Homestead, Pennsylvania

“ The Homestead mill and the Frick coke works, vast as they are, constitute merely a fraction of the Carnegie Company's interests. In addition to these the Company owns the Edgar Thompson furnaces and the Edgar Thompson steel works at Bessemer, eleven miles from Pittsburgh on the Pennsylvania railroad; the Duquesne steel works, on the same side of the Monongahela river as the Homestead works; the Lucy Furnaces, Pittsburgh; the Keystone Bridge Works, Pittsburgh; the Upper and Lower Union Mills, Pittsburgh; the Beaver Falls mills at Beaver Falls, 32 miles from Pittsburgh on the P. & L. E. railroad ”

“ Earliest settlers Scotch-Irish, later Germans. Chief industry agriculture, the land east is limestone and very fertile; west, slate lands prevail, abounding in pure streams and rich meadows; the Conococheague and Conodoquinet Creeks drain the central part of the county, they are crossed by many stone arch bridges of graceful architecture, the most notable is at Hiester’s Mill, three arches. ”

“ Rose purchased 100,000 acres in 1807, partly in Silver Lake Township, and developed the resources of the county. Public buildings face the square, in which is the monument to Civil War soldiers. Courthouse, a fine structure, colonial architecture, built in 1842, contains a portrait of Honorable Galusha A. Grow, who was sent to Congress from this county. The conference building seats 3000; here The Bible Institute is held each summer. At Springville was farm of Zophar Blakeslee, whose daughter, Sarah, was married to Honorable Asa Packer. ”

“ The neighborhood (I like to hover around a while, before alighting) is still a land where all things always seem the same. The trains run up and down our valley, carrying a little of the world boxed up in shabby cars, but leaving no mark behind. In another year the people will begin to visit the city more frequently; in still another, the city people will find their way to us; in five years, population will increase and property will rise in value. This is my estimate, based on a plentiful experience.
Last week, Madeline and I attended the wedding of Elwood Withers. ”

“ In addition to the first 20,000 acres, their appurtenant city lots “was an entire street, and one side of a street from river to river,” comprising 100 acres, exclusive of an additional 400 acres owned in the Liberties. The location of the property was the tract between Spruce and Pine streets, from the Delaware to the Schuylkill River, 366 feet in width. Their lands were given the name Society Hill.
The society was empowered to appoint and remove its officers and servants, to levy taxes, etc. ”

“ The settlers flocked into this new region from two directions. The Scots from the Cumberland Valley and other settled posts of the Province made their way westward along the Forbes military road and planted their cabins along its course. These men were loyal Pennsylvanians, and they held their lands under the Provincial Government. Other Scots came from the South, principally from the Old Dominion; they crossed the mountains by the Braddock road and occupied the fertile lands along the Monongahela and Youghiogheny Rivers and Chartiers Creek. ”

“ Milford, county seat, population 768, was laid out by John Biddis, 1793, in squares, after pattern of Philadelphia; it rests high above the Delaware River, overlooking a valley of myriad hues that have made the town notable for its quaint, umbrageous beauty and repose. Pioneer settlers were substantial people whose descendants still reside here. It is a popular resort for trout fishing in the spring, vacationists in the summer, and for deer and bird hunting in the fall. Courthouse, brick, French design, built in 1873, in center of town, facing the public square ”

“ Public spirit was more active in Pennsylvania than in New York. More roads and canals were building; a new turnpike ran from Philadelphia to Lancaster, and the great highway to Pittsburg was a more important artery of national life than was controlled by any other State. The exports of Pennsylvania amounted to $12,000,000, and the custom-house produced $1,350,000. The State contained six hundred thousand inhabitants—a population somewhat larger than that of New York. ”

“ Chief industries iron and steel; in the north, anthracite coal. High mountain ranges, with valleys of rich rolling farm lands, intersected with many streams, show much scenic beauty.
Harrisburg, county seat; laid out in 1785; population 75,917. The state capitol’s best approach is from Third and South Streets, the massive pile looms up in exquisite proportion, one is impressed with the inherent dignity of the façade, controlled by a well-proportioned dome; dedicated in 1906; architect, Joseph W. Huston; Roman and Italian Renaissance, with influence of Greek Corinthian; dome suggests St. ”

“ The attention of the Legislature having been called to the neglected and suffering condition of the insane poor of the State, in 1844, there was provision made for the establishment of an asylum to be located within ten miles of the seat of Government. The citizens of Harrisburg, with the aid of a liberal appropriation by Dauphin County, purchased a farm adjoining that city, and in 1848, the commissioners appointed by the State began the construction of the first building erected by the Commonwealth for the reception and care of the indigent insane. ”

“ The deadly disease swept away whole families. Eleven persons died in one house within a day.
Philadelphia with 50,000 population in 1792 was then not only the largest and busiest city of the Nation but its seat of government. The Congress moved from the city to Germantown; President George Washington and the members of his Cabinet and their families departed the city, and every person who could afford it followed their example. ”

“ Through William Penn’s liberal policy to early settlers, and later being the seat of government of the United States, many national institutions were originated here, and many more historical buildings are here than in any other city in America. It comprises the whole of Philadelphia County, and has a distinctive character of its own, reminiscent of the old Quaker life, which is given in this book in two Colonial Walks; the Revolutionary Period is given in automobile routes, framed on Washington’s itinerary ”

“ Chief industry, producing and refining petroleum.
Smethport, county seat; was incorporated in 1807; population, 1568. In the courthouse grounds is a granite monument to the Civil War soldiers of this county; it was shown in the Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia. St. Luke’s Protestant Episcopal Church, a gift from Hon. Henry Hamlin; consecrated 1892; is pure fourteenth century English Gothic; architect, Halsey Wood. Altar and reredos of Caen stone, surmounted by a very beautiful, delicately carved canopy; memorial font, Caen stone; all memorials were designed by the architect ”

“ The people of Johnstown, although prostrated by their misfortune, soon recovered, rebuilt their city and re-established their industrial plants, making it a more beautiful and more modern place than ever before. ”

“ The foundation of this immense concern, representing a capital of many millions of dollars, and employing nearly 4,000 men, was laid in 1880, when, according to the census report, Homestead had a population of less than 600. ”

“ Its houses are spread to command as much as possible the farms, which are laid out in Wards or Cantons, with a common fence to each Ward. The farms in wheat already cover a space, greater than the District of Columbia, over all of which they have completed the canals, and other arrangements for bountiful irrigation, after the manner of the cultivators of the East. The houses are distributed over an area nearly as great as the City of New York.
They have little thought as yet of luxury in their public buildings. ”

“ Washington soon became comfortably settled in the fine home of Robert Morris, the same house which Sir William Howe occupied while the British were in possession of Philadelphia and General Washington was suffering with the Colonial troops at Valley Forge. The Morris house was built of brick, three stories high. The stable could accommodate twelve horses. ”

“ Penn offered attractive concessions to the settlers. Land was sold to them at the rate of $10 for 100 acres and every purchaser of lands should have a lot in the city, to be laid out along the river. In clearing the ground care was to be taken “to leave one acre of trees for every five acres cleared.” This was the beginning of forestry in America.
At the time of the charter the present limits of the State were inhabited by the Indians, with some Swedes and Dutch settled along the Delaware. ”

“ In this fertile district was the earliest settlement made by white men in Pennsylvania, the Dutch from the Hudson River wandering over to the Delaware at Port Jervis through these valleys, and settling on the prolific bottom lands along the river, many years before Penn came to Philadelphia. ”

“ Blair County lies in the beautiful Juniata Valley, settled by Scotch-Irish, English, and Germans; much of the soil is very fertile. Chief industries, agriculture, coal mining, and manufacturing. It is the center of a network of roads, mostly built as turnpikes from 1830-50 ”

“ Several years ago more than one thousand persons from every section of Pennsylvania, and not a few from Southern New York State, journeyed to a most out-of-the-way place up in the wilds of Potter County to do homage to the memory of a great man, and to view the scene of one of the saddest failures in the history of the settlement of our great Commonwealth. ”

“ County seat, Lebanon, population 24,643, on the William Penn Highway; settled in 1750. Streets run north and south, east and west. Courthouse, at the corner of Eighth and Cumberland Streets, colonial, brick. United States post office, classic, with Doric columns. A historic inn, the St. Eitz, built in 1752, was occupied by George Washington. Hill Church, colonial, brick; in the yard is a monument to Rev. John Casper Stoever, first Lutheran minister in Lebanon County, in 1733. ”

“ Probably the first white man to cross the county was David Zeisberger, who passed down the Allegheny River to mouth of the Tionesta, Forest County, in 1767; his journal, now on file in the Moravian Library at Bethlehem, tells of the wild beauty of the county. Farming and stock raising are gaining, but the main industry is still lumbering, with second growth of hardwoods, maple, beech, and birch, which will in time be a great nucleus of wealth. ”

“ The great forest and mining regions of Pennsylvania find, at Erie, an outlet for their lumber, coal and iron ore; while the numerous productive farms which lie in the vicinity of the lake send quantities of grain to be shipped at this port.
The city is built upon an elevated bluff, commanding an extensive view of the lake. It is regularly laid out, with broad streets crossing each other at right angles, and its general appearance is prosperous and pleasing. In the centre of the city are the Parks, two finely shaded inclosures, intersected by State street, and surrounded by handsome buildings. ”

“ At the breaking out of the Revolution it was the most important settlement in all Westmoreland County save only those about Forts Pitt and Ligonier. “These huts scattered along the narrow pack-horse track among the monster trees of the ancient forest, was that Hannastown, which occupied such a prominent place in the early history of Western Pennsylvania where was held the first court west of the Alleghany where the resolves of May 16, 1775, were passed.” ”

“ The officers of the First and Second Battalions of the Province of Pennsylvania in the French and Indian War petitioned for and received twenty-four thousand acres of land along the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, and these officers and their families thus became pioneer settlers in that picturesque valley, and now the veterans of the Revolution were given homes in the northwestern section of the State and there planted the settlements which have grown into the most important industrial centers of the Western Hemisphere. ”

“ Natural gas has been used in this state for manufacturing purposes since 1874. This is the greatest manufacturing region in the world, and has the richest agricultural land in the United States. Pennsylvania stands first among the states in the Union in the number of towns over 5000 in population, making it a remarkable selling market. Philadelphia, the chief city, and third in population, 1,823,779, in the United{25}
Philadelphia County
{26} States, is on the site of a village of the Lenni Lenape or Delaware Indians, called Coaquanarck. ”

“ Philadelphia lost power as New York City gained it. Though the counties tributary to Philadelphia constituted the old center of population and political power, the significant fact of growth in Pennsylvania was the increasing importance of Pittsburgh at the gateway to the Ohio Valley. In the Great Valley beyond the Blue Ridge lived the descendants of those early Germans and Scotch- Irishmen who early occupied the broad and level fields of this fertile zone, the granary of Pennsylvania. ”

“ Chief industry, agriculture; formerly mining and manufacture of iron; limestone is extensively quarried; coal is mined about Philipsburg and Snow Shoe. The state owns 21,000 acres of forest reserve, through which several of the state highways pass; “Fireline” cuts made by the state foresters may be seen.
For a wonderful mountain ride, take the State Road from Tyrone, Blair County, to Bellefonte, following Bald Eagle Valley, and passing several small towns named for women, where remains of iron furnaces may be seen ”