Records and Documents Relating to the Incorporation and Organization of the Philadelphia Company, Organized May 24, 1884 [George Westinghouse's main solicitor John Dalzell's personal copy with documents signed by John Shoemaker, the Deputy Secretary of the Commonwealth); a second copy of the same publication, paginated differently, without signed documents; Annual Report of the Philadelphia Company for 1885-86 together with Records and Documents relating to the Incorporation and Organization of the Philadelphia Compoany...(1886)
Pittsburgh: Myers, Shinkle & Co., 1884-1886. 3 items, all very rare - the Records and Documents turn up zero copies in an OCLC search and as for the Annual Report (its first year), while OCLC cites the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh as having a copy, a look at the actual CLP entry shows only annual reports from 1897 on; the other two citations for Stanford and Temple also do not turn up copies if one goes to their databases. Dalzell's copy has the signature several times of John Shoemaker, has been embossed in places with the state seal of Pennsylvania, and Dalzell has signed the front cover. Some wear and loss to back cover. The second copy of this, paginated differently, contains no such signatures (light wear and soil). The Annual Report is good with some wear and loss to covers, minor pencil underlining, almost certainly by Dalzell, 63 pp, folding map of the company's pipelines in the Pittsburgh area. These are the foundational documents of Westinghouse's contributions to exploring natural gas as an energy source in Pittsburgh. In 1883, Westinghouse's workers drilled for natural gas on his property in Point Breeze (now Westinghouse Park) and found much more than they expected. A huge explosion that littered his property with mud, filth, rocks and bits of drilling machinery announced a huge pocket of natural gas deep under his property. As the Westinghouse Memorial website says, "But the fun was not over. Constructing a sixty-foot pipe at the mouth of the well, Westinghouse treated his neighbors to further frightening displays by shooting a fountain of fire one hundred feet into the night sky. By the beginning of the summer, he obtained his first major patent for a 'System for Conveying and Utilizing Gas Under Pressure.' By the end of the summer, he organized the Philadelphia Company. One after another, Westinghouse poured forth twenty-eight new inventions in 1884 and 1885. They touched and transformed every aspect of the system." Jamie van Trump's article on this remarks on Dalzell's place in all this: "The Fuel Gas Company, Westinghouse's chief competitor, had organized under an old Pennsylvania law which conferred on any public utility company which was the first to venture into its field in any given locality, a monopoly of that type of business. Westinghouse sent his lawyer, John Dalzell, to Harrisburg to see if any legal means could be devised by which he might become a competitor of the established firm. Dalzell found an old charter which had been granted to Tom Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad for the purpose of building a branch line. However, it had never been implemented and since its provisions were broad, it could be used for almost any purpose. Westinghouse bought it for $35,000.00 and using it as an instrument launched the Philadelphia Company (the company named in the original charter)." By the turn of the century, The Philadelphia Company had acquired another gas company, Equitable, and by 1947, the name of the company was changed to Equitable Gas, which in turn became People's Natural Gas -- the company which charges us for gas consumption here on Dalzell Place, where the cataloger resides. Good. Item #H7244
Price: $1,500.00