INTRODUCTION TO A HISTORY OF IRONMAKING AND COAL MINING IN PENNSYLVANIA. CONTRIBUTED TO THE FINAL REPORT OF THE PENNSYLVANIA BOARD OF CENTENNIAL MANAGERS. SECRETARY OF THE AMERICAN IRON AND STEEL ASSOCIATION - 1878 - PREFACE - THE following chapters were-written during the summer of 1877, at the request of the Pennsylvania Board of Centennial Managers, to accompany their final report to the Pennsylvania Legislature, and are believed to possess sufficient value to justify their publication in a form which will make them accessible to the general reader. They were written amid the pressure of other duties, and it is possible that the critical reader will detect some errors of statement and some omissions of important facts which in his charity he may concede would not have occurred if the author had been a gentleman of leisure, as every true historian otigl t to be, intent on doing one piece of work at a time and doing it well. I am, however, not conscious of any lack of enthusiasm or industry in the performance of a really difficult and laborious task. That there may be no misunderstanding. I wish distinctly to impress upon the mind of the reader the fact that I have not atten ytedt o write a complete history of ironmaking and coal mining in qennsylvania, but have assumed only to write such an introduction to their history as will contain a record of the principal events which mark the beginning of these two great industries of our State, and mark, also, the leading events in their subsequent development. Beginning with their beginning, I end with the progress they had made down to 1876, but only glance at the great gap between. Otherwise stated, the scope of the following pages embraces a statement of the first enterprises in ironmaking and coal mining in Pennsylvania, a reference to significant periods of their development, and a summary of ultimate results. Greater amplitude and detail could only have been possible by completely changing the plan upon which the two essays had been projected. I have undertaken to preserve only that part of the history of our iron and coal industries that is of most value and is in most danger of being lost. To those who would have been gratified to see in this volume a description of existing ironworks in Pennsylvania, it is proper that we should say that the American Iron and Steel Association published in 1876 a complete list of all such enterprises in the United States, which list is now being revised for publication in the spring of the prescnt year. In the preparation of the chapters which follow I have consulted all accessible printed sources of information which were deemed authentic, and, in addition, I have personally or by letter communicated with many persons who were likely to possess information concerning our early ironmaking and coalmining enterprises. Upon many of the subjects treated of in connection with the history of early ironmaking in Pennsylvania, as, for instance, the first iron rails made in the United States, there was absolutely no literature to consult, and great diEculty was experienced in obtaining reliable facts from living ironmasters, family records, or other private sources. I have been greatly aided by the polite and sympathetic attention of the gentlemen in charge of the library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, who have afforded me every desired facility for the examination of historical data contained in colonial records, old maps, local histories, and biographical sketches... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.