History of the Early Settlement of the Juniata Valley Part 25

But, great as the valley is, unquestionably half its resources have not yet been developed. Along the base of the mountain are vast seams of coal that have never been opened, and forests of the finest timber, which only await capital and enterprise to show the real extent of our coal and lumber region. Of the extent of the ore-fields of the valley no man can form any conception. Time alone can tell. Yet we are not without hope that ore will be found in such quant.i.ties, before the present generation shall have pa.s.sed away, as shall make the valley a second Wales in its iron operations.

From De Bow's Census Compendium of 1850 we copy the following, set down as an accurate statement of the amount of capital, hands employed, and amount produced, in all the counties of the valley, by manufactures, in that year:--

Counties. Capital. Hands employed. Amount produced.

Bedford $ 212,500 427 $ 561,339 Blair 1,065,730 1383 1,385,526 Huntingdon 1,335,525 1218 1,029,860 Mifflin 129,235 300 310,452 Juniata 309,300 182 467,550 Perry 336,992 609 845,360 ---------- ---- ---------- Total $3,389,282 4119 $4,600,087

This is manifestly an error; for we are satisfied that more capital and hands were employed in the iron business alone in 1850, leaving out Perry county, only a portion of which belongs to the valley proper. The gatherers of the statistics evidently did not enumerate the wood-choppers, charcoal-burners, teamsters, ore-diggers, and others, who labor for furnaces. Yet, granting that the statistics of the manufactures of the valley, as given in the census report, are correct, and we deduct a tenth for manufactures other than iron, we are still correct; for since then new furnaces, forges, and foundries have been built, the capacity of old ones greatly enlarged, and many that were standing idle in 1850 are now in successful operation. In Altoona alone, since then, 600 hands find steady employment in working up the Juniata iron at the extensive machine-shops and foundries of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company.

The following shows the population in 1840, and in 1850, together with the number of dwellings:--

Counties. Pop. in 1840. Pop. in 1850. Dwellings.

Bedford 29,335 23,052 3,896 Blair, (formed out of Huntingdon and Bedford, 1846) -- 21,777 3,718 Huntingdon 35,484 24,786 4,298 Mifflin 13,092 14,980 2,591 Juniata 11,080 13,029 2,168 Perry 17,096 20,088 3,412 ------- ------- ------ Total 106,085 117,712 20,083

If we add to Bedford the 7567 inhabitants taken from it to form Fulton county, we shall find that the population increased 19,192 in the valley, between 1840 and 1850. This may be rated as an ordinary increase. To the same increase, between 1850 and 1860, we may add the extraordinary increase caused by the building of the Pennsylvania and the Broad Top Railroads, which, we think, will increase the population to double what it was in 1840 by the time the next census is taken.

The number of dwellings in the valley, it will be observed, amounted, in 1850, to 20,083. Since then, five hundred buildings have been erected in Altoona, one hundred and fifty in Tyrone, five hundred in the towns and villages along the line of the Broad Top Road, a hundred along the line of the Pennsylvania Road, while the towns of Hollidaysburg, Huntingdon, McVeytown, Lewistown, Mifflin, and Newport, and, in fact, all the villages in the valley, have had more or less buildings erected during the past five years. A corresponding number erected during the next five years will, we venture to predict, bring the census return of buildings up to 40,000.

Let it also be remembered that the increase of population between 1840 and 1850 was made when the mania for moving to the West was at its height; when more people from the Juniata located in Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana, than will leave us during the next twenty years, unless some unforeseen cause should transpire that would start a fresh tide of western emigration. The fact that many who have taken up their residences in the Far West would most willingly return, if they could, has opened the eyes of the people, in a measure; and many have become convinced that a man who cannot live and enjoy all the comforts of life on a fine Pennsylvania farm can do little better upon the prairies of Iowa or the ague-shaking swamps of Indiana. As an evidence that money may be made at home here by almost any pursuit, attended with perseverance, we may incidentally mention that a gentleman near Frankstown, who owns a small farm,--probably one hundred and sixty acres,--not only kept his family comfortable during the last year, but netted $1400 clear profit, being half the amount of the original purchase. Is there a farm of the same size in Iowa that produced to its owner so large a sum over and above all expenses? But, more than this, we can safely say, without fear of contradiction, that every acre of cultivated land in the Juniata Valley has, during the last two years, netted as much as the same amount of land in the most fertile and productive Western State in the Union. A large proportion of the people who have located in the West, actuated by that ruling pa.s.sion of the human family--the acc.u.mulation of money, (mostly for dissipated heirs to squander,)--are engaged in speculating in lands. Now, we venture to say that the increase in the price of some of the lands in the Juniata Valley will vie with the rapid rise in the value of Western lands; and we are prepared to maintain our a.s.sertions with the proof. Some years ago a gentleman in Huntingdon county took a tract of timber-land, lying at the base of the mountain in Blair county, for a debt of some four or five hundred dollars. The debt was deemed hopelessly bad, and the land little better than the debt itself. Right willingly would the new owner have disposed of it for a trifle, but no purchaser could be found. Anon the railroad was built, and a number of steam saw-mills were erected on lands adjoining the tract in question, when the owner found a ready purchaser at $2500 cash. A gentleman in Gaysport, in the summer of 1854, purchased twelve acres of ground back of Hollidaysburg for seven hundred dollars. This sum he netted by the sale of the timber taken off it preparatory to breaking it up for cultivation. After owning it just one year, he disposed of it for $3000! A gentleman in Hollidaysburg, in the fall of 1854, bought three hundred and eighty acres of ground, adjoining the Frankstown Ore Bank, for three hundred and eighty dollars. The undivided half of this land was sold on the 22d of February, 1856, for $2900, showing an increase in value of about 1400 per cent. in fifteen months; and yet the other half could not be purchased for $5000. By this the land speculator will see that it is not necessary for him to go to the Far West to pursue his calling while real estate rises so rapidly in value at home.

Within a few years past, the Juniata country has been made a summer resort by a portion of the denizens of Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Pittsburg. From either city it is reached after but a few hours'

travel. The romantic scenery, the invigorating air, and the pure water of the mountains, are attractions that must eventually outweigh those of fas.h.i.+onable watering-places, with their customary conventional restraints. The hotels erected along the line of the Pennsylvania Railroad are admirably adapted, and have been built with a view to accommodate city-folks who wish to ruralize during the summer months.

Prominent among them we may mention the Patterson House, kept by General Bell; the House, kept by Mrs. C. C. Hemphill, at the Lewistown station; the Keystone Hotel, at Spruce Creek, kept by Colonel R. F.

Haslett; the City Hotel, Tyrone City; the large hotel at Tipton; the Logan House, in Altoona; the two large hotels lately erected at Cresson, by Dr. Jackson, (capable of accommodating five hundred guests;) and Riffle's Mansion House at the Summit. In addition to these, all the larger towns contain excellent hotels. In short, we may say that the hotels of the valley, collectively, cannot be surpa.s.sed by country hotels anywhere.

The valley is not without its natural curiosities to attract the attention of the man of leisure. The Arch Spring and the Cave in Sinking Valley are probably among the greatest curiosities to be found in any country. The spring gushes from an opening arched by nature in such force as to drive a mill, and then sinks into the earth again. The subterranean pa.s.sage of the water can be traced for some distance by pits or openings, when it again emerges, runs along the surface among rocky hills, until it enters a large cave, having the appearance of an immense tunnel. This cave has been explored as far as it will admit--some four hundred feet,--where there is a large room, and where the water falls into a chasm or vortex, and finds a subterranean pa.s.sage through Canoe Mountain, and emerges again at its southern base, along which it winds down to Water Street and empties into the river.

Another of these subterranean wonders is a run back of Tyrone City, where it sinks into the base of a limestone ridge, pa.s.ses beneath a hill, and makes its appearance again at the edge of the town.

The most remarkable spring, however, is one located on the right bank of the river, some seven miles below Hollidaysburg. The peculiar feature about this spring is the fact that it ebbs and flows with the same regularity the tides do. The admirer of natural curiosities may arrive at it when it is br.i.m.m.i.n.g full or running over with the purest of limestone water; yet in a short time the water will commence receding, and within an hour or two the hole in the ground alone remains. Then a rumbling noise is heard up the hill-side, and soon the water pours down until the spring is again overflowed.

In the town of Williamsburg, on the property of John K. Neff, Esq., there is a remarkable spring. It throws out a volume of water capable of operating a first-cla.s.s mill, together with other machinery, although the distance from the spring to the river does not exceed the eighth of a mile.

At Spang's Mill, in Blair county, is by far the largest spring in the upper end of the valley. It has more the appearance of a small subterranean river breaking out at the hill-side than that of a spring.

It is about three hundred yards long, varying in width from one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet. The water has a bluish-green tinge, and is so exceedingly pure that a drop of it placed under a microscope would show fewer animalculae than a drop of river-water would after being filtered. Formerly it contained thousands upon thousands of the finest brook trout; but of late years the number has been considerably diminished by the sportsmen who could obtain permission from Mr. Spang to entice them from their element with the tempting fly. A hundred feet from what is considered the end of the spring, there is a large grist-mill driven by its waters, which empty into the eastern reservoir of the Pennsylvania Ca.n.a.l, after traversing a distance of about three miles. Within two miles from the head of the spring, its waters furnish motive-power to two grist-mills, a saw-mill, and four forges.

As a singular circ.u.mstance in connection with this subject, we may mention that, within the memory of some of the older inhabitants, a considerable stream of water ran through the upper end of Middle Woodbury towns.h.i.+p, Bedford county; but the spring at the head of it gave out, as well as several other springs which fed it, and now scarcely any traces of it remain.

In facilities for teaching the rising generation the counties composing the valley are not behind any of their sister counties in the State, as the Common School Report for 1855 proves.

Ever mindful of the Giver of all good and his manifold mercies to mankind, the people of the Juniata region have reared fully as many temples to the wors.h.i.+p of Almighty G.o.d as the same number of inhabitants have done in any land where the light of the gospel s.h.i.+nes.

The following table, compiled from the census statistics, shows the number of churches in 1850:--

--------------+-------+-----+----------+-------+-------+-----+----- SECTS. Bedford Blair Huntingdon Mifflin Juniata Perry Total --------------+-------+-----+----------+-------+-------+-----+----- Baptist 5 5 6 1 4 21 Christian 1 1 Congregational 1 1 Episcopal 1 2 3 Free 3 3 Friends 2 2 German Reformed 7 5 5 10 27 Lutheran 14 10 5 5 9 8 51 Mennonite 3 3 Methodist 10 6 22 8 7 14 67 Moravian 2 2 1 1 1 7 Presbyterian 6 6 13 11 10 8 54 Roman Catholic 1 3 1 1 6 Tunker 1 1 2 Union 5 2 1 1 9 Minor Sects 1 2 3 --------------+-------+-----+----------+-------+-------+-----+----- Total 52 42 60 32 27 47 260 --------------+-------+-----+----------+-------+-------+-----+-----

During the six years that have elapsed since the above statistics were taken, quite a number of new churches have been erected--probably not less than twenty. Of this number four have been erected in Altoona and three in Tyrone City alone.

And now, worthy reader, our voluntarily-a.s.sumed task is ended. As we glance over the pages of our work, we are made painfully aware of the fact that many of the narratives given are too brief to be very interesting. This is owing altogether to the fact that we chose to give unvarnished accounts as we received them, broken and unconnected, rather than a connected history garnished with drafts from the imagination. In thus steering clear of the shoals of fiction,--on which so many historians have wrecked,--we conceive that we have only done our duty to those who suggested to us this undertaking.

We are strongly impressed with the idea that a history of the early settlement of the valley should have been written a quarter of a century ago. Then it might have made a volume replete with all the stirring incidents of the times, for at that period many of the actors in the trials and struggles endured were still among us, and could have given details; while we were compelled to glean our information from persons on the brink of the grave, whose thoughts dwelt more upon the future than on the past.

The modern history of the valley will be a subject for the pen of the historian a quarter of a century hence. We have given him a hint of some occurrences during the last half century; and for further particulars, during the next twenty-five years, we would refer him to the twenty newspapers published in the seven counties, from whose columns alone he will be able to compile an interesting history, sparing himself the trouble of searching among books, papers, and old inhabitants, for incidents that, unfortunately, never were recorded.

The future of the valley no man knoweth. We even tax the Yankee characteristic in vain when we attempt to guess its future. Many yet unborn may live to see the fires of forges and furnaces without number illuminating the rugged mountains, and hear the screams of a thousand steam-engines. They may live, too, to see the day when population shall have so increased that the n.o.ble stag dare no longer venture down from the mountain to slake his thirst at the babbling brook, and when the golden-hued trout, now sporting in every mountain-stream, shall be extinct. But, before that time, there is reason to believe that the present generation, including your historian, will have strutted upon the stage the brief hour allotted to them, performed life's pilgrimage, and, finally, arrived at