page_title: Coal mining in Plymouth, Pennsylvania
section_title: Boston Colliery
hierarchical_section_title: Coal mining in Plymouth, Pennsylvania / Coal Mines in Plymouth, Pennsylvania / Delaware & Hudson Collieries Along Shupp's Creek / Boston Colliery
caption_attribution_description: English: The Boston Breaker
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 Boston was unique in that the mine and the breaker were originally built about 1-1/4 miles apart from one another. The mine and shaft were located north of State Street where it intersects with Shupp's Creek. A railroad was built from the mine along the creek down to the first Boston breaker, located next to and east of the old Shupp Cemetery at the bottom of Boston Hill. The mine was opened in 1857 by the Boston Coal Co., which leased to the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad in 1858, and sold to the Delaware & Hudson Canal Co. in 1868, subject to the lease of 1858. In 1883, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western mined 4,351 tons, but in January that year the Delaware & Hudson assumed operation of the mine.
  On January 16, 1887, the Boston breaker was destroyed by fire. The Delaware & Hudson built a second breaker, this time adjacent to the mine, completed by November 1887. In 1909, the second Boston breaker was demolished and coal from the mine processed at the Delaware & Hudson No. 5 colliery.
caption: The 2nd Boston breaker, 1904
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