Wyoming or Wilkes-Barre area, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania in the 1870s

Work

Coal set the clock

The county's visible economy was anthracite: in 1875, an estimated 12,000,000 tons of coal³ came out of Luzerne County. That work employed upwards of 30,000 men and boys³, while Wilkes-Barre also had shops making mining engines and machinery².

Faith

Many churches, many calendars

Wilkes-Barre counted 23 churches² across Baptist, Congregational, Episcopal, Jewish, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic communities. The religious week was therefore not one calendar but several.

Law & power

Courts and a new city

Government was close at hand because Wilkes-Barre was the county seat². The new county prison³ opened in 1870, and after incorporation in 1871 the city had I. M. Kirkendall³ as its first mayor.

What people feared

River, ice, and mines

The Susquehanna could turn violent: a spring ice freshet³ in 1875 damaged both riverbanks and carried away three Pittston bridges. Underground and around the breakers, mine accidents were common enough for state registers to track cause, county, fatality, nationality, job, marital status, and children⁷.

Home & table

Schools and missing houses

Wilkes-Barre had three graded public schools², a high school, a female seminary, a colored school, and select schools. But for ordinary dwellings, the record is thinner: no online source opened here gives a street-by-street description for these years.

Money

Banks and wage envelopes

Coal wages mattered on a county scale: mine workers and boys together were said to receive between $1,500,000 and $2,000,000 per month³. Wilkes-Barre also had four national banks² and three savings banks.

Who lived here

A growing valley population

The county's population grew dramatically with anthracite, increasing by more than 70,000 people from 1860 to 1870. In the 1870 census, Wilkes-Barre borough had 10,174 people⁴ and the township another 7,090.

Roads & news

Rail, canal, paper, steamboat

News and strangers came by three railroads², by canal, by bridge, and by river craft such as the Hendrick B. Wright³ and Owego. Wilkes-Barre readers had one daily and four weekly newspapers², including two German weeklies.

Year by year

1. 1870The new Luzerne County prison was completed at a reported cost of $300,000, and its first prisoners entered on August 19. here³
2. 1871Wilkes-Barre became a city and Wilkes-Barre township was annexed into the city limits. here^2,5
3. 1873The Panic of 1873 began a national depression that would have pressed on anthracite wages, banks, railroad finance, and household credit. the country
4. 1874The steamboat Hendrick B. Wright was built to run between Wilkes-Barre and Nanticoke. here³
5. 1875A spring ice freshet on the Susquehanna damaged land and carried away three bridges at Pittston. nearby³
6. 1876The United States Centennial Exposition opened in Philadelphia, a major national event within rail reach and newspaper talk of Luzerne County. the country
7. 1877The Great Railroad Strike spread across the United States, making railroad labor, troops, and industrial unrest national news in a rail-connected coal county. the country

What the sources say

• Because the requested location is known only closely as Luzerne County, this description treats the Wyoming or Wilkes-Barre area at county and valley scale rather than as a single street or household. from the sources¹
• A county history describes the Wyoming Valley as flat, fertile land along the North Branch of the Susquehanna, three to six miles wide and about twenty-five miles long between two mountain ranges. from the sources¹
• Wilkes-Barre was the county seat and stood on the east bank of the North Branch of the Susquehanna River, about 100 miles north by west of Philadelphia. from the sources²
• A contemporary encyclopedia described Wilkes-Barre as crossed by a handsome bridge, lighted with gas, and supplied with water from adjacent streams. from the sources²
• In the 1870s the North Branch division of the Pennsylvania canal passed through Wilkes-Barre. from the sources²
• Wilkes-Barre communicated with New York, Philadelphia, and the West by the Lehigh and Susquehanna, Lehigh Valley, and Lackawanna and Bloomsburg railroads. from the sources²
• The same encyclopedia said Wilkes-Barre owed its prosperity to immense anthracite deposits nearby. from the sources²
• A 1876 Luzerne County chronology estimated that 12,000,000 tons of coal were mined in the county in 1875, more than half of the anthracite region's product. from the sources³
• The 1876 chronology estimated that mining in and around Luzerne County's mines employed upwards of 30,000 men and boys. from the sources³
• The same estimate put miners' and mine boys' wages together at between $1,500,000 and $2,000,000 per month. from the sources³
• The new county prison was completed in 1870 at a reported cost of $300,000, and its first prisoners entered on August 19. from the sources³
• Wilkes-Barre borough had 10,174 people in the 1870 census, while Wilkes-Barre township had 7,090. from the sources⁴
• Wilkes-Barre became a city in 1871, and Wilkes-Barre township was annexed into the city limits. from the sources^2,5
• Wilkes-Barre's first mayor after city incorporation was I. M. Kirkendall. from the sources³
• In the 1870s Wilkes-Barre had manufactories making cars, locomotives, mining engines and machinery, foundry products, carriages, chairs, miners' tools, organs, beer, rope, pottery, and railroad tools. from the sources²
• Wilkes-Barre had four national banks with aggregate capital of $1,200,000 and three savings banks with $850,000 capital. from the sources²
• Wilkes-Barre's principal charitable institutions in the period were the city hospital and the home for friendless children. from the sources²
• Wilkes-Barre had three graded public schools, a female seminary, a colored school, a high school, and several select schools. from the sources²
• A contemporary encyclopedia counted 23 Wilkes-Barre churches: Baptist, Congregational, Episcopal, Jewish, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic. from the sources²
• Wilkes-Barre had one daily and four weekly newspapers, two of the weeklies in German. from the sources²
• An 1873 newspaper directory listed the weekly Luzerne Union of Wilkes-Barre as Democratic, four pages, $2.50 per year, established in 1852, and with circulation of 1,500. from the sources⁶
• A 1875 spring ice freshet on the Susquehanna damaged land on both sides of the river and carried away three bridges at Pittston. from the sources³
• In 1874 the steamboat Hendrick B. Wright was built to ply between Wilkes-Barre and Nanticoke, and in 1875 the side-wheel steamboat Owego arrived to run between Pittston, Wilkes-Barre, Plymouth, and Nanticoke. from the sources³
• Pennsylvania State Archives mine accident registers cover anthracite and bituminous mining accidents by mine, operator, date, cause, county, fatality, place underground or aboveground, nationality, job, marital status, and children. from the sources⁷
• No online source opened here gives a street-by-street description of ordinary housing in Wyoming village or Wilkes-Barre-area patch settlements during the 1870s. not known
• As across the anthracite counties, mine work was dangerous because roofs, gas, blasting, cars, shafts, and machinery could kill or maim workers. inferred

Sources

1. History of Luzerne County. Luzerne County, Pennsylvania
2. Wilkesbarre. The American Cyclopaedia, 1879
3. The Centennial Chronology of Luzerne County [Pa.] and Its Coal Fields, 1876
4. 1870 Census: Vol. I, Statistics of the Population of the United States, Table III. United States Census Office, 1872
5. Luzerne County Municipal Incorporation Dates. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
6. Geo. P. Rowell and Co.’s American Newspaper Directory, 1873. Geo. P. Rowell & Co., 1873
7. Anthracite Accident Registers Main Interface. Pennsylvania State Archives

Nearby, about the same time