Nanticoke, Pennsylvania Susquehanna Coal Company Mine Explosion
November 8, 1891
Nanticoke Disaster, November 8, 1891.
- About 4 o'clock of the quiet Sunday
afternoon a terrible explosion shook the ground
for a distance around shaft No.1
of the Susquehanna Coal company, which is at the
intersection of West Main and
Church streets, Nanticoke borough. The shaft is
1,000 feet deep and works seven
coal seams, and where the explosion occurred is
1,200 feet under ground. Here
fourteen men were at work, all carefully
selected or well-known experts, engaged
in changing the air currents to meet new
openings in the mines. But fourteen men
were in the mine, and that all feared danger is
seen in the fact that Sunday was
selected, when the miners were all out. It is
not known how the gas explosion
was caused, whether through a defect in some one
of the lamps or otherwise. Of
the fourteen men twelve were instantly killed
and the thirteenth mortally hurt,
and even the remaining one was seriously
afflicted, though not immediately at
the point of explosion. From this shaft the
seven seams worked are the Ross,
Hillman, Lee, Forge, Mills, Twin and George. It
is well understood there is more
or less gas in all the mines in this vicinity.
Three of the men killed were fire
bosses; Henry R. Jones, aged thirty two,
married, two children; John Arnot, aged
thirty-seven, married, three children; and
William Jonathan, aged thirty-five,
married, three children.
History of Luzerne County Pennsylvania,
H. C. Bradsby, Editor, S. B. Nelson & Co.,
Publishers, 1893, page 320
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