Part 14

But the coal trade was active in Wyoming Valley as early as 1807, when the Smiths shipped a boat load to Columbia. George H. Hollenback shipped two loads down the river in 1813, and sent coal by wagon to Philadelphia. Lord Butler and Crandall Wilcox both shipped coal in 1814.

The use of anthracite for domestic purposes seems to have been discovered by Judge Jesse Fell, of Wilkes-Barre. The following memorandum was made at the time on the fly-leaf of one of his books:

“February 11, 1808, made the experiment of burning the common stone coal of the valley in a grate, in a common fireplace in my house, and found it will answer the purpose of fuel, making a clearer and better fire, at less expense, than burning wood in the common way. Jesse Fell.”

News of this successful experiment soon spread through the town and country, and people flocked to witness the discovery. Similar grates were soon constructed by Judge Fell’s neighbors, and in a short time were in general use throughout the valley.

In the spring of that year, John and Abijah Smith loaded two arks with coal at Ransoms Creek, in Plymouth, and took it down the river to Columbia; but on offering it for sale, no person could be induced to purchase. They were compelled to leave the black stones behind them unsold, when they returned to their homes.

The next year the Smiths, not in the least discouraged, took two arks of coal and a grate, and again proceeded to Columbia. The grate was put up, and the coals were burned in it, thus proving the practicability of using coal as a fuel. The result was a sale of the coal, and thus began the initiative of the immense coal trade of Pennsylvania.

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Quakers Make Protest Against Slavery to Congress February 12, 1790

There is unmistakable evidence of Negro slavery among the Dutch on the South (now Delaware) River as early as the year 1639. In that year a convict from Manhattan was sentenced to serve with the blacks on that river.

In September and October, 1664, the English defeated the Dutch, and some of the Dutch soldiers were sold in Virginia as slaves. The Negro slaves were also confiscated by the victors and sold. A cargo of three hundred of those unhappy beings having just landed, failed to escape capture.

In 1688 Pastorius, the Op den Graffs (now Updegraffs), and Gerhardt Hendricks sent to the Friends’ meeting house the first public protest ever made on this continent against the holding of slaves, or as they uncompromisingly styled it, “the traffick of men’s body.”

These early residents of Germantown compared Negro slavery to slavery under Turkish pirates, and failed to note that one was better than the other. Their protest said:

“There is a saying that we shall doe to all men licke as we will be done ourselves; making no difference of what generation, descent, or colour they are. And those who steal or robb men, and those who buy or purchase them, are they not all alicke? Here is liberty of Conscience, which is right and reasonable; here ought to be likewise liberty of ye body, except of evil doers, which is another case. In Europe there are many oppressed for Conscience sake; and here there are those oppressed which are of a black colour.”

This memorial is believed to be in the handwriting of Francis Daniel Pastorius, and at the date it was written New England was doing a large business in the Guinea trade, the slave depots being located chiefly at Newport, where the gangs for the Southern market were arranged.

All honor is due these honest first settlers of Germantown, who asked categorically: “Have these Negers not as much right to fight for their freedom as you have to keep them slaves?”

They asked, further, to be informed what right Christians have to maintain slavery, “to the end we shall be satisfied on this point and satisfy likewise our good friends and acquaintances in our natif country, to whom it is a fairfull thing that men should be handled so in Pennsilvania.”

The Quakers were embarrassed by the memorial and its blunt style of interrogatory. It was submitted to the Monthly Meeting at Dublin Township, “inspected” and found so “weighty” that it was passed on to the Philadelphia Quarterly Meeting, which “recommended” it to the Yearly Meeting at Burlington, where it was adjudged “not to be so proper for this meeting to give a positive judgment in the case, it having so general a relation to many other parts, and, therefore, at present they forebore it.” So the matter slept.

Very soon thereafter slavery in Philadelphia was not very different from what it was in the South at a later period. The white mechanics and laborers complained to the authorities that their wages were reduced by the competition of Negroes hired out by their owners, and the owners objected to the capital punishment of slaves for crime, as thereby their property would be destroyed.

In 1708 two slaves, Tony and Quashy, were sentenced to death for burglary, but their owners were allowed to sell them out of the province after a severe flogging had been given them upon the streets on three successive market days.

The Assembly of Pennsylvania soon viewed with much concern and apprehension the introduction of so many slaves into the province, but the House would not consider any proposition to free Negroes, deciding that to attempt to do so would be “neither just nor convenient,” but it did resolve to discourage the introduction of Negroes from Africa and the West Indies. It laid a tax of £20 a head upon all such importations. The Queen and Royal Council failed to approve the act, for the British Government was set like flint against any provincial attempt to arrest the African slave trade or tax it out of existence—that trade was a royal perquisite.

The year 1780 is memorable in the annals of Pennsylvania for the passage of an act for the gradual abolition of slavery in this State. On February 5, 1780, the Supreme Executive Council in its message to the Assembly, called the attention of that body to this subject, and although it was forcibly presented, the matter was dismissed, “as the Constitution would not allow them to receive the law from the Council.”

On March 1, 1780, by a vote of thirty-four to twenty-one, an abolition act passed the Assembly. It provided for the registration of every Negro or mulatto slave or servant for life, or till the age of thirty-one years, before the first of November following, and also provided “that no man or woman of any nation or color except the Negroes or mulattoes who shall be registered as aforesaid, shall at any time hereafter be deemed, or adjudged, or holden within the territory of this Commonwealth, as slaves or servants for life, but as free men and free women.”

The Quakers partly forgot their woes on hearing of an act which they so much approved, as in 1774 the Pennsylvania Yearly Meeting had taken a definite and decided stand against slavery.

They proceeded without delay to urge war on the system.

On February 12, 1790, the Quakers made their first formal protest to Congress for the abolition of slavery in every form.

The movement against slavery had been making quiet progress during all these years, and on January 1, 1794, a convention was held in Philadelphia by invitation of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, of delegates from all societies throughout the United States.

At this convention two memorials were adopted, one to the Legislature of Pennsylvania, and the other to Congress, asking for suitable laws to suppress the slave trade.

The petition to Congress was referred to a committee, which made a report recommending the passage of a law against the fitting out of any ship or vessel in any port of the United States, or by foreigners, for the purpose of procuring from any part of the coast of Africa the inhabitants of the said country, to be transshipped into any foreign ports or places of the world to be sold or disposed of as slaves. The law was finally passed on March 22, 1794, and vessels were thereafter liable to heavy fine and forfeiture, and the freedom of the slaves on board.

Thus after the taunt of the early German settlers, the Quakers cleared their own skirts and then led in the movement which abolished slaves from Pennsylvania and were the first to lay this great question before Congress.

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First Magazine in America Published in

Philadelphia, February 13, 1741

There has been recent controversy, especially among New York newspapers, regarding the oldest magazine in America, one such newspaper concluding that the oldest such publication was Oliver Oldschool’s “Portfolio,” published by Bradford and Inskeep, of Philadelphia, and Inskeep and Bradford, in New York, 1809–1810.

That is not the fact and Pennsylvania cannot be denied the honor of being the home of the earliest magazine published on this continent.

On November 6, 1740, Andrew Bradford’s “Mercury,” published in Philadelphia, contained a two page editorial which must surely have caused some sensation, heralding as it did a genuine innovation.

“’Tis not in mortals to command success,” and if the innovator in this case failed, he was at least the first to make the attempt, not alone in Philadelphia, but throughout America.

The editorial plunged headlong into the business at hand as follows:

“The PLAN of an intended MAGAZINE.”

“The Success and Approbation which the Magazines, published in Great Britain, have met with for many years past among all Ranks and Degrees of People, Encouraged us to Attempt a Work of the like Nature in America. But the Plan on which we intend to proceed, being in many respects different from the British Models, it therefore becomes necessary, in the first Place, to lay before the Reader a general Prospect of the present Design.

“It is proposed to publish Monthly, ‘An Account of the Publick Affairs transacted in His Majesty’s Colonies, as well on the Continent of America, as well as in the West India Islands,’ and at the end of each session, ‘an Extract of the Laws therein passed, with the Reasons on which they were founded, the Grievances intended to be Remedied by them, and the Benefits expected from them.”

The prospectus then proceeds to apologize beforehand for “the mistakes which will probably be committed in handling so great a Variety of Matter.” It sketches the general lines of the future magazine in regard to “remarkable Trials as well Civil as Criminal,” also the “Course of Exchange, Party-Disputes, Free Inquiry into all sorts of Subjects, its views of the Liberty and Licentiousness of the Press, its contempt for the rude Clamours of envious Ignorance,’ and the ‘base suggestions of the Malevolence’,” and then terminates as follows:

“To conclude, the Reader is desired to consider the Undertaking as an attempt to Erect on Neutral Principles A PUBLIC THEATRE in the Center of the British Empire in America, on which the most remarkable Transactions of each Government may be impartially represented, and fairly exhibited to the View of all His Majesty’s Subjects, whether at Home or abroad, who are disposed to be Spectators.

“This is TRUE Liberty, when freeborn Men, Having to advise the Publick, may speak free, Which he who can, and will, deserves high Praise; Who neither can, nor will, may hold his Peace; What can be juster in a State than this?

“From Euripides, by Milton, for a motto to his Vindication of the Subject’s Right to the Liberty of the Press.”

The first number of this, The American Magazine, was to be published “in March next, if by that Time there are a Sufficient Number of Subscriptions.”

But something went wrong with the plans. The very week following this announcement, out came Benjamin Franklin with the charge that this scheme now put forth by John Webbe and Bradford was really his own, “Communicated in Confidence,” to the said Webbe, who was to be the editor of his magazine.

Webbe was not slow to indignantly repudiate the charge, and an unseemly controversy followed between the two rival printing houses, which, no doubt, interfered considerably with the ultimate result or their respective ventures.

Be that as it may, “The American Magazine, or a monthly view of the Political State of the British Colonies,” 8vo size, price eight pence sterling, made its appearance, not in March as advertised and expected, but on February 13, 1741.

Thus the first magazine in America made its initial bow to the public, and only three days later, Franklin’s press brought out “The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle, for All the British Plantations in America.”

Both of these periodicals were advertised as monthly publications, and the Mercury carried a small advertisement March 19, which announced the issuance of “The American Magazine” for February; but alas! that is the last we read of Andrew Bradford’s pioneer magazine publication.

Franklin’s “General Magazine” reached its sixth month of existence, after which it simply ceased, no explanation of its discontinuance, not a semblance of a valedictory appeared in “The Gazette,” where its monthly advent had been so well heralded and advertised.

The name of these original “magazines” naturally suggests to the present-day reader a very incorrect idea of their general appearance and contents, thanks to the luxurious works of art that American enterprise has put into publications now classed as magazines.

Franklin’s magazine, for example, had but one illustration, and a poor one at that, a representation of the Prince of Wales’ feathers and the motto “Ich dien” on its front page.

It was only a 12mo; yet under existing conditions the labor of filling seventy-six pages with small print month after month and the neat manner in which the work was performed reflect the highest credit upon the publisher and was deserving of more favorable circumstances. The contents of each number bear a favorable comparison with the best magazines of today.

Dr. William Smith, provost of the University of Pennsylvania, soon manifested a practical interest in intellectual affairs in the province in an effort to found a literary review called “The American Magazine and Monthly Chronicle for the British Colonies.”

The first number appeared October, 1757, and was printed by William Bradford, presumably for “a society of gentlemen,” which in truth consisted of Dr. Smith and several of his pupils in the college. This periodical was principally devoted to political matters, literary discussions and poetry. It was discontinued November 14, 1758, and Pennsylvania had not yet had a successful magazine.

Between 1741 and the close of the century nearly fifty magazines were born in America, only deservedly to die. Philadelphia and Boston struggled for literary supremacy, yet the four magazines of today which may be called the veterans of the field are the North American Review, Harper’s, and Scribner’s, each published in New York, and the Atlantic, published in Boston.

But Philadelphia was long the home of three widely circulated magazines—Graham’s, Peterson’s and Godey’s Lady’s Book. The last named was perhaps the most famous, established in July, 1830, by Louis A. Godey, and it reached the enormous circulation of 150,000 a month in the heyday of its prosperity.

If the Saturday Evening Post is regarded as a magazine, Philadelphia is today the home of the oldest and largest in the world.

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Christopher L. Sholes, Inventor of Typewriter, Born in Mooresburg, February 14, 1819

More than a score of attempts, both in this country and abroad, were made to perfect a typewriter after the birth of the idea in the mind of Henry Mill, an English engineer, who obtained a patent from Queen Ann of England, January 1, 1714, but none was successful.

It remained for an humble country boy, a printer, by the name of Christopher Latham Sholes, who was born in the little village of Mooresburg, Montour County, Pennsylvania, February 14, 1819, to perfect a model in the winter of 1866–67, which, after later improvements, was the basis for the typewriting machines which are now so much a part of commercial life throughout the world.

The patent granted to Henry Mill by Queen Ann never availed the imaginative engineer anything, because he lacked the essential ability to perfect a model which might be manufactured on a commercial basis. It is true, nevertheless, that he had the idea for a “writing machine for the impressing or transcribing of letters singly or progressively one after the other,” but this was not sufficient to be practical in any sense of the term.

The same difficulty that beset Mill prevented others from attaining success, and it was a century and a half before the actual birth of a commercial typewriter.

This interesting event was enacted in a small machine shop in the outskirts of Milwaukee. An interesting history was published recently by the Herkimer County (New York) Historical Society in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the manufacture of the first typewriter for commercial use. According to this story the principals were Carlos Gliden, the son of a successful iron monger of Ohio, who was engaged in developing a mechanical plow; Samuel W. Soule and Christopher Latham Sholes, both printers, who were engaged in developing a machine for numbering serially the pages of blank books, etc.

Sholes was the central figure in the association subsequently formed among the three. Sholes began his active life as an apprentice in the office of the Danville, Pa., Intelligencer.

The Intelligencer was then the oldest paper in Montour County, founded in 1828 by Valentine Best. At the time of Sholes’ apprenticeship the newspaper was a leading Democratic organ. The Intelligencer office was an excellent school for a boy when Christopher Sholes became the “devil” and began the career which was to stamp him as one of the great inventors of the country.

Thomas Chalfant purchased the property July 15, 1861. He was a prominent Democratic politician, serving as member of the Legislature and as State Senator. He was a Civil War veteran and many years postmaster at Danville. Through all his various offices Chalfant devoted much time to his newspaper.

Sholes was diligent and progressed in his chosen profession, becoming in turn, editor of several newspapers and ultimately an owner. In 1866 he was collector of the port of Milwaukee and had held other public offices, including State Senator and Assemblyman.

Sholes’ subsequent invention of the typewriter is ascribed to inspiration he and Glidden obtained from a description of a machine invented by John Pratt, of Alabama, which, however, was very crude and impracticable.

The three friends engaged the services of skilled mechanics to help them in the construction of their typewriter, the first working model of which was completed in that small Milwaukee shop in the fall of 1866, but it was not until the following June that a patent was obtained for the invention.

This original machine had innumerable defects and was a crude and cumbersome affair, but it wrote accurately and rapidly, and after all that was their objective.

Sholes was the one of the trio who did most to produce this machine, and while he was not satisfied, he soon scored a notable triumph and made the machine its own best advertiser. A number of letters were written with it, among them one to James Densmore, then a resident of Meadville, Pa. Densmore was immediately interested. Like Sholes and Soule, he had been both printer and editor, and could realize the importance of such a machine.

The relationship between Sholes and Densmore was a strange meeting of opposites, the former was a dreamer and an idealist, the latter was bold, aggressive and arrogant and by some considered a plain “crank.”

Densmore was not impressed with the machine more than to regard the idea as feasible, but he determined to make an attempt at selling it to some firm with the facility and financial resources to manufacture it.

Densmore paid all the debts incurred by Sholes whereby he obtained an interest in the invention. He then engaged the services of a Mr. Yost, with whom he had been associated in a Pennsylvania oil business, and together they presented the proposition to the old firm of gun makers, E. Remington & Son, of Ilion, N. Y.

A tentative agreement was effected between the Remingtons and Sholes and his new partners, and the first contract signed for the manufacture of a typewriter for commercial use, the one built by Sholes was made in March, 1873.

The original contract was for the manufacture only, but in time the Remingtons acquired complete ownership.

Sholes, soon thereafter, sold out his royalty right to Densmore for $12,000, which was a goodly sum in those days, but was the only reward that he ever received for his priceless invention and the years of earnest labor and expense he had bestowed upon it.

Densmore did not part with his royalty rights and was subsequently enriched.

Further improvements were made on Sholes’ invention when the skilled mechanics of the Remington factory were brought into service, but the fact remains that the Montour County printer was the inventor of the almost universally used typewriter and Densmore, another Pennsylvanian, was the medium by which the invention was saved from the scrap heap and commercially developed to the almost perfect machine of today. Thus Pennsylvania has given to the world the typewriter.

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German Christians Organized Harmony Society in Butler, February 15, 1805

The Harmony Society, as it was organized by George Rapp in Wurtemberg and established in America, was an outgrowth of a Separatistic movement in Germany and an attempt to put into practice, under favorable circumstances, Separatistic principles.

The members of the society had constituted a congregation of Separatists, where they listened to the teachings of their pastor, George Rapp. According to his instructions, they left their homes in Wurtemberg and followed him to America. They settled at Harmony, Butler County, Pennsylvania.

Without election, by common consent George Rapp had maintained himself as their leader.

In order to put their society on a firm basis, and to prevent misunderstanding, articles of association were drawn up and signed by the members February 15, 1805. This was the date recognized as the birthday of the society, and in after years its anniversary was celebrated as the “Harmoniefest.”

The agreement contains five articles to which the subscribers pledged themselves:

(1) To give absolutely all their property to George Rapp and his associates.

(2) To obey the rules and regulations of the community and to work for its welfare.

(3) If they desired to withdraw from the society, not to demand any reward for labor or services.

In return, George Rapp and his associates pledged themselves:

(1) To supply the subscribers with all the necessities of life, both in health and sickness, and after death, to provide for their families.

(2) In case of withdrawal to return them the value of property contributed without interest and to give a donation in moneys to such as contributed nothing.

The original of this agreement was in German, which was the language used by the society.

George Rapp was born November 1, 1757, in Iptingen, Wurtemberg, the son of Adam Rapp, a peasant. He learned the trade of weaving. Like many of his neighbors he also engaged in wine growing.

Early in life he became deeply interested in religion. He identified himself with the Separatists of Wurtemberg, who believed that the true Christian must live a life of self-denial and that he must suffer ridicule and persecution on account of the purity of his life. They regarded the established clergy as hypocrites.