1907 — Dec 6, Methane gas/dust explosions, Fairmont Coal mines 6 & 8, Monongah, WV–400-550

— 400 – 550 Blanchard (See Blanchard note immediately below death toll breakouts.)
— 500 – 578 McAteer noting early estimates by Lee Malone and Mine Superintendent Gaskill.*
— 400 – 564 New York Times. “Loss in Mines May Reach 564 Lives,” 12-8-1907, p. 24.
— 500 – 550 McAteer. Monongah. 2007, p. 241.*a
— 425 – 550 Baltimore Sun. “Was There When Shock Came.” 12-7-1907, p. 2.
–>400->550 McAteer. Monongah…Tragic Story of the 1907 Monongah Mine Disaster. 2007.*b
— ~500 Baltimore Sun. 225 Bodies Are Out. Death List Will Reach 500.” 12-12-1907, p.11
— >500 Briggs, Father Everett. Monongah parish priest, in letter to McAteer 5-4-2001.
— 500 Swayzee Press, IN. “Five Hundred Buried…Explosion…Coal Mine.” 12-13-1907, p. 3.
— 488 McAteer calculation as opposed to estimate above. Monongah, 2007, p. 241.*c
— 432 – 442 McAteer addition of 70-80 unidentified or unknown bodies to list of 362 named.
— 436 Pittsburgh Dispatch. 12-9-1907, p1; cites a fire boss on “checks” issued to miners.
— 400 – 425 Mine official Lee Malone, cited in McAteer 2007, p. 224.
— 415 McAteer (2007, 237-238) based on data collected by Fathers D’Andrea & Lekston.
— 410 Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac. “Great Casualties, 1907.” Vol. XXIII, 1908, p.596.
— 408 Pittsburgh Dispatch. 12-9-1907, p. 3; cited by McAteer. Monongah. 2007, p. 227.
— 406 Pittsburgh Dispatch. 12-9-1907, p. 1; citing officials of the mining company.
— 400 Baltimore Sun. “400 Die in Mine.” 12-7-1907, p. 1.
— 300 – 400 North Adams Transcript, MA. “The Year 1907 in Brief…,” 1-1-1908, p. 3.
— 390 No. of deaths reported to Gov. Dawson by State Inspector Paul from payroll clerk.
— 389 Pittsburgh Dispatch. “Known Dead at Monongah.” 12-8-1907, p. 4.
— 375 Charleston Gazette (WV). “375 Dead in Monongah Mine Disaster.” 12-7-1907.
— 375 New York Times, “350 Men Entombed in Mine Explosion.” 12-7-1907.
— 371 Morning Herald, Uniontown, PA. “Fire Sends Threat of New Horror…” 12-9-1907, p1.
— 350- 369 Cornell, J. The Great International Disaster Book (3rd Edition). 1982, p. 313.*d
— 362 Gunn, Encyclopedia of Disasters: (Volume 1). Greenwood Press, 2007, p. 362.
— 362 Mine Safety Health Admin. Historical Data on Mine Disasters in the US. 2008.
— 358- 362 Monongah Mines Relief Com. History of the Monongah Mines Relief Fund. 1910, p.4-8.
— 74 Americans (white) BWB note: all are named; no unnamed included.
— 11 Americans (colored)
–171 Italians
— 15 Austrians
— 52 Hungarians
— 31 Russians
— 5 Turkish subjects
— 3 Rescue workers Maurice Beedle, Richard Beedle and John Neary.
— 362 NFPA. U.S. Unintentional Fire Death Rates by State. December 2008, p. 26.
— 362 NIOSH, CDC. Mine Disasters.
— 362 Skog, Jason. The Monongah Mining Disaster. Compass Point Books, 2008, p. 31.*e
— 362 WV Div. Culture & Hist. WV Archives & History. “On This Day in WV History…”
— 361 Dillon, Lacy. They Died in Darkness. 1976, p. 81.*f
— 361 Fleming. “Organization…Safety…Mines.” Safety Engineering, 26/2, 1913, p. 108.
— 361 West Virginia Office of Miners’
— 360 Chicago Daily News Almanac & Yearbook 1919, “Great Mining Disasters…” 169.
— 360 Smith, Roger. Catastrophes and Disasters. Edinburgh/NY: Chambers, 1992, p.126.
— 358 Barrett. “Retrospect: We’ve Come a Long Way.” MESA. 1976, pp. 12-22.
— 358 Fleming. “Statement of Hon. A. B. Fleming, of West Virginia.” US House, 1908, p. 15.
— 300 Fayette Tribune, WV/ “As from the Tomb – Forty Seven Survivors…,” 3-11-1915.

Blanchard: While we are of the opinion that McAteer makes a compelling case for 500-550 fatalities, we choose to take a conservative approach and use a death toll of 400 as the low-end of the range we use, while accepting McAteer for the high-end of 550 (though some believed it was even higher). Clearly the “official” death toll of 362 number put forward by the mine company is very much an undercount, as, we believe, any fair reading of the information below will show. We see no purpose in perpetuating the inaccurate number of 362 deaths put forward by the mine company simply because it was labeled “official.”

* “There were two men who were first in a position to know and were also asked immediately about the disaster, Lee Malone [General Manager, Fairmont Coal Co.] and Mine Superintendent Gaskill both, independently of one another, stated that the number was in excess of 500 and as high as 550 or 578.”

*a “The only independent surveys by the parish priests of Italian and Austro-Hungarian members of the two immigrant churches was 410. When added to the ‘Americans, both black (11) and white (74), and the Turks (5) the total comes to 500, so it is reasonable to conclude that the disaster at the Monongah mines certainly claimed in excess of 500 lives and probably more than 550 men.” (p. 241.)

*b “The number of victims at Monongah will never be known with certainty. Clearly it is above 400, more likely above 550. The official number, 362, without question undercounts the dead.” See Narrative section below under McAteer’s name. McAteer retired as Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health, U.S. Department of Labor. He notes the official death toll came from the company and pertained only to men on the payroll. He describes why this significantly undercounts the number of people actually in the mine at the time of the explosion.

*c “The official number of 362 was clearly a count of located bodies, identified victims that were matched with names from the company survey. Thirteen others were recorded in newspaper accounts or as visitors, railroad men, and so on, making the total 375. In addition, Victim testified that the recovery crews identified 301 bodies in the working rooms where only 243 miners had been assigned. The difference of 58 bodies would likely have been boys and men working off the books, thus likely bringing the total to 433. Using a conservative estimate, the approximately 50 bodies that wre never recovered results in a total of 488.”

*d “The crew numbered somewhere between 350 and 370 men. No one knows exactly, for no formal roll call was taken and the crowd included visitors, management staff, a group of twelve-year-old apprentices, and even one life insurance salesman who hoped to peddle policies during the work-break periods. ….Over the next three weeks, 362 bodies would be recovered. Although many miners claimed still more dead remained below, only one survivor would be found, Peter Urban, a native of Poland, who had been knocked unconscious…” Blanchard note: According to Skog (2008, pp. 19 and 26), four other miners were able to find a small opening in the mine and crawl free by themselves, meaning they were not rescued.

*e This number refers to recovered bodies, one of whom was a life insurance salesman.

*f After noting that “the book was closed” after the last body was found sometime in February, Dillon notes that “To this day, everyone who had studied that facts of the disaster…is positive that not all bodies were ever found. There were so many rockfalls and cave-ins that months would have been required to remove this debris. Furthermore, records of those days were a slipshod affair. Fathers took their sons in to help load coal and the boys’ names were not on the mine office roll.” (Pp. 81-82.)

Narrative Information

Cole/MSHA: The sole survivor was Patrick McDonald. [Inaccurate] (Cole. History of MSHA, Slide 8.)

This disaster “…impelled Congress to create The Bureau of Mines.” (MSHA/DOL 2008)

• Public Law 61-179 (Effective May 16, 1910)
• Established the Bureau of Mines in the Department of Interior
• Actions of Bureau limited to research and investigations
• Dr. Joseph A. Holmes, First Director of the U.S. Bureau of Mines.

(Cole. History of MSHA, Slide 9)

Dillon: One account: “At 2:20 P.M. the motorman came out of the No. 6 mine with a trip of sixteen loaded cars. The coal seam dipped downward gently for about 2,000 feet into the mine from the …mouth then leveled off. At the pit mouth there was an incline that rose several feet to cross the river to…the side opposite the mine mouth. From an apex of this incline or bridge to the level of the mine floor inside, was about one-half mile. As the motorman crossed the river, his train broke in two at a coupling allowing eight cars to start rolling backward. The farther, the faster they ran until they struck bottom where they wrecked with a terrific impact. At this instant the mine blew up. Fire spurted out the mouth of No. 6, and a few seconds later, No. 8 mine blew with noise that is indescribable….

“Nobody knows or will anyone ever know the exact place or the exact flame that set off the world’s worst mine disaster up to this time. Inspectors and officials dallied and surmised and said they could not see any reason why it happened. They said that the mine had been duly inspected, with no gas registering on the safety lamps; that several fire bosses were constantly on duty at the time. They also stated that no appreciable dust existed. The old-timers say differently. One man…stated that the dust was hip deep at the place where the run-a-way mine cars wrecked.”

“When 361 men (more no doubt) entered the mine that December 6 morning, they took 361 reasons for an explosion by carrying 361 open-flame lights. Every time the motor arm arced on the trolley wire, a chance for a blowup existed; and countless other ways that today are prohibited by state and federal laws…

“Over 250 women became widows and 1,000 children became fatherless. A survey indicated that sixty-four widows were pregnant….” (Dillon 1976, pp. 68-81.)

Fleming, A.B., a director of the Fairmont Fuel Co., before House of Representatives committee, March 9, 1908: “You [Representative Englebright] asked if we knew the initial cause of the explosion….The accident in our mines at Monongah could not have been the result of gas alone. The mines in that country generate more or less fire damp or gas, but the investigations of these mines showed that they were not considered in law gaseous mines. The inspector gave a certificate saying that they were not, and did not need to be worked with safety lamps, and after this explosion there was just a trace of gas found, not enough to explode even with the defects in ventilation, disturbed as it was. But our coal is dusty, and where the mines are dry there is more or less dust. The law requires that dust to be dampened, but it is very hard to dampen dust. We had an experiment made by our chemist showing that dust will not mix with water….so that you can not, as we understand, make a mine safe simply by wetting it….” [pp. 17-18]

“….In these Monongah mines that blew up we did not use safety lamps. There was no need of it. There was no gas there in dangerous quantities, and we did not know, and do not know now, the conditions under which dust will explode from a lamp or from an open light….” [p. 19]

“You [Representative Chaney] asked me what caused that explosion….There have been several theories…Some thought that the cause of the initial blast was a runaway trip that caused a short circuit, and that was the first theory, but it was incorrect, because it was shown that the trip broke loose after the initial explosion had started. It ran into the mine after the explosion started. It came, undoubtedly, from a blown-out shot or loose powder….Then the fire from the explosion of powder or from the blown-out shot, whichever it was, ignited whatever there was there to be ignited, some dust in suspension, or whatever gases were there, too little to be dangerous by themselves…” [p.19]

On McAteer: In 2007 Davitt McAteer, who had served as the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health, Department of Labor, published a new study of this disaster – Monongah: The Tragic Story of the 1907 Monongah Mine Disaster, the Worst Industrial Accident in U.S. History (West Virginia University Press, 331 pages). McAteer concludes that the fatalities were about 500, noting that the official death toll was based upon company documents of the men on its payroll. The well-known practice there and elsewhere at the time, however, was for miners to take their sons or others into the mines with them to help out. Another practice was for miners to in essence subcontract with adult helpers out of their own pay. Whether a son or a helper, these people were not on the company payroll and thus not on the list of names of miners provided to authorities by the mining company.

McAteer: “….At Monongah, like virtually every other mine in the country, there was no adequate system for keeping track of the number of miners underground. The principal means of identifying miners was a duplicate brass or tin tag system, which, in theory, registered each miner present in the mine. As the miner entered the mine, one tag was placed on a board with numbered hooks and the other was put in the miner’s pocket. The first tag was to be carried on his persons and used as a means of identification in the event of a mine disaster or accident. The second tag hung on the board showing that the miner was in the mine. The numbering system did not include men and boys who were brought in as subcontractors for the miners who were being paid per ton of coal loaded out…’many were off the books.’ This system was by no means fail-safe, and in this case it was rendered completely useless when the explosion rocketed out of the No. 8, ripping a cavity in the earth nearly 100 feet across. The explosion blew everything in its path to bits, including both boards containing tags for nearly all the miners inside both mines, as the No. 8 portal was the entrance used by the majority of the miners in both mines.

“A second factor that blurred the question of the number of miners underground was the employment system itself. At Monongah, two methods of employment were in place; first was the hiring of miners as independent contractors. The miner entered into a contract with the mine operator. The operator allowed the miner to have access to the coal underground and provided rail cars to carry the mined coal from underground, while the miner was responsible for the tools and necessary equipment including picks, shovels, black powder, timbers, drills, or anything needed during the mining process. The miner drilled and shot or dislodged the coal from the seam, loaded it on a horse or mule drawn cart, and later transferred the cart to the underground rail system. When the loaded car reached the surface, it was weighed by a company weighman and the miner was paid according to the amount of coal he had mined. These were the men who hired others as unofficial subcontractors to increase production.

“Under the second employment system, workmen or laborers, titles distinct from miner, worked on an hourly or daily basis. This system was used for men or boys who performed support or backup work tor the company, such as preparing the mine tunnels or other internal or external workings of the mine. For example, trapper boys opened and closed the doors, which controlled the mine ventilation trapping the air. Other jobs included pumpers and mule drivers. As these men were not actually mining the coal, they were paid an hourly wage.

“As mentioned above, miners frequently brought with them brothers, sons, nephews, or employed helpers. These boys or men were not on the company payroll or records and were paid by the miners themselves, in effect working as subcontractors….The practice of having subcontract miners off the books was common throughout the mining industry, including in West Virginia, and was practiced at No. 6 and No. 8. President Watson, Superintendent Gaskill and Payroll Clerk Gibbons each admitted that the practice existed at the Monongah mines. Although it is difficult to believe, Watson asserted after the disaster that it had occurred in only one instance when the body of a miner and his sone who was not on the payroll were located and positively identified.

“Watson’s assertion conflicted with the sworn testimony of the company payroll clerk, George Gibbons….Gibbons’ answers affirmed that the practice of helpers working off the payroll existed and that men and boys were in the mine without being listed….

“Additional victims not on the books show the limited value of the records to produce an accurate account of the number underground. For example, Gibbons agreed that a man from Fairmont had gone into the mine seeking employment and died in the explosion and tht persons was not on his records.

“But Gibbon’s testimony also sheds doubt about the adequacy of the payroll records, especially as to whether new or recent hires would be recorded for the day that they started. Prosecutor Lowe presented him with a note written by John McGraw, a mine superintendent. The note read: ‘No. 8 Petro Frediaro, Bessilo Pillea, o.k. Morris 56 coal (signed) Jno. McGraw.’ On December 12, 1907, R. T. Cunningham sent to Watson a list with morgue numbers. Bossilo Pillelo and Petro Frediro are listed with the note ‘Italians were in No. 8 Selecting a place to work…’ Neither name is found in the Monongah Mine Relief Committee report or record….one company official…said that a number of new employees had started to work the Friday of the explosion. But just as significant as this information was the fact that many bodies brought intact to the surface had no tags in the pockets….

“An estimated number of miners killed could also be determined by a review of the number of men at work during periods leading up to the explosion. J. C. Gaskill, during his testimony on January 10, 1908, put into the official transcript of the hearing two records of the mine foreman for No. 8 and No. 6 for October 30, 1907. Mine No. 6, the larger of the two, showed 224 men employed on the day shift and No. 8 employed 145 men working on the day shift, totaling 369. The 369 miners were actually on the payroll just over one month before the explosion. If that number had stayed constant, coupled with the miners working off the books, the number of victims is substantially higher than officially recorded….” [pp. 219-223]

“While most miners lived in and around Monongah, many lived some distance away in Fairmont or Clarksburg and surrounding communities and on remote farms, traveling by foot or on the interurban to work. Several such names are not included in the official list. Even some miners whose bodies were recovered, embalmed, and transported to their homes were not listed in the official record. On Monday, December 9, the Pittsburgh Dispatch reported that Fred Rogers, aged 26, was killed in the Monongah explosion and was buried at Fairchance near Uniontown, Pennsylvania….Fred Rogers is not included in the Relief Committees list, the Company list, or the Coroner’s list… [pp. 227-228]

“The number of unknown or unidentified bodies is at various times given at 70 or 80. The official number 362 does not include any unknown, if it did, the death total would reach 432-442. Father Everett Briggs, who founded St. Barbara’s Nursing Home in 1961, argued that the unknowns were excluded and estimated the number killed at above 500….

“Numerous officials were quoted as saying that as many as 100 bodies could have been either destroyed or trapped under massive falls and unrecoverable….” [pp. 232-233]

“The violence and ferocity of the explosions without doubt destroyed a number of miner’s bodies entirely, and as the newspapers reported and Trader indicates in his 1950s interview, bodies and parts of bodies were being found even as the recovery wrapped up….Without question, given the ferocity of the two explosions and the fires and roof- and ribfalls that occurred immediately thereafter, as well as the rapid cleanup and return to production it is probable that a good number of bodies were never recovered…..

“Father Everett Briggs came to Monongah in 1952 to serve as parish priest. He became very interested in the disaster and its victims as a result of listening to the people of the parishes and the town. Through the years he has collected information on the accident and especially its victims. By working through local interviews and graveyard records, he has asserted that over 500 men died that day….” [p. 237]

“Trader, in his later interviews, speaks of bodies being found months and years later as does the news media….” [p. 239.]

“It could be argued that the widows and families of the victims would have come forward and complained if their loved ones were not counted, especially if there was a potential for economic recovery. However, this may not have been the case because many miners were single or had no family in this country. Wives were at a terrible disadvantage because of the language, lack of access to information, and a common fear of deportation as they were still strangers in a strange land.

“Father Francesco Pelliccia, Arch Priest, wrote to the Monongah Mine Relief Committed from Duraniadel Sannio on January 21, 1908. He provided the names of individuals who he had identified in his village who were killed in the explosion and had not been identified for relief: Farcse Giovanni, Zeoli Sabastino, De-Maria Sebastiano, and D’uva Giuseppe. The names were not added to any list. Indeed, what recourse would a parent, spouse, or priest have in this instance in a foreign country, 3,000 miles away?” [p. 240]

“Finally, the only independent surveys by the parish priests of Italian and Austro-Hungarian members of the two immigrant churches was 410. When added to the ‘Americans’, both black (11) and white (74), and the Turks (5) the total comes to 500, so it is reasonable to conclude that the disaster at the Monongah mines certainly claimed in excess of 500 lives and probably more than 550 men.” (McAteer, Davitt. Monongah: The Tragic Story of the 1907 Monongah Mine Disaster, The Worst Industrial Accident in US History. 2007, p. 219-241.)

Skog: “The jury [Coroner’s] concluded that it [explosion] was caused by the ignition of methane gas. The gas explosion then caused the highly flammable coal dust to explode….The jury found the ignition itself could have come from runaway coal cars of from an improperly fired blast into the coal. Exactly what lit the methane gas remains a mystery. Experts have argued a variety of theories. It could have been carelessness with an open flame in a lamp, a blast gone wrong, or a stray spark from some electrical equipment….” (Skog, Jason. The Monongah Mining Disaster. Minneapolis MN: Compass Point Books, 2008, p. 34.)

Tuckwiller: “One woman was giving birth at home when they hauled her husband’s corpse through the door. Officials handed another woman some severed body parts. They told her that was her husband. She never knew for sure. Another woman’s husband was never found. For years, kids would walk past her house and see her ceaselessly hauling rubble away from the old mine, one little sack at a time, piling it maybe 350 tons deep next to her house, trying to unbury him….Nobody has ever really talked about what happened to the widows and estimated 1,000 children — mostly immigrants who spoke little English — left to fend for themselves….Some lost not only their husbands, but also their young sons, maybe 9 to 12 years old, who were used to boost their fathers’ tonnage per day and thereby boost their paychecks….The widows were supposed to get a whopping $200 to $800 compensation from a fund that had collected $150,000 in donations. But one man…remembers his mother saying she saw only $40 of that money….

“One hundred years ago, when corpses and body parts were being pulled from the wreckage of the mine, nobody stopped for a church service. Women were hustled through the bodies, allowed to hastily identify their dead husbands and sons, and then the bodies were immediately buried — without the burial Mass the mourners, many of them Catholics, would have wanted.” (Tuckwiller, “Monongah Disaster,” 2007)

Ward: “More than 500 men and boys likely perished in the nation’s worst industrial accident, longtime mine safety advocate Davitt McAteer explains in his comprehensive examination of the disaster. “The number of victims at Monongah will never be known with certainty,” McAteer writes. “Clearly it is above 400, more likely above 550. The official number, 362, without question undercounts the dead.” McAteer details how mine operators never kept an accurate count of the workers underground at any particular time, and then set out to deliberately downplay the real number of deaths at Monongah. He pieces together both old and newly unearthed papers to document a more accurate count of those killed. McAteer, a Fairmont native who ran the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration during the Clinton administration, has been investigating Monongah for nearly 30 years. He made a short documentary about the disaster in 1986….

“…in his investigation, McAteer compared various lists and public records to come up with a more comprehensive count. ‘The official number of 362 was clearly a count of located bodies, identified victims that were matched with names from a company survey,’ McAteer writes. ‘Thirteen others were recorded in newspaper accounts or as visitors, railroad men, and so on, making the total 375.’ At least another 58 bodies of boys and men ‘working off the books,’ also were found, McAteer discovered, bringing the total to 433. ‘Using a conservative estimate, the approximately 50 bodies that were never recovered results in a total of 488,’ he writes. And two early estimates from mine officials put the number in excess of 500, and as high as 550 or 578.

“Independent surveys by the parish priests of Italian and Austro-Hungarian members of the two immigrant churches in Monongah came up with a count of 410. ‘When added to the ‘Americans,’ both black (11) and white (74), and the Turks (5), the total comes to 500,’ McAteer concludes. “So it is reasonable to conclude that the disaster at the Monongah mines certainly claimed in excess of 500 lives and probably more than 550 men’.” (Ward 2007.)

“In his book, McAteer points out that he is not the first to question the official death figure from Monongah. After coming to the community as parish priest in 1952, Father Everett Briggs became interested in the victims as he listened to residents tell stories about the disaster. Through the years, he has collected information on the accident and especially its victims,” McAteer wrote. “By working through local interviews and graveyard records, he has asserted that over 500 men died that day.” (Ward 2007)

WV Saturday Gazette-Mail, 2007: “The explosion shook the earth as far as eight miles away. Several miners were blown out of the mine. People and horses were hurled to the ground, and streetcars were knocked off their rails.” (Saturday Gazette-Mail, WV. “Scarred – Monongah Disaster,” 12-6- 2007)

Newspapers

Dec 7, Charleston Gazette: “There is much speculation as to the cause of the explosion but the most generally accepted theory is that it resulted from black damp. It is believed that a miner attempted to set off a blast, which blew out and ignited the accumulation of this deadly gas and this in turn ignited the coal dust, a highly inflammable substance found in greater or less quantity in all West Virginia mines….

“As evidence of the terrific force of the concussion, the props in the entry of No. 6, supporting the roof, are not only shattered and torn from their position, but blown out of the entry to the opposite side of the river.” (Charleston Gazette, 12-7-1907.)

Dec 7, NYT: “The worst mining disaster in US history occurred when shafts 6 and 8 of a Consolidated Coal Company mine in Monongah, West Virginia, exploded.

“Mines Nos. 6 and 8 are located on opposite sides of the West Fork River; No. 6 on the east side and No. 8 on the west side, the homes of the miners occupying both sides of the river. The two mines are connected by a heading far back in the hills from the opening of No. 8 mine, and their underground workings are merged….

“Shortly after the explosion a ‘heavy cave-in’ occurred which blocked entrance into the mine a “few hundred feet” inside. “The two mines regularly employ 760 men, working in two shifts, 380 during the day and 380 during the night….

“Along the hills, far back from the main opening of Mine No. 8, there are a number of openings into the mine, and to these hundreds of relatives and friends of the entombed men frantically rushed in the vain hope that their loved ones might find escape through these channels or that they might be merely readily reached and released. So far as known, however, not a single man escaped this way, and the would-be rescuers are helpless at these points….

“Until about ten years ago the mines were operated almost exclusively by Americans, but during a general strike of miners in the Pennsylvania and Ohio fields many of these West Virginia miners went out in sympathy to prevent the filling of contracts at lake ports and elsewhere with West Virginia coal by the companies in Ohio and West Virginia, against which the strike was directed. At that time the mine owners brought a large number of foreigners into the field to take the places of the strikers, and ever since the foreigners have been displacing Americans, until they are now in the majority.” (NYT, December 7, 1907.)

Dec 8: “Monongah, West Va., Dec. 8. Only fifty-three bodies had been recovered from Mines 6 and 8 of the Fairmont Coal Company at dark tonight. Fifty-six hours had elapsed since the awful explosion, and there is little hope that any of the others will be found alive. It is now believed that the number of dead will not reach 400. A thorough investigation was made by the company today, and it was discovered that many miners believed to have been entombed had escaped because they had not gone to work Friday after Thursday’s holiday. It is said that 406 men were in the mine when the explosion occurred, of whom twenty-two have been found.

“Shortly after 4 o’clock this afternoon fire started again in Mine No. 8, and the rescuers were at once ordered to the surface. Thousands of sightseers from the surrounding towns had gathered about the openings. Through megaphones the people were notified of the fire and the danger of another explosion, but they refused to leave, and it was with great difficulty that the special police, assisted by many miners, forced them to seek places of safety.” (NYT, “Fire Stops Rescue Work at Monongah,” 12-9-1907.)

Dec 11: “(Special Dispatch to the Baltimore Sun.) Fairmont, W. Va., Dec. 11. – More than 225 bodies have thus far been recovered from the wrecked mines at Monongah, 120 having been taken out of the mines today. Most of those taken out have been buried.

“A number of the bodies brought out today did not bear the brass checks used in the company’s system of records and accounts of a majority of its employees, thus substantiating the statements of Monday that a large number of men and boys in the mines were not included in the checking rolls upon which estimates of the dead were largely based. This has also almost dispelled the hope expressed by mining officials the last few days that the number of dead had been overestimated. There is reason to believe tonight that the number will not fall far short of 500.

“A canvass of miners’ homes will be completed tomorrow, and this, together with a list of hundreds of unclaimed letters in the post office, will furnish data for a new and probably accurate estimate.

“Conditions outside the mine tonight are much improved through the freezing solid of the mud, making the work much easier. An opening between the two mines was completed tonight, and it is believed that within 48 hours all the bodies to be found will have been taken to the morgue.

“More than 50 funerals were held today. On each casket there was a bunch of American Beauty roses or white carnations. The source of the flowers remained secret until late in the day, when it was learned that Miss Elizabeth Watson, daughter of S. L. Watson, treasurer of the coal company, had ordered them….

“The mines of the company are being put into running shape again as soon as possible, so that those who are left may have work. A good output of coal is reported for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday….

“The installation of additional fans has much improved the ventilation system…

“The cash contributions up to this time totals $40,000. In reply to an expression of sympathy and offer of assistance from the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, Mayor Arnett wired that the relief committee figured on 300 widows and 1,000 orphans as a result of the disaster, and there was no question that the destitution among them would be very great….

“Recently some of the newspaper men went from house to house trying to learn something of the condition of the families and their wants. After telling her sad story one woman wrote her name on a slip of paper for a reporter. She could speak fairly good English, but an old woman, who stood watching the transaction, could not even mutter a word of the language, but her eyes were keen and her mind suspecting. When the reporter had left she told the younger woman she had done wrong to sign a paper, fearing that she had signed away a claim or something of the sort, the young woman became hysterical. She ran after the reporters and was greatly distressed until she was allowed to erase her hand-writing from the paper. The excitement created by the young woman was noticed by several of the women, and all shut up like clams, refusing to talk. However, one young woman, who came to America when quite a child, spoke English fluently. When the real purpose of obtaining the name was explained to her she quieted the hysterical woman.” (Baltimore Sun. 225 Bodies Are Out. Death List Will Reach 500.” 12-12-1907, p. 11.)

Sources

Baltimore Sun. 225 Bodies Are Out. Death List Will Reach 500.” 12-12-1907, p. 11. Accessed 5-25-2020 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/baltimore-sun-dec-12-1907-p-11/

Baltimore Sun. “400 Die in Mine.” 12-7-1907, p. 1. Accessed 5-24-2020 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/baltimore-sun-dec-07-1907-p-1/

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