'.* v> -^ ••'•:.. EU $j$ < Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal Company '••' * " The First' One Hundred . • •. •" ' . : % .-•, * . » :.. •• . • \v Eileen Mountjoy Cooper \ Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal Company The First One Hundred Years Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal Company The First One Hundred Years Eileen Mountjoy Cooper the chapter "Decade of Promise: R&P in the Seventies" by W. Joseph Engler, Jr. Acknowledgments During the course of researching the history of the Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal Company, I have been assisted by a countless number of interested individuals. Grateful thanks is hereby extended to those who loaned photos, shared their memories, and gave encouragement. I also wish to thank all those employees at 655 Church Street who designed maps, typed, proofread, and gladly shared their wealth of information on the mining industry, past and present. Particularly, I want to mention C. Merle Craig, who on many consecutive Thursdays helped me dig through masses of records searching for dates and tonnages. In addition, I am most grateful for the valuable editorial suggestions contributed by Mr. Peter Iselin. Most of all, I wish to thank Dr. Charles J. Potter, who gave me the opportunity to research and write this book. It has been an enriching experience, made all the more memorable by the many friends I've made along the way. Eileen Mountjoy Cooper November, 1981 Contents The First One Hundred Years Coal, Capital, and Railway Come Together 10 Beechtree and Walston: First Mines in Jefferson County 17 A New Direction 23 Plans Become Reality 27 Early Profits Bring Expansion 34 1896: A Year of Major Acquisitions 40 Looking Toward Indiana County 47 New Corporations for New Coal Fields 52 Lucius Waterman Robinson: A New Leader for a New Century 57 A Typical Company Town 61 1903—1910: Mines at Iselin and Lucerne 69 Indiana County: "A Great Coal Center" 78 November 23, 1927: "The Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal Company" 85 Depression, War, and New Solutions 92 Beyond Pennsylvania: Out-of- State Explorations 100 Coal into Electricity: Mine-Mouth Generating Plants 109 1970—1981: Three Presidents 113 Decade of Promise: R&P in the Seventies 115 Bibliography 128 R&P People R&P Today 130 R&P Sales Companies 168 The Iselin Family and the Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal Company 170 Chronologies 175 A Family-Oriented Company 178 Financial Statements 213 r^Pi 10 Coal, Capital, and Railway Come Together m he year nineteen hundred and eighty-one marks the M hundredth consecutive year that the Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal Company has engaged in the business of mining bituminous coal. Its founding company, the Franklin Piatt (Pennsylvania Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal & Iron Company (R&PC&I), Bureau of Topographic and was incorporated in November, 1881, began the development Geologic Survey, Harrisburg) of mines in 1882, and sold coal commercially by 1883. The story begins with the Second Geological Survey, authorized in the Pennsylvania State Legislature in 1874. Origins of the Second Geological Survey date to the years following the Revolution, when Americans felt a renewed interest in the animal and mineral life of the country now wholly their own. First mention of Pennsylvania coal occurred in January, 1786, in a paper read before the newly formed American Association of Geologists and Naturalists. This brief report called coal "measure rock" and referred to it as a species of marble. In April, 1832, a group of Philadelphians formed the Geological Society of Pennsylvania. The object of the Society was "to have an exact knowledge of the mineral resources of this State." The Society proposed to make a geological survey of Pennsylvania if the State Legislature would contract to purchase the resulting maps and other scientific data. However, the Legislature debated the issue until 1836 when an Act passed the assembly authorizing the First Geological Survey. The Survey group was awarded a budget of $6,400 for a period of five years to pay the salaries of a geologist, two assistants and a chemist. In 1838, as the First Survey entered its third year, the geological team discovered that "the coal beds of Pennsylvania were deposited in two geological series, one above the other." 11 Their data presented many details which showed a remarkable regularity in the position of the coal "throughout the belt of country embraced between the Allegheny Mountains and the Chestnut Ridge, and from the southern end of the state to the counties of Clearfield and Jefferson. Of the coal there would appear to be ... a bed of considerable size, and usually of superior quality." The State Legislature, belatedly encouraged by the results of the First Survey "which discovered and refined our knowledge of what lies under the soil of Pennsylvania," on May 14, 1874, authorized a Second Geological Survey. The Second Survey employed nine men, among them Franklin Piatt, who eventually became president of the Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal & Iron Company. Franklin Piatt was born in Philadelphia on November 19, 1844. After completing two years at the University of Pennsylvania, he secured a position as an aide on the United States Coastal and Geodetic Survey. He served in a party of topographers and W. G. Piatt (Pennsylvania accompanied Sherman's army on its "March to the Sea." Bureau of Topographic and Geologic Survey, Harrisburg) After the Civil War, Franklin Piatt continued his education, and studied geology in the office of Benjamin S. Lyman, a distinguished geologist and Harvard graduate. As a geologist on the Second Survey, Piatt was placed in charge of the Clearfield and Jefferson bituminous coal districts. In his First Report of these two counties, completed in 1875, he confirmed the findings of the First Survey concerning the great beds of coal, and mapped and measured the area and its deposits. Franklin Piatt's brother, W. G. Piatt, also a member of the survey team, published a report on his own assigned area, which extended from Clearfield County southward to the state line. By 1876, Fayette, Westmoreland, Armstrong, and other counties west of the Allegheny River had been surveyed, and in 1878 W. G. Piatt published his Report of Progress in Indiana County. When the Second Geological Survey came to an end in the late 1870's, Franklin and W. G. Piatt opened an office in Philadelphia. They offered their services as consulting geologists, specializing in the location of marketable coal fields. At the same time, Franklin maintained a membership in the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, and became an original Fellow of the Geological Society. He published several books on the Pennsylvania coal fields, as well as an in-depth report on anthracite mining. 12 13 //>/>< frrr/ . r» ? \ , /,. » fct I ,//„ ... • Cam' .///.y,.-r/ $0 - //#,-/( r,j 1% TV'??/ $*r. '<£# """ iT*. /t r.,,.A t - .- ! f~'-£ ' .. .-.,,l,i- jk.*»t ./'*<- £*"&££. t Property deed, dated August, 6,000 tons in 1872, the year prior to the opening of the 1881, showing coal rights railroad, coal production reached a total of 410,000 tons per conveyed to Herbert P. Brown year by 1880. Mining itself, however, was at first limited to the short distance adjacent to the Allegheny Railroad, in and around Reynoldsville. As Franklin and W. G. Piatt considered the possibilities of commercial mining in Jefferson County, they knew that significant capital was needed to provide both a larger railroad and a huge labor force if such an enterprise was to succeed. Therefore, the geologists became associated with Walston H. Brown, a New York financier who, with his brothers Herbert and Frederick, maintained an investment company with offices at 20 Nassau Street. Walston H. Brown was also involved in the firm of Brown, Howard & Company of New York and Chicago. At the time of the initial meetings between the Platts and Walston Brown, the financier also represented a New York syndicate actively engaged in the construction of a 14 Jefferson County railroad to haul coal for the Bell, Lewis & Yates Mining Company. He also had a strong financial associate in the Iselin family of New York, who shared his intention of transporting Jefferson County coal to Rochester and Buffalo. Soon the Brown interests decided that still more profits could be gained by the formation of a second major mining company. Thus, as Brown continued with plans to transport Bell, Lewis & Yates coal, he also invested considerable capital in a proposed mining company destined to become the parent company of today's Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal Company. With monetary support assured, the Piatt brothers, with maps in hand, began a serious study of the Jefferson County coal situation. By July, 1881, farmers' deeds and Walston Brown's money began to change hands, and reality rapidly took the place of theory as plans for the new coal company materialized. Proceding carefully, the Platts first surveyed and evaluated the Jefferson County coal lands accumulated by the Browns for a proposed corporation tentatively named the Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal Company. In their finished report, addressed to Walston Brown, the geologists observed: "The coal at Brockwayville will travel over the proposed Rochester & Pittsburgh Railway (now partly completed) 186 miles to Rochester; the distance to Buffalo from Brockwayville will be 145 miles. From Punxsutawney to Rochester will be 221 miles, and from Punxsutawney to Buffalo will be 180 miles." They further observed: "At Punxsutawney . collieries can be located to command millions of tons of coal. It would be a fair estimate to say that these lands are worth to your company $125 per acre, or $750,000 for the 6,000 acres in your possession." Encouraged by the Platts' favorable opinions, Walston Brown and the Iselin banking interests acted to join coal, capital, and railway system together. In a series of strategic moves, Brown and his associates gained control of the Rochester & State Line Railroad, which ran south from Rochester to a point just across the Pennsylvania State Line and connected with a locally sponsored line which ran from Rochester to Salamanca, New York.