LEDGER POST # 7

Furnace Area Construction Work

Some Doctor Work

Scan-Page 42, Nov 8, 1830

There is a lot of good information in the above scan, there are three sections to the scan, the most important being the top and bottom ones. The total charges for the top section was $676.32, this was really big money for that time period. It looks like the people who did this work were a E & W Fare, (The name might be "Fehr" instead of Fare) back in those days people doing the writing sometimes didn't bother to ask how a name was spelled, they wrote it down the way it sounded to them, I'll have to look it up in the Census when I have time. I am going to write down some of the lines from the top part of the scan because they might be hard to read even when you enlarge the scan.

"For Excavating Head Race" $190.26. The last time I visited the head race site it was still in pretty good shape.

"Wheel Pit", $65.34. This is the water wheel pit, it's also still in good shape.

"Tail Race, $19.60". I'm not sure what the "Tail Race" is; when I have time I will contact the NPS people at The Hopewell Furnace to get an answer; I think the Tail Race might have been the section that ran from the water wheel pit and into the creek.

"Foundation for Furnace, $23.94".

" Foundation Coal House, $25.92". Coal House means Charcoal House, the Charcoal House was located on the Furnace Bank. Back in the late 1980's Lloyd Stager showed me the exact location of the Coal House, if you dig down a little bit through the dirt you will find some charcoal.

"Cellar Drain, $34.56". Have no idea what that was.

"Embankment, $168.60". This refers to the Furnace Bank, this is the flat area directly behind the top of the Furnace Stack, this is where the charcoal, limestone and ore were stored, a bridge from the bank to the top of the furnace stack enabled the work crew to dump charcoal, limestone and iron ore into the furnace. The excavators had to dig away a good portion of the mountain side to set up the Furnace Bank.

"Loop Rock, $12.80, and Solid Rock, $15.30". I have no idea what these mean.

"Digging holes for Coal House, $1.50". See Foundation Coal House above.

"Grubbing, $35.00". ???

"88 1/2 Days work in Qarry, $83.50". Stone Quarry ???, maybe this was where they got the stones for the Furnace Stack.

Lets jump down now to the third line in the bottom section of the scan.

"To G. N. Eckert,  Medical Attendance, $3.00 ".

As most of you know by now George Eckert was a Medical Doctor, I can't imagine Eckert charging one of his workers for medical services, perhaps this was for some local non furnace worker that needed medical attention.

That's it for this post.

Ledger Post # 6-A

Fishing/Mill Creek

Creek Photographs

I wanted to include the photos below with my last post but did not have them prepared at the time. Mill Creek does not now look anything like it did before the 1946/48 City of Lebanon Water Supply Dam was built. Most people born after 1950 have no idea what this beautiful trout stream used to look like. I think there is some law on the books that says a water supply company can't completely cut all of the water off from a stream and let it dry up below the dam breast. I guess the same amount of water still comes down the creek below the second 1990's dam as did when the 1946/48 dam was built. The pictures below are only a fraction of the photos that are available of the creek. 

Local boys enjoying the Mill Creek swimming hole just below "The Big House", middle 1936 photo by A.W. Grumbine

 

1947 Photo by A.W. Grumbine. This Winter view looking down the creek.  The red circle, # 1 is where the same three rocks that are shown in the photo below set. The mid 1940's Lebanon Water Supply Dam was under construction at this time, however, the water was not restricted when this photo was taken. You can barely see "The Big House" through the trees, red # 2.

1930's Photo, looking up the creek, by A.W. Grumbine. The flat rock with the two rocks leaning on it, (red circle, # 1) are directly in line between  The log cabin and the Swatara Furnace stack; # 2, is the grass area just up from the cabin.

A 1920's Box camera photo from the W.T. Williams collection. The water is a little higher than normal in this photo

A few words now about the swimming hole dam, picture at the top. From my Uncle Bill Williams's 1932 diary, May 28th: "Up at 7:30, Built Dam, 31 in party, Water 6 ft, a great success, ate in Dell". 

George Boyer supplied all of the materials for the dam, log to be laid across the creek, lumber to be cut and nailed to the log, etc. The dam project was the idea of Philo Castle Dix; Mr Dix was the State of Pennsylvania's WMCA Secretary; his office and home were in Harrisburg, however, he also rented the smaller stone house (part of the original Swatara Furnace Plantations structures) from 1928 until 1947; Mr Dix and his family spent most of their summers, weekends and vacation time at the stone house on the road to Outwood.

The reason for building the dam was this: every Summer Mr Dix organized camping trips for YMCA boys, also Boy Scouts, form Eastern PA; these boys camped in an area between the Highbridge and the Swatara Furnace stack, the problem was that there was no area deep enough to swim in.

The dam builders were, some of the local kids, including my Uncles Bill and Lloyd Williams, the Stager boys and a group of WMCA boys who were camping at the time.

We will get back to the Furnace ledger book for the next post.

Ledger Post # 6

Another Pre 1830 Ledger Entry

Also Fishing/Mill Creek

1829 entry added to the bottom of page 212 of the Feb 8th 1832  ledger page

In the above scan we have two entries from 1829, one is dated Apr. 1st, 1829 and the other Apr. 15th, 1829; the most important one is the one dated Apr. 1st; in the fine print, just to the right of the keyboard symbol,  " { " we have "Apr. 1st 1829. "For house at Fishing Creek ". You will have to tap the scan to enlarge it for best viewing. Back in the 1800's the creek was called "Fishing Creek', now days it is called "Mill Creek". I don't know when the name was changed from Fishing Creek to Mill Creek; someone could find out the approximate date by looking at various copies of the printed topographical maps printed by the Federal Government.

The above scan shows that Geo. Eckert had a crew working back at the future Swatara Furnace site before the Union Canal was up and running. Two of our friends from the 1830 Ledger Book are there and working, Paul Brand and Wm. Graeff. Geo. Bonewits was paid 60 dollars for carpenter work, a Stein was paid 5 dollars for hauling and it looks like an Angel Bonewits was paid 38.92 for something.

We now have more questions than answers, where on Fishing Creek was the house, there is no mention of masonry  work, only carpentry work, "The Big House", (Ironmaster's Mansion) was mostly all stone. I have a feeling they first built a wooden house, maybe at the site of the future "Big House", a wooden house would go up much faster than a stone house. Perhaps there will be some answers as I get further into the ledger.    

Ledger Post # 5

Strange Ledger Entry

1828 information listed on page 210 of the 1832 ledger

I called the above scan a strange ledger entry because it appears on page 210, Feb 4th, 1832 in the ledger, the information concerns payments for work done in 1828. So, what's going on? I don't have any idea. This is three to four years after the work was done, I can't imagine anyone waiting this long to be paid. Perhaps Eckert and Guilford weren't using ledger or account books at that time and just put their figures down on individual sheets of paper, then decided to write them down in the big book at the above time. This does show that George Eckert was in the area and working before the Pine Grove branch of the Union Canal was completed. George N. Eckert moved to Pine Grove in 1826 to practice medicine and look after his Father Peter's coal mining interests in the area, maybe Guilford was not even involved at this time. 

Some of the above scan is hard to figure out, the figures on a couple of lines are right on the money though. Sam Bowman was paid 63.28 for sinking a 113 foot shaft at .56 a foot, he was also boarded for 27 days at .25 a day for a total of 6.75; he also put away 9 quarts of whiskey, sinking shafts is thirsty work; near the bottom of the scan a D. Greenawalt is mentioned in connection with 2 shovels.

I'm beginning to think the above entry might be connected with Eckert's Father's mining business and has nothing to do with the Swatara Furnace.

At a later date I will post a scan from 1829 

Correction-Union Canal

Also New Scan From The Ledger

I have a correction to make on my March first post. One of my followers pointed out that the Pine Grove branch of the canal connected to the main canal at the Water Works (a little West of Lebanon) and not at Middletown as I had written in my post; my follower was 100% correct. (I went to Google). Anyone reading my posts should feel free to advise me on mistakes they feel I have made, also comment on what I have written. From now on I will keep both my feet and hands out of the Union Canal and it's lore; I have not really done any research on the canal. I will continue to post scans and ledger information, along with comments 

concerning boating information from the Furnace ledger.

 Ledger entry Aug 1, 1831

In the above scan we have "Sundries" and "Boating" information. I have figured out what some of the old script means, the "P" with what looks like "c" following it means paid, in the upper entry Geo N. Eckert paid John Mortimer,(p him) .50 for Son (or Sou), just below that the Widow Fisher,(p her) was paid 10 in the dollar section to get a wedding suit, 10 dollars was big money back then. The money total works out though, at the far right of the ledger, (not shown in the above scan) the total for the two charges was 10.50. At the bottom of the scan, 93 and 90 we have Boating charges, Henry Meas "Cooper", was paid a total of 3 dollars for use of Boat Hornet Boating ??? (2 Days) 2_ _ which came to the 3.00 in the far right charge section. It looks like Meas was paid 1 dollar for wood?

The name "Meas" turns up quite a few times in the ledger. I wonder if this name is really Meese or something similar which sounds the same as Meas. When time permits I will check the 1830 and 1840 Census for the Township and see what I can come up with.

Swatara Furnace History

Mountiantop View of the Furnace,  Big house,

and other buildings

The above picture was given to the Williams and Grumbine families by Miss Margaret A. Boyer, she said she didn't know who took the picture, but it had been in her family as long as she could remember, she did not know when it was taken or by what photographer. This is a section that I cropped out of the original picture, this would have been taken from the top of the mountain by a professional photographer, probably with a 8 X 10 or 5 X 7 glass plate camera, it was not taken with with an amateur box camera. To identify the structures I added the red circles and numbers via Photoshop.

1. Swatara Furnace

2. The Stager Family Home

3. "The Big House" (Ironmaster's Mansion)

4. The Furnace Company Store

5. The Carriage Barn

I will again speculate a little. I believe the picture might have been taken to use as a selling advertisement when the Eckert family put the property up for sale in the 1880's, or perhaps taken at the request of Mahlon H. Boyer after he purchased the property.

Mr Boyer bought the property form the Eckert family on December 3rd 1889. The purchase date along with much more information is on page number 487, Deed Book number 306 at the Schuylkill County, PA Court House in Pottsville, PA

Double Click on the above picture and any-other

Post picture to enlarge the viewing of said picture

This is it for this Post, we will get back to the Ledger book in the next post

 Ledgerpost #3 and Canal Boat Information
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Boating entry for Feb 3rd, 1832

When I first posted I neglected to mention why work on the Swatara Furnace Iron Plantation was not started earlier in the 19th Century, I also forgot that some readers of my posts are probably not familiar with the early history of Pine Grove Township. Before 1830 there was no way to get iron ore and large amounts of limestone into that area, also no way to ship out products from the furnace; this all changed in 1830 when the Union Canal branch from Pine Grove to Middletown was completed, the Pine Grove branch at Middletown connected with the West to East branch of the canal which headed to Reading.

We will now take a closer look at the above scan of the ledger book that is dated Feb 3rd, 1832.

In the upper left we have "Sundries" to Simeon Guilford, the line below is "Boating", this is the account the charges were made to, the canal boats name was the "Independence", There are a few words in the entry that I can't figure out.

Toll on Independence from Port Mifflin to P Grove - 63,
with coal back to Port Mifflin - 42

Independence from Port Mifflin to Lebanon 1 ton castings, Capt had Rails ??? Toll - 7 1/12

Independence from Lebanon to Goor Mill

Carried forward  2,, 25 1/2

The above figures don't add up, maybe some viewer of this post might have more experience in 200 year handwriting, if so please let me know. I will be posting more on canal data in the future, there are names of canal boats, names of their Captains, what they hauled and where they came from, and where they went to. 

Double click on the above scan to enlarge it.

To view previous posts go to the upper far right of the Blog and click on archive dates.