In order to give the reader a little insight into the progress which has been made in the valley, let us turn statistician for a time, with the understanding, however, that we shall not be held responsible for the accuracy of dates.
Less than twenty-six years ago, George Law sat upon the left bank of the Juniata, two miles west of Williamsburg, cutting stones for building two locks at that place. Now the aforesaid Law is supposed to be worth the snug little sum of six millions of dollars, and not long since was an aspirant for the presidential chair!
Thirty years ago, when Frankstown was a place of some note, Hollidaysburg contained but a few scattered cabins. In fact, twenty years ago it was "to fortune and to fame unknown;" yet it now contains a population (including that of Gaysport) that will not fall much short of four thousand.
Less than twenty-five years ago, Dr. P. Shoenberger, while returning from Baltimore with $15,000 in cash, fell in with the celebrated robber Lewis on the Broad Top Mountain. The intention of Lewis, as he afterward acknowledged, was to rob him; but the doctor, although he was unacquainted with his fellow-traveller, had his suspicions awakened, and, by shrewd manoeuvering, succeeded in giving him the slip. Had the $15,000 in question fallen into the hands of the robber, Dr. Shoenberger would have been bankrupt, and the probability is that he would have lived and died an obscure individual. Instead of that, however, the money freed him from his embarrassments, and he died, but a few years ago, worth between four and five millions of dollars--more than one-half of which he accumulated by manufacturing iron in the Valley of the Juniata.
Less than sixteen years ago, a gentleman named Zimmerman was a bar-keeper at the hotel of Walter Graham, Esq., at Yellow Springs, in Blair county, afterward a "mud-boss" on the Pennsylvania Canal, and subsequently a teamster at Alleghany Furnace. At the present day the said Samuel Zimmerman owns hotels, palaces, a bank of issue, farms, stocks, and other property, at Niagara Falls, in Canada, which swell his income to $150,000 per annum. He is but thirty-eight years of age. Should he live the length of time allotted to man, and his wealth steadily increase, at the end of threescore-and-ten years he can look upon ordinary capitalists, who have only a few millions at command, as men of limited means.
