He whom a
grateful people delight to call the Father of
Catasauqua is David Thomas. "Father Thomas"
was a pioneer in founding many institutions in
our town. He was brought to this country to
make iron with anthracite ("Stone-coal") coal;
and although not the first in this country to
use this material in the manufacture of iron,
he was the first to make a successful use of
it in a commercial way, wherefore he is
affectionately styled the "Father of the
American Anthracite Iron Industry." His mind
and soul were not entirely absorbed in and
welded into pigs of iron, but he enjoyed a
broad and lofty outlook into divine and
eternal things. Simultaneously with the
furnaces, came the erectiojn of a church under
his direction. Through the furnaces his men
merited bread for the body and through the
Church the Father of Lights gave Bread and all
good gifts to His believing people. Father
Thomas began the erection of homes for working
people. He laid the first water mains that
served a municipality with a necessary
commodity. He erected the first public time
piece, the sun-dial. His pen draughted many
ordinances for Borough regulation and
legislation, which are still potent.
"Father
Thomas" was the only son of his parents, David
and Jane Thomas of Tyllwyd (Gray House), in
the parish of Cadoxtan, Glamorganshire, South
Wales, and was born November 3, 1794. When he
was a youth of seventeen summers, he found
employment in the machine shop of the Neath
Abbey Iron Works. Six years later, 1817,
Richard Parsons, the owner of the Yniscedwyn
Iron Works, invited young Thomas to the
superintendency of his works, including also
the coal and iron mines. He held this position
for twenty-two years.
Efforts
were made in America to manufacture iron with
anthracite coal in a number of places, but
success had not thus far crowned the work. Mr.
Thomas experimented with hot blast stoves
invented by James Neilson, in 1828, at the
Yniscedwyn furnace. He obtained plans and a
license from Mr. Neilson to erect hot blast
ovens by means of which, February 7, 1828, he
declared the problem of the production of iron
with hard coal practically solved. The
Yniscedwyn furnace produced from thirty-four
to thirty-six tons a week.
News of
this success soon reached America, where able
and enterprising men stood ready to utilize
this valuable discovery. The Lehigh Coal and
Navigation Company promptly arranged to send
its representative, Erskine Hazard, to Wales,
where he arrived, November, 1838, to
investigate and study the operation of the new
hot blast. After satisfying himself that Mr.
Thomas had solved the important problem, Mr.
Hazard entered into an agreement with him on
behalf of the
Lehigh Crane Iron
Company to come to America and to erect
and operate blast furnaces, suitable for
anthracite coal, on the Lehigh River.
Early in
May the young iron master with his family
consisting of his wife, Elizabeth, nee
Hopkins, three sons--Samuel, John, and David,
Jr., and two daughters--Jane and Gwenllian
(the latter, the wife of Joshua Hunt) set sail
from Swansea bound for Liverpool where they
embarked on the clipper ship Roscius" for
America. They arrived at Allentown, July 9,
1839. On July 11; with his son Samuel, he came
on foot to Craneville (Catasauqua) then a
primeval forest. By July 3, 1840, the first
furnace was completed and in blast. The Lehigh
Crane Iron Company erected a home for him on
Front Street directly opposite the furnaces.
Mr. Thomas occupied this dwelling with his
family until 1856, when he moved into his new
home erected by him on Second and Pine
Streets.
The
influence of Mr. Thomas as an iron master
extended far and wide. He was a promoter of
the large iron works at Hokendauqua. He bore a
large share of the enterprise that opened
railroads, ore and coal mines, and stone
quarries. He took a great interest in the
political, financial, religious, and
charitable institutions of the town. He was a
consistent member of the Presbyterian Church
and an ardent supporter of the local Total
Abstinence Society. He died June 20, 1882, in
the eighty-eighth year of his age, and his
body rests in the Thomas vault in Fairview
Cemetery.
