BIOGRAPHICAL
SKETCH
OF
ASA
LANSFORD FOSTER
PAGES 700 TO 704
PAGE 700
Asa Lansford Foster was a
native of Rowe, Franklin Co., Mass., whence, with a good common-school
education, fair health, and Yankee energy, he came, 
when
quite a young man, to Pennsylvania, then the “Far West,” and engaged in the
mercantile business with an older brother, who had preceded him, at Berwick, on
the Susquehanna River.
A few years later – about
1821 or 1822 – he engaged in the same business on his own account at
Bloomsburg, and married Louisa Chapman, a niece and member of the family of
Isaac A. Chapman, one of the earliest pioneers of the Lehigh coal operations.
The mercantile business
of that time and locality…
PAGE 701
… was chiefly that of
trade or barter of the merchandise usually kept in country stores, for the
products of the farm and forest. Part of these products were taken on wagons or
sleds to Philadelphia and part were sent to markets down the Susquehanna on the
spring and fall freshets in rafts or arks. Goods for the store were brought in
wagons or sleds from the city.
The Susquehanna and
Lehigh Turnpike, which, under a charter granted in 1804, had been made from
Berwick to Mauch Chunk, was the only avenue of transportation from the
Susquehanna Valley, over the mountains, to the valley of the Lehigh, and thence
to the Delaware.
After the commencement of
operations by the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, Mauch Chunk became an
important market for the products of the Susquehanna Valley, and a very
desirable one, for here cash could be obtained for them in the shape of checks
upon a Philadelphia bank. These the merchants of the valley were glad to get,
and the traffic with Mauch Chunk made the operations there familiar to Mr.
Foster, when about 1826 he disposed of his business at Bloomsburg and removed
to Philadelphia, intending to engage in the wholesale trade in such merchandise
as his experience had taught him was needed in the country.
While residing on the
Susquehanna various plans for the navigation of that river were subjects much
discussed among progressive men. Among them was the attempt to run a small
steamboat, called the “Cadorus,” which exploded on its first trial. Mr. Foster
was on board, but being a good swimmer and fortunately blown into the water
with only slight injuries, narrowly escaped with his life.
In Philadelphia he
accepted temporarily a position in a wholesale house, and while there, through
his connection with Isaac A. Chapman, then civil engineer for the Lehigh
Company, and residing at Mauch Chunk, Mr. Foster made the acquaintance of
Josiah White and Erskine Hazard, and was by them engaged to take charge of the
company’s large supply-store at the latter place. He removed with his family to
Mauch Chunk about 1827. Here he found a very large and substantial stone
store-building, filled from garret to cellar with goods which had from time to
time been sent by the managers of the company, many of which, owing to their
ignorance of the needs of their employés, were useless and unsalable. These he
had packed and returned to the city and replenished the stock with such goods
as were wanted.
His management of the
store made it very popular, and it soon became the center of supply, not only
for those employed by the company, but also for the country from the Susquehanna
to the Delaware, which found here a ready market for its products.
The company employed
hundreds of men in the construction of its canal from Mauch Chunk to Easton;
its descending navigation from the head-waters of the Lehigh to Mauch Chunk; in
the construction of the railroad to the mines; in getting out timber, sawing
lumber, building arks, dwelling-houses, and other structures; and at the mines,
quarrying and hauling coal; with other hundreds of horses, mules, and oxen, all
of which had to be provided for through the store. Many men were employed in
the forests getting out lumber, and at other points at considerable distance
from Mauch Chunk, the center of operations, where all came for their pay and
supplies. The store and offices were kept open on Sundays as well as week-days
for their accommodation, and Sunday was often the busiest day of the week.
To manage such a
business, keeping the stock of goods and supplies full, with the facilities for
transportation then available, - by wagons from a city nearly a hundred miles
distant, - required ability, foresight, and energy, which Mr. Foster had and
exercised to the entire satisfaction of the company, while the attention which
he gave personally and required of his assistants behind the counters to all
customers, made them all his friends and patrons.
Prior to 1831 the company
owned all of the land and houses in Mauch Chunk, but about that time concluded
to lay out the town in lots and sell them. The plot of that part which had been
built upon was so arranged that the dwellings were upon separate lots. The
prices asked were fair, the terms of payment easy, and very soon nearly all of
the lots – as well those built upon as those vacant – were disposed of. The
company had, however, reserved several parcels which the acting manager, Mr.
White, thought might be needed for their own use, among them the corner now
occupied by the Lehigh Valley Railroad offices. The company had also concluded
soon to relinquish the mercantile business to private enterprise, and Mr.
Foster was very desirous to purchase the corner lot above mentioned for the
purpose of erecting thereon a store building. His application for it was
repeatedly declined; but, to settle the matter finally, by asking for it what
he thought a price so high that no purchaser could be found, Mr. White named
six hundred dollars as the very lowest figure. Mr. Foster, to the surprise of
the manager, immediately accepted the offer, and with Messrs. Benjamin Rush
McConnell and James Brodrick, purchased the lot and erected a store upon it.
Previous to this time
Mauch Chunk had become widely known, and its coal-mines – then a great novelty,
its wild and picturesque location, as well as its wonderful railroad, then the
only one in the United States – attracted many visitors. Mr. Foster thought the
time had come when the patronage of these visitors and the many now interested
in the progress of the coal-trade and of the Lehigh Company, together with the
local patronage, would support a newspaper. The business of the company also
required a large amount of job printing. Having the assurance of Mr. White that
a printing-office would have the …
PAGE 702
… company’s patronage,
Mr. Foster conferred with his friend, Amos Sisty, then an apprentice (nearly
out of his time) to the printer’s trade at Berwick, and a young man of superior
literary ability, with the result that he paid the master for the remainder of
Mr. Sisty’s “time,” purchased a very complete outfit for a newspaper and job
printing-office, and while retaining his position as store-keeper for the
company, commenced, in 1829, the publication of the Lehigh Pioneer and Mauch
Chunk Courier, with Amos Sisty as editor. The investment yielded no more income
than was necessary to meet current expenses, although the paper was ably edited
and will compare favorably, both in matter and typography, with the newspapers
of half a century later.
The ability of Mr. Sisty
soon attracted the attention of other journalists, and he accepted a more
important and lucrative position upon a Baltimore paper. The Pioneer and
Courier was, however, published (in later years under the title of the Mauch
Chunk Courier) under the several editorial and business managements of Mahlon
H. Sisty and John and William P. I. Painter, until about the year 1842, whn Mr.
Foster sold the material of the office to Joseph H. Siewers, who changed the
name to the Carbon County Transit. A year or two later, Mr. Siewers sold
it to William Reed, when the paper came again under the control of Mr. Foster
for a short time, during which the old name was revived; but upon again
changing owners, the name was again changed to the Mauch Chunk Gazette,
under which name it is now published, fifty-five years after the Lehigh
Pioneer and Mauch Chunk Courier first made its appearance.
The “corner store” was erected, supplied with
goods, and business commenced about the time that the Beaver Meadow Railroad,
from Beaver Meadow to Parryville, and the “Upper Grand Section” of the Lehigh
Navigation, from White Haven to Mauch Chunk, were in course of construction.
Mr. Foster’s abilities as a merchant were again called into action, this store
becoming the principal point from which supplies for the army of men employed
on these great works were drawn.
There were no such
facilities as there are now for procuring such supplies as were needed. It is
true, the canal was finished and the store was so constructed that a boat,
loaded with goods, could be floated under it and unloaded by wheel and axle,
through hatchways in the store-floors, which was an advance upon the old plan
of hauling goods from the city in wagons; but there were no great
packing-houses for the curing of meats; molasses and sugar came in hogsheads. There
was no such thing as browned coffee in market, pepper and spices came in bulk
and unground. To furnish cured meats, droves of cattle and hogs were purchased
and slaughtered, and the meats packed in barrels. Flour and potatoes were
purchased by the boat-load, and in the fall in quantities sufficient for the
demand through the winter.
Many of the points where
supplies were needed, along the navigation and railroad in course of
construction, were accessible only by steep roads down the mountain-sides. To some,
roads could not be made, and from the nearest accessible point supplies had to
be lowered by ropes. To reach them sugar and molasses were transferred from
hogsheads into barrels or smaller receptacles. There were no conveniences for
browning coffee at the shanties. This the store-keeper had to have done, spices
had to be ground and packed and many other things done, to meet the emergency,
all of which was so satisfactorily accomplished at the “corner store” that it
became very popular, and flourishing and profitable trade was the result.
The store was, while
under the management of Mr. Foster, at first owned by the firm of McConnell,
Foster & Brodrick, then Foster & Brodrick, and finally owned by Asa L.
Foster alone.
Mr. Foster removed from
Mauch Chunk in 1837 to engage in another enterprise, leaving his mercantile
business in charge of one of his salesmen, Robert Q. Butler, to be closed out,
and soon after sold the lot and buildings to Asa Packer; the site now occupied,
as before mentioned, by the building erected since Judge Packer’s decease, for
the accommodation of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company’s offices, for which
purpose – except the “corner” of the first floor (which is still a store), and
three rooms of the same floor fronting on Susquehanna Street – it is now used.
Asa L. Foster, by his
intimate social relations with Messrs. White, Hazard, and Isaac A. Chapman,
during his connection with the Lehigh Company, when coal, in all of its
aspects, from location in the ground to its use as fuel, was the leading topic
of study and conversation, had made himself thoroughly conversant with its
geology and the surface indications of its deposit. Mr. Chapman had also given
the subject much study, with the advantage of several years’ longer experience
in this and other localities.
In his business as a
surveyor, some years before he entered the service of the Lehigh company, Mr.
Chapman had noticed the surface indications of coal on several tracts of land in
the southeastern part of Luzerne County, which, year after year, had been
offered for sale for the taxes assessed and unpaid upon them. These lands were
of little value as timber lands, being bleak mountain tops, and were entirely
inaccessible to market, even if they had been covered with timber. The lands
which Mr. Chapman believed contained coal were at his suggestion purchased at
tax sale by him and Mr. Foster, as partners, some years prior to their becoming
residents of Mauch Chunk, Mr. Chapman at that time saying to Mr. Foster, “They
may never be of any value to us, but, being coal-lands, they may be to our
children.”
The construction of the
slack-water navigation from Mauch Chunk to White Haven brought the product of
these lands within four miles of an avenue to market, and in 1835 or 1836, Mr.
Foster (Mr. Chap-…
PAGE 703
…man having died) went to
see them. Finding upon them the geological formation of coal-lands, as Mr.
Chapman had done several years earlier, he made arrangements for proving the location
and value of the coal strata by shafting, but postponed active operations for a
time when he could more conveniently give them his personal attention.
The progress of the
proposed navigation stimulated the owners of lands in its vicinity, which had
before been considered not worth the taxes, to look after them, and among these
were the owners of the original titles to the lands which Messrs. Chapman and
Foster had purchased. This led to much correspondence, threats of lawsuits
based upon irregularities in the tax sale, and precipitated not only the
examination of the lands to ascertain their value, but also the desire to get
actual occupancy and possession, which Mr. Foster, in the interests of himself
and the heirs of Isaac A. Chapman, found it advisable to do in the winter
instead of the following summers, as had been intended.
Procuring the necessary
help, he cut a road through the forest from the nearest saw-mill, two and a
half miles distant, built a small house or shanty, and commenced exploring for
the coal. Although there was two or three feet of snow upon the ground, the
landmarks which he had made during his visit the previous summer enabled him to
locate his point of operations, and in a few days the whole Lehigh region was
amazed by the news of the discovery of a new coal deposit.
Mr. Foster’s observations
while in that neighborhood were not confined to his own land, but, having found
the key, he unlocked what is now the great Black Creek coal basin, and obtained
knowledge which many men, more ambitious and less scrupulous, could have turned
greatly to their advantage.
The immediate result of
Mr. Foster’s discovery was the organization of the Buck Mountain Coal Company,
of which he was appointed superintendent, and in the fall of 1837, having had a
log house built on the top of the Buck Mountain, he removed his family there,
and for a year or more continued his explorations, to ascertain the depth of
the basin and the location of the coal strata, with a view to the best method
of working the mines.
A tunnel through the
conglomerate to reach the bottom of the basin was finally decided upon, and
this, with four miles of railroad, including two inclined planes and a tunnel,
with wharves, etc., for shipping at Rockport, Mr. Foster, with two others as
partners, contracted to build, taking a large percentage of the cost of the
work in the bonds of the company. The work was completed and one boat-load of
coal shipped in the fall of 1840.
In January, 1841, the
Lehigh navigation was destroyed by a great flood, and Mr. Foster having
exhausted his own means in exchange for securities which were now and for
several years after of little market value, and which he was obliged to dispose
of at a great sacrifice, became comparatively a poor man. He remained at Buck Mountain and Rockport
for a year or two after the navigation was rebuilt, in the employment of Carey
& Long and E. W. Harlan, who had taken the contract to mine and deliver
coal into boats, and in the fall of 1844 returned to Mauch Chunk.
Here, for a short time,
he edited and published the Mauch Chunk Courier, then the only newspaper
in Mauch Chunk, and afterwards, in partnership with his old salesman of the
“corner store,” Robert Q. Butler, obtained a contract for driving one of the
tunnels in Panther Creek Valley, near Summit Hill, where he remained, in that
capacity and as book-keeper and financial manager for Daniel Bertsch, one of
the coal contractors, until 1855, when he became a partner with Messrs. Sharpe,
Leisenring & Co., afterwards Sharpe, Weiss & Co., in the lease and
opening of the Council Ridge Colliery, at the eastern end of the great Black
Creek coal-basin, and within two miles of the place where twenty years before
he had developed the existence of coal in that locality.
It was his knowledge of
the resources of this great coal-field, and their confidence in Mr. Foster’s
judgment, that induced these gentlemen to invest all of their means in the
venture. It was financially successful, and although, like many pioneers in
great projects, Mr. Foster was at first unfortunate, unlike many of them he
lived to participate largely in the fruits of his early labors and enterprise.
For many years prior to
his decease, Mr. Foster deservedly enjoyed a reputation second to that of no
other man for his great knowledge of the geology of the anthracite coal
formation, and for his excellent judgment as to the probable position of the
coal strata as to pitch, depth, and axis beneath the surface, - matter of vast
importance in fixing the proper location for openings and deciding upon the
best plan for the working of mines. As an expert in such matters, his services
were often requested and cheerfully rendered, generally without compensation,
although, in many instances, requiring many miles of fatiguing travel on foot
through forests, often at long distances and for many days’ absence from his
home.
Asa L. Foster was an
eminently progressive man, manifesting at all times much interest in every
measure which he believed to be for the welfare of the people, both general and
local. He was one of the earliest advocates of the common-school system, at a
time when that now popular institution had few friends, and labored earnestly
with voice and pen for its adoption.
He was a careful reader, a
close reasoner, of great foresight, and an excellent counselor in all matters
pertaining to the progress and development of the great mineral and other
resources of the Lehigh…
PAGE 704
…Valley. In friendly and
intimate social relations with their chief projectors, and particularly so with
the late Hon. Asa Packer, who, we learn from the correspondence between them,
often sought Mr. Foster’s advice and counsel, and was encouraged in his hours
of greatest despondency to renewed efforts to push forward his great projects
to completion.
Mr. Foster was a sincere
Christian, not in profession only, but he carried his faith into, and was
guided by, its precepts in all of his social and business relations. Liberal in
his charities, kind and sympathetic in his intercourse with high and humble
alike, he was one who constantly gained new friends and never made an enemy.
Asa L. Foster died at
Wilkesbarre after a short illness, contracted while on a visit to friends
there, on the 9th day of January, 1868, in the seventy-first year of
his age. An appropriate monument and memorial marks his last earthly
resting-place in the cemetery at Mauch Chunk. The borough of Lansford, in
Carbon County, and the township of Foster, in Luzerne County, also perpetuate
his name and memory.
END
********************************************************************************
RETURN
TO THE MATHEWS & HUNGERFORD
INDEX
PAGE
From
The History of the Counties of Lehigh & Carbon, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,
By
Alfred Mathews & Austin N. Hungerford
Published in Philadelphia, Pa., in 1884
Transcribed from the original in September 2003
by
Susan Gilkeson Sterling
Web page by
October 2003