Sunbury American. [volume] (Sunbury, Pa.) 1848-1879, 1866-09-01
EDITORIAL coRREsPoNpENcE
NoNoNGAuELA HOUSE,
PITTsBURG, August 90. 1865.

"a. NONONGAHELA HOUSE,
PITTsBURe, August 90, 1866.
This city, which is truly called the Iron
City, is one vast collection of manufactures.
mostly connected with the iron trade. The
favorable location of the city, bounded on
one side by the Monongahela, and on the
other by the Allegheny rivers, gives it
many commercial advantages, and its fleet
of fine river steamers, from thirty to forty of
which l counted moored along the shore of
the Monongahela in the space of three or
four squares, shows the extent of the COM
merce of the place, to say nothing of the
immense traffic of the Pennsylvania and
other railroads, centering here. But what
has done more 10 build up the workshops
and manufactures of Pittsburg, than any
thing else, is the immense deposites of btu
minous coal in the hills, on the opposite side
of the monongahela, almost within a stones
throw of the city. Cheap fuel is the great
motor which drives the countless engines
of the numerous factories, and covers the
whole city with a dense cloud of sooty
smoke. This naturally and necessarily rcn.
ders the city dark, dingy and dusky, but
not necessarily as dirty, as it really is, with
an abundance of water at hand. Besides
the thirty-three rolling mills there are nu-
merous furnaces, foundries, steel works, nail
works, glass works, and in fact almost every
kind Of manufacture. One avenue, along
the Allegheny, for five miles is dotted with
these manufactures, sending up immense
columns of dark and heavy smoke. In this
avenue, within the city limits, is the celebrated
Fort Pitt Foundry, in which those immense
guns, the wonder of the world, are cast and
finished.
We saw number of these enormous can
non, some of them finished, and Others in
various stages of progress varying in size
from ten to fifteen inches in the bore, in.
tended to carry solid shot weighing from
200 to 500 pounds each. Most of these
were for foreign governments.
In side building, erected for the purpose,
We saw the great gun recently cast for the
new iron-clad vessel, the "Puritan." This
enormous piece of ordnance weighs, in the
rough, thirty-six tons, Or 10000 pounds. 1t
was in lathe, and they were taxing off
about two inches of the metal outside, re-
ducing its weight perhaps six tons. Yet
such is the power of the human intellect,
and the perfection Of mechanical science,
that one man alone was performing and
directing this operation. Another large and
interesting establishment, in the same neigh
borhood, is Shoenberger's Nail Works. In
a building, about 300 feet long, were ninety
six machines, close side by side, cutting nails
and heading them, from three penny to twenty
penny, at the rate of from 100 to nearly 800
per minute, on each machine, according to
size. The product is about 900 kegs
daily. The bars are about 10 inches long and
brought to a red heat, and fagot of about
twenty are placed before the operators
mostly boys, who seize each piece with ,
clamp fixed to a wooden handle, and with
great skill reverse the bar at each cut 81
rapidly that you can hardly keep count
The bars are reduced to black heat befor,
they are cut. But have no time or room
to describe all where there is so much.
On Tuesday night the Republicans openet
the political campaign in the city Hall, ,
magnificent room over 200 feet lcng, which
has been rented until after the election, ant
which, on this occasion, without any pre-
vious notice, was crowded. The speaker
were Hon. j. X. Moorhcad, Hon. Thomas
s. Williams, Mr.. Carnigan and Tom Mar
shall. The great speech was that of Mr.
Williams, one of the ablest men in Congress
who deals only in facts and logic. Mr.. viii
liams informed us the day following that he
did not know one single Republican VIII,
was Johnson man in his district, and tina
Allegheny was good for majority of 500,
or 10000 for the Republican ticket.