The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1896-01-01
FEARFUL FATALITIES.
TWEEN !Y-NiNE MINERS KILLED AT
DAYTON. TENN.

TWEEN LYNNE MINERS KILLED AT
DAYTON. TENN.
An f>pio~inn of F'red:'mp Oiel""s'@ =
wall of SI.t.. and Coal Which Falls and
Inapri.onS the Men in "A Chamber With
Poisoned Air.
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn, Dec 20
Twenty-four miners lost their lives to-
dav in the Nelson mine, Entry 10.
rear Day Tenn. by an explosion
OF tiredanp. The explosion was sue.
ceeded By terrific crash. which iudi-
Gated that the roof of the passage
through which the men had entered
had fallen in. No avenue OF escape
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 mikes
from the town of Dayton, and is
reached by spur track. The men,
both white and colored, including sew
eral boys. entered the mine to go to
work at T o'clock this morning, but
nothing of the awful catastrophe was
known until II 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 II years or more, and the
entry where the unfortunate miners
are entombed ran back more than two
miles from the mouth of the mine.
The mine is of the kind common in
southern coal fields, known as drift
or level veined mine and worked in
the direction of the veins straight into
the face Of the mountain, but before
entry is reached long slope extends
to level of several hundred yards be-
low at angle of about 90 degrees. The
cars are pulled up from the foot of
the slope where the train of cars
drawn by mules connect with it to the
outside by cable which hauls the
coal up with remarkable rapidity.
Resculug 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 open
Ing through the wall of fallen roofing
which must be made safe as they pro
ceed The foul air quickly exhausts
the workmen who are relieved by
fresh hands. The work viii continue
day and night till the bodies are re-
covered. At the drift mouth hun
dreds of women and children soon
gathered, and the picture Of grief and
despair is healtrending Mothers
wringing their hands, weeping daugh-
tiers and little boys and sweethearts
and grey headed parents all sin the
great distress, for they have been told
that there is no hope. 1t is spectacle
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 certain to these who breathed the
poisoned air,
The latest details and a corrected ac-
count at o'clock this afternoon says
that way has been broken through
the debris in the passage of Entry 10
and the blackened corpse of the dead.
miners were carried out one by one to-
the outside, where the, work Of identi-
fcation, began. The number of vic
tins, first reported at Is, has reached
90.
Two bodies recovered are those Of
negroes, which have not been recog-
niZed. VIM. Raddy, a colored lad,
was one Of the last to be brought out.
Life had long been extinct in all the
poor remnant of humanity stretched
at the mouth. of the tunnel. Latest
records say that the gas was the
first ignited in No 9 by Tom Hawkins,
gas Inspector, on his usual morning
round Of the mines. Flames were
rapidly communicated TO Entry No 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 con-
gested, 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 goth life sacrificed.
Leech and Westfeld, two negroes,
were found just outside the entry,
having fallen dead just as they were
beyond the reacn of flames.