On the occasion of the United States’ centennial in 1876, a local minister stood before the people of Williamstown, Pennsylvania, and reflected on the town’s remarkable rise from a quiet valley to a thriving coal community.
His speech, a rare firsthand account of Williamstown’s early years, offers a detailed look at the growth of the Williamstown Colliery, the economic impact of coal mining, and the promise of prosperity for the future.
It was a originally published in the Miners’ Journal newspaper of Pottsville, PA in the summer of 1876:
Williamstown, our little village, has come into existence since the commencement of the coal trade. We have in our midst the famous Williamstown Colliery, the largest in the United States or the world.
On the 28th of March, 1866, the first shipment of coal from this place was made to Mr. Baumgardner, consisting of six tons of stove [coal], and the same amount of nut coal…
For every ton of coal shipped away from the place, $1.50 is paid to the men; accordingly, for the 1,187,079 tons of coal shipped since the opening, $3,280,618.50 has been paid to the employees, or an annual average of $328,062, or a monthly average of $27,238.
There is an average daily shipment of 1,200 tons, and in good times, when coal need not be handled with gloves, there is an average of 1,800 tons daily. The capacity of this colliery for shipments, equals three of the largest and best collieries of Schuylkill County, and the coal is the finest for domestic purposes [home heating].
There are three slopes, the deepest of which is 500 yards below the present tunnel level. There are ten engines and one compressor used, a total of 708 horsepower; six pumps and two fans are also in use. The machinery is also of the latest improvement. 85 mules, 6 horses, and 251 slope and drift wagons, and 6 trucks are in constant use.
Three-fifths of all the coal shipped from this region, is shipped from this colliery.
There are openings enough made for the next four years and the prospects for the future, at the present rate of shipments are good for the next 20 years.
As for the town which depends on this colliery, we have to say, that it has in the last 11 years sprung from apparently nothing to what it is – a town 2,500 inhabitants.
It has 7 or more well established dry goods and grocery houses, and all the other business places of an important town. It has 9 lodges, 7 school rooms, 5 churches, 2 excellent bands, and, may I whisper it? Too many hotels [bar-rooms].
The moral condition of the place is equal to any town in the coal regions. Our institutions are free, just, and beneficent, and our people are intelligent, free, and liberal.
The future of Williamstown is very bright.
As the centennial year unfolded, the future of Williamstown seemed limitless. The colliery had already developed enough mining openings to last at least four more years, and at the current rate of production, there was enough coal in the ground to sustain the town for the next twenty years.
The colliery remained economically viable through about 1920, when costs of deep mining rose steeply while the demand for anthracite coal slackened. The exorbitant cost of pumping and maintaining mines more than 2,000 feet below the surface of neighboring Bear Valley became too great, and with the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, Williamstown Colliery’s days were numbered.
The colliery worked only intermittently through the 1930s and in January 1942, the colliery closed forever and its equipment and buildings began being dismantled and sold for scrap.
Read more about Williamstown, Pennsylvania
Anthracite coal and the Civil War fueled the birth of Williamstown in the 1860s
The completion of Williamstown Tunnel | 1873
Williamstown, Pennsylvania – 1916
Aerial image shows Williamstown Colliery before its closure | 1938
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