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By CHRISTINA EICHMAN; Times Leader Correspondent
Monday, February 10, 1997 Page: 3A
WILKES BARRE — While forward-thinking politicians and entrepreneurs talk
about building arenas, theaters and inflatable dams, one group is quietly
seeking to honor our past as people of the earth. Coal mining folk.
In the 1800s, Jesse Fell operated the Sign of the Buck inn at the corner of
East Northampton and South Washington streets. At 10 a.m. Tuesday, a
historical marker commemorating Fell will be dedicated there. Speakers from
state and local historical societies will provide commentary on the
significance of the marker site.
Fell, who lived from 1751 to 1830, is credited as the first person to burn
anthracite coal in an open grate. Previously limited to industrial use in
forced air systems, Fell’s discovery demonstrated coal’s potential as a source
of home heating, using natural air flow. His breakthrough, for which he sought
no personal financial gain, vastly expanded the market for coal.
An industry was born.
Though Fell is well known to local historians, few others seem aware of the
man without whom our years as a thriving coal mining city might not have
happened. The last remnant of the Sign of the Buck vanished in 1986, when the
building that housed Fell’s historic fireplace was demolished. Wilkes-Barre
General Hospital Corporation purchased the site and razed the structure.
Originally the corporation had announced plans to preserve the fireplace
and install a plaque recording the historic events that took place there. But
as the years passed and no plaque materialized, the corporation’s plan seemed
forgotten, along with the memory of Fell himself. Until now.
Tuesday’s ceremony underscores the efforts of those who refused to forget
Fell. Michael Bertheaud, executive director of the Wyoming Historical and
Geological Society, credits Kingston Council member Sally Teller Lottick and
her father, former Luzerne County district attorney Stephen A. Teller, with
initiating the project.
Lottick, a distant ancestor of Fell’s, modestly passes the credit to Mary
Ruth Kelly, past executive director of the society, who nominated Fell.
Lottick and her father became involved after learning of the difficulties
in raising funds to erect historical markers. Teller offered to pay for Fell’s
marker. Eventually, the Pennsylvania Humanities Council and the state
historical commission contributed additional financial support.
Any individual or organization can nominate a person or event for
commemoration on a marker by filling out an application detailing the
nominee’s historical significance. The applications are reviewed by the
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, which decides who will be
immortalized on one of the blue-and-gold plaques.
The preservation of Fell’s memory has sentimental as well as historical
value for Lottick. The Fell inn was the end of a stagecoach run that stretched
from here to Northampton County, she explains. Lottick’s
great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth Fell (Jesse’s niece), was employed at the
inn when she met stagecoach driver Stuart Rainow. They were later married.
Though she acknowledges ~”it was hard to take” the destruction of Fell’s
original fireplace, Lottick holds no grudges.
Asked about the hospital’s failure to preserve the fireplace and to install
a plaque, she shrugged, “They gave us permission to erect the marker. That’s
all we asked of them.”
SPECIAL TO THE TIMES LEADER
In the 1800s, Jesse Fell operated the Sign of the Buck inn at the corner of
East Northampton and South Washington streets. At 10 a.m. Tuesday, a
historical marker commemorating Fell will be dedicated there.