Pomeroy in 1846 - Pomeroy, the county-seat, is on the Ohio river, seventy-six miles in a direct line southeast of Columbus, eighty below Marietta, and two hundred and thirty-four above Cincinnati. It is situated on a narrow strip of ground from twenty to thirty rods wide, under a lofty and steep hill, in the midst of wild and romantic scenery. It contains one Episcopal, one Methodist, one German Lutheran, and one Presbyterian church; a newspaper printing office, one flouring and two saw mills, two foundries, two carding machines, one machine shop, ten mercantile stores, and about 1,600 inhabitants. It is a very flourishing town, deriving its importance principally from the coal mines situated here. We give below, in the language of a correspondent, an historical sketch of the village, with some notice of the coal mines.
The first settler within the limits of Pomeroy was Mr. Nathaniel Clark, who came about the year 1816. The first coal bank opened in Pomeroy was in 1819, by David Bradshaw. Bentley took 1,200 bushels of coal to Louisville, and sold it for twenty-five cents a bushel, which was the first coal exported from Pomeroy. As early as 1805 or 6 there had been an attempt at exporting coal from Coalport by Hoover & Cashell, but it proved unprofitable, and was abandoned after sending off one small load. About 1820 John Knight rented a large quantity of coal land from Gen. Putnam, at $20 a year, and commenced working the mines. On the 15th of July, 1825, Samuel Grant entered eighty acres and Josiah Dill one hundred and sixty acres of Congress land, which lies in the upper part of Pomeroy. Subsequently, Mr. Dill laid out a few town lots on his land, but it did not improve to any extent until the Pomeroy improvement commenced, in 1833. In 1827 a post-office was established here, called Nyesville, and Nial Nye appointed postmaster. In 1840, the town was incorporated, and in June, 1841, made the county-seat.
In the spring of 1804 Samuel W. Pomeroy, an enterprising merchant of Boston, Massachussetts, purchased of Elbridge Gerry, one of the original proprietors in the Ohio Company, a full share of land in said company's purchase, the fraction of said share (262 acres) lying in the now town of Pomeroy. In 1832 Mr. Pomeroy put 1,000 bushels of coal into boxes and shipped them on a flat boat for New Orleans, to be sent round to Boston; but the boat foundered before it left Coalport, and the expedition failed. In 1833 Mr. Pomeroy having purchased most of the coal land on the river for four miles, formed a company, consisting of himself, his two sons, Samuel W. Pomeroy, Jr. and C. R. Pomeroy, and his sons-in-law, V. B. horton and C. W. Dabney, under the firm of Pomeroy, Sons & Co., and began mining on a large scale. They built a steam saw-mill, and commenced building houses for themselves and their workmen. In 1834 they moved on, at which time there were twelve families in the town. In 1835 they built the steam tow-boat Condor, which could tow from four to six loaded boats or barges, and will tow back from eight to twelve empty boats at a trip. It takes a week to perform a trip to Cincinnati and back, and she consumes 2,000 bushels of coal each trip. The company employ about twenty-five boats or barges, that carry from 2,000 to 11,000 bushels of coal, each averaging, perhaps, 4,000 bushels. The number of hands employed is about 200, and the number of bushels dug yearly about two millions; in addition to this, several individuals are engaged in the coal business on a small scale. Five steamboats have been built in this place by the Pomeroy company.
The mining of coal is mostly done at Coalport, one mile below the corporation line. Here the company have laid out a town and been at great expense to prepare everything necessary for mining and exporting coal; the railways are so constructed that the loaded car descending to the river draws up the empty one.
Immediately below Coalport is the town of Middleport, lately laid out by Philip Jones, which already contains several stores, and is building up fast. Adjoining Middleport is Sheffield, a pleasant town, which bids fair to becoma a place of business. In all probability the time is not far distant when the towns of Pomeroy, Coalport, Middleport and Sheffield will be one continuous village.
About the year 1791 or 2 Capt. Hamilton Carr, a noted spy in the service of the United States, in his excursions through these parts discovered an enormous sycamore tree below the mouth of Carr's run, near where Murdock and Nye's mill now stands, which was subsequently occupied as a dwelling-house. Capt. Whitlock, of Coalport, informs me that he himself measured that tree and found the hollow to be eighteen feet in diameter. Capt. Whitlock further states, that as late as 1821 he took dinner from the top of a sugar-tree stump, in a log-house near where the court-house now stands, the only table the people had in the house.
The view shown in the engraving was taken at the mines at Coalport, nearly two miles below the main village of Pomeroy. Here horizontal shafts are run into the hill, at an elevation of more than one hundred feet above the river bed. The coal is carried out in cars on railways, and successively emptied from the cars on one grade to that below, and so on until the last cars in turn empty into the boats on the river, by which it is carried to market. The mining is conducted in a systematic manner, and most of those employed are natives of Wales, familiar with mining from youth.