In 1850, there had been a movement to create a new county, by the name of Freeland County. Had both of these proposals passed, many of us would today live in Ario City, Freeland County Pa, instead of Watsontown, Northumberland County Pa.
"The citizens of the town have a borough charter in contemplation, and are taking steps in that direction. They propose also changing the name of the place to Ario City, in compliment to Ario Pardee, Esq., whose capital and enterprise are doing so much in improving the place. We would respectfully suggest that good taste would advise the dropping of the term city. As a name for the town, if the citizens desire a change, Ario would not be inappropriate. "
Ariovistus Pardee was born on Nov. 1910 in Columbia County New York, the son of Ariovistus and Eliza [Platt] Pardee. From a young age, Ario had been prepared to engage in a career of teaching.
In June 1830, Edwin Douglas lured him away from teaching to engineering with the Delaware and Raritan Canal Co in New Jersey. Two years later he was transferred to Pa to make surveys for the Beaver Meadow Railroad. He remained in the employ of the Hazelton Railroad and Coal Co until 1840 when he became an independent coal operator. In 1840, Pardee began buying land in Hazleton, believing it to contain more coal than its current operators realized. He formed his own coal mining company with business partner John Gillingham Fell, who would later go on to become the president of the Lehigh Valley Railroad.
The land Pardee purchased turned out to sit on an incredibly valuable vein of anthracite, and the company began setting up mines to extract the valuable coal. In 1848, Pardee built a gravity railroad to ship his coal, which was later connected to the greater Lehigh Valley railroad. The effect of this new industry transformed Hazleton from a cluster of houses to a populated town, and Pardee personally helped found many banks, churches, schools, and libraries, thus being credited as the founder of Hazleton
Pardee bought large tracts of timberland in the middle Susquehanna Valley, and by owning his own lumber mills, was able to supply his mines with mine props instead of purchasing these elsewhere.
Ario Pardee never lived in Watsontown, but he erected factories and mills there.
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A Growing Town.
The Sunbury Gazette, May 1867
No town in the county is making more rapid strides in the march of improvement than Watsontown. Favorably located on the river, canal and railroad, and surrounded by a rich agricultural district, it had has great advantages, which are now being more fully developed by the capital and enterprise of Mr. A. Pardee, who may be classed among the wealthiest, as he is certainly one of the most energetic and enterprising men in Pennsylvania.
Mr. Pardee has built up a colossal fortune, estimated from six to ten millions of dollars, in the Hazelton coal region, where his operations are of the most extensive character. For some years he had been procuring from the upper end of this county much of the grain and provisions used by his employees in the coal region, having stores for this purposes at Dewart and Watsontown. In this way he became acquainted with the advantages of Watsontown as a site for business, and he conceived and is now carrying out the project of making it the center of a heavy lumber trade. With this view he purchased, some eighteen months or two years ago, 23.000 acres of land on White Deer creek, heavily timbered with pine and hemlock. This land extends some twenty-five miles up the creek, and to facilitate the floating of the logs down the river, the channel of the creek has been enlarged and deepened by dams and other means, from the timber lands down to its mouth where it empties into the river opposite Watsontown. A dam has been thrown across the mouth of the creek, forming a basin capable of holding two millions of feet of timber. This basin is already full of logs, and twelve million feet have been cut and are ready to be run down the creek. The logs can be easily be floated across the river into a pocket constructed on tic he Watsontown side, by which they are conducted to the hoisting mill which jacks or elevates them over the canal into the basin connected with the the saw mill. During low water the floating of the be logs across the river will be facilitated by a boom stretched across the Stream, which can be removed during high water. These are the preparations made by Mr. Pardee for stocking the mammoth mill at Watsontown, of which we will give a description. In addition to the timber land on White Deer Creek, he has purchased about 40,000 acres in Clinton and Clearfield counties.
As shown on the 1880 Fowler Map Of Watsontown
Preparatory to erecting his mill Mr. Pardee purchased the old Watson place, on the southern limits of the town, and about eighteen months ago commenced the erection of the building, which is now, we may say, completed. and ready for making lumber as soon as the basin intended as a receptacle or the logs is finished. With perhaps one exception, it is the largest saw mill on the river, but in point of completeness of finish, solidity of construction, and all the appliances and improvements necessary to constitute a first class mill, it is far ahead of all competition. It has three gangs of in saws and three muley saws, and can manufacture 80,000 feet of lumber per day. The engine is of 150 horse power, built at Mr.Pardee's shops at Hazelton. Eight boilers, 35 feet in length and 32 it inches in diameter, with furnaces adapted to the so burning of saw dust, furnish steam for this powerful engine. The saw dust, which will constitute the fuel, is carried by a beautiful piece of machinery directly to the furnaces. The stack is a substantial specimen of brick work, SO feet high, put up by the Messrs. Overpec and Miller, with the other brick work connected with the mill, during last December and January. They displayed great energy in completing_ their work, notwithstanding the inclemency of the season. Mr. A. R. Stebbins, gentleman of great experience in the business and al who has been engaged in building some of the largest mills on the river, is the head millwright in the construction of the Pardee mill. It will certainly be a monument to his skill as a builder. Nicholas Gouger has acted as boss carpenter.
The basin or log pond immediately connected with the mill, is not yet completed, but the workmen are busily engaged excavating, and surrounding it with the necessary embankments. We suppose it will be completed in a few weeks, when the mill will be ready for operation. The machinery for jacking or hoisting the logs into the basin, which is in a separate building about a hundred yards from the mill, will be driven by an 80 horse 'engine. This power will be further employed in-driving several shingle machines. We cannot state exactly the number of men these works will employ when in full operation, but they will greatly increase the population, business and prosperity of the place where they are located.
Mr. Jacob M. Fullmer, of Milton, successor to the late Wm. H. Follmer, is the superintendent of Mr. Pardee's lumber operations at Watsontown. In addition to this new mill there are other lumber works in the town. Pardee & Cook are running the old mill, at the northern extremity of the town, with which Messrs. Fullmer, Holopeter, and other gentlemen were formerly connected. Bly, Wagner, & Co. are doing a thriving business in turning, out flooring, siding and other prepared lumber, and H. C. Dentler has engaged in the manufacture of window blinds, which promises to be a paying business. Holopeter & Wagner propose erecting a large steam tannery on the run east of the Depot. They will have a great advantage in being able to get an abundance of oak and hemlock bark up the White Deer Creek. One of the established institutions of the town is R. H. McCormiek's Agency for the sale of the White Deer woolen fabrics, which is doing a heavy business in disposing of those excellent goods.
We are told that upwards of seventy houses are being built or have been contracted for, to be put up this summer, within the limits of the town. John H. Forsman has commenced the building of a three story brick Hotel. Wm. Cooner is enlarging his hotel, and, we understand, intends raising his building to three stories. Our old friend, Geo. Burns, who has shown an enterprising spirit in building and improving since he located in the place has commenced the brick-making business, and will be able to supply a part of the material for the projected new houses.
The citizens of the town have a borough charter in contemplation, and are taking steps in that direction. They propose also changing the name of the place to Ario City, in compliment to Ario Pardee, Esq., whose capital and enterprise are doing so much in improving the place. We would respectfully suggest that good taste would advise the dropping of the term city. As a name for the town, if the citizens desire a change, Ario would not be inappropriate.
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More Stories & History Of Watsontown
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The real dawn of prosperity came to Watsontown upon the erection and completion of what was commonly known as the "Big Bill", erected in 1866 on the land at the lower end of town, now owned by James Dixon and completed in 1867, by Ario Pardee of Hazelton for the purpose of sawing the timber brought from the head waters of White Deer Creek. This was built at a cost of $100,000 and so complete was it that it was able to cut in nine years the timber taken off a tract which it had been estimated would take thirty years to cut.
The building of this Mill marked the beginning of the activity of the Bly boys. These young men, or particularly James and William, had the contract for bringing the logs down from the lumber tract, down the White Deer Creek, thence into the Susquehanna River, and deliver them to the boom directly in front of what was known as the "Old Jack Mill," from whence they were transferred into the basin which covered a large portion of land surrounding the "Big Mill."
Shortly after the completion of this mill [fenced area South Of Watsontown Park], a large planning mill was erected directly south of the "Big Mill" at a point near where the tanks of the Atlantic Refining Company are not located. The upper part of this mill was used for general planing mill work and the lower part, or basement was used for the manufacture of wooden pails. The planing mill work was also the enterprise of Ario Pardee and connected with him in this enterprise were A.T. Goodman, John H. Goodman, and John Bly, trading under the name of the Watsontown Lumber Co. The pails manufacturing part of the enterprise, however, was conducted by Stearns & Hall, who came to Watsontown from New England.
The building of this "Big Mill" was a great boom for Watsontown. Many new families took up their residence here and many new buildings were erected. It was upon this tidal wave of prosperity that your historian, on April 12 1866, cast his lot with Watsontown and started its next industry, a tin shop, in the building now occupied as a residence by Mrs. Scott Levan on Railroad Street.
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Higbee & Wagner's Saw Mill was originally established in 1856 by Moses Chamberlin and William Follmer for the manufacture of “bill” lumber, and therefore marks the beginning of the recent industrial development of the place. At that time the Catawissa Railroad Company was constructing extensive trestle-works and bridges, and a considerable part of the product of this mill was used by that company. The business was conducted by Chamberlin & Follmer until 1857, when Joseph Hollopeter was received into the firm, which continued to operate the mill successfully until it was destroyed by fire on the Saturday night previous to Abraham Lincoln's second election to the presidency. It was immediately rebuilt and successively operated by Chamberlin, Follmer & Hollopeter, Chamberlin & Follmer, Cook, Hollopeter & Everitt, and Cook & Pardee—Ario Pardee and E. C. Cook. Cook & Pardee ran in connection with the saw mill a match factory and employed sixty operatives. After continuing business ten or twelve years in this way Pardee purchased Cook's interest and took his son into partnership, when the style of the firm became Pardee & Son. After the flood of 1889 the mills were closed; operations were suspended until May, 1890, when they were purchased and reopened by the present firm.
Pardee's Saw Mill. — In 1866 Ario Pardee erected a large saw mill in the southern part of the town at a cost of seventy-five thousand dollars. Mr. Pardee is interested in the mining of coal at Hazelton, Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, and the product of the mill consisted principally of prop timbers for use in the mines. He also owned a large tract of undeveloped land in Union county, from which the timber for this mill was derived. This establishment, the largest of its kind in the county, gave employment to a number of men, and was a most important feature of the manufacturing interests of the borough until its destruction by fire, April 17, 1882.
The Watsontown Furniture and Table Works were started by Joseph Hollopeter and James W. McLain in the buildings erected for the car shops, which were not then in operation. Samuel Miller, George Bums, and Isaac Stryker were afterward admitted to the firm, and Ario Pardee subsequently became individual proprietor of the works, which he removed to his lower planing mill. From Mr. Pardee the establishment passed to Frank Miller and J. G. Bower, by whom the present plant on the west side of Main street in the southern part of the borough was erected and has since been operated.
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