Pittston, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania in the 1840s

Work

Coal beside farms

The ground offered two kinds of labor: the same acre might employ farmer and miner³. Coal was increasingly followed by drift openings into hillsides³, and company plans were gathering around a forty-seven-mile route from Pittston to Hawley^6,7.

Faith

Churches still forming

The Presbyterian presence became visible with a brick building completed in 1846^8,9. Catholic worship was still more scattered, with priests visiting homes in the Wyoming Valley¹⁰ before a Pittston parish was formally established.

Law & power

Township, not borough

People here lived under township and county government because Pittston was not yet a borough^1,2. Political power was narrow by modern standards: adult white men were the ordinary electorate.

In the air

Canal versus railroad

The practical argument of the decade was how coal should reach market: the canal already linked Pittston to Philadelphia⁵, while promoters planned the gravity railroad to Hawley^6,7.

What people feared

Underground work begins

Mining danger was becoming part of local life as coal was worked through narrow underground passages into hillsides³. The later street itself had hazards too, remembered as a deep ravine crossing Main Street².

Home & table

Sparse village record

The later borough site had been small within living memory, with fourteen heads of families in 1828^1,2. For the 1840s, ordinary houses, rents, and food prices are not described in the opened sources.

Who lived here

County growing, mostly white

The broader county counted 43,810 White residents and 196 Black residents in 1840⁴. A precise Pittston Township population for 1840 was not found, so the local number remains an online gap.

Roads & news

Canal before newspaper

News and goods moved along the North Branch Canal to Pittston⁵ before Pittston had a known local paper. The Gazette at Pittston began in 1850¹², just after the decade.

Year by year

1. 1840Luzerne County recorded 43,810 White residents and 196 Black residents. nearby⁴
2. 1842A Presbyterian congregation serving Pittston was organized. here^8,9
3. 1843A county description identified the Wyoming and Lackawanna valleys as the principal anthracite basin of Luzerne County. nearby³
4. 1846The Presbyterian congregation completed a brick church building in Pittston village. here^8,9
5. 1847Ground was broken for the gravity railroad intended to carry coal from Pittston toward Hawley. here^6,7
6. 1848Revolutions and uprisings across Europe sent political news and later migrants across the Atlantic. the world
7. 1848The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War and added vast western territory to the United States. the country
8. 1849The Pennsylvania Coal Company was incorporated. here^1,7

Pictures from the time

What the sources say

• Within the later Pittston borough limits, a county history says there were only fourteen heads of families in 1828. from the sources^1,2
• Pittston was still part of Pittston Township throughout the 1840s; a separate borough government was not organized until 1853. from the sources^1,2
• Pittston lay on the Susquehanna River in Luzerne County, at the north end of the Wyoming Valley coal district. from the sources^3,7
• Luzerne County’s recorded population in 1840 was 43,810 White residents and 196 Black residents. from the sources⁴
• The North Branch Canal had been extended to Pittston by 1831, connecting Luzerne County coal to the Philadelphia market. from the sources⁵
• An 1843 county description placed the principal Luzerne anthracite formation in a trough four to five miles wide and about fifty miles long, under the Wyoming and Lackawanna valleys. from the sources³
• The same 1843 description said Luzerne coal beds varied from 1 to 30 feet thick. from the sources³
• The 1843 account called the coal region also one of Pennsylvania’s productive agricultural districts, saying the same acre might employ both agriculturist and miner. from the sources³
• By the early 1840s, local anthracite was commonly worked by drifting narrow underground passages into hillsides rather than only by stripping surface rock. from the sources³
• The Pennsylvania Coal Company and related charters planned a gravity railroad about forty-seven miles from Pittston to Hawley on the Lackawaxen route. from the sources^6,7
• Ground was broken for the Pittston-to-Hawley gravity railroad in 1847, practical work increased in 1848, and the line was finished in May 1850. from the sources^6,7
• A Presbyterian congregation serving Pittston was organized in 1842, completed a brick building in the village in summer 1846, and incorporated as the First Presbyterian Church of Pittston on January 22, 1848. from the sources^8,9
• Catholic life in Pittston had roots in the 1840s, when priests visited homes in the Wyoming Valley, but St. John the Evangelist parish was not formally established until 1854. inferred¹⁰
• The first Catholic parish established in Pittston, Mary Help of Christians, dates to 1851 and served Irish immigrants drawn by coal mining jobs. inferred¹¹
• A county history remembered Main Street before later grading as crossed by a deep ravine near the later Pennsylvania Coal Company office site. from the sources²
• The Pittston and Wilkes-Barre plank road was built in 1851, just after the decade, and used trestle work near Patterson’s lumber yard to cross a ravine. from the sources²
• The Pennsylvania Coal Company was incorporated in 1849 and later became one of the largest coal operators in the Pittston region. from the sources^1,7
• Pittston had no known local newspaper in the 1840s; the Gazette at Pittston began in 1850. from the sources¹²
• As across Pennsylvania in the 1840s, adult white men were the ordinary electorate; Black men in Pennsylvania had been disfranchised by the state constitution of 1838. inferred
• No detailed online description was found of ordinary Pittston houses, house rents, or food prices in the 1840s. not known
• No opened source gives a Pittston Township population total specifically for 1840. not known

Sources

1. Early Pittston, Luzerne Co., Pa.. Luzerne County PAGenWeb
2. History of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Selections, Part 79. LDS Genealogy, 1893
3. Luzerne County, Pennsylvania: 1843 Luzerne History. Genealogy Trails, 1843
4. Baseline Survey Census Research: Luzerne County. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 2022
5. Coal. The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia
6. Gravity Railroad. Wayne County Historical Society
7. History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe Counties, Pennsylvania, Part 44. LDS Genealogy, 1886
8. History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming Counties, Pa., Part 104. LDS Genealogy, 1880
9. History of the Presbytery of Luzerne, State of Pennsylvania, Part 11. LDS Genealogy, 1897
10. The Roman Catholic Parishes of Pittston: St. John the Evangelist Parish. St. John the Evangelist Parish
11. The Roman Catholic Parishes of Pittston: Our Lady of the Eucharist Pittston. St. John the Evangelist Parish
12. 1880 Census: Volume 8, The Newspaper and Periodical Press. United States Census Office, 1884

Pittston in other decades

Nearby, about the same time