The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-07-01

Drinkers company was organized in
1882 Drinker was its first president.
But he could not raise capital to go
ON with the work, and IL was not until
1923, when he obtained n perpetual
charter for gravity railroad from
Pittston to the New York state line, in
conjunction with his original charter
that the New York capitalists became
interested in the scheme. The building
Of the New York and Erie railroad,
now the Erie railroad, was by this time
being agitated, as the tide of emigra-
tion and trade was to the Southern
Tier and the lake country. The route
thither proposed by Henry Drinker was
eighty miles shorter than the proposed
Erie route and passed through the coal
region. Before work was begun on the
Drinker road the hard times of 1S35-Sj
came on. Some of the leading men
interested in the enterprise were ruin
ed. Sir Charles Augustus Murray, an
English capitalist, was travelling in this
country at that time. He learned OF
the plans of prinker and his associates
and became interested in them At
meeting Of the company held in Easton
Sir Charles was present. He agreed
to raise s500,000 in England to aid the
building of the railroad on condition
that the company would raise enough
money to make a decent beginning of
| the work.
THE chief aid and adviser of Drink
er in this enterprise was hustling ard
| determined man named William Hen
ry. BY his efforts he induced the Nor
rs Canal company Of New Jersey 10
agree to take S150,000 Of the stock of the
| railroad company, but pending the ne
| gotiation of this stock word was re-
ceivcd from Sir Charles Murray that.
owing to business depression in Eng
land, he was unable to raise the money
| he had expected to get, and the work
| received what seemed to be it's death
blow. Both Drinker and William Henry
| had exhausted their private fortunes
| in their efforts to carry the railroad
| scheme to success.
SITE OF SCRANTON.
"The city of Scranton has now a pop
ulation of over 10000. In 1896 its site
was an unbroken wilderness. Three
| houses and a stone mill. forming the
| settlement known as Slocum Hollow,
were all the evidence of civilization Wis
| ible hereabout. There We're deposits Of
! iron in the Hollow. The Slocums mad
smelted ore in a primitive furnace
years before. In 1886 j. j. Albright, of
| Northampton county, could have
bought the land now occupied by Scran-
ton, Including Slocum Hollow and the
iron miiles for $40 an acre. Albright
was interested in the iron business in
Northampton county, and he took. spec
linens of the Slocum Hollow ore to Eas-
ton to exhibit it, This was about the
time the I'rinker railroad scheme COL
| lapsed. William Henry heard of the
| iron ore Albright had hrough. from
Slocum Hollow and of the Offer to sell
the land. This put an entirely new idea
into his head. and that was to get pos
session of the iron mines and use them
as a new inducement to capital to re-
| suscitate the railroad project, making
| Slocum Hollow the objective point of
the road between the Delaware and the
Lackawanna. This met with strong
objection from Drinker, who had the
welfare and future of Drinkers Beech
| uppermost i'll his mind. ard not Slocum
Hollow.
But Henry was not to be put down.
He at last won New York capitalist
named Armstrong over to his views on
the new prospects of the railroad. AL
bright had in the meantime failed to
raise money to purchase the Slocum
| Hollow property. In 1910 William Hen
ry purchased 500 acres of the tract, in
Guiding the iron mines, for $1,000. In
payment for it he gave a thirty days
draft on the capitalist Armstrong by
| l.;
the mails We're slow, and before the
draft reached New York for accep-
tance Armstrong had died suddenly.
His administrator refused to accept the
draft, and William Henry's contract
for nc land was worthless. He induc-
ed the owner of the land to, give him
an option on the land for sixty days
Then he went to hustling. He called
on the two Scranton brothers, George
w. and Seden T., the ironmasters of
Oxford, N. j., and laid the situation
before them. They became interested
in the story and visited the wild Lack
awanna region in company with the
enthusiastic Henry. journeying over
the turnpike built by Henry w. Drink
er in 1919. The coal and iron deposits
of Slocum Hollow were an agreeable
|
resolved at once to fill the place made
vacant by the death of the capitalist
Armstrong. They fulfilled the con-
tract made by Henry, and became the
owners, with him, of the Slocum prop
erty. They established iron works at
the Hollow, and began the development
of the region.
ADVENT OF THE ERIE.
"The New York and Erie railroad
had materialized by this time and was
being pushed to completion along the
southern border of New York state
This turned the attention of the Scran-
tons to an outlet by rail of the Sus-
quehanna Valley to the Erie over the
route laid out by Samuel Meredith in
1926, rather than southwark over the
Pocono TO the Delaware and the Drink
er route. Drinker had ceased to take
an active interest in the original pro-
ject when Henry succeeded In getting
possession of the Slocum Hollow prop
erty, as he saw that the hopes OF
Drinkers Beech were ruined by that
move, and he had turned his attention
to retrieving his lost fortune
I'm 1S47 the Scrantons purchased the
old Meredith charter and built a loco
motive railroad up the Susquehanna to
Great Bend. They called il the Lack.
awanna and Western railroad. 1t was
completed and opened in 1851. This
brought New York CITY, although by a
roundabout way, within a days Jour
ney of the Lackawanna coal region, by
the way of the Erie from Great Bend