Abraham Kirkpatrick Lewis was a pioneer coal miner in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

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

Kenyon College Kenyon College is a private liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio. It was founded in 1824 by Philander Chase. Kenyon College is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. Kenyon has 1,708 undergraduates enrolled. Its 1,000-acre campus is se ...

, 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

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, 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 trans ...

as the

Little Saw Mill Run Railroad The Little Saw Mill Run Railroad was a coal railroad in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. It was incorporated July 23, 1850, and opened in April 1853. Originally, it was owned by the Harmony Society, and ran from Temperanceville, Pennsylvania on t ...

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 ( , )—often 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 North Cen ...

. 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, 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 1,493 at the 2010 census ...

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