Ghosts In The Hollow

Ghosts in the Hollow from Jim Lo Scalzo on Vimeo.

This short video by Jim Lo Scalzo was not shot locally but it's very familiar territory just the same. The decaying buildings and rusting mine cars are things that can be seen from Pennsylvania to Alabama. The images (mostly all are still photographs) pull you into the story that the song makes. This and one other of this artists' multimedia pieces were recently recognized with awards from the White House News Photographers Association. His other videos, though unrelated to coal mining, are well worth a look.

The song is called Sprinkle Coal Dust On My Grave and was written in 1933 by Orville J Jenks of  Welch, W. Va.


I'm just an old coal miner
And I labored for my bread;
This story in my memory I hear told;
For the sake of wife and baby
How a miner risks his life
For the price of just a little lump of coal.

Mother Jones is not forgotten
By the miners of this field,
She's gone to rest above, God bless her soul;
Tried to lead the boys to victory.
But was punished here in jail,
For the price of just a little lump of coal.

When a man has toiled and labored
'Til his life it's almost gone,
Then the operator thinks he's just a fool:
They sneak around and fire him
Just because he's growing old,
And swear they caught him breaking company rules.

Don't forget me, little darling,
When they lay me down to rest,
Tell my brothers all these loving words I say;
Let the flowers be forgotten,
Sprinkle coal dust on my grave
In remembrance of the UMWA.

A Look At Greene County Coal Mines

Coal mining began in Greene County in the late 1700's with Thomas Hughes of Jefferson. He used his slaves to strip mine coal on his property above Ten Mile Creek . It is believed that much of this was dug in the ravine between the present Jefferson Morgan High School and the football field. Coal mining was limited to small " farmer mines" scattered over the area and it was sold by the bagful. Near the river and larger streams coal was loaded onto flatboats as seen in this old drawing courtesy of Carnegie Museum.

As land transportation was improved from narrow mud paths to rough mud roads so grew too, the business of mining and selling domestic heating coal. By 1868, Mr. R.A. Sayers of Waynesburg was offering " Coal coarse, measure warranted and no disappointment " at 4.00 for a hundred pounds at his Ten Mile Works.

Courtesy of Greene county Historical Society

Local investors ( Dilworth Mining Company 1880-1930) opened Dilworth above Rices Landing in 1902, it was the first large commercial coal mine in Greene County.  Other coal patches and company towns built in the early twentieth-century were Crucible in 1912, Rosemary, Penn Pitt and Sandy Run in Monongahela Township. In Dunkard Township were Poland Mines, Maple Sterling and Rose Mine. The Walnut Hill mine was started in West Point Marion in 1916. The William Pitt mine started around 1916 near Clarksville. Below Pollocks Mill was the Patton Mine (1921-1930) , owned by the Waynesburg Coal Company. Built in 1918-19 were Mather, by the Pickands-Mather Company of Ohio and Nemacolin, built by the Buckeye Coal Co. of Ohio. One of the largest company towns was Bobtown, started in 1920 by Jones and Laughlin.

By the WW2 era, the largely untapped coal deposits in Greene County became very important. Increased mechanization had made it possible to mine some more remote portions of the coal vein through extensive underground systems connected to large portals along the Monongahela River. Several large river front complexes were built including Emerald, Warwick, Cumberland and US Steel's huge Robena Mine.

There were basically 12 major coal mines in Greene County, the last of southwestern Pennsylvania's counties to become a major producer. They are:

• Crucible, opened in Cumberland Township in 1913 by Crucible Steel for its mill coal supply. At its peak in 1953, the mine employed 903 miners and produced 1.3 million tons of coal. Crucible Mine closed in 1961 and throughout its 49-year life the mine extracted 36.5 million tons of Pittsburgh seam coal. It was operated later by other firms.

• Mather started operations in 1918 in Morgan Township by Pickands-Mather Co. of Cleveland. It was the site of a 1928 underground explosion that killed 194. The mine was abandoned in 1965.

Mather Mine by Howard Fogg

Nemacolin  Mine by Howard Fogg

• Nemacolin, in Cumberland Township, began shipping its coal in 1919. Nemacolin was said to be the largest coal mine in the U.S. at that time and it was Greene County's second most productive mine in the 1940s. After nearly 70 years of production the mine was idled in 1986 and sealed in 1988.

• Shannopin was a Jones & Laughlin subsidiary operation that began coal production in 1926 in Dunkard Township. It was closed in 1992 and sold.

• Warwick, a Duquesne Light operation opened by Warwick Coal Co. in 1921, closed, then was acquired by the utility firm in 1940. It underlies several townships.

• Robena, in Monongahela Township, began mining in 1944 by H.C. Frick Coke Co. Disaster came to the early, fully mechanized mine in 1962, when a methane gas and coal dust explosion killed 37 miners.
Production ceased in 1983.

• Gateway, formerly Edward and Emerald, first opened in 1921. It was renamed Gateway in 1963 by a subsidiary of the companies that used its output. The Morgan Township mine closed in 1989.

Dilworth Tipple

• Dilworth, originally opened in 1902, At Rice's Landing, it was the county's first commercial mine. It was a deep shaft mine and had 190 coke ovens and was located along the river on the northern border of Rice's Landing. Coal and coke were loaded directly into barges from the riverside mine.In 1914, the Rice's Landing Coal and Coke Company acquired the Dilworth Mine. Within the next few years, the H.C. Frick Coke Company acquired the mine. It was reopened in 1974 by U.S. Steel, and purchased by Consolidation Coal Co. in 1984.

• Cumberland, in Whitely Township, began production for U.S. Steel in 1977. In 1993, the mine was acquired by Cyprus Arnax and operated by Cyprus Cumberland Resources Corp.

Cumberland's River Tipple at Grays Landing, Eric M. Johnson Photo

• Emerald, opened in 1977 in Franklin Township, was first operated by Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. It has had several owners since.

• Bailey, in Richhill Township, began operations for Consolidation Coal in 1984. For a short time in 1992, it was the largest underground coal mine in the United States and was known for its efficiency and low cost..

Bailey Mine, Consol photo

• Enlow Fork, also in Richhill, was opened by Consolidation Coal in 1990 and was for a long time the most productive underground mine in the United States.

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

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.

About The Dog Labor Photo And A Little More

Here's a little about the image at the top of each page. It is an old undated real photo post card and shows the tipple of a fairly early primitive coal mine. This is the type of mine that was common before the big commercial coal companies came into the area around 1890-1900. Mining coal as a business started as early as 1818 in Fredericktown. This picture likely dates from 1900 or so but the scene would have looked the same at any time from 1820 to the 1920's. The coal wagons are being pulled by large dogs of different breeds. They look to me like a hound of some kind, a Heinz dog and a Labrador . Though worked, these dogs were likely well taken care of, they certainly look healthy. Using dogs instead of mules or horses indicates that the mine is quite a low ( 3-4 feet high ) vein of coal. This type of operation was known as a "dog mine." Those fortunate enough to have a much taller seam of coal on their property would have used mules or horses. A gentleman who seems to be quite well fed stands at attention in the foreground, likely the owner / operator. It's a wonderful image of early labor, showing the miners posing with their cap lamps and tools and the teamsters waiting to load their wagons.
This card was purchased locally some years ago, considering that and looking at the hills in the background I believe this was taken somewhere in Ten Mile Creek Country.

This was a sidebar on the page for several months and when I began to tweak / add to it today I thought it might deserve a post of it's own. It really is a unique image. I searched Google and Bing in vain for another picture of dogs pulling coal wagons. I searched for dog labor, dog coal, dog pulling, dog mine and nothing shows. Even this image does not show, but now that I used all those keywords in the last sentence, it will !

I have recently updated several posts: the Rices Landing one, and the Clarksville Bridges and the Iron Furnace. As I get more photos and information, I will likely add to or modify most every post or even break up some to expand on a subject. For instance, the above Clarksville Bridges and Iron Furnace will become a two separate posts somewhere down the road as the furnace deserves a post of it's own. All the more reason to check back with your favorite ones from time to time.

If you know a little or a lot about some aspect of the area that we all may like to know, please consider sharing it with me. I'd be glad to help you edit or elaborate on it. If any of your old family photos show mines or trains, train stations, boats or old storefronts, bars or hotels, people working or playing, in any Ten Mile towns I would love to see them and share them here. Even if Mamaw or Aunt Eunice is in the foreground it would be of interest. Sometimes the best pictures of a train station are taken on the day Mamaw went to Pittsburgh to get her hip surgery or the day sweet Aunt Eunice and her alcoholic husband finally went back home from their visit.

Ten Mile Trivia # 3

Robert Morris, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and an early official of the federal government, once owned 41,000 acres of land in Greene County. Much of his widespread acquisition of land was accomplished with borrowed money. That helped lead him into financial difficulty and eventually bankruptcy. Earlier, George Washington was the largest landowner in this section of Pennsylvania, some in Greene.
The first Boy Scout troop sponsored in Pennsylvania, it is believed, was that at Waynesburg Presbyterian Church in 1911, organized by future state governor Gen. Edward Martin.

In the late 1790s, one of the gun factories that supplied the young United States with weapons was established at New Geneva in Fayette County, shortly before the national armory was placed at Harpers Ferry, then in Virginia. However, the government competition was too much for private industry, and the New Geneva plant went out of business. The course of U.S. history would have been greatly changed had the government installation been placed at New Geneva instead of Harpers Ferry.

Former President Richard Nixon had a Western Pennsylvania heritage through his mother's family, the Milhouses, and other maternal ancestors. As early as 1795, Anthony and Lydia Smith took up residence along the south branch of Tenmile Creek near Waynesburg. Several generations of descendants lived in Greene County before the president's mother's ancestors moved westward in the mid-1800s.

An earlier version of today's illegal parking towaways was the regulation in Washington, Pa., that prohibited hitching horses to shade trees. Constables were empowered to impound the horses in public stables until a storage fee was paid.

The first telephone company to operate in Greene County was the Waynesburg and Blacksville Telephone Co., organized Jan. 20, 1887. The first two telephones were placed in the Strosnider Hotel in Blacksville and in the J.T. Rogers drug store in Waynesburg. By the spring of 1889 Jefferson, Charmichaels, Waynesburg and Rices Landing were joined by telephone. Within the next several years, several other small independent phone firms were started. Patrons on one system could not call those on another, which caused quite a bit of dissatisfaction. At one time, there were 38 different small companies within Greene County alone, all of which were ultimately merged into the South Penn Telephone Co.

A cemetery inscription at the Greene County-West Virginia border area near Blacksville reads:
"Some women have children,
And some have none,
But here lies the mother of twenty-one."

An English geologist, Sir Charles Lyall, who came to Southwestern Pennsylvania in April 1846, wrote after his study of geological formation:
"I was truly astonished, now that I had entered the hydrographical basin of the Ohio, at beholding the richness of the seams of coal which appeared everywhere on the flanks of the hills and at the bottoms of the valleys, and which are accessible to a degree I never witnessed elsewhere. The time has not arrived when the full value of this inexhaustible supply of cheap fuel can be appreciated. To properly estimate the net advantages of such a region, we must reflect how the three great navigable rivers, the Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio, intersect it and lay open on their banks the level seams of coal. I found at Brownsville a belt 10 feet thick of good bituminous coal, commonly called the Pittsburgh seam, out in the river cliffs near the water's edge."
The accuracy of his statements has been borne out by the later appreciation of this vast coal supply and what it has meant to the area in the years since.

Sept. 30, 1939 -- Waynesburg College played Fordham at New York in the first experimentally televised football game. Although the Yellow Jackets lost, Bobby Brooks of Greensburg scored the first touchdown on TV. In 1875, Waynesburg College President Alfred B. Miller and some of the students began the process of making bricks to build what became the main college building -- Miller Hall. Clay was obtained from a campus site and another nearby point, and three kilns were constructed on campus to "burn the brick." They were able to produce as many as 4,000 bricks daily, during which time the boys hauled "hundreds of barrels of water." Miller explained that to mold the 803,000 bricks made there "almost exhausted Ten Mile Creek for water to moisten the clay." Masons then erected the structure as money permitted, but it wasn't completed until more than a decade later.


Miller Hall courtesy of Waynesburg University

One Saturday in 1888, 11 male Waynesburg College students went to Masontown and indulged in "drinking beer and other liquors." Brought before the college faculty, they acknowledged their offenses and were allowed to remain students on condition that they sign a pledge of total abstinence.

The last survivor of Braddock's infamous 1755 defeat by the French and Indians was reputed to be one Boon Buchanan, who died in Washington County in 1846 at the alleged age of 113. He was a black man who, it was said, served as a waiter with the British army.

Lone Pine in Washington County was originally called Pleasant Valley, along the south fork of Ten Mile Creek. Twin pine trees once towered there, but one was erased by lightning shortly before a post office was established there in 1869. When the Pleasant Valley name, already in use elsewhere, wasn't available for post office use, Lone Pine was chosen. A son of Albert Gallatin, James, supervised construction of his father's Friendship Hill mansion near New Geneva in Fayette County while the latter was in France in 1822-23. When Gallatin returned and saw the structure, he was quite unhappy with it but made the best of the situation. Shortly afterward, writing to a daughter, he described part of it this way: "The outside of the house, with its porthole-looking windows, has the appearance of an Irish barracks, whilst the inside ornaments are similar to those of a Dutch tavern."

Albert Gallatin's home, Friendship Hill
Perhaps the most significant of Albert Gallatin's accomplishments came as the result of his friendship with U.S. President Thomas Jefferson. In the early 1800s, Gallatin persuaded Jefferson to change the route of the National Road and take it through southwestern Pennsylvania. As originally planned, it would have gone around the state through Virginia ( West Virginia ).
A Greene County man is claimed to have been one of the first people in the U.S. to use natural gas for light and heating fuel. L.R. Strosnider, of Mt. Morris, shortly after the Civil War noticed gas escaping from an abandoned oil well on the property where he had a confectionery and restaurant. He placed a half-barrel over the well shaft, bored a hole in the barrel for a pipe, and ran the pipe into his building. He used this gas for cooking and frying oysters and later for light .
Zadok Cramer's 1814 book tells of a "curious cave" about a mile below Fredericktown in Washington County, along the Monongahela, called the "Panther's Den." It was described as entering the hill "about halfway from its base by a small fracture or rent in the rock. After going through a narrow or descending passage, you enter a wide but low room in which you can walk nearly upright. To the roof of this room, we found bats hanging in a stupid kind of sleep."
Near Clarksville, about half a mile upcreek from the Yablonski stone house, is a cave on the side of the high escarpment above Ten Mile Creek. This was also known as Panthers Den, likely named after the more well known one described above. Directly below it there is a large rock in the creek known as Clover Rock that was always a popular spot for fishing and swimming. This entire area is now posted as private property.

During a period of religious fervor between 1800 and 1807, a woman evangelist in the Washington-Greene border area was Rhoda Fordyce. She proclaimed "that if a person would abstain from all animal food and live on parched corn and sassafras buds ... his body would become so ethereal that he would be translated to heaven without passing through the gates of death." One man named Parker tried her theory. Instead of being "translated," he starved to death. Rhoda would not allow the body to be buried until after the third day, insisting that it would then ascend to heaven. At the end of three days, neighbors interposed and buried it. Nothing was heard thereafter of the Rhodianites, as her followers were called.


This from The Charleroi Mail of June 8, 1908 : Charmichaels Pa. In the center of prohibition Greene County (Temperance advocate) Carrie Nation today delivered her first speech since the Republican Presidential nomination. She scored the candidates. Mrs. Nation complimented the assemblage in the fact that the Merry Widow hat has not seriously inundated Greene County. In spite of the dry condition of Greene County enough ardent liquor was imported for the day to make a number of citizens loud, and the usual interruptions occurred. In a big grove 2,000 people listened to Mrs. Nation between showers. When it rained she sold her hatchets.
Last night, waiting at Rices Landing on a train, a young man lit a cigar and blew the smoke into Mrs. Nation's face. She tried to get the cigar and the young man threatened to throw her over the lock wall. The Kansas woman made an information against him before a justice of the peace, but later dropped the case.
These tidbits were taken from various books and internet sources including Robert B. Van Atta of the Greensburg ( Pa.) Tribune-Review.

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.

Mather - The Town And The Coal Mine

DESCRIPTION OF MATHER COLLIERIES PLANT BY J. R. ELLIOTT

The property of the Mather Collieries, consisting of about 4400 acres, is located at Mather, north of the village of Jefferson, Greene County, Pa. The operation is owned jointly by Pickands, Mather & Company; the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company; and the Steel Company of Canada, Ltd., Hamilton, Out., and operated by Pickands, Mather & Company, of Cleveland. The town of Mather is named in honor of Samuel Mather, senior member of the firm of Pickands, Mather & Company, and William G. Mather, of the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company.

Topographical conditions were favorable for a splendid town site and the management decided that it was imperative to provide the best living conditions possible in order to attract the better class of mine labor. The tract of land available is of sufficient area to provide for 500 or more houses and yet provide sufficient space for each house. The streets are laid out to suit the topography and provide good drainage. Lots are 80 feet in width and from 105 to 120 feet deep.

Street Map of Mather.

The houses are built 20 feet back from the street line. Each house has water and sewerage. "Sanisep" closets are installed and have proven entirely satisfactory. Most of the streets have been macadamized with crushed slag with a coating of limestone screenings. Sidewalks of Cleveland sawed stone are laid. Ample fire protection is furnished from two 50,000 gallon tanks, located on a hill nearby, giving a pressure of from 60 to 80 pounds throughout the town. Shade trees have been planted along the streets, so that in a few years there will be no evidence that it is a coal mining town. Houses contain from three to six rooms each, but the five-room houses are most in demand.


Five Room house plan.

A three room house rents for 8.00, a four room for 9.50 and a five room house for 11.00 a month. Water is provided by a dam across the mouth of Browns Run formed by the embankment for railroad sidings. The drainage area is about four square miles and the water is impounded in a reservoir holding about 2,000,000 gallons. Water is pumped from the reservoir by a centrifugal pump to a raw- water tank from which it flows by gravity through a filtration plant of 100,000 gallons capacity per eight hours into a wet well, from which it is pumped direct to the tanks on the hill. Four-inch pipe is used for distribution, with 2 inch house connections.The water is analyzed weekly by representatives of the State Board of Health and has proven entirely satisfactory.


Theater with confectionery on left and library on right

In order to have a contented people, it is necessary that some sort of recreation be provided. A moving picture theater is in operation, in which all the latest and best pictures are shown several nights a week, at prices merely sufficient to pay for management and upkeep.


Recreation Building

On the opposite corner of the square is a recreation building containing bowling-alleys, pool-tables, and barber shop on the first floor, with a large dance-hall on the upper floor. The need for such a building in a community of this sort is evidenced when parties will come miles from surrounding country to attend functions and dances held in it. The town supports a baseball club which rendered a good account of itself last season and promises to do the same this year. A modern school takes care of the educational needs of the young members of the community. Religious services are held in the various buildings and sites have been reserved for those congregations who wish to erect their own church edifices. The company has a welfare worker and nurse, whose duty it is to visit the families and instruct them in American ways of living.


Club House

For the young single men and bachelors among the operating force, a club-house with all modern conveniences affords a quiet home. Taking all things into consideration, the town of Mather is located in one of the most charming spots in Western Pennsylvania and no effort or money has been spared to keep the town in harmony with its surroundings.
Map of town, railroad and mine

It is served by the Chartiers Southern Railway, owned jointly by the Pennsylvania Railroad, the New York Central Railroad, and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, connection being made with the Monongahela Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad at Millsboro on the Monongahela River. The coal is used entirely by the owners in by-product plants located at Toledo, Canton, and Cleveland, Ohio, and Hamilton, Out., being transported in 70-ton capacity railroad cars owned by the Mather Collieries.The coal dips to the southeast at about an average grade of 1.5 per cent, and the cover over the coal varies from 300 feet at Ten Mile Creek to 650 feet under the highest hills. The seam of coal as indicated by present development and numerous drill holes at various locations on the property will average six feet, nine inches thick and produce a tonnage of 10,000 tons per acre.
The topography of the property is typical of southwestern Pennsylvania, being a rolling agricultural country. The south branch of Ten Mile Creek flows along the southeast side of the property at an elevation slightly below 900 feet above sea level, and to the northwest elevations of 1100 to 1200 feet are reached on the property. The general direction of Ten Mile Creek is parallel to the Bellevernon anticlinal and forms the lowest elevation so far as the coal seam on the property is concerned. The creek valley is the only feasible route for a railroad outlet and necessitated that the surface plant and point of development of the property be located contiguous thereto, and a plant location was chosen near the southeast central portion of the tract, so that the haulage would be in favor of the loads.
The Chartiers-Southern Railway was located and built on the opposite side of Ten Mile Creek from the plant site. Owing to topographical conditions it was necessary to construct the sidings with one connection with the railroad. This involved the construction of a two-span, deck, plate-girder bridge across the creek and a passing track from the lower end of the yards to a point above the location of the No. 2 shaft. The yard is arranged for the ultimate storage capacity of 100 loads and empties, with ample facilities for switching between the two shafts, so as to avoid interference when it becomes feature determined the distance between shafts of 850 feet. It will be noticed that three loading tracks are provided for No. 1 shaft and two for No. 2 shaft. The product shipped is run-of- mine, but provision was made for separating and loading slack in case it should prove advisable. The sidings are laid with 90-pound rails on standard ties. All turnouts are No. 8. The track is ballasted with granulated slag.

Owing to the outline and location of the property it was decided that for the most economical operation it would be wise to consider the tract as two separate operations, but operated with the same surface plant; consequently, both shafts were designed as hoisting shafts — No. 1 to be used exclusively for hoisting coal and slate, and therefore for the larger output, and also to serve as an intake for air. No. 2 to be used for hoisting coal and slate, men, and supplies, and one compartment to serve as an air exhaust. The shafts are the same inside dimensions, the difference in arrangement of bun-tons being that they are so placed as to give a slightly larger area for exhaust airway in No. 2 and to provide room for stairway in No. 1, if deemed necessary. This stairway has not been constructed at the present writing. The shafts are concrete lined, with steel bunions and reinforced concrete partition between hoistways and air compartment.
From top of coping to bottom of coal, No. 1 is 341 feet in depth and No. 2 is 349 feet.
Ground was' broken August 20, 1917 on No. 1 and August 7, 1917 on No. 2. Coal was reached May 8, 1918 on No. 1 and May 20, 1918 on No. 2. The time required to sink and line both shafts was approximately nine months — an average rate of 39 feet per month. In normal times this would be considered slow, but, owing to war conditions, shortage of labor, and the work being located some five miles from a railroad.

Shop And Supply House

The building containing the shop and supply house is 39 by 138 feet, divided into four compartments — blacksmith, carpenter, and machine-shops and supply house. The blacksmith shop is equipped with two forges, a fan, and a hammer.
The carpenter and machine-shop contains a lathe, a hack-saw, a radial drill-press, a shaper and an emery-wheel. All machinery is operated by belt from a line-shaft driven by a 15-horse-power, alternating-current, 220-volt motor. In the design of this building, special regard was given1 to light and ventilation. A track extends the full length through the middle, so as to facilitate the handling of material, mine cars and locomotives.

The Hoist House is located near No. 1 shaft and houses the hoisting equipment, which consists of a "Vulcan" hoist with cylindro-conical drums 7.5 to 10 feet in diameter. An output of three cars per minute can be maintained, which insures a tonnage of over 3000 tons a day from the No. 1 shaft when the mine is sufficiently developed — at the same time hoisting the slate. Ventilation is afforded by a Jeffrey fan 14 feet in diameter and 6 feet wide, having an ultimate capacity of 350,000 cubic feet per minute. The head-frame and tipple are constructed of steel, concrete floors being installed in the tipple. The coal is dumped from self-dumping cages into either of two bins located side by side, from which it is fed by reciprocating feeders over stationary screens five feet in length, separating the coal into three sizes and delivering it onto the picking tables. The coal is hand picked, the refuse being handled by a refuse conveyor to the slate bin immediately under the dump chute. The coal after passing over the picking tables is dumped into a receiving bin, from which it is loaded into cars on either of two tracks. The refuse from the mine is dumped direct into a bin of 50 tons capacity, from which it is loaded directly into a 10-ton electric larry and hauled across the railroad sidings on an overhead bridge to a refuse dump. This dump is of such a height that with the land available for dumping purposes it will. no doubt, serve the life of the mine. In case it should prove insufficient at its present height, the larrys able to operate on a six per cent, grade, so that an extra height of 20 or 25 feet can be utilized.
The Lamp House and First Aid building is located near the power-house at No. 2 shaft. It is a two-story structure, the second floor being devoted to instruction in rescue work, etc., meetings being held once a week. The lower floor contains the lamp house, mine foreman's office and first-aid room.
In order to facilitate transportation, loaded and empty track haulage roads have been provided. Sixty-pound steel rail is used on main haulage roads and 25-pound on butts and rooms. At present the underground equipment consists of two 15-ton trolley locomotives, eight 7-ton storage locomotives for gathering, 13 short-wall mining machines, 400 mine cars of 2.75-ton capacity, equipped with roller bearings.

The production has reached 2000 tons a day this month and is constantly and uniformly being increased. Mining conditions are very good, the only drawback being exceptionally heavy draw slate in some sections of the mine but this is thought to be a merely local condition.

In conclusion, our firm wishes to express its acknowledgment to the various persons connected with the enterprise, for their hearty co-operation in bringing about the final consummation of the project, it being carried on under war-time conditions. Among those deserving of special mention are : Frank Armstrong, of Pickands, Mather and Company Cleveland, General Manager; the late W. L. McDonald, Superintendent during the greater part of the construction; J. W. H. Crofts, architect,of Cleveland, who designed the various civic buildings.


Safety award carbide lamp given To Pickands Mather miners

Water Tank and Pump House At Stoney Point, 1930. This supplied trains working Mather Mine. State Rt.188 overpass in background. Photo from Monongahela Railway.

Miner's check Tag

This story is taken from Proceedings of the Engineers' Society of Western Pennsylvania‎ by the Engineers' Society of Western Pennsylvania and is a report on the mine and town as it was in 1922.
Mather Collieries began operation in 1918 and ceased in 1964. During it's 46 year history, the mine produced an estimated 33.4 million tons of coal.

A very partial list of the men who worked at Mather is here. My story about the Mather train station is here.

Wes Knisley has created an interesting site on Mather and the mine here. There are some rare old pictures of the mine, town and nearby area, well worth a look at. Also reproduced there are the contents of the Mather Mining Disaster book by Tony Bupka, printed by the Brownsville Telegraph newspaper. This book is quite rare, in my years of collecting I have only ever found two copies of it for sale. It is the best reference on the subject.