Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
Lehigh Valley Coal Co. Explosion
October 7, 1895
WALLED IN BY FIRE.
Laborers and Engineers Meet an Awful Fate In a
Pennsylvania Mine.
Wilkesbarre, Pa., Oct 8--A very serious
accident occurred in the Dorrance colliery of
the Lehigh Valley Coal company in this city late
yesterday afternoon.
Four prominent mining engineers and 15 miners
were shut in by a wall of fire. The accident was
one of the most distressing recorded in the coal
region in many years.
At 8 o’clock five men, all badly burned, were
brought to the surface. They are:
Robert Blanchard, William
Miller, Michael Moss, George Lafly
and Joseph Murphy.
The first two are members of the engineer corps.
Moss and Lafly are laborers and Murphy is a
driver. Miller and Blanchard are so badly burned
that they cannot live.
At midnight the rescuers had made very little
headway in their efforts to reach the scene of
the explosion. Firedamp made its appearance
shortly after 8 o’clock and it was necessary to
do considerable brattice work, which proceeded
very slowly.
The engineer corps all perished in the
explosion, and if they were not killed outright
they were suffocated by the firedamp.
The dead bodies of the victims were recovered at
2:15 this morning.
North Adams Transcript, North Adams, MA 8
Oct 1895
Transcribed by Audrey. Thank you,
Audrey!
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