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The Remains of the old lime kiln, in Turbotville Pa
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Lime kilns were built of stone, with walls several feet thick, and an opening at the base, and at the top. The limestone would be burnt in the kiln for at least 72 hours, at high temperatures, to burn off the carbon dioxide. The powdered lime that remained would be scraped off the bottom of the kiln and packed in wooden barrels for shipping.
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At one time, there was a quarry, and a railroad spur into the quarry, in front of this kiln.
The American Limestone and Cement Company, of Watsontown PA, was incorporated with a capital stock of $15,000, in November of 1902.
Directors were: C.D. Easton, John G. McHenry, Alice M. Eaton, J.R. McAnall, & Charles C. Evans.
A 1908 postcard showing the quarry "west of Turbotville".
The bottom of the postcard reads:
American Limestone and Cement Company
L.D. Abertson contractor
A 1915 Ralph Fuller postcard, showing men digging a limestone quarry by hand, in Turbotville Pa
[John Bower believes this is Mosers Quarry, and that someone has a copy with the names of the men pictured. I'd love to have those names to add, if anyone knows them]
On the land later owned by the John Moser family were stone quarries which produced enough to ship out by train carloads. Foreign men were hired to do this work, and they lived in shanties nearby. On Saturday nights they would walk to town. Also in winter weather, hoboes or tramps hovered about the kilns for warmth. Mothers threatened mischievous children that these men would catch them if they did not behave properly."
Stone crusher and pulverizing plant owned by Levi J. Menges [1848-1917]. Menges was appointed postmaster for Turbotville in 1887.
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Quarries in Turbotville, in 1925, included:
A.P. Yerg, Cyrus Geissinger, Shower, Evans and the abandoned Williamson quarry.
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According to the Turbotville Bicentennial Book, 1976:
"In this limestone country, most farmers had their own lime kiln. In the winter they burned enough lime for their fields and possibly sold some. The fuel was wood, cut from their own land.
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The Showers quarry, was on the back side of the ridge, from Don Moser's quarry, on Rt 44, north of Wolfe Blvd.
"The town of Turbotville in Lewis township was on the Berwick branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad, is the chief quarry of the [Northumberland] county."
On November 16th 1854, William Pollock was killed in a stone quarry near Turbotville.
On August 25th 1931, a dynamite explosion at the Moser stone quarry in Turbotville killed two men, Scott a Frymire age 70 and John William Yerg, aged 54. The two men had approached the charge to see why it had not went off, it exploded as they approached.
In August of 1941, the Eck corporation had a certificate authorizing the movement of a huge power shovel from the Weaver quarry in Turbotville to the Middletown airport.
In early March 2024, after a series of heavy rain storms, the west side of the Turbotville Lime kilns began to collapse.
March 3, 2024
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See more of the lime kilns in our area, here:
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Limestones of Pennsylvania
By Benjamin LeRoy Miller · 1925
Nice read about our town.
ReplyDeleteIf I remember the story correctly, Bill Yerg was killed outright, but Scott Frymyer, although maimed, lived several years after the accident. Living next door to my great-grandparents, there’s a great story about a tipsy Scott, and a stick of dynamite- on the 4th of July.
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