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

high river, on long credit, at IS an acre.
Pay for same taken in timber, beechnuts,
work shingles, maple sugar. fish, game,
or any other product. natural or culti-
waited, of the rest or soil.
(Signed) Henry w. Drinker.
'T could name offhand," said the
owner of this old newspaper relic,
more than score Of persons who are
worth from s2.O00,000 TO $10,000,0O0 and
owe their wealth and standing today
to that advertisement. Indirectly the
city of Scranton owes its existence to
1t. That advertisement led to the
building of the Delaware. Lackawanna
and Western railroad. There is fas-
cinating story connected with it and I
would be willing to wager all I'm worth
that there isn't one of the beneflciaries
of that ancient ad. who knows it or has
ever heard it,
THE development of this great coal
and iron region came of chain of in
teresting and really romantic circum-
stances, and the first link in the chain
was forged more than century ago
when Henry Drinker, wealthy Phila-
delphian, became interested with DR..
Benjamin Rush, George Clymer, Rob
ert Morris, Samuel Meredith and other
eminent men of that time in the pur-
chase of Pennsylvania wild lands. The
northeastern part of Pennsylvania was
then a wilderness, and in 1891 Henry
Drinker purchased from the state 25,-
600 acres in what are now Lackawan-
ma. Pike, Wayne and Susquehanna
counties. A great portion of this land
was on the headwaters of the Lehigh
ty. It was called Drinkers Beech, be-
cause of the great forests of beech that
covered the tract. Drinker cut roads,
at great expense, through these for
ests and spent large sums in efforts to
make the upper Lehigh river navigable
so that his lands might be made avail
able to settlers, but the locality was
too unpromising to attract them.
MADE A SETTLEMENT.
''In 1915 Henry w. Drinker, a son of
this pioneer landowner, made a settle
ment in the beech wilderness. With
this as an incentive he renewed the
efforts his fathe had abandoned to
induce settlers to ocate there, and 1t
was he who inserted this advertise
ment in the Philadelphia papers offer
ing to exchange land on long credit
for beechnuts, maple sugar, fish, game,
work, timber, shingles and the like.
In a short time, these inducements
proving efi1cacious, many settlements
were formed along the upper Lehigh,
and the settlers were the ancestors of
most of the coal and iron barons of the
Lackawanna valley today-many a
colossal fortune of the present time
having been founded on a few hundred
weight of maple sugar, certain car
casses of deer or one or two thousand
shingles, split in the woods by the
grandfathers of the now millionaires.
ITO open these isolated settlements
to the outside world and make the
region accessible, Drinker built in 1919
the first turnpike road that ever en-
tered the Lackawanna valley. This he
had chartered as the Philadelphia and
Great Bend turnpike. 1t was sixty
miles long, g,and extended from the Della
ware river near the Water Gap to
Drinkers Beech. 1t is known to this
day as the old Drinker road, and is
landmark in fixing boundaries in that
part OF Pennsylvania. In 1919, also,
Drinker became aware of the existence
of anthracite coal in the valley, and al
though it was then useless, all efforts
TO introduce it having failed up to that
time, he believed in its actual import
ance, and foresaw the advantages of
better communication between the
Delaware and Susquehanna valleys
Strange as 1t may seem now, his idea
was that this communication could be
made by a railroad. There was not a
railroad in existence in the world at
that time, except the crude mine tram
ways in England. Drinker blazed with
an axe route from the mouth of the
Lackawanna river, where the borough
or Pittston now is, through the un-
broken wilderness, across the Pocono
mountains to the Water Gan, a dis
tance of sixty miles. and satisfied HIM
self that such a scheme as he had in
mind was feasible. This was in 1924
and in 1926 Drinker obtained a charter
from the state of PENNSYLVANIA for a
company that he called the Delaware
and Susquehanna Canal and Railroad
company--the first charter for a rail-
road company ever issued. His idea
was the building of a railroad with in
clined planes, horse power to be used
between the planes, and water power
10 raise the planes. He interested a
number of prominent Philadelphians in
the plan, and in 1881 a survey of the
route was made.
.r, COAL IN DEMAND.
Anthracite coal had by that time
asserted it's value. The Lehigh Navi-
CATION company, on the south, had come
into existence and opened up a profit
able market for coal in Philadelphia.
The Delaware and Hudson Canal COM
pany had brought the riches of the
upper Lackawanna Valley to light,
conquered the prejudices of New York
against the old fuel, and was advancing
TO wealth and power Coal was selling
at ~ ton at the tidewater markets,
and coal lands in the undeveloped
lower Lackawanna Valley could be
purchased for $40 an acre. The time
seemed ripe for the building of Drink
er's railroad. James Seymour the en-
Rineer who made the survey of the
route, reported that a railroad could be
built from the Delaware Water Gap to
the Lackawanna Valley for s625, 900 on
which 100000 tons of coal a year could
he carried
THAT report seems somewhat ridicu-
lous now, but the engineer made 1t all
the same. The road was TO be oper-
ated by incliEed planes and horse pow-
er, as the locomotive was as yet an un-
certain factor In the railroad transpor-
tation problem. At the time Drinker
obtained his charter Samuel Meredith
made survey from the Lackawanna
Valley at Providence 10 the Susdue-
hanna Valley at Great Bend for route
for railroad forty-seven miles UP the
Susquebanna to the New York state