The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1886-01-21
A TALE OF THE N e
A Miner Whose Christian Burial Came
Twenty Years After Death.

A Miner Who's Christian Burial Came
Twenty Years After Death.
The horror of the Nanticoke NINE
disaster is fresh in the public mind, and
the world, confident of the terrible dis
closures, awaits the completion of the
work of weeks yet to come necessary to
reach the s~ubterranean spot where the
twenty-eight miners are imprisoned.
The situation is horrible to contemplate,
yet it is but one of the numberless aw-
full incidents of mining life and has a
legion of parallels. The recollections of
any miner who has survived years of
p~eriious experiences in his craft are al
ways interesting, says The Omaha Bee,
and that such a one is found here in the
person of a prominent and respected
citizen must be locally of double inter-
est.
Mr.. Richard O'Keeffe, senior commits
sioner of Douglas county, passed the
early years of his life and met the first
experiences of bread-winning in the
mines of Cornwall. Everyone has read
of those great labyrinths which under
mine the southwest shores of England
and penetrate miles outward beneath
the sea, half way toward the coast of
France. Cornwall is given up to the
traffic of the mines, and a Cornishman
lives not but to be a miner.
81 a tell you." said Mr.. O'Keeffe,
in the course of a conversation with a
reporter, zone of the most remarkable
mining stories, to be an absolute fact,
that l ever learned in my experience OF
rood of in Enfs0n mr. fhn anrons1ns NJ
facts. Although the first chapter oc-
Cured before 1 was born l remember
very well the second"
Pressed for a recital of the narrative,
Mr.. O'Keeffe yielded, and took up the
thread of the tale with the cleverness of
an experienced stcry-teller.
This is strictly a one-man story, and
does not deal with wholesale sacrifices,
although the facts are painful enough.
Not far from Lands End, which is the
southermost extremity of England, and
the last seer Of the British shores on the
transatlantic passage outward, there is
a big mine which runs in part out under
the sea. 1t is called the Dolcoth, and is
the largest mine in MI England and,
perhaps, then in the world. 1t yields
tin now at a depth of some three thou
sand feet, but in 1888, when my story
begins, it was a copper mine, on a level
of twenty-four hundred feet. In that
year the copper played out andthe mine
ceasing to pay, it was knocked as the
miners cali it-closed up and the COM
pany dissolved. On the very day Of the
close a man whose name I have forgot
ten was shut up, in his chamber. You
see that in mining copper a man in
striking a vein of mineral follows it to
the end. In the course of time a miner
moves away from the main passageway,
and digs an independent tunnel, liz
which he works alone. This man had
made a room about twenty feet deep
when a neighboring miner fired a blast.
The shot blew down the mouth of the
chamber in which the subject of my tale
was working, and closed him in. Al
though the man was missed, his exact
location was unknown, and the dissolu-
ton of the company left no one in
authority to search for him. 1t was
known that he was left in the mine, and
as the days limiting human Endurance
under total privation passed it was
conceded that he was dead, and he
was left to his tomb in the depths
of the mine. Years passed, his widow
mourned for him, and then ended her
w%idowhood days by marrying again.
Children were born to her second union
and grew up to advancing youth.
Twenty-one years brought the time up
to 1859. Nine years before another
company had re-opened the mine, and
sinking lower struck a tin bonanza.
One day in SO a speculative miner wan
dering on the deserted copper level
struck a thin streak of mineral, and
with a pick started to follow it A few
strokes SEM the pick through loose
mold and disclosed a cavity in the earth.
The miner soon cleared away the OBJ
structing debris, and made an %aperature,
through which he entered. Lifting his
lamp its light fell directly upon the
body of a man lying as in repose near
the mouth of the chamber. The discov-
erer summoned other miners, and
of the old hands recognized the features
of the dead as those Of the man mpris-
oned twenty-one years before. By some
strange p~reservative power of the close
atmosphere of the chamber the body
remained intact and bore the aspect of
a man but a few hours dead. The body
was borne to the surface and the free
air and the sunlight quickly reduced it
to dust. 1t was a remarkable phenom-
enon. and one which 1 witnessed with
my own eyes. The remains were care
fully transferred to a coffin and buried
in the cemetery with all the ceremonial
offices of the church. At the grave
stood the widow and five of the children
of her second marriage, the eldest al
most grown"