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 The Diary of S

 

The Diary of S. H. Jencks

( NOTE: This introduction, by Charles Edwards, was published in "There Was A Time", The Journal, Nanty Glo, PA, January 6, 1999. It was followed with approximately 30 weekly articles on excerpts from the diary. Following this introduction is a complete transcription of the diary as recorded by S. H. Jencks.)

The "time" spoken of in this week's column is a time of 100 years ago. Sterry Henry Jencks lived in that time.

He was born in Argentina on March 25, 1867, but Rhode Island, where most of his family lived was his home. Jencks attended Lehigh University at Bethlehem, Pa., and began a long career as an industrial engineer. His work included that of steel bridge and building construction, opening of coal mines, building rail lines, and the laying out of new towns. Among his earliest jobs was that of working for the Norfolk and Western Railroad in the Pocahontas and Clinch Valley coal fields of Virginia.

He ended his work in Virginia in 1894 and came up to Pennsylvania on Oct. 2 to begin work with the Pittsburgh and Eastern Railroad as engineer in charge of construction. The line was to run from the Youghiogheny River in Westmoreland County to Mahaffey in Clearfield County.

On Oct 1, 1897, he left the P&E RR to take the job of chief engineer for the Berwind-White Coal Co. in the Windber district.

On June 11, 1902, Jencks was sent by Berwind to prospect their holdings in the Pocahontas and New River coal fields of Virginia and West Virginia. He was headquartered in Tazewell, Va., until Nov. 1, 1905, when he resigned his position and returned home to Rhode Island.

In May of 1906, he was contacted by the Beury Brothers of Charleston, W. Va., to improve their coal mines, but by Feb. 8, 1907, he recognized it as an impossible task for which he was seldom paid and resigned that position.

On Aug. 15, 1908, Jencks surfaced in Mahaffey, Pa., and opened up an engineering office, where he did jobs for the Pennsylvania Coal & Coke Co, J.H. Weaver Co., and others, before becoming chief engineer of the Cambria and Indiana Railroad in 1909. The C&I was the former Blacklick & Yellow Creek RR, which was incorporated on June 15, 1904.

He tells of what it was like in the early days of coal mining and railroad building, and of the hardships endured while in West Virginia. An account is given of the birth and development of Windber as well as many towns in northern Cambria County, such as Patton, Nanty Glo, Colver and Revloc, with the growth of the coal industry in those parts.

Many people are mentioned by name who were instrumental in the construction of the coal and railroad industry of our county. Men like B. Dawson Coleman and J.H. Weaver, who formed an association that resulted in the birth of Colver, which is named for the first and last parts of their names.

Jencks relates the expansion of the C&I RR to accommodate the new industries of coal, clay and timber. He tells of politics within the companies, labor disputes and competition with the PRR There are brief mentions of noteworthy events like the beginning of World War I, the assassination of President McKinley, the burning of the Old Trust building in Ebensburg, and the installation of electricity in the court house.

He philosophizes on the Great Depression of the early 30s, the election of FDR, and the repeal of Prohibition. His writings paint an excellent picture of the growth of Cambria County and provide many names and details for the eager historian from 1885 until his retirement on Sept 1, 1936.

I believe Jencks was one of those persons who was the right man in the right time; one of the builders of our country. He was a man of conviction with a steadying influence on those around him. His employers had a faith and trust in him that encouraged them to give him much responsibility to which he responded admirably.

Jencks was probably a rugged man as his experience in the West Virginia coal fields would require, but he was not without intellect. He had thoughtful observations on the times, exhibiting a good understanding of human nature and the actions of men due to the flaws therein.

He prized intelligent men and considered it a joy to work with such people. Jencks had no time for fools but found it very satisfying to relax from the days work and spend the evening in the company of one who enjoyed a good laugh and had the ability to intelligently converse on any subject.

He had much to say about the politicians' lack of integrity, government interference, and the corruption of labor unions. He would have greatly disdained the welfare state and the lack of initiative in so many people today.

One hundred years ago S.H. Jencks was busy with the building of railroads, coal mines, reservoirs and towns. Today, instead of laying tracks, we are tearing them up. The once-booming industrial towns that held such great promise are now quiet residential villages. Rather than forging the steel and digging the coal, we are inviting others to come and see where we once did those things. Things of which the current generation has little knowledge.

For those who forgot, and for those who never knew, S.H. Jencks has provided a looking glass. It is a special instrument that combines the sweeping panorama of the telescope with the detailed magnification of the microscope.

We can sweep across the years, noting the great changes from one era to another, while at the same time enlarging one year, or day, or just a few minutes of a special scene. For much of this year, we will be looking at the diary of S.H. Jencks. If any of our readers have photos of the period 1885 to 1936, we would be very glad to use them along with the weekly diary excerpts.

Jencks, who served as president of the Ebensburg Borough Council, died at his home on 318 East High St., Ebensburg, on the evening of Jan. 12, 1948. He was survived by his wife, the former Nellie A Mahaffey, and was buried at Mahaffey cemetery, leaving a few thousand dollars cash, some shares of stock and a 1940 Packard worth $800. Not much for a long life of hard work.

Charles Edwards



A HISTORY or RECORD or CHRONICLE

Of the

CAMBRIA AND INDIANA RAILROAD COMPANY

And

Connections

And

COAL COMPANIES

in

Cambria and adjoining Counties

Pennsylvania

With references to

Pocahontas and New River Coal Fields

West Virginia

_____________

 

 

S.H. Jencks
Ebensburg, Pa.
Nov. 1, 1944


PREFACE

After working on and off this Register of Events for couple of years we bring it to a conclusion.

We were in the employ of railroad companies in four states and with coal corporations in three. This record or chronicle is made up from notes in our diaries and clippings in scrapbooks, both of which we kept up since our boyhood days in Rhode Island. A very good performance, if we must say it ourselves, and for one who never had the reputation of being over diligent. Whenever possible we made it a point never to do anything in the labor line, physical or mental, that George could do.

We start this compilation in the year 1885, for the reason that was the year the New York Central started to push their Beech Creek Extension into the Clearfield County, Pa., coal fields from Philipsburg, Center County. By 1893 the Beech Creek reached Mahaffey, Pa., as did the Pennsylvania, from Cresson via Patton, Cambria County. And by 1903 both the NYC and PRR were at Cherrytree; thence to Clymer, Idamar and Heilwood in Indiana County. In 1894 the PRR had their Blacklick Creek Extension completed as far as Vintondale. All the above in preparation for coal mines in the best steam coal section in the country. Proof: Colver, Nanty-Glo and Revloc.

For those interested in the Berwind-White territory, Windber the hub or center, first coal was shipped from Eureka No. 30 at Scalp Level in 1897, when the PRR had a branch line extended from South Fork. In 1902 the Berwinds had 10 miles in operation in Somerset County, Pa.

And for those who have ties or bonds in the Pocahontas coal field on the Norfolk & Western, and in the New River country on the Chesapeake & Ohio, West Virginia, the years we spent there - 1902 to 1907 - were hell. Peruse under those years and be convinced. It was not until 1906 that Berwinds broke ground for a mine on the Dry Fork of the Tug River, McDowell County, W. Va.

Until 1922, when Mr. Coleman and Mr. Weaver dissolved partnership, we were kept in touch with the mines as well as the Cambria and Indiana Railroad. After '22 we were wedded to the C & I, and in 1936 came the parting of the ways.

To our friends who helped gather information for this record of bygone days: you have our grateful thanks for contributions to make this history fairly complete.

Given under my hand, this first day of November in the year of our Lord 1944 and the 168th year of American Independence.

 

S. H. Jencks
The Diary of S. H. Jencks

 


(1)

RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Clearfield, Indiana and Cambria Counties
Pennsylvania Compiled by S. H. Jencks
Ebensburg, Pennsylvania

1885

The Beech Creek Extension of the New York Central Railroad was completed to Philipsburg, Centre County, on February 1st, and the passenger train which had been running between Williamsport and Beech Creek was run to Philipsburg.

The coal from the Hawk Run district which had been delivered to Bald Eagle Junction by the Pennsylvania Railroad was then brought directly over the Beech Creek.

Mines at Grassflats were opened and started delivering coal.

By September 1st the Beech Creek Railroad was completed to Gazzam, Clearfield County, where mines bad been opened.

November 17th - The Cresson and Coalport Railroad (P.R.R.) was completed to Fallen Timber, Cambria County.

 

1886

In March the Beech Creek Railroad was completed to Clearfield, and when the summer schedule was made out passenger trains were run to Clearfield.

BEECH CREEK RAILROAD - N.Y.C. & H.R.R.R., LESSEE

Organized: June 29, 1886

Directors: Cornelius Vanderbilt, New York; William K. Vanderbilt, New York; Marlin E. Olmstead, Harrisburg; Chauncy M. Depew, New York; Geo. F. Baer, Reading; W. D. Kelly, Philadelphia; and James Kerr, Clearfield, Pa. Date of expiration of term May 4, 1900.

Officers: Marlin E. Olmstead, President and General Counsel; Wllliam J. Wilgus, Engineer, New York; Augustus G. Palmer, Superintendent, Jersey Shore, Pa., where general office is located.

Operation: Jersey Shore to Mahaffey, Pa., 113.02 miles. Mahaffey to Patton, including Patton to mines, 29.49 miles, operated under trackage rights with the Pennsylvania Railroad.
{Taken from the Annual Report of the Secretary of Internal Affairs - Railroads, Canals, Telegraphs and Telephones, 1898-99}

_____________________

Jan. 23rd, the last spike on the Cresson and Clearfield Railroad (P.R.R.) was driven at a point between Wildwood and Dawson's Mill, Cambria County.

 


(2)

RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Clearfield, Indiana and Cambria Counties

1887

Nov. 11 - The Bluebaker Coal Co. was chartered with a capital of $500,000. Robert Coleman, the Lebanon millionaire, and Adjutant General Hastings and his law partner J. L. Spangler, both of Bellefonte, have each taken 1550 shares of the stock, and Gilbert A. Beaver, son of Governor Beaver, 490 shares. The coal of the company is to be mined in the northern section of Cambria County, Pa.

1888

Jan. 21 - The coal lands at and in the vicinity at St. Boniface, owned by Governor Beaver, General Hastings and others are to be opened up and a large number of coke ovens built. Ample shipping facilities will be provided by a railroad that will be built through their tract.

Jan. 26 - The Ebensburg and Cresson Branch Railroad was a paying institution last year, the first in several years. In the days when the shipments of lumber were considerable the road did a booming business, when that source of traffic failed it ceased to pay until last year. (This Branch was built by local capital during the Civil War, in the early 60's.)

1889

May 31 - The Johnstown Flood.

Nov. 3 - The two experimental coke ovens being erected by the Vinton Coal Company at Vintondale, Cambria County, are near completion. (SHJ. The P.R.R. did not reach Vintondale until 1894.)

Tom Barnes and others started buying coal lands in the region of Barnesboro.

1890

Jan. 5 - The Pennsylvania Railroad Company have taken initial steps looking to the foreclosure of the mortgage on the Ebensburg & Cresson Branch Railroad.

1891

May 8 - The Ebensburg Branch was sold today at Ebensburg by the sheriff for $60,000 to George Kugar of Philadelphia.

July 23 - Some 500 men and 150 horses grading for new railroad from Kaylor's northward.

Sept. 29 - Work being pushed at both ends of the Carrolltown tunnel.

 


(3)

RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Clearfield, Indiana and Cambria Counties

1892

Apr. 19 - A corps of P.R.R. engineers arrived in Ebensburg to survey a route for the long-talked-of railroad down the Blacklick Creek.

June 15 - The widely advertised sale of lots in the projected town of Spangler on the new railroad took place yesterday. 250 lots were sold at prices ranging from $200 to $250. "The town is expected to go right along with coal and coke works to back it." (SHJ. For first shipment of coal see Dec. 24)

Aug. 5 - The first train through Strittmatter tunnel, near Carrolltown was run yesterday.

Aug. 29 - Now that the track of the Clearfield & Cambria R.R. (P.R.R.) has been laid thru the tunnel at Carrolltown it will reach Spangler this week.

Aug. 29 - Charles McFadden, the railroad contractor and coal operator, is opening, or rather tunnelling the Ferguson Hill (SHJ. Near Twin Rocks) in Blacklick Township, Cambria County, for the development of the coal.

Sept. 2 - The coal and coke works owned and operated by the Cambria Iron Company at Bennington (near Gallitzin) for many years have been leased to J. L. Mitchell, coal operator of Tyrone. There are at present 100 coke ovens in good working order, with a force of about 300 men employed. The lease also includes 95 tenement houses located at Bennington.

Oct. 5 - "The latest evidence of the wonderful development of Northern Cambria County is the demand for 500 miners to operate the new mines." Dullness in the coal business was a serious matter for miners in many parts of the State during the past year.

Oct. 8 - The Pennsylvania Railroad Co. is erecting a station at Kaylor's (now Ebensburg Junction) on the Cambria & Clearfield Branch.

Dec. 5 - Large numbers of men are being added daily to the force in the coal mines on the River, in the vicinity at Carrolltown and Spangler. -Hastings Tribune

Dec. 5 - A Reade Township (Cambria County) correspondent writes: "Blandburg promises to be a second Johnstown in the near future. Hundreds of men are now at work mining coal and taking out fire clay."

Dec. 6 - The Pennsylvania R.R. Co. has opened telegraph offices on the Susquehanna Extension of the Cambria & Clearfield R.R. at Spangler where a passenger, baggage and first-class agency has been established with James A. McLain as agent.

-continued-

 


(4)

RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Clearfield, Indiana and Cambria Counties

1892

Dec. 24 - The long-looked for event of coal shipment from Spangler finally took place of Tuesday and Colonel Campbell at the Cambria Coal Co. carries off the honor of making the first shipment. The greatest demand at Spangler just now is a place to board as every house is full to the roof and men coming in every day.

The town of Patton was laid out in August. (See 1893)

1893

Feb. 11 - At Bradley Junction; where the branch railroad to Hastings and Spangler separates, there is prospect of a boom. Indications are that shops are to be erected at that place.

Feb. 17 - The Club House at Dunlo, the new mining town a short distance out in the mountains from South Fork, was destroyed by fire.

Feb. 23 - Contract was awarded Charles McFadden to build the Ebensburg and Blacklick Railroad (P.R.R.) (SHJ. From Ebensburg down the Blacklick Creek to Vintondale)

Mar. 23 - A vast change is rapidly taking place in that section of the country. The oldest inhabitant does not remember a scene like the present for activity has taken the place of the long inanimate, lifeless condition of things in the old but famous and well-known Village of Beulah (west of Ebensburg). Every old house in this neighborhood, which has not had an occupant for many long years, is now filled with the foreign element, known as Ikes and Huns. The new railroad will cross the Beulah road nearly opposite the ruins of the old jail. There is no finer site for a town along the route than right here in Beulah. There is an abundance of water and coal - all natural advantages and right on the line of the new railroad.

Sept. - The New York Central R.R. was completed from Kerrmoor to Mahaffey, Clearfield County. At the same time the Pennsylvania R.R. completed the line between Patton and Mahaffey and trains were run from Jersey Shore to Patton. "It was only a short time after the opening up of this road that the N.Y.C. received six trains of coal per day."

Dec. 20 - Since the town of Patton was laid out in August, 1892, "the growth of the place has been marvelous." The town has a population at 1,537 and including a radius of two miles has 2,000 inhabitants.

Dec. 23 - The convention of miners of the north of the County (Cambria) which was to have been held on Jan. 1st at Hastings has been postponed until Thursday following. The miners of that section are requested by the committee to send delegates to this convention. (See The Knights of Labor under 1894)

-continued-

 


(5)

RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Clearfield, Indiana and Cambria Counties

1893

SOMERSET COUNTY: J. S. Cunningham, the "Father at Windber," spent nearly all year purchasing coal lands in the Windber section for the Berw1nd-White Coal Mining Co. He discovered that this district was underlaid by the Valuable "B" seam - the Lower Kittanning, also known as the Miller seam of coal. No coal was shipped however, until in 1897 from Eureka #30 at Scalp Level.

1894

It was this year that I, S. H. Jencks, left Virginia for Pennsylvania. I was with the Clinch Valley Coal & Iron Company at Richlands, Tazewell County, Virginia. I was a resident engineer on the Norfolk & Western Railroad until September 1, 1890.

While stationed in Virginia I was in close touch with both the Pocahontas and Clinch Valley coal fields.

Through Mr. George McCall, General Manager at the Clinch Valley Company, I became engineer-in-charge of location and construction of a railroad to be known as the Pittsburgh & Eastern Railroad (New York Central interests).

We started at Mahaffey, Clearfield County, Pa., (New York Central connection) and located a line to West Newton on the Youghiogheny River, Westmoreland County. We paralleled the Pennsylvania R.R. to Glen Campbell, Indiana County; thence to Marion Center; kept north of Borough of Indiana to headwaters of Blacklegs Creek; crossed the Kiskiminetos River at Saltsburg, Indiana County; up the Loyal Hanna Creek to Latrobe; thence to West Newton to connection with the Pittsburgh & Youghinogheny R.R. (N.Y.C.)

There were three railroads going through Mahaffey in those days: The New York Central from Wllliamsport to Patton; The Pennsylvania from Cresson to Glen Campbell; and the Pennsylvania Northwestern (the Bell's Gap) from Bellwood, Blair County, to Punxsutawney, Jefferson County. The above survey was started on October 2nd.

At the time the Urey Mines, a fair sized operation a mile or so north of Glen Campbell, and a couple of small mines at Glen Campbell were shipping over the Pennsylvania R.R.

From Glen Campbell to Saltsburg the Pittsburgh & Eastern location got in touch with no other coal mines.

John Pitcarin, President Of the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., was president of the Pittsburgh & Eastern; and S. H. Hicks of Philadelphia was general manager. Main office in Bullitt Building, Philadelphia.

Blacklick Creek R.R. (P.R.R.) on January 10th was graded about 9 miles from Ebensburg, within 3 miles of Vintondale. {Jan 9 - "Almost 700 men at work". Jan 10. "A large force were put to work on Ebensburg and Blacklick R.R. cut through what is known as the Big Bend in the Blacklick Creek"}

-continued-

 


(6)


RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Clearfield, Indiana and Cambria Counties

1894

On March 30th started laying tracks from Ebensburg and by September 19th at Vintondale and placed coal cars under the tipple of the Vinton Colliery Company. (See under 1903)

May 4 - The contract for the erection of a monument at Cherrytree or Canoe Place at the junction of Cambria, Indiana and Clearfield Counties was awarded to E. F. Carr & Co. of Mass. at $1,390. {May 9 - "The rails of the Blacklick Extension R.R. have been laid for a short distance below Beulah, a distance of over three miles from Ebensburg.}

Peter and Thomas Collins, formerly of Ebensburg, were awarded the contract to build the Laurel Rill Tunnel on the South Pennsylvania Railroad (Jan. 22).

The Knights of Labor of Patton have issued a circular to the miners of Central Pennsylvania appealing for aid in order that the struggle against the operators may be continued (March 16).

1895

Pittsburgh & Eastern Ra1lroad Co.

We broke ground to build the P & E on June 1st. Contractor: Pat McManus of Philadelphia; Superintendent for Contractor: H. S. Kerbaugh, later a big contractor himself; and A. L. Anderson was the "Walking Boss." The same Anderson who later (1911) built the Cambria & Indiana Railroad - "Our Railroad."

This fall Mr. S. H. Hicks, General Manager, had me and my crew go to Germantown, near Barnesboro on the Pennsylvania R.R., to run a survey for a railroad up Moss Creek. This we believe was the first survey for a railroad up this stream. We never built the line but the Pennsylvania did, to Marsteller where the Penna. Coal & Coke Corp. opened a mine.

The P & E was organized January 3, 1895. Directors: S. H. Hicks, E. F. Lukens, G. M. Brown, T. S. Shoemaker, Ralph Nelson and L. V. Biggs, all of Philadelphia.

According to Annual Report of the Secretary of Internal Affairs of Pennsylvania - 1898-99: C. C. Watt had replaced John Pitcarin as president; S. H. Hicks, Vice President and General Manager; L. V. Biggs, Secretary and Treasurer; C. M. Brown, General Counsel.

Assets: Cost of Railroad $538,014.64; cost of Equipment $187,836; Cash and Current Assets $12,664.56; Profit and Loss $19,593.72; a total of $762,109.13

Personnel of Engineering Department: J. C. Patterson, consulting engineer, Philadelphia; S. H. Jencks, engineer-in-charge of construction; Frank Weakland, assistant; James Ake of Hillsdale, Indiana County, right-of-way agent; Mr. Wright, chief draughtsman; and Mr. Shultz, Mr. Hick's clerk, both from Philadelphia; Lynn Morehead, Indiana, and Mr. Shelley, Philadelphia, both levelmen.

-continued-

 


(7)


RAIILROADS AND COAL MINES
Clearfield, Indiana and Cambria Counties

1895

Richie and Barnsley, topographers; R. B. Thorne and Beard, rodmen.

Wright, Shultz and myself were the last to drop out of the picture in 1897.

On January 25th - "Ebensburgers were gratified by seeing the first regular freight train pass over the Blacklick Railroad today. It was a coal train of 20 cars."

Ground was broken at Patton this week for the plant of the Patton Clay Manufacturing Company. The plant to cost $50,000 and employ 100 men (Oct. 18).

1896

The Pittsburgh & Eastern Railroad was in the hands of the operating department this summer. Construction work never got beyond Arcadia, a short distance from Glen Campbell, Indiana County.

Oct. 24 - A new post office will be established at Twin Rocks in Cambria County. Expedit is name selected for the new office.

It was last year (1895) that the Clearfield Bituminous Coal Corp. acquired about 2,000 acres of coal land at Spangler, Cambria Co., Pa. Its West Branch Mine was developed and operated.

S.H.J. was married on Sept. 24th, an event in all men's lives.

1897

Somerset County - Berwind-White Coal Mining Co., Windber District.

Resigned from the Pittsburgh & Eastern on Oct. 1 to take over position of assistant to Heber Denman, Berwind-White chief engineer.

I was recommended by H. S. Kerbaugh (see 1895) later one of the biggest contractors on the Pennsylvania R.R.

Our headquarters were at Scalp Level, where the town of Windber is today were farms and woodlands.

Not until March 3rd was the "Scalp Level R.R. Co." (P.R.R.) granted a charter to build a line to connect Scalp Level with the South Fork Branch R.R. at Lovett. The said Branch had been built to Beaverdale and Dunlo in Cambria County.

On Oct. 1st the tipple for the first mine, Eureka #30 at Scalp Level, was not completed but shipping about 10 cars daily over a temporary tipple.

On April 12th the Company gave a contract to build 20 double houses for the #30 miners - $800 per house. Also a store building.

-continued-

 


(8)

RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Clearfield, Indiana and Cambria Counties

1897

W. T. Geddis, who lived at Mahaffey and did work for the Pittsburgh & Eastern R.R. for fortunate to get above contracts, including tipple and other work about the mines.

On Oct. 22nd contract awarded Keenan & Co., of Johnstown, Pa., to build a reservoir and lay several miles of pipeline for the new town of Windber for $11,000. I was inspector on the job.

The Wilmore Coal Co. is the Berwind-White's realty holding company.

Soon after my arrival at Scalp Level I discovered that Denman, the chief engineer, was planning to resign in the near future to become a coal operator himself, in the far west - ndian Territory, now Oklahoma, my recollection. He was an Englishman but a graduate at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa., my old school.

We had two A-I men on the engineering force, both natives of Scalp Level, good in field or office - Erastus Hoffman and his brother.

1898

Somerset County - Berwind-White Coal Mining Co., Windber District.

A very busy year for all of us - got four new mines in operation: Eurekas Nos. 31, 32, 33 and 34; laying out streets, building lots, sewers and water lines and building no end of company houses for employees.

On Jan. 12th our general office moved from Scalp Level to building nearly completed at Windber.

On March 3rd W. T. Geddes, Building Contractor, and I broke ground for the very first private residences in town.

Jan. 7th was a big day at #30 mine at Scalp Level - all the bigshots in the coal mining business in this part of the State assembled there to see a new type of mine fan, the Capell, go through a test.

All the distinguished guests were later entertained at our office, where certain liquids were on tap, including 'alf an 'alf for a few Britishers, the Capell being an English invention.

Mr. Kimball was the first superintendent in this district but J. S. Cunningham took charge early this year, having closed up most of the deals for coal properties. (see 1901 for Administrative Officers)

David Fleming early this year became Cunningham's assistant, and we will admit he was a live wire.

-continued-

 


(9)


RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Clearfield, Indiana and Cambria Counties

1898

Heber Denman resigned this summer to go West (see 1897) and yours truly appointed in his place.

J. C. Henry Lubkin looked after mine surveys - more of him later.

We got Eugene Delaney, from the hard coal field, to do all the civil engineering.

And later this year John Campbell, also from the East, to work with Lubkin. They did not get along as loving couples do.

WAR with Spain declared April 25th.

The first passenger train over the Scalp Level Branch of the P.R.R.
arrived at Windber from South Fork on June 20th. W. M. Durbin was the conductor and Joe Gates the engineer. Both built homes in town and were good neighbors.

March 25th, The Babcock Lumber Co., main office Pittsburgh, pushing the construction of the Scalp Level Branch R.R. to its mills near Ashtola, and hope to be shipping in May.

Cambria County.

Feb. 19, Nanty-Glo promising to be an important town in the Blacklick coal region.

Barker Brothers of Ebensburg will erect 10 houses at Nanty-Glo as soon as spring opens.

In 1898 all the Clearfield Bituminous Coal Company mines became producers of "captive coal," all the output going for locomotive fuel for the New York Central Railroad Company.

1899

Somerset County - Berwind-White Coal Mining Co., Windber District.

Still getting new mines in operation, three more this year: Nos. 35, 36 and 37, eight all told. And planning two more.

Building lots being sold in Windber like hot cakes.

Amos Claar of Osterburg, Bedford County, started a weekly newspaper in April, "The Windber Era."

During April and May a smallpox epidemic kept us all on edge. Being soon after the Spanish War, the infectious disease was at first thought to be a

"Cuban Itch," brought to the country by returning soldiers. There was nothing in that, we soon discovered. There were a number of deaths in three post houses that the Company built.

I should have stated last year that two men were much in evidence - Dan Thomas, a real Welshman, inside superintendent of all the mines; and John Garrett, holding similar position outside of the mines. They and I became close friends, and evenings we were not together were rare indeed. And Dave Fleming was one also in the coterie, we can assure you on that.

It was this year that James (Jim) Dunsmore became another member of the engineering department, looking after mine surveys. He was related to the Dunsmores at Barnesboro. He was a State College man and turned out to be just the man we wanted. We held Jim in high esteem and wished there were more like him.

Now back to Clearfield County. Reported on November 29th: "The purchase by the New York Central Railroad of the Pittsburgh and Eastern Railroad, extending from Mahaffey to Glen Campbell, has created such interest in Northern Cambria County."

1900

Windber growing like a mushroom; houses, stores, hotels, livery stables (no autos those days) going up in all directions.

And two more mines, Nos. 38 and 39, near Foustwell and Stony Creek, four miles or so from Scalp Level. There was great activity in this line at other places in Somerset County, particularly in region of Jerome and Boswell.

The New York Central making surveys for a line from Dowler Junction on the Pittsburgh & Eastern to Cherrytree.

The Clearfield Bituminous Coal Co. acquired another block of coal of about 5,000 acres in northern Indiana County.

1901

Berwind-White Coal Mining Company - Windber District.

No new mines this year, finishing up Nos. 38 and 39 at Foustwell.

During February eight mines produced 8,000 to 10,000 tons per day. Following were officers of the Berwind-White late this year: Administrative: Edward J. Berwind, President; John E. Berwind, Vice President; H. A. Berwind, Secretary; W. A. Grist, General Manager; Thomas Fisher, Gen'l. Superintendent; above in Philadelphia office. Those in Windber: Jas. S. Cunningham, the "Father of Windber," Superintendent; Dan A. Thomas and John Lochrie, Assistant Mine


-continued-

 


(11)

RAIROADS AND COAL MINES
Clearfield, Indiana and Cambria Counties

1901

Superintendents; John N. Garrett, Asst. Outside Supt.; S. H. Jencks, Chief Mining and Civil Engineer; J. W. Campbell, Asst. Mining Engineer; Eugene Delaney, Asst. Civil Engineer; Herbert E. Stevens, Chief of Electrical Depart.; Clarence E. Watts. Chief Mechanical Engineer.

The Mine Foremans Eureka #30. John Hughes; #31-#32, Chas. E. Davis; #33, Milton Peddicord; #34, John Fyfe; #35. T. D. Forsythe; #36, David Watkins; and #37, John Baker.

During this year David Fleming resigned as Asst. Supt. to accept superintendency of a mine at Eleanora for the Rochester and Pittsburgh Coal Co. C. E. Sharpless was appointed in his place. David Fleming became general manager of the Ebensburg Coal Co., Colver, in 1916. Mr. Cunningham's time was taken up this year going back and forth to the coal fields in the Virginias. Looking up territory.

Windber growing to be a big town, miners encouraged to buy their homes on a monthly basis instead of paying rent.

From the "Windber Era," February 1. "The Coal mined in these regions in steam producing power is believed to be wholly unsurpassed. So much superior to the product of many other regions is it that even the little 'slack' to be found is readily utilized for steam producting purposes instead of being given away or employed as supply for coke ovens. The actual analysis shows: Water & Volitile matter 16.67%, Fixed Carbon 79.40%, Ash 3.42%, and Sulphur 0.51%.

Josiah T. Evans was State Mine Inspector in this district. His home was in Johnstown.

I was in Buffalo, N. Y. attending the Pan American Exposition when President McKinley died there, on Sept. 14th. He was assassinated on Sept. 6th. We got to view his body lying in state in the City Hall. And there we got to see Teddy Roosevelt for the first time.

On July 29th Frank Lowrey, Italian contractor, an early arrival in Windber, got the contract to pave Graham Avenue (the main street of Windber) and a block of 15th Street for $25,000. Frank did a lot of work for the Company, grading streets, laying water and sewer lines, and building foundations for buildings. Above was first paving done in Windber.

Robert Mahaffey, founder of Mahaffey, Clearfield County, Pa., died on Sept. 16th. He was born in Lycoming County May 4th, 1815.

 


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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria, Clearf1eld, Indiana & Somerset Counties, Pa., & Virginia

1902

Berwind-White Coal Mining Co., Windber, Pa., and Tazewell, Va.

Windber having got its stride and no new mines in prospect, on June 11th I was sent South to assist J. S. Cunningham take up coal lands in the Pocahontas coal fields in McDowell County, W. Va., with headquarters at Tazewell, Va. We had considerable prospecting to do on the headwaters of the Tug River, a tributary of the Big Sandy River, which empties into the Ohio at Kenova, west of Huntington, W. Va.

New York Central Railroad, "The River Line," a revision of the Beech Creek Extension of the N.Y.C., was opened on July 1st. The first train leaving Clearfield via this line (following the West Branch of the Susquehanna River) was made up of 75 cars of coal, which at that time was considered a very heavy train.

Grading was begun on the extension from Dowler Junction on the Pittsburgh & Eastern (NYC) - near Burnside - Clearfield County, to Cherrytree, Indiana County. "This road will mean much in the development of the bituminous coal mines of northern Camabr1a and Indiana Counties." At the time the Pennsylvania R.R. also were building a line to Cherrytree from Barnesboro. As both the NYC
and PRR had the same destination, eventually, and as both reached Cherrytree about the same time, they came to an agreement to make the Cherrytree Branch a joint railroad to the coal fields now known as the Clymer-Dixonv1lle-Heilwood field in Indiana County. The NYC broke ground near Burnside on November 14th.

1903

Berwind-White Coal Mining Company, Penna., Va., and W. Va.

Windber Area - April 2, Dunlo is the scene of a strike of coal miners which is expected to have an important bearing on the fate of the new scale which went into effect in the district on April 1. About 800 miners, representing the working forces of the Berwind-White, Logan and Henrietta Coal Companies, are idle, while conferences with the operators are in progress. The employers insist on the day men working 10 hours, while the men insist on working on the new scale of 8 hours, but want more pay than the 22 cents an hour allowed by that agreement.

We down in the Virginia territory were plugging away in the mountains of McDowell County, W. Va., running crop lines of coal seams on the waters of Jacob's Fork and Dry Fork of the Tug River. We had a camp on both forks, old log houses we found abandoned. It took considerable patching to make them habitable, and fumigating to rid them of every variety of insects, fleas, roaches, ants, bedbugs and what have you predominating. Wasps and bees nests and bats and lizards, snakes under the floor, usually copperheads, and at evening tide swarms of gnats and mosquitoes. Our laborers were sons of mountaineers, generally moonshiners or "ridge runners," who, by the way, were all right people provided they were treated properly and they knew what your business was. Woe unto the man suspected of being a revenue officer.

-continued-

 


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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia

1903 -Continued

Berwind-White Coal Mining Company.

On June 1st we were shifted to Fayette County, W. Va., to prospect for coal in the New River or Chesapeake & Ohio field - on the easterly side of the New River. Our Company referred to the Pocahontas as the Norfolk & Western field. My office and post office was at Crickmer, a jumping off place eleven miles from Meadow Creek, a station on the C & O. Crickmer was not even a hamlet, just a few houses in sight. We boarded with the post master, Mr. Harrah. Only in a few places did coal crop to the surface, for that reason we had drilling machines and operators sent down from Pennsylvania. The operators made us good company.

A result of the extensive mining operations in the Windber field, and
which gave the Company and the farmers considerable concern, was the destruction of many streams and flowing springs.

G. (Gus) J. Wasseen opened up a hotel at Foustwell, near the mines Nos. 38 and 39 and his bar was well patronized. The hotel called the Glen Inn. Later he took over the Central Hotel at Hooversville, Somerset County, Oct. 19, 1903. This is the same Wasseen who ran the Metropolitan Hotel at Ebensburg from 1916 to 1920. He was quite a politician in the early days of Windber.

The Pennsylvania Railroad Company - June 29 - The new Gallitzin tunnel nearly completed, only 92 feet of unmoved earth between the headings. The total distance through the mountain 2,612 feet.

July 8 - The grading of the Blacklick Extension of the Ebensburg Branch is practically completed, track soon to be laid. (This is the extension from Vintondale to Blacklick Station on the Indiana Branch. Vinton Colliery Co. at Vintondale started shipping coal in September, 1894){if the work on several bridges is not delayed trains will be running over the new road by Oct 1}

July 13 - There are 1,800 men employed on the new Portage Railroad. On the Duncansville end of the line 6 miles of the road has been graded and at the Gallitzin end two miles. There remains 5 miles.

The Lackawanna Coal & Coke Company at Wehrum. - W. E. Swartzentruver, mine foreman, formerly of South Fork, has resigned (July) to accept a position at New Washington, Clearfield County.

The Greenwich Coal & Coke Company, north of Barnesboro, near Garman's Mill, Cambria County, in August were building 75 houses around the two mines now in operation.{Sept}

The Stineman Coal & Coke Company's new mine was put in operation in October. It's the third of those put in to tap the Stineman coal under the South Fork dam site.

Benedict, near Carrolltown, building many houses, water plant in operation and two new slopes near town under construction. (Sept.)

J. L. Mitchell, former Gallitzin coal operator is now located in Ebensburg. He owned and lived on the Russell Edwards farm on the Carrolltown road. (October)

 


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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Virginia

1904

J. H. Weaver's interests: This year names appear of particular interest to those who had connection with the development and operation of Weaver's coal mines in Indiana County, and later in Cambria County. H. Frank Dorr, mining engineer, a native of Indiana, was a member of an engineer corps employed by Mr. Weaver is the year 1905. What follows, until the year 1909, is information we must credit Mr. Dorr, it's what transpired to his best recollection.

It was early this year that the Cherrytree & Dixonville R.R. (see 1902-03) reached Dixonville, 10 miles from Cherrytree. Coal mines were being opened right and left.

Before venturing into the coal mining business Mr. Weaver was a coal broker with offices at Williamsport and Philadelphia. Before opening up at Heilwood, Indiana County, he bought both the "B" and "D" seams of coal on lands owned by one Hines at Starford, a station on the C. & D. R.R. named after Mr. Weaver's superintendent, a Mr. Starford from Clearfield County. The Hines Coal Co. drove five headings, Hines Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, but all the coal dumped at two tipples.

It was about this time that Mr. Weaver also bought a mine in operation at Kingwood, Preston County, W. Va.

Blacklick Extension of the Pennsylvania R.R., extending from Wehrum to Blacklick (see 1903) has been turned over to the operating department. This road, which extends the division for a distance of 17 miles into a rich coal region, was built under the supervision of D. P. Pugh, the resident engineer. (June 3).

Coal Companies at Spangler. Spangler is now headquarters for the Spangler
Coal & Coke Co., the Madiera Hill Coal Mining Co., the West Branch Colliery Co., the Susquehanna Coal Co., Derringer Brothers Coal Co. and much business of
Peals, Peacock & Kerr Co. and the Pennsylvania Coal & Coke Co. is done here. (May)

The Blacklick & Yellow Creek R.R. was incorporated on June 15th. The Vinton Lumber Company, Clearfield County organization, built the Railroad during 1903
and March this year, 1904, were extending it into the Frances Brothers' tract, near the present town of Colver. The Lumber Company had a large mill at Rexis, near Vintondale, on the P.R.R. On March 21st Clark Edwards of Blacklick Township, Cambria County, got contract to cut 5,000 railroad ties.

Ashville Coal & Coke Company's charter was left for record on Jan. 8th with Recorder Strauss at Ebensburg.

W. H. Piper & Co. having extensive operations at Lilly and Benscreek, have placed an order for 100 freight cars. June 3.

The Stineman companies at South Fork for 700 cars of their own and The Webster Coal Co. about 600 ears, June 3.

Cambria County Commissioners are to substitute electric light for the illuminating gas now used in the Court House. (Jan. 21)

 


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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Virginia

1904 - Continued

Berwind-White Coal Mining Company - All this year we were in Fayette County, West Virginia, prospecting for New River coal. At Tazewell, Va., several times to check up surveys in the Pocahontas region and made four trips to Philadelphia to report our findings and slipped off once to God's country (Rhode Island) to get in touch with the world and dig clams on Narragansett Bay. The Company built up a good house to live in and for an office, but for all that we felt out in touch with everybody and everything. Our drilling for coal and wherever we could drift for same turned out far from satisfactory. We discovered later that geologists had missed their cue is this region - that the high grade New River coal east of the New River diminished in thickness, finally running out.

1905

J. H. Weaver's interests: Late this year H. Frank Dorr started to work under ______ Taylor of Indiana, Pa., who was chief engineer for both the Possom Glory Coal Co. (Mr. Weaver's) and Penn-Mary Coal Co. The companies had adjoining properties and mines in operation at Heilwood, Indiana Co., Pa. Here was Frank Dorr's first experience making surveys under ground. Harry P. Dowler, superintendent for the Penn-Mary people, was an acquaintance of mine in the days we were building the Pittsburgh & Eastern Railroad from Mahaffey to Glen Campbell. We ran through part of his father's land. Harry's home was one of our regular stopping places.

Berwind-White Coal Mining Company again: My last year with Company. Coal not coming up to expectations in the region east of the New River, as stated under 1904, I was called to Thurmond, where a C & O branch railroad ran to mines west of the New River - to Red Star, Oak Hill, Glen Jean, McDonald, Mt. Hope and other coal companies. At Thurmond I met my boss, Jas. S. Cunningham, the "Father of Windber", and Dan Thomas, mine superintendent at Windber, to assist in making inventories and estimates of cost of several properties on which Berwinds had options. It took us a couple of weeks. This was in January. Later the Berwinds took over the Hemlock Hollow Coal Company's plant. It was at the end of a 4-mile branch from Quinnimont, a station on the main line of the C & O. In July our old friend Frank Lowrey of Windber landed at Quinnimont with his band of Italian laborers to grade and make other improvements at Hemlock Hollow. They got through in August, 13th, and I departed also, returning to Tazewell, Va., to give the Pocahontas country another whirl.

After monkeying around McDowell County, W. Va., for about three years it was decided finally to open a mine on Dry Fork at a place we had a camp, now known as Berwind. And we were to build coke ovens. I was some busy man for a month making plans for the mine layout, coke ovens, shacks for miners, a boarding house and what not.

We broke ground late in August and like a flash of lightening in a clear sky, I got word in September from my old boss that he was to be replaced in the N & W field by one Mr. Wolfe, who had been manager of a mine at or

- Continued -

 


(16)

RAILR0ADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Virginia

1905 - Continued

Berwind-White - Continued:

near Glen Jean in the New River country. Well, Wolfe came and brought with him a squirt named Epperly to be his right hand man. After my long association with a man like Cunningham I couldn't stand the change. Wolfe and Epperly made a team to make the angels weep. Got the ovens, mine layouts, buildings under way and on November 1st turned in my resignation to Philadelphia office, and struck for home in Rhode Island for Christmas.

Wolfe did not last long, within a year the Berwinds had to have him replaced and the reins again put is the hands of Cunningham.

1906

J. H. Weaver's interests:

Lynn Moorhead, engineer from Indiana, Pa., was employed to make a complete survey of coal leads and other properties owned by both the Possom Glory and Penn-Mary Coal Companies. (Dorr) Moorhead was levelman during construction of the Pittsburgh & Eastern R.R. during 1894-95. (SHJ)

According to Frank Dorr: "It's my recollection that late this year Mr., Weaver sold all his holdings at Heilwood, Indiana Co., to the Penn-Mary Coal Company."

Thomas C. Beury, Charleston, W. Va., Coal Properties on New River.

Mr. Cunningham of the Berwind-White advised me to return to the work in W. Va. While thinking the matter over in Rhode Island, Thomas C. Beury and his brother Joseph made me a proposition which I accepted - better salary and headquarters in Charleston. Their father left an estate which included several mines on the main line of the Chesapeake & Ohio R.R. in the New River valley.

The plants were situated between the confluence of the Gauley and
New River and Thurmond, as follows: Stone Cliff, Elmo, Caperton, Firecreek, Beury and Sewell. All the mines were badly run down - tipples tottering, fans out of service, tracks on the bum, cave-ins and then some. I was fortunate in getting a very competent mining engineer to be my assistant, a Mr. Heatherman.

We got started in May and kept on the jump all year. The general officers were in the first "sky-scraper" built in Charleston, one room reserved for the engineering department.

At the close of the year everything looked rosy and the "goose hung high," an old saying that all was OK. But was it?

 


(17)

RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Virginia and Maryland

1907

J. H. Weaver's interests: All this year H. Frank Dorr was an engineer for the Penn-Mary Coal Co. at Heilwood, Indiana Co., Pa. Of interest to all of Frank's friends, here he met Mrs. Dorr. She was from Windber and June this year she accepted a position in the Penn-Mary Company's office.

According to Dorr, it was early this year that Mr. Weaver bought out the Dixon Coal Company at Idamar, four miles or so north of Clymer on the Cherrytree and Dixonville Railroad. The first mining engineer in charge was John Hoover, from Burnside, Clearfield County.

(Dorr) late this year, or early next year, J. Edgar Long, a relative of Mr. Weaver, who replaced James Starford as manager of operations in this district, had a leg taken off in an accident at Hines #1 Mine at Starford.
A flimsy trestle near the tipple collapsed while he was pushing a mine car loaded with rock. He was found covered with coal and debris, more dead than alive. He had no one to blame but himself.

Thomas C. Beury, Charleston, W. Va. To make a long story short, I got my fill in February, pulled up stakes and took a train for Pittsburgh. Heatherman and I put in long hours and got nowhere. He was in the mines most of the time and we opened a field office over the Company store at Stone Cliff. We made plans and reports and estimates without number; but the Beury Brothers made no move
to improve conditions at the mines. We had no regular pay day and when broke would have to ask for a hand-out. It finally dawned upon us dumb-heads that they did not have what is required to do business; no capital to go ahead, being land and mine poor. But Tom and Joe knew how to strut and put up a bold front. In January Heatherman landed a good job up the New River. I had to hang around for a month to get money due me.

A Digression - for what it is worth, if any. I was thinking those days that some day I world be singled out as one who had no business around coal mines. I never saw one until my 22nd year, and then in a district where miners did not get the consideration given the mine mules. The poor devils lived in shacks which they had to keep in repair themselves; were paid just enough to keep body and soul together; had to pay extravagant prices for necessities in the company store, or be discharged; spotters worked among the miners to report remarks men might make regarding conditions that oppressed them, and so on and on. And the lord in authority lived in a well appointed residence overlooking all the rude cabins housing the unfortunates. We wondered if there were times, sitting out on their porch sipping high balls and smoking imported cigars, the places of abode of the miners spread before them, if there were times their conscience pricked them.

This was in West Virginia and Pennsylvania had places they could not brag about. The Berwinds when they started Windber, in 1897, were all set to build a town that would attract favorable attention, and they succeeded. Today Windber is an excellent town in which to live, a home town in every sense of the word.

- continued -

 


(18)

RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Virginia and Maryland

1907 - Continued

A Digression - Continued - Bringing this subject to a close the Unions now have the upper hand and breeding racketeers; the men in the pit, the run of the mine, forced to do their bidding or starve. The coal operators find themselves in a complicated situation, between John L. Lewis, who defies the U. S. Government in war time and gets away with it, and the New Deal at Washington. Strikes the order of the day an the poor operator takes his medicine. The operators were primarily to blame, when they had everything their way.

McClintic-Marshall Bridge & Construction Co., Pittsburgh, Penna. I left Charleston, W. Va., on Feb. 8th and the following morning I walked into the Monongahela House, Pittsburgh, Pa., determined I would have nothing more to do with coal mines.

Calling on both McClintic and Marshall, who, by the way, were classmates of mine at Lehigh University, McClintic my room mate, they put me temporarily in the estimating department of their plant at Rankin, near Braddock. Very shortly I was in St. Louis, Mo., making arrangements for a bridge gang who were to build a bridge across a stream south of St. Louis. During July and August I was engineer in charge of erection of a steel building at Vandergrift, Pa., for the United Engineering & Foundary Co.

On September 4th I was at Brookneal, Campbell County, Virginia, about 30 miles south of Lynchburg, on the Lynchburg & Durham Division of the Norfolk & Western. This job, which was partly completed, was erection of a long viaduct over N & W tracks for the Virginian Railway. Before this work was finished, on Nov. 10th, I was called to Cumberland, Maryland, to superintend the erection of a very large steel building for the Cumberland Iron Works. And here I was at the close of the year 1907.

1908

J. H. Weaver's interests: To give my personal experiences a rest for the present, I return to Indiana and Cambria Counties, Pa., to record information obtained from H. Frank Dorr.

Frank resigned is November as an engineer for the Penn-Mary Coal Co., at Heilwood, to enter services of Mr. Weaver at Idamar, Indiana County, where John Hoover was chief engineer (see 1907).

Dr. ______ McHenry was the company doctor at Heilwood. He was a close friend of J. Edgar Long when I appeared on the scene is 1909. (See Edgar Long under 1907)

James Keenan was Mr. Weaver's superintendent of mines at Idamar and Starford. He got to the Colver field in 1910.

Jos. A. Wilkinson, Phila. office, Mr. Weaver's purchasing agent.

_______ Thomas, from Phila., Chief Clerk in Idamar office.

- continued -

 


(19)

RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Maryland, Pittsburgh, and Clearfield, Cambria and Indiana Counties, Pa.

1908 - Continued

McClintic-Marshall Bridge & Construction Co., Pittsburgh Pa.

Now back to the McClintic-Marshall's to relieve my chest and bore a few of my friends. The building for the Cumberland Iron Works was completed by May 1st. Then on an addition to McClintic-Marshall's plant at Rankin and finally on a building for the American Foundry Company at Alleghnay. While I was on this job I was booked for a point in the far West.

This line of work pleased me and I took a deep interest in it - here today and gone tomorrow was my life. Not so for Mrs. Jencks, I was to settle down or else.

Ever since our days with Berwinds at Windber, C. E. Sharpless and I corresponded quite regularly; he advised me to open up an engineering office at Mahaffey, Clearfield County, a center of considerable activity in the coal business; and to throw away the resolution I made in Pittsburgh on Feb. 9, 1907, that I would not have anything more to do with coal mines. Out the window it went.

I resigned and landed at Mahaffey, Mahaffey of Pittsburgh and Eastern Railroad days in the 90's.

S. H. Jencks, Civil and Mining Engineer, Mahaffey, Pa. I got a room over the Mahaffey National Bank and put out my shingle on August 15th. Coal lands were being bought right and left, and mines opened in western Clearfield, southern Jefferson and northern Indiana and Cambria Counties. Right off the bat acquaintances of mine at Windber got me to reopen an abandoned mine at Mahaffey, and I was never paid. Joe and Harry Clark were operating three mines near Glen Campbell, Indiana County. I did considerable work for them but a trial to get coin of the realm from them. In October Dr. Buckingham of Mahaffey and Con Burns of Burnside got me to get a mine in shape to ship coal over the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh Railroad at Richmond (Savan station), Indiana County. Lay out a town, make plans of buildings and what not. The end of the year finds me busy as you please.

W. A. Crist, on May 28th resigned as general manager, after 32 years with the Berwind-White Coal Mining Co. He had a reputation of being a hard task-master. He did not strike me that way, I could ask for no better treatment from anyone.

Retrospection: Thus far, it will be noted by readers, if any, at this summary of events of the days of yore, that the author covered a lot of territory to keep himself occupied. And I did not mention that my very first job was at Barrie, Simcoe County, Ontario, Canada, working for Mr. Henry Creswick, civil engineer.

He was a provincial land surveyor with contract to lay out the region towards Georgian Bay in concessions, 100 acres in each, the lines to be exactly north and south and east and west. My main job was to "shoot the stars" with a theodolite. I stuck it out for a year. My greatest ambition was to sail the seven seas as skipper of a four-master. And to this day I believe it's what I was cut out for. To date I resigned from every position I had save one, and that shut down - the Clinch Valley Coal & Iron Company, Richlands, Va.

1909

S. H. Jencks, Civil and Mining Engineer, Incorporated, Defunct.
Early in February I got through with Buckingham & Burns in Indiana County. These days C. E. Sharpless was assistant to the general manager of the Pennsylvania Coal & Coke Co. with headquarters at Cresson, Pa. They needed an engineer to do some special work at Patton and he recommended me, knowing I was having difficulty collecting money for labor performed.

On February 22nd I left Mahaffey for Patton.

Pennsylvania Coal & Coke Corp. At first I was in the office most of the time on plans and estimates and when weather permitted in the spring started triangulating the Company's holdings in the region; that is, tying up or placing the workings of all their mines on one base line.

Meanwhile Sharpless was induced to resign to become a member of Mr. J. H.Weaver's staff - Mr. Weaver having ventured into Cambria County.

It did not take Sharpless long to prevail on me to give up what I was doing and join the Weaver outfit, which I did on November 9th.

Howard G. Yerger was the chief engineer at Patton and he understood his business, an able man, far above the average mining engineer. He and I got along like two peas in a pod. He was a graduate of State College at Bellefonte, Pa.

And we have fond recollections of Graham and Tony Kline, members on the engineering crew.

J. H. Weaver's interests - Dixon Coal Co., Idamar, Indiana County. Idamar was not a place to make a favorable impression on any one, a sort of jumping off place; but an Eden compared with some points I had to hang out when with the Berwinds in both McDowell and Fayette Counties, West Virginia. However, we could get "good moonshine" in the South.

I was office man until the end of the year, on mine maps of Dixon and Hines (1904) operations and Nanty-Glo No.1 mine at Nanty-Glo, Cambria County. Mr. Weaver and B. Dawson Coleman of Lebanon, Pa., got possession of the Nanty-Glo property this fall - the mine had been worked in a shipshod manner and had to be overhauled from stem to stern, the power house and other buildings on their last legs. Designing new buildings was another duty I had to perform, and on the side planning a proposed railroad. Coal at Nanty-Glo was shipped over the Pennsylvania Railroad. The nearest points to the New York Central were Heilwood or Cherrytree.

Weaver and Coleman started, quietly, without a flourish of trumpets, to option coal lands in the region now known as the Colver field, keeping Mr. Sharpless and his assistant M. D. Kirk on their toes. J. Edgar Long (1907) keeping tab on them and the rest of us so there would be no sleeping at the switch.

For Reference: Ebensburg Coal Co. at Colver broke ground late in 1910; The Heisley Coal Co., at Nanty-Glo in 1915 and Monroe Coal Mining Co. at Revloc in 1916.

-continued-

 


(21)

RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Clearfield, Cambria and Indiana Counties

1909 -Continued

Personnel: Those we came in contact with those days of yore.

J. R. Weaver, proprietor, from Williamsport and Philadelphia.
B. Dawson Coleman, proprietor, from Lebanon and Philadelphia.
J. Edgar Long, general superintendent, from Williamsport. All of us in the field reported to Mr. Long (see 1907).
C. E. Sharpless, chief mining engineer, a master in his line of work. He was with the Berwinds at Windber in our day.
M. D. Kirk, assistant to Mr. Sharpless, started at Nanty-Glo. He was from Clearfield County - Curwensville.
R. Frank Dorr, also Mr. Sharpless' assistant. He was from Indiana Borough. Became a Weaver man in 1908.
Wm. (Bill) Patterson, on engineering corps at Idamar and still employed by the Company (1944). He was in World War I.
Jas. Patterson, Bill's father, was head of a fine family of girls and boys at Idamar.
James Keenan, mine superintendent at Idamar and by end of year was also an advisor at Nanty-Glo on mine operations.
J. E. Wilkinson, Weaver's purchasing agent, Philadelphia office.
Howard Metzger, manager of Company store at Idamar, and later at Colver for the Ebensburg Coal Company.
Earl Long, clerk in store at Idamar and later Mr. Long's private secretary (no relation). A very likeable person.
Lee McTigue, electrician for Dixon Coal Co., Idamar. Now (1944) with Heisley Coal Co. at Nanty-Glo.
John Kline, rock contractor for Dixon Co., now an assistant superintendent at Heisley.
Dick Shaffer, Idamar and Nanty-Glo, took a hand wherever called - in office, mine survey, driver for Mr. Long, etc.
Peter Maloney, check weighman for Union, typical Irishman, was popular with us evenings at Idamar being a good story teller.
Dr. Jas. P. McFarland, Company doctor, Idamar, but transferred to Nanty-Glo soon after my arrival at Idamar in November.
Dr. A. H. Stewart from Indiana took his place. Stewart today (1944) is State Secretary of Health at Harrisburg.
S. H. Jencks, civil and mining engineer, from the North, South and East, entered the picture on November 9th at Idamar.
______ Thomas, from Philadelphia, was chief clerk in mine office at Idamar.
A. J. Corneley, who was with a coal company at Nanty-Glo, was Mr. Weaver's store manager, chief clerk and an overseer.
Robert (Bob) Nelson was employed by Frank Dorr to assist making mine surveys in the Nanty-Glo region.
P. J. Little was Weaver and Coleman's attorney at Ebensburg. "P.J." was regarded the leading counselor in the Burg.
Bert Christian, mine superintendent of Weaver-Coleman mine at Nanty-Glo known as Nanty-Glo No.1.
Teddy Roosevelt's term expired on March 4th as President of the United States. William Howard Taft his successor.

 


(22)


RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1910

Nanty-Glo Mine No. 1 - On Jan. 27th I was called to Nanty-Glo, for the first time, to meet Messrs. Long, Sharpless, Christian, Corneley and Dorr, to reach conclusions in regard to improvements required at No. 1 mine. And matters relating to coal lands being optioned in Blacklick, Cambria and Barr Townships; surveys, drilling operations, etc.

Nanty-Glo Mine No. 2 - Mr. Weaver got hold of a small mine, partly worked out, near Bakerton and named it Nanty-Glo No.2. John Kline (see 1909) was put in charge.

Prospecting, drilling, surveying, plotting, etc., for the location of the "B" or Lower Kittanning seam of coal kept all the coal men on the jump, particularly Long, Sharpless, Dorr, Kirk and Keenan (see 1909). A number of diamond drill machines were on the ground. Where to locate "The" Mine was the question.

Proposed Railroad - I was instructed to keep advised where results of prospecting were most promising, reconnoiter the territory for a probable location of a railroad, extensions, really, of the Vinton Lumber Company's railroad - The Blacklick & Yellow Creek Railroad which was incorporated June 15, 1904. The said Company had cut off all timber worth cutting off and wished to dispose of what remained of their railroad, which was nothing more than a streak of rust on rotten ties. They had one locomotive that had to venture over the track from Rexis, near Vintondale, to a point near Stiles' station on the C & I once a day to hold the charter. Branches the Company had in the direction of Colver had been torn up. Lloyd Davis was the locomotive engineer and caretaker and his brother the fireman.

A. W. Lee and John W. Wrigley of Clearfield were, practically, owners of the road. Their main and large saw-mill was at Rexis.

Blacklick & Yellow Creek Railroad until April 20, 1911, when it became the Cambria & Indiana Railroad. Weaver and Coleman, however, had purchased all interests the B. L. & Y. C. R.R. during 1910.

On April 19th we opened an office in the hotel at Nicktown, and made it the headquarters for preliminary surveys for a railroad.

So not to arouse too much suspicion what we were up to, particularly the Pennsylvania Railroad people, I was to remain in the office and the field work put in the hands of E. W. Hess, mining and civil engineer from Clearfield. We had four corps at one time running lines in all directions west and south of Nicktown, which is in Barr Township. We had the natives understand, or thought we did, that we were running coal crop lines.

Hess' connection with surveys was over in July, after he turned in a voluminous report dated July 8th. These surveys did go beyond Williams' Summit in Indiana County.

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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1910 - Continued

During the summer we were called to the Philadelphia office and New York Central offices in New York a number of times to get matters ironed out to the satisfaction of all parties concerned. Not until September were we directed to proceed with the revision of the location from Rexis to Williams' Summit and from White Mill to Colver, and extend the location from Williams' Summit to Pine Flats (now Manver) a station on the Heilwood Branch of the Cherrytree & Dixonville Railroad, controlled by both the Penna. & the New York Central Railroads.

Andrew V. Little was put in charge of the men in the field and Roy Sharpless was his levelman. A horse and buggy kept me in touch with them, staying nights, when necessary, at the Nicktown hotel or at Bill Sides' at Williams' Summit or Mrs. Turner's at Pine Flats. Early in November we had the location in shape, and well we did, the Pennsylvania R.R. people having a corps in the field to cross the Summit before we did. We won by a hair.

Railroad and Coal Companies Offices opened in May at Ebensburg in the Old Trust Building, Center Street, back of the old Mountain House Hotel. Both burnt to the ground on Feb. 18, 1915.

Personnel: All those listed under 1909, page 21, were busily occupied this year of 1910, and others in addition. As follows:

Andrew V. Little, C. E., P. J. Little's brother. See above.
Roy Sharpless, C. E. Sharpless' son.
Ralph Rodgers, Vintondale; C. A. (Zeke) Port, Wm. (Bill) Smith, "Jew" Lloyd, Ebensburg; and John Miller, Indiana, Little's helpers, E. W. Hess, Clearfield (see above) April to July.
_______Chase, Cameron and Barrett, men Hess brought from Clearfield.
Tom Graham and Anthony (Tony) I got to help Hess. (Tony Kline) 1909.
Lloyd Davis, Blacklick & Yellow Creek R.R. - see page 22.
A. W. Lee and John W. Wrigley, Clearfield. - " " " .
Phillip Geus, ran Nicktown Hotel; Wm. (Bill) Sides, on farm at Williams' Summit; Mrs. Turner at Pine Flats and _____ Altimus on farm near Colver, good places to stop for engineers.
Elmer Davis, Johnstown, appointed agent to secure lands, keeping in touch with Frank Dorr while making surveys.
James Keenan, superintendent at Idamar, was transferred to the Colver area to assist in its development, in December.
John W. Harrison was appointed to replace Keenan at Idamar. In 1916 he became first superintendent for Heisley Coal Co.
_____ Berriman, from Johnstown, an engineer, employed to releave Frank Dorr who had too much work on hand.
John Carlisle, A. J. Corneley's brother-in-law, secured position as chief clerk for Nanty-Glo operations.
John Kline at Bakerton in charge of Nanty-Glo No. 2 (Pages 21-22)
C. E. Sharpless won out before end of year to make plant in region of Colver a drift proposition, not a shaft.
M. D. Kirk was a troublesome assistance for Sharpless, disposed to differ with whatever C.E.S. suggested. And Kirk had J. Edgar Long's ear.
T. E. Dunn arrived on Sept. 14th to become superintendent of the Blacklick & Yellow Creek R.R. He came from Tunnelton, Pres County, W, Va., where Mr. Weaver had a short railroad delivering coal to the Baltimore & Ohio R.R.

 


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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1911

Coal Mining Department: We should have stated under 1910 that late that year it was decided where to open the mine in the region now known as Colver. (Named after Coleman and Weaver) and preparations made to sink a small shaft and also a drift or tunnel for the main heading.

During January, February and March a large boarding house, store, office and small buildings for workmen were built. I had my first meal in the boarding house on March 11th. The shaft was down 20 feet and men at the drift were quite a distance. My recollection, the men driving the drift had 2,000 feet or so to go before reaching coal.

L. F. (Dick) Crouse, now general manager of Weaver's interests in Cambria County, was employed these days by the Penn-Mary Co.

Cambria & Indiana Railroad. The Blacklick & Yellow Creek expired on April 20. Four contractors bid on construction of the new railroad. On Jan. 18th A. L. Anderson & Bros., Altoona, Pa., were awarded the contract. They broke ground on February 1st at White Mill and near Pine Flats in Indiana County on the 7th.

On February 15th Sam Carlson, track foreman for the contractors, and later track supervisor for the Cambria & Indiana, started laying track near White Mill, now Elkdale Junction, in the direction of Colver. Track was laid on the old grade of the B. L. & Y. C. R.R., which was crooked as a ram's horn. In time we took out all the kinks and revised the location considerably.

Now in regard to the resident engineers, we had two residenties - one covered the territory from Rexis to near Stiles station and from Elkdale Junction to Colver. The other from Stiles to Pine Flats (Manver) (Also named after Coleman and Weaver)

L. E. Summers was the resident engineer on the first residency with office in the Village Hotel, Vintondale; and Andrew V. Little on the other, the office and living quarters in a building near Williams Summit, across the road from Williams' (Williams') farm. Summers had been employed by Mr. D'Invilliers of Philadelphia, a noted geologist who Mr. Weaver got to advise our field men in regard to drilling operations.

Construction of the railroad progressed rapidly. By March 25th track was laid above Priesser's Siding, near enough to mine operations to deliver supplies from Rexis in car load lots. And on May 17th we had a siding in place a short distance below the shaft. On August 21st the New York Central made its first shipment to Colver, the cut at Williams Summit being completed. Up to this time all shipments were over the Pennsylvania R.R. to Rexis.

First coal shipped from Colver was about October 1st, from the shaft to the New York Central at Manver. A tram road ran from the shaft to a temporary tipple, the tipple was located a short distance above the site of the present railroad office.

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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1911 - Continued

Meanwhile grading and track laying going on in the direction of the drift mouth for empty and loaded coal cars. The Coal Company had started building a modern steel tipple and a large power house. Early in October passenger trains were running to Rexis and Manver. Connecting at Rexis with the Pennsylvania and at Manver with both the Pennsylvania and New York Central.

Cambria & Indiana Railroad: On April 5th Mr. Delano, head of the Vinton Colliery Co. at Vintondale, and I spent several hours going over his property to determine whether feasible to connect his mines with the Cambria & Indiana. He was having trouble with the Pennsylvania R.R. at the time. Mr. Delano was a brother of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's mother.

T. E. Dunn, superintendent of the C. & I. had his office in his residence at Rexis; A. A. Zane his chief clerk.

Right-of-Way damages started to give us headaches. A lawyer in Indiana County was an agitator for his own pocket, not the farmers. And there another in Ebensburg.

Ebensburg Coal Company, Colver, Pa. On Jan. 14th the Company had its capital increased from $5,000 to $700,000. Either Mr. Coleman or Mr. Weaver or both were on the job every week keeping tab on developments. Houses for workmen and their families were going up rapidly east of the shaft, "the 20 row", and north of the drift mouth, "shanty row."

In September the railroad had progressed to the point not requiring so much attention from the engineers, so Mr. Coleman arranged to have us take over building operations in the area where Colver is now situated. The town to be christened Colver Heights. The early C. & I. timetables had the name Mount Colver, Colver being where the mines and railroad had their plant in the valley.

Contract was let for many Company houses, which we kept close tab on; built a small reservoir for a temporary water supply; ran water lines to said houses; graded streets and did whatever else required to get a town on its feet.

One of the new 5-room houses was turned over to us engineers, not the coal company men, for office and sleeping quarters.

J. Edgar Long, manager, had his establishment across the way in a more pretentious building - he and his staff, on 1st St., we on 2nd Street.

The Coal Company power house was under way and also foundations for the tipple. On December 28th the steel for the new tipple reached Colver, the structure to be equipped with all modern appliances.

We of the railroad gang laid out and broke ground late this year for an up to date hotel and also a company store, both to be stone buildings. A Philadelphia architect designed the hotel.

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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1911 - Continued

Company Officials stationed in Philadelphia Office - Land Title - Land Title Building.

Those who showed up this year:
F. A. Fontyn - now (1944) vice president of the Ebensburg Coal Co., was an accountant. He came to Colver late this year with Mr. Coleman "to look over the tipple under construction."
W. E. Dobson was at Colver in November, C & I auditor, later general auditor and traffic manager for C & I.
James Birch, Mr. Weaver's leading coal man in his office. We found him to be the kind of man we like to meet.
A. A. Zane worked under Mr. Birch to sell coal in the Philadelphia area. Later chief clerk for the Cambria & Indiana.

PERSONNEL:

Cambria & Indiana Railroad Co., Philadelphia and Colver Offices.
B. Dawson Coleman, Philadelphia, President
J. Edgar Long, General Superintendent for Railroad & Mines. Colver.
T. E. Dunn, Superintendent, office at Rexis, P.R.R. Junction.
A. A, Zane, Mr. Dunn's chief clerk. See above.
S. H. Jencks, Chief Engineer, office at Ebensburg and Colver.
A. V. Little, S.H.J.'s asst. at Williams Summit, now Sides. Sides later nicknamed Tipperary {"It's a long ways to Tipperary"} but Alverda the post office.
L. E. Summers, S.H.J.'s asst. office at Vintondale. (see page 24)
W. E. Dobson, Philadelphia Office, General Auditor (see above)
____ Birch, Philadelphia Office, Coal Salesman (see above)
J. E. Wilkinson, Philadelphia Office, Purchasing Agent (see page 21)
Phillip A. Bender, clerk in Mr. Dunn's office. He from Ebensburg.
John Oberleituer, train despatcher, also conductor.
R. G. Rodgers, assisted both Little and Summers on construction.
Ben Mahaffey, Frank Sabbato, and Bowden were on Summers' corps.
John Miller and Bathe from Indiana; Ed Clark, Barney Scanlan, John Harrison, and Phil (P.A.) Bender were on Little's corps.
Dick Shaffer was office clerk for Mr. J. Edgar Long at Colver.
Quince Brickley, from Vetera, was our tie inspector.
Buckie Mentch was the first C & I locomotive engineer.
Joe Preisser, farmer near Preisser Siding, was OK with the C & I.
Mr. Cleave, R.R.R. Superintendent at Cresson, friend of Mr. Coleman.
Mr. Fred Bittorf, ran the Village Hotel at Vintondale.
C & I Locomotive Engineers: W. C. Mentch, T. L. Altimus, Thomas Bennett and Spear Stahl.
C & I Firemen: C. D. Delozier, Ed. Walker, W. Gibson and C. M. Long.
C & I Conductors: M. J. Ragan, Isaac Ricketts.
C & I Brakemen: C. D. Delozier, M. J. Ragan, T. Kelly, Harry Weaver and R. Stiles.
C & I Machinist: J. W. Casey
C & I Hostlers: W. Crookshank and George Barr.
C & I Pumpers: Jos. Benden and Oliver Bennett.
C & I Section Foremen: Paul Mihaly, R. H. Miller, C. H. Allas, J. W. Malley, W. R. Bracken and A. C. Trinkley.

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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1911 - Continued

Nanty-Glo Mines Nos. 1 & 2: J. H. Weaver, President, J. H. Long, Gen'l. Mgr., Bert Christian, Supt. of No. 1, C. E. Sharpless, Chief Engr., H. Frank Dorr, his assistant, Leo McTigue, Electrician, Wm. (Billie) Patterson, Transitman, A. J. Cornelv, Chief Clerk and Company Store Manager, John Kline in charge of Nanty-Glo Mine No. 2 at Bakerton, and Dr. Jas. P. McFarland, Company Doctor.

PERSONNEL:
Ebensburg Coal Company, Colver, Pa.
B. Dawson Coleman, President, Philadelphia.
J. Edgar Long, Gen'l. Manager.
Earl Long (no relation) his secretary.
James Keenan, superintendent, was Super at Idamar, Indiana Co.
C. E. Sharpless, Chief Engineer. M. D. Kirk, his assistant.
Arthur Kinney, Chief Clerk.
Howard Metzger, Store Manager. He was manager at Idamar.
Hess Brothers, building contractors from Indiana County, and Louis J. Lieb from Nicktown and C. D. Doerr were early arrivals on construction of buildings.
Richard (Dick) Evans of Ebensburg was an outside foreman.
Frank Kelly (Italian) a good foreman and made himself popular.
Roy Sharpless who was keeping tab on diamond drilling machines for his father, above, resigned to go with the State Highway Department, at Hollidaysburg and Harrisburg - until 1916.

A. L. Anderson Bros., Altoona, Contractors, built the C & I.
A. L. Anderson (Al for Alfred) John (Uncle John) and Charlie.
Brook Williamson, chief clerk in Altoona office.
D. E.Vandyke, office clerk at Vintondale.
Frank Williamson, Brook's brother, time keeper.
Murphy (Frank) and Apleby, from Altoona, masonry subcontractors.
Gus Johnson, foreman on any kind of work.
John Extrum and Bill Zearfos, gen'l. foremen, "walking Bosses."
Sam Carlson, track foreman, later track supervisor for C & I.
Chas. Enquist, foreman, later section foreman on C & I.
Lloyd Graham, repairman, later with the C & I.
Sam L. Edwards of Ebensburg, timekeeper.
Barney Colson, masonry foreman.
Dr. Comerer, doctor for Vinton Colliery Co., and for Andersons. He brings back pleasant recollections, we were good friends.
Lloyd Davis, late caretaker of the B.L. & Y.C. R.R. (see page 22) was one in our group.
Otto Hoffman, superintendent of the Vinton Colliery Company and
Abram Abrams mine foreman, gave the C & I assistance when needed.
Fred Bittorf, proprietor of the Village Hotel, Vintondale, where engineers had an office and also living quarters,
Mr. Switzer and his good wife ran the Vintondale Inn for the Coal Company, and they knew how to run a good hotel. Here Andersons made headquarters and I stayed several days weekly.

 


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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1912

Cambria & Indiana Railroad Co., Colver and Philadelphia offices.
Anderson Bros. having completed the C & I from Rexis to Colver and to Manver late last fall, they were engaged by both the Railroad and Coal Companies to do various kind of work at or near Colver. They were awarded the contract to build the "Switchback" from Colver to Colver Heights on April 29th, and broke ground on May 13th. During August engines were taking coal, lumber and other supplies up the Switchback, and on August 15th our new Battery Car (for passengers and express) made the ascent. The maximum grade (really uniform) being 5% engines could haul only one car. The grade was near the limit for the battery car, though the makers assured us it could negotiate a 6% grade and "like it."

Anderson Bros. having completed a reservoir about one mile below Colver Station, to supply water to a tank for locomotives; had all his equipment moved away by Sept. 10th.

Nanty-Glo Extension: Late last fall we made the first move in the direction of Nanty-Glo by running a preliminary line. Fearing the Penna. Railroad people might "smell a rat," become suspicious, we made or ran out a hasty location and on March 4th I was called to Philadelphia office to present the map to the Board of Directors of the C & I. The location was adopted forthwith.

It was April 4th that Mr. Coleman, T. E. Dunn, Supt., J. Edgar Long, Mr. Coleman's son, Mr. Johnson of the Philadelphia office and myself tried out the new gasoline or battery car, running all the way to Pine Flats.

By June 1st the C & I had the battery passenger and express car meeting all trains on the Pennsylvania at Rexis and at noon the New York Central at Manver.

The Southern Cambria Railway, - The first trolley car from Johnstown to reach the business section of Ebensburg was on May 20th., when the bridge over the P.R.R. was completed. Cars had been running for some time as far as the P.R.R. crossing. My first ride was on Feb. 18th.

Manor Real Estate & Trust Co. (P.R.R. Co.) Nov. 18 - a coal deal involving the transfer of about 850 acres of mineral and about $150,000 was consumated today through Attorney S. L. Reed of Ebensburg. The acreage lies in Blacklick Township (north of Belsano and west of Colver) and was sold to the Manor people at $125 per acre.

The Blubaker Coal Co. is opening a new mine on Byrne's Run, about one and one-half miles above Barnesboro. They will lease the mine to some company. (Dec. 19th)

The Penna. Coal & Coke Corp. is making preparations to have the two mines at Amsbry, not far from Cresson, operated on a large scale. The Company closed these mines a year or so ago and removed nearly all of the equipment.

Coal Operators in Cambria County are calling for miners. The need of men in the coal business has, perhaps, never been more keenly felt. According to a canvass made today (Nov. 14). Cambria County operators could use at least 2,500 miners.

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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1912 - Continued

Ebensburg Coal Company, Colver and Philadelphia offices:
Hustling and bustling to bring the steel tipple and power house to completion in order to scrap the temporary tipple near the shaft and get hauling coal from the drift.

During April it was decided to build 80 more company houses. April 15th Mr. Coleman had me meet him at his home at Lebanon, Pa., to look over the sewage disposal plant at Mt. Gretna. We were taken there on a gas car over the Cornwall & Lebanon R.R., Mr. Coleman being President of the railroad. Our purpose was to get pointers for a plant at Colver.

It was this month of April that the big company store was completed and stocked for business. And a residence across the street built for Howard Metzger, the store manager.

On May 30th J. Edgar Long and I met the Cambria Township School Board in regard to a school building at Colver.

But the red letter day for Colver was the 27th day of June, when the bar in the new Hotel was opened to the public. The hotel proper was open for business a short time before. Many thirsty souls on the said 27th day passed judgment on the liquors. All agreed, there was not a dissenting vote, that whatever they imbibed in Mr. Zweisele's addition to his hostelry reached the right spot.

Robert Zweisele was manager of the Colver Hotel. He came from Washington, D. C., where he managed high class club houses and was recommended to Mr. Weaver. Mr. Zweisele started out to make the hotel a high-toned house for the entertainment of travelers and others. No members of the common herd dare enter unless appareled in their Sunday's best. In time (and it took time) he discovered that to run an exclusive joint in Washington patronized mostly by those who had fingers in the public trough was all right there but not at Colver, where men worked to keep the country on an even keel. Mr. Zweisele, really, was out of place but eventually made friends and we liked him.

Our good friend, Howard Metzger, store manager, resigned his post on October 1st to return to Mr. Weaver's store at Idamar. His place at Colver was taken by H. R. (Peck) Griest who had managed a store at Barnesboro.

During October the following structures were under way at Colver: Catholic Church, School House and Movie Building. The Colver Amusement Co. applied for a charter early in December. Labor Organizers and Agitators were beginning to give trouble, and for that reason the Company gave up thoughts of selling lots in the town of Colver, as was done at Windber.

Manor Real Estate & Trust Co. were active these days buying up coal lands dropped by Coleman and Weaver, options having expired. These were lands between Belsano and Nicktown.

The Year 1912 will, very probably, go down in history as the year that saw the greatest activity in the Colver area, everyone on their toes, busy as a hen with one chicken, on the quivive - no one eating the bread of idleness. And the future looked rosy indeed.

RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1912 - Continued

PERSONNEL:

Cambria & Indiana Railroad Co., Colver, Pa. Heads of departments remain as during 1911, see page 26.

A. V. Little, ass't. eng'r., resigned on Jan. 15th, having completed his work on the C & I. The Southern Cambria Railroad Co. (trolley, Johnstown to Ebensburg) gave him employment.
L. E. Summers, asst. eng'r., resigned Oct. 6, 1911, to accept a position with the Philadelphia Traction Co. He is still with them (1944) holding down a responsible job with credit.
Sam Carlson left Anderson Bros., Contractors, to become track supervisor for the C & I. He held the position from Feb. 1, 1912 until January 1, 1939. He is now residing at Indiana.
Ralph G. Rodgers, resigned June 15th to take a job in Pittsburgh.
A. A. Zane, agent and clerk, returned to Philadelphia in Feb.

A large force on the C & I this year, made up as follows:
Locomotive Engineers: W. C. Mentch; D. Langdon and E. J. Roche.
Firemen: T. Bennett; W. Gibson; R. Crookshank; E. H. Roche; John Myers; Tom Altimus; S. Kephart and J. R. Hancock.
Conductors: Isaac Ricketts; M. J. Ragan; M. J. McDonough; H. C. Kelly; C. D. Delozier; J. M. Nagle and also motorman Harry W. Goss.
Brakemen: H. C. Kelly; M. J. Ragan; Harry Weaver; John Oberleitner; Dennis Nagle; J. M. Nagle; C. C. Delozier; Michael Waylo; A. R. Graham; Frank Cuppels; S. Kephart; John Meyers; P. Carry; Tom Altimus; J. B. Spicker and M. L. Hoch.
Section Foremen: A. C. Trinkley; J. W. Malloy; R. H. Miller; Victor Rebird; C. H. Ahles; Frank Leamer; Martin Berwitch; F. Johnson.
Machinists: Fay Langdon; J. A. Shollenberger; J.W. Baynon; J. P. Koch.
Motormen: Frank Morrow and Harry W. Goss.
Weighmasters: E. H. Scanlon; John Luther.
Hostlers: R. Crookshank; Tom Bennett; Clay Long; Oliver Bennett; M. Mikesell; J. Hancock and A. Westover.
Agents and Clerks: A. A. Zane (see above) J. J. Dunn; John Hopkins; P. A. Bender; E. H. Scanlon; B. S. Barber and Lewis Lieb.

Ebensburg Coal Company, Colver, Pa. Heads of departments remain as during 1911, see page 27.
M. D. Kirk, now chief mining engineer. See page 27.
Don Mahaffey from Mahaffey, Pa., his (Kirk's) assistant.
S. H. Jencks of the Cambria & Indiana R.R. Co., in charge of erection of Company houses, also hotel and amusement building; water works, sewage disposal, etc.
Dr. A. W. Beatty, Company Doctor, 1911 to 1928 (died)
Robert Zweisele, Hotel Manager, see page 29.
Howard Metzger, Store Manager, see page 29. Left Oct. 1
H. R. Griest, Store Manager. Replaced Mr. Metzger.
C. E. Sharpless holds his own as consulting mining engineer.

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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1912 - Continued

Ebensburg Coal Company, the following were employed late in the year 1911:
Samuel H. Jack, general assistant to the management.
Norman Sunderlin, clerk in the coal office.
Albert McCoy, assistant mine foreman, James Keenan, Superintendent.
Jack Johnson, shop foreman. Thomas Cats, tipple foreman.
Wm. (Billy) Bennett was in the Company Store at Idamar.
Lloyd Graham, on general repairs. Was with A. L. Anderson Bros.
Robert Lupe, life saver, beer and whiskey distributer.

1913

Cambria & Indiana Railroad Co. Colver and Philadelphia officers. On Jan. 13th Mr. F. D. Clark, New York Central man from Corning, N. Y., replaces Mr. T. E. Dunn as superintendent of the Railroad. And J. Edgar Long no longer in position of authority.

April 25 - Making plans for a handsome dwelling to house Mr. Clark, and also one for the Ebensburg Coal Co's. Gen'l. Manager.

In June Messrs. Coleman and Weaver got word that the Pennsylvania Railroad people were getting to suspect the C & I - that we were preparing, or had in mind running an extension to Nanty-Glo, where the P.R.R. had everything their own way.

We had a preliminary line across country (see page 28) to learn whether a location was feasible. We were ordered to assemble all the engineers possible and get a location on the ground at the earliest possible moment - the location to run to Nanty-Glo via Cardiff, thence on up Blacklick Creek to Beulah and beyond; and a spur to Twin Rocks.

M. D. Kirk, chief engineer for the Ebensburg Coal Co., turned over his crew to help us out; H. Frank Dorr of the Nanty-Glo Coal Co. did the same thing; and we got A. V. Little, late of the C & I, to get leave of absence from the Southern Cambria Railway Co. (trolley) to supervise the field work.

As soon as the location crossed the summit at Belsano I was rushed to the Philadelphia office to have the Directors approve plans and profiles that far; then again when we reached Cardiff, and again when we got to Nanty-Glo and so on. During September we passed Beulah to a point not far from the present location of the tipple at Revloc. We also had lines run from Rexis up the Blacklick Creek to Twin Rocks and Cardiff, but found locations not feasible.

On December 1st we moved our engineering office from the room upstairs in the Movie or Amusement building at Colver back to the Old Trust Building in Ebensburg, in the rooms we occupied from May 18, 1910 to Jan. 1, 1912.

Daniel L. Rodgers, my right-hand man for many years, made his first start working on the C & I on the day after election in November. He was with A. V. Little revising location of the proposed Nanty-Glo extension. He remained until spring, 1914. This fall F. D. Clark was living in the house that was built for him.

 


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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1913 - Continued

During construction he was hard to please, driving the contractor into a frenzied state of mind by demanding so many things not called for in the contract.

Peoples Natural Gas Co. - Jan. 14, Drilling operations were transferred from near Chest Springs to near Colver, where a well is being put down on the Albert Oakes farm and another on the John Griffith farm. Several thousand acres have been optioned in Cambria and Indiana Counties.

Berwind-White Coal Mining Co. Oct. 24, W. R. Calverley, General Manager at Windber, tendered his resignation.

The modern shaft at St. Michael, which has taken over two years to complete, is about ready for use. It is believed the coal output will in good time be quadrupled. (S.H.J. - The Maryland Coal Co. operated this mine a number of years before taken over by Berwind-White)

Ebensburg Coal Company, Colver, Pa.
Mr. T. R. Johns became General Manager of the Company, replacing Mr. J. Edgar Long. This took place on March 1st. Later, 1915, Mr. Johns was head of the Bethlehem Coal Corporation (Bethlehem Steel).

First show in the Amusement Building on January 13th.

During February making surveys for a reservoir at Vetera. The present water being far from sufficient for the town and mines.

Our engineering supply office moved from the house on Second Street to a room on the second floor of the Amusement Building (Feb. 25). The mine engineering office was inthe Coal Company's office building near the drift mouth.

On May 19th A. L. Anderson Bros. got the contract to lay a water line from Colver to Vetera. During July they built a temporary dam and pump house at Vetera. By September they got started building the present dam but could not push the work, inspectors from the Department of Waters at Harrisburg holding up the job. We could make no move unless they were present, and they came around whenever it suited their convenience. And what misfits some of them were - pets of politicians. Result: dam not completed when the year closed and winter got busy.

Nov. 6th. "The Church contractor was in Colver today."

Dec. 1st we moved our office from said room in the Movie building back to rooms in the Old Trust Building in Ebensburg which we vacated Jan. 1, 1912. Railroad work demanding more of our time than work at Colver.

Mr. J. Edgar Long, who returned to the Philadelphia office, would drop around occasionally to see how things were moving. Personally, I had a warm feeling for Edgar. He always treated me properly and so we were friends.

Additions to Personnel this Year

T. R. Johns, General Manager (see above).
L. F. Crouse, came in November from the Penn-Mary Coal Company at Heilwood, Pa., as general overseer. He went to Revloc in 1922 and later became general manager of Monroe Coal Mining Co.

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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1913 - Continued

Additions to Personnel this Year

Dr. G. R, Lyons, Mr. Johns' son-in-law, became Dr. Beatty's assistant in the Colver field.
M. D. Kirk, holds his position as chief mining engineer, Colver.
S. H. Jencks returns to office in Ebensburg on December 1st.
L. H. Rowe, New York attorney, much in evidence this year taking up coal lands in the region of Beulah. Reported in May he had options on 1,700 acres. A mine at or near the present site of Revloc was in the offing these days. (Sharpless)
A. I. Stephens of Vetera was employed on October 24th to run the pumps at Colver Vetera furnishing water to Colver. He is still holding the same position (1944).
Following were on the payroll is November, Colver:
Frank Smith, Chief Clerk; Norman P. Sunderlin, Clerk; L. F. Crouse, Clerk; Don G. Mahaffey, transitman; R. E. Abrams, mine foreman; W. P. Roberts, assistant mine foreman, and Dawson Coleman, weighmaster.

Nanty-Glo Coal Company, Nanty-Glo, Cambria County, Penna.
C. E. Sharpless, Weaver and Coleman's consulting engineer, and his assistant H. Frank Dorr were busy prospecting and drilling over the territory south of Nanty-Glo to for the "B" seam of coal; to be prepared when word came to open another up to date mine like the one at Colver.

Personnel

There were very few changes at Nanty-Glo, about the same as during the years 1911-12. (see page 26) After the departure of J. Edgar Long, Mr. C. E. Sharpless was virtually manager.

John Carlisle was now chief clerk, brother-in-law of Mr. A. J. Cornely (see page 23).

Personnel: (see page 30)
Cambria & Indiana Railroad Co. We find on the payroll this year:
Locomotive Engineers: W. C. Mentch; E. J. Roche and Tom E. Altimus.
Firemen: S. Kephart; J. R, Hancock and W. W. Childs.
Conductors: M. J. Ragan; C. D. Delozier; Harry Goss and M. L. Hock.
Brakemen: G. D. Delozier; M. L, Hock; Tom L. Altimus; J. B. Spicker; B. M. Moody; F. Rosettie; G. Berringer; J. M. Nagle; W. W. Childs; E. J. Farabaugh; B. S. Holmes and A. W. Cramer.
Master Mechanic: J. B. Koch.
Hostlers: A. Westover; D. G. Redden; 0. F. Fox; G. D. Berringer; B. F. Duncan; Wm. Starr; Smoth Chapman and Wm. Carey
Weighmaster: John Luther.
Meterman: (Gas Car) George Tarence and H. W. Goss.
Section Foremen: Victor Rebird; C. H. Ahles; Frank Leamer; Frank Johnson; A. C. Trinkley; John Sturgeon; G. 0. Crawford; Jacob Keljan; Martin Huline.
Agents and Clerks: J. J. Dunn (all year) agent; P. A. Bender, Clerk (left in April); Louis Lieb, clerk (in Jan.); W. W. Rood, clerk and assistant agent (until 1919); R. M. Shaffer (came in March); and W. D. Van Patton (July and August).
W. W. Childs became Locomotive Engineer April 30. Retired August 1, 1937.

 


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RAILR0ADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1914

Cambria & Indiana Railroad Company, Colver and Phiadelphia office.

During September A. L. Anderson Bros., contractors, Altoona, Pa., did considerable grading for additional tracks at Manver yard for both the New York Central and the Cambria & Indiana.

With this exception there was no new work going on; that is, in the line of construction.

Mining coal and transporting it to the New York Central connection at Manver was the order of the day. We engineers kept ourselves occupied making detail plans of buildings of all descriptions to be or not to be erected; and also revising revisions of the Nanty-Glo Extension - surveying and mapping and what not, to be in readiness when word came from Philadelphia office to start the works.

During the summer we got A. V. Little and Dan L. Rodgers to assist us on the proposed Nanty-Glo Extension. This spring and early summer they were on the location and construction of the Southern Cambria Railway (trolley) spur from Woodland Junction (on the main line) to Nanty-Glo.

In September Rodgers started to work for the Vinton Colliery Co. at Vintondale. He worked there until March 1, 1916, when he returned to the C & I for good.

World War started in Europe On July 28th - Austria declaring war on Serbia.

Southern Cambria Railway got to running cars to Nanty-Glo about Thanksgiving Day.
Loyalhanna Coal & Coke Co. on June 18th were installing a plant at Cairnbrook,
Somerset County. S. E. Dickey & Co., Johnstown, were engineers in charge.

Distinguished Visitors over the C & I on a "Special" several times:
Alfred Holland Smith, President of the New York Central, a friend of Mr. Weaver and "interested" in the C & I.
George W. Kitteredge, Chief Engineer Of the New York Central from April 9, 1906 until January 1, 1926.
F. E. Herriman, President of the Clearfield Bituminous Coal Corporation (N.Y.C.) Later an officer of the Cambria & Indiana.

Personnel on the C & I: Only a few changes among those on Page 33.
Engineers: Same - note W. W. Childs.
Firemen: Same - plus Amos Westover.
Conductors: Same - minus H. W. Goss.
Brakemen: Boiled down considerably - most in evidence were, Milroy Holmes, A. W. Cramer, B. S. Holmes and D. O. Williams.
Master Mechanic: J. B. Koch; J. E. Hart & F. P. Hendy, assistants.
Hostlers: W. H. Jefferson, J. P. McKean and Wm. Starr.
Weighmaster: John C. Luther
Motorman: Harry W. Goss.
Section Foremen: Boiled down to Andy Rebird; Martin Huline; A. C. Trinkley; Geo O. Crawford and Jacob Koljan.
Agents and Clerks: J. J. Dunn. Agent; W. D. Van Patton, assistant agent; R. M. Shaffer, assistant agent; W. W. Rood, clerk; H. C. Kelly, attendant.

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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1914 - Continued

Ebensburg Coal Company: My 1914 Diary was lost in the fire that destroyed the Old Trust Building, Ebensburg, on Feb. 18, 1915. This spring the Vetera dam completed and pumps delivering all the water required at Colver. James Keenan, it should have been stated earlier that Keenan, who was superintendent under J. Edgar Long, resigned before Mr. T. R. Johns became general manager to accept
a position at St. Michaels for the Berwind-White Co.

Personnel in addition to those mentioned previously: William Shirer (Dutch Bill) tipple repairman; Rev. D. M. Lyle, minister of Presbyterian Church, and Father I. S. Herkle, priest of the Catholic Church, Colver. Arthur Kinney still chief clerk. M. D. Kirk, chief mining engineer, and Don Mahaffey, transit, quit this year.

1915

Cambria and Indiana Railroad Company: On February 18th all our maps and records were destroyed by fire. The Old Trust Building, Ebensburg, Pa., where we had our office, caught fire about 4 a.m. and burnt to the ground. It was not until March 12th that we succeeded renting a room in the Hasson Building on High Street. It took A. V. Little and me several months to reproduce certain drawings and to copy or trace plans we found on file at Colver, Nanty-Glo, Philadelphia, New York Central offices in New York, Cambria and Indiana Counties Court Houses and in the State House at Harrisburg.

Fortunately for us the construction of the Nanty-Glo Extension was kept in abeyance or suspension all this year.

A. V. Little and I, in addition to the work noted above, were called upon to prepare "Valuation Maps" for the Interstate Commerce Commission at Washington. No idling for Andy and I. And during April we laid out a mine and tipple for the Estep Brothers at Sides (Williams Summit). And later mine surveys and laying out a town for Louis Rowe and W. A. Marshall of the Lincoln Coal Company. The town to be named Romar.

August 26-27-28, F. D. Clark, W. E. Dobson and yours truly met at Williamsport. We journeyed to Jersey Shore and Avis on the New York Central and then across country to the Pennsylvania yards near Altoona and Juniata. The purpose of the jaunt was to get pointers in regard to handling of empty and loaded cars, and regarding railroad scales and what have you.

On October 6th Mr. Weaver requested that I be at Colver Hotel by 6 p.m. and have with me maps and plans and profiles of the proposed Nanty-Glo extension. There besides Mr. Weaver were A. H. Smith, president of the New York Central; Harold S. Vanderbilt, a Director; and other officials of the NYC. All appeared satisfied with the Nanty-Glo layout. When I left for home I felt that work would be started in the very near future. We did not break ground, however, until March 7, 1916. In July a siding was in place for the second mine opened on the C & I, at Sides Station for Estep Brothers Coal Mining Co. Later they sold out to the Penna. Coal & Coke Corp., mine #55.

Mrs. B. Dawson Coleman died. She was buried on October 2nd, and work suspended on the C & I.

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(36)

RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1915 - Continued

Some who were in the limelight during 1915:
A. H. Smith, President Of the New York Central. See page 35.
Harold S. Vanderbilt, Director, " " " "
F. D. Clark, Superintendent of the C & I " " "
W. E. Dobson, Gen'l. Auditor & Traffic Manager " " "
A. V. Little, again on the C & I to help us out " " "
Louis Rowe & W. A. Marshal of Lincoln Coal Co. " " "
J. W. Askew became freight agent at Colver. He got leave of absence 1917-2 and retired in 1941. He was a P.R.R. telegrapher.
B. Dawson Coleman was to see us only four times this year. His wife was in such a critical condition.
J. H. Weaver kept close tab however; in the field every week.

Ebensburg Coal Company:
Mr. E. F. Saxman, a stock holder in the Company, a friend of Mr. Weaver's, and also a coal operator, having mines of his own, came to Colver in April to take a hand in its management. Principally in connection with the labor situation which was being disturbed by agents, agitators, sent into the field by officers of the union. On October 20th Mr. Saxman routed a car load of these persons from the Colver Hotel, giving two of them "pokes in the jaw" to show he meant business. Mr. Saxon got me and two others in his car and we trailed them to the Metropolitan Hotel at Ebensburg. This was the real beginning of trouble with the miners' union. Mr. Saxman gave me instructions to keep an eye on these disturbers of the peace and keep him advised by phone. I played detective for a month or so, keeping tab on their movements.

Meanwhile, Mr. T. R. Johns, general manager, since March, 1913, feeling he was playing second fiddle to Mr. Saxman, resigned in June to accept a position with the Bethlehem Coal Corporation (Bethlehem Steel). Mr. Johns was very popular with the rank and file at Colver.

On December 22nd it was found necessary to issue an injunction to keep the agitators from kicking up hell at Nanty-Glo.

During October Mr. Coleman instructed Mr. C. E. Sharpless and myself to do some reconnoitering at Nanty-Glo in regard to the location of a new mine "somewhere across from Nanty-Glo Mine No.1."

Earl Long, the first postmaster at Colver, since 1911, retired and was succeeded this year by Louis J. Lieb. The latter held the office until 1921.

W. H. Troxell became manager of the Company Store in May, replacing H. R. (Peck) Griest who was appointed in 1912. Later Mr. Troxell had jurisdiction over three stores - Colver, Revloc and Nanty-Glo. He retired on July 15, 1931.

Estep Brothers Coal Mining Co. (Tom, Harry and George) opened the second mine on the C & I, at Sides, Indiana County. See under C & I, page 35. Earlier they operated at Nanty-Glo (Ivory Mine).

In addition to those mentioned above, namely, Messrs. B. Dawson Coleman; J. H. Weaver; E. F. Saxman; T. R. Johns; C. E. Sharpless; Earle Long; Louis J. Lieb; W. H. Troxell; H. R. Griest; and Estep Brothers; we were in contact with L. F. (Dick) Crouse, busiest man on the job, here and everywhere until 1922 when he left Colver for Revloc.

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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1915 -Continued

Roy Whitman, chief mining engineer, who, to the best f my recollection, replaced M. D. Kirk when T. R. Johns became general manager in 1913.
Lloyd E. Graham, general repairman, on C. & I construction in 1911 and from 1919 until the present time again with C. & I.
Paul Lingle, Supply Clerk, and Irvin Myers, Tipple Foreman.

1916

Cambria and Indiana Railroad Company: At last, on February 21st A. L. Anderson Bros. bid to build the Nanty-Glo Extension was accepted. We opened an office at Nanty-Glo for the field engineers, our main office being at Ebensburg. On February 26th we placed the switch at Ragan Junction; and on March 7th the contractors broke ground near said junction, hand work. The first steam shovel was started near Cardiff on March 28th. The second shovel on April 12th near Nanty-Glo; the third on May 8th and the fourth shovel on September 28th.

Track was laid to crossing of Little Elk Creek on April 15th, where we were held up until the completion of the bridge.

Steel men completed erection of bridges in the following order: Little Elk Creek on Nov. 8th; Benj. Franklin Highway on Nov. 11th; Viaduct over the Pennsylvania Railroad at Cardiff Dec. 15th; span over the Cardiff-Twin Rocks road on Nov. 29th; permanent crossing of the Nanty-Glo to Cardiff road, near Lincoln Mines, and the one over Lincoln mine tracks were not completed until April, 1917. However, we had our track laid to Nanty-Glo, where we were to bridge the Pennsylvania R.R., early in November. The said bridge was being erected.

Departments at Harrisburg retarded our work considerably, demanding plans and information in regard to crossings of streams and highways. And Attorney P. J. Little and I were called to Harrisburg five times to satisfy the Departments of Highways, Waters and Public Service that we were following their decrees.

In 1911 when we built the line to Manver there was no intervention from the heads at Harrisburg.

And then again owners of certain properties kept us from trespassing their lands until they got their pound of flesh for right-of-ways. Louis Rowe (see page 35) was engaged by the C & I to acquire rights. We on the side lines had him sized up as one who did not save the Company any money.

On April 25th we moved our engineering office from the Hasson Building (see page 35) to the newly completed New Trust Building.

Our bridges were made and placed in position by the Bethlehem Steel Company, from their Bethlehem plant.

On Sept. 21st we started a preliminary survey from Nanty-Glo to tracks of the Cambria Steel Company near Hinckston Run Dam, in order to tie up with the plant at Johnstown. We worked on this line off and on, whenever we had time to spare.

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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1916 - Continued

On Nov. 20th steam shovel started grading for a coal siding for E. C. Brown's mine at Sides, across the C & I track from the Estep Brothers' mine (see page 36).

Other matters that retarded rapid construction of the extension from Ragan Junction to Nanty-Glo were the slow delivery of rails and ballast, labor shortage and holdups on right-of-way.

Dan L. Rodgers left the Vinton Colliery Co. (see page 34) on March 1st to again join up with C & I, and this time for good. He and A. V. Little looked after the building of the Nanty-Glo Extension and whatever else that came up requiring attention. See under 1936 when I retired and 1939 when he became maintenance engineer and track supervisor.

Cambria and Indiana Railroad Co. other names for record follow:
E. C. Brown who opened a mine at Sides (page 37) The Glenside Coal Co., was an acquaintance of mine at Patton. (He was Real Estate Agent for the Penna. Coal & Coke Corp.)
Sam L. Edwards, now one of the firm of Edwards Hardware Company, Ebensburg, was timekeeper for A. L. Anderson Bros. in 1911 and again this year on the Nanty-Glo Extension. He left the Andersons in February, 1918, to enter the army in World War I.
D. E. Vandyke, Andersons field clerk in 1911 again on the job.
Dick Holmes, a good foreman for Anderson, also again on the job.
Charlie E. Evans, master carpenter, employed this year by C & I. (see under 1920 and 1937)
James Walker, Superintendent of the Cardiff Coal Co. (now the Imperial-Cardiff Coal Co., 1922) aided us whenever possible when grading through their property.
Ed. M. Burns owned a small hotel near Cardiff. When tired and heavy laden we patronized his bar.
Peach's Hotel, Twin Rocks, was the place to stop for a good meal. We arranged our work so we would be in the region at noon.
John Messersmith, Locomotive Engineer, came in March; retired On Aug. 29, 1938.
J. C. Johnson, from Rutherford College, N. C., fireman Dec. 1st and Loco. Eng'r. August 15, 1918.
Verona Hicks Morris, from Gilkey, N. C., brakeman in October and conductor when he retired in June 1937.
Ed Clark from Indiana County on engineering corps May 1st.

Southern Cambria Trolley Line - On August 12th a car got out of control on a heavy grade near Brookdale, killing 21 persons. I was at Nanty-Glo at the time waiting for a car to Ebensburg.

Vinton Colliery Co., at Vintondale; Big Bend Coal Co. and Commercial Coal Mining Company at Twin Rocks were shipping more coal over the Pennsylvania R.R. than any other mines between Cresson and Homer City when we were building the Nanty-Glo Extension.

Heisley Coal Company. On Sept. 1st John W. Harrison was appointed the first superintendent of the Company at Nanty-Glo. He held the office 12 years, until 1928. Mr. Harrison was at Idamar. (1910)

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(39)

RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1916 - Continued

William Harrison, mine foreman at Heisley.

Glenside Coal Co. (see page 38) started shipping coal late this year. Mr. Brown later sold out to the Penn-Mary Coal Corp., mine #9; and still later it was taken over by the Bethlehem Steel Co.

Monroe Coal Mining Co., Revloc, Pa. F. J. Foye, contractor from Brownsville, Pa., late this year started sinking a shaft 360 ft. deep. They did not reach coal until September 1917. It was on August 22nd that Messrs. Coleman, David Fleming, C. E. Sharpless and myself were over the ground at Revloc to look over site for the shaft and also where the town should grow. On May 28th, a Sunday, the same party reconnoitered the Heisley property. On Sept. 15th we fixed location of a siding in connection with the shaft.

Ebensburg Coal Company, Under March 17th in my 1916 diary is the following:
David Fleming - "I called on David Fleming at Colver, the same Dave we knew so well in the good old Windber days. He is now the general manager of the Ebensburg Coal Co., replacing Mr. Saxman.
Russell Fleming, his brother, now master mechanic at Colver.
Roy V. Whitman still chief mining engineer.
Pearson "Spud" Lewis should have been mentioned earlier as transitman.
Mine Engineering for Heisley and Monroe Coal Companies and elsewhere, not including Ebensburg Coal Company at Revloc.
C. E. Sharpless in charge and his headquarters in the New Trust Building at Ebensburg; adjoining S. H. Jencks' office.
Roy Sharpless, his son, in July returns, after about 5 years with the State Highway Department, to be one of his father's assistants. Today (1944) he is an engineer for the Monroe Coal Mining Company.

1917

Cambria & Indiana Railroad Co. - Nanty-Glo Extension to Revloc.
During February and March the Contractor had 5 steam shovels going between Cardiff and Revloc, Lincoln-Springfield and Heisley Coal Companies branches; and on May 30th still another shovel at Grisemore, Indiana County, grading for sidings for the Penn-Mary Coal Co. On Sept. 21st a steam shovel reached a point beyond the upper shaft at Revloc, having already graded past the lower shaft.

Track was laid to Heisley Coal Co's. temporary tipple at Nanty-Glo on March 10th, and on the 12th ten (10) C & I coal cars were placed for loading. By March 20th 20 cars were shipped to Manver over the C & I.

By October 2nd tracks were laid to both shafts at Revloc.
On November 23rd a spur to the Webster-Loraine Mine was completed -it was an extension of Heisley's tail tracks.
The shafts at Revloc did not reach coal until September, no coal was shipped this year.
April 6th United States declares War against Germany.
Labor shortage somewhat relieved on March 3rd. Seventy Mexicans arrived in Nanty-Glo to work on the Extension. From my diary: "they were a hard looking bunch." Houses being so scarce, shanties were provided for them.

1917 - Continued

James Dunn, real estate agent at Nanty-Glo, said he had 100 applications for houses.

In addition to pushing the railroad work we kept up surveys for the proposed extension from Nanty-Glo to the Steel Plant at Johnstown. We had a location on the ground by April 1st. On July 26th Mr. A. H. Smith, president of the New York Central, Messrs. Coleman, Weaver, Macklin and Sharpless came to our office in Ebensburg to look over plans and profiles of the proposed line to Johnstown.
They seemed pleased with the layout; which, very naturally, raised our spirits a few degrees.

Many new names on the Cambria & Indiana as follows:
John N. Seiler joined the C & I on Jan. 1st as engine house foreman. He was a New York Central man from Clearfield. He is still going strong as a master mechanic (1944).
Jas. M. Long, a telegrapher from the NYC, came in February as a clerk and dispatcher. He left in Sept., 1918, to again clerk for the NYC at Cherrytree. He returned to the C & I in February 1919. (see 1938 and 1944)
Clair A. Bearer was block operator, clerk and extra agent on the P.R.R. from Nov. 1913 to May 1917, when he resigned to become assistant agent on the C & I from June 1917 until the 1st of September, 1917, leaving to enter the army. He was in World War I, 80th Division, 305 Engineers, until June 1919. He was back on his C & I job in July 1919, later Storekeeper then Purchasing Agent (April 15th 1944).
(1919) H. Smith was block operator and dispatcher on the P.R.R. from Sept. 1916 to April 1919. (see under 1919)
D. R. Davis, Dispatcher, was a trainman and block operator on the P.R.R. from Jan. 1911 to Oct. 1917, when he was taken over by the Cambria & Indiana.
J. M. Long was a C & I Dispatcher at Colver from Feb. to Sept. 1918.
Harry S. Keith was employed as brakeman in May. Later he was motorman on the passenger gas, battery car. When this car was put out of service he again went back to braking. He was killed on May 20, 1935, while coupling coal cars.
Harry Goss was motorman before Keith; Goss resigned to go elsewhere.
C. D. Delozier was Goss' conductor. (see on page 30)
Lloyd Graham, who was with the Ebensburg Coal Co. since 1912, became a repairman for the C & I on January 7th (see pages 27 & 30)
Harry W. Goss was conductor and motorman of the Edison Storage Battery Car from Nov. 1912 until June 1917.
J. J. Bender, fireman on Oct. 9th. An engineer on Feb. 29, 1920.
W. M. Shively, fireman Oct. 3rd - engineer on October 14, 1917, same year. (retired 7/14/42)
W. D. Dixon, fireman Aug. 1st. Engineer Oct. 20, 1918.
E. D. Johns, fireman Sept. 9th. Engineer Oct. 17, 1919.
A. W. Cramer, brakeman May 17th. Conductor Aug. 23, 1917.
John S. Barner, machinist, inventor Of the "Barner Air Pump" for locomotives. Both Messrs. Coleman and Supt. Clark were interested. To give him time to develop the pump he was given the position of "Air Brake Inspector." The pump was attached to some or the C & I engines and gave satisfaction. It was reported that Westinghouse and other Big Shots in the pump business would not acknowledge the Barner pump better than any they foisted on the public. Barner left Colver about 1919.

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(41)

RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1917 -Continued

Track surfacing during December was most trying, an "old fashioned" winter got an early start, freezing ballast in railroad cars; and all the while getting daily messages from Philadelphia to hurry the contractors off the job.

Coal mines shipping over the Cambria & Indiana by end of 1917:

1 - Ebensburg Coal Company started shipping in October, 1911.
2 - Estep Bros. Coal Company, later Penna. Coal & Coke Co. mine #55 were shipping in July 1915.
3 - Grisemore Coal Company, small area, "D" seam, October 1916.
4 - Grinsemore Coal Co., small area, "D" seam, October 1916 shipping late in December, 1916.
5 - Nanty-Glo Coal Mining Co. #3, renamed Heisley Coal Company, 10 cars placed for loading on March 12, 1917.
6 - Lincoln Coal Co., 4 cars placed for loading on June 21, 1917.
7 -Warren Collieries Co., Warren #1. This mine was opened by Doss Kemerer of Nanty-Glo in July, 1917. It was taken over by the Warren people in November 16, 1917.
8 - Springfield Coal Co. #3 started loading Sept. 6, 1917, and was worked out about 1923.
9 - Springfield Coal Co. #1 started loading Sept. 7, 1917. The C & I branch to Nos. 1 and 3 was completed Sept. 1, 1917.
10 - Pa. Coal & Coke Corp., Webster #14, at Nanty-Glo, started Nov. 25, 1917. It was an old mine shipping over the P.R.R.
11 - Pergrin Run Coal Co., later Fagan Coal Co., started on Dec. 1, 1917. Petered out in 1925. "D" seam.

Locations of above mines as follows: No. 1 at Colver. Nos. 2, 3, and 4 in Indiana County. Nos. 5, 8, 9, 10, and 11 at or near Nanty-Glo. No.6 at Lincoln and No.7 near C & I Eleanor Yard.

Ebensburg Coal Company, Colver, Cambria County, Pennsylvania.
This year the Company got right down to business mining coal; and under the management of David Fleming it was a case of making the fur fly. Some building was going on at the mines and in town; the employees however, were now pretty well housed and provided.

Monroe Coal Mining Company, Revloc, Cambria County, Pennsylvania. Here at Revloc was the place where everything was on the jump, pushing the shafts down to the coal (reached in September) building temporary tipple, store building, dwellings, grading for streets and tracks, water supply and whatever else required around the mines and the town.

Mr. A. E. Roberts, was appointed general superintendent July 1st.
William Gray, was the first mine foreman, came in August.
Water Supply - From clipping under date of March 14th -"The State Water Supply Commission has approved the application of the Monroe Water Company to supply water to the public in Cambria Township. The company will supply water to the new town of Revloc, which is being built near Ebensburg."

Howard Metzger, who was first store manager at Colver, died at his home in Indiana, Pa., on May 29th.

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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1917 -Continued

Andrew Rapp, Mr. Weaver's private secretary, was killed in an auto accident near Jersey Shore while en route with Mr. Weaver to Williamsport from Colver on August 6th.
Charles Marks, now (1944) traffic manager for Ebensburg Coal Co., was office clerk in 1917 at Heisley mines at Nanty-Glo.

Personnel:
J. F. Mcaklin, Mr. Weaver's son-in-law, noted in my diary for the first time on July 26th, when he and Messrs. Weaver and Coleman and officials of the New York Central came to my office to look over proposed line to Johnstown.
Harry Radebach, electrician at Colver. (see 1922 at Revloc)
D. V. Radebach, Harry's brother and helper at Colver.
James Dunn, real estate agent, Nanty-Glo, friendly to the Company whenever miners were on the war path.
W. Garfield Thomas, employed in Mr. Sharpless' office in Ebensburg until _____.

1918

Cambria & Indiana Railroad Co. First of the weather in January. The snow fall for the month was 41 inches, the heaviest in January since 1889. And the average temperature the coldest since 1889.

Though snow bound we engineers were busy in the office making estimates of cost and "valuation maps" of the C & I for the Interstate Commerce Commission. All this for them to arrive at a reproduction cost of the railroad. The Commission sent the following engineers from Washington to go over the Cambria & Indiana and check our figures and maps:
L. H. Allen, in September, on clearing, excavation, embankments, drain pipes, cross ties, culverts, ballast, bridge masonry, tools, track material, etc.
Paul Giddings, in October, on bridges and substructures.
E. L. Koenig, in November, Signal Field Engineer, signals and interlockers.
Victor Weintraub, in November, to inventory buildings.
Roy G. Grant, same month, to inventory electrical apparatus. (See under 1919 for Reproduction Cost)

Colver - During March, April and May we worked on plans for a new engine house and machine shop; Office building; more houses for C & I employees; boarding house (freight house), later and a station of stone at Nanty-Glo.

Fluke & Son, Altoona, got contract in June to build six dwellings and an office building (all of brick) and the said boarding house. The latter building and the office were not started until August. Flukes not through December 31st.
F. J. Foye, who sunk the shafts at Revloc, got the contract to build foundations for the engine house of steel plates.
The Truscan Steel Co. of Youngstown, Ohio, erected the engine house and machine shop, 60 X 100, by December 16th.
"Spanish Influenza" was rampant from October to end of the year. There were 50 cases in Ebensburg on Nov. 21st. The C & I had guards on duty to enforce quarantine. There were many who failed to recover, giving all of us much concern.
Eleanor Yard - May 11th, started drilling for water for engines.
A. L. Anderson Bros., Contractors, furnished their engines to haul all coal produced on the Nanty-Glo Extension to Ragan Junction, until about April 1st. The road bed required so much resurfacing due to settlement of embankments the C & I officials feared taking chances with their heavy equipment.

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(43)

RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1918 - Continued

Leo McKenrick, Ebensburg, completed two dwellings on Dec. 1st, directly across the street from the Superintendent's house.
L. A. Duman, Brakeman on April 24. Conductor on Feb. 20, 1920.
Roy Edwards, Fireman on July 3rd. Engineer Nov. 7, 1922.

Additional Coal Mines opened on the C & I this year. At the close of 1917 there were 11 in operation.
No. 12 - Ivory Hill Coal Co., mine known as Emma, on Barker Bros. tract of 60 acres at Nanty-Glo. Later leased to the Stratford Coal Co. Shipping in January.
No. 13 - Penn-Mary Coal Co., Mines Nos. 11 and 12, town of Clement, Indiana County, about 4 miles from Manver. Shipping late in January.
No. 14 - Monroe Coal Mining Co. at Revloc. First coal shipped to Market in March, over a temporary tipple.
No. 15 - Warren Collieries Co., Elizabeth No. 1, at Eleanor Yard, was opened in 1917 by McDermott and Davis of Nanty-Glo. First shipment in March.
No. 16 - Warren Collieries Co., Cardiff No.6; opened by T. F. Curry; first shipment also in March. 30th. Both these collieries had small acreage of crop coal.

Ebensburg Coal Company, Colver, Pa. We have nothing of particular interest to relate concerning this Company. They were too busy mining coal to do anything else to attract outsiders.

Heisley Coal Company, Nanty-Glo, Pa. The same with this Company.

Monroe Coal Mining Co., Revloc, Pa. The shafts at this place, started in 1916 by F. J. Foye of Brownsville, Pa., did not reach coal until September 1917. The first coal to market was not shipped until March 1918, over a temporary tipple. The shaft, 360 feet in depth, is the only one on the C & I. Tracks were laid to the lower shaft in September, 1917, and to the main or upper shaft in October, 1917.

Bert Christian, who was at Heisley Mine, took William Gray's place at Revloc as mine foreman and remained until 1921.

John Gray, of Ebensburg, no relation, started running the substation near Revloc tipple this year. He was on the job 23 years, resigning in 1941 at the age of 78.

J. Leard Gray, John's son, also from Ebensburg, started in as hoisting engineer at the shaft. He is still on the job (1944).

 


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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1919

Cambria and Indiana Railroad Co. - We engineers were engaged this year, off and on, on the prososed line to the Cambria Steel Company's plant at Johnstown. During 1917 we put a location on the ground from Nanty-Glo to Mundy's Corner, thence west of Vinco to Hinkston Run Dam (see 1916). The proposition was sidetracked all of 1918 but early in 1919 we were requested to project a line
from Mundy's via Saltlick Creek to the Conemaugh River, crossing same to the Steel Company's plant near Franklin. The Vinco line, so called, would have entered the Steel Works from the West and the Saltlick line from the East.

On July 17th A. L. Anderson Bros. were given the contract to build the Vinco line with the understanding, however, not to start until further notice. These orders never came. One reason for the holdup was that the Penna. Coal & Coke Corp. were planning to open a big mine on Saltlick Creek. In fact the Saltlick line, though more costly to build than the Vinco line, was the proper location in more ways than one.

Before the summer was over the Penna. Coal & Coke decided to drop out of the picture. On Sept. 2nd Messrs. Coleman and Clark and I called at the Steel Company's Office in Johnstown to meet Mr. Cory, President, and Mr. Ogden, General Manager, of the Company. All agreed Saltlick was the line.

Now again we engineers got busy - more topography, new maps, designing bridges, revising revised locations and all that and by end of the year we were still going strong.

The Interstate Commerce Commission were everlastingly calling for more information in regard to the cost of the C & I.

Ebensburg Sand, Stone and Clay Co., promoted by H. R. (Peck) Griest, who was Ebensburg Coal Company's store manager from 1912 until 1915, had the C & I put in a siding between Red Mill and Rexis. This undertaking cost a great deal of money and all who took stock and the bank in Ebensburg that loaned money to finance the Company - Well, danced and paid the piper.

Office Building, Colver, was not ready for occupancy until March. J. B. Fluke & Sons, Altoona, had the contract; and also six single brick dwellings at Colver Heights. These were completed about the same time. All of us were sorry for Mr. Fluke, Mr. F. D. Clark, Superintendent, demanded so many changes not called for in the contract; and the, for reasons we discovered later, Clark held up payments in full for months.

Commercial Coal Mining Co., in August started shipping coal over the C & I. The tipple was a short distance north of Rexis. It was the 17th mine to ship Over the C & I. The Company had about 1,200 acres of the Lower Kittanning or "B" seam of coal, and some 1,400 acres of the Lower Freeport or "D" seam. The Company had mines at Twin Rocks for 20 some years.

First Passenger Car (battery) was run over the Nanty-Glo Extension to Nanty-Glo on January 6th.
Monroe Coal Mining Co., Revloc. The steel tipple was in operation in July. Coal had been loaded from a temporary tipple at the lower shaft.

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(45)

RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1919 - Continued

Heisley Coal Company, Nanty-Glo. H. Frank Dorr, the Company's mining engineer for many years, resigned to go into business for himself. It was a good move, one he never regretted.

Cambria & Indiana Railroad Company - Following taken from the Interstate Commerce Commission's Report dated Jan. 1, 1919.
The Cambria and Indiana Railroad Company was incorporated April 20, 1911, a change from the Blacklick & Yellow Creek Railroad Co., which was incorporated June 15, 1904.

Mileage:
Colver Heights to Manver                        20.759 mi.
Dobson Jct. (now Elkdale) to Rexis            4.209
Nanty-Glo Extension                               12.519
Main Line                                              37.487
Yards Tracks and Sidings                        18.481
Total -                                                   55.968

Reproduction Cost of the Railroad      $4,060,440
Less Depreciation -12%                          493,646
                                                        $3,566,794

Personnel:
S. B. Wixom, New York Central man, replaces W. W. Rood as Superintendent Clark's assistant.
W. W. Rood, who came with Mr. Clark. in 1913, resigned. He was a mysterious sort of a person.
M. H. Kline, Machinist, became a C & I man On Feb. 2nd. And he is still a member of the family (1944).
Jas. M. Long returned to the C & I as a dispatcher on Feb. ____ Later the trainmaster and Superintendent on Mar. 18, 1938.
J. H. Smith, who was with the P.R.R. from Sept. 1916 to April 1919 as block operator and dispatcher, joined the C & I. Note: He became trainmaster under Jas. M. Long in 1938.
Father O'Conner, priest at Nanty-Glo, very popular with all who knew him, regardless of religious creed, this spring takes over ground near Eleanor Yard donated by the Cambria and Indiana Railroad Company for a Catholic cemetery. {April 15}

1920

Cambria & Indiana Railroad Company: There was considerable going on but nothing of real moment; in substance as follows:
Proposed Line to Johnstown: Making further surveys, maps and plans; all of our work coming to naught in the end.
Proposed spur from Glory to Heilwood: To haul Penn-Mary Coal Co. over C & I and NYC tracks. Survey showed such a line was feasible.
Proposed Extension from Revloc to coal lands near Bradley Junction on the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Proposed line on the waters of Yellow Creek, Indiana County, to tie the C & I with the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh R.R. near Homer City. We did considerable reconnoitering.
Interstate Commerce Commission still giving us work to do. "Will that insatiable bunch in Washington take a vacation."

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(46)

RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1920 - Continued

Cambria & Indiana Railroad Company:
Nanty-Glo Railroad Station
: We made plans in August for an "architectural beauty" of stone. Ground was broken On Oct. 7.
Engine House at Colver: The "Truscan Steel" building erected during the War was being eaten up by the elements and gas from locomotives. This fall we started to replace the "steel" building with one of stone.

Supt. Clark made Charlie Hill, a Blacklick Township road supervisor and farmer, a foreman of a gang to do all kind of work not connected with maintenance of track. He was employed last year and at times had as high as 20 men on the force, all farmers or men working on farms. Among them were Pauls, Emphields, Stephens, Cramers, Mervines, James, Brackens, Learns, Edwards, Blickendorfers, Reeses, Crawfords, Rummels, Bishops, Hawksworth, Millers and others.

On May 7th ground broken at Colver for three double brick houses for the C & I employees. They were built under the Supervision of Charlie E. Evans, of Ebensburg, one of the Railroad's most valued employees. He started to work for the C & I during the construction of the Nanty-Glo Extension as master carpenter. He was a hustler, full of energy and perseverance. (See 1937).
New York Central - on Sept. 22nd Mr. P. E. Crowley, Vice President, and Mr.
G. W. Kittrege, Chief Engineer, were over the C & I on a Special N.Y.C. train.
U.S. President William Taft, who was in office from 1909 to 1913, made an address this evening (Nov. 24) at Ebensburg on the League of Nations.

Personnel

P. W. (Phil) Corran, fireman on Mar. 5; Engineer on April 29 and was retired on July, 1939.
C. Rainy, brakeman on Jan. 22 - conductor on Nov. 30, 1922.
M. D. Folchemer, brakeman April 26 - conductor May 1, 1925.
D. H. Keith brakeman May 1.
R. M. Farabaugh fireman Jan. 10 - engineer March 11, 1939.
Ernest Stephens, section foreman on October 11.
Sheldon Evans became helper to his brother Charles E. Evans, master carpenter, on April 1.
E. M. Farabaugh, Car Shop Foreman at Colver, started as a fireman on Nov. 1920.
Fred B. Rodgers' first experience on the C & I was from March to June. He a brother of Dan L. Rodgers. Fred worked off and on until 1922 when he became a fixture.
Ebensburg Coal Company:
David Fleming resigned this year as general manager.
Samuel Oldman, the mine superintendent, was appointed Mr. Fleming's successor.
R. V. Whitman, chief engineer, also resigned this year, if we are not mistaken.

Bethel Coal Co., near Twin Rocks, organized by one Mr. Shiffer, Stanton Davis and others interested in the Ebensburg Title & Trust Co., was held up by Supt. Clark from August until October. And November before switch installed for operation. There was a reason.
McFaddens' Hayden Mine {"A" seam}, near Twin Rocks, was opened in the fall but siding or spur from Eleanor Yard never reached it.

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(47)

RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1920 - Continued

Allen Coal Co., was opened near Nanty-Glo Station by John Carlson, brother of C & I supervisor Sam Carlson. He leased 125 acres from Barker Bros. of Ebensburg. We put in a siding in July and in Sept. John was shipping to to four cars daily. ("C" vein) This was the 18th Mine to ship over the C & I.

1921

Cambria & Indiana Railroad Co. Nothing of particular importance developed this year.
Proposed Extension to Johnstown, which we thought gave up the ghost last year, got new life and we made more revisions, new plans for bridges, and other details and as late as August 12th, when called to the Cambria Steel Company's office at Johnstown, an early start promising.
Proposed Extension to "Red Land," near Bradley Junction, south of Carrolltown, showed some life until April, then died.
Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh R.R. connection, at Rexis was worked out but by summer the Penna. Railroad people got us to abandon the project.
Yellow Creek Extension into Indiana County was again revised to mines that were to be opened by Peale, Peacock & Kerr and the Penn-Mary Coal Companies. The mines were never opened.
Colver Terminal: Coaling Station near new Engine House was put in operation on February 19th. The Car Repair Shop was underway in March; and in September it was discovered we must have a Drop Table in the engine house. Station at Nanty-Glo: This stone building, started building last year, was not opened for business until July 25th. Russell Thomas was the first Agent and Operator. (see under Personnel)
Hot Weather: July was the hottest month since my sojourn in this part of the country.
Interstate Commerce Commission: late this year Dan Rodgers and I got busy once more on Valuation of the Cambria & Indiana.

Coal Companies

Three new coal mines got to shipping over the C & I this year - Nos. 19, 20 and 21.
Expedite Coal Co. (Swatara Mine) "D" seam, about one mile north of Cardiff, capacity 500 tons. Opened in January, it ran regularly, though a poor grade of coal - a MacFadden operation. (No. 19)
Bethel Coal Mining Co. (later Stanwix Coal Co.) about one mile south of Belsano, "D" seam, capacity 3 to 4 cars daily, shipping by spring. Coal lease from Barker Brothers of Ebensburg by Messrs. Stanton Davis, Shiffer and others who had credit in the now defunct Ebensburg Trust Co. (No. 20)
Nanty-Glo Smokeless Coal Co., on Pergrin Run above Heisley Coal Company's tipple, Nanty-Glo. Started early this year, "C" vein (Dirty C) 46" seam, average output 5 cars (when running). The plant finally blew up and so did the Cambria Title & Trust Co. of Ebensburg. (see Bethel Coal Co. No. 21)
Berwind-White Coal Mining Co. Penna. and W. Va. On December 12th my old boss and good friend of Berwind-White days died in Charleston, W. Va. James S. Cunningham was born in Eckley, Pa., in 1855 and was in the employ of the Berwinds a number of years before they ventured into the Windber field. He was known as the father of Windber. He got 10 mines in Windber in operation and then was called to both the Pocahontas and New River territories in West Virginia to prospect for coal, purchase lands and start developments (see under years 1897 to 1906).

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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1921 - Continued

Mr. Cunningham was a master in his line, did not have to take a back seat as an engineer, prospector, promoter or manager. And when the days work was over he was a pal to spend an evening with.

Personnel

Ebensburg Coal Coal Co. Colver. Pa.

Dorothy Westrick succeeds Louis J. Lieb as postmaster.
John Jarvil, Mine Foreman, at Revloc, 1921 to 1925.

Cambria & Indiana Railroad Co., Colver, Pa.
Offices in Philadelphia: First, Land Title Building (it was still there in April) Second: Atlantic Building, 260 South Broad Street; moved to __________ Third: moved April 27, 1921, to room 1320 Borad Street Station Bldg., 1617 Pennsylvania Boulevard.

Russell S. Thomas, was the first agent and operator in Nanty-Glo Station, started Jan. 1st. Before typing up with the C & I he worked for the P.R.R. as Warehouseman, 2/1917 to 7/1918; in the U. S. Army 7/1918 to 5/1919; back to the P.R.R. 5/1919 as block operator until 1/1921. He is still on the C & I (1944)
R. C. Smith, Dispatcher, was on the Penna. R.R. from June 1917 until Dec. 1920, as trucker, brakeman and clerk. Started on the C & I Jan. 1st as warehouseman, then supply clerk, car inspector and dispatcher to date (1944)
Lisle Thompson, Car Foreman from May 1921 to date (1944) On the New York Central he was track repairman, car repairman and car inspector - April 1916 to May 1921.
M. J. Ragan (Ragan Junction named after him) was yardmaster at Nanty-Glo and Eleanor Yard in 1921. He was on the C & I from March 10, 1911, until March 22, 1922, as brakeman, conductor and yardmaster. He resigned to go
into business (insurance).
Chal Dilling, building contractor at Nanty-Glo, built the fine stone C & I Station at Nanty-Glo.
Peter Corti, Nanty-Glo, was the stone mason on the said station. Peter deserves all the credit due and "he was a good scout."
My mother passed to the Great Beyond on Dec. 29th in Rhode Island.

1922

This was a year of stirring events for those connected with the Cambria and Indiana Railroad Company and also the Coal Companies controlled by Messrs. B. Dawson Coleman and J. R. Weaver.

They dissolved partnership and their holdings were divided, in Pennsylvania and West Virginia and elsewhere.

Mr. Coleman took over the Ebensburg Coal Company at Colver, Pa., and disposed of his 40% interest in the C & I to the New York Central Railroad Company.

Mr. Weaver retained the Heisley Coal Co. at Nanty-Glo and the Monroe Coal Mining Company at Revloc and his 60% in the C & I.

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(49)

RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1922 - Continued

COAL MINES

Ebensburg Coal Company: Mr. Coleman's first official act was to get Mr. David Fleming, who resigned in 1920, to return as manager Of the Ebensburg Coal Company.

Coal Strike: On April 1st a coal strike was called throughout this bituminous district. Colver was one of the few places that did not close down. All went well until July 10th when the Ebensburg Coal Company was forced to suspend operations. On July 25th Colver was full of soldiers called to keep order. It was this month that Mr. Fleming again took charge at Colver. The strike was not called off until August 16th. {A pass was given to me to drive through the town of Colver as follows: To Policemen of Colver & Vicinity: - Please pass bearer, Mr. S. H. Jencks, automobile license No. 545-154, account Cambria and Indiana Railroad. July 14, 1922. Ebensburg Coal Company, (signed) D. Fleming, General Manager} Ever since Oct. 20, 1915, when Mr. F. F. Saxman, then general manager, routed a gang of agitators from the Colver, the Union endeavored by every means possible, fair and foul, to tie up the works.

Heisley Coal Company at Nanty-Glo, little if any changes were made among the supervisory force; John W. Harrison continued as general superintendent until 1928. (Took charge in 1918)
Monroe Coal Mining Company at Revloc, the same may be said for Company. A. E. Roberts holding his position as general superintendent until 1928. (Took charge in 1917)
Imperial Cardiff Coal Co. in August started shipping over the C & I, having also a P.R.R. connection. This Company was in operation a number of years; until 1917 it was known as the Tunnell Coal Co., and then the Inland Coal Co., and in March, 1922, the Imperial Cardiff. 22nd mine on C & I.

Reference to certain "Coal Men"

L. F. (Dick) Crouse left Colver in August to join up Mr. Weaver's corporation at Revloc. He came to Colver in Nov. 1913.
David Fleming, General Manager, Colver. (see above)
Samuel Oldham retired as general manager at Colver.
John W. Harrison, Gen'l. Supt., Heisley Coal Co. (see above)
L. G. Ball, Mr. Weaver's most important officer, now (1944) the President of the Monroe Coal Mining Company.
H. C. Radebach, electrician, left Colver for Revloc (see 1940).
C. E. Sharpless, though Messrs. Weaver and Coleman were no longer partners, both continued to consult him whenever problems came up in connection with coal mining. They would take no "experts" advice until Sharpless had his say, approving or disapproving.
James Walker was Superintendent of the mine at Cardiff prior to and after 1916. He was in position to give us assistance while building the C & I extension to Nanty-Glo, which we appreciated. In 1917 or 1918 he was appointed a State Mine Inspector and was still holding down the job in 1944.

Cambria and Indiana Railroad Company: Returning from Rhode Island where my mother was buried on New Year's Day, I was surprised to hear that Fred D. Clark was no longer superintendent. On January 11th I drove to Colver office to find one W. A. Webb from Texas in conference with Clark and W. E. Dobson, our general auditor and traffic manager with offices in Philadelphia.

1922 - Continued

The three were holding a chilly confab when I blew in. Clark and Dobson soon retired from the room leaving me alone in the lion's den. I asked if he had anything to discuss with me and he replied: "No. Not now. You may return to Ebensburg if you so desire." Which I did with Clark and Dobson who were enroute to Philadelphia. Both had received their walking papers.

To make a long story short, several of us looked forward to having our heads cut off in a month or two. I weathered the storm, however, and finally got into the good graces of Webb.

Mr. Webb was appointed President with offices in Philadelphia; H. H. Hooper, also from Texas, superintendent at Colver; his brother M. B. Hooper, trainmaster, and others from the Lone Star State will be mentioned later. S. B. Wixom, who was Mr. Clark's assistant, was ordered to the Philadelphia office to take up work that had been performed by Dobson and also Howard K. Berry, who was purchasing agent. We were sorry for Berry because we always regarded him as a man above board, a straight shooter.

Engineering Office was moved on March 13th from the Ebensburg Trust Company's Building to the C & I office building, Colver.
Freight and Passenger Station, near C & I office, Colver, was started on April 14th.
New storage Battery Passenger Car, and for express, was put in service in August. The old car was sold to a railroad in the far Northwest.

Imperial Cardiff Coal Co. In June A. L. Anderson & Bros., Altoona, were given contract to grade a line to the tipple of the Cardiff Company. They had been shipping over the P.R.R. A steam shovel was started track on June 23rd. They finished on July 27th and track was laid in August.

Little Yellow Creek Extension brought up again, we worked on it in April and May, then again in the fall, tying the location to the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh R.R. at Homer City, Indiana County. Nothing came of it.

The Melva Extension. On June 23rd we started to survey a line to a tract on the waters of Roaring Run where the Monroe Coal Co. own a large area of coal. From Revloc we crossed the P.R.R. near Ebensburg; thence in a southerly direction for about three miles to a point below Howell's farm on Roaring Run, a tributary of the North Fork of the Conemaugh River. We worked on this line off and on until August 15th.

Mr. W. A. Webb, President of the C & I, took Mr. Wixom and me to the Bellevue-Stratford, Philadelphia, for lunch on August 28th and told us he had resigned from the C & I, effective on Sept. 1st. Friction having developed between him and Mr. Weaver, he had accepted the position of chairman or president of the Railroad Commission in South Australia, headquarters at Adelaide, the capitol.

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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1922 - Continued

Cambria & Indiana Railroad Company - continued
He had signed up for 5 years. On August 29th Mr. Webb again invited me to lunch and there I bid him good-bye. It took him two months to size me up then we became good friends. (see 1927)
Mr. H. H. Hooper, superintendent, and others he brought from Texas held their ground at Colver as they proved themselves the right persons in the right place. (see 1938)

Eleanor Yard, north of Nanty-Glo, was to be C & I headquarters, to move from Colver. On Sept. 20th and 21st Mr. Hooper, Mr. C. E. Sharpless and I were in Philadelphia to discuss the matter with Messrs. Weaver, F. E. Herriman, of the New York Central and President pro tem of the C & I, J. E. Cupp, our General Solicitor or Counsel, and L. G. Ball. On November 14-15 Mr. Hooper and I were again in Philadelphia to bring the Eleanor Yard proposition to a head.

West Virginia Northern Railroad. Mr. J. H. Weaver's coal line running from Kingwood, Preston County, W. Va., to connection with the Baltimore & Ohio R.R. at Tunnelton, was about 11 miles long, tapping several coal mines. Mr. Weaver arranged to have me meet Mr. George Reith, General Manager, at Kingwood on Sept. 4th, and have us decide whether a better connection could be made with the B & O via the Cheat River to Rowlesburg. The Tunnelton line having very heavy grades. F. M. McDaniel, the chief engineer, could not arrange to be with us. My report to Mr. Weaver favored a location down Morgan Run to Cheat River, thence to Rowlesburg. Nothing was ever done.

Personnel

W. A. Webb, President of C & I from Jan. 1 to Sept. 1 (see page 50)
E. E. Herriman became President pro tem.
H. H. Hooper new Superintendent at Colver January 1st.
Fred D. Clark was replaced by Mr. Hooper.
H. B. Hooper, brother of H. H. became trainmaster.
W. E. Dobson resigned as Auditor and Traffic Manager. Jan. 1.
S. B. Wixom, who was Clark's assistant, ordered to Philadelphia office to carry on duties performed by Dobson.
Howard K. Berry, purchasing agent resigned. (see page 50)
C. R. Smith, new general auditor, made his first appearance at Colver office on Dec. 12th, accompanied by Wixom.
W. R. Gordon, from Texas, Mr. Hooper's chief clerk, came in April and still on the job (1944). Before coming to the C & I he was stenographer and clerk on the following: Western Railroads, ATSF, Frisco, MKT and St. LSW.
Ruth Hooper, Master Car Builder's Clerk, Mr. Hooper's niece, came in October and we are pleased to say she is still doing excellent work for the C & I ('44).
Fred Rodgers started to work permanently as assistant engineer and draughtsman in April. He had given us assistance, off and on, since 1920. (see page 46) On the job 1944.
M. J. Ragan, yardmaster, resigned March 22. (see page 48)
A. J. Kirsch, fireman, Mar. 11. Engineer Oct. 1, 1939.
R. P. Duman, fireman, Oct. 29. M. J. Springer, brakeman Oct. 21.
H. Grazier boiler inspector Nov. 2. Harry Farabaugh, helper, engine house, Aug. 26th.

 


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RAIROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1923

Coal Mines in this district are working at close to a 50% reduction in normal production, it was stated today (Oct. 20) by Johnstown operators. Fifty percent of the mines are said to be closed down entirely, while others are working but at 50% of their regular production. (From Johnstown Pa. newspaper)

Monroe Coal Mining Co., Revloc, Pa. We made surveys and plans for a dam on William's Run, near Revloc, which would back water about one-half of a mile. The supply was mainly for the Coal Company and to supply C & I engines. Plans were sent to the Philadelphia office in June, and on July 19th A. L. Anderson Bros., Contractors, Altoona, received the contract to build. However, the following day we got word from Phila. not to break ground until further notice. It never came.

Navy Smokeless Coal Co., backed by the now defunct Cambria Title Savings & Trust Co., Ebensburg, were still planning to open a mine near the Carrolltown tunnel; giving us engineers work that was uncalled for.

Cambria & Indiana Railroad Co.

Proposed Melva Extension (see page 50) was revived in August, and we revised the location at several places, and one Elmer Davis got busy optioning right-of-way. That's all.
Interstate Commerce Commission (I.C.C.) Bureau of Valuation had men on the ground June and July making up land reports.
Proposed Yellow Creek Extension, Indiana County, still alive and we worked on location off and on during April and May.
Eleanor as Headguarters: April 3-5 Mr. Hooper and I again in Philadelphia to discuss the Eleanor proposition from all angles with Messrs. Weaver, Herriman, Bell, Cupp, Wixom, Asst. to Herriman, and C. R. Smith, auditor. Hooper and I had been to Phila. on the same matter January 28-30. We were called again May 15-17 when it was decided to go ahead and make Eleanor the Cambria & Indiana Center. Houses to be built, sewage disposal plant, water works, streets to be graded and what not. In June Mr. Weaver had a Mr. Hartzog of Boston, Mass., meet Mr. Sharpless and me at Eleanor. We gave him data he required and plans of the proposed layout. Mr. Hartzog was a "landscape artist" and was to make Eleanor a town within a park.

During June we were busy making up plans and specifications for houses. On June 22nd Messrs. Weaver; Sprout, our new C & I President; Herriman, Bell, Cupp and clerks came to Eleanor in two private New York Central cars and side tracked for the night. During July several contractors bid on erecting 10 double houses of brick. On August 1st contract was awarded Chal. Dilling of Nanty-Glo. He broke ground August 18th. We got busy on sewage disposal, water supply from a deep well, drilled, storage tank, 4" water mains, fire hydrants, etc.

In Regard to Personnel

C. E. Sprout, new C & I President. F. E. Herriman became Vice President.
S.B. Wixom, Mr. Sprout's assistant. Roley Edwards, brakeman, Jan. 3.
P. I. Maury, brakeman Jan. B. A. Eisenhower, machinist, Mar. 22. R.P. Morris, hostler, Oct. 4. A. V. Little, our assistant from 1910 to 1918, in Nov. became superintendent of the Southern Cambria Ry. (trolley).

 


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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1924

Mines at Colver, Revloc and Nanty Glo were too engrossed mining that amorphous substance derived from ancient vegetation to enter into or take part in concerns of the railroad, just as coal was transported to market.

Water Supply: Yes, there was one matter that concerned them as well as the railroad - a liberal supply of water for Revloc, Nanty-Glo and Eleanor Yard. After a thorough going over the territory here about, C. E. Sharpless, consulting engineer, and I concluded that dams on either William's Run, near Revloc (see page 52) or Stewart's Run near Nanty-Glo would impound the water required. Lester Larimer of Ebensburg, who led us to believe he represented heirs who owned lands on Stewart's Run, wanted us to pay such an outrageous price for a dam site our people told him or had him understand that he could go where the woodbine twineth. Nothing was done on either stream.

Cambria & Indiana Railroad: A move that delighted the Engineering Department was on Feb. 4th when we moved our office from Colver back to Trust Building in Ebensburg (see page 50 - 1922).

The Melva Extension was a live wire this year, brought on by the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. through the State Public Service Commission and the Interstate Commerce Commission. The P.R.R. protest was that we were in their preserves. We were called to Philadelphia three times in this connection - March 10-13; April 22 to 26 and again on the 30th. On April 25th and on the 30th we attended hearings in the Philadelphia City Hall called by the said Commissions. In the end the C & I won out. The extension is still on paper (1944) may never be built.

Eleanor Yard: The 10 brick houses were completed in February and in the spring finished grading streets, built concrete sidewalks and placed in position a large water tank.

Interstate Commerce Commission. We were in Philadelphia Jan. 27 to 31 and met for the first time A. L. Horst, a so-called expert on valuation matters, loaned us by the New York Central.

We were called again to Phila. May 15 to 17 and May 18 to 24 most of the time helping out Mr. Horst as we look forward to meetings in Washington. May 21st was a red-letter day for all taking part in the valuation of the C & I. We were invited to lunch at Mr. Weaver's palatial home at Merion, a tony suburb.

The house was built some years ago when Mr. Thomson was President of the Pennsylvania R.R. Co. Those present were Messrs. J. H. Weaver, C. E. Sprout, F. E. Herriman, J. F. Macklin who was Mr. Weaver's son-in-law, J. E. Cupp, L. G. Ball, Jas. Birch, sales manager, A. L. Horst, officeman, Beekman and Buzzom and yours truly S. H. Jencks.

Dan L. Rodgers and I in Philadelphia Sept. 21 to 26 to help get things in shape for a hearing; and C. E. Sharpless and I there on Oct. 10th. On the 12th Horst, Sharpless, Hooper and I registered at the Hotel Washington, D. C. There were 15 rooms reserved to accommodate all of us; our crowd were Messrs. Weaver, Ball, Cupp, Sharpless, Hooper, Auditor Smith, Wixom, McGuire, Webster
Griffith and Elmer Davis of Ebensburg, Horst, Manchester, McMunn and Snider of The New York Central, and myself.

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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1924 - Continued

Interstate Commerce Comission - Continued
On the 13th the hearing was held in the I.C.C. Building at 18th St. and Pennsylvania Ave. Mr. Wixom, Secretary, was first man called; Mr. Ball, second, and I the third. We got through in Washington on Oct. 15th, for the time being, and were back home on the 16th, Thursday. Dan L. Rodgers was called to Philadelphia Nov. 6-7 to help out; on the 19th we were all back in Phila. and on the 20th back in Washington. New men present this time to aid the C & I were Downs and Coombs of New York Central and Van Alsen of the American Locomotive Works. We got through on the 22nd. I was in Philadelphia office 12 times this year.

Hold-Up on the C & I. On Oct. 11th a bandit held up the C & I passenger car running from Rexis to Colver, east of Elkdale Junction, killed Jim Garman of Ebensburg who was guarding money for the Ebensburg Coal Company's payroll. The bandit escaped but in time was caught and got his deserts.

Mr. A. L. Horst appears on the scene. (see page 53)

Memory Lane

W. T. Geddes, who built nearly every "Company" house in Windber for the Berwind-White died on Feb. 12th. He was Windber's first postmaster. We were friends back in the 90's at Mahaffey, Pa., when we were with the Pittsburgh & Eastern Railroad Co.

Alfred H. Smith, President of the New York Central lines died on March 8th. He was President since 1914. He was a friend of Mr. Weaver and was frequently over the C & I in his "Special."

1925

Coal Companies at Colver, Revloc and Nanty-Glo were operating regularly which was more than other mines in the district were doing. Outside of transporting coal the Cambria and Indiana Railroad Company were attending to their own knitting, as given below.

Cambria and Indiana Railroad:

Mr. A. L. Horst, on February 1st, was appointed assistant to Mr. C. E. Sprout, President. On March 13th Mr. Horst made his first visit to the Colver Office.

S. B. Wixom, who was assistant to F. D. Clark, late superintendent of the C & I until 1922, then assistant to the president at Philadelphia, resigned on March 1st to accept a position on the New York Central. All of us were sorry to see him go.

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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1925 - Continued

Cambria and Indiana Railroad Company:
Outside of routine work we engineers were kept occupied working on the proposed Melva Extension, which refused to give up the spark of life, and on the Valuation of the C & I for the Interstate Commerce Commission; which called for trips to Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Washington.

{Clipping: Feb. 14th - "As a result of a decision handed down in Washington today by the Interstate Commerce Commission granting permission to the Cambria & Indiana Railroad, subsidiary of the New York Central, to extend its line from Revloc to the junction of Roaring Run and the north branch of the Conemaugh River, about three miles from Ebensburg, one of the largest coal operations in the county will be opened by the Melva Coal Company and a new town built. The site is in the heart of the California Woods and the town and railroad will wipe out the last section of wilderness in Northern Cambria County".}

Melva Extension: Revised the location between Revloc and Ebensburg once more to give Mr. Weaver three alternate routes to approve or disapprove. I was called to Philadelphia Office on April 28, May 6 and July 24; and July 30 at Harrisburg with Messrs. Sprout, Horst, Cupp and Hooper to a hearing before the Public Service Commission regarding a viaduct we were to build over the Pennsylvania Railroad at Ebensburg.

Interstate Commerce Commission - Valuation of the Cambria & Indiana.
From June until December they kept us pretty well occupied. We were to the Phila. office June 28 to July 2; and Sept. 24-26 with a Mr. Frank Rhea who came to Colver from Washington to check up our work. Again in Philadelphia Oct. 6-10 and then my assistant Dan Rodgers made two trips to help when out Oct. 11-17 and Oct. 19-31. Finally on Nov. 3rd we again landed at Hotel Washington, Washington, D. C.

The hearing started on Nov. 4th and not over until the 10th. I, S. H. Jencks, was quizzed all afternoon of the 6th and until 2:30 on the 7th.

The 8th being Sunday, Rodgers, McGuire, a congenial young man from Mr. Weaver's office in Philadelphia, and I boarded a bus for the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md., to visit George Estep and Rowland (Rolly) Pryce, two Ebensburg men.

They piloted us all over the place - Bankcroft Hall, Library, Chapel, Paul Jones' crypt and other places too numerous to mention. Both of these young men are now (1944) commanders in the Navy, doing their part to win the war. Estep in the South Pacific and Rolly in European waters.

On the 7th a Mr. Wendt invited nine of us to lunch at the Cosmos Club in Washington. We were back home on the 11th.

On Nov. 22nd we were back in Washington for another hitch, the session closing on the 25th.

I was called to New York on Nov. 29th to meet A. L. Anderson, contractor, at the Martinique Hotel to go over prices paid when he built the C & I in 1911 and 1916-17. The following day he took me to Hoboken where a car met us, and we drove to Jersey City and north thru the Hackensack Meadows to a yard they were grading for the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western R.R.

Personnel

Monroe Coal Co. Revloc.
William Chick, mine foreman - 1925 to 1940
Cambria & Indiana R. R. Co.
Don W. Evans, helper at engine house, returned on May 6th, had been on the C & I from 1920 to 1922.

 


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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1926

Ebensburg Coal Company were somewhat disturbed during September, and were the Cambria & Indiana Railroad Co., for that matter when we discovered that Pennsylvania Railroad engineers were making surveys north and west of Colver where the Manor Real Estate & Trust Co. (P.R.R. outfit) had bought up a large area of coal land in 1912. Later, in October and November, men under the direction of Berwind-White engineers were drilling for coal below Vetera Dam and along Dutch Run. We kept pretty close tab on them but nothing materialized to date (1944).

Cambria & Indiana R.R. Co. The engineering department were not over worked this year; mainly on maintenance and building two small dams, one on Williams Run near Revloc and the other on Stewarts Run near Heisley Mine at Nanty-Glo, to supply locomotive water.

Interstate Commerce Commission: D. L. Rodgers was called to Philadelphia office in April and May to assist Mr. Frank Rhea (see page 55) work up data in connection with Mr. J. H. Weaver's railroad in Preston County, W. Va. - The West Virginia Northern (see page 51).

New York Central: On June 2nd Mr. H. H. Hooper and I were at Manver at 6:45 a.m. to meet a New York Central special train on which were Messrs. P. E. Crowley, President; Harris, a Vice-President; Sommerville, Superintendent of the N.Y.C. Pennsylvania Division; F. E. Herriman, President of the N.Y.C. Clearfield Bituminous Coal Corporation, and also a member of Cambria & Indiana's Board of Directors; our J. H. Weaver and his right-hand man L. G. Ball. Mr. Hooper and I boarded the train and piloted them over the line to Revloc; thence to the Heisley Mine at Nanty-Glo and back to Manver by 12:15 p.m. where we bid them good-bye.

Proposed Melva Extension once again. On November 4th Mr. A. L. Horst, assistant to President, called at our office and directed us to prepare bids for construction of the branch, a total distance Of 5.08 miles from Revloc to a point on Roaring Run. A few contractors went over the ground and December 22-24 I was in Philadelphia to be on hand when bids were opened. No action was taken and now its the year 1944.

The Sesqui Centennial: Our frequent trips to Philadelphia gave us an opportunity to visit the "Sesqui" Celebration at the foot of Broad Street, near the U. S. Navy Yard.

1927

Coal Mines on the Cambria & Indiana R.R. were running like clock work, keeping the operating department of the C & I on their toes, running trains to Manver loaded with the best bituminous coal in the market - from Colver, Revloc, Heisley, Springfield, Lincoln and Cardiff and the Indiana County mines at Sides and Greismore.

On Aug. 18th we had distinguished visitors in our office at Ebensburg. Mr. Dick Peale of the coal firm of Peale, Peacock & Kerr (Springfield one of their mines) Mr. Law Watkins, head of the Penna. Coal & Coke Corp. (one of their mines at Sides) Mr. Chas. O'Neill, head of the Operators Association of Central Penna., and Mr. H. H. Hooper, Supt. of the C & I.

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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Cambria and Indiana Counties and Vicinity

1927 - Continued


Coal Mines on the Cambria & Indiana R.R. - Continued

They met to take up the matter of transportation of strike breakers into the C & I field. Labor organizers, agitators and disturbers generally were active and it was up to the operators to combat them in order to keep mines running. Unionism was becoming a force that gave Coal Companies much concern.

Cambria & Indiana R.R. Co. No new work under construction in 1927.
Interstate Commerce Commission still kept us buying pencils and scratch paper. Dan Rodgers and I were called to the Philadelphia office three times to assist the Auditor, Mr. C. R. Smith, make up reports for the I.C.C.

Fred D. Clark, late superintendent of the C & I (see 1922) while in Philadelphia in September he invited me to spend a night at his fine residence near Norristown. I had not come in contact with him since 1922.

William Alfred Webb, who was president of the C & I in 1922 (see pages 50-51) resigned as Railroad Commissioner for South Australia on May 14th. Australian (south) newspapers declared Mr. Webb proved a heavy liability to that country.

From a clipping, in brief, dated April 17th, 1927 - "Commodore W. K. Vanderbilt's alleged (public be damned) remark" has been matched by the retort of William Alfred Webb, railroad commissioner for South Australia. Webb who was brought here in 1922 to take charge of the South Australia railways is leaving the job on May 14. A reporter for the Adelaide "Register" asked him what he intended to do when he returned to America, and Webb replied: "Just as I have done since I have been here - what I damn well please." "For years," complains the Observer, "the taxpayers have paid Mr. Webb's $25,000 yearly salary in addition to $2,500 they allowed him for the purpose of meeting his income tax." The article goes to say he placed a burden of fifty million dollar debt on the roads, and all this to enable him to do "as he damned well pleased."

W. E. Evans, now Dispatcher at Colver, started this June as one of his father's (Chas. E. Evans) helpers on the construction crew on the C & I.

John Spitzmiller, Round House Foreman, June '27 to June '38. Mr. Hooper got him from the Mid-West. He was an A-1 overseer.

W. R. Farmer, Machinist, June '27 to June '37. Retired on pension. Summered in Maine and wintered in Oklahoma. He was another of Mr. Hooper's landings and a good mechanic.

1928

Coal Companies on the C & I
The mines running smoothly and the miners generally contented; now and then, however, labor agitators prowling around to start a disturbance.

C. E. Sharpless, Mr. J. H. Weaver's consulting engineer, moved his office on May 11 from Trust Building, Ebensburg (next door to my office), to the Monroe Coal Company's office building at Revloc.

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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Region of Cambria and Indiana Counties

1928 - Continued

A. E. Roberts, superintendent Of the Monroe Coal Mining Company, since July 1, 1917, was appointed chief engineer of Weaver's mines.
L. F. Crouse, who came to Revloc from the Ebensburg Coal Co., at Colver in August 1922, succeeded A. E. Roberts as manager of the Monroe Coal Mining Company.
John W. Harrison, manager of the Heisley Coal Company at Nanty-Glo, since Sept. 1, 1916, resigned this year.
H. H. Calloway, was appointed in Mr. Harrison's place. Mr. Calloway held the position until 1938.
Dr. A. W. Beatty, who was the doctor for the Ebensburg Coal Company, from the very beginning, died in a sanitarium in New York State on Feb. 29th.
Webster Griffith, prominent business man of Ebensburg, died on April 2.
C. E. Cowan, consulting mining engineer, became another of Mr. Weaver's advisors in the coal business. Mr. Weaver died in 1934, Mr. Cowan, however, still on the job (1944).

Cambria & Indiana Railroad Company: Nothing new in the construction line - rumors persisted, however, that the Melva project might come to life again, and Yellow Creek in Indiana Co.

Yellow Creek proposed extension was revived, a Mr. Madill and his engineer Mr. McRae of Indiana, Indiana County, had options on some coal lands, and lead us to believe they were working in the interests of the Pennsylvania R.R. Co. We had a location in the same region with B.R. & P. R.R. connections. We finally tumbled they were playing a game to get us to hurry up construction of our line so they could dispose of some property getting heavy on their hands.

Interstate Commerce Commission were still asking for reports on everything they could think about. Dan Rodgers and I were in Philadelphia several days in June and November to go over matters with Mr. Smith, the auditor.

Snow Bound - On April 28th we were snow bound, heaviest snow for years, blocking railroads, trollies and highways.

Messrs. Weaver, Macklin, Ball, Cupp and Horst called at our office on July 6th to talk over matters in general, covering what we had done and proposed to do in the near future.

1929

Cambria & Indiana Railroad Company: No new work this year and prospects none too rosy that there will be any very soon.

State Highway Bridge over the C & I at White Mill was brought to our attention on May 7th, the C & I to pay for part of the construction. On September 25th Mr. Horst, Mr. Hooper, our new Solicitor Mr. Myers and I were at Harrisburg to present our side of the case before the Public Service Commission.

Manver Yard: On March 20th Mr. Hooper and I met Mr. Sommerville, Supt. of the Penn. Division of the New York Central, at Manver to arrange for enlargement of the yard where we tie up with the New York Central.

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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Region of Cambria and Indiana Counties

1929 - Continued

Interstate Commerce Commission: D. L. Rodgers was in Philadelphia office April 7-11 and again Oct. 20-24 assisting the Auditor, Mr. C. R. Smith, on I.C.C. reports.

A. L. Horst was appointed Executive Vice President of the C & I on June, 19th.
C. E. Sprout, still President.
J. H. Develyn, boiler maker, started work on March 18th.
T. B. Hill, janitor, Colver office, appointed May 16.
Judge Ivan McKenrick was elected judge for the first time in Cambria County on Nov. 5th.

1930

Business Depression throughout the World, brought on, according to hungry Democratic politicians, by our good President Herbert Hoover.

Unprecedented Drought over many areas in the United States, also due to President Hoover.

State Highway Bridge at White Mill (see 1929) Contractors broke ground on June 10th or so. An expensive structure on the Benjamin Franklin Highway - between Ebensburg and Indiana, Pa.{On Oct. 4th we joined a parade of about 100 cars to Indiana to dedicate the Benjamin Franklin Highway, the bridge being completed. Before the Court House at Indiana Governor Fisher (a native of Indiana) made the principal address.}

The State Department appointed Andrew V. Little, once one of our engineers, chief inspector on the job. The bridge was practically completed in October.

Interstate Commerce Commission: March 10-13 Rodgers and I were in Philadelphia checking I.C.C. Reports. March 26-30 at hearings before the I.C.C. in Washington. There besides us were H. H. Hooper, A. L. Horst with his "Land Exhibits," C. E. Sharpless as a geologist, Johnson from St. Louis as a price expert, George Griffith of Ebensburg on land values and Messrs. Cupp and Myers our Solicitors.

We were again in Washington April 21-26; and still again in June 25-28. After attending these meetings one is convinced that a lot of poppy-rot is given out by so-called experts. They will play up for whoever hires them.

1931

Another year of Depression in business - worse than last year. Many banks gave up the ghost and in consequence many like myself lost their savings of years. The crisis exposed banks that were run for the sole benefit of the directors. Well, President Hoover, he did it. We like Hoover because of the sort of people who disliked him.

State Highway Bridge spanning Blacklick Creek and the Cambria & Indiana at White Mill (see 1929-30) was formally accepted on Jan. 7th, following an inspection by representatives of the several parties interested. Those present were as follows: H. H. Hooper, of the C & I; S. H. Jencks, Chief Engineer for the C & I; H. Frank Dorr, Cambria County Engineer, Didier of the Public Service Commission and James S. Wilson and E. E. Goss, supervisors of Blacklick Township.

1931 - Continued

Philadelphia Office of the C & I and also Mr. Weaver's coal companies was moved on April 27 from the Atlantic Building, 260 South Broad St., to the Broad Street Station Bldg., 1617 Pennsylvania Boulevard. The offices were in the Land Title & Trust Bldg., Broad and Chestnut, before moving to the Atlantic Bldg.

Ebensburg Coal Company, Colver, Pa., in September were preparing to build a new steel coal tipple.

World Series Ball Game: While in Philadelphia Oct. 6-8, Mr. H. H. Hooper and I were given tickets by Mr. Horst to attend a World Series game at Shibe Park - Athletics and St. Louis. Hooper could "whoop er up" with the best of the fans; and pleased because St. Louis won - 5 to 1.

David Fleming: General Manager of Ebensburg Coal Company, called frequently at our office in Ebensburg to talk over the palmy days when we were with the Berwind-White Coal Company, at Windber.

William Troxell, company store manager, first at Colver and later over the stores at Revloc and Nanty-Glo, retired July 15, he was with the companies since 1915, replacing H. R. Griest.

M. B. Hooper, trainmaster for the C & I, brother of Superintendent H. H. Hooper, on September 3rd while watching a steam shovel enlarging C & I reservoir near Preisser Siding, suffered a paralytic stroke. He was bedridden until Sept. 27th when his wife and daughter and brother took him to Waco, Texas, where "Bo" wished to spend his last days.

1932

Unemployment, the paramount issue of the year.
"Father Cox's Army" passed through Ebensburg on January 5th en route to Washington, D. C., to embarrass the Administration. The "Army" was made up of birds taking advantage of a free excursion, free eats and no work.
1932 Election: On November 9th Hoover lost out and Roosevelt took command. Congressmen became rubber stamps.

Will Rodgers on November 9th broadcast from Beverly Hills, Cal., the following:
"Mr. Hoover, the consolation you have from the whole American people is no doubt greater than ever shared by a losing president. There was nothing personal in the vote against you. The people just wanted to buy something new. And they didn't have any money to buy it with. But they could go out and vote free and get something new for nothing. So, cheer up. You don't know how lucky you are."

Drilling for water at Colver near the Railroad shops. We stopped drilling on Oct. 14th, getting no results at a depth of 172 feet. It was a gamble anyway because coal being mined playing hob with the water shed.

Coal Mines not doing a flurishing business this year; and, therefore, the Cambria & Indiana broke no records in the line of transportation.

Interstate Commerce Commission, however, kept some of us busy making reports and still more reports.

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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Region of Cambria and Indiana Counties

1932 - Continued

Mr. A. L. Horst on July 8th was advanced from Executive Vice President (1929) to President of the Cambria & Indiana R.R. Co.

Mr. M. B. Hooper, our superintendent's brother, died in Waco Texas. (see last year)

Mr. C. E. Sharpless, who was doing business as a consulting engineer with headquarters at Ebensburg, was appointed by Council Borough Engineer of Ebensburg, on January 4th.

Mr. James T. Young, Burgess of Ebensburg, died on August 12th.

1933

Business Conditions none too good throughout the United States.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt inaugurated President on March 4th.
Banks Closed on March 6th and many never opened again.
Volstead Prohibition Act was pigeon-holed after 13 years. Banks or no banks, what counted with the masses was the day beer was sold legally (April 7) and later (Dec. 5) when wines and liquors were sold over the bar as in the days of yore.

Civil Work Administration (CWA) was working by fall. The Administration was working but those clamoring for work did not overdo themselves. Results were far from satisfactory.

Miners on Strike: During September and October agitators tied up mines in the district. The Monroe Coal Mining Co. at Revloc and Ebensburg Coal Co. at Colver succeeded resuming operations on Oct. 3rd.

World's Fair at Chicago: Fred Rodgers of the engineers and I were fortunate to get leave of absence to attend the Fair representatives of the C & I. We were there in October.

Governor George Perry of Virginia. Way back in the 90's when I was a resident engineer during the construction of the Clinch Valley Division of the Norfolk & Western Railroad, I made my home at Doctor Perry's, Cedar Bluff, near Tazewell, Va. It was a home in every sense of the word and Mrs. Perry was like a mother to me. They had five children, in order of their ages: Chapman, Mattie, George, Wade and Bessie. George was about fifteen years old at the time. This year of 1933 he was elected Governor of Virginia. Harry F. Byrd who was Governor was elected to the United States Senate.

B. Dawson Coleman, President of the C & I until 1922, died on March 3rd. He was 63 years of age. At the time of his death he was Chairman of the Board of the Ebensburg Coal Company; President of the First National Bank of Lebanon, Pa., member of the Board of the Coleman Coal Company; the Girard Trust Company; the Penn Mutual Life Insurance Co., the Western Savings Fund Society; Baldwin Locomotive Works and the General Refractories Company. Mr. Coleman was highly regarded by all who came in contact with him. He was always a gentleman to us on the C & I.

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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Region of Cambria and Indiana Counties

1933 - Continued

The Graf Zeppelin: On October 28th this German air ship sailed over Ebensburg at 11:30 a.m. en route to Nazi Land from Chicago, via Spain. It left Akron, Ohio, this morning. (Of interest now (1944) that we are at war with Germany)

1934

Depression in Business continues unabated. Capital cannot be induced to advance their business interests. Politicians now in control at Washington keep on hammering Capital and expect consideration and confidence in return. And evidence piling up that heads of labor organizations will become masters in the near future; the Administration playing into their hands for votes.

Many Passed to the Great Beyond

J. H. Weaver died on April 26th. John Heisley Weaver was the president of J. H. Weaver and Co. He was in his 75th year. In 1889 he entered the coal business and during the early days of his activities he became one of the pioneers in developing mining properties in Indiana and Cambria Counties, Pa., and in Preston County, W. Va. He and B. Dawson Coleman, who died last year, were partners for many years, until 1922, and were heads of the Ebensburg Coal Co., Colver, opened in 1911; Heisley Coal Co., Nanty-Glo, 1917; and Monroe Coal Mining Co., Revloc, 1918. Mr. Weaver at the time of his death was Chairman of the Board of the Cambria & Indiana R.R. Co. and President of West Virginia Northern R.R. Co.

On April 28th H. H. Hooper, Clair Bearer, Charlie Evans and S. H. Jencks drove to Williamsport to attend the funeral. See under 1904 regarding Mr. Weaver's ventures in the coal field. He was a coal broker before opening up mines.

David Fleming died on July 17th. He was General Manager of the Ebensburg Coal Co., Colver. He was born in Cumberland, Scotland, May 3, 1866, and came to America with his parents at the age of three. His wife died May 3, 1927. Surviving are two daughters, Elizabeth and Martha, and a son Robert M., who succeeded his father as General Manager. Dave, as we called him, and I were friends for many years. We first met at Windber, Pa., in the late 90's when we were with the Berwind-White Coal Mining Company. "Them were the days."

David Fleming understood his business, knew how to produce coal. There was no idling when he was around, and both Messrs. Weaver and Coleman were aware of the fact.

Charles E. Sharpless died on October 24th. He was held in high regard by both Mr. Weaver and Mr. Coleman as a mining engineer. He was in their service from the very beginning of their venture into the Indiana and Cambria County fields. C. E. Sharpless was another of the men I got acquainted with while with the Berwind-White Company. It was Sharpless who landed me or steered me into a job with Weaver and Coleman way back in 1909. He was born in Middletown, Pa., on Sept. 13, 1861. He graduated from Swarthmore College, receiving bachelor of science and engineering degrees. Early in his career he was Superintendent of the H. B. Wighton Coal Co., Morrisdale, Pa., and later with other companies.

Don Mahaffey died on July 29th at his home in Mahaffey, Pa. In the early days he was assistant mining engineer for the Ebensburg Coal Company. He was a graduate of State College.

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RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Region of Cambria and Indiana Counties

1934 - Continued

A. L. Anderson, contractor who built the Cambria & Indiana R.R., had a leg amputated at John Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, on April 28th, the day Mr. Weaver was buried at Williamsport.

Cambria & Indiana Railroad

E. L. Haskins became warehouseman in July. R. W. Eisenhower, helper at Engine House on August 2nd.

1935

Business Depression - same as under 1934, notwithstanding the heroic efforts of the New Deal to get us out by means of the CWA and other letters of the alphabet. Prospects no longer promising extensions to the C & I or improvements. And I, S. H. Jencks, having reached the age of retirement look forward to word from the Philadelphia office to bid them and force at Colver a fond farewell.

Yes. Time Goes On: Co-workers, friends and others, are slipping off to the land where no traveller returns.

Mrs. J. H. Weaver died on March 26th. Mr. Weaver passed away last year, April 26th.

Holmes Durbin died May 17th. He was conductor on the first passenger train to run from South Fork to Windber, on June 20, 1898; and was on the last run when passenger service was discontinued, about 1933. He and I were neighbors.

Joseph Gates, the engineer on this first train, died in the 20's. He was another neighbor of mine. A good man.

Francisco Lorenzo (Frank Lowry) died Jan. 11th. He was an Italian contractor who the Berwinds got in the early days of Windber to build foundations for nearly all the Company buildings, lay water and sewer lines and all that. He was a very likeable fellow and popular with all who met him.

MONROE COAL CO., Revloc. The Company started this year to clean coal pneumatically.

1936

Cambria & Indiana Railroad Company: 1936 - The last year for S. H. Jencks, the author of this literary composition - an epistle to the Romans, the brave, noble and efficient men I came in contact with in the days we struggled to keep the wolf from the deer. Having reached the age of retirement Mr. A. L. Horst, President, directed me to the Railroad Retirement Board at Washington, D. C. By September 1st we convinced the Board that I had served over 30 years, all told, on the New York, New Haven and Hartford, the Norfolk and Western, the New York Central and the Cambria & Indiana.

Should I mention the years I was tied up with coal companies one would not require a knowledge of calculus to calculate my age.

On September 1st we closed our engineering office in the Trust Building, Ebensburg, Pa., and Daniel L. Rodgers and brother Fred departed for Colver. Dan and Fred were with me many years and two more deserving young men than they we do not chance upon every day.

- continued -


(64)

RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Region of Cambria and Indiana Counties

1936 - Continued

St. Patrick's Day Flood. March 17th. Johnstown was inundated to second floor windows, a height only a few inches under the great "Johnstown Flood" on May 31, 1889.

Old Fashioned Winter during January and February. On the 19th of January the snow fall was nearly a record breaker; blocking railroads, highways, putting Colver in a predicament for a time for shortage Of food. Many a "Hard Rock Pete" took a hitch on his belt while he passed up a meal so his kids might eat.

Cambria & Indiana Railroad Co.
Railroad Officials as listed in the 1936 official Guide.
A. L. Horst, President
J. F. Macklin, Vice Pres.
C. M. Johnson, Secretary
L. G. Ball, Treasurer
A. L. Horst, Gen'l. Fgt. Agent
C. R. Smith, Auditor
H. H. Hooper, Superintendent
S. H. Jencks, Chief Engr.
J. M. Long, Trainmaster
Sam Carlson, Supervisor Trk.

Main Office: 1617 Pennsylvania Boulevard, Broad Street Station, Philadelphia. Hooper, Long and Carlson at Colver office and Jencks at Ebensburg.

The C & I had 50 miles of main line; 8 locomotives; cars: 3,437 coal cars and 8 misc.

A. C. Needles, President of the Norfolk & Western, was aid to the superintendent stationed at Bluefield, W. Va., in the Pocahontas Coal Field in the early 90's. At the time I was a division engineer on construction of the Clinch Valley Division and got to know Needles very well. While in Roanoke, Va., in May, 1928, he invited me and Mrs. Jencks to dinner at the Hotel Roanoke.

W. J. Jenks, Vice Pres. in charge of operations and F. M. Rivinus, Gen'l. Solicitor of the N & W in 1936. M. W. Clement, President of the Pennsylvania. F. E. Williamson, President Of the New York Central.

Deaths

Mrs. J. F. Macklin, Mr. J. H. Weaver's daughter, died on 21st of April.

Thomas Estep died March 24th. He was one of the pioneers in the coal business in Cambria County. He was mining coal from the Ivory Hill Coal Co. plant at Nanty-Glo back in about 1894, shipping over the Pennsylvania. Be opened the first mine in Indiana County to ship over the Cambria & Indiana, July 1915.

Clark Duncan died May 26th. He built the first hotel in Windber, Pa. He was a Lumberman from Indiana County and operated mills in Clearfield, Cambria, Indiana and Somerset Counties supplying lumber to the Berwind-White. He also opened a mine at Llanfair, Cambria County. We were close friends and neighbors at Windber.

Dr. Buckingham, Mahaffey, pa., died August 31st. He opened a mine at Rochester Mills, Indiana County (see page 19).

 


(65)

RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Region of Cambria and Indiana Counties

1937

H. H. Hooper, Superintendent of the Cambria & Indiana Railroad was a very sick man this year and the year closed with him in a Philadelphia hospital.

Charles Enquist died March 25th. He was one of the foremen who helped build the C & I in 1911. Later he was appointed a C & I section foreman on track. An accident was cause of death.

Charles E. Evans died April 8th after a lingering illness. He was in charge of the C & I bridge, construction and repair crew. Charlie was a hustler, full of energy and perseverance. His friends were legion. He was with the C & I since its early days.

Dr. James P. McFarland died Sept. 4th. He was Weaver and Coleman's doctor for the Dixon Coal Company, at Indiana County (Idamar) in 1909 and transferred to Heisley Coal Company, at Nanty-Glo. He resigned about 1912 to go to the Vinton Colliery Company at Vintondale. Later opening an office in Indiana (see page 21).

W. B. Spratt died May 6th. A friend of the early 90's at Richlands, Virginia, when I was engineer for the Clinch Valley Coal & Iron Company. He was mayor of Richlands and looked after the Company's interests.

J. L. Harvey became Cambria & Indiana's master mechanic on Sept. 1st, and is still at Colver (1944). He was a number of years on the St. L. & SF R.R. in the West.

1938

H. H. Hooper, Superintendent, died at Colver on March 18th. He held the position since he came from the West in 1922. All of us were very sorry to lose him.

J. M. Long, who was trainmaster, became Mr. Hooper's successor.

H. H. McClintic of McClintic-Marshall Bridge Co., Pittsburgh, died on August 5th. He was my classmate and roommate at Lehigh University. They sold their plant to the Bethlehem Steel.

1939

Samuel Carlson: I quote, "upon completing twenty-six years of loyal and faithful service with this company (C & I) Mr. Samuel Carlson retired, effective December 31, 1938, as supervisor, and the position has been abolished."

D. L. Rodgers: "Effective January 2, 1939, the position of Engineer of Maintenance of Way has been established, and Mr. D. L. Rodgers, assistant engineer of this Company, has been appointed to the newly created position, effective the same date, with headquarters at Colver, Pa."

- continued -


(66)

RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Region of Cambria and Indiana Counties

1930 - Continued

H. S. Kerbaugh, contractor, died on March 1st. (see under 1895) when he was employed by P. McManus. Philadelphia contractor. Mr. Kerbaugh became one of the biggest contractors on the Pennsylvania R.R. Had a hand in building the tunnel under the Hudson. It was Kerbaugh who got me in with the Berwind-White Coal Mining Company at Windber in 1859.

1940

A. L. Horst, President of the Cambria & Indiana Railroad Company since 1932 died May 29th. He was with the C & I since 1924.

G. H. Burnette was appointed as Mr. Horst's successor.

A. J. Cornely died on February 18th. He was Messrs. Weaver's and Coleman's right hand man when they started operations at Nanty-Glo in 1909-10. He was store manager and general overseer until the Heisley mine was started in 1915.

Books Williamson died Jan. 29. He was A. L. Anderson & Bros., Contractors, right hand man - chief clerk and he kept close tab on everything during the construction of the C & I. He was a brother Shriner and saw that I was properly entertained when in Altoona.

New Year's Day - midnight when 1940 was ushered in, I was on a train in Florida about midway between St. Petersburg and Palm Beach, en route to the East Coast.

1941

J. Edgar Long died at his home in Clarksburg, W. Va., on Dec. 24. He was a nephew of Mr. Weaver and my boss in the early days; not only a boss but a darn good friend. He was the big man on the job from 1909 until he gave up the reins in 1913 to return to the Philadelphia office. He and Mr. Weaver were locking horns so he quit and went into business for himself in West Virginia; and he made a go of it. At one time Edgar Long was manager over all Weaver and Coleman interests, including the Cambria & Indiana R.R.

World War: United States declares war against Japan on Dec. 8 and Italy and Germany on Dec. 11.

1942

Alfred L. Anderson of A. L. Anderson & Bros., who built the Cambria & Indiana Railroad, died on Nov. 24th (see under 1895, 1911-12 and 1916-17-19). Two brothers survived him, John and Charles. A. L. and I knew each other for 47 years. He died at his home in Altoona, Pa. He was born in Sweden. He was highly respected by all who knew him.

1943

Fred D. Clark died May 20th and buried at Corning, N.Y. He was Cambria & Indiana superintendent from 1913 to 1922. After leaving Colver he bought a fine home near Norristown, Pa. (see page 57)

- Continued -


(67)

RAILROADS AND COAL MINES
Region of Cambria and Indiana Counties

1943 - Continued

Criss D. Doerr died June 3rd. He was among the first carpenters to land at Colver to help build houses for the Ebensburg Coal Company in 1911. Remained at Colver and became an undertaker there and later at Ebensburg.

1944

Thomas Fisher of our Windber days with Berwind-White died March 1st and buried at or near Merion, near Philadelphia. He was the general superintendent, office in Philadelphia (see under 1901).

Edward Clark of Hillsdale, Indiana County, on our engineering staff while building the Nanty-Glo Extension died in February. After leaving the C & I he got employment with the Bethlehem Steel.

James M. Long, 53 Superintendent of the C & I since 1938, died on a train in Texas on March 9th. Buried at Lock Haven on the 13th. He was returning from a U. S. Camp in Texas where he had a son preparing for service in World War II. (See 1917 & 19 and later under 1944)

J. H. Smith, who was trainmaster, was appointed to succeed Mr. Long as superintendent (see under 1919).

Thomas Richard (T.R.) Johns, who was general manager of the Ebensburg Coal Company at Colver, 1913 to 1915, died in Johnstown Sept. 29th. He was head of the Bethlehem Steel Coal Corporation since 1916. He had been with the Carbon Fuel Company, Cincinnati, and Cabin Creek Coal Company, up the Kanawha River from Charleston, W. Va. Through Mr. Saxman (1915) the Ebensburg Coal Company lost T. R. Johns, an A-1 coal man.

W. G. O'Brien died December 3, 1943. He was Supervisor of the Clinch Valley Division of the Norfolk & Western while I was resident then division engineer of said division. He was from Kokomo, Indiana; married Major Bowen's daughter in Tazewell, Virginia; became a politician so resigned from the N & W. For many years he was Tazewell's postmaster - a Republican at that. Going to show he was a hale fellow well met. A good friend of mine.

Cambria and Indiana Railroad Company

C. A. Bearer, April 15, "Effective this date, Mr. C. A. Bearer is appointed Purchasing Agent with headquarters at Colver, Cambria County, Pennsylvania." G. H. Burnette, President (refer to year 1917).

 

 

APPENDIX

Presidents of the Cambria and Indiana Railroad

1 - B. Dawson Coleman - 1911 to 1922
2 - W. A. Webb, Jan. 1 to Sept. 1, 1922
3 - F. E. Herriman, Pro Tem, 1922 to 1923. Vice Pres. in 1924
4 - C. E. Sprout, 1923 to July 8, 1932
5 - A. L. Horst, 1932 to May 8, 1940
6 - Geo. H. Burnette, 1940 to date (1944)

Superintendents

1 - T. E. Dunn, Sept. 14, 1910 to Jan. 13, 1913
2 - Fred D. Clark, 1913 to Jan. 1, 1922
3 - H. H. Hooper, 1922 to March 18, 1938
4 - Jas. M. Long, 1938 to March 9, 1944
5 - H. H. Smith, 1944

Cambria & Indiana and Coal Companies Offices in Philadelphia

Land Title & Trust Company Bldg., Broad and Chestnut, 1909 to ------,
Atlantic Building, 260 South Broad Street, ------ to April 27, 1931.
Broad Street Station Bldg. On Pennsylvania Boulevard 1931 to date.

Offices of Coal Companies shipping over the C & I after the year 1922

Coleman & Co., (Ebensburg Coal Co.) Bankers Trust Bldg., Philadelphia.
W. A. Marchall & Co. (Lincoln Coal Co.) 25 Beaver St., New York.
Peale, Peacock & Kerr (Springfield Mines) No.1 Broadway, N.Y.
Penna. Coal & Coke Corp. (Mines at Sides) Land Title Bldg., Philadelphia.
Imperial Coal Co. (Cardiff) Johnstown Trust Bldg., Johnstown, Pa.
George E. Warren Corp., Grand Central Terminal, New York, New England Agent for Coleman & Company, Inc.

Cambria & Indiana Engineering Offices - Moved ten times

1 - At Idamar, Dixon Coal Co. Office, Nov. 9, 1909 to April 18, 1910
2 - Rooms in the Hotel at Nicktown 1910 to May 18, 1910
3 - Old Trust Co. Bldg., Ebensburg 1910 to Jan. 1, 1912
4 - Colver, dwelling on 2nd Street 1912 to Feb. 24, 1913
5 - Colver, in new Movie Bldg. 1913 to Dec. 2, 1913
6 - Old Trust Co. Bldg., Ebensburg 1913 to Feb. 18, 1915 (Fire destroyed bldg. and all our records)
7 - Hasson Building, Ebensburg 1915 to Apr. 25, 1916
8 - New Trust Co. Bldg., Ebensburg 1916 to Mar. 13
9 - Colver, C & I Office Bldg. 1922 to Feb. 4, 1924
10 - New Trust Co. Bldg., Ebensburg 1924 to Sept. 1, 1936

(When S. H. Jencks retired and Office moved back to Colver. The position of chief engineer coming to an end. S. H. J. continued to keep a room in the Trust Co. Bldg., however, to have a place, a retreat, where he could commune with himself.)

 


(B)

APPENDIX - continued

1930

H. H. Calloway died this year. He was manager of the Heisley Coal Co. at Nanty-Glo since 1928. Sad news when we heard of his death.

Frank Hout was appointed his Successor.

Cambria & Indiana Railroad Company Officers

G. H. Burnette, President since 1940 -Philadelphia
C. M. Johnson, Secretary and Treasurer -Philadelphia
C. R. Smith, Auditor and General Freight Agent -Philadelphia
J. B. Fleming, Asst. Auditor & General Freight Agent -Philadelphia
J. M. Long, Superintendent, died March 9, 1944 -Colver
J. H. Smith, Trainmaster, became Superintendent 1919 -Colver
R. C. Smith, Dispatcher, became Trainmaster 1921 -Colver
*Clair A. Bearer, Storekeeper 1917-19 -Colver
D. L. Rodgers, Eng'r. Maintenance Of Way 1913-14-16 -Colver
F. B. Rodgers, Office Engineer 1920-22 -Colver
D. R. Davis, Dispatcher 1917 -Colver
Russell S. Thomas, Dispatcher 1921 -Colver
W. E. Evans, Dispatcher 1927 -Colver
W. R. Gordon, Chief Clerk 1922 -Colver
Ruth Hooper, Master Car Builders Clerk 1922 -Colver
Martin Myers, Stores Clerk 1942 -Colver
E. L. Haskins, Freight Agent 1934 -Colver

Engine House and Car Shops:
J. L. Harvey, Master Mechanic-in-Charge 1937 -Colver
J. N. Seiler, Master Mechanic 8t Engine House (Foreman) 1917 -Colver
E. M. Farabaugh, Car Foreman 1920 -Colver
Lisle Thompson, Car Foreman 1921 -Colver

*Clair A. Bearer appointed Purchasing Agent on April 15, 1944.

 

ROLL OF THOSE WHO PASSED TO THE GREAT BEYOND
(See years noted for particulars)


1901 - Robert Mahaffey
1913 - Benj. Mahaffey
1915 - Mrs. B. Dawson Coleman
1917 - Howard Metzger, Mr. Rapp
1921 - Jas. S. Cunningham
1924 - Jas. Garman, Alfred H. Smith, W. T. Geddes
1928 - Dr. A. W. Beatty
1935 - Holmes Durbin, Joseph Gates
1928 - Webster Griffith
1932 - M. B. Hooper, Jas. T. Young
1933 - B. Dawson Coleman
1934 - J. H. Weaver, David Fleming, Don Mahaffey, C. E. Sharpless
1935 - Frank Lowrey, Mrs. J. E. Weaver
1936 - Thomas Estep, Dr. Buckingham, Mrs. J. F. Macklin, Clark Duncan

- continued -


(C)

APPENDIX -continued

ROLL OF THQSE WHO PASSED TO THE GREAT BEYOND - continued

1937 - Chas. Enquist, Chas. E. Evans, W. B. Spratt, Dr. Jas. P. McFarland
1938 - H. H. Hooper, H. H. Calloway, H. H. Mclintic
1939 - H. S. Kerbaugh
1940 - Brooks Williamson, A. J. Cornely, A. L. Horst
1941 - J. Edgar Long
1942 - A. L. Anderson
1943 - Fred D. Clark, Criss D. Doerr
1944 - Jas. M. Long, T. R. Johns, W. G. O'Brien, Thomas Fisher, Edward Clark

First men to be employed as Engineers and Assistants on Surveys and Construction of the Cambria & Indiana.

1909-10-11

1909 - *S. H. Jencks. Retired September 1, 1936
1910 - *E. W. Hess, Clearfield, Pa., from April until July, Chase, Cameron and Barrett with Hess from Clearfield. Bert Lieb and Frank Fresh from Nicktown, Pa. *Thomas Graham and *Anthony Kline from Patton, Pa. *A. V. Little, *Roy Sharpless, Ralph G. Rodgers, Zeke Pert, Reese Llo1d, William (Bill) Smith, Phil Bender from Ebensburg.

1911 - *A. V. Little, Resident Engineer at Williams Summit (now Sides Station or Alverda) His assistants: John Miller and L. A. Bath from Indiana, Pa., James from Punxsutawney; Barney Scanlan, Ebensburg; Bob Nelson, Nanty-Glo; Ed Clark, Hillsdale, Indiana County. *L. E. Summers, Resident Engineer at Vintondale, Pa. His assistants: *Mr. Bowden, Johnstown; Ben Mahaffey and Frank Sabatto, Mahaffey, Pa.; Ralph G. Rodgers, Vintondale.

*L. E. Summers resigned October 6, 1911, to join up with the Philadelphia Traction Company.
*A. V. Little resigned April 15th, 1918, to go to the Southern Cambria Railway - trolley line.
*D. L. Rodgers replaced Little and then S. H. Jencks when placed on the retirement list, in 1936.

(*) Engineers

 


(D)

APPENDIX - continued

The Clearfield Bituminous Coal Corporation and the New York Central Railroad Company

Substance of an article in the Explosives Engineer, March-April 1944, by Mr. A. J. Musser, Vice President, C. B. C. Corp., and general manager of Coal Mining Department of the New York Central.

The McIntyre Coal Company began operation of certa1n mines at McIntyre, Lycoming County, Pa., in 1950.

When the coal in this field was exhausted, about 20 years later, C. J. Langdon, of Elmira, formed the Clearfield Bituminous Coal Company, the charter for which approved at Harrisburg Dec. 27, 1882. Langdon, president, and directors New York Central men, William A. and B. L. Wallace of Clearfield; and S. R. Peale of Lockhaven, Pa.

This Company acquired 22,500 acres of coal in Clearfield and Centre Counties, Pa., established a mining town at Peale, Clearfield County, and opened several mines.

In order to transport coal over lies of the N. Y. C., the Beech Creek Railroad from Jersey Shore to Clearfield was surveyed.

Its building was opposed by the P. R. R., with result that W. H. Vanderbilt ordered a survey of a route from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, parallelling the P. R. R. Construction work progressed, including the driving of seven tunnels through the mountains of Pennsylvania.

This resulted in the withdrawing of opposition, and the Beech Creek Railroad was built. The tunnels are being utilized today by the Pennsylvania Turnpike, a superhighway extending from near Harrisburg to Irwin, Pa., just east of Pittsburgh.

In 1885 the C. B. C. acquired 12,000 acres of additional coal lands south of Clearfield, opened mines and established town of Gazzam.

The general office was located at Peale until 1900; moved to Clearfield where it remained until 1920, when the office was moved to Indiana, Pa.

George H. Platt, mining engineer, was in charge of operations since the McIntyre days, died Jan. 1, 1887. He was succeeded by Robert A. Shillingford. He died June 16, 1913. His successor was H. B. Douglas until he was succeeded as of Dec. 1, 1921, by A. J. Musser, author of above article.

In 1886 the C. B. C. was reorganized a corporation, William D. Kelly, President. He was succeeded in turn by W. C. Brown, Dec. 23, 1909; then A. H. Smith Jan. 1, 1914; F. E. Herriman elected July 8, 1918; again Smith October 14, 1919; and Herriman for second time Jan. 4, 1921, and served until May 6, 1932; finally, W. F. Place, 1944.

 


(E)

APPENDIX - continued

In 1895 the C. B. C. acquired about 2,000 acres of coal land at Spangler, Cambria County, Pa. Its West Branch Mine was developed and operated.

In 1898 all the C. B. C. mines became producers of "captive" coal, all of the output going for locomotive fuel for the New York Central Railroad Company.

In 1900 another block of coal of about 5,000 acres was acquired in northern Indiana County, and in 1905 Clymer and Barr mines were opened, and the present borough of Clymer was established.

In 1911 the C. B. C. acquired roundly 90,000 acres of coal properties in Clearfield, Cambria, Blair and Indiana Counties, and with this acquisition were acquired a number of mining towns, a large number of miners' dwellings, mining plants and complete mining equipment, all of which, including about a third of the above 90,000 acres, was leased to Pennsylvania. Coal and Coke Corp.

Included in this acquisition were active mines and mining plants at Winburne in Clearfield Co., Moss Creek, Cresson, Gallitzin and Ehrenfeld in Cambria Co., and Arcadia and Alverda in Indiana County.

November 22, 1943, the C. B. C. purchased a coal-stripping operation of about 5,000 acres in eastern Ohio, Belmont Field, in Jefferson and Harrison Counties.

Clearfield Bituminous Coal Corporation now (1944) owns and controls, including certain small leaseholds, 177,515 acres.

Acreages owned by the C. B. C. and leased to other operating companies are located at Winburne, Clearfield Co., and Moss Creek, Cambria Co., on the New York Central; Gallitzin, Cresson and Ehrenfeld and Portage on the Penna. R. R., and Heislev and Revloc on the Cambria and Indiana Railroad, with an annual production of 5,410,000 tons, or a total from the entire property of 8,040,200.

The present active mines the C. B. C. Corp. operated by the New York Central, Coal Mining Department, since May 16, 1922, are: Cooper, located at Grassflat, Clearfield Co.; Commodore, located at Commodore, Indiana Co.; Dutch Run, located at Alverda, Indiana Co.; and Rossiter, located at Rossiter, Indiana Co. The Rossiter mines were opened in 1900.

Of interest to most of us: Coal is not only a source of power, where its converted into coke, by means of the by-product process, there can be obtained from a ton of coal the following by-products: 25 lbs. of ammonium sulphate yielding fertilizers; 40 gals. of ammonia liquor; 10 gals. of coal tar, which in turn may yield 800 products useful in 3,500 various preparations; 3-3/4 gals. of light oil; 1.9 gals. of benzol, yielding dyes, explosives, perfumes, phonograph records, and French ivory; 1/2 gal. of toluol, from which sacchrin is secured as well as TNT, one or today's most powerful explosives; 1/4 gal. of xylol, used in paints, inks, soaps, antiseptics, and depth bombs; and 1/4 gal. of refined solvent naphthalene from which moth balls are made.

 


(F)

APPENDIX -continued

The value of coal mined annually in the United States is greater than all the metals combined. It is 22 times the value or silver, 5-1/2 times the value of all gold, 7 times the value of all copper, and 7 times the value of all iron mined annually in the U. S.

The New York Central Railroad Company came into existence as a corporation entity in 1853 by the consolidation of 10 railroad corporations.

All railroads constructed prior to 1842 used wooden rails. On top of the wooden rails were attached wrought iron plates, known as "strap iron."

In those early days the fuel used on railroads was wood, the average cost per cord in 1853 was $2.19 (16 to 28 shillings).

S. H. Jencks
Ebensburg. Penna.
Nov. 1, 1944

 



(G)

APPENDIX

MY COUNTRYSIDE, THEN AND NOW
By Malcolm Cowley

Selections from an Article by a Former Resident of the Blacklick District.
Published in 1928 in an Issue of Harper's Monthly Magazine.

Mr. Cowley's old house was between Belsano and White Mill.

"My Country is tangible, small, immediate; a Pennsylvania Valley, or rather a high tableland out by ravines. lying between Chestnut Ridge on the west and Laurel Hill on the east and south.

By climbing to the highest branches of a pine tree on the knob behind our barn. One can survey the whole of my country, from the one steeple of Bethel to the stone house at No. 10, and from the high ground in the north, around Nicktown, to where, in the south, the coke ovens of Vintondale cut the horizon with a wall of smoke.

Last summer, after an absence of 12 years, I returned to my country to find it the same and not the same. It had changed physically and socially; it had changed in fashions peculiar to itself and in other fashions that were typical of a whole cycle in American rural life.

When I went away, in 1916, it had the look of something ravished and deserted. The Vinton Lumber Company had cut the second-growth pine, the first-growth hemlock, the sugar maple and, leaving birch and beech as unworthy of attention, had torn up its 20 miles of railroad track and moved into Kentucky. Fires had followed the lumbermen, turning thousands or acres into black meadows where ashes stirred in the breeze like the pollen of infernal flowers. Mine tipp1es and culm banks were toadstools on the bare hills.
The poisoned creeks ran orange with sulphur water. It was as if my country had been occupied by an invading army which had wasted the resources of the hills, ravaged the forests with fire and steel, fouled the waters, and now was slowly retiring, without booty.

One by one the settlers were drifting away. Young men, the flower of their generation, tramped off to Pittsburgh or Johnstown to look for work in the mills. Some of them went farther west.

They helped to open the new mines in West Virginia; they toiled in Oregon sawmills or Michigan factories, and grew into landless men, trees without roots the homeless peasants of the machine.

My country was becoming a region Of old people and children.

The minority of young men who stayed behind had yielded to the yoke of women and the past; or rather, their future had been decided in a fashion somewhat more casual. During the summer there were barn dances, hay rides, church festivals and picnics. In winter there were husking bees and sociables.

- continued -

 


(H)

APPENDIX

MY COUNTRYSIDE - Continued

Chaperons were unknown. Boys and girls drove home together, wrapped in lap robes, pressed body to body in narrow sleighs.

Early in these essentially puritan lives there had come one or two years of candid paganism. Soon they ended; Vida or Irma was "in trouble." What magnificent families they raised in my country. And how sallow and toothless the women were at thirty.

Life there was hard and in its essentials tragic.

It was a battle in which there were many casualties. Men died in accidents; men died in the mines, under a hundred tons of rock, or in the woods under a fallen tree; there were women who had outlived four husbands. There were men who had killed three wives with milking, child-bearing, housework. And each of these tragedies was purely a family affair. Social feeling was almost lacking; each man worked alone for his own salvation; and the lack of responsibility to the community was shown in bad roads, in primitive schools, in trout streams poisoned by sawmills, in churches that were never painted or reshingled, in forest fires that no one bothered to fight.

My country blossomed a little in its old men. Those who survived the hardships and accidents of middle age acquired a sort of exhausted calm, a fadedwhiteness like that of rain-washed lilacs.

My country, for all its unsocial harshness, for all its emigrants had then, and still preserves, a fund of local patriotism which is symbolized by trout, white pine and deer. The old men used to say, "Them days 'We alluz come home with a string of trout as heavy as ham. I c'n mind when every pine we cut would saw 2,000 foot of boards…… It was nice, I tell ye, to go hunting after deer."

When I returned to my country last Summer I half expected to encounter the same condition. Instead, the population had increased.

The nearest village (Belsano) was crowded with new homes. The farms, though few of them seemed prosperous, at least were occupied. The roads were admirable. It was obvious that the women had improved their own position; they looked somehow less weary, less indifferent, and even the boys who played by the roadside were rather less unkempt. A new brick high school was rising near
the site of the little building where we 60 of us children, a turbulent roomful divided into five classes, had recited turn by turn to the same discouraged teacher.

However, the change in my country was not confined to its physical appearance: the social attitude of our neighbors had developed like their roads and schools. I soon discovered that the old individualism of life on lonely farms had almost disappeared. People there, as elsewhere in the country, had come to regard themselves as members of a collectivity: a village, a lodge, a township, a church. They judged actions by their social effects, and spoke of a successful man as being "a credit to the town." Formerly they would have said, "Milt knows how to take care of himself."

- continued -

 


(I)

APPENDIX

MY COUNTRYSIDE - Continued

On the second day of my visit I went to the swimming hole in Blacklick Creek, a hundred yards below the White Mill dam. I remember it as a pool in the deep woods, black and still, with a school or minnows floating at the surface of the water, in the sunlight, and hummingbirds moving from flower to flower along the bank. Usually it was the haunt of silence. At frequent intervals it was invaded by half a dozen boys who stood shivering and naked in the water, one or two of them able to venture a few strokes and all of them
splashing and shouting as it the stillness were an enemy to be conjured away. This time the swimming hole was crowded with young men, children, girls in their teens and middle-aged women who had never worn a bathing suit before. All the boys could swim and few were really skillful. However, it was the presence Of women that astonished me. No one familiar with the position of farm wives in my country could fail to gasp at finding them here in the water, under the trees, at a time when there were socks to mend and dewberries to preserve. Their right to the swimming hole - a right significant of all the little revolutions by which the life of American country women is being transformed - had not been won without a struggle. I heard that Preacher Cameron had declaimed against it on three successive Sundays.

Reverend Elisha Cameron, as he signed his letters, was a powerful figure, the father, by two wives, of 15 children, 12 whom were living. He was known throughout the township for his deerstalking and his skill in catching trout. To the improvement of roads and schools, to the rights of women, and the comforts of life he was hostile or indifferent; he was an individualist, drawing a personal inspiration from the Bible; hunting, fishing, damning and exhorting w1th the same vehemence, the same lonely fire. In some ways he typified the older standards or the country.

The day before my visit ended I did not drive to town; instead I went rambling through the pasture lot. After a time I reached the top of the knob and climbed the old pine tree from which all my country is visible. It stands some distance from the farmhouse, along in the bare lot, with the branches twisted northward in the direction of the prevailing winds. Branch after branch they spread like Egyptian fans of ostrich feathers or separate terraces of moss, hiding the ground from the watcher who has climbed to the top. There, a perpetual breeze creeps through the needles, exhaling the odor of dried herbs and a rustle of heavy silk. Perched on the highest branch. I looked southward to the road, once known as the Clay Pike and now transformed into the Benjamin Franklin Highway. It rippled with an unbroken stream of motor cars, bound east to the mines at Nanty-Glo, bound west beyond the ridges, bound nowhere in particular. South of the highway was the deep ravine where the Blacklick flowed, its orange waters sometimes visible between the trees. The horizon west of the valley was closed by Duncan's Knob, the limit of the lands that my great-great-uncle had claimed. South and southeast was a file of parallel mountains, ridge on ridge, growing bluer and fainter as they marched into the sky. Bands of lightning were playing over the last ridge. In the near distance I began to distinguish familiar sights. A crumbling chimney in a pasture lot was all that remained of the cabin which James Duncan, the deerslayer and pine-butcher, had hewn from the forest, log by log. He lay buried nearby, under a blasted tree. It was his son Thomas who built the White Mill, first of the water grist mills along our streams, now standing idle as a memorial to the days of more prosperous

- continued -

 


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APPENDIX

MY COUNTRYSIDE - Continued

farming. Empty also was the clearing where the Vinton sawmills had devoured the hardwood and hemlock of 20,000 acres.

A rash on a distant hillside, lividly gleaming in an island of sunlight among the clouds, was the culm-bank and abandoned tipple Of what had been Mine No.6.

The history of my country, like that of so many American districts, and perhaps like that of the nation as a whole, had been a slow exhausting of resources. The men in coonskin caps, the fierce Scotch-Irish of the frontier, had driven away the larger game. Their sons, who cleared the fields, had cut almost the last virgin forest, and the next two generations had won out the arable soil. My country today was fed with minerals, but the coal in time would be exhausted, and then?

I had no fear for what would come. The hills had shown a power of recuperation; the trees were creeping back into the desolate choppings where fire had raged; the fields were resting for other tasks under a blanket of white-top and goldenrod. The people felt a common aim; they, too, were preparing for the future."

 

S. H. Jencks: Mr. Cowley's contribution to Harper's Magazine covered a number of pages, the passages or paragraphs copied for this "Appendix" were selected because of interest to us who now reside in His Country. We are sorry Mr. Cowley, on his return to his country, did not give the reasons that brought about improved conditions - the population and so on. He gives the coal companies at Colver and Nanty-Glo and Revloc no credit for calling back those who tramped off to Pittsburgh or Johnstown --- to new mines in West Virginia--- Oregon or Michigan.

We will say this for Mr. Cowley: He knows how to express what he has in a good command of the King's English. "I would that I could utter the thoughts that arise in me."

William Cowley was Malcolm's father. The Cambria and Indiana Railroad crossed their farm a short distance south of Elkdale Junction. The White Mill Station was on their land.

S. H. Jencks April 20, 1945

 


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Berwind-White Coal Mining Company

In the latter part of 19th Century, as our nation began its industrial expansion, there became a tremendous need for a source of continuous power.

The power furnished by wind and water were unreliable, thus at a very early Time the organizers and directors of the various American enterprises concluded that in spite of the free air that blew over the oceans, and the water that tumbled over waterfalls it was cheaper to power their machines with coal burning steam engines.

So the demand for coal.

Among the group who anticipated this demand for coal there was one man, who, by virtue of his uncanny foresight, world spanning imagination, and mastery of the administrative art, rapidly gained a firm foothold in the province of the extractive industry...his name was Charles F. Berwind. Looking over his maps, Berwind discovered that within the bounds of the United States there were eight hundred fifty thousand square miles of coal land to supply the needs of the awakening industrial world.

Steadied by the possibility of developing at least part of this colossal domain Berwind moved in a partner with a new coal firm...Berwind and Bradley. For more than a decade the firm of Berwind and Bradley prospered.

But American business was on the March; manufacturing, transporting, developing new trends of communication and commerce.

Keeping abreast of the times Charles F. Berwind reorganized his firm in 1874.

With the same fine discretion that had so successfully carried him through the tumultuous beginnings of his early ventures, Charles F. Berwind chose for one of his associates in the new organization Judge Allison White. Judge Allison White was a seasoned and mature business man, who, having served a term In Congress, had retired to Philadelphia. His advice in legal matters was Indispensable to the new venture. The third partner, who was to search out new markets for coal, was Edward J. Berwind...Charles F. Berwind's younger brother. As a young man Edward J. Berwind had learned some first hand facts about coal mining when he took a job as "weigh-boss" for the Powelton Coal and Iron Company in Minersville, Pennsylvania. Thus the firm of Berwind, White and Company was formed.

Following through with his plans Charles F. Berwind sent his brother to New York to establish contact with the various steamship companies who demanded high grade fuel. So successful was Edward J. Berwind in finding markets for steam coal that he all but gained a monopoly on the market. Practically every important steamship company sailing out of New York harbor was "sold" on Berwind, White and Company's coal.

With the expanding business came the burden of greater responsibilities, and Charles F. Berwind called upon his two remaining brothers...John E. Berwind and Harry A. Berwind to help shoulder the load. John E. Berwind followed his brother Edward to New York where he concentrated on foreign markets, while Harry A. Berwind remained in Philadelphia to prepare himself for the supervision of field operations.

In less than a decade after the Berwind, White and Company was organized, Charles F. Berwind saw that the relatively small firm was unable to keep up with the ever increasing demands for Berwind-White coal, and on January 22, 1886, the Berwind-White Coal Mining Company was incorporated with Charles F. Berwind as President, Edward J. Berwind as Vice-President, Allison White as Treasurer, and Frederick McOwen as Secretary.

With the flexibility that the new Berwind-White Coal Mining Company had taken on since 1886, Charles F. Berwind was able to not only direct the mining and selling of coal, but to engage and expand into other activities that were related to the coal industry. Notable among these ventures were the Eureka stores, which under the supervision of Harry Frank...the first head of the Eureka stores...kept pace with the expanding enterprise. W. A. Crist was the first manager of the Eureka stores under the Corporation.

To provide an inexhaustible supply of coal for the ever growing Berwind White Coal Mining Company, Charles F. Berwind was constantly on the alert to discover new fields of black diamonds. At the time the Corporation was formed there were twenty-one mines in operation. These included the openings of the Big Moshannon Vein in the Clearfield District and in the Lehigh Valley, together with other well known coal regions. But as the supply of coal diminished, virgin fields were explored.

The need for new coal lands caused James A. Cunningham, the advance agent in field operations of Berwind-White to enter the Paint Creek Valley in the year 1893. After surveying the area, Cunningham purchased more than one hundred square miles of lands along Upper Paint Creek. Transposing the syllables of the Berwind name, the new site was given a name - Windber.

In September, 1897, the first of the Berwind-White Coal Mining Company's mines in the Windber area was opened...Eureka Mine Number 30.

Following in rapid succession Eureka mines numbered 31-32-33-34-35-36-37-38-39-40-41-42 were developed and installed with electric haulage, and it was said that, "This equipment is probably the largest and best soft coal installation in the world," producing more than ten thousand tons of Eureka coal per day.

Quite aware that the rural community of northern Somerset County could not furnish enough man power to operate these mines, the Company laid plans for a new town...a center of population apart from the mining operations that would attract workers as well as business men.

Under the supervision of James S. Cunningham, the present town of Windber was staked out in 1897.

Unlike many so-called "coal towns" where "company houses" are built in uniform and regimented rows, the broader vision of the Berwind-White Coal Mining Company invited their workers to share in the designing of the kind of houses they were to live in. The difference in this plan being, that instead of "houses for workers" the new buildings that began to mushroom along the banks
of Paint Creek became "homes for participants in a great enterprise". .. designed, built, and paid for by their respective owners. The soundness of this strategy is evidenced by pride of ownership, which from the beginning, set neighbor against neighbor in friendly rivalry in beautifying their homes and gardens.

The tonnage produced by the Berwind-White Coal Mining Company in the Windber area during its fifty years of operation staggers the imagination. The figures mount up to meaningless proportions when looking at cold statistics which show that more than 150,000,000 tons of coal have been shipped from the Windber mines. This represents a string of 50 ton R.R. cars circling the earth.

Meanwhile John Lockrie went into business in 1908 when he established the Rummel Coal Company. Shortly thereafter he acquired additional coal property and opened up and developed three other mines in the vicinity of Windber.

In 1916 he opened several mines in the Central City section under the name of the Reitz Coal Company. As President and General Manager of the Reitz Coal Company, John Lockrie became one of the most successful coal operators in the State of Pennsylvania.

The Company continued to grow and prosper during the 20's, late 30's, and World War II. Following World War II, a decision was made to suspend mining operations but continue to lease and sell coal. Mr. Alberter, presently the Chairman of the Board, Reitz Coal Co., was hired to divest the mining operations. However, Mr. Alberter had the foresight to realize that the coal market was on the verge of resurgance. His foresight proved true in that the mid 70's saw a revival of the coal industry. Instead of selling off equipment, property" etc. Mr. Alberter began to move toward rebuilding Berwinds interest in coal mining.