to Lockport. On April 18, 1855, a steamboat made her appearance in the basin. It was nothing more nor less than one of the Pennsylvania & Ohio line canal boats that had been made into a steamboat by placing an old Portage engine on her. She was intended to tow stone boats on the Monongahela. This was not the first steamboat that appeared on the canal. In 1834, according to the Ebensburg Sky, a steam canal boat called the "Adaline" made a trip from Allegheny to Johnstown. She was moved by a propeller in a compartment in her stern, notwithstanding which she washed the bank of the canal to such an extent that her use on the canal had to be discontinued.

Ephraim Stitt, of Blairsville, was probably the last captain to carry through freight from Pittsburg. He brought pig metal and iron to the Cambria Iron Company in 1859. Mr. George Knowlton, of Walnut Grove, one of the oldest practical boatmen on the canal, ran a flatboat between Johnstown and Conemaugh furnace in 1860.

The flood of 1889 swept "Goose Island," "The Island," and the basin clear and clean. In that year the council of Conemaugh borough abandoned the popular and wide thoroughfare of Portage street, with all other highways north of Centre street. That street is about midway between Portage and Railroad streets, and lengthwise across the basin from Clinton street. to the "Five Points," and, as will be observed from the accompanying diagram, which was copied from a survey made in 1854, Portage street began three hundred feet north of Washington street and extended up to the "Five Points."

The boats ran day and night, and laid up invariably on Saturday night not later than 11:59 o'clock until Monday, with one or two exceptions. The motive power was six mules or four horses, to each boat, three mules or two horses whichever were used, in service hauling the craft and the others in the bow of the boat, resting until their turn came; but in some way, boats that were not in a hurry got along with either one horse or one mule. They were changed every six hours, the term of service being called a "trick," and at the same time the steersmen and drivers exchanged places.

The boating season was usually from March 10th to December, sometimes extending to Christmas.

The Laurel Hill Gap was, therefore, a very important piece of topography in a commercial sense during the operation of the canal, and it is the best opening in the mountains for a steam

road. The nearest gap on the north is the Blacklick, and on the south the Castleman river, a tributary of the Youghiogheny, neither of which makes so direct and practical a route between the east and west as the Laurel Hill Gap.

Since 1851 the Pennsylvania railroad has occupied the south side of the gap for its main lines, and since 1887 has used a portion of the north side for its through freight traffic by way of Allegheny City.

The average grade between Johnstown and Blairsville Intersection is about two and a half feet to the mile. In traveling one passes through the beautiful and romantic Pack Saddle in the Chestnut Ridge, where there is a roadway for two tracks, and no more, blasted from the rocks. At one place the tracks are about one hundred feet, almost perpendicular from the Conemaugh river; an unobserving traveler would likely believe he was crossing a bridge. On Chestnut Ridge it is from six hundred to eight hundred feet from river to peak. The land is covered with forest and rock, and the only use that has been made of these two great features is as a thoroughfare and a place from which to quarry stone. There is mountainous scenery and little else, and at the narrowest point the pass is about three hundred feet at water line.

May 1, 1863, the Pennsylvania Railroad abandoned the canal between Johnstown and Blairsville, and to-day the Canal system of transportation in the state has almost entirely ceased to be a factor. The only ocular proof that it ever did exist in this town is the house in which the lock-keeper resided, at Ellis Lock, which is still standing at the lower end of the Fourteenth ward, and some spots of the old Feeder along the Sandyvale cemetery. The Basin has been gradually filled since its abandonment, but it was entirely so in 1878, when stone piers were built in the bed for the erection of the Gautier Steel Depart

The building now occupied by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad for a passenger station, on the corner of Franklin & Washington streets, was built in the bed of the canal in 1866.

Johnstown has lost its importance as one of the leading features of the canal system, but the canal's successors-the Pennsylvania and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroads-have done more for it, and. with the unlimited quantity of cheap fuel and other natural advantages, it remains one of the leading steel manufacturing cities of the world.

CHAPTER XV I.

OLD AND NEW PORTAGE RAILROADS.

In the whole range of the Allegheny mountains, extending from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Alabama, no county has been more generously favored with sublime scenery than Cambria. Lying as it does on the crest and western slope of these mountains, with Johnstown at the western base, nature had given it glorious views to reward the traveler wearied with his journey.

It will be observed in all the surveys made by the direction of the Assembly of this commonwealth, that the route from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, to connect the East with the great West by way of Johnstown, was deemed the most available and practicable. This was so determined in 1826, when the commissioners appointed to locate the line, reported that it was feasible and practicable for the state to own a canal from Pittsburg to Philadelphia, so that a boat with its lading could start at the western end and deliver its cargo in bulk on the wharf at Philadelphia.

To read the brief report of the commissioners, which did not go into details, it suggests the inquiry: How could the state build a canal across the Allegheny mountains from Johnstown to Hollidaysburg, with Johnstown 1,183 feet above sea level, and Hollidaysburg 953 feet, between which rose the summit of the mountains 2,341 feet? It did not mean a canal water way, but a canal railroad between these points.

Notwithstanding the Act of 1826, authorizing the construction of the Pennsylvania public works, there seems to have been some doubt as to the best means of crossing the Allegheny mountains. On the 9th of April, 1827, Governor Shulze approved of a supplement for the extension of the canal system, in which it authorized the canal commissioners to locate and contract for "a canal, locks, and other works necessary thereto, up the Kiskiminetas and the Conemaugh from the western section of the Pennsylvania Canal to a point at or near Blairsville. And the said Board shall proceed to make, or cause to be made, such examinations and surveys from Frankstown, on the Juniata, to Johnstown, on the Conemaugh, across the Allegheny moun

tains, as may enable them to determine in what manner and by what kind of works, whether by the construction of a smooth and permanent road of easy graduation, or by railway with locomotive or stationary engines, or otherwise, the portage or space between the said two points may be passed so as to insure the greatest public advantage."

By virtue of this authority the plane system was adopted, and the common noun portage was thereafter raised to the proper noun Portage, from whence the road derived its name. The word means "a break in a chain of water communication over which goods, boats, etc., have to be carried, as from one lake, river, or canal to another;" also means "to carry.'

The planes and levels were the connecting links between the Juniata and the Conemaugh. The Allegheny Portage Railroad, commencing at the "Five Points," at the upper end of the Basin, at Johnstown, and ending at Hollidaysburg, was among the first railroads constructed in this country for public purposes, and was finished, as a single-line road, in the fall of 1833. The canal was completed and in operation in 1832.

The old Portage road was not opened for general business in connection with the Canal until the spring of 1834, when the "only great system of rapid transit and an economical method of transportation to connect the East and the West" was open to the people.

The extreme length of the Old Portage road from Johnstown to Hollidaysburg was less than thirty-six miles. The Old Portage had ten planes and eleven levels, so called (there was only one which was level), to overcome the rise of 1,138 feet, between Johnstown and the top of the mountains, about two and one-half miles in an easterly direction from Cresson, which was the head of Plane No. 6. There were five planes and six levels or the western side of the mountain and five of each on the eastern, the planes being numbered eastward from Johnstown. The distance to the foot of Plane No. 1, was 3.54 miles, and the plane was 1,700 feet in length. At the head of the plane there was cut through rock the only tunnel on the Old Portage. It was 900 feet long and only a few hundred yards south of bridge No. 6, on the Pennsylvania Railroad, and can be observed approaching it from the west. The long level began at the head of Plane No. 1, and extended to the foot of No. 2, a few hundred yards northeast of Portage Station, and was 13.04 miles long. Plane No. 2,

was also 1,700 feet in length; the level from the head of No. 2 to the foot of No. 3, was 1.47 miles; the length of Plane No. 3 at Benscreek, was 1,500 feet. The level from No. 3 to No. 4, at Lilly, was 1.89 miles, and its length was 2,200 feet. The level from No. 4 to Plane No. 5 was 2.57 miles, and plane No. 5 was 2,300 feet long, being situated near the Summit, and was the longest plane on the western side of the mountains. At this point the road took an easterly course, toward Hollidaysburg, and the last level on that side-from No. 5 to Plane No. 6, at the Lemon homestead-was 1.59 miles; at its head was the highest point on the road, rise from Johnstown being 1,158 feet-twenty feet higher than at the Summit, so-called. The length of Plane No. 6 was 2,716 feet, and the distance from the foot of No. 6 to the head of No. 7 was 800 feet. Plane No. 7 was 2,600 feet long and at the head of it the altitude was 891 feet above Johnstown. From the foot of No. 7 to the head of No. 8 was 3,600 feet; and the length of the plane was 3,100 feet. It was the longest, and with a rise of 604 feet, was the highest lift on the system. The distance from the foot of No. 8 to the head of No. 9 was 6,500 feet, with an altitude of 307 feet. Plane No. 9 was 2,600 feet in length. From the foot of No. 9 to the head of No. 10 the distance was 9,500 feet, with difference in altitude of 87 feet. Plane No. 10 the last one, was 2,300 feet long. From the foot of No. 10 to Duncansville Station it was 6,300 feet; from the station to the Duncansville "Y" was 4,700 feet, and it was 6,000 feet from there to Hollidaysburg, where the traffic was reloaded and the section boats dropped into the Juniata and proceeded eastward. Hollidaysburg is 230 feet lower than Johnstown, and about the same altitude as Blairsville.

No. 1,

The lifting power of each plane was as follows: 149.5 feet; No. 2, 133 feet; No. 3, 133 feet; No. 4, 188 feet; No. 5, 195 feet; No. 6, 267 feet; No. 7, 259.5 feet; No. 8, 306 feet; No. 9, 190 feet, and No. 10, 178 feet.

The grades on each level were thus: From Johnstown to the foot of No. 1, it was an average of 29.55 feet per mile; From No. 1 to No. 2, the longest level, it was an average of 13.80 feet per mile; to No. 3, 6.78 feet; to No. 4, 8.93 feet; to No. 5, 12.42 feet; to No. 6, 12.42 feet; to No. 7, on a dead level; to No. 8, 11.1 feet; to No. 9, 8.93 feet; to No. 10, 16.67 feet, and to Hollidaysburg, an average of 44.51 feet per mile.

The elevations above the sea level at Sandy Hook were: At Johnstown, 1,183 feet; foot of Plane No. 1, 1,273.5; at the