Abraham Kirkpatrick Lewis was a pioneer coal miner in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

. His namesake was his grandfather, Abraham Kirkpatrick, a colleague of General John Neville. He graduated from

Kenyon College Kenyon College ( ) is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio, United States. It was founded in 1824 by Episcopal Bishop Philander Chase. It is the oldest private instituti ...

, Ohio, in 1835. Although he studied medicine and law, he made his living in the coal industry. With William Philpot and John M.Snowden Jr., he was the first to establish a market and furnish a regular supply of Pittsburgh coal to

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

, transporting the coal on

flatboats A flatboat (or broadhorn) was a rectangular flat-bottomed boat with square ends used to transport freight and passengers on inland waterways in the United States. The flatboat could be any size, but essentially it was a large, sturdy tub with a ...

Coal Mines

His Coal Ridge Mine on Sawmill Run, opened in 1857, was originally served by a horse-drawn tramway, later converted to

steam power A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be transf ...

as the

Little Saw Mill Run Railroad The Little Saw Mill Run Railroad was a American coal railroad that was located in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. History This railroad company was incorporated July 23, 1850, and opened in April 1853. Originally, it was owned by the Harmony Soc ...

Kirk Lewis Incline

The Kirk Lewis incline was used to transport coal from "Coal Hill", now known as Mt. Washington, to the

Monongahela River The Monongahela River ( , ), sometimes referred to locally as the Mon (), is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 15, 2011 river on the Allegheny Plateau in nor ...

. It has been described as the first incline in Pittsburgh. It was probably built by George W. Roberts Sr., the superintendent of his mines, who was known to have built many coal inclines in the area, including those at

Elizabeth, Pennsylvania Elizabeth is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, on the east bank of the Monongahela River, where Pennsylvania Route 51 crosses, upstream (south) of Pittsburgh and close to the county line. The population was 1,398 at th ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Abraham Kirkpatrick 1815 births 1860 deaths Kenyon College alumni People from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Defunct funicular railways in the United States Railway inclines in Pittsburgh History of Pittsburgh Defunct Pennsylvania railroads Transportation in Pittsburgh