The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1877-04-27
n Noble and Heroic Boy.

An incident connected with the West
PittstOn disaster deserves mention and re-
membrance. A boy of twelve years named
Martin Craghan, stood with a young com
paniOn on the carriage, waiting to be
hosted up from the mine out of the i'm
pending danger, when i. flashed upon his
mind that a number of work men had not
been warned of the terrible peril they were
in. With a noble impulse he resolved to
rescue them, if possible, and asked the
other boy to 90 with him. This boy refused
and was safely drawn up-aud the last who
was brought up unscathed.
Martin rushed through the chamber and
galleries of the mine alone, TO carry the
startling news to :he imperilled miners
We may guess how he hurried on his er-
rand Of mercy, and in what frightened tones
he told his story. Then he hurried back to
the shaft again, hoping to escape with his
life. He waited for the carriage to descend !:
but the wire rope had melted and the fire
was now burning SO fiercely above him that
all hope of esca pc in that way the only out
lett was cut off. He then fed back to the
miners again but experience had taught
them the utter hopelcssness of escape by
the ordinary way, and they had built bar
ricade i'll Martins absence which afforded
them temporary protection from the nox-
ious gases and smoke that were filing the
mine. The barrier was solidly built, but
upon the defence it afforded them against
the smoke and gas depended the only
chance that they had to live until the burn
ing shaft was eXtineushed.
Martin stood at the barrier and begged
piteously to be admitted. The few survi-
vors who beard him say the little fellow
cried. But to have made a passage way
for him would have been death to all. So
they were obliged to refuse hir. After a
! little he went quietly away to the stable.
He had been promoted To the position of a
mule driver only the day before and now
he went to his mule, and there wrote with
chalk upon a piece Of board the names. of
those who were dear to him, aud then lay
down beside his mule to die. His body was
found close to that of the poor animal,
which, in its death agony, had rolled upon
him and wounded his breast with n por-
tion of the harness. So died this little hero
in The dark.
1t is written. "There is hing covered
that shall not be revealed - and the story
of this brave, rendered hearted boy in stIiv-
ing to save others from death, alone in the
solitude and darkness of his underground
prison, finishing his earthly course with the
beroism of martyr, should be told at
every firesi6e in America. The secret OF
the hard, laboiious lives such children. lead
in the dalk places of the earth shall be re-
vealed, and the iniquity that risks such
lives for The sake of keeping down ex-
penses," shall be exposed and execrated.
The boy and the men who pe,ished with
him have been sacrificed in the dark TO a
cruel extortion. The light which famed
at Avondale shed glare upon these death
holes that should nave compelled a refor-
nation. But a further sacrifice was needed
and has been made and it is every man.
business to see that the costly sacrifice is
not i'll vain. n.-ScieBtiSt.