Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1869-10-01
Incidents at AvOndale.

At the conclusion of the funeral ad-
dress over the remains. of the dead mi
ners, Rev. Mr.. Morgans, pastor of the
Welsh Baptist Church at Plymouth. re-
marked, with deep emotion, that all but
three of the male members of his Church
had perished in the mine.
1t required seventy men to dig the
graves in the Hyde Park Cemetery.
This force of gravediggers commenced
wJrk in the morning, and were engaged
at it all day, and until late in the
night.
William Halliday, who was among the
first to enter the mine after the fire was
extingnished. has made the following
statement
PINE RIDGE CoLLIERY, Sept. ST.,
William Halliday, have been three times
down the shaft the first time I could
not 60 away from the bottom. went
down the second time to day, and, with
three others, went up the plane in the
east gangway, as near as could Judge,
one hundred PAGES the first we saw were
two men in a car, dead ; few PAGES
further on were sixty men and boys, in a
pile, lying in different positions-som
on their faces others on their backs fa-
thers with sons in their arms, who, from
appearances, had died with great strug-
gle. We began to feel overcome with
the fire-oamp and aaaeli from dead bod
les, but still felt as if we could not come
away without bringing of the dead with
us. and accordingly we each got boy
on ourshoulders and brought them up with
us. After found this lot of men / went
about fifty feet further on to the back
end. but found no more. The third time,
/, with three others, went in the same
gangway, and brought out man.
About thirty of the men had their shirts
drawn over their heads for protection.
The fact, as stated by Mr. Halliday,
that thirty of the men were found with
heads and faces covered by their shirts,
is accepted by many as evidence of the
terrible struggle on the part of the min
ers to fight for life as long as possible.
The position of the bodies also indicate
as much, although the faces of the dead,
except in a few instances, exhibited no
signs of great suffering or mental tor
ture. Even on that cold cluster of hu-
man bodies, grouped together like hide
GUS statuary by the hand Of death, the
testimony of affection in the last moment
of life was written. Folded in each
others arms, were friends who had stood
by each other under the sunlight above,
and now, though dead, their bodies were
locked together in friendship. The man
Evans was found partially sitting up and
holding on each arm boy, his own son,
who had answered the same dread sum-
mons that came to his helpless father.
What the feelings of all the prisoners
were we may attempt to imagine, but
we can never fully realize.
If this terrible calamity.had not occur
ed another shaft would have been sunk
in few days. The miners were, In fact
getting every thing ready to commence
this work, as point had been reached
in the mine at which it was intended to
place second shaft. The matter Of
danger had repeatedly formed subject
of conversation among the miners, and
it was only few days before the disaster
that a number Of the men declared thai
: the work of sinking another shaft should
be prosecuted as fast as possible.
r "Don't care much bout the bugs, said