Local History: Tillard Pen Pictures, 1911, Altoona, Blair Co., PA - Charcoal

Contributed by Judy Banja jbanja@msn.com

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               Pen Pictures of Friends and Reminiscent Sketches
                               by J. N. Tillard

            Altoona, PA: William F. Gable & Co., Mirror Press, 1911 

                       Sketches of Early Local History

AUTHOR'S NOTE - The following articles were written for the Altoona Mirror at 
odd times, several years ago, the subject matter having been gleaned by the 
author partly from various publications; partly from the folk lore stories he 
beard told in the old Pottsgrove flour mill during his childhood, and partly 
from personal observation.

                                             J. N. TILLARD DECEMBER 1, 1911

                  An Old Time Business That Is About Extinct

                      Charcoal Burning Was a Distinct Art
             and Required Considerable Skill to Make It a Success

WHILE the wood-chopper and the charcoal-burner of the Tuckahoe Valley usually 
met in the same person, charcoal burning was a distinct art and required 
considerable skill and experience to successfully work out. While all burners 
might more or less successfully wield an ax, not every chopper could handle a 
coal pit. It was too easily smothered or burned to trust the operation to the 
unskilled or inexperienced.
  A level spot some sixty feet in diameter near the ranked wood was selected 
by the burner, the sod removed and the wood set on end, tier above tier, in 
pyramid or conical shape, and no small skill was developed in the handling of 
the cordwood alone, as some men could toss the billets or cord wood cuts into 
place with a skill and precision that would make the eyes of the novice 
bulge. After it was properly built up, the pit was covered with turf and the 
fire started, with a vent at the top and sides very much on the same 
principle as the old-fashioned coke oven, but it required much greater skill 
to dress and keep it in shape.
  The pit work was not started until spring and the charcoal burner usually 
"shantied it," for the season, only going home at intervals as he might be 
relieved. These shanties where the men lived were great places for the boys 
of the community and the excuse of carrying provisions to fathers and older 
brothers was vigorously worked by the small boy. The black-faced, brawny-
armed men who stood in the darkness lit up only by its own fires while he 
engaged in the operation of "dressing" was an object of great interest to the 
little chap, and he longed for the day to come when he might do likewise. The 
life was rough enough, and while the workers were not confronted by the 
bitter cold of the winter while they were chopping the cordwood, and for the 
most part the days and nights were pleasant enough in the "coaling," the work 
was hard and constant and sometimes fierce summer storms threatened the 
destruction of the pits and the torrents from the mountain sides made it 
imperative to keep the trenches about the base in good working order and the 
turf that covered it intact. But one of the features of the life that 
appealed to the boy was "father's cooking." What "mother made" was not to be 
compared with the way that "pap" fried bacon, eggs, potatoes and onions in 
the iron skillet in the cabin. It was great stuff, and when roasting-ear time 
came in mid-summer there were feasts fit for the gods.
  By and by the pit was burned, the baked sod was pulled off the glowing 
coals and it gradually cooled to a fine quality of charcoal fit for the 
furnace stack. About that time could be heard in the far distance the rumble 
of the big coal wagon over the stony, roughhewn road along the mountain side, 
and presently there hove in sight the six-mule team, the loud-voiced driver 
on the saddle mule calling upon his long-eared team in most picturesque 
language to "stretch them traces," and vowing his intention to take a bed 
full of coal over that blankety-blanked road if he "had to bust every belly 
band in the team to do it."
  No stage driver of the west ever appealed to youthful imagination more 
strongly than this swaggering mule-whacker, and the height of the boy's 
ambition was to be able to crack a blacksnake whip as loudly as he did, and 
touch the lead mule with so unerring a flick of the cracker. The big baskets 
were brought into play and the yet live coals forked into them and thrown 
into the bed of the big Conestoga, and many were the tales told in the cabins 
at night of some drivers who practice black arts and were in league with the 
devil because of their ability to haul hot coal without burning the wagon.
  About the last of the charcoal burners is Kessler Kelly, who only a few 
years ago continued to burn near Sandy Run and haul his product into the 
city, for the use chiefly of the tinners who used it in heating soldering 
irons, but modern invention in the way of gasoline lamps has even put that 
use of the charred wood out of business, and while he is still in the land of 
the living, Kessler as a charcoal burner is no more. There are still a number 
of men in the community who worked at the business in their youth, among them 
being John P. Lafferty, the well-known funeral director, whose father was an 
expert. Among the earliest men in the business in the valley was John 
Bateman, who has a number of descendants still living in the community, and 
the Boyles, Greens, Browns and other well-known families of Greenwood were 
master hands at the now forgotten business in the early days of 
Pennsylvania's iron industry.

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