History of the City of Altoona and Blair County

v-o^ 'oK -0 i^ ^-^^^' V.^^^'"'^^ r.T*\A « x^^ m # a ".,.• C i^ ^^- '^<^/''oVo- ^V' rv • .ri:'^'^.^*^ o A GLIMPSE OF ALTOONA. HISTORY OF THE — H BLAIR COUNTY. lNI'LrT)1\<l H V H H V E SHOPS PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD CO. ./ Edited by Jas. H._Ewing and Harry Slep. PYRIGh^V^ l-.:_Zîi;î Of WA ALTOONA, PA. HARRY SLEP'S MIRROR PRINTING HOUSE, 1880. Eulci-cil affoiiliiii; to Act of Conjii-css, in Mic yciw Irtfi. l)y riiirry Slcii. in the otTiee of tlic I,il)r;iriuii of Congress, :il \Vu>liington, I). C. \ S ^\ ' i\ê^ oI-ZogS' : PR EFACE A hook without a profaco is considered iiiconii)lete. So is a ship without a fig-ure-head. In either case the affixture is more orna- mental than useful. A book without a preface is nevertheless a book, and a ship without a figure-head is nevertheless a ship. Notwith- standing- this, in conformity to a custom which has existed from time immemorial, and remembering- that custom makes law, and that law must be obeyed, we submit the following preliminary remarks Before commencing- the preparation of a history of any particidar locality, a city or county for instance, the custom has been to call upon leading- citizens, and iiarticularly property owners, for coutri))u- tions of money to aid the project, the presumption l)eing- that the publication cannot fail to result in lienefit to the community. No one designing- to assume the position of publisher, unless he has more wealth than he knows how, otherwise, to disi)oso of, or is a literary gentleman of "elegant leisure,'' fond of seeing his name in ])rint, feels like solely de]iending ui)on the income derived from the sale of the book as remuneration for the expenditure of time, money and labor to which he would subject himself; for it must be remembered that the sale of such a l)ook, with l)ut trifling excejitions, is confined to the immedintc locality in which it is published, and, consequently but a limited number is demanded. Wh(Mi contributions have been ol)- tained, uidess very liberal, the price of the book is generally fixed at double the nmouut charged for i)ul)b'('ntions of corresponding size, quality of paper, binding, etc., and tiius i)laced beyond the reach of many of the poorer classes. In order to avoid the nec(>ssitv of calling upon citizens for contri- l)utions in money, and, at the sanu' lime to enal»le us to ])lace the l)ook within the reaeli of all, as well as to secure for ourselves a reas- 4 PKEFACE. enable remuneration for labor and outlay of capital, we adopted the plan of calling upon merchants and other business men for advertis- ing- patronage, believing that to them, by publicity given, we could render an equivalent for the amount expended. They liberally re- sponded, as will be seen by the number of announcements, and we take this occasion to return our thanks. As will be observed the advertisements do not interfere with the text of the book. It is true that the arrangement of matter is some- what different from the course usually pursued by publishers, but the history is just as complete in itself as it would have been had not a single advertisement made its appearance. Indeed the business announcements make the book more interesting, for, by this means, if no other, thc^ reader is enabled to discern who the wide-awake business men are, and such as are possessed of sufficient public spirit, as citizens, to aid in enterprises which result in good to the community. This book is not perfect—no man ever saw one that was—but we console ourselves with the reflection that we did the best we could under the circumstances, sparing neither labor, time nor expense in getting at the facts underlying the sulyects treated. As members of this community, and feeling a deep and abiding interest in its prosperity and future advancement, we hope the facts and statements Ave have given will be Avell received by the pul)lic, and will serve to abridge the labor of future historians. We are under many obligations to Mr. L. P. Farmer, the efficient and polite General Passenger Agent of the Pennsylvania Railroad company, for favors extended to us. PUBLISHERS. ALTOONA-ANDoBLAIRCOUNTY, INTRODUCTION. In a restrictt'd scn^^c, leaviufi- out the (lisi)arity of years, the life of a city is like the life of a Jiiaii. Tlirri' is iiifant-y, pulicrty, adol- esooiK'c, manhood, old ngv, and death. Were tiie lives of eities co- .cxtensive with the liv,es of anen, Ave miiiht approiiriately say that Al- toona has passed through the period of infancy, with its imbecility, helpl.essn,ess and perils. It has not only reached the age of puberty, but, from that point has passed through the entires jx-riod of adolescence. It has arrived at the age of thirty-one years, adolescence, in man, according to Dunglison, closing at five-and twenty, and, there- fore, has fully entered upon a career of vigorous manhood. What m triumph to commence with! THE PATERNAL PARENT OF ALTOONA. Cities, like men, have fathers or founders. Previous to 1S41I Al- toona existed, figuratively speaking, only in an eml)ryotic condi- tion. It was conceived by the Pennsylvania railroad, and. in the year just mentioned, was brought forth a living child. As we have adopted the allegorical style of writing, we will con- birth and tinue it a little further I)y giving a laconic sketch of the doing life of the Pennsylvania railroad, the father of Altoona. In menu)randa. so we preface it with some general railroad and steam the appositeness of which, in this connection, will ))e readily jx'r- ceived and appreciated : PRIMARY xVTTEMPTS AND SUCCESSES. Beaumont, an English miner, in the early period of the Seven- teenth century, invented the first railroad (wood tracks), on which coal wagons w^re drawn by horses. It was built at Xewcastle-on- England, the-Tyne. The first rails wholly made of iron were cast in .steam engine in ltt(). In 1754 iron wheels were introduced. A was completed by Xewcomen and Cawley, in IT 10. A Cornish 6 Hl.-^T(»RY OF ALTOONA AND BLAIR COUNTY. jniiicr, by the iiainc of Savarv, constructed one in 1718. In 1770 James Watt made an imi)roved engine. In 1804, Richard Trevithick, of Cornwall, constructed a l(K'omotive to run upon the Merthyr- Tydvil railroad, in AVales. It drew, at the rate of five miles an hour, several wagons laden with ten tons of bar iron. In 1814, George Stephenson, of England, completed the first effectivt' locomotive, and that was not very effective. The " Rocket," which he constructed in 1829, succeeding other locomotives he had built, took a premium of £500, offered by the Liverpool & Manchester Railroad company. Shortly after, Mr. Seguin, a French engineer, introduced locomotives in France. In September, 1809, the first experimental railroad track in the United States was laid l)y John Thomson, a civil engineer, of Delaware county, Pennsylvania, and constructed under his direction by Somerville, a Scotch millwright, for Thos. LeiptT, of Philadelphia. It was sixty yards in length, and graded to one and one-half inch to the yard. The gauge was four feet, and the slee})ers were eight feet apart. The experiment with a loaded car was so successfid that Lei- per had the first ])ractical railroad built in the United States, constructed for the trans})ortation of ston(^ from his ([uarries on Crum creek to his landing on Ividlev creek, Delaware county, Pennsylva- nia, a distance of about one mile. It continued in use for aliout nine- teen years. The first railroad in America over which a locomotive Avas run was that of the Delaware & Hudson Canal company, at Honesdale, Pennsylvania, to connect their mines with the canal. The locomotix'e was called "The Stowbridge Lion." It was tried on the road on the Sth day of August, 1829—found too heavy for success- ful use on the roadway, was housed up and finally taken to pieces and destroyed. The first stone on the Baltimore & Ohio railroad was laid on the 4th July, 1828, by Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, Mary- land. At first the cars were propelled by sails, afterwards liy steam. The first locomotive regularly run on that road wâs made by Phineas Davis, at York, Pennsylvania, in 1831. The first gauge of railroads^ (as in England) was four feet eight and one-half inches, corresponding with tile width of ordinary English wagons. Content with general railway memoranda we will now sjjcak of the- PEN NSYLVANI A RAILROAD. On the loth day of Ai)ril, 184(), an act was passed to incorp(jrate the Pennsylvania Railroad coini)any. The ca])ital was fixed at $7,- 500,000, with the ])rivilege of increasing the same to $10,000,000. On June 22, 184(), books were opened for subscriptions to the stock HISTORY OF ALTOONA AND P.LAIR COUNTY. t ill various places in tlu' State. Mr. John Kdâr Tiionison entered upon his duties as chief eng-ineer of the road in tlie early part of 1847. The grading- of the first twenty miles of the road west of Harrisl)urg- was let on July Ki, 1847, and on the 22d of the same month fifteen miles east of Pittsburg- were put under contract. On December 10, 1852, cars were run throug-h from Philadeliihia to Iîtts- burg-, connections between the eastern and western divisions being- formed by the use of the Tortag-e road over the mountains, the road of the rennsylvania comiiany not being- finished there until Febru- ary 15, 1854, when it was formally opened, and the first trains passed throug-h Pennsylvania without use of thi> incline planes, of which the Portag-e consisted.

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