SUSQUEHANNA AND LEHIGH CANAL.

HAZARD'S

REGISTER OF PENNSYLVANIA.

DEVOTED TO THE PRESERVATION OF EVERY KIND OF USEFUL INFORMATION RESPECTING THE STATE.

EDITED BY SAMUEL HAZARD.

VOL. XVI.--NO. 16.

PHILADELPHIA, OCTOBER 17, 1835.

From the Saturday Evening Post.

THE FALLS OF BEAVER.

In another column the reader will find a very satisfactory description of the new town of Brighton and the Falls of Beaver, in Beaver county, Pa. unquestionably one of the most interesting sections of country in this state. Emigrants who leave the Atlantic states under an impression that there is nothing between the ocean and the extreme west, worthy of their attention, make a great mistake, and from this cause many extensive tracts of land, as rich and as luxuriant as any the sun ever shone upon, have been entirely overlooked, and allowed to remain in an unimproved and unproductive state. This may be said of many sections of Pennsylvania, and it applies, with great force, to Beaver county, and the adjacent country. In the vicinity of Brighton, as our correspondent remarks, there are natural advan tages and facilities for enterprise and wealth, which those unacquainted with the place, are totally unable justly to appreciate, owing to their number, greatness and extent.

No. 406.

tages for manufactories, it stands unrivalled by any place I have ever met with. The river winds through a rich valley of about half a mile in width, and falls, in a distance of two miles, about sixty feet. Four or five dams are constructed across it, over which an immense volume of water is precipitated in successive leaps, from fifteen to twenty feet each, forming a truly splen did view, and giving a Water power, without comparison west of the mountains, and superior I think to that of the Genessee at Rochester, New York. There are sixteen or eighteen factories and mills now located on it, within the distance of a mile, and yet a body of water sufficient at this time for five hundred or a thousand mills and factories is running to waste.

Although only thirty miles from Pittsburg and two from the River Ohio, almost in the main route of innumerable travellers and emigrants, the Valley and Falls of Beaver River, it would appear are almost unknown, and considered a by place on the road not worth investigating, by the multitude of explorers of the great west. I am therefore disposed to notice it more particularly.

Public attention, however, has recently been direct- The ground on which this town is situated rises in ed to this place. Our canals and rail-roads are forcing terraces from the river to the high ground in its rear, upon the reflecting portion of our community strong forming alternate plains and slopes, about a mile in and irrefragable proofs of the value of land in the vi- length, as regular as if graded by the hand of art.cinity of Brighton, the situation of which, from the fa- Each slope (or bench as it is called) rises in an angle of cility and cheapness of transporting produce to the about forty-five degrees, from thirty to sixty feet, and sea-board, cannot fail very soon to be on a level, in the plains average about three hundred to five hundred advantage, with the older settlements in the vicinity of yards in breadth. The prospect from the brows of the Atlantic cities. With regard to the valley of the these benches is extremely beautiful, extending for Beaver river, it may be noted that the commissioners miles up the valley, and to the high grounds on the opchosen by Congress to select the best scite for a nation-posite bank of the Ohio River, opposite the mouth of al armoury on the western waters, gave this place a the Beaver, two or three miles distant, with the villages decided preference over all others west of the moun- of Brighton, Fallston, Sharon, Bowlesville and Bridg tains. A reference to the map of the United States water, spread out in the intermediate space below you, will show the wisdom of this selection. Its command- making a picture untiring to the eye, and such as is not ing and central situation, from which supplies of arms often met with. The high and precipitous hill, covered and ammunition could be conveyed, with great conve- with foliage, immediately back of Fallston, on the opnience, to New Orleans, by the Ohio and Mississippi posite side of the Beaver River, bounds the view on the rivers, to the east by canals and rail-roads, to the lakes west. The mouths of several coal mines appear at dif. by canals, and to any point on the western frontier, ferent places on the side of this hill, from which the must be apparent to any one who will regard its local coal is precipitated in troughs almost to the doors of ity with attention. Eventually Brighton will become a the various factories at its foot, on the bank of the great thoroughfare, and probably a celebrated stopping stream. place for travellers, on their way west from Philadel phia, and returning east from the Falls of Niagara, Lake Erie and Ohio. The scenery in the neighborhood is delightful, and the natural resources of the country, such as cannot fail to interest the scientific gentle man as well as the enterprising farmer or manufac

turer.

The hills in the immediate vicinity of the town, and indeed for miles around, abound in inexhaustible beds of coal, alum, potter's clay, iron, lime and buildingstone of excellent quality, while three-fourths of the soil is covered with beautiful timber, in which the oak, locust, walnut, sugar-maple, and wild-cucumber trees, predominate, interspersed with wild apple and plumb trees, grape vines, &c. The soil is fertile and productive, as the heavy crops, and the colour of the luxuriant trees bear evidence, and the water is pure and wholesome, resembling in taste our Schuylkill water in Philadelphia, more than any I have met with. This rich and beautiful country, so well calculated to support and enrich a dense population, is comparatively speaking, but thinly settled. There is room for hundreds and thousands of hardy mechanics and manufacturers from the Atlantic cities, and if they would but come here and settle, instead of remaining where they can procure but a bare subsistence, and where their chil

dren are denied, in many cases, the advantages of ast of Baltimore, rest imbedded in the neighboring hills common education, they would be able, in a few years, 'n large quantities and require but a small portion of to acquire a competence, and to build up fortunes for capital and labour to yield abundantly. It is the basis of their children. A very small capital is sufficient for a porcelain pottery, crucibles and fire brick. I have start, and the facilities for travelling on the canal are been told that these bricks could be manufactured here now so great, and the cost so trifling, that the expense for $2,50 to $3 a thousand, and sold for twenty-five of a journey from Philadelphia here, is scarcely worthy dollars a thousand as fast as they can be made, to supply of a moment's consideration. the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys, yet no person has thought proper to invest capital in the lucrative business.

There is a scarcity of hands in the different mechanical and manufacturing establishments about this place. I am informed that the following classes of operatives are much wanted, viz. Brick-makers, masons, carpenters, hatters, turners, coopers, potters, bakers, tinplate. workers, tailors, ladies' shoe-makers, chairmakers, labourers, &c.

Good prices and plenty of work may be obtained, while the necessary expenses of supporting a family are very small. Building lots are at a very moderate price, and granted to settlers on very accommodating terms; four or five annual payments being the usual mode of disposing of them.

The fever of speculation has not yet extended to this desirable spot, partly perhaps on account of the care of the principal proprietors of the land in avoiding large sales to non-residents, partly from there not hitherto having been a good road directly through the place. There is now one being opened which must greatly accelerate the travelling, and tend to increase the number of inhabitants.

The head of steamboat navigation is opposite to the town of Brighton, where the canal commences which is to unite the Pennsylvania and Ohio internal improve

⚫ments.

Iron ore and building stone, are plentiful and easily procured.

Thus you see how the riches of this spot are overlooked and rendered valueless for the want of capital and enterprise to bring them forth. But this state of things cannot last long. The eyes of your enlightened and industrious citizens must shortly be opened to the importance of this section, and some of them will have occasion to regret that they neglected to appropriate the golden spoils when they had an opportunity of em bracing them at a cheap rate,

Having given a brief account of the gentlemen who composed the faculty of arts, as it was constituted immediately after the union of the schools, and of their successors to the present time, we may now recur to what belongs, perhaps, more strictly to the history of the institution-the consideration, namely, of those various changes in its external and internal affairs which circumstances and a more mature experience have at different periods rendered necessary or advisable.

The canal is completed and in successful operation to New Castle, about twenty-eight miles above the mouth of Beaver River, and the remainder along the Mahoning Valley, is in a rapid progress towards completion. There is little doubt that the Pennsylvania Legislature, at its next session, will also pass an act for the location of a canal from Erie through this valley to the Ohio. These two great thoroughfares from the state of Ohio and the lakes, will naturally draw a large trade through this valley, especially as produce may be transported on them several weeks later in the fall and earlier in the spring, than on the New York Canal. The grainment of the state. As very erroneous impressions have of Ohio, and other western states will of course be brought to this spot to be manufactured into flour, instead of being carried to Rochester, where a great por

tion of it has hitherto been taken.

It is somewhat singular that the capitalists of the east have not, to a greater extent, availed themselves of the extraordinary advantages possessed by this location for manufacturing purposes. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of wool grown in the neighboring counties, are annually transported eastward to the factories, manufactured into clothes, &c. and returned to the west at an immensely increased value. With a water power not so available, a region not so healthy, and expenses of living much greater, if not double, they prosecute this trade with great profits.

The first interesting event after the arrangements of the schools had been completed, was their removal from the academy in Fourth street, to the more elegant and comm dious building which they now occupy, and which was purchased by the trustees from the govern

been entertained by many of our citizens relative to the history of this edifice, we shall not perhaps be thought to transgress the limits proper to our subject, by relating briefly the circumstances which led to its erection, and those which afterwards occasioned its transfer. It is well known that in the year 1791, the Congress of the United Stetes assembled in Philadelphia, in pursuance of a resolution of the previous session, by which the seat of the government was transferred from New York to this place. It comported as well with the dignity as with the interest of Pennsylvania, that her metropolis, which had thus become, for a time, the political centre of the Union, should be rendered in every way an acceptable residence to those who represented the national authority. Provision was accordingly made, at the public expense, for the suita. ble accommodation of the two houses of Congress; and by an act of the legislature, passed on the 30th of September, 1791, a large sum of money was appropriated for the building of a mansion to serve as a residence for the president of the United States, so long as Phila delphia should continue to be the seat of the national Iron in blooms is brought from Tennessee and east-councils. In pursuance of this act, a lot was purchasward of the mountains to Pittsburg, manufactured into ed, situated on the west side of Ninth street, and exbar iron, boiler iron, nail rods, and nails, &c. by steam, tending from Market to Chesnut street, on which a while the same work could be performed here at much building was commenced, appropriate, in extent of less expense, by water power. plan and solidity of structure, to the purpose for which it was designed. At various periods of its progress, further appropriations became necessary; and by the time of its completion, in the spring of 1797, its cost had amounted to little short of one hundred thousand dollars.

Cotton is brought from Tennessee to the Ohio River, transported down the Ohio and Mississippi, to New Orleans and shipped to eastern ports or carried through the Pennsylvania canal, to the same destination; manufactured and returned to the west, with one or two hundred per cent cost, and profit added, when it might be manufactured here at one half the charges.

Nearly all the materials forming the component parts of glass are taken from this valley to Pittsburg to be manufactured.

Rich veins of alumine or alum clay yielding sixty per cent of fine alum, tested I am informed by a chem

1835.]

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.

243

were bound by the conditions of their titled deeds to retain in their possession, for the maintenance of a charity school, and the accommodation of itinerant preachers.* By letting on ground rent those unoccupied lots of their new purchase which fronted on Market and Chesnut streets, they provided a permanent income, which has very materially lightened the pres sure of the first cost upon their resources. Some alterations in the building necessary to fit it for the purposes to which it was now destined, were made immediately after it came into their hands; and a very extensive edifice has since been added for the use of the medical professors. The schools were not finally transferred to it till the spring of 1802.†

CHAPTER XII.

Languishing condition of the Schools in the University.Defective Arrangements upon which this condition depended.

Among the motives which originally led to its erection, there can be no doubt that affectionate gratitude to the great man who then filled the presidency, was mingled with considerations of general policy; but nothing of this kind was expressed in the letter of the act, the provisions of which had reference solely to the office of chief magistrate, not to the person of any particular individual. It was probably from a knowledge of the feelings which actuated the legislature, that the opinion became and has continued very prevalent in this city, that the building was not only expressly designed for the use of Washington, but was even offered to his acceptance, and declined from a sense of the propriety of maintaining, in the exercise of his high duties, an independence, free alike from the reality and the suspicion of bias. The fact, however, is, that it was not completed till after his retirement from public office, and therefore could not have been applied to his accommodation in his character of president. It was Mr. Adams to whom the offer was made, and by whom it was declined. Towards this gentleman, however, the warmth of attachment was neither so intense nor so widely dif the success of the university was such as to jutify those The inquiry may now be reasonably made, whether fused; and conditions were annexed to the offer, certainly not contemplated in the original intentions of the which the union of the schools had given rise. For the high and apparently well grounded expectations to legislature, and hardly compatible, as it appears to me, honour of Philadelphia, it would be well could we with the honour and dignity of the commonwealth. The grounds upon which Mr. Adams felt himself bound truly answer this question in the affirmative; but the to decline the favour, were the obligations of that artifact is too notorious to be denied, that, with the excepcle of the constitution which forbids the receipt by the into good order and comparative prosperity, there was tion of the pecuniary affairs, which were soon brought president either from an individual state, or from the depression, than to boast of an advancement in the forreason for several years rather to regret a still further tunes of the institution. Since the first establishment of the college, there had scarcely been a period, unless during the severest commotions of the revolution, when the students in the higher branches were less numer In the philosophical school, consisting of the two ous, or the reputation of the seminary at a lower ebb. highest classes, there were in the year 1797, only twelve students; the numbers qualified to graduate were in several instances so few, that it was deemed when the practice of conferring degrees publicly was unnecessary and impolitic to hold commencements; and resumed, it not unfrequently happened, that only five or six individuals appeared as candidates for the

United States, of any other emolument than the yearly salary attached to his office.

As the purpose for which the house had been built was now frustrated, and no other use to which it could be profitably applied presented itself, it became necessary so to dispose of the premises as to reimburse, as far as possible,the expense incurred by the state in their purchase and improvement. By a law passed in March, 1800, they were directed to be sold at public auction; and in July of the same year, they were purchased by the university, for the moderate sum of forty-one thousand six hundred and fifty dollars, less than half their original cost. As the purchase money was to be paid by instalments, the trustees were enabled to meet the demands upon them by the disposal of stock, and the sale of a portion of the old college and adjoining premises. A part of this property in Fourth street they

honours.

It is not to be supposed that this state of things was regarded with indifference by the trustees: on the contrary, committees of investigation were frequently appointed; the sources of the evil were dili dered sensible, efforts were made to correct or supply gently explored; as each mistake or deficiency was renit; till at length the features of the institution were as to bring it into closer accordance with the character completely changed, and its whole system so remodeled of the times, and to extend considerably its sphere of

usefulness.

A part of the old academy was sold to a society of Methodists, for whom it long served as a place of worship. This portion has recently been taken down and replaced by a new church. building is still standing and in possession of the trus tees.-January, 1834.

The northern half of the

The following is an extract from a note, dated March 3d, 1797, addressed by Governor Mifflin to the president elect. "In the year 1791, the legislature of Pennsylvania directed a house to be built for the accommodation of the president of the United States, and empowered the governor to lease the premises. As the building will be completed in the course of a few weeks, permit me to tender it for your accommodation, and to inform you, that, although I regret the necessity of making any stipulation on the subject, I shall con sider the rent for which you might obtain any other suitable house in Philadelphia, (and which you will be pleased to mention,) a sufficient compensation for the use of the one now offered." The reply of Mr. Adams was promptly conveyed. "The respect to the United States," says he in a note of the same date with the † Since this account was written, the buildings alludabove, "intended by the legislature of Pennsylvania ined to have been taken down, and their place supplied building a house for the president, will, no doubt, be by others, more symmetrical in their external appearacknowledged by the Union as it ought to be. For ance, and better adapted, in their internal arrangeyour kind offer of it to me, in consequence of their au- ments, to the varied business of a great collegiate estathority, I pray you to accept my respectful thanks, and blishment. The new college hall was opened for the to present them to the legislature. But as I entertain reception of students in the autumn of 1830. During great doubts, whether by a candid construction of the the progress of the building, the classes were accommoconstitution of the United States, I am at liberty to ac- dated in the old academy in Fourth street. A reprecept it, without the intervention and authority of Con- sentation of the former university edifice may be seen gress, and there is not time for any application to them, in the “Views in Philadelphia and its vicinity," pub. I must pray you to apologize for me to the legislature lished in Philadelphia in 1827, by C. G. Childs.-Jafor declining the offer." See Journal of the House of nuary, 1834. [And also in Birch's Views, published in Representatives of the Pennsylvania Legislature. 1800.-ED. REG.]