USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Wilkes-Barre > A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania : from its first beginnings to the present time, including chapters of newly-discovered early Wyoming Valley history, together with many biographical sketches and much genealogical material. Volume IV > Part 49
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68
The formal celebration of the centenary of the Battle of Wyoming in 1878 brought distinguished guests and crowds without number to the valley. Later were to come the dedication of many important public buildings and the most destructive tornado in the history of Pennsylvania.
All in all it was an era of advancement and material progress, second to no other similar period in the community's history. And in it the soil was pre- pared for a more pronounced trend of public service on the part of individual citizens-a community asset whose value becomes more and more apparent to population centers of the country in the light of present day events.
A previous Chapter has dealt with the community's basic industry of an- thracite through its secondary period of development which, in a large sense, embraced the times now under consideration. It was still the age of the inde- pendent operator, of industrial contests for markets, of un-economical operation due to excessive competition and a time of wide exploitation of the mine employee through the agency of company stores and ill-constructed and unsanitary tene- ments. Unscientific methods of ventilation and ignorance of conditions within the mines themselves were to demand a full toll of life as well as inflict property damage.
As an index of the multiplicity of coal operations conducted by individuals and corporations at the close of the Civil war in what was then Luzerne County, the following list, compiled in 1865, may be found of interest :
Delaware and Hudson Canal Co.
L. Van Storch J. J. Hetherby & Co. Elk Hill Coal Co.
S. S. Clark
James Nichol
Martin Cripper
John Oakley
Mount Pleasant Coal Co.
Elias Palmer
S. T. Scranton & Co.
J. P. Williams & Sons
O. W. Spangenburg
Boston and Lackawanna Coal Co.
A. S. Washburn Susquehanna and Wyoming Valley Railroad and Coal Co. Lackawanna and Susque- hanna Coal and Iron Co.
D. R. Moore
Lackawanna Valley Coal Co.
Hughes & Able
Butler Coal Co.
Grove Brothers
F. B. Marsh Giles Leach
David Morgan
William Henry
Mercur & Co.
Michael Rock
Mercur & Frisbee
Spearing, Foley & Curtis
Abram Price Maryland Coal Co. James Freeland DeWitt & Salisbury
C. S. Maltby J. D. & H. M. Hoyt Jas. P. Atherton Baltimore Coal Co.
Wyoming Coal and Trans- portation Co. Audenreid Coal and Im- provement Co. Franklin Coal Co. Lewis Landmesser Lehigh and Susquehanna Coal Co. Wilkes-Barre Coal and Iron Co.
Williams & McFarlane
2091
Parrish & Thomas H. B. Hillman Warrior Run Co. J. B. Stark Ira Davenport Union Coal Co.
H. S. Mercur & Co., succes- sors to Landon & Co. New England Coal Co.
Shawnee Coal Co.
Ebervale Coal Co.
Harleigh Coal Co.
Wm. S. Halsey & Co.
G. B. Markle & Co. Packer, Linderman & Co.
Spring Mountain Coal Co.
Stout Coal Co.
Buck Mountain Coal Co.
A. Pardee & Co. Sharpe, Weiss & Co.
Delaware, Lackawanna and
Western Railroad Co. Lackawanna Iron and Coal
Co. Pennsylvania Coal Co.
Roaring Brook Coal Co., successors to Hunt, Davis & Co. Repp & Bowen E. J. & J. Williams Christian Scherer Joseph Church
In previous references to anthracite mining no note has been taken of hazards attending the occupation of miner. Indeed, up until Civil war times, but little shafting had been found necessary in most of the operations of the Wyoming valley. Danger of rock falls where drifting was in progress, was par- tially overcome by leaving some 30 to 40 per cent of the coal standing in the form of pillars as supports to the roof. The modern form of "pillar robbing" was not then in evidence, although many of these old workings were to become extremely valuable in later years when these natural supports were removed and the surface allowed to "cave." The early years of the industry found no laws on the statute books regulative of methods of employment, ventilation, inspections, compelling safety exits or, in fine, safeguarding either the health or life of employees of the industry. These were to follow only after lessons of hazards involved were taught at the cost of many lives and the destruction of valuable property. The early miner accepted risks as a part of his occupation and necessarily he was of sturdy stock, facing without fear or complaint the dangers of his calling.
The first fatal accident attributable to the anthracite industry in the Wyoming valley, if not in the whole anthracite producing territory, occurred on February 24, 1823. No mention of it appears otherwise, to the writer's knowledge, than in the Susquehanna Democrat of February 28th of that year. The narrative is as follows:
FATAL ACCIDENT.
"A coal bed belonging to Judge Hollenback, about two miles from Wilkesbarre, in which two men, Thomas Joslyn and Thomas Joslyn, Jr., father and son, were at work, suddenly caved in on Tuesday last, and buried the young man under the coal and rubbish. The father, after the most intense labor for about half an hour, succeeded in getting his son out, but not in time to save his life. The young man was so severely injured that he died the same night, having remained speechless and senseless from the time he was got out till he died."
This accident, as well as several others which succeeded it in later years, was caused by roek or slate falls of improperly supported roofs. Up until the year 1843, but few slopes or shafts had been driven to such depth or distance as to endanger workmen from the tapping of gas pockets. In fact, it is doubtful if, at that period, gas in dangerous quantities had been discovered in any of the anthracite workings. While the Davy lamp had been crudely perfected in 1815, its use was little known outside the deep pits of England and Wales until many years afterward, and certainly the writer of an account of the first ex- plosion recorded in the Wyoming field possessed no knowledge of the lamp as is proved in the following description published in the Republican Farmer and Democratic Journal of May 24, 1843:
"The first explosion of fire damp or carburetted hydrogen, which has come to our knowledge in the Wyoming region, took place at the coal mine of G. M. Hollenback, Esq., at Mill Creek, (worked by David Lloyd) yesterday morning; and was attended by the most serious consequences to three miners, named John Wallace, Jonathan Semnard and Henry Powell, who were in the mine at the time of the ignition. All these were badly burned, Wallace most seriously, not ex- pected to recover; Semnard very severely; and Powell injured in the face, hands and arms.
Harvey Brothers
Washington Coal Co. J. Landon & Co.
2092
"We visited the mine and the men this morning. More distressing spectacles than are presented by the poor sufferers we never witnessed. Faces scarred and tumified; eyes closed, hands, arms and body covered with scars and blisters; the skin hanging in shreds in many places; in one case, the finger nails actually forced off. They are properly cared for and are rendered as comfortable as their position will permit.
"As far as we could learn, no blame can be attached to Mr. Lloyd, the superintendent. During the week past he has been in the habit of first entering the mine himself in the morning, and testing it before the men went to their work. The mine was not worked on Monday and there had been two days for the damp to gather. Yesterday morning the men entered the mines without Mr. Lloyd's knowledge.
"The method of testing the presence of firedamp or carburetted hydrogen in a coal mine, as directed by the Edinburg Encyclopedia, is to proceed cautiously from the pit mouth, with a lighted candle. If the flame of the candle becomes elongated, burning up in a spire-like shape and emits small blue sparks, it indicates the presence of the damp, and it is dangerous to proceed."
The same publication, a week later, thus reports the death of John Wallace:
"JOHN WALLACE, the man of whom we spoke as being most burned by the fire damp, last week, is dead. He died on Wednesday last, about 6 o'clock in the afternoon-having lived nearly two days after the explosion. We suspect that to John the monarch of the pale nations took a more pleasant shape than is his wont with most of his subjects. Death must have been to him a welcome visitant; for his sufferings were beyond all human endurance-and any relief from them, even in death, was doubtless acceptable. We can now understand why miners have such a dread of the "fire damp." He was conscious of his approaching end, and told the kind friends who were doing all they could for him, that he "wouldn't trouble them much longer." He very deliberately disposed of his little effects.
"John had no kith or kin on all this broad continent. His honesty, industry, and good behaviour had made him friends in the strange country; but more than three thousand miles of land and water separated him from those near to him by blood. We noticed the funeral procession as it passed our window. There were those who knew him, that regretted his early death; but there was no one there to weep. He has a father. mother, brothers and sisters living in county Antrim, Ireland."
In 1869 occurred in the township of Plymouth what is known as the Avondale coal-mine disaster. It followed as a result of neither roof fall or gas, but was due to crude methods then permitted in ventilating mines. Early in the morning of September 6th one hundred and eight miners entered, as usual, the Avondale mine. They had been at work but a couple of hours when the brattice of the shaft, composed almost entirely of combustible materials, took fire from a ventilating furnace at the foot of the shaft, and soon the latter-the only entrance to the mine-was filled with flames and smoke.
The head-house was quickly ignited, and then the flames leaped to the breaker-the immense wooden structure over and about the mouth of the shaft and in a short time both were reduced to a shapeless pile of twisted iron and blazing timbers. No assistance could be rendered to the imprisoned miners, whose only avenue of exit from the mine was barred by the flames, and all the men were suffocated to death. Two other miners who, after the flames were subdued and the debris had been removed from the shaft, attempted to enter the mine in search of their entombed comrades, were fatally asphyxiated.
By this, the most fearful disaster which had then ever occurred in the mining regions of this country, one hundred and ten lives were lost, seventy-two wives were widowed, and one hundred and fifty-three children were bereft of their fathers.
A committee of well-known citizens was appointed to solicit and receive aid for the families of the Avondale victims. Henderson Gaylord, Esq. was appointed Treasurer of the committee. The sympathies of the general public throughout America and Europe were aroused, and for the relief of the mourning and suffering people of Avondale money was promptly and generously subscribed.
The fund thus raised amounted to $155,825.10, which, by judicious in- vestment, was largely increased. It was known as The Avondale Relief Fund, and was managed for a number of years-until the objects of the trust had been
2093
accomplished-by a Board of Trustees. Each widow who had a claim on the Fund was paid $200 a year; each male orphan under fourteen years of age, and each female orphan under the age of sixteen, received $100 per year, while orphans over these ages were paid $300 in full. This, in the main, was the manner in which payments were made until the fund was exhausted.
To a pamphlet, published shortly after the catastrophe by H. W. Chase, one of the few copies of which now in existence is preserved by the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, the following more extended description of anthracite's worst disaster is taken:
"When the shaft was in flames the men below were trapped, for there was only one outlet and that was through the breaker. The fire came from the ventilating furnace, which ignited the shaft. In some mines, even at that time, the air was drawn out with fans, but in the Avondale a furnace ventilating system was operated. The furnace was down near the bottom of the shaft, and a flue went through the shaft to carry off gas and fumes and maintain a draft to take in fresh air.
"The shaft had been sunk by Steuben Coal Co. in Plymouth, at a bluff some distance above West Nanticoke. It was 200 feet deep. About 100,000 tons of coal had been mined. The breaker was considered a model structure. Shortly before the fire the D. L. & W. Coal Co. had bought the mine and named it Avondale. The mine had been idle, and work had just been re- sumed. On the job were some of the best miners in the valley.
"At about 10 o'clock on the morning of Sept. 6, 1869, the engineer, Alexander Weir, was startled by a sudden rush of fire up the shaft. It came with a great fury, and with a sound some- thing like an explosion. He had time only to blow the whistle and take steps to prevent a boiler explosion, in order to escape from the blazing building. From outside, the fire was first visible from the top of the head house. Almost immediately the entire works was in flames.
"To the scene rushed men, women and children by the hundreds, most of them relatives of the men in the mine. Mothers cried frantically for their sons, fathers bewailed the loss of their first-born, brothers and sisters mourned the loss of brothers, young girls shrieked while their sweethearts were being burned alive. It was sheer pandemonium for hours.
"Calmer minds superintended the efforts to fight the fire, and the hysterical crowd gradually quieted from sheer exhaustion, with occasional outbursts of overmastering grief. The fire threat- ened the miners' houses, and domestic goods were rushed to places of safety. But the wind was right and only some trees were ignited.
"As the blaze heightened, it was visible for miles and people from everywhere flocked to the burning breaker. The place became a sight-seeing exhibit. Removal of blasting powder from the magazine was only one of the thrilling features. A steam fire engine was summoned from Scranton, and engines from Kingston and Wilkes-Barre were fed by bucket brigades. By noon the crowd of spectators was beyond counting, or even estimating.
"By mid-afternoon the fire was under control. Water was flushed down the shaft until the fire was out. As soon as the cooling embers permitted the charred ruins about the mouth of the shaft were removed and an emergency derrick erected for a horse-power hoisting apparatus. It was ready about 5:30 p. m. Twenty minutes later the first living creature went down to test the air. It was a small dog in a slatted box. With the animal went a lighted lantern. Breath- lessly the crowd awaited the return of the pioneer adventurer into the late inferno. Ten minutes later he was drawn up. The light was out-but the dog was unharmed.
"False hope was raised. The animal had gone into the mine and survived. Then probably the miners would be found alive. An attempt was made to quiet the tense crowd, and men at the mouth of the shaft halloed down, hoping for an answer from the imprisoned men. Some thought they heard an answering cry from below, and the crowd went wild. Cheer after cheer went up and the mob could not be quieted.
"All was confusion. Everyone wanted to get to the mouth of the shaft. Everyone wanted to see what was going on. The one policeman on the job might just as well have been miles away. The mob was beyond handling. Someone remembered the fire hose. It was put into play, and a space was quickly cleared for action. The crowd was at length hushed. Another loud call was sent down the shaft. This time there was no echo, nor any imagined response. The deadly quiet told the real story of what had happened in Avondale mine. Piercing shrieks came from the heart-broken women and grief rent the hearts of all. Hope at length was dead, and the awful truth had dawned.
"But the work was just started. A man was needed to descend the shaft. Brave men hesitated, and none accused them of cowardice. The dog had lived, but what would black damp do to a human being? Charles Vartue, aged 35, volunteered. With a wet towel tied around his neck, and equipped with a lantern and a canteen of coffee, he took hold of the signal rope and stepped into the bucket. The drum began to unwind. After fourteen minutes he emerged from the shaft. He had found timbers obstructing the shaft half way down, and reported that it would take two men to get past the barriers safely. Charles Jones, of Plymouth and Stephen Evans, of of Nottingham shaft, descended together, supplied with tools. They gave the stop signal several times on the way down. About twenty-five minutes later they emerged gasping for fresh air. At the foot of the shaft they had passed two dead mules and came to a closed door, from which they
2094
could get no response. Suffering from sulphur, they dared not take time to batter the door but had to ascend to save their own lives.
"Fresh volunteers were called for, and Thomas W. Williams of Plymouth, and David Jones, of Grand Tunnel, offered themselves. They descended and signaled for pick and shovel. The tools were let down.
"Hearing nothing from the men in the shaft, another team was let down. The air was poisonous and it was with great difficulty that the bodies of Williams and Jones were found and brought up. They had perished in seeking tidings of their buried brethren.
"Midnight now had passed and it was realized that further attempts, until the air was cleared, would be sheer suicide. A fan and donkey engine arrived from Scranton Tuesday morning. Volunteers were enrolled. All hope of finding living men in the mine was gone, but the attempt to learn the awful truth of the Avondale disaster went on unbated. Most of the volunteers had been exhausted and matters seemed at a standstill when a fresh party descended at 3 a. m. Wednesday. They found the bodies of two of the victims, both in a horrible condition from bloating.
"At about 6:30 a. m. sixty-seven more bodies were found. When the death roll was com- plete it totaled 110. Many of the dead were buried in Scranton in Washburn Cemetery on Sep- tember 9. Others were buried in Shupp's Cemetery, Plymouth, and in Catholic Cemetery, Wilkes- Barre. A few were buried at Pittston, two at Forty Fort, one at Harvey's Lake and one at Potts- ville.
"The coroner's jury attributed the 110 deaths to 'the exhaustion of atmospheric air and the prevalence of sulphuric and carbonic acid gases in the said Avondale mine, caused by the burning of the head house and breaker at said mines.' A relief fund, which had contributions not only from this community, but from many parts of the nation, totalled $155,825.10 by October 2."
As would be surmised, the nature and extent of the Avondale disaster sent a popular and imperative demand to the legislature of the Commonwealth for the passage of laws in many forms which might, in future, avert such calamities. Starting in 1869 with an inspection law for Schuylkill county only- the first of its kind in the United States-a more general act of 1870 made in- spections of mines under state supervision mandatory in all counties of the Commonwealth. Six months following the Avondale holocaust, the "Ventilation Bill" was likewise passed. Its main provisions, still in effect, require:
"(1) Employment of competent persons by the State to inspect the mines and see that the provisions of the law are carried out.
"(2) Accurate survey and mapping of the mine working so that a map could be kept at the colliery.
"(3) The provision of at least two openings to each mine, fitted with suitable appliances for escape. "(4) Provision for at least two hundred cubic feet of pure air per minute for each employe in the mine, and the division of this air into separate currents or splits, so that not more than 75 persons should be employed upon each current.
"(5) The reporting of all accidents to the inspector and investigation of them by him. " (6) Promulgation of general rules for the regulation of the conduct of employes and provision for punishment of violators of the law.
The effects of these and other corrective and supervisory laws-practically all the outcome of the local calamity-were immediate and permanent.
A commission reporting to the Governor in 1898 remarked:
"In 1870 the coal produced per death was only 59,969 tons, while in 1897 it was 110,727 tons. The number of deaths per thousand employes in 1870 was 5.60, and in 1897 only 2.83, showing that the ratio of fatalities per one thousand employes is reduced proportionately to the increase of the quantity of coal per death."
Reaching further than any other regulatory acts, thus meeting bitter opposition at the hand of operators, was the measure of 1889, known as the Certificate Law. By its terms, no person could mine coal in the anthracite field without a certificate based on at least "two years experience as a laborer within mines of Pennsylvania."
A test case was made of this law. The operators carried the case to the Supreme court of the Commonwealth where the United Mine Workers vigorously supported it, as its terms gave members of that organization a practical monopoly in employment. The State Supreme court held the act constitutional, which decision was later confirmed by the Supreme court of the United States. From
2095
a mass of bills, good, bad and indifferent which have been introduced in all the years since incidents of the Avondale fire set the ball in motion, the State Bureau of Mines, established in 1897, and later becoming the Department of Mines, has succeeded in having many repealed and others more beneficial to the industry codified, so that the net result of these measures in 1925 may be said to be as fully protective of the lives and health of underground workers as human agencies can devise.
Leaving the "Trail of Anthracite" in the prosperous period which was to end its second epoch, and turning to a more general narrative of Wyoming affairs, it is a matter of note that the first years of reconstruction after the Civil war found the community sharing, in an unusual degree, feelings of optimism.
Timed almost to the day of the arrival of the first passenger train over an all-rail route into Wilkes-Barré, the new Wyoming Valley Hotel, built on the site of older hostleries on River street, opened its hospitable doors to the stranger. The ceremonies of its opening on March 29, 1866, attracted people from far and near and it at once established itself as a sort of community center de luxe for the entire valley. Two days later, March 31, 1866, other crowds of the curious were deeply thrilled when the first locomotive, drawing two coaches, safely descended the mountain grade of the Lehigh and Susquehanna railroad and coasted into an unpretentious station in South Wilkes-Barré. The Lehigh and Susquehanna was not then a link in the chain of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, but was a part of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation company's system and intended to supplant, excepting for heavy freight, the system of haulage from River street to Ashley, the ascension thence by planes to Mountain Top and from there connections by rail and canal to the east.
The race between the Lehigh and Susquehanna and the Lehigh Valley railroads to tap the rich coal fields of Wyoming was one which excites the imagin- ation even in this present age. To the vision of Asa Packer, who walked from Connecticut to obtain employment along the Lehigh river and was there to visualize the future of anthracite, the Lehigh Valley company owes its impetus. The first of the coal carrying roads to be chartered was the Beaver Meadow Railroad and Coal company.
Its charter dated back to 1833. By 1836 its line ran from Parryville to Penn Haven where it received coal from planes. As Mr. Packer's coal holdings were largely in the Hazleton region, he projected a railroad from that point to the Lehigh river. This was the Hazleton and Beaver Meadow Railroad. Another spur was later projected from Penn Haven to White Haven where juncture was made with the Lehigh and Susquehanna, thus reaching the Wyoming field over the system of the latter. In 1864, these and other spurs were consolidated under the name of the Lehigh Valley railroad and war was declared against the Lehigh Coal and Navigation company and its subsidiaries .* The scramble for rights of way along the tortuous channel of the Lehigh river and the combative ten- dencies of rival railroad gangs in construction work in these two separate pro- jects for independent all-rail connections with Wyoming enlived the press of the period and raised high aspirations in the valley as to its becoming a railway center of note. The Lehigh Valley railway's extension over the mountain from
*During the period of intense rivalry between the two railroad companies, it is narrated that the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, having shops at White Haven, importuned the residents of that community to handicap the Lehigh Valley Company by refusing to sell the latter rights of way. This the land owners of White Haven refused to do. By reason of this refusal, so the story runs, the shops of the Lehigh and Susquehanna (now the property of the Central Railroad of New Jersey) were removed to Ashley, where they have since remained.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.