Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1899-12-24

ll8nLS OF J46 H01aeS OF tH6 H1ActS- -
mi side or the mouth OF the shaft some
huge Jumps OF coal made a blazing
camp fire, and around it were seated a
score of workers. Many were speech
less over the calamity, while others
talked in whispers and seemed to &C
cept the doom melted out to their COM
panions with all the stoicism of men
engaged in dangerous employment. On
the board platform that covered the
shaft grimy miners knelt, with ears
bent, to hear the faintest call for
succor From the Depths.
BY an upper window in a house be-
yond the tracks could be seen a
mourning woman, her bowed head
visible in the light from a rude lamp.
1t was Mrs. Meese, whose little SON was
lying In deaths embrace in the quick
ly provided morgue, and whose hus-
band, Samuel Meese, was n OF the
seven bodies waiting transfer TO the
surface. She was watching for the
men to bring up her husbands BODY.
Beneath the tramway of the tipple,
weeping women found shelter from the.
merciless rain, shawls about their
heads gave them scant protection from
the cold, but their blanched faces show
ed the intense heart pain they endured.
There was no hope, and yet each nur-
tured that hope that lasts until n
dead lies before the mourner. Each
had husband. father or brother cold In
death far down in the mine, and yet
each tried to cling to some impossible
remnant of hope.
No complete
List of the Dead
can be compiled tonight. The man
ayers of the mine have the pay roll, u
it has been impossible for them to dis
cover all the survivors. But there is
general agreement that from thirty to
thirty-fye men are entombed. About
one-half are Americans, and the bal
ance Hungarians or Slavs. The list as
obtained is:
Joseph Wagner, single, has mother
and sister.
Joseph Butschve, 40, wife and three
children.
Peter Oris, SO, married, has five chill
dren.
Albert Meese, aged IA, died after res
cue. was trapper boy and badly cut and
burned.
Samuel Meese, his father, pit boss.
Henry Hager, so, wife and children.
James Thomas, married.
Among the fourteen men brought out
by the rescuers on their first trip were
Joseph Meese, driver, badly burned on
face and body.
Harry Atwood, badly burned.
Thomas Radcliffe, a trapper boy, was
at the shaft. He started to go down
inthe mine with the rest at the morn
ing descent but his father said there
were no cars. He went home. His
father is among the lost.
Mrs. G. l.. Harrington. wife of tne
check-weighman, did heroic service in
furnishing the little band with coffee.
Carl Hobidski was hauled UP from
the bottom, the rope being tied about
his wrists. In twenty minutes after
rescue he appeared on the scene calm
as ever.
Soon after the extent Of the accident
became known undertakers were sum-
moned from Brownsville. A new build
ing, Just back of the main shaft intend
ed for a blacksmith shop, was convert
ed into a morgue. Here pine boards
on t~restles were shaped into receptacles
for the dead. All is in readiness for the
victims of the mines when brought to
the surface.
There was an explosion in Braznell
mine last July. 1t adjoins the Umpire
mine in which eight men were killed
last year the day before Christmas by
a similar explosion. Henry Hagar, one
If the men entombed in Braznell put
is the uncle of Henry Hagar who was
killed in the Umpire mine explosion.
A. S. Braznell, manager of the COM
pany, says that the mine was entirely
free from gas yesterday and that the
quantity found this morning was not
considered dangerous.