Twentieth century history of Altoona and Blair County, Pennsylvania, and representative citizens, Part 17

Author: Sell, Jesse C 1872-
Publication date: 1911
Publisher: Chicago, Richmond-Arnold Publishing
Number of Pages: 1036

USA > Pennsylvania > Blair County > Altoona > Twentieth century history of Altoona and Blair County, Pennsylvania, and representative citizens > Part 17

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in sections to fit on trucks which were sub- merged in the canal and the sections se- curely fastened and drawn across the moun- tain where they were dumped into the water and again coupled together to float to their destination.

It was quite an honor in those days to be a captain, and he was addressed by that ap- pellation. As the boat approached the towns and locks, its coming was heralded by the blowing of the horn. The captain or one at his signal would place the mouthpiece to his lips and the loudness of his toots de- pended upon the strength of his lungs.

When the canal was superceded by the railroad, its period of activity having been about twenty years, and the captains' serv- ices were needed no more, time turning their locks to silver, they delighted to tell of their exepriences in the part they played in our country's development. Like most of our frontiersmen they committed but little of their doings to writing and doubtless many things of interest and importance are either entirely lost or have become a matter of vague tradition. The survivors have an organization known as the Pennsylvania Canal Boatman's Association, which meets once a year to revive the memories of the old days. Mr. Blain McCormick, a retired Pennsylvania railroad trainmaster, is one of the few surviving canal men residing in Blair county and he takes a conspicuous part in the work of the association, having served for a time as its president.

The old reservoir of the canal company, lo- cated a mile and a half south of Hollidays- burg, and extending southward over two miles, was built by Contractor Henry L. Patterson. The construction work was be- gun in 1839, and it was completed in four years. It was looked upon as a stupendous piece of work, as methods of construction in those days were very crude. The fact that it successfully held back such an enor- mous volume of water for forty years, and was then opened, mainly for other reasons, substantiates the stability of the work.

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It was built for the purpose of harboring water to feed the canal, which terminated at a point near where the grist mill of C. E. Lingafelt now stands in Gaysport. The feeder, or race, from the reservoir entered the canal at a point where the Pennsylvania railroad company's round house now stands at East Hollidaysburg. Through the force of its waters, the great artificial commercial waterway did splendid work for more than a generation.

The reservoir was built purely for com- mercial purposes, and not until there was talk of drawing its waters, did anyone con- ceive of building a summer resort on its banks. There were numerous cabins for fishermen on its banks, and Jacob Wise, the care-taker, had erected a pretentious house at its breast. Fishing in those days was al- lowed in any manner, and it was a common- place event in the later years of its existence to see wagon-loads of fish hauled to the mar- kets of Hollidaysburg and Altoona, which. had been caught within its waters by seine, dip or stirnet, shingle lines and other de- vices.

When the reservoir was built, George W. Smith, of Pittsburg, financed the affair, and was partly through his demand for his money that the reservoir was opened. The main body of the reservoir was on land pur- chased by the Pennsylvania Canal company from the McCuens and the balance was on lands leased from Dr. Peter Shoenberger.

The freshets in the early spring fre- quently backed the water on lands to which the canal company had no title, and the Pennsylvania railroad company, its succes- sors, in the autumn of 1882 ordered one Gaten a track foreman, to cut the breast of the dam down so that the water would re- cede from the leased Shoenberger lands, and from other lands where litigation was threatened. The cut was successfully made, but a flood a little later cut the entire breast away, and the reservoir was a matter of memory.

Smith, who financed the building of the

reservoir, and Wireman, one of the head men of the canal company, made an effort to get possession of the land after the waters were released, but the Pennsylvania railroad company beat them in the litigation that followed.

In 1883 the railroad company leased the land to various farmers and have continued so to do ever since. The ground was natur- ally very fertile, after having been sub- merged for forty years, one lessor, Levi De- lozier, who resides yet at Kladder station, having raised 4,700 bushels of corn on thirty acres of land, besides pumpkins so numer- ous that one could walk miles over the corn- field on pumpkins.

The site is surrounded on all sides with the most beautiful mountain scenery, and at the present time there is a movement on foot, fostered by the Altoona Merchants' association and chamber of commerce and the Altoona motor club, to restore its wat- ers and convert it into a summer resort.

By the time the canal with its connecting link, the incline portage railroad across the mountain was completed, the idea of a rail- road from Philadelphia to Pittsburg began to take definite shape and in a vain attempt to prevent or compete with it a road was graded from Hollidaysburg to Johnstown, nearly parallel with the old portage incline road, at the expense of the state. It was completed and put into operation, but by this time the Pennsylvania railroad was also in successful operation, and being much more rapid in transit and under better man- agement, it became a successful rival. Pub- lic sentiment soon turned aginst state man- agement of the public works and in the early fifties the canal and portage railroad was sold to the Pennsylvnia railroad. The canal as a waterway was soon discontinued, and the rails and ties lifted from the bed of the portage road and a condition of delapidation continued for years, or until the construc- tion of the Williamsburg and later on, the Hollidaysburg and Petersburg branch of the Pennsylvania railroad. By thus absorbing

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a competing line .it controlled the traffic of the central part of the state, which had been continued with but little interruption to the present time. In discontinuing the use of the canal it struck a blow to the trade of Hollidaysburg, but it brought a still greater prosperity to the county at large. By locat- ing its principal shops here, Altoona sprang from a wilderness into a city of importance, making Blair county one of the most pros- perous counties in the state. In the sale of the canal the state did not realize more than one-fourth of its original expenditure and the project never paid.

RAILROADS.

Blair county is covered with a network of railroads. Every township in the county is crossed by a railroad and every borough and every village of any size has railroad connec- tion. The main line of the Pennsylvania rail- road company enters the county seat of Ty- rone in the northeastern part, extends in a southerly direction through Tyrone, Bellwood, then west through Juniata and Altoona, leav- ing the county at the boundary line of Cambria county, west of the famous Horseshoe Curve. All the other railroads within the limits of the county except the Wopsononick railroad, are branches of the Pennsylvania, including the Tyrone and Bellwood divisions, the Peters- burg, Martinsburg and Altoona and Bedford branches. The county owes a great deal of its importance to its railroad facilities. The de- velopment of its industries and its growth are co-incident with the building of its railroads. Altoona owes its existence and all it has at- tained to the Pennsylvania railroad.

To adequately portray the development of the railroads in the county the narrative which follows must necessarily be wider in scope than the confines of any single county. One of the first railroad projects in America was in Pennsylvania; and although it was not at the time consummated, yet its agitation helped to prepare the public mind for the re- ception of the new means of transportation and travel, and paved the way for ultimate

success. The legislature of the state, on the 3Ist of March, 1823, passed an act incorporat- ing a company to construct a railroad from Philadelphia to Columbia, on the Susquehanna river, in Lancaster county, a distance of about eighty miles. Among the incorporators named in the act were Horace Minney and Stephen Girard, of Philadelphia, the latter the founder of Girard college. John Stevens was, how- ever, the master spirit of the enterprise. It does not appear that any serious effort was made to build the road under the authority thus obtained; and it is altogether probable that the scheme was John Stevens' own, and that he, like Jolm Fitch, was in advance of the age in which he lived.

At that time the people had but little, if any, faith in the practicability of steam rail- ways. Water communication, by means of canals, was still the favorite theory of all who desired anything better than turnpikes, and in 1824 the legislature of Pennsylvania author- ized the appointment of three commissioners to explore a route from Philadelphia to Pitts- burg for such an improvement. This explora- tion was made, and the report appears to have been favorable to the construction of a com- bined slack-water and canal line; connected, of course, over the Allegheny mountains by a road of some kind. So well convinced was the legislature of the practicability and utility of such a channel of communication, that in the following April, a law was enacted establish- ing a regular board of canal commissioners.

In 1826 Pennsylvania fairly embarked in the work of constructing her public improvements. An act was passed that year providing for the commencement of a canal, to be styled "The Pennsylvania Canal," and to be constructed at the expense of the state. It was to be built from the river Swatara, at or near Middle- town, where the Union canal commenced, to the mouth of the Juniata, and from Pittsburg to the month of the Kishiminetas, on the Alle- gheny river. On the 4th of July of that year ground was broken for the work near Harris- burg.

In 1828 the canal commissioners were

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directed to locate and put under contract a rail- road from Philadelphia to Columbia, and com- plete the same within two years, if practicable. They were also, by the same act, required to examine a route for a railroad from Hunting- don to Johnstown, over the Allegheny moun- tains. The sum of two millions of dollars was appropriated for these purposes, and to continue the work on the canals already com- menced.

This was the actual commencement of the Columbia and Portage railroads - works which, at that early date, were of great mag- nitude, and one of which (the Portage) has never, for peculiarities of construction ren- dered necessary by the great barrier to be overcome, been surpassed in the world. The main line of the canal, extending from Colum- bia to Hollidaysburg, and from Pittsburg to Johnstown, was at the same time to be pushed to completion as rapidly as possible. The state was stimulated in this work by the fact that New York had, in 1826, completed- the Erie canal, connecting the lakes with her me- tropolis, and the knowledge that that improve- ment alone was carrying annually nearly seventy millions of dollars' worth of the products of the west to the seaboard. This line of canal had deprived Philadelphia of her commercial supremacy, while it had stimu- lated the growth of her rival to a remarkable degree. Self-preservation required prompt and liberal action on the part of Pennsylvania, and the requirement was met by an annual appropriation of about two millions of dollars, running through a period of many years. This expenditure taxed her resources to the utmost.

In 1833 the canal commissioners were di- rected by law to complete the Columbia rail- road with a double track and the Portage with a single track, and to finish the main line of canal. This was promptly done, and in 1834 the entire line between Pittsburg and Phila- delphia was opened to trade and travel. The line as finished consisted of the Columbia rail- road, eighty-two miles in length, running from Philadelphia to Columbia; the eastern division of the canal, 172 miles in length, extending

from Columbia to Hollidaysburg; the Portage railroad from Hollidaysburg to Johnstown, a distance of thirty-six miles; and the western division of the canal, from Johnstown to Pitts- burg, 104 miles in length-making an aggre- gate length of 394 miles. Being thus broken, and consequently requiring the reshipment of freight consigned through, it was both diffi- cult and expensive to operate, and never proved remunerative to the state. It was, however, of great benefit to the country through which it passed, and contributed vastly toward the de- velopment of its resources. The full story of the canal and Portage railroad has already been related in the earlier part of this chapter.

It soon became evident that the line of canals and railroads was not calculated to meet all the requirements of trade. It was too slow, too expensive to operate, and too complicated ; and public attention was very soon directed to the necessity of building a through line of rail- road. In 1838 a general convention, to urge the construction of a continuous railroad to Pittsburg, assembled at Harrisburg, on the 6th of March. Delegates were present from twenty-nine counties of the commonwealth, and also from the city of Cleveland, Ohio. Robert T. Conrad of Philadelphia, presided, and the subject was thoroughly and ably discussed. Addresses were prepared, memorials to the legislature drawn, and everything else that zeal and ability could suggest done to stimu- late the state and the people to commence the great work. Some effect was undoubtedly pro- duced by these efforts, because the same year Hother Hage, an engineer of distinction, sur- veyed, under authority from the state, a route for a continuous railroad through the southern tier of counties ; and the following year Charles L. Schlatter was appointed by the canal com- missioners to survey similar lines from Harris- burg to Pittsburg. Mr. Schlatter made a re- port in 1840, in which he specifies three routes which had been examined and surveyed through. The first of these was Mr. Hage's route, which was called the southern, and was pronounced practicable with the exception of about fifty miles over the mountains of Bed-

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ford and Franklin counties, where it was sug- gested the turnpike should be used. The second was styled the northern route, and fol- lowed the Susquehanna to Northumberland; thence up the west branch, and by the Bald Eagle creek to the head of the western waters. This was also considered a feasible route, but too circuitous. The third was called the mid- dle route, and was by way of the Juniata and Conemaugh. This was deemed in all respects the best, and is the one upon which, at a sub- sequent period, the Pennsylvania railroad was built.

Great as was the necessity for a through railroad, and thoroughly as that necessity was now realized by the people of the state, years were permitted to elapse before the work was actually commenced. In 1845 a public meeting was held in the Chinese Museum, in Phila- delphia, to urge the improvement, but it was not until 1846 that the project assumed a tangible shape. On the 13th of April of that year, the act to incorporate the Pennsylvania railroad company was passed. The capital of the company was fixed at $7,500,000, with the privilege of increasing it the same to $10,- 000,000. The company was authorized to build a road to connect with the Harrisburg, Ports- mouth, Mount Joy and Lancaster railroad, and to run to Pittsburg or other place in the county of Allegheny, or to Erie, as might be deemed most expedient.

The principle which governed the early managers of the Pennsylvania railroad in its construction was to build it out of the cash subscribed and paid by the stockholders. To accomplish this, they determined to make their bona fide capital sufficient to cover the neces- sary expense of its construction and equip- ment, and to pay the stockholders six per cent from the time their money was contributed. They argued that it was as easy, and more just, to pay this interest to those who con- tributed to the enterprise from its inception, than to borrow money at usurious rates on bonds, the holders of which, too frequently in our railroad history, absorbed, in a few years, the entire property of the undertaking, and

left the first promoters without anything in re- turn for their enterprise and liberality. Books were opened for subscriptions to the stock, at various places in the state, on the 22d of June, 1846, and the utmost zeal was displayed by the originators of the enterprise in securing the co-operation of the people. Committees went from house to house in Philadelphia; public meetings were held; the newspaper press were untiring in their efforts to demonstrate the importance of the work; and, as has already been intimated, a reasonable degree of success followed these efforts. In their first annual report the directors state that out of some 2,600 subscriptions upon the books, nearly 1,800 are for five shares or under. Many of these subscriptions were made without any hope on the part of the subscribers, that their investment would ever prove profitable. The necessity of the road was admitted, and the people were willing to aid in its construction. But it was not long until a different opinion of its future profitableness prevailed, and this stimulated the desire to invest in stock. Mr. Thompson, the chief engineer, contended, from its commencement, that the road would cer- tainly prove remunerative to the stockholders, and in his first annual report stated that "dividends from its revenue can be made of six, eight or ten per cent, by changing the rates of freight and passage, at the discretion of the directors." In support of these pro- phetic words he states, in the same report, that "if the road possessed no other source of rev- enue than the local travel and transportation of the rich and populous region to be traversed by it-secured as it will be, from competing lines by natural barriers, stretching out on either side from the Susquehanna to the Poto- mac-they would be sufficient to justify its construction.

Mr. Thompson entered upon his duties as chief engineer of the road in the early part of 1847. The directors say, in their first annual report, that "in the selection of a chief en- gineer the board was fortunate in obtaining the services of Mr. John Edgar Thompson, a gentleman of enlarged professional experience

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and sound judgment, who had obtained a well- earned reputation upon the Georgia road, and in whom the board place great confidence." Mr. Thompson at once proceeded to organize his forces, bringing to his assistance some of the best engineers in the country.

The grading of the first twenty miles of the road west of Harrisburg was let on the 16th of July, 1847, and on the 22nd of the same month fifteen miles east of Pittsburg were put under contract. Work on the eastern end was pushed vigorously. Governor Shunk re- ferred encouragingly to it in his annual mes- sage of that year, and a summer tourist, wan- dering through the mountains, wrote as fol- lows to a Philadelphia paper :- "The great central railroad-that imperishable chain, des- tined to more closely unite the interests of the east and west of this continent-is rapidly progressing along the banks of the Juniata. Day by day the engineers and workmen may be seen surveying, arranging, digging, and blasting away, by which the highest, most rugged bluffs bordering on the river crumble and are subdued, forming the foundation for this life-artery of Pennsylvania." On the 26th of November of the same year, forty miles ad- ditional were let, carrying the portion under contract of the eastern end to Lewistown; and about the same time a contract was made by the company for 15,000 tons of rails, to be manufactured in Pennsylvania. On the Ist of September, 1849, the first division, extending from Harrisburg to Lewistown, a distance of sixty-one miles, was opened to trade and travel, in connection with the canal and turn- pike. A year later, on the 17th of September, 1850, the line was opened to the Mountain House, one mile east of Hollidaysburg, where connection was made with the State Portage road over the Allegheny mountains. In August of the succeeding year, twenty-one miles west from Johnstown were finished, which with the portion built east from Pitts- burg, left a gap of but twenty-eight miles to complete the line. This was closed up during the following year, and on the 10th of Decem- ber, 1852, the cars were run through from

Philadelphia to Pittsburg. Connections be- tween the eastern and western divisions was formed by using the Portage road over the mountains-the road of the company over the mountain not being finished until February 15th, 1854, when it was formally opened, and the first trains passed through Pennsylvania without using the inclined planes. On the 2nd of February, 1852, Mr. Thompson was elected president of the company, and it was in that capacity he saw the great work com- pleted which he had commenced as chief en- gineer. He was continued in the position without interruption, up to the time of his death, devoting to the great enterprise twenty- seven years of his life, and bestowing upon it an amount of care and attention never given by any other American to a similar work.

The Pennsylvania railroad was con- structed in a superior manner, and, with the great improvements since made, is undoubt- edly the most perfect road in American or in the world. Notwithstanding it had to over- come the great Allegheny mountain-barrier which, for a quarter of a century, had been considerable insurmountable by a railroad without inclined planes,-yet it was carried across by engineering skill, with a facility really astonishing. The road commences a gradual ascent at Harrisburg, where it is 310 feet above tide, and rises regularly. At Lewistown it is 488 feet above tide ; at Hun- tingdon it has ascended to 610 feet; at Ty- rone it has climbed to an altitude of 886 feet and at Altoona, where it reaches the base of the mountain proper, it is at an elevation of 1, 168 feet. Up to this point the heaviest grade per mile has not exceeded twenty-one feet. From a short distance west of Al- toona this gradient is increased to ninety- five feet per mile on straight lines, and eighty-two feet per mile on curves. Thus ascending, it reaches its culminating point at the west end of the great tunnel, where its altitude above tide is 2,161 feet. Its max- imum gradient -is twenty-one feet per mile less than the Baltimore & Ohio railroad, and is equaled by several railroads in the New

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11TH AVE. EAST FROM 12TH ST., ALTOONA

12TH ST. SHOPS FROM 17TH ST. BRIDGE, ALTOONA

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12TH ST., LOOKING NORTH, ALTOONA

ALTOONA TRUST COMPANY BUILDING, ALTOONA

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England states. The highest gradient west of the tunnel is fifty-two and eight-tenths feet per mile, and average gradient on that end is twenty-six and four-tenths feet per mile. At Johnstown the elevation above tide is 1,184 feet; at Greensburg it is 1,091 feet; and at Pittsburg it is 748 feet, being 438 feet higher at its western termi- nus than at Harrisburg, where it commences to overcome the barrier presented by the mountains.

One of the greatest obstacles the builders of the road overcame was the construction of the Summit tunnel, on the border line be- tween Blair and Cambria counties. It was a most perplexing piece of work. This tun- nel was driven from both ends and from three working shafts, two of which were 300 feet deep. Steam-engines were required at all the shafts. At the middle one the water was so abundant that an engine of sixteen- horsepower, which was erected to carry the water away, was found inefficient, and a fifty horsepower lifting and pumping en- gine had to be substituted. A four feet vein of coal was found in the tunnel, which, with fire-clay and perishable shales, furnished a roof of a very treacherous character. A fourth shaft was sunk in the winter of 1853- 54 to facilitate the operations of the masons and bricklayers. Bricks were made from the clay in the neighborhood. The cost of the tunnel was about $450,000, or $125 per lineal foot. The first clay, of which there was a large quantity in the roof, when ex- posed to air and moisture, swelled, cracked and fell in large masses. This made arching of nearly the whole of the tunnel necessary.

The dimensions of the tunnel are as fol- lows: Length, 3,612 feet; width, twenty- four feet; height, twenty-two feet above grade ; height, twenty-one and one-half feet above rails; distance below summit of mountain, 202 7-10 feet.

From the treacherous character of the material in the tunnel frequent falls occurred before the roof could be supported. In the middle shafts 120 to 175 gallons of water

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Twentieth century history of Altoona and Blair County, Pennsylvania, and representative citizens, Part 17

Author: Sell, Jesse C 1872- Publication date: 1911 Publisher: Chicago, Richmond-Arnold Publishing Number of Pages: 1036

Author: Sell, Jesse C 1872-
Publication date: 1911
Publisher: Chicago, Richmond-Arnold Publishing
Number of Pages: 1036