History of anthracite coal mining in Pennsylvania
Suffering through British navy blockades during the war, industrialist Josiah White set his mill supervisors the task of experimenting with anthracite to get to ignite[b] and burn in a useful way.
[citation needed] In 1813, the first mining actually begun at Beaver Meadows, however, because of the various struggles getting it the 130 miles (210 km) to Philadelphia and because it is far more difficult to ignite anthracite with its sporadic and unreliable supply, it did not come to be generally used regularly until after the War of 1812.
[9] Anthracite differs from bituminous in usage in that it has better heat quality and fewer disadvantageous by-products, but it has higher carbon content and is therefore harder to ignite and requires a grate to separate the ashes from the burning coal.
[10] One of the earliest mentions that coal might be found in the Pennsylvania area dates back to 1698, when Gabriel Thomas wrote an account dedicated to William Penn.
[12] In 1754, George Washington led an expedition across the Allegheny Mountains, and his second-in-command wrote a letter detailing an abundance of natural luxuries including coal in Western Pennsylvania.
However, coal usage was generally restricted to local consumption need until the industry began to expand at the turn of the 19th century.
The company was founded after German immigrant Philip Ginder discovered beds of the anthracite “stone coal” near Summit Hill in 1791 while out hunting.
[15] A wealthy landowner, Jacob Weiss, and other Philadelphia businessmen provided the capital to form the Lehigh Coal Mine Company.
[16] Judge Jesse Fell of Wilkes-Barre discovered a solution to ignite anthracite in 1808 with the usage of an iron grate that allowed the coal to light and burn easier.
[17] Brothers Abijah and John Smith were the first to successfully transport hard coal when they moved 50 tons on an ark down the Susquehanna River to Columbia in 1807.
[14] The anthracite commercial market greatly expanded, and the hard coal was used as valuable fuel for heating and cooking domestically, as well as energy sources for small businesses such as blacksmiths, brewers, bakers, and manufacturers.
After receiving investors, the Schuylkill Navigation Company was able to finance a 108-mile long river and canal system that connected the Pottsville area to Philadelphia that opened in 1825.
[22] The Wurts brothers, William and Maurice, owned coalfields in the Northeastern Pennsylvania anthracite region, but found an unresponsive market in Philadelphia, which was receiving coal from the Schuylkill and Lehigh routes.
They saw business potential in finding a connection route between anthracite fields and the New York City market, so they had the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company incorporated in 1823.
[23] The D&H Company built a canal system across parts of the Delaware and Hudson Rivers that stretched from Honesdale, Pennsylvania to Rondout, New York, which was completed in 1828.
Prior to the Civil War, the industry involved many small-scale mines with short-term leases resulting in increasing production levels but an overall trend of falling prices.
[28] Individual proprietors fell to the expansion of corporations who could master the large-scale production and efficient transportation that the wartime economy called for.
The major railroad companies came to dominate the industry as they began to purchase coalfields in order to control both the production and shipping aspects.
