Lesley.] 40 [April 3| 



of the Southern and Middle fields, but without finding it in an equally 

 good condition in any other parts of the region. He often expressed to 

 me his hopes and his disappointments regarding it. It was but an episode 

 in his career, for his large fortune was chiefly accumulated by the pur- 

 chase and exploitation of the Mammoth and other large beds overlying 

 the Conglomerate. 



After leaving school, Peter took a full course at Oxford Academy, New 

 York, with the object of a better geological acquaintance with coal and 

 coal mining. But at that early date, the science of geology could hardly 

 be said to exist. In 1835, the New Jersey and Virginia State surveys, 

 and in 183G the Pennsylvania survey, were begun. Prof. H. D. Rogers' 

 first assistants were Mr. Booth, afterwards the chemist of the United 

 States Mint, and Mr. Frazer, afterwards Professor of Chemistry in the 

 University of Pennsylvania. The following year, Mr. Trego, Mr. Mc- 

 Kinney, Dr. Whelpley, and others were appointed assistants on the sur- 

 vey. In 1838, Peter W. Sheafer received his commission, while Dr. 

 "Whelpley had charge of the Southern and Middle field, and Mr. McKin- 

 ley of the Northern field. Henderson and I were the next year Whelp- 

 ley's aids, and I saw little or nothing at that time of Peter Sheafer, who 

 was busy with his own part of the field work, and was laying the founda- 

 tion of that accurate knowledge of the order and quality of each coal bed 

 which enabled him afterwards to make himself easily the principal practi- 

 cal mining engineer of the anthracite region. His mind and the training 

 of it was just suited to this work of his life. He had good judgment, in- 

 exhaustible liking and ability for work, a retentive memory, a quick eye 

 for money values, a peaceable disposition, great caution in undertaking, 

 and pertinacity in accomplishing the exploitation of properties. He made 

 himself personally acquainted with everybody and everything that hap- 

 pened or was likely to happen in the anthracite world, and kept himself 

 in constant intercourse with owners, investors, speculators, mining pros- 

 pectors, engineers, and railroad companies ; and, what was the key to his 

 fortune, never rode hobbies, or allowed himself to be turned aside into 

 other pursuits ; although at various times in his life he traveled far to 

 examine and report upon distant coal fields for those who employed him 

 as a professional adviser. I have known, also, of his reports on iron ore 

 properties and oil and gas lands. He was also a great collector of statis- 

 tics, and was the first to conceive the idea of a statistical coal pagoda, with 

 lines drawn across it at regular intervals to represent successive years, the 

 old legendary 365 tons of anthracite sent to market the first year forming 

 the apex of the pagoda, and its successive stories, bulging or being over- 

 hung according as the anthracite market received a greater or less addi- 

 tion to its ever-swelling volume of trade. He was for many years the 

 recognized authority for the statistics of the region. 



In 1848, he married Miss Harriet Whitcomb, of New England, and set 

 up his home and office in Pottsville, the capital of the anthracite country. 

 For forty-three years this has been his happy, hospitable, and elegant 



