Beautifully engraved specimen from the
Pennsylvania Water & Power Company. This historic document was printed by the Security Banknote Company and has an
ornate border around it with a vignette of a power plant by a water fall. It has the printed signature of John Abbet Walls as Company President.
Certificate Vignette
Pennsylvania Water & Power Co., became the only power plant in the world to combine a hydroelectric station and a fossil-fuel station on the same site in the 1920's. In the 1950s, Pennsylvania Power & Light purchased Pennsylvania Water & Power Co. and the Scranton Electric Co.
John Abbet Walls earned his degree
in engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. Following his graduation in 1899, he began
working for the Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power and
Manufacturing Company. He became Assistant Engineer of
the Montreal Shawinigan Water and Power Company in Canada
in 1901. Later, he was named Chief Engineer of the
Pennsylvania Water and Power Company. As Chief Engineer,
he designed, and directed the construction of one of the
world's largest dams. He was later appointed president.
By 1910, the lines at the McCalls
Ferry Dam were transmitting electricity to Baltimore and
many nearby cities. Following his work on the Safe Harbor
Dam, which was opened in 1929, he was named President of
the Safe Harbor Water Power Corporation. John Abbet Walls
was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science by Bucknell
University in 1931.