History of Plymouth, Pennsylvania
Attracted by this outcrop, Abijah Smith came to Plymouth about 1806 from Derby, Connecticut, and bought land on the east side of the creek, intending to mine, ship and sell coal.
In the fall of 1807, Smith floated an ark down the Susquehanna River loaded with about fifty tons of anthracite coal, and shipped it to Columbia in Lancaster County.
[4] A similar branch, called the Swetland Railroad, was built from mines in Poke Hollow down a route which later became Washington Avenue, across Bull Run to another wharf on the river.
[6] Labor troubles A bank panic on September 18, 1873, led to a prolonged national depression, and by 1877 there were about three million unemployed, roughly 25 percent of the working population.
"In July, 1877, almost immediately succeeding the peaceful enjoyments incident to the centennial celebration of our national independence, the country was startled at the outbreak of very serious rioting by the railroad employees of Pittsburgh.
I was Burgess at the time and a committee of representative citizens reported to me, their fears of contemplated incendiarism against certain of the properties located here and connected with mining industries, and requested me to officially invoke protection from the State.
In front of the engine of the train which carried the troops was placed a gun, and at Nanticoke several companies were disembarked, and as skirmishers, during the night, proceeded up the road, taking into custody every man caught out of doors.
The epidemic was eventually traced to a dairy farmer who lived on Mountain Road alongside Coal Creek, the stream that fed the town's water supply.
After the epidemic, French prepared a report of the hospital's activities, listing all the patients who were treated, the ward where they lived, the length and cost of their treatment, and, when applicable, the date of their death.
By the time of the 1880 census, he was working as a coal miner, living in West Nanticoke, and by 1889, he had acquired a saloon, gained a small following and proclaimed himself leader of the Poles in Plymouth.
On October 22, Bishop O'Hara arrived from Scranton and sent Father Mack (of the St. Vincent's congregation) to gain access to the parsonage, but when he knocked on the door, he was "met by three guns pointing at him from an upstairs window.
When the rebels reached the town lock-up (in an effort to rescue the prisoners), they encountered constable Michael Melvin and in the ensuing scuffle broke his leg.
That same year, the line was extended along the north side of Ross Hill to Edwardsville, where transfers could be made to a similar railway that ran across the Market Street Bridge to Wilkes-Barre.
In May, they made camp at Chickamauga Park, Georgia, where in July an outbreak of typhoid occurred with roughly half of the 1,300 troops contracting the disease, from which 29 men died.
Plymouth's coal mines were established and consolidated in the hands of a small number of operators, and its water system, telegraph and telephone service, electrical lines and gas pipes were fully developed.
Theodore Renshaw went to Peter Shupp's old house on Center Avenue and measured the flood's high-water mark and found it to be at street curb level.
Samuel L. French was also an amateur historian — he wrote a book about the Army of the Potomac, and in 1915 published Reminiscences of Plymouth, his homage to the antebellum years of his hometown.
Mrs. L. S. Smith, one of the "few surviving members" of the first graduating class (1886), spoke of her memories of the old school, a talk that was followed by a musical presentation and a toast given by the future governor of Pennsylvania, Arthur James.
The Wilkes-Barre Times sent a reporter: "Plymouth's handsome new High school was dedicated and formally opened to-day with impressive and appropriate exercises amid the cheers of several thousand people.
He spoke of the rapid advancement in the education of America's army of children and of the responsibility resting upon the thousands of men and women employed in the work of fitting them to enter upon life's duties."
William B. Cleary, writing in the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, noted that "The new school building is located in the central portion of the town, set back sufficiently from the main street to give it an important position and affords an opportunity to make most attractive grounds."
Mask chaired a fund-raising drive to aid families left destitute by the disaster, while Mrs. Ralph Worthington and Mrs. C. C. Groblewski coordinated donations of clothing made by the Red Cross.
[26] The Diamond Jubilee celebration of 1941 By the 1940s, two rival energy sources, oil and natural gas, competed with anthracite coal, both of which were cheaper to extract and to ship.
In September 1941, seventy-five years after Plymouth was incorporated as a borough, the town began a five-day celebration at Huber Field, including a pageant with the patriotic theme "America on Parade".
Like many American towns, Plymouth had an ethnically diverse population, formed largely by the descendants of Irish, Welsh, Polish, Lithuanian and Slovak immigrants.
After the Grand Finale of the pageant, according to the Jubilee's promotional pamphlet, the audience was "requested to join with the cast and with the Shawnee Choral Society in the singing of our National Anthem."
It is presented as a tribute to the brave men and courageous women who gave their all so that Democracy might survive, and in the hope that America may continue to remain honorably at Peace."
During Centennial Week, many women donned old-time costumes from colonial days, and many men grew goatees, moustaches and "mutton-chop" side-burns, which by 1966 had been long out of fashion.
By Wednesday, June 21, tropical storm Agnes arrived and was hovering over the Susquehanna watershed, dropping up to 12 inches (300 mm) of rain upstream in a single day.
All around the valley, signs of trouble loomed: Main Street in Shavertown flooded, Harvey's Lake overflowed, Hunstville Dam was full, a bridge washed out in Towanda.
