The State records show that between 1830 and 1859 the receipts for tolls and the expenses of its operations were: Receipts Surplus .$32,270,712 30,400,433 $1,870,279 This would make an average annual profit of $64,495. In 1835, the first year after the opening of the Canal through to Philadelphia with its two railroads, the following business was transacted: Twenty-five thousand passengers were hauled, 15,437 of whom were westbound and 9,563 eastbound. It carried 52,719 tons of freight of 2,000 pounds to the ton. Of it 29,740 tons were westbound, 15,439 were eastbound, and 7,540 were local shipments. Each car only carried 7,000 pounds, and the regulations would not permit them to run faster than five miles per hour, unless the cars were provided with extra strong springs. In the early days of trails and paths, to transport a barrel of flour between Pittsburg and Philadelphia it cost $14; in 1835. by the Canal, $1.121⁄2, and now about 22 cents. In 1800, to transfer a ton of merchandise by wagon cost from $120 to $220 and took over two weeks in time, the rate depending upon the classification of the goods. In 1835, when the Canal was in operation, these rates were reduced to $14 and $22 per ton, respectively.. In 1851 it was further reduced to $9 and $18, and the rates of the same classification would today be from $1.75 to $10 per ton. This decrease in the cost of transportation applies locally as well as upon through carriages; for instance, one of the larger boats, like the Cambria, could carry 300 barrels of flour, for which the cost would be twenty-five cents from Pittsburg to Johnstown; while at the present time a car holding 400 barrels will be carried the same distance for ten cents, or $40 for the service, as against $75 by water. In 1828, after the Northern pike was opened and the Canal in operation between Pittsburg and Blairsville, it cost over $15 per ton to haul metal from the Sligo Iron Works in Huntingdon county to Blairsville, a distance of 53 miles; in 1838, when the Caual and Old Portage were ready for business, the same service could be had for $4, and in 1835, when locomotives. were first used on the levels in place of horses, the rate for the same was ninety-six cents per ton. A captain of a boat of the Cambria class received $125 per month, out of which he was required to pay all the labor and their maintenance, leaving $55 to pay for his service and the cost of lines and oil. The railroad employees on the Old Portage and the Pennsylvania Railroad were paid the following rates for a day's wages of twelve hours: John Matthews, collector at Johnstown, publishes the result of the first month's operation of the Portage railroad and canal (the Old Portage being first opened for traffic March 18, 1834) as follows: CHAPTER XVII NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS. In the list of newspapers of Cambria county the Western Sky, a paper edited in what was then known as "the town of Beula, Somerset county," during the year 1798 (Cambria county had not then been organized), is given precedence as the first attempt at the establishment of a permanent newspaper within its limits. Although the literary part of the work was done in Beula, it was printed in Philadelphia by Ephraim Conrad. It was designed principally as an advertisement for the projected town, and, according to the statement of John Lloyd, of Ebensburg, whose grandfather was its editor, but one number of the Sky was published. The certainty of the publication of the second paper in the county cannot be established, but it has been said that a paper was in existence in Ebensburg at as early a date as 1810. If this were the case it could not have had any show of permanency, as the county advertising was done either in Philadelphia, Blairsville, or Bedford papers for many years. The late John Scott, of the firm of Canan & Scott, publishers of the Ebensburg Sky, is authority for the statement that when he came to Ebensburg in 1817 at the age of five years, a paper was published at Beula. John Lloyd remembers an early paper which he thinks was called the Advocate, edited and published in Ebensburg in 1818 by Thomas Foley; and Mrs. Catherine Dimond, who died in Summerhill township at an advanced age, said that Foley published several papers in Ebensburg-one she thought as early as 1815. Professor A. L. Guss, formerly a teacher in Johnstown, in an able paper treating on the subject of journalism in western Pennsylvania, read before the Juniata Valley Newspaper Association, in referring to Mr. Foley's efforts, says that Thomas Foley established the Olive Branch and Cambria Record in Ebensburg in 1818, but that the venture failed in 1819. Professor Guss also says that the Cambria Gazette was started in 1828 by John Murray and Thomas McFarland, but after two years the materials were removed to Blairsville, Indiana county, for use on the Record. They were subsequently brought back by John J. Canan and William B. Brown for the use of the firm in the publication of the Sky. Guss says that the paper known as the Mountain Telegraph and Cambria Gazette was first issued November 6, 1828, by Dr. Robert and Samuel Young, but was soon suspended. From the title, it seems probable that it was a merger of the Cambria Gazette with the Mountain Telegraph, as the idea of two papers having existed simultaneously in a town the size of Ebensburg at that time appears unlikely. W. R. Thompson, of Ebensburg, editor of the MountaineerHerald, has in his possession a copy of this paper which is No. 13, Vol. 1, bearing date January 29, 1829, which contains some interesting information concerning the then projected Portage railroad; also an item regarding an "enormous cheese" which had been presented to President-elect Andrew Jackson by one Israel Cole. It weighed one hundred pounds, and was considered such a curiosity that as it passed on the road from Troy, New York, to Washington, many persons flocked to see the box containing it. The paper also contains a description of the then new and magnificent Capitol building at Washington. The publishers of the Telegraph and Gazette accepted "grain of every description in payment for subscription," and "linen and cotton rags" were taken in payment at the office, as notices in several conspicuous places in the paper testify. The census of 1830 credits Cambria county with one printing press, but says nothing about the existence of a newspaper; hence, we are forced to the conclusion that this was the press that was removed to Blairsville, and which brought back in 1831 by Canan & Brown, and that no paper had an existence in the county at the time the census was taken. The journal next is the Sky, and Robert D. Canan, of Altoona, has the file of the paper during the time it was under the control of his father-the late John J. Canan. This file includes, with two exceptions, all the numbers of the Sky from the time it was established in Ebensburg in 1831 until it passed into the hands of Steele Sample, in Johnstown, in the latter part of 1837. The Sky was a quarto, five-column paper, the editorials of which were in pica type.. It was printed on a Ramage press, and at first balls were used to ink the type. It was published by John J. Canan and William B. Brown. No. 3, Volume I, bearing date Thursday, July 28, 1831, would indicate that the birth of the paper occurred July 14, 1831. Originally the paper was neutral in politics, as it circulated among people of all shades of opinion. Communications from persons of both parties were published, and notices of mass meetings, political conventions and so forth, are found in its columns. It was not until after the Cambria Democrat, which was published by Arnold Downing in 1832, had for years upheld the cause of the Democratic, or Masonic, party, that the Sky came out during the Ritner campaign in 1835, as a Whig, or antiMasonic, journal. Its aspirations, however, were intensely patriotic, and there was not any friendliness for the "mother country" exhibited in its columns-probably for the good reason that Moses Canan was the grandson of Captain William Henderson, who fighting under General Sullivan at the battle of Long Island, was there taken prisoner, confined for three months in a British prison ship in Wallabout Bay, and, upon his exchange after the battle of Trenton, served his country until the end of the war. Moses Canan himself fought against England in 1812, and if his pen did not write the editorials of the new paper, his judgment doubtless dictated them, for Moses Canan, besides being a patriot and a lawyer of ability-one of the three legal gentlemen who attended the first court of Cambria county-was a man of literary tastes, and as early as 1810 he was a partner with W. R. Smith in the publication of the Huntingdon Literary Museum and Monthly Miscellany, a compilation of gems of poetical literature from the best authors of the time. The editorials of the Sky were remarkable for their intelligence and dignity. On May 13, 1836, M. A. Canan became a partner in the publication of the Sky. Tuesday, October 7, 1837, is the date of the last issue of the files under the Canans. The paper was afterward run for about a year by Steele Sample, and was then purchased by Abraham Morrison, but suspended for three years, when, under the name of the Cambria Gazette, it was revived by Moses A. Canan, and, under various names, and under the control of different persons, continued to be the organ of the Whig party until, on December 7, 1853, the Cambria Tribune was launched on the sea of Cambria county journalism. The issue of Cambria Gazette from Tuesday, July 27, Vol. I-24 |