Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-06-17
DOOMED TO DEATH.
A Frightful Mine Explosion in
Pennsylvania Coal Mine.
Ont Of Fifty-Two Miners Oaly Ten Escape.
Houses Wrecked by the Terrific
Explosion.

| DUNBAR, Pa, June 16.-This morning at 11:10
a sullen. shivering roar shook the lowly miners
dwellings of the Hill farm mines in Fayette
| county, near this place, and hundreds of af-
| frighted persons, who knew the sound TOO we'll,
! feared another mine disaster. In a moment the
| fearful news had spread that Hills farm mines
had exploded, and the low, broad hill from
which the slope entered shook from mounds to
pit, and of miners houses lining the fata,
hill shook for moment and then poured out their
frenzied inmates by the hundreds. a rush
make to the mouth of the pit but ingresS
impossible, as smoke i'll dense volumes was is
iuing forth. Fifty-two miners had gone to work
this morning and were in the shaft when the
plosion occurred. OF the ffty-two, eighteen
were in the left heading and thirty four in the
right heading. Those in the left heading got
out. The retreat of the others was cut off and
Joseph Bergher (married), Richard Bergher,
Milt Farney (married), Barry Maust, Emanuel
and son, J. w. Mitchell married, Joseph
Bigley, wife and two children, Peter EgRn
Emarried), Robert Magill,, Martin ,Cavine, John
Pope Cmarried), Andrew Cope and son, Patrick
Devlin (married), John Delaney (married),
John Joy married., John Deyaney, David
Davis (married), Thomas Davis aud son, Patrick
Courtney (married), John Courtney and son,
Jack Mitchell (marriedl, Dan Smith (narried),
McCleary (married), Thomas McUleary (mar-
ried), Elmer Denny, Peter McGaugh.
At G O'Clock this th morn morning the gang
gang drifting off to the left while the larger
some thirty five in number, went to the right
and descended some 500 feet from the surface,
and at least mile from the opening. These
two drifts connected by a connection from
the main stem, some half mile from the entrance
OF the mine. 1t seems TO have been
troubled with water and the air shaft
had been drilled to junction OF the right and
left shafts, where the water became most abun-
dant. As the miners branehed off from this point
they found the air hale that had not been broken
into, but did not know that the shaft to be
broken into to-day, this shaft, by the way, be-
ing six-inch hole, A miner named Kirwin
had been left in the right drift where that branch
Joined the miners exit and in the course of an
hour the laborers broke into the perpsndic ular
shaft. In moment after being broken into a
food Of water gushed out and Klrwin and a man
to save the men in the right shaft, as the water
poured down the hill in a stream, and he feared
they would drown. Young David Hayes, who
had seen the affair." leaped forward at the call
and turned down the left drift in a deluge of
water to warn his endangered comrad.s. Just
as he passed the air shaft that had been broken
into the rush OF waters had changed to an ugly
roar of flood, which blanched the cheeks of the
men who stood behind and toward the light.
The flow of water had changed to q deadly vol
ume of fire damp, and as young Hayes swung by
the shaft flash of blazing light slid through |
burning miners lamp in his hand, and he had
hardly taken a step beyond the roaring shaft |
when a spark ignited the reservoir of deadly |
fluid fire damp that had already accumulated, |
and he sank corpse ten feet toward |
the men whom he had houed to save and the |
men whom he had certainly doomed |
In an instant unquenchable fire had sprung |
up in q nine-foot vein just between the main !
entrance and the right drifts, forever shutting |
in thirty-two men imprisoned there. Good old |
David Hayes, father Of one of the victims, |
driven mad by the fate of his son, dashed into |
the sulphurous smoke. strangling fire. damp, |
and to be drawn out an hour |
later with James Shearn, both recognized |
by their wives. The fire, famed by the air |
from the main draft from the fatal shaft soon !
sprsng into an awful confagration. Pat Kelly, |
VINO was driving mine car near the place, says |
struggling smoke and gas followed him like |
fend 10 the very door of the shaft and poured |
out after his ascent to the top like the wave of
black flag of woe and distress over this hitherto |
prosperous mining region.
The miners from the left drift escaped, black
ened and bruised, but safe, and they tell fear
full story of the sights just beyond the blazing |
coal on the right drift where score of terrified |
faces were walled in by a flame no man could |
pass and live. Willing hands and hearts were |
not wanted on the outside, and Clerk Cook of |
the mines headed party of 100 who entered the
main shaft, and, after cropping on for quarter
of mile at least, were driven back again and |
again by the deadly gas only to recover breath
for a moment and again plunge in TO find at last
the right right drift was impenetrable and no
man living could pass in hope of even seeing
score of men dead beyond. They finally
upon two bodies which were brought to the OPEN
ing of the mine. When the blackened corpses,
those of SheaTn and the elder Hayes, were
drawn into daylight moan went up from the
ing TO the silent watch kept by the wives and
children and sweethearts of thirty more still in
the mine,
The volunteer corps work ed steadily from noon
until late to- night with no result but the dead
above named, and each trip but brought de-
spair to those above, and showed there no
hope and no one alive below. The corps Of 100
was changed again and again, as each exhausted
squad staggered to outer air, but all in vain,
One man, Kelly, who had entered several times,
finally, from sheer exhaustion, fell into the
open pit and was drawn out fatally injured.
Suddenly lowering night, adding rain TO woe
almost unbearable to the wives and chi idTen of
the men whose doom was all the more awful be-
cause unknown.
AT midnight tonight SMOKE and gas from the
right shaft poured up the main shaft in IN
broken voice, and after trials almost beyond |
human endurance the party gave up all hopes Of
their comrades dead bodies from
that entrance. and turned their attention to the
Ferguson mine, nine and one half miles away. |
At this hour they are striving to penetrate
from that mine, but the flames and smoke balk
their every effort.