Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1875 — An Interesting Reminiscence. [ARTICLE]

An Interesting Reminiscence.

Anthracite coal was ’discovered in Pennsylvania soon after the settlement of the Wyoming Valley, but its first practical use was by Obediah Gose in his blacksmith shop, in the year 1768. In 1791 Philip Ginter discovered anthracite on the Lehigh. In 1792 Robert Morris, of Philadelphia, formed a company and purchased 6,000 acres of the property on which Ginter discovered the coal. The coal company was called the “ Lehigh Coal Mine.” This company opened the mine and found the-vein to be fifty feet thick, and of the very best quality of coal. The company made every effort to secure a demand for the coal, but without success, and, having become thoroughly disgusted with their speculation, leased the 6,000 acres of this mammoth coal field to Messrs. White & Hazard, of Philadelphia, for twenty years, at an annual rental of one ear of com. Mersrs. White & Hazard tried to use the coal in the blast furnace in 1826, but failed; the furnaces chilled. In 1831 Neilson conceived the idea of the hot blast for saving fuel, and in 1833 David Thoma adopted the idea of the hot blast and anthracite together. White & Hazard had, previous to this, formed a company and bought the property. In 1839 David Thomas made the use of anthracite for making pig metal a success, by which the tw-enty ears of corn were transferred into $20,000,000. And this is the early history of the great Lehigh coal mines of the present day. I remember well the banquet given by Burd Patterson and Nicholas Biddle, at Mount Carbon, in 1840, at which time they paid William Lyman, proprietor of the Pioneer furnace, $5,000, the premium they had offered for the first successful use of anthracite coal as fuel in the blast furnace. But David Thomas was the lion of the day; it was he who showed them how to do it; and hale and hearty to-day, as then, he stands a worthy representative of science. Long may he live, and peaceful be his death, and may the memory of his deeds never be forgotten by Pennsylvania. He is a master mechanic, and I should be much pleased to see the chair of metallurgy in the Mechanics’ High School of Pennsylvania marked Thomas. — Cor. Pittsburgh Commercial.