Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1873-07-01
OF MANUFACTURES.

A recent communication in the Alexandria
Gazette gives striking instance Of the great
value of manufacturing industries! to"a com =
-munity. In the year 1878, During the war
with England)- the writer passed few weeks
among his relations in Chester county, Penn
sylvania. His uncles residence was on the
Lancaster and Philadelphia turnpike, about
'thirty.fve miles distant from the latter. and
this road was then the great thoroughfare
from Philadelphia westward, but has been
superseded by the Pennsyl vania Central Rail-
road. From his uncle's front door, two miles
go the west, but in sight, was a little village
called 'Coatesville, Of not more than half
dozen houses or SO, consisting Of public
house, Blacksmith Is shop, perhaps one or two
small stores, and few other houses. In
June, 1872, he visited some relatives living
within half a'mile of Coatsville, through which
'passed'the Pennsylvania Railroad, crossed by
another from Wilmington, Delaware, to the
great coal centre of Reading. What change
had taken place in the condition of Coates,
vile! Instead of,the half doEenif farm houses
The found a city Of upwards of IL 900 inbabi-
tants. The streets we'll paved, with hundreds
of handsome brick residences, creditable
ito a city with churches aud other public
buildings, supplied with gas aud water bypub-
lie works five or six iron rolling mills, and
other manufactures, with busy and thriving
population. 'Coatesville has no 'nayigable
stream, and is in the heart Of arich agricul-
itural region with no mineral resources, but
being on the great Pennsylvania, it has been
built up by iron manufactures, the crude ma
terials being brought to it from the great CEN
tiers of coal and iron to be Manufactured in
this interior town. How it commenced and
prospered he is unable to say, but here at the
expiration of nearly SIXTY years he found this
prosperous city instead of the poor little VIII
aage, known to him in his boyhood.
IF Coatesville, with but few natural adj
wantages, has thus risen from an insignificant
country village to thriving city of II, 900
inhabitants, what may not Charlestown, with
its superior advantages, yet aspire to? We
are not one of those who have an idea that
Charlestown, as if by magic, may divest her
self of her rural habilameuts and with one
broad leap emerge into the vast dimensions of
a mammoth city yet we believe that we are
$50 situated, in the wise providence of God, as
to warrant the assumption that our population
and business enterprise will be vastly in
creased, and that within the next few wears
In the course of few months we will be the
comparative centre of two, and probably, at
no distant day of three great lines of railway,
with coal and iron on either side of us; and
not only this, but with beds of the finest iron
ore in our own county. With these great ad-
vantages, together with those of soil and
climate and numberless others, may VIC not
look hopefully forward to bright and pros
porous future, when not only Charlestown, but
Harper's Ferry, Shepherdstown and other
points of the county, will become the pos
ressors of manufacturing enterprises that will
make our hills and valleys resound with the
busy hum of their industry?