"Late in the afternoon he brought it home, and set it up with brick, in the fireplace of the bar-room. By evening he had kindled in it, with oak wood, one of the best of coal fires. The interest this excited, and the many visits of curious neighbors, anxious to see a stone-coal fire, were also well remembered by Mrs. Dennis. I was an inmate of her house when these filets first came to my knowledge. I had taken down from their library a book entitled The Free-Mason's Monitor,' and found upon one of its fly leaves, in the clear, bold handwriting of Judge Fell, which I had learned to know from the records of our county,—the following memoranda:— Following this development, coal soon became a staple article in the valley, and mining a business, though but primitive at first. Coal sold in Wilkesbarre, about 1790, for domestic purposes, in small quantities, at $3 per ton, and in Marietta, on the Susquehanna, for $8 to $9 per ton, from 1810 to 1814. Previously, we presume, it must have been higher, as subsequently it became lower.
The coal-trade of Wyoming did not expand rapidly or increase in pro portion to the subsequently developed regions of the Lehigh and the Schuylkill. The want of avenues to the great coal-consuming marts was long felt by the miners of the Valley.
Though the Pennsylvania Canal (now the Wyoming) was opened at a comparatively early day, the markets in that direction were limited, and the vend but small. In 1842 we find the first statistical return as 47,346 tons. But during the same year 205,253 tons were sent from the eastern end of the Wyoming coal-field, by the Delaware & Hudson Canal Com pany.
This company had completed a line of canal from the Hudson to Honesdale, Pennsylvania, a distance of 108 miles, and a railroad 15 miles long, over a mountain 1000 feet high, at a total cost of about 7,000,000 of dollars, for the sole object of reaching the coals of the Valley.
This great enterprise was completed in 1829, and 7000 tons of coal were sent to New York during that year. Since then the shipments over this line have reached 1,561,203 tons per annum, being the amount shipped during 1864. But 836,792 tons of this amount were mined by the Penn sylvania Coal Company, whose coal goes over the same line.
Notwithstanding the large amount of capital originally invested by the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company, it has been perhaps the most suc cessful coal company ever organized. For nearly 35 years its dividends have been large, and its operations wisely and practically conducted.
In 1846 the Lehigh & Susquehanna Railroad, from the Lehigh Canal at White Haven, to a point near Wilkesbarre, was opened, and 5886 tons of coal sent over the mountains to Philadelphia, via this and connecting lines.
In 1854 the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Road was opened from Scranton towards New York, connecting with the Jersey Central. Over this line 133,963 tons were sent that year.
The North Branch Canal to the State line north, and the Lackawanna & Bloomsburg Railroad leading south, were next finished. These lines give six outlets to the coal-trade of the Wyoming region.
Though late in acquiring the means of transportation, the facilities of the Valley are now greater than those of any other region, and its produc tions are fast assuming overshadowing proportions in comparison with the trade of the earlier-developed anthracite coal basins. Below we give the shipments of these lines during 1864, which may be contrasted with the shipments of 1842, which were 252,599 tons, or those of 1829, which were perhaps less than 10,000 tons.