COAL MINING. 319 
drifting in this region were operated by Messrs. Asaph Whittlesey and 
Samuel Newton in the year 1820, the coal being sold exclusively for 
blacksmithing purposes. In 1818 the first shipments were made to 
Cleveland, from the mines of Mr. Henry Newberry, with the object of 
supplying the lake steam-boats with coal, but wood was so abundant 
and cheap that the coal found little sale. In noting this fact in my 
fourth annual report, as Inspector of Mines (1877), I received the 
following letter from Mr. H. V. Bronson, of Peninsula, Summit county, 
who took the first boat-load of coal to Cleveland : 
PENINSULA, SuMMit County, Ouro, April 8, 1878. 
ANDREW Roy, Esa.: 
Str: Not long since I saw in the papers that in your annual report, as State 
Inspector of Mines, that the first coal shipped by canal to Cleveland was in the year 
1828, and by the late Mr. Henry Newberry, of Cuyahoga Falls, father of Professor 
Newberry, of Cleveland. I took that coal to Cleveland for Mr. Newberry, it being 50 
years ago since it was done. I was then in the seventeenth year of my age, and 
have resided in this place ever since 1824. There were three of us boys on the boat. 
One of them was about a year my junior, and now resides in one of the townships 
of Cuyahoga county, and became a successful inventor and business man. The 
other one was then in the twelfth year of his age, and is now a lawyer with a lucra- 
tive practice, in a beautiful growing city in an adjoining State. On the first day of 
January last, 1 made a New Year’s call on Prof. Newberry, at his home in Cleveland. 
A few years ago I presented Prof. Newberry with a lump of the coal taken from one 
of the boat-loads of that coal. As this whole transaction is somewhat remarkable, I 
have taken the liberty to write you about it, especially as we three boatmen are 
natives of Cuyahoga county. 
Yours, respectfully, 
H. V. Bronson, 
The Talmadge Coal Company was organized in 1838, and opened 
mines on Coal Hill, from which most of the coal was mined for the 
Cleveland market, until the year 1845. The coal on the property of 
this company was discovered by Mr. H. F. Wright, in 1825, while 
digging a ground-hog out from under a stump. ‘The first working was 
done by stripping the vein, and quarrying it out with pick axes. In 
1832 the Ohio Canal reached the coal fields near Massillon, and the 
mines of this region were opened by Cyrus Mendenhall. In 1845 
David Tod, afterwards Governor of Ohio, commenced shipping by canal 
from the mines of Brier Hill to Cleveland. | 
The late President Garfield was, in early youth, a canal boat driver 
from the mines of Gov. David Tod, at Brier Hill, to Cleveland. He 
