Item 57: Lithograph titled, “Smith’s Coal-Mine,” unknown artist, no date
Item — Box: 21, Folder: 57
Dates
- Created: no date
Creator
- Smith, Abijah, 1764-1826 (Person)
Access:
All series and subseries within this collection are open for research, with the exception of a few files within the Academia series that are restricted. The Academia series contains financial and sensitive institutional records from Wilkes College, and financial report records from Princeton University that will remain restricted for 80 years upon creation.
Extent
1 items
Language of Materials
From the Collection: English
Type of Material:
Lithograph
Condition Note:
Fair.
Measurements:
7 ¾ in. x 5 ⅛ in.
Title:
View of Smith’s Coal-Mine Luzerne County, Pennsya: On the West side of the Susquehanna River.
Description:
The entrance to Smith’s Coal Mine with a shack or a house in front of it. Some people are carting into the mine itself. According to Valley Views of Northeastern Pennsylvania, by Gilbert S. McClintock, “An early view of a coal mine, opened about 1808, on the west side of the river at Ransom’s Creek, in Pennsylvania.” Around 1806, the soon to be owner of Smith’s Coal Mine, Abijah Smith, traveled to Plymouth from Derby, Connecticut. His intention was to mine, ship, and sell coal. Him and his business partner, Lewis Hepburn, bought 75-acres of land on the east side of Coal Creek. In 1807, Smith floated down the Susquehanna River carrying about fifty tons of anthracite coal and shipped it to Columbia in Lancaster County. This shipment went unnoticed until 1873. Hendrick B. Write wrote in his historical Sketches of Plymouth: “Anthracite coal had been used before 1807, in this valley and elsewhere, in small quantities in furnaces, with an air blast; but the traffic in coal as an article of general use, was commenced by Abijah Smith, of Plymouth.”
Location:
Smith’s Coal Mine, Ransom’s Creek, Plymouth, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania
Transcription:
VIEW of SMITH’s COAL-MINE LUZERNE COUNTY, PENNSYa
On the West side of the Susquehanna River.
{3898/2}
Creator
- Smith, Abijah, 1764-1826 (Person)
Repository Details
Part of the Wilkes University Archives Repository
Contact:
84 W South St.
Wilkes-Barre PA 18701 US
570-408-2000
570-408-7823 (Fax)
ask.archives@wilkes.edu
84 W South St.
Wilkes-Barre PA 18701 US
570-408-2000
570-408-7823 (Fax)
ask.archives@wilkes.edu