed from a part of Northumberland.
20. Crawford, March 12, 1800, formed from a part of Allegheny.
21. Cumberland, January 27, 1750, formed from a part of Lancaster.
22. Dauphin, March 4, 1785, formed from a part of Lancaster.
23. Delaware, September 26, 1789, formed from a part of Chester.
24. Elk, April 18, 1843 formed from a part of Jefferson, Clearfield, and McKean.
25. Erie, March 12, 1800, formed from a part of Allegheny.
26. Fayette, September 26, 1783, formed from a part of Westmoreland.
27. Forest, April 11, 1848, formed from a part of Jefferson and Venango. Part of Venango added by act approved October 31, 1866.
28. Franklin, September 9, 1784, formed from a part of Cumberland.
29. Fulton, April 19, 1850, formed from a part of Bedford.
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30. Greene, February 9, 1796, formed from a part of Washington.
31. Huntingdon, September 20, 1787, formed from a part of Bedford.
32. Indiana, March 30, 1803, formed from a part of Westmoreland and Lycoming.
33. Jefferson, March 26, 1804, formed from a part of Lycoming.
34. Juniata, March 2, 1831, formed from a part of Mifflin.
35. Lackawanna, August 21, 1878, formed from a part of Luzerne.
36. Lancaster, May 10, 1729, formed from a part of Chester.
37. Lawrence, March 20, 1849, formed from a part of Beaver and Mercer.
38. Lebanon, February 16, 1813, formed from a part of Dauphin and Lan- caster.
~39. Lehigh, March 6, 1812, formed from a part of Northampton.
40. Luzerne, September 25, 1786, formed from a part of Northumberland.
41. Lycoming, April 13, 1795, formed from a part of Northumberland.
42. McKean, March 26, 1804, formed from a part of Lycoming.
43. Mercer, March 12, 1800, formed from a part of Allegheny.
44. Mifflin, September 19, 1789, formed from a part of Cumberland and Northumberland.
45. Monroe, April 1, 1836, formed from a part of Northampton and Pike.
46. Montgomery, September 10, 1784, formed from a part of Philadelphia.
47. Montour, May 3, 1850, formed from a part of Columbia.
48. Northampton, March 11, 1752, formed from a part of Bucks.
49. Northumberland, March 21, 1772, formed from parts of Lancaster, Cumberland, Berks, Bedford, and Northampton.
50. Perry, March 22, 1820, formed from a part of Cumberland.
51. Philadelphia, one of the three original counties established at the first settlement of the Province.
52. Pike, March 26, 1814, formed from a part of Wayne.
53. Potter, March 26, 1804, formed from a part of Lycoming.
54. Schuylkill, March 1, 1811, formed from a part of Berks and Northamp- ton.
55. Snyder, March 2, 1855, formed from a part of Union.
56. Somerset, April 17, 1795, formed from a part of Bedford.
57. Sullivan, March 15, 1847, formed from a part of Lycoming.
58. Susquehanna, February 21, 1810, formed from a part of Luzerne.
59. Tioga, March 26, 1804, formed from a part of Lycoming.
60. Union, March 22, 1813, formed from a part of Northumberland.
61. Venango, March 12, 1800, formed from a part of Allegheny and Ly- coming.
62. Warren, March 12, 1800, formed from a part of Allegheny and Lycoming.
63. Wayne, March 21, 1798, formed from a part of Northampton.
64. Washington, March 28, 1781, formed from a part of Westmoreland.
65. Westmoreland, February 26, 1773, formed from a part of Bedford, and in 1785 part of the purchase of 1784 was added thereto.
66. Wyoming, April 4, 1842, formed from a part of Luzerne.
67. York, August 19, 1749, formed from a part of Lancaster.
Down to 1800 Lycoming county embraced a large part of Northern and Northwestern Pennsylvania, after which year it became the parent of many counties. At an ear- lier day Cumberland was the mother of many counties
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PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PENNSYLVANIA.
in Central and Western Pennsylvania. Bedford has also been the mother of many counties. It will be seen that the original name of Bucks county was Buckingham, and that the original name of Bradford county was Ontario, but why it should have been called Ontario is a mystery.
The names of the counties of Pennsylvania have been felicitously chosen. They are all euphonious and nearly all are appropriate. Many of them are properly of Eng- lish derivation. Others are constant reminders of the services of distinguished soldiers and statesmen of Penn- sylvania and the whole country, and particularly in the Revolutionary period. Many are of Indian origin. Not one is borrowed from Greece or Rome. It is noteworthy that only one county, Snyder, has a distinctively German name. Only one, Schuylkill, suggests the Dutch element in the population of Pennsylvania. One, Cambria, is a' reminder of the Welsh element. In addition to Fayette county, named after the marquis, two other counties are of French origin, Dauphin and Luzerne. Montour is of mixed Indian and French origin, receiving its name from Catherine Montour, a half-breed. Beaver and Elk coun- ties preserve the names of two of the native animals of Pennsylvania. Fulton county is a reminder that the in- vention of the steamboat was perfected by a Pennsylvanian. Huntingdon county preserves the name of an English lady, the Countess of Huntingdon, who was a benefactor of the University of Pennsylvania. Two counties, Philadelphia and Lebanon, have Bible names. Columbia, Centre, Car- bon, and Forest counties need no explanation. The whole list of the counties contains only beautiful names.
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