castings, 4,680 tons of iron castings, and 24,600 tons of switches, frogs, etc.

The Executive Officers at Johnstown are: P. Lavelle, vicepresident and general manager; Edward B. Entwisle, chief engineer; George W. Reese, superintendent steel foundry; S. C. Weeks, superintendent iron foundry; Francis Nather, superintendent switch works; H. B. Frye, Jr., chief of order department; H. W. Smith, cashier; W. Milton Brown, manager underground electric department; H. F. A. Kleinschmidt, superintendent track welding department; George H. McFeaters, chief electrician; H. C. Stiff, chief draughtsman; C. S. Brandler, purchasing agent; H. M. Davies, auditor.

CHAPTER VII.

SOME OF THE DISTINGUISHED CAMBRIANS.

Elsewhere we have noted the names of a number of gentlemen who have by their achievements won the esteem of their fellowmen, and by so doing have distinguished the county. The career of Dr. Flick will be found in the chapter on the "Medical Profession;" that of Mr. Boyle in Art; Governor Geary and General Campbell in Military Affairs, and Statesmanship; George S. King, John and George Fritz, Daniel J. Morrell and Powell Stackhouse in creating and operating the Cambria Steel Company, and others whose accomplishments appear in their life's work as we find it.

Among the list are a number whose achievements have been wrought in other parts of the world, but who were former residents, or are now residing in the county, as follows:

Robert Edwin Peary, the Arctic Explorer, was born at Cresson, Pennsylvania, May 6, 1856. He is a son of Charles N. and Mary Wiley Peary, who came to Cambria county from Maine about 1852. His father was engaged in the shook business at Gallitzin where he died in 1857; soon thereafter his mother returned to her New England home.

Mr. Peary the author and explorer graduated at Bowdoin in 1877; in 1888, he married Josephine Diebitsch; their daughter, Marie Ahnighito, was born September 12, 1893, at the most extreme northerly point in the world, of the birth of any white child. In 1881 he entered the U. S. Navy as a civil engineer, and three years thereafter he was chief of the survey corps for the Nicaragua canal proposition.

In 1898, he wrote and published "Northward over the Great Ice," in two volumes (Frederick A. Stokes), and has contributed many articles to geographical societies and journals. He tells more of these strange people, of their mode of living, their families and the climate than was ever known, and with many excellent illustrations of the inhabitants, animals, fish, seals, and the great ice floes and ice mountains, portrays a vivid description. He begins with his first voyage in 1886. Five years after he organized and commanded an Arctic expedition on which he

discovered and named Melville Land and Heilprin Land. Again, between '93-95 he again visited Greenland and discovered the so called "Iron Mountains." In '96-97 he made a short voyage and brought to America the ninety ton meteorite of Cape York, the largest meteorite known. The natives were furnished with tools and cutting implements by him. In 1898 to 1902 he made the most important voyage to the North up to that time, for on May 16, '02 he was in latitude 84 degrees and 19 minutes, the highest point ever reached by an American; however, in April, 1902, Prince Luigi, another explorer exceeded it by reaching the northerly line of 86 degrees and 33 minutes. Peary discovered a large body of land on the northeastern coast of Greenland between Independence Bay and the eightieth degree of latitude, which has been named Pearyland in his honor.

From Labrador, November 2, 1906, upon his return from his latest attempt to reach the North Pole, he sent the following valuable announcement. "Reached 87 degrees 6 minutes north latitude over ice, drifting eastward. Returning ate eight dogs. Drifted eastward, delayed by open water. Reached north coast of Greenland in straitened condition. Killed musk oxen and returned along Greenland coast to ship. Two supporting parties driven on north coast of Greenland. One rescued by me in starving condition." At this time he is in New York making preparations for another expedition.

In 1892 he received the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society and the Cullum gold medal of the American Geographical Society, and in 1902 he was again honored with gold medals from the Royal, the Royal Scottish, the American and the Philadelphia Geographical Societies for his distinguished achievements.

Mrs. Josephine Peary is also an author of one or two volumes on Arctic conditions.

Robert Lees Phythian, a commodore in the United States Navy, is a son of Dr. Charles G. and Eliza Linton Phythian, born in Johnstown, July 21, 1835. His parents removed to Frankfort, Kentucky, in 1844, and in 1852 he entered the Naval Academy at Annapolis, where he graduated in the class of 1856. He was assigned to service in the American Navy, and served during the Civil war as executive officer on the large ships and in command of a small vessel. He has been superintendent of the New York Nautical School, superintendent of the United

States Naval Observatory for three terms, and was superintendent of the Naval Academy at Annapolis for four years. He was also at the head of the Department of Navigation in the Naval Academy for five years. In 1899 he was placed on the retired roll, and at present resides at Annapolis, Maryland.

Charles M. Schwab, a steel manufacturer and capitalist, was born in Williamsburg, Blair county, February 18, 1862. He is the son of John A. and Pauline Schwab, of Loretto, who removed to the latter place when he was ten years of age. In 1893 he married Emma Dinkey, a daughter of R. E. Dinkey, of Weatherly, Pennsylvania. At the present time he resides at Seventy-fourth street and Riverside Drive, New York, and at his summer home, "Immergrun," Loretto.

As a boy Mr. Schwab drove the stage and carried the mail between Cresson and his home town until 1881, when he entered the service of Andrew Carnegie as a stake driver in an engineering corps of the Edgar Thomson Steel Works at Braddock. His promptness and ability soon attracted the attention of Capt. William R. Jones who took him into the rolling mill. In 1887 he was appointed superintendent of the Homestead works, and on the death of Capt. Jones in October, 1889, Mr. Schwab was advanced to the superintendency of the Edgar Thomson works and furnaces. In 1892 he was made general manager of both the Edgar Thomson and the Homestead works, and four years later was elected a member of the board of managers of the Carnegie Company. In 1897 he was chosen president of such, in which office he continued until the formation of the United States Steel Corporation.

As the representative of Mr. Carnegie he met J. Pierpont Morgan and associates of New York at a dinner, and so clearly presented the advantage of a consolidation of the steel industries, that Mr. Morgan consented to finance the enterprise. In 1900 the United States Steel Corporation was organized with a capital of $1,500,000,000, and Mr. Schwab was elected president. Mr. Carnegie had been willing to accept $250,000,000 for his property a year or two previous, but by the new transaction he received over $500,000,000.

Mr. Schwab is the principal owner of the Bethlehem Steel Works, and a ship building yard on the Pacific coast, besides being interested in many other industries. He is a member of the American Iron and Steel Association, the American In

stitute of Mining Engineers, and the British Iron and Steel Institute.

John Fulton, a native of Ulster, Ireland, was born October 16, 1826. He acquired a fair education in Dublin, and entered the service of the engineering corps on an English railroad when he was twenty-one years of age. In 1848, with his parents, five brothers and one sister, he disembarked in New York, a stranger in a strange land. Not finding employment there he moved on to Wayne county, Pennsylvania, where he secured work on a little canal at seventy-five cents a day, and paid $2.25 per week for boarding in a slab shanty. The following year he was promoted to the position of foreman, and then to the more important one of general foreman, or "Walking Boss," which included the construction of masonry for a large aqueduct and locks at Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania. From the years 1852 to 1854 he was assistant engineer on the Junction canal, which connected the Pennsylvania and New York states canals, and the two years following he was employed as assistant engineer on the Barclay railroad from Towanda to the coal fields on Schraeder creek.

In 1856 Thomas T. Wierman, the principal engineer under whom Mr. Fulton had worked, became the general superintendent of the Huntingdon and Broad Top railroad, and knowing the energy and ability of the latter, invited him to accept the position of resident and mining engineer of that road, with the management of the coal mines. In the eighteen years spent among the hills of Bedford county, Mr. Fulton devoted much time to the study of geology, and the vast fund of knowledge he then acquired has made him one of the leading mining geologists of this country. The last four years at Saxton he was also chief engineer for the Pennsylvania railroad in extending its line from Mt. Dallas to Cumberland.

At the age of forty-eight Mr. Fulton accepted Mr. Morrell's invitation to become general mining engineer for the Cambria Iron Company, and removed to Johnstown. This position gave him charge of all their coal and ore mines and coke ovens. In the early history of the manufacture of Bessemer steel, the complaint of Thomas Collins, superintendent of the furnaces, that the native coke was not giving satisfactory results in the blast furnaces, was a great surprise to the officials, as great expense had been incurred in the erection of a great coal washer with the