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April, 1905 COAL AND TIMBER
21
will be ready for operation this fall. The
prospecting and tests show that the product
will be of the finest quality. The new
mine will employ about 150 men additional
to the 40 or 50 employed at its present
Riverside workings. The company has acquired
the lease of more than 200 acres
of coal land in that vicinity.
—It is reliably stated that the Chesapeake
& Ohio 70-mile extension up the valley of
the Big Sand)' river in Kentucky will be
completed in a few days now. This work
has been under way for about three years
and its completion will signalize the opening
of the greatest undeveloped coal mines
in that region of country. During the past
ten years many millions of dollars have
been invested in territory which is penetrated
by the new extension and plans are
well advanced for the active development of
the coal in mines and the building of thousands
of coke ovens.
—The H. K. Porter Co., Pittsburg, Pa.,
have compressed air haulage plants under
construction for the Jamison Coal & Coke
Co.. and the Keystone Coal & Coke Co.,
at Greensburg. Pa. Also small surface
haulage plant for the U. S. Government in
California; Philadelphia & Reading Coal &
Iron Co., Gold Mining Co.; 18 inch gauge
in Colorado; some very heavy air locomotives
for the Frick Coke Co.; some small
machines for the Pacific Coal Co., Ltd.;
Alberta and the Durham Coal Co., North
Carolina; and are also building a number of
mine locomotives for West Virginia.
—The Columbus Coal Co., a new corporation
organized recently under the laws of
West Virginia, has taken over some valuable
coal properties at Vaughn, W. Va.,
on the Chesapeake & Ohio railroad. The
mine purchased produces about 150 tons of
coal a day, but new electrical mining machinery
is to be installed which will bring
the product up to 500 tons daily.
—J. D. Little, of Canonsburg. Pa., has
sold the Pittsburg vein of coal under his
farm in Washington county to the Pittsburg
Coal Co. The tract comprises about
65 acres and is of fine quality. The compensation
is to be a royalty.
SHIPPING DEPARTMENT
MOVED.
The shipping department of the Fairmont
Coal Co. has been removed from
Fairmount, Va., where it has been located
for years, to Baltimore. Md., where Chester
C. Shinn, head of the department, will have
his offices. This is but a part of the general
plan to unite all the shipping departments
of the following coal properties: The Fairmont
Coal Co., the Somerset Coal Co. and
the Consolidated Coal Co. A wire has been
installed in the shipping department at
Fairmont which, has been connected with
Baltimore, New York, Frostburg, Cumberland
and Somerset. Pa. The orders for
the shipping of coal are all to be issued
from the main offices at Baltimore.
UNIONTOWN
LETTER.
By H. G. Lawrence.
Uniontown, Pa., March 28—William L.
Newcomer, of Messmore, has sold to James
E. Hayden, of Hopwood, about 65 acres of
timber in German township for $5,000. The
tract is principally oak timber and is esti
mated to cut 1,000,000 feet. The timber is
on the B. & O. R. R. Mr. Newcomer realized
handsomely in the farm of 130 acres,
of which the timber tract is a part. Four
years ago, he purchased the farm for $4,500
and now he has sold the timber alone for
$5,000, and reserved all the land as well as
the locust timber.
The stockholders of the Short Line Fuel
Company met in Uniontown and elected
these directors: Jesse V. Hoover and J. M.
Howard, Masontown; D. M. Fair, Pittsburg;
W. W. South and Martin Van Voorhis,
Green county; George L. Hibbs, P. H.
Franks and John T. Robinson, Uniontown,
and P. G. Oglevee, East Liberty. John T.
Robinson was chosen president and P. H.
Franks secretary and treasurer. The holdings
include a tract of coal between Fairmont
and Clarksburg, W. Va.
C. C. Gadd, formerly superintendent for
thc Frick Coke Company at Oliphant and
Continental No. 1 plants in Fayette county,
is now superintendent for the Cascade Coal
& Coke Company, in Clearfield county,
where his company is building two plants,
one of 400 ovens and the other of 200. They
have just completed a pump that cost
$10,000 to make and equip, its capacity being
4,000 gallons of water per minute.
The ground has been staked out for 25
ovens at Lemont for the Hogsett Coal &
Coke Company of Uniontown.
Of the plants now in course of erection
in the coke region, two of the most important,
are near Smithfield, in Georges
township, Fayette county, where the H. C.
Frick Coke Compaq' will build 500 ovens at
York's Run, and 300 ovens on the Shoaf
form. The work will be pushed, but it is
not expected the two plants will be completed
before the fall of 1905. The contract
for driving the slopes was given to
Cornish Bros., of Uniontown, and it includes
a double haulage way 18x12 feet. At
the York's Run plant the slope goes in 180
feet and the way is being cut through the
solid rock with dynamite. At the Shoaf
plant it goes in 80 feet. In the bottom of
the pits will be concrete chain hauls with
an endless chain in the hauls so that the
loaded cars will be kept going up all the
time and empty cars descending. This is
an improvement over anything of the Frick
company in the region. The opening up
of these two mines will cost the Frick company
about $10,000. Coal is now being
mined at both places. The contract for
500 ovens at York's Run was awarded to
Owen Murphy. Contractor Thomas Stark.
of Greensburg, is building the 300 ovens
at the Shoaf plant, The W. G. Wilkins
Company, of Pittsburg, were the architects
and engineers on the construction work at
both these plants.
The Connellsville Central Coke Company
started in March on the construction work
for 50 new ovens on the Miller farm near
New Salem, in Fayette county. The company
has 150 ovens in operation and is
building 50 more. The company recently
purchased about 51 acres of the Jacob
Graham and Oliver Jeffries tracts of coal.
They are constructing an electric motor
line to develop the tract recently bought.
They will use a 10-ton electric motor and
expect to haul 20 wagon trips about threefourths
of a mile. The coke company is
composed of Herbert Dupuy and J. H. Hillman,
of Pittsburg; John P. Brennen, Scottdale,
and J. C. Neff, Masontown. The engineering
work was done by the Fayette
Engineering & Contracting Company, of
Uniontown.
A summary of the statements of the 22
national banks of Fayette county show a
much better showing in March than in November.
The March statements show total
resources of $14,275,678.89, or a gain of
$1,040,454.85 over November. The loans
and discounts are $7,633,677.18, the gain being
$296,260.94. The surplus fund is
$2,202,594.18, the gain being $78,256.18. Th"
individual deposits subject to check reach
the magnificent total of $8,733,148.17, the
gain over November being $624,811.30. The
banks of Uniontown are far in the lead of
all towns of the county, with resources of
$5,215,364.04; loans and discounts, $2,592.-
997.55; value of banking houses, furniture
and fixtures, $1,048,235.39; capital stock,
$300,000; surplus fund, $1,206,000, and individual
deposits subject to check of $3,427,-
750.11.
THE MARCH BILL.
The March bill introduced into the Pennsylvania
legislaure providing a tax of three
cents per ton on all coal mined in the Keystone
state has caused a natural storm of
opposition from operators and miners alike.
The unpopular measure is alleged to have
emenated from the brain of Governor Samuel
W. Pennypacker. It is expected that
the bill will die in committee, so widespread
and vigorous have the protests been against
its being enacted into law. If the March
bill should, by any miscarriage of justice,
be passed and become law, it will probablv
be so modified that its sponsor will hardlv
be able to recognize his own legislative offspring.
Headed by Francis L. Robbins,
president of the Pittsburg Coal Co., and ably
seconded by ex-Judge Elliott Rodgers, the
coal men of Pennsylvania, without exception,
have raised such opposition that the
leader of the Republicans, Senator Boise
Penrose, has had the bill sent back to the
Ways and Means committee. From this
cover it is improbable that the
piece of legislation will ever emerge.
proposed