St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-01-28

moth mine, No. l Of.the Frick company,
went down into the darkness, glad to be
on the roll for another days wages, as
they were becoming far too few during
the late depression in the coke trade.
A few minutes after o'clock a faint
puff of dust rolled from the mine. dis
solving into thin air, while the workers
at the mouth never dreamed the unusual
blast of dust and smoke carried with it
over 100 souls into eternity. There was
no sound, no shock, and nothing to
show that anything was wrong but the
faint cloud of dust that first warned the
experienced workers at the mouth of
the shaft that somewhere something
was wrong.
Then began the old tale of a mine
horror, be the victims ten or one hun
dred and ten, except that in this case it
ran over the hundred, and the stones
about the mouth of the pit were one
hundred times greater, even the
fearful Dunbar explosion being
nothing as compared to the fright
at the Mammoth mines tonight.
The curse of all these things is that it
falls, not OH the poor ITO individual vic
tins, but upon their families, many,
and in fact most of the men being mar
ried, with wives and children to add
sorrow to the shock SO keenly felt
throughout this entire region today.
At the hour named the cottages of the
miners, scattered over the hills, pre-
sented the usual scenes incident to the
busy house wives duties about the
place. Many of the cottages faced the
dark-broWed entrance to the mammoth
mines, and the keen eyes of watchful
eyes and sWeethearts scented danger in
a moment when the unusual stir about
the mouth of the pit showed danger to
them and theirs. Women and girls
flew to the place with shawlS hastily
thrown over their heads, perhaps TO
hide their white faces, which grew
whittier when it was seen that many
willing men started down the pit, but
that none came up. The Mammoth mine
is located on a spur of the Sewickley
branch of the Southwest Penn railroad,
and is one Of the largest plants in the
Pennsylvania coke region. In the fall
of 1889 it was purchased from j. w.
Moore by the Frick interest, and has
since been operated by that concern. 1t
is ten miles from telegraph Office, ana
correspondents were forced to secure
special engine from Mammoth to
YOungWoOd, where two special tele-
The story is told: An unexpected flow
of gas was struck. and the miners work
ing in the headings connected with
Flats Nos. 2, 3 and were all killed.
They went to work as usual. The
fire boss. as is his duty, had been
in the mine and examined the work
ing places. He is supposed to
go to the face Of each working and by
a chalk mark indicate that he has been
there. Whether this was done or not is
not known, as the fire boss, poor Will
lam Sheath, cannot tell the tale. His
mangled body lies at the improvised
morgue. The only evidence that he at
tended to his duties are the regular
certificates of inspection, which Gen
eral Superintendent Lynch received
from Sheath and others this morning,
which guaranteed the mines as safe.
The miners knew these certificates
had been filled out and went to work.
They never returned. Supt. Keighley,
who was mine inspector in the Dunbar
district when that horror occurred, was
at the mine when the explosion
took place. He Immediately called
for volunteers, and gathering
few about him descended the
shaft. Before doing so he notified Gen
gentleman ordered all mine superin-
tendentS in the region to the scene.
When the volunteers entered the mine,
sight impossible to picture met them.
Bank cars, mules and more terrible
than all, men were piled in COM
pact mass against the ribs, or
walls of coal and not living thing was
in the wreckage. 1t was almost as
solid as the coal itself, sOnterrific was
The force Of the explosion. This OBJ
struction was removed with difficulty
and they entered a chamber of nor
rors. The first object they dis
covered after leaving the main entry
was gun boat. In it was the leg
of man. Farther OH they found a
human head, but no where in sight was
the trunk that had borne it but few
minutes before. After walking dis
tance, surrounded by dangers unseen,
but more terrible than can be imag-
ined. they found the trunk, the ragged
neck with the blood oozing from 1t tell
ing the story Of the appalling disaster
Working their way in the band found
the bodies strewn along the gangwav.
One unfortunate met death while on
clasped and eyes uplifted. His body
less trunk did not move the rescuers,
nor was their emotions betrayed by the
shapeless head itself, but the sight of
the corpse in the attitude of prayer
brought tears to every eye. 1t
was a pathetic picture. While all this
was occurring the people of the region
were concentrating at The scene of the
great disaster. On every lip was the
question, "Can we save anY?" Among
the first to arrive from distance were
Gen. Supt. Lynch, Chief Engineer
Paddock. Robert and Morris Ramsey,
Supt. Laird, Capt. Schoonmaker
Following them came physicians and
undertakers from Scottdale, Mount
Pleasant and Greensboro. and after
them the dignitied form of Father
Lambing. of Scottdale, came in sight,
and soon he was circling among the
bereaved with words Of sympathy
and coincidence, besides urging
the men assembled to greater
work to rescue any who might be alive
who came were Drs. Wilson, McCor-
mick, Painter, Meyer, Clark and others
from the surrounding towns. Their
services were not needed. for every
man in the headings where the eX-
plosion occurred was killed. None
were injured and lived. Dead bodies
were brought up every few minutes
and the crowd at the shaft mouth SIM
ply fell back to allow the men carrying
the stretchers room to pass. Every
corpse was covered and no one even
ventured to inquire which body it was
for they know every one in that part of
the mine at the time of the explosion
was dead. Supt. Keighly was sorely
distressed man. He has been in three
big fatalities in this region, but this is
larger than any. The Dunbar disaster
and Mr.. Keighly's connection with it.
every one knows-then he was superin-
tendent at Youngstown, when an ex-
plosion occurred in which many were
killed and injured. He said:
mo man living knows the cause of the ac-
cident, and it will never be known for GER
tainty. About 800 feet from the bottom of
the shaft we encountered a fall of rock in
the gangway which was caused by the ex-
plosion. Empty cars completely wrecked
were piled up against it. We cut
our way through and fell down
into the dip where the men were
working and then we were constantly
falling over dead bodies. Not so many were
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