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| Mine Disaster Postcard courtesy of Dennis Chadra at http://ecceleswv.com |
April 28, 1914, Eccles, Raleigh County West Virginia. Successive explosions occurred to-day in mine shafts,
Nos. 5 and 6, of the New River Collieries Company, belonging to the GUGGENHEIMS, located at Eccles, Raleigh County. Three
successive explosions in No. 5 wrecked the interior in such a way that if gas has not killed the men many of them have been
crushed by falling timbers, earth, and coal. Timbers were thrown from the shaft mouth a distance of more than 200 yards, wrecking
the buildings at the exit.
Mine No. 5 is burning fiercely, with Government, State, and volunteer rescuers
working desperately to-night to subdue the flames, but had to abandon their task through being unable to force their way into
the burning shaft.
The depth of the two main shafts is 600 feet, and the mines are connected underground.
There are two other shafts into the mines, but the explosion totally wrecked three out of the four. The lone entrance leads
into Mine No. 6, and by means of it the rescues were made. No. 5 mine apparently is completely shut off from the surface.
The first explosion occurred in No. 5. The two shafts of this mine were demolished. It is believed the explosion
traveled through this mine into No. 6. One shaft of the latter mine was wrecked, but the other remains intact and was the
salvation of the workmen, who escaped.
It is believed that the explosions were caused by a pocket of gas being ignited
by a miner's lamp, enveloping both mines in flames. Debris was hurled forty feet in the air by the impact. No. 5 was wrecked
by explosions which occurred fifteen minutes apart. Only one explosion occurred in No. 6.
Gas Checks Rescuers.
A
rescue party was rushed to the scene of the disaster from Beckley, which is only two miles away, but after removing two men
from the debris of No. 6 their activities were checked by the deadening fumes of coal gas. Later the deadening fumes of coal
gas. Later the party were more successful in bringing forty more men to the surface.
Eccles, which is a
little mining community of 1,500 inhabitants, was shaken by the muffled rumbling of the explosions, which brought women from
their cottages in a panic and strated the entire population not at work to the tipples of the ill-fated mines. At first there
was no smoke, but men on the tipples knew that far aground the toll of death was being taken.
Supt. THOMAS
DONALDSON of Mine No. 8, Local Supt. M. E. KENT and Gen. Supt. F. B. BAYLES of the company were on the spot within a short
time. Supt. DONALDSON, an experienced miner, with an expert rescue crew, was lowered down the shaft of No. 6 mine. For a time
the steadily growing crowd of frightened women and children waited in suspense, but soon the signal came to hoist away and
the cage responded. It bore two men badly hurt, a few of the rescue party, and two bodies.
The other trips
were made as rapidly as possible, and each time blackened and burned miners were brought to the surface. The injured were
assisted to near-by houses, where physicians waited to care for them.
The rescued men expressed doubt whether
the remaining thirteen miners in No. 6 would be taken out alive. Some of the men stated that portions of No. 5 mine were badly
wrecked, and they believed that the entrance connecting with No. 3 mine had been completely destroyed.
The
disaster is the first of considerable extent in West Virginia for several years. It is probable that it is second only in
fatalities to the Monongahela horror in December, 1907, when 366 miners lost their lives.
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| Eccles No.'s 5 & 6 1914 Mine Disaster. Photo courtesy of Dennis Chadra of www.eccleswv.com |
A disaster, as rated by the state mines department, is an
accident in which 3 or more lives are lost. The Eccles mine had serious problems from the beginning, it has been the scene
of 4 such named disasters. The earliest occurred on december 19, 1910 long before the mine produced its first ton of
coal. Dravo Contracting Co of PA had been contracted to construct the three mine shafts. No 5 shaft had been sunk to
a depth of 500 ft when four Dravo workers, all Slavish, entered a bucket to descend to the bottom of the shaft to start
work on the night shift. The bucket tilted, throwing them out, and all four fell to the
bottom of the shaft,
all were killed instantly.
Killed were: Mike Kokula, Nick Danyo, John Susko, John Antonick. Their bodies were shipped
back to PA.
The April 28, 1914 explosion, where 183 men died at Eccles, was the second worst mine disaster
in West Virginia's history, since the 361 killed at Monangah December 6, 1907, and the sixth worst
in the US. Raleigh Co
has suffered no other comparable disaster of any kind. Eccles, operated by the New River Collieries
Co and owned by the Guggenheim family of NYC, was a gassy mine.
It
was not considered by the WV Dept of Mines as a likely candidate for a major tragedy. Mine inspectors reported the working
and ventilation of the No 5 mine, center of the explosion, had been carefully planned, with a view of giving adequate ventilation
as required in gaseous coal mines. Some sections of the mine were dry, and, to prevent danger from an explosion being caused
by coal dust accumulation, pipe lines were laid so that water could be used to control any possible dangerous dust
accumulations. Neither were there old, abandoned mine workings where a large body of gas could accumulate, and
the
mine was clear of falls.
The explosion that rocked through the ground at Eccles was said to have been the work of a private subcontractor whose actions are blamed for causing the
disaster that happened at 2:30 p.m. on the fatal day. No 5 tipple took the brunt of the explosion, followed a few minutes
later by a terrific dust blast, but No 6 mine was also damaged. It was reported that mine timbers, heavy machinery and
parts of human limbs and even mule bodies (which were used to pull underground coal cars) were blown to the top of No 5 shaft.
Pieces of timber blown from within the mine smoldered on the surrounding hillsides after the blast.
So
great was the destruction that rescue personel were unable to remove the first bodies until four days after the explosion.
For days large crowds of people covered the surrounding hillsides to await news of relatives who were in the
mine. Many of the mules were blown through the mine to the bottom of No 5 shaft where they began to decompose, giving
off sickening odors that could be smelled even on the surface.
Before rescue operations could begin, the ventilation
equipment had to be repaired and new roof support props installed. Rescue workers, reaching the bottom of No 5 shaft
the third day after the blast, found undescribable chaos; timbers down, slate falls, loaded mine cars blown down the main
haul ways, and pumps destroyed, allowing water to accumulate. Many of the victims were found submerged in the black water
mixed with coal and slate and in some cases, under the slate fall. Bodies in drier levels had swollen, bursting their
clothes, turned black and putrefied. Some, found submerged in the cool water, were better preserved.
All
of the bodies were not recovered until mid-May, a month after the explosion. Beckley morticians set up a morgue in the bathhouse.
Relatives of the victims were allowed to identify their dead, but many were so mutilated so badly that identification was
impossible. Bodies of the unknown were buried at the "Polish Cemetery" on the hill above the tipple. Grave diggers
had to blast out long trenches because the ground had not thawed out.
State
mine inspectors determined that 174 miners were killed in the No 5 mine, most of the bodies were found at or near their
working places and death was almost instanteous. Deaths of the nine men killed in the No 6 shaft were caused by the deadly
fumes that entered the mine from the No 5 shaft, both of which were connected with the mine workings in the Beckley seam
and also with mine workings in the Sewell seam.
When the state mine inspectors filed their official findings
on the tragedy, they attributed most of the blame for the fatal explosions to Seth Combs, a subcontractor. "Combs wanted
to move a big, slow moving Jefferies cutting machine from one side of a coal barrier to the other side where he was to cut
and load out another heading of coal. To move the machine down the entry to the end of the barrier and back up the other
side was a half mile and over a half day's time. To cut through the barrier was only an hour or so. It was reported that
the barrier, which Combs mined through, was the main air course into the workings and any break would short circuit
or stop the air flow..."
The official coroner's jury, meeting at Eccles on May 14, 1917, ruled
that the accumulation of gas in Mine No 5, was the primary cause of the explosion, and was the direct result of Comb's
short circuiting the air in the southern section of the mine and that the gas was ignited by an open lamp.
Not all of the vicitms were buried in the Polish Cemetery. Some of those who could be identified were interred elsewhere,
such as family cemeteries, and several of the Catholic immigrant miners were taken to St Sebastian Cemetery in Beckley,
a Catholic burial ground.
In 1976 Westmoreland Coal Co, then mining the Eccles coal, was permitted to move
the Polish Cemetery dead to a new burial ground on a hillside a mile south of the old graveyard because the Co slag pile was
beginning to encroach on the graves. A memorial monument, containing the names of all the 1914 dead buried there and elsewhere
and also those from a 1926 explosion at the same mine, was erected on the hill above the new burial site.
Names of the coal miners who lost their lives at Eccles: *
A.A.Abbott * John Adams * Boyd Akers * W.W.Bailey * M.B. Bailey * H.T. Basham * John Bennett * Alfred Bobbitt * Robert Bosteick
* Simon Bozata * Judge Brown * A.W. Broughman * Andy Bulash * Sam Botusa * Clarence Cadle * Ernest Cadle * James Cadle * Tony
Campbell * Quintillo Carli * Stanley Cichow * Ernest Colbert * S.M. Combs * Petro Coras * Joe Copras * Leslie Cottle
* L.C. Clayborne * J.C. Crook * John Cucia * Dominick Daldo * William Dark * Ed Dennis * Wuich Devich * Joe De Rose * Dudley
Green * E. Edwards * D.C. English * Mike Enovich * E.O. Ellison * Joe Faria * Charles Fela * John Fela * Frank Filler * Joe
Filler * John Forcento * Bruno Fortuno * James Fortuna * Joe Fortunyo * Roland Fowler * Joe Frencho * P.C. Fridley * C. Porter
* W. J. frost * Wm. Gallimore * John Gemudor * Jack Gerke * Deria Giovanni * Pat Golden * L. Goodman * Wm. Gusach * H. E.
Gray * Emmett Green * John Gronay * Jake Hale * Joe Harper * Jessie Harriston * A. H. Hardnet * Joe Hockman * J. H. Huff *
Mike Hrim * O. B. Hayslett * George Jones * Ed Johnson * Edgar Johnson * William Johnson * Mike Joseph * James Jordan * Marshall
Jordan * Joe Kasup * George King * Alex Korum * Chas Koalofski * Andrew Kulmore * J. A. Lester * Wayman Lester * Joe Levika
* F. J. Lingerman * Freeman Linville * Alex Lopp * Peter Majamado * Tony Mauke * Chas Meadows * Wm. Metloch * John Mick *
Casua Michale * Bernard Miller * Fred Mishuk * Savora Mollinoci * Stanley Monesky * Mike Minesky * Chas D. Moran * C. B. Murphy
* Frank Musual * Thomas McClough * Lacy McMillion * Lee McMillion * W. H. McMillion * Elie Nicheri * Pete Norman * Mike Novitsky
* John Olah * Tony Orso * Hy Osodch * John Palmer * John Paup * Richard Perkins * Garland Phillips * James Picola * Daldo
Pietro * John Polenay * Steve Pollunay * Joe Port * Robert Poteet * Mike Predno * J. T. Price * W. J. Quesenberry * Wm. Randall
* Hobart Reach * S. F. Roark * Ed Richmond * Ed Robinson * Paoli Rose * Wm. Ross * Gatno Rossi * Pete Rushack * Earina Salvator
* John Semic * J. T. Sellards * John Scott * Nathaniel Shelton * John Shipuruk * Anthony Shubonas * Chas Sims * Charles Simms
* J. T. Smith * Wilbur Smith * Wm. Smith * Tony Stanlos * Harvey Stanley * Barney Stepp * Joe Stonkovich * C. J. Taylor *
Frank Tedys * Robert Thompson * Steve Thrasher * Wes Thrasher * Chas Tibbs * Norman Toler * A. H. Turner * Joe Tusca * Sebastian
Tusca * Carl Warden * George Washington * W. G. Weatherford * Clarence Webb * Dona Webb * Sam White * Phillip white * Walter
Williams * A. Wiseman * E. A. Wiseman * Walter Wiseman * Newt Woods * Wes Woods * Eugene Wright * Dossie Youngerman * Will
Akers * Lee Combs * Georamin Desin * Rossie Gateans * Mike Lurrich * George McMillion * Epsi Nicheri * Pete Osldch * Gozma
Predua* Alfred Rowe * Ilya Sapin * Carti Zautelle * Mike Rim * John Samic *
| An anxious crowd awaits news of any survivors. |
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| Photo courtesy of Dennis Chadra of www.eccleswv.com |
In an effort to preserve our mining heritage and to honor those who have lost their lives to earn a living
and to support their families the memorial is posted below. As ICG Coal Company began it's new operations
south of #5 and #6 mines, the company found the cemetery where one hundred sixteen of the miners were buried. They were originally
buried above the Eccles tipples and moved in 1976 by Westmoreland Coal Company. The cemetery was overgrown and almost forgotten
until ICG cleared the cemetery. Some of the graves have sunken and a couple of the grave markers have sunk
down as well. Out of 116 markers, only less than 10 actually had names on them, the rest simply read "UNKNOWN".
It is not known if these are the remains of those who could not be identified. Understanding, back in 1917 only the wealthy
could afford granite head stones.Very possibly these miners once had wooden grave markers that had rotted away since 1917
and when Westmoreland moved the bodies to the new cemetery they had no way of knowing the names of the miners. 
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