Influential in the establishment of the iron industry in Bethlehem, Pa.

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Hon. Charles Brodhead, only child of Albert G. and Ellen Brodhead, was born at Conyngham, Luzerne County. Pennsylvania, August 4, 1824, and was reared until the age of fourteen in Delaware, Pike county, acquiring his education in the local schools. In 1838-39 lie was a student in an academic school at Stroudsburg, conducted by Ira Burrell Newman. In the spring of 1840 he went with Mr. Newman to a newly established school at Dingman's High Falls, Pike county, and in November, 1840, entered the freshman class of Lafayette College, at Easton, Pennsylvania, then under the direction of the Rev. Dr. George Junkman. After his graduation from college in 1844, he entered the law office of his uncle, Richard Brodhead, then a member of congress and afterward United States senator from Pennsylvania. During his student days Charles Brodhead attended the law school established at Philadelphia by David Hoffman, and was admitted to the bar at Easton, during the November term of court of 1846.

Shortly afterward, Mr. Brodhead became sheriff's attorney, and acted in that capacity for three years, but soon gave up the practice of law and engaged in the real estate business in Bethlehem. About that time the Lehigh Valley Railroad, in connection 'With the Central Railroad of New, Jersey, and the Northern Pennsylvania Railroad were being built into Bethlehem. Both had their lines located on the south side of the Lehigh river at Bethlehem, and Mr. Brodhead in 1854 purchased one hundred acres of the Moravian farm land on that side of the river, and laid out what is now to a great extent South Bethlehem. He is one of the largest landowners in that borough, and also owns considerable realty in

Bethlehem, where among his other possessions he has the well known Sun Inn, built in 1758. In laying out South Bethlehem he made an effort, with the co-operation of Jefferson Davis, then secretary of war, and the Hon. Richard Brodhead, United States senator from Pennsylvania, to have a government foundry established in that place. Though his efforts then proved futile, the seed was sawn, and to-day, extensive works for the manufacture of war material for the government, are in successful operation on the ground reserved by Mr. Brodhead for the government foundry in 1856, and which lie subsequently sold to the Bethlehem Steel Company. It was mainly clue to the efforts of Mr. Brodhead, and his active co-operation in the projects of Augustus Wolle, that the Bethlehem Iron Company's works were located at South Bethlehem. The facts, briefly, are these: Mr. Wolle was and continued to be all his life one of the most active and progressive men ever in business in the Bethlehems, and his particular talent was along the line of an executive officer. He had leased what was known as the Gangawara ore bed, in Saucon township, and secured a charter for an organization called the Saucona Iron Company, for the development of the Gangawara and other veins of hematite ores. He urged Mr. Brodhead to join him in this project, but the latter suggested that they unite forces and put up works in South Bethlehem, as the extra cost of ore transportation would be quite balanced by the less cost of transportation of coal if stopped at Bethlehem. The result was that Mr. Wolle, being himself a large landowner in South Bethlehem, agreed upon that place as the site for the new works. Mr. Brodhead then drew a supplement to Mr. Wolle's Saucona charter, which was subsequently passed by the Pennsylvania legislature, authorizing the company to make and manufacture iron ores and iron into any shape or condition, and changing the name of the company to The Bethlehem Rolling Mill and Iron Company. Mr. Wolle was the first and largest subscriber to the stock and was followed by others, and thus the Bethlehem mills became an accomplished fact.

Mr. Brodhead was the first to suggest the construction of the new steel bridge which, starting in Bethlehem, in Northampton county, crosses the canal and railroad of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, the Monocacy creek, a section of Lehigh county, the Lehigh river, many tracks of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, and terminates its eleven hundred feet of length in South Bethlehem. The Broad street bridge, which connects Bethlehem with West Bethlehem was also one of Mr. Brodhead's conceptions, the idea having first come to him when he was having his engineers locate what was popularly known as "Charley Brodhead's Huckleberry Railroad", now the Lehigh & Lackawanna Railroad, leading from Bethlehem to the great slate quarries in and about Chapman, Wind Gap, Pen Argyl, and Bangor, with a branch leading through the famous wind gap of the Blue Mountains and extending to SayIor's lake, in Monroe county. The objective point of the road is Stroudsburg, on the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, a connection with which will make the line a favorite for summer tourists from Philadelphia to the resorts at Delaware, Water Gap, Stroudsburg, the Pocono mountains, Bushkill, Dingman's, High Falls, and Milford, on the upper Delaware. This road was projected by Mr. Brodhead, and pushed through by him with untiring perseverance and pertinacity, he acting for many years as president of the company. It is now one of the leased lines of the Central Railroad of New Jersey.

Mr. Brodhead has not only contributed in large and important measures to the material development and substantial building of the state, but has also left the impress of his individuality for good upon public life, thought and action. In 1873 he was elected a member of the constitutional convention of Pennsylvania, and was the originator of several valuable provisions in that instrument, notably the one providing for free telegraph lines, and prohibiting the consolidation of parallel or competing lines, by reason of which the people of this state alone were thus protected from the thraldom of a monster monopoly. He also secured the enactment of the section which prohibits all officers and employees of railroad companies from being interested, directly or indirectly, in the furnishing of supplies and material for the corporations with which they are connected, or being interested in transportation lines or contracts for transportation. These provisions have been highly beneficial to stockholders, who before were often plundered by unscrupulous officers and employees. Mr. Brodhead likewise introduced and secured the adoption of that section of the state constitution which extended the terms of county treasurers to three years and prohibited their re-election, which has had a very salutary effect upon municipal financiering. He is a member of the board of trustees of Lehigh University and has ever manifested a warm interest in educational affairs.