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| History of Cambria County, V.1 |
| HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY. | 589 | |
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the dropping of a brake rigging on the tender, which threw the cars off the track altho the engine did not leave the rails. The Baltimore & Ohio railroad constructed the Somerset & Cambria railroad as a branch of its Pittsburg division, which extends from Pittsburg to Cumberland, with the point of intersection at Rockwood, a distance of 45.1 miles from Johnstown. The track was completed between these points on December 16, 1880, and the first passenger train over it left Johnstown on May 23, 1881, in charge of Conductor Smufz and Engineer Dayton. There was but one passenger train on the branch leaving Johnstown at 10:20 a. m. and returning at 9:18 p. m. It is a single line road and has a heavy grade to Geiger's Summit, the point where the proposed South Penn railroad crosses it. The several elevations are: Sea level at Johnstown, 1,170 feet; Ferndale, 1,190; Kring's, 1,239; Hooversville, 1,671; Stoyestown, 1,771; Geiger's Summit, 2,204; Somerset, 2,101, and Rockwood, 1,808. The Beech Creek railroad, operated by the New York Central railroad, extends from Williamsport to Rossiter Junction, where it connects with the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburg railroad. A joint line between Mahaffy and Patton, which has been extended to Cherry Tree and Westover, between the New York Central railroad and the Pennsylvania railroad, has been constructed especially to take out the coal. The first shipment of coal over the New York Central which reaches the main line of the latter company at Geneva and Lyons, between Rochester and Syracuse, was on September 1, 1893. In the chapter on Rivers and Rafting the cutting and marketing of the white pine timber in the north of the county has been noted. The Tribune for March 22, 1861, in referring to the lumber trade, says: "We are told that Clearfield creek and its tributary streams are filled for miles with logs cut in this county and intended to be floated out into the Susquehanna, and thence to different points. The creek is so compactly filled in many places as to be completely bridged." There are still a few small tracts of virgin white pine in Carroll and Barr townships, and a little in Allegheny. About 1870 white pine was sawed and hauled to Ebensburg, where it was sold for $14 to $18 per thousand. Thomas Griffith began to deal in hard woods as early as 1850, and at his death was probably the largest hard wood dealer |
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