My Genealogy Hound

DANIEL BUSHNELL. The career of this gentleman, one of the most enterprising representative business-men of the county, and substantial citizens of Pittsburgh, affords a typical illustration of the manner in which success may be achieved almost purely by individual exertion. He is a native of New York city, born in 1808. His grandfather Bushnell was born in Hartland, Conn., early in the last century, and about the year 1796 he and his large family of married children removed to Ohio, on the Western Reserve, called New Connecticut. The father of Daniel Bushnell was the only member of the family who did not proceed to Ohio, he having wandered off in his younger days, for a short time living on the east end of Long Island, N. Y. Here he married Sarah Wells, a native of that part of the island, and commenced the trade of a ship-carpenter. His family consisted of five sons and five daughters, all now deceased except two sons—John, aged eighty-four, a resident of Indianapolis, Ind., and Daniel, the subject of this biographical memoir, now eighty-one years old. After a few years’ residence on Long Island the father removed with his family to New York city, and here found employment at his trade in the same ship yards where Robert Fulton built his first steamboats. Early in 1813, when Daniel Bushnell (who well remembers the occurrence) was five years old, Fulton sent several ship-carpenters to Pittsburgh for the purpose of building steamboats for transportation business on the western waters, and Mr. Bushnell, being one of the party, conveyed his family to their new home on the first day of May, 1813.

Mr. Daniel Bushnell was twice married; first in December, 1832, to Eleanor Gray, who died in July, 1854, the mother of fourteen children; and in 1856 Mr. Bushnell took, for his second wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Hill, widow of Rev. T. Hill, and by her had one son, Charles C., and two daughters, Maggie and Mary, both now deceased.

Sometime in 1839 Mr. Bushnell decided to embark in the coal business on the Monongahela river, some six miles above Pittsburgh, with the idea of supplying coal to the city; and the trials and experiences of the pioneer coal-operators are graphically described by Mr. Bushnell. It was manifest to him that the old coal banks around the city were nearly exhausted, and that coal-dealers would soon be obliged to go up the Monongahela river. Mr. Bushnell, therefore, selected a tract in the first pool of the Monongahela improvement, containing one hundred acres of coal, and took a contract to furnish coal to the Pittsburgh Water-works and Anderson’s Iron-works, now Zugg’s mill. The old coal-dealers said it might succeed in mild weather, but not in winter. The first winter gave the enterprise a fair trial. On Nov. 28 of that year the pools froze up, and stopped all business on the river. Mr. Bushnell’s party then went to work to break the ice with their towboat, which they succeeded in doing, and after getting one boat through the locks, they, on the following morning, went on the ice, which they found to be four inches thick, and strong enough to carry the largest horse in the county. They went to work, however, and in about four hours had a track made up to their landing-place. They then cut their boat out and got it into the track, and with little trouble proceeded down to the lock. Next morning they took their boat into the track, which they widened, cracked up the ice, took hold of two flats of coal, and got down to the locks all right, depositing the coal the following morning at the place of delivery. From that on they worked in this manner until the latter part of January, when the ice broke up, and they got to their work in the regular way. This struggle did them a great deal of good, as it proved not only that they could get coal down at any time, but that the wisest plan for consumers was to lay in enough coal in the fall to carry them through the winter. However, it silenced all arguments against the feasibility of getting coal through the “pools” in the winter, if necessary. About this time Mr. Bushnell began to look into the matter of towing coal down to ports on the Ohio river. He suggested that it might be done by steamboats, but nobody would approve of the scheme. They argued that “it would take all the coal you could take down to bring you back,” etc. Nothing daunted, however, Mr. Bushnell made up his mind to try the experiment on a small scale, and in the month of June, 1845, he prepared three coal-flats by putting an extra gunwale on the boats, so that the three flats could carry about ten thousand bushels of coal. He took the old towboat Walter Forward, went on board himself, and started for Cincinnati, got through all right, had the coal unloaded in one day and started back. This trip at least proved that it did not take all the coal they took down to bring the boats back; and at the same time it convinced him that someday coal would be towed to ports below. Nothing more was done in this line until about 1851, when Mr. Bushnell built the towboat Black Diamond, and Smith & Sons bought the old Wheeling packet Erie, which company were enabled to make two trips before Mr. Bushnell got his new boat ready. Few persons have any idea of the trouble the pioneers in towing had in getting into full operation. One difficulty they encountered was the getting pilots to think it safe to put boats ahead, in front of the towboats, and Mr. Bushnell was the first to succeed in this matter. The Lake Erie company could not be prevailed on to do it, but would take two boats on each side with nothing in front. Capt. J. J. Vandergrift was the first one to take the lead in the matter of putting boats in ahead. In their first trip with the Black Diamond the captain, N. J. Bigley, was an interested party in the company, and after making one trip it was found necessary to have him take charge of their new coal-yard in Cincinnati, and then the important question came up as to who should take his place as captain of the Black Diamond. The captain told Mr. Bushnell he knew a young man who had been on the river for a long time, and had advanced from one step to another until he was at that time mate of a steamboat. The “young man” was soon found, and on trial was given the responsible position. He is now an honored, valuable citizen of Pittsburgh, and well known in the business world — Capt. J. J. Vandergrift.

In 1861 Mr. Bushnell abandoned coal operations, and embarked in the oil trade on the Allegheny river. In connection with Capt. J. J. Vandergrift he commenced trading in crude oil, buying it at the Venango wells, and boating it in bulk down the river to Pittsburgh. Up to this time the oil had been handled in barrels altogether, but Mr. Bushnell and his partner conceived the idea of putting it in bulkboats, under deck, and floating or towing it down to market. The scheme worked wonderfully well, and resulted in their making a good deal of money, and Mr. Bushnell has since then stuck to the oil trade, though he does not give it his time, as old age admonishes him to leave the management to younger hands.