USA > Pennsylvania > Lackawanna County > The Wyoming Valley, upper waters of the Susquehanna, and the Lackawanna coal-region : including views of the natural scenery of northern Pennsylvania : from the Indian occupancy to the year 1875 > Part 12
USA > Pennsylvania > Susquehanna County > Susquehanna > The Wyoming Valley, upper waters of the Susquehanna, and the Lackawanna coal-region : including views of the natural scenery of northern Pennsylvania : from the Indian occupancy to the year 1875 > Part 12
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1788. In Huntington township a Mr. Hop- kins built a saw-mill, in addition to a grist-mill, on the Huntington creek.
1789. On Black creek, in Black Creek town- ship, William Idenes built a saw-mill, and was among the first to build log cabins in that section.
1795. Samuel Marvin built a saw-mill on Whitsley's creek, in Plymouth township.
1797. Harvey D. Walker built a grist and saw mill about one mile from Nescopeck village.
1799. The Messrs. Slocum built a saw mill in Slocum Hollow, or Capouse, now Scranton, on Roaring Brook.
1800. On Bear Creek, in Bear Creek township, the first saw mill was built. In 1807 i was owned by Oliver Helme.
1802. Isaac Benscotter erected the first saw mill on the Shickshiny Creek, in Union township.
1804. James Brown erected a saw mill on the outlet of Chapman's Lake, in Scott township.
1806. James Dean and William Clark erected the first saw mills on the Tunkhannock Creek, in Abington township.
In Buck township, Hugh Connor, in 1806, built a saw mill on the site of Stoddartsville.
1810. The first saw mill in Hazle was erected on Hazle Creek, and stood where the borough of Hazleton now stands.
In the same year John Cawley built a saw mill on the Nescopeck Creek, in Sugar Loaf township.
1813. Dallas township had its first saw mill built by Jude Baldwin on a branch of Toby's- Creek.
1820. James Wright, one of the first settlers, built the first saw mill in Wright township, on the Wapwallopen Creek.
1836. Spring Brook township was the last of the list to crect a saw mill. Henry Yeager built onc on Rattlesnake Creek in the above year.
As early as 1810 the settlers had become amazingly modernized. The "City of Rome" scheme was an example of the tendency of the growing settlements, which was carried out in somewhat this wise :
Buck township and those adjoining are cov . ered with the Great Swamp, famous in the ear- lier history of the settlements as the "Shades of Death," through which the fugitives from the defeat at Wyoming were compelled to wend their flight. A number of Philadelphia specu- lators, who acted in conjunction with a few near the locality, laid out on paper a prospective city with the above classic title. A president and eighteen councilmen were chosen, and extensive regulations were printed which should govern the future emporium. Several were induced to purchase lots, and not until the "Gleaner," a pa- per of Wilkes-Barre, had exposed the fraud, did the scheme fall through.
But few of the genuine old stock remain in the different townships, and the number is lamenta- bly decreasing. The stock, wherever it is seen, convinces the student of human nature that ster - ling worth and model integrity were marked characteristics in the general "make-up," and wofully in contrast with too many of their direct descendants.
CHAPTER XVI.
NAY AUG FALLS.
""Langh of the monntain !- lyre of bird and tree ! Pomp of the meadow ! mirror of the morn!
The sonl of April, unto whom are born
The rose aud jessamine, leaps wild in thee ! Althongh, where'er thy devious current strays,
The lap of earth with gold and silver teems, To me thy clear proceeding brighter seems Than golden sands, that charm each shepherd's gaze. How without guile thy bosom all transparent
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As the pure crystal, lets the curious eye
Thy secrets scan, thy smooth, round pebbles count!
How, without malice murmuring, glides thy current !
O sweet simplicity of days gone by ! Thou shun'st the haunts of man, to dwell in limpid fount !
-The Brook, from the Spanish. Longfellow.
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The city of Scranton, being thoroughly busi- ness like in its character, cannot boast of time- honored resorts or magnificent parks, but outside of the corporation limits, may be seen the origi- nal stamp of nature in the forest, along the . brooks and rills, and of these, within a pleasant evening's walk may be found Nay-Aug Falls.
This pleasant retreat in the "forest primeval" received its name from Dr. Hollister, the histo- rian of the Lackawanna Valley, who has kindly furnished this work the following sketch :
No minor stream in the Lackawanna Valley excites more interest or enjoys a wider reputa- tion than does Nay-Aug or Roaring Brook. Emerging from the spongy suminit of the Moosic twenty miles away from the Delaware, and lead- ing a jolly life under the shadows of the beech and maple for as many more, it turns its slack- ened waters into the bosom of the Lackawanna at Scranton. From its source through all its windings to its mouth, this stream is rapid and forever dinning the woods with the sound of its water falls. To this fact may be attributed its Indian name Nay-Aug, or Nau- Yaug, signifying in the vernacular of the wild man, a noisy or roaring brook.
When the hills of Drinker's Beach were sleep-
ing in a forest set off admirably with foliage and shade, Roaring Brook, carrying its swift current along rugged yet fertile acres, greeted the earliest settlers with the favorable features of its water privileges.
Half a mile south east of Scranton beyond view and yet within its limits, lies Nay-Aug falls. Centuries ago when the volume of Roaring Brook was evidently much greater than it is now, and the rocks had not been washed away leaving a deep watery chasm two hundred feet in length, the Falls were really grand. Now they are simply beautiful and picturesque. The fern covered precipice seen to the right, over which the current found its way centuries ago, rises np a hundred feet from the basin, slanting off at its water base and approximating the opposite ledge to such an extent that daring jumpers hare crossed it with a single leap. The unbroken falls are twenty feet in height, and yet as the visitor stands on the damp rocks watching the foamy current pouring itself into the abyss with one white sheet, then taking a tranquil place in the long dark basin at the foot of the falls where sunbeams never enter, he witnesses a scene irresistibly charming. The intrusion of the D. L. & W. Railroad upon one side and the en- croachment of the Gas and Water Company up-
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NAY-AUG FALLS.
on the other, detract very sensibly from the natural attractiveness of the falls.
The sad and melancholy fate of Miss Marietta Brandow, of Conesville, Schoharic Co., N. Y., at Nay-Aug Falls, July 7th 1869, will long be asso- ciated with them. "A party of a dozen young ladies" says H. W. Chase then the polished and popular local of the Scranton Republican, "went down on a pic-nic excursion. When near the fails, on the east side of the brook, a man scared the girls by making (as one of them said) un- gentlemanly motions to them. Upon this they ran along the bank, some of them saying "don't go that way, if he follows us we can't get away." But it seems they went on and quite close to the brink of the bank, which was very steep and high. One of the girls, Emma Young, went so near that she slipped down close to the water. Several ran to help, and among them was Miss Brandow. When close to the edge, she slipped
down feet first into the madly rushing brook, which was there swift, narrow and deep. In an instant she was swept down the current and over the falls, a descent of some thirty or forty fcet. As she went down, face upwards, she threw up her hands, called for help in the most agonizing manner, and went over, with a pleading expres- sion of face which will never be forgotten by those who saw it. The feelings of those who saw the accident can be imagined but not de- scribed. Utterly powerless to aid on account of the precipitous character of the banks they could only look on and witness Marietta's struggles in the whirlpool below. She is said to have strug- gled nobly against her fate, and to have attempt- ed swimming to keep herself above the foaming, seething water. She was whirled around in the eddy, crying for help as long as she had voice, but in a short time she was beyond relief."
CHAPTER XVII.
THE "STOURBRIDGE LION"-THE FIRST LOCOMOTIVE EVER PLACED UNON A RAILROAD TRACK ON THE AMERICAN CONTINENT.
"Stern tide of human Time! through what mysterious change Of hope and fear have our frail barks been driven ! For ne'er, before, vicissitude so strange Was to one race of Adam's offspring given."
To Northeastern Pennsylvania is due the credit of introducing upon the American conti- nent the first Locomotive ever placed upon a track, and the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company is entitled to all the honor which at- taches thereto.
The pertinacity with which different parts of the country clamour for this distinction is remarka- bly ludicrous, and the many variegated pen pic- tures of the first locomotive engine are astound- ingly presumptuous, yet well calculated to lead the reader astray.
It is proposed herein, to give the facts in such a form as will render the discernment an easy effort, still it will be attempted to make the search as thorough as space will allow.
Much confusion arises from the admission that railroads were built in other sections than in Northern Pennsylvania somewhat carlier, but the reader will please observe that railroads are by no means modern institutions; it is the steam motive power which is here claimed as applied to railroads which marks this section of country first in the order of events. The idea of moving heavy substances on tracks laid down was known and practiced, according to Diodorus Siculus, by the Egyptians at the building of the Pyramids. The railway proper, however, doubtless originat- ed in the coal districts of the North of England and of Wales, where it was found useful in facil- itating the transport of coals from the pits to the shipping places.
Next carts were used, and tramways of flag- stone were laid, along which they were easily hauled. Then pieces of planking were laid par- allel upon wooden sleepers, or imbedded in the ordinary track. In 1676 this practice of laying wooden rails had been extensively adopted. They were formed with a rounded upper surface, like a projecting moulding, and the wagon wheels being "made of cast iron, and hollowed in the manner of a metal pulley," readily fitted the rounded surface of the rails. These rude wood - en tracks were the germ of the modern railroad. Soon thin plates of iron carre to be nailed upon the upper surface of the rails, to protect the part most exposed to friction. From this arrange- ment the transition was natural to the system of cast iron rails, which were first laid in 1738, at Whitehaven, England, the power used being the horse, while the first successful engine built by the Stephensons did not appear until 1825. "
Steam had been used prior upon the water, and was in use at this time upon the steamers plying upon the river Tyne.
Richard Trevethick's high pressure engine, if it may be termed a success, appeared February 21st, 1804, on the Merthyr tramway in Corn- wall, Wales, but with this as with the many at- tempts of the Stephensons, the world was with- out a locomotive engine of endorsed availability until the prize of £500 offered by the Directors. of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, was carried off in triumph at the trial on the 6th of
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THE STOURBRIDGE LION.
October, 1829, by Stephenson's "Rocket."
The news of this triumph was received over the civilized world with joy, and nowhere with greater enthusiasm than in America, where were in construction two coal roads and two impor- tant railroads.
Quincy, Massachusetts, built the first railroad in the United States. It was three miles in length and extended from the granite-quarry of the place to the Neponset River. It was com- menced in 1827, the rails being five feet apart, of pine, a foot deep, covered with an oak plate, and these were overlaid with fiat bars of iron. The whole was built with granite sleepers, seven and a half feet long, laid eight feet apart.
The second railroad was built in the spring of 1827, extending from the coal mines in Mauch Chunk, to the Lehigh River, a distance of nine miles. The cars descended by gravity and were hauled up again by mules.
In the year following, 1828, the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company sought to connect their coal mines west and south of Honesdale with the canal, at the latter place, and during the year the road was completed.
On July 4th of the same year the first sod was broken for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and before the same year closed the South Carolina Railroad was in process of construction.
Among the few enterprising men who repaired to Europe to witness the experiment of the dif- ferent locomotives for the prize, were Mr. E. L. Miller, of Charleston, South Carolina, who was interested in railroad matters in his own quarter, and Horatio Allen, esq., late assistant engineer upon the Delaware and Hudson Canal and Rail- road, who was also on a mission of interest for this part of the state. While in Europe, Mr. Allen received instructions from John B. Jervis, esq., the chief engineer of the Delaware and Hudson Canal and Railroad Company to contract for the iron for the road which had just been graded, and also for three locomotives.
The instructions were carried out by Mr. Allen while in England, and after purchasing the first of the three engines, which was the "Stourbridge Lion," he ordered it shipped to New York, where
it landed from the ship John Jay, at the wharf of the West Point Foundery Works, foot of Beach street, about the middle of May, 1829.
Here it was set up in the yard, and stcam put to it from the works, where it was visited by thousands who flocked to see the wonder go through its motions.
The Morning Courier and New York Enquir- er, of June 12th, 1829, contains the following notice :
"Locomotive-Engines .- We yesterday attend - ed the first exhibition of a locomotive-engine, ealled 'The Lion,' imported by the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, to be used upon their railway. On Wednesday the engine just import- ed was tried, and gave such general satisfaction, that the present exhibition was unanimously at- tended by gentlemen of science and particular intelligence. The engine was put up in Mr. Kimball's manufactory, by Horatio Allen, esq., who went to England to purchase it for the com- pany, and it gives us great satisfaction to say that the most important improvements which have lately been made in the construction of these engines originated with him. It is nine , horse power, having a boiler sixteen and a half eet long, with two cylinders, each of three-feet- stroke. It is calculated to propel from sixty to eighty tons, at five miles per hour. The power is applied to each wheel at about twelve inches from the centre, and the adhesive power of the wheel arising from the weight of the engine, will give locomotion to the whole structure.
"The steam was raised by the Lackawaxen coal, and sustained (although there was no fric- tion) at between forty and fifty pounds to the inch.
"We were much delighted with the perform- ance of the engine, and have no doubt that the enterprising company to whom it belongs will reap a rich reward for their enterprise and perse- verance.
"Pleased as we were, however, with the en- gine, we were much more pleased with the prac- tical demonstration offered, of the importance and usefulness of the coal which the company propose to bring to market. It is now reduced
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THE WYOMING VALLEY.
to a certainty that the Lackawaxen coal will generate steam in sufficient quantity to answer all the purposes to which it is applied, and tbis fact is not only of great importance to the com- pany, but it is worth millions to our State."
From the files of the Dundaff Republican, published at that village, in Susquehanna Coun- ty, Pennsylvania, the following is found under date of July 23d, 1829, announcing the arrival of the "Stourbridge Lion" via. Delaware and Hudson Canal :
"The boats begin to arrive with the traveling engines and railroad machinery ; all is bustle and business. The engine intended for this end of the road is a plain, stout work of immense height weighing about seven tons, and will travel four miles per bour, with a train of thirty to thirty- six carriages, loaded with two tons of coal each. The engine is called the 'Stourbridge Lion', its boiler being built something in the shape of that animal, and painted accordingly. Now imagine to yourself the appearance of that animal, the body at least twelve feet- in length and five in diameter, traveling at the rate of four or five miles per hour, together with a host of young ones in train, and you will bave some idea of tbe scene before us ; but the enchantment is broken, and in a few days the whole will be set in mo- tion, and we will now give you information that, when the whole is in operation, we shall give a general notice that we intend to bold a day of rejoicing on the completion of the same, and · shall give a general invitation to our fellow-citi- zens to attend. +
"We have procured a large cannon, and in- tend to station it on the top of the high peak, to sound on the occasion."
"A STRICT OBSERVER."
Horatio Allen, esq., who made the purchase 'in England, was the first to attempt to run it after being placed upon the track.
At a railroad celebration at Dunkirk, in 1851, which was the occasion of the completion of the New York and Erie Railroad, Mr. Allen made a speech, a portion of which bas gone the rounds of nearly all the papers of America, and is as follows :
"Having occupied your time with these state- ments of perhaps no great interest, but the omis- sion of which would have been an act of injustice, I have thought that, on this great railroad occasion, a reference to some of the incidents in the early railroad history of this country might. be appreciated. To bring before you as strik- ingly as in my power, it has occurred to me to Icad your imagination to the conception of the scene which would present itself if, on some fine morning, you were placed at an elevation, and gifted for the moment with a power of vision which would command the railroad movements of the whole United States. There would be presented an exciting picture of activity, in a thousand iron horses starting forth from the various railroad centres, or traversing the surface of the continent inalldirections. When the im- agination has attained to some conception of the scene, let us seek to go back to the time when only one of these iron monsters was in existence on this continent, and was moving forth, the first of his mighty race. When was it ? Where was it ? and who awakened its energics and directed its energies ? It was in the year 1829, on the banks of the Lackawaxen, at the commencement of the railroad connecting the canal of the Dela- ware and Hudson Company with their coal mines, and he who addresses you was the only person on that locomotive.
"The circumstances which led to my being left alone were these : The road had been built in the summer, the structure was of hemlock timber, and the rails of large dimensions, notched on to caps placed far apart. The timber had cracked and warped, from exposure to the sun. After about five bundred feet of straight line, tbe road crossed the Lackawaxen crcek on a trestle-work about thirty feet high and with a curve of three hundred and fifty or four hudndre feet radius. The impression was very general that the iron monster would either break down the road or that it would leave the track at the curve and plunge into the creek. My reply to such apprehension was, that it was too late to consider the probability of such occurences ; that there was no other course but to have the trial
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THE STOURBRIDGE LION.
made of the strange animal which had been brought here at such great expense, but that it was unnecessary that more than one should be involved in its fate ; that I would take the first ride alone, and that the time would come when I should look back to this incident with great interest. As I placed my hand on the throttle- valve handle, I was undecided whether I would move slowly or with a fair degree of speed; but believing that the road would prove safe, and prefering that if we did go down, to go down handsomely and without anyevidence of timidity, I started with considerable velocity, passed the curve in safety, and was soon out of hearing of the cheers of the large assemblage present. At the end of two or three miles, I reversed the valves and returned without accident to the place of starting, having thus made the first railroad trip by locomotive on the Western Hemisphere."
Mr. Wm. H. Brown, author of "The First Locomotive in America," says of the "Stour- bridge Lion" that "although the engine proved to be impracticable under the circumstances, it was caused by no defect in its construction, or the principle involved, nor from a lack of power and ability to perform all the duties that might have been required ; but from this cause alone that the road had not been built to sustain such a weight as it was called upon to bear when this new instrument of power was placed upon it. The road had been constructed for horse-power alone, as all other roads were in this country at that early period, and for a long time after even in England. No idea of a locomotive had been conceived in this country."
Mr. David Mathew, who had charge of the men who were employed to fit up the engine when it arrived in New York, and had been landed at the works of the West Point Foundery, thus describes this early wonder :
"The 'Stourbridge Lion' was a four-wheeled engine, all drivers, with all four, wheels connect- ed by pins in the wheels. The boiler was a round, cylindrical one; no drop part for the furnace, and the smoke-box had a well painted lion's head on it. The cylinders were vertical, placed at the back, and each side of the furnace,
with grasshopper-beams and connecting rods- from them to the crank pins in the wheels. The: back wheels and the side rods between them and. the front wheels; the front end of the beams were supported by a pair of radius rods which formed the parallel motion. This engine was built by Foster, Rastrick & Company, at Stour- bridge, England."
The engine was abandoned by the company: because of the defect of the track, and for some- time was housed under a rough shed, whence it- was finally taken to be distributed in parts where it could serve some purpose. The boiler was put. to use in Carbondale, and different parts were appropriated by individuals as relics.
Steuben Jenkins, esq., of Wyoming, the inde- fatigable antiquarian student, has in his vast collection of memorials one of the steam chests, while Mr. John B. Smith, of the Pennsylvania Coal Company, has thej other at his home in Dunmore.
The illustration which we give is a photograph from an India ink drawing of the original, which was executed expressly for this work by Corne- lius Brinckerhoff, an architect and civil engineer of Scranton, whose ability and accuracy in all his works stamp him as eminently proficient, and upon whose skill we base our guaranty that the design is exact in every particular.
Before dismissing the subject of , Locomotives, it is deemed judicious to copy herein an able article upon the railroads of the present day, and their prospects for the future, which appeared a few months ago in the New York Independentį:
"No fact has had a wider influence upon the business and material progress of this country than the growth of railways within the last forty years. In 1829 there was scarcely a single mile of railway in all the land; and in 1830 only twenty-three miles of line were opened. In 1848 we had five thousand nine hundred and ninety-six miles of line completed, ;showing an average increase of three hundred and ten miles per annum, from the commencement. In 1860 the system had expanded to thirty thousand six hundred and thirty-five miles, advancing, for the previous twelve years, at the annual rate of two .
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THE WYOMING VALLEY.
thousand and fifty-three miles. The war greatly retarded this progress, especially at the South ; and yet the aggregate addition, up to the end of 1868, was eleven thousand six hundred and forty-nine miles in eight years, averaging one thousand four hundred and fifty-five miles for each year, and giving a total of forty-two thousand two hundred and fifty-five miles for the whole country. In 1868 the increase was two thousand nine hundred and seventy-nine mnilcs ; which, with one exception, was greater than the increase of any previous year. During the past year the estimated increase is five thousand miles. Since, and including the year 1865, the year when the war closed, about thirteen thousand miles of railway have been constructed. The total mileage, as the figures now stand, amounts to forty-seven thousand two hundred and fifty-five miles.
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"On January 1, 1869, the six New England States had four thousand and nineteen miles of railway, the six Middle States had nine thousand seven hundred and sixty-five miles, the ten Western States had sixteen thousand eight hundred and eighty-nine miles, the twelve Southern States had ten thousand six hundred and ninety-three miles, and the three Pacific States had eight hundred and cighty-nine miles of road. Pennsylvania was the 'banner' State as to railroad mileage-having four thousand three hundred and ninety-eight miles on Jannary 1, 1869. Illinois stood next on the list, having three thousand four hundred and forty miles ; and Ohio and New York werc about equal, cach having about three thousand four hundred miles. In proportion to the number of square miles of territory, Massachusetts was far in ad- vance of any other State, having one thousand four hundred and fifty miles of road to seven thousand eight hundred square miles, or an aver- age of one mile of road to every five hundred and forty-seven square miles-a ratio which if extend- ed to the whole United States, would give six hundred thousand miles of railway. The cost of all these roads, as compiled at the close of 1868,
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