Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 27, 1904 Cheswick, Pennsylvania – Sorrow and Dread at Scene of Harwick Mine Disaster
From The Pittsburg Press of January 26, 1904:
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From The Daily Review (Decatur, Illinois) of January 25, 1904:
NEARLY 200 MEN ENTOMBED IN MINE
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Explosion in a Pennsylvania Colliery May Mean
Death to Every Miner in the Shaft.
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Women and Children Wait to Claim Bodies of Husbands and Fathers
Pittsburg, Pa., Jan. 25. -An explosion occurred in the shaft of the Harwick Coal company near Cheswick, Pa., today, cutting off the escape of about 200 miners at work at the time.
Three tipple men were badly burned; one fatally. It is reported a hundred and fifty to a hundred and eighty miners, including the fire boss and pit boss, are entombed.
Excitement is intense in Cheswick and Springdale where the families of the miners live. Great crowds surround the mouth of the pit and the wails of women and children are pitiful.
Three injured men died on the way to Allegheny.
When the explosion occurred the concussion was so great a mule was blown out of the shafts. The cause of the explosion is yet unknown.
Up to 1:30 this afternoon no one had entered the mine and nothing is known of the entombed men. Officials of the company are awaiting arrival of a mine inspector who is on his way to the mine.
SEVENTY-ONE BODIES FOUND!
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Harwick Mine of Allegheny Coal Company
Giving Up Its Dead
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ONLY EIGHTEEN IDENTIFIED ———- Day one of Horror in the Little Village Which Is Near the Pit Mouth. ———-
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Pittsburg, [Pa.] January 27- Three days have elapsed since the terrible catastrophe at the Harwick mine of the Allegheny Coal company, and to-night at midnight seventy-one bodies have been recovered and brought to the surface. Only eighteen of these have been identified. The day has been one of horror in the little village on the hill above the pit mouth, but even while the blackened bodies were brought from the top of the shaft and taken on sleds to the school house on the hill, where undertakers were ready to receive them, there seemed to prevail in the community as a clutch that repressed their natural feelings of passionate anxiety and sorrow, the grim realization that there is still much work to be done before the full extent of the catastrophe has been realized.
The Allegheny Coal company to-night, in an official statement, positively admitted that all of the men who were in the mine when the explosion occurred are dead. There are 171 names on the list, which does not include Selwyn M. Taylor, or of the two men who were on the tipple above the mine shaft when the explosion came. Nor does the list include the name of Daniel W. Steele, of Castle Shannon, whose body was found in the mine this morning. He was one of the men who went down in the mine to work last night but became separated from the rest and wandered far ahead of the air. His body was found setting with his back to the wall of one of the rooms. He had evidently been overcome by the after-damp.
The list of 171 names was made public to-night by Sheldon Parks, treasurer of the company, after a consultation with General Manager George W. Scheetz. Mr. Terry says it is possible that one or more of those included may have escaped death, but this is hardly probable. The only man included in the list who is known to be living is Chris Gunia, who is not yet out of danger. He is the man who was found at the bottom of the shaft by the rescue party, headed by Selwyn M. Taylor.
This brings the official number of known dead up to 174, but the list may still be incomplete, as it is possible that some boys may have gone into the pit to work under their fathers’ direction, whose names have not yet been determined.Hutchinson, the custodian of lamps, says that between 150 and 190 lamps were given out on the fatal Monday morning and no man was given more than one.
There were many harrowing sights in the little hamlet to-day. This was not good to see, and the prospect is that not many more will be presented there before the end has come.
To-night there are strange contrasts to be seen. The village is quiet. Zero weather and bright moonlight. At the shaft mouth fires have been built and groups of men are gathered there trying to keep warm. In the blacksmiths shop, about 100 feet from the mouth of the shaft, twenty-seven coffins, each containing its burden, are lined up.
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About 300 yards up a winding road in the midst of a little hamlet is the school house. The desks and chairs have been removed. On the floor, in rows two in number at mid-night, were lying twenty-one bodies just as they came from the shaft.
As the bodies are brought to the surface they are carried to sleds waiting to receive them and taken up the hill to the school house. When the undertakers work is done the bodies are taken down the hill again to the blacksmiths shop.
And so the dreary round has gone all day. Financial aid for widows and children is coming in and is in charge of a temporary relief committee, headed by George A. Bigley, president of Cheswick borough and acting burgess.
“I had not thought it possible that a catastrophe so awful in proportions could occur in a mine like the Harwick, which was new and reported to be relatively safe.”
The explosion was of terrific force, the tipple, built of iron, was wrecked, and a mule was blown out and over the tipple from the bottom of the shaft.
The coal is mined by compressed-air machines of the Puncher type, blasted down by dynamite. The shots were prepared and charged by the men who loaded the coal, and the shots were fired by shotfirers.
Each shot firer carried a Davy lamp; to fire, he inserted a wire through the gauze of the lamp until it was the proper temperature and would then apply it to the fuse. The shots near the roof required an extremely heavy charge.
Nearly all advanced workings were very dry and dusty. Locked safety lamps were used exclusively in all working places, except at the bottom of the shaft.
The cause of this explosion at about 8:15 a.m. was a blown-out shot in a part of the mine not ventilated as required by law.
Sprinkling and laying of the dust had been neglected; firedamp existed in a large portion of the advanced workings.
The explosion could be transmitted by the coal dust suspended in the atmosphere by the concussion from the initial explosion, the flame exploding the accumulations of firedamp and dust along the path of the explosion, carry death and destruction into every region of the workings.
The fireboss did examine part of the mine. His last report was made January 23.
Insufficiency of ventilation was partly due to accumulation of ice at the airshaft.
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Charlie’s Monday Markers ~ Episode 13 Harwick Mine Explosion 1904
-Battle of Homestead Foundation
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