Williamsport, Pennsylvania

“ The most elevated ground in the state is behind Wilmington, and it forms the divide between Brandywine and Christiana Creeks. A fine rolling country is found in the extreme north where the Pennsylvania upland enters. A ridge which runs northwest and southeast through the state forms the watershed of Delaware and Chesapeake Bays, but follows the Atlantic coast-line. ”

“ Large quantities of foundry and machine-shop products and iron and steel are also manufactured. The Pennsylvania Railroad maintains extensive car shops at Wilmington. The city is a prominent distributing centre and a port of entry for the customs district of Delaware, the foreign trade of which in 1901 was valued at $4,911,144, including exports to the amount of $4,679,370. The government is vested in a mayor, elected every two years, and a unicameral council of thirteen members. ”

“ Regarding a map, to the west of Wilmington we see that there is a continuous tier of counties, from one extremity of Pennsylvania to the other, which has no great railway running east and west. A few of these counties are penetrated by feeders to the Pennsylvania Railroad or by other lateral roads, but they are not opened by any general comprehensive system; yet this section of Pennsylvania is one of the richest in mineral wealth. ”

“ Is the center of one of the richest bituminous coal and natural gas districts in the world. Oil fields lie mainly in basins of Allegheny and Ohio Rivers. Staple manufactures are iron, steel and glass. The history of Allegheny County presents a greater variety of startling incidents than almost any other portion of the state. Mound builders were primeval inhabitants, site of ancient fortifications are on Chartier’s Creek, eight miles from Pittsburgh, county seat, second city in size in the state, on site of Shannopin’s Town, chief of about twenty families of Delawares ”

“ Of the total population 51 per cent. is urban—i.e. they live in places which contain over 4,000 inhabitants, there being, in 1900, 119 such places, or more than in any other State. The average number of inhabitants to the square mile in 1900 was 140.1.
Cities. The population of the 18 largest cities in 1900 was as follows: Philadelphia, 1,293,697; Pittsburg, 321,616 ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is America's third city in population, and it ranks third among the manufacturing cities of the United States. Philadelphia is on the Delaware River, a hundred miles from the ocean, but it has all the advantages of a seaport, for the river is deep enough to let great ocean steamers navigate to the city's docks. Philadelphia's easy access to the vast stores of iron, coal, and petroleum, for which Pennsylvania is famous, its location on two tidewater rivers,—the Delaware and the Schuylkill,—and its [70] important railroads, all have helped to make it a great industrial and commercial center. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Arable land, mostly red shale and limestone, with deposits of iron ore at Bloomsburg, and the anthracite coal basin at Centralia. Chief industries, manufacturing; the carpet mill here is said to be the second largest in the United States. Earliest historical bands of Indians, in this county, were the Shawnees and Delawares, vassals to the Six Nations; Wyoming Path, their route of travel for hunting or war, left Muncy on the West Branch, ran up Glade Run, through a gap to Fishing Creek and on to Luzerne County, through Nescopec Gap, and up North Branch to Wyoming. ”

“ Although the manufacturing interests of Philadelphia and Pittsburg are exceedingly large—those of the [Pg 420] latter without parallel on the continent, if, in the world—a visit to Reading is, nevertheless, desirable, for one who would gain a comprehensive idea of the industries of Pennsylvania. The city is not a large one, but it is almost wholly a city of workers. With the great coal and iron regions of the State at its back, their products brought to it by river, railroad and canal, its manufacturing enterprises are multiplied in numbers, and are almost Cyclopean in their proportions. ”

“ When the United States were yet very young, in fact, before the Federal Constitution was even proposed, before Washington was elected president, when the small cluster of log huts, protected by a stockade called Fort Pitt, was all that constituted Pittsburgh, is the time this old newspaper began its long and honorable career. ”

“ The richness of its mines, the wealth of its forests, the productiveness of its fertile valleys and the unrivalled scenery of its splendid mountains and broad plateaus make Pennsylvania one of the first states of the Union. Its boundaries are, on the north, Lake Erie and New York; on the east, New York and New Jersey; on the south, Delaware, Maryland and West Virginia, on the west, West Virginia and Ohio. The Delaware River forms the entire eastern boundary. Area: 45,086 square miles. Population 7,665,111.
Surface. All the mountains are parts of the Appalachian system. ”

“ When the departure of the British fleet from New York was made known to General Washington, he was uncertain as to its objects, but directed the concentration of his army in Bucks County, so as to meet the enemy should he attempt to approach Philadelphia.
Washington soon learned that the fleet was off the Capes of the Chesapeake, and turned his attention in that direction. The very day the British landed the Americans marched to Wilmington with a force of about eleven thousand men. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ County seat, Waynesburg, population 3332; laid out in 1796; named for General Anthony Wayne, who with his troops proved most successful in ridding this section of the Indians. A chain of parks with formal gardening goes through the center of the town, divided by streets; in the center of one is the Soldiers’ Monument; erected in 1899; Waynesburg College, empowered by the Legislature to confer honorary degrees, faces College Park; portrait of Dr. A. B. Miller, a former president, is in Alumni Hall. Courthouse, colonial, with cupola, surmounted by wooden statue of General Greene ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Philadelphia ranks fourth in commerce among the cities of the Union. As a manufacturing city it occupies the very front rank. With the inexhaustible coal and iron fields of Pennsylvania at its back, her manufacturing interests are certain to grow in extent and importance, maintaining the ascendency they have already gained. Its prosperity has a firm basis. Like all large cities, there is squalor, misery and crime within its borders ”

“ The favourable situation, railway facilities and proximity to the coal-fields of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia, to the sources of supply of raw materials, and the water-power furnished by the Brandywine, combined with the enterprise of its citizens, have made Wilmington the most important manufacturing centre of Delaware. ”

“ The western boundary is a straight line running along the meridian, but the eastern boundary is formed by the Delaware River, which forms two large and regular zigzag bends, making the extreme length of the State 302 miles. The area is 45,215 square miles, of which 44,985 square miles, or 28,790,400 acres, are land surface. The State ranks twenty-ninth in size among the United States. ”

“ Wilkes-Barre, county seat, was settled, 1772, population, 73,833. Places of modern interest, containing historical collections, portraits, and paintings, open free to the public, are the Courthouse, modified adaptation of classic, the façade, with Ionic porch, is very dignified, surmounted by a Gustavino dome ”

“ 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. ”

“ Since its control of what had been a useful and venerable newspaper began, every mayor of Philadelphia, every governor, every United States senator, save one who has only been in office four weeks, and every legislature of the commonwealth, has been subjected to a daily flood in its columns not of adverse comment, but of invented untruths. The state expended a considerable sum of money upon the celebration of Pennsylvania Day, August 20, 1904, at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in an effort to impress upon the nation the importance of her participation in the settlement of the West. ”

“ While in Hopwood, and from the savings of tavern keeping and blacksmithing, he purchased the land on Dunbar’s Camp, occupied it a number of years, sold it at an advance to Dr. Waters, of the Soldiers’ Orphans’ School, and with his added accumulations, bought the old Grier-Brown farm on Redstone creek, in Franklin township, Fayette county, Pennsylvania, founded the village of Waltersburg, and about two years ago died, leaving his family a comfortable inheritance. He is well remembered as an amiable, industrious and money accumulating citizen of German origin. ”

“ As a result of the Coshocton campaign the hostile Delaware migrated to the headwaters of the Sandusky and other places farther westward, while the adherents of Chief Killbuck and those friendly to the Americans moved to Pittsburgh and erected their rude wigwams on Smoky Island, sometimes called Killbuck Island, at the northern side of the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. ”

“ Pittsburg ought to be to the western part of the state, what Philadelphia is to the eastern: the reservoir of wealth sufficient to afford a market to the surrounding country. There is no rivalship between these cities. The prosperity of one promotes the prosperity of the other. Why then should we hesitate? New York has completed 120 miles of canal in less than two years and five months. By a line of less than half that length, the Delaware and Susquehanna are united.
Pennsylvania has been accused of want of attention to gardening, and I am afraid she must plead guilty to the charge. ”