In the early morning hours of Sunday, June 28, 1896, three earthquake-like tremors shook residents of Pittston, Pennsylvania from their beds. Shortly afterward, the town’s fire bells, whistles, and sirens summoned residents to the mouth of the Twin Shaft Colliery of the Newton Mining Company in Pittston’s Junction neighborhood.
It was approximately 3 o’clock in the morning.
In the hours that followed, Pittston’s residents discovered the shocking news that a vast section of the Twin Shaft mine had collapsed, entombing 58 mineworkers in one of the worst mining disasters in Pennsylvania’s history. Outside the mine, thousands of people gathered, including the grieving families of those lost in the disaster.
Hundreds of rescuers descended on the mine and sought to rescue their fellow mineworkers, but after days of failing attempts in increasingly unsafe conditions, recovery operations ceased. The remains of the 58 mineworkers were never recovered.
Pittston’s newspaper, The Pittston Gazette, covered the disaster and reported a blow-by-blow account of the disaster as information came in following the accident. Here are excerpts from their reporting:
Before the Accident
Condition of Things in the Mine When the Entombed Men Went In
A GAZETTE representative was privileged to inspect for a moment or two a tracing of the mine workings in the office at the mine. The place at which the men are supposed to be was pointed out to him. Taken from the surface, it is under the Coxton Farm, just beyond the Lackawanna River, not more than 1,500 feet from the foot of the shaft. It is on what is known as the north gangway…
It is reported, how true we are unable to say, that for nearly a month past, there have been indications of a “pinch” in the mine. The word, as commonly understood by mining men, would not mean anything very serious, if it went no further, yet the fact of it existing and continuing would put the officials on their guard, especially against gas in a fiery mine.
It was not until Friday, however, that anything serious was noticed. Then, we are told, fire boss McCormack, one of the entombed men, discovered while making his rounds that the “pinch” was becoming more pronounced, in fact that a “squeeze” necessitating prompt action was probably in progress.
Then the work of propping up the roof in the slope mentioned above was begun, though it was not prosecuted with much vigor until Saturday evening. At about 8 o’clock, Superintendent Langan and Mine Foreman Lynott personally led a big force of men into the place to do the timbering. The officials probably realized to a certain extent the dangerous condition of the mine, yet it can never be believed that they anticipated anything like what has happened.
The men, too, realized the danger into which they had been called, and it is said that some of them were exceedingly timid about going in. We have been given the names of four men who, one of the men told us, left the mine on Saturday evening at 9:30, feeling the danger to be too great. They were Edward Hughes, Michael Langan, Martin Healey, and John Williams.
Mining men who have inspected the workings since the explosion [collapse] say that the condition of the mine is very fair, so far as the manner of working in concerned. The pillars are uniform and of good size. The weakest spot perhaps, is in the immediate neighborhood of the foot of the shaft, where a tunnel has been driven through a large “roll,” and where nearly all the efforts of the rescuing parties have been concentrated.
The Climax
Incidents Surrounding the Explosions and the Reception of the News
The climax came at just about 3 o’clock on Sunday morning. The incidents leading up to it will never perhaps be known unless some of the men imprisoned in the mine shall by some chance escape from the blackness of the pit and its horrors.
The men worked on all night endeavoring to withstay the progress of the squeeze. The work in hand was to place timbers in the basin where the squeeze was most serious. Several men were engaged with a mule and a car bringing timbers in from the outside while the others were busily engaged setting the props under the direction of the foreman.
That they realized the danger is shown by the fact that several of the men left their places and went out, and plainly stated their reason for so doing – that they were afraid for their lives. These men are now living; while their comrades in all probability met a horrible death.
But three others of all the men who were at work in the mines escaped with their lives. They were Jacob Adams, John Riker, and Frank Sheridan. The first two were engaged in hauling props from the foot of the shaft to where the other men were at work timbering. The story told by these men is the only reports which came from the mine after the explosion.
A GAZETTE representative talked with Mr. Adams, one of the three survivors, on Sunday morning, and learned from him all that he knew about the terrible affair.
He said that he and Riker were riding outward on a car when the first explosion occurred. The shock was heavy and dull, but there was no fire accompanying it. The gust of air which passed through the gangway immediately was astonishing in its force. The two men were actually blown from the car and thrown some distance into the road.
Fortunately, neither of them were injured, beyond slightly bruised, and as soon as they could collect their senses they groped their way out in the darkness, as best as they could to the bottom of the shaft. The journey was tedious and full of danger. The air was full of dirt and dust, and the men were almost blinded and suffocated by the mixture.
As they journeyed outward, the second explosion occurred, which but added to the seriousness of the situation. Finally they reached the foot of the shaft, and together with Frank Sheridan, who had been nearer the foot of the shaft than they, were hoisted to the surface to tell their heartrending story to the few people who were outside at the time.
While the party of three were at the foot of the shaft, the third explosion occurred. None of the men were injured and all were able to be about soon after they came out of the shaft.
At 3:15 an alarm of fire was sent in from the box at the Junction by Thomas F. Cody, in response to a call from one of the colliery men. It was feared that there’re was a fire in the mine or that flames might break out. To be on the safe side, the public alarm was sent in and the fire companies were on the scene in a few minutes. Their services fortunately were not needed, but the alarm had the result of arousing the people and while not very many of the people from the lower end of town got out, the entire populace of the Junction were soon on the ground, the news of the disaster having spread very rapidly as soon as some of the people got out in response to the fire alarm…
From Monday’s Daily
Scenes about the Mine
The Stricken Families – Thousands upon Thousands of Visitors
It was just after the fire alarm was sent in that the first heart-rending scenes were witnessed around the head of the shaft. At that early hour even the officials had not arrived and there were no policemen or other persons in authority to guard.
Several thousand people quickly gathered, including members of the families of the men in the mine. The latter, especially the women, crowded close to the shaft, and with the sobs of anguish that came from the depths of the heart bewailed the fate of their loved ones in the mine below.
For several hours the women remained about the head of the shaft, and the scene was one to make the stoutest heart qual. The Polish and Hungarian women were especially loud in their lamentations, and some of them in their sorrow hung so dangerously over the shaft guards, peering into the blackness of the pit below, that it was necessary to take them away.
Finally the women folks were nearly all persuaded to go to their homes, and there await developments, male members of their families remaining at the scene of the disaster to await any news from below and carry it to the anxious hearts at home.
By 9 o’clock, when the people from neighboring towns began to arrive at the scene, there were but few of the women present, ropes had been stretched about the mouth of the mine, and all was quiet. The engines moved almost noiselessly, and the cages as they passed up and down the shaft, bringing mules up and carrying timber down, were almost as noiseless.
The death-like stillness prevailed, and men through the crowd spoke in whispers of the disaster and its terrible consequences. There was really nothing special to be seen about the mouth of the shaft, in connection with the disaster. The cages were kept busy all day long, and the only break in the monotony was in the changing of the shifts which occurred at 3 o’clock in the afternoon.
The crowds of people who came to the scene was simply astonishing. The wonder was where they all came from. Pittston and West Pittston of course sent the larger number. Main Street and the railways tracks leading downtown and to the West Side were lined with people from one end to the other between the central parts of the town to the mine.
Never before since the opening of the Traction system did it carry so many people on this end of the line. The crowds on holidays were not to be compared with those carried. Extra cars were run all day, yet every car that went up and every car that came down, was simply packed inside and outside with a living mass of humanity.
They clung to the steps and railings, sat on the tops of the cars and rode on the ends.
And thus the living stream of humanity poured into and out of the Junction all day long and far into the evening.
The vacant spaces for half a mile around the ill-fated mine were jammed with people. Long after dark the crowds continued about the place, and at midnight when the new shift went on there were several thousand people about the place…
This morning features were discovered which had not been noticed before. It was thought that the surface had not been disturbed in the least by the disturbance underground, but this morning small cracks were found running the entire length of the Coxton farm, and, what is worse than all else, they lead to the edge of the river. If the water gets into the mines in very large quantities all hopes of getting the men out dead or alive is gone. That the officials realize the danger is indicated by the fact that this morning a large pump was sent to the mouth of the shaft and is ready to be lowered into the pit at a moment’s notice…
Mine Inspector McDonald, at noon, was more than ever settled in his opinion that it would be impossible to get the men out alive, even if they had escaped death by cave in and the explosion. The conditions in the mine are apparently getting worse instead of better.
In the weeks that followed, Governor Daniel Hastings convened an investigation into the events at “The Twin” in June 1896. Interviews with experts, mine inspectors, and survivors revealed that the colliery had become a death trap by the morning of June 28th.
“I found at the foot of the shaft that there had been no explosions,” Mine Inspector Hugh McDonald told the investigators about his first arrival inside Twin Shaft. “The indications did not prove there was any explosion, but that it was a terrible cave of the roof.”
Investigators learned that the 58 men who perished, including the mine’s superintendent and other leadership, were working through the night in a desperate effort to shore up the roof of a collapsing mine.
And as the original Gazette reporting indicated, investigators learned that some of the workers that night had fled the mine in fear before the collapse. Among the five or so miners who fled the Twin before the disaster was Edward Hughes. The young mineworker lost his brother Michael in the collapse at the Twin.
“I was afraid of the roof… the roof was falling from the inside and was driving the gas out,” Hughes told investigators when asked about why he fled the mine work crew on the night of the disaster. “I was afraid of it and I always was for the last six months, and when I saw the danger when she was falling from the inside I got more afraid and came out.”
Hughes described hearing the mine “squeeze” in the months before the disaster, the groaning noise made as the rock overhead pressed down on the pillars of coal left behind to hold up the roof. Hughes and his colleagues grew concerned as they watched the pillars of coal chipping and breaking loose under the strain.
In the weeks leading up to and on the night of the disaster, the crew inside the mine were placing “cog pillars,” as an effort to reinforce the squeezed pillars. But about 3am on June 28th, the pillars and walls gave way and nearly the entire section of the mine collapsed – about 200 acres in total were crushed.
The investigation left behind a report detailing changes that should made to mining policy in the anthracite coal fields (largely ignored). You can read the full report HERE, along with the fascinating interviews with Mine Inspector McDonald and Edward Hughes.
Today, the site of the Twin Shaft disaster is marked with a PHMC sign commemorating one of the worst mining disasters in state history.
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