THE HESS-ONTELAUNEE SLATE QUARRY IN LYNNPORT, PA By Milton Trexler
One hundred and seventy-four slate quarries were located between Quaker City, PA, and Slatington, PA, during the 19th century. Evidence of two quarries can’t be viewed because they rest at the bottom of Leaser Lake! Combined, this entire “slate belt,” a multi-million dollar industry, was the largest producer in the world. In addition to just slate roofs, blackboards,mantels, grave vaults, electrical insulations, pool tables, and even kitchen sinks, Slatington’s nine factories in 1878 produced 20,000 school small slates per day or, 3,300,000 per year!
Photo 1: School blackboard
Lehigh County contained five different slate quarrying districts. The first was Slatington district, with 75 quarries in Lehigh County and 54 in Northampton; the second was Lynnport, with 20 quarries in Lehigh and 8 in Berks; third was Treichlers, with 7 in Lehigh and 5 in Northampton; Lowhill with 4 quarries in Lehigh, and Walberts with 1 quarry in Lehigh. While the Bangor, Slatington, Pen Argyl, Wind Gap, and other area quarries were the major players, a large Lynnport quarry, situated about 1,200 feet behind Miller’s Garage, was most productive. It was last known as the “Hess-Ontelaunee Quarry.” North of Hess were two more, the Shenton Quarries:one was a half-a-mile north of Lynnport on one of the headwaters of Ontelaunee Creek; another, to the immediate west had a big bed, said to have been excellent for blackboards. Both were used to supply the mills at the Hess Quarry. Back toward the Ontelaunee Rod and Gun Club, a mile and a half west of Mosserville, was a fourth, but nothing else is known about it. Half-a-mile southwest of it are the remains of a fifth quarry, known as the Laurel Hill Slate Company’s Quarry. And a sixth, known as the Kuntz Quarry, one mile east of Hess’s was along Route 143 and viewable by the highway.
During the late 1940s, despite my grandmother’s edict, my friend and I pioneered the area around Hess Quarry, build forts, played chase and shot BB guns yet never dared to dive or swim. At a depth of approximately 200 feet, who knows what kinds of equipment or lake monsters lurked beneath its placid surface. Moreover, it was a deathly quiet, scary place, full of black snakes with one old dilapidated rowboat at the eastern entrance. “Were there fish in there?” None jumped or came close to the quarry’s shallow
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bank. And yes, even a woman, we were told, jumped off the 60-foot western cliff to her death!
Our secluded playground was once known as “The Enterprise Slate Quarry,”opened about the year 1845, by a local company consisting of Levi Kistler and others. David Follweiler owned the land. It soon passed to James M. Porter, McDowell and Robert M. Jones, who had also opened quarries in Slatington, with David Follweiler as its superintendent. Jones, a Welsh immigrant, who lived in Bangor, was perhaps the first to use industrial methods. Trained as a geologist, Jones used dynamite, instead of pick and shovel to blast out the slate. In 1860 Anthony Donnon of Philadelphia started a mantel factory, which was continued later on by Henry F. Martin.
J. G. Jones in 1873 operated another factory, The Laurel Hill Quarry Company, consisting of Mr. Patton of Philadelphia, A. C. McHose and others with McHose as superintendent. Ownership of the Lynnport quarries and mantel mills changed several times over 25 years due to lack of capital, primitive hand pumps that could not evacuate the water, and the difficulty of hauling heavy slate to Slatington using horse-drawn wagons.
But on June 18, 1874, Mrs. Henry Bushong took a mallet and drove a final silver spike into the Berks County Railroad track in Lynnport with her husband, Henry, the president of the railroad, watching along with other townspeople. After which there were three hardy cheers plus applause! Some women were even given fishing rods and went to the Ontelaunee Creek to “entice the coy members of the finny tribe.” David Follweiler’s son, on the other hand, escorted a group to the Lynnport quarries of Dr. Henry F. Martin of Allentown, who ten years ago opened several quarries for the manufacturing of mantels as well as the building of a two-story factory. And as the excursion train pulled out for Reading at 6:30 p.m., folks wavedalong the various stations and Martin now had a railroad and a siding that was extended to the railroad from the Hess Quarry. (1)
Lidgewood Manufacturing Company of Brooklyn, NY, made estimates for a complete new steam plant, and in 1880 all hoisting was done by steam, while the drilling and dressing done by hand. Next came Jesse B. Kimes, of Philadelphia. After serving as a Civil War prisoner, Mr. Kimes, (2) a well-known operator of slate quarries, organized the firm of J. B. Kimes & Company for the manufacture of mantels, having the finish and appearance
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of the finest quality of marble, plus grates, slate pencils, table tops, and wall facings. John G. Jones was the superintendent. Due to disagreements, the partnership of Enterprise Slate Co., with Rev. James Nathan Bachman, Jacob Waidelich, William Hess, Sylvester Snyder and David Wanamaker,dissolved in 1895. Next, Mr. Kimes, having purchased a major interest in the same, formed a new company known as the Ontelaunee Slate Manufacturing Company. He shared ownership with Rev. James Nathan Bachman and William Hess. According to one source, Waidelich worked as superintendent until 1902. This same source also noted that between 35-50 men were employed. (3)
Photo: Stock CertificatePhotos: 2, 3, and 4, (sink, mantels, shelf, box)
How my great grandfather, the Reverend James Nathan Bachman (1854-1907), met Kimes is a mystery. Not only that, but my great grandmother, Louisa Bachman, nee George (1861-1932), was Hess Quarry’s bookkeeper—quite an unusual job for a minister’s wife!
Photos: Ledger Book pictures
At one point, according to local gossip, land was needed for expansion, but Lewis H. Oswald’s son Charles, who owned the adjacent property, said no. The hotel, where the immigrant workers, mostly Italians, drank, ate, and may have lived, thus lost potential customers.
The peek year for slate was 1903, after which school slate was replaced by cheap paper, while slate roofs started to disappear due to asbestos and tar roofing materials. In 1913 John Watt started or took over a small factory, manufacturing slate mantels, registers and sink-tops, and buying the materials from the slate operators. Prohibitive freight rates started adding to the decline and Hess Quarry was abandoned sometime around WW I. Many workers quit and went to work at Bethlehem Steel and elsewhere. Dr. Wilson P. Kistler, the last owner, removed the machinery and factory and later sold the land to John G. Jones.
Today, there is no easy way to get to Hess Quarry, the bridge across the Ontelaunee tributary that we ran across, is long gone. My youth is also gone; however, I can still remember peering through the screen door of the Lynnport Hotel during the 1940s on a Friday night, alive with banjos and
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fiddles, animated dancers, and the aroma of spilt beer. Well, I can’t go back the hotel, but I still can go back and view the Quarry!
Photo: Picture of Hess Quarry taken May 2022.
(The Hess quarry was 300 x 200 feet with 60 feet of slate in the walls.)
(1) “Reading Times,” June 19, 1874
(2) In 1860-61 Mr. Kimes was engaged in business at Charlottesville, VA, as manager of the Old Dominion Slate Company. For refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederate states of America he was imprisoned in McDaniel's negro jail at Richmond, VA, in February 1862, and in May following was transferred to Salisbury, NC, but in October was sent back to Richmond and for six weeks was in Libby prison. He spent altogether about nine months in southern prisons and on the 30th of November, 1862, was paroled and sent to Washington, D. C., to be exchanged for a Confederate prisoner in the jail there, but the latter had made his escape before Mr. Kimes reached the capital. The military government at Washington refused to allow him to return to Richmond to fulfill the obligation of his parole and President Lincoln gave him a captain's commission in the United States Volunteer Army, assigned to the One Hundred and Ninth United States Colored Infantry, then recruiting in Kentucky. He later participated in the campaign that led up to the surrender of the Confederate forces at Appomattox, April 9, 1865.
(3) “Reading Times,” June 19, 1874
