Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1890-06-21
THIRTY-FOUR KILLED.
Victims Of the Terrible Fire-Damp in
Pennsylvania Mine.
A Heroic Miner Lad Gives Up His Life I'm
Warming Endangered Comrades-Pit-
ifnI Scenes at Dunbar.


Warming Endangered Comrades-Pit-
iful Scenes at Dunbar.
At lilo o'clock A. NJ, an explosion shook
she miners dwellings ON Hill Farm, in Fsyette
county, near Dunbar Pa, and hundreds Of af-
frighted persons, who knew esouad too well,
feared another mine disaster, and they reasoned
far too we'll In a moment the fearful news
had spread that the Hill Farm mines. owned
by Philadelphia parties, had exploded. The
w-browed hill from which the slope entered
shook from mouth to pit, and the score Of
miners houses lining the fatal hill trembled
for moment, and then poured out their
frenzied inmates by the hundreds. A rush was
made 10 the mouth of the pit, but ingress was
impossible, as smoke. in tense volumes, was
issuing forth. Fifty-two miners had gone to
work, and were in the slope when the eXplo-
sion occurred. Of these filty-twO, eighteen
were in the left heading and thirty-tour in the
right heading. Those in the left heading got
out all right. The rest of the others were cut
off, and not one escaped.
; At seven o'clock the gang turned in of the
mines, the smaller crowd drifting off TO the
left, while the larger, some thirty-hye in num-
Der, dritted TO the right and descended some
eight hundred feet from the surface and at
least mile from the opening. These two
drifts are connected, but the connection is from
the main stem, some halt-mile from the en-
trance. The mine. il seems, had been some
what troubled with water and an air shaft had
been drilled from the surface 10 the juncture
of the right and left shafts where the water
seemed to be most abundant As the miners
branehed of from this point they knew that
an air-hoe had been rilled there that had not
yet been broken into the mines, but they did
not know that the shaft was TO be broken into
to-day. A miner named kerwin had been left
in the right drift near where that branch
- a.,A Ia If
his lahors broke into the perpendicular shaft
The moment this was broken into food of
water gushed out, and Kerwin and man
named Landy standing by yelled out for some
one to save the men in the right drift, as the
water was pouring down the hill in stream,
and he feared they would be drowned. Young
David Hays who had seen the affair, leapcd
forward at the call, and turned down the left
drift in a deluge of water TO warn his endan-
gered comrades below. just as he passed the
air shaft that had been broken into, the rush
of waters had changed TO the ugly roar Of IA
flood, which blanched the checks Of the man
who stood behind and towards the light.
The flow of water had changed to a deadly
volume ofire-damp, and as young Hays swung
by the shaft fash fblazing light slid through
the shaft from end TO end, II seemed. The dar-
ing youth carried an open burning miners
| lamp in his hat and he had hardly taken a
step beyond the roaring shaft when the spark
ignited reservoir of the deadly fluid, fire.
damp, that had already accumulated and he
sank corpse near the men whom he had
hoped to save, and whom he certainly doomed.
In an instant an unquenchable fire sprang up
in tho nine-foot vein, Just between the main
entrance and on the right drift, forever shut
ting the thirty-two men imprisoned there.
Poor David Hays the father of the mistaken
hero, driven mad by the fate OF his son, dashed
into the sulphurous smoke and strangling
lire-damp only to fall blindly by the side Of
his son, and to be drawn out an hour later
with James Shearn, both recognized only 10y
their wives,
The fire, famed by air from the main drift.
and from the fatal shaft itself soon sprung
into conlagration.
The miners from the left drift escaped.
blackened and bruised but safe, and they tell
a fearful story Of the scene Just heyond the
blazing coal, on the right, could be seen score
of terrible faces, walled in by u flame no man
/ could pass and live. Willing hands and hearts
were not wanting on the outside, and clerk
/ Cook of the mine, with the mine inspector
| himself, Keahley, headed party Of 100 who
| entered the main shaft and after grouping on
for a quarter mile at least, were driven back
again and again by the deadly gas only TO
recover breath for moment and again plunge
| in. They finally came upon two bodies, and
/ they were brought to the opening Of the mine.
! The volunteer corps worked steadily from
noon until late at night, with no result but
| brought deeper despair TO those above, aud
| showed there was no hope and no one alive
| below. The corps ofone hundred was changed
! again and again as each exhausted squad stag
4 gcred to the outer air, but all in vain. One
/ man, Kelly, who had entered several times,
| finally, from shear exhaustion, fell into an
| open pit, and was drawn ont fatally injured.
| AT midnight the smoke and gas from the
/ right shaft poured up the main exit in broken
volume, and after trials most beyond human
| endurance, the rescuing party gave up all
hopes Of recovering their comrades bodies
/ from that entrance and turned their attention
to the Ferguson mine, one aud a half miles
away. The universal and unwilling verdict
I from the old miners about the shaft is that the
! entombed men have either been killed outright
! by the explosion, or later by sufiocatiou. The
latter seems TO be the more probable, at least
/ in part as sounds were heard from the en-
! tombed men as late as one o'clock. These
/ grew weaker and weaker, however, and half
an hour later the most hopeful of the rescuers
pouid bpar untbIpsr