page_title: Coal mining in Plymouth, Pennsylvania
section_title: Fuller's Shaft (Delaware & Hudson No. 5)
hierarchical_section_title: Coal mining in Plymouth, Pennsylvania / Coal Mines in Plymouth, Pennsylvania / Delaware & Hudson Collieries Along Brown's Creek / Fuller's Shaft (Delaware & Hudson No. 5)
caption_attribution_description: English: A photograph of the Delaware &amp; Hudson Coal Breaker No. 5, Plymouth, Pennsylvania
context_page_description: Plymouth, Pennsylvania sits on the west side of Pennsylvania's Wyoming Valley, wedged between the Susquehanna River and the Shawnee Mountain range. Just below the mountain are hills that surround the town and form a natural amphitheater that separates the town from the rest of the valley. Below the hills, the flat lands are formed in the shape of a frying pan, the pan being the Shawnee flats, once the center of the town's agricultural activities, and the handle being a spit of narrow land extending east from the flats, where the center of town is located. At the beginning of the 19th century, Plymouth's primary industry was agriculture. However, vast anthracite coal beds lay below the surface at various depths, and by the 1850s, coal mining became the town's primary occupation.
context_section_description: The former railroad crossing at Plymouth's Bull Run (long disappeared) was originally called Fuller's Crossing, after the mine operator J. C. Fuller. The railroad ran from his mine (and several others), crossed Main Street and continued down to a wharf on the Susquehanna River. Fuller's mine was located just above the Gaylord colliery along what is now Washington Avenue. According to Munsell, the shaft was sunk by the (old) Plymouth Coal Co. and J. C. Fuller in 1858. In 1864, Fuller operated the mine, which produced 23,827 tons of coal, making it that year the fourth largest mine in the Plymouth district. In 1871, operation of the mine was transferred from Fuller to the Northern Coal & Iron Co., a firm owned by the Delaware & Hudson Canal Co. and by 1873, if not earlier, a breaker was operating at the mine.
  On April 27, 1907, the No. 5 breaker burned to the ground, causing an "awe inspiring spectacle." At the time, the breaker had been abandoned by the D&H and was being used as a washery by the Rissinger Bros. By 1909, a second breaker was built, intended to process coal from several D & H mines. In 1914, The D&H was operating both the breaker and a washery and waste water from these was dumped into Shupp's Creek, not Brown's Creek, because the second breaker had been relocated from its original site to a new one farther south. In 1919, fire destroyed the second No. 5 breaker. That year, a new reinforced concrete breaker, called the Loree No. 5 Breaker, was built to process coal from all of the D&H operations in Plymouth.
caption: The first D&H No. 5 breaker, which burned in 1907
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