The Tupelo journal., 1909-11-26
20 MINERS ARE RESCUED
Imprisoned Men Win Desperate Battle and Are
Restored to Their Families.
WaHed-in 100 Hours, Hymns, Prayers, and Sermon Dispel the
Spirit of Dependency Assaling Them-Tragc Scenes
Enacted-rlen Tell Graphic Stories.

Cherry, Ill.-The st. Paul coal mine
has given up one-fourth of its living.
At midnight there had come alive
out of the mouth of the pit twenty-one
men, who for a week had been given
up for dead.
At that hour there remained in the
mine upward of seventy men who were
still alive, but had not been brought to
the surface.
The men told tales of hardships and
p~rivation and suffering. They told OF
fighting first against death in the shape
of fire, and later against the slow death
of suffocation.
For seven days they subsisted on
what little food was in their dinner
buckets, and the bark of the mine tim
bers, and drank the oil from their
lamps and the seepage in the cutters
of the mine. For seven days they
watched and waited and prayed for res
cue, and tuned their ears to sounds from
the outside world that would tell them
that rescuers were at hand.
Then when all were sinking into the
apathy of despair, and the songs they
had sung and the stories they had told
no longer served to keep their minds off
their slowly approaching doom, rescue
came, and willing hands dragged them
from their prison 800 feet under the
earth's surface, and brought them up
to home and friends.
Many Of the survivors told of the
impromptu prayer meeting by
VIM. Clelland some time before they
were rescued. When the men were in
despair and ready to give up the fight,
Clel,and started to sing a hymn. He
is a Scotchman, o Presbyterian and a
deeply religious man. His hymn was
taken up at once by his companions.
The hymn was "Abide With Me-" and
the walled prison of the entombed men
rang with its melody. Encouraged by
the way the hymn had cheered the men
up, Clelland led in another and still an
other.
Sermon Precedes Rescue.
After singing for an hour, there was
a silence and then in that subterranean
tunnel Clelland preached a little sermon.
He took no text, but urged the men to
pray to God that they might be rescued
from the terrible death that confronted
them. Then he prayed, and all of his
fellow prisoners joined him and within
twenty-four hours they were all free
men.
The first news that men were still
living in the mine reached the surface
at 2 pm. For days the interior of the
mine had been a fiery furnace, and all
hope that men might be still living in
side had been abandoned. Volunteers
had gone down to bring up the dead and
could scarcely believe their W senses
when they found living men to bring up.
The news spread like wildflre through
out the stricken village, and before the
first of the entombed men had stepped
out of the cage at the surface, a dense
throng surrounded the mouth of the pit.
Men, women and children deserted their
homes and ran, some of them half clad,
to the mines mouth.
The two companies of state troops
that had been sent by Gov. Deneen to
prevent disorder when dead bodies were
brought up, found no disorder until the
living appeared.
Women whose husbands, brothers and
s~weethearts had been buried since the
fire broke out, became hysterical in their
excitement and fought with the soldiers
to reach the mouth of the shaft.
MANY swooned. Those whom the sol
diers held back, as gently as they could,
turned again and again to the attack,
and, Selling the guns OF soldiers, en-
deavored to wrench them from their
hands. Many got through the lines and
would have hurled themselves head first
into the pit had they not been restrained.
Everywhere the village teemed with
excitement. The progress of the men
first rescued from the shaft to the cars
was blocked every foot of the way by
historical men and screaming women.
The mother of William Hynes, a lad
of %, was standing at the mouth OF
the shaft when the first twenty men
came up. Some one ran over to her and
said her son, whom she had given up
for dead, was still alive and would be
brought up soon. The woman dropped
to her knees on the ground and prayed
aloud her thanks to God. Another by
stander told her a mistake had been
made and her boy was dead.
The mother screamed and fell back
in a swoon from which it is feared she
will never recover. Within ten minutes
William Hynes was brought up alive
and well.
Fall on Miners Necks.
Women who recognized among the
twenty-one men taken out their own
kin would not be restrained, but threw
themselves on their necks and sobbed,
refusing to tear themselves away when
AMcpv At Gov RP0WN