CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FROM Cornell University Library F 157C2 W13 History government and geography of Car olin 3 1924 028 852 436 a Cornell University J Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://archive.org/details/cu31924028852436 ^ \/5fc^ HISTORY GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY OF CARBON COUNTY PENNSYLVANIA Br A. E. WAGNER. A. M , Ph. D. SUPERVISORY PRINCIPAL OF SCHOOLS OF MAUCH CHUNK TOWNSHIP NESauBHONINO, FA. 1910 PRESS OP BERKEMEYER. KECK & CO, Allentown. Pa, To My Mother TO WHOSE DEVOTION I AM SO GREATLY INDEBTED AND To My Wife whose patience and help rendered its appearance possible this volume is very respectfully dedicated. PREFACE. A good school system must meet the demands of the commu- nity in which its schools are located. To do this the aims, means, and methods of the school must constantly be adapted to the changing needs of the community life. The changes involved in such adaptation constitutes educational progress. Many such changes are urgent at the present time. What the trend of the changes should be is the important consideration; for we want no retreats, we want only advances. Our education to-day lacks thoroughness. Children are taught a great many things not necessary for them to know, and they are not properly grounded in things that are essential. The lawmakers, the newspapers, the business men, and the general public are about unanimous on this point. The opinion is general that children on leaving school have accumulated a wide variety of information which helps them but little, if at all, toward making a living or of being of service to any one. Schools should be modified to overcome these objections. Many portions of the common branches do not in any vital way touch the life of industry which most of the children will want to, or will have to live. It is possible to select the absolute essentials which form the basis of later school work as well as of practical life, and make these the subject matter of instruction. So much of what is unessential may be filtered out, that time may be found to do well and thoroughly what is really necessary, and yet leave time for the introduction of things which will fit children more directly for service. We must not continue to turn children out of school who are utterly unequipped for their duties, or who have only the vaguest notions of anything that is useful. The ability to read intelligently and the desire to use this ability in gratifying a thirst for knowledge may be developed in vi PREFACE. normal children under proper school conditions by the end of the sixth school year. By this time, also, children may be given the power to manipulate figures accurately and rapidly, and to solve with dispatch such arithmetical problems as are met with in the life of the ordinary individuals. They may also, by this time, be given the power to write a legible letter, correct in form and punctuation, with all the words properly spelled. If properly taught during the first six school years, they will acquire a reason- ably clear and comprehensive knowledge of the geography of the world; and will learn their nation's history well enough to understand what their country really is, what it stands for, and whence it received its greatest benefits. At this period of their school lives, they will have mastered so much of the art of drawing as to be able to use the hand as a means of expression; and so much of the art of music as to be able to read songs at sight, and sing from memory the national hymns. If hand activities are properly directed during this period, the normal children will have received a hand training that will later minister directly to vocational and social aims. This really comprises what is usually termed a common school education. All that is beyond this in the common branches is abstract and technical, and could be learned in preparation for a calling or in the calling itself. When the foregoing is acquired, the millions of breadwinners who will later enter the army of industry should be given school training that is not so exclusively literary. Their education should have a practical tendency; one that would develop a respect for honest labor, rather than as is now the case, one that causes them to be reluctant to enter industrial pursuits. Their education should have some bearing upon preparing children for doing the duties that lie nearest to them. For industrial workers, at least after the sixth school year, the school should do much more than it has thus far done to implant a respect for the dignity of honest toil; so that new interests, new incentives, and new purposes may be awakened toward the numerous industries which make up our industrial life. In consideration of these things, some time each week should PREFACE. vii be devoted to practical things by the children above the sixth grade. The practical things should be such as would prepare directly for usefulness in the community life. Just what these practical things shall be each community will have to decide for itself; for it would manifestly be different in a farming and a mining community. In all localities, however, a knowledge of the early history, of the industrial development, of the local government, and of the local geography should form a vital part of the child's practical education; since these things are necessary to the child's proper existence as a social being. To be ignorant of these things would mean not only a lack of intelligence, but it makes the proper performing of the functions of an American citizen impossible. The upper grades are the finishing schools for the vast majority of children. Provision in them should be made to give to the children a knowledge of the history and geography of the town, township, and county in which they reside. Time should be found to give to the children a knowledge of the industrial development upon which their future wages will depend. Means should be furnished so that children will not leave schools by the thousands in almost absolute ignorance of the government under which they will live, and of those civil functions which as members of the community they will be expected to perform. Provision for some of these things is usually made in the high school, but hardly one-tenth of the children in any locality ever enter the high school, and the major portion of those who do enter are usually girls. The need for making this provision is urgent and vital. To supply this need this volume was prepared. Much of the material it contains was originally collected for use in the Mauch Chunk Township Schools. The necessity of making it accessible to the teachers of the district was the impelling motive to putting it into this form. The book would have appeared sooner, but the assistance sought could not be obtained. The author takes this means of expressing his thanks to the many teachers who so kindly furnished information in response to a circular letter which they received. Special mention is viii PREFACE deserved by Miss Elizabeth Lewis, teacher of the Seventh Grade in the Nesquehoning Schools, and H. S. Rinker, reporter and solicitor for the Mauch Chunk Daily News, for their valuable suggestions and assistance. That the volume may supply the need it was prepared to fill and so make the school activities a more direct preparation for citizenship in our common country, is the consummation devoutly wished by its author. A. E. Wagner. Nesquehoning, Pa., October 8, 1910 TABLE OF CONTENTS. PART I.— Chapter I. p age Those Who Were Here Before Us. — Introduction 1 The Indians 1 Their Marriage Customs 4 Chapter II. Attempt to Make Homes for White Men 6 William Penn 6 Penn's Treaty With the Indians 8 Penn's Work and Character 9 The Walking Purchase 10 The Indians Become Unfriendly 12 Chapter III. Conrad Weiser 14 Chapter IV. Captain Jack, the Wild Hunter of the Juniata 16 Chapter V. Braddock's Defeat and Causes of Trouble 19 Chapter VI. Early History 22 Zinzendorf s Visit into What is Now Carbon County 26 Indians at Gnadenhutten 26 Chapter VII. Teedysucung 28 New Gnadenhutten 29 Trouble Along the Frontier 29 Massacre at Gnadenhutten 30 Gnadenhutten is Deserted 32 A Stockade is Built 33 Other Attacks 33 Franklin Builds Forts 34 Franklin's Letter to the Governor 34 Franklin Leaves Fort Allen 36 x TABLE OF CONTENTS PART II.— Chapter I. page Internal Improvements 39 Incorporation of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company. . . 40 First Shipment by Use of Dams 40 The Building of Canals 41 The Switchback Railroad 43 The Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad 45 The Nesquehoning Railroad 46 The Lehigh Valley Railroad 46 Chapter II. Geology of Carbon County 48 The Aeons, Eras, and Periods as Recognized in Geology 51 Chapter III. How Coal was Formed 58 Chapter IV. How Coal is Mined 60 The Drainage Tunnel 64 A Coal Breaker 65 Chapter V. The Coal Industry 68 Chapter VI. The Paint Ore Industry 79 The Sand Industry 80 The Silk Industry 80 Early Attempts at Iron Manufacture 81 PART III.— Chapter I. Civil History 83 The County Prison 85 The Care of the Poor 85 Chapter II. The Financial Side 87 Kinds of Taxes Levied 87 Levying the Taxes 89 Collecting the Taxes 89 Chapter III. Party, Politics, Nominations, and Elections 91 Who May Vote 92 Nominations and Primary Elections 93 Ballots and Elections 94 The Election 95 TABLE OF CONTENTS. xi Chapter IV. p agb Township and Borough Government 97 The Supervisors , 98 Justice of the Peace 98 The Constable 99 The Assessors 100 Tax Collector 100 School Directors 101 The Town Clerk and the Auditors 101 Reasons for Borough Government 102 The Borough Council 102 The Chief Burgess 103 Other Borough Officers 103 Chapter V. County Government 104 The County Commissioners 105 The Sheriff 106 The Coroner 107 The Prothonotary 107 The County Treasurer 108 Recorder of Deeds 108 Register of Wills and Clerk of the Orphans' Court 109 Clerk of the Courts Ill The District Attorney Ill The Jury Commissioners 112 Chapter VI. The County's Relation to the Courts 113 The Judge 114 Juries 115 Two Kinds of Cases 116 Accusation and Trial in the Criminal Courts 117 A Civil Case 118 Chapter VII. Post Offices in Carbon County 120 Chapter VIII. The County's Record in the Nation's Wars: Carbon County in the Revolutionary War, 1776. 121 Carbon County in the Mexican War, 1845 124 Carbon County in the Rebellion, 1861-1865 125 The Mahoning Celebration 129 xii TABLE OF CONTENTS. Chapter IX. Page The Schools 132 The Free School Act of 1834 133 The County Superintendent 135 Examination for Mine Foremen 136 Chapter X. Roster of Civil Officials of Carbon County and of Representatives in the National and State Legislatures 138 PART IV.— Chapter I. Geography: Surface and Area 143 Mountains 145 The Remains of the Old Glacial Period 147 Chapter II. Political Divisions: Banks Township 148 Beaver Meadow 149 East Mauch Chunk 149 East Penn Township 151 East Side Borough 152 Franklin Township 152 Franklin Independent District 153 Kidder Township 153 Lansford 155 Lausanne Township 156 Lehigh Township 156 Lehighton 158 Lower Towamensing Township 159 Mahoning Township 162 Mauch Chunk Township 163 Mauch Chunk Borough 166 Packer Township 169 Parryville 170 Penn Forest Township 171 Summit Hill 171 Towamensing Township 173 Weissport 173 Weatherly 175 Chapter III. Palmerton's Boom 177 Chapter IV. Asa Packer 179 PART I. CHAPTER I. Those Who Were Here Before Us. — Introduction. Two hundred years ago no white people lived in what we now call Carbon County. It was the home of savage Indians and wild animals that roamed over it. Great forests of giant trees were found in its valleys and on most of its rocky mountains. What wonderful changes we now see ! The forests have been cut down. Humming mills, beautiful homes, and fine churches now are found in all of its valleys ; railroads have taken the place of the Indian path, and its sunny slopes are covered with crops of hay, grain, and fruit. The savage bear and the cruel wolf are no longer seen ; in their places we have the useful horse and the much needed cow. All these wonderful changes, with many more, have taken place in the short space of less than two hundred years. The story of how all this happened is as wonderful as a fairy tale, but it is true. We will call it the "Story of Carbon County." In order to understand this story fully it will be necessary to know and understand something of the causes which produced these great changes. The Indians. In many of the rocks in the county may still be seen the holes in which the Indian squaws ground their corn, but the Indian trails through the valleys and across the mountains have long since disappeared. It was not hard for the Indians to live here before the white men came. There were plenty of fish in the streams and lakes. In the woods, with their bows and arrows, they could kill deer, foxes, bears, wild turkeys, and birds. They raised corn, beans, and pumpkins. They ate all kinds of berries 2 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY and wild fruits. When everything else failed they dug up roots and ate them. They did not look forward very far, so they often suffered for want of food, and quite often many of them starved. Their meats they roasted over the fire, but some of them had earthenware pots to make stews and cook their mush. Some- times they heated water by putting into it red hot stones. When they went on a journey they carried roasted corn for food. They stripped the bark from birch trees to make boats. Their fish hooks were made of bones, and the lines of wild hemp twisted, or the sinews of animals. They used fish bones for needles and sinews for thread. For clothing they used skins of animals, and these they often ornamented with feathers or colored them with mud or the juices of plants. They built their homes by driving poles into the ground and bending them together at the top, covering them with skins or mud. A bear's skin usually served for a door. The fireplace was a hole in the ground, while the chimney was an opening in the top of this tent; but much of the smoke remained in the room. They started fire by rubbing two sticks together. The women, or squaws, stayed at home when the men went fishing or hunting; took care of the fields, dressed the skins, and carried the loads when the family moved from place to place. The children, or papooses, were often strapped to boards when they were quite small, and hung from the trees to swing in the air. They never went to school ; as the boys grew, they learned to shoot, to fish, to dance, and to fight from their fathers; while the girls learned the Indian ways of housekeeping from their mothers in the wigwam. Their rude hatchets, made of stone, were called tomahawks, and their spears were tipped with sharp flint stones. They lived in villages, had laws and customs, and from time to time had meetings or councils to decide what the tribe should do. When an Indian killed an enemy he scalped him. This was done by cutting through the skin around the head just below the hair, and rudely pulling it off. He was considered the bravest war- rior who had the greatest number of scalps dangling from his belt. They were quick runners, able to endure great hardships, and OFl'CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 3 had sharp f eyes by which they could find their way through the woods by little marks which the white men would never notice. They^were strong and active, and liked to dance and run races. ?': .feT* 16 Indians lived on fresh meat and green vegetables, which caused a longing for seasonings in his food, especially salt. They would often eat tablespoonfuls at a time, drink a whole glass of vinegar, or walk forty miles to get crabapples, or cranberries, to satisfy their desire for acids. It was this desire for acid things that made them so fond of strong drink; and made it so easy for the white man to make the Indian drunk whenever he wanted to cheat him. The white men called the leading tribe of Indians by the name of Delawares. These lived chiefly along the Delaware River. They had under them three other tribes : the Minsi, or the wolves, who were the most powerful of all and lived in the mountain regions of Mauch Chunk; the Unami, or the people down the river, who lived south of the Lehigh River on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware; and still farther south in the vicinity of the Chesa- peake Bay, the Unalatchigo. Penn bought Pennsylvania from the Unalatchigo and the Unami. Another branch of the Dela- wares, the Nanticokes, were living in the valleys of the Susque- hanna and Wyoming. All of the Delawares were conquered by the Iroquois, and in 1742 many of them emigrated to the western part of the state. In their journey they passed through the Lehigh Gap ; the Moravians saw them going. |l The Shwanese were driven from the south and went to the western part of the state, where they lived with the Saquehan- nocks and the Andestes. The Juniatas were driven from the central part of the state before the white man appeared, and when the Tuscaroras were driven from the south they were allowed to occupy the hunting grounds which had been held by the Juniatas. The Iroquois lived east of Lake Erie and in New York, and the Eries south of the lake which now bears their name. Who the Indians are, or where they first came from to America, no one can tell. When the white man first came to America they were most numerous in the vicinity of the Delaware River, but there is no way of finding out how many of them there were. 4 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY The Indian would usually leave at breakfast, and when he returned with a deer or a bear, his squaw was proud of him and served him well. She cut and brought the firewood, pounded the corn with stones, and baked his bread in the ashes. Their Marriage Customs. Their courting customs were peculiar. When a young Indian decided that he wanted a particular girl his mother went to her home with a leg of venison or bear meat, telling the girl that her son killed it. If the girl and her family were willing that the marriage should take place the girl's mother would take a dish to the young man's home with a piece of the venison and say, "This is from my daughter who prepared it." After this they worked and fished together for days, during which the happy lover wooed his dusky mate of the forest, each being dressed in robes of feathers and the skins of wild animals. When the Indian had no mother, he himself told the girl of his wish ; and if she was willing she went with him. They remained married only as long as they pleased each other. The man would leave rather than quarrel with his squaw. He would usually not remain away long enough to have his neighbors notice his absence. He seldom returned, if he left the second time. The aged were always favored by the young who sought their company and advice. In travel the older ones always went on horseback or in a canoe. They assembled annually, that the aged ones might tell to the grandchildren the things that had happened to the tribe, and of the treaties that had been made. No spot in all the county is better known or more admired than Glen Onoko. Nature has made other falls that are higher and more awe inspiring; but rare are the water falls that are as romantically beautiful. The name is Indian in its origin; and, as the story tellers say, thereby hangs a tale. The top of Locust Mountain, to the rear of Nesquehoning, is capped with large rocks composed of smoothly worn pebbles and fine-grained sand cemented together so firmly that the storms and frosts of centuries have striven in vain in trying to separate OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 5 them. In the topmost one is the basin wherein Onoko's mother ground her corn; nearby is another wherein with heated stones she warmed her water, or broiled her wild turkey, fish, or venison. In the Nesquehoning Valley below wild roamed the happy Opa- chee. Often he scaled the rocky ravines to the top of Broad Mountain, where he angled the silvery trout from its sand bot- tomed springs, or followed the sparkling waters in their descent as they gurgled and tumbled over the moss-covered bowlders, and then of a sudden dash themselves into spray as they leaped into the abyss of the then nameless fall. Here at this fall Opachee sat one day radiant but silent. Fleet of foot had he been that afternoon. Eye more keen or hand more true had never sent an arrow more swift or sure than that which felled the deer he was carrying down the mountain. Now he had the venison he was looking for. To-morrow his mother should pass up the narrow valley bearing some of it to Onoko's folks, who would smoke a pipe of peace; and then, indeed, what joy might not be his. In his bright visions he saw himself and Onoko sport through love's sunny morning, and live happily through life's golden afternoon. Alas, the illusions of hope! It might not be. No delicious venison, prepared by the hand of his betrothed, was ever to be returned. No happy rambles for fish to the sand springs, no blissful journeys with his chosen sweet- heart to the glorious mountain tops to gather its sun-kissed berries. Her parents refused and Onoko was heartbroken. In her wild anguish, to live without her brave, Opachee, seemed agonizing, hopeless, and useless. Headlong she plunged over the cliff; her mangled body was found on the rocks at its bottom; though Onoko is gone, her name still clings to the fall and the Glen, and blends sweetly and sadly with its wildness and beauty. HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY CHAPTER II. Attempt to Make Homes for White Men. A few years after Columbus discovered America, John Cabot sailed along the coast of North America and claimed all the land for the King of England. Many years then passed before Eng- lishmen thought of coming here to live. The first white man that sent English settlers to America was Sir Walter Raleigh, a friend of Queen Elizabeth. He and the Queen wanted to build up colonies in the New World which would help to make England the greatest and richest nation on earth. They did not succeed with their colonies, but they taught others the importance of the New World. Not many years passed before John Smith took up the work that Raleigh had started, and began a colony in Virginia at Jamestown. A number of persecuted Puritans came to make homes in Massachusetts in order that they might worship God as they thought right, about thirteen years after the coming of Smith. Many other people came to America, and by 1732 the English colonies stretched along the whole Atlantic Coast from Maine to Georgia. William Penn. Of the men who came to America to make homes for the persecuted people of other lands, none made greater sacrifices than did William Penn. His father was an Admiral, and had he not joined the Quakers, he would have been honored and rich. These things he did not care for, however. He was anxious to found a colony where people could worship God as they pleased, and where all men should have equal rights. Admiral Penn stormed when he heard his son had joined the Quakers, whose leader was George Fox. Quakers refused to pay tax or to go to war. With them, all men were equal ; the pauper was as good as the prince. OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 7 Penn's father soon forgave him, and William became the most noted Quaker in England. He, was anxious to secure land for homes for the persecuted Quakers, and at Fox's suggestion decided to secure land west of the Delaware River. The King of England owed Admiral Penn ^16,000, or about $80,000. When his father died, William inherited this claim. At Penn's request King Charles granted him forty thousand square miles of land in America to pay for the claim. To this Penn wished to give the name Sylvania, which means forest ; but the King put Penn before it in honor of Admiral Penn. Of all the colony builders Penn was the best and most noted. No man was more sincere in his efforts to do good, and but few have tried harder. His province was a vast forest region rich in soil and in minerals. In order to show that the governors of the province remained true to the King of England, they were each year to give the King two beaver skins and one-fifth of the gold and silver that might be discovered. The King little dreamed that the richest treasures of Pennsylvania were her fertile soil, her iron, her oil, and her coal. That Penn intended to plant a colony was soon published all over England. With the first governor of the province, whom he appointed, Penn sent a letter in which he said, "You shall be governed by laws of your own making and live free, and if you will, a sober, industrious people." He selected the neck of land between the Delaware and the Schuylkill Rivers as a place to build his capital city. The articles of the grant by which the King gave Penn his claim to Pennsylvania were very carefully drawn up. They told very clearly what were the rights of Penn, as well as of the King. They were signed by the King on the 4th of March, 1661, and were written in Old English on strong parchment paper. Each line was underscored with red ink and the margins were decorated with drawings. They are now hanging in the office of the Gover- nor at Harrisburg. Philadelphia soon became the chief city in America. In less than four years it was larger than New York, which had been 8 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY founded sixty years before. It was this city which at a later time became the birthplace of the Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution of the United States. The streets running from the Delaware to the Schuylkill were named after the trees of the forest, Pine, Spruce, Locust, Walnut, Chestnut; and the streets crossing these at right angles were named according to their number, as Front, Second, Third, etc., until the highest ground between the two rivers was reached, where a wide street was laid out and was called Broad Street. The street which ran through the central part of the city, east and west, was also made wide, and was named High Street. This now is called Market Street. Penn's Treaty With the Indians. A few months after the city was founded Penn made his famous treaty with the Indians. They met under a great elm tree on the banks of the Delaware. The Indians sat in a semi- circle on the ground, while Penn, with a few friends dressed as Quakers, talked to them as friends and brothers. They agreed with each other to live as brothers ; the Indians to live in love with Penn and his children as long as the sun and the moon should give light. No written words were taken and no oath was re- quired. The treaty was kept unbroken until long after those who made it had passed away. When in later years an Indian wished to give the highest praise to a white man he would say, "He is like William Penn." It must not be forgotten that they remained true to their promise long after they were shamefully wronged. A Quaker dress for a long time was a sure protection against Indian bullets. When they finally did give up their friendship for the followers of Penn, they were forced to drink in order that they might be cheated; they were cruelly wronged that they might give up their lands ; and their revenge, of which we shall read later, was but the bitter fruit of tares which the white man had wilfully sown. The elm tree under which the treaty was made was a short distance north of what was then Philadelphia. The city has OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 9 long since been extended to include the spot. The elm tree was blown down in 1810, and a beautiful monument now marks the spot. To each of the Indian tribes, Penn sent an invitation to meet him at their old council ground at Shackamaxon. The Indian chiefs sat in front with their advisors; behind them, arranged in form of a half ring, sat the young men and warriors; and beyond these sat the women. The Great Chief, Tominend, the most royal looking of them all, sat in the center of this gathering, and was the leader and spokesman who talked to Penn through an interpreter. Penn's Work and Character. After the treaty with the Indians, Penn arranged a wise government for his colony. The Germans, the Swedes, and the Dutch came in great numbers. Penn was in the colony for several years only. While in England he lost his wife, his eldest son, and his fortune. During his long stay in England his colony forgot their love for "Father Penn," and though he was grieved at their coolness on his return, he gave them the best government that was to be found in the colonies. The example of Penn's life is one of the finest in history. When a young man he gave up his chances of getting on in the world and cast his lot with the despised Quakers for conscience sake. He gave up a life of ease and pleasure for one of service in the cause of his Saviour. No prospects of personal gain, no threats of an angry father, no gloomy walls of a prison cell, could cause him to change the way of serving God that to him seemed right. He did much and he suffered much that men might have equal human rights. His work in founding a colony in which people could make their own laws and live in freedom and happi- ness is sufficient to make his name live all through our history. He died thirty-seven years after the colony had been founded, having spent but four of these years in America. His colony he willed to his three sons, John, Thomas, and Richard, and these with their successors held it until the Revolution. 10 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY The Walking Purchase. In one of the purchases of the land made by Penn from the Indians, it was agreed that the tract should extend as far as a man could walk in three days. To take this walk Penn set out with several of his friends and a number of Indian Chiefs. They began their walk at the mouth of the Neshaming Creek and went up the Delaware. They walked along slowly, frequently sitting down to rest, and at the end of a day and a half had gone about thirty miles. Near the mouth of Baker's Creek Penn marked a spruce tree, and said the line to that point would include all the land he wanted. The remainder of the purchase was not made until 1733, when Governor Patrick Gordon employed three of the fastest walkers he could find to complete it. How the remainder of the walk was made is best told in the following story which is taken from "Stories of Pennsylvania": Edward Marshall was a famous hunter. The Sheriff of Bucks County sent for him one day and asked him to be one of the three men who should walk out the remainder of the purchase made by Penn. Marshall was promised five hundred acres of land and five pounds in cash if he would go. "I never liked the Indians," he replied. "They will lie, cheat, and scalp. They drink too much rum. I will go. When do we start?" "On the morning of the 19th" (September, 1737), replied the Sheriff, "at sunrise. The men who will walk with you and I will be there." "Tell me," asked Marshall, "What are the terms of the treaty? Where do we start from?" "Well," replied the Governor, "This is how it is: Penn bought a lot of land from the Indians in 1682. The land was to include all that they could walk out in three days. It was to lie between the Delaware River and the Neshaminy Creek as far back as Wrightstown. Penn and some Indians have walked out the first day and one-half and I want you and two others to walk out the remainder." "Yes, I have heard that before," replied Marshall. "I will go." OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 11 The purchase started on the Delaware at a spruce tree marked with the letter P. From here it extended northward to an old oak tree which stood beside the old Indian trail. From this oak tree the line ran to the Neshaminy Creek, near Wrights- town. "If we start from the old chestnut tree on the old Durham road, just above the Wrightstown meeting house, that will be fair enough, will it not?" said the Sheriff. "Anything is fair for an Indian," replied Marshall. "I will be along on horseback to furnish you with things to eat," said the Sheriff. "I want to see that everything is done in an honest and square manner. You see the farther we can walk in a day and a half the more land we can have. James Yeates and Solomon Jennings with three Indian walkers will also go with us." "The more the merrier," said Marshall; "But I'll outwalk the crowd. When the walk is over the Indians will be off of the Minisink lands at the forks of the Delaware. I'll make the Indians say, 'Ugh !' more than once when he sees me walk." As soon as the first sun rays of the morning of the 19th shone upon the faces of the walkers the Sheriff said, "Go!" Yeates took the lead and Jennings with two Indians came next. Marshall,- swinging a hatchet at his side quite a distance behind the others, followed in a careless manner. A number of people followed on horseback. "Yeates will outwalk them all," said some one. "No he will not," said the Sheriff. "Marshall will be walking when the others are worn out." It was understood that the Lehigh River could be crossed in a boat. All the other streams would have to be forded unless the first walked to the edge. In two and one-half hours after starting they came to Red Hill in Bedminister, and after having eaten dinner in a meadow, they crossed the Lehigh just below where Bethlehem now is. When the Indians realized that much of their Minisink hunting grounds would be taken, they declared they were being cheated. They frequently told Marshall not to run but to walk. 12 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY Jennings gave out about eleven o'clock in the forenoon. It is said that he never regained his health. They crossed the Blue Mountains at what is now Smith's Gap in Northampton County. It was twilight when they stopped walking. It was intended that they should make up the time lost by eating dinner. When the Sheriff called to the walkers to stop, it is said that Marshall put his arms around a tree to keep himself from falling. "What is the matter?" cried the Sheriff. "Matter!" gasped Marshall all out of breath. "If we would have gone ten rods farther I would have given out." At sunrise next morning they all started again. Yeates did not go far before he fell into a creek. When they picked him up he was quite blind. Marshall held out until twelve o'clock noon. He had then crossed Pocono Mountain. At the place he stopped five chestnut trees were marked with the names of the proprietors of Pennsyl- vania. From Wrightstown to this place was just sixty-one miles. From this spot a line was then drawn to the Delaware River. Instead of drawing it to the nearest point on the river the sur- veyors said the line must meet the Delaware River at right angles, and so drew it to the mouth of Lackawaxen. This took the famous hunting grounds on the Minisink away from the Indians. They had not intended to included these in the sale and much of the trouble that came later arose from their dissatisfaction with this purchase. Like Captain Jack, Marshall was later an object of hatred to the Indians. Their scalping knives robbed him of his wife and all of his children except one little boy who crept under a bee hive to escape them. The Indians Become Unfriendly. After the Walking Purchase bad feelings grew up between the Governor of Pennsylvania and the Assembly which made the laws. The people claimed that Penn's sons were not the proper persons to make treaties, that this should belong to the Assembly. OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 13 Bad feelings were also made with the Indians. They felt that this measurement of their lands was unfair, and they refused to give their consent to it. Many of the traders were in the habit of carrying large quantities of whiskey into Indian villages, and after making them drunk, would cheat them out of true value of furs and skins. Often they would also abuse and insult their wives and injure their children. When the Indians would become sober they would be filled with anger and thirst for revenge. Their cruel firebrands, scalping knives, and tomahawks were soon to be used in revenge without mercy upon the early settlers in Carbon County. One of the things that must not be forgotten in order to understand the action of the Indians in their attacks upon the settlers is the success of the French and Indians in the battle with Braddock. This battle was only one of the many fought between England and France to decide which country should own and control the greater part of North America. The struggle between them was long and bitter. Each side well knew that the help of the Indians would decide the matter. The Iroquois, or the Six Nations in Northern New York, sided against the French because in a battle of 1609 with their enemies Champlain used the French soldiers against them and killed a number of their chiefs. The Iroquois remained friends with the Fnglish and the deadly enemies of the French through all of our history. For more than a century the French made every effort to secure the friendship of the Six Nations. It is prob- able that their old feelings of hatred would finally have been over- come, had it not been for William Johnson, the manager of Indian affairs for the English. Johnson spent many years among the Iroquois, and knew their language as well as his own. He married one of their women, and was made one of the chiefs who could talk in their councils. It was he who held the Iroquois' firm friendship for the English when the other tribes forsook them. 14 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY CHAPTER III. Conrad Weiser. One of the men who had most to do with shaping the Indian policy in America was Conrad Weiser , a German who readily learned the Indian language. He saw how the Iroquois were opposed to the French and how their friendship would be very valuable to the English in the struggle which was coming to decide who should own America. His father came into New York from Germany. Conditions there did not suit the father, so he, with a group of others, descended the Susquehanna and went up the Swatara Creek to Tulpohocken. The lands on which they settled were not purchased from the Indians until nine years after the settlement was made. During all this time the Indians were filled with anger and began that alliance with the French which was to end in the attempt to wipe out the entire group of English settlements. Weiser was born in Germany in 1696 and came to America when he was thirteen years of age. During the winter of 17 13 and 1714 he lived with the Iroquois Indians at Schenectady. When he was seventeen he lived for some time with Quagnant, a famous chief, and for this reason the Indians considered him as an adopted son. He later came back to his father's people and married in 1720. In a map made in 1721 the French claimed nearly all of North America. The Governor of Pennsylvania, Sir William Keith, saw that it was the Iroquois Indians who could hold them in check, so he followed Penn's plan by trying to keep their good will. He was anxious to make a treaty with them, so he sent Weiser in company with Shikellimy to the Onondoga council fire. For many years after this journey Weiser was the Indian interpreter for the Governor, and was present whenever treaties were made with the Indians. OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 15 It was Weiser who held firmly the friendship of the Indians on the side of the English during the entire war. Had they also joined the French it is quite probable that the future history of the United States would have been different; French customs and laws would now exist on this continent, and the spirit of freedom which was born in the colonies of England would likely have been unborn for centuries. Conrad Weiser built the first hotel that was erected in Reading. His daughter was married to Henry Melchor Muhlen- berg, one of the most noted and best educated religious workers in the colonies. The Lutheran Church, which was built in 1743, and the parsonage of his son-in-law, both of which Weiser often visited, may still be seen at Trappe, Montgomery County, Pa., as they were more than one hundred and fifty years ago. It was Conrad Weiser's grandson, Henry M. Muhlenberg, who was the famous "Fighting Preacher" of the Revolution, and who was the hero of that stirring war poem, "The Rising in 1776," by Thomas Buchanan Read, which ends thus: The great bell swung as ne'er before; It seemed as it would never cease; And every word its ardor flung From off its jubilant iron tongue Was, "War! War! War!" "Who dares?" — this was the patriot's cry, As striding from the desk he came, — "Come out with me in Freedom's name, For her to live, for her to die?" A hundred hands flung up reply, A hundred voices answered, "I." 16 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY CHAPTER IV. Captain Jack, the Wild Hunter of the Juniata. The sketch of Weiser was included because he was influential in shaping the Indian policy which greatly affected the welfare of the earliest settlers of the county. Captain Jack was probably never within the present limits of the county, but he represented a type of early settlers whom necessity compelled to adopt an Indian policy of their own. It is probable that there would have been no massacre at Gnadenhutten, had Captain Jack and his companions been allowed to carry out their plan of dealing with the Indians who accompanied Braddock. As to what this policy was, and what effect its inauguration would have had on the early history of the county, the following sketch is supposed to reveal. Captain Jack dwelt along the Juniata River, at a large spring in what is known as Jack's Narrows. As early as 1750, his home was in this lovely spot. As at Mauch Chunk, steep mountain sides, covered with waving forests and capped with rocky crags, arose on every hand. A shallow river rolled its foamy current over the rugged rocks, or loitered gently in the shade of its over- hanging trees. Cradled in the bosom of the mountains, cheered with the music of the river and the birds, brightened by the song and the laughter of his own happy children, the home of Captain Jack rested as if perpetually kissed by the sunshine of happiness. In this wilderness home in the forest depths, with his wife and two children, he dwelt comfortably, hopefully, and happily. Like Ginter, who discovered coal at Summit Hill, he and his family lived by hunting. His "black rifle" when aimed by himself was never known to miss its mark. He left home early one morning in the summer of 1752, and returned again after sunset to find his cabin a charred ruin. The Indians had burned his dwelling, and his wife and little ones he found in the moon- light, scalped and murdered, near his favorite spring. OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 17 After many hours of silent agony, agony that almost drove him mad, he arose, silently prepared a final resting place for the ghastly forms of his loved ones, and tenderly laid them away. This was the awful vow he made: "Curse the murderers of my loved ones ! Curse them ! I shall be avenged ! " Then he shouldered his trusty "black rifle," his only remaining friend; and, with a last good-bye to what had been his brightest hopes and fondest ties, he took the trail for revenge. He was a foot taller than most men, as strong as a giant, as fleet as an antelope, and as quick as an Indian. Dressed in buckskin, his trusty "black rifle" thrown over his shoulder, he was easily the king of the forest, and now the sworn enemy of the Indians. With a thirst for vengeance that never was satisfied, he roamed the woods like a savage tiger. Settlers, after he took the trail for revenge, often found Indian scalps tied to the bushes along the trails and white bones bleaching in the sunlight. A single hole in the skull told the story. Jack's piercing eye had found the lurking enemy, his rifle rang out, and the inevitable death whoop of the Indian followed. The bearer of "black rifle" could not forget his vow. Mr. Moore was awakened by the crack of a rifle. He sprang to the door and looked out; at his feet, writhing in death, he saw an Indian. In the feeble light he could see a giant form which called to him, "I have saved your lives," and was gone. The aim which guided "black rifle" was as true as William Tell's, and that it had found its game, Mr. Moore well knew. A painted warrior with stolen gewgaws one day came down the trail toward Captain Jack. "Black rifle" cracked, the Indian leaped into the air and fell dead. Three other savage companions were near. They thought their companion had shot a deer, and rushed down the trail to see it. "Black rifle" cracked again, and a second Indian was dead. A terrible fight of two to one then began. The stock of "black rifle" was used to crush the skull of the third Indian, then Jack and the remaining Indian drew their long hunting knives and grappled. The fight lasted until each was exhausted. They lay aside of each other bleeding and exhausted until finally the Indian crept away. Captain Jack scalped his 18 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY three enemies, hung their scalps upon the brushes along the trail, and with ten ugly stabs returned to the settlement. The "Wild Hunter" collected a band of frontier hunters. They dressed themselves like Indians, wearing hunting shirts, leather leggings, and moccasins. All they hunted for was the scalps of savages. General Braddock was urged to invite "Cap- tain Jack's Hunters" to join his expedition, but he would not. He was told, "They are well armed, and are equally regardless of heat and cold. They require no shelter and ask no pay." Braddock, however, wanted soldiers with showy arms and gaudy uniforms. He needed a well built road where he could float his bright colors in the breeze and march his soldiers in pomp and pride; he cared not for "Captain Jack's Hunters" who knew how to fight Indians in Indian fashion ; and bitterly did he rue it. That Captain Jack and his band were not with the ill-fated expedition, is a great misfortune. Had the "Wild Hunter of the Juniata and his Hunters" been present, their "black rifles" would have pierced the skull of many a lurking Indian, while many of the soldiers, now sleeping with their unwise leader, might have lived to tell of a great victory, and the sad tragedy of Wolfe and Mont Calm would never have been acted. Had the "black rifles" accompanied Braddock, the Indians would not have murdered the Moravians at Gnadenhutten or the settlers along the entire frontier. It was the success of the Indians against Braddock that turned them from savages to the crudest of demons. Captain Jack is buried near the graves he made for his loved ones on that mournful night of the greatest calamity that could have befallen him. No man-made monument marks his resting place. The mighty pines and the giant oaks are plumes over his couch, the sweet scented arbutis and mountain laurel decorate it hand- somely on each succeeding Memorial Day, the beautiful drooping ferns shed tears of dew upon it, and the silent stars are its constant sentinels. OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA 19 CHAPTER V. Braddock's Defeat and Causes of Trouble. There was a tremendous war waging in Europe known as the "Seven Years War." In this war Frederick the Great at first was alone against Austria and France. Later he was joined by England. In America the fight was a struggle against France by England to get possession of North America. On a Sunday in February in 1755 there came into the house of Governor Dinwiddie in Virginia, a British General of stately bearing and bright uniform. This gentleman was General Braddock. He had been sent by the British Ministry to take the fort in Pennsylvania at the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers, Fort DuQuesne, from the French; and, if possible, drive the French out of the Ohio Valley entirely. To capture this fort, Braddock was to lead an army and he never even thought of failure. He was extremely haughty, proud, and self willed. He was brave beyond a doubt, but was filled with an assurance that he knew best what to do. He refused to take advice from those who knew the country, the Indians, and the French missionaries better than he did . He wanted only soldiers in perfect uniform. He always tried to make others feel their littleness. The army wagons and horses were secured from Pennsylvania farmers through the influence of Benjamin Franklin. The march began early in June of 1755, three hundred and fifty axmen having gone ahead to cut down trees and make a road. The road was made twelve feet wide. The army baggage and train was four miles long. When they came within eight miles of Fort DuQuesne they unexpectedly found the enemy whom they sought. The French commander at the fort wanted to abandon it when he heard of the approach of the English, but M. de Beaujeau thought otherwise. This officer proposed that he be allowed to go and oppose the approach of the advancing army. After much debating, the commander consented, and at a call for volun- teers, all the soldiers in the fort volunteered to go. The Indians were called into council. At first they were unwilling to go along, telling the French that they would give their answer in the morning. 20 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY The Indians decided to go, and in the morning barrels of powder and balls were rolled to the door of the fort and all were allowed to help themselves. Six hundred and thirty-seven departed with the French to meet the English. Gage's men first saw the advancing enemy. At the sight of the English M. de Beaujeau waved his hat and the Indians dis- appeared. A terrific warwhoop was heard and the English soldiers were dropping thick and fast. Those unhurt fired at such enemies as they were able to see and then retreated over the road to the rear, where they were a constant target for the lurking Indians, whose unerring aim brought most of the leaders to the ground. The hideous yells and terrible warwhoops soon became louder and louder. Washington's Provincial soldiers attempted to get behind trees and rocks in Indian fashion, but in every instance were forced into the open by Braddock and cursed for being cowards. In the afternoon the Provincial's powder began to fail, and Braddock was mortally wounded by a ball that went through his right arm into the lungs. At about five o'clock in the afternoon the English soldiers began throwing away their guns and clothing, and started on a wild scramble for safety in retreat. Gates tried in vain to rally the remainder of the invincible army. The Indians followed the retreating soldiers and scalped and toma- hawked as many as possible. Braddock was taken to the rear and expired. Before he died he expressed regret for not having listened to Washington, and just about the time he was breathing his last he turned to one of his men and said, "I shall know better how to deal with them next time." He did not get another chance to show that he had learned better ; for he died shortly after he had made the remark. He was buried in the road and all of what remained of the army and baggage train was marched over his grave. Out of an army of 1,460 men, 456 were killed; of the eighty- nine officers who were in the battle only twenty-six escaped. When the retreat began the drivers unhitched the horses from the wagons and fled on horseback. Such horses as the Indians could get were loaded with plunder, and then with the OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 21 army flags trailing in the dirt and numerous scalps dangling from their belts, the savages, followed by the French, began their return to the fort. Twelve of their prisoners were alive and well, having their hands tied behind their backs and their faces blackened to indicate the fate that awaited them. They were surrounded by the Indians and marched back to the fort and taken to the opposite side of the river. Here they were tied to a stake. A fire was started and the savages began their game of inhuman and Satanic torture. Live coals were first applied to various parts of the body. Splinters of pinewood were then driven into the prisoners and these were lit in order to hear and see the agony of the prisoners as they were consumed and crackled beneath the skin. The prisoners were next seared with red hot gun barrels to make them yell the louder. When the cries could no longer be evoked in this manner, burning fire brands were forced into the mouths and nostrils of the prisoners, or boiling whiskey was poured down their throats. When signs of insufferable agony could no longer be produced in this manner the eyes of the prisoners were bored out with heated ramrods. The scalps of the prisoners were then removed and live coals were placed upon their naked brains, or their bleeding crowns were cov- ered with gunpowder which was lit to make the pain more intense. The object of the whole horrible affair on the part of the Indians seemed to be to see who could cause his prisoner to scream above the savage yells of the Indians; the death of the victims only brought an end to the torturing process. Thus came to an end one of the saddest and most horrible scenes that this world has ever witnessed. Though Braddock's defeat is not directly connected with the history of Carbon County, it was his defeat that cut the last string which had thus far held the Indians from murder and plunder, caused the forests to be filled with savages, thirsty for blood and eager to scalp, murder, and plunder as they did at Gnadenhutten. Great indeed is the pity that Captain Croghan's advice was not heeded by Braddock. "Captain Jack's Hunters" would not only have prevented the defeat of Braddock, but they would have held the Indians in check and so prevented murder and massacre all along the border. 22 HISTORY GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY CHAPTER VI. Early History. The village of Constance on the Rhine was a scene of a great event in the year of 1415. John Huss, of Bohemia, the founder of the Moravians, was tied to a stake, wood was placed all around him, and he was burned alive because he dared to do what he thought right; he was against everything that he thought wrong. His ashes were scattered in the Rhine, but his spirit of opposing wrong and of obeying his conscience raised up hosts of followers under the name of United Brethren. In the years that followed many other people were burned or killed for conscience sake; such we call martyrs. Many of these United Brethren lived in a land called Moravia, and from this these United Brethren became known as Moravians. For three hundred years they were driven all over Europe. They were hunted like wild beasts, thrust into prison, burned at the stake, or had their tongues torn out, or their limbs torn off, because they dared to worship God as they thought right. Among them was the greatest schoolmaster of his generation, John Amos Comenius, who also was their leader and bishop. He was the author of the first schoolbook for children that had pic- tures. This book was used for generations. Other books which Comenius wrote greatly influenced the Moravians. This is true also of Brother Warbos, who was the first schoolmaster who came into Carbon County. These Moravians, however, had among themselves another great man, who became their deliverer. He was Nicholas Lud- wig, Count Zinzendorf . He made a home on his estate for these wandering and friendless people. This new home was called Herinhut, a word which means the protection of the Lord. In this home, however, they were not allowed to live long in peace; for in 1 736, Zinzendorf was banished from his home land, Saxony, for his religion's sake. OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 23 After being banished, he went to England. He sent some Moravians to Georgia, but there people were not allowed religious liberty, so they went to settle, in the land of Penn. They made their first settlement in 1 740, about fifteen miles east of Allentown, at a place called Nazareth. Father Nitchman and a large body of Germans soon joined them. In the following year they made another settlement on the Lehigh River. To this wilderness home late in the year came their banished leader, Zinzendorf . There was only one house in the settlement, and many of the settlers were living in caves. This house was divided by a wall, one end being a horse and cow stable. In this house the Moravians had their Christmas service, and late in the evening the singers, in the cold and darkness, crept close up to the manger and sang with such feeling that it melted them to tears: "Not from Jerusalem, but Bethlehem, Comes that which helpeth me." So in the tears and prayers in the darkness of the stable these pious men of God called their settlement Bethlehem. Zinzendorf organized the Mission at Bethlehem. He was a descendant of a noble family, educated at Halle and the Univer- sity of Wittenberg, and became converted to the Moravian faith only after his marriage to a rich and noble lady, Countess of Erdmuth. After his conversion, he spent a large part of his time and fortune in advancing the cause of his church. The poor and oppressed of his congregation always were his first con- sideration. In the presence of several prominent men in Philadelphia, he gave up his title of Count, and took the name of Louis von Thurnstein. After this the Quakers called him "Friend Lewis" and the Moravians "Brother Lewis." Like all other Moravians, he became greatly interested in the Indians. He went to see Conrad Weiser at Tulpenhocken in company with his daughter, Benigna. During this visit, Weiser told him much about the life and habits of the Indians and of their council fires at Onendoga. Weiser also informed him of how the Delawares and the Shwanese had been conquered by the Iroquois. How these two tribes were 24 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY now governed by Shikellimy who stayed at Shamokin. Weiser also told him of their strange desire for rum, their habits of meditation, their reverence for the aged and the Great Spirit, and of the desire on the part of the wise men among them to save the young Indian men from the white man's drink. Weiser, moreover, showed Zinzendorf how the French were going among the Indians as missionaries, learning their ways of living and adopting them, as well as talking their language. That the thing for the Missionaries to do was to bring Christ to the Indians rather than to bring the Indians among the Christians. Weiser went even further, and told him that some Missionary should have a blacksmith shop at Shamokin to mend their guns and hatchets. Zinzendorf was delighted. He and Benigna agreed to go with Weiser on his next journey to the Indians' council fire. The road was wild and difficult, and in many parts of the Indian trails which they followed, the limbs of the trees often threatened to brush Benigna from her horse. Zinzendorf followed Weiser only part of the way, when, instead of going to visit the Iroquois, he went to visit the Shwanese. Weiser tried to prevent this. "You don't know the ferocious nature of these Indians. They will surely scalp you. No white man has ever been among them and they will not listen to your preaching," said Weiser. "That is just why I am going," replied Zinzendorf. "They need to know of Christ." Weiser left him and Zinzendorf pushed on and pitched his tent in the Wyoming country. One day after he had opened his Mission he received from the Moravians at Bethlehem a bundle of letters which had come all the way from Europe. In order to be alone he caused his tent to be moved some distance from the others. Here he sat alone for some days reading and studying over his papers. He had been received coldly by the Indians at first, but now that he removed himself from them, they became suspicious. "Why should he come here?" they asked. "He is sitting in a tent alone away from his daughter and the rest of us making plans to rob us. It is a trick to get our lands from us. We've OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 25 not forgotten the Walking Purchase. He's too much alone. He's a bad man. He loves the dark spirit. Snakes are in his wigwam. We had best kill him." The day of his death was selected and a brave young warrior chosen to do the deed. Before the day of the murder had arrived, Conrad Weiser arrived in the settlement. He feared all would not be well with Zinzendorf and went across the wild untrodden mountains to bring him the relief that he felt sure Zinzendorf needed. Zinzen- dorf knew nothing of the dark plan of the Indians. Weiser, however, understood them better, and charged them with plotting the murder. The Shwanese were frightened. They feared Weiser because of his influence with their superiors, the Iroquois. Some one must have told their secret. "Take this man's life because you think he's going to get your lands," said he. "These lands are not yours. The Iroquois gave them to you for hunting grounds. You are women. If you kill Zinzendorf, they will take the land from you. You are cowardly women. Go bury your scalping knives and let him go." The Indians promised not to touch him and for a long time the Moravians thanked Weiser for saving Zinzendorf. It was the Moravians and the early Germans who were the great missionaries to the Indians. They learned the language and the ways of the Indians most readily and most easily adopted Indian ways of living. The early records of colonial history are rich in such names as Spangenberg, Heckewelder, L,oskiel, Nitch- man, Mack, Ettewein, and many like them, all men of high pur- pose, strong faith, and courage unexcelled in the world's history. These are the men who carried the message of Christ to the Indians in the spirit of true Christian service. Though they succeeded imperfectly in teaching the Indians to bury the hatchet and live to serve others; their lives so full of faith, of hope, of sacrifice, of suffering, and of service will ever remain as so many monuments to guide and inspire others to be steadfast and devoted in the service of their fellows. 26 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY Zinzendorf's Visit Into What is Now Carbon County. In 1742 Count Zinzendorf made the first journey of which we have any record into what is now Carbon County. In com- pany with several Indians who had been converted at Bethlehem, he ascended the Lehigh River at least as far north as where Weissport now stands. On this visit, he selected the spot upon which the Moravian Mission was later built ; and in 1 745 the con- gregation of which he was the leader bought one hundred and twenty acres of land and laid out a settlement. He was in Pennsylvania only about a year. This little outpost of civilization was the first white man's home in Carbon County. It consisted of a small number of houses built in the form of a crescent around an old-fashioned log church. The houses were on the northwest side of the Lehigh River where it is joined by the Mahoning Creek. When the town had been laid out it was called Gnadenhutten, which means tents of grace or mercy huts. The church was called a "Mission" largely because it was intended to be used by the Moravian Missionaries in their journeys to and fro from among the Indians in the western part of the state. The whole settlement was built as a place of abode for some converted Indians, and for a retreat for such others as might from time to time be induced to join the colony. Indians at Gnadenhutten. A number of Indians had been driven out of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. These were sent to the Brethren at Bethlehem by some of the missionaries who lived among them. When these persecuted Indians arrived at Bethlehem a home was provided for them quite near Friedenshutten, and here, for a time, they received shelter, care, and religious instruction. More Indians, however, were constantly arriving and the number soon became too large to be comfortably provided for. It was in response to the urgent necessity of finding more room and shelter for this constantly increasing number, that a new settle- ment was started at Gnadenhutten. OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 27 In this new settlement, when the converted Indians had been taken there, things went unusually well. A Thanksgiving Day was held as soon as the first crops were harvested. Each day's work was begun and ended with prayer and songs of praise. The Bible was translated into Mohegan and read whenever a number of the Brethren were gathered together. Rauch and Martin Mack were the first white men to reside in the settlement as missionaries. The crops were good and the first church was soon too small, and another had to be built. In 1754 a number of the Indians were led to desert the con- gregation and join their savage fellows in the Wyoming Valley. A large part of the Indians of the congregation were Mohegans and Delawares. The Delawares and Shwanese on the Susquehanna had for some time done all they could possibly do to cause the Indians to desert their Christian Brethren. The converted and friendly Indians for a long time refused to do this. After a struggle, however, their love of the wild life of their ancestors overcame their Christian feelings, and under influence of the wily Delaware Chief, Teedyuscung, a number of them went back to the savage tribes of the forest. 28 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY CHAPTER VII. Teedysucung. Teedyuscung was baptized by Bishop Cammerhoff on the twelfth of March, 1750. He was a tall straight-limbed warrior, who later became the last and great war king of the Delaware Indians. The doctrine of the Brethren of returning good for evil, little suited his nature, and it was with no Christian spirit that he saw his brethren injured by the whites and their hunting grounds changed into fields. The moment when his untamed brothers asked him to be their king was an evil one for him; for the prospect of the crown dazzled his eyes and he forsook his Christian teachings for ambition and revenge. The revenge of Teedyuscung was confined chiefly to the lands of the Walking Purchase. From their lurking places in the forest he would lead a small group of savage warriors, ruthlessly burning with the torch and murdering with the tomahawk all of the booty or the prisoners that they could not carry back with themselves >.o their retreats in the glades. The defenseless settlers were harassed by their unseen foe by day and night. The settlers were scalped or tomahawked, or carried into captivity for worse than slavery or the coveted ransom. Nightly the horizon was reddened by fire and daily there hung around it a cloud of smoke which marked the progress of the fiendish invaders and their progress of death and destruction to appease a revenge which was relentless as it was unmerciful. Teedyuscung and his bands in the midwinter made hundreds of homeless wanderers who knew not whither to turn for safety. Hundreds in sheer des- peration deserted their homes because of the swift destruction they knew was coming in the pillage of the Indians. They became wanderers who knew not whither to turn for safety or succor. Surely the iniquity of the sins of the fathers were being visited upon the children. OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 29 In the Revolutionary War Teedyuscung was the great Indian hero. He was wise, brave, cunning, and faithful to his followers. He loved fun, was quick in seeing the weakness of his enemy, and was cutting in his remarks to those who opposed him. He lived at Gnadenhutten for six years and remained attached to the Brethren all his life. Like the other Indians he could not resist the temptation to drink. It is reported that he frequently con- sumed a gallon of whiskey a day. He was burned to death while asleep in his cabin. Two fine monuments are erected in his memory in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. New Gnadenhutten. The accommodations at Gnadenhutten soon became too small, even though a number of Indians did desert ; so it was decided to move the Mission to the northeast side of the Lehigh where Weiss- port now stands. In this new settlement the houses for the Indians were arranged along both sides of the principal street. The Mohegans lived on one side and the Delawares on the other, while the Brethren at Bethlehem took upon themselves the care of the land and the buildings on the opposite side of the river. All still went well in the settlement. The Missionaries worked and prayed for the salvation of the dusky dwellers ftf the forest, and fondly hoped that continued success would bless their efforts. Trouble Along the Frontier. The days of William Penn, however, were no more. The Indians had been disappointed by the manner in which they were deprived of the land at the forks of the Delaware .as the result of the Walking Purchase conducted by the Sheriff of Bucks County. The French in the north fanned these feelings of discontent and ill will into a flame of hatred and revenge. The Indians were led to believe after the death of Braddock that now was their opportunity to destroy all settlements along the Atlantic border. Since much of the land in possession of the white men was secured by getting treaties signed when the Indians had been intoxicated, the Indians felt they had been cheated, that the white men were 30 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY not true to their Bible, and they were eager again to get possession of the hunting grounds of their fathers. There was no limit to the false reports which the French in the north spread among them. They were told that if they remained true to the teachings of the Moravians their corn would rot on the stock, their streams would go dry, the wild game would seek other lands, and the fish would die in the streams and ponds. The French flattered the Indians and tried to get their help in every possible way. They stirred them to deeds of blood along the entire frontier. After the defeat of Braddock every day witnessed new deeds of horror which they committed with all the cruelty of which their nature was capable. The whole border was in terror. The farmers deserted their dwellings and fled to towns for safety. The Brethren at Gnadenhutten were warned of their danger, but they agreed to stick to their post and not desert the Mission. Those Indians who forsook their Christian Brethren to return to their wild life in the woods, became angry with their Indian brothers who would not forsake their Christian comrades and they determined to wipe out the settlement. The Missionaries were, therefore, suddenly and savagely attacked. On the evening of November 24, 1755, they were surprised in the Mission while the entire group was at supper, and eleven of the household were horribly murdered. Massacre at Gnadenhutten. The shadows of the evening of a chilly November day were just turning into night, when above the whistling and moaning of the wind as it swept through the leafless branches there was heard among the dogs an unusual barking and angry growling. The savage uproar soon resounded through the woods and smote terror into the hearts of the dwellers in the Mission. As the noise became louder, Brother Senseman went out at the back door to see what was the matter. He had hardly left the door before the report of a gun was heard, and when* several of the others opened the door, there stood the Indians in all their horrible war OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 31 paint, their guns shouldered ready to fire as soon as the light from the inside made aiming possible. Martin Nitchman was instantly killed when the door was opened. His wife and some others were wounded, but they climbed into the loft and closed the door with the bedstead. Brother Partsch jumped out of the rear window and escaped unobserved. Brother Warbos was in an adjoining house, sick of a fever. He likewise left by the rear window and escaped to the woods in safety, though the savages had cautiously guarded the door in front. When the Indians could not follow those who went to the garret, they set fire to the house; and it was soon in flames. A boy, Sturgeons, made his way to the flaming roof ; leaped to the ground ; and under the cover of the darkness and the underbrush made his way to safety. Sister Partsch, made bold by the lad's example, leaped to the ground, escaped to a nearby tree, and was again united with her husband who had escaped by the rear window. Brother Fabricus also tried to leap from the roof, but being observed, he was soon wounded by a number of balls. The Indians took him alive; killed him with their tomahawks after removing his scalp, and left him lying upon the ground near the burning building. Brother Senseman, who left the house at the barking of dogs, had the horror of seeing his wife and others in the attic burned alive. Sister Partsch overcome with fear and trembling, hid herself near the Mission behind a tree ; and from there she saw Sister Senseman standing upon the burning roof with her arms folded, and looking to Heaven heard her exclaim, " 'Tis well, dear Saviour, I expected nothing else." In the group on the attic was also a woman with an infant in her arms. She wrapped the child in her apron, folded it to her bosom and sat in silence. At intervals above the fierce yells of the Indians, the painful cries of the perishing, and the crackling of burning timber, were heard the agonizing cries of the innocent child. Thus five of the eight who had made their way to the attic perished in the flames. Susanna Nitchman was carried away by the captors. She was taken to Wyoming and made to share the wigwam of a cruel Indian. She died in about six months from the injuries inflicted by her brutal captor and from grief and weeping too bitter for words to express. 32 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY The savage murderers next set fire to the stable and the adjoining buildings, burned the hay ricks and the cattle, divided such spoils as they had collected, made a hearty meal of bread soaked in milk, and started on their return journey across Broad Mountain. Gnadenhutten is Deserted. When the Indians at New Gnadenhutten heard the report of a gun and saw the flames across the river, in a few moments they were ready to pursue the invaders. The Missionary, Brother Zeisberger, who had only returned from Bethlehem, advised to the contrary and they all fled to the woods. A body of English militia had marched to within five miles of Gnadenhutten and when told of the savage attack of the Indians did not think it wise to follow them in the dark. In the old part of the cemetery in Lower Lehighton there is a marble slab within the shadow of a weather beaten monument which tells the sad story of the cruel fate of the sacrificing men and women. The inscription reads : "To the Memory of Gotueband Christiana Anders With their Children, Johanna, Martin and Susan Nitchman, Leonhard Gettermeyer, Christian Fabricus, Lesley and Martin Presser, Who Lived at Gnadenhutten, unto the Lord and Lost their Lives in a Surprise From Indian War- riors, November 24, 1755. "Precious in the Sight of the Lord is the Death of His Saints." Towards night, of the day after the massacre, eight of the white people and about thirty of the Indians who had been at Gnadenhutten arrived in Bethlehem. For several days after this all the settlers of the Lehigh Valley were moving southward toward Bethlehem. The French had induced the Iroquois Indians to remove the Indian settlements from Gnadenhutten to Wyoming. Since the savages were secretly determined to join the French, they wished first to furnish a safe retreat for OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 33 their Indian brothers, so that they might more easily fall on the whites. Among those willing to move were Teedyuscung and sixty-five others. A Stockadb is Bun/r. The soldiers above referred to were several days later joined by others who were to guard the Brethren's mills, which were filled with grain, and the property of the Christian Indians. These soldiers built a stockade and made an attempt to protect the entire frontier, but they were no match for the cunning Indians and they soon fell victims to their wily tricks. On January i, 1756, a number of these soldiers were skating on the ice of the Lehigh River near the stockade. They were much surprised to see two Indians on the ice farther up the river, and thinking it would be an easy matter to capture and kill them, they started after them in a headlong chase. The Indians wanted to lead the soldiers into an ambush and allowed them to gain rapidly. Before they had proceeded very far beyond the fort, a number of Indians rushed out from the bushes behind the soldiers, and killed all who had entered the chase. Some of the soldiers who had remained in the fort, alarmed at the murder of their companions in arms, left the fort, and the few remaining ones, thinking themselves unable to hold the fort against the Indians, withdrew. The Indians returned and seized such things as they were able to use, and then for a second time reddened the sky, giving the Brethren beyond the Blue Mountains a token that their grain, their mills, and their dwellings were being destroyed by savage demons. Other Attacks. Nor was the murder of the soldiers the only ones that the Indians committed. Frederick Hoeth lived about twelve miles east of Gnadenhutten. His house was suddenly attacked in Decem- ber of the same winter by a group of five or six Indians. The family was at supper when several shots were fired. Hoeth himself was killed and a woman was wounded. After several more shots 34 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY were fired, all who could, ran out of the house. The mother went to the bake house, but being driven from it by flames, she ran to the creek where she died in horrible agony. The Indians set fire to the house, stable, and mill. They burned three of the smaller children, while one of the larger daughters was killed and scalped, and several others were carried off into captivity among the Indians. Frankun Builds Forts. The condition of affairs thoroughly aroused the people of the lower settlements. Letters were written to Governor Morris to make provision to protect the settlers against the merciless savages. He responded by sending Benjamin Franklin to take charge of building a series of forts along the Blue Mountains. Work on these frontier defenses was started in 1756, Franklin having arrived in Bethlehem for this purpose on December 10th. He made ready for his journey into the wilderness by sending in advance arms, ammunition, and blankets. It was on January 15 th that the little band left Bethlehem for Gnadenhut ten, where, on January 25, 1756, he wrote the following letter to the Governor: Franklin's Letter to the Governor. "Dear Sir, — We got to Hays' the same evening we left you, and received Craig's company by the way. Much of the next morning was spent in changing bad arms for the good, Wayne's company having joined us. We marched, however, that night to Uplinger's where we got into good quarters. Saturday morn- ing we began to march towards Gnadenhutten and proceeded nearly two miles ; but it seeming to set in for a rainy day, the men unprovided with great coats and many unable to secure effectively their arms from the wet, we thought it advisable to face about and return to our former quarters, where the men might dry themselves and lie warm; whereas, had they proceeded, they would have come in wet to Gnadenhutten, where shelter and opportunity of drying themselves that night was uncertain. In fact, it rained all day, and we were all pleased that we had not OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 35 proceeded. The next day being Sunday, we marched hither, where we arrived about two in the afternoon, and before five had inclosed our camp with a strong breastwork, musket proof, and with boards brought here before, by my order from Dunker's mill, got ourselves under some shelter from the weather. Monday was so dark, with a thick fog all day, that we could neither look out for a place to build nor see where materials were to be had. Tuesday we looked round us, pitched on a place, marked out our fort on the ground, and by ten o'clock began to cut timber for stockades and to dig the ground. By three o'clock in the afternoon the logs were all cut and many of them hauled to the spot, the ditch dug to set them in three feet deep, and many were pointed and set up. The next day we were hindered by rain most of the day. Thursday we resumed our work, and before night we were perfectly well inclosed, and on Friday morning the stockade was finished, and part of the platform within erected, which was com- pleted next morning, when we dismissed Foulk's and Wetter- holt's companies, and sent Hay's down for a convey of provisions. The next day we hoisted the flag, made a general discharge of our pieces, which had been long loaded, and of our two swivels, and named the place Fort Allen, in honor of our old friend. It is one hundred and twenty-five feet long, fifty feet wide, the stockades most of them a foot thick. They are three feet in the ground and twelve feet out; pointed at the top. This is an account of our week's work, which I thought might give you some satisfaction. Foulk is gone to build another between this and the Schuylkill fort, which I hope will be finished (as Trexler is to join him) in a week or ten days. As soon as Hay's men return I shall despatch another party to erect another at Surfas's, which I hope to be finished the same time, and then I purpose to end my campaign, God willing, and do myself the pleasure of seeing you on my return. I can now add no more than that I am with great esteem and affection, your friend, B. Franklin." In his autobiography Franklin thus describes Fort Allen: "The next morning our fort was planned and marked out* the circumference measuring four hundred and fifty-five feet, 36 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY which would require as many palisades to be made, one with another, of a foot diameter each. Our axes of which we had seventy, were immediately set to work to cut down trees, and our men being dexterous in the use of them, great dispatch was made. Each pine made three palisades of eighteen feet long, pointed at one end. While these were preparing our other men dug a trench all around of three feet deep, in which the palisades were to be planted, and, the bodies being taken off our wagons, and the fore and hind wheels separated by taking out the pin which united the two parts of the perch, we had ten carriages, with two horses each, to bring the palisades from the woods to the spot. When they were set up, our carpenter built a platform of boards around within, about six feet high, for the men to stand on when to fire through the loop-holes. We had one swivel-gun which we mounted on one of the angles, and fired it as soon as fixed, to let the Indians know, if any were within hearing, that we had such pieces; and thus our fort, if that name may be given to so miserable a stockade, was finished in a week, though it rained so hard every other day that the men could not work." Franklin Leaves Fort Allen. Thus was completed the stockade, whose erection was appropriately celebrated on Saturday, May 28, 1910, by one of the finest parades of civic and political bodies that the county has ever witnessed, and ceremonies rarely surpassed in solemnity and appropriateness. The fort had not yet been quite completed, when Franklin received letters from the Governor and others to return to attend the meeting of the Assembly. He returned, therefore, to Bethlehem after an absence of nineteen days. He states that he was unable to rest well on the first night of his return, since he had become accustomed to sleeping on the floor at Gnadenhutten. ,,.. '' Franklin's plan of defending the frontier was so successful that the Indians stopped making attacks upon the whites. The settlers soon returned to their homes and began their former occupations. Though the forts made the farmers feel safer, they OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 37 did not live in perfect security. Peace and quiet, however, were maintained until the Revolutionary War, when the murder of citizens on the border was begun anew. After the Gnadenhutten massacre the few people who had been living in what is now Carbon County returned and were joined by those who made their homes in the river valleys. Among these was Benjamin Gilbert. In 1775, he cleared a farm and built a mill a few miles from where Fort Allen stood. On April 25, 1780, the Gilberts were attacked by eleven Indians, and twelve prisoners were carried into captivity. Many deeds of cruelty were practiced upon the prisoners in their journey to the St. Lawrence. There they were kept in slavery for a number of years. The old people of the party were threatened with death when they moved too slowly and the elder Gilbert had his face blackened to indicate his fate. For food, they killed deer, of which each one roasted a piece on a sharpened stick. To secure the prisoners overnight, they cut down saplings about six inches in diameter and into it cut notches. Into these notches the legs of the prisoners were placed at about the ankle. Over this they placed a pole, and fastened each end securely with stakes driven across the poles into the ground to form an X. Into the crotchet or cross of these stakes were placed a piece of wood to keep all firmly in place. They put a strap around the necks of the prisoners, fastening them in the order in which they were fastened by their legs, and then fastened the end to a, tree. For a mattress they had hemlock branches and they were allowed blankets for covering. This occurrence is known among the people as the "Gilbert Family Captivity." Besides Benjamin, who was sixty-nine years of age, there were Eliza, his wife; Joseph Gilbert, his son; Jessie Gilbert, Rebecca Gilbert, Abner Gilbert, Eliza Gilbert, Thomas Peart, Benjamin Gilbert, Jr., Andrew Harrigar, Abigail Dobson, twelve years of age, who lived on a farm one mile from Gilbert's ; Benjamin Peart, his wife, Elizabeth, and their nine-months-old child. No time was lost by the Indians in hurrying the captives over the Nescopeck trail, which led from Mahoning Valley to Lausanne, 38 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY at the junction of the Nesquehoning Creek and the Lehigh River, over the Broad Mountain to Beaver Meadow, to Nescopeck, Columbia County, on the banks of the Susquehanna, and then to Canada. On the fifty-fourth day of their captivity the captives found themselves on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. They were soon separated from each other. Some were given over to Indians, others sold into slavery, some hired out to white families and sent to Montreal. Among the latter was Benjamin Gilbert, who died of a broken heart and whose remains were laid at rest on the banks of the St. Lawrence below Ogdensburg. After two years and three months of their captivity, the Gilberts and the Pearts were redeemed, and gathered at Montreal August 22, 1782, where they decided "no more Mahoning or Gnadenhutten for us ; we want to go back to the City of Brotherly Love, where we belong," though their descendants are known in many quarters of this country to-day. PART II. CHAPTER I. Internal Improvements. The proprietors of Pennsylvania called the vast mountain region north of the Blue Ridge "Towamensing." This is an Indian term which means vast wilderness. The first settlements which the Moravians made in 1746 in the mountain wilds were wiped out by the Indians as if they had been letters on the sand. Colonel Burd, in 1756, said of the whole region in the vicinity of Fort Allen, now Weissport, "The country is an entire barren wilderness, incapable of improvement." In 1762 the whole dis- trict of Towamensing contained but thirty-three persons who were subject to taxation. After the massacre at Gnadenhutten, the whole region was practically deserted. Penn Township was cut out of the Towamensing region in 1768, and soon after this there came families who cleared its farms, opened its mines, and started its workshops. Among these were the Solts, the Haydts, the Beltzes, the Arners, and the Boyers. After' the captivity of the Gilbert family the settlers in the locality again sought safety in flight and the only white men who remained in the region were those whose cabins and clearings were quite a distance from the streams along which the Indians usually traveled. Penn Township then stretched westward to include much of what is now Schuylkill County. No settlement of importance was recorded until about 1803, when Hillegas, Miner, and Cist, as well as other people living in Easton and Philadelphia, took up vast tracts on the supposition that it contained coal, which was discovered at Summit Hill in 1791- In 1768 all that portion of the Towamensing district west of the Lehigh was set apart as Penn Township. The assessment 40 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY list of the township in 1781 shows the names of quite a large number of inhabitants. The real work of making homes in the forest began in 1804, when the settlers spread themselves through the valleys, and agricultural pursuits were started. The oper- ations, of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company were started in 1818. The vast tracts of pine and hemlock timber were then called Pine Swamp, because the swamps and marshes were num- erous. It was not until 1838 that the timber companies began removing the lumber from the Shades of Death, Penn Forest, Kidder and Lausanne Townships, and that mills and houses for the lumbermen began to dot the surface. INCORPORATION OF THE LEHIGH COAI, AND NAVIGATION CO. It was the endeavor to mine and place upon the market the coal, that marks the beginning of the industries of the county. The Lehigh Navigation Company was organized August 10, and the Lehigh Coal Company on October 10, 1818. In the spring of 1820 they were consolidated, and on February 13, 1822, they were incorporated under the title of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company. The task of making the Lehigh River a navigable stream was begun several times and given up as too costly and impractical. The act which incorporated the company gave this corporation the privilege of carrying out their object, and the leading char acters.White and Hazard, began the workin earnest. They began by building dams and gates in the neighborhood of Mauch Chunk so that the water could be held until required for use. When the dam became full and the water had run over long enough to have the river below contain its usual amount of water, the gates were left down and the loaded boats in the dam above were left down with the temporary flood. Fnough of these dams were made to prove that in this way coal could be taken from Mauch Chunk to Easton. FIRST SHIPMENT BY USE OP DAMS. Some of the dams were injured by the ice during the spring freshets, but they were repaired and the first shipment of coal OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 41 that reached Philadelphia, amounting to three hundred and sixty-five tons, was made in 1820. This completely overstocked the market. The boats used for this purpose were called "arks" and con- sisted of boxes from sixteen to eighteen feet wide and from twenty to twenty- two feet long. At first two of these were joined together to allow them to bend up and down in passing the dams. After the boatmen became accustomed to handling them the number of sections very much increased the whole "ark," sometimes measuring one hundred and eighty feet. It is said the machinery in making them was so well and perfectly adapted to its purpose that five men could put together one of these sections and launch it in forty-five minutes. None of the boats made more than one trip, for on arriving in Philadelphia they were broken up, the planks were sold, and the hinges and nails were returned to Mauch Chunk. For several years the boatmen walked back and later they were carried by the hotel- keepers in rude wagons at a low rate. The coal trade soon increased so rapidly that it could not possibly be continued with- out some means of getting the planks some sixteen miles above Mauch Chunk. Attempts were made to send planks down the river singly, but they became bruised and broken upon the rocks. The plan of sending down the logs was then tried, but the freshets swept them over the dam at Mauch Chunk and too many of them were lost. THE BUILDING OF CANALS. In 1825 the company sent down twenty-eight thousand, three hundred and ninety-three tons of anthracite coal. To continue to build a boat for each load that was shipped, thus became impossible, and as a result a canal from Mauch Chunk to IJaston was begun. This canal was made sixty feet wide at the top and five feet deep, while the locks were one hundred feet long and twenty-two feet wide. The work was begun about midsummer and completed in two years at an expense of seven hundred and eighty thousand, three hundred and three dollars. 42 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY The entire length was forty-four and three-fourth miles. The Delaware division was opened two years later. Making the canal required eight dams across the river from five to thirteen feet high. From the report made by the committee appointed by the Governor to see if the canal had been made according to law, we learn that the new canal was considered a great public improvement and the company was praised for the promptness and thoroughness with which the work was done. The Beaver Meadow coal region, in the meantime, began to attract the men desirous of engaging in the coal business. It was soon learned that the Legislature would not consent to build dams to bring boats down by artificial freshets such as those that had first been used below Mauch Chunk. The fall of the water was so great that the locks of the canal would have to be built very close together and would require much time to pass through them. On the 13th of March, 1837, a law was therefore passed allowing the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company to build a railroad to connect the Lehigh Canal with the short canals that had been built in this region. A direct line for transporting coal was then completed from beyond White Haven to Uaston n the Delaware, and from thence to Philadelphia, a distance of one hundred and forty-four miles. In 1827 the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company sent over this canal 32,074 tons of coal; in 1837, 223,902 tons, and in 1847, 633,507 tons. The following is a description of the canal copied from a history published in 1845 : " The scenery immediately upon leaving White Haven is striking, but improves gradually, as you descend the Lehigh, until, some miles above Mauch Chunk, it becomes wild and pic- turesque to the highest degree. Dark waters of a river, dyed almost to a black, by the sap of the hemlock soaking in it, everywhere enclosed by mountains from three hundred to seven hundred feet high, and confined to a channel, scarcely three hundred feet wide, " trace a circuitous course through, perhaps, the wildest and most rugged region of the state. Determined to enjoy it to the utmost, I furnished myself with a 'prime principe,' OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 43 and taking my seat upon the deck, fairly drank in the varied magnificence of the ever changing scene. Beneath me, the Lehigh either reposed in a black, glittering sheet, or bounded in its rocky channel in wreaths of snow-white foam; about me, on every side, for hundreds of feet, rose the pine-capped mountains, here, dark, jagged and precipitous, interspersed with occasional forest trees, growing in the ravines, or amongst the clefts and crevices of the rocks; now, covered with rolling stones near their summits, bald and desolate; and again, sloping to the river's bank, evenly clad with bright green foliage, and affording the eye a grateful relief from the almost painful grandeur of the ruder scenes; above me, was the deep blue sky of a summer's eve, enhancing the effect of every view, by the contrast of its serene expanse with the wild confusion of the mountain scenery around. Everywhere the mountain sides were spotted with tall, gaunt, leafless trunks of withered pines, blasted by lightning, or scorched by the hand of man, and requiring but slight aid from the excited imagination, to see the gigantic guards of these Satanic fortresses. Along the course of the river, not a single lot of arable land is to be perceived; the mountains sink sheer to the water's edge. In wild magnificence of scenery, I have seen nothing on the Hudson, the Susquehanna, or the Juniata, to compare with the banks of the Lehigh." THE SWITCHBACK RAILROAD. In order that the coal might be carried from the mines at Summit Hill to the canal at Mauch Chunk the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company built a gravity railroad between these two towns. The work was begun in 1827. It was the first railroad ever built to carry coal; and, if a wooden railroad at a stone quarry in Massachusetts is excepted, the first that was ever built for any purpose. It was placed mainly on an old wagon road and is about nine miles long. When the cars came to the river the coal was passed down long chutes into the boats. The idea of the road was first thought out by Joshua White and was finished in four months. The iron used for rails was three-eighths of an 44 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY inch in thickness and one and one-half inches wide resting on a wooden rail. The sleepers were four feet apart. At first the cars carried about one and one-half tons of coal and a train of them numbered from six to fourteen cars. They were returned on the same track by mules that descended in cars made for this purpose with the train. The descent of the loaded cars was made in about thirty-five minutes, but the mules, each drawing about three or four cars, required about three hours to return. The road which carried the coal by gravity from Nesquehon- ing, just as it was carried from Summit Hill, was begun in 1830. The bed of this old gravity road is now occupied in part of the distance by the trolley line. It was abandoned when the Nes- quehoning Valley Railroad was built. Some of the stones to which the wooden rails were fastened may still be seen. When the demand for coal increased so rapidly that the cars could not be returned to the mines quickly enough with mules, Joshua White decided to carry out his idea of returning the cars to the mines by gravity. To carry out this plan, a plane was built from the chutes of Mt. Pisgah about nine hundred feet high. The length of the whole plane was two thousand, three hundred and twenty-two feet. The cars were drawn up this plane by a steam engine and from there they ran a distance of six miles where they again were raised a distance of four hundred and sixty-two feet to the top of Mt. Jefferson, from where they ran a mile to the mines at Summit Hill. This track was completed in 1845. When the operations were begun in the Panther Creek Valley in the following year the cars descended on a track that has since been abandoned, and were drawn up a plane similar to that of Mt. Pisgah. In going down for its load the car went down the track for a short distance until it came to a place where the road formed into a Y, when it would go up the hill on the left-hand stem of the Y until it was stopped by the force of gravity. As soon as the car had come to a standstill it began to run down the left-hand stem and ascended on the road it came down until it was again stopped by the force of gravity. It would again start to descend, and crossing a switch which was closed by a OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 45 spring it descended on the right-hand stem until it reached another switch, where the same thing was repeated. It was the peculiar arrangement of the switches which allowed cars to descend from Summit Hill into what is now Lansford that gave the whole system the name that it now bears, "Switchback Railroad." It was one of the most wonderful feats of engineering work that had been accomplished anywhere. It remains to-day one of the proudest monuments to tell of the intelligence and skill and the courage of men who were the great leaders of industry in Carbon County a generation ago. When the Panther Creek Valley was connected with the Lehigh System by the Nesquehoning Railroad, which passed through the tunnel to Lansford and Tamaqua, the original gravity road and the Switchback became useless to the company for hauling coal. The Switchback was then leased by the Reading Railroad and is now used by thousands of visitors yearly to take a novel pleasure trip to and from the coal mines. THE LEHIGH AND SUSQUEHANNA RAILROAD. A heavy and continuous rain commenced on the afternoon of June 3, 1862, and did not stop until about five o'clock on the morning of the 5th. There was a great flood in the Upper Lehigh Valley, and as a result most of the costly canal improvements above Mauch Chunk were destroyed. Dam No. 4 at White Haven contained many logs. This was torn away by the unusual flood of water. The water and logs thus left free, started going down the valley and gathered force as they went. In their mad rush down the valley they either damaged or tore away all the dams between White Haven and Mauch Chunk. The damage to the company's property was so great that it was considered useless to try to make repairs. The people in the Lower Lehigh Valley opposed the rebuilding of the dams because of the danger in which they placed them and their property. In consideration of these facts, the Legislature granted the company the right to build a railroad from White Haven to Mauch Chunk to connect with the road which had been built from White Haven 46 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY to Wilkes-Barre. This road was called the Lehigh and Susque- hanna Railroad. The road was soon built and operated by the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, when it was leased to a company operating a railroad in New Jersey. Since then it is known as the Central Railroad of New Jersey. THE NESQUEHONING VALLEY RAILROAD. The act allowing the building of this railroad was passed over the Governor's veto in May, 1861. The road was to begin at the canal landing near Nesquehoning Creek and extend to the head waters of this stream. The act also allowed it to connect with branch roads. It was soon built and then carried the coal form- erly carried by the gravity road, previously described. It was soon joined with the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad and became a part of the Jersey Central System in 1871. In 1866 there was carried over this road more than 322,229 tons of coal. In 1862 it was continued from Hauto to Tamaqua. THE LEHIGH VALLEY RAILROAD. A bill allowing the building of this railroad was passed by the Legislature in 1846. Its building was delayed until 1851, when one mile of it was built near Allentown so as not to allow the charter to expire. About this time Hon. Asa Packer, a prominent citizen of Mauch Chunk, became the purchaser of nearly all of the stock which had been sold in order to get money to build the road. He engaged Mr. Robert H. Sayre, who had been engaged with the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company as surveyor, and the location of the line was soon selected. Judge Packer volunteered to build the road on condition that he should receive in payment for the work the company's stocks- and bonds, and his offer was accepted. Work on its building was begun at each end, Mauch Chunk and Easton. Many difficulties had to be overcome. In many places the rocks raised directly from the water's edge of the river to great heights. It was finished on September 12, 1855. The road was OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 47 a decided success from the beginning. A second track was built in 1865. It is now one of the great railroad systems of America and one of the trunk lines between the Great Lakes and New York City. The Beaver Meadow Railroad was first used in 1836. It is the oldest steam railroad in Carbon County. It extended fr'»m Beaver Meadow in Banks Township to the Lehigh River, a dis- tance of about twenty miles. In 1853 the Beaver Meadow Railroad Company was allowed to take such steps as would be necessary to avoid the use of inclines which were considered dangerous. Accordingly, a rail- road was begun in Weatherly in the direction of Hazleton. In order to build the road it was necessary to make a grade of one hundred and forty-five feet to the mile. In 1866 it became a part of the Lehigh Valley System. The Mahanoy Division was begun in 1837, but not completed. In 1837 the Quakake Valley Railroad Company was allowed to build a road from the Beaver Meadow Railroad to the junction of the Quakake and Black Creeks. The road, about i860, was bought by Judge Asa Packer and its name was changed from Quakake Valley Railroad to Lehigh and Mahanoy Railroad and this was later changed to Mahanoy Division. The Mahoning Railroad Company was incorporated in 1859 and given power to build a railroad from Tamaqua by a practicable route through the Mahoning Valley to any point of the Lehigh Valley Railroad north of Lehigh Gap. Grading was commenced near Lizard Creek, and completed for a distance when the project was abandoned. The building of what is now called the Lizard Creek Branch was begun in 1889 and finished in August of the following year. 48 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY CHAPTER II. Geology of Carbon County. In the last chapter the development of the railroads was the chief subject of consideration. The building of the railroads was very closely related to the coal industry. The mining of coal and preparing it for the market is the principal industry of the county, and to understand this an elementary knowledge of the geology of the county will be very desirable. An attempt has been made to make the discussion that follows so simple that it may be understood by those who never studied the subject. The mining of coal and the whole coal industry will mean much more to those who will first master the simple lessons in geology which are contained in the discussion which follows. Stratified rocks are such as occur in layers. They are usually formed by water which deposits one particle of earth upon another and these particles later are cemented together into stone. The layering is seen even in the large conglomerate rocks which are formed in so many parts of the county. All the rocks coming to the surface in this county are, or were at one time, stratified. The names of the periods with their accompanying thickness will appear in the following table. Much money has been spent by the nation to make the geological surveys by which much of the knowledge which we have was procured. In order to understand the whole it will be best to understand the story from the beginning as the scientists give it to us. Though to us the rocks seem solid and lasting, there must have been a time when they were not what they are now. A careful study of the sun, to which our earth is closely related, leads us back to the very remote ages when the earth was a part of the great world mist from which the sun and our planets are supposed to have formed. OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 49 Years and years ago, as has just been stated, there was a time when the earth was not. In those long gone ages the sun and the moon and millions of stars in the heavens were an uncol- lected cloud -like mist, which, gradually cooling, started to collect and revolve. Ages passed and the cooling and contracting con- tinued, as also did the revolving. From time to time the outer rings of this contracting cooling mass were thrown off, and, in accordance to regular laws, formed the planets and stars as we know them. Our earth is one of these planets and there was a time when it formed a part of the cloud-like misty mass of which the sun is now the center. There must have been a time when the materials of which the earth is composed had been contracting so long that it was largely a molten mass, of which the surface at least was liquid. As the centuries passed by, the surface of this revolving fiery ball cooled off ; a hard crust was formed ; and this was the beginning of rocks, sand, and mud as we know them to-day. Geologists tell us that when the first crust was formed the heat was at least forty times as great as it is on the hottest summer day. This hot, barren, crust-covered mass, was surrounded by a dense fog through which the sun could not shine; for all the water of our rivers, lakes, and oceans was hung in the air, as is the water of our clouds to-day. The carbon, from which the coal and other compounds have since been formed, was also suspended in the air. When the ocean was first formed by condensation from the encircling clouds, its temperature was probably five hundred degrees; and there was an atmospheric pressure of probably four hundred pounds to the square inch, or more than ninety times what we have to-day. During this exceedingly long period the crust kept growing thicker and heavier. The inside portion became cooler and con- tracted. In order that the outside crust might fit this constantly decreasing inner portion, it had to form creases and wrinkles, just as does the skin of an apple when the inside is allowed to dry and take up less room. After the water had done its work of depositing the layers of rock, particle by particle, one on the top of the other on the bottom of the sea, the shrinking began. The 50 HISTORY COVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY shrinking was due partly to the contracting of the interior, and also to the escape of the watery vapor and gases. The wrinkles became our mountain chains. Our mountains are the folds and creases which were made in the outer crust of this county, thus forming the mountains as they were after the great Appalachian Uplift. It was the giant forces of frost, of wind, and of water that wore, and cut, and sculptured them into the forms as we know them to-day. As wrinkles appeared in the contracting crust, they were worn off by the hot waves, and carried in particles to lower places in the valleys to form new rocks. The new rocks thus formed, must have extended around the globe and are the underlying rocks of all the later ages. Of these first rocks, none are visible in Carbon County, but they furnished the material out of which the rocks and hills surrounding us have been formed. These first formed rocks are distinguished from rocks later formed, in that they have no impressions, marks, or remains of animals. Neither are the rocks having the first and lowest forms of life to be found in our locality, so a study of them will be omitted. How old the world upon which we live really is, is a matter about which men have long disputed and upon which they are not yet, by any means, agreed. Sir Edmund Halley, the discoverer of the comet, that visited us in 1910, devised a way of determining the age of the earth by computing the amount of salt which the ocean contained, and expressed the opinion that the earth was much older than was usually supposed. Darwin thought an estimate of 200,000,000 years too small. Sir Archibald Geikie figured the age between 160,000,000 and 600,000,000 years. Prof. Willard Reade calculated the age at 95,000,000 years, and our own great scientist, Prof. J. D. Dana's calculation reached 48,000,000 years. The scientists of to-day compute the age by reckoning the rate at which the surface matter is worn away by the rain, rivers, frost, ice, and winds. Prof. Frank W. Clark, of the United States Geological Survey, estimates that about 2,000,000,000 tons of surface matter are worn away every year. At this rate one foot of the surface above the ocean is washed into the sea OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 51 every 27,660 years. From such reckonings the conclusion is drawn that the earth is very old, and that man's occupation of it is but a day's span as compared with the eons which have elapsed since the first consolidation of the rocks with which the geologist is acquainted. Not above 70,000,000 nor below 55,000,000 years is their last verdict as to the number of years that one must go back to get to the beginning of our old "mother earth." This time the geologists have divided into periods as follows : The Aeons, Eras, and Periods as Recognized in Geology. 1. Archaean Time. — /. Eopaleozoic Section. 1. Cambrian Era. 1. Lower Cambrian, or Georgian, Period. 2. Middle Cambrian, or Acadian, Period. 3. Upper Cambrian, or Potsdam, Period. 2. Lower Silurian Era. 1. Canadian Period. 2. Trenton Period. Age of Invertebrates. //. Neopaleozotc Section. 1. Upper Silurian Era. 1. Niagara Period. 2. Onondaga Period. 3. Lower Helderberg Period. Age of Fishes. 2. Devonian Era. 1. Oriskany Period. 2. Coniferous Period. 3. Middle Devonian, or Hamilton, Period. 4. Upper Devonian, or Chemung, Period. 3. Carboniferous Era. 1. Subcarboniferous Period. Age of Acrogens, or 2. Carboniferous Period. Age of Amphibians. 3. Permian Period. ///. Mesozoic Time. 1. Triassic Era. 2. Jurassic Era. Age of Reptiles. 3. Cretaceous Era. 52 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY IV. Cenozoic Time. Tertiary Era. 1. Eocene Period. 2. Miocene Period. 3. Pliocene Period. Quaternary Era. 1. Glacial Period. 2. Champlain Period. 3. Recent Period. Age of Mammals. Age of Man. XIII. XII. XI. X. II. Palaeozoic Era.- Productive Coal Measures. Potts ville Conglomerate. . . -/. Carboniferous Period Thickness 975 .. 880 Mauch Chunk Red Shale 2170 Pocono Sandstone and Conglomerate 1255 //. Devonian Period. IX. Catskill Sandstones 7145 ( Chemung Shales and Sandstones Portage Shales and Flags Genesee Slates and Shales \ ( 290 I r I . -i Hamilton Sandstones and Flags [ Cadent j 760 Marcellus Shales and Slates > *• 800 Upper Helderberg Limestone \ _, „ . ,. « j- /> n- j o i. i. • ^ -^ i Post-Meridian absent Caudi Galli and Schoharie Grits ' VII. Oriskany Sandstone 340 } Vergent { 1290 [ Cadent j . VI. ///. Upper Silurian Period. ( Lower Helderberg Limestones and Shales 1 I Onondaga Shales V. Clinton Red and Gray Shales Medina Sandstones Oneida Sandstones and Conglomerates. IV •{; 295 2000 665 460 IV. Lower Silurian Period. TTT r Hudson River Slates 'lUtica Slates II. Trenton and Calciferous Limestones I. Potsdam Sandstone Not exposed in Carbon Co. OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 63 The oldest rocks of the county are those found on the summit and composing a greater bulk of the Kittatinny Mountain. This formation (No. IV in the foregoing table) is called the Medina and Oneida sandstones and conglomerates. In the valley between the Blue and Stony Ridge are to be found the limestones (VI) and shales (V) that are next in age. It is the rocks of this water lime group that are impure magnesian limestone. Owing to these impurities, the quick lime made from them will set under water, and is therefore used for hydraulic cement. It is the same series of rocks that when water, lodged around them, is obtained through boardings, it will yield one bushel of lime to thirty-five or forty gallons of water. Stony Ridge is formed of the oldest layer of rocks (VII). It is called so from Oriskany in New York, where it begins. It consists of colcareous or lime-like sandstones. The Chemung, Portage and Genesee rocks are exposed along the Lehigh River immediately north of Lock No. 7 of the Lehigh Canal. The upper Chemung and Hamilton form ridges; the Genesee and Morcellus form valleys; and the Portage form valleys and knolls. The Portage and Chemung rocks near Mauch Chunk have a thickness of 7,500 feet. The oil wells of the western part of the state are supplied from rocks of this upper Devonian strata. In 1891 the wells near Bradford in McKean County yielded five and one-half million gallons of oil, and in Alleghany ten and one-third million. The oil is supposed to come from organic material. Gas is always above it. The Catskill shales and sandstones consist of alternating red, gray, and green sandstones and shales. It is usually found forming ridges and hills with intervening valleys along the foot of mountains consisting of Pocono sandstone. It extends from near the Lehigh Valley Railroad station to about one thou- sand feet south of Long Run. The lower part of the formation is flaggy. At other places men have quarried stones from it twenty- five by fifteen feet by eight inches. They outcrop one mile below Packerton, but are not extensively quarried. The Pocono sandstones (X) are the next oldest in the group. They are sometimes called subcarboniferous rocks. They consist 54 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY of massive white, gray, and yellow conglomerates with thin beds of sandy slate and shale included. Throughout the entire state this group of rocks is mountain making. It forms Mahoning, Kettle, Nesquehoning and Pocono Mountains. Glen Onoko gorge is cut out of the middle rocks of this formation. The Mauch Chunk red shale is so named on account of its red outcrop in the vicinity of Mauch Chunk. It consists of a series of soft red and yellow stones easily eroded and always forming a valley. The axis of these rocks crosses the Iyehigh River about eighteen hundred feet north of the Mauch Chunk bridge. They outcrop at Coalport, the Kettle, Mauch Chunk Creek and Nesquehoning Creek. The base of the carboniferous areas is the Pottsville con- glomerate which contains beds of coal. The rocks of the coal measures are generally sandstones; shales, and conglomerates. They occur in various alternations with occasional beds of coal between them. There are generally about fifty feet of rock to one foot of coal. The coal beds often rest on beds of grayish or bluish clay, called underclay, which is filled with roots or stems of plants. The layer above, especially if shaly, is filled with fossil leaves and stems. Occasionally, as in Ohio, logs fifty to sixty feet in length are found scattered through the sandstone beds, looking as if the forests had been swept from the hills and laid into the sea. The coal bed which is the highest and was last formed in the county is to be found at I,.ansford between the railroad station and breaker No. 9. The general condition of the coal veins as shown by the Lans- f ord tunnel is as follows : Feet Shales, Slates, and Sandstones 300 Coal bed 1 Slate 56 Sandstone 13 Coal 4 Sandstone „ 59 "G" coal bed 6 Sandstone 33 Conglomerate 65 on OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 55 Feet Sandstone 51 Slate 11 "F" coal bed, Red Ash, or Primrose 16 Sandstone 9 Coal bed 2 Slate 52 Coal bed 1 Sandstone 63 Coal bed 1 Conglomerate 37 Sandstone 28 Slate 7 Sandstone 33 Mammoth coal bed, or E, D, and Cross cut 50 Sandstone and Slate 29 Coal bed 3 Slate and Sandstone 34 Buck Mountain coal bed 11 Sandstone and Conglomerate 40 Coal bed 1 Sandstone and Conglomerate 868 Coal bed 1 Conglomerate and Sandstone 770 Total thickness 1855 Coal is found in the county in three different localities. The eastern end of the Panther Creek Valley basin is in Mauch Chunk Township. The southern, eastern, and greater portion of the Beaver Meadow basin is in Banks and Lausanne Townships. A very small portion of Silver Brook basin is in Packer Township. The one first mentioned is by far the most valuable. Coal varies in quality. . That which burns with but little flame and yields about five per cent, of gas is anthracite, and that which burns with a bright yellow flame and yields from twenty to fifty per cent, of such gas is bituminous. Good anthracite contains from four to eight pounds to the hundred of unburnable matter and bituminous from about one to six. About one and one-half miles north of the crest of the Blue Ridge to the east and west of the river as far as the eye can reach, extends Stony Ridge. It is sometimes known as "Devil's Wall." 56 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY This ridge is a very marked feature of the county. Its summits and sides are covered by broken bowlders of Oriskany sandstone. The strata forming its bulk reveal the accompanying formations, as they are in the Ziegenfus and Rutherford tunnels. Marcellus Slate 598 feet f Cement 45 feet Upper Helderberg I Paint Ore. . .' 2 ft. 10 in. [Clay 6 feet ' Oriskany Coarse Sandstone and Conglomerates 162 feet Flinty Sandstones (Fossiliferous) 19 feet Number VII. i Iron Ore 6 feet Flinty Sandstones 22 feet Shale and Sandstone 140 feet The Marcellus shales are in varying positions and are very much crushed. At one place in which they are exposed they are 1,370 feet thick. They are quarried at several places in the county for roofing slate but not extensively. They do not have many of the admirable qualities that are possessed by the slate in the quarries south of the Blue Ridge. The Upper Helderberg, Oriskany sandstone, and Lower Helderberg formations in the southern portion of the county deserve special mention. The upper portion of the Upper Helderberg, as is shown by the table, consists of hydraulic cement varying in thickness from one to fifty feet. It is a very hard, fine-grained limestone. The cement rocks have been quarried for many years. All the masonry of the Lehigh Valley Railroad has been laid in cement made from them. The durability of this work is a sufficient recommendation as to its quality. Immediately between the cement and paint ore there is a layer of clay about six inches in thickness. The paint ore at some places consists of a single seam and at others two. It averages about two feet in thickness, varying from six inches to three feet seven inches. The paint ore is a dull blue color, is sandy, magnetic, and has not the least appearance of anything from which paint could be made. It contains quite a large amount of iron pyrites and as the seam approaches the outcrop the amount of iron increases. Occasionally a layer of iron will be found in the paint ore. OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 57 Immediately between the paint ore and the Oriskany sand- stones is a stratum of clay varying from two to eight feet in thick- ness. This clay is generally in two parts, one in blue and the other yellow. Both are not always present, but when they are the blue is always nearest the paint ore. Number VII, as Oriskany sandstones at Stony Ridge, con- sists of sandstone beds and underlying shales averaging about four hundred and eighty feet. The rocks vary in coarseness from fine sand to pea conglomerate held together by a limy cement. In many places at the outcrop, the cement has weathered away, leaving the summit of the hill to consist of large deposits of sand which have been extensively quarried. The flinty beds vary in thickness and contain fossils. Strata VI, the Lower Helderberg limestones, are found along the valleys of the Aquashicola and Lizard Creeks. It is exposed below Bowmanstown and quarried at Hazard. It was from this strata that much of the lime formerly burned in Carbon County was obtained. Formation number V, the Clinton red and gray shales, and formation number IV are plainly exposed along the Lehigh Valley Railroad and have their outcrop along the Aquashicola Creek. It is the Clinton Ore Sandstone of this formation that forms the ter- race on the north side of the mountains which may also be seen in the western portion of the Lizard Creek Valley. It is owing to this terrace that the ridge has sometimes been called "Devil's Wall." Much more could be said on this interesting and profitable study. Space will not permit a completer discussion. This must be left until the subject of geology will be taken up as a separate study in the High School. 58 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY CHAPTER HI. How Coal Was Formed. At the time coal was formed there could not have been any mountains or deep valleys and the climate seems to have been about the same all over the earth. It was much hotter than any climate known to-day. The air contained a large amount of moisture and carbonic acid gas. This gas is poisonous to man but forms the food of plants. During the carboniferous or coal period, plants flourished in great abundance. Nothing can be found in our tropical regions that will compare with it. Ferns, rushes, club masses and horse tails grew to giant sizes. The trees and rushes were closely crowded together and vines covered their trunks and hung from their branches. Everywhere the forest was so dense that one could not look through it and the sun's rays never reached the ground. There were no flowers and no plants with small stems or delicate leaves. In the forest, jungles, and floating islands from which coal was formed, there were more than two thousand plants of different kinds. Of oaks, palms, and maples there were none, neither was there any grass. Ferns were very abundant and often grew to a height of forty or fifty feet. Lepidodendrons grew in the marshes. Their trunks were scale covered, peculiarly marked, and their leaves were fern like, often exceeding a foot in length. Plants grew as if the spring, for which the earth had been waiting for millions of years, had arrived all unexpectedly. The excessive heat, moisture, and carbonic acid gas made all plants grow to gigantic size as if the whole earth were a great, rich greenhouse. The trees often fell over and were carried to the swamps by the freshets and there securely packed in the slush. After the forests had flourished for a long time, some mighty force caused the land on which they stood to sink below the level of the sea. Trees fell and were covered with sand and mud. As the ages OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 59 went by the sand and mud were turned into stone, while heat with pressure turned the plants to coal. In the foregoing table it will be seen that the layers of coal were pressed between the layers of stone, slate, or conglomerate rocks. The layers of coal and rock succeed each other like the layers of a layer cake. Each layer of coal represents a buried forest, and since the layer of clay which is under it usually contains roots and stumps as they grew millions of years ago, it represents another period of time perhaps equally as long. The process by which these layers were formed must have been repeated many times. In Wales, in one place, there are one hundred layers of coal, with rocks between them, one on top of the other for over two miles in depth. In the coal measures of Nova Scotia there are seventy-six seams of coal, one of which is twenty-two feet thick, and another thirty-seven. From the table it will be seen that there are in our county more than thirty different layers with the Mammoth vein fifty feet thick. One of the men who is considered an authority says that the amount of vegetable contained in a seam of coal six inches thick is greater than the most abundant growth of trees in the tropical forest of to-day could form in twelve hundred years. From this it would require seven hundred and twenty years to form a seam of coal three inches thick. If we consider that it must have taken at least as much time to form a layer of rock and slate as it did to form a seam of coal, the entire coal period would extend over nearly three hundred thousand years, a time so long that not even the best of us can think how long it is. At the end of the coal period with its layers of rock and coal seams, the earth suffered some terrible convulsions. The crust of Carbon County was thrown into wrinkles. Our moun- tains were thrown up and nature at once began wearing them down and washed the coal measures, to the east of Mauch Chunk, to the ocean. The twilight of the coal period disappeared. The Great Giver of all good had provided fuel for man and now must come the dawn of a new day. 60 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY CHAPTER IV. How Coal is Mined. To understand the position of the veins in the county we will suppose that all layers were yet lying flat (horizontally) just as they were at the end of the carboniferous era before the great Appalachian Uplift. How far to the north and south the coal seams then extended we can not tell ; for all that extended beyond what are now the summits of the ridges which we call Locust Mountain on the north and Sharp Mountain on the south, have been removed by the changes of later centuries. After the time of pressure and of shrinking in the crust, of wrinkling, and of folding, the coal seams are no longer flat but are folded and bent. Some folds have their summits pushed northward forty degrees beyond the vertical. The folded rocks, as may be seen from the table, consist of shales and limestones. The widest or thickest of the seams is the great Mammoth vein, which is from thirteen to fifty-seven feet thick and is doubled on itself at a number of places. The doubling in upon itself may easily be seen by viewing the strippings across Locust Mountain south of Nesquehoning. The famous Red Ash vein has its outcroppings at two places. Before wind, frost, and water had worn away much of the mountain, the seam was continuous. Somewhat to the south of where the Buck Mountain vein has its outcrop is Tunnel No. i. From this point a tunnel about eleven feet wide and seven and one- half feet high has been dug at right angles across the coal beds. This tunnel is about 3,600 feet long and here we will enter. We might perhaps have been allowed to ride on the "lokie" some years ago as it entered here and followed the tunnel southward for a train of loaded cars; but, since a great majority of miners walk, we will walk with them. We will have plenty of company, for many men pass to their OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 61 work this way every morning. After we have entered several rods the opening of the tunnel is no longer visible and the only light we have to guide us comes from the miners' lamps. We trudge along, now and then stepping into black slush perhaps several inches deep, then stumbling over the sills of railroad tracks on which the cars are moved. We have never known such a mixture of dampness, coolness, and darkness before, unless we have previously visited a mine. Strange sounds meet our ears. The noise of moving cars we hear, we catch the shouts of drivers or the crack of their whips, and we see the twinkling of lights as they are moved to give signals. We pass on meeting an electric motor drawing a train of about nineteen cars which were loaded the day before, and as we pass the place where the tunnel crosses one of the veins there is a track to the east and west that extends possibly, for miles, through a hole that has been cut out of the vein which is called a gangway. We pass the gangways of many veins until we come to the Mammoth vein and here we enter the gangway that extends through a solid vein of the best kind of coal in the world that is fifty feet thick. After we have gone about one-half mile we get to the place where our guide is working and we stop to listen to his directions. An empty car is standing on the track and right above its side there is extending what the miner calls a chute, through which the coal, that has been loosened, slides into the car. We crawl upon the side of the car, go up this chute for about twenty-one feet and wait for our miner guide to follow us. As we sit in the bottom of the chute we can lean with our backs against a wooden partition called a check battery. This check battery is securely fastened by placing stout pieces of wood into the holes made into the rock, for as the slope is steep it must help to support all the loosened coal above it. The miner now opens the trap and we enter the chamber. The space is about twenty-four feet from side to side and we go up at the right-hand side for about twenty-four feet when we meet the second or main battery. As we pass this we feel a slight 62 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY current of air to our right, and on crossing we find a hole possibly five feet high and three feet wide called a counter gangway or airway. At the side of the chamber in which we are, directly in front of the airway, the miners have placed posts and nailed against them planks six feet long so as to leave a place at the side for a manway. We ascend the manway on the right side of the breast for about forty feet to its end. Our guide's "butty" is already in his place. They sit down to talk for several minutes. We listen to their conversation and look around the cavern as well as we can by the dim light which their lamps are making. At the feet of our guide is a drill probably 5^ feet long. His "butty" is taking up another probably a foot longer. Both have three prongs at the sharpened end. Each miner takes a drill and starts drilling a hole on his side of the breast. The holes in this case are dug about four feet deep and then prep- aration is made to charge them. The guide wishes to show us how black powder is used. He takes us back to the counter where they have a small supply of explosives, takes up a round stick about two feet long, called a cartridge pin, and makes a round case about a foot long by rolling a piece of yellow paper, one side having been cut diagonally around the cartridge pin. He slides the paper about two inches over the end of the pin, folds it over somewhat as a storekeeper folds over the end of a package he is tying, hits the end on a flat piece of coal, then slides the whole from the end of the pin. The case is then partly filled with powder and the other end is folded somewhat like the first. With a sharpened iron he makes a hole through this home- made cartridge; into this hole the fuse is placed, and both are carefully pushed to the bottom of the hole that has just been drilled. Upon the powder he places several dirt cartridges which he made just like the powder cartridge, and the hole is tamped by using the blunt end of his drill as a ramrod. The fuse pro- jects from the hole, ready to receive the match. His "butty" instead of using a cartridge made of black powder uses one ready prepared that is filled with what miners call "Jersey mud," twelve per cent, of which is dynamite. Our guide takes us back to the counter where we cross over OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 63 to the next breast to see other miners, while the "butty" remains to light the fuse and then follows us. When the guide thinks the smoke of the powder has cleared away, we return to see that the amount of loosened coal has been very much increased. We remain until several more charges are fired and then descend by the manway on the opposite side of the breast to that which we ascended. Here we feel slight puffs of air descending to the bottom of the manway where it enters the counter or airway and goes to the next breast, there to ascend the one manway, cross the breast where the men are working, descend in the other man- way, and so on indefinitely. When we get back to the main battery we find there a blaster. The miners above have loosened lumps of coal so large that they will not pass through the trap of the battery, and with a blast of dynamite he is reducing it to pieces not much larger than about eighteen inches by two feet. After the blaster has finished his work, the loader comes along, opens the trap and lets enough coal slide down the chute to fill the car. We descend into the car. It is soon attached to a train of cars which are pulled out of the tunnel to the breaker by an electric motor. We will remain upon the car and next visit the breaker. What has taken place in the breast we visited takes place in many breasts. The miners keep going up with the breast until they get to the surface. Usually at the point where a seam has its outcrop, it is covered with ground, stones, or clay from five to ten feet thick. This is removed by stripping the vein before the breasts are dug to the surface, so that this ground will not go down into the mines with the coal. When the two adjoining breasts are driven to the surface another pair of miners come along to rob or remove the pillars. Pillars are the coal left between two breasts to support the rock above the seam. It is usually about 24 feet wide, depending upon the depth of the seam below the surface. The usual plan of doing this is for the miners to drive a small breast up through the pillar and then begin at the top and take out all the coal as they descend, leaving the rock to fall after the coal is out, if it 64 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY will. This is called robbing pillars and is the most dangerous work in the mines. Those who do this are usually the most reliable and most experienced men working the mines. the drainage; tunnel. In order to simplify the removal of the water from its mines, the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company is now (1910) digging a tunnel which is to extend from near Mauch Chunk to Tamaqua, a distance of twelve miles. Into this tunnel will lead other channels from the underground workings of fourteen different collieries. Many thousand feet of cast iron pipe, some of it twenty- four inches in diameter, and many hundred pumps, some of enormous size, that are now used to pump this water to the sur- face, will not be needed when the tunnel is completed. It was first intended to drive the tunnel along the Buck Mountain vein as soon as that should be reached, but the plan had to be aban- doned as the seam was too thick to make the tunnel safe. A tunnel to be safe and maintained at a reasonable cost must be cut out of the solid rock. The tunnel begins where the Nesquehoning Creek flows into the Lehigh River (once called Lausanne or the Landing Tavern), and extends directly west through Locust Mountain. The tunnel in its course came into contact with several small veins before it pierced the Buck Mountain seam. The Mammoth vein, several hundred feet thick at this point, is not far from this, and between the two is a small seam from three to five feet thick called the "crack vein." The present intention is to have the tunnel follow this crack vein, passing under Little Italy, to the north of the Lans- ford car shops, and under the Hauto tunnel to Dutch Hill, Tamaqua. Compressed air, carried to the mouth of the tunnel in pipes for more than f;ve miles, is used to drive the drills and furnish ventilation for the men doing the work. When it is recalled that the company's coal deposits will last for another hundred years or longer, it is possible to gain some idea of the saving effected by this tunnel, and some insight will perhaps be gained into the foresight of the men who planned it. OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 65 Men of experience who are competent judges do not hesitate to pronounce it one of the vastest projects of mining engineering ever undertaken in the anthracite coal region. A COAIy BREAKER. The car upon which we ride from the mines to the breaker has four wheels, is 4J by 3 by 7 feet, and holds two tons of coal. The distance from the mines to the breaker is about a mile and cars are moved on an east and west-bound track. The engine stops, leaves the train containing our car, and makes preparation to return to the mines with a train of empty cars. We leave the car upon which we rode. A man comes along, uncouples our cars, and soon the first one in our train is caught by the axle with a hook attached to an endless chain and moves forward, turning to the right, and enters the head house. This is the part of the breaker in which the rock and coal are separated, and the coal is crushed. As the car enters, it passes upon a movable platform, which, at the motion of a lever by the dump engineer, causes the front end of the car to descend until the car is nearly perpendicular. As this end descends the two irons which have held the front end of the car in place are moved from the catch that is similar to an old-fashioned door latch; as these bars are released the coal slides into a large chute containing automatic feeders, the car descends, and by a peculiar arrange- ment arrives on the second floor about eight feet lower in its natural position. Here it is again caught by the chain and drawn to the return track where it is coupled to a train of cars which are ready to return to the mines for another load of coal. About a thousand such cars are dumped every day, but on the day of our visit the number was twelve hundred and four. As the coal fell from the car upon the chute some of the smaller lumps were sifted out through a sieve to fall upon lower chutes and the larger lumps of coal and rock descended to what is called the first platform. On this platform there are twenty-two men who separate the rock from the coal by causing each to go down a chute prepared for the purpose. The rocks descend^to 66 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY cars and are taken away by a small engine to the rock bank. The rock bank has been growing for years. It looks like a real man- made mountain. One can never look at it without thinking of the enormous toil and sweat that the making of such a bank must have required. The crushers are two large revolving cylinders between which the large pieces of coal are crushed into smaller particles. After passing the crusher it drops upon shakers where it is divided into two portions; that which is rather small and clean passes from the head house proper by one of the conveyor lines ; the larger pieces and such dirt as there may be passes down by the other. The whole of this conveyor line is a chain of buckets about 400 feet long arranged like a chain of buckets in a grain elevator. On leaving the conveyor it falls upon shakers, of which there are seven, one above the other. The bottom of these shakers contains holes of various sizes, and here one size of coal is separated from the other, since the larger sizes must drop off the end of the shaker, while the smaller pieces must drop through the holes. After leaving the shakers in regular chutes according to sizes it is made to pass over the spirals. Slate and rock are always heavier than coal. In passing down the spirals, the lighter substances fly farther away from the center of the spiral, and where the projecting part of the spiral ends are two chutes. The slate and rock being near the center drop into the chute near the center, later to be conveyed to the dump heap ; while the coal drops into the outer part and is taken to the cars to be carried to market. The spirals, however, can do the work of separating the slate from the coal only while the coal is passing in small quantities. As soon as they become well filled the slate and the coal are not free to move to the inner or outer portion of the spiral and so jigs must also be used in order that all the coal that is mined may be prepared for the market rapidly enough. Like the spirals, the jigs are machines to separate the rock and slate from the coal. The principle involved is that of gravity. The base of the jig tank contains a number of holes. When the jig tank plunges into the water the slate and the coal lying on OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 67 the perforated base are raised up by the water that rushes up through the holes. The coal being the lighter, is raised from the base of the jig farther than the slate. When thus raised it is caused to move forward until it reaches the end of the jig tank. The coal drops into a chute that is higher than the one into which the slate drops. In this manner the coal is taken to one part of the breaker and the slate to another. Not all the slate is removed either by the spirals or the jigs. A number of boys or old men are therefore stationed along the chutes through which the coal slides to pick out the slate which remains after the mass has passed over the spirals or through the jigs. One of the large well-equipped modern breakers will prepare ioo cars of coal in one day, each car containing approximately 50 tons. 68 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY CHAPTER V. The Coal Industry. The following account of how coal was discovered and how its use became general is taken from an article by Dr. Thomas C. James, of Philadelphia, who, in the year of 1804, in company with Anthony Morris, Esq., made a visit to some lands on the Eehigh River and visited the place where coal had been found. The only changes made in his story is that in some instances simple words have been placed for such as may not be so well known, leaving the story to have all of its quaintness: "In the course of our walk we reached the summit of Mauch Chunk Mountain (what we now call Sharp Mountain), the present site of the mine. At this time there were to be seen only three or four small pits. They had the appearance of wells into which our guide, Philip Ginter, went and threw up some pieces of coal for our examination. After which, while we lingered on the spot and examined the wilderness and mountains around us, we learned the following story as to how coal was discovered : "He said when he first made his home in this district of the country, he built for himself a rough cabin in the forest and sup- ported his family with his rifle. The game he shot, including bear and deer, he carried to the nearest store and traded them for other things needed to live. But at the time of which he spoke he was without a supply of food for his family; and after being out with his rifle all day looking for game, he was returning towards evening, over Mauch Chunk Mountain (Sharp) entirely unsuccessful and dispirited ; a drizzling rain beginning to fall, and night approaching, he bent his course homeward, considering himself one of the most forsaken of human beings. As he trod slowly over the ground his foot stumbled against something which, by the stroke, was driven before him ; observing it was black, to notice which there was just light enough remaining, he took it up, OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 69 and as he had often listened to stories of coal which was supposed to be found in these mountains, it seemed that this might be some of the 'stone coal' of which he had heard. He accordingly care- fully took it with him to his cabin, and the next day carried it to Colonel Jacob Weiss at Fort Allen (now Weissport). "The Colonel, who knew something about coal, brought the 'stone coal' to Philadelphia and gave it to John Nicholson, Michael Hillegas, and Charles Cist for examination. Cist, who was a printer, learned its nature and qualities and told Colonel Weiss to pay Ginter in some way for his service after he had pointed out the exact spot where the coal had been found. Ginter agreed to do this on condition that he should receive a small piece of land which he supposed had never been taken up, on which he after- wards built a mill that afforded us shelter for the night. This was afterward taken from him by parties who had an earlier claim than he." Hillegas, Cist, Weiss, and others immediately after (about 1792) formed the Lehigh Coal Mine Company, but without a charter of incorporation, and took up over ten thousand acres of land. The mine we visited was opened by this company. It was so difficult to get the coal to market that they soon gave up min- ing. In the year of 1806 William Trunbell, Esq., caused an ark to be built at Lausanne (where the Nesquehoning Creek flows into the Lehigh River), which took to Philadelphia two or three hundred bushels of coal. A portion of it was sold to the manager of the water works. Upon the trial it was decided that the coal put out the fire, rather than causing it to burn better, so it was broken up and spread on the walks in place of gravel. During the War of 18 12 Virginia coal became very scarce and Messrs. White and Hazard, then engaged in the manufacture of iron wire at the Falls of Schuylkill, learning that Mr. J. Malin had succeeded in using Lehigh Coal at his rolling mill, procured a cartload of it which cost them a dollar a bushel. The cartload was entirely wasted without making the amount of heat they needed, so another cartload was bought. A whole night was spent in trying to make a coal fire in the furnace, when the men shut the furnace door and left the mill in despair. Fortunately, 70 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY one of the hands who had left his coat in the mill returned for it in about half an hour, saw that the door of the furnace was red hot, and upon opening it, was surprised to find the inside a glowing white heat. The other hands were quickly called, and four separate "parcels" of iron were heated by the same fire before more coal was needed. As letting the fire alone had succeeded so well, the same plan was tried again, with the same result. Joshua White, who had thus gained a practical knowledge of how coal could be used, determined to visit the mines to see if he could do anything there. He started out with William Briggs, a stone mason, and George F. Hauto, the party reaching Bethle- hem on Christmas eve, 1817. They stayed at Lausanne and Lehighton, where they could board while on their visit. After a week, White returned feeling sure that the coal could be mined and the river could be improved so that the coal could be carried to Philadelphia. In his diary he says, "It was concluded that Erskine Hazard, George F. Hauto, and myself should join in the enterprise. I was to make the plans, Hauto was to procure the money from his rich friends, and Hazard was to be secretary and when necessary to act as machinist." Hauto never filled his part of the agreement and his interests were bought by the other two in 1820. The three at once set about getting a lease of the Lehigh Coal Mine Company's ten thousand acres of land for twenty years for one ear of corn each year, promising after the third year to send to Philadelphia at least forty thousand bushels of coal. They intended to get control of the mines and the river, and all went to Harrisburg to get the Legislature to pass an act allowing them to improve the navigation of the Lehigh. Messrs. White and Hazard came to Mauch Chunk in April, 1818, bought a tract of land on Mauch Chunk Creek and laid out the first road upon which coal was hauled from Summit Hill to Mauch Chunk. The Lehigh Navigation Company was organized August 10, and the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, October 10, 1818, White, Hazard, and Hauto being the leading men in each. In the spring of 1820 these two companies were united, and on February OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 71 13, 1822, were incorporated as the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company. As soon as the company was formed the work of making the river a safe waterway was begun in earnest by Joshua White and thirteen workmen. They rigged two fiat bottom boats for a lodging and eating room for the men, and another boat for the store room, and one for a kitchen and bake-house. As the work was finished at one point, they floated the boats down the river to the point where the work was to be begun next. White says, "The work being in a wilderness country, the workmen came from many countries and all were strangers to us. We kept little cash about us, paying the men by checks which were not to be paid by the bank unless signed by two of us. Having no money on our persons, we were not likely to be hurt in the wilderness. We were each clad in a complete suit of buckskin clothes, and sometimes were looked upon as dangerous persons." In order to make the river navigable, White spent several weeks in preparing what was later called "Bear Trap," and which is referred to as "sluice" in the chapter on water transportation. In order to assure the company that the sluice gates would answer the purpose, he built a small one for an experiment in Mauch Chunk Creek, near where the Concert Hall now stands. The name "Bear Trap" was given by the workmen who were annoyed by the questions of those who came to see and ask what they were making. The coal that was shipped in the arks in the earlier years of the business was taken out as from a quarry at Summit Hill. The teams then drove right into the mines or quarries to load. Mining in this manner from an open cut was continued until about 1844, when the dip of the veins became so great that uncovering them was almost impossible. Underground work was then begun. Prior to 1827, all the coal that was taken from the mines at Summit Hill was hauled to Mauch Chunk over the turnpike road which had been built. The building of the Room Run Gravity Road from Nesque- honing to the landing, and the completion of the Switchback Railroad, so that the coal could be taken from what is now 72 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY Lansford and transferred by rail to the canal boats at Mauch Chunk, has been told under the subject of railroads. The growth of the industry had been very rapid, and the real value of the deposits of the company became known very gradually. The following is an account which appears in a book published in 1845 at Lancaster, Pa.: "To avail themselves in the best manner, of these new treasures, the company have made a railway for five miles. "This road follows the curve of the mountain along the Lehigh, for about two miles, and then still winding with the mountain, turns easterly and runs parallel with the Nesquehoning Creek, to the ravine of the mountain, made by Room Run, which it ascends. It would be difficult, perhaps, to conceive a method of making a road more substantial than has been adopted on this. The rails are twenty feet long, seven inches deep, and five in width. They are supported by massive blocks of stone, placed in line four feet apart, imbedded firmly in smaller stone, and are secured to these blocks by iron clamps on each side of the rail, about six inches wide, but at right angles, and nailed to the rail and to the block by means of four holes drilled in each stone, and plugged with wood. The iron bars are two inches and one- half wide and five-eighths thick. The whole of the road from the coal mines to the landing is descending, on the self-acting plane; the descending wagon will bring up an empty one. The intermediate road is graduated from ten to twelve inches descent, in one hundred feet; this being considered the lowest grade on which a wagon will descend by gravity, and therefore the most favorable one that can be devised, when the freight, as in this case, is all one way." In his report of the 31st of December, 1830, Mr. White adds: "My conviction is, that our great coal mine, or quarry, will prove to be a vein of coal about sixty feet thick between the top and the bottom slate, and that its extent will bear out my last annual report. Since that report I have examined our coal field in, and about, Room Run, where the stream breaks across the coal forma- tion, and have had the good fortune to lay open a series of veins of unparalled extent, of the following dimensions, viz : 28, 5, 5, 10, OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 73 x 9> 39> 5. 12, 15, 15, 50, 20, 11, and 6 feet, making the whole number of veins opened 14, and the whole thickness, measured at right angles with the veins, 240 feet. Other veins have since been explored. The width of the coal basin at this place, north and south, exceeds a half mile; and the bearing of the strata lengthwise is south eighty-eight degrees west. If we allow sixty cubic feet to make one ton of coal in the market, after leaving enough for piers, waste, etc., they will give four tons to each superficial square foot (counting the whole as one vein), or 10,560 tons for each foot lengthwise of the coal basin, and consequently 55)756, 800 tons for each mile; and allowing our demand to be one million of tons each year from these mines, one mile would last more than fifty-five years. The part of the coal basin belonging to the company, extends ten or twelve miles." There are over six thousand acres of coal land of what is now the southern coal region of Pennsylvania. It extends from the Lehigh River at Mt. Pisgah toward the west to the neighbor- hood of Harrisburg, a distance of about seventy miles. In breadth it is about seven miles. The operations of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company are in the eastern end of the basin. Its coal lands extend westward from Mauch Chunk to the Little Schuylkill River at Tamaqua, a distance of about eleven miles. The greater portion of this coal area lies in Mauch Chunk Town- ship. The thickness of all the coal veins has been estimated at forty-two feet. At this rate of estimation there would be about 71,500 tons to the acre. This would make the coal company the owners of 472 millions of tons of coal. The coal deposited in this township is of the best and most valuable in the world. In the early eighties, it is said, that if all the anthracite coal mined in the United States had been taken from this company's deposits one-half of its coal would still remain. Conservative estimaters to-day say that the deposit can not all be mined and removed in the next seventy-five years. The company's coal property is considered one of the finest in the world. The follow- ing represents the number of tons mined by the company during the successive years indicated by the left-hand column of figures : 74 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY 1820 365 tons 1830 43,000 tons 1840 102,264 tons 1850 424,258 tons 1860 517,157 tons 1870 297,471 tons 1880 545,161 tons 1906 2,793,229 tons 1908 3,033,412 tons Not all the company's output of coal in 1908 was mined in Carbon County. Several of the collieries are located in Schuylkill County. In the tables which are given below will be found a num- ber of items of interest. In the left-hand column are the names of the parties engaged in the coal business, as well as the places at which the coal is prepared for market. According to this statement it will be seen that the total number of men employed in the industry in the county was 5,512, and that the total number of tons produced amounted to the grand total of 2,486,550. It may be assumed that the value of each ton was four dollars, which is the price at which it is usually sold at the mines. There were taken from "Little Carbon" in this one year black diamond treasures that are worth $9,946,200 at the mines. If the price of this output be considered as six dollars, which is the fair esti- mate of the average market price of coal, we obtain $15,000,000 as the approximate value of coal that was dug from the rock- ribbed hills of Banks and Mauch Chunk Townships in one year. 15,000,000 is a number so large that but few minds can get anything like a clear idea of how vast it is, unless a comparison of some kind be made. If the money required to ship the coal from the county in this one year were all in silver dollars, and these dollars each loaded upon wagons, each carrying one ton, it would require 442 wagons to haul the money. Four hundred and forty-two two-horse wagon loads of silver dollars, if in a line, as in a parade, would make a procession more than one and three-fourths miles long. If all the coal mined in this county in 1908 were loaded on wagons, each containing a ton and all in a procession allowing twenty feet to each wagon, the wagons would be 9,418.7 miles OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. 75 long. This line would extend three times from New York to San Francisco. During the year when this vast treasure of coal was exhumed there were thirty-five accidents, twelve of which were fatal. This would mean that one was killed out of every four hundred and sixty men engaged. Number of each class of employees outside of the mines operated within the limits of Carbon County in 1908, with the number of tons pro- duced at each colliery: a V u 03 la 5*i a 01 in S I" H m U V