The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1883-02-23
A MINE HORROR.
Break in nm Illinois Coal Mine and Ucnvy
Loss of Itfe.

Loss of Life.
The town of Braidwood, ILL.,, has been
flied with lamentations owing to terrible
disaster which resulted in the death of sew
enty-four persons, who we're overwhelmed
by landslide, a number of those killed
leaving large families The tragedy oc-
Cured in the No. shaft of the Whining
ton Coal, Mining and Manufacturing com
pany, known as the Diamond company,
and situated three and half miles north
west of Braidwood. The little village of
Diamond was a scene of desolation calcu-
lated to wiring the hearts OF persons most
hardened to scenes of misery. SiXty-eight
men and six boys lay dead in the mine, and
1t may be weeks before even tie melancholy
satisfaction of recovering their bodies Is
recorded. Diamond is devoted to mining,
and this blow carries death into n
hundred families. In several in
stances all the male members of
family were swept away. section of
prairie land forty by ninety feet, over which
the floods had extended until the water stood
three or four feet deep, suddenly caved, the
result being the instantaneous flooding of the
mine in which three hundred men and boys
were at work. Inside of half an hour the
water had reached all parts of the works.
In opening this mine n shaft seventy-hve
feet had been sunk into the earth. At right
angles to this two main galleries were run
nearly parallel with the surface of the earth
and about seventy-five feet below it. From
these main galleries narrow spurs or gang
ways are dug out in various directions. The
spurs rise and fall with the ledge of coal,
sometimes rising to within twelve or fifteen
feet of the surface. 1t was at such a point
near the top, where the break occurred.
While lying on their backs picking away
at the coal above the earth must have fallen
upon the miners. Through the opening
thus made the water poured in, filling one
gangway after another, and cutting off es-
cape to the central shaft. There was little
time to give an alarm, for soon after the
break occurred every avenue of escape was
cut off. The galleries we're low and narrow.
and only by painfully slow crawling could
the victims escape. No noise accompanied
the rising of the water, and the
first indication of their DANGER to many of
the miners. was a thrilling sensation of cold
water trickling along the pathway in which
they lay at work. There was an air shaft
Offering an additional avenue of escape, of
which many availed themselves. but the
water came i'll TOD rapidly to allow all to
reach 1t. The news of the accident soon
spread, and great crowd gathered about
the mouth of the pit where the wcrimen
were fishing out the almost exhausted and
nearly drowned men who were alive at the
bottom of the shaft. Wives and mothers
llnelt on the ground and prayed fervently
for the safety of their loved ones, and
rs the truth of the calamity appeared the
grief of the survivors was painful to be
heard. One poor woman bent over the
shaft as her husband climbed up the ladder
with the dead body of his son in his arms.
She extended her hand to receive them, but
was disappointed and doomed to greater
grief for the man, worn out by the desperate
struggle for life and for the body of his son,
fell back into the pit and was Killed. An
other woman. whose husband and three sons
were buried, lost her reason.
A large division of miners and several
teams were at once set at work to put a dam