Jamison No. 4 & No. 5 Mines (Crabtree Mines), Crabtree, Salem Twp., Westmoreland Co., PA, USA

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Coal Miners Memorial, Alexandria Mine, Jamison No. 4 & Coke Works, Jamison No. 5 Mine, Crabtree, Unity Twp., Westmoreland Co., PA

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Alexandria Mine & Coke Works,
Jamison No. 4 Mine & Coke Works,
Jamison No. 5 Mine,
(Crabtree Mines),
Jamison Coal & Coke Company,
Crabtree (Goff),
Unity & Salem Townships,
Westmoreland County,
Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

A Tribute to the Coal Miners that mined the Bituminous Coal seams of the Crabtree Mines, Crabtree, Unity & Salem Townships, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

Compiled & Edited by
Raymond A. Washlaski

Raymond A. Washlaski, Historian, Editor,
Ryan P. Washlaski, Technical Editor,

Updated Oct. 19, 2009

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Alexandria Coal Company, Greensburg, PA
See: Alexandria Mine & Coke Works, Unity Twp., Westmorel;and Co., PA
See also: Jamison Coal & Coke Company, Greensburg, PA

Alexandria Mine & Coke Works
(Jamison No. 4 Mine, Salem) (ca.1885-1930's),
Located off of US Rt. 119 & PA SR1022, on the New Alexandria Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Goff (Crabtree), Salem Twp., Westmoreland Co., PA
[Goff later became the Salem Twp. section of Crabtree.]
[Alexandria Mine was combined with the Crabtree Mine (ca.1908)]
Owners: (ca.1885-1901), Alexandria Coal Company, Greensburg, PA
Company Store: Henrietta Supply Company (ca.1904-1905)
(ca.1901-1930's), Jamison Coal & Coke Company, Greensburg, PA
[Alexandria Mine became Jamison Coal & Coke Company Jamison No. 4 Mine, Salem (ca.1901)]

Jamison No. 4 & No. 5 Mines
(Crabtree Mines),
Salem Twp. & Unity Twp., Crabtree, (Groff), Westmoreland County, PA

Jamison No. 4 Mine & Coke Works (ca.1885-1930's) ,
Located at Crabtree, Salem & Unity Twps., Westmoreland Co., PA
[Mine was first called Alexandria Mine.]
[Mine was renamed Crabtree Mine No. 4 by Jamison Coal & Coke Company]
Owners: (ca.1885-1901) Alexandria Coal Company, Greensburg, PA
[Mine was first called Alexandria Mine, name changed to Crabtree Mine No. 4, which later became Jamison No. 4 Mine.]
[see also: Alexandria Mine]
(ca.1901-1922), Jamison Coal & Coke Company, Greensburg, PA
Company Store: Jamison Supply Company No. 4 Store
(ca.1922-1930), Leased by Keystone Coal & Coke Company, Greensburg, PA
(ca.1930-1930's), Jamison Coal & Coke Company, Greensburg,PA
Company Store: Hannastown Supply Company

Jamison No. 4 Mine ( ca. ? ),
Located at Crabtree, Salem & Unity Twp., Westmoreland Co., PA
[Jamison No. 4 Mine, Crabtree, Unity Twp. consolidated with Jamison No. 5 Mine, Unity Twp. latter part of 1920]
Owners: (ca.1920- ? ), Jamison Coal & Coke Company, Greensburg, PA

Jamison No. 5 Mine
(Crabtree Mine), near old Crabtree, Unity Twp., Westmoreland County, PA
Jamison No. 5 Mine & Coke Works (ca.1886-1930's) , Crabtree, Unity Twp., Westmoreland Co., PA
[Mine was also called Crabtree Mine No. 5]
Owners: (ca.1886-1901), Alexandria Coal Company, Greensburg, PA
[Jamison No. 5 Mine, Crabtree, Unity Twp. consolidated with Jamison No. 4 Mine, Crabtree, Unity Twp. in the latter part of 1920]
(ca.1901-1922), Jamison Coal & Coke Company, Greensburg, PA
Company Store: Jamison Supply Company No. 4 Store
(ca.1922-1930) Leased by Keystone Coal & Coke Company, Greensburg, PA
(ca.1930-1930's) Jamison Coal & Coke Company, Greensburg, PA
Company Store: Hannastown Supply Company

A portion of the U.S.G.S. Latrobe, PA 15min quad map ca.1902, of the three township area of Crabtree, showing the various mines in and around Crabtree.
(Courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey, Washington D.C.)

Charging the Coke Ovens
The Charger operated the electric powered Larry, charging coal into the coke ovens at the Crabtree Coke Works of Jamison No. 4 Mine, Crabtree, Salem Twp.
(Photo courtesy of Focus Magazine, Tribune-Review, Greensburg, PA)

Bricking up the Coke Oven
Coke oven with door partially bricked up with leveling bar in place, to level the coal charge by the coke worker. The coke oven is ready for charging by the larry on the track running along the top of the coke ovens, the coke worker would then finish bricking up the oven door, and cementing it with mud to seal the oven, at the Crabtree Coke Works.
(Photo courtesy of Focus Magazine, of the Tribune-Review, Greensburg)

Crabtree Coal Tipple
Coal loading chutes under the coal tipple, loading a Jamison Coal Company railroad hopper car, on the New Alexandria Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The coal chutes are a part of the coal tipple at the Jamison Coal Company, Crabtree No. 4 Mine of Jamison Coal & Coke Company.
(Photo courtesy of Focus Magazine, Tribune-Review, Greensburg, PA)

DESCRIPTION:
The mining complex at Crabtree includes the machine shop, a lamp house, and brick bee-hive coke ovens. The coke ovens are along Crabtree Creek east of town and are heavily overgrown. The machine shop is a red-brick common-bond building; it contains one story and measures 75' x 36'; its gable roof is covered with metal roofing; shallow brick arches span the doors and windows; brick pilasters support the timber rafters. The lamp house also contains red-brick, common-bond walls and has one story. It measures 20' x 20' and rests on a rubble stone foundation. The building presently serves as a garage. The town water reservoir was built by the Alexandria Coal Company, small sections of the abutments remain.
When a new-coal-washing facility recently began operating on the original mining site, to reclaim the mountain of coal slate dump, left from the Crabtree Mine, many of the mining buildings and banks of coke ovens were removed. The coal washing and recovery plant has also ceased operation, and the area has been reclaimed.

Main Street, Crabtree, ca.1975
A view looking north on main Street (PA Rt. 119) in the Salem Township part of Crabtree, showing the two-story wood-frame double houses lining the road.
(Photo by J. R. Downs, courtesy of the Tribune Review, Aug. 20,1975 & and Archives of the Latrobe Area Historical Society, Latrobe, PA)

Crabtree is located along Crabtree Creek, at the junction of Salem Twp., Hempfield Twp., and Unity Twp., sections of Crabtree are in each of the three townships.

The town of Crabtree was laid out in a linear fashion with miners houses construced from the 1880's through the 1920's. Center Street is lined with wood-frame double houses with two stories, brick chimneys, and concrete-block foundations. Roosevelt (Back) Street contains double houses similar to those on Center Street, as well as large tee-shaped houses, each containing two-stories and stone foundations. Kennedy and Main Streets are lined with similar two-story wood-frame double houses.
The Original Community center building is now enclosed within and a part of Carbone's Restaurant. The company store, Jamison Supply Co. No. 4, was destroyed by fire. The first houses constructed by the Alexandria Coal Company were located on Roosevelt (Back) Street.

The Company Store
The clerks and butchers that worked at The Jamison Supply Company No. 4, the company store at the Crabtree Mine No. 4, of the Jamison Coal & Coke Company.
(Photo courtesy of the collections of Harry T. Bortz, of New Alexandria, PA)

The Jamison Supply Company Store in Crabtree was a full service store, and carried just about everything a miner and his family would need.
(Photo courtesy of the collections of Harry T. Bortz, of New Alexandria, PA)

HISTORY:
The original town of Crabtree, Unity Township, (now known as Old Crabtree, a small agrarian community), was established about 2 miles southeast of the presentday town of Crabtree, along the Latrobe Road, which is one mile south of Greenwald.

The town presently called Crabtree was originally named Goff (a post office was established here in 1884). In the 1880's Thomas Donohoe's Alexandria Coal Company developed the Alexandria Mine and Coke Works near Goff, and built coal company owned houses for its workers in the small rural town. By ca.1890 the Alexandria Coal Company employed 190 miners (the eleventh largest in Westmoreland County), and seventy-eight coke workers (the ninth largest in the county). That year the Alexandria Mine produced over 250,000 tons of coal (the county's fourth largest coal producer) and the adjacent Alexandria Coke Works produced about 123,000 tons of coke (fifth largest in the county. The coke works contained 293 bee-hive coke ovens.

During the bitter coal miners strike of 1894, about 1,000 strikers from Irwin, Manor and other points, accompanied by two brass bands, attempted in an evening march to get workers at Greensburg and Crabtree to quit working, but the effort didn't work.

Thomas Donohoe subsequently resigned from the Alexandria Coal Company and, along with his son-in-law Arnott Wilson, formed the Donohoe Coal & Coke Company. This concern aquired coal lands along Crabtree Creek and built coal company owned worker housing at nearby Greenwald (originally called Deweytown), in Unity Township and opened a new mine and coke works, called Donohoe Mine & Coke Works, which was located in Salem Township.

(History and description of the Crabtree Mines & Coke Works, with additional data and pictures adapted from "Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania: An Inventory of Historic Engineering and Industrial Sites, 1994," America's Industrial Heitage Project, National Park Service, Historic American Buildings Survey / Historic American Engineering Record, U.S. Department of the Interior, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

Abandoned Mine Buildings
The abandoned Crabtree No. 4 Mine buildings at Crabtree, Unity Twp. (ca.1975), this building has been modified for use by the Crabtree Fire Department.
(Photo by J.R.Downs, courtesy of the Tribune Review, Aug. 20,1975 & and Archives of the Latrobe Area Historical Society, Latrobe, PA)

Crab Tree. The JSKJ, Kranjsko Slovenska Katoliska Jednota, KSKJ, has the Society of the Sacred True Body (Presveto Resnjega Telesa) and the SDPZ has Society #58 in Crabtree. {from Rev. J.M. Trunk text published originally in 1912 Part 8, History of Slovene Communities.}

Coal Miners Memorial "Crabtree Mines,
Crabtree / Goff, Unity & Salem Townships, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania "

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