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

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.