HISTORY
OF THE
C O U N T I ES
OF
LEHIGH AND CARBON,
IN THE
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA.
BY
ALFRED MATHEWS AND
AUSTIN N. HUNGERFORD.
______________
ILLUSTRATED
________________________________________________
PHILADELPHIA:
EVERTS &
RICHARDS.
1884.
_____________________________________________
PRESS OF J. S. LIPPINCOTT & CO., PHILADELPHlA.
The Crane Iron Works. - The interest of the public in the
Crane Iron Works is not limited by their importance as an industrial
establishment, nor by the measure of their influence in building up a thriving
town, but extends to the broader field in which they are considered as the
outgrowth of the first commercially successful attempt to manufacture iron by
the use of anthracite coal in America.
The story of this incalculably valuable manufacturing triumph and of the
Crane Iron-Works properly begins in the far-off country of Wales, to which the
world is indebted for a vast deal of its progress in the line of the sterner
industrial arts. David Thomas, who may be
regarded as the father of the anthracite iron manufacture of America,
was born in South Wales, Nov. 3, 1794, and entered the iron business in 1812.
After working in various places he went, in 1817, to the Yniscedwin Works,
Brecknockshire, located on the southern edge of an anthracite coal-basin, - the
only one in the island of Great Britain. The Yniscedwin Works were the only blast-furnaces
created on that bed of coal, the others being located where the coal was either
bituminous or semi-bituminous. The works he was employed in were therefore more
interested in the use of anthracite as fuel than those in other parts of the
country, inasmuch as they had to bring their coke to be used in smelting iron
from ten to fourteen miles away by canal.
As early as 1820, Mr. Thomas,
with George Crane, one-third owner of the Ynescidwin Works, began to experiment
with anthracite, burning it in small proportions with coke, but not with
practical success. In 1825 he had a small furnace built twenty-five feet high,
with nine feet bosh, which was put into blast with coke and increased amounts
of anthracite, but the experiments were not promising, and had to be
abandoned. In 1830 the same
furnace was made forty-five feet high, with eleven feet bosh. Attempts were
again made to discover the secret of success, and with better results than
formerly, but still it was so unprofitable that the work was again abandoned.
During the time that Thomas and Crane were experimenting in Wales, similar
attempts were being made in the United States with equal unsuccess. In the year
1825, Josiah White and Erskine Hazard, both of Philadelphia, being largely
interested in the mining of anthracite coal in the then recently-opened Lehigh
basin, and having successfully used this coal in the manufacture of iron wire
at their mill at the Falls of Schuylkill, created a small furnace at Mauch Chunk,
for the purpose of experimenting as to the practicality of smelting iron with
this coal. Among other methods that was tried was that of passing the blast
through a room heated as high as possible with common iron stoves. They soon
abandoned this furnace and erected a new one, in which they used charcoal
exclusively, thus acknowledging their effort to have been a failure, though it contained the unrecognized
suggestion of the true and afterwards successful method. In Wales, David Thomas
was still toiling on persistently and patiently to discover the mystery. A key
to unlock it as furnished in 1834 by Nielson, manager of the Glasgow Gas-Works,
who discovered the use of the hot-blast.
Its value was not immediately fully appreciated. The pamphlet on the
hot-blast, issued by Mr. Nielsen, was read by David Thomas, who had been on the
alert and had perused all of the treatises on iron manufacture and the
combustion of anthracite which he could find. One evening, while sitting with
Mr. Crane in his library talking the matter over, he took the bellows and began
to blow the anthracite fire in the grate. "You had better not, David,
" said Mr. Crane; "you will blow it out;" and Thomas replied,
"If we only had Nielsen's hot-blast here the anthracite would burn like
pine." Mr. Crane said, "David, that is an idea." In fact, it was
the origin of the application of the hot-blast in making iron with anthracite.
In September, 1836, Thomas went to work, with Crane's consent, and made ovens
for heating the blast. On Feb. 5, 1837, the new process was applied. The result
was a success in a far greater degree than the two men had dared to hope after
their many disappointments, and from that time on there was no difficulty in
making iron with anthracite as fuel. The news of the success was spread over
the kingdom. The London Mining Journal gave it great prominence, and its
account appeared in the United States.
In the great anthracite region of
Pennsylvania, able and enterprising men were in readiness to utilize this
valuable discovery. In 1836, the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company had offered
to any person who would establish a furnace, lay out thirty thousand dollars,
and run successfully on anthracite coal exclusively for three months, the
valuable water privileges extending from Hokendauqua to the Allentown dam.
Under the inducement of this offer, the Lehigh Crane Iron Company, consisting
of members of the Coal and Navigation Company, was organized in the same year,
and in the fall of the year Mr. Erskine Hazard, one of the leading spirits of
the company went to Wales to engage some competent person to come to this
country in their interest, and to superintend the erection of furnaces. He went
to Mr. Crane who recommended David Thomas. Together they went to see him. At
first he was reluctant to leave his
native land, but at last influenced by a liberal offer, and the
consideration that his sons would have better opportunities in America than
they could hope for in Wales or Great Britain, he consented, and upon the night
of the last day of the year, concluded an agreement, of which we give here the
text, together with that of a supplement made in Philadelphia.
"MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT made the thirty-first
day of December, 1836 between Erskine Hazard for the Lehigh Crane Iron Company
of this part and David Thomas of Castle Dhu of the other part.
"1. The said Thomas agrees to move his family to
the works to be established by the said company on or near the river Lehigh and
there to undertake the erection of a blast furnace for the smelting of iron
with anthracite coal and the working of the said furnace as Furnace manager,
also to give assistance in finding mines of iron ore, fire clay, and other
material suitable for carrying on iron works, and generally to give his best
knowledge and services to the said company in the prosecution of the iron
business in such manner as will best promote their interests for the term of
five years from the time of his arrival in America, provided the experiment of
smelting iron with anthracite coal should be successful there.
"2. The said Hazard for the said company agrees
to pay the expenses of the said Thomas and his family from his present
residence to the works mentioned on the Lehigh and there to furnish him a house
and coal for fuel - also to pay him a salary at the rate of Ten hundred pounds
sterling a year from the time of his stipend ceasing in his present employment
until the first furnace on the Lehigh is got hot blast with anthracite coal and
making good iron and after that at the rate of two hundred fifty pounds
sterling a year until a second furnace is put into operation successfully when
fifty pounds sterling shall be added to his annual salary and so fifty pounds
sterling per annum additional for each additional furnace which may be put into
operation under his management.
"3. It is mutually agreed between the parties
that should the said Thomas fail of putting a furnace into successful operation
with anthracite coal that in the present agreement shall be void and the said
company shall pay the said Thomas a sum equivalent to the expense of removing
himself and family from the Lehigh to their present residence.
"4 In settling the salary four shillings and six
pence sterling shall be estimated as equal to one dollar.
" In witness whereof the said parties have
interchangeably set their hands and seals the date above written.
"Erskine Hazard
"for the Lehigh Crane Iron Company
"David Thomas
"Witness
" Alexander Hazard.
"It is further mutually agreed between the Lehigh
Crane Iron Company and David Thomas the parties to the above written agreement
that the amt of the sd Thomas salary per annum shall be ascertained by taking
the United States Mint price or value of the English Sovereign as the value of
the pound sterling - instead of estimating it by the value of the dollar as
mentioned in the fourth article and that the other remaining articles in the
above written memorandum of agreement executed by Erskine Hazard and the Lehigh
Crane Iron Company and David Thomas be hereby ratified and confirmed as they
now stand written.
" In witness whereof the President and Secretary
of the Lehigh Crane Iron Company by order of the Board of Managers and the sd
David Thomas have hereunto set their hands and seals at Philadelphia on the
second day of July 1839.
" DAVID THOMAS [SEAL]
" In presence of
"TIMOTHY ABBOTT
The organization of the Lehigh
Crane Iron Company, prior to Mr. Hazard's going abroad, had been only an
informal one, and on the 10th of January, 1839, it was perfected. The first
meeting of the board of directors was held at that time. The board consisted of
Robert Earp, Josiah White, Erskine Hazard, Thomas Earp, George Earp, John
McAllister, Jr., and Nathan Trotter. They organized by electing Robert Earp
president and treasurer, and John McAllister, Jr., secretary. In April they
entered into articles of association, which are here appended as affording some
idea of the foundation on which this staunch old company has arisen and
flourished:
*ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION of the Lehigh Crane Iron
Company, made and ordered into and pursuant to an act of the Legislature of
Pennsylvania, entitled an act to encourage the manufacture of Iron, with Coke,
or Mineral Coal, and for other purposes passed June the sixteenth, One thousand
and eight hundred and thirty-six.
* Witness, that the subscribers, citizens of Pennsylvania,
whose names are hereto affixed have associated themselves, under and pursuant
to the act aforesaid for the purpose of making and manufacturing Iron, from the
raw material with Coke or mineral Coal, and do certify and declare the articles
and conditions of their association to be as follows:
* ARTICLE 1. - The name, style, or title of the
Company shall be 'Lehigh Crane Iron Company'.
* ARTICLE 2.- The lands to be purchased by the
Company, shall be in Northampton, or Lehigh County, or both.
*ARTICLE 3.- The capital stock of the company shall
consist of One hundred thousand dollars divided into two thousand shares of
fifty dollars each, the whole of which has been subscribed for by the
subscribers hereto in the numbers, of shares, set opposite to their respective
names.
*ARTICLE 4.- The sum of twenty-five thousand dollars
being the one-fourth percent. of the whole capital stock, subscribed for, has
been actually paid in.
*ARTICLE 5. - The remaining installments on the stock,
already subscribed for, shall be called in in such sums, and at such times and
with such forfeiture for non-payment thereof as the Board of Directors, may
prescribe.
*ARTICLE 6.- The Board of Directors shall consist of
such a number of persons as the stockholders, may from time to time prescribe.
*ARTICLE 7.- The company shall be in all things
subject to and governed by the provisions of the act of Assembly, under which
it is created and shall have the same, and no other, or greater powers,
privileges, and franchises than are conferred upon it by the virtue of the said
act.
*Philadelphia, April 23, 1839.
Signed
Josiah White
Erskine Hazard
Thomas Earp
George Earp
John McAllister, Jr.
Robert Earp
Theodore Mitchell
Nathan Trotter
Returning to the Welsh
iron-worker, we find that he sailed for this country from Liverpool in May,
1839, on the clipper "Roscius," which made the then unprecedented run
of twenty-three days, reaching New York June 5th, Mr. Thomas brought with him
his whole family, - his wife and five children. Before leaving England he had
the blowing machinery and castings for the hot-blast made, and all were shipped
except the two cylinders, which were too large for the hatches of the ship. So
when the other machinery arrived the projectors of the works were as badly off
as if none had been sent. There was not at that time a foundry in the United
States large enough to cast such cylinders as were needed. There were small
ones at Allentown and Bethlehem.
The company applied to the Allaire Works of New York and the Alger of
Boston, but neither of them could bore a five-foot cylinder without enlarging
their works, which they were unwilling to do.1
Mr. Thomas then went to
Philadelphia to the Southwark Foundry of S. V. Merrick and J. H. Towne, who
enlarged their boring machinery and made the five-foot cylinders required.
Fire-brick were imported from Wales, there then being none manufactured in this
country, and in August, 1839, ground was broken at Craneville (now Catasauqua)
for the first furnace. After many difficulties and discouragements, the furnace
was finally blown in at five o'clock July 3, 1840. The ore was two-thirds
hematite to one-third New Jersey magnetic. It was blown with
two-and-a-half-inch nozzles, and the blast heat was six hundred degrees. The
first run of iron was made the fourth of July, and proved a great success2.
From this time on the manufacture of iron by anthracite was successfully
conducted at the Crane Works, and continuously except for the slight cessation
common to all manufacturing establishments. Furnace No. 1, in which the success
of the new discovery was first demonstrated in this country, was forty-two feet
in height, with twelve feet bosh. It was operated by a breast wheel, twelve
feet in diameter and twenty-four feet long, geared by segments on its
circumference to a spur wheel on a double crank, driving two blowing cylinders,
five feet in diameter, with a six-foot stroke, worked by beams on a
gallows-frame. The motive power was the water of the canal, - the difference
between the upper and lower levels of Lock No. 36. The furnace remained in
blast until its fires were quenched by the rising water of the great flood of
January 1841, a period of six months, during which one thousand and eighty-eight
tons of pig iron were produced. The largest output for one week was fifty-two
tons. Concerning the flood which we have mentioned, one of the company's old
books contains the following in David Thomas' handwriting:
"On Thursday, January 7th (1841) at nine o'clock
in the evening the river rose so that the backwater prevented the wheel from
turning, at half after ten covering the tow-path of the level above lock 36. At
twelve it was two feet over the banks, and was one foot over the hearth of the
furnace. At 1:20 the water was at its height, and about thirty-four inches in
the furnace. It was at this height until 3:30 o'clock , when the river began to
fall. The water wheel was muddied all over, and the water was nine inches over
its top. The dam and canal bank was broken, so that when the water fell in the
river it was too low to turn the wheel, though every effort was made to fill up
the banks - but they could not succeed, and were obliged to throw the furnaces
out on Monday the eleventh of January.
"David Thomas,
Thomas R. Young"
1 As an indication of the progress made in
iron-working in this country in sixteen years, we will mention that Ericsson in
1855 had a cylinder seventeen feet in diameter cast and bored for his hot-air
ship.
2 Here we say a word in regard to the
claims made for by other works as the first manufacturers of iron by
anthracite. It is true that previous to the completion of the first stack of
the Crane Company's works, Mr. Thomas was applied to for help and advice by
William Lyman, who was then
building the Pioneer furnace at Pottsville, and he made several visits there,
directing the putting in of the hearth, boshes, etc. The furnace was blown in
in the fall of 1859 in the presence of Mr. Thomas, and soon after, several
others were put in blast in the Schuylkill and North Branch region, but the
pioneer and the others all failed to make anthracite pig-iron successfully and
profitably, and for that reason remained but a short time in blast. Their
success was rather in the nature of a laboratory experiment than a profitable
manufacturing enterprise, and it remained for the Crane, under the management
of Mr. Thomas, followed soon after by the Glendon Furnaces, under William
Firmstone, and then the Allentown Furnace, under Mr. S. Lewis, to successfully
introduce the profitable use of anthracite coal in the smelting of iron in this
country.
Furnace No. 1 was blown in again
after the freshet, May 18, 1841, and then remained in blast until Aug. 6, 1842,
producing three thousand three hundred and sixteen tons of pig iron.
A very large chorus of the
"I told you so," always unpleasant even as a solo, would have been
heard by Mr. Thomas and the members of the Crane Company had they met with
failure in their undertaking. Mr. Thomas had been very generally looked upon as
a visionary. The remark made by the leading charcoal ironmaster, "I will
eat all the iron you'll make with anthracite", gave expression to the
general sentiment of the trade at that time. It is needless to say that he did
not keep his promise, although Mr. Thomas sent him word that he had a hearty
dinner for him, cooked in the company's first furnace.
The success of the Crane
Company's work in Furnace No. 1 led them to immediately enlarge their
facilities for manufacturing pig-iron, which they did by erecting Furnace No.
2, forty-five feet high and with fourteen feet bosh. This was blown in Nov. 4,
1842, and remained in blast until March 17, 1844, making five thousand and
thirteen tons of iron. In 1842, an additional water wheel was added of the same
size as the first, to which it was geared, and in 1844 an additional blowing
power was added by the introduction of two turbine wheels eight feet in
diameter, which drove two horizontal cylinders of five diameter and six feet
stroke; the wheels and all machinery connected with them being built by Merrick
& Towne, of Philadelphia.
The first load of ore brought to
the works was delivered April 30, 1840, by Henry Hoch, who is still living and
now the owner of the mine from which it was dug. This was hematite from Jacob
Rice's mine, in Hanover Township, Lehigh County. Ore was also brought during
the first year from Nathan Whitely's mine. near Breinigsville, in Upper
Macungie township, and from John Kratzer's in South Whitehall.
In 1842 the celebrated Goetz bed, which is still worked, was
opened in Hanover Township of Northampton County, and the first ore taken from
it was brought here. The
first magnetite ore brought to the Crane Furnace (in 1840) was from the Mount
Hope mine in Morris County, N.J.
The demands made upon the company exceeding their
facilities,. Furnace No. 3 was erected in
1846. It was larger than either of the others, its height being fifty feet and its bosh eighteen.
It was blown by two cylinders of five and a half feet diameter and six foot
stroke, which were driven by two beam engines with steam cylinders of
twenty-six inches diameter and six-foot stroke. In the spring of 1849 was begun
the erection of Furnaces Nos. 4
and 6, each fifty feet high and of eighteen feet bosh. The blowing cylinders
for each of these were of
nine-foot stroke and seven feet diameter, and they were operated by two
beam engines, the steam-cylinders
of which had a nine foot stroke, while their diameters, originally thirty six
inches, were afterwards enlarged to forty-eight.
In 1867-68, Furnace No. 6, of seventeen feet bosh and sixty
feet height, was built, and in 1880-81 the first furnace constructed, together
with Nos. 2 and 3, were razed to the ground, and two modern furnaces with iron
shells and fire-brick stoves, were erected in their stead from plans made by
the present superintendent, Mr.
Joseph Hunt. They are now successfully working and exhibit the advance made in
forty years. The new No. 1, which replaces the original put in blast in 1840, has made in one year
twenty two thousand two hundred and eighty-one tons of iron, its best day's
work being one hundred and two tons, or nearly twice as much as was made in the
best week by the old No, 1 during its first blast. During its best week the new
furnace has produced five hundred and forty gross tons, all foundry iron.
Until 1855 the company shipped the product of its furnaces
by the Lehigh Navigation Company's canal, and after that year principally by
the railroad the completed. Now branch tracks of the railroad run to various
points about the works, and the company owns ten locomotives, which are used in the movement of its ores
and iron. About three hundred men are employed at the works, and a still larger
number at the ore-beds and limestone quarries, and the payroll is very large.
The buildings, machinery, and all the adjuncts of the works have been kept in
the best of repair and from time to time improved and extended so that they
present an appearance unsurpassed by any other iron works in the country. It
has been the aim of the Crane Company to produce the best quality of' iron and
to displace the famous product of Scotland, and this design having been
constantly adhered to the works have seldom been idle; and often pressed with
orders while other furnaces were out of blast. The liberality and enterprise of
the company has given Catasauqua the benefit of a fine system of water works,
and an excellent fire steamer, and the steady employment of its large number of
men was for years almost the sole support of the town and is now the largest
factor in its prosperity. The
iron-workers here are in better circumstances then in most manufacturing towns,
and a large proportion of them have
exceedingly comfortable and even tasteful homes.
At the companies offices in
Philadelphia many changes have taken place since the original organization of
which we have spoken in the
beginning of this article. Theodore Mitchell Has elected president, vice Robert
Earp, in 1845, and was succeeded by George A. Wood in 1868. He resigned in
1878, and the office was then filled by Samuel Dickson, Esq., the present
president. The office of secretary, originally filled by John McAllister, was
taken by John A. McAllister in 1844, and by Benjamin J. Leedom in 1848. He was also elected to serve as treasurer some
years later. George T. Barnes was elected secretary in 1869, and treasurer in
1878, and now serves in both capacities. Frederick R. Backus filled the office
of treasurer for a number of years subsequent to 1845. The board of directors
is now constituted as follows: Charles L. Borie, Henry Winsor, Samuel R.
Shipley, Fisher Hazard, Robert Lenox Kennedy, Lemuel Coffin, John T. Morris,
Charles E. Haven, Charles S. Wurts, and Alexander Biddle.
At the Crane works in Catasauqua David Thomas was
superintendent most of the time
from 1839 to 1855, though his son, Samuel, had charge during a few years of
that period. In 1855, when David Thomas retired he was succeed by his son John.
Joshua Hunt, who entered the employment of the company in 1848 was assistant
superintendent under John Thomas, and was
chosen to fill the office when the latter retired in 1867. He resigned at the close of the
year 1881 and in recognition of the value of his long term of duty was presented by the company with a
beautiful solid silver tea service,--a fine specimen of repousse work. His son,
Thomas Hunt, was assistant superintendent
from 1867 to 1872, when, upon June 22nd, he was so severely injured by a premature
explosion of nitro-glycerin used
in clearing out one of furnaces that the he died two weeks later. Joseph
Hunt, a brother of Joshua Hunt, became assistant superintendent, and upon the
retirement of the latter, Dec. 31, 1881, took charge of the works, and a little
later was made superintendent. David Thomas, after retirement from the
office of superintendent, remained
with the company as cashier until 1865, when that position was filled by John Williams, who had
entered the company's employ Nov. 14, 1845. He still retains the position
having been on duty altogether over thirty-eight years, and as cashier more
than eighteen years.
David Thomas was the son of David
and Jane Thomas of Tyllwyd Farm,
in the parish of Cadoxton-juxta-Neath in the County of Glamorgan, South Wales.
He was one of a family of four children, one son and three daughters, and was
born on the 3rd of November, 1794. David Thomas, the father, was a small farmer, but a highly respectable
man in his parish, and, although a
Dissenter, he held the office of
church warden for some years, and war overseer of the poor of his parish for
sixteen years. He was a consistent
and exemplary member of the "Independents" Religious Community at
Macsyrhaf Chapel, Neath, for forty years, and his wife, who survived him twenty
years, was for sixty years a member of the same organization. Both are buried in the burying-ground attached to the above-named place of
worship. Young David's religious and moral training was, therefore, of the strictest kind, both as regards
example and teaching, and these appear to have clung to him through life. Being the only son, his parents
afforded him the best education
their means would allow. He applied himself with industry and perseverance,
out stripping all his
school-fellows, and was looked upon as having been better educated than the
generality of farmers' sons. He was of very studious habits, delighted in
books, and in the acquirement of knowledge and information. The education he
received enabled him only to
acquire the merest elements of
learning, and the intelligence and knowledge displayed by him in after-life, which enabled him
to rise to so prominent a
position, were due entirely to self-culture. His thirst for knowledge and
improvement had awakened an
ambitious feeling, which farming operations failed to satisfy. He, therefore,
sought employment at seventeen years of age at the Neath Abbey Iron-Works. For five years he worked in
the fitting-shops and at the blast furnaces, asserting his superiority and
intelligence over his young compeers, by
whom he was familiarly known as ''Dai Tyllwyd." He displayed a wonderful aptitude for
the business, and gained a vast
store of experience and knowledge, even
in that short space of time. In fact, so well did he occupy his time and talent that in 1817
he went to the Yniscedwyn
Iron-Works, in the Swansea Valley, and
was made general superintendent of the blast furnaces and of the iron- and coal- mines.
Mr. Thomas remained at the Yniscedwyn Works in that position for nearly twenty-two years, working
his furnaces in the most
successful manner, and continually experimenting with anthracite coal as a
smelting fuel. Mr. Thomas
continued his experiments, and ultimately
succeeded in making anthracite iron by introducing a hot-blast into the furnace. He was in
1839 offered an engagement for
five years in the United States,
and soon after his arrival the Crane Iron Company of Catasauqua was organized, a furnace was
constructed, and successfully
managed under the supervising eye
of Mr. Thomas. To him is undoubtedly and justly due the credit of having built the
first anthracite blast furnace in
America, or any other country, which successfully fulfilled the purpose for
which it wee constructed.
In 1854 the Thomas Iron Company was formed, and the beautiful works at Hokendauqua
Commenced.
In 1855, he relinquished tile superintendence of the Crane
Iron-Works, and devoted a portion of his time to the development of the works
at Hokendauqua, which bear his honored name. In addition to this interest in
the Crane and Thomas Iron-Works, Mr. Thomas was also a stockholder in the
Carbon Iron Company, which has three furnaces at Parryville, and in the large
rolling-mills at Catasauqua and Ferndale, of which he was the president for
many years. A short time before his death he withdrew from very active duties,
remaining, however, a director and a large shareholder, and he was besides
largely interested in coal operations. He was for many years president of the
Catasauqua and Fogelsville railroad, and also a director of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. He was a trustee
and executive member of St. Luke's Hospital, and a trustee of Lafayette College
at Easton. In 1866 be was a Republican candidate for Congress, but declining on
principle to take part in the canvass he was not successful. Catasauqua is
largely indebted to him for its growth and progress. With nearly every industry
in the town he was directly or remotely connected. As a tribute to his genius,
determination, and energy, on its incorporation, in 1853, he was chosen its
first burgess, and continued for years to hold the office. He built the Lehigh
Fire-Brick Works, which are of considerable dimensions, and held the position
of director of the National Bank of Catasauqua, in which he had a large amount
of stock. Mr. Thomas was a man of determined purpose, industry, fidelity, and
thoroughness, of uncommon vitality and activity, although nearly eighty-eight
years of age at his death, he took nearly to the last a fair share in the
active management of the vast properties he controlled.
The kindly interest he manifested in all measures for the
public good, and his activity in advancing all works of moral or material
improvement in the community in which be dwelt, led to his being by a sort of
common impulse familiarly called "Father Thomas'' He did much to encourage
sobriety and thrift among the workman he superintended, and many of them are
indebted to his wise counsel or other forms of assistance for the happy homes
they possess. In his religious convictions Mr. Thomas was a Presbyterian. He
had no sooner become settled in his new home, in 1839, than he erected a small
chapel, which was followed by the organization of the Presbyterian Church, of
which he was made ruling elder, an office held continually by him until his
death. Mr. Thomas was as patriotic an American as if native born. His intense
love of his adopted country was manifested on proper occasions. During the
civil war his means and his influence wore freely devoted to the Union cause, and
it was largely through his instrumentality that a company of volunteers was
recruited at Catasauqua. Mr. Thomas was married to Miss Elizabeth, daughter of
John Hopkins, who is still living in the ninetieth year of her age. Their
children are Jane, Gwenny (Mrs.
Joshua Hunt, deceased), Samuel, John, and David (deceased). The death of Mr.
Thomas occurred June 20, 1882, in the eighty-eighth year of his age. .At the
time of his decease he was the oldest American ironmaster in length of service,
having been continuously associated with the iron industries of Wales and
Pennsylvania since 1812. Through all the years of his activity in this country
he was regarded as a leading authority on all matters pertaining to the trade.
By his skill and industry he contributed greatly to the building up of the iron
industries of the country, and will be held in grateful remembrance by American
iron manufacturers. Among the people of the Lehigh Valley he left a notable
reputation. Of him it may truly be said he went down to the grave "full of
honors, and full of years."