Section 49:  Wood to Coal to Gas to ??

Until I left home in 1831 I had never seen a coal fire only in a blacksmith shop, and at first only charcoal was used. In clearing the field above the barn in 1830 we used a portion of the wood in making a coal pit and burning it for the blacksmith shop. I don't now recollect how long that lasted, but when I read law in Lewistown they hauled stove coal from Phillipsburg for the shop, but it was not thought of for fires in the house. When I went to the Germantown Academy, wood was used for the dining room and cooking purposes, but the rooms were heated with anthracite coal. While we found it a little dusty to take up the ashes, it was a great improvement on wood fires. When we removed to Easton the same kind of coal was brought down the Lehigh in large quantities and was used in the college.

When I went to Cannonsburg we had no anthracite, but every hill was full of bituminous coal and that was the fuel all the time I was there; but in 1838 when I went to Lewistown nearly everybody still used wood, and going along the street at any time from October to May you were rarely out of sight of a wood rack and wood saw and a darkey.

The canal had been made long before that and hard coal was brought to Lewistown but it had not at that time come into general use or superseded wood. Then when I came to Clarion when wood and soft coal were both plenty, I used coal in the office in an old canon stove with a flat top, the ruins of which are lying at the back of the office today. But after we got to housekeeping for a number of years we used wood for the cookstove. Every fall I would get 8 or 10 cords hauled and cut into stove wood for the winter and for some years after moving over to the new house I have a recollection of Charley Harkless cutting and piling the stove wood in the wood house. It was thought the stove coal was too dusty to cook with, but along about 1860 it took the place of wood. It was then the universal fuel till after the railroad came into town when some of our more costly citizens got to using anthracite. This continued till along about 1882 when gas was discovered and brought into town.

I was among the first to take stock in the gas company (Light and Heat Co. it is called), and I have that stock yet. That is by far the best heating agent we have found yet. Our girl, Mary Elsner, said it took nearly a half off her work and it was pretty hard work carrying in coal and carrying out ashes. Of course we cannot tell how long it will last or whether or not it will not be superseded by manufactured or artificial gas or electricity. These are among the changes in the short period of my life, and wood for fuel is less valuable today than it was when I was ten years old. At that time old people used to shake their heads and say what will the next generation do when they will not have wood enough to cook their victuals. The houses are far better adapted to the convenience and comfort of the occupant than they were sixty years ago. Gum clothing or boots were unknown; indeed boots of any kind were rarely seen and then only on the feet of the preacher or some very distinguished gentleman.