Article Text
road from Lebanon to Conewago did not suffice to give him that title. The Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West Railroad was organized some years before, but nothing was done in the way of construction until 1883, when Mr. Coleman, visiting in Florida, got possession of the majority of shares of the capital stock, and the construction was begun. Mr. Coleman was president. Everything prospered. Mr. Coleman's private car was the finest that could be built, and in winter he always traveled to Florida. Lebanon county was more prosperous than it ever had been, and the relations existing between Mr. Coleman and his employes were such that strikes were never heard of. But when the panic of 1893 camewith its dreadful results, Mr. Cole, man was unprepared. The Florida railroad went into the hands of receivers, and a note for $100,000, held by the Lebanon Bank, of which Mr. Coleman was president, could not be realized upon. Money was all tied up, and the bank failed. On the eighth day of August Mr. Coleman assigned for the benefit of his creditors. The assignees, Henry T. Kendall, of Reading, and the Pennsylvania Company for the Insurance of Lives and Granting of Annuities, of Philadelphia, in June, 1894, sold to the Lackawana Iron and Steel Company, of Scranton, Pa., much of the property. It included the furnaces at Cornwall and Colebrook and 1585/8 shares of stock in the Cornwall ore properties. The lumpwas $2,500,375. Immediately after his financial difficulties Mr. Coleman left Cornwall, and now lives at Lake Saraman, New York. It is said that he is a reading clerk in the Episcopal Church.