Google
This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project
to make the world's books discoverable online.
It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject
to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books
are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.
Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the
publisher to a library and finally to you.
Usage guidelines
Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing tliis resource, we liave taken steps to
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.
We also ask that you:
+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for
personal, non-commercial purposes.
+ Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.
+ Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for in forming people about this project and helping them find
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.
+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe.
About Google Book Search
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web
at |http: //books .google .com/I
M E M 1 R
JOSIAH WHITE.
BY RICHARD RICHARDSON.
. LIPPI NCOTT & CO
1S73.
Hosteatv Google
o Act of Congress, in the year 1873, b
IPPINCOTT & CO.,
Librarian of Congress at Washingloii
Hosteatv Google
Hosteatv Google
Hosteatv Google
PREFACE.
In the preparation of the following memoir of
Josiah White, it has been the object of the writer
to endeavor not only to portray the hfe of the indi-
vidual as a man and a Christian, illustrating how
energy and industry, with strict integrity of char-
acter, by the blessing of Providence, meet with
their sure reward; which has been verified in the
history of most of our prominent men in all pro-
fessions of life, who have been the architects of
their own fortunes ; but also chiefly to depict some
of the difficulties he had to encounter, as a pio-
neer, in the successful development of the vast
mineral resources of our State, in which he took a
leading and active part.
The extensive system of internal improvements
by canal and railroad, with their adjuncts of mo-
tive-power and telegraphs, and other extensive
works connected therewith, now so important and
(3)
Hosteatv Google
4 PREFA CE.
necessary to the industry and traffic of the coun-
try, and HO famihar to the public, ought not to
allow us to forget the men, who originated and
inaugurated what may now be considered the
humble beginnings of these things. These begin-
nings, in reality, required much more originality
of thought, courage, and energy to carry through
to success than many larger enterprises of the
present day, when capital is so abundant, and me-
chanical appliances are so perfect and so readily
obtained.
As the name of De Witt Clinton, in New York,
. stands pre-eminent as the pioneer of the canal sys-
tem of that State, so must that of Josiah White be
conspicuous, in the same direction, in the State of
Pennsylvania. They were both remarkable men
in their day, and occupied marked positions in the
history of the growth and development of the
wealth and enterprise of these great Common-
wealths.
The anthracite coal in this country being almost
exclusively confined to Pennsylvania, as far as de-
veloped, has become a leading article of its mineral
wealth; its mining, transportation, and introduc-
tion into the markets of the State and country,
Hosteatv Google
PREFACE.
5
formed the basis of Josiah White's operations, and
gave him scope and opportunity to fully display
the patience, perseverance, and skill which were
distinguishing features in his character. The
manufacture of iron with anthracite coal, another
leading article in our productions, also claimed his
attention, and he, in connection with some others,
were among the first who succeeded in making
and introducing it into use.
As regards his religious tenets, he was thought-
fully inclined from his youth, regularly attending
the meetings of the Society of Friends, of which
he was a member, and was much interested in its
prosperity and welfare. In an essay written to-
wards the close of his life, this language occurs,
illustrative of his religious feelings: "I am now
beyond the meridian of life, and have been busied
with temporal engagements, I hope honestly and
for the advantage of my country and fellow-crea-
tures. I now seek and pray for retirement from
all these, so as to understand the realities I stand
in need of in regard to another world." His daily
life, with his frequent seasons of solitary retire-
ment, with the Bible for his companion, which he
diligently read and studied, were well known to
Hosteatv Google
6 PREFA CE.
his family; the earnestness of his resolution to
keep his face Zionward, desiring to be at peace
with his Maker, through a once crucified, but now
risen and glorified Saviour, is attested by the few
extracts presented to the reader in this little
volume.
In some of the copious quotations from his
writings presented in this work occasional verbal
alterations have been made, but not so as to impair
the meaning intended to be conveyed by him.
The writer feeling his incompetency for the task
he has undertaken, that of giving a faithful por-
traiture of his esteemed and honored father-in-law,
submits it, with all its imperfections, to the lenient
criticism of the reader. R. R.
PHILAUhLI'HJA, 1873,
Hosteatv Google
CONTENTS,
CiiArxER r.
i^^'-iyi'ire " '^'^g
CHAPTER II.
Residence at llie Falls of Schuylkill 20
CHAPTER III.
Early Operations on the Leiiigh . . . ... .31
CHAPTER IV,
Later Operations on the Lehigh ...... ^j
CHAPTER V.
The Ascending Navigation on the Lehigh , ... 72
CHAPTER VL
Mauch Chunk and ihe Upper Section of the Lehigh River . S6
CHAPTER VIL
Manufacture of Anthracite Iron loo
CHAPTER VIH,
Religious Exereisc, ,0^
123
Hosteai;v Google
Hosteatv Google
Hosteatv Google
Hosteatv Google
J O S I A H WHITE.
CHAPTER J,
EAKLV LIFE.
The subject of this memoir, Josiah White, was
born at Mount Holly, in Burlington County, State
of New Jersey, on the 4th of the 3d month, 1781.
He was the son of John and Rebecca White, mem-
bers of the Society of Friends, residing at that place.
He was directly descended from Thomas White,
of Omnen, Cumberland County, England; whose
son, Christopher White, with his wife Elizabeth,
with two sons, appear to have emigrated to America
in the year 1677. Christopher White had previ-
ously to his emigration purchased of John Fenwick,
one of the proprietors of the then province of New
Jersey, one thousand acres of land, on Alloway's
Creek, near Salem, in that State, He erected on
his farm one of the first brick dwellings con-
(9)
Hosteatv Google
lO MEMOIR OF JOSIAIl IVHITK.
structed in Salem CoLinty, and the largest at that
time, the bricks being imported from England. It
remained standing until so recently as about the
year 1855.
Christopher White had a son, Josiah White, born
in London, England, in 1675, whose son, Josiah
White, born in 1705, was the grandfather of the
Josiah White of this memoir.
His mother. Rebecca Haines, was of English
descent, traced back to William and Sarah Haines
of the seventeenth century.
John White, the father, pursued the business of
fulling cloth, having a mill for that and other pur-
poses at Mount Holly, on Rancocus Creek ; he was
also to some extent a farmer, owning a landed
estate in the vicinity. The business had been
established by his father, Josiah White, who re-
moved from Salem County, after losing much of
his property in an attempt to dam Alloway's Creek,
for the purpose of reclaiming land overflowed by
the tide. When the dam was nearly completed it
was secretly and maliciously destroyed, by cutting
a passage for the water through it, whereby it was
speedily washed away, and he lost the remunera-
tion he was to have received upon the completion
of the undertaking.
John White, for whom his son retained a feeling
of veneration, and of whom in after-life he fre-
quently spoke in terms of affection and regard, vva.s
Hosteatv Google
EAKI.y LII-K. II
taken from him by death, when at an early age;
leaving his mother, whom he calls a "widow in-
deed," with the care of four young sons, of whom
he was the third.
She continued her husband's business in the
same place for a time, bringing up her children in
a reputable manner, training them in habits of
industry and economy; setting them the example
herself.
The schools at that period afforded but poor
facilities for an extended literary education ; the
teachers being many of them ignorant foreign
adventurers, poorly paid, and having little or no
capacity for conveying to others the small amount
of knowledge they possessed. Such facilities as
the place afforded in this respect he enjoyed whilst
he remained at Mount Holly; but his school edu-
cation was limited and defective, being the occa-
sion of many regrets to him in after-life. He says,
in alluding to this: " During my fourteenth year I
saw the utility of education, and felt a pleasure the
first time in my life in learning ; previous to which
I thought that play, such as boys had, was that
which gave the greatest enjoyment to life, and that
education was not of much account ; and I dreaded
the period when I should arrive at manhood, feel-
ing that something more useful would be required
of me. My schoolmasters, instead of impressing
on their scholars the advantages of knowledge by
Hosteatv Google
12 MEMOIR OF JOSTAH WHITE.
reason and argument, used the rod as the stimu-
lant to learning, telling us we must ' either get our
lessons or it ;' thereby frequently causing what
ought to have been a pleasure to become a physi-
cal pain to us, and discouraging a proper attempt
at learning." Had suitable opportunities been
afforded in this respect, — ^judging from the natural
force, native talent, and determination of his char-
acter,- — but little difficulty would have been experi-
enced by him in mastering any literary or scientific
subject that might have claimed his attention. A
more scientific knowledge of the principles of me-
chanics would often have saved him a vast amount
of trouble and expense in his future pursuits. This
was one of the principal causes, I bcHcve, why he
generally trusted more to his perceptive than to his
reasoning faculties in the construction of the various
machinery, etc., which he invented and made. It
was seldom that a clear idea was conveyed to his
mind merely by a written description of anything
of the kind ; it must be seen by his eyes to be
thoroughly understood, by means of a draft or
model ; and a model was always preferred if prac-
ticable. " I want to see if it will go," was his usual
expression on such occasions.
He left Mount Holly at an early age to enter
into business, but ever after retained vivid recollec-
tions of his juvenile life whilst residing there; and
was in the habit of frequently visiting the place of
Hosteatv Google
EARLY LIFE. 13
his nativity in his advanced life, going to the points
where some remarkable event occurred ; the old
swimming and skating places on the creek, where
he and his brothers enjoyed their boyish sports
and dangerous adventures; spots where more
serious occurrences took place, the breaking of an
arm, the cut from an axe, or the fall into the creek
and narrow escape from drowning; here he made
hay, there the spring of water where he reposed
and partook of luncheon; here grew the chestnut-
tree, commemorative of a remarkable dream ; all
these places, and the room where he was born, the
school-house in which he was educated, the meet-
ing house where he worshiped, and the grave-
yard where reposed the ashes of his ancestors, he
would visit and revisit, with untiring interest and
pleasure.
About the fifteenth year of his age he was ap-
prenticed to James Hutton, of Philadelphia. Of
this he says; " My mothertook me to Philadelphia
to get me apprenticed to sotne business there ; she
urged no trade in particular, but had inculcated
into her children a dislike to store-keeping, as too
much encouraging pride and idleness, and rather
tending to a cunning craftiness, that she was fear-
ful might be disadvantageous to us. I preferred a
mechanical trade, a joiner or carpenter, as I was
fond of tools." They spent a day, unsuccessfully,
looking for a situation. On stating to his uncle.
Hosteatv Google
14 MEMOIR OF yoSIAfl WHITE.
Daniel Drinker, tlie next day their want of suc-
cess, he informed them that a friend of his in the
hardware business needed a boy, and undertool< to
introduce him. On his way there he says : " I be-
gan to reflect that 1 might be too quick in agreeing
to enter a business that might not answer the pur-
pose I had in view, that of making a living, and
that if it did not, I had better stay at home. I
immediately asked my uncle if it was a business I
could make a living by, and money at, after I was
of age, and if it was respectable, and his friend a
well-disposed man. He replied to ail my questions
in the affirmative, said that it was the same busi-
ness he had followed. This .satisfied me, (as my
uncle had been prosperous and was reputed rich,)
that I could gain a living by it in an honest way.
I accordingly proceeded with him to his friend,
James Hutton, on the north side of Market Street,
between Front and Second Streets, who kept a
small hardware store, who at once engaged me,
agreeing to board and pay me twenty dollars a
year."
At the end of two years he had most of the busi-
ness to attend to, including the keepingofthe books.
He says : " By the time I was twenty years of age,
I became dissatisfied, and thought I had better
learn another trade, as this was too small a busi-
ness for me ; but this project was soon stopped, as
my employer asked five hundred dollars for the
Hosteatv Google
EAUL Y LIFE. \ 5
last year of my time, which I thought I could not
afford to pay. It is true I was not bound, or
legally required to stay with him, nor had ever
agreed to; he told me at first to let him know in
two or three weeks if I was satisfied, but neither
of us ever adverted to the subject again ; but I felt
the implication quite strong enough to bind me, as
a measure of duty, and remained with him, which
conclusion was no doubt of after-use to me, as it
tended to keep me settled. About eighteen months
before I was twenty-one years of age, I was sent
to Maiden Creek, to take an account of the stock
of store-goods my employer had in partnership
with another person at that place. This was about
seventy miles from Philadelphia, and the first time
I had been over forty miles from home."
Before he was twenty-one years of age he sold
his patrimonial estate, and purchased the hardware
stock of Joseph Dilworth, No. iii Market Street,
who was then retiring therefrom. He proceeds :
" My estate amounted to between five and six
thousand dollars. The old stock of goods was
about one thousand dollars, and I ordered about
five thousand dollars' worth from England, to arrive
the spring I was of age, and four thousand dollars
more for the fall trade."
He entered into the hardware business on his
own account on the day after he was of age, on the
5th of the 3d month, 1802, " intending" he says,
Hosteatv Google
l6 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
" not to lose a day until I had made as much as I
thought was enough, (which was forty thousand
dollars,) provided 1 had attained that amount be-
fore I was thirty years old. If I was successful, to
then put twenty thousand dollars at interest to
accumulate eight times, as I expected in thirty-six
years, and to live on the other twenty thousand
dollars in such way as I chose. I proposed
buying a farm for eight or ten thousand dol-
lars, and with this and eight to ten thousand
dollars at interest to live on, to make mc as
nearly independent of all necessary business, and
calls from all quarters, as in the nature of things
and the will of Providence I could be. I gave up
promptly all my predilections for mechanics of all
kinds, for fear they would grow on me to the pre-
judice of my business, being fully persuaded that
the most agreeable way of getting along with any
business was to lay aside all tilings that interfered
with it, and make it a strong point to endea-oor to
like whatever business I judged was necessary for
me, and then, after making enougii. to leave it in
toto."
Diligence in business and economy were ruling
traits in his character at all times, but particularly .
so during his continuance in trade on Market
Street. He made his place of business his resi-
dence, and led an abstemious and industrious life,
marked by integrity and probity.
Hosteatv Google
EARLY LIFE. \y
He was m:irricd to Catliariiic Ricigway, of New
Jersey, in iSog, in his twenty-fifth year. Tiiis con-
nection was, however, of short continuance. His
wife died of pulmonary disease in less than three
years. After this event, his mother was induced
to live with her son, and take charge of his domes-
tic arrangements.
He continues his narrative: "About the twenty-
eighth year of my age, I sold out my goods to my
brother, Joseph White, and Samuel Lippincott;
having by this time obtained the amount of prop-
erty I had desired, as being sufficient for me. My
aim had been to lose no time until I had acquired
enough ; and then, to appropriate the balance of the
life a good Providence allowed me in such a way
as would give me the most comfort. No morning,
I thought, ever opened more clearly than mine now
presented, having realized by industry and integrity
my best anticipations, escaped the pollutions of
trade, having an abiding feeling to do what was
right in the sight of my Maker and fellow-man ;
with a desire to be useful to the latter, and to do
what was strictly right in the eyes of the former;
with good hopes to rely on for a peaceful, pleasant,
and moderate progress through life, so as to step
from a calm journey, through this world, into that
which never ends.
" During the two years I was out of business, I
made a tour to Georgia by sea, and returned by
Hosteatv Google
l8 MEMOIR or JOSIAH WHITE.
land. I was invited by Barrack Gibbons to ac-
company him to his river plantation, near Savan-
nah. Having just returned home from the North,
his slaves received him as kindly as though he was
a near friend. I concluded the slaveholders had
something to gratify their pride, in contrasting
themselves with their slaves; but that their com-
forts were much fewer than those in the North, with
the same wealth ; and that northern labor was
cheaper than theirs, considering the large propor-
tion of useless and indifferent laborers, and the
small amount of work done by the best hands ;
all having to be supported at a cost, as I estimated
it, of forty dollars each per annum. In the large
cities, and in some places in the country, they were
obliged to have patrols at night, for fear of a rising
among the blacks. On the average, one hundred
slaves turn out about one-third, or thirty-three per
cent, prime hands; the others being either too
young, too old, too lazy, or sick."
On his return home, he says: " I looked for a
good farm, with a small water-power, to aid me;
the farm I intended to afford me an independent
living; expecting to raise maple-trees, make my
own sugar, and all other necessaries of life that
were possible ; and felt ambitious to pursue a plan
of business and life that would serve as a pattern
to others in comfort and independence."
In the renewal of ayouthful affection, he sought
Hosteatv Google
EARLY LIFE. jg
and obtained, in marriage, in rSio, Elizabeth, the
daughter of Solomon and Hannah White; her
father had been a respectable and successful mer-
chant of Philadelphia, then deceased. Their city
residence was in Arch Street, between Seventh and
Eighth Streets, and for a summer home they had
a country seat of three acres of land, on Ridge
Avenue, above Caliowhill Street, called "Raral
Hall." In these days, it is amusing to imagine
the country so near, and also the shortness of the
drive in going from oncto the other of their homes.
The newly-married pair established themselves with
the widowed parent in the city. It is believed the
country seat was abandoned as a residence after the
death of Solomon White; Josiah White having
engaged in business at the Falls of Schuylkill, the
family found it more convenient, as well as agree-
able, to live a portion of the year in that suburban
village, returning to the ancestral home at any time
when they desired to enjoy its privileges. It was
the birthplace of their five children.
Hosteatv Google
CHAPTER II.
KliSIDEKCE AT THK FALLS OF SCHUYLKILL.
Notwithstanding all these resolutions and plans
of life, he was destined to enter deeper than he had
ever yet experienced into the vortex of trade, and
the vicissitudes and perplexities of a troublesome
water-power and manufacturing business. But we
will hear his own account of the beginning of his
future activity: "About two years having elapsed
since I declined business in Market Street, a water-
power was offered for sale at the ' Falls of Schuyl-
kill,' belonging to Robert Kennedy, comprising
three and a half or four feet of available fall, with all
the water of the river, with the right to construct a
lock for navigation, charging fifty cents toll on each
boat for passing ; also, three or four acres of ground
on the east side, and seven or eight acres, and an
old tavern house, on the west side of the river, ad-
joining the bridge.* Here was an improvement to
* " On the 9th April, 1807, Mr. Robert Keimeily, an enterpris-
ing gentleman then occupying the Falls Hotel, obtained, from the
Legislature of Pennsylvania, an act vesting in him the right of the
water-power af the Falls, on the condition of building locks for
(=0)
Hosteatv Google
AT FALLS OP SCHUYLKILL. 2 1
be made by dams and locks, to produce a large
water-power near to Philadelphia, but it would re-
quire money, perseverance, and ingenuity to carry
it through. It occurred to me that this might be
a providential opening towards carrying out my
arranged plan of life; and, if I succeeded, it might
lead to similar useful improvements in the interior
of the State, which might be of great public jjood.
No public improvement of this kind had as yet
succeeded in Pennsylvania.
"The Schuylkill had not yet been dammed,
neither had any iocks in the State ever succeeded,
excepting two at York Haven, on the Susquehanna.
The Susquehanna, Schuylkill, and Union Canals
had failed, and were given up. The city of Phila-
delphia was supplied with water by steam-power,
there being at that time no faith in making any
permanent dams in so large a stream. Here, I
thought, was a choice offered between applying my
means and talents in a way that might be of singu-
lar use to my fellow-beings, and would not impair
the accomraodalion of boat^i then plying on ihe river." — Early Ili-
toryof theFallsof Sehuylkill,etc.,byChar]esV.Hagner. He nJ^
authorized by lliis act " to dig, continue, support, and keep in im-
pair a mill-race, on and contiguous to said tract of land, to extend
a certain distance into the Schuylkill River as should be neces-
sary for a grist- or saw-mill, or such other machinery as it should
by hlra be found expedient to establish, according to the provi-
sions, limitations, and conditions in the said act of General As-
sembly mentioned."
Hosteatv Google
22 MKMOJR OF JOSIAH WniTE.
nly estate, and without involving me in much
trouble. On the other hand, I could invest my
money, do nothing for others, and pass down the
hill of life without good or harm, and also be free
from care and trouble, I also thought. I might
have been blessed thus early in life with the means
and the ability for the execution of this great work,
especially as I believed I had discovered a pecu-
liar plan of constructing dams that would insure
their permanency.
"I finally concluded to purchase the property,
which I did in the spring of l8lO."
The falls in the Schuylkill River were caused
by an irregular barrier of rocks, extending across
the stream in a diagonal direction; these rocks
were of unequal height and prominence, over and
through which the water effected its course, boil-
ing and foaming as it went, forming a waterfall or
rapid at ordinary times of about six or seven feet
in height, and one hundred to two hundred yards
in length, and when the river was swollen, of
greater altitude. This place was then a pictu-
resque and rural spot, much frequented for its
beauty, and for fishing and other aquatic sports.
The navigation at that time was by the natural
channel of the river. Charles V. Hagner, in his
" History of the Falls," remarks of the boats that
navigated the river, that they "were long and nar-
row, sharp at both ends, and carrying from seventy-
Hosteatv Google
AT FALLS OF SCHUYLKILL. 33
five to one hundred and fifty barrels of flour.
They were generaUy manned with five men, and
were only used in freshets or high water. They
required five men, not for bringing them down, —
for they drifted down rapidly with the current, —
but to take them back; which was done by the
use of poles shod with iron, and was very hard
work; of course they could take no return cargoes.
It was an exciting and beautiful sight to see these
boats descending the falls, which they did with
great rapidity. Sometimes they would be almost
lost to sight, and the next instant mounted high on
the waves ; in some instances they were wrecked."
The plan Josiah White adopted to make the
water-power available, and at the same time to
improve the navigation of the river, was by closing
the interstices of the rocks, and so connecting their
prominences as to render the obstruction more
complete and continuous, leaving a sufficient chan-
nel open in the centre for the free passage of down-
ward boats ; on the western side to make a channel
or canal three or four hundred yards, with a side
wall, or bank, on the river-side, with entrance and
outlet locks, by which the navigation was effected
round the falls; from which also the water could
be drawn for manufacturing purposes. On the
eastern side were guard-walls and a race-way to
convey the water to the mills on that side. These
improvements involved a large amount of inge-
Hosteatv Google
24 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
nuity and money, as well as hard work, and re-
quired more than eleven hundred feet of dams and
side walls, and the building of strong and substan-
tial locks and head-gates, etc., etc.; in a large
river often subject to violent freshets of great vol-
umes of water, and floating ice; with little experi-
ence or information to be gained from other
sources to guide him.* The locks were eighty
feet long and seventeen feet wide. His original
idea appears to have been, after making the water-
power available, to let it out to others for a con-
sideration, the amount of water to be disposed of
in this way being great.
He soon found that his purchase was not likely
to meet his expectations. He says: "I had sup-
posed the necessary improvements to make the
property productive, and the expense, would be
within my means; but I soon discovered my error,
and instead of being the man of leisure I had ex-
pected, I must, to secure myself from ruin, leave all
my mechanical amusements, and turn in to the
roughest and most exposed parts of the business.
In cold weather I labored up to my breast in water
before ihe present succession of dams were made [n the river the
ice came tlown in immensely large fields, wilh great momentum,
iind sometimes as much as from two to three feel thick. II seemed
to me that nothing coukl resist its force."— Hagner's Ilistuij of
the Falls.
Hosteatv Google
AT FALLS OF SCHUYLKILL. 25
to raise stone out of the channel; and had In reality
to say to my workmen, ' Conic, boys', in the place of
' Go, boys', as I had expected.
"My efforts, from iSiO to 1818 to improve my
estate so as to make it productive in the shape of
renting water-power, proved futile; there was a
prejudice against the property as a mere rental
estate, and another difficulty arose from the lia-
bility to frequent delays from back-water. Inde-
pendently of my being a party and holding an
interest in the rental, I could induce no business
to come there."
The plan of renting water-power, which he states
there was "prejudice against," has since then be-
come quite common in various parts of the United
States, and on this river but two miles above this
point, at Manayunk, the Schuylkill Navigation
Company derive a large revenue from renting water-
power for manufacturing purposes; so that may
we not attribute its failure to a lack of manufac-
turing spirit in the country at that time, more than
to any prejudice against it, as he supposed? In
reaUty, it appears to have been a premature effort,
in advance of the times.
He built a large mill for the manufacture of wire
and a smaller one for making nails, and entered
him.self into the manufacture of these articles.
Here his first business acquaintance with Erskine
Hazard commenced, who was afterwards associated
3*
Hosteatv Google
26 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
with hitn in the improvement of the Lehigh River.
They were in partnership in the manufacture of
wire. At that time no well-constructed machinery-
was in use for either of these purposes, and he was
obliged to exert his inventive faculties to produce
something for the purpose. He took out a patent
in 1810 for rolling iron, nails, etc., and in 1812
others for the same purpose, and for making wire
and heading nails. The state of the mechanic arts
at this time was such, that many an ingenious in-
ventor was foiled in expected results, from in-
ability to procure suitable machinery for carrying
into use the conceptions of his brain, and the fail-
ures were attributed to the defectiveness of the plan,
rather than to the real cause, the defects in the
machine. From this cause, John Fitch failed suc-
cessfully to navigate the Delaware River by steam,
and Oliver Evans severely felt the want. The dif-
ficulties and embarrassments, resulting therefrom,
can scarcely be appreciated at this day, when most
kinds of machinery are so readily and so com-
pletely constructed. Asit was, Josiah White had not
only to invent, but also to make the machinery,
and the very tools used in its fabrication.
" Whether," he continues, " my decision to pur-
chase the ' Falls' property was a correct or an in-
correct course I must leave. I certainly endeavored
to feel for the best direction, and do not think I
was moved by any caprice or carelessness in the
Hosteatv Google
A T FALLS OF SCHUYLKILL.
27
conclusion. It introduced me into a sea of trouble
and disappointment, from which I was entirely un-
able to extricate myself with propriety for seven
years. For although we succeeded in making
wire and wrought rolled nails, and essentially suc-
ceeded in every branch of business which we un-
dertook, so far as to perfect the articles, yet none
proved profitable; and in addition our mills were
both burned down, and had to be rebuilt or the
business be abandoned." He sold the small mill and
seven-sixteenths of his interest in the water-power
to Joseph Gillingham; and, afterwards, he and Ers-
kine Hazard joined together and procured a charter
from the Legislature of Pennsylvania, in 1816, with
a capital of two hundred thousand dollars, by the
name of the "Whitestown Manufacturing Co.," for
the manufacture of wire, etc., and to enable them
to make available the water-power on the western
side of the river. The privileges under this charter
were, however, never brought into use.
" In the year 1817, Joseph Gillingham and my-
self made the strongest efforts in our power to
make an arrangement with the city of Phila-
delphia, to supply them with water at Fairmount.
We examined the shores of the river down to Cal-
lowliill Street, and across the river in several
places; one, where the dam now stands, and at ,
nearly opposite Pratt's House, We then offered
to supply the city, with three millions of gallons of
Hosteatv Google
28 MEMOIR OF JOSFAH IVHITH.
water every twenty-four hours, for twenty years, for
twenty-five thousand dollars a year, and tlien
three milHons of gallons every twenty-four hours,
at three thousand dollars a year forever; to be paid
for in certificates of city loan to make the im-
provement, they to give us all the city property
there, and below the bridge, and the engine and
fixtures at Fairmount. This would afford us room
to use our surplus water below the dam. By this
plan we expected to produce an income of from
twenty-five to thirty thousand dollars a year, and
what we obtained from the city would enable us
to make the whole improvement, and erect the
mills for renting, or perfect the site so as to be
able to rent them; with the proviso, that the
Schuylkill Navigation Company would allow us to
use any place on the river to make our dam, above
Callowhil! Street bridge."
Thus we see his sagacious mind conceived the
plan of supplying the city with water, that has since
been successfully adopted; and he and his coadju-
tor were willing to take the risk of carryi ng it into
effect ; so certain were they of being able to ac-
complish it. The subject was for a long time a
matter of discussion between them and a com-
mittee of the City Councils appointed for the pur-
pose of investigating the project.
At the same time Josiah White wrote a number of
essays on the subject, which were published in the
Hosteatv Google
AT FALLS OF SCHUYLKILL. 29
papers of the day, setting forth the public advan-
tages of the plan proposed. After several months
of negotiation the matter came to an end, the ob-
jections urged against it being the uncertainty of
the power, in consequence of freshets and back-
water, and the impossibility of building a dam in
the river that would be permanent ; and, also, the
unwillingness of the Schuylkill Navigation Com-
pany to allow the dam to be made, without what
was considered an exorbitant compensation. Fresh
negotiations for the sale of their right to the water-
power at the " Falls," were, however, entered into,
some time afterwards, which resulted in its being
purchased by the city in the year 1819, on terms
advantageous to the proprietors.
Although his efforts in a business point of view
at this place were unsuccessful, yet the experience
gained in building dams and locks, and the man-
agement of water, and the play it gave to his in-
ventive genius, were of great subsequent use to
him and Erskine Hazard, in the greater and more
important work of making the navigation on the
Lehigh.
They endeavored to induce the public to apply
wire to many purposes for which it is now exten-
sively used, such as fencing, bridges, etc. He
published several essays on its importance for
fencing, showing its durability and cheapness as
compared with wood ; and they built a wire bridge
Hosteatv Google
30 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
over the Schuylkill, to test its practicability for that
purpose. It was intended for pedestrians only, and
mainly for the accommodation of their own work-
men, but was considered a great curiosity at the
time, and was visited and crossed by hundreds.
" This bridge was four hundred feet span, with
about thirty-three feet curve, the main wires three-
eighths of an inch rolled iron. One ton weight
was suspended by one main wire, and it sustained
forty persons at one time." They also made and
used an iron boat.
Hosteatv Google
CHAPTER III.
EAKLV OPERATIONS ON THE LEHIGH.
Tpie introduction of anthracite coal as a fuel in
this country, now so immense in its proportions,
commenced not much over fifty years ago. It was
slow in being appreciated by the community, and
it required vigorous exertions to induce persons to
attempt its use. Its appearance was against it, —
so different from ordinary fuel, — and many were
entirely incredulous as to its being anything else
than a stone, and incapable of being burned by
any inherent quality of its own. Josiah White
and Erskine Hazard had their attention first
directed to its use while operating at the Falls of
Schuylkill, and their minds impressed with its
importance as a fuel. Having procured a small
amount from the Lehigh, brought to market by
the early operators on that river, one of the
first experiments in burning it for manufacturing
purposes was made at their works. Incredible as
it may appear at the present day, when millions of
tons arc annually consumed, great difficulty was
found in the ignition of it, mainly from deficient
draft and want of patience in the management of it.
C3O
Hosteatv Google
32 MEMOIR OF JOS/AH WHITE.
Erskine Has^ard, in a communication published
in the proceedings of the Pennsylvania Historical
Society, makes this statement.
" During the war (1812), Virginia coal became
very scarce, and Messrs. White & Hazard, (who
were then manufacturing wire at the Falls of
Schuylkill,) having been told by Mr, Joshua Malin
that he had succeeded in making use of Lehigh
coal in his rolling-mill, procured a cart-load of it,
which cost them one dollar per bushel. This
quantity was entirely wasted without getting up
the requisite heat. Another cart-load was, how-
ever, obtained, and a whole night spent in endeav-
oring to make a fire in the furnace, when the hands
shut the furnace-door and left the mill in despair.
Fortunately, one of them lefl: his jacket in the
mill, and, returning for it in about half an hour,
noticed that the door was red-hot, and upon open-
ing it was surprised to find the whole furnace of a
glowing white heat. The others were summoned,
and four separate parcels of iron were heated and
rolled by the same fire before it required renewing.
The furnace was then replenished, and, as letting it
alone had succeeded so well, it was concluded to
try it again, and the experiment was repeated with
the same result."*
■ HaEnet, in his " HUtory of the Falls of Schuylkill," after
cribing the process of making the coal burn by White & Hazard,
Hosteatv Google
orEKATIO.\S ON THE LEHIGH. 33
C. G. Childs, •' On the Coal and Iron Trade in
1<S47," says:
'■ During the war with Great Britain, bituminous
coal rose to high prices. The demand for coal in
Philadelphia led Mr. Miner and Mr Cist to con-
trive a plan for mining and transporting the Mauch
Chunk coal. On the 9th of August, 1814. they
started off their first ark from Mauch Chunk (from
where Mauch Chunk afterwards was). In less than
eighty rods from the place of starting, the ark
struck on a ledge and broke a hole in her bow.
The lads stripped themselves nearly naked, to stop
the rush of water with their clothes. In six days,
however, the ark reached Philadelphia with its
twenty-four tons of coal, which had by this time
cost fourteen dollars a ton, ' But,' says Mr. Miner,
■we had the greatest difficulty to overcome in in-
ducing the public to use our coal when brought
to our doors.'"
It was from this cargo, probably, that White &
Hazard procured their coal mentioned above.
Coal was known to exist in large quantities near
the head waters of the Schuylkill River, and they
procured some from there; but the price was
■■enormously high, forty dollars a ton," brought
to their works in wagons. They formed the coii-
the dthl. piactical/y -^.i
Hosteatv Google
34 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
elusion to apply to the legislature to grant them
the privilege of making the Schuylkill navigable,
so as to bring the coal to market, and supply their
own wants at a cheaper rate.
The application was made in 1813-13; ^^ut the
idea of using coal as a fuel was ridiculed there,
and the member from Schuylkill County affirmed
in the legislature, "that although they had a black
stone in their county, it would not burn." They
were unsuccessful; but this, however, was the
beginning of movements for a law for that purpose,
finally granted to other parties.
The following, from an article by Erskine Haz-
ard, is here quoted from "Hazard's Register," vol.
iii., p. 302:
"The application to the legislature, by White &
Hazard, as individuals, having failed, they called
a meeting of those interested in that navigation, at
the tavern, corner of Fifth and Race Streets, Phila-
delphia, when Mr. White opened the business of the
meeting by proposing the application to the legis-
lature for a charter for a company to improve the
Schuylkill for slack-water navigation by dams and
locks. This was the commencement of the present
Schuylkill Navigation Company, which was incor-
porated in 1815."
Having failed to procure coal for the use of
their works at the falls from the Schuylkill
region, on reasonable terms, either by a law for the
Hosteatv Google
OJ'KRATIOXS ON T///-: LEHIGH.
35
improvement of that river, or, afterwards, from tlie
Navigation Company, to whom they applied for
the iL-mporary use of the river, before their work
\va« begun, they turned their attention to the
I^ehigh region for that purpose.*
From a memoir of Dr. T. C. James, published
by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, is copied
an account of the first discovery of coal on the
Lehigh by Philip Ginter. It described a journey
in that region in 1804, and after stating several
difficulties encountered, says:
" In the course of our pilgrimage wc reached
the summit of Mauch Chunk Mountain, the
present site of the mine, or rather quarry, of
anthracite coal ; at that time there were only to
be seen three or four small pits, which had much
the appearance of the commencement of rude wells,
into one of which our guide descended with great
'^"Josi;ih White about that time started and originated the
Schuylkill Navigntioii Company, which was chartered March 8,
1815. This was another of the beneficial acts of Josiah While, but
m.irk how sliabbily he was treated. He wbs one of the coinmia-
siiiners named in the act of incorporation. He whs the father of
Ihe whole concern, and if they had htmted Pennsylvania througli
they could not at that time have found a better man for their pur-
pose; yet, nolwithslaiidiiir. all this, at the (iri^t eleclion held at
Norristown, they refused to elect him one of the managers, on the
flimsy ground that he was interested at the Falls of Schuylkill;
Ijut we shall see the consequence of this directly."— Ili^nei-'s
History of the Falls of Schuylkill, page 45,
Hosteatv Google
35 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH lV//fTF..
ea^e, and threw up some pieces of coal for our
examination; after which, whilst we lingered on
the spot, contemplating the wildness of the scene,
honest Philip amused us with tht following nar-
rative of the original discovery of this most valu-
able of minerals, now promising, from its general
diffusion, so much of wealth and comfort to a
great portion of Pennsylvania. When he first took
up his residence in that district of country, he
built for himself a rough cabin in the forest, and
supported himself by the proceeds of his rifle,
being literally a hunter of the backwoods. At
the particular time to which he then alluded, he
was without a supply of food for his family, and
after being out all day with his gun, in quest of it,
he was returning towards evening over the Mauch
Chunk Mountain, unsuccessful and dispirited, in a
drizzling rain, and night approaching. As he trod
slowly over the ground, his foot stumbled against
something, which, by the stroke, was driven before
him ; observing it to be Mack, to distinguish which
there was just light enough remaining, he took it
up, and as he had often listened to the traditions
of the country of the existence of coal in the
vicinity, it occurred to him that this perhaps might
be a portion of that 'stone coal' of which he had
heard. He accordingly carefully took it with
him to his cabin, and the next day carried it to
Colonel Jacob Weiss, residing at what was then
Hosteatv Google
OPERATIONS ON THE LEHIGH.
37
known by the name of ' Fort Allen.'* The
colonel, who was alive to the subject, brought the
specimen with him to Philadelphia and submitted
it to the inspection of John Nicholson and Michael
Hillcgas, Esq.. and Charles Cist, an intelligent
painter, who ascertained its nature and qualities,
and authorized the colonel to satisfy Ginter for his
discovery, upon his pointing out the precise spot
where he found the coal. This was done by acced-
ing to Ginter's proposition of getting through the
forms of the patent-office the title for a small tract
of land, which he supposed had never been taken
up, containing a mill seat, on which he afterwards
built a mill, etc.; and which he was afterwards un-
happily deprived of, by the claim of a prior survey.
" Hillegas, Cist, Weiss, and some others imme-
diately, {about the beginning of the year 1792,)
formed themselves into what was called the ' Lehigh
Coal Mine Company,' but without a charter of in-
corporation, and took up about eight or ten thou-
sand acres of till then unlocated land, including
the Mauch Chunk Mountain, but probably never
worked the mine. It remained in this neglected
state, being only used by blacksmiths and people
in the immediate vicinity, until somewhere about
1806, when Wm. Turnbull, Ksq., had an ark con-
Hosteatv Google
38 MEMOIR OF JOSfAH WHITE.
structed at Lausanne,* which brought down two
or three hundred bushels. This was sold to the
managers of the water-works for the use of the
Centre Square engine. It was there tried as an
experiment, but ultimately rejected as unmanage-
able ; and its character for the time being blasted,
the further attempts at introducing it to public
notice in this way seemed suspended."
In a communication by Erskine Hazard to the
Historical Society, he says:
" In 1792 a company was formed, called the
Lehigh Coal Mine Company, who took up a iarge
body of land, contiguous to that on which the coal
had been found. They opened the mine where it
i.'i at present worked, made a very rough road
from the river to the mine, and attempted to bring
the coal in arks to the city, in which they but par-
tially succeeded, in consequence of the difficulties
of the navigation. A small quantity of coal, how-
ever, reached the city ; but the want of knowledge
of the proper fixtures for its use, together with the
difficulties of the navigation, caused the company
to abandon their undertaking. Some of the coal,
it is said, was tried under the boiler of the engine
at the Centre Square, but only served to put the fire
out, and the remainder was broken up and spread
on the walks instead of gravel."
« On the I,chif;h River, about one mile nlwve Mauch Chunk.
Hosteatv Google
OPERATIONS ON THE LEHIGH.
39
" The legislature was early aware of the impor-
tance of the navigation of the Lehigh, and, in 1771
passed a law for its improvement. Subsequent
laws, for the same object, were enacted in 1791,
1794, 1798, 1810, 1814, and 1816. A company
was formed under one of them, which expended
upwards of thirty thousand dollars in clearing out
channels; one of which they attempted to make
through the iedges of slate which extend across
the river, about seven miles above Allentown ; but
they found the slate too hard to pick, and too
shelly to blow ; and at length considered it an in-
superable obstacle to the completion of the work,
and relinquished it.
"The Coal Mine Company, in the mean while,
anxious to have their property brought into notice,
gave leases of their mines to different individuals
in succession, for a period of twenty-one, fourteen,
and ten years, adding to the last the privilege of
taking timber from the lands for the purpose of
floating the coal to market. Messrs. Cist, Miner
& Robinson, who had the last lease, started several
arks, only three of which reached the city, and
they abandoned their business at the close of the
war, 1S15."
Josiah White says : " I had made inquiry into the
ownership and condition of the Lehigh mines and
river, and determined to visit them and see if any-
thing could be done there. George F, A. Hauto,
Hosteatv Google
40 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH IVH/T/L
who was ill the practice of occasionally visiting us
at the falls to talk about machinery, etc., I told of
my intention of visiting the Lehigh on a tour of
inspection, and he proposed accompanying me,
having had a previous intention of visiting the
Schuylkill mines. My stonemason, William Brigs,
wanted a ride, and he also concluded to go with
us ; so we three went on horseback, and got to
Bethlehem on Christmas-eve, 1817. We stayed
at Lausanne and Lehighton, as the places nearest
to the mines, where we could board whilst visiting
tliem, which occupied about a week, one being
eleven and the other twelve miles distant from the
mine.
"Upon returning home with favorable impres-
sions of the practicability of the project, (of im-
proving the river and mining coal,) it was con-
cluded that Erskine Hazard, George F. A. Hauto.*
and myself should join in the enterprise. I was to
mature the plan ; Hauto was to procure the money
from his rich friends; Hazard was to be the scribe,
he also being a good machinist and an excellent
counselor."
The existence of coal on the Lehigh had been
* This George F. A. Hauto was a Geiman, and had insinu-
ated llinl^iel^ into their confidence by his pretensions lo weallh
and influence; and who afterwards, when his true cliaraclcr w;is
Hosteatv Google
OPERATIONS ON THE LEHIGH. 41
known for about a quarter of a century previous to
this visit; and a company had been formed in the
year 1793, called "the Lehigh Coal Mine Company"
(before mentioned), who purchased the land upon
which the coal was first mined, at Summit Hill,
and took up by patent from the State of Pennsyl-
vania other tracts to the extent of ten thousand
acres, including nearly all the coal lands now be-
longing to the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Com-
pany, in the first coal-field.
The Lehigh Coal Mine Company made some
almost fruitless endeavors to mine and bring the
coal to market by their own efforts in the first
place, and also by leasing the mine to others ; and
attempted to make a wagon-road to bring the coal
from the mine down to the river, expending the
sum often pounds, Pennsylvania currency, for the
purpose, but soon abandoned the attempt.
In 1813 they leased for ten years their lands to
Miner, Cist & Robinson, the consideration being
the annual production and transportation to market
of ten thousand bushels of coal for the benefit of
the lessees. Out of five ark-loads of coal shipped
by these parties, two only arrived at Philadelphia,
the others having been wrecked on the passage.
The most of this coal was bought by White &
Hazard for their works at "the Falls" for twenty-
one dollars per ton ; but even this price was in-
sufficient to remunerate the owners, and conse-
Hosteatv Google
43 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
quently the mining and transportation of coal again
ceased.
Josiah White continues: "We three at once set
about getting a lease of the Lehigh Coal Mine
Company's lands, ten thousand acres for twenty
years, for one ear of corn a year, if demanded; and
from and after three years to send to Philadelphia
at least forty thousand bushels of coal per annum
on our own account, so as to be sure of introducing
it into the market, by which means we hoped to
make valuable what had heretofore proved to be
valueless to the Coal Mine Company ; our intention
being to procure the property of the mine and
river, which by our plan (of navigation) was to sup-
port itself. We soon obtained the grant of a lease,
as mentioned, which required two or three weeks
to perfect, and during this time Erskine Hazard
wrote out the law on the principles mentioned, and
then we all posted to Harrisburg to procure its
passage through the legislature, in which we suc-
ceeded on the 20th of March, 1818 (entitled 'An
act to improve the navigation of the river Lehigh.')"
He says: "The Lehigh Coal Mine Company
had tried to the best of their means to open and
work the mine and get the river improved ; had a
lottery, on which it is said they raised ten thousand
dollars, to aid in improving the river. There had
been five laws obtained, but all their efforts failed,
and the river was abandoned. And it was not
Hosteatv Google
OPERATIONS ON THE LEHIGH.
43
until the Lehigh Coal Mine Company — two dis-
tinct individual contracts and leases — had failed in
working the mines, and also the said five failures
in improving the river and denouncing it as im-
practicable, that we came forward to improve it.
"The plan of improvement I concluded on,
(when on my visit,) was the one we subsequently
adopted, which was to smooth the old road of
nine miles, which the old company had raised ten
pounds to make, to get some coal down, to make a
noise in Philadelphia, and upon succeeding in rais-
ing money, afterwards to make a road of a grade
that would ultimately do to lay a railroad upon,
whh an uninterrupted declivity from the mine to
the river. Improve the navigation of the river by
contracting the channels funnel fashion, to bring
the whole flow of water at each of the falls to as
narrow a compass as the law would allow, by
throwing up the round river-stones into low wails,
not higher than we wanted to raise the water, and
if we had not sufficient water for the required
depth of fifteen or eighteen inches by the natural
flow, to make artificial freshets to supply the de-
ficiency, — that is, by making ponds of water of as
many acres as we could get, and letting it off peri-
odically, say once in three days. I supposed we
could gather enough water to secure the required
quantity, and thus secure a regular descending
navigation. The plan for locks and gates for letting
Hosteatv Google
44 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
out tlie freshet in a proper manner was left for
the present to be devised in due time, if found
necessary."
They issued a pamphlet entitled "Observations
on the Lehigh Navigation Bill" for the information
of the members of the legislature, which shows
what they proposed to do, from which the follow-
ing is extracted :
"Thcimprovementsin the river Schuylkill, at the
fails, by Josiah White & Co., arc, we presume, suffi-
cient proof of capability for the undertaking. The
dam across that river, the canal and locks, were
made and completed by them at their own expen.se
in a few months. The subscribers propose to effect
a complete downward navigation for all kinds of
boats, arks, crafts, and rafts, and a sufficient upward
one, for all and every necessary purpose, by means
of dams, canals, locks, wing dams, open sluices,
and slopes, clearing and deepening the bed, con-
tracting and straightening the same, and other
usual known mean.s, according as circumstances
and the nature of the impediment may suggest.
Besides, they intend to avail themselves in the
driest season (about a month in the year) of arti-
ficial freshets."
"Inthe4thmonth,l8l8,lirskine Hazard and my-
self having sat up all night to settle our business
at the falls, and giving a power of attorney to
another person to attend to the whole of it during
Hosteatv Google
OPERATIONS ON THE LEHIGH. 45
our absence, went clown to the stage-office to pro-
ceed to Stoddartsvillc (head of the Lehigh), for the
purpose of commencing the leveling of the river;
but the stage having gone before our arrival proved
an advantage, as we were detained a week, the
weather becoming milder in the mean time, making
it safer and pleasanter to lodge out in the woods.
We leveled the river from Stoddartsville to Easton,
the ice not having all disappeared; there being no
house between the former place and Lausanne
obliging us to lie out in the woods for six nights.
We borrowed the leveling instruments from Ben-
jamin R. Morgan, who had retained them as the
relics of the Union Canal Company: we knew of
no others in Philadelphia." The descent from
Stoddartsvillc to Mauch Chunk is nine hundred
and twenty-five feet, and from Mauch Chunk to
Easton, three hundred and sixty-four feet ; distance
from Stoddartsvillc to Easton, eighty-four and
a quarter miles.
Above the Gap, in the Blue Mountain, there
were but thirteen houses, including the towns of
Lausanne and Lehighton, within sight from the
river, and for thirty-five miles above Lausanne
there was no sign of a human habitation ; every-
thing was in a state of nature.
J " Having obtained," he continues, " the lease of
the mines, our charter for the improvement of the
river, and made the survey of the same, we also
5
Hosteatv Google
46 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
bought the tract of laad on Mauch Chunk Creek,
to enable us to make, as we supposed, an unbroken
plane for a road, from the large coal bed to the
river, {for bringing down the coal,) of two feet in
descent in the one hundred feet; but, in laying it
out, we discovered that the fall in the creek was
too great for two and a half miles of the lower
end. We were, therefore, obliged to make a varia-
tion in the plan, from one foot to about four and
a half feet in the hundred."
The location and survey of this road was made
by White and Hazard personally, and is said to
have been the first " laid out by an instrument, on
the principle of dividing the whole descent into
the whole distance, as regularly as the ground
would admit of, and have no undulation."
Hosteatv Google
CHAPTER rV.
LATRIJ OPERATIONS ON THE I.EiriGH.
The first, or great southern field of anthracite
coal in Pennsylvania, extends from near the Lehigh
River, at Maiich Chunk, on the east, to Pottsvilie,
and towards the river Susquehanna, in the neigh-
borhood of Harrisburg, on the west, a distance of
about sixty miles; in breadth it is pretty uniform,
the maximum width not exceeding six or seven
miles. The operations of the Lehigh Coal and Navi-
gation Company in this region are confined to the
eastern end of the basin, from Mauch Chunk west-
ward to the Little Schuylkill River, at Tamaqua,
a distance of about eleven miles, and most of the
coal mined by the company is transported to the
Lehigh River for shipment on the canal and rail-
roads. Their land, according to the surveys and
estimates of R. P. Rothwell, mining engineer, in
1869, comprises six thousand acres of coal land ;
the thickness of coal in the combined veins, forty-
two feet, equal to four hundred and seventy-two
millions of tons, or seventy-one thousand five
hundred tons to the acre. The same authority
says further: "That the Lehigh Coal and Navigation
(47)
Hosteatv Google
^S MEMOIR OF yoSTAH WHITE.
Company possess one of the most magnificent coal
properties in the world cannot be questioned, and
that the quantity of coal is such as to allay all ap-
prehensions for an abundant supply far into the
future is indisputable."
It was in the centre of this region, about eight
or nine miles from Mauch Chunk, at Summit Hill,
at the point where Ginter discovered the coal, in
the year i/gi, and the previous companies had
operated, where the first anthracite coal was ever
mined for the market in this country, that White
and Hazard commenced their operations. The coal
cropped out near the surface, and the mining differed
at first but little from ordinary stone quarry-
ing ; the earth and other covering of the coal was
removed, and the operations carried on in the
open air. G. F. Hauto describes the operation in
a letter to a member of the legislature, Dec. 19,
1819, as follows:
"This mine, on our arrival, had quite an incon-
siderable opening, like a mo derate -sized stone-
quarry; since which we have uncovered about two
acres of coal land, removing all the earth, dirt,
slate, etc. (about twelve feet deep), so as to leave
a surface for the whole of that area of nothing but
the purest coal, containing' millions of bushels.
We cut a passage through the rocks, so that now
the teams drive right into the mine to load. The
mine being situated near the summit of the moun-
Hosteatv Google
Hosteatv Google
Hosteatv Google
OPERATIONS ON THE LEHIGH. 49
tain, we are not troubled with water, and the coal
quarries very easy. We have worked the stratum
about thirty feet deep, and how much deeper it is
we do not know."
The mine is thus described in an address pub-
lished by the company in 1821 : " The coal mine
at present worked by the company lies on the top
of a mountain, and appears to extend over some
hundred acres of land, covered by about twelve
feet of loose black dirt, resembling moist gun-
powder, which can be removed by cattle with
scrapers and thrown into the valley below, so as
never to impede the work. The thickness of the
coal is not known, but a shafl has been sunk in it
thirty-five feet without penetrating through. More
than an acre of mine has been uncovered by the
company, and presents a huge rock of coal, which
is easily quarried without blowing."
Nine year? later, Professor Silliman, in his
"Journal," thus describes the mines: "The coal i.s
fairly laid open to view, and lies in stupendous
masses, which are worked in open air exactly as in
a stone-quarry. The excavation being in an angular
area, and entered at different points hy roads cut
through the coal, in some places quite down to the
lowest level, it has much the appearance of a vast
fort, of which the central area is the parade-ground,
and the upper escarpment is the platform for the
5*
Hosteatv Google
50 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
From this point, the coal was in the commence-
ment of the work hauled on the turnpike made by
them for the purpose, which road is described by
Hauto in the before-mentioned letter : " You know
the ground between this, (Mauch Chunk,) and our
principal coal mine, apd that it would be hardly
possible to find a more unfavorable one for the
construction of a good road. The perpendicular
elevation, from the river to this mine, is one thou-
sand feet, the distance from the river upwards of
eight miles. We constructed it in about three
months, and most part of it in the winter season, a
road having a regular declination of two and a half
feet in every hundred. On it one horse can draw
four tons with ease, . . . On this road we
have now a sufficient number of teams to haul
several thousand bushels per day." This turnpike
road was superseded by the descending gravity
railroad in 1827, and the coal carried by it to the
river.
Mining coal from the open cut, exclusively, was
continued up to about 1844, when the uncovering
became so heavy, in consequence of the pitch of
the veins, the company commenced mining in the
Panther Creek Valley, and the old mining grad-
ually diminished, until it has entirely ceased, it be-
ing now under ground in the usual manner.
This quarry was a point of much interest to the
public in early days, affording an opportunity to
Hosteatv Google
OPERATIONS ON THE LEHIGH.
SI
view the coal in place, as nature had arranged it,
such as could be seen nowhere else in the land ;
and where, also, the plan nf mining; could be
appreciated.
The outlines of the first plan for a Lehigh Navi-
gation and Coal Company were concluded in l8l8.
"The substance of which was a capital of two
hundred thousand dollars divided into two hun-
dred shares of stock; White, Hauto, and Hazard
each retaining fifty shares, leaving fifty shares, or
fifty thousand dollars, to be subscribed by others,
who were to have all that was made up to eighteen
per cent, on their capital, and we the residue.
White, Hauto, and Hazard to assign to the com-
pany to be formed all their interest in the law,— ob-
tained 20th March, 1818, — for the improvement of
the navigation of the river, and the lease of twenty
years of the Lehigh Coal Mine's lands; they to
have the sole management, and conduct all the
business, and be paid for their services."
There being two objects to be obtained, one, the
improvement of the navigation of the river, the
other, the mining and tran.sporting of coal, there
arose a diversity of opinion about the relative
profits of the two interests, some having more con-
fidence in the one and some in the other. This in-
duced a division of their interests, and two com-
panies were formed, one "The Lehigh Navigation
Company," on the 10th of the 8th mo., 1818, for
Hosteatv Google
52 MEMOIR OF JOSTAH WHITE.
the improvement of the river; and on tlic 2Tst of
the lOth mo. following, "The Lehigh Coal Com-
pany," for mining coal, and making a road from
the mine to the river, and bringing it down the
new navigation.
After these outhnes of the company were agreed
upon, they pubhshed a pamphlet, entitled "A
Compendious View of the Law authorizing the Im-
provement of the River Lehigh," etc. ; in which the
following sanguine statements are made, as among
the advantages to be obtained by the navigation of
the river on the improved plan :
"The city of Philadelphia can be supplied with
coal which is ascertained to be tisjenty per cent.
purerWxzXi any of the same species which has come
to this market from any other source, and at a less
price.
"A market will be opened for an immense body
of timber, which is now so completely locked
up as not to be considered worth stealing, owing
to the expense that would attend getting it to
market.
" When the first grand section of the river is im-
proved, {which can be done in a few mouths^ the
land carriage to the Susquehanna at Berwick will
be only thirty miles, over a turnpike now made,
which will immediately command the trade of that
river, and turn it to Pliiladelphia. When tlie second
grand section is finished, the portage will be re-
Hosteatv Google
OFERATIONS ON THE LEHIGH.
S3
duced to only ten or twelve miles, by a railroad con-
templated to be made on excellent ground. By
the Susquehanna and Lehigh the western counties
of New York will be nearer, in point of expense, to
Philadelphia than to Albany, and consequently a
large portion of the produce, which now goes down
the North RiVer to New York, may be calculated
on for the supply of Philadelphia.
" The New York grand canal when completed
will bring the produce from the shores of Lake
Erie. This produce can come, from the point
where the canal crosses Seneca River to Phila-
delphia, in nearly half the time, and consequently at
half the expense, that it can go by canal and North
River to New York."
The tolls established by the act of the 20th of
March, 1818, were ''three cents per mile in the
second grand section, and one cent per mile in the
first, for every thousand feet of timber or lumber,
or ton weight of other material passing down the
river, imtlm/t any limit as to the percentage to
which they may amount."
Personal application and solicitation were made
to a number of the leading capitalists of the day
for subscription to the stock. Stephen Girard
said "he formed no partnerships," and declined.
Joseph Bonaparte respectfully declined joining in
the enterprise, in a reply by letter through his
secretary. One confes.sed, after being polite enough
Hosteatv Google
54 MEMOIR OF JOSfAH WHITE.
to listen to them, that he was "unable to appre-
ciate their remarks" ; another agreed to give them
a hearing on the subject for " five minutes by the
watch" ; another appointed an evening for a hear-
ing, and when called upon had gone to a party.
One wrote "that his Wilkesbarre friends believed
vi-e could not be in earnest in our navigation." We
replied. " if they would come and see us up to our
waists in water, they would think it more earnest
than fun." Notwithstanding considerable difficulty,
they finally succeeded in obtaining subscriptions
for the fifty thousand dollars stock, which was con-
sidered sufficient for the purpose.
They immediately proceeded to commence the
work on the river. He says, 8 mo., 1818: "Bought
a horse for one hundred dollars, a small dearborn
wagon for sixty-five dollars, and rode up to Lau-
sanne; but the wagon, being rather light, broke
down twice before we arrived; this was, however,
the only light carriage the company had until the
summer of 1822, when it was so far worn out in
the service that we sold it for five dollars. Began
our work in the river with thirteen hands, at the
mouth of Nesquehoning Creek, being the dividing
point between the two grand sections. We rigged
two scows about thirty-five feet long by fourteen
feet wide for lodging- and eating-rooms for the
men, about seventy in number. Also one scow for
the managers' counting-house, storehouse and
Hosteatv Google
OPERATIONS ON THE LKHIGir.
55
dwelling, and one for kitchen and bakehouse.
These four boats were raised one story, of about
six feet, and covered with board roofs. In these
boats we placed all our stores, tools, and equipage.
We had from two to four horses in the service, to
bring wood, etc., for the kitchen, oven, etc. As it
was our design to make the river navigable with
small wing dams and channel walls, a single rift
would not keep one hundred hands more than
from one to six days to complete, so as we finished
the work at one place we moved down with our
floating town to the vicinity of the next. We con-
tinued living in our floating town until we were
frozen up in the ice. The improvement being in a
wilderness country, the workmen came from many ■
nations and were strangers to us; we kept but
little cash about us, paying the men in checks, ac-
cording to agreement, which were not to be paid
by the banks unless signed by two of us. Thus
we offered no inducements for them to commit any
violence on us in the wilderness country, for we
were known to have no money on our persons.
We were each clad in a complete suit of buck-
skin clothes, and were sometimes ourselves
looked upon as suspicious persons in the country
around."
He more fully describes their operations in a
letter to a friend: '■ We improved the Lehigh River
with wing dams in the first instance, 'as we could
Hosteatv Google
56 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
not raise the means, then, to make a slack-water
navigation, and we did not know that the market
would take from us enough anthracite coal, to
justify the expense of a more perfect navigation.
The distance we made with wing dams, etc., was
forty-six miles, the fall about three hundred and
sixty feet. Nearly ail the rapids were covered
with paving stones, so it cost us about twelve
hundred dollars a mile exclusive of dams. Our
design was to get eighteen inches depth of water
by twenty-five feet width ; so that by contracting
the channel at the rifts to this width with the
paving stones, and raising the wings and channel
walls no more than to hold the eighteen or twenty
inches of water, they stood well enough. The
channel walls, or walls parallel to the channel, were
about six times the width of their height; the
walls across the stream, eight or ten times their
height. The channels as straight as possible,
they kept themselves clean."
In their first report to the stockholders, dated
Dec. 31, 1818, they say: "The managers com-
menced their operations on the Lehigh, on the 19th
of August, and concluded them on the 19th of No-
vember. During that time, they estimate that they
have made, in the river, dams amounting in length to
about thirteen thousand feet, and supposed to con-
tain upwards of sixteen thousand perches of stone.
By these dams the parts of the lower section
Hosteatv Google
OPERATIONS ON THE LEflTGH. 57
that WLTC considered the worst have been made
navigable at all seasons of common low water, and
a fresh dam of four hundred and fifty feet long is
nearly finished, which they trust will accommo-
date the public with a navigation to Easton the
ensuing season."
But the following year they earlj' discovered that
they had not sufficient water for their purposes.
Josiah White writes : " We found the natural flow of
the water in the Lehigh was insufficient to give us
eighteen inches depth and twenty feet width, as
required by law ; the water subsiding much below
the mark we had made, on the best information
we were able to procure from those on the river,
who professed to know all about it; and were
obliged to make a great experiment to obtain the
water, by artificial freshets ; and if we failed in this,
our whole work would be exploded and have to be
abandoned.
" I devoted myself for several weeks to form a
plan of sluice that would answer, and be cheaply
made, and safe at all stages of the water. I suc-
ceeded in producing the lock and sluice called
the ' Beai'-trap,' a name the workmen gave it,
while we were experimenting with it on Mauch
Chunk Creek, to elude the curiosity of persons
who teased them with inquiries as to what we were
making. Wc put up about twelve of these locks
and dams in 1819, and proved them, so as to de-
Hosteatv Google
g8 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
termine that they would answer our purpose, and
I took out a patent for them in the 12th mo.,
1819.*
"As our work was generally in the water seven
or eight months in the year, and my portion of it
being to lay out the walls and channels in the
river, pile stone as marks, etc., I dressed in clothes
suitable: a red flannel shirt, roundabout coat, cap,
strong shoes with a hole cut in their toe to let out
the water; our clothing being made ofcoarse.cloth,
and buckskin tanned in oil, to turn the water. In
the summer, during the day, I was as much in the
water as out of it, for three seasons ; allowing the
clothing to dry on my back ; when wet, I kept up
the circulation by walking about my business, and
seldom caught cold ; sleeping at night in one of
our boats, in a bunk, with blankets, the first two
years, without a bed, in the same manner as the
workmen.
"Our improvements on the river were this year
(1819) extended to the Lehigh Water Gap, at the
Blue Mountain, ten miles below Mauch Chunk.
We fully proved by the artificial navigation our
ability to send such a regular supply of coal to
market as would supply all the demand. The
present arrangement we considered sufficient to
test the question, whether the use of coal by the
* .See Appejidi\ Nu. i for a plan and description of this lock.
Hosteatv Google
OPERATIONS ON THE LEHIGH.
59
public would so increase, as to justify a better,
or whether we siiould by limited sales be confined
to the present descending navigation. If a large
demand should arise, it would justify a change."
They had, however, expended the whole of the
capital of the company this year, and the works
were not so well secured against the winter freshets
and ice as would have been desirable. He says:
"It was the first instance in Pennsylvania of
employing so large a number of workmen in the
wilderness; it was impossible to tell how we should
succeed in getting them until we made the trial,
and not putting up enough of our work to prove
its feasibility would have been fata! to our getting
any more capital to finish it To do this, we had to
spread the work over a sufficient line for experi-
ment, and risk and trust to being able, in the early
part of the winter, to perfectly inclose or cover the
work against the freshets. Notwithstanding we
had spent all our capital, we kept as many men
employed through the winter of 1819-20 as we
could well get along with, and I supplied the ne-
cessary funds until we got another subscription,
and the public knew nothing of our pecuniary
difficulties; as it would have been ruinous to have
broken up and disbanded our men, and would
have confirmed the public in what they had pre-
dicted, another failure. "
It being found that the interests of the Naviga-
Hosteatv Google
Cx> MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
tioLi Compnny and the Coal Company were not
identical, and gave rise to some clashing, it was
concluded to amalgamate them in the spring of
1820, " on the express condition that twenty thou-
sand dollars of the stock should be taken, and the
new stock called 'the Lehigh Navigation and Coal
Company.' " This small addition of capital was with
difficulty obtained, and not until twelve thousand
dollars of it were taken by White & Hazard; more
than six thousand of which Josiah White had ad-
vanced, to carry the concern through the winter.
"In the year 1820, the dams and locks being
repaired, the first anthracite coal was sent to mar-
ket \>y QM-x artificial nmiigation ; the whole quantity
sent was three hundred and sixty-five tons; this
proved more than enough for family supplies in
Philadelphia, and the company was indebted to the
rolling-mills, etc., for taking off this stock, although
they never asked more than eight dollars and forty
cents a ton; whereas, the company previous to
ours asked as much as they could get, and ob-
tained twenty-one dollars a ton for it. This seemed
to confirm the doubtful, who in the beginning ad-
mitted we had plenty of coal, but that the preju-
dice of the community would be against its use in
the family,"
The difficulty experienced in burning it as a
domestic fuel, and for cooking purposes, — which
for want of experience and proper appliances was
Hosteatv Google
OPERATIONS ON THE EEHIGH. 6i
a very great drawback to its introduction and use, —
he endeavored toobviate, and made many experi-
ments for that purpose, with diffeient kinds of
grates and fixtures; and in his office, at his house
in Philadelphia, had a fire in operation for the in-
spection of the public, which showed its complete
practicability for these purposes.
They again expended all their capital this year,
and the following spring endeavored to obtain more
funds by subscription.
His account continues : "The difficulties of sell-
ing more stock seemed to increase; our capita!
had been increased to one hundred and twenty-
five thousand dollars, and the citizens of Philadel-
phia did not incline to introduce coal into their
families, and many of the stockholders said their
money had ali been thrown away, for, if we finally
made the river navigable and the works safe, which
they much doubted, the community would not
have our coal, and it was not believed that the
other articles of trade on the navigation would be
enough to make it pay. A new difficulty also
presented at a place called 'The Slates,' where a
ridge ran across the river, where it was four hun-
dred feet or more in breadth, with generally a
level top, except being full of small breaks, through
the ledges over which we had carried the channel;
but it was found the wing walls being .so long
through the slate ridges, they would not hold
6*
Hosteatv Google
62 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
water in the channels, so that the cheapest im-
provement to obviate this, in the opinion of the
managers, would be a large dam, which they esti-
mated could not be completed for less than twenty-
thousand dollars. The difficulties in obtaining
a further subscription were so great, that they could
not be overcome before the spring of 1831. and
then fifty thousand dollars were subscribed under
the following extraordinary circumstances: all
the o\d subscribers agreed that the subscriptions
to the fifty thousand dollars, called new stock,
should in future draw all the income until they ob-
tained three per cent, semi-annual dividends, and
then the balance of the profit went to the old sub-
scribers, until they also had received the same ;
and the stock was to continue in this way until
there was profit enough to pay all three per cent,
semi-annual dividends, and then the stock to
be equal, etc. And, in addition, that White &
Hazard give a bonus of their reversionary stock
of ten thousand dollars to new subscribers.
Upon obtaining the subscription the ' slate darn '
was immediately commenced, and with some diffi-
culties completed in this year."
The earliest records of the company having
been accidentally destroyed, the first election of
officers on record occurred on the 23d of the 5th
month, 1821, wlien the following persons were
selected : President, John Cox ; Treasurer, Jona-
Hosteatv Google
OPERATIONS ON THE LEHIGH. 63
tlian Fell; Secretary, Jacob Shoemaker; Acting
Managers, Josiah White and Erskitie Hazard, who
appear to have constituted the whole board of
management.*
"It was believed at the close of the year 1821.
that it would be best to endeavor to procure an act
of incorporation ; for, although we shipped and sent
to Philadelphia one thousand and seventy-three
tons of coal, still, the consumption by families in
Philadelphia was insufficient to take this small
quantity, the balance being sold to factories. The
work, also, was still considered an experiment, as to
making and rendering the navigation permanent.
Therefore the managers were of the unanimous
opinion that more money could not be raised, as all
our property was pledged at the last subscription,
and that we had no security to offer, unless we
obtained a charter of incorporation, so as to risk
nothing more than the stock any individual might
subscribe." The charter was obtained on the 13th
of February, 1822, entitled "An act to incorporate
the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company." The
capita! stock was to consist of one million of dol- .
lars, to be divided into shares of fifty dollars each,
* The only survivor of the eaily managers of the Lchigli Cotil
and Navigation Compiiiiy is our veiieiaijle lownsmnn, John McAI-
lisle:-. dodod in 1S31, and ten yeai> hi office ; still gre«ii in old
age, and enjoying the rdSjject and esteem of tho-e \w\M^ have the
privilege of liis ac:<iu,iiiilance.
Hosteatv Google
4 MEMOIR OF JOSIAfI WHITE.
of which the old stock was to constitute a part.
No part of this act was to impair or repeal any'of
the provisions of the former act, entitled "An act
to improve the navigation of the river Lehigh,"
passed the 20th of March, 1818, except so much
as was altered or supplied by this.
In the years 1822 and 1823 the descending
navigation was perfected, and the company con-
tributed four or five thousand dollars to improve
the channels in the Delaware River. The works
were inspected by commissioners and reported
finished, and the governor issued his license,
on the '■ 17th of January, 1823, authorizing them
to take toll;" it having been in use for a year or
two previously, but no toll taken then nor after-
wards until 1827.
"Inasmuch as by the descending navigation we '
obtained but one trip from our boats, {as they
were taken to pieces and the lumber sold in Phila-
delphia,) it was found impossible to continue the
coal business, even in its then small way, without
clearing out and contracting the channels for about
sixteen miles above Mauch Chunk, to the pine
forests, to procure a sufficient supply of lumber for
that purpose. This, however, was no small mat-
ter; in this distance there was a fall in the river
exceeding three hundred feet, and the transporta-
tion over rapids; the bottom was rocky and par-
ticularly hard and difficult, and so forbidding
Hosteatv Google
OPERATIONS ON THE LEHIGIf.
65
were the shores that, except along the channel of
the river, it was impossible to transport any sup-
plies for the use of the workmen ; so the provi-
sions, etc., had to be conveyed to the upper end,
to the mouth of Laurel Run, (eighteen miles,) and
floated down the river. No raft had, as far as
known, before these channels were made, ever
passed from above down to Nesquehoning Creek,
and from thence down the river was only naviga-
ble for rafts in times of high freshets.
" Before these channels were made, we attempted
to procure planks from above by floating them
down the rapids, but this was a failure, as they
were worn out or broken against the rocks before
their arrival ; and in floating logs, many of them
were carried off in the freshets, and were lost or
stolen.
" About this time wc contrived the present plan
of weighing coal with a scale, with the dish resting
on four knife-edged fulcrums and compound levers ;
we weighed the wagons with it. This plan of scale
has now obtained general use, from those of small
size up to those large enough to weigh loaded
boats. In the year 1823 five thousand eight hun-
dred tons of coal were sent down the Lehigh, and
about one thousand tons of it was left on hand
unsold in the following spring. There still con-
tinued a disinclination to use it nmch in families,
and persons passing our coal wharf constantly told
Hosteatv Google
65 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
us we had overstocked the market. The next
year, (1824,) however, with many misgivings, there
was sent down the enorinom quantity, as it was
thought, of nine thousand five hundred and forty-
one tons, and predictions were made that not the
half of it would be sold. But this did not prove to
be the case, for the public, seeing that the supply
was likely to be permanently adequate, and it suita-
ble for family use, and the price steady at eight dol-
lars and forty cents per ton, began more generally
to inquire after and use it. Manufacturers of stoves
and grates, in the winter of 1824-25, first began to
notify the public of desirable and preferable patterns
for burning it. Several patriotic ladies exhibited
their sample fires; among them the widow Guest,
in Sansorri Street, stood the most conspicuous ; and
of grate-makers, Jacob F. Walter took quite a
leading part. This winter may be considered
quite the turning-point in the use of anthracite coal."
In the year 1825 the company sent to market
twenty-eight thousand three hundred and ninety-
three tons of coal. This year the Schuylkill
Navigation Company began the coal business on
the canal by sending forward seven thousand one
hundred and forty-three tons.
" In the year 1826 the desirable event of equali-
zing the stock took place, and the company sent
to market thirty-one thousand two hundred and
eighty tons of coal."
Hosteatv Google
OPERATIONS ON THE LEHIGH. 67
In the year 1827 the railroad from Mauch
Chunk to the mines was made. This was placed
mainly on the route of the old wagon road from
the mines to the river, originally laid out, in 181S,
by Josiah White and Erskine Hazard personally,
the grades then being 41^ miles, 2 feet descent ; 3^
mile, 1.6 foot; ^ mile, i foot; 21^ miles, 2% feet
descent in 100 feet. The elevation of the old coal
mine above the Lehigh River at Mauch Chunk, at
the point where the coal was delivered into boats,
is nine hundred and thirty-six feet; the distance to
the river from the mines is about nine miles, the
road constantlydescendingbyan irregular declivity.
At the bank of the river an inclined plane is con-
structed about seven hundred yards long, with a
declivity of two hundred and fifty feet at the
bottom, down a chute, into the boats on the water.
The whole was completed, so as to pass coal
over it regularly, in about four months, and is the
first railroad in this country ever constructed for
the transportation of coal, and, with one or two
trifling exceptions, for any other purpose. The
sleepers were laid four feetapart, upon a foundation
of stone ; the rail itself was of rolled iron bars,
about three-eighths of an inch thick and one and
a half inches in width, upon a wooden foundation.
The loaded wagons each carried one and a half
tons of coal, and descended in gangs of six, eight,
or ten connected together, each gang attended by
Hosteatv Google
68 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
two men to regukte tlie velocity of the descent. The
wagons weighed about one thousand two hundred
pounds each. The empty wagons were returned
to the mines by horses or mules, each animal
taking three or four of them back in three hours.
They descended to the river with the coal in cars
constructed for their use. The time occupied in the
descent was about thirty minutes. The cost of
this road was thirty-eight thousand seven hundred
and twenty-six dollars, or three thousand and fifty
dollars per mile ; the length, including lateral and
branch roads, to and into the mines, was about
twelve and a half miles.
The managers say in their report: "One hundred
and forty-six railroad wagons have been made, and
the utility of the road proved by transporting
twenty-seven thousand seven hundred and seventy
tons of coal, at a saving over the turnpike of sixty-
four and three-quarters cents per ton ; and has pro-
duced a saving this year of over fifteen thousand
dollars, and, in mining the coal and boating depart-
ment, of sixteen cents per ton, thus reducing
the cost of the coal more than eighty cents
per ton: the whole amount this year sent to
market being thirty-two thousand and seventy-four
tons. There were also constructed nearly fifteen
miles of boats for its transportation, taking from the
stump seven million four hundred and twelve thou-
sand one hundred and eighty-three feet of lumber."
Hosteatv Google
OPERATIONS ON THE LEHIGH. gg
Before taking leave of the old descending navi-
gation of the river Lehigh, it may be well to
describe it more fully in Josiah White's own
words: "As the artificial navigation is now aban-
doned, and a canal and slack-water introduced, it is
due to give its character. The river had twelve
small dams and ' bear-trap ' locks of from three to
six feet in height, from Mauch Chunk to Lehigh
Water Gap. (eleven miles,) and nine miles below,
at 'The Slates,' a large dam and 'bear- trap' lock,
one hundred and thirty feet long and thirty feet
wide, made for a lift-lock; and, seventeen miles
below ' The Slates,' another dam six or seven feet
high, with an ascending lock like that at 'The
Slates." A man was stationed on the front coal
ark and rode down to the second lock, when he
got off and let down the gates, (taking from thirty
seconds to a minute for the purpose,) and then
resumed his station on the ark again, by which
time there would be sufficient water passing
through the lock, and the water above beginning
to fall; they then passed through to the next lock
with the current of water, when the same lock
tender repeated the operation as before, through
the twelve locks, to the Gap, leaving the aperture
open until the dam emptied itself, and then walked
back in the afternoon, putting up all the lock-gates,
so as to hold the water for the freshet of next day ;
the accumulated water in the first pond being suf-
Hosteatv Google
yo MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
ficient to fill the cliannel to the head of the next
dam, and so on to the Gap ; and the accumulation
of water in the twelve dams, then, (at the Gap,)
carried the fleet of arks of from six to nine boats,
or nest of arks, down nine miles to ' The Slates' ;
the pond being here one mile long, which, together
with the water from above, carried the arks down
the river to the thirty-seven mile dam, seventeen
miles below 'The Slates,' and thence down to the
Delaware, and gave four inches of a freshet in
that river. We have sent as many sections at
once as would make from one hundred and ninety
to two hundred feet in length ; the average size
of boats being one hundred and forty to one hun-
dred and fifty feet in length, sixteen feet wide, and
drawing fourteen to sixteen inches of water; the
sections being sixteen to twenty-five feet long, the
whole being in charge of a front and hind oarsman
and three hands ; carrying seventy to one hundred
and twenty tons. During the three last years that
we used these boats, we made an average of ten or
twelve consecutive miles of them yearly, entirely
from the tree; one set of workmen making a single
section in three-quarters of an hour, and seven or
eight boats of from five to seven sections in a day ;
the plank being planed and jointed by water-power
at Laurel Run, and by crank- and man-power at
Mauch Chunk. The caulking was done with half-
inch, square white pine strips, put corner-ways to
Hosteatv Google
OPERATIONS ON THE LEHIGH.
71
fit into grooves made for the purpose in the plank,
and finished with rushes brought from below
Philadelphia, and rough tow. For the three years
above mentioned, we carried forty thousand tons of
coal a year; and the boats were knocked to pieces
in Philadelphia and the iron sent back to Mauch
Chunk; the boatmen mostly walking back at first,
but in the later years they hired teams to take
them."
Hosteatv Google
CHAPTER V.
THE ASCENDING NAVIGATION ON THE LEHIGH.
The value of coal as a fuel was at length
beginning to be fully appreciated by the pub-
lic. From a report to the Legislature of Penn-
sylvania by the Committee on Internal Improve-
ments, in the spring of 1S29, the following is
extracted :
"It may truly be observed that each successive
year develops new views in relation to the rich
treasure Pennsylvania has in coal. A recent me-
morial from the Lyceum of Natural History in New
York states the amount paid within one year for
fuel, for domestic purposes and steamboats, in the
city of New York, at two million four hundred
thousand dollars. Governor Clinton, in his last
official message, remarks, that New York is com-
pelled to resort to the coal of Pennsylvania; and
he says, the quantity which will be wanted for that
State is estimated at two millions of tons. It has
now become obvious that coal will constitute the
chief article of fuel, not only in the city and State
of New York, but in many parts of all the States on
the seaboard. Coai has become an object of vast
(72)
Hosteatv Google
NAVIGATION ON TlIJi LEHIGH.
73
national importance, and it will soon be a part of
the public policy of many States of the Union to
facilitate the means of procuring it from the State
of Pennsylvania. Our State may proudly say,
that the bounty of nature has made her mountains
the grand repository of this precious mineral, and
also of iron; and every ton which is extracted
from the mines will be tributary to her wealth
and greatness," In conclusion, the Committee say:
"The genius of William Penn recognized the
policy of navigable communications in Pennsyl-
vania more than half a century before a canal
was constructed in his native coiintiy; and ourprc-
decessors, the inhabitants of the land he planted,
were the first among the members of the Ameri-
can family who ran a level or measured waters
with a view to canal navigation."
The managers of the company being assured
of the certain success of their undertaking, both
as regarded the improvement of the river and the
introduction of coal into general use, immediately
saw the necessity of changing the plan of their
navigation, and also the manner of constructing
boats. Previously to this the company had pur-
chased nearly all the stock of the old coal mine
company, thereby becoming the owners of the coal
lands, Josiah White says: "In the spring of 1S27
it was finally concluded to begin and prosecute
the ascending navigation ; for that undertaking the
7*
Hosteatv Google
74 MEMOIR OF yOSlA/l WHITE.
company employed Canvass White as the princi-
pal engineer, he having established a practical
character for that profession equal to any in the
country. The next difficult point to decide was
the size of the navigation; whether it should be
for boats carrying a burden of twenty-five tons, or
for a greater burden. Most of the engineers who
had written on the subject in England and
America recommended the twenty-five ton navi-
gation. The acting managers (White & Hazard)
contended for a navigation sul^cient for boats of
one hundred and thirty to one hundred and fifty
tons burden; they argued that as the Lehigh and
Delaware afforded plenty of water for the largest
class of boats, it would be suicidal policy to per-
manently deprive the company and the public of
the very best application of all the means nature
had afforded, particularly so as our company had
coal enough to supply the United States, — and, in
our case, as coal would be by far the greatest
article carried on the canal, — so that no boat need
ever descend to Philadelphia with less than a full
load; and that a large boat would require but the
same crew as a small one, consequently every ton
transported could be carried cheaper by this ar-
rangement. After considerable debate, it was
finally decided to make the locks conform to the
size of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal:
twenty-two feet wide, one hundred feet long, and
Hosteatv Google
NAVIGATION ON THE LEHIGH. j-j
five feet depth of water, and the width of the canal
at the bottom forty-five feet."
This important decision was a great advantage
at the time, and has since then saved the company
from the necessity of enlarging their locks, to
meet the demands of the trade and competition
with railroads, which most of the other canals
have been obliged to do.
The engineer corps, under Canvass White, as
furnished by Solomon VV. Roberts, one of tJie
party, and nephew of JosJah White, were: on the
upper division, commencing one mile below Mauch
Chunk, Isaac A. Chapman, of Wilkesbarre, and
W. Milner Roberts and Solomon W. Roberts, of
Philadelphia; on the middle division were An-
thony B. Warford, of New York, Benj. Aycrigg,
of New Jersey, and Ashbel Welch; on the lower
division were John Hopkins and Geo.E. Hoffman,
both of New York, and Wm. K. Huffnagle, of
Philadelphia. Edward Miller, of Philadelphia, soon
after joined the corps, afterwards chief engineer
of the Catawissa, the Sunbury and Krie, Pacific
Railroads, Morris Canal, etc. From an obituary
notice of Edward Miller, by Solomon W. Roberts,
is quoted the following: "Mr. White had been
one of the principal engineers on the Erie Canal
of New York, and he was a gentleman of fine
character and of much experience. He had made
pedestrian tours along the lines of the principal
Hosteatv Google
76 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
canals of Great Britain, and lie was a man of ster-
ling integrity and of great industry. The resident
engineer was Sylvester Welch, a man of remark-
able energy of character, who planned the Portage
Railroad, and directed its construction across the
Alleghany Mountain, and who was afterwards the
chief engineer of the State of Kentucky. With
him was his brother, Ashbel Welch, since the chief
engineer of various important works in New Jer-
sey, and for several years, until the recent leasing
of the lines, the president of the united companies
of that State. On the Lehigh at the same time
were W. Milner Roberts, now the chief engineer of
the Northern Pacific Railroad, Solomon VV. Rob-
erts, now chief engineer and superintendent of the
North Pennsylvania Railroad, A. B. Warford, Geo.
E. Hoffman, Benjamin Aycrigg, and several other
well-known engineers. It was a good school."
Instructions were given by the company to the
engineer "to examine the ground from Mauch
Chunk to Easton, along the valley of the Lehigh,
and to report to the board the plan of a canal and
river improvement, and an estimate of the cost of
the work. Canals to be made in lieu of river im-
provements only, when they would be cheaper."
And after giving the dimensions of the canal and
locks, etc., as before stated : "If the foregoing stipu-
lation were not such as, in his estimation, best
adapted to the situation and expressed business of
Hosteatv Google
NAVIGATION ON THE LEHIGH. -j-j
the company, to propose such a plan, with an esti-
mate of the cost of it, as he would of his own un-
biased judgment recommend." His report was in
conformity with the view of the company, that " the
length ofcanal would be thirty-five and three-fourths
miles, and ten miles of pools, with tow-paths the
whole distance, and the estimate of the expense
seven hundred and eighty-one thousand three
hundred and three dollars,"
This improved navigation was commenced in
1837, and vigorously prosecuted, and completed in
about two years; commissioners were appointed
by the governor of the State, 6 mo. 26, 1829, who
reported on the third of the following month, that
the work was completed according to law as far
as Mauch Chunk; they say : " We were indeed sur-
prised to find a new canal forty-five feet wide at
the bottom, sixty feet at the top, calculated for five
feet depth of water, stand as well as this has done-
Wherever there Js any danger to be apprehended
to the bank, from the rise of water in the river,
the bank of the canal is protected by good slope
walls. The locks are composed of good stone,
laid in hydraulic cement; the insides are cased
with plank and the space between the covering
and the wall groutcdwith the same kind of cement.
Notwithstanding the size of the locks, everything
being new and the gatekeepers inexperienced, the
average time of passing the locks was about five
Hosteatv Google
78 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
minutes. There are forty-five lift-locks in number,
of six, seven, eight and nine feet fall, all of twenty-
two feet by one hundred feet, except the four upper
ones, near Mauch Chunk, which are thirty feet by
one hundred and thirty feet, overcoming a fall of
three hundred and sixty and eighty-scvcn-one-
hundredth feet, in a distance of forty-six and three-
fourths miles, and there are also six guard-locks.
The dams are eight in number; they are built of
timber and stone in a very substantial manner,
with stone abutments, and of the following heights :
five, thirteen, eight, sixteen, twelve, six, seven and
one-half, and ten feet from surface to surface. On
the whole, the works appear to have been con-
structed with a view to service and durability, and
the corporation, in our opinion, is entitled to much
commendation for the promptness and energy
displayed in the prosecution and completion of
this great public improvement."
The following is quoted from the managers' re-
port for 1830: "They wish not improperly to vaunt
the merits of the work thus spoken of, but they be-
lieve they may with perfect truth state that there is
no work of the kind in the country, of equal length,
that can compare with it in point of magnitude, per-
manency, and efficiency. In the words of the acting
manager (J. White), ' there has been no money ex-
pended for ornament, though no money has been
spared to render the work sound and permanent.' "
Hosteatv Google
NAVIGATION ON THE LEHIGH. 79
They state "that the length of our Hne of im-
provement is forty-six and three-quarters miles:
thirty-six and three-quarters miles of canal, and
ten miles of pools, with a towing-path through-
out the line; and that the company has expended
on the river since the commencement, including
the amount paid Whhe Hazard & Hauto, for their
property rights and privileges, about one million
five hundred and fifly-eight thousand dollars."
"The managers feel bound, while speaking of
their works and business on the Lehigh, to com-
ment for a moment on the long-continued and
faithful services of their acting manager, Josiah
White, to whose active and energetic conduct, in
all things connected with the interests of the com-
pany, they owe much for his direction, aid, and
advice promptly afforded In all emergencies.
"The company mined twenty-seven thousand
one hundred and fifty tons of coal this year, and
shipped from Mauch Chunk twenty-five thousand
one hundred and ten tons,"
The managers, in their report for 1831, say that
the Morris Canal was ready for use a few weeks of
the latter part of the year, and " a considerable
number of boats, laden chiefly with coal from
Maucli Chunk, were passed through the whole
line from the Delaware to Newark Bay. It is a
highly gratifying circumstance that this canal is
now completed, and its successful operation during
Hosteatv Google
8o MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
the short period referred to furnishes an assurance
that in the coming season it will enable us greatly
to extend our business with the New York market,
and with the extensive agricultural and manufac-
turing districts through which the canal passes."
The State of Pennsylvania began the Delaware
Canal in 1828, and in 1830 the Canal Commis-
sioners, in their report, remark: "The filling of
the canal for navigation, in its whole course, com-
menced in October, 1830," and that "twenty-five
miles are navigable;" but they add that "apart
of the work first constructed has proved defective,
and requires extensive repairs. This last obser-
vation has been verified by the fact that since
that time the two supervisors have expended
ninety-seven thousand three hundred and thirty-
nine dollars and fifty-one cents on repairs, and
introducing feeders, and the whole line is not
yet ready for navigation. The original plan and
construction of large portions of this division have
proved to be exceedingly defective, and although
every exertion has been made throughout the
year, by the officers on the line, to fill the whole
canal with water, yet their efforts have heretofore
proved unsuccessful. The porous nature of the
soil along the Delaware has demonstrated the
fallacy of the original design of feeding the entire
sixty miles of canal from the Lehigh."
The imperfect navigation of the Delaware Canal
Hosteatv Google
NAVIGATION ON TflE LEHIGIT. gi
was a serious drawback to the trade of the Lehigh
Canal, and after some solicitation Josiah White
was induced to undertake the task of endeavoring
to remedy its defects, and for that purpose he first
received the appointment of engineer of this work,
and afterwards that of canal commissioner in the
year 1831.
He says : " It has been frequently said of late
years that the Delaware Canal was made for the
accommodation of the Lehigh coal trade, and that
consequently we were under great obligation to
the State for making it, etc.; and that they made
the locks eleven feet wide for our accommodation,
whereas we wished them twenty-two feet, the same
dimensions as our own; but as they would not make
them to please us, we advised that they should be
half that width, that, as two boats passed our locks
at a time, one boat might fit their locks, and pass
one at a time. But our view was not to canal
along the Delaware, but to make a channel and
slack-water navigation, which is shown in a draft
and petition which we sent to Harrisburg in the
years 1823 and 1824, and used all our influence to
get a law to make a navigation in accordance
therewith.*
"With this arrangement it might require from
• See App.:rnli>: No. 2 for plan ami description of ihe pioposed
navigation for the Delaware liiver.
Hosteatv Google
S2 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
six to twelve locks in the Delaware, and the
remainder of the navigation mere channels. We
expected to obtain four feet of water at the lowest
time, and five feet at other times, and that it would
carry steamboats of one hundred and fifty tons
burden, and for which we had made four locks in
advance on the Lehigh, thirty feet wide and one
hundred and thirty feet long, so as to have a steam-
boat navigation of the same capacity to Mauch
Chunk. Had we succeeded in this in 1824, there
can be but little doubt the Lehigh would have
sent three-fourths of all the anthracite coal reaching
tide water for many years to come, and wc should
have drawn the coal trade from Tuscarora, and
perhaps from Pottsville, as Pottsvilie, via Mauch
Chunk, to New York, is two hundred and two miles,
and by'the Schuylkill Canal it is two hundred and
thirty-two miles; the Schuylkill Canal being but
twenty-five tons capacity, and ours one hundred
and fifty tons. We should also have had all the
coal trade from the second coal region, as well as
that also from Wilkesbarre and Wyoming.
"The law for improving the Delaware by canal
was brought about by Colonel Eyre, of Easton,
then a State senator, for the purpose, wc then
believed, of opposing our plan of a slack-water
navigation.
"The State began the work in the autumn of
182S, and wc began the Lehigh Canal in the
Hosteatv Google
XAl'lGATJOX ON THE LEHIGf!. 83
spriii!^ of the same year. Ours was finished and
in use the fall of 1829. but the Delaware Canal not
until three years after. The contractors were
allowed to fill up the canal to bottom with bad
materia!, and when reported finished it would not
hold water."
The many defects in the Delaware Canal, and
the short supply of water, were causes of great
disappointment and vexation in the use of the
navigation. At one time the whole volume of the
Lehigh River, at Easton, was fed into this canal;
but the water failed to reach New Hope, having
all leaked out on the way. By thoroughly repair-
ing; the use of better material; by harrowing and
rolling the bottom ; and by a dam and water-
wheels on the Delaware River at Weli's Falls;
and a number of additional feeders, by which a
large amount of water was thrown into the canal,
they at length succeeded in making it navigable
under the management of Josiah White.
The report of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation
Company, for the year 1832, on this subject states;
" In our last report we anticipated the full use of
that canal during the past sea-son, but the occur-
rence of a very unusual ice freshet in the spring
frustrated our hopes, by destroying a considerable
portion of the exposed parts of the upper section
of the canal, which was proved to have been con-
structed in a very unskillful manner. The repair
Hosteatv Google
84 MEMOIR OF JOSJAI! WHITE.
of this damage occupied much time, and, when
effected, the water had become too low to saturate
the porous soil over which the canal passed,
and fill it a sufficient depth for navigation. Sev-
eral feeders were constructed to supply the defi-
ciency, and it was not until the 23d of July last
that the first boats arrived at Bristol, each loaded
with twenty tons of coal.
"The loading was gradually increased twenty-
five, thirty, thirty-five, forty, forty-five, and finally
to fifty tons.
"The connpany is only now placed where it
ought to have been in July, 1S29, when the Lehigh
Canal was finished, it having been commenced in
the same season as the State Canal on the Dela-
ware, which has not half as much lockage, and
but half the capacity of the Lehigh Canal." In
their report for 1834, it is said, " there has been no
material interruption of the navigation on the
Delaware Division of the Pennsylvania Canal."
The total quantity of coal shipped from Mauch
Chunk during the year 1834 was one hundred
and six thousand five hundred tons, the greater
portion of which passed into the Delaware Divi-
sion of the State Canal.
Upon the completion of the Delaware Canal,
the operations of the Lehigh Company were much
simplified, as it did not, as heretofore, require a
large number of men to obtain the lumber, and to
Hosteatv Google
.VAl'IGAnON ON TH!-: LKUIGff. 85
build the boats necessary to carry the coat to
market,— boats which never returned, and had to
be replaced by new ones.
In 1833 the railroad connecting the mines at
Room Run with the Lehigh Canal was completed.
These mines are situated on the northern side of
the coaUbasin, at a break in the mountain caused
by the passage of the Room Run Creek, which
affords an outlet into the valley of the Nesquehon-
ing about five miles from the Lehigh River. Along
the side of the mountain a very substantial rail-
road was constructed. The rails were firmly set
in cast-iron knees, bolted to stone blocks, upon
which the coal was brought down to the head of
an inclined plane, at the bottom of which it was
shipped into boats. This was also a gravity road
with reciprocating planes; and an important feeder
to the trade on the canal.
The Beaver Meadow Railroad, commencing in
the second coal-field, at the town of the same
name, nineteen miles from Mauch Chunk, was
chartered in 1830, and finished in 1836. It ex-
tended to Parry ville (twenty-five miles), and shipped
the coal there on the Lehigh Canal, six miles
below Mauch Chunk,
The Hazelton Railroad was commenced in 1836
in the second coal region, and connected with the
Beaver Meadow Railroad, at Weatherly, in 1838.
Hosteatv Google
CHAPTER VI.
MAUCII CHUNK AND THE UPPEK SECTION OF THE
LEHIGH RIVER.
The picturesque town of Mauch Chunk {Bear
Mountain) had its origin at the same time that
White, Hazard, and Hauto commenced the coal
mining and the navigation of the river. The
site was selected from the emergency of the cir-
cumstance.';. The original intention appears to
have been to place the town at Lausanne, a mile
above; but the owners of the land there declined
selling their property, under the vain hope that
there was coal underlying it, to be obtained in due
time. The geological formations of the country not
being understood, it was not then known that it
was beyond the coal measures. Necessity there-
fore obliged them to locate the town in the roman-
tic gorge of Mauch Chunk Creek, and on the
borders of the Lehigh River; since which it has
steadily advanced up the valley of the creek, and
the sides and top of the adjacent mountains, until
it has attained its present dimensions. It is a pecu-
liar and attractive-looking place, and from the first
has had an industrious and enterprising population.
(86)
Hosteatv Google
MAUCH CHUNK, ETC. 87
G, Y. A. Hauto gives this description of Mauch
Chunk about one year after its birth : " We have
erected about forty buildings for different purposes,
among which is a saw-mill driven by the river for
the purpose of sawing stuff for the use of the
navigation. It has a gang to which twenty-four
saws belong, cutting about twenty thousand feet
per day, on one side; and a circular saw on the
other. One other saw-mill driven by the Mauch
Chunk (Creek) ; a grist-mill, a mill for the saving
of labor for the construction of wagons, etc., is
also driven by the creek, — smitheries, with eight
fires, workshops, dwellings, wharves, etc. We
have cut about fifteen thousand saw logs, and
cleared four hundred acres of land."
In the year 1821, Elizabeth White and her four
children joined her husband in this mountain
home. She was ready and willing, since the death
of her fond mother, which had occurred in the
seventy-second year of her age, to go at the call
of duty from the comforts of a city life to this
new residence in the wilderness, to be with her
husband, and thus obviate the necessity of their
often protracted separation from each other, dur-
ing the building of the improvements on the river
and the development of the coal trade. The next
year a comfortable house was provided for them
upon the hill-side, above the beautiful river, with
spacious grounds, adorned with rocks and forest-
Hosteatv Google
88 MEMOIR OF yOSfAH WHITE.
trees; later, an extensive inclosure, styled "The
Park," contained elk, deer, etc., for the amusement
of the children, whose gratification and instruction
were always a source of pleasure to their parents,
who spared no reasonable expense for their rational
enjoyment.
Here, in 1826, his aged mother closed her life in
the family of her son, in the eighty-second year of
her age. Their residence at Mauch Chunk covered
a period of about nine years; and as the character
and novelty of this unique place, with the curious
works and appliances, in connection with the ope-
rations of the company, attracted the attention of
the public, their house became the frequent resort
of visitors, who shared the open and free hospi-
tality extended to strangers by the family, whilst
enjoying the mountain scenery and examining the
operations in the vicinity.
In 1831, the works of the company being so far
completed as not to require his constant attention,
the family returned to Philadelphia, where they
settled at the corner of Seventh and Arch Streets;
and soon after a heavy domestic affliction was ex-
perienced by the parents, in the los.s of their only
remaining son, the following winter, a very prom-
ising young man, in the nineteenth year of his age.
This sad bereavement was the greatest sorrow they
had yet known, and cast a blight on the future.
Previously two sons had died in childhood.
Hosteatv Google
MAUCH CHUNK, ETC. 89
Perhaps in this relation it may be well to antici-
pate, and state, that in the year 1846 the family
removed to the dwelling No. 526 Arch Street,
which proved to be the last earthly home of
Josiah White and his wife, who survived him over
four years. She deceased in the spring of 1855,
being in the seventy-fifth year of her age.
At the annual meeting of the stockholders, held
1st mo. 9, 1832, information being communi-
cated to the meeting that Josiah White had re-
signed his office as acting manager at Mauch
Chunk, and removed his residence to Philadelphia,
it was " Resolved, that the thanks of the stock-
holders be presented to him for his able and valu-
able services during the long period of his arduous
appointment." In his report, made at the same
time, he states : " It is now the twenty-second year
since I commenced operations in the work of in-
ternal improvement at the Falls of Schuylkill, in
which time I have been absent from that kind of
service but very few days. It is also the fourteenth
year since I began with my colleague, Erskine
Hazard, our labors at Mauch Chunk and on the
Lehigh. The whole work is now done. The
line of navigation may be considered as complete
from Mauch Chunk to Philadelphia by the Dela-
ware Canal, and to New York by the Morris
Canal." The Morris Canal had just been finished,
and put in operation in 1831.
Hosteatv Google
go MEMOIR OF yoSIA/f WHITE.
He continued to feel a deep interest in the wel-
fare of tlie company, being a prominent manager,
and frequently visiting the different points of inter-
est where the extension or improvement of the
works was going on, with or without the other
managers; and also maintained an active corre-
spondence with the engineer, superintendent, and
other officers until near the close of his life. He
found many objects, also, to engage his attention
as a citizen; liberally giving aid and encourage-
ment to many of the benevolent, educational, and
moral institutions of his day; being much inter-
ested in the welfare, prosperity, and growth of the
country in its manufactures, mechanic arts, general
Industry, and, particularly, in the extension of in-
ternal improvements by railroads and canals.
In the year 1835 the company commenced the
construction of the navigation on the upper grand
section of the canal from Mauch Chunk to White
Haven. The immense fall in the river rendered
the use of ordinary locks out of the question.
They, therefore, conceived the design of making
a navigation on a grander and bolder scale than
ever yet attempted in the history of such enter-
prises, both as regards the height of the dams and
the capacity of the locks. The whole distance
from Mauch Chunk to the head of the river at
White Haven is about twenty-six miles; the lock-
age in that distance six hundred feet ; the number
Hosteatv Google
MAUCH CHUNK, ETC. 91
or dams were twenty, of locks twenty-nine; the
height of the dams from sixteen to fifty-eight feet;
the size of the locks twenty by one hundred feet,
and the lifts from ten to thirty feet. By the pecu-
liar construction of the wicket-gatcs in these, they
could be filled and emptied in the time usual for
ordinary locks; by these means both expense and
time were saved over the common mode; the
locks not being more than one-fourth the number
that would have been required of the other kind,
and the time consumed in the voyage lessened in
the same ratio. The principal part of this naviga-
tion was slack-water, there being twenty and a half
miles of pools and five and a half miles of canal ;
tlie canal being sixty feet wide at top water, forty
feet at bottom, and of the depth of five feet. The
dams were made of crib-work, filled in with stone,
in the ordinary manner, as dams are constructed
on the Lehigh ; and the locks with stone walls,
cemented and grouted together. The locks were
of sufificient capacity to pass two boats at a time.
The work was completed in the 6th mo., 1838;
the descending navigation from Stoddartsville, with
bear-trap locks, to connect with the ascending
navigation at White Haven, a distance of twelve
miles, was finished the previous year; thus mak-
ing a continuous navigation, from the head-waters
of the Lehigh at Stoddartsville, with Easton on
the Delaware, and from thence, by the Delaware
Hosteatv Google
92 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
Canal, to tide-water at Bristol, on the Delaware, a
distance of one hundred and forty-four miles.
The plan for the navigation of the upper Lehigh
was designed byjosiah White and Erskiiie Hazard,
and was under the care and management of Edwin
A. Douglas, civil engineer of the company, a man
of ingenuity, competency, and untiring energy of
purpose, whom few difficulties could appall or
deter from the execution of his duties. He con-
tinued to be the company's engineer and super-
intendent until his death, in !86o.
The following is taken from the report of the
commissioners, appointed in 1S38 by Governor Rit-
ner, to examine and report the condition of the
work on the upper section of the navigation : " The
dimen-sions of the largest of the locks (No. 27, called
the ' Pennsylvania Lock ') being as follows : twenty-
seven feet thickness of solid wall at the bottom and
ten feet on the top ; thirty feet lift, three feet work-
ing guard, chamber twenty feet in width and one
hundred feet in length, eighty-six feet clear of the
swing of the gates, and containing nine thousand
nine hundred and seventy-two cubic yards of ma-
sonry, and two hundred and forty-two thou.sand
four hundred and nineteen feet board measure of
timber-work; and the largest of the dams being of
the height of fifty-eight feet, and the width one
hundred and ninety feet, at the combing. In as-
cending this division of the Lehigh the commis-
Hosteatv Google
MAUCH CHUNK, ETC. 93
sioners passed through a succession of the largest
and best-constructed and most easily-managed
locks within their knowledge, and of such magni-
tude as greatly to exceed every public work in the
United States. They were filled with admiration
and delight as they examined these stupendous
works, erected on that river which three years ago
was wild, shallow, and useless, and has now been
converted into a calm and beautiful stream, suited
for all purposes of navigation, either for trade or
pleasure, and will, as it is hoped and contemplated,
be at no distant day navigated by sea vessels so
constructed as to load at White Haven and dis-
charge at ports along the Atlantic shore. The
locks on the whole of the said navigation are of a
capacity to pass boats of from one hundred and
twentyto one hundred and fifty tons burden. The
company having now fully complied with the law,
and in a manner honorable to themselves, and (as
Pennsylvanians we say with pride) most honorable
to the State, we deem them entitled to a license
for charging and collecting the legal toll."
The original plan in the minds of the origi-
nators of the works was to connect their navi-
gation at White Haven on the Lehigh by canal,
with the Susquehanna River at Berwick, along
the valley of Nescopeck Creek, and by railroad
with Wilkesbarrc, on the same river, and in the
centre of the third coal basin in the Wyoming
Hosteatv Google
94 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
Valley. A canal to connect the Susquehanna and
Lehigh rivers had been projected by other par-
ties, and an act of the Assembly of Pennsylvania
procured in i S26 for the purpose. Moncure Robin-
son, civil engineer, in 1828 had surveyed the route
for the Canal Commissioners of the State, and made
an estimate of the cost, and he reported that " no
route between the rivers presents facilities for the
construction of a canal deserving of consideration,
except the Nescopeck route. But the whole fall to
be overcome both ways is one thousand and thirty-
eight feet," and "the most formidable obstacle in
the way of the canal is unquestionably the lockage."
The law was revived in 1834, and the route was
again surveyed and estimates made by E. A. Doug-
las in 1836, and efforts made to induce the public
to take the stock; but the idea was eventually
abandoned, from the scarcity of water and other
difficulties attending it.
In 1837 it was determined by the company to
proceed with the construction of the railroad, and
it was put under contract the same year, after a
very thorough examination of the country by the
engineer, E. A. Douglas, for several months, in
order to ascertain the best location for it through
the very rough and mountainous country over
which it was to pass between the two rivers. To
build this road required some very bold engineer-
ing, including a tunnel one thousand seven hundred
Hosteatv Google
MAUCH CHUNK. ETC.
95
and forty-three feet in length, and three inclined
planes from the top of the mountain down through
" Solomon's Gap" into the valley of the Susque-
hanna River. These planes were three in number,
very substantially built, upon which the coal cars,
by means of powerful stationary engines, were
drawn out of the valley; from thence they were to
be taken over the railroad to the head of the navi-
gation on the Lehigh, twenty miles, and there
shipped into boats on the canal. The height the
coal was raised is about one thousand feet, and
the planes were, respectively, four thousand eight
hundred and ninety-four and twenty-four-one-hun-
dredths feet, three thousand seven hundred and
seventy-five and twenty-one-hundredths feet, and
four thousand three hundred and sixty-one and
twenty-eight-one-hundrcdths feet, in length ; in the
first the grade was about five feet, the second eight
and six-tenths feet, and the third nine feet, in the
hundred.
This road, and its tunnel of nearly one-third of a
mile in length, the planes and heavy machinery,
etc., were finally completed and put into use, after
some delay in consequence of the damage to the
canal by the freshet of 1841, and answered all the
purposes intended, and a large amount of coal has
been annually transported over it since. It was a
work unprecedented in the United States at that
time.
Hosteatv Google
p6 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
Another bold piece of engineering was also
accomplished in 1845, — that of making a continu-
ous and separate railroad to convey the empty coal
cars back from Mauch Chunk to the mines.
For this purpose two powerful steam-engines of
one hundred and twenty horse-power were placed
on the eastern end of the mountain bounding the
coal basin, about nine hundred feet above the
Lehigh River at Mauch Chunk. From the head
of the coal chutes the empty wagons are conveyed
to the base of the mountain, and raised six hundred
and sixty-five feet up an inclined plane of two
tracks, two thousand three hundred and twenty
feet in length, to its top ; from thence they run
down towards the mines, on a railroad of an average
grade of fifty feet to the mile, six m iles, to the foot
of Mount Jefferson, and descending in this distance
about three hundred feet ; from this point they are
again raised four hundred and sixty feet, upon a
plane two thousand and fifty feet long, and thence
bygravitya mile, to the town ofSummit Hill, and
down the Switch-Back Road into the valley of the
Panther Creek, where the coal is mined and loaded.
The loaded wagons, raised out of the valley by
steam to Summit Hill, thence descend down the
gravity road to Mauch Chunk for shipment. The
cars are drawn up the planes with an iron strap or
band attached to a drum about twenty-five feet in
diameter, around the circumference of which it is
Hosteatv Google
MAUCff CHUNK. ETC. 97
wound by the power of the engine, bringing the
cars up with it. The engines arc so geared together
that as the band on one tracU is wound up the
other band descends, and vice versa; or they can
be worked separately. The time of the ascent is
from five to eight or ten minute.^. Each band
consists of two straps of four or five inches wide,
one-eiglith of an inch in thicl^ness, placed alongside
of each other, and fastened by short cross-pieces
of the same size riveted on each at the joints, thus
connecting them together. This Mount Pisgah
plane was considered at the time of its construction
the highest elevation overcome in this way in the
world. The other plane at Mount Jefferson is
worked on the same principle. The return track
connects at Summit Hill, with the old gravity road
from the mines to Mauch Chunk, thus making a
continuous run by gravity (after the ascents are
made) to the mines and back. This plan of the
gravity road, over the mountains back to the
mines, was the original idea of Josiah White, long
before it was carried into successful operation, and
frequently spoken of as desirable; it was made as
soon as the trade would warrant the outlay.
In the year 1841, within less than three years
after the completion of the upper section of the navi-
gation, a disastrous freshet occurred on the Lehigh,
whereby the works were greatly damaged. The
upper section, from Mauch Chunk to Rockport,
Hosteatv Google
gS MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
nine miles, was very badly injured ; in some places
almost totally destroyed. The river rose to an
unprecedented height, in consequence of heavy
rains and melted snow; the abutments of the dams
were washed out, with many of the locks also,
together with the canal, most of the high dams
remaining intact.
Full of solicitude in regard to the event, Josiah
White repaired to the scene of the devastation to
ascertain the extent of the damage, and what would
be required to repair it. He says in reference to
it : " Perhaps the greatest personal exposure I ever
underwent was in a few days after hearing of the
sweeping flood on the Lehigh, I being then sixty
years of age less about two months, though in
good health. I had lived in the city for about
nine or ten years, and experienced but little bodily
exercise during this time, together with ago having
stiffened my muscles. The exercise I had, on
going oil foot up the banks of the canal to examine
the inroads of the flood, with E. A. Douglas, our
engineer, in snow and slush about six to nine
inches deep, from South Easton to the Lehigh
Gap, a distance of thirty-four miles, in two days,
nearly exhausted me."
The company immediately went to work, and
after some difficulties in financial and other matters,
repaired and greatly strengthened the canal in
less than two yeans.
Hosteatv Google
MAUCH CHUNK, ETC. 99
It will thus be seen, that Josiali White was the
leading spirit and designer of those stupendous
enterprises connected with the works of the Lehigh
Coal and Navigation Company, commencing with
the very start of the project, to its final accomplish-
ment, in which he was ably assisted by his coad-
jutor and friend Erskine Hazard. In addition to
the construction of the cardinal parts of their under-
taking there was a vast amount of minor details,
involving and demanding as much ingenuity and
patience to carry through as the larger works
required, and upon which the success of the
project in a measure depended.
Hosteatv Google
CHAPTER VII.
MANUFACTUKE OF ANTHRACITE IRON.
The production of iron, by the use of anthracite
coal, within the last thirty years, has become one
of the leading industrial operations of Pennsyl-
vania, and has enabled the State, at the present
time, to be the largest producer of that metal in
the United States, and its magnitude and import-
ance are annually increasing.
The attention of Josiah White and Erskine
Hazard had been early directed to the abun-
dance of iron ore in the valley of the Lehigh
and its neighborhood, and to the proximity of
the two minerals, iron and coal; and the idea
naturally arose in their practical minds of making
them subservient to each other in the manufac-
ture of iron. The Lehigh Coal and Navigation
Company, also, had early become impressed with
the importance of this manufacture to the in-
terests of the coal trade, and at various times,
as early as 1834, offered advantages to any
company that would undertake it, by grants of
water-power, — coal at reduced rates, and its trans-
portation on the navigation, toll free to a large
(100)
Hosteatv Google
ANTHRACITE IRON. lOI
extent,— "provided they should succeed in intro-
ducing the business on the Lehigh."
Their report for 1838 says: "The long-agitated
question of Pennsylvania anthracite coal being
adapted, as a substitute for charcoal or coke, to
the purpose of smelting iron ore, appears now to
be fully established by our enterprising citizens,
Messrs. Guiteau, Baughmaii, High & Lowthorp,
who have a furnace at Mauch Chunk, which is
now, and has been for thirty-two days continu-
ously, free from all interruption, in full blast, ex-
clusively with anthracite coal from our mines, and
although a very sniall furnace, yields on an aver-
age one and a half tons a day. Their iron is be-
lieved to be of first quality, both as pig metal and
for making bar iron. We view this success (which,
however, we never doubted since the hot blast has
been in use) as an earnest of much benefit to our
company, to individuals who are, or may be, en-
gaged in the iron business, and to the State at
large."
These parties failed, eventually, to make the
business successful, mainly from the furnace not
being adapted to the purpose, and from defective
hot-blast apparatus. These experiments, however,
with those of Kunzie at Manayunk, Lyman at
PottsviUe, and Chambers at Danville, and its prac-
tical success in Wales, induced Josiah White, Ers-
kine Hazard, and Thomas Earp, three of the then
Hosteatv Google
t02 MEMOIR OF JOSTAH WHITE.
managers of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation
Company, with others associated with them, to
undertake the manufacture. This determination
was come to, from much reliable and valuable in-
formation on the subject obtained from Josiah
White's nephew, Solomon W. Roberts, who resided
in Wales for several months, in 1837, and had in-
vestigated the whole subject. There he became
acquainted with the inventor, George Crane, and
was very favorably impressed with the practica-
bility and importance of the process which he had
discovered.
They and their associates in the undertaking
became incorporated in gth mo. 20, 1839, under the
general law of Pennsylvania, for the manufacture of
iron from coke or mineral coal, as "The Lehigh
Crane Iron Company," with a capital of one hun-
dred thousand dollars. The original stockholders,
beside those mentioned, were Robert Earp, George
Earp, John McAllister, Nathan Trotter, and Theo-
dore Mitchell.
In 1838 Erskine Hazard went to Wales, and
there made himself acquainted with the process
and manner of making the anthracite iron ; with
the machinery and buildings needful for its manu-
facture. He ordered such machinery as was
necessary to be made for the company,^under the
direction of George Crane, the inventor,— and en-
gaged David Thomas, who was familiar with the
Hosteatv Google
ANTHRACITE IRON.
IC3
process, to take charj^c of the erection of the
works and the manufacture of the iron. He ar-
rived in the summer of 1839; and to his faithful
and intclh'gcnt management much of the success
of the enterprise is due.
The works were located at Catasaqua, on the
Lehigh, about three miles above Allentown. Such
has been the prosperity of the undertaking, that
the company has six furnaces in operation at the
present time, which produce a large amount of
iron annually, the production for 1872 being fifty-
four thousand tons.* A large town has grown up
around them, having a population of five or six
thousand people, mainly dependent for employ-
ment upon the prosperity of the iron business.
The first boat-load of iron from their works shipped
to Philadelphia arrived in August, 1840, about
six weeks after the furnace was put in blast; on
which the Nayth American, of that city, remarks :
" It is the opinion of those best qualified to judge
in relation to such matters, that the new applica-
tion of the anthracite, with which our mountains
* The present produclion of anthracite iron in the Leliigh val-
ley, without any precise statistics to rely on, may be stated
approximately to be, from forty furnace stacks, three hundred and
twenty-five thousand tons per annum, which, iit the present price
of iron, is worth over thirteen millions of dollars; consuming, in
its manufacture, six hundred and tifty thousand tons of coal, and
eight hundred thousand lon^ of iron ore.
Hosteatv Google
104 MEMOIR OF yOSIAH WHITE.
abound, forms an era in the history of Pennsyl-
vania of which it would be difficult to over-esti-
mate the importance. We may add that this con-
viction is gaining strength with every new trial of
this mode of smelting iron."
Governor Porter, in his message to the legisla-
ture in 1840, referring to the subject, seemed to
fully realize the great importance to the State of this
process, when he says : " The value of coal and iron
must necessarily be much enhanced by the recent
successful application of anthracite coal as fuel for
smelting iron ore, which will in all probability in-
troduce a new era in the iron business in our
Commonwealth, Possessing, as Pennsylvania does,
the great bulk of the iron ore, and the anthracite
coal formation of this country, in alternate strata
in the same territory, and situated in a quarter of
the Union peculiarly accessible by means of her
geographical position, and canals and railroads,
she must enjoy almost exclusively the great
revenue that must arise from this source."
It will be difficult in the present day, to find in
the United States any region of country where
industrial operations are carried on to a greater
extent, than in the valley of the Lehigh River,
including the coal regions and its tributaries.
When we take into view the immense proportions
of its coal trade, largely supplying not only our
own wants, but those of New York, New England,
Hosteatv Google
ANTHRACITE IRON. 105
etc. ; its mining, inaniifacture, and transportation to
market, employing for that purpose a canal and two
railroads, all first class of their kind ; the mining of
the ore, and the manufacture of iron in its various
forms, not only pig, but bar, sheet, and railroad
iron, etc.; and numerous other enterprises, con-
nected with, or more or less dependent thereon;
wc may indeed be struck with surprise upon re-
verting to the past, to the rudiments of these things,
only commenced about fifty years ago, and see to
what in that time they have grown. And in look-
ing forward, who can say, judging from the past,
what is to be expected in the fifty years to come ?
That this valley is destined to be the richest,
the most enterprising, and industrious, supporting
as teeming and intelligent a population as any part
of the United States, cannot, we think, be doubted.
If its infancy has shown such robust proportions,
what may be expected of its maturity?
All this prosperity has grown out of the in-
genuity, enterprise, and indefatigable exertions of
a few marked men. Men of foresight and energy,
with but little capita! in the beginning to carry out
their plans; such men as Josiah White, Erskine
Hazard, Judge Asa Packer, and a host of others,
who came in later in the day, and who have put
their energies to work to make this valley what it
is, and to insure its prosperity in the future.
Hosteatv Google
CHAPTER VIII.
RELIGIOUS EXERCISES.
In advancing life Josiah White endeavored to
loosen his mind from earthly care, and diligently
to engage in the search after durable riches and
righteousness. To give a faithful portraiture of
his character, it is deemed needful to introduce
some extracts from his copious reflections and
private memoranda, the devotional exercises of his
heart. These evince the simplicity and spirituality
of his faith, and the earnestness of his piety.
" Zth month 9, 1840.- — O Lord Jesus, permit me,
at least, to lay at thy feet, until Thou findest mo
devoted enough to lean on thy bosom. O Lord,
if I realize no feeling but to have the eye of my
mind turned towards Thee to the exclusion of every
other thought or feeling, oh, permit rae, if it please
Thee, to enjoy this, therein humbly waiting thy
time to break in upon me with the renewings of
thy good presence. O Lord, strengthen ray soul
in Thee, so that nothing in this world interfere or
resist its safe anchorage in Thee ; then, indeed, is
thy good presence felt as the stay and staff of my
soul," Afterwards follow thanks for a religious
C106)
Hosteatv Google
RELIGIOUS EXERCISES. 107
meeting. " Lord my God, permit me, and
strengtiien me, to bless thy holy name, and thank
Thee, for in measure answering my preceding pe-
tition, for I now feel that it was not by might, or
by my power, that in this afternoon meeting I was
able to separate self and the world in a good mea-
sure from my meditation, resting in a small and
thankful measure on thy goodness." Early in the
following autumn he petitions thus: "O thou su-
preme Object of the soul's desire, oh, strengthen
me, oh, support me, under all circumstances that
Thou causest mc, in thy inscrutable wisdom, to
pass through, to hold on Thee; to be stayed on
Thee, as the only rock of safety, as the only balm
that heals, as the brook by the way, as the well of
water bubbling up to eternal life, to eternal life in
Thee."
\2th mo. 22, 1840. — In his acknowledgment of
near access to his heavenly Father, he writes :
" Thou hast also permitted thy servant to know
further, and to feel his poor soul being, at times,
stayed on Thee, so as to perceptibly feel Thee.
Instill in me more and more, I humbly beseech
'Thee, this feeling, which is far more nourishing,
strengthening, and delightful than any, or even
all, the aggregate pleasures of sense."
" i^; mo. I, 1841. — How solemn and grand is
the entering into the Holy of Holies, and there to
feel the sensible presence of the great God ! O
Hosteatv Google
I08 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
my soul, thnt thou wouldst never cease to press
forward to attain as much of this state of feeling
and enjoyment as thy God permits. Then would
the divine cloud rest over the tabernacle door of
my heart, and I should be still or move at its
bidding through my wilderness Journey of time.
Then would my state be happy and my path sure.
Oh, that my Lord of glory would fill me with insa-
tiable desires to covet this way and path, above all
things, for the remaining hoursof ray pilgrimage!
Then could I indeed say, 'Tremble, thou earth, at
the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the
God of Jacob.' " (Psalm cxiv. 7.)
1st mo. 10, 1841. — On receiving the account of
the disastrous flood on the Lehig^h River of the
7th and 8th of that month, he petitions thus: "O
Lord, help me to feel, as it in very deed is the
truth, that all worketh together for good that
conieth from thy unerring hand, and this afflic-
tion I k-now is from thy hand. Oh, let me beg of
Thee to permit this apparent misfortune to drive
me more close to Thee as the only rock of safety,
as the only sure abiding-place against all storms
and all disappointments; and above all things to
seek peace in Thee; for it is in Thee alone all true
and avaihiig peace is to be found, both in time and
eternity."
" -^d mo. 2Z, 1842. — O Lord my God, permit me
to bless thy holy name; to thank Thee for thy con-
Hosteatv Google
RELIGIOUS EXERCISES.
109
tinned remL-mbrance of thy servant, for not dealing
with him according to his deserts, but according
to thy tender mercies. Thou, Lord, my Father,
hast pitied me in making me in measure to feel
how weak I am, and how depending on Thee for
every ray of good, lest I should despair. Thou
hast, in thy loving kindness, made me feel thy
goodness to overshadow me yesterday, in after-
noon meeting. Oh, that this sense might be more
often felt, so that I might live nearer and nearer to
Thee! Then could I say in truth. The Lord
liveth! the I-ord is known among his people! "
Of the Passover, he wrote: "The Paschal Lamb
was first offered at the great epoch of the delivery
of the Israelites from bondage, and was kept an-
nually as a memorial of that great event. The
offering and the delivery from bondage were
strictly of a temporal character, and applied only
to temporal circumstances, but at the same time
typical of the offering of our Redeemer for the
saving of the sou! of man, — not of Israel only
but of the whole human family. Nothing of a
temporal nature was intended by the last offering;
it was all for a spiritual object,"
" Zt!i mo. 24, 1843, — 'At the name of Jesus every
knee shall bow.' This great and glorious name
passed through my mind this morning in an in-
voluntary manner, and produced a solemn and
Hosteatv Google
UO MEMOIR OF JOSIAII WHITE.
placid feeling, entirely unattainable by any effort
of mine. I. ike a passing meteor in tlic sky,
bright, and moving in majesty, and directed by
the great Architect himself, entirely free from all
the agency of man, even so passed the holy name
of Jesus with power and calm pleasantness inde-
scribable through my mind. I sought to keep the
impression, but it passed from me. Lord Jesus,
may I beseech Thee to make thy visits nearer and
nearer to each other, until I can keep hold on
Thee as my best beloved. What, O Lord, is so
lovely ?"
" 1st mo. \-j, 1S44. — The name of Jesus was sweet
to my soul early this morning, and before I got
up from my bed, and so continues. O Lord my
God, wilt Thou condescend to keep this sweetness
in my mind, — for Thou only, and not myself, art
able to do so.
" O Lord Jesus, may I humbly adore Thee for thy
goodness, in making thy sweet abode with me this
morning. Oh, help me to hold Thee fast, and to
keep near Thee during the remainder of this life,
so that when my days of probation are over, I
may land in thy everlasting mansions, and there
join thy redeemed, in thy praise forever."
" ist mo. 18. — O Lord Jesus, why hast Thou left
me? Why hast Thou gone by and left me, poor
and helpless as I am when left to myself, and can-
not find Thee ? Is it to teach me my wants and
Hosteatv Google
RELIGIOUS EXERCISES. in
my poverty without Thee, and that Thou visitest
nie at thy pleasure, and not at mine ?— for wisdom
is thine only, and Thou only knowest the best
time. Oh, how barren my feelings in thy ab-
sence ! How lamentably poor am I, tliy servant,
when Thou leavest me !— not a single ray of good
seems to be my portion; nothing to say but to
lament my coldness and my barrenness when
Thou, ray love, my endeared One, art not to be
found by me. O Lord, may it please Thee not to
stay from me long, but return and abide with me,
for thy lovely presence is felt to be sweeter than
honey, and more pleasant to me and more desira-
ble than ail else beside. When Thou art felt to be
present all thy creation smiles on me, for with Thee
is the fruition of all that is harmonious and good.
Thy love is pure, and binds all thy devoted chil-
dren as one man in the love of each other, and in
the love of Thee above all."
" ^th mo. I. — ^Christ is declared to be the desire
of all nations. To realize in our hearts tills Divine
Being of Jove and power, casts all other feelings
and desires in the shade. It is even He that said,
' I will not leave you comfortless ; I will come to
you;' and 'without Me ye can do nothing;' and
' where two or three are gathered together in my
name, there am I in the midst.'"
"ijth mo. 22.— O Lord my God, permit me, if it
Hosteatv Google
112 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
pleasetli Thee, to thank Thee for strengthening
nie, for, in a small measure, feeling Thee in yester-
day afternoon meeting. Small as it was, it renewed
my hope that I might yet again feel and know
Thee in truth, and that as Thou livest I shall live
a!so."
"3i^ mo. 4. 1845.— My birthday; age 64, O
Lord, here am I, thy servant, fast severing the
cord of this life, and settling down to that period
wherein time to me shall be no more. Oh, may I
beg of Thee to aid me to keep my account and
interest in Thee, and look to Thee as my only
hope, and as my sure friend ; then let my end
come whenever Thou markest the time, I know
it will be peace; for because Thou livest I shall
live also, for Thou always standcst by the man
whose only trust is in Thee.
"O Lord God, may I beg of Thee to touch the
hearts of my beloved wife and children and domes-
tics, and all my fellow-men, with myself, with the
touches of thy parental love, so as to woo and
entice us all to thy fold, that our end may be
peace, everlasting peace in Thee."
" ^tk mo. 22. — This was our week-day meeting,
and a day ever to be remembered, as, early after I
sat down, I was favored to feel a little light in my
heart. On it my mind was turned, and favored to
rest with very little interruption during the whole
Hosteatv Google
RELIGIOUS EXERCISES. 113
meeting. I felt I could continue there a long
while, in the enjoyment of heavenly peace. I in
very deed believe it was the light of Christ in me,
as He promised to be my hope of glory if I could
keep close to Him as my guide.
" 5//; »w. 23.— Jesus has left me ; that sweetness
and peace which covered my mind yesterday,
and, until I went to sleep, at my usual time last
night. I awoke at night and found my guide had
left me, and this morning his goodness is still
hid from me.
'■ O Lord, what barrenness when Thou art gone !
what leanness of spirit when Thou hast left me!
I feel void of the sense of good when thy face is
hidden from me, so that I cannot realize thy sweet-
ness; I can do nothing but mourn until thy return."
"6thmo. 1,1846. — In yesterday afternoon meeting
I was favored by a higher power than my own, to
keep my mind, nearly through the whole meeting,
on the light of Christ, to the exclusion of nearly
all other thoughts; for some hours after, I felt a
peace and comfort that nothing of this world can
give."
In the summer of 1846, being absent from home,
in a letter to his daughters, he shows his parental
interest and solicitude thus :
" Most truly the heart would be lost to gratitude
that did not love and adore the hand by which it
Hosteatv Google
114 MEMOIR OF yoSMH WHITE.
is fed. It is our hcaveniy Father that feeds us
with every item of our nourishment, and g-ives to
each crumb its appropriate direction, whether it be
to sicken or to heal; and, under either allotment, it
is our place to give Him thanks, as He is equally
our care-taker in sickness and in health.
"You are still in the morning of your days,
with the promise of all the blessings of this world's
abundance before you. What if He that gives you
these blessings should be pleased to say, great as
these are, I have stores far transcending in the
world above, waiting for you ?
"Be assured, all that is of the other world will,
if resorted to, yield its power and its consolation.
Therefore, in all our troubles, our true consolation
is not found here, but in the heavens above; in Him
who lived and died for our salvation."
"tth mo. 12, 1847.— O my soul, do thou reflect
on the goodness of thy Redeemer, who has prom-
ised to come in to thee, and to sup with thee, and
permit thee to sup with Him."
"8M mo. 9. — Oh, what a good paymaster is my
Lord! — when He makes himself known to me all
within me rejoices."
" \oth mo. 13. — 'The peace of God.' This uni-
versal peace and love expands the soul illimitably,
beyond the thoughts and imaginations of all things
of a mundane character, and raises it within itself
to a heavenly union with its Author, thus causing
Hosteatv Google
RELIGIOUS EXERCISES. 115
it to partake of angels' food. For some consider-
able time past my mind has had no rest, and
without participating in any sense of this peace I
have been seeking for, and nothing within me
seemed to help me, all was dry and barren. This
morning, soon after awaking, without efforts of
self, this divine peace in a small measure broke in
upon my soul, and plainly showed me that my
only hope of enjoying it was in seeking divine aid,
to prostrate all self-will, and rest the soul entirely
and exclusively on the divine will."
" %th mo. 8, 1 84S.— ' God is love.' The subject
of this love engaged my attention this morning
before I arose, and as my mind was directed to the
various branches of it, a small grain of its leaven
seemed to leaven it, and gave me a little sweetness."
" %th mo, 1 3. — ' Christ in you the hope of glory.'
These words ran through my mind this morning,
in meeting, much to my edification, as I was fa-
vored to plainly see Xhe vast difference between a
feeling of Christ in mo, as the hope of glory, and
living under his direct influence in my heart; than
to talk, and reason, or read of Christ within, the
hope of glory. The former being the possession
of Christ, and the latter the hearsay of Him."
" loth pto. 17. — O Lord my Father, how shall I
declare praises, yes, everlasting praises, to thy
holy name, for keeping with me this afternoon
Hosteatv Google
Il6 MEMOIR OF JOSIAir WHITE.
in my effort of devotion, and finding peace with
Thee?
"O Lord my God my Saviour, what a favor it
is to have felt thy light with me all this time, so
that I have experienced a small glimpse of Thee!
"O my Lord, strengthen me, if it please Thee,
to love industry, — the industry that seeketh after
Thee,-^and strive to gain Thee above all things ;
yea, never feel satisfied until I find Thee, and feel
my love and my peace alone in Thee.
" Well, indeed, did George Fox and his friends
hold up to the world Christ as the light within
man, as his guide, director and only hope; not
from hearsay or study of books, but from experi-
mentally feeling and knowing Him. This, of
calling Christ the light, was not new to either
covenant." Psalm xxvii. i ; John i. 4.
Wth mo. 9, 1848. — "O Lord, may I throw my
case before Thee, and place myself under thy di-
vine care and admonition, and seek thy wisdom
and thine alone, to guide me in my great strait at
this time.
" Oh, that I may in all my straits look unto Thee
for thy divine help, and in thy help abide, as the
fountain and source of all that is right and proper,
so seeketh, so prayeth, thy servant, and worm of
the dust, at this time, and giveth to Thee all the
glory and the praise both now and forever."
"id mo. 5, 1S49. — Yesterday was my sixty-
Hosteatv Google
RELIGIOUS EXERCISES. 117
eighth birthday. The awfulness of the scene ahead
is, indeed, enough to call for all the industry and
energy of the soul, of every one, in his appeals to,
and devotion to God's appointed Saviour for man,
to have -mercy and spare for lukewarmness and
direct disregard of Him.
" O Lord, aid me to bury all acts and all thoughts,
that arc in the way of my finding Thee, so that I
may make sure of Thee at last. Oh, may it please
Thee to be also with my beloved wife and family,
and wean us all from this world, and centre each
of our minds \a Thee, whose glories shine in the
world of spirits, free from all veils; where we all
one day may hope to meet, with praises, everlast-
ing praises, to Thee, O Lord God, our heavenly
Father, and Jesus Christ, my Saviour."
\ith mo. 5, 1849. — On going to Mount Holly,
to attend the funeral of a cousin, he visited many
places in and near this town, fraught with interest-
ing early reminiscences. Part of his business ap-
pears to have been to look after a site for a free
school, remarking: "I thought I had offered
enough for my partiality to the old estate," etc.
"About 8 A.M. started for the old ch urch -ground ;
passed by the corner of the fence and grave-
yard where, some sixty years since, I dreamed
seeing my heavenly Father, and He spoke so
comfortably to me, that I feel a sense of the com-
fort down to this day. Here I paid Him my de-
Hosteatv Google
I]8 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
votions for the pilgrimage in which He had so
long led and preserved me.*
" I afterwards proceeded to our meeting-house
on Button Street, hoping that when there I might
feel some sense of whether my views at Mount
Holly, in relation to a free school, were correct or
not ; for in this thing my prayers have long been,
that He who said 'without Me ye can do noth-
ing,' would, in feeling, clearly manifest to me his
approval, or otherwise; for in the pursuit of this I
hope I have no other object in view but that of
being instrumental, in his hands, of bringing souls
to his kingdom."
REFLECTIONS.
" I \th mo. 23. — When I consider the relationship
of man to his Maker, how depending he is before
Him, yea, nothing but a clod of dust, and the
life he lives is only by the will and power of the
Holy One, it is even He, that created this dust, and
gave it life, and being, and capacity, to serve Him,
and do his will, and to live forever!
* The previous fall, in a visit to the same locality, he records :
" Here, on my bended knees, I poured oul my prayer to my hea-
venly Father for the preservation of myself and my beloved family
during the remainder of our pilgrimage in this life of probation,
and, finally, to take us one and all to Himself."
Hosteatv Google
RELIGIOUS EXERCISES. \ 19
"If man presents himself before his feliow-man,
of a princely station in life, how silent and respect-
ful is he before him, and waiting until his king
speaks, and gives authority to him to reply or to
say aught !
"How much more respectful and reverential
should this child of the dust appear before his
Maker and heavenly Father! how cheerful and
how patient should he be in his waiting and
watching for the coming of his divine presence
in his soul !
"Ah! how unspeakably awful it is to feel this
divine presence near us, for 'nothing' to have a
sense and consciousness of Him that is 'everything'.'
Oh how awful, how calculated to still the boister-
ous wave, and to say to all the motions of time
and sense, Be still before Me, the Creator and
Sustainer of all things ! Such a Being will surely
not accept a part or portion of thine heart; thou
must give it all to Him or none.
" But where shall I go to find Him whom my
soul seeks above all things, however attractive
the things of time and sense are, that habit has
made so natural to me? Yet, when I contemplate,
how transient, how nothing, are all these, in com-
parison to the promises of eternity, to a being
who has an immortal soul, how little, how nothing,
are all these things of time and sense in the
contrast !
Hosteatv Google
I20 MEMOIR OF yoSIAH WHITE.
"Surely, I need not seek Him in the hills, val-
leys, or plains of this world, or in the wonderful
and unnumbered worlds made and arranged by
Him in the concave above ; in no place will I find
Him but where He promised to be, saying, ' He
that is with you shall be vayou.' Thy Father and
thy Lord comes here to thee, when thou hast pre-
pared the ground of thy heart to receive Him;
there prepare it by a quiet, unresisting submis-
sion to his holy will, and there look to and for
his light, and wait for it, be the time long or
short; be patient in thy seeking Him, and wait
his time to break in on thee, for his only is the
right time,"
" 12?'/; mo. 31. — End of the year. When I look
back over the past year, and reflect how many of
my fellow- creatures of about my age have been
called to the bourne from whence there is no re-
turn, and of the various incidents threatening to
place me there, I am led to wonder why it is, my
Maker and heavenly Parent has continued me yet
a little longer ; and, shall I hope and pray unto
Him that for the time He may still extend to me
a further existence in this his world of probation,
that He will increase in me living desires every
day to serve and love Him ; and for the past pres-
ervation for myself and my family, may He beget
in me and in them, heartfelt thankfulness therefor,
and may this thankfulness be evinced by our in-
Hosteatv Google
RELIGIOUS EXERCISES. 121
creased desire to serve and to love Him, from
whom all good and all preservation come."
" idmo. 4, 1850. — My sixty-ninth birthday. My
heavenly Parent having thus lengthened out my
existence to this period of life, and brought me
into that year which is called in Scripture the life
of man (and if other years be added they are to be
considered extraordinaries, rather than in the or-
dinary course of human nature), and thus has
added to my days opportunities to serve, and
thank Him therefor. Oh, how much am I indebted
to my Lord for thus giving mc time to prepare
for eternity! — for He desires not the death of a
sinner, but that ail should repent, return to Him,
and live.
"Oh, when I look over my past time, and per-
ceive how much of it is lacking in devotion to my
Lord, I am brought into a feeling of awe and
awfulness. We need not blame others, not even
Satan, our greatest enemy, for our lost time, for
He that has all power will save us, if the fault is
not ours."
"SM mo. II, First-day. — I was permitted to keep
my mind centred on the light of Christ in it, most
of the meeting, and I thought I should have re-
ceived it as a favor to have doubled the length of
the meeting in the possession of this divine good-
ness, if it pleased Him to continue with me. When
the meeting broke, and for hours afterwards, a glow
Hosteatv Google
123 MEMOIR OF yOSIAII WHITE.
of divine feeling continued with me, which was
far greater and sweeter than any mundane thing."
"Zthmo. 21. — ' I in them, and Thou in Me.'
"Can anything be more clear and conclusive,
that all our hopes of heaven and heavenly things
arc to be in Christ, and that we are to find Him
in no earthly, no material thing, no show, no
sound, and in naught, but in our own hearts?
Yes, in the silent waiting and feeling of the heart,
there we are to find Him; there, and there only,
is to be our prostration; man is then to retire
inward, in his own soul, and there to wait for, and
to find his God and Saviour; there, he is to wor-
ship and adore Him ; there, he is to lay at the feet
of Jesus, and surrender to Him his whole will,
and beg of Him to take his will from him, and
make him a new creature, with his Lord's will
only to exclusively direct him.
"This indeed is the state my soul longs for and
covets above all things. Oh, that all my days,
hours, and moments, that my God permits me to
stay on earth, I may feel this desire to increase, so
that when my end comes I shall be ready, and
waiting for my Lord !"
Hosteatv Google
CONCLUSION.
In the autumn of the year i8go he made a
journey to the West, as far as Richmond, Indiana,
and attended the yearly meeting of the Society of
Friends, held there at that time; going north, by
the lakes ; and returning through Cincinnati, and by
the Ohio River, to Pittsburg, thence, by the Penn-
sylvania Canal, the Portage Railroad, Harrisburg
and Lancaster, home. The journey was protracted
and fatiguing, and he was not well on his arrival.
He continued indisposed, hoping to be better after
the wear of the journey was over: but this was
not the case, and on the 6th of the nth rao. the
disease, which had been slowly developing, was
pronounced by his physician to be remittent fever,
contracted during his absence. It afterwards as-
sumed a typhoid character, affecting the head;
and his mind at times became much clouded and
wandering, but he evinced much patience and
calmness in his sickness. Not having put off" the
work of preparation to the last moment, he knew
where to look for consolation in this time of need.
Being seldom in a condition for much concentra-
tion of thought or religious introversion of mind,
Hosteatv Google
124 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
was a trial to him. It was requisite that he
should be kept in a state of quietness, and free
from excitement of any kind. On the 12th inst.
a minister of the gospel visited him. She spoke
to him of the comfort there is in looking upon the
Almighty as our father, able to call Him by the
endearing name of father, to which he assented.
She remarked he had stood for the cause of truth
and righteousness in the world, not being afraid to
confess Christ before men, and she believed he
would be blessed for it. He acknowledged, in
great humility, he had nothing whereof to boast.
Supplication was also offered, and the belief was
expressed that he had not put off the work of
preparation until this time. Next day, on reference
being made to this kind call, he spoke touch-
ingly of his mind not having been in a state to
communicate much; and of a mind being so
affected, as to be hardly able to realize things
around it, there was so much feebleness in its
grasp.
On being reminded that he had been a diligent
reader of the Holy Scriptures, he replied "that that
would not avail; but communion with Heaven,
that was good." The progress of the disease con-
tinued without much intermission, notwithstand-
ing the most assiduous cace of Uis physicians and
family, until he sank into a stupor, from which
his imprisoned soul was released from its earthly
Hosteatv Google
CONCLUSION. 125
tabernacle on the 14th of the nth mo-, 1850,
in the seventieth year of his age.
" Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven."
In person Josiah White was rather below me-
dium stature, inclining to corpulency in later life,
his complexion clear and florid. He might be
considered as the embodiment of the earnest, san-
guine, and persevering, with a strong and persistent
will, seldom calculating on failure in his under-
takings. He had no patience with ostentation or
false pretensions of any kind, but admired the
practical and useful, making no display in his
personal appearance or manner of living. To
those unacquainted with him his manners may
have appeared somewhat stern and his speech
abrupt, and opinions decided; but he had the milk
of human kindness in his heart, was tender in his
feelings, ready to assist the needy and destitute,
and those in trouble, without distinction of nation,
color, or creed, by money, sympathy, or counsel.
He possessed a cheerful, social disposition, being
fond of the society of his friends, of whom he
had a large number in different classes of society;
was given to hospitality; but when he thought it
his duty to rebuke error, either privately or pub-
licly, though it might be in high places, he did it
fearlessly and unflinchingly. His industry was a
Hosteatv Google
126 MEMOIR OF JOSIAH WHITE.
strong trait in his character, and even in latter
years, when he had declined taking much active
part in business, he generally kept himself em-
ployed in some useful occupation, either with his
hands or pen, and despised idleness in any form
whatever.
He had a remarkable faculty of strongly attach-
ing to his person and interests those who were
employed by him, gaining their confidence and
respect by the interest he took in the prosperity
of themselves and families; rejoicing at and pro-
moting the success of those, who by their worth,
industry, and talents, proved themselves entitled
to his confidence and regard.
He was much interested in the subject of edu-
cation, particularly desiring its diiTusion among
the lower classes of the people, in a way to make
them self-reliant and self-supporting, often con-
tributing liberally of his means for such purposes.
He bequeathed funds for the establishment of
two manual labor schools in the West, — one in
Indiana, the other in Iowa,- — especially having
reference to the religious training of the pupils.
Learning and accomplishments may excite admi-
ration and praise; but the higher qualities of uni-
form Christian integrity of character and gener-
ous benevolence of heart can alone insure lasting
respect and influence among our fellow-men.
Hosteatv Google
APPENDICES.
Hosteatv Google
^^, —\
^
i
""v"'
1
sum
w^^^^
1
i
- I -
'":'■■ il 1
1+gff
i . ' i
1
,j
;i
'' ' 1
^
■-^r-;"
"*
t
1
■a
■ ' m'
^
Hm
Hosteatv Google
APPENDIX No. I.
EXPLANATION OF THE " BEAR-TRAP LOCK," SHOWN
ON THE OFI'OSITK PAGE.
There is a ground plan and longitudinal section
figured. To fill the lock the wickets at B are
closed, and those at A opened; the water then
passes through the sluices E and A, into the large
chamber, from whence it passes through the sluice,
C, underneath the gates, and lifts them.
To empty the lock the wickets at A are closed,
and those at B are opened. The water from the
chamber and under the gates goes through the
sluices B and D into the chute ; the gates drop and
the water passes over them and down the chute,
carrying the boat with it.
These locks can be made of any capacity to
suit the amount of water, the fall, and size of the
boat intended to be used; though they are not
suited to any very great descent. In the one
shown, the chamber of the lock is fifty-six feet
long to the apex of the gates, seventeen feet wide,
12 (IZ9)
Hosteatv Google
130 APPENDIX.
with four and a half feet depth of water. The
chute is sixty-eight feet long, — scale, twenty-five
feet to an inch.
Three of these locks are still in use on the upper
Lehigh, between White Haven and Stoddartsville.
Hosteatv Google
APPENDIX No. 2,
DELAWARE NAVIGATION'.
The above is a sketch of the plan proposed for
the improvement of the river Delaware, by the
Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company.
No. 1 represents the kind of improvement to be
adopted at all the falls where the water can be made
three feet deep by means of wing dams (or by sink-
ing the bottom of the river), to confine it in an open
channel, without making it too rapid for a boat to
ascend by the power of a steam-engine, — all such
channels to be improved by the company and kept
in repair at their expense, and to be used by the
public free of toll.
No. 2 is an example of the improvement of a
fall, whore the water would be too rapid for the
ascent of a steamboat by the power of her engines.
( 131 )
Hosteatv Google
Hosteatv Google
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11