Lake County

SEVENTY YEARS IN THE COAL MINES

Pages: 1-16 * 17-47 * 48-71 * 72-101 *
102-115 * 116-134 * 135-151 * 152-16 * Index

In a few days a suit was brought against me for using brass knucks.  The Knights of Labor were backing the suit.  They had scored me much in their Labor Journals about fighting and using brass knucks.  In my evidence before the court, I told them I never had any knucks in my hand.  When the testimony was all taken YONCE and his two companions had planned to make trouble at the office window.  The court dismissed the case.

     About four months after the trial, one of the mine foremen cane to me and said if I was willing for YONCE to work, he would come back to the job.  Yes, I said, "It is all right with me."  On Monday morning I went to the mine to make an examination.  I went to the shop door. YONCE was sharpening his pick.  I spoke to him and said, "How are you, Jim?"  He said, "All right, Mr. FRANCIS."  He seemed glad to be at his job again.

     Years after this, I was attending an Odd Fellows meeting at Fountain City.  An editor who scored me many times in the Knights of Labor Journal came down to me where I sat in the audience and would have me say a few words.  I went on to the platform with him.  He introduced me to the audience saying that he had known me for a long time and that I was a true friend to the working miner and he said many other nice things about me.  It is strange!  "First Rocks and then Bouquets."
 In the year 1900, a cousin of mine, James THOMAS, from Pennsylvania came to visit me.  About this time there was an active demand for blasting powder.  He

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gave me the thought that a mill would do well.  After thinking it over and talking it over with others, a company was formed to build a stamping mill at a cost of ten thousand dollars.  I went to Hamburg and found a man who was a builder of powder mills.  He came to Jellico and located a place for the mill.  I received a telegram from Howell DAVIS at Louisville who was manager of the Jellico Coal Company, then operated by the DUPONTs.  The telegram stated that he wanted some stock in it.  So the company was formed with a working capital of $30,000.00 to make powder by modern methods, but it was more dangerous than the stamping method.  The mill was built and operated a short time.  An explosion occurred, caused by carelessness of an employee.  One man was killed and two burnt slightly.  We replaced the building at a cost of $3,000.00.  The Dupont Powder Company began to cut prices below cost in the Jellico region.  This caused the Jellico Powder company to close and quit and to sell all of its machinery.  My loss in the powder mill investment was about $10,000.00.  The company was not able to compete with the DUPONTs.

 In the year 1902, when the explosion occurred at Fraterville, causing the death of 184 miners; when the morning explosion happened, they wired for me to come at once and to bring experienced miners with me.  This I did.  When I arrived at the mine, all was confusion.  A few bodies had been brought out.  Men, women, and children were crying at the entrance of the mine.  It was heart-rending to hear them.  I met a Mr. DAVIS who had charge of a mine nearby.  He

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said he wanted me to take charge of getting the bodies out.  There was no map near, but he drew a plan of the mine on the ground for me to go by.  He told me he was sick and could not help but the risk was a lingering fire in the mine and may cause another explosion that would destroy all resources in the mine.  This did really happen a few months before; one in West Virginia and one in Wyoming, taking all the lives that were in the rescue party.

     Knowing this, I led the men into the mine, where bodies would be found nearly three miles underground.  We had one safety lamp with us and it gave a very poor light.  No open lamps were allowed for fear of coming in contact with gas.  The ventilation was poor, as all batteries were blown down.  We had to be cautious and careful and not go into gas.  That would cause you to fall down and your breathing would soon cease unless someone picked you up and took you into purer air.  Several of the rescuers had fallen down and were taken outside of the mine and laid in the blacksmith shop unconscious with the doctor working to restore them.  The rescuers were not familiar with the effects of "black damp" in mines.

     I had charge of several men.  I told them that there could not be a living miner in the mine and that we should go carefully and not get into foul air, and that I would go in front.  I knew the effects of "black damp" and "white damp".  There comes a shortness of breath and a feeling of weakness in the knees and elbows and stillness.  In that state, you must gather up all your will power to know where you are and what you are doing and not turn yourself around too

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quickly or you may fall down and lose consciousness.  In one damp, your light will not burn while in another damp, it burns and both are dangerous to life.  No open lights were allowed in the rescue party.  I carried my own safety lamp, but it gave a very poor light.  The mine had penetrated into the mountain for nearly three miles at this time and I could not travel the main entry but by byways and airways and then had to travel in a stooping position.  The height was less than four feet.  This made traveling tiresome.  Some of the men had no light, but followed along the best they could.  Some were uneasy when told on the outside of the mine that some fire may be left in the old workings and that a second explosion may take place.

 Only a few months previous, a second explosion occurred in the Wyoming coal mines and also one in West Virginia, where all the miners lost their lives.  All this I knew before I entered the mine.  Some of the men only went part of the way in the mine.  Their courage failed them.  On the inside, you must forget the cries of women and children and also forget many dangers that surround you in the mine.  You have a duty to perform to a fellow miner and to remove dead bodies to their relatives on the outside.  The first bodies we came to were four.  Two of them were on their knees in a praying position, the other two being partly on their side, just a few yards away, at the head of the entry.  The men were sitting close to each other with their arms on their knees folded and their heads on their arms.  In this position 17 of them had died.  I lifted their heads up so I could see their faces

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to see if there could be any life there, but none was found.

     Some faces looked calm, while a few looked distorted.  Our lights were dim and I did not try to identify any of them.  Those men had rushed from another part of the mine for safety, but after the damp took their breath, they must have passed over many dead bodies to reach this part of the mine.  I made arrangements to remove the bodies to the outside of the mine.  This was difficult on account of no conveyance.  It could only be done by partly carrying and dragging them through low places until we got them to a point where they were loaded into mining cars and then taken outside and then into a building where the doctors washed them and prepared them to send them to their homes or relatives.

     After removing 21 bodies from that section and as I was walking down the entry a short distance I came upon two bodies in a kneeling position.  Their foreheads were touching the floor of the mine and they appeared as if they were alive.  Placing my hand on the hip of the one nearest to me, I pushed slightly and the body fell over on it side.  Looking closely at them I thought I knew them.  They worked for me at Jellico.  They were both young men.  When we removed the bodies we concluded that they were part of the 17 men huddled together a short distance from where they died; it seemed that they had made an effort to escape.  It was sad to think of young men dying in that manner--a slow, gasping death.

 Going toward the main entry, where the force of the explosion could be seen, we came upon a body

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terribly mangled.  Then more bodies with several dead mules were lying around.  Before the mules could be removed, their legs were chopped off, so that they could be taken outside, on account of the small places to go through.  The men were now complaining.  They felt sick and needed gloves on their hands to protect them while handling the dead bodies.  They also wanted hot coffee.  I sent word to the outside of the mine to supply these men with gloves and a galvanized wash tub.  It was sent in almost full of hot coffee.  This gave the rescuers more strength and the ventilation was getting better almost every hour.  By replacing batteries and canvas curtains, the bodies were being removed to the outside rapidly.

     There were not many large falls of slate on the entrance, so the explosion was terrific at the main entrance.  Heavy steel mining cars' axles were broken off in the cars' wheels.  Loaded cars were hurled against the side of the entries and broken to pieces.  No flesh could stand against such force.  I worked three days in getting all the bodies out.

     The last evening, when I reached the outside of the mine, an old white haired man came running to me and asked me if we had found his grandson, who was a door tender on the main entry.  He said he had a wide leather belt around his waist.  The old man was heart-broken because, as yet we had not found the body of his boy.  It took force to keep him from going into the mine.  He could not sleep, watching everybody that brought out a body.  He was broken with grief.  Finally, part of a boy's body was brought out.  It was his grandson.  When clearing

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up the mine they found a boy's torso with the belt still around his body.

     The clothes that I wore in the mine, I had to destroy on account of the peculiar odor which could not be gotten rid of.  The scene around the entrance of the mine could not be forgotten with 184 parts of many bodies that could be recognized by relatives.

 A few years after the Fraterville mine explosion, another explosion took place at an adjoining mine called Cross Mountain Mine, taking the lives of 74 miners.  A message was sent to me to come at once as they needed rescuers.  I left Jellico on the morning train at 8 o'clock a.m.  Coal Creek is about 30 miles away.  Many other miners were on the train.  As I arrived near Coal Creek several miners came to me and asked me where I was going.  I told them that I was going to the mine where the explosion occurred.  They then left me and went into another car.  In a few minutes they came back to where I was sitting and said to me, "We have forty miners on the train going to the mine to help.  We are all from Kense Mine, Kentucky.  We held a meeting and all decided that if you would be our leader we would follow you into the mine.  We know you took charge in the Fraterville explosion and we wondered why you would risk your life going into a closed shop Union Mine.  The Procter Coal Company, with its three mines of which you are superintendent, have fought us for many years; men having been killed on both sides and the fight still continues."  I said, "Yes, I have fought you hard but when I see my fellow miners in distress, I can not fight them for I am one of you.  I was

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willing to take the risk by helping out with my long experience in the mines", and I said, "I want to thank you men for placing your confidence in me."  Let me say that I have considered this one of the greatest compliments that I ever received in my life, when others are willing to place their lives in your hands.

     On arriving at the mine, the same sorrowful scene greeted us.  Women and children were weeping and all in great distress.  Once again I must control myself and not let my sympathy weaken me.  I had work to perform.  So I went into the mine with those forty men.  It was a drift opening.  After going in nearly one mile, I came to a body lying on one side of the entry.  Black damp had taken his life.  Some few men were building a brattress to carry on the air.  I told my men to help and went on further into the mine.  The air was foul.  I met a man with a small cage with a dead canary in it.  I asked him why he brought that bird in here.  He said it gave him warning when he went into bad air, the bird would drop dead.  The test after a gas explosion is not needed by an experienced miner.

 I met another man with a gas mask on and carrying his oxygen with him.  I asked him how far he could go.  He told me about 300 feet.  We were standing close to the foul air.  He said it was very hot 200 feet further in.  I asked him if he saw any bodies.  He thought he had.  There were coal, slate, and timbers lying loose everywhere.  He took off his helmet and sat down.  His breathing was not regular, it seemed to me.  He was scared and would swear often.  His thought was to keep his courage up.  He told me

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he was sent here by the state and that he belonged to the rescue squad.  I did not like his swearing.

     In all my long life underground, I would not work with any man who swore, especially when there were 80 dead in the mines, lying around and some of them near us and others further on in this sad, gloomy place.  I left him and went back to help the men to place brattices back to carry on fresh air, that would move out foul air so that bodies could be found and taken outside of the mine.  I worked up to late that evening and then went by train to Jellico.  A little gas and fine dust make a strong explosion.  It is impossible to go through the after damp, to breath it and live.  Strong men have tried to break through the after damp and have given up their lives in the effort.

 In the year 1921, two of my daughters, Hannah and Iris, were living in Middlesboro, Kentucky.  One day my wife said to me that she would like to go and visit them.  We lived at that time in Jellico, Tennessee.  On the following Monday we both went to Middlesboro and stopped at the T. Russ HILL home.  He married my youngest daughter, Iris.  A Baptist revival was going on that week and was being held in a tent on Cumberland Street.  When the evening came on, Russ asked me to go the meeting.  I told him I did not go to revivals nor did I attend church much.  I noticed a fine large library that Russ owned with many books that would please me to read.  Russ was a literary man and a lover of books and a great reader every day and evening.  Russ asked me to go to the meeting with him.  My wife and daughter attended the meeting regularly.

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     On Wednesday evening, I laid the book aside that I was reading and did some thinking.  I was putting questions to myself.  Am I doing right in sitting here alone, when it would please my wife and daughter if I were with them.  I decided that I was an unpleasant visitor, and I made up my mind that if Russ should ask me to go with them tomorrow evening I would go.  Russ did ask me the next evening.  It was Thursday evening.  The meeting was being held in a large tent.  There was a large crowd in attendance.  I was introduced to several nice people.  The singing was good and I enjoyed it.  The preacher was Dr. F. F. BROWN, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Knoxville.

     For the reader to understand me fully, I had a habit of looking a speaker over and judging him; wondering does he fully believe himself, what he trying to make others believe?  On my first, second and third hearing of Dr. BROWN, I was impressed with his sincerity and his quiet way of explaining his thoughts and reasoning to others.

 The following Sunday morning I was sitting in an auto with my daughter, Hannah.  Dr. BROWN, with some others was passing by on the sidewalk.  My daughter called to him.  He came to us.  I sat in the front seat with the window down.  As he came close up, I was introduced to him.  After we exchanged greetings I said to him, "Doctor, I have heard you speak three times and I believe you tell us with sincerity in your voice, of the things we should do in this and eternal life.  I would like to ask you a question.  Can you tell me absolutely and without any doubt in your mind that you are a saved man?"  He

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looked at me for a moment and then turned his face partly away from me, looking downward.  Then turning around and looking at me with thought in his eyes he said, "Mr. FRANCIS, I can not say absolutely that I am a saved man, but this I can say, that I have put my trust in Jesus."  I reached my hand out of the car window and placing it on his shoulder I said, "Dr. BROWN, that is the best answer I have ever received."  I can not tell why I was prompted to put that question to him.  I have heard other preachers say that they knew they were saved.  To me that did not reason out right.  To my way of thinking that would be making judges of ourselves here on earth.  We must stand before the Great King of Kings and be judged and not till then will we fully know that we are saved.

     Dr. BROWN's answer to me was agreeable.  It told me his humility as a preacher by placing his trust in Jesus.  That simplicity makes him lovable to those who know him.  Yes, you may say, I can quote scripture that tells us how we can know we are saved.  You are not dead yet.  You may commit sin while in the flesh that may not be forgiven.  Life is short and you may not have time to ask for forgiveness.  As I came out of the tent Sunday evening, I noticed a very large man standing alone and looking anxiously toward the speaker's stand where a few men stood talking together.  When I got close to him, I said, "We had a good sermon".  He answered, "Yes."  Again I spoke to him.  "It is a good thing to live by and a good thing to die by", and again he answered, "Yes."  The expression on his face made me linger.  Again I spoke and said to him, "I do not know where you stand, but

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if you stand where I stand it is time to make a change", and again he answered, "Yes."  Thinking that he was waiting there for someone, I left.

     That same evening I spoke to my son-in-law, Russ HILL, about him. Russ told me he was well-to-do and that he owned considerable property.  He had been a gambler and a saloon keeper and was not afraid to face any man.  He was a man to be left alone.  He took a liking to me.  He was waiting to see me as I came from the speaker's stand.  I have spoken to him about his soul.  I feel he will change soon.  He is thinking about it seriously.  This he has told other men.  "I will strike fire out of a rock with my fist for Russ HILL."  That was his way of emphasizing his friendship for anyone he liked.  Russ gave me his name as Harrison AUSMUS.

 My wife and myself left Middlesboro Monday morning for Jellico, our home.  After about four months I received a letter from Harrison AUSMUS stating that he was thinking about me.  He wrote, "I am the man who had a heart to heart talk with you at the tent entrance.  I have gotten over on the Lord's side and I am praying for you to come over too."  I wrote him to keep on praying as I did not know when I would be ready to change.  In about one year after receiving his letter, I made the change over to the Lord's side.

     I visited Middlesboro again.  Harrison AUSMUS heard I had come and he looked for me.  We met near the Baptist Church.  There was a seat nearby.  We both sat down together and talked over the change

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we had made in our lives and we both agreed it was the best investment a man could make in this life on earth.  It gave contentment and a certainty to us as  to where we were traveling.  He told me all about his wicked life.  He mixed with gamblers and card players and with drinking and fighting men and of fighting them when he caught them cheating.  He said, "I have fought with them in Texas and in St. Louis and in other places.  Now," he said, "I am over on the Lord's side and I feel like a man again and I am going to stay on His side."

     A few months after our meeting, my wife and myself visited Middlesboro again to have Thanksgiving dinner with my two daughters.  A prayer meeting was held in the Baptist Church.  Harrison AUSMUS came in and sat close to me.  I noticed that he had a bandage around his neck.  He told me it was very sore.  It was a carbuncle.  There was a large crowd at the meeting and many of them spoke, telling how thankful they were.  It came my time to say a few words.  Then AUSMUS stood up and spoke.  He said, "I have been a very wicked man.  The apostle Paul would not have made a corporal guard for me."  He had been so bad against things that were good.  Before the meeting closed AUSMUS and myself were called upon to stand up in front so that the audience could shake our hands.  We all felt good on leaving the Thanksgiving meeting.

     A few months afterwards, I heard that AUSMUS was very weak and sick and then there came word that he had died from his carbuncle affliction and I went to his funeral.  At the grave there were many

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sad hearts together with my own.  He had done many good deeds in Middlesboro, since he made a change in his way of living.  He was a strong supporter of his church and all things that were good.  We do not understand God's way when He takes away a strong man, who is trying to make amends for the things he has neglected in the past.

 In May 1923, my wife and myself visited Knoxville to see two of our daughters and one son who lived in Knoxville.  While there, they must have talked to their mother about moving to Knoxville and buying a home there so that they could be nearer to her.  My wife spoke to me about what they wanted.  I asked her if she wanted to change.  She answered, "Yes, they want me to."  After thinking over making the change, w both agreed about changing.  We had a good home at Jellico, but it was now too large for only us two.  All our sons and daughters were living elsewhere.  When we built that home we thought it would be our last home on this earth, but in a long life there comes many changes.

 We found a location on North Broadway about half way between Maggie and Louis, thinking it would be convenient to call when passing.  The real estate men had already started to build.  It was a small house compared to the one in Jellico.  We purchased the house for $6900.00 cash.  We made many changes in our new home before we could live comfortably in it.  My son, Paul, bought the home at Jellico when we left Jellico.  We left many friends and many were the happy days that we spent in that home with weddings and other forms of entertainment.

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 After being settled in our new home, I received a letter from Dr. BROWN, pastor of the First Baptist Church, stating that it would please him if we would place our membership in his church.  This we did and we soon had many new friends.  For nearly ten years my wife and myself attended church together there from 1923 to 1933.

 On September 5th she passed away quietly after a few months sickness.  Her last words whispered, "It is all right."  Her remains now rest in Lynnhurst Cemetery in Knoxville, Tennessee.  We built a mausoleum for her with room for ten more bodies to be placed inside.  For nearly sixty years, we traveled together along life's pilgrimage.  I was with her a few minutes before she passed away, but I did not think the end was so near.  I left to meet Dr. BROWN and my son-in-law, J. W. WILLIAMS.  As I was greeting them my daughter Hannah came to us said in a soft tone, "Mama's gone."  I did my best to hold up.  I felt as if the ground had given away from under me.  Dr. BROWN and John asked me to go with them to the auto.  We got in and they drove me around for a good while.

 After coming back to the house, I asked, "Where is Annie?"  Someone answered, "They have taken the body to Mann's to the mortuary."  Then I said to Dr. BROWN, "I should have stayed and not gone away.  Am I weaker than other men who have gone through the trial of their wife's death?"  Many friends from the First Baptist Church came and expressed their sympathy.  This helped so much in my hour of greatest trial.

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 My wife was deeply religious.  I thought at times that she was too serious in following the teachings of the Bible, but I could see that it gave her much comfort.  She would mark passages so that she could refer to them again.  As I watched her my thoughts would be, what a good wife she has been to me all the years we have lived together.  How many more years will we be together?  Which one of us will be called first.  Such thoughts as these would come over me.  I have outlived her, but memory lingers with me.  What comfort it is to retain memories of those who have gone before us.  It seems to me that life is only a memory.

 When alone and in a quiet hour, we can let our minds bring up memories of the past.  We think we see them again only for a moment as a faint shadow and then it fades slowly away.

 May I relate two instances that happened to me which made a vivid impression on my mind which I cannot forget.  About one year and a half after my wife's death, when I was alone in the house at eight o'clock at night, I went to my room and was retiring for the night.  My bed was near a window.  A faint evening glow came through the window, some of it partly from a street lamp.  As I lay quietly and not thinking of anything in particular, only to get to sleep as soon as possible, I was lying on my back when my attention was drawn to the foot of the bed.  As I looked, a form seemed to appear faintly and very slowly on the foot of the bed.  Then a face appeared which I recognized as that of my wife.  Her eyes were wide open.  She was looking steadily at me as I lay and the expression on her face was one that I

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had seen many times in my life - a calm one.  Then it slowly faded away.

 About two years afterwards, lying on a couch one afternoon after I had been reading, my attention was drawn to a door only a few feet from me which was open and as I looked a form seemed to appear and stopped.  My wife's face appeared looking at me with an expression of gladness and a lingering smile as it faded away from me.  The room where this happened is the same room where she died.  Her last words faintly whispered, "It is all right."  Those words fit the expression on her face as I saw her standing at the door.

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