Nesquehoning

NESQUEHONING (Ind. at the black lick, or narrow valley), 73.6 m. (801 alt., 4,176 pop.), founded in 1824 by the Lehigh Navigation and Coal Company and early known as 'Hell's Kitchen,' stretches along the floor of a narrow valley between Pisgah Mountain and Broad Mountain. The largely foreign-born population, chiefly Lithuanian and Italian, occupies unpainted frame shacks. Coal mining is the only industry. Almost dismantled by scrap dealers, the Switchback Railroad, an early gravity line, is visible on the side of Pisgah Mountain.

Southwest of Nesquehoning, a long and ever-growing hill of culm (R), threaded with narrow-gauge tracks, reveals the extent of mining activity. Between towns, this area is sparsely populated and unspoiled, due largely to the work of the forestry department of the Lehigh Navigation Coal Company, which owns virtually all anthracite lands between Mauch Chunk and Tamaqua. The coal bootlegging prevalent in other anthracite sections (see Tour 13B) does not exist here.

Many legends are associated with the discovery of anthracite in Pennsylvania, including the probable one that Indians, building a signal fire on an outcropping, first noted the hard black substance that burned. In 1762 a company of Connecticut pioneers allegedly discovered anthracite near what is now Wilkes-Barre. A blacksmith used it in his forge near Mill Creek as early as 1769; six years later it was used as a fuel in the manufacture of arms for the Continental Army.

In 1792 a group of Philadelphia businessmen and others organized the Lehigh Coal Mine Company. Facing a skeptical public, the company was forced to give away large quantities of anthracite for trial purposes. Few persons knew how to burn it; and fewer still had proper equipment. Philadelphia authorities were persuaded to try it, but the engineer protested that the coal put out the fire. Only 385 tons a year were mined until 1820. As late as 1824 Abijah Hall wrote in his travel notes:

My father procured a lump of Lehigh Coal about as large as his two fists, and tried it on his wood fire in an open Franklin stove. After two days he concluded that 'if the world should take fire, the Lehigh Coal Mine would be the safest retreat, the last place to burn.'

Meanwhile, however, chance had taken a hand. A workman in Josiah White's nail factory in Philadelphia, where coal was being tried with little success, returned to the factory for a forgotten article and found the hard coal fire glowing with intense heat. White's interest was rekindled. In the winter of 1817-18 he set out to investigate the possibilities of the Lehigh River as a waterway for the transportation of coal to Philadelphia. In 1820 the Lehigh Navigation Company and the Lehigh Coal Company, formed two years earlier, were merged as the Lehigh Navigation and Coal Company. The Lehigh Canal, completed in 1829, made cheap shipment possible and marked the beginning of anthracite mining as a large scale industry.