John Price Wetherill engineering notebook
Collection 3832
1881-1891(0.15 Linear feet ; 1 volume)
Table of Contents
Summary Information
- Repository
- The Historical Society of Pennsylvania
- Creator
- Wetherill, John Price, 1844-1906
- Title
- John Price Wetherill engineering notebook
- ID
- 3832
- Date [inclusive]
- 1881-1891
- Extent
- 0.15 Linear feet ; 1 volume
- Author
- Finding aid prepared by Cary Hutto.
- Language
- English
- Mixed materials [Volume]
- 1
Preferred citation
Cite as: [Indicate cited item or series here], John Price Wetherill engineering notebook (Collection 3832), The Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
Abstract
J.P. Wetherill, 1844-1906, was a son of American zinc industry pioneer Samuel Wetherill. J.P. Wetherill was born in Montville, N.J., served briefly in the 147th Pennsylvania Infantry in 1863, and graduated from the Polytechnic College of Philadelphia in 1865 with the degree of Mining Engineer. He worked for the Philadelphia & Reading Coal and Iron Company in Schuylkill County and became their chief of mining engineers in 1877. In 1881 he resigned and, together with his brother Samuel P. Wetherill and Richard and August Heckscher, purchased the Lehigh Zinc Company plant in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which his father had founded in 1852. The firm was incorporated in 1881 as the Lehigh Zinc and Iron Company, with J.P. Wetherill as general manager. Later the company merged with the New Jersey Zinc Company, and Wetherill became a director of that firm. The John Price Wetherill Medal, awarded by the Franklin Institute between 1926 and 1997 for discovery or innovation in the physical sciences, was named for him.
The engineering notebook (which is labeled "Vol. II" on the flyleaf) spans the end of Wetherill's tenure at the Philadelphia & Reading Coal and Iron Company and the first decade of his position at Lehigh Zinc and Iron. It includes technical and business reports, business accounts, lists of suppliers, manufacturing instructions, technical drawings, a hand-drawn map of Pennsylvania's anthracite coal fields, news clippings, and other entries regarding operations in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Administrative Information
Publication Information
The Historical Society of Pennsylvania ; 2017
1300 Locust StreetPhiladelphia, PA, 19107
215-732-6200
Restrictions
The collection is open for reserach.
Provenance
Purchased, 2014.
Accession number 2014.031.
Controlled Access Headings
Subject(s)
- Engineering--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia.
- Engineering--Problems, exercises, etc.
- Engineers--19th century
- Engineers--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--19th century.
- Science and Engineering--Notes