BoletiÌn mercantil de Puerto Rico. (San Juan, P.R.) 18??-1918, 1902-10-22

The Indians received $40 900 altogether
for Luzerre County. 1t is Of interest
to inquire who are the persons in that
county frua1 win III the Now TUrk De-
inocratic platform would take the mines
by right of eminent domain. Most of
the owners in the times of the Wyom-
ing massacre were simple settlers, but
they, after the Revolution, mostly sold
their lands at SIoo an acre, or even $50
and $40, as soon as coal was discovered,
and went farther west where they could
buy better farms at half the price.
Those who bought the coal lands at
that price soon found that coal twas OF
no value unless transported to market;
so companies, or aggregations of capital
had to be arranged to dig mines and
build railroads. The Pennsylvania Coal
Company (not the P. r. r. bought
lands fifty years agoat from SIS to 5000
an acre; later the price rose to $1,000,
when Improvements had been made.
Ariel Pardee, one Of the pioneers, was
an engineer, mineralogist, and botanist.
He had been a poor farmers son in
Lebanon Springs, N. Y. After leaving
the district scools and having had some
supplementary instruction from the vii
Ilage minister, at twenty years of age
he applied for a place as civil engineer
to the Delaware and Raritan Canal
Company. He was presently sent to
Beaver Meadow, near Hazleton (where
the Pardee mines now are) to lay out a
railroad. He saw the country, went
home to his family, came back, and on
his own initiative laid out another rail-
road, got men with money interested,
and in IS4o was an operator of coal
mines. He was known in Hazleton as
"the silent man., and for fifty years
went back and forth from his house to
his office, working industrious1y. MY
life, he wrote just before his death,
! has been one of active work" He left
100000 to Lafayette College. His de-
IScendants carried on the business.
About I775 the lands granted by
| Queen Anne in the lower region to the
Coxes were inherited by Tench Coke.
who was a good deal of geologist and
economist. He saw the value OF the
coal in his raternal acres, but merely
wrote pamphlets about it. His descen-
dants developed them. The last one,
Eckley Coke, was man of fine charac-
ter, took the part of the poor against
the rich when the cause uas just, and
/ in his will remembered all his workmen
and made provision for them.
G. B. Markle, whose sons are the
largest independent operators left, came
to the region with bare hands and no
ca pital." His home was Milton, Pa;
his father a saddler, At fourteen he
learned carpentering in Philadelphia
laat after falling from 4 trestle went
home and learned to be a saddler from
his father. About 1857, when he was
twenty, he got employment in the Par
dees' store, near what is now Diifton.
In nine years he was superintendent of
the Pardee collieries. He introduced
Improvements, especially in machinery
Ghe Markle pump is celebrated), and
he designed the breaker" which is
everywhere in use. In nine years more
he was able to form a partnership and
start mining for himself. John Markle,
one of the strongest spirits among the
operators in the present conflict, is his
son. Being of active disposition, he
preferred to run the mines left to him
and his brother, rather than lease them
and go in for the pleasures of the rich,
as some of his friends, also sons of mine
lowners, did. He settled in the Jeddo
valley. lived among his men, seldom
took vacations, and the valley never
knew trouble everything was arbitrat-
Ied-until two years ago Mitchell came
and induced the men to break their
contract always to arbitrate differences.