THE DISCOVERY OF COAL.
Although it has been within comparatively recent times that coal has
come into general use as a fuel, yet there can be no doubt that it was
discovered, and that its qualities were known, many centuries ago. To
prove its use by the ancients, mention is sometimes made of a passage
from the writings of Theophrastus, a pupil and friend of Aristotle
and for many years the head of the peripatetic school of philosophy.
This passage dates back to about 300 B. C., and is as follows: “Those
substances that are called coals and are broken for use are earthy, but
they kindle and burn like wooden coals. They are found in Liguria where
there is amber, and in Elis over the mountains toward Olympus. They are
used by the smiths.”
The word “coal,” however, as used in the Bible and other ancient
books, usually means charcoal, or burning wood. It is claimed, and
not without plausibility, that coal was mined in Britain prior to the
Roman invasion. The cinder heaps found among ruins of the time of Roman
supremacy in the island point to quite an extensive use of coal by the
people of that age. But no writings have been found recording the use
of coal prior to 852 A. D. In that year twelve cartloads of “fossil
fuel,” or “pit coal,” were received by the abbey of Peterborough in
England, and the receipt was recorded. It is said that coal first began
to be systematically mined in Great Britain about the year 1180.
It is certain that by the end of the thirteenth century the exportation
of coal from Newcastle was considerable, and the new fuel had come
to be largely used in London. But the people of that city conceived
the idea that its use was injurious to the health of the inhabitants
generally. The coal, being of the bituminous variety, burned with
considerable flame and gave off a good deal of smoke, and the ignorance
of the people led them into the belief that the air was contaminated
and poisoned by the products of combustion. So they presented a
petition to Parliament asking that the burning of coal be prohibited in
the city of London. Not only was the prayer of the petitioners granted,
but in order to render the prohibition effectual an act was passed
making it a capital offense to burn the dreaded fuel. This was in the
reign of Edward I., and is characteristic of the policy of that strong,
unyielding king, whose ends, great and just perhaps, were too often
attained by harsh and cruel means.
The coal industry was checked, but it was not destroyed; for, half
a century later, we find Edward III. granting a license to the
inhabitants of Newcastle “to dig coals and stones in the common soil of
the town without the walls thereof in the place called the Castle Field
and the Forth.” Afterward this town, owing to the fine coal beds in its
vicinity, became one of the great centres of the British coal trade,
from which fact doubtless arose that ancient saying concerning useless
trouble or labor, that it is like “carrying coals to Newcastle.”
In Scotland coal was mined in the twelfth century and in Germany in
the thirteenth, and the Chinese had already become familiar with its
use. But in Paris the same prejudice was excited against it that had
prevailed in London, and it did not come into use in that city as a
household fuel until about the middle of the sixteenth century. This
was also the date of its introduction into Wales, Belgium, and other
European countries.
That coal was familiar, in appearance at least, to the natives of
America, long before the feet of white men ever pressed American
soil, cannot well be doubted. They must have seen it at its numerous
outcrops; perhaps they took pieces of it in their hard hands, handled
it, broke it, powdered it, or cast it away from them as useless.
Indeed, it is not improbable that they should have known something
of its qualities as a fuel. But of this there is no proof. The
first record we have of the observation of coal in this country was
made by Father Hennepin, a French explorer, in 1679. On a map of his
explorations he marked the site of a coal mine on the bank of the
Illinois River above Fort Crevecœur, near the present town of Ottawa.
In his record of travel he states that in the country then occupied
by the Pimitoui or Pimitwi Indians “there are mines of coal, slate,
and iron.” The oldest coal workings in America are doubtless those in
what is known as the Richmond or Chesterfield coal bed, near Richmond
in Chesterfield and Powhatan counties in the State of Virginia. It is
supposed that coal was discovered and mined there as early as 1750.
But by whom and under what circumstances the discovery was made we
have only tradition to inform us. This says that one day, during
the year last named, a certain boy, living in that vicinity, went
out into an unfrequented district on a private and personal fishing
excursion. Either the fish bit better than he had thought they would,
or for some other cause his supply of bait ran out, and it became
necessary for him to renew it. Hunting around in the small creeks and
inlets for crawfish with which to bait his hook, he chanced to stumble
upon the outcrop of a coal bed which crosses the James River about
twelve miles above Richmond. He made his discovery known, and further
examination disclosed a seam of rich bituminous coal, which has since
been conceded to be a formation of Mesozoic time rather than of the
Carboniferous age. Mining operations were soon begun, and were carried
on so successfully that by the year 1775 the coal was in general use
in the vicinity for smithing and domestic purposes. It played a part
in the war for independence by entering into the manufacture of cannon
balls, and by 1789 it had achieved so much of a reputation that it
was being shipped to Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, and sold in
those markets. But the mines were operated by slave labor, and mining
was carried on in the most primitive fashion for three quarters of a
century. So late as 1860 the improved systems of mining, long in use in
the North, were still comparatively unknown at the Virginia mines.
During the war of the rebellion these mines were seized by the
Confederate government and operated by it, in order to obtain directly
the necessary fuel for purposes of modern warfare; and upon the
cessation of hostilities the paralysis which had fallen upon all other
Southern industries fell also upon this. But with the revival of
business, mining was again begun in the Richmond field, and from 1874
to the present time the industry has prospered and grown, and Virginia
has furnished to the country at large a considerable amount of an
excellent quality of bituminous coal. This coal bed covers an area of
about 180 square miles, and has an average thickness of twenty-four
feet. It is supposed to contain about 50,000,000 of tons yet unmined.
Another of the early discoveries of coal in the United States was that
of the Rhode Island anthracite bed in 1760. Mines began to be regularly
worked here in 1808, but only about 750,000 tons, all told, have been
taken from them. For reasons which have been already given these mines
cannot be profitably worked in competition with the anthracite mines of
Pennsylvania, in which the location and formation of the coal beds are
greatly superior.
It is impossible to say when the coal of the great bituminous district
of Pennsylvania and Ohio was first seen by white men. In the summer of
1755 General Braddock led his army through western Pennsylvania by a
military road to that terrible defeat and slaughter in which he himself
received his death wound. This road, laid out by the army’s engineers
and graded by its men, was so well built that its course can still be
traced, and it is seen to have crossed the outcrop of the Pittsburgh
coal seam in many places. It is not improbable that a large number of
the soldiers in the English army were familiar with the appearance of
coal, and knew how to mine it and use it. Indeed, Colonel James Burd,
who was engaged in the construction of the road, claims to have burned
about a bushel of this coal on his camp-fire at that time.
Some of the English soldiers who survived that terrible disaster to
their arms afterward returned and purchased lands in the vicinity, and
it is reasonable to suppose that the coal was dug and put to use by
them. A lease, still in existence, dated April 11, 1767, making a grant
of lands on “Coal Pitt Creek,” in Westmoreland County, indicates that
there were coal openings there at that date. Captain Thomas Hutchins,
who visited Fort Pitt (now Pittsburgh) in 1760, mentions the fact that
he found an open coal mine on the opposite side of the Monongahela
River, from which coal was being taken for the use of the garrison.
From 1770 to 1777 it was common for maps of certain portions of the
Ohio River country to have marked on them sites of coal beds along the
shores of that stream in regions which are now known to contain seams
of the great bituminous deposit.
Probably the Susquehanna River region was the first in which this coal
was dug systematically and put to use. It was burned by blacksmiths
in their forges, and as early as 1785 the river towns were supplied
with it by Samuel Boyd, who shipped it from his mines in arks. In 1813
Philip Karthaus took a quantity of coal to Fort Deposit, and sent it
thence by canal to Philadelphia. After this he sent cargoes regularly
to Philadelphia and Baltimore, and sold them readily at the rate of
thirty-three cents per bushel. This trade was stopped, however, by
the building of dams across the Susquehanna, and it was not until many
years afterward that the mineral resources of this section of the coal
field were developed again through the introduction of railroads.
In the Pittsburgh region the demand for coal increased with the
increase of population, and at the beginning of the present century
it was in general use, not only in the manufacturing industries but
also as a domestic fuel, throughout that section of country. The
first coal sent from Pittsburgh to an eastern market was shipped to
Philadelphia in 1803. It was carried by the Louisiana, a boat of 350
tons burden, and was sold at the rate of thirty-seven and a half cents
per bushel. From that time the increase in the mining of bituminous
coal in the Pittsburgh region has been steady and enormous. Its
presence, its quality and abundance, have induced the establishment
of great manufacturing enterprises in that section of the State, and
many millions of tons of it are sent every year to the markets of the
seaboard.
Pennsylvania was a region much in favor with the North American
Indians, and it is more than probable that they were aware, to some
extent, of the existence of mineral wealth beneath her soil, long
before white men ever came among them.
Besides the numerous outcroppings of coal which, in their journeyings,
they must have crossed and recrossed for centuries, there were
many places where the coal seams, having been cut through by creeks
and rivers, were exposed fully to view. In this way, in the Wyoming
district, the seven feet vein along the Nanticoke Creek had been
disclosed, and the nine feet vein on Ransom’s Creek at Plymouth;
while at Pittston the Susquehanna River had bared the coal seams in
the faces of its rocky banks, and up the Lackawanna the black strata
were frequently visible. But whatever knowledge the Indians had on the
subject was, with proverbial reticence, kept to themselves. It is said
that about the year 1750 a party of Indians brought a bag of coal to a
gunsmith living near Nazareth in Pennsylvania, but refused to say where
they had obtained it. The gunsmith burned it successfully in the forge
which he used for the purpose of repairing their guns.
The presumption that the Indians knew something of the uses of coal,
and actually mined it, is borne out by the following incident: In the
year 1766 a trader by the name of John Anderson was settled at Wyoming,
and carried on a small business as a shopkeeper, trading largely with
the red men. In September of that year a company of six Nanticoke,
Conoy, and Mohican Indians visited the governor at Philadelphia, and
made to him the following address:――
“Brother,――As we came down from Chenango we stopped at Wyoming, where
we had a mine in two places, and we discovered that some white people
had been at work in the mine, and had filled three canoes with the ore;
and we saw their tools with which they had dug it out of the ground,
where they had made a hole at least forty feet long and five or six
feet deep. It happened formerly that some white people did take, now
and then, only a small bit and carry it away, but these people have
been working at the mine, and have filled their canoes. We desire that
you will tell us whether you know anything of this matter, or if it be
done by your consent. We inform you that there is one John Anderson, a
trader, now living at Wyoming, and we suspect that he, or somebody by
him, has robbed our mine. This man has a store of goods there, and it
may happen when the Indians see their mine robbed they will come and
take away his goods.”
There is little doubt that the mines referred to were coal mines.
The presence of coal on the same side of the river a few miles below
Wyoming was certainly known, if not at that time then very soon
afterward; for in 1768 Charles Stewart made a survey of the Manor of
Sunbury opposite Wilkes Barre for the “Proprietaries’” government, and
on the original map of the survey “stone coal” is noted as appearing on
the site of what is now called Rosshill.
This valley of Wyoming, the seat of such vast mineral wealth, was
first settled by people from Connecticut in 1762, and in the fall of
that year they reported the discovery of coal.
These energetic, enterprising Yankee settlers could not fail to know
the location of the coal beds before they had been long in the valley.
Some of them were probably familiar with the English bituminous coals,
which were then being exported in small quantities to America under the
name of “sea coal;” and from the fact that our anthracite was known
to them as “stone coal” it is probable that there were those among
them who knew that the English people had a very hard coal which they
could not burn, and to which they had given the name “stone coal.”
Specimens of this Wyoming valley stone coal had already been gathered
and sent to England for examination. Indeed, there is no doubt that the
first anthracite coal ever found by white men in the United States was
discovered in this valley. But these Yankee settlers could not make
their stone coal burn. Repeated trials met with repeated failures.
There was one among them, however, Obadiah Gore, a blacksmith, who
would not be discouraged. In 1769 he took a quantity of these coals to
the blacksmith’s shop conducted by him and his brother, put them in
his forge, and continued his efforts and experiments until finally the
black lumps yielded to his persistency, and he had the satisfaction of
seeing the blue flames dart from them, and the red color creep over
them, and of feeling the intense heat sent out by their combustion. But
their ignition and burning were dependent upon the strong air current
sent through them by the bellows; without that he could do nothing with
them.
So this Yankee blacksmith, who was afterwards one of the associate
judges of the courts of Luzerne County, became, so far as is known, the
first white man to demonstrate practically the value of anthracite coal
as a fuel. The success of Gore’s experiments soon became known, other
smiths began to recognize the merits of the lately despised stone coal,
and it was not long before the forge fires of nearly every smithy in
the region were ablaze with anthracite.
The fame of the new fuel soon spread beyond the limits of the valley,
and if the difficulties of transportation checked its use elsewhere,
the knowledge of how to use it in forges and furnaces was not uncommon.
The demand for it overcame, at times, even the obstacles in the way of
shipment, and it was sent to points at long distances from the mines.
In 1776 the proprietary government of Pennsylvania had an armory at
Carlisle in that State, in which they were manufacturing firearms to be
used by the Continental troops in the war with Great Britain; and the
first coal ever sent out from the Wyoming valley was shipped by them
to Carlisle during that year and the succeeding years of the war, for
use in their armory.
The next discoveries of anthracite were made in what is now known
as the Southern coal field. It had long been a matter of tradition
among the stolid German farmers of Pennsylvania that coal existed
in the rugged hills along the Lehigh River, but no one succeeded in
finding it there until the year 1791. It was then discovered by one
Philip Ginther, a hunter and backwoodsman, who had built a rough
cabin in the forest near the Mauch Chunk mountain, and there gave to
himself and his family a precarious support by killing game, large
and small, carrying it to the nearest settlement, and exchanging it
at the village store for the necessaries of life. Telling the story
afterward, himself, he said that at one time the supply of food in
his cabin chanced to run out, and he started into the woods with his
gun in quest of something which should satisfy the hunger of those
who were at home. It was a most unsuccessful hunting expedition. The
morning passed, the afternoon went by, night approached, but his
game-bag was still empty. He was tired, hungry, and sadly disappointed.
A drizzling rain set in as he started homeward across the Mauch Chunk
mountain, darkness was coming rapidly on, and despondency filled his
mind as he thought of the expectant faces of little ones at home to
whom he was returning empty-handed. Making his way slowly through
the thick, wet undergrowth, and still looking about him, if perchance
something in the way of game might yet come within the range of his
gun, his foot happened to strike a hard substance which rolled away
before him. He looked down at it, and then bent over and picked it up,
and saw by the deepening twilight that it was black. He was familiar
with the traditions of the country concerning the existence of stone
coal in this region, and he began to wonder if this, indeed, was not
a specimen of it. He carried the black lump home with him that night,
and the next day he set out with it to find Colonel Jacob Weiss at
Fort Allen, now Weissport, to whom he exhibited what he had found.
Colonel Weiss became deeply interested in the matter, and brought the
specimen to Philadelphia, where he submitted it to the inspection of
John Nicholson, Michael Hillegas, and Charles Cist. These men, after
assuring themselves that it was really anthracite coal, authorized
Colonel Weiss to make such a contract with Ginther as would induce
him to point out the exact spot where the mineral was found. It
happened that the hunter coveted a vacant piece of land in the vicinity
containing a fine water-power and mill-site, and on Colonel Weiss
agreeing to obtain a patent for him from the State for the desired lot
of land, he very readily gave all the information in his possession
concerning the “stone coal.”
In the Pottsville district of the Southern anthracite region coal was
discovered at about the same time as in the Mauch Chunk field. This
discovery too was made by accident, and the discoverer in this case
also was a hunter, Nicholas Allen. He had been out with his gun all
day, and at nightfall had found himself too far away from his home
to make the attempt to reach it. He accordingly built a fire under a
projecting ledge at the foot of Broad Mountain, and, lying down by
it, soon fell asleep. He was wakened in the night by a strong light
shining on his eyes, and by the sensation of great heat. Springing
to his feet, he discovered that the ledge itself was burning, or, as
he afterward expressed it, “that the mountain was on fire.” He could
not understand the phenomenon, and remained in the vicinity until
morning, when he saw, by daylight, that what he had thought to be a
ledge of rocks was really a projecting outcrop of mineral coal, which
had become ignited from his camp-fire of sticks. Whether this story is
or is not authentic, it is certain that no practical results attended
the discovery of coal in this region. It was not until twenty-six
years after Obadiah Gore’s experiments in the Wyoming valley that coal
was successfully burned here in a blacksmith’s forge. The attempt
was made by one Whetstone, and met with the same marked success that
had attended the earlier effort. But owing to the difficulty still
ordinarily experienced in combustion, the coal of this region was not
generally used until after the year 1806. In that year David Berlin,
another blacksmith, experimented with it in his forge, with such
complete success that a new impetus was given to the coal trade, mining
was resumed, and the new fuel came into general use in the blacksmiths’
shops of the vicinity.
In the Middle anthracite district coal was not discovered until 1826.
This discovery also was made by a hunter, John Charles. On one of his
hunting expeditions he chanced to find a groundhog’s hole, and, laying
down his rifle, he began to dig for his game. In the course of the
excavation he uncovered a projecting shelf of stone coal. He made his
discovery known, further explorations were set on foot, the coal bed
was located, and a company called the Hazleton Coal Company was formed
to work the field.
From these several points of discovery the search for anthracite coal
was extended in all directions, the limits of the beds were eventually
defined, and each field was surveyed and mapped with much care.