The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-12-21
DEATH INARUsH OF FIRE DAMP
TWENTY-NINE MINERS KILLED BY
AN EXPLOSION.

With a Terrific Crash After the
ExpIOsiOn-The Scene of the Acct
dent Near Dayton, Tenn-A Heart
rending Spectacle at the Mouth OF
the Mine.
Chattanooga, Tenn, Dec 2O-Twenty-
nine. miners lost their lives to-day in the
Nelson mine. entry 10. near Dayton,
Tenn, by an explosion of fire damp. The
explosion was succeeded by terrific
crash. which indicated that the roof Of
the passage through which the men had
entered had fallen in. No avenue of es-
cape was left and there is no possibility
that any of them will be found. The
mine is the property of the Dayton Coal
and Iron Company, three miles from the
town of Dayton, and is reached by a spur
track. The men, both white and colored,
including several boys, entered the mine
TO 90 to work at o'clock this morning,
but nothing of the awful catastrophe was
known until IL o'clock, when the drivers
into entry 10 found their way blocked by
a solid wall of coal and slate.
The Nelson mine has been worked for
twelve years or more and the entry
where the unfortunate miners are en-
tombed run back more than two miles
from the mouth of the mine. The mine
is of the kind common in southern coal
fields, known as a drift or level veined
mine and worked in the direction of the
vain straight into the face of the noun
tain, but before entry is reached a long
slope extends to a level of several hun
bred yards below at an angle of about
twenty degrees. The cars are pulled up
from the foot of the slope, where tram
cars drawn by mules connect with il to
the outside by a cable which hauls the
coal up with remarkable rapidity.
Rescuing parties have been working all
day like grim death trying to reach the
miners, but it is probable that they will be
several days forcing an opening through
the wall of fallen roofing, which must be
made safe as they proceed. The foul air
quickly eXhauSts the workmen, who are
relieved by fresh hands. The work will
continue day and night until the bodies
are recovered.
At the drift mouth hundreds of women
and children soon gathered and the pic
ture of grief and dispair is heartrending.
Mothers are wringing their hands and
weeping, daughters and little children,
sweethearts and grey headed grand pa
rents, all being distressed for they have
been told there is no hope. 1t is specta-
Gle from which one turns sick at heart.
The mine is ventilated by air shafts or
passages so the caving of the wall in the
entry cut off the draft and death was GER
tain to those who breathed the poisoned
air.
Chattanooga. Tenn, Dec. 20, II p. M
The latest details and a corrected &C
count at O'Clock this afternoon say that
a way had been broken through the de-
bTis in the passage of entry 10, and the
blackened corpses of the dead miners were
carried out one by one to the outside,
where the work of identification began.
TWO bodies recovered are those of ne
groes, which have not been recognized.
William Raddy, colored lad was one or
the last to be brought out. Life had long
been extinct in all the poor remnants OF
humanity stretched at the mouth of the
tunnel.
first ignited in No. by Tom Hawkins,
a gas inspector, on his usual morning
round of the mines. The flames were
rapidly communicated to entry 10 by
means of side passages. All the men at
work in entry escaped except Hawkins.
In No. 10. which forms an angle in the
banks and connects the outside world at
the foot of the lower SLOPE the deadly
gas drifted and congested, doing its work
so well that not one of the men at work
in the rooms of this cross passage is alive
to tell the story. Oscar Hawkins. one of
the first men to get out of No. 8, will also
die, making the twenty-ninth life sacri-
feed. Leech and Westfield, two negroes,
were found just outside the entry, hav-
ing faAen dead just as they were beyond
the reach of the flames.
The fire was finally subdued late to-
night by means of powerful currents OF
fresh air from the outside forced in by
the fans, which have been putting the life
current in ever since the flames were dis
covered.
Thirty mules were numbered in the list
Every one of the 125 men in the mine
at the time felt the effect of the concus-
sion and suffered from the bad air which
spread through the passage of the mine.
Elder Morgan, boy of years, a son OF
DR.. w. l.. Morgan, ex-postmaster of Day
ton, is among the dead.
one of the strange facts in connection
with the catastrophe is that none of the
bodies were even singed by the fire, al
though the flames ragged through the en-
try, but this is doubtless explained by the
closeness of the air. from outside, in en-
try 10, where all the fatalities occurred.
For many hours after the first alarm was
raised no one was able to approach the
head of the slope, along which the chok-
ng, atter-damp crept, filling every crevice
walls, to the floor and the roof, and ev-
cry attempt to reach the passage where
the three bodies lay was unavailing, un-
I'll the fans had driven back the gas into
the unoccupied rooms and worked-out en-
tries, where 1t will linger till drawn out
by the strong draft currents from with
Supt. Vincent Ferguson was in Chat
tanooga when the accident occurred and
the men were directed in the work of
rescue by George Gibson, the civil engi-
neer, together with j. NJ. Head mine
boss, who were among the first to enter
the tunnel but were overcome by the af-
ter damp. The civil engineer tonight ex-
pressed the opinion that the explosion was
caused by some one passing the danger
me, or else by the bursting of a gas
Ieeder, for the works had been thoroughly
inspected by the inspector
The first theory advanced is probably the
correct one, inasmuch as the inspector did
not himself escape the destruction which
ne had set going. The dead miners were
an residents of Dayton and Morgantown
except Tom Hawkins, who lived in Rock
Wood and most of them were men of
This is the second fire that has visited
the mines of the Dayton Coal and Iron
company. Their employees have never
peen on a strike, and the dead men en-
Draced many of the towns best citizens
to this time it is known that the fol-
owing named persons were in the mine
-oH hawkins, single; John Leech colored
single; Lon Ferguson, married; Robert
WVanhton. single; Jack Ivester, married;
" m. Henderson, married. John West
neiq, colored married; John MANS, mar
ated. Losh Bennett, married; William AL
lander married.; w. ]. Miller,
HHhsle; W. H. Davis, married |;
slneodore Lane. married; William Lane
sGu OF theodore, married; Laney Walker
St4hgle; Charles Washburn single; Cyrus
15ieXaander single; John Able. a boy; WIN
~ 9lherton, single; Jim Johnson, single;
-'uer Morgan, young son of ex-postmas-
T. morgan, and Well Raddy a colored