February 2009 - The Portage Area Historical Society, the Portage

The
Portage Area Historical Society
814-736-9223
Newsletter
P. O. Box 45 Portage, PA 15946
Y
ou can see them in quiet glens beside a river; you can
catch glimpses of them as you walk beside abandoned
railroad beds. They are ditches that vary in depth from
a few inches to a few feet. Overgrown with weeds, bushes
and small trees they are the remnants of an
important part of Pennsylvania’s history,
they are the remnants of the Pennsylvania
Main Line Canal. Begun in 1821 and
using Pennsylvania’s rivers, traveling
on the Main Line Canal was a colorful
and leisurely way to go from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh in the 1800s,”
states storyteller Jan Kinney.
“
On November 9, assuming the
persona of a canal traveler in 1848,
Jan Kinney spoke at the Portage
Station Museum about “Travelin’ on
the Main Line.” Based on years of
research, Jan’s presentation highlighted
the canal’s construction and history while
acquainting her audience with the sights,
sounds, life and times along the route.
February 2009
activities that go along with the event. Charles Edwards and
Austin Rodgers kept the model trains on the second floor running
for visitors who never seem to get enough of the Miniature
Mainline. Many thanks to all of the businesses who generously
sponsored this event and to all of those involved in making the
Christmas Light Tour such a successful holiday celebration for
both the museum and the community.
Occupancy Permit
With more than $16,000 in repairs and upgrades, the Portage
Station Museum received its Occupancy Permit in August
from the PA Bureau of Labor and Industry. Walking
through the museum today, one might notice a new hallway
on the second floor, but most repairs were in the basement
or in the wiring and plumbing. Many things like new fire
glass in the stairway windows and two crash doors and walls
Jan
in the basement seemed unnecessary, but still had to be
Kinney done. Thanks to Paul Maul, everything was completed
within the allotted time period and no penalties or court
visits came about. Many thanks to all of you who sent donations
to the museum to help with these mandated repairs.
More Repairs
We were able to offer this wonderful presentation to the public
free of charge thanks to a grant from the Pennsylvania
Humanities Council. The PHC has provided the historical
society with numerous grants and speakers over the years,
enabling us to offer high quality programs that we could
otherwise not afford.
Christmas Light Tour
For the last two years our Christmas Light Tour joined
Winterfest as a community celebration. On Saturday, December
13, four bus tours filled with people in the holiday spirit, pulled
away from the museum to tour the town’s beautifully lit homes.
They returned to music, treats, and a visit with Santa. Tom Gaudlip
coordinated the project: the bus tour, Santa, the Community
Band, the High School Brass Choir, treats, and all of the other
Someone again smashed windows at the museum, this time on
the railroad side of the building. This is the third time in three
years that we replaced windows because of vandalism. These
are expensive repairs with no solution! In December the pump
on the furnace failed, but thanks to an unscheduled stop by
Charles Edwards, the problem was fixed temporarily and no
other damage resulted from the malfunction. We will need to
replace the pump before next winter.
Need Your Help
For the upcoming year, several new fundraisers have been
planned and the ones we usually do will be expanded upon.
Therefore, we are asking for your help. Our first big event,
the Ladies Spring Tea, has been scheduled for April 26. If
you are interested in helping setup, baking cookies, making tea
2008 Light Tour
Mom & Pop Stores
A reader recently asked if
we would do a story on the
“Mom and Pop” stores that
once frequented the Portage
area. Just as we had many
schools throughout our town,
we also had many small family
grocery stores, each within a
walking distance of a group of
homes. Thanks to Mr. Robert
Sease, who provided us with these four photos, we are off
to a good start. If you have any information or pictures,
let us know. Call the museum or email us at our
web site. This theme would make a wonderful second
mural to place above the 1950s aerial views of Portage
mural that Dr. Karduck donated some years ago.
Calabas - Corner N. Railroad & Main St. now
Bob’s TV (t right) Moxsons - 1025 Johnson Ave. , a grandson lives there now (b left) Nagy’s 1936 - 1000 block
Gillespie Ave. at bridge (b right) Yurkonis – between
Orchard & Grant, left side of Mt . Ave. below Porinchaks
(t left)
sandwiches, or donating door prizes, call the museum at 7369223. In June the PAHS coordinates the Great Community
Yard Sale. Last year your donations of items for our own
yard sale helped increase our profits by 400 percent. So save
those items that you don’t need and call us in the spring. We
also need someone to help keep sidewalks free of grass, weeds
and leaves, and snow in the winter.
These wonderSadly Missed
ful old photos
The PAHS and the community mourn were sent to us
the recent passing of Frank Mutch. by Sharon Boura
Frank took personal pride in his com- H u d s o n o f
munity and volunteered his time to make Princeton, WV.
several places around Portage look They belonged
better. For years Frank mowed, weed- t o h e r g r a n d whipped, cleared leaves, and maintained father Eugene
the outside of the museum. We also mourn Boura. Can you
the passing of William Callahan. Bill help us identify
wrote several great articles for our
them?
newsletter, donated many historical
documents, and provided us with his
entire 1930s boy scout collection for
our scouting display several years ago.
In the October 2007 newsletter (back
editions @ www.portagepa.us ) Jean
Crichton wrote an article about John
Calvin Martin, the person responsible for
the development of the lumber and coal
industries in Portage which led to the Eugene’s
rapid growth of our town. When John brother
Martin wanted to buy more land or open Felix
a new mine, he hired engineers and
surveyors from the Portage-Johnstown area to draw maps
and oversee plans. So enters Andrew B. Crichton into the
picture.
By Jean Crichton
My father, Andrew B. Crichton, would be the man associated
with the coal mines on Trout Run for the first half of the 20th
Century. Andrew’s roots were in the coal business. He was
born on March 4, 1882, in the mining town of Arnot, in Tioga
County, the son of William and Margaret
(Nelson) Crichton, both Scottish
immigrants. His father, William,
was a short, wiry man, who went
into the mines of Scotland as a boy
of 9 or 10 and continued mining
when he arrived in America.
The Crichton family endured frequent moves and chronic economic
instability. To support his family of
Andrew B.
seven sons and two daughters (two
Crichton
other sons had died as infants), William
labored for one coal company after another,
uprooting his family time and time again from Tioga County to
Philipsburg in Centre County, Peale in Clearfield County,
Barnesboro in Cambria County and Rockwood
in Somerset County.
Like his father, Andrew went into the mines at
the age of 10, working first as a trapper boy and
later as a mule driver. Even so, he managed to
get training as a mining engineer through what
we now call “distance education.” Mining by
day and studying at night, he earned certificates
in surveying, mapping and drafting in 1900 and
1901 from the International Correspondence
School in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Share your memories, photos, and memoribilia
with us and we’ll share them with the community
few months later, when Martin was about to turn 65, he looked
to Andrew to manage his businesses in Portage. The two men
negotiated a one-year contract that made Andrew chief mining
engineer and agent in charge of Martin’s properties in Portage,
effective July 31, 1910. Andrew would be paid $400 a month
and would be provided with a horse and buggy for his and his
assistants’ use in Portage.
Besides managing the mines, the contract included sales of at
least some of the surface land owned by the Martin Realty
Company. Frank G. Weaver, one of Andrew’s assistants, was
assigned to serve as the full-time “competent engineer” called
for in the contract.
At the time, Andrew was 28 and a newlywed of about six
months living in Johnstown. His bride, Mary Edith Masters, also
28, was pregnant with
their first son, Andrew Jr.
They would have two
more sons, Clarendon and
Robert, and a daughter,
Mary Edith.
In June 1911, John Martin authorized Andrew to
purchase ventilation fans,
electric transport systems
and machinery for undercutting the coal seams at
At the age of 19, Andrew escaped underground
duties and was hired to work in the Spangler Andrew (right) sets up his surveying equipment with two his own Puritan Coal
office of H. J. Hinterleitner, chief engineer for assistants outside a Logan Coal Co. building in Beaverdale. Company mines. In July
Martin visited Portage
Clearfield Bituminous
“for
the
express
purpose
of witnessing the
Coal Company, which
opening of the new silk mills,” he told the
employed Andrew’s father
Johnstown Democrat. Martin had donated land
as a mine foreman. A few
for the mills and, of course, the silk mills would be
years later, Andrew estabpowered by Martin’s coal.
lished his own engineering
office in Beaverdale,
In December, Martin visited Portage again. This
where he made mine maps
time, he talked openly about selling his properties
and did surveys for the
as he had no heir to take over his coal business.
Logan Coal Company.
Andrew jumped at the opportunity —though he
knew he could not hope to buy the valuable coal
In 1905, Andrew moved to
Johnstown to work for Andrew (left) in his Johnstown engineering office field on his own. “Would you entertain an offer
from me?” he asked. Martin seemed willing if
prominent mining engineer
Andrew
could
get the money together.
John Fulton. When Andrew set up his own consulting practice
in 1907, Fulton seems to have helped him get business. Within
the first few years, Andrew was hired to evaluate coal property
near Charleston, West Virginia, and was sent to inspect a gold
mine prospectus in Colorado. So it was not surprising that a
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Andrew headed to Ebensburg to consult with his lawyer, John
E. Evans, whom he soon invited to join him in the venture. Over
the next weeks, Andrew and Evans deliberated in secret about
how to get the financing needed to buy the underground coal
and the hundreds of acres of surface land owned by Martin
Realty Company. If word leaked out that the Martin properties
were for sale, a buyer with more access to credit might outbid them.
The partners eventually got in touch with William J. Faux,
president of the Philadelphia-based Logan Coal Company.
Andrew had done consulting work for Faux at the Logan mines
in Beaverdale, and Evans probably acted as Faux’s lawyer in
Cambria County. The two men promised Faux a one-third stake
in their enterprise if he found them an investor.
Each of the investors also received preferred stock in the complex deal.
Attorney John Evans, 36, was named president of Cambria County
Coal Company. Andrew was given the title of superintendent.
He turned 30 just a month before the deal was clinched.
Eventually, Brown Brothers & Company of
Philadelphia offered financing to Andrew and
John Evans, enabling them to buy the Martin properties for $650,000 under the name Cambria
County Coal Company. Brown Brothers issued
$500,000 in mortgage bonds at 6 percent interest
and would find buyers for these bonds, which would
be repaid from royalties paid by the coal companies leasing the 13 existing mines on the property.
In time, the company began
mining coal under the name
of the Beachly Coal Company.
The entire enterprise eventually became the Johnstown
Coal & Coke Company,
which ran mines in Portage
Township, Beaverdale and in
MD
and WV until the 1960s.
Miller Shaft Coal Mine 1947 submitted by George Letchus
To cover the remaining $150,000, Brown Brothers
In 1952, Rose B. Crichton, my mother (Andrew’s second wife),
lent $90,000 outright, in exchange for 1,250 shares (25 percent)
gave 32 acres to increase the size of what was then the
of the new company’s common stock. Andrew and John Evans
McCormick Park. In 1971 she gave another five acres, and then
contributed about $30,000 each to cover the rest of the purin 1973 she donated three more acres, bringing the park to its
chase price (Andrew convinced the U.S. National Bank to make
present size of 62 acres.
the loan to him). They each received 1,231 shares, a few shares
2009 Schedule of Events (Tentative)
fewer than Brown Brothers. Faux received 1,288 shares of comMarch 14 - “Searching for Paranormal at the Station Museum”
mon stock (a few shares more than any of the other parties).
Portage Area Historical Society Board
Regis Huschak - President, Ruth Richardson - Vice President, John Havrilla Treasurer, Mary Kostan - Recording Secretary, Irene Huschak - Corresponding
Secretary, Mary Lou George, Barbara Havrilla, Betty Cann, Ginny McDonnell,
Charles Edwards, Rose Pfeilstucker
Newsletter by Irene Huschak
April 26 - Ladies Spring Tea
May 31 - Fashion Show “Wedding Belles” Vintage Bridal Attire
June 13 - Community Yard Sale
June 18-20 - Rummage Sale
August 7-9 - Summerfest - PAHS Celebrates 25 Years
November 15 - Pennsylvania Humanities Council Program
December 12 - Winterfest
s
help
2009 MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION
p
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You our do
Address: _______________________________________________________________
keep
( ) Annual Member $6.00 ( ) Life Member $50.00 ( ) Student Member $2.00
Make all checks payable to: Portage Area Historical Society, 400 Lee Street, Portage, PA 15946
Museum hours: 12 pm to 5 pm - Wednesday through Saturday