The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-02-13
ARE OFTEN HEARD FROM
THE UBIQUITOUS CONNECTICUT
 YINKEE

Fields.
 Connecticut is little state, but it
 contributed largely to help develop va
 rlous portions of the west, and the re-
 cent visit to this state of Ohio's gover. nor and party was tribute to Connect icut enterprise which had so much to do with the early settlement and his tory of the Buckeye state. Then, again, fto take another example. Connecticut { men have a very honorable and also pathetic record in connection with the Yearly settlement and development of Q Fpart of the great Keystone state. Con snecticut pioneers were the discoverers &of anthracite coal in what is now and %has long been one of the great coal min Nng regions of Pennsylvania. The nls- N ory of anthracite coal fields Is admira- Eply told in the February issue of the -lBond Record, a financial journal ot Asterling merit published in New 4ork Band which has rapidly won high favor Shmong investors as an authority upon 4nvestment matters. The Record gives fa succinct history of the anthracite coal Mnterest in connection with an able ar "a icle on the coal fields, the coal railroads ssand the coal trade, which it is now run- Shing and an extract from which is ap- Npended. The article, as will be seen, ERSe pecially notes the fact that ito the x #Connecticut Yankees may be ascribed #fhe honor of the first discovery and de
 nonstration of the use of anthracite as ~as a valuable heat producer and fuel. EsThe Record says:
 T DISCOVERY AND EARLY USE. % When we speak of the Wyoming coal ~ segion We have reference to the identi- |2scal area occupied by the Wyoming and z sLackawanna valleys, far famed for
 scenes of surpasslng beauty, historic in- .SAidents of early Indian warfare and set s Element by the pioneer emigrants from EgConnecticut.
 ISx Anthracite coal was probably known SNo the Indians of the Wyoming valley gs2efore the advent of the white man. &eS8ut in 1762 Parshall Terry and a con- Many of Connecticut pioneers settled on &3he Susquehanna river, at Mill Creek, zsn the suburbs of the present city of lENilkesbarre, and there they found an- S Shracite coal, and so reported upon their &' 'eturn to Connecticut in the same year. &sn 1769 MT Obadiah Gore, a blacksmith, % anne to the Wyoming valley from Con- fA ecticut, and at once commenced eXper with the 'tblack stones" of the SSfalley, as anthracite was called. He &ound that it could be successfully used &sn his smith forge, and the knowledge If llls experiments gradually spread Among the settlers until the coal was Missed in most of the smith shops in the
 Elorth and West Branch settlements.
 Ns,hus to the Connecticut Yankee may Sbe ascribed the honor of the first dis Movery and demonstration of the use of Anthracite as a valuable heat producer @nd fuel.
 & The presence of coal was known ins
 Schuylkill county as early as 177O. "On &SVilliam Searles map of Pennsylvania, Established in 1770, coal is marked near #she headwaters of the Schuyll1ill.' And Nm 1795 smith by the name of Whet- A tone successfully used anthracite in TFlfs forge in Sel1uylkill county.
 7SS Tn 1791, Philip Ginter, a hunter, on re- RSF urning towards evening to his cabin, $A kicked from his path on Chunk mountain a 'black ' z tone," which he brought to the village
 ind exhibited. It proved to be anthra- #Aite, and thus was it's existence in Car
 bon county first discovered.
 xN The immediate result of this incident xvas the organization the following year #bf the Lehigh Coal Mine company, l#which secured large area of land and x #.ommenced to mine and ship coal down &ehe Lehigh; but owing to their poor and difficult navigation the en- M erprise was soon abandoned. For a EAumber of years immediately following
 &he discovery above noted anthracite #was not used except locally by the @olacksmiths. Several shipments were %anade by means of arks down the Sus- &1uehanna, Lehigh and Schuylkill riv- #Ars But these ventures were not suc- Neessful. The people would not be con- &inced that the "black stones" would %purn, and consequently the trade in an- Mhracite was virtually abandoned until MSO7 in the Wyoming region and 1920 and lS25 in Lehigh and Schuylkill regions Respectively.
 E The first record we have of the use &bf a grate for burning anthracite is at Philadelphia, Pa, in 1902 and 1903 by Moliver Evans and also by Frederick Ssraff, and in 1908 Judge Jesse Fell made x he successful experiment of burning Kanthracite in a grate at Wilkesbarre,
 Wa.
 %rHE COAL TRADE.-1.-THE PAST. M The first known shipment of anthra- Mite coal was in the year 1776, when the &proprietary governors of Pennsylvania Xhipped coal from the Wyoming valley &loWn the Susquehanna to Harrisburg, 5A nd thence by wagons to Carlisle, Pa., &&yhere it was used in forges for the of firearms. These ship $Snents were continued during the Rev &&lutionary war Other single shipments Esyere made from time to time until 1907,
 1syhen Abijah Smith & Co.,, the first sue Esessful coal operators of the Wyoming K ,alley, shipped fifty-five tons from their #5nine at Plymouth by water to Colum- Zpia, Pa. They continued regularly in
 he business for twenty years, shipping gs00 or 300 tons per year to the towns on Ahe lower Susquehanna, and to Baltl- &nore and New York. They received
 #sbout S10 per ton at river points, ana
 $12 to .s15 in New York.
 It is time now to give to the energetic
 rm of Abijah Smith & Go. the credit That is surely their due--that or first Unnecessarily introducing and finding a a1afD