1898 - Coalmininghistorypa.org

No. 11. EIGHTH ANTHRACITE DISTRICT. 235fire had gone up. On Octobei' 29 it was found that there was alarge fire above Ihe tast or k)ng plane level, when it was decided toflood the mine. On Sunday, October 30, the water of Panther(reek was turned into the shaft, and continued until December 5,when tlu' water liad raised 549 feet up the shaft. The hoisting ofthe water out of the sliaft again began on the afternoon of December5, and and on L»eeeniber :J1 had been k)wered 10."> feet.Kaska-AMlliam CollieryDisaster.On May 2G, 1898, Wm. Morgan, a loader boss, Wm. Derr, a pumprunner, INfartinMolochus, Petei' Dinkin, ^'indle Proboiski and I'aulKatsouski, laborers, met their death atthe Kaska-William colliery,operated by the Dodson Coal Company, by water breaking in from oldworkings which had been abandoned many years before. A tunnelwas being driven fioni the iSeven-foot vein on the shaft level, south.The tunnel men were working by night, and the laborers were loadingthe j^tutf by day. The tunnel men had cut the bottom of theOrchard vein during the night of the twenty-fifth, with the lastround of shots fired, but had not gone into the face of the tunnelso that they did not know that the vein had been cut.after firing,The fire boss, in making his rounds in the morning, discovered thatthe vein had been cut, and so reported to the inside foreman, whotook some men with him and drilled a hole in the vein about sixfeet long to find its thickness. During this time the laborers abovenanu d were engaged in loading the stufi^' that had been cut by theshots fired during the night before. The colliery was idle on thetwenty-sixth, and no men were at work in the inside slope, whichiv about 'MA) feet deep below the shaft level, the tunnel being 400feet W(^st ot the top of the slope. About 11 o'clock in the forenoon,^^'m. Moigan, who was working near the top of the slope, was letdown the slope by Thomas Hawkins, the fire boss, to feed the mules,and \N'm. Derr, the ])nm]) runner, who had been up the slope duringI he forenoon, was k't down by Hawkins about 12 o'clock noon, to goto the pumi>. Hawkins remained at the top of the slope, expecting(hem to return soon, and was waiting to hoist them up. Between12 o'clock and 1, the water bioke in at the Orchard vein, which hadbeen cut at the face of the tunnel. Hawkins heard the water coming{Jid retreated toward tlu^ bottom of the shaft, and on the way metMr. Flannigan, the inside foreman, who had been at the pump roomat the bottom of the shaft, getting his dinner. They attempted toget back to the slope, but the water was rising rajjidly at the bottomof the shaft, and they had to retreat up the shaft. The water roseto the roof at the bottom of the shaft, cutting off all communicationV, ith the inside slojx'. and the tunnel where the watei- had come