Lawrence democrat. (Lawrenceburg, Tenn.) 1884-1925, 1904-01-29
GREAT mine DISASTER
EXPLOSION AT cHESWlck, PA,
KILLS 1870 PEOPLE.
ONLY ONE MAN TAKEN OUT ALIVE
Heartrendne Scenes Around the
Death-Pit-Twenty Men Engaged In
Recovering the Entombed Men
Mine Inspector On the Ground.

FltlSDurg, "a, Jan, zo.-fTOm all
that can be gathered at a late hour
tonight, between 1S0 and 100 men are
lying dead In the headings and pas
sage ways of the Harwick mine of the
Allegheny Coal Company at Cheswick,
the result of terrific explosion to-
day.
Cage after cage has gone down into
the mine and come up again, but only
three miners of all those that went
down to work this morning have been
brought to the surface One man is
Adolph Gunia, and he Is still alive, but
in semi-colscious condition at the
temporary hospital at the rude school
Henry Mayhem, check weighman, and
George Waltman, tipple man, died of
their injuries.
Rescuer Dies.
In addition to the miners who were
at work when the explosion occurred,
is is now believed by practically all
of the men of the rescue party who
have come up the 220-foot vertical
shaft for warming ana breathing
spell, that Selwyn M. Taylor, the min.
ing engineer who plotted the mine and
who was the first to reach the bottom
after the explosion occurred, is now
among the list of dead.
Of those in the mine all are prob.
ably dead.
Cages Wrecked.
The explosion occurred at S:20
o'clock this morning, the the first
warning was the sudden rumble under
| ground, and then sheet OF fame fol-
lowed up the deep shaft. Both mine
cages were hurled twenty feet above
the landing, and the three men on the
tipple were hurled to the ground. A
mule was thrown high above the shaft
and fell dead on the ground. The
injured men were brought at once to
this city, where two of them have since
died.
AS soon as the rumble of the ex-
plosion and the crash at the pit mouth
startled the little village the wives
and children of the men below rushed
to the scene of the disaster, but to
gain no encouragement. There was no
way TO get into the deep workings.
The cages that let the men into the
mines and brought them out again
when the days work was done, were
both demolished.
Anxious Relatives.
All day long there was a jam of
anxious women and children, waiting
about the mouth Of the pit. There
were calls for assistance and for sur
gical aid from the men in charge of
the mine, but 1t was not until 4
o'clock this afternoon that the first
attempt at rescue was made. This
was failure, as the two men who
volunteered were driven back by the
foul air.
Shortly after o'clock Selwyn M.
Taylor and one of his assistants sig.
nailed for the engineer to lower them
into the shaft. Taylor is still down
there. Three times efforts have been
made to reach him, but so far with.
out avail. Thomas Wood, one of the
first of the rescue party, hauled to the
surface, told his story of his trip
through the min. He said:
Thomas Woods Story.
Il was with Taylor, and we clam.
bered over three or four falls. Tay-
lor laid out the mine and seemed to
know the way. There was one man
alive at the foot Of the shaft He was
sent up and then we took the mule
path into the south level; we saw two
men who were alive, and notified those
back of us, and then went on. We
passed the third, fourth and fifth head
ing and through an overdrift into the
air shaft. began to feel dizzy and
sick, and then l saw Taylor stagger
and fall. His lantern fell. We tried
to lift him up, but could not carry
him up, and | made my own way to
safety"
Mine Inspectors Views.
f. w. Cunningham, the mine inspec-
tor of the fourteenth district, reached
Harwick about 1880. When seen by
an Associated Press reporter just af-
ter his arrival, he said:
II went to Greensburg to inspect a
mine this afternoon and when l reach
ed home found bunch of kilograms
telling me of this disaster. The mine
where the explosion took place was
inspected, l think, about the first of
December. There was some gas in
there then, but never considered the
mine dangerous"
The last inspection blank hanging
on the nail in the mine companys Of
flee is dated July II, 1903, but it is
evident that a later report has been
torn of.
An additional party of twenty has
just gone down. Three of the rescu-
ers, Becker, Smith and Walk Earnest,
when they returned to the surface, de-
clared that in their opinion, all in the
mine outside of the rescue party are
dead, including Taylor, the engineer.
H. f. Hutchinson, who gave out the
lamps to the miners before they went
to work in the pit this morning, said
"At 1880 o'clock, the time when the
whistles blew and when every one is
supposed to be at work in the mine,
| had given out between 1S0 and 1870
lamps, which was one lamp to a man,
and not one lamp has been returned"
| -----