On Coke Ovens and The Fayette County Exodus

Coke ovens at Poland Mines 2009 courtesy Of SWPA Rural Exploration

In the Ten Mile Creek area, Marianna, the Champion Mine at Besco, Dilworth at Rices Landing and Poland Mines # 2 all had coke ovens operating at one time or another. At most mines, a coking operation was set up as an adjunct to the mine, most mines producing more coal than they could process to coke. At Besco, with 257 ovens, the entire output was made to coke and shipped out that way. All coke ovens on this side of the river were of the beehive type as were the majority in western Pennsylvania. The later rectangular ovens were invented by W.J. Rainey engineers starting around 1905 and were adopted at a dozen larger works in the Connellsville and Klondike regions. This type was more mechanized and required higher labor skills. The final answer was using by-product ovens that captured all the gasses for use and brought the coking process to it's ultimate efficiency. This kind of operation was done best, not on site, but in large, dedicated works like the Clairton Coke Works, opened in 1918 and still the largest in the world. In the 1970's and 80's, the company I worked for, Ohio Barge Line, had at least 5 big boats moving coal from Kentucky to feed the ovens at Clairton, each boat bringing over 22,000 tons a week. There were dozens of other boats, all towing coal to there from out of the Mon, Allegheny and Ohio river mines.
By-product ovens outpaced beehive ovens by 1919 and eventually replaced the beehive ovens in the region by 1925, although some continued to operate as late as 1960.
Many older folks remember the way the nighttime sky would be lit up from the rows of ovens. I remember, as a child, seeing the glowing ovens of Alicia reflected on the river above Brownsville as we drove up the river road.

In the early decades of the last century as the new mines opened in Washington and Greene counties there was what I choose to call an exodus of sorts from the Fayette county mines. Many folks in the Ten Mile area can trace family roots back to Fayette county patch towns. Modern patch towns with indoor plumbing, electric lights, porches, general improvements to roads and grounds must have been part of the attraction as well as the idea of starting out a new life in a new place. Mather , Crucible, Richeyville and Marianna with their movie houses, ice cream parlors, ball fields and playgrounds, all built by the company, looked pretty good to these, many of them first generation Americans, coming from the old worn out patch towns to the east. Marianna's and Clarksville's ( Williamstown ) brick homes even had basements, unheard of in most older patches. Also, some of the older mines were being played out after many years of mining. Modern technology was already beginning to displace workers, more mechanized mining and coking meant the loss of many jobs. A lot of young men, miners already themselves, took the opportunity to strike out from the old family home to start a new life on their own in a new patch.



















Map Courtesy Of coalcampusa.com

My Grandfather worked in Fayette for several years at East Millsboro for Hustead-Semens and moved to Clarksville in 1924 to finish his mining career in Clyde. All three of his sons became miners, two of them for their entire lives, my father in Clarksville and my Uncle George in Richeyville. My maternal grandfather worked in a lot of different mines. Arriving from the Tatra Mountains region of Poland in 1913, he, Thomas Krencik, went to work in a Fayette county mine and the next year sent money for boat passage for his wife and daughter. He and his wife Anna had 15 more children, four of which died in infancy. Of these, seven were born in Fayette county towns like Republic, Edenburg, Lambert and Helen. Around 1924 he moved his large family to Marianna, first to a farm and later to the patch. He wasn't finished roaming, by 1937 they were living in Ontario, near Cokeburg, from which mine he retired. By that time , several of his sons who took up mining had moved to Clarksville, Ellsworth, Marianna, Cokeburg and other area towns. Many of the older people that I have interviewed have direct ties to Fayette. Years of reading obituaries have shown me that if you come from this area and your roots go back to a couple generations of miners, odds are good that at least one side of your family came from the county to the east. In this way the already decades old commercial coal and coke industry in Fayette county significantly impacted on the later growth of the Ten Mile Creek area.

The 1850 US Census of Manufactures, the earliest Census reference to coke, listed Allegheny County as the only coke producer in the United States. By the 1860 Census, four counties in the United States that produced coke were listed. It should be noted that the Clinton furnace on Pittsburgh's Southside began using coke as its only fuel in 1859. By 1870 there were estimated to be 1,300 coke ovens in the United States. All of them were beehive ovens and all were in Western Pennsylvania, 1,063 in the Connellsville region alone. Of the 2,752,475 tons of coke produced in the US in 1880, Fayette Co. produced more than 45%. Westmoreland followed with 27%, and Allegheny contributed 3.5%. Combined, the three counties yielded almost 77% of the nation's total. In 1880 seventy-two percent of the nation's beehive ovens were within the same three counties. Connellsville coke was the unequaled fuel of preference for the iron and steel industry by 1890. The peak of Connellsville coke production was in 1916, when there were more than 40,000 active ovens.
Connellsville Coke Region Maps from National Park Service

What's Under The Ground In Ten Mile Creek Country ?

These maps give one an idea of the condition of the the ground under us and the amazing extent of mining that's gone on here. The earliest of the mines shown here were worked starting around 80 some years preceding the late 70's when this map was made. All these open to large size.




There are only a few above ground reference points shown but I think there are enough to orient one as to what is seen.




Mather Collieries, solid line at right points north. They did not mine north of the town but to the south the mine went almost to State Route 21.

This shows the area from the river roughly south to Charmichaels

maps from collection of author

Ten Mile Trivia # 1

There are two wonderfully droll insults in this. It was placed in an early Washington County newspaper on December 1, 1795 : Whereas a certain RALPH SMITH, of Morgan Township in this County (Greene Co. after 1796), some years ago called me a convict in a public company, and later spoke the same language in ambiguous terms, (such as his good breeding afforded). I do hereby request the favor of Mr. Smith, to wash and shave and go and inquire of Mr. James GILASPY, on the headwaters of Buffalo Creek, and Robert CARREL on the head waters of the Wheeling Creek, two gentlemen which sailed with me from the port of Londonderry, the 14th day of August in the year 1768, and landed at Newcastle, DE. the 3rd day of October following and acknowledge himself a malicious calumniator.
signed Myles Hay of Ten Mile Creek, Washington County.
He requests that he first " wash and shave " !

At Brownsville, for many years the head of steamboat navigation on the Monongahela river, passengers were transferred from the stage lines to the steamboats running between this point and Pittsburgh. West bound passengers were ticketed through from Cumberland, Baltimore and other points east, to Pittsburgh and other points west, via the National Road, and Monongahela river boats. It is shown by official figures that from 1844 to 1852 when the railroads came along, that more than three hundred thousand passengers left the stage lines at Brownsville and took passage on the Monongahela steamers down the river to Pittsburgh and Wheeling. Most of the emigrants and a large number of stage passengers, probably the majority, crossed the river at West Brownsville, and went over land across Washington County to Wheeling. The same was true of the journey from West to East. The National Road through Washington County was the short cut that saved much time over the longer river route past Pittsburgh. In 1852, Brownsville lost any advantages it had based on turnpike and river modes of transportation. In that year, the Pennsylvania Railroad was completed from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was extended from Cumberland to Wheeling through Maryland and Virginia, effectively eliminating Brownsville as a major point of transit. The prominence of the National Road and of Brownsville came to an end as travel by stage, wagon and steamboat gave way to the railroad.

The first white settlers within the territory of Washington County were Everhart Hupp, George Bumgarner, and Abraham Teagarden and these first located their homes in the vicinity of the mouth of Ten-Mile Creek, all within the triangle made by Rice's Landing, Sandy Plains and Millsboro.

Charles L. Rowan was born in 1899, son of George E. and Althea (Prinkey) Rowan. In about May of 1936, he began employment as a laborer at the No. 5 mine of the Vesta Coal Company at Vestaburg, a job to which he commuted from his home. He was killed at the mine on Aug. 18, 1936, after only having worked there for three months. Said the Daily Courier : Rowan ... was decapitated and two other workers miraculously escaped a similar fate when a large slab of slate let go as they were leaving the Vestaburg workings after completing their day's work. The trio comprised a group of workmen who had left the man trip several minutes before the tragedy. Rowan was struck by the full force of the slate which landed on his head and severed it from his body, according to Deputy Edward Hagerty of Millsboro. The fatality was the first of the year at the Vesta Company mine.

Three young men held up the W.J. Rainey Coal Co. paymaster on a trolley car between Brownsville and Allison in Fayette County on the morning of March 11, 1922. They escaped with a satchel with about $30,000 in payroll cash. A guard with the paymaster was shot and seriously wounded as bandits and guards exchanged gunfire on the car, which had about 40 passengers.
That's a tremendous amount of money for 1922. Imagine 5 or more men exchanging gunfire on a trolley with 40 people on board.

Fairmont W. Va Newspaper dated Thursday, 9 February 1882:"Steamboating at Fairmont. The steamboat HARRY arrived here, this afternoon, at half-past four o'clock, having made the trip from Morgantown, about thirty miles, in less than seven hours.
They could have walked as quickly and I believe a horse walks faster than 4 miles an hour.

The Uniontown Morning Herald of June 7, 1926 reported that John A. Logan Strauch ... fell between two railroad cars while working on the Monongahela Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad at Clarksville. He had worked for the railroad for a number of years, at one time working out of the Rainey yards here, and was employed in the Brownsville section at the time of his death. The crew was shifting cars when the accident occurred.

Nick Massini discusses a ghost at Clyde Mine in Fredericktown, Pennsylvania. "The old Clyde mine was haunted by a fire boss that was killed years before. He was seen regularly seen making his run at the Ross Shaft area."
Richard Marcavitch recounted a ghost he saw at Vesta Five owned by the J and L Steel Company. He saw this ghost sitting in his dinner hole every day about the same time.

From 1906-1939 over 35,00 men died in coal mine accidents. In 1907 Pennsylvania lost 1614 with 5 disasters alone claiming more than 800 men.

Just one of the many reasons for the frightful accident rate is illustrated in this old photo showing a miner pouring black powder into a cardboard tube for inserting in a drilled hole to blast coal loose. On his cap is an open flame oil wick lamp. A sight like this would give a modern mine inspector an instant and fatal heart attack.


In the 30's Clyde miners developed a reputation as the first to go on strike. Then they got up early next morning to see that no one else worked.

Vesta 1 Allenport 1891 - 1924
Vesta 2 American Mine Lucy Station Elco 1892 - 1915
Vesta 3 Globe Mine Coal Center 1892 - 1918
Vesta 4 California, Daisytown, Richeyville 1903 - 1984
Vesta 5 Vestaburg 1907 -
Vesta 6 Denbo 1903 - 1947
Vesta 7 West Brownsville 1918 - 1923

Vesta 4 was the largest mine in the country. It eventually ran from the rail and river tipple at California Pa. to Pancake, just east of Washington Pa.

This old boatman did it all : Unknown newspaper dated Monday, 3 March 1884:
Interview With a Veteran River Man. Our reporter met Capt. I. N. Hook, the oldest river man on the Ohio, at the Swann House this morning. The Captain commenced steamboating in 1827. He was in this neighborhood at the time of the flood of 1832. He was the first who placed his barges in front of his steamboat when towing. Formerly it was customary to hitch them on behind, or tie them to the sides. His manner of towing was considered very amusing at its origin, but no one thinks of towing in any other way at the present time.
The Captain introduced the whistle now universally used at the present time. It was by accident that he discovered it. He was going into Wheeling and his whistle was broken. The upper hemisphere was blown off. He placed in its stead a keg. His whistle also caused much amusement but it has taken the place of the old 'bowl' screecher, which would almost lift a man off his feet when it blew.
The Captain also invented the 'spool windlass' by means of which the gates of the locks on all our rivers are now opened. They were formerly swung back by huge windlasses making hard work for eight men. Curious to say he took out no patents on the invention but gave the Company for which he worked all the advantages gratuitously.
He has been up the Little Kanawha repairing the locks damaged by the late flood. The Captain says he took the first steamboat to Burning Springs that ever passed up the Little Kanawha. He is now on his way to the Muskingum to repair the canal washed out in the flood.

I'll bet he invented the telegraph too, and the internal combustion engine , sliced bread , electricity, pop tarts and cheese in an aerosol can. I'll bet when the water got low he just put the boat on his back and waded upstream.

W.J. Rainey And The Clyde Mines

This is the river tipple at Fredericktown in the late 1920's, looking south. This was the original Clyde mine, opened in 1900.

image from Bower's Fredericktown 1790-1990

Coal came out of this slope portal and went directly to the river tipple as seen in this 1929 photo. Shown are 8-ton gathering locomotives, these gathered the coal cars from various working places in the mine and made up the long trains for the haulage locomotives to pull out of the mine.


The Clyde mines have had several owners over many years. The original ( 1900 ) Clyde Coal Company of Pittsburgh sold their Fredericktown mine to W. J. Rainey of Cleveland, Ohio in 1925. From that point it was a captive mine to Republic Steel. In Pitt Gas, the William Pitt mine had been operating since at least 1916. Owned by the Pitt Gas Coal Company, it was worked by the Trumbull Coal Co. from around 1920. The Rainey company bought it in 1929. They called it Clyde # 2 and enlarged the town of Pitt Gas with the construction of 84 brick and tile houses. The Clarksville Gas Coal Co. operated a mine at Clarksville starting around 1920. At some point in 1925 or later, Rainey bought it and this is what must have become Clyde # 3.
W.J. Rainey, active in the business since the 1880's, owned many large mines. By 1904 he owned 3,200 coke ovens employing 18,00 men. Some of these, with partner T. J. Wood, were operated as the Rainey - Wood Coke Company. Known as the Cleveland Coke King, he was Frick’s main competitor in the Connellsville district. His thousands of acres of coal rights were scattered over the tri-state area . When he died in 1919 he left a fortune worth about 40 million dollars ( equal to half a billion and more in todays dollars ). The company operated under that name for years afterward.

. This porcelain sign likely dates from the Rainey takeover. It's very plain but is one of my most favorite pieces in my modest collection. This is because my father and his father worked together as buddys at # 3 in Clarksville.

So under The Rainey's control, Clyde #1 was at Fredericktown, Clyde #2 was at Pitt Gas, Clyde #3 was at Clarksville. Emerald ( originally Edward Mine, 1921) at Chartiers was called by some Clyde #4 but was since the middle 1920's ( if not always ) owned by the Emerald Coal and Coke Co. ( Hillman ). It seems that Clyde #2 was connected underground with Emerald at least for a time. In 1944 when there was a fire at Emerald ( which took six lives ) causing that mine to be sealed , much of Clyde had to be closed temporarily. In this same year there were about 1260 men employed at the three Clyde mines.
Rainey later ( around 1948 ) sold all these to Hillman Coal and Coke Company. Later they were operated under the name of Republic Steel.
Through this period of time, most commercial coal mines in our area were owned by the same few big dogs, Carnegie, Hillman, Rainey , H.C. Frick, the Jones brothers and a very few others. The Mellons were involved in the Pittsburgh Coal Company and had been working with H.C.Frick since the late 1870's. The names , on paper, moved back and forth over the years. The coal at a certain place was Rainey's , but Emerald mined it, at some point Hillman bought the coal from Rainey, or from Emerald , or whoever, and then Hillman mined it.


Blasting Cap Token From Clyde # 2 in Pitt Gas, my collection



1925 Map from Monongahela Railway 1903-1993, Gratz and Arbogast

Aerial view of Pitt Gas and Clyde # 2. The coal wagons came out of the slope three at a time and crossed the creek on a bridge to where the railcars were loaded. It looks as though the loading of cars here had stopped by the time of this 1939 photo. Gone too, are the railroad yard tracks. The tall concrete pier from the tipple still remains today beside the modern road.



















This is Clyde #3 at Clarksville, looking south. The cars are marked for the Rainey-Wood Coke Company in this 1937 photo from the Mononghela Railway.














Aerial view of Clyde # 3 in 1939, tipple and cars underneath, the swinging bridge and the mine shop buildings. The slate dumps are behind the row of miners houses we called Shantytown. A mine track comes out of the tipple and curves around as it crosses over the Besco road and runs to the slate dumps south of the mine. Aerial images courtesy of Penn Pilot.




Clyde # 3 looking west, likely in the 1930's, photo courtesy Of Hoyle Family


2009 image by author

The Clyde # 3 site today, looking west. The swinging bridge is behind the photographer. The above tipple was in the center of this photo. The stables were to the left, near the underpass, against the track embankment. The piece of paved road in the foreground is part of the original road. To the left on this side of the old road were several frame houses that the company built for bachelor miners.

A very partial list of miners who worked in Clyde can be found here.