MT. PLEASANT JOURNAL

Vol.18          Mt. Pleasant, Westmoreland Co., PA, Tuesday Evening, February 3, 1891         No. 41

Even the terrible disaster at Dunbar in June last sinks almost into insignificance when compared with last Tuesday's horrible explosion of gas in the Mammoth Mines of the H.C. Frick Coke Company, situated some six miles north-east of this place (Mt. Pleasant). In the first instance but thirty-one men lost their lives;  here, of the hundred and seven miners and mine workers not one escaped to tell the awful tale of how death came.  Even the fire boss, William Snaith, who had made out his report at an early hour, showing that the mine was safe, met the same fate that befell those who were permitted to enter the mine only by his order. It was about nine o'clock that the explosion occurred and soon a black vapor poured out of the top of the 107 foot shaft, telling those above ground plainer than words could do that death lurked in the depths.

Over a Hundred Killed
A Disastrous Explosion of Fire-Damp

Miners Suffocated in the Mammoth Shaft of the Frick Coke Company – Sixty Bodies Recovered and the Mine on Fire

Pittsburg, Penn. Jan. 27 – A special from Scottdale, Penn, says: By an explosion of fire-damp in the Mammoth shaft of the H. C. Frick Coke Company 110 sturdy miners were hurled into eternity and a number seriously injured.

The explosion occurred this morning shortly after 9 o’clock and it is supposed was the result of the ignition of a miner’s oil lamp. The after damp which followed the fire-damp explosion suffocated nearly every workman. A few men realizing the awful situation fell to the ground thereby preventing the gas from striking them. The persons not killed are in such a critical condition that their deaths are momentarily expected. Up to this writing sixty bodies have been recovered, all without a sign of life. The mine is on fire and it is feared that the rest of the bodies will be cremated.

The fire which broke out after the explosion was soon extinguished by the immense fans which were put in operation. The gas was about all driven from the pit, and the work of rescuing the entombed miners was commenced. General Manager Lynch of the H. C. Frick Coke Company is on the scene helping to devise means to recover the dead workmen. His assistance is invaluable, as he has had many years’ experience in mining operation. After sixty of the bodies had been taken out a new fire started, and this is still burning.

The Mammoth plant embraces 509 ovens, and is one of the largest plants in the coke region, but it is hard of [sic] access. It is situated near the United Works, where an explosion recently destroyed the entire shaft. The affair has cast a gloom over the entire coke region, and to-night hundreds of miners are flocking to the scene of the disaster offering assistance. The appalling loss of life in the Dunbar disaster is more than overshadowed by the destruction of life in this calamity. The news spread throughout the entire coke region with great rapidity, and everybody was awestricken. The coffins have already been ordered for eighty persons from Mount Pleasant undertakers, and it is understood that the Frick Company, the owners of the plant, will bear the expenses of the same. The only man who escaped from the fatal mine was Mine Boss Eaton.

Among those killed are John Beverage and James Boles, formerly of this place. The former resided here for many years and was held in high esteem by everybody. He was a road man in the shaft. Ex-Mine Inspector Keighly, the Superintendent of the fatal shaft, is nearly distracted. It is a singular fact that misfortune seems to have followed him, his experience in the Hill Farm disaster resulting in the tendering of his resignation as Mine Inspector.

Master Workman Peter Wise, ex-Master Workman R. D. Kerfoot, James McBride, Mike Disman, John R. Byrne, Secretary Parker, and James Keegan, all prominent labor leaders, left to-night for Mammoth to render any assistance in their power, financially or otherwise, to the stricken and bereaved families. It has been estimated that there are sixty wives and families left wholly dependent on the charity of the world by this disaster. In fact, they are almost penniless, as the plant has not been running full for some time, and work has been exceedingly scarce since the dullness in the demand for coke. Every means possible will be resorted to to supply the widowed mothers and their children with the necessaries of life. The Frick Company will be liberal in this direction, and it is understood that a subscription paper will shortly be circulated to obtain money to support the unfortunate families.

Master Workman Peter Wise addressed the following letter to the miners and cokers of the region to-night:

Scottdale, Penn. Jan 27, 1891

To the Members of the Knights of Labor and Workingmen of the Coke Region

The sad news of a disastrous explosion at Mammoth Mines has just reached me and I fear many families have been left destitute. I therefore appeal to you to promptly render what aid you can to assist the families of your brethren who have been killed. The Master Workman and committees at each works will kindly take the matter in hand and act as a relief committee. Let the committee select a “check member,” and each miner run as many wagons as he can under the circumstances contribute, and arrangements will be made with the companies to pay the amount, and thus prompt aid can be given.

Drawers can adopt the same plan, and day men can contribute from their day’s work and have the same deducted in the office. This aid will be separate and apart from any public contributions, and will be forwarded to district officers, who will apply it to the relief of those for whom it is contributed.

(from "The New York Times," New York, NY, 28 Jan., 1891.)

118 killed in 1891 Frick massacre and mine explosion
to get markers.
Sunday, September 24, 2000

By Milan Simonich, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

They were slurred in life and forgotten in death.  Now the mass grave dedicated to 118 immigrant laborers killed in 1891 in Westmoreland County will be marked. Two Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission markers will be placed on the site Friday. A pair of personalized headstones also will be added to the grave, which has never been graced with anything so elaborate.

The recognition is for men and boys who were part of Pennsylvania's struggle for safe and fair working conditions, though most of them never knew they were part of any labor cause.

Of those killed, 109 were coal miners from Eastern Europe. They died Jan. 27, 1891, in the explosion of Mammoth Mine No. 1, near Mount Pleasant. After their deaths, mine safety reforms became a political cause.

The other nine laborers were striking coke oven workers who were shot to death April 2, 1891. Their early morning clash with deputized agents of Frick Coke Co. began with words and escalated to bullets as the deputies fired at their adversaries.  In labor lore, the strikers' deaths became known as the Morewood Massacre, for the men had been employed at Morewood Mines of the Frick coke works.

Most of the bodies from both events ended up in a common trench in St. John's Cemetery in Mount Pleasant. The Pennsylvania Labor History Society believes 79 of the miners and seven of the strikers were buried there.

Many miners were mangled so badly in the explosion that there was little left to bury.
Like the coke workers, they were employed by Henry Clay Frick, the industrialist who was born only minutes away from the spots where the 1891 deaths occurred.

Frick, a millionaire before he was 30, was a legend while he lived. A certain animosity hung over his laborers. Mostly Poles and Slavs, they struggled with English and with the customs of a strange, new world.  They were welcome to pick up a coal shovel and go to work. But if they dared to ask about pay or safety, they were quickly reminded that plenty of other foreigners with strong backs could replace them.  By word of mouth and in the newspapers, they were often referred to as "Hunkies," a generic slur for Eastern Europeans who were considered dim and unimportant.  Only in death did the miners get a bit of empathy. The Mount Pleasant Journal wrote these sentences about the gas explosion that killed them:
Of the 109 who went to work that day, "not one escaped to tell the awful tale of how death came. Even the fire boss, William Snaith, who had made out his report at an early hour, showing that the mine was safe, met the same fate that befell those who were permitted to enter the mine only by his order.

"It was about 9 o'clock that the explosion occurred, and soon a black vapor poured out of the top of the 107-foot shaft, telling those above ground plainer than words could do that death lurked in the depths."

Thirty-one men left families behind. The other 78 were single or mere boys.
Though they remained anonymous in their mass grave at St. John's Cemetery, the miners played a role in Pennsylvania politics. The Mammoth disaster prompted state legislation that strengthened mine safety inspections.

The strikers shot dead were far less sympathetic to the public and the press. They were among 16,000 who walked out for higher wages in the coke region.
A march and rally put them in the path of the company's militia. After the bloodshed, the shooting deaths went largely unquestioned by the citizenry and the newspapers, whose natural sympathies were with Frick.

The seven strikers who died immediately were buried in the same mass grave with the miners.

"These were people who had nothing," said Russell Gibbons, a labor historian. "It's amazing that they didn't end up in a pauper's cemetery."

The coke workers' strike collapsed a month after the shootings.

For more than a century, the stories of these miners and strikers have been largely overlooked. But the state has decided that both are compelling enough to be noted by the historical marker program.

"The events must have statewide or national significance for that to happen," said Marilyn Levin of the state Division of History.

Along with the formal markings of the grave, the Pennsylvania Labor History Society will make both events part of its 27th annual conference Friday and Saturday.
Its theme is the struggle for worker organization and safety -- both centerpieces of Mammoth Mine and Morewood Massacre stories.
(From the "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette," Pittsburgh, PA,  Sunday, September 24, 2000

"This action gives us an appreciation of our history, our past, our tradition. Unfortunately, we don't always value those things, but it's good that we're doing this now. A valuable lesson can be learned from their sacrifice," said Joe Dreliszak, principal of St. John the Baptist School in Scottdale. The first tragedy took place Jan. 27, 1891, when an explosion ripped through the H.C. Frick Coke Co.'s Mammoth No. 1 Mine, whose portal can still be found just a few hundred yards from the Mt. Pleasant Township Municipal Building, off Poker Road, in Mammoth. while accounts vary, it is believed 109 coal miners - mostly Polish, Hungarian and Italian immigrants working to build a new life in the United States - died that day. Seventy-nine of the victims are buried in the mass grave at St. John the Baptist Cemetery. It was the worst mining disaster of that time in southwestern Pennsylvania's bituminous coal region, and it led to state legislation that would strengthen mine safety inspections.

Just a few feet away from the unmarked grave of the Mammoth victims is another mass grave, one that holds the bodies of seven of the nine miners shot and killed April 2, 1891, during a strike at H.C. Frick Coke Co.'s Morewood Mines, located off what is now Route 981 just south of Mt. Pleasant. The nine miners killed were among 16,000 miners striking for higher wages in what was then known as the Connellsville Coke Region. Two months after the shooting, the strike collapsed and attempts to organize the region's coal miners and coke workers suffered a severe blow. According to an account by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, the miners were fired upon by Westmoreland County sheriff's deputies. Other accounts blame Pinkerton guards hired by the company during the strike for the shooting.

The markers will be dedicated in conjunction with a two-day conference being held by the Pennsylvania Labor History Society at West Overton Museums, north of Scottdale.

(from the "Tribune-Review," Westmoreland News , Greensburg, PA,  Thursday, September 28, 2000,)

Coal Miners Memorial, Mammoth Mines,
Mammoth, Mt. Pleasant Twp., Westmoreland Co., PA

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