Charles W Lawson (1893-1922): Killed in a Mine Explosion

Charles "Charlie" W. Lawson married Mary Frances Crockett on 31 August 1921 in McDowell County, West Virginia. He was 28 years old at the time of their marriage and she was 16. Charles worked as a coal miner and a few weeks before their first anniversary, he was killed by dynamite in a mining accident in Coalwood, a town in McDowell County.

It was a tragic story, but sadly not all that unusual as mining was one of the most dangerous occupations in the country at the time.

And then I found this article about Charlie in the Charlotte Observer:

From The Charlotte Observer, 12 August 1922, page 12

YOUNG MAN KILLED IN MINE EXPLOSION

Tragedy Seems to Have Followed Two Generations of the Lawson Family, of Mount Airy

MOUNT AIRY, Aug. 10 -- The remains of Charlie Lawson arrived here Monday night and were carried to his former home in Virginia Tuesday for interment. The young man was killed in a mine explosion in Coalwood, W. Va. His death calls to mind the sad tragedy of the Lawson family, several years ago, about Christmas time, the elder Lawson, father of Charles, disappeared from his home and after an absence of a few weeks suspicion took form that there had been foul play. A search was made and the body found buried in a field near the home, the field had been plowed to cover signs of the grave. The father was a heavy drinker and was cruel to his wife when under the influence of liquor and the boy was tried for murdering his father. He was sentenced to 18 years in the penitentiary. About a year ago he was pardoned and went to West Virginia where he married. The people in the neighborhood petitioned the governor for his pardon, some feeling that he was not guilty, and if guilty there was great provocation.

Charlie's father was William Swanson Lawson and according to his death certificate, he was last seen on 23 December 1913. The cause of his death was a fractured skull and lacerated brain caused by murder. An article in the 19 January 1914 edition of The Robesonian stated that Charlie, aged 20, and his brother, Samuel, 17, confessed but said the murder was in defense of their mother.

Charles likely served 7 years in the state penitentiary before he was pardoned in 1921.

His wife, Mary Frances (Crockett) Lawson was pregnant at the time of his death and gave birth to a daughter, Naovea Claire, on 11 March 1923.

She married my third cousin twice removed, Theodore Roosevelt Barrett[1], in July 1926. They had four children together before Mary Frances died on 15 January 1936, at the age of 30, of puerperal sepsis, a postpartum infection following the birth of their youngest child.

Theodore married Mary Frances' sister, Marjorie Claire (Crockett) Jarrett, a widow, on 19 July 1939 in Buchanan County, Virginia.

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[1] Theodore Roosevelt Barrett descended from our most recent common ancestor as follows: Benjamin Waldron >> Thomas Waldron >> Augustus Spotts Waldron >> Mary Jane (Waldron) Barrett. Waldron was most often spelled Walrond before the Civil War.

Honoring Ancestors Who Died in Mines

On Labor Day we commemorate working people and the labor movement by observing Labor Day, our national holiday established to exhibit to the public "the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations." Labor Day was born out of the Industrial Revolution and that revolution was fueled by coal. Many of my ancestors worked in coal pits in Australia, Canada, England, Scotland, and the United States. Today, I would like to remember and honor those men who were killed working in coal mines.

John Franklin Austin (1915-1943)
Age at Death: 27
Relationship: First husband of the wife of my third cousin once removed, Clyde Hilton Key (1911-1987)
Parents: Harry F. Austin and Mattie E. Parker
Cause of Death: Crushed between a train and the wall of the coal mine.
Death Location: United States
New Nipper Killed in the Mine

William Collins (1850-1917)
Age ag Death: 67
Relationship: Second husband of my great great grandmother, Clementine (Wells) Riggin (1846-1932)
Parents: William Collins and Mary Lang
Cause of Death: Killed by a fall of slate at the Donk Brothers Coke & Coal Company
Death Location: United States
Coal Mining: A Dangerous Occupation

George White Dick (1871-1925)
Age at Death: 54
Relationship: Husband of my first cousin times removed, Henrietta Brown Muir (1874-1939)
Parents: Thomas and Margaret White
Cause of Death: Shock following injuries sustained after being crushed at Hopeturn Colliery
Death Location: Scotland

Andrew Cairns Muir (1902-1936)
Age at Death: 34
Relationship: Adopted son of my first cousin three times removed, Nathaniel Muir (1872-1936)
Parents: Birth -- Andrew Cairns and Elizabeth Cameron; Adopted: Nathaniel Muir and Ann "Annie" Hutton
Cause of Death: Died of injuries sustained when the roof of the mine where he was working collapsed and fell on him.
Fatal Colliery Accident

Alexander Paterson (1886-1944)
Age at Death: 57
Relationship: Husband of my third cousin once removed, Henrietta Cassells Lively (1892-1948)
Parents: John Paterson and Marion Scoular
Cause of Death: Asphyxia after being smothered by a fall of coal, stone, and dirt when mine ceiling collapsed.
Death Location: Scotland

James Richardson (1896-1921)
Age at Death: 24
Relationship: Second cousin twice removed
Parents: Hugh Richardson and Janet Muir
Cause of Death: Changing a trolley pole and came into contact with a live wire and he was electrocuted.
Electrocuted in the Frederick Mine

James Richardson (1886-1921); photo courtesy of Ancestry.com
member and DNA match BarbZale

William Brown Shaw (1866-1878)
Age at Death: 12
Relationship: Step-son of three times great uncle Robert Orr Muir (1839-1917)
Parents: Unknown father and Mary Watson (Shaw) Muir
Cause of Death: Died of injuries sustained when he fell out of cage ascending the pit shaft.
Death Location: Scotland
Fatal Coal Pit Accident

Daniel Boone Wells (1856-1910)
Age at Death: 54
Relationship: Third great uncle
Parents: James Wells and Mary Hearelson
Cause of Death: Killed instantly under a fall of coal at the face of his room at the Lumaghi Coal Company's No. 2 mine.
Death Location: United States
Coal Mining: A Dangerous Occupation

Always a Cigar Maker

At our Lange Cousin Reunion last year, Aunt Katherine asked me to look into her father's family as she did not know much about them. Over several months, I traced her father's Walter family back to Nicola Walter who was born about 1720 in the Rhineland-Palatinate region of what is now Germany. He arrived in Philadelphia in 1751 but by 1779 had moved west to what is now Heidelberg in York County. Nicola and his wife, Rosana, had at least two sons: Nicola, Jr. and John Walter.

John Walter was murdered in 1797 one mile from Elk Ridge. He was a tailor and had served in the Revolutionary War. He left a wife and three children. One son, John William Walter, married twice, had several children, and lived in Emmitsburg, Maryland, where he owned a prosperous farm. One son by his second wife was Aloysius Walter. He was my aunt's great grandfather.

Aloysius Walter was born about 1848 on his parents farm in Emmitsburg where he grew up. At the age of 21 he married Flora Moselle Dorsey at the Moravian Church in Graceham, Maryland. They settled in Mechanicstown, which is now known as Thurmont, Maryland, where Aloysius worked as a carpenter.

Moravian Church in Graceham, Maryland, where Aloysius Walter and Flora
Mozelle Dorsey were married; courtesy of the church

By 1896 Aloysius had moved his family to Baltimore where they lived at 300 Parkin Street. Aloysius had left his carpentry work, too. He now worked as a cigar maker. His three oldest sons, Harry O., Charles J., and William Gunza Walter, were also cigar makers. By 1900 those three sons had married and moved out of their parent's home. Aloysius' next son, Ross Norman Walter, worked with him as a cigar maker.  Years later, at least two sons sold cigars in their shops in Baltimore and the District of Columbia.

Cigar making seemed an important part of the Walter family livelihood for at least two generations. I was curious to learn more about its history. Patricia Cooper's book, Once a Cigar Maker, described the work culture in cigar factories from about 1870 to 1900.

"Manufacturing itself underwent vast changes during the late nineteenth century...cigar manufacturing moved from the independent producer to pre-corporate forms (firms that were owned and managed by the same person) of large-scale factory production during these years... By the 1890s, several large companies in various cities had factories employing several hundred and a few employed over one thousand workers... Cigar making itself had for some time been confined to male craftsmen, but during the 1870s manufacturers began dividing the labor process and hiring women."

Cigar factory, 1892; courtesy of TampaPix

Likely Aloysius and his sons were not cigar craftsmen but rather factory workers responsible for a portion of the making of cigars. Aloysius died in 1911 but his sons who remained in the cigar business would have experienced the labor strife that began in 1917 and burst into public consciousness in 1919.

Cooper's book included a lovely quote by Jose Santana:

"We are really...more like a brotherhood...Once a cigar maker, always a cigar maker. That means that you may get away from the trade for a couple of years, but you always have in your mind the cigar makers. And if something go wrong when you are working somewhere else, you will go back to the cigar shop. They were so congenial one with the other that you enjoy... You are working for a couple of years out of the shop, at something else, and then for some reason you come back to the cigar shop they welcome you. No animosity or nothing like it. But what they used to say, once a cigar maker, always a cigar maker."

Since reading Mr. Santana's sentiments about the cigar craftsmen, I wondered it it had been lost during the industry's transformation to factory production. Probably so, and what a shame!

Richlands Brickyard

From the Town of Richlands photo tour website:

Although the coal industry was not the heart of Richlands, Richlands was certainly the heart of the coal industry. Local coal mining included operations at Big Creek, Seaboard, Hill Creek, Doran and Raven, as well as the Middle Creek and Indian Creek at Cedar Bluff, according to the Richlands New Press Centennial Edition.

Dependent on coal was the brick plant located off Kents Ridge Road. Dating to 1890 when the town had iron, ice and glass factories, the brick plant alone survived. Howard E. Steele in a news article in 1923 wrote that the brick plant was the "town's most important industry." During World War II the plant supplied 95 percent of its production to the war effort.

Richlands Brickyard Kilns; image courtesy of the Town of Richlands

In 1908 bankruptcy notices on the plant became payable. Mr. C. C. Hyatt purchased the business in 1911 and continued the plant until ill health led him to lease the plant to General Shale Corp. A. H. Kelly assumed management until his retirement in 1964. In that year production numbers listed 80,000 bricks made daily with plans of doubling that with future installation of four new kilns. Using as much as 30 tons of coal per day, the plant remained for a long time a major purchaser of coal. However, by 1973, General Shale had converted all but one of its Richlands coal-burning plants to gas operation.

In 1982 the business begun in the 1890s closed. Of the operation that once extended from the shale pits located on the east and west ends of town to the massive plant on Kent's Ridge, there remains a shopping center and a parking lot. Perhaps Civil War chaplain, Abram Joseph Ryan, said it most appropriately, "A land without ruins is a land without memories -- a land without memories is a land without history."

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'Richlands Brick Yard Kilns,' Town of Richlands
Town of Richlands, http://town.richlands.va.us/

52 Ancestors #44: New Nipper Killed in the Mine

Ancsestor Name: Ethel Marie (Hakert) Austin Taylor Key (1916-1988)

Clyde Hilton Key, my third cousin once removed, was married twice. His second wife was Ethel Marie Hakert. She had been married two times previously. Her first husband was killed and she and her second husband divorced. She had children by each of her three husbands.

Ethel Marie (Hakert) Austin Taylor Key;
photograph courtesy of Find A Grave volunteer
Dean Key

Ethel's first husband was John Franklin Austin. He was born on 29 October 1915 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to Harry F. and Mattie E. (Parker) Austin. By the time John was five years old, his parents had moved to Wyoming and his father farmed land in Johnson County. John must have gotten into a bit of trouble as a young teenager because he was listed in the 1930 census as a prisoner at the Wyoming Industrial Institute, which had been established in Worland in 1911 to house and serve young male felons.

At the age of 24, John married Ethel on 12 October 1936 in Hardin, Montana. In 1940 the couple lived in Buffalo, Wyoming, in a small house at 245 South C Street. John worked as a laborer for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Ethel worked as a cook on a ranch. Between 1940 and 1943, the couple had two children. They moved to Sheridan, Wyoming, five weeks before John was killed. John died on 30 March 1943 at the Sheridan Memorial Hospital after being involved in a fatal mining accident.

John Franklin Austin's death certificate

The Office of the State Inspector of Coal Mines in Rock Springs, Wyoming, issued a report about the accident on 2 April 1943.

Fatal Accident Involving John Austin

On 29 March 1943 at 11:30 p.m., John Austin, aged 28, married, two minor children, was fatally injured in the Monarch Coal Mine, property of the Sheridan-Wyoming Coal Company located at Monarch, Sheridan County, Wyoming.

After the injured man was taken from the mine he was removed by ambulance to the Sheridan County Memorial Hospital, where he died at 12:00 a.m. 30 March 1943 from the effects of the injuries received.

The accident occurred in the 15 West Entry just inside of the 2 North Panel Entry, where he had been employed as a Nipper or coal car brakeman, working on two motor trips alternating from one to the other as several different trips were being gathered. The coal was gathered from the 2 North Panel Entry in mine car trips. These cars were being transferred to a storage pocket, in-bye, the 2 North Panel. The motorman riding the front of the trip and the Nipper on the rear car of said mine car trip, the usual positions. At this stage of the operation after the last car had entered the main line, it was the Nipper's duty to step off the car he was riding and throw the switch so that trip or cars could be backed up into its proper position, in the clear, it was then the Nipper's duty after the trip stopped and before the motor was detached from the cars to set the brakes on the two front cars, firmly, as trip was now standing on a descending grade.

When this trip in charge of William Wondra, senior motorman, was being backed into position, he stated that he had not observed anything unusual until the motor had reached its accustomed stop, then he noticed the Nipper was not at his usual place for setting the car brakes. He saw a light further up along the trip, in-bye, and asked "What are you doing up there?" Receiving no answer, he got off the motor and walked toward the light and found the Nipper pinned between the fourth loaded car and right rib of entry and unable to speak. At the time there was no other person present, so he decided to release him at once by dropping the trip slightly down the grade. After the trip had been moved, as aforesaid, Mr. Austin fell to the floor and then Mr. Wondra went for assistance. Mr. Austin had moved in the interim, to a point near the haulage motor and talked to mine foreman, Mr. S. E. Upton, but only concerning his sufferings.

At the point on location where Austin was pinned between car and rib there was only four and one-half inches of clearance, and he was caught about his mid section in an upright position. From the front of the trip in its usual position to a point of no clearance the distance measured thirty-five feet six inches.

His body was found pinned to the rib where the clearance measured four and one-half inches at a distance of forty feet from the front end of the trip. The safe working space where clearance was ample was thus thirty-five feet and six inches. To do the work he was required to do in setting car brakes no more than twenty feet of space was need for safety and the brakes were only set after the motor trip was brought to a standstill. All the time previous to the brake setting the Nipper could and should have stood in the clear.

The only explanation that may be offered relative to the cause of this accident is the possibility that in some manner his clothing may have hooked on to the moving car, and that he was dragged back into the place he was found, against his will.

The Mine Foreman, James Cotterall, S. E. Upton, and the Motorman, William Wondra, all stated the deceased had been given full information and instructions as to his duties and the dangers connected therewith and that for two of the four shifts that Austin had been employed on this job he had had full time assistance in its performance from an experienced old Nipper. His term of employment under the Sheridan-Wyoming Coal Company in the Monarch Mine was only about four weeks, and previous to being a Nipper had been employed gathering and distributing Cardox Shells.

R. E. Gilroy
Deputy Coal Mine Inspector

After John's death, Ethel married Robert Marshall Taylor on 19 October 1944. They had one daughter before divorcing a short time later. She then married Clyde Hilton Key on 20 October 1945. Clyde was a recent widower, who lost his first wife earlier in 1945. He was left with five young children ranging in age from 12 years old to a newborn infant. Ethel and Clyde had two daughters of their own during their marriage. Clyde died on 10 May 1987 and Ethel on 8 November 1988.

How frightening it must have been for Ethel to lose her first husband and be left without a means of providing for her young children. Then, to have a failed marriage before finding a man who would take care of her family. And Clyde must have been more than a bit frightened himself to have to care for five children after the death of his first wife.

This is my entry for Amy Johnson Crow's 52 ancestors in 52 weeks challenge optional theme Frightening.

I thought there were several frightening aspects to the lives of the people I wrote about this week:

• The fear and horror John Franklin Austin must have felt when he became trapped between the car and the mine wall.
• The perhaps panicked thoughts of his wife and she had to consider how to provide provide for her children alone.
• The fright of being in the same position after her second marriage failed with a third child for which to care.
• The fear Clyde Hilton Key must have felt when he was faced with being both a mother and a father to his five young children after the death of his first wife.

West Virginia Mine Wars, 1920-21

Robert Muir's oldest daughter, Alice (Muir) Jennings (my paternal grandmother) said her father was a union organizer, who was blackballed from several mines, run out of coal towns and shot at more than once. We know his daughter, Henrietta, was born in 1920 in Tralee, West Virginia, and that he lived in Iaeger, West Virginia from at least 1936 to 1942. Was he part of the West Virginia Mine Wars of 1920-21? The following article is excerpted from the West Virginia Division of Culture and History's website.

U.S. entry into World War I in 1917 sparked a boom in the coal industry, increasing wages. However, the end of the war resulted in a national recession. Coal operators laid off miners and attempted to reduce wages to pre-war levels. In response to the 1912-13 strike, coal operators' associations in southern West Virginia had strengthened their system for combating labor. By 1919, the largest non-unionized coal region in the eastern United States consisted of Logan and Mingo counties. The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) targeted southwestern West Virginia as its top priority. The Logan Coal Operators Association paid Logan County Sheriff, Don Chafin, to keep union organizers out of the area. Chafin and his deputies harassed, beat, and arrested those suspected of participating in labor meetings. He hired a small army of additional deputies, paid directly by the association.

In late summer 1919, rumors reached Charleston of atrocities on the part of Chafin's men. On September 4, armed miners began gathering at Marmet for a march on Logan County. By the 5th, their numbers had grown to 5,000. Governor John J. Cornwell and Frank Keeney dissuaded most of the miners from marching in exchange for a governmental investigation into the alleged abuses. Approximately 1,500 of the 5,000 men marched to Danville, Boone County, before turning back. Cornwell appointed a commission whose findings did not support the union.

Fred Mooney and Frank Keeney (right); photograph courtesy of the West
Virginia State Archives, Coal Life Collection

A few months later, operators lowered wages in southern coalfields. To compound problems, the U.S. Coal Commission granted a wage increase to union miners, which excluded those in southwestern West Virginia. Non-union miners in Mingo County went on strike in the spring of 1920 and called for assistance from the District 17 office in Charleston. On May 6, Fred Mooney and Bill Blizzard, one of the leaders of the 1912-13 strike, spoke to around 3,000 miners at Matewan. Over the next two weeks, about half that number joined the UMWA. On May 19, twelve Baldwin-Felts detectives arrived in Matewan. Families of miners who had joined the union were evicted from their company-owned houses. The town's chief of police, Sid Hatfield, encouraged Matewan residents to arm themselves. Gunfire erupted when Albert and Lee Felts attempted to arrest Hatfield. At the end of the battle, seven detectives and four townspeople lay dead, including Mayor C.C. Tersterman. Shortly thereafter, Hatfield married Testerman's widow, Jessie, prompting speculation that Hatfield himself had shot the mayor.

On July 1, UMWA miners went on strike in the region. By this time, over 90 percent of Mingo County's miners had joined the union. Over the next 13 months, a virtual war existed in the county. Non-union mines were dynamited, miners' tent colonies were attacked, and there were numerous deaths on both sides of the cause. During this period, governors Cornwell and Ephraim F. Morgan declared martial law on three occasions.

In late summer 1921, a series of events destroyed the UMWA's tenuous hold in southern West Virginia. On August 1, Sid Hatfield, who had been acquitted of his actions in the "Matewan Massacre," was to stand trial for a shooting at the Mohawk coal camp in McDowell County. As he and a fellow defendant, Ed Chambers, walked up the steps of the McDowell County Courthouse in Welch, shots rang out. Hatfield and Chambers were murdered by Baldwin-Felts detectives.

As a result of the Matewan Massacre, Hatfield had become a hero to many of the miners. On August 7, a crowd varyingly estimated from 700 to 5,000 gathered on the capitol grounds in Charleston to protest the killing. Among others, UMWA's leaders Frank Keeney and Bill Blizzard urged the miners to fight. Over the next two weeks, Keeney traveled around the state, calling for a march on Logan. On August 20, miners began assembling at Marmet. Mother Jones, sensing the inevitable failure of the mission, tried to discourage the miners. At one point, she held up a telegram, supposedly from President Warren G. Harding, in which he offered to end the mine guard system and help the miners if they did not march. Keene told the miners he had checked with the White House and the telegram was a fake. To this day, it is uncertain who was lying.

On August 24, the march began as approximately 5,000 men crossed Lens Creek Mountain. The miners wore red bandanas, which earned them the nickname, "red necks." In Logan County, Don Chafin mobilized an army of deputies, mine guards, store clerks, and state police. Meanwhile after a request by Governor Morgan for federal troops, President Harding dispatched World War I hero Henry Bandholtz to Charleston to survey the situation. On the 26th, Bandholtz and the governor met with Keeney and Mooney and explained that if the march continued, the miners and the UMWA leaders could be charged with treason. That afternoon, Keeney met a majority of the miners at a ballfield in Madison and instructed them to turn back. As a result, some of the miners ended their march. However, two factors led many to continue. First, special trains promised by Keeney to transport the miners back to Kanawha County were late in arriving. Second, the state police raided a group of miners at Sharples on the night of the 27th, killing two. In response, many miners began marching toward Sharples, just across the Logan County line.

The town of Logan was protected by a natural barrier, Blair Mountain, located south of Sharples. Chafin's forces now under the command of Colonel William Eubank of the National Guard, took positions on the crest of Blair Mountain as the miners assembled in the town of Blair, near the bottom of the mountain. On the 28th, the marchers took their first prisoners, four Logan County deputies and the son of another deputy. On the evening of the 30th, Baptist minister, James E. Wilburn, organized a small armed company to support the miners. On the 31st, Wilburn's men shot and killed three of Chafin's deputies, including John Gore, the father of one of the men captured previously. During the skirmish, a deputy killed one of Wilburn's followers, Eli Kemp. Over the next three days, there was intense fighting as Eubank's troops brought in planes to drop bombs.

Battle of Blair Mountain; photograph courtesy of Wikipedia

On September 1, President Harding finally sent federal troops from Fort Thomas, Kentucky. War hero Billy Mitchell led an air squadron from Langley Field near Washington, DC. The squadron set up headquarters in a vacant field in the present Kanawha City section of Charleston. Several planes did not make it, crashing in such distant places as Nicholas county, Raleigh County, and southwestern Virginia, and military air power played no important part in the battle. On the 3rd, the first federal troops arrive at Jeffrey, Sharples, Blair, and Logan. Confronted with the possibility of fighting against U.S. troops, most of the miners surrendered. Some of the miners on Blair Mountain continued fighting until the 4th, at which time virtually all surrendered or returned to their homes. During the fighting, at least twelve miners and four men from Chafin's army were killed.

Those who surrendered were placed on trains and sent home. However, those perceived as leaders were to be held accountable for the actions of all miners. Special grand juries handed down 1,217 indictments, including 325 for murder and 24 for treason against the state. The only treason conviction was against that of Bill Blizzard, considered by authorities to the be "general" of the miners' army. In a change of venue, Blizzard's trial was held in the Jefferson County Courthouse in Charles Town, the same building in which John Brown had been convicted of treason in 1859. After several trials in different locations, all charges against Blizzard were dropped. Keene and Mooney were also acquitted of murder charges. James E. Wilburn and his son were convicted of murdering the Logan County deputies. Both were pardoned by Governor Howard Gore after serving only three years of their 11-year sentences.

The defeat of the miners at Blair Mountain temporarily ended the UMWA's organizing efforts in the southern coalfields. By 1924, UMWA membership in the state had dropped by about half of its total in 1921. Both Keeney and Mooney were forced out of the union, while Blizzard remained a strong force in District 17 until being ousted in the 1950s. In 1993, the National Industrial Recovery Act protected the rights of unions and allowed for the rapid organization of the southern coalfields.

Miners turn over their weapons after the defeat on Blair Mountain;
photograph courtesy of Preservation Alliance of West Virginia

Blair Mountain stands as a powerful symbol for workers to this day. The miners who participated vowed never to discuss the details of the march to protect themselves from the authorities. For many years, the story of the march was communicated by word of mouth as an inspiration to union activists. It serves as a vivid reminder of the deadly violence so often associated with labor-management disputes. The mine wars also demonstration the inability of the state and federal governments to defuse situations short of armed intervention.

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Occupations in a Coal Mine

52 Ancestors Week #36: Occupations in a Coal Mine

Ancestor Name: Dedicated to all my coal mining ancestors

Like his father and grandfather before him, my great grandfather, Robert Muir, was a coal miner all his working life. He worked in both subsurface, or underground, mines and drift mines. According to my grandmother, his oldest daughter, he was an organizer for the United Mine Workers (UMW) of American and was blackballed from employment by mine owners and even shot at to encourage him to leave town. He may have been involved in the bloody West Virginia Mine Wars in the early 1920s as his daughter, Henrietta Muir, was born in Tralee, West Virginia, in 1920. Tralee was a company coal town of housing and stores for miners.

Tomorrow, on Labor Day in the United States, our holiday to celebrate the American labor movement and dedicated to the social and economic achievements of workers, I will post more about the West Virginia Mine Wars of 1920-1921. Coal miners had some of the hardest labor struggles in our Nation's history. Owners employed private detectives to stop union organizing efforts, used their political influence to enact laws that were tilted in their favor. They kept miners and their families on extremely short leashes. Miners were not paid in cash; they were paid in scrip, which could only be used in company-owned stores. These stores contained few choices at exorbitant prices. Housing was provided by the owners, but the cost was taken out of their wages. In anthracite mines fields of Pennsylvania, there were only two towns where miners could own their own property.

Company-owned miner housing in Tralee, West Virginia, where my
grand aunt, Henrietta Muir, was born in 1920; from Coal Towns of West
Virginia: A Pictorial Recollection by Mary Legg Stevenson

Today, I'd like to focus on the different occupations found in coal mines. Understanding these occupations and what the were required to do helped me understand the working lives of my coal mining ancestors much better. These are descriptions of the various jobs in a coal mine from the early 1800s until the mines became more mechanized.

Banksman -- a person in charge of the cages at the pithead that transported miners down into the mine and up at the end of their shift.
Bottomer -- a person who attended to the bottom of the shaft, usually where the cage that transported workers up and down the shaft
Breaker boys -- young children who worker in the breaker, sorting and breaking coal before it was dumped in a railroad car
Brakeman -- one employed to work the machinery used to raise coal up from the mine
Brusher -- a person employed to blast the roof or floor of the mine to give it more height

Pennsylvania breaker boys, 1911; courtesy of Wikipedia

Clearer -- unskilled labor used to clear away trash and other debris
Coal carrier -- people responsible for the transport of coal
Coalcawer -- person responsible for the transport of coal
Coal hewer -- person who cuts coal from the mine walls
Coaltrimmer -- person who stores or shifts coal on barges
Collier -- a person who works in a mine; it is a general term
Coupler -- usually a boy hired to connect tubs of coal into a train
Craneman -- a strong man who worked the crane

Dook headman -- a person who tended the top of a roadway incline
Drawer -- a person, often a child, who pushes or pulls a cart full of coal using ropes or chains

Engine tender -- a person who looked after and maintained the machinery that had engines

Furnace man -- the person who tended the air ventilation furnace

Hitcher -- a person who but the trams into the cage to raise or lower them

Journeyman -- between an apprentice and a master of a trade

Lamp keeper -- the person in charge of the lamps miners used so they had light while they worked

Pit shanker or shanksman -- a person who works at a coal pit, especially sinking, repairing, or inspecting shafts
Pit sinker -- a person who works sinking mine shafts
Pitman -- a person who works at a coal mine but at the surface and not usually underground
Putter -- a man or boy employed to bring carts from the coal face to the bottom of the shaft for removal

Postcard of a pit shaft and the cage that transported miners in and out of
the mine; courtesy of delcampe.net

Trapper -- a person, often a boy, who opens and shuts gates underground for people and coal to go through

This is my entry for Amy Johnson Crow's 52 ancestors in 52 weeks challenge optional theme Working for a Living.

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Tralee, West Virginia: A Coal Camp

Wordless Wednesday -- Tralee, West Virginia: A Coal Camp

According to my grand aunt, Henrietta Muir's obituary, she was born in 1920 in Tralee, West Virginia. Tralee was a coal camp, established to house the miners who worked for the Harty Coal Company or Bakers Creek Coal Company. These mines were operated under the leadership of the John C. Sullivan, who named the town after his hometown in England. In addition to the two companies named above, Mr. Sullivan was also the general manager of the Mead-Pocahontas Coal Company, Wood-Sullivan Coal Company, and the Pickshin Coal Company.

Harty Coal Company store and office located on Barkers Creek.

Side view of the amusement hall.

Timber was cut from the land, sawed into boards, and shipped to Huntington,
West Virginia, where prefabricated houses were constructed; the wall sections
were shipped back to Tralee and constructed onsite.

Four-room hip-roof houses along the railroad tracks. The horse-drawn
wagon was the transportation of the day.

Houses along the railroad tracks and Barkers Creek.

Houses on the hillside.

All the photographs and text comes from Coal Towns of West Virginia: A Pictorial Recollection by Mary Legg Stevenson. These are the only photographs I have of where Robert Muir and his family lived in West Virginia.

Wordless Wednesday: Donk Brothers Coal Company, Troy Mine

The family of Henry and Josephine Lucretia (Hinzen) Donk came to the United States from Crefeld, Prussia (now Krefeld, Germany). They settled in Peoria, Illinois, where their children attended private schools. The elder son, August Donk, founded the coal firm, A. F. Donk & Co. in St. Louis, Missori, in 1861. August's younger, Edmund followed him to St. Louis in 1868 and joined the firm. Later, Edmund and August became partners. Edmund assumed the presidency of the company upon his brother's death in 1894. The company was incorporated under the name Donk Brothers Coal Co. It owned three mines in Madison County near Collinsville, Marysville, and Troy.

Edmund Donk died in 1914 and at some point in the 1920s the company's mines in Illinois were leased or sold. One of the descendants of William Collins (1850-1917), who was my great great grandmother's second husband sent me a photograph of the coal mine near Troy.

Abandoned Donk Brothers Coal Co. mine near Troy, Illinois; photograph
courtesy of William A. Shaffer

Many of my Riggin ancestors worked at Donk Brothers. William Collins, my great great grandmother's second husband, was killed by a fall of slate at the mine on 23 July 1917. He died at home several hours after being injured.

Excerpt from the Coal in Illinois, 1918 (page 199) which may be found on Internet
Archive

"July 23, 1917, William Collins, miner, aged 68 years, married, was killed by a fall of slate in Donk Bros. Coke and Coal Company's No. 3 mine. He leaves a widow."

Such a terse description of tragedy.

The idea for this post came from Geneabloggers.com.

Electrocuted in the Frederick Mine

James Richardson was born on 19 May 1896 at Glenlee Cottage, his parents' home in the Burnbank area of Hamilton, Scotland. He was the oldest child of Hugh and Janet (Muir) Richardson. His father was a coal miner. Hugh and Janet had three more children between 1898 and 1901.

In 1904 James' little sister, Lily Weir Richardson, died of diphtheria and septic bronchitis at the Combination Hospital in Hamilton. She had a tracheotomy before her death. Six months later, the children's mother, Janet (Muir) Richardson, died of catarrhal pneumonia, an inflammation of the lung tissue. James was nine years old when he lost his mother.

James' father, Hugh, married Marion Kilpatrick on 8 Jun 1906. She was a 35-year-old "spinster" who worked as a housekeeper. Later that same year her appearance was described as 5 feet, 2 inches tall, fair complexion, fair hair and blue eyes.

Four months after the couple married, they and Hugh's children boarded the Allan Line's S/S Parisian in Glasgow and arrived in Boston, Massachusetts on 22 October 1906. Their destination was Trinidad, Colorado, in Las Animas County. Trinidad was another coal town in a new country.

By 1910 the family was living in Segundo, Colorado. It was a company town where Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) housed its workers. Segundo is practically a ghost town today. James worked as a laborer at a coal mine and his father was a miner.

Some time before 1917 James married Jean Evelyn Clark, a Colorado native who had been born in 1897 in Crested Butte. They had two daughters in 1918 and 1919.

When James registered for the military draft on 5 June 1917 he lived in Valdez and worked as a miner for CF&I at the Frederick Mine. Valdez was another coal town the mine company built to house it's workers. At the time James and his  family lived there, it had a company store, a school and a baseball field.

On his draft registration James was described as being of medium height and build with light brown hair and blue eyes.

James Richardson; photograph courtesy of
Ancestry.com member BarbZale, James'
granddaughter and my 4th cousin, who I
discovered through AncestryDNA

James was still working at the Frederick Mine when he was electrocuted on 8 March 1921. The circumstances of his death were described in the State Inspector of Coal Mines' Nineth Annual Report:

JAMES RICHARDSON, Scotch, motorman, experience 12 years, age 24 years, married, two children, employed by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company at the Frederick mine, Las Animas county, came to his death by electrocution. Deceased was cleaning track and was in the act of changing a trolley pole when he came into contact with a live wire. The accident was unforeseen and unavoidable.

Snippet of page 55 of the Nine Annual Report of the Colorado State
Inspector of the Coal Mines, 1921

James Richardson was buried at the Masonic Cemetery in Trinidad. His widow, Jean, married again in 1924 and his father lived until 1931 having buried a wife and two children. This tragedy is but one in a long list of my ancestors who died while working in coal mines, but I found it particularly sad.

_______________
Fatal Colliery Accident
Fatal Coal Pit Accident
1877 Blantyre Explosion

1887 Blantyre Riots

During 1886 a new Scottish Miners Federation was formed with 25,000 members. The group was becoming increasingly militant and was led by William Small, secretary of the Lanarkshire Miners Union, and James Keir Hardie, the secretary of the Ayrshire Miners Union.  Many Blantyre miners attended a meeting on 7 February 1887 in Hamilton led by Mr. William Small, who defended the miners' cause and was outraged at exploitation miners endured. Later that night all holy heck erupted in Blantyre.

The miners riot in Blantyre in 1887 made news all over the country from Glasgow to Aberdeen to Edinburgh and many smaller cities and towns. The story eventually made its way to far-away Brisbane, Australia, when it was published on 31 March 1887.

Aberdeen Evening Express

Snippet from the Aberdeen Evening Express 9 February 1887;
image courtesy of the British Newspaper Archive

The "coal crisis" in Lanarkshire, caused by disputes between the miners and the coal owners, has been accompanied by deplorable results. Late on Monday night a disturbance of a very serious nature occurred in Blantyre. The riot originated in the looting of a provision shop. On information reaching Hamilton, a strong force was dispatched to the scene of excitement. So threatening at one time was the aspect of affairs that the Riot Act was read. The mob was ultimately got under control, and by three o'clock yesterday morning peace was re-established.

The miners again began to congregate yesterday forenoon, however, about the premises of Mr. James Downes, licensed grocer, and at a signal from someone the at once tore down the shutters, smashed the windows, and entered the place. Barrels of whiskey were rolled away from the shop, broken open, and the contents divided, ample evidence of which was to be found in the many drunken persons about the streets. Bags of flour also were carried away, and deposited in some place still unknown. In fact the shop was literally sacked and scarcely a single article has been left in it. The front of the shop is strewn with broken glass, paper, and miscellaneous articles, but anything worth carrying away has not been neglected. The police were entirely overpowered, but they were soon reinforced by a large number of men, under Captain M'Hardy, with whom was Mr J. C. Forrest, Honorary Sheriff-Substitute. The reinforcement did not arrive a moment too soon, for the mob had turned attention to the shop of Mr M'Farlane's shop, almost opposite. The police, amid showers of stones, scattered the crowd, and drew themselves up in front of the building. The men then retired, but the police had constantly to be on the watch lest other shops should be looted. After leaving Mr M'Farlane's who, from which a number of articles had been carried away, the mob endeavored to break into Dixon's stores, the the police were able to cope with them, and prevented any damage from being done.

Sheriff Birnie, who next arrived, at once read the Riot Act, after which the police managed to clear the streets with drawn swords. In their march they were subjected to a good deal of abuse from the men, who hooted and groaned at them and threw stones. It was deemed advisable on the part of the shopkeepers after what had transpired to keep their places of business shut the whole day. Consequently, there was not a shop open. About one o'clock a meeting of shopkeepers was held, when they to apply to the authorities for more assistance. It is believed that on account of this application, together with the serious aspect of affairs, the military in the Hamilton Barracks are ready to march to the place whenever required.

Yesterday, large crowds of peopled walked up and down the streets. They were not all inhabitants of Blantyre, as great numbers have come in from the surrounding districts. There must have been at least between 10,000 and 12,000 persons about the streets. At two o'clock the police, who were scattered about in different places, and were brought together when necessary by conveyances, received the announcement that an attack was being made upon the co-operative store in Dixon's Row. The mounted police at once proceeded to the shop, having to encounter showers of stones on the way, and found a large mob endeavoring to enter the place. With the aid of policemen on foot, who had driven up in a wagonette, the mob was driven off, but not without trouble. Missiles of every description were thrown at the guardians of the law, and a number of them received rather severe injuries. However, they managed to preserve the store intact, though the men continued to loiter about the place during the day. Two apprehensions were made. The names of the men arrested are John Fury, miner, Dixon's Row; and Wm. Lena, miner, High Blantyre.

The district was much excited and, and fears were entertained that the rioting would be resumed last night. Sheriff Birnie remained with Captain M'Hardy in Blantyre all day yesterday to be ready for any emergency. An urgent telegram was received in Glasgow from Hamilton yesterday afternoon requesting a force of about 200 constables to be sent to the scene of the riots. A hastily-convened meeting of the magistrates was at once held in Captain M'Call's room, Central Police Chambers, and orders were given for the police to be in readiness, and the force shortly afterwards started, with Captain M'Call and Lieutenant Cameron in command. In response to a communication from Chief-Constable M'Hardy, Sheriff-Principal Berry proceeded yesterday afternoon to the scene of the riot.

Between four and five o'clock yesterday afternoon considerable excitement was caused in the vicinity of Glasgow Cross by a troop of about fifty of the 4th Hussars from Maryhill Barracks, with drawn swords and complete accoutrements, passing along Trongate and thence by Gallowgate en route to Hamilton. They will be held in reserve in that town in case Sheriff Berry should find it necessary to call for their assistance in quelling further disturbances.

Another report says that the spirituous liquors were dealt round in pails, jelly jars, and, indeed, in any available vessel, to men, women, and children, while the goods where handed out and carried away in loads by the people resident locally.

Glasgow Herald

At the end of an article that appeared in the Glasgow Herald on 10 February, the following list of the men and women arrested was included:

William Aiten (31)
Michael Banner (35)
William Bannan (23)
Michael Bannon (34)
Rose Barry, wife of James Wilson
Robert Brown (23)
James Burton (27)
John Cairney (53)
Michael Connelly (32)
David Copeland (50)
Daniel Donnelly (23)
Grace Donnelly (50), wife of James Mullan
John Dorran (19)
John Doyle (27)
William Ferd (40)
Robert Ferguson
Patrick Ferns (33)
Hugh Flynn (21)
John Furrie (24)
John Hannagan (35)
John Heron (37)
Cormick Higgins (62)
John Higgins (22)
Patrick Higgins (21)
William Hunter (29)
John King (23)
Thomas Laird (34)
Edward Laughlan (30)
Patrick Lawson (33)
Catherine Lynch, wife of Owen Carrel
John M'Aulay (21)
Charles M'Callum (50)
James M'Geachie (33)
James M'Govern (19)
Peter M'Guinnes (21)
Edward M'Guire (17)
James M'Guire (50)
Patrick M'Guire (40)
Rodger M'Guire (24)
Hugh M'Mahon (18)
Isabella Mooney, wife of John Weather
James Mullan (40)
Patrick Mullan (18)
Patrick Nimmo (53)
John Rafferty (25)
Archibald Robertson (51)
James Scullion (22)
William Tonner (21)
John Weatherall (38)
Henry Wilson (25)
James Wilson (40)

I don't see any Muir ancestors on the list, but the event must have been the talk of the town for quite some time.

The Aftermath

On 17 February 1887 most of those arrested, who had been jailed in nearby Hamilton, were released without trial. Nineteen of the men remained in prison for two months and appeared at the Hamilton Sheriff Court on 9 April. Most of them were charged with breach of the peace and rioting. The sentence was 60 days confinement, which had already been served; so the men were released.

Vice President, Double Envelope Corporation

My Beard line, the ancestors of my great grandmother, Effie Davis Beard, used to be a brick wall until AncestryDNA testing helped me trace much of the family back to Adam Beard (1725-1777), who was the father of at least two Revolutionary War patriots.

Recently, I reached out to another Ancestry.com member who had a photograph of my great great grandfather's headstone on her tree. I wanted to know the name of the cemetery and how we might be related. She turned out to be a wonderful researcher, who had collected a trove of original documents about the family. She also provided the clues I needed to trace my great great grand uncle, Charles Edward Beard's daughter, Elmira Lorena Beard. She married Edmund Lowry Sublette on 21 March 1888 in Bedford County, Virginia. Together they had six children: Reyborn Roy "Pete," Carrie, Lounell "Nell," Mamie, Elizabeth Virginia, and Christine Sublette.

By 1900 the family had moved to Roanoke, Virginia, Edmund died in 1919 and his wife in 1938. By the time of her death, her oldest son, Reyborn, was vice president of Double Envelope Corporation.

According to the company's website, it was founded in 1917 and has always been a leading manufacturer of envelopes in the southeast U.S. Its assets were acquired in 2001 by BSC Ventures, a custom envelope manufacturer and web and off-set printer. The company is headquartered in Roanoke.

Reyborn Roy "Pete" Sublette was born on 21 March 1891 in Roanoke. On 5 June 1917, when he registered for the World War I draft, he was a clerk at the Norfolk & Western Railroad and had a wife, named Annie Mary Jones, and child. By 1920 he was the railroad's auditor of receipts. By 1922 he was vice president of the envelope company.  The family lived in progressively nicer houses until 1941 when they were listed as living at 20 Oakwood Drive, Roanoke.

20 Oakwood Drive, SW, Roanoke; photograph from Google Maps Street View

Reyburn's son, Reyborn Francise Sublette, also worked at Double Envelope Corporation by 1950 and retired from the company as an executive vice president in 1984. Many of the Sublette family's descendants are still living in Roanoke today.

***

I must admit to being a little disappointed with the Double Envelope Corporation. Their website included very little about their company history and I tried writing to every email address listed. Each message bounced back as undeliverable. So I went searching for the history of the envelope...well, wouldn't you do the same?

I highly recommend The History of the Envelope by Maynard H. Benjamin.

AncestryDNA and Finding a New Cousin

Black Diamonds Go to Market

I have been doing my biennial Dagutis research, looking for anything new I can find about my husband's paternal grandparents and their children. I've run into a lot of brick walls over the years, but new information is always being added to the Internet and I make slow but steady progress.

My husband's aunt, Anna Dagutis, married Joseph Genevich and they had two children: Dorothy and Elgert. Dorothy Genevich and Olin MacDormott, of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, applied for a marriage license in 1957 and that is literally all I know.  I believe Olin's parents were Olin and Vera (Yaple) MacDormott, who were also parents of a daughter, Mildred Hope MacDormott.

Mildred was senior at Coughlin High School in Wilkes-Barre in 1937. The school yearbook, The Breidlin, is a very interesting read and included the following article, which I found fascinating being the coal buff that I am.

Coughlin High School in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania;
photograph courtesy of Coughlin High School

Black Diamonds Go to Market

"Buy, burn, and boost anthracite!" is the slogan of the new Chamber of Commerce campaign to put the local coal industry back on its feet. Mr. Ashton Smith spoke to the school on the need of recovering markets on Friday, October 9.

Mr. Smith explained that 75% of all the business of this valley are dependent on the coal industry. He recalled the days when this region was noted for its wealth, but declared that, during the strikes, consumers had turned to other fuels and since have not returned to anthracite.

Anthracite coal on the way to market; photograph courtesy of
Coughlin High School

The Chamber of Commerce requested Miss Marion Sturdevant, supervisor of English in the city, to have students write letters on the superiority of anthracite as a fuel. This was done, and the letters sent to high school students in New England."

1937 was the height of the Depression, but I still find it interesting that coal was such a part of the fabric of life in northeastern Pennsylvania that high school students were enlisted in economic development projects.

Uncle Joe Was Married Before!

Fatal Colliery Accident

Andrew Cairns Muir was the adopted son of my first cousin three times removed, Nathaniel Muir and his wife, Ann "Annie" Hutton. Adnrew's birth parents were Andrew and Elizabeth (Cameron) Cairns. He was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on 2 March 1902.

When the 1911 census was enumerated, he was living with his adopted parents at 44 High Street, Bathgate. He became a coal miner like his adopted father and married Isabella Henry Adams on 31 December 1926 at the church manse in Bathgate. Andrew and Isabella had two daughters in 1932 and 1935.

Snippet from the Register of Corrected Entries regarding
Andrew Cairns Muir's death; personal collection

About 5:00 a.m. on 24 November 1936, Andrew was working at Easton Colliery when a "quantity of material fell from the roof of his working place upon him. He died of asphyxia. The jury at the inquest into his death ruled it accidental according to the Register of Corrected Entries filed at the parish registrar's office on 5 January 1937. He was buried at Bathgate Cemetery. He was 34 years old at the time of his death.

Nathaniel and Annie (Hutton) Muir memori monument;
photo courtesy BillionGraves.com

The inscription reads:

Created by Nathaniel and Annie Muir in loving memory of their sons
Nathaniel who died 19th March 1908 aged 13 years
Andrew husband of Isabella Adams accidentally killed 24th Nov 1936 aged 44 years
Annie Hutton Muir died 24th Nov 1935 aged 63 years
Also the above Isabelle Adams died 18th Jul 1984 aged 81 years

Fatal Coal Pit Accident

William Brown Shaw was born on 5 Jun 1866 in Lesmahagow, Scotland, at his grandparent's home. He was the illegitimate son of Mary Watson Shaw (about 1846-1918), the second wife of my great great grand uncle, Robert Orr Muir. No father was identified when William's birth was registered by his grandfather.

Robert Orr Muir married William's mother on 23 June 1871 and the blended family included Robert's three living children from his first marriage to Jane Paton Loudon, his new wife, Mary Watson Shaw, William, and William's half-sister, Margaret McNeil Shaw, also illegitimate. Robert and Mary produced nine of their own children between 1872 and 1887.

In 1878, at the age of 12, William followed his step-father Robert into the coal mines. He worked at the Auchlochan Mine near Coalburn. On 5 October 1878, William was ascending shaft of the No. 2 pit, known as "Major Pit;" when he fell out of the cage, used to raise and lower the miners; and sustained fatal injuries. He survived 18 hours after the accident but died the next day at the home of his mother and step-father.

From the Register of Corrected Entries for William Brown Shaw's
death registration; source ScotlandsPeople

His step-father registered his death with the parish office on 7 October. He provided "Andrew Brown, farmer (reputed father)" to the registrar -- the first and only time a possible father was mentioned in records. Prior to her marriage, Mary Shaw worked as a domestic servant at the 270-acre Auchenheath Farm, owned by William Braxter. He employed several domestic and farm servants and I have often wondered if that is where she met William's father.

The Rocks that Fueled the Industrial Revolution

I have so many ancestors who were coal miners that I've become a bit of a coal buff. The first thing my husband told me about coal was that anthracite was best. Of course it was! That's what Adam Dagutis, his grandfather, mined in Pennsylvania so he would certainly think so. Sure, I scoffed; coal is coal. Not so and my husband was right. Anthracite coal was called "king coal" and commanded the highest prices because it burned cleanly. It has the highest carbon content and is black and shiny.

Anthracite coal; photograph courtesy of AmazonSupply

Here is my coal miner sculpture carved from anthracite purchased from the Anthracite Heritage Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvana in 2009:

Personal collection

The most plentiful coal in the U.S. is bituminous coal. It is used primarily to generate electricity and make coke for the steel industry. There is also a sub-bituminous coal, which produces less heat and is found mostly in the western U.S. and Alaska. Most of my Muir ancestors mined bituminous coal.

Bituminous coal photograph courtesy of Volunteer State Community College

Lignite coal is geologically young coal and has the lowest carbon content. It's sometimes called brown coal and can also be used for electric power generation.

Lignite "brown" coal; photograph courtesy of Colorado Geological Survey

A map of the U.S. coal seams is almost a map of where my ancestors lived. 

Coal bearing areas of the U.S.; image courtesy of Clean-Energy.us

Learning about coal and coal mining helped me understand the lives my coal mining ancestors lived and what their daily lives entailed. My husband and I even took a coal mining vacation in 2009 and are planning on driving the National Coal Heritage Trail in West Virginia.  I can't wait.

Mining Coal in Appanoose County

I first found my wayward great great grandfather in Iowa in the 1900 federal census for Appanoose County, Iowa. He claimed he was divorced, had been in the U.S. since 1888 and was a naturalized citizen. I learned from the 1915 Iowa state census, he had been in Iowa 20 years. During the time he lived in Iowa, he lived in Mystic in the Walnut Creek valley area of the county, which Wikipedia describes as "one continuous mining camp." The Mystic coal seam was exposed on the surface and drifts were opened and abandoned so often the area looked like a honeycomb by the time James Muir arrived. It didn't surprise me to discover him near coal beds for he had been a miner all his life, like his father before him and his son after him.

Townships in Appanoose County. Mystic in is Walnut Township

From the History of Appanoose County, Iowa, published in 1878 by the Western Historical Publishing Company:

The first coal shaft ever sunk in Appanoose County, Iowa, was by B F Kindig, who found the coal bed about sixteen feet below the limestone rock which crops out in the vicinity. This was in 1863 or 1864; but coal had been known to exist in the county long before for it crops out in several places along Shoal Creek and its tributaries, and had been mined for several years for local uses.

At the mine of the Appanoose Coal Company, the coal is mined in rooms, which are 40 feet wide and are run back to a distance of 250 feet, when a room worked from the opposite direction is reached. A body of coal sixteen feet in width is left between each room and is termed a pillar. Each room is operated by two men, who mine the coal, load it on the cars and deliver it at the bottom of the shaft, where it is received and hoisted, together with the car, by steam power, to the top of the shaft, and then emptied into railway cars waiting to receive it. The coal, which is about four feet in thickness, lies 120 feet below the surface. The car-tracks on the bottom of the mine are made of light-weight T rails.

Diagram to explain room and pillar mining from Coal Mining by T C Cantrill, 1914

The price to miners at Watson Mine is now $0.03-1/2 a bushel, which is the price paid at most of the mines. It is stated that miners can dig from 55 to 80 bushels a day.