Some People Of Ten Mile Creek Country

The East Bethlehem High School football team in 1927

Engineer Harry Wood on Waynesburg & Washington Railroad's # 9684 in 1929. The W & W was a narrow guage railroad, just 3 feet wide, so the engines and cars were all smaller than normal. That accounts for the oversized look of Mr. Wood.

Pat Fagan, UMWA Local 5 President, speaking near Brownsville. He was famed as a highly effective organizer and as a speaker. His father was a leader in the steel strike of 1892.

From Sarah Minerd Potter :

" John Phillip Wunder was born on September 30,1887,and died January 11,1948. He was a miner in Greene, Washington and Somerset counties. He married Sophie Margaret Wunder on January 29,1917. Sophie and her second child died shortly after she was born. My mom was 18 months old. John lost an eye, in the mines or not I don't know.He later became totally blind and I have his Federation of the blind cards dating back to 1938. When he couldn't see to write any more, my mom became his eyes and wrote as he dictated his poems. On the Minerd side we have had 31 deaths over the years in coal mining accidents."

John Philip Wunder in Clarksville

THE COAL MINER

The miners' lot is hard indeed.
His family often are in need
The lack of work and sickness too,
are small to what he must go through.

Few of the public ever know
a miners' risk when he must go,
down in the mines to earn his bread,
with tons of loose rock overhead.

With dim lightof his safety lamp
he works in powder,smoke,and damp,
and wades around in mud and slime'
most breathe foul air till' quitting time

And then a roar a rumbling sound
That shakes the earth for miles around
and from the shaft the flames leap high
and men are left in there to die

The agony of these poor men
can not be described by pen
as maimed and dying they await
the help they know will come to late.

No loving voice to cheer them now
no soft cool hand upon their brow
no arms to hold them as they die
no one to say a last goodbye.

They think of men who lay in pain
a week or more but all in vain
they remember how the men were found
all cold and still way underground.

They think is this to be our fate
why must our suffering be so great
they fold their arms upon their breasts
and let starvation do the rest

Think of the mother of the wife
praying for this miners' life
as hour by hour they stand above
and wait for hope from one they love.

And children cry on mothers knees
bring back my papa will you please?
and strong men turn away in grief
for they can offer no relief.

I think a miners' work is such
that he can not be paid to much,
for work he must do underground
where light of day is never found.

John Phillip Wunder
May 25,1922

photo and statement courtesy of Sarah Minerd Potter. The Minerd family has a most extensive website here

This is the first, second and third grade classes at Millsboro in 1923.


Curley Kensic had a bowling alley in Clarksville's Williamstown section. These early 1950's lady bowlers are from left to right :
Elizabeth Durdines, Dot Redman, Bonnie Conners, Clara Lamo, Dot Makel, Barbara Kolick, Ann Burke Kolick. Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Durdines Sevec



Reader Judith Watters Adamson writes me to kindly correct the newspaper caption:
"I'm the baby shown in the photo entitled "TINY TORNADO VICTIMS", my name is Judith Watters Adamson. I was 8 months old in that picture. I have an original newspaper with this photo. The newspaper is the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph and the date is June 25, 1944. The caption is incorrect and should read:

Mildred Watters (not Helen) of Chartiers Hill holds baby Judith in her arms and watches over her other daughter Helen and little Diane Santucci, all victims of a tornado that struck Chartiers Pa. The Waynesburg hospital was so crowded that children had to double up in hospital beds."

Image courtesy of Ida Mary Workman Haftman

Sharpneck Motors in Rices Landing, Anson Sharpneck is third from the left. Photo courtesy of Brad Kline

Earl King remembers :

My name is Earl J. King, born Crucible, Pa 1929. I was graduated from Jefferson/Morgan High School in 1946. I lived in Rices Landing 1933 to 1959, worked in the Rices Landing National Bank, 1955 to 1959 then came to California. Now retired after 42 years of banking in Cerritos, Ca. (suburb of Los angeles).
I delivered the Pittsburgh Press daily to the Y. A. Young machine shop. Carl Young was a Mail Pouch chewer. At about age 13 or 14 I asked him for a chew of tobacco. He gave it to me and I became deathly ill. I thank him now, because I have never touched tobacco after that lesson. My father purchased a 1929 Essex Coupe from the Sharpneck Motor Company in Rices Landing. The dealership was owned by Anson Sharpneck who walked on a artificial leg. He charged us kids 1 cent to pump up our bicycle tires. He operated the Hudson/Terraplane dealership until early 1943, at which time he sold the business to his chief mechanic, Joseph Clarchick. It then became Clarchick Motor Co. I remember financing Hudson cars at the Rices Landing Bank for Joe Clarchick. The Hudson name disappeared and at my last memory it he sold American Motors Cars under the brand of Nash/Rambler. My last time in Rices Landing was May 2005. At that time the building was still standing and used as a warehouse.
Growing up in Rices Landing I remember the steam boats, W. P. Snyder, Homestead, J. B. Fairless, Vulcan and many more. I now regret that I did not take photos of the old lock #5 and all of the steam boats that traveled the Mon. I was working just across the street in Rices Landing at the bank when the Monongahela Hotel was torn down.
On the Crucible Pa Miners Memorial, the Earl King and Earl J. King listed are my dad and I. My dad was very active in Crucible Local #4721 United Mine Workers of America. As a child I remember Jock Yablonski and William (Billy) Hynes at our house on union business many times. My grandfather, James Kelley, was killed in a slate fall in Crucible Mine 1927. My mothers brother Charles Kelley worked his entire lifetime at Clyde # 1 mine. He was a pumper at retirement.

This photo of Arthur White was taken at Clyde #1 in Fredericktown just minutes before his fatal accident

Arthur Earskin White was born in 1884 in or near Pittsburgh, the son of George H. and Helen "Ella" (Daugherty) White. He is one of a tragic many people to lose their lives in the coal, coke and steel workplace. As a young man Arthur labored on the railroad and as an electrician. Arthur married Roberta "Berdie" Estlick and by 1920, they lived at the Revere Coke Works near Uniontown, where he was a machinist in the coke plant. In 1930 the family was in Luzerne Township, Fayette County, with Arthur continuing his skill as a coal mine machinist. He played on and managed a baseball team in Hopwood.

Arthur was then employed as a machinist and master mechanic at the W.J. Rainey's Clyde # 1 in Fredericktown, due to his experience and knowledge. He was elected president of the United Mine Workers of America local union No. 688, the second person to hold that office.

In the 1930's W.J.Rainy company was strongly opposed to the fledgling Union. As punishment for his Union activities, specifically insisting the men be paid extra for working underground in water, the company moved Arthur out of the shop to a job at the river tipple. On Thanksgiving Day 1935, he was found badly injured, with a fractured skull, after being knocked into a coal barge. Some believed that coal was dumped on him on purpose by a company stooge. He died a day later at Brownsville General Hospital, at the age of 57. A newspaper article claimed that just prior to his death, Earskin had drawn his first pay in more than a year due to debts he owed to the company store.

His grandson, Lee White, remembers " The explanation given to my Grandmother and her eleven children was that he slipped. My dad believes he was killed on purpose. An interesting side note is that the company paid my grandmother $3,500 to waive her rights to future litigation. That was a lot of money at the time and uncharacteristically generous for a coal company. " His remains were laid to rest in the Hopwood Cemetery, near the final resting place of his grandparents and great grandparents. He had managed the baseball team at Clyde and was a member of the Eagles and the Moose clubs.

Arthur White was also a member of the Minerd family referred to above. A more extensive bio of Arthur is here on the Minerd site.
Clinton V. Lewis was one of seven surviving veterans of the Civil War until his death at age 92 on Nov. 28, 1939. Lewis was born at Ruff Creek but spent most of his life in Lone Pine. He enlisted as a teenager in the 18th Pennsylvania Cavalry in March 1865, near war's end. This photo, from the Harbaugh collection, was taken in 1938 at the G.A.R. encampment in Washington Pa.

Image courtesy of The Picture Box

Dorthea Boyd Johnson and her ( now deceased ) brother Sheldon Boyd at the log Stull house at Clarksville in the early 1950's. Her mothers family lived in this house in the 1920's. The Stull family had property on both sides of the north fork of Ten Mile.

Photo courtesy of Dorthea Boyd Johnson

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

The 1944 Emerald Mine Fire At Chartiers

It was a spark from a grounded trolley wire that started the Emerald Mine fire soon after seven pm on the evening of June 7, 1944. It fell into a load of hay, fodder for the horses that pulled the pitwagons. There was an attempt to push the burning car into a worked out section but the fire got out of hand and started burning the haulageway. The volunteer fire departments of East Bethlehem and Jefferson arrived as men women and children swarmed down the hill from the patch to see about husbands and fathers. East Beth Fire Chief Albie Tinelli sent four volunteers down the 400 foot shaft with hose but they had to return, the bottom was a raging inferno. Of the 157 men on the night shift all but 6 came out within a few hours, most of them by way of the Lippencott air shaft three miles away. Rescue crews from Tower Hill and Clyde went repeatedly into the mine but the flames drove them back. At the main shaft the women of Chartiers organized a canteen and were passing out coffee to the men as they worked.Mine rescue team of the 1940's
All the local mine officials were on hand, Thomas Lamb, superintendent of the Chartiers pit of Emerald, William G. Stevenson, general manager of the Hillman Coke Company, T.P. Latta, superintendent of Crucibile Steel's Monongahela River Mine, George O'Brian, superintendent of the mines at Allison and Tower Hill, Richard Maize, state secretary of mines, district inspectors from Waynesburg, Uniontown and Monongahela City, the Federal Inspector, U.S.Bureau of Mines engineers , William ( Billy ) Hynes, president of District 4 of the United Mine Workers, UMWA International board member Jock Yablonski and other union officials.

Emerald Mine Tipple at Chartiers 1930, looking north, MRy photo

Emerald is a gassy mine and as the flames spread the work became increasingly dangerous. After eighteen hours the state inspectors ordered the sealing of the mine to avoid further loss. If the fire remained unchecked it could start to burn into adjoining mines. Earlier when the Pike Run mine fire got out of control it burned for ten years. The old Coal Hill Mine on the southside of Pittsburgh caught fire in 1765, before they learned about sealing mines, and was still burning in 1820, looking "like the mouth of a volcano".

There was no hope to get the six men and thirty two horses who remained in the pit. Of the missing miners, three were unmarried, one was the father of five children. Another victim, Steve Barnish, a fifty-five year old machine operator, left nine children. Barnish had a home in Chartiers Village on the hill above the mine. Sixteen days after the mine fire a tornado came through, destroying many of the neat white colonial cottages of the patch. Among the dead were Steve Barnish's wife and one of his daughters.
It took twelve hours to seal the slopes and headings. They put in concrete blocks, covered them with a brattice and then plastered over the top. The mine remained sealed all summer and fall. When the mine was sealed, the adjacent Clyde Mines workings were shut down. For a while over 1900 men were idled in the Ten Mile Creek Valley, 640 from Emerald and the rest from the Clydes. By late December it seemed that the fire was out. It was risky to open a sealed mine because even if the fire is out the heat will have cooked a high concentration of firedamp out of the strata and nearly all oxygen would have been consumed. Of four Pa. explosions caused by mine fires, three were from sealed fires opened too soon.
When the inspectors got inside the mine, they found bodies identifiable only by lamp and check tag numbers. They were 2000 feet from the shaft and would have had time to escape through side routes but for some reason did not.
The clean up took several months and after almost a year after the fire, the Emerald mine was back in operation.

Blasting cap token, Emerald Coal and Coke Co., my collection


Tin sign courtesy unknown donor


Emerald's river tipple above the mouth of Ten Mile, on the present river bike trail. MRy photo

Emerald was originally called the Edward Mine and first opened in 1921. It was accessed by three mine shafts, two slope entries, and a bore hole 36 inches in diameter. The Chartiers Slope, Chartiers Fan Shaft, Chartiers Hoisting Shaft, The River Slope, and air vent, and the Lippincott Shaft. Coal was moved to the river tipple and also loaded onto railroad cars at Chartiers. When the 1944 tornado destroyed much of the original patch housing on Chartiers Hill Emerald Coal and Coke built the Burson patch. The Braden patch was another section of company-built housing for employees of the Emerald Mine, and is probably the last coal patch to be constructed in Pennsylvania. It was at that time a Hillman owned mine.
Renamed Gateway in 1963 by a subsidiary of the companies that used its output, this Morgan Township mine closed in 1989.

This Emerald Mine is not to be confused with the currently active Emerald Mine originally operated by RAG-Emerald and opened in 1977 in Franklin Township, Waynesburg Pa. It was first owned by Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. and has had several owners since.

Much of this is taken from the book Cloud By Day by Muriel Earley Sheppard.

Major Mine Disasters In The Area

Mather Miners Memorial


Robena Monument at Hatfield Ferry

DATE MINE NAME CITY LIVES LOST CAUSE

03-06-02 Catsburg Monongahela, Pa. 5 Explosion
11-21-03 Ferguson Connellsville, PA 17 Explosion
07-06-05 Fuller Searight, PA 6 Explosion
10-10-05 Hazelkirk No. 2 Monongahela, PA 2 Explosion
10-13-05 Clyde Fredericktown, PA 6 Fire
10-29-05 Hazel Kirk No. 2 Monongahela, PA 5 Explosion
11-15-05 Braznell Bentleyville, PA 7 Explosion
12-19-07 Darr Jacobs Creek, PA 239 Explosion
11-28-08 Rachel and Agnes Marianna, PA 154 Explosion
03-22-11 Hazel Canonsburg, PA 9 Haulage
07-30-15 Patterson No. 2 Elizabeth, PA 9 Haulage
03-13-17 Henderson No. 1 Henderson, PA 14 Explosion
06-02-20 Ontario Cokeburg, PA 6 Explosion
02-02-22 Gates No. 2 Gates, PA 25 Explosion
07-25-24 Gates No. 1 Brownsville, PA 10 Explosion
04-02-27 No. 53 Cokeburg, PA 6 Explosion
05-19-28 Mather No. 1 Mather, PA 195 Explosion
06-07-44 Emerald Clarksville, PA 6 Fire
03-12-45 Crucible Crucible, PA 5 Roof/Bump
09-23-57 Marianna No. 58 Marianna, PA 6 Explosion
12-06-62 Robena No. 3 Carmichaels, PA 37 Explosion
11-20-68 No. 9 Farmington W.Va. 78 Explosion
07-22-72 Blacksville No. 1 Blacksville, W. Va. 9 Fire

Consider that these listed are only the major accidents in the area. Many others died daily in the mines. In 1907 Pennsylvania lost 1614 with 5 disasters alone claiming more than 800 men, the other 800 lives were lost in normal day to day operations.
The high death rate among miners was due, not to spectacular gas explosions but to the steady picking off of workers in slate falls. In the entire US, in the thirty three years ending Jan.1,1939, 27,064 men died from slate falls, only 8,045 from explosions - 77 percent as opposed to 23%. The sudden smothering death of one or two miners at a time was so common it rated a couple lines on page two of the newspaper.
"On..........a slate fall cost the life of ........., an employee at the .........'s .......... mine. There will be a High Requiem Mass at St. .......'s Church on the morning of ......... The deceased leaves a wife and ....... children, etc."

Not too far up the Monongahela at Monongah West Virginia was the largest loss of life in any mine in US history , 362 men died after an explosion tore through Monongah # 6 and 8 on December 6, 1907. Not one man that was in the mine came out and lived.



Greene County Monument on Interstate 79.

The text reads :
On December 6, 1962, 460 Feet Directly Beneath This Site, 37 Miners Lost Their Lives In The U.S. Steel Robena Mine's Frosty Run Explosion. One Of The Worst Mine Disasters In Green County History.
The memorial features a likeness of famous mine labor leader John L. Lewis; on the reverse side is a roll of Greene County Miners. President of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) from 1920 until 1960 and founding president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), John Llewellyn Lewis was the dominant voice shaping the labor movement in the 1930s. The CIO owed its existence in large measure to Lewis, who was a tireless and effective advocate of industrial unionism and of government assistance in organizing basic industry.
The date of dedication was May 26, 1995.



The Coal Miners Memorial at Bethlehem Center High School, Fredericktown, Pa. Not a disaster memorial but a beautiful statue.

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.

Steamboat Gallery # 1

No steamboats ran regularly on Ten Mile but they ran right past and besides that ........ I love a steamboat. For about 80 years the easiest and cheapest way to get from Ten Mile Country to the big city ( Brownsville or Pittsburgh ) was to take the packet boat. There were actually only two choices, a mud road or the packet boat until the railroad was extended from Brownsville through Fredericktown to Rices Landing ( completed Jan.9,1908 ) and the branch to Besco, in late 1907. Many towboats and packets were seen every day from the banks and people knew them even at night by the distinctive sound of the whistle.
Here are just a few vessels that were very well known to people on our stretch of the Mon.

The Clyde Coal Co.'s very pretty towboat. Imaginatively, she was named CLYDE. This company had the mine of the same name in Fredericktown. Built at Rochester in 1903, she ran the Mon until 1930.


The Str. JAMES E. LOSE was one of many Carnegie Illinois Steel Co. boats. Later, these boats that ran locally (in the pools between the dams) were called pool boats , were operated under the U S Steel name and the " line haul boats ", which ran down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers became Ohio Barge Line ( 1941- 1985). When I started at OBL in the mid 1970's many of the Mates, Pilots and Captains that I worked with had been deckhands and Mates on these Carnegie Steel boats.
In 1945 there were as many steam sternwheel boats operating as there were diesel boats. In 1949 there were still 42 sternwheelers ( J&L alone had eleven of them ) running on the Allegheny Mon and upper Ohio. By 1953 there were 10, five owned by US Steel, Consol Coal and Crucible each still operated two and Ohio Barge Line still had one sternwheeler working. OBL 's last steamboat, a steam propeller vessel, ran until 1963. History is not that far behind us, just look over your shoulder and there it is.



This is the Str. La BELLE of the Wheeling Steel Corp. downbound at Fredericktown.



The CHARLES R. COX of US Steel downbound at Rices Landing. Her roof bell is now on display at the Monongahela River Buffs Museum


The Str. ADAM JACOBS at Brownsville in 1895. Owned by the Pittsburgh Brownsville & Geneva Packet Co. she regularly ran between these places. She was built at Brownsville in 1885.
This was one huge boat, over 200 feet long. Click on the pic and it will enlarge to actual size.......... just kidding.

The W.P.Snyder Jr. at Marietta

Fortunately for us there is a wonderfully preserved example of a Monongahela River towboat at Marietta Ohio. The Str. W.P. SNYDER JR. is docked there at the Ohio River Museum. The museum has a large and fine collection of river artifacts but their jewel is this vessel. She is exactly as she was in the old days and you can wander over her at your own pace and see how they lived and worked on the river on this Carnegie Illinois and later Crucible Steel owned boat. I'm glad they saved one of these unique vessels, she is the only surviving coal-fired, steam-powered sternwheeler towboat in the US not to mention the only pool boat. The smoke stacks on all the pool boats were made to be tilted back to clear low bridges and the pilot house was built on the forward end of the cabin rather than on top of the roof. They evolved to fit the needs of the river and locks in terms of power, size and draft. In the late 70's my wife and I first visited this boat at the museum. When I returned to work I was on the boat with Captain Leon Lyle of Pittsburgh, originally from Paducah, Ky. I had worked with him when he was a mate and he was of the old school and was as good a boatman as could be found on the river and I learned much from him. I was talking about how fascinating it was to visit the SNYDER. he said to me " I know that boat very well, I spent 10 years as Mate on her, just like you are Mate on here for me now. " For a complete description refer to her National Historic Landmark Nomination here.

Starboard Engine


The galley, not a lot of space to prepare food for 12 - 15 people.

The Str. W. P. SNYDER JR. was originally built as the Carnegie Steel Co. towboat W. H. CLINGERMAN in 1918 by Rees of Pittburgh, Pa. In 1938 she was renamed J. L. PERRY and in 1945 she was sold to Crucible Fuel Co. and again renamed as the W. P. SNYDER Jr. She towed coal on the Monongahela river for 35 years until she was laid up on September 23, 1953 at Crucible, Pa. In the summer of 1955 she was given to the Ohio Historical Society for exhibit at the Ohio River Museum of the Sons and Daughters of Pioneer Rivermen in Marietta, Ohio.