The Roots of Industry

Northampton County Historical & Genealogical Society
New Permanent Exhibit at the Sigal Museum

The Lehigh Valley has an incredibly rich industrial history, and that legacy is due to the geology of our region. The Northampton County Historical & Genealogical Society explores the geology of Northampton County and the resulting industrial revolution with the opening of a new permanent exhibit at the Sigal Museum, Roots of Industry. This hands-on, interactive exhibit tells the stories of how these resources were found and used for centuries- from the tools made and used by the Lenape, to those mined to become the roots of our industrial revolution. The natural resources of Northampton County supplied us with new industries, population, and economic growth at the county, state, national, and global level.

Roots of Industry celebrates this rich history, and provides visual and hands-on components that draw the eye and spark the intellect. Announcing the exhibit opening, Executive Director Barbara Kowitz noted that “the Sigal Museum is an amazing cultural and educational resource, and for the past four years, has grown in stature and prestige due to its quality exhibitions and programs that tell the stories of our land, culture, and people. We are proud to introduce Roots of Industry in the Sigal Museum—this interactive exhibit draws forth the stories of our proud heritage that made such giants as Bethlehem Steel, Laros Textiles, and Crayola household words and their products part of our everyday lives.” The exhibit was unveiled by its patrons Andy Daub and Dick Baumann during a reception on Thursday, October 30.

An Overview of the Exhibit
 
Roots of Industry illuminates many of the key businesses, individuals, and landmarks that shaped Northampton County and still define it today, and showcases the relationship between the riches of our region’s natural resources and the significant industrial power that grew from them.

The exhibit highlights area industries that have shaped the course of global history and daily life within our local communities. One of the design elements features a small-scale model of an industrial complex. Quarries, mills, factories, canals, railways, horse and buggies, and trucks provide the backdrop for the narrative of the iron/steel, cement, slate, and textiles stories in Northampton County and the Lehigh Valley. Additional interpretive components include a video, interactive mineral matchup stations, and a rock resource display.

Excerpts from the Docent’s Manual: Geology & Industry of Northampton County
 
Industry had already been occurring in New England and other seaboard cities, but in the Lehigh Valley the age of industry begins after 1830. Home-based production of goods and crafts began to be replaced by larger scale and mass production, which encouraged a movement of people from countryside into the cities and additional immigration from Europe
 
Setting the Stage for Bethlehem Steel

Before 1852, farmland stretched from the south bank of the Lehigh River up South Mountain in Bethlehem. The newly formed Lehigh Valley Railroad first laid mainline tracks in 1852. The railroad, built to ship anthracite coal from Carbon and Luzerne counties to Trenton and NYC faster and more inexpensively, was completed in 1855 and stretched from Mauch Chunk to Easton. Furnaces, factories, and shops sprang up around the railroad, one of which ultimately became Bethlehem Steel Corporation (BSC). The technological breakthrough of using anthracite coal instead of charcoal (expensive and dwindling as a resource) in smelting ore to make iron accelerated the development of the iron industry.

The Lehigh Crane Iron Company in Catasauqua in 1840 was smelting iron using the first furnace employing anthracite coal as a reducing agent. Thereafter, furnaces sprung up all over the Lehigh Valley using coal shipped on the Lehigh Canal. The Glendon Iron Works began smelting in 1844 and had three furnaces operating in 1855. South Easton had a furnace built in 1845, and by 1855 sixteen furnaces bordered the Lehigh River or the Lehigh Canal in Northampton and Lehigh Counties.

In April 1857, intending to take advantage of the placement of the railroad, Saucona Iron Company was chartered to produce pig iron as raw material for wrought iron rails. The name was changed in 1860 to the Bethlehem Rolling Mills & Iron Company; Asa Packer served on its first Board of Directors and was a substantial financial backer.

John Fritz, the Ironmaster or Superintendent of Works, a genius of production and a leading innovator in the iron industry, was hired to construct and operate the new plant. He served until 1890 and guided the company’s steady growth to the turn of the century. Construction of the first blast furnace began in July 1860 but was interrupted by flooding of the Lehigh River late in 1860. Resumed construction was interrupted again by the outbreak of the Civil War. The first pour had to wait until January 1863, and by September of that year, the first rails were rolled for the Lehigh Valley Railroad on the company’s first rolling mill. The second blast furnace was finished in 1867 and a third in 1868. All three furnaces produced a combined 30,000 tons of iron per year.

By 1870, the Bethlehem Iron Company was a firmly established producer and supplier supporting the rapidly expanding railroad industry.   Fritz incorporated a new method of purifying iron through the Bessemer Process, producing higher strength, malleable steel. At the beginning of the financial panic of 1873, the Bethlehem Iron Company became the first steel producer in the Lehigh Valley as its steel rails were rolled at the new Bessemer Works. The next five years brought a severe business depression that brought bankruptcy to many iron manufacturers in the Lehigh Valley and throughout the country.   The survival of the Bethlehem Iron Company during this turmoil was due to the leadership of John Fritz and to its focus on rail production, particularly the new steel rails for the country’s continuing railroad industry. Two more blast furnaces were in operation in 1876 and 1877; the five total furnaces in operation produced over 80,000 tons of pig iron per year.

In 1899, the name became the Bethlehem Steel Company. In 1904, it was changed to Bethlehem Steel Corporation. The 20^th century saw the shift from rails to forgings. During both World Wars Bethlehem Steel was a major manufacturer and supplier of armor plating and big guns. During WWII Bethlehem Steel employed 31,000 people, about 25% of the population of the county at that time. Business drew immigrants to Bethlehem, predominantly from Eastern Europe, Puerto Rico, and Mexico.

Textile Industry
The story of the textile industry in Northampton County parallels that of the nation. In the late 19^th century, communities like Bangor, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Easton employed hundreds of workers, often attracting entire immigrant groups (like the Italians to Slate Belt and Easton). Silk mills had, by 1920, produced a third of the nation’s silk textiles. Women especially worked long hours for very low wages, but they brought home an income which helped put bread on the table when the men’s work in slate or steel was interrupted or ceased. Trolley lines connected the small communities to enable the women to keep working when one operation ceased and another opened nearby. When competition from synthetic fabrics precipitated the decline of the silk mills in the 1930s, the workers swarmed into the garment manufacturies of Pen Argyl, Bangor, and other communities dotting the more northern tier of the County as well as into the garment district of New York City. Textile and garment production thrived through the 1950s but fell victim to Pennsylvania’s slippage in manufacturing from second to fifth place in the decade from 1947-1958. Textile companies moved to the South and overseas where labor was cheaper.

Still, small-scale producers of fabric, dresses, and swimsuits struggled into the 1990s, when the very cheap materials from overseas competitors sold through large box stores pushed the employers out of business.

Cement Industry
In 1824, a British mason discovered that by mixing certain ingredients – calcium, silicon, aluminum, iron, gypsum, and other additives – he obtained a superior product he named “Portland” after the nearby quarry. Its outstanding characteristic: it hardened in 24 hours. Portland cement is made by a variety of “recipes” to meet differing building needs.

Northampton County’s geologic riches in limestone, chalks, clay, and shale – the result of Devonian-era seas’ fossil deposits in a long belt through the valley – created the perfect condition for the manufacture of Portland cement. The Nazareth area garnered a number of companies – the Nazareth Cement Company (1898, which became Coplay Cement and ultimately ESSROC), Penn-Dixie (no longer in business), and Hercules Cement by the turn of the 20^th century. The small town of Northampton used the natural materials to fill 75% of the global cement needs by 1900. Atlas Cement (1895, gone by 1982) provided the cement to build the Panama Canal (1908-1914). ESSROC continues in Nazareth, producing 6.5 million metric tons annually. Like many American companies, it is part of a larger international family of companies, the Italcementi Group.

Slate Industry
Many small operations in dozens of quarries made up the slate industry around Bangor, Pen Argyl, and Wind Gap. The raw material was manufactured into roofing slate, structural slate, toilet stalls, grave vaults, billiard table tops, electrical switchboards, and blackboards. Many deposits run deep into the earth, some more than 700 feet. Many Welsh and Italian slate miners immigrated to work in the quarries. The critical splitting operation was done by hand with a hammer and chisel. By 1910, half of slate produced nationwide came from the Slate Belt. During WWI, slate firms closed their quarries to allow the men to work for Bethlehem Steel in the war effort. Demand for slate declined throughout the century, but there are still quarries in operation today.
 
Physiographic Provinces:
Most of Northampton County is located within the Great Valley Section of the Ridge and Valley Physiographic Province of Pennsylvania. The very northern tier of the County, along Blue Mountain includes the southern extent of the Blue Mountain Section of the Ridge and Valley Province. Within southern and eastern portions of the County there are outcrops or protrusions of the Reading Prong Section of the New England Physiographic Province. The geology of these physiographic provinces are described below.
 
Geology:
As a general rule the age of exposed rocks (surface strata) in Northampton County increases as you move from north to south. Blue Mountain is composed of the more recently formed Silurian aged Decker, Bloomsburg and Shawangunk formations which are approximately 443-417 million years old. Moving south from Blue Mountain there is a broad expanse of Ordovician aged rocks, including the shale and sandstone Martinsburg Formation, the slaty limestone of the Jacksonberg Formation (the valuable raw material used in the manufacture of cement), and then the Beekmantown Group, composed of blocky limestone and dolomite. Ordovician rocks have a sedimentary origin and were formed between 490 and 443 m. years ago. The shales and sandstones were formed from the alluvial deposition of mud (shale) and sand (sandstone). Limestone is formed from the deposition of calcareous exoskeletons of ancient organisms that once inhabited a vast inland sea. Along the Rte 22 corridor, extending from the cement belt south to South Mountain, is a band of Cambrian aged rocks that comprise the Allentown, Leithsville, and Hardystown Formation. Formed between 543 and 490 m. years ago, these Cambrian rocks form a sequence that transitions from north to south through thick bedded dolomite and impure limestone to crystalline dolomite and chert, and finally quartzite and feldspathic sandstone. The oldest exposed rocks in the County are the Hexenkopf Complex found in the Reading Prong Section of the New England Physiographic Province, primarily located in Williams Township. The Reading Prong is generally characterized as granitic gneiss from the Mesoproterozoic division of Precambrian time (1,600 to 900 m. years ago) and forms the basement geology of Pennsylvania.

The Reading Prong Section of the New England Physiographic Province extends geographically in Pennsylvania from west of Reading, Berks County, north by northeast through southern Lehigh and Northampton Counties. In a more regional context, the New England Province extends north through New Jersey and New York to Connecticut where it is called the Housatonic Highlands; and is associated geologically with the South Mountain formation southwest of Harrisburg which is the northern terminus of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Maryland and Virginia. Rocks of the Reading Prong may contain elevated concentrations of uranium, which decays to produce radon, a potentially hazardous indoor air contaminant and a leading cause of lung cancer, second only to cigarette smoke. The northern-most example of this rock type in Northampton County is the Chestnut Hill Formation often referred to as Paxinosa Ridge. The south side of Chestnut Hill includes an outcrop of the Franklin Formation, a coarse-grained graphite-bearing limestone. The Camel’s Hump and Pine Top, located north of Bethlehem, are two additional examples of exposed granitic gneiss north of the Williams Township area.   The Camel’s Hump formation directs the flow of Monocacy Creek, south of Route 22, between Routes 191 and 512. Here groundwater migrating from north to south through the limestone encounters highly resistant granitic gneiss, which causes an upwelling of cold alkaline springs within and adjacent to the streambed. This causes the Monocacy Creek to become a remarkably productive Class A Wild Trout Stream within the Bethlehem City limits.

Serpentine and talc found on Chestnut Hill, north of Easton are used in crushed terrazzo, filler product in paint, paper, and rubber.
Building stone such as sandstone and quartzite are largely distributed south of the Lehigh River. Gneisses are used in building stone and in limestone blocks.
Limestone is a prominent mineral resource of importance as an ingredient for Portland Cement. Shaly Jacksonburg limestone, the basis of the cement industry, crosses the county in a narrow belt. Tomstown, Allentown, and Beekmantown formations constitute a broad belt of limestone and dolomite – a resource for agricultural and building lime, flux, and crushed stone.
Slate in two belts.   The “hard” slatebelt through Belfast and Chapman Quarries furnishes mostly roofing slate; the “soft” slatebelt from Bangor to Danielsville furnishes roofing slate and mill stock, slate for structural purposes, toilet stalls, grave vaults, billiard table tops, electrical switchboards, and blackboards. Deposits can run more than 700 feet down into the earth.
Clay and Shale are used for structural and ceramic products, brick, drain tile, stoneware, and flower pots. Brickyards were located at South Easton, Bingen, and Georgetown.
Sand and gravel, obtained from the banks of the Delaware, were obtained largely near Mt. Bethel. Decomposed gneiss near Bethlehem and Hellertown is used by furnaces and foundries for molding or core sand.
Iron Ore, occurring as limonite and siderite, was used in the iron and steel industry.
Mineral Pigments such as ocher, umber, and black shale can also be found in the region.

About Northampton County Historical & Genealogical Society
The Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society was established in 1906 and continues to serve Northampton County PA and researchers throughout the world, by preserving, showcasing, exhibiting, and interpreting its more than 60,000 collection items. The Society maintains four locations in Easton, PA – the Mixsell House Museum at 4^th and Ferry Streets, the Jacob Nicholas House Museum at 5^th & Ferry Streets, the 1753 Bachmann Publick House at 2^nd & Northampton Streets, and the Sigal Museum at 342 Northampton Street. The Jane S. Moyer Library for Local & Genealogical Research is located at the Sigal Museum.