Coal Creek Coal- 1869 - Fountain County INGenWeb Project

To the Editors Crawfordsville Journal: Much has been said in reference to the Coal Creek coal of Fountain county, Indiana, and although much has been said, very few know its locality or at least the locality of the truely valuable part thereof. Some suppose if we find the creek we will find coal anywhere on it. This is a great error, for the stream is nearly forty miles long, and good coal, in large quantities is only found from the neighborhood of Mr. Samuel Snoddy's mill to its mouth, a distance of some seven miles. It is true that coal numbers 4 and 5, ranging in thickness from two inches to two and one half feet, outcrops, and is found on Spring Creek, three miles north of Perrysville at Lewis Phebi's farm two or three miles south of Covington in the south part of Warren county, and at different places on the upper part of Coal creek, and in many places is of fair or good quality, yet in but few places can it be worked to any advantage, and therefore it is of comparatively little value.

The great coal field (coal No. 3) as numbered by our State geologist, Mr. Owen, is not found on the upper, but on the lower part of this stream—extending from its mouth to a point nearly due east of Perrysville—say about one half a mile south and two and one-half miles east of that place, and 26 or 27 miles due west of Crawfordsville. The very best development of this immense coal deposit being about miles south-east of Perrysville, and therefore to give the true key note to its locality it should be called the Perrysville coal fields, and the •rand outcrop of the same stratum about the mouth of the stream should be called the Lodi coal fields.

This stratum, so far as it has been worked, and wherever it outcrops, measures from four to six feet thick and much resembles the English splint coal. It is excellent for forges, makes good coke, abounds in gas and is splendid for grates and steam making purposes burns up clean and leaves a light ash and no "clinkers."

Good judges, by actual test, val¬ue it 100 per cent above the Grape creek coal. Every six acres will yield one million bushels of coal. How much the hundreds and thousands of acres will furnish the reader may calculate at his leisure.

Here is a pile of freight for some railroad that will add millions to its income. Here lies dormant heat that will cheer the firesides of many coming generations and power that will drive machinery adding untold millions to the manufactures of the country, and the coffers of the people.

That I am not mistaken, and have not given an over estimate to this coal region, I will give you a quotation from Mr. Owen's report of a coal bank in the precise locality above indicated: "The coal certainly impressed me at once as being the most free from impurities and the most desirable of any I had seen, considering the thickness of the bed (four feet to four feet one inch,) and the quantity of coal. The analysis bears out the good opinion conveyed by the first inspection. A gramme furnished Moisture, 6] Volatile combustible matter, 391 Carbon in coke, 63 Ashes, light grey, 2 line in the Western .States, and compares not unfavorably with the coals in Ohio and Pennsylvania. The percentage of sulphur is usually small, fitting some of them admirably for furnace and blacksmiths' work."