PolishOrigins Forum

 FAQFAQ    SearchSearch    MemberlistMemberlist    ProfileProfile    Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages    Log inLog in    RegisterRegister 
Pennsylvania coal miners
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7  Next
Author
Message
dsnyder941



Joined: 02 Jul 2012
Replies: 4

Back to top
Post Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 12:38 am      Post subject:
Reply with quote

I have a photo of a great uncle, Edward Snyder, and written on it is that he was killed working for L.V. Coal Co (in PA) on Friday, Feb 24, 1922, but I've never been able to find anything about an accident on this day. Any suggestions? Thanks!
View user's profile
Send private message
Bill Rushin
PO Top Contributor


Joined: 14 Dec 2009
Replies: 311
Location: Virginia Beach, Va.

Back to top
Post Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 6:23 am      Post subject:
Reply with quote

Death certificate, found in the county courthouse/vital records (POD). Microfilm of obit/news story in newspaper available at your local library.
View user's profile
Send private message
Send e-mail
ChuckG



Joined: 10 Jun 2012
Replies: 3

Back to top
Post Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 11:16 am      Post subject:
Reply with quote

I understand there were no general employment records kept. My great-grandfather worked, I assume, at the Rice's Landing mine and I asked.
View user's profile
Send private message
Shellie
PO Top Contributor & Patron


Joined: 18 Feb 2009
Replies: 998
Location: Atlanta, GA

Back to top
Post Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2012 9:20 pm      Post subject:
Reply with quote

My great-grandmother's brother, Jan Kadlub, worked for the Westmoreland Coal Company in Export, Pennsylvania.

Just found this wonderful photo online at the link below. Unfortunately it is of low resolution. Maybe we can find a better version elsewhere.


http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~gm1l/coal.html



coal-50.jpg
 Description:
Circa 1920, Coal miners, Westmoreland Coal Company, Export, Pennsylvania
 Filesize:  24.83 KB
 Viewed:  10646 Time(s)

coal-50.jpg


View user's profile
Send private message
Ute
PO Top Contributor


Joined: 13 Dec 2009
Replies: 593
Location: Germany

Back to top
Post Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2012 6:18 am      Post subject:
Reply with quote

I just found some interesting material on coal mining in Pennsylvania at ebay:

http://tinyurl.com/coal-ebay
View user's profile
Send private message
Shellie
PO Top Contributor & Patron


Joined: 18 Feb 2009
Replies: 998
Location: Atlanta, GA

Back to top
Post Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2013 2:26 am      Post subject:
Reply with quote

I found an old map of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania dated 1864. Although it was created much earlier than when our ancestors worked in the mines, you might be interested in viewing it.

It shows householders' names in rural areas, real-property tracts in mining townships, coal mining (anthracite) lands, and colliery locations; also shows lot lines, buildings, and owners' names in the borough insets.

The photo below is not of high resolution - to see a large, clearly readable version, visit the Library of Congress site here:

http://tinyurl.com/schco



Sch Co thumbnail.jpg
 Description:
See better map at http://tinyurl.com/schco
 Filesize:  844.73 KB
 Viewed:  10645 Time(s)

Sch Co thumbnail.jpg




Last edited by Shellie on Sat Jan 19, 2013 2:57 pm; edited 1 time in total
View user's profile
Send private message
efc3011



Joined: 11 Aug 2010
Replies: 51
Location: USA

Back to top
Post Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 11:39 am      Post subject:
Reply with quote

Hi Shellie,

Looks like a great map but I can't get the link to open. Any suggestions?

Elaine
View user's profile
Send private message
Send e-mail
Shellie
PO Top Contributor & Patron


Joined: 18 Feb 2009
Replies: 998
Location: Atlanta, GA

Back to top
Post Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 3:05 pm      Post subject:
Reply with quote

efc3011 wrote:
Hi Shellie,

Looks like a great map but I can't get the link to open. Any suggestions?

Elaine


Hi Elaine - I edited my post with another link: http://tinyurl.com/schco

There are other things about Schuylkill County at the Library of Congress website -
I found them at the following link when I entered Schuylkill County in the search box.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html



There are other interesting maps at the Library of Congress. Maps of Pennsylvania, categorized by town name or county can be found here:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/setlmapPlaces10.html#bottom


If you would like to browse maps of other locations see this link:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gmdhome.html
View user's profile
Send private message
sirdan
PO Top Contributor


Joined: 07 Mar 2012
Replies: 304
Location: ** Southeast Pole**

Back to top
Post Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 5:09 am      Post subject:
Reply with quote

In the last few days i found some valuable information about my far family members emigrated to Usa. What i know for sure about one of them is that brother of my grandmother was working at Washington Coal and Coke Company in Star Junction, near Perrypolis. It was written on WWI draft registration card. He was coke drawer and after reading some info here http://www.perryopolis.com/coal.shtml i admit it was not easy job. Few pictures of Star Junction here http://www.coalcampusa.com/westpa/klondike/starjunction/starjunction.htm

I cannot find about my Granduncle any other information. He was single at that time and he might have died during one of frequent accidents happened in mine.
Here is a book about genaology research in Fayette County 1912, if anybody wanna look http://archive.org/details/genealogicalpersfc02jord
View user's profile
Send private message
Shellie
PO Top Contributor & Patron


Joined: 18 Feb 2009
Replies: 998
Location: Atlanta, GA

Back to top
Post Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2013 12:59 pm      Post subject:
Reply with quote

sirdan wrote:


...I cannot find about my Granduncle any other information. He was single at that time and he might have died during one of frequent accidents happened in mine....


Hi Sirdan,
Would you like to start new posting on the forum to discuss your grand-uncle? Perhaps some of us can help you find him.

You might find your grand uncle's name in the Pennsylvania death record index. Without a specific death date, it does take some time to look through the lists, but worth a try. Copies are 3 US dollars and are filled in about 6 months.

I wrote about it here: http://forum.polishorigins.com/viewtopic.php?t=1337

Shellie
View user's profile
Send private message
sirdan
PO Top Contributor


Joined: 07 Mar 2012
Replies: 304
Location: ** Southeast Pole**

Back to top
Post Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2013 5:08 pm      Post subject:
Reply with quote

Thank You Shellie for this information, that about Pennsylvania vital records. Especially that today i confirmed two aunts (sisters) of my mother living in USA, im sure one of them was living in North Huntington, PA. Looks like some heavy digging in papers is coming. I suppose 3 bucks for the record isn't so big deal after all.
I thought earlier about posting about my ancestors here, i will may ask for help after spending all my resources of searching them myself Wink
View user's profile
Send private message
Shellie
PO Top Contributor & Patron


Joined: 18 Feb 2009
Replies: 998
Location: Atlanta, GA

Back to top
Post Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 11:59 pm      Post subject:
Reply with quote

There is a section about coal mining on the Ohio State University (OSU) website:
http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/mmh/gildedage/

Included on the OSU website is this story told by a miner in 1902:

A Miner's Story

Article scanned from newspaper - The Independent, 1902.

This article comes from an American miner, resident all his life in the mining district of Pennsylvania. He has worked in the mines from his boyhood. His comparatively brief education in the public schools of the Commonwealth has been supplemented, like that of many other Americans in his walk of life, by a close reading of the daily papers, and particularly of those portions of the daily papers which bore directly upon his own interests. The facts which he gives about himself are true; the opinions he expresses are those which he, individually, has formed. By temperament he may be said to be conservative rather than radical; by habit he has always been a law-abiding citizen. He is, in effect, the typical American who is employed in the anthracite coal regions in the State of Pennsylvania -EDITOR.

I am thirty-five years old, married; the father of four children, and have lived in the coal region all my life. Twenty-three of these years have been spent working in and around the mines. My father was a miner. He died ten years ago from "miners' asthma."

Three of my brothers are miners; none of us had any opportunities to acquire an education. We were sent to school (such a school as there was in those days) until we were about twelve years of age, and then we were put into the screen room of a breaker to pick slate. From there we went inside the mines as driver boys. As we grew stronger we were taken on as laborers, where we served until able to call ourselves miners. We were given work in the breasts and gangsways. There were five of us boys. One lies in the cemetery- fifty tons of top rock dropped on him. He was killed three weeks after he got his job as a miner- a month before he was to be married.

In the fifteen years I have worked as a miner I have earned the average rate of wages any of us coal heavers get. Today I am little better off then when I started to do for myself. I have $100 on hand; I am not in debt; I hope to be able to weather the strike without going hungry.

I am only one of the hundreds you see on the street every day. The muscles on my arms are no harder, the callous on my palms no deeper than my neighbors' whose entire life has been spent in the coal region. By years I am only thirty-five. But look at the marks on my body; look at the lines of worriment on my forehead; see the gray hairs on my-head and in my mustache; take my general appearance, and you'll think I'm ten years older.

You need not wonder why. Day in and day out, from Monday morning to Saturday evening, between the rising and the setting of the sun, I am in the underground workings of the coal mines. From the seams water trickles into the ditches along the gangways; if not water, it is the gas which hurls us to eternity and the props and timbers to a chaos.

Our daily life is not a pleasant one. When we put on our oil soaked suit in the morning we can't guess all the dangers which threaten our lives. We walk sometimes miles to the place- to the man way or traveling way, or to the mouth of the shaft on top of the slope. Add then we enter the darkened chambers of the mines. On our right and on our left we see the logs that keep up the top and support the sides which may crush us into shapeless masses, as they have done to many of our comrades.

We get old quickly. Powder, smoke, after-damp, bad air- all combine to bring furrows to our faces and asthma to our lungs.

I did not strike because I wanted to; I struck because I had to. A miner- the same as any other workman- must earn fair living wages, or he can't live. And it is not how much you get that counts. It is how much what you get will buy. I have gone through it all, and I think my case is a good sample.

I was married in 1890, when I was 23 years old- quite a bit above the age when we miner boys get into double hardness. The woman I married is like myself. She was born beneath the shadow of a dirt bank; her chances for school weren't any better than mine; but she did have to learn how to keep house on a certain amount of money. After we paid the preacher for tying the knot we had just $185 in cash, good health and the good wishes of many friends to start us off.

Our cash was exhausted in buying furniture for housekeeping. In 1890 work was not so plentiful, and by the time our first baby came there was room for much doubt as to how we would pull out. Low wages, and not much over half time in those years, made us hustle. In 1890-91,from June to May, I earned $368.72 That represented eleven months' work, or an average of $33.52 per month. Our rent was $10 per month; store not less than $20. And then I had my oil suits and gum boots to pay for. The result was that after the first year and a half of our married life we were in' debt. Not much, of course, and not as much as many of my neighbors, men of larger families, and some who made less money, or in whose case there had been sickness or accident or death. These are all things which a miner must provide for.

I have had fairly good work since was married. I made the average of what we contract miners are paid; but, as I said before, I am not much better off than when I started.

In 1896 my wife was sick eleven weeks. The doctor came to my house almost every day. He charged me $20 for his services. There was medicine to buy. I paid the drug store $18 in that time. Her mother nursed her, and we kept a girl in the kitchen at $1.50 a week, which-cost me $15 for ten weeks, besides the additional living expenses.

In 1897, just a year afterward, I had a severer trial. And mind, in those years, we were only working about half time. But in the fall of that year one of my brothers struck a gas feeder. There was a terrible explosion. He was hurled downward in the breast and covered with the rush of coal and rock. I was working only three breasts away from him and for a moment was unable to realize what had occurred. Myself and a hundred others were soon at work, however, and in a short while we found him, horribly burned over his whole body, his laborer dead alongside of him.

He was my brother. He was single and had been boarding He had no home of his own. I didn't want him taken to the hospital, so I directed the driver of the ambulance to take him to my house. Besides being burned, his right arm and left leg were broken, and he was hurt internally. The doctors- there were two at the house when we got there- said he would die. But he didn't. He is living and a miner to-day. But he lay in bed just fourteen weeks, and was unable to work for seven weeks after he got out of bed. He had no money when he was hurt except the amount represented by his pay. All of the expenses for doctors, medicine, extra help and his living were borne by me, except $25, which another brother gave me. The last one had none to give. Poor work, low wages and a slickly woman for a wife had kept him scratching for his own family.

It is nonsense to day I was not compelled to keep him, that I could have sent him to a hospital or the almshouse. We are American citizens and we don't go to hospitals and poorhouses.

Let us look at things as they are today, or as they were before this strike commenced.

My last pay envelope shows my wages, after my laborer, powder, oil and other expenses were taken off, were $29.47; that was my earnings for two weeks, and that was extra good. The laborer for the same time got some $21. His wages are a trifle over $10 a week for six full days. Before the strike of 1900 he was paid in this region $1.70 per day, or $10.20 a week. If the ten per cent raise had been given, as we expected, his wages would be $1.87 per day, or $11.22 per week, or an increase of $1.02 per week. But we all know that under the present system he doesn't get any eleven dollars.

Well, as I said, my wages were $29.47 for the two weeks, or at the rate of $58.94 per month. My rent is $10.50 per month. My coal costs me almost $4 per month. We burn a little over a ton a month on an average and it costs us over $3 per ton. Light does not cost so much; we use coal oil altogether.

When it comes down to groceries is where you get hit the hardest. Everybody knows the cost of living has been extremely high all winter. Butter has been 32, 36 and 38 cents a pound; eggs as high as 32 cents a dozen; ham, 12 and 16 cents a pound, potatoes away up to a dollar, and cabbage not less than a cent a pound. Fresh meat need not be counted. FIour and sugar did not advance, but they were about the only staples that didn't. Anyhow, my store bill for those two weeks was $11. That makes $22 per month. The butcher gets $6 per month. Add them all, and it costs me, just to live, $42.50. That leaves me $17 per month to keep my family in clothes, to pay my church dues and to keep the industrial insurance going. My insurance alone costs me 55 cents a week, or $2.20 a month.

The coal president never allows his stable boss to cut the amount of fodder allotted to his mules. He insists on so many quarts of oats and corn to the meal and so much hay in the evening. The mule must be fed; the miner may be, if he works hard enough and earns money to buy the grub.

Company stores are of the time that has been. Their existence ended two years ago. But we've got a system growing up that threatens to be just as bad. Let me explain. Over a year ago I was given a breast to drive at one of our mines and was glad to get it. My wife took her cash and went around the different places to buy. When I went to the office for my first pay the "super" met me and asked me if I didn't know his wife's brother George kept a store. I answered, "Yes," and wanted to know what that had to do with it.

"Nothing, only I thought I'd call your attention to it," he answered.

No more was said then. But the next day I got a quiet tip that my breast was to be abandoned. This set me thinking. I went to the boss and, after a few words, told him my wife had found brother-in-law George's store and that she liked it much better than where she had bought before. I told him the other store didn't sell the right kind of silk waists, and their patent leather shoes were away back. Brother-in-law George had the right kind of stuff and, of course, we were willing to pay a few cents more to get just what we wanted.

That was sarcastic, but it's the cash that has the influence. I have had work at that colliery ever since. I know my living costs me from 10 to 15 per cent extra. But I kept my job, which meant a good deal.

Now you must take into consideration that I am a contract miner and that my earnings are more than the wages of three-fourths of the other fellows at the same colliery. It is not that I am a favorite with the boss. I just struck a good breast. Maybe next month my wages would be from two to six or seven dollars less.

In the days of Pardee, Coxe, Fagley, Fulton, Dewees, Paterson, Riley, Repplier, Graeber and a hundred others, men were better paid than they have ever been since the centralization ideas of the late Franklin B. Gowen became fixed institutions in the anthracite counties. It may be true that in the days of the individual operation the cost per ton of mining coal was less than it is to-day. But it is not right that the entire increase in the cost of mining should be charged to the miner. That is what is being done, if you count the reductions made in wages.

We miners do not participate in the high prices of coal. The operators try to prove otherwise by juggling with figures but their proving has struck a fault, and the drill shows no coal in that section. One-half of the price paid for a ton of coal in New York or Philadelphia goes into the profit pocket of the mine owner, either as a carrier or miner.

We all know that the price of coal has advanced in in the past twenty years. We also know that wages are less, that the cost of living is higher. I remember the time, when I was a wee lad, my father used to get his coal for $1 per ton. Now I pay $3. In those days we lads used to go to the dirt banks and pick a load of coal, and it cost our parents only a half a dollar to get it hauled home. We dare not do that now. Then we did not need gum boots, safety lamps or any such things as that; and for all of them we must now pay out of'wages that have been reduced.

Our condition can be no worse; it might and must be better. The luxuries of the rich we do not ask; we do want butter for our bread and meat for our soup. We do not want silk and laces for our wives and daughters. But we want to earn enough to buy them a clean calico once in a while. Our boys are not expecting automobiles and membership cards in clubs of every city, but they want their fathers to earn enough to keep them at school until they have a reasonably fair education.

end of article
View user's profile
Send private message
Shellie
PO Top Contributor & Patron


Joined: 18 Feb 2009
Replies: 998
Location: Atlanta, GA

Back to top
Post Posted: Tue Mar 26, 2013 12:05 am      Post subject:
Reply with quote

Posted July 2012:
dsnyder941 wrote:
I have a photo of a great uncle, Edward Snyder, and written on it is that he was killed working for L.V. Coal Co (in PA) on Friday, Feb 24, 1922, but I've never been able to find anything about an accident on this day. Any suggestions? Thanks!


Hi dsnyder941,
I was wondering if you ever found anything for your great uncle Edward Snyder. Where was LV Coal Co located in Pennsylvania? Have you tried to locate and order his death certificate - here is the link to more info about ordering PA death certificates. http://forum.polishorigins.com/viewtopic.php?t=1337

I would love to see Edward's photo, if you would not mind posting it here.

Shellie
View user's profile
Send private message
Cheri Vanden Berg
PO Top Contributor & Patron


Joined: 16 Oct 2011
Replies: 497

Back to top
Post Posted: Tue Mar 26, 2013 7:52 pm      Post subject:
Reply with quote

This link will take you to A compilation of coal mine deaths and injuries in the Blacklick Valley area:
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~pacblack/interests/CoalMIneDnI.html
View user's profile
Send private message
MegSondey



Joined: 21 Aug 2009
Replies: 16

Back to top
Post Posted: Mon May 06, 2013 9:54 am      Post subject:
Reply with quote

Wow! I will need to post info. on my great-grandfather and family when I can. I can find *no* record of them in Pennsylvania, but that is probably because their last name is so often mangled -- and even family members use different versions. Patskoski, Patzkowska, Paczkoski.... you name it! I know they lived around Plymouth, Scranton, or elsewhere! Supposedly Jan/John Patzkoski was a miner in PA but then moved to Wallingford, CT. My grandmother always said her birth certificate was "washed away" so I really have very little documentation.
View user's profile
Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    PolishOrigins Forum Index -> Research in the USA and in other countries outside Poland All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7  Next Page 4 of 7

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum


Powered by phpBB ©

© 2009-2024 COPYRIGHTS BY THE OWNER OF POLISHORIGINS.COM