Folks:
Here is another short excerpt from 1829 that discusses the charcoal trade at that time.
Extracted from Hazard’s Register of Pennsylvania : Devoted to the Preservation of Facts and Documents, and Every Other Kind of Useful Information Respecting the State of Pennsylvania. Vol. IV, No. 17., Whole no. 95, 24 October 1829, page 268.
THE CHARCOAL TRADE.
Few of our citizens, although they are eternally beset by Charcoal Jemmies, have any idea of the extent to which this business has already arrived in Philadelphia. Not less than eighty wagons are daily in our streets, vending this now indispensable article of fuel, and each teamster generally contrives to sell out his load during the day. A load is worth 10 dollars wholesale, or about 15 dollars if retailed out by the barrel. Thus, if eighty loads are sold daily, at ten dollars each, we have an amount equal to eight hundred dollars, expended every day in this city for Charcoal. The sum may appear too great to be correct; but we are assured by those well acquainted with the trade, that it is a fair estimate; and indeed, when it is remembered how perpetually our streets are thronged with wagons, at all hours in the day, the sum will not be thought exaggerated.
The profits realized by burning and selling of Charcoal are enormous. Out of a load which sells for ten dollars, a profit of 5 dollars is made, clear of all expenses: and when it is retailed at 28 to 31 cents a barrel, an additional gain of about two dollars on the load is the result. If this profit is realized now, how enormous must it have been last winter, when Charcoal was scarce at half a dollar per barrel. Several individuals had large yards filled during the summer, in expectation of the winter’s demand, when the closing of the navigation would cut off all additional supplies from Jersey. As fuel became scarce, they demanded the extortionate price of half a dollar per barrel, and received it for nearly the whole amount of the immense stock they had on hand—thus, realizing, out of the distresses of the people, a most exorbitantly unfair profit.
The impositions practised upon our citizens by the venders of Charcoal have been frequently complained of in the newspapers, and are well known to house-keepers generally; yet no measures have been taken to regulate the sale of the article, and thus to do away their dishonest tricks We have known instances where gentlemen have engaged from ten to twenty barrels of a man in the street, at 28 cents per barrel, and sent him to the purchaser’s house, with directions there to be paid. The wagoner, on delivering the charcoal, has demanded, and insisted on receiving, 37 cents from the lady of the house, saying that was the price which her husband had agreed to pay.
So great and undiminished is the demand for this new article of fuel, that snug fortunes have been already realized by several individuals in and near Camden, while others, but recently embarked in the business, are rapidly arriving at the same desirable goal. The burning process is Carried on in every direction around Camden.—Some manufacturers are located as far distant as twenty miles from the same place, in the heart of the dense pine lands of New Jersey; yet, with all the expense attending the transportation of an article so bulky, an enormous profit is still realized on the sale of it. We look upon the introduction of stone coal as the main cause of starting this new business. Thus the state of Pennsylvania, while she enriches herself from new resources existing altogether within herself scatters a large portion of the funds realized by the coal trade Into the hands of her less fertile sister state. Indeed, the discovery of anthracite may be considered of nearly as much present advantage to New Jersey as that discovery is to Pennsylvania herself. Yet, while it creates a steady demand for these forests of pines, which but a few years ago were wholly useless, it affords, as an offset to the golden shower now rained down upon her, the gloomy prospect of laying bare the barren fields on which her forests flourish, unfit for cultivation, and for the next half century, incapable of yielding even a second crop of pine.—Saturday Bulletin.
Best regards,
Jerseyman
Here is another short excerpt from 1829 that discusses the charcoal trade at that time.
Extracted from Hazard’s Register of Pennsylvania : Devoted to the Preservation of Facts and Documents, and Every Other Kind of Useful Information Respecting the State of Pennsylvania. Vol. IV, No. 17., Whole no. 95, 24 October 1829, page 268.
THE CHARCOAL TRADE.
Few of our citizens, although they are eternally beset by Charcoal Jemmies, have any idea of the extent to which this business has already arrived in Philadelphia. Not less than eighty wagons are daily in our streets, vending this now indispensable article of fuel, and each teamster generally contrives to sell out his load during the day. A load is worth 10 dollars wholesale, or about 15 dollars if retailed out by the barrel. Thus, if eighty loads are sold daily, at ten dollars each, we have an amount equal to eight hundred dollars, expended every day in this city for Charcoal. The sum may appear too great to be correct; but we are assured by those well acquainted with the trade, that it is a fair estimate; and indeed, when it is remembered how perpetually our streets are thronged with wagons, at all hours in the day, the sum will not be thought exaggerated.
The profits realized by burning and selling of Charcoal are enormous. Out of a load which sells for ten dollars, a profit of 5 dollars is made, clear of all expenses: and when it is retailed at 28 to 31 cents a barrel, an additional gain of about two dollars on the load is the result. If this profit is realized now, how enormous must it have been last winter, when Charcoal was scarce at half a dollar per barrel. Several individuals had large yards filled during the summer, in expectation of the winter’s demand, when the closing of the navigation would cut off all additional supplies from Jersey. As fuel became scarce, they demanded the extortionate price of half a dollar per barrel, and received it for nearly the whole amount of the immense stock they had on hand—thus, realizing, out of the distresses of the people, a most exorbitantly unfair profit.
The impositions practised upon our citizens by the venders of Charcoal have been frequently complained of in the newspapers, and are well known to house-keepers generally; yet no measures have been taken to regulate the sale of the article, and thus to do away their dishonest tricks We have known instances where gentlemen have engaged from ten to twenty barrels of a man in the street, at 28 cents per barrel, and sent him to the purchaser’s house, with directions there to be paid. The wagoner, on delivering the charcoal, has demanded, and insisted on receiving, 37 cents from the lady of the house, saying that was the price which her husband had agreed to pay.
So great and undiminished is the demand for this new article of fuel, that snug fortunes have been already realized by several individuals in and near Camden, while others, but recently embarked in the business, are rapidly arriving at the same desirable goal. The burning process is Carried on in every direction around Camden.—Some manufacturers are located as far distant as twenty miles from the same place, in the heart of the dense pine lands of New Jersey; yet, with all the expense attending the transportation of an article so bulky, an enormous profit is still realized on the sale of it. We look upon the introduction of stone coal as the main cause of starting this new business. Thus the state of Pennsylvania, while she enriches herself from new resources existing altogether within herself scatters a large portion of the funds realized by the coal trade Into the hands of her less fertile sister state. Indeed, the discovery of anthracite may be considered of nearly as much present advantage to New Jersey as that discovery is to Pennsylvania herself. Yet, while it creates a steady demand for these forests of pines, which but a few years ago were wholly useless, it affords, as an offset to the golden shower now rained down upon her, the gloomy prospect of laying bare the barren fields on which her forests flourish, unfit for cultivation, and for the next half century, incapable of yielding even a second crop of pine.—Saturday Bulletin.
Best regards,
Jerseyman