A Visit with Alice Kay and the Scuba Dude

After walking on the Genessee Greenway Trail with my older brother, I headed home the next morning.

On the way home, I stopped in to visit with Alice Kay and her husband Terri. We had a pleasant lunch with super-good homemade egg salad! I had been discussing the history of the area with, and wondering out loud to Alice Kay what might be left of a couple places - notably, the Greenwood Tannery and the Barclay Railroad.

In 1891, the Greenwood Tannery was owned by Thomas Procter and Jonathan Hill. There were 75 acres connected to the plant and 15,000 acres of timberland were owned in Sullivan and Bradford Counties. Contracts were also held for bark on 11,000 acres of land at Foot of Plane.

They had 10,000 cords of bark on hand. The tannery consisted of 458 tanning vats, 13 coolers, each 8 feet deep and 8 foot diameter, 16 leaches that held 16 tons of ground bark each, 100 men worked in the tannery - 50 men worked full time in the woods and 3 (railroad) cars of leather were shipped each week.

Their supply of hides was the African Buffalo hide from Calcutta - they made only sole leather (as in the bottom of shoes) - 12,000 tons of bark used each year - 25,000 hides tanned each year.

Of the tannery, there is very little left - Alice Kay thinks one or two buildings that remain standing in Powell might have been part of the tannery.  Perhaps the most lasting legacy is the name of the town which was changed to Powell in honor of Joseph Powell, a past president of the tannery.


Of the railroad, which served the tannery, nothing remains to be seen in Powell except perhaps the barest of traces.

"Foot of Plane" was a place that the Barclay Railroad loaded cars with coal. The railroad than transported the coal to waiting canal boats in the nearby town of Towanda. The small town of Barclay was located near the top of the hill above "Foot of Plane." Terri offered to take me there to see what we might see. A visit to the Barclay Cemetery was also planned. The map below (click to enbiggen) shows the remote location of the cemetery high above the Schrader Creek at Foot of Plane.

  Foot of Plane was a place where coal was trundled down the steep hillside in small carts from the mines located near the top of the hill.  The town of Barclay was located near the top of the plane. Of Foot of Plane, there exists only one or two building today. There is no sign of the coal tipples (bins) nor the Barclay Railroad.

An old drawing showing the Foot of Plane - Scanned from original copy of Beers 1869 Atlas of Bradford County showing us what it looked like "back in the day."

 

A small creek named Coal Run parallels the gravel "road" (I use that term loosely!) up the hill to Barclay Cemetery.  Where the town of Barclay, founded in May of 1869, stood, nothing appears to remain.  The Great Depression, the plague, and the collapse of the coal market led to the towns demise.

After parking the truck and a short walk into the woods, Terri and I arrived at the gate of Barclay Cemetery - now at last, there were some "remains" to be seen (bad pun, I know).  In the woods at the top of Barclay Mountain, are gravestones intermingled with "new growth trees" and sinkholes from collapsed mine shafts (known as "drifts".)

I found the place spooky - but there was an ethereal air to the place - the shaft of sunlight through the trees on one of the nearly forgotten plots was awe-inspiring to me.

Time and neglect (and perhaps vandalism) has taken its toll on the edifices raised in memory of those that had passed on..

In this case, the heartbreak of William Huggan (1841 in Nova Scotia - 1883) and Elizabeth nee' Rogers Huggan (1847 in French Canada – 1923) whose family had so many that died at very, very tender ages. James - 2 months, George Henry - 7 months, William - 8 months, and Henry 1 year and a month.

A site that list all the graves that remain readable is (here)

I want to thank my gracious host for the wonderful lunch and the trip up the mountain.  As always, it was very nice to see and visit with you!