BIOGRAPHICAL
SKETCH
of
COL. JACOB WEISS
(Pages 777 to 780)
Col. Jacob Weiss was born
in the city of Philadelphia. His father
was a native of Germany, for many years a respectable physician in that city, and
an ardent supporter of the American Revolutionary cause. The subject of this notice entered the
Continental service in the first company of Philadelphia volunteers, commanded
by Capt. Cadwalader, and, after having per-formed a tour of duty, he was, at the
earnest recommendation of Gen. Mifflin, then acting as quartermaster-general,
to whom he had served an apprenticeship in the mercantile line, and who knew
him to be a trusty and proficient accountant, appointed a deputy
quartermaster-general under him, and sub-sequently under Gen. Greene, in which
station he remained until Gen. Greene took command of the Southern army, during
which perilous times he was almost constantly attached to and followed the
various and often sudden movements of the main army, which proved a very
harassing and arduous service. By the
advice of Gen. Greene, who, in his farewell letter to him, highly and
affectionately commended him for the faithful performance of the various duties
impressed upon him, he accepted the appointment as assistant deputy
quartermaster-general at Easton for the county of Northampton, in the fall of
1780, in which capacity he served until the close of the war.
After the defeat of the
American army in the battle on the river Brandywine, Sept 11, 1777, the road to
Philadelphia was open to the enemy.
There was great consternation among the people when they heard of the
approach of the British. Mrs. Weiss
frequently spoke of the excitement that followed. Every one tried to get away.
Fabulous prices were paid for all kinds of conveyances. Her husband was with the army, and she was
left to her own resources. She was
fortunate in procuring the services of a team, and, taking with her the wearing
apparel of the family and a few articles of furniture, started with her family
for Bristol. Upon her arrival there she
found the hotel used as a hospital for wounded soldiers, the sight of which
greatly distressed her. In the
following month Col. Weiss sent his family to Easton, PA.
After closing up the
business of his department in 1783, he retired from the public service, and
purchased a tract of land from the Moravians, on the Lehigh River, north of the
Blue Mountain, including the site on which Fort Allen formerly stood. To this wild and secluded spot he brought
his family in 1785. The inhabitants
were few and simple in their habits, unburdened by the restraints and
conventionalities of modern life. Nor
had they need of many of the things we now consider necessary to our health and
comfort. An umbrella was considered a
great novelty, and Mrs. Weiss at first attracted some attention by carrying one
on a warm or rainy day.
While the colonel's time
was fully employed in attending to the various duties that claimed his
attention, Mrs. Weiss did not so readily adapt herself to the situation; she
missed the society of congenial friends, the church to which she had been
accustomed to resort on the Sabbath, and the school which her children had
attended.
Within the enclosure
around Col. Weiss' dwelling was a well dug inside of the fort erected here by
Dr. Franklin, remaining as a memorial of the old Indian war, and an evidence of
what "Poor Richard" knew about digging wells.
While contending with a
soil by nature rocky and sterile, the early settlers were also frequently
subjected during the growing season to severe frosts, generated by the humidity
preserved by the shade of the forest, so that farming operations were only
moderately successful. Besides farming,
the lumber business claimed a large share of the colonel's attention. Under his energetic management the flats
around his dwelling and the adjacent hills were rapidly cleared up and brought
under cultivation, and the surrounding forest furnished an abundant supply of
lumber for his mills. While thus engaged
in transforming these savage haunts into the peaceful abodes of civilized life,
he probably realized the fact that "peace as well as war has its
victories."
Owing to the steep
mountain-sides and the rapidity with which the smaller streams, discharge their
waters into the river during heavy rains or the rapid melting of the snow upon
the mountains, the valley of the Lehigh is liable to sudden and destructive
floods. On the night of Oct. 6, 1786,
the family were aroused by the cry that they were surrounded by water; the
colonel upon raising the window beheld to his dismay the whole flat
overflowed. What increased the alarm
was that there had been no heavy rain in the vicinity. In the darkness of the night the waters
could be seen to rush wildly by, and steps were immediately taken to remove the
family to a place of safety. Teams
were hastily harnessed, and after much difficulty and danger they reached the
hills. Not so fortunate were the
occupants of an adjacent dwelling, occupied by a man named Tippey and his wife
and two children, which was carried away by the flood, and lodged among the
trees of an island about one mile down the river. Tippey and his wife saved themselves by clinging to the branches
of a tree, but their children perished in the flood. This flood was afterwards known among the people of the
surrounding country as "Tippey's Flood."
In the year 1791 an event
occurred, in itself apparently trifling, but destined in the near future to
work a mighty change in the wild and solitary region of the Lehigh lying to the
north of the colonel's home. This was
the accidental discovery of coal by Philip Ginter, a hunter, who observed it
adhearing to the roots of a tree which had been blown down as he was tramping
over the mountains in search of game.
As he had often listened to the traditions of the country of the
existence of coal in the vicinity, it occurred to him that his might be a
portion of that "stone coal" of which he had heard, and the next day
he carried it to Col. Jacob Weiss. The
colonel took the specimen to Philadelphia and submitted it to the inspection of
John Nicholson and Michael Hillegas, Esqs., and his brother-in-law, Charles
Cist, who ascertained its nature and qualities, and authorized Col. Weiss to
satisfy Ginter for his discovery upon pointing out the spot where he found the
coal.
Hillegas, Cist, Weiss,
and some others formed themselves into the "Lehigh Coal-Mine
Company," and took up about eight or ten thousand acres of, till then,
unlocated, land, embracing the principal portion of the coal-lands now owned by
the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company.
The mining operations of
the company, however, were not successful, and the mine remained in a neglected
condition for several years. Between
the coal-mine and the distant market lay a vast expanse of mountainous
country. The Lehigh River, in its then
unimproved condition, seemed to offer insurmountable obstacles to any attempt
to float anything much larger than a canoe over its rapid current and rocky
bed.
Col. Weiss, notwithstanding
the inauspicious outlook, determined that the coal should, at least, be
introduced to the acquaintance of the public.
Ox-teams were brought into requisition, and several loads were hauled
across the mountains to the Mahoning and thence to Fort Allen.
The writer often heard
his father speak of the difficulties encountered in these attempts to haul coal
across the mountains; the ascent of the mountains was less difficult than the
decent; in the latter case it was necessary to fell large trees and attach them
to the wagons to prevent a runaway.
But Col. Weiss was persistent in his determination to bring the coal into use, and would fill his saddlebags with the despised substance and ride around among the blacksmiths of the country earnestly soliciting them to try it. A few accepted the proffered gift, and used it with partial success, others threw it aside as soon as the colonel was out of sight, with the remark that he must be crazy (it has been suggested that as these early pioneers were unfamiliar with the nature and character of anthracite coal, some of the coal selected may have been "stone coal", and that offered the public may have been, not only in name but in fact, "stone coal").
Some threescore years
have passed since the silent solitudes of the Upper Lehigh were broken by the
busy hum of industry, and an heretofore untamed mountain-stream was made
subservient to the purposes of commerce; the marvelous transformation which has
since taken place not one of the early pioneers in their prophetic visions
could have foreseen. It was beyond the
grasp of their philosophy. That
wonderful creation, a modern locomotive, capable of moving a train of loaded
coal-cars more than one-third of a mile in length at the rate of ten or fifteen
miles an hour, had not yet been evolved from its germ. Nor could they have had any conception of
the marvelous extent of the coal formations.
Geology was then in its infancy.
They spoke of the Mauch Chunk Mountain as a solid mass of coal, and upon
a report reaching the public that the miners had reached the bottom of the mine
at Summit Hill the stock of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company fell twenty
per cent in the Philadelphia market.
Col. Weiss had the
misfortune of being deprived of his eyesight about twenty years before his
death, and also becoming extremely deaf, misfortunes which he bore with great
resignation. He was a man of liberal
education, strong mind, remarkable memory, and generous disposition. He died at Weissport, Jan 9, 1839, in the
eighty-ninth year of his age, and his widow, Elizabeth Robison Weiss, survived
him nearly six years, and died Nov. 29, 1844, reaching the ripe age of
ninety-one years. The children were
Francis, born in Philadelphia, March 7, 1773, who followed the business of
surveying; never having married, he
resided with his father at the old homestead; he died March 5, 1845. Rebecca, born April 9, 1774, married William
Hartfield; died at Bethlehem, Feb 14, 1845.
Jacob, born Aug 18, 1775, spent many years in the mercantile business,
first in Luzerne and later in Schuylkill County. Thomas was born in Philadelphia, Aug 29, 1776. His early years were spent in Easton and
Nazareth. After attending school for
several years at the latter place he was apprenticed to a hatter; after serving
out his apprenticeship he abandoned the business in disgust and took charge of
his father's farming and lumbering business, which he conducted with energy and
skill. He was especially active in
commending the common-school system to the farmers of the surrounding country,
soliciting their sympathy and support in the cause of education, for it may not
be generally known at the present day that much opposition manifested itself to
the introduction of the common-school system among the German population.
After the completion of
the Lehigh Canal he, in connection with his brother Francis, laid out the town
of Weissport, locating it on the broad flat lying between the river and canal,
having a general elevation of from ten to fifteen feet above the river in its
ordinary stage. True, the site selected
had once been overflowed by an extraordinary flood, known as "Tippey's
Flood," some forty odd years before, but this began to be looked upon as
one of those rare occurrences which would probably never be repeated. But after the destructive floods of 1841 and
1862, people began to realize the fact that a safer location for building
purposes might be desirable, and the growth of the town has since been very
much retarded.
Thomas Weiss married Miss
Maria Soldt, daughter of Paul and Mary Soldt, who resided about three miles
from Fort Allen, being among the early settlers of Big Creek. Sept 15, 1806, they took up their abode in
the dwelling standing near the house of Col. Weiss, which they occupied to near
the close of life; here were born their children, - Rebecca (married to Dr.
John D. Thompson), Elizabeth (widow of Jacob Bowman, now residing at Millport,
Carbon Co.), Lewis (residing at
Lehighton), Charles (who died at
Weissport, Jan 2, 1818), Francis (now residing at Bethlehem, and the only
member of the family who engaged in the coal business since his grandfather's
early attempt to distribute coal in saddle-bags), Edward (who died at Mauch Chunk, Aug 6, 1866, whose widow resides
in Franklin township, Carbon Co.), and Alexander (now residing with his family
at Los Angles, Cal.).
Thomas Weiss died at
Weissport, April 23, 1847. His widow
survived him about eight years, and died July 31, 1855. Their descendants in 1879 numbered one
hundred and sixty, to wit: eight children, forty-nine grandchildren,
eighty-three great grandchildren, and twenty great-great-grandchildren; of these, four children, thirty-seven
grandchildren, sixty great-grandchildren, and sixteen great-great-grandchildren
were living in 1879.
END
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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 November 2003 by
Shirley Kuntz
Proofing
&
web page by
November 2003