Oilwick Lamps

Lehigh Valley Coal Sales LSide | LEHIGH VALLEY COAL SALES - Hard to find tin drivers lamp with brass collar, embossed on font COMPLIMENTS OF LEHIGH VALLEY COAL SALES CO., 2 3/4 in. high to top of lid, 1 5/8 in. base dia, 4 1/4 in. long spout, twisted wire boot kick, shroud between font and spout, lamp manufactured by Trethaway Bros. between 1912 and 1918 [This lamp manufactured by the Trethaway Bros. of Parsons, PA was provided as a promotional item by the Lehigh Valley Coal Sales Company sometime between 1912 and 1918. The Lehigh Valley is a region officially consisting of Carbon, Lehigh and Northampton counties in eastern Pennsylvania and Warren county on the western edge of New Jersey. The Lehigh Valley Coal Sales Company had its roots in the Lehigh Valley Railroad and its contentious relationship with the federal government. The Lehigh Valley Railroad was formed in 1853 and spent the next 50 years buying up other smaller railroad companies and coal properties in the Pennsylvania anthracite fields. The Lehigh Valley Railroad was shipping its own coal mined by its subsidiary Lehigh Valley Coal Company. In June 1906, the Hepburn Act was signed into law that through the commodities clause forbade railroads from interstate shipment of any mining product in which they held a direct or indirect interest. An April 3, 1911 decision by the US District Court in New York held that the Lehigh Valley Railroad was in violation of the Hepburn Act commodities clause. At a January 11, 1912 meeting of the board of directors of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, the carrier’s president was directed to inform the directors of the Lehigh Valley Coal Company that they consider organizing a coal sales company to be in compliance with the court’s decision. Accordingly the Lehigh Valley Coal Sales Company was organized and incorporated under the laws of the state of New Jersey on January 22, 1912. It authorized capital stock of $10,000,000 and stockholders of the LV Railroad were preferentially offered stock of the coal sales company. The sales company formally commenced business on March 1, 1912. At that time the coal sales new president John W. Skeele formally announced from the company’s corporate headquarters in New York that the company had entered in to a contract with the Lehigh Valley Coal Company to purchase the total company’s output of anthracite coal at the mines and take over the coal company’s business of selling, shipping and handling coal. In 1913 the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company shipped 11,000,000 gross tons of anthracite coal, 82% of which was supplied by the Lehigh Valley Coal Sales Company. An ad in the July 1913 The Retail Coalman for the Lehigh Valley Coal Sales Company lists sales agents for the company in 9 different states including NY, MA, NJ, PA, OH, MI, WI, IL, and MN. The Lehigh Valley Railroad was dominate in every anthracite coal location they served eliminating competition from other companies and precluding any new railroads to enter the service territory. The federal government contended that the Lehigh Valley Railroad was not independent of the coal company or coal sales company and sued the railroad in March 1914 for violations of both the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and the Hepburn Act. In a 1920 decision, the court ordered the dissolution of the Lehigh Valley mining combination, severing the tie between the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company and the Lehigh Valley Coal Sales Company. All three companies went their own way until January 7, 1929 when the Lehigh Valley Coal Company and the Lehigh Valley Coal Sales Company were unified through the newly incorporated Lehigh Valley Coal Incorporation with Richard Grant as president. However the litigious relationship with the federal government seemed to continue as late as 1978 when the Lehigh Valley Coal Sales Company was included in a price fixing lawsuit against several companies serving the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania over the period of 1961 to 1973]

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