Lehigh Zinc Company - Pennsylvania 1874

Beautiful certificate from the Lehigh Zinc Company issued in 1874. This historic document has an ornate border around it with a vignette of the company's plant. This item has the signatures of the Company’s President and Secretary, and is over 136 years old. Signs of wear as shown in the scan.


Certificate Vignette



The Lehigh Zinc Company produced its first white zinc oxide in buildings erected on the former Luckenbach farm in South Bethlehem in 1853. The Penna. and Lehigh Zinc Co., (whose corporate title was changed to the Lehigh Zinc Co. in 1860), was incorporated May 2, 1855. In 1865, this company produced the first sheet zinc in America. In 1877, the Zinc Co. had over 700 employees. The company mined zinc in Friedensville in Saucon Valley and turned it into metallic zinc in a plant in South Bethlehem. The Lehigh Zinc Company also owned large tracts of land throughout the Lehigh Valley and the eastern United States. In 1881, the company was taken over by the Lehigh Zinc and Iron Co. Archival History

HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA in 1877:

THE LEHIGH ZINC COMPANY.

About the year 1830, the attention and curiosity of the farmers of the vicinity, was excited by the discovery of a strange mineral deposit upon the lands of Jacob Ueberroth, in Saucon Valley. The character of this deposit was unknown and unsuspected, but thinking it possible that it might prove to be as valuable as the ordinary iron-ore, the proprietor tool a wagon load of the strange substance to the "Mary Ann Furnace," in Berks county, to be smelted, The attempt was a failure, and the subject was for the time dropped. No further attention was paid to it until the year 1845, when, by chance, the deposit, came to the notice of Mr. William Theodore Roepper, who, after examination, pronounced it to be "calamine," the hydro-silicate of zinc. This discovery led to a development, of the apparently inexhaustible mines which have now fed the Zinc Works at South Bethlehem, for almost a quarter of a century.

Under the superintendence of Mr. Samuel Wetherill, works for the production of zinc-oxide, in furnaces, and by a process of his own invention, were erected, in 1853, on land which he had purchased of A. Luckenbach within the limits of the town plot of Augusta. These works were completed at a cost of $85,000, and on the thirteenth of October, 1853, the first zinc-white ever made in America was produced in these works, by the combined processes of Wetherill, and of Richard Jones, Esq.

At the commencement, the works were run by all unincorporated association, which, however, was, on the second of May, 1855, incorporated by Act of Legislature, as "The Pennsylvania and Lehigh Zinc Company," with a capital $1,000,000; the object of which organization, as set forth in the Act of incorporation, was the purpose of mining zinc-ore in the counties of Lehigh and Northampton-of manufacturing; zinc paint, metallic and other articles, from said ore, and of vending the same."

The originators of the company were residents of New York and Thomas Andrews, of that city was the first president.

Mr. Wetherill continued in the superintendence of the works from the commencement of operation until September 1857, when he was succeeded in that office by Joseph Whareton. During the administration of Mr. Wetherill (a little less than four years), 4,728 tons of zinc-white had been produced, and many experiments had been made looking towards the production of metallic zinc, but these had been only partially successful.

On the sixteenth of February, 1860, the corporate, title of the company was changed, by Act of Legislature, to the present one, "The Lehigh Zinc Company." In the previous year, Mr. Wharton bad contracted with the company for the erection of works for the manufacture of metallic zinc, and the construction of these was intrusted to Louis De Gee of the firm of De Gee, Gernant & Company, of Ougree, Belgium, who had been induced to come to the United States for this express purpose. These works were completed, and the first metallic zinc was produced in them in July, 1859. Three experts in this department of the business were at that time imported from the spelter and oxide works in Belgium.

Their names were Andre Woot Detrixhe, Francois Lemall and Jean Henrard.

Importations of Belgian experts and workmen have since then been made by the company, at various times.

In 1864 and 1865, the company erected a mill for the rolling of sheet zinc, This was constructed under the superintendence of Alexander Trippel, who had previously been sent to Europe to acquaint himself with the methods of this production. The first sheet zinc was rolled in April, 1865. This was the first introduction of that art into this country; and all these several works have continued in unremitted activity to this day, their capacity being: for oxide of zinc, 3,000 tons per year; for metallic zinc, 3,600 tons per year; for sheet zinc, 3,000 casks per year, respectively-about one-half the annual consumption of the country, and of known superior qualities, owing to the usual purity of our ores. The mines have been worked to meet the demands of the several manufacturies, amounting in some single years to 19,000 tons of ore, including rich blende, which has been developed in the, progress of mining.

The mines of the company are situated at Friedenville, in the Saucon valley, three and a half miles from South Bethlehem. In the working of these mines, at a very early day, and at shallow depth, water was encountered, and overcome by a small pump worked by a single horse-power; followed by a donkey pump, which is now in use for dressed ores. Next came a Burdon engine of thirty horse-power, followed, in 1863, by a Corliss engine of one hundred horse-power, working a series of centrifugal pumps which found their limit at a depth of sixty-five feet, with 1,500 gallons of water per minute. At this time the company decided to make more lasting provision for controlling the water by establishing power to raise 4,000 gallons per minute from a depth of one hundred and fifty feet, if so much should come, and, to this end, they erected and started, in 1865, an engine of thirty-two inch cylinder and nine feet stroke, working two twenty-two inch lifting pumps, to which a third twenty-two inch lift was soon added, and the shaft carried down to one hundred and twenty-two feet in 1866, when it encountered, and with seventeen strokes per minute, raised 5,600 gallons; and there found the limit of its capacity, But the engineer, Mr. John West, had already matured it plan of engine, pumps, and shaft for raising 12,000 gallons per minute from three hundred feet depth; and, in December, 1868, the company contracted with Messrs. Merrick, of Philadelphia, for this new engine, and a year later with Messrs. I. P. Morris & Co., for the pumps, boilers and mountings. The timber for shaft and pump rods was contracted for, in Georgia. This monster engine and pumping apparatus was put in motion at Friedensville on the nineteenth of January, 1872.

From the address of the president of the company, made on that occasion, the following extract is made, as giving some idea of the enormous power of the machinery: "This is the engine which is destined to become famous as is the house that Jack built; this is the engine whose cylinder is one hundred and ten inches, and whose piston rod is ten inches, in diameter, with a ten-foot stroke; this is the engine that can work 'comfortably', as we are told, at twelve strokes per minute, and yet is not the least 'fussy'; the engine, each of whose walking beams weighs 48,000 pounds; twenty-six of whose pieces weigh each upwards of seven tons, and whose entire weight, including girders, is 1,313,300 pounds; the engine that can lift 52,800,000 pounds, or 26,400 tons, one foot high in one minute of time, with the majestic ease and consciousness of power with which an elephant lifts a straw; the engine that can raise 12,000 gallons of water per minute, from a depth of three hundred feet; which works, day and night, without rest; and whose influence is a mighty one towards transforming the subterranean haunts of Kobalt and gnome, where, from times Silurian, these spirits have sported undisturbed in the ice-cold sea, that noiselessly washes the shores of their crystal kingdom."

The magnitude of the operations of the Lehigh Zinc Company, and their influence and effect on the prosperity of South Bethlehem, may be understood from the fact that the monthly pay-rolls of the company have carried over seven hundred names, representing perhaps four times that number of individuals living in and about the borough, find the vicinity of the names, all sustained by the products of this industry; while more than 40,000 tons of anthracite coal are annually consumed by the company in the processes of reduction and manufacture. The cost of the works was as follows:

Oxide Works, $125,000 Spelter Works, 100,000 Rolling Mill, 51,000

They occupy ten acres of ground on the eastern side of New street, and extending northwardly from Second street to the Lehigh Valley Railroad.

The present president, Mr. Benjamin C. Webster, has conducted the affairs of the company since September, 1863.