The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1890-06-17
PERISHED IN FIRE DAMP
Thifty-TWo Miners Find All Exit 10 the
Shaft Cut OH.
a Young Man Who Tried to Rescue
Them Auements the Calamity By
Carrying a Lamp and Also
Meets His Death.

knew the sound too well and who feared
another mine disaster, soon found their
apprehensions well grounded. In a mo-
ment the fearful news had spread that
the Hill farm mines had exploded. Low
bridge hill, from which the slope entered,
shook from mouth to pit and the score of
miners houses lining the fatal hill shook
for moment and poured out their fren-
zied inmates by hundreds. A rush was
made TO the mouth of the pit. but ingress
was impossible as smoke i'm dense vol
umes was issuing forth.
Fifty-two miners had gone To work this
morning and We're in the slope when the
explosion occurred. OF these fifty-two,
eighteen were in left heading, thirty
two In right heading. Those in the left
heading got out all right. The.reteat OF
the Others was cut oil and not one es-
capped. Their names are: Joseph Brigner.
Richard Brigner. Milt Farney, Barney
Ma,ist, Emanuel Maust, Pat Courtney, Il.
w. Michel. Joseph Bigley, Peter Eaean,
Robert McGill, Martin Cavene, John
Cope, Andrew Cope, Patrick Devlin. Joseph
Delaney, John Joy, John Derranney,
David Davis, Thomas Davis, Pat
rick Capill, William Capill. Pat
smith, Daniel Shearn, William Hayes.
James McLeary. Elmer Denny, Peter Me-
Cough. OF these p were married and
have families.
The mine. il seems, has been somewhat
troubled with water, and the air shaft has
been drilled from surface 10 juncture with
the right and left shafts, where water
| seemed To be most abundant.
As the miners branched oil from this
point they knew AN air hole had been
drilled there that had not yet been broken
into the mine, but they did not know the
shaft was to he broken into to-day, this
hn h.i Stx LII
hole. A miner named kerwin had been
| left In the right drift near where
| that branch joined the mines exit
and in the course Of his labors broke into
the perpendicular shaft. The moment
this was broken into flood of water
| gushed out and kerwin and man named
| Landy standing by, yelled out for some
one TO save the men in the right shaft as
the water poured down the hill i'm "A
stream and he feared they world drown.
Young Davis Hayes, who had seen the
affair, 'eaped forward nj the call and
turned down the left drift 10 warn his en-
dangered comrades below. just as he
passed the air shaft that had been broken
into, the rush of waters changed to an ugly
| roar which blanchcdthe cheeks of the men.
The flowing water had changed To a
deadly volume Of fire damp, and as young
Hayes swung by the shaft sheet of
blazing light shot through the shaft from
| end Ia end.
| II seemed the daring young man carried
| an open, burning miners lamp in his
hand, and he had hardly taken a step
| beyond the shaft when the shock ignitcd
the reservoir of deadly fire damp, and
sank his corpse 10 feet toward the men
| whom hc had hoped to save and men
whom he had certainly doomed. In AN
instant an unqnenchable fire sprang up
| in the nlne-foot vein, just between the
main entrance and on the right drift, for
ever shutting oil ~ men imprisoned
there. Poor old David Hayes. father
| of the mistaken hero, driven mad
by the fate Of his son, dashed
into sulphurous smoke aud strangling
fire damp, only To fall blindly 10y the side
| of his son and Ia he drawn out an hour
later with James Shearn. both recognized
| only ny their wives. The fire was famed
by the air from the main drift and from
the fatal shaft itself soon sprang into an
awful conflagration.
The miners from the left drift escaped
blackened and bruised but safe, and they
tell "A fearful story of the sight beyond the
blazing coal on the right. Willing hands
and hearts were not wanting on the out
side. and Clark Cook with Mine inspector
keaglley headed a party of loo who en-
tered the main shaft, and after cropping ON
for "A quarter of mile at least were driven
back again by the deadly gas, only Ia re-
| cover breath Tor "a moment and again
plunge in and 10 find that the right drift
was inpenetrable and no man living could
pass. They finally came upon two bodies
and they were brought Ia the opening of
of the mine. When the two blackcned
corpses, those Of Stearn and Hayes the
elder. were drawn into daylight, "A moan
went up from a few Of the hundreds about
the pit. but their anguish was nothing
to the silent watch kept 10y the
wives. children and sweethcarts oi
men whose doom was all the more awful
because unknown.
AT midnight the smoke and gas from
the right shaft poured up the main exit
in AN unbroken volume and after
trials almost beyond human endur-
ance the rescuing party gave ,u,
all hope of ever recovering their
| comrades dead bodies from that entrance
aud turned their attention to the Fergu.
son mine, a mile and n half away. A,
this hour q a. m.l they are striving Ia
penetrate from that mime. but the flames
and smoke block their every effort. The
universal verdict from all the miners
about the shaft tonight is that the en-
tombed men were either killed outright
by I,,., the explosion ,,, or later ,, ,,
the more probable, at least in part
as sounds were heard from the entombe,
men as late rs I O'Clock this afternoon
These grew weaker and weaker, however
|, and half an hour later even the mos
, hopeful OF the willing rescuers could hea
nothing.
: The men say had they known the shat
, was To be broken into they would neye
: have entered the mine, as either water %
4 gas would surely follow, since in tbes
, regions gas always comes from the uppe
4 shale.
The owners, however. and in fact som
of the men themselves, say il was an ac
cidcnt pure and simple and that IL coul,
not have been avoided. The disaster
2 the worst ever known in the Connellsyill