Posted on 07/30/2002 12:59:18 AM PDT by kattracks
Edited on 07/12/2004 3:56:00 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
You'll never find an atheist in a foxhole, as every soldier knows, and you'll rarely find one trapped at the bottom of a coal mine.
Or at the top of the shaft, either, where wives, mothers and sweethearts wait, with their hearts in their throats. For three agonizing days, the nation waited with them, praying for nine men trapped far below a Pennsylvania meadow at the bottom of a dark, cold mine shaft flooded with filthy water.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Sourced from http://www.oakridger.com/stories/052201/new_0522010008.html
Story last updated at 11:10 a.m. on Tuesday, May 22, 2001
Remembering the miners of Fraterville
by Donna Smith Oak Ridger staff
On the 99th anniversary of one of the worst mining disasters in the nation, approximately 120 people toured the area of Anderson County that is as rich in history as its mountains were rich in coal.
American flags flew along Main Street in Lake City Saturday as school buses filled with the 120 -- many of them descendants of the estimated 180 to 200 men and boys who died in the Fraterville mine explosion -- traveled to several cemeteries in the area where the victims are buried.
The anniversary date of the explosion -- May 19 -- has served as the unofficial "memorial day" for Lake City, formerly called Coal Creek, and the nearby mountainous communities of Fraterville, Briceville, and Beech Grove. It was on that date in 1902 that many area families lost all of their male relatives.
"If you wanted to live in this area, you mined coal," Barry Thacker said, as he stood in the Longfield Cemetery off U.S. Highway 441 near Lake City. Approximately 35 of the miners are buried at the cemetery.
Thacker is the head volunteer for the Coal Creek Watershed Foundation, a grass-roots organization that is working to clean up the area watershed and rekindle interest in the area's rich history. Volunteer Carol Moore said Saturday's tour of the cemeteries was the rehearsal for next year's 100th anniversary of the explosion.
Nearby in Longfield Cemetery was the grave of Powell Harmon, one of the miners who was trapped inside the mine but who had time to scribble a note to his loved ones before he died from the noxious gases and lack of oxygen.
Harmon's last message is inscribed on his tombstone.
"... My Boys, Never work in the coal mines. Henry and Condy be good boys and stay with your mother and trust for Jesus sake," he concluded in the note.
Condy's tombstone lies next to his father's. He died in the nearby Cross Mountain mine disaster on Dec. 9, 1911. That explosion killed approximately 84.
The tour included visits to the Leach Cemetery, the Fraterville itinerant cemetery, and the actual site of the Fraterville mine.
Nothing remains at the Fraterville mine site except for a concrete structure, where Thacker speculated the train engine rested before pulling filled coal cars out of the mine.
The itinerant cemetery resides in the back yard of Owen Bailey, a Fraterville resident. Six or seven fieldstones decorate the back yard identifying where the unidentified miners were buried. Bailey said when he moved to the location there were more depressions in the ground, suggesting more miners were buried there than the fieldstones designate.
No one truly knows how many men died in the Fraterville explosion, Thacker said.
The miners' descendants and history buffs also heard about other aspects of the area's rich coal-mining past.
"We could take tours for a week in this community," Thacker said. "The history is there -- you've just got to know where to look for it."
If you can identify the historical spots in the communities, he said, it's like "walking through Boston."
In 1891 and 1892 the miners waged war against the Tennessee militia in opposition to the convict lease system. The state worked convicts in the mines until they died and were replaced by other convicts, Thacker said. The graves of those convicts decorate the mountains. The coal miners opposed the system because it took jobs away from them.
The "Coal Creek War" resulted in Tennessee's dropping the convict system, and later the other Southern states did. Several men were killed in the uprisings including Dick Drummond. The militia hanged the miner from a railroad bridge in the Briceville area, Thacker said, and some people report his ghost still haunts "Drummond Bridge."
Then there's the site of Thistle Switch, where an estimated 2,000 miners stopped the militia from getting off a train and sent them back to Knoxville. And don't forget the two-story Briceville Opera House that burned in 1918. It was the center of the mountainous areas, which were the most populated areas of the county at the turn of the century.
"We could take tours for a week in this community," Thacker said.
Throughout the tour, the group was entertained by vocalist Tony Thomas, who also played the guitar, and Linda Gunderson, playing banjo. The two sang songs such as those written by John Rice Irwin, owner of the Museum of Appalachia, about the Coal Creek War and the Fraterville explosion.
Damn right! Those are real men- a little rough around the edges, but the kind of people who make America work, and make it a good place to live.
You won't find any $3,000 Armani suits at the bottom of a mine, either- not because the men can't afford one, but because "you don't dress too good to work..."
I've spent my life around people like that, and as long as they are good, and decent, and hard-working, then America will be good and decent, too.
In Pennsylvania, a lot of the miners are Italian Catholic, Polish Catholic and Russian Orthodox. When I lived there years ago, the town had two Catholic churches: One Roman, one Byzantine, and two Orthodox churches, one Russian, one Ukrainian, plus a couple of Protestant churches like the Brethren, Baptist, etc....remember the movie the Deer Hunter? They married in a Russian Orthodox church, and hunted deer before going to Viet Nam? That was a movie about Pennsylvania mining country....
Amen.
It's good enough for me.
Begging to the whoever-it-is running the universe didn't save those nine men. Clear thinking and potent tools, from the brains and hands of human beings, did so.
"In 1891 and 1892 the miners waged war against the Tennessee militia in opposition to the convict lease system. The state worked convicts in the mines until they died and were replaced by other convicts, Thacker said. The graves of those convicts decorate the mountains. The coal miners opposed the system because it took jobs away from them.
The "Coal Creek War" resulted in Tennessee's dropping the convict system, and later the other Southern states did. Several men were killed in the uprisings including Dick Drummond. The militia hanged the miner from a railroad bridge in the Briceville area, Thacker said, and some people report his ghost still haunts "Drummond Bridge."
Then there's the site of Thistle Switch, where an estimated 2,000 miners stopped the militia from getting off a train and sent them back to Knoxville. "
This is exactly the kind of situation our Founding Fathers had in mind when they included the 2nd Amendment into the Constitution.
The dying miner did not find it in his heart to blame God......telling his boys to trust, for Jesus sake.
How can you do less?
I'm sorry you don't understand this.
I pray you will someday, while the truth may yet be found.
Read up on the disaster. The men at Fraterville were virtually dead before they went in. From what I've read on it elsewhere conditions inside a portion of the mine were unstable as a build up of methane had occurred. You can not smell gases in a mine. A furnace near the mines shaft that had been shut down for the weekend was lit and sparked the disaster.
Did the miners blame GOD? I don't believe even one letter was found indicating such among those recovered. It is never stated in the Bible believers would be spared the hardships and ills that face this world. It was the choice of man to bring such misery into this world. It is the GRACE Of GOD which offers salvation in the next world free from the curse upon this world. The Miners understood that. So did a Captain in the bottom of a Slave Trade ship one night in a storm he thought was the end of his life.
Seeing the events in that rescue this week the precise timing of even what was believed to be events leading to death like the broken bit saved the lives of the miners by that delay. I can see the hand of GOD in those events. Sometimes bad events occur and at the time we can do nothing but ask why. Even that is not wrong the Son of GOD did no less on the Cross. The tears of those who loved him and saw him die became tears of joy when they could understand the necessity of it the good that it was to happen for all time. Sometime the good seen is quick sometimes it takes years or maybe a generation. It's a cause and effect world here on earth. Devine intervention is possible. GOD created it and GOD uses it to his divine purpose.
Infliction's are adversity. Adversity is a tempering tool GOD uses on those he loves to help them grow. He did it to Paul. He did it to a young woman named Joni Erickson Tada who from a wheel chair has a ministry that reaches millions. Who would Joni had been had she not had adversity in her life to deal with? She had two choices. Either fall victim to it and be defeated or call upon strength from GOD to endure. If you think she wasn't bitter and full of questions at first read her book Joni. Whether it's a caved in mine or a life sentence to a wheel chair GOD is there. Even as he was in the furnace with the three men of Daniel. Even the King who denied GOD knew who it was he was seeing.
Christianity or Judism isn't about using GOD as a magic wand to deliver you from all bad. Those who believe know and understand this must happen here. That is why prayer for healing and guidance is asked in the context "If it be thy will" or "Thy will be done" Again even the SON of GOD asked as much. I think one who has the power, wisdom, and knowledge, to create and hold this entire vast universe together is a bit smarter and wiser than myself and see's the good to come for me well beyond my trials on earth whatever they may be.
May 19, 1902; Fraterville Mine, Coal Creek. Tenn.; 184 Killed
(From report of Commissioner of Labor, 1902 ( Bureau of Mines files) )
The mine opened in 1870 was one of the oldest in the State and had been in almost continuous operation; 200 men and boys were employed. The furnace was not fired from Saturday night until Monday morning, and ventilation was stagnated.
The mine was considered to be non-gassy although gas was known to be present in that section of the old and abandoned Knoxville Iron Company mine into which openings had recently been made. The miners had not been in the mine more than an hour when at 7: 20 a. m. thick smoke and dust were seen coming from the ventilating shaft and from the mouth of the mine. Rescuing parties were organized and penetrated about 200 feet where they came upon the body of a victim of the afterdamp. They could go no farther and returned to await dispersal of the deadly gas.
At 4 o’clock a rescue corps again entered. Brattices had been destroyed, and along the main entry the force of the explosion was terrific, timbers and cogs placed to hold a squeeze were blown out, mine cars, wheels, and doors were shattered, and bodies were dismembered. In other parts of the mine no heat or violence was shown, and suffocation had brought death to those whose bodies were found there.
A barricade had been placed across 15 right entry near the heading to protect the miners there from the deadly afterdamp. The 26 men found there must have lived for several hours, as notes were written as late as 2 p. m. At first it was thought that the gas had come from the old mine, but later inspectors indicated that the gas was liberated from overhanging strata by the "creep" that had begun with unusual violence shortly before the explosion. The gas accumulated because of inadequate ventilation and was ignited by the open lights. Dust was thick in the mine and was blown up and burned in the explosion. No sprinkling was done.
Recommendations by the mine inspector that had not been carried out were for cleaning and enlarging airways, rebuilding brattices and doors, increasing the furnace capacity, tests for gas, and removing dust.
Testimony given before the commissioner on June 6, 1902, was emphatic in condemning the laxity of the officials, as:
The mine foreman was not competent, and the company had not installed a fan as the State inspector had recommended.
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