Throughout the history of coal mining in America, there has been a long history of coal mining disasters from a multitude of causes including roof falls, explosions, dam failures, electrical causes, and asphyxiation by lethal gases. For many years in the early days of coal mining, lethal cases killed so many men that canaries were actually used as early warning devices of high gas levels in coal mines, hence the expression "a canary in the coal mine" as a descriptor of an early warning device. While the number of deaths due to coal mine disasters has gradually declined over the last several decades, that decline has been more due to automation and increased strip mining in all its forms having decreased the number of working miners than to widespread improvements in the working conditions in the coal mines. Total fatalities were generally more than 1,000 per year from 1900, when the US began to keep well organized statistics about fatalities, to about 1948 when only 999 miners were killed and the number finally dropped below 1,000 for good. At least 40 states have had miners killed although there have been several types of other minerals involved in the mining in the states outside the typical coal mining areas of Appalachia and the Western United States. But, just as the most tonnage of coal has usually been mined in those two areas, the most miners have also been killed year after year in those Appalachian and Western states. I have never written on this blog about coal mining disasters although I have lived most of my life in coal country and came from a coal mining family with my father, one grandfather, and several uncles all being coal miners. I also had one brother, Hewie Hicks, killed in a coal mine in a single fatality accident.
The photo above is of the death certificate of Virgil Clay in the Van Lear explosion.
Over the course of the next several months, when I have time, I will write about some of the worst coal mine disasters in Central and Southern Appalachia, the area I know best and the area on which the majority of this blog is focused. I have decided to begin by writing about a disaster at the Consolidation Coal Company Number 155 Mine at Van Lear, Kentucky, in Johnson County which occurred on July 17, 1935, and killed 9 men. This disaster is covered in both the Floyd County Times newspaper archives in the Floyd County Library local history collection and on the website known as "US Mine Disasters" which I have used for my own reading and research for several years and which is the website to which I have provided several link earlier in this blog post. I will also refer from time to time to the websites of the official state and federal agencies which supervise and regulate mining in America. When I can find local news coverage of these disasters available online, I will also use some of that coverage. But, sadly, the Floyd County Times archives cited earlier are the best and best organized of all the newspapers in Eastern Kentucky. Many of those newspaper archives have been completely lost.
The July 19, 1935, edition of the Floyd County Times in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, covered the Number 155 disaster in neighboring Johnson County with a front page story which carried a banner headline and three subheads. The opening paragraph of the story began
"Thursday morning saw nine men, all dead, removed from Number 5 Mine of Consolidation Coal Company, Van Lear, in which they were trapped by an explosion at 9o'clock Wednesday morning.
I will note here that the Floyd County Times refers to the mine as "Number 5" instead of Number 155 which is the designation used by the US Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines in their official report on the disaster which is undated and authored by John F. Davies, District Engineer. I will accept and use the designation of the mine as "Number 155" since that is the designation used in the official federal report.
The photo above is of the Roy Murray tombstone.
The Floyd County Times listed the victims of the disaster as "William Kretzer, 42; and, Charles Kretzer, 50, brothers; James Vaughn, 42; Frank Tutzy, 45; Hantez Gould, 60; Deerwood Litz, 28; Roy Murray, 38; Virgil Clay, 23; and, Shirley Hereford, 35." The official report from the Bureau of Mines does not list the men by name at all. According to the Floyd County Times, two other men inside the mine escaped and "...company officials immediately began a relentless drive to rescue the men." The newspaper also reported that rescue squads were brought in from as far away as Jenkins in Letcher County where Consolidation Coal Company also operated mines. But according to the newspaper story, " tons of rock formed an impenetrable barrier to freedom for the imprisoned men, and this barrier was negotiated, foot by foot, by would be rescuers equipped with oxygen tanks. As early as Wednesday afternoon, it was conceded that little less than a miracle could save the men." I will note that I have located burial sites for several, but not all, of the men on the excellent website Find A Grave and have still not located the burial sites of the rest. But I will continue to search for them since one of the memorials I located does contain a screen shot from an unknown newspaper which lists rough locations for where all nine were buried. However, that screen shot does not identify the newspaper from which the screen shot was taken.
The photo above is of the Charles Kretzer tombstone.
The July 19, 1935, story in the Floyd County Times goes on to describe the disaster as "the worst disaster in the history of Eastern Kentucky Coal Mining." However, that statement by the newspaper is not accurate since just three years before on December 9, 1932, at Yancey, Kentucky, in Harlan County an explosion had killed 23 men. Another disaster in 1925 in Harlan County had killed 17 men. The newspaper lists the two men who escaped as Anse Wilson, water pumper, and Fire Boss Stanley Crane. Wilson apparently gave an interview after the explosion and stated
"I realized what had happened and I ducked behind a pile of rails. Slate and rock hailed about me. Then, when it was all over, I started for the outside. I crawled about 300 feet through smoke and dust till I reached good air. Mr. Crane was on ahead of me, that is, nearer the opening. Is it good to be alive? You don't know how good it is. I only wish the others were here--they'd say the same."
The following week on July 26, 1935, the Floyd County Times carried a front page story under the headline "Daniel Charged With Six Deaths", and with the subhead "Warrant Sworn Out by Miner Accuses Department Chief in Disaster". John F. Daniel was the Department Chief of the State Department of Mines and Minerals. The warrant was signed by John B. Mollette, the secretary of the Van Lear local of the United Mine Workers of America. Mollette accused Daniel of failure to enforce state mining regulations, failure to order the company to furnish sufficient fire bosses to inspect the workings, and that state regulations required at least five such fire bosses and at the time of the explosion only one was on duty. It appears that the single fire boss on duty was Stanley Crane who survived due to having been quite some distance from the work area in which the men were killed. The newspaper article quotes Mollette as stating that the warrant was turned over to the local constable, Brown Wells, who would serve it as soon as John F. Daniel returned to Johnson County. "We have made charges that Daniel is responsible for nine lives in the explosion and we expect to prove them." The news story about the warrant is continued from the front page of the paper to page six where it is found in the extreme right hand column of the page and that area of the page used to create the digital record of the paper in the Floyd County History Collection has some damage which makes it difficult to read. But the gist of it is that John F. Daniel and attorneys for the coal company both disputed the claims contained in the warrant. But the local Judge B. F. Conley stated in the paper that he had issued the warrant and had turned it over to Mollette. The county Sheriff Fred Adams is also quoted as saying that the warrant could be served by any peace officer in the county. A search of the Floyd County Times for the ensuing month after the warrant was issued for John F. Daniel does not contain any further news about the disaster or the service of the warrant or of any failure to do so by the Johnson County law enforcement community.
The Find A Grave memorial for Virgil Clay and those memorials of at least one of the other victims contains a screen shot of a short news story about the disaster and the burials of the nine victims from some unnamed newspaper under the headline "27 Orphaned By Disaster At Johnson County Mine". Since the headline uses the words "Johnson County Mine", it seems likely that the paper must have been published in an adjoining county but I have not been able to verify which paper carried the story. The story states that Deerwood Litz was buried at East Point in Johnson County. I also note for the record that the name of Litz is spelled "Derwood Litz" at times and that is most likely the correct spelling. This news story states that the Kretzer brothers were buried at Hitchens in Carter County. The cemetery in which the Kretzer brothers are buried is listed on Find A Grave as The Kretzer Graveyard but the address is now listed as Reedville. James Vaughn and Shirley Hereford are both listed in the news story as having been buried at Ashland in Boyd County but I have been unable to verify the locations of their burials. Roy Murray is listed as having been buried on George's Creek in Lawrence County. Hantes Gould is listed as having been buried at Van Lear. Frank Tuzey is listed as having been buried at Paintsville. I note for the record that Tutzy, Gould, and Murray have also had differences in the spellings of their names in the various records which makes it more difficult to locate accurate burial information. But it is somewhat simplified by the common date of death for all nine men and I will pursue their burial sites further by searching a variety of phonetic spellings of the names. The last paragraph of this little news story states
"Tuzey, last of the men to be taken from the mine, was caught beneath tons of slate. His body and that of Gould were the last to be recovered, and were not reached until Friday. Some of the bodies were badly burned, it was said." (Unknown News Source Taken From Screen Shot On Virgil Clay's Find A Grave Memorial)
Virgil Clay's death certificate which is signed by Leon Spencer, presumably the Johnson County Coroner, listed the cause of death as "Traumatic External Violence Mine Explosion". I have located the Find A Grave Memorials for the Kretzer Brothers both of which also contain the screen shot of the news story and photos of their tombstones as does that of Virgil Clay. Roy Murray's memorial on Find A Grave shows that he was buried in the Murray-Young Cemetery at Lowmansville in Lawrence County and also contains a photo of his tombstone and the same screen shot of the news story. I cannot locate a memorial or a definite burial site for Frank Tutzy under any phonetic spelling of the last name which is presumably Italian. If Frank Tutzy was actually one of the many immigrant miners working in Eastern Kentucky at that time, it is possible that he was still single and may well be buried in an unmarked grave.
On February 24, 2023, I received the following additional information from a person named Jon Bellomy who is related to the Kretzer brothers through his mother and also related to Virgil Clay through his paternal great-grandmother.
"William and Charles Kretzer were brothers of my maternal grandfather (Ernest August Kretzer). They were so badly burned that their caskets had to be placed in front of the Kretzer farm cabin for the wake. Wax representations of their faces were placed upon them; as they were already in an advanced state of decomposition—because it took awhile to get to them. Granddad Kretzer had lost another brother — Louis Kretzer — four years prior in yet another mine: he was crushed when the roof caved in on him. Virgil Clay was a kinsman of mine through my paternal great grandmother Clarinda née White Bellomy (her mother was Julia Ann Clay, and her father was John White ((Shawnee lineage all the way back to Pekowi Shawnee Chief Meaurroway Straight Tail White Opessa — and many generations beyond him; all the way to a Mohawk Turtle Clan Chieftain who married into the Pekowi line)). My mother, Kathleen Evelyn Kretzer Bellomy, dearly loved her Uncle Bill and Uncle Charlie. She was a couple-three weeks shy of eleven years old when the tragedy hit. She spoke of them often up to the day she died at age 91; a few days short of 92. Her mom lived to be 94. Good genes."
No comments:
Post a Comment