River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1902-12-25
NOBODY WANTED IT.
A Hundred Years Ago Anthracite
Coal Went Begging.
Man Who First Brought 1t to Phil
adeIphia Was Denounced us an
Impostor by the WiseSt
Quakers.
Especial washington letter.

Especial washington LETTER.
TT HERE has been a great deal said
and written about anthracite
coal, during the past year, but
nobody has told anything interesting
about where it comes from.
There lives in Philadelphia a vet
eran newspaper correspondent, well
known to the writer, who is now about
IS years young; and he has been all
over the region lately, with his nose
for news and his accurate descriptive
methods. He writes: similar to the
electric telegraph, the type-settlng
machine, the graphophone, telephone
and all other Undiscovered facts
or laws Of nature, coal had hard time
winning it's way with the people"
There is a local author named Wat
son, full name not given, from whose
writing, Of 1857, is quoted the follow
ing: "The Mount Carbon coal was
known to exist in the neighborhood
more than so years ago (about 1900,
and some search was made. But the
coal found being so very different
from any which was previously
LnOwn, it was not thought to be of any
value, and the search was abandoned"
This means that more than 100 years
ago people were digging beneath the
soil for their fuel, but were not salts
fled with the product found. The
mountains we're covered with bound
less forests, and so the average labor
er or business man, pointing to the
trees, inquired: "Why dig?"
1T is supposed to be 107 years"
says Watson, "since a blacksmith of
the name of MILESTONE found coal
and used it in his srnithshop. At very
early period Judge Cooper declared
his belief Of the existence Of coal in
the district, and Messrs. Potts ex-
plored various places along the old
Sunbury road, but success did not at
tend their operations. A Mr.. William
Morris afterwards became the pro-
prictor of most of the coal lands at
the head Of the canal; he found coal
and took some quantity to Philadel-
phia about the year 1900, but all his
efforts to bring it into use failed and
he abandoned the project and sold his
lands to their late proprietor, Mr..
Potts.
at does not appear that much no.
tice was taken of the coal from the
zine Of Milestone, and the search
made by Messrs. Potts, until about
1929, when a person of the name of
Peter Baa$rus, a blue dyer in build
ing the valley f0ggn, found coal in the
tailrace. About the same time a Mr..
David Berlin, blacksmith la that
ncighborhOod, permanently COM
menced and introduced the use of
stone in the smiths forge, and con-
tinued to use and instruct others in
it's use many years afterwards. But
old habits again became victorious,
and appear to have held undisputed
sway until Mr.. George Shoemaker, an
innkeeper at PottsvilIe, and Nicholas
Allen discovered coal on piece of
land they had purchased, now called
Centreville. Allen soon became dis
heartened and gave up the concern to
Shoemaker, who, receiving encourage
ment from some gentleman in Phila-
delphia, got out quantity of coal and
brought nine wagon loads to Philadel-
phia, where again it met with host of
opposition.
lon two wagon loads Mr.. Shoemak-
er got the carriage paid the others he
gave away to persons who would at
tempt to use them. The result was
against the coal; those who tried them
pronounced them stone and not coal,
good for nothing, and Shoemaker an
impostor.
'At length, after multitude of dis
appointments, and when Shoemaker