USA > Missouri > Macon County > General history of Macon County, Missouri > Part 13
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"That," he explained, "is a fuse. See the other one just like it over there on the face?"
"On whose face?"
The shot-firer grabbed the tenderfoot's arm and hustled him to the far side of the black wall and there indicated a twin sister of the first garter snake.
"Now, you touch your lamp to this one," he said, "and I'll fire the other."
"Ain't going to do it!"
"If you don't fire that fuse I'll-I'll lose you!"
Had Jack threatened him with a club it wouldn't have been half so dreadful. The tenderfoot held his lamp to the garter snake about as intrepidly as a lady lights her first cigarette. The thing burst out into a shadow of sparks like a Chinese "sizzer." The seholar made a wild break for cover, losing his hat and lamp on the way. In pushing between the coal cars and the side of the "neck, " he lost all the buttons off his vest and a few feet of skin, but he wasn't worrying over trifles that night. When he got out in the entry he looked back over the car and saw Jack standing between the two cheerfully sputtering fuses, calmly retrimming and lighting the abandoned lamp. He also took thought to pick up the tenderfoot's hat and knock the coal dust from it.
"That's the way with you fellers," said the shivering layman indignantly ; "you stand in front of a cannon, and when you get your head blown off you lay it on the company."
"Aw, gwan!" said Jack, as he dexterously slid by the coal pile and came out into the passage way.
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Here Jones, who had been planning devastation up the entry, joined them, and they hiked along through the slush toward the "First East" again, helped along by the young hurricanes from the exploding cartridges behind them. A short jog along the east entry, and the shot-firers again plunged into a "hole" running south. Midway of this was a long line of loaded coal ears. A jutting roek prevented passage between one of the coal cars and the side of the entry. Jones leaped up on the ears and crowded forward in the seant space between roof and load. The tenderfoot realized what he was up against.
"I am going home," he said, turning back.
"Which way do you start from here to get to your home?" inquired Jaek sarcastically.
"Throw him on the ear, Jack," said Jones, from the other side, "an' I'll yank him across."
Jaek grasped the layman's legs and hoisted him on the loaded coal. Jones reached his body forward and grabbed his hands, while Jack eased him along by the belt. The two or three white spots that had stood out on his shirt and collar up to this time withdrew from complicity in the enterprise, and the black became unanimous. Jor- dan's stormy highway wasn't a circumstance to that journey across the coal ears. When at last all three stood safely on the far side, the shot-firers held up their lamps and admiringly inspected their companion.
"This puts us all of a color, eh, Jaek?" said Jones, grinning.
"Yes," replied Jaek, hesitatingly, "but I still think he ought to've worn them kid gloves."
Through the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth subentries the shot-firers plodded along to the inspiring thunder of artillery and the rush of infant tornadoes. When every miner's room in that seetion of the great colliery had been attended to they headed westward for the "bottom," going back along the "First East." The tenderfoot, recognizing various landmarks under the rocky roof, felt keen relief. All the shots had been fired and he was still alive.
Reaching the place where they had parted with Ramsey and Evans, the weary men sat down on a prop timber and began refilling their lamps.
"Do you always load up your little tea-kettles when the work is . over?" asked the lay pilgrim.
Jones stopped and looked up with a curious smile.
"Friend," he said, "we're just half through. We got the 'First West' and twelve sub-entries ahead of us. Up to now we've been
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traveling in good air. From this on you'll be a daisy if you keep that 'tea-kettle' of yours going."
"Good Lord !"
"You see," Jones went on, with a wink that even the darkness couldn't hide, "whenever the company's medicine man reports that some fellow is getting too frisky they made a 'fire-shooter,' as you call it, out of him. It fixes him, generally.
The roof in the west side was lower, because the vein was thinner. The lamps burned feebly and often went out. At one place Jones held up his lamp where a wagon load of rock had fallen out of the roof and left a sort of ledge extending over. The lamp almost instantly went out.
"Black damp," he said, sententiously.
It is the vampire of the coal mine. The fatal wings stretch out and gently fan the grimy toiler to pleasant dreams-dreams that last into eternity. The black damp hovers near the top, but at the slightest cessation of the air current it will flood the entries and the rooms. The percentage was so small in No. S that the miners were hardly aware of its existence.
Pretty soon there was a dull intonation to the south and the sky- rockets came out and danced a jig. Spitefully the nut coal crashed over the passageway for a minute, and all was still in the direction of the shot. Overhead the soft roof began to make sullen noises, as if seeking a better lodging place. It didn't take any imagination to see things moving. The shot-firers' pupil saw a chance while Jones was holding up his lamp and scooted.
"You heard it, did you?" asked Jones, as he caught up with him.
"I am sorry to feel it necessary, Mr. Jones," said thie layman, stiffly, "to support all your statements with proof. You act as if I doubted your word."
The shot-firer laughed.
"Come on, now, and I'll show you where they're drawing pillars," he said.
"Drawing pillars" is the most delicate undertaking in a mine. The pillars are solid coal between rooms, and are left to support the roof. When the pillars are drawn the roof is likely to fall at any time. While engaged at such work the miner props well up to his work and takes every possible precaution. Only the oldest and most experienced men are permitted to draw pillars. The remuneration is good, because the coal comes down easily and in great chunks. For this the pillar
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workman is willing to shake hands with death every hour he is in the pit.
After passing through a long, muddy entry Jones stopped at a place that looked like a great cavern. Immense boulders had fallen out of the roof and lay piled up like the ruins of a temple. The shot- firer looked all around the dark pillars for "garter snake tails."
"Nothing here tonight," he said, disappointedly; "I wanted to show you how they take out those pillars."
The pupil sighed his relief. Then he told the lie of polite society.
"It's too bad."
"Yes." said Jones. "We had our walk up this entry for nothing." Then he brightened up and said :
"But come here and I can show you a bell rock."
He held his lamp up to the roof, where the thin edge of the roek breaking out was showing. It looked like one might pull it down with his finger, and that it would be smooth and flat like a pane of glass.
"A bell rock," said Jones, "is a rock that breaks off in a feather edge, like you see this, and suddenly spreads out as you approach the center of it. It may weigh 500 pounds or it may weigh a ton. It is a distinct rock imbedded in the general strata-sort of a poeket, you might say. It may stand for years. It may fall in a second. Nine out of ten of the damage suits brought against coal companies are for injuries and death occasioned by fall of bell rocks. They cause more trouble than everything else added together."
The novice, with his usual precaution, moved. Jones laughed and dived into the black ink toward the main entry again. Along the western entries were great piles of props and timbers, awaiting the call of the miner to protect his roof. The miner is responsible for his room, but the company has to see that he has plenty of timber handy. The road-ways here and there were covered with slabs of rock that had fallen since the mule drivers had quit work in the afternoon. Miners say most heavy falls of roek occur between midnight and dawn. They have a theory that the earth is more restless between those periods.
At a number of places the shot-firers passed from one entry to another through a cross-eut where the coal and fallen rock came so near the roof that they had to erawl through on hands and knees. They traveled ten miles through tunnels, holes and caverns, aeross hogs and over fallen rock and coal, plowed through mud and mire that would have stalled an ox team, squeezed between coal cars and sides of entries or crawled over them, and for not one second were they in doubt as
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to their surroundings. Every foot of that murky, ten-mile journey was as familiar to them as his division is to a veteran locomotive engineer. For this sort of knowledge and work the shot-firer gets $2.83 a day.
The cage was waiting when the party returned to the broad avenue of the bottom. The men stepped on, Jones pulled a lever at the side and the hoarse whistle of the big engine on top cheerfully responded. When the cage gate was thrown open the pilgrims from the nether world looked up and saw the stars were ont and that darkness enshronded the great coal valley. But it was not the bitter gloom of the sort from whenee they came, and there was no danger of the dia- mond-studded "roof" above crashing down upon the brawny sons who toiled beneath.
The town of Lingo, a few miles west of New Cambria, on the Bnr- lington railroad, was founded in 1873 by Thomas and George Jobson, both of whom yet live in Macon county. The Jobsons were farmer boys, but they had been interested in railroad work, and had noticed that the railroad company was abandoning the use of wood and depend- ing almost exclusively on eoal in its locomotives. The place which they called Lingo, in honor of Judge Samnel Lingo, member of an early county court, was originally known as "Peabody's Woodyard." Colonel Peabody there staeked up his wood, which was purchased by the railroad for its engines.
The Jobsons figured that since there was coal in large quantities at Bevier, likely some of the same material existed ahont Lingo, and they resolved to put Peabody's Woodyard ont of business. At 110 feet they struek a good vein of coal. The young men had some money, and they purchased 120 aeres on which to operate their coal mine and build the town of Lingo. The railroad sold them the land at $6 an acre. After having thoroughly demonstrated the existence of good egal under all the land thereabouts, the Jobsons interested some capitalists and organized a mining company, with a capital stoek of $30,000. Con- tracts were made with the railroad company to furnish coal to its loco- motives. The Jobsons, then in their 20s, found themselves in the possession of a great, big business, but that was just what they wanted, and they were prepared to handle it right.
The first attempt at mining was on what is called the room and pillar system. Welsh miners from Bevier were employed. But it was soon found, owing to the peculiar formation of the coal, that it eould only be mined advantageonsly on the long wall system, a plan used in Austria, where the roof is not good. So it became necessary to secure
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Bohemian and Austrian miners. The Jobsons found some of these men at Braidwood and Streator, Ill., and sent to Austria for others.
Things began to liven up at Lingo. New houses were built rapidly, merchants purchased large stocks of goods, and farmers began driving in and making it their trading point. The population was distinctly foreign. The Bohemians were big, stalwart, fun-loving fellows, and they had great times of night dancing and singing. They brought their women with them, and they were as lively and full of fun as the men. Sometimes there were dances which lasted all night. Old and young took part in them, and all drank a good deal of beer. After the fun was over, the Bohemians would put on their working harness, go down into the mines and labor as steadily as if they hadn't been np all night. Once a year the Bohemians would hold a festival, during which they would carry around through the streets of the town the effigy of some traitor to their country who had been executed. Arriving at a certain place which had been prepared for the occasion, they would solemnly hang the effigy and deliver it over to the Evil One.
The force that sunk the original shaft at Lingo was composed of F. A. Quinn, William Blake, John Vanderpool, John Sannders and John Redman, all of whom are dead.
Lingo thrived steadily and for a time many of its residents thought it would rival Bevier as a coal mining center, but finally the Jobsons disposed of their holdings and their successors had some trouble with the railroad, which quit using Lingo coal. The mines passed through various hands, and finally, in the 90s, the Armours acquired 600 acres of land, which included the entire town of Lingo. Every building was painted a bright yellow in conformity with the color of the Armour property. The Armours ran the mines steadily, using all the coal produced, until the miners at Lingo went out on a sympathetic strike with their brethren who were working in some other mines the Armours owned, a few years ago, and then the packing company shut down its coal mines altogether and began using oil as a means of producing steam. The strike was fatal to Lingo. From a town of 500 population, with churches, stores, schools and many dwelling houses, it dwindled to a hamlet. The miners left for other fields, the merchants went out of business and many of the houses were moved away. The railroad loaded up the station on some flat ears and moved to another point. Trains ceased to stop there except on signal. The once lively mining town was practically off the map.
In speaking of Lingo recently, Thomas JJobson, one of its found- ers, said.
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"I was mighty sorry to see the town go down. There is plenty of good coal there yet, and if it is properly managed I am confident it would yield good revennes to the operator. When I was the individual owner of the mines, from 1884 to 1888, they made money, but every man I had on the pay roll was a producer. I never kept about me a lot of clerks and bosses, but saw to it that every man was actually needed and worked. You have to figure mighty elose these days to make money in coal. When I was down there I was postmaster, storekeeper, oper- ator, elerk and bookkeeper for the mines. Yes, these things kept me pretty busy, but we were making money and that was all right. I believe I could go back there today, take charge of those mines and make them profitable. I would liked to have seen Lingo stay on the map. It was the only town I ever started and I was hopeful in my younger days that it would eventually become a great city. For a while things were looking that way. I believe yet that somebody will take hold of that coal down there and operate it profitably. It can be done, without a doubt."
Has the man who works underground with piek, shovel and blast- ing powder, in a room the size of a kitchen pantry, a better chance for reaching threeseore and ten than his brother who toils in the sunlight?
That is the view of R. S. Thomas, former coal-mine inspector of Missouri, who had a fixed belief that coal mining and longevity go hand in hand.
"You never hear of a coal miner having consumption," said Mr. Thomas, "unless he contracted the disease before he went into the pit. And even then he finds the peculiar properties of a coal mine bene- ficial to his lungs, and often becomes well and strong by reason of his work underground.
"The air in a large coal mine is always kept pure and free from germs. The temperature is regular and the elements in the coal are strengthening for weak lungs. We have a number of hardy miners in Missouri who were taken into the pit in the old country (Wales) at 6 to 10 years of age to act as trapper boys. These youngsters kept steadily at work until they were promoted to be regular miners, and thrived under conditions which, in most trades, would retard their development-I mean beginning work so early.
"It seems that Providenee has made the health of the miner good, as compensation for his hazard. Nearly all of them who manage to dodge falls of rock, the breaking of cables and other dangers incident to the craft, live to a green old age. They not only live, but they keep at work. It would surprise Dr. Osler if he knew how many men
.
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far past sixty years were yet working in the mines at Bevier. Uncle Johnnie Griffith, who died a few months ago at the age of eighty-four, worked in the pit from the age of seven until a year before he died. Some think if he hadn't knocked off work he might be living yet. He began as a trapper boy in Wales, his father carrying him to the mines on his back. His last work was in mine No. 61 of the Central Coal Company, near Bevier, and he made a full hand every day for three years after he was eighty. With the exception of a short time, when he ran a hoisting engine, Mr. Griffith has practically been in the pit three-quarters of a century."
Mr. Thomas has made some research at Bevier, the largest coal camp in the state, to ascertain the ages of veterans, still working, between the ages of sixty-five and eighty-six, and furnished this as a partial list :
Evan Maddy.
William Hardesty.
D. J. Roberts.
Thomas Francis.
John T. Richards.
John J. Malley.
Walter .Johnson.
David D. Thomas.
Ben Browett.
Robert W. Jones.
Thomas Griffiths.
August Hillman.
John T. Williams.
W. S. Watson.
Rowland Thomas.
Jacob Ruch.
William P. Thomas.
John Simpson.
Robert N. Jones.
James Raw.
Robert X. Davis.
Robert Taylor.
Thomas Matthews.
Joseph Stott.
David L. Davis.
Isaac Thomas.
William Cross.
John Barron.
Thomas R. Thomas.
Jacob Julins.
William C. Williams.
T. W. Thomas.
The following brief sketches of two or three men of the piek are representative of the life histories of the majority of men on the list :
James E. Tanner was born in Newberry, Burkshire, England, July 14, 1832; started to work in the mines of that country at the age of ten years, and has worked continuously until a few years ago. He came to St. Louis in May, 1850; landed in Bevier forty-two years ago, worked here awhile, then went west with Thomas Wardell and W. S. Watson; opened up mines at Rock Springs and Carbon, Wyoming. Came back to Bevier and has resided here ever since.
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John T. Richards, born in North Wales, Denbifshire, April 16, 1840; started to work in the mines at eight years of age, has been work- ing continuously ever since.
Charles Perry, who recently died, was born in England June, 1825; started to working in the mines at the age of seven years and worked up until he was seventy years old.
William Clark was born in County Durham, England, October, 1839; started to work in the mines very young, and is still following mining every day.
James Burton, born October 17, 1827, at Newtown, near Spenny- moor, Durham County, England; started working in the mines at ten years of age, and worked in the mines up to 1857. Came to America in the year of 1857 ; arrived in Pennsylvania the same year, and worked in mines at different places up to the year of 1869. He then came West and landed with family in Bevier in 1869, and has lived in Bevier ever since; he has worked in the mines till he was over eighty years of age, having started working as a trapper, and has worked at every other kind of work to be done around a mine. He is still working every day.
"And here's another thing," remarked Tom Williams, a veteran who had to abandon the pit some years ago, owing to a fall of rock, and who later was Cireuit Clerk of Macon county ; "you never hear a miner puff and blow when he runs. His wind is as good as an athlete's. His lungs are sound, although coated thick with coal dust. I spit coal dust for ten years after I quit mining, but my breathing apparatus was per- feet. Nearly everybody at Bevier burns coal for all purposes, because it is cheap. Most other towns in these parts use wood for fireplaces and heating. Now, in time, the tops of those Bevier houses become coated with coal soot from their chimneys, and the rain falling on the roofs passes into their wells and they drink it. A Bevier family does not like water unless it is caught that way and goes through that proe- ess; that's the only kind of water that tastes good to 'em. Why? Because it has properties that kill pneumonia and typhoid germs. It's an absolute fact that people don't have such maladies when they use water caught in that way. I've lived among them a lifetime, and I know that. I can't give the scientific reason for coal soot's beneficial influence on well water, but there's no earthly doubt that it has such influence. "
A local physician who has had considerable experience in the min- ing district was asked if there was any scientifie explanation for a col- lieryman's immunity from disease.
"He is working a new place, absolutely free from germs," replied
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the doctor. "The poisons of the atmosphere hovering over the average man never get to the miner while he is at work. Another thing I have noticed: The wound a miner receives, no matter how severe, rarely suppurates or becomes inflamed. That is because there are no germs of inflammation in the man's body. This indicates that there is some antiseptic action of the sulphur or the coal dust, with which he comes in contact. Sulphur is recognized as an active germieide. The tend- ency of such agents is to prevent and eradicate tuberculosis. You and I, who go about in the sunlight, have doubtless been exposed dozens of times to the inhalation of tuberculosis germs, but, our systems being in condition, the germs are destroyed. If the system is weak, they may develop. The miner is not exposed to this risk while at work, which is the greater part of the time.
"I think this accounts in large measure for the healthy, rugged physique of the average miner. He may not be a brawny giant, but his blood is in good condition because of the purity of the atmosphere fed into his respiratory organs."
The coal mines of Missouri do not generate gas. That is why there has never been an explosion in them. There is what is known as damp, but it is soon dissipated when the air current is turned against it.
"In the old country mines were often set afire by a gas explosion," said John E. Richards, a North Wales man. "Our boys here hardly know what gas is by actual experience, because these mines don't have it. But it is the 'king of terrors' over in Wales. There they go down after coal much deeper that we do here. The colliery in which I was employed as gas boss at Ruabon was from 300 to 350 yards down.
"The gas comes from want of ventilation. In those deep, extensive mines, with their galleries extending many miles in all directions, pitching up and down with the coal veins, and their hundreds and hun- dreds of worked-out rooms, it was practically impossible to control the gas at all places. The gas is exploded by being ignited with a naked flame. It was a rigorous rule that no smoking was allowed in the mines. Our lamps were covered with gauze or glass, and could only be unlocked by the gas boss or his deputy.
"A gas explosion in a mine does not sound like the discharge of powder or dynamite above ground. It is a sort of dull, suppressed roar, a mighty groan of the underworld. The immediate result is a terrific rush of wind. Men are thrown through the entries like toy soldiers. Great timbers and coal boxes are shot by as if struck by eyclone.
"The casualties resulting from the explosion, however, are not as
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great as those which follow from the terrible afterdamp. This chokes the life out of the miner before he can start to run, even if he's unscathed by the explosion.
"The Davy lamp flame burns blue at the top when you are approaching a gas territory. It is then the pit boss's duty to fix up his danger signal and to hike ont in a hurry.
"White damp is the most deceptive thing you ever ran across on land or sea. It fools yon, because your lamp burns well-in fact, it grows brighter when you enter it. Not thinking what it means at first, a man is inclined to push on. You don't feel any oppression on the lungs ; your light tells no tales. But suddenly you start to raise an arm. It hangs limp by your side. Your legs get shaky and you feel an almost uncontrollable desire to lie down. Energy has left yon, and you don't feel worried about the troubles of this old world any longer.
"There are gardens with flowers, beautiful walks and balmy air. That is the moment, my boy, when you want to grit your teeth and tight and pull for the shore. If you can't walk, get down on your knees and crawl, for in two minutes you'll be asleep in that beautiful garden, to awake no more in this life.
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