Mine in Hahntown once employed hundreds.

By Marjorie Wertz,
Staff Writer, Tribune-Review, Greensburg, PA
First published Saturday, July 28, 2001, in the Standard Observer, Irwin, PA, a Tribune-Review Newspaper.

The men came from Germany, Italy, Croatia, Hungary and Scotland. Many of them couldn't speak English, but they knew the meaning of hard work.

After settling their families in western Pennsylvania, they began the arduous job of mining bituminous coal.

Coal was first mined in the community known as Hohntown (Hahntown) in 1862. Seven years later, the Penn Gas Coal Co. sank its Shaft No. 2 at Adams Hill. The Hahntown Mine consisted of Shaft No. 1, Shaft No. 2 and Entry Slope No. 1. It was the beginning of mining in the community on a large scale. The mine employed most of Hahntown's men and many from Irwin as well.

By 1905, 333 miners dug 191,000 tons of coal in 199 days from the Hahntown shafts.

Mike Javor, owner of York Men's Store in Irwin, grew up in House 48 in Adams Hill. The 67-year-old vividly recalls the mining community.

"The mining company built those homes on Adams Hill for the workers brought in from Europe," said Javor. "My dad was one of those workers. He came over here from Croatia around 1910-1911."

Before 1910, there were only four families living on Adams Hill, all Penn Gas Co. supervisors. When the local coal miners went on an 18-month strike in 1910, the company evicted the strikers from their company-owned houses and sent for new workers, "scabs," from Europe. Adams Hill then earned a new nickname, Scab Hill.

"The company paid for passage to America and provided housing for these new workers," said Tom Agnew, a member of the Norwin Historical Society.

Most of the houses on Adams Hill were built during the 1910-1911 coal miners strike, Agnew added.

Agnew conducted an interview in 1973 with Bob Brocker for the 200th anniversary of North Huntingdon Township. Brocker's grandfather was a coal miner from Germany and his father was mine foreman for the Penn Gas Coal Co.

"They (the company) built the houses on "Scab Hill" during the 1910-1911 coal strike, so Coal and Iron Police could control entrance and egress. That's why it has only one access road," Brocker said during the interview.  "My dad was the mine foreman and lived in the first house;  Joe Rymer, the superintendent, lived in the second house. The third house was for the fire boss or assistant mine foreman," Brocker noted.  "I worked in the Adams Mine until 1913, when I was 19 years old. In the coal mines, we worked 10-hour days at 29 cents an hour," said Brocker. "With the overtime, I would make about $100 a month, which was big money then."

The 1910 strike started in the Lowber area, Brocker said, close to the UMWA District 5 along the Yough River.  "The strikers marched up here (Hahntown) with a brass band. I was working inside the mine then as a lamp man. The men said, `Come up above ground, there's a parade going on.' We all came out of the mine. The miners who wanted to join the strike got in behind the band and marched around in a circle, then off the coal mine property," said Brocker.

Once the striking miners were evicted from their homes, many of them moved into tents on the upper side of the public road. Other Hahntown families, who sympathized with the miners, hung large pots of soup over open fires to feed the striking miners' children.

After the strike, many of the men went back to work at the mine. Those who had been blacklisted by the company simply changed their names and sought work at other mines.

Javor's father and two brothers worked at Adams Mine. As the youngest of eight children, Javor always walked passed the mine and watched the miners going in and out of the shaft.  "As a kid growing up, during the summer months the miners brought up the good coal that they sold and they also brought up the waste and dumped it on a pile," said Javor. "The waste was a mixture of good coal and slate. We would pick out the good coal and use it to heat our homes for the winter. Every kid did this."  The community children waited for the arrival of the waste truck.  "I remember one of my good friends was always the fastest runner and got the biggest and best lumps of coal," said Javor. "His name is Ettore Acalotta. He was the best runner and always got the best coal to take home."

During World War II the mine was sometimes shut down.  "A whistle would blow to let the men know if there was going to be work the next day," Javor said. "One blow meant there would be work. If it blew twice, that meant there would be no work the next day."  For excitement, the children would go down to the coal mine area in the evenings. The night watchman took great delight in chasing the children away from the mines.  Javor's father retired from Adams Mine and died in 1948.  "Adams Hill was a beautiful place to grow up," said Javor. "I loved it."

William Condi of Adams Hill was 14-years-old when he began loading coal at the mine.  "I worked there off and on," said Condi. "Them days, we didn't have much schooling. They were bad times, Depression times. There were no unions. You'd load a two-ton car with coal and get paid only a little bit."

Dolly Pekarsky said her Italian family knew hard work and much love growing up on Adams Hill.  Her father, John Pezze, and uncle, Joe Pezze, both worked in the Adams Mine.  "My father was a pumper," said Pekarsky. "It was his job to pump the water out of the mine."  The Pezze family lived in a small house in Hahntown near the company store when John Pezze first started working at the mine. Then the family moved to Adams Hill.  "The company store was run by Julius Selia in Hahntown," said Pekarsky. "We moved to Adams Hill when I was in third grade.  "When the whistle blew, it would keep blowing and we knew someone got hurt in the mine. Everybody from the hill would run down."

For fun, the children made up games to play and created their own toys. For instance, the children would take metal cans, squash them and position them on the bottom of their shoes.

A trip to the company store was always a special treat.  "Everybody put their groceries on credit," she said. "On payday, you went down and paid for your groceries. The children would get a little brown bag of penny candy. We were thrilled to get that penny candy."

Pekarsky continues to make her home in the company house where her mother and father raised their children.  "We made the best of it here," said Pekarsky. "We had fun. We had a good life here in Adams Hill."  Pekarsky has a photograph of her father and uncle walking down Adams Hill toward the mine.  "I had copies made of the photograph," she said. "I framed them and gave each of my two sons a copy, so they remember their grandfather."

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Westmoreland Coal Co., which had purchased the mine, began selling the company houses to their occupants.

The end of mining at Hahntown and Adams Hill came all too quickly. On Aug. 11, 1953, operations ceased and the mine was sealed shut.

Phil Wilson photos

Frank Duschack, Coal Miner ca.1873-1884, Penn Gas No. 2 Mine,
Hahntown, North Huntingdon Twp., Westmoreland Co., PA

Adams Hill, Rich in Coal Patch History, Penn Gas No. 2 Mine (Adams Mine),
Hahntown, North Huntingdon Twp., Westmoreland Co., PA

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