Coal Miners Memorial of Forest City
Forest City, Pennsylvania: Northern Gateway to the Anthracite
A Rotary Club Memorial to Anthracite Coal Miners and Their Families
“Our Coal Miners and their Family Life Remembered"
By Bill Feddock
On the very left side of the Miners Memorial Stands a wood-turned porch post typical of the homes in early Forest City Country. At the top can be seen the wood "gingerbread" style post and roof comer support, and below, the porch railing. St. John's Church and rectory erected in 1879 are on the far left at the beginning of the bronze sculpture.
On the porch stands a young woman dressed in the typical attire of early coal mining families - dark colored woolen and cotton garments and the ever present babushka. Her countenance reflects the hardships of their times. Very likely, the eldest of the coal miner's daughters.
In the foreground, the miner's wife with a knob in her pushed-back hair, is scrubbing the back of her miner husband as he kneels over the old wooden washtub, modestly with his dirty work pants still on, elbows and arms buried in the hot water which is already turned black, his hands rubbing hard to loosen the coal and rock dust from his hair, face, and head. His wife is using a common floor scrubbing brush and Fels-Naptha yellow laundry soap, the only combination known to remove the coal and rock dust grime embedded in his skin.
Even then, it took two or three scrubbings to come clean. The bathwater was now black as coal. When the tired miner raised up and dried off, the edges of his eyes still carried the almost frightening black rings. And this tough assignment became a daily ritual.
Above and beyond the skyline of Forest City, you would find Lake Erie, the impounded water supply for the breaker and colliery steam power.
You can clearly distinguish the double twin towers of St. Anthony's Lithuanian Church erected in 1894 (the first church burned to the ground). Missing in the sculpture is the huge round cylindrical water tower with the weathervane on top. It was located just to the right of St. Anthony's towers until it was no longer needed and was discarded in 1992.
Just above the area of the porch railing would be Delaware Street joining up with Maxey Street Hill. Frequently, the Black Mariah, or the sometimes called black wagon, left the garage of the coal yard office below Main Street headed for No. 2 Shaft. This wagon was an early vintage small truck totally black and with a black roof and drop sides. A weary and ominous looking vehicle. When the wagon went over Delaware Street with a small bell ringing a thin II ding-ding, ding-ding, all of the families along the way sighed sadly in great apprehension wondering, is it our Mike or Joe or John or David? The ringing bell signified that someone was badly injured at the mines. You continued hearing the ding-ding as it went up Maxey St. hill and on to Hudson St. and south over to No. 2.
Communications at that time were very slow. It often took several hours before the sad details were known. At other times, the black wagon made the same trip, only this time a little slower and quietly, no dinging bell. Terror set in and tears welled in the eyes of many and hearts dropped, for this signified some unfortunate family would have a dead father or son or brother or uncle delivered to their doorstep. Those were heartrending days in Forest City Country where the church bells chimed slowly and in memoriam daily.
All through that background is Forest City. At the foot of Dundaff Hill is the Methodist Church and parish house erected in 1886.
Two blocks further up the hill is the all brick Polish Sacred Heart Church erected in 1905.
On the right side of Dundaff Hill is Christ Episcopal Church erected in 1891. Opposite is St. Michael's Church established in 1913.
Up Dundaff Street, opposite to Sacred Heart Church, now the site of the American Legion hall, is Forest City's old No. 1 School.
Next to St. Michael's on Delaware Street is St. Agnes (Irish) Church erected in 1888. I once asked Father Leo Craig why St. Agnes Church tower was the only church without a bell. Father replied, "The Irish know well when to come to church. They need no bell to remind them."
A little further over Delaware Street but still in the 700 block, is the all-brick St. Joseph's Slovenian Church and parish house erected in 1904. The Slovenian miners and laborers were acknowledged to be the hardest and most willing workers. They worked the most dangerous places and jobs. As children it was common for us, upon so frequently hearing the tolling of St. Joseph's Church bell for the dead which is so easily recognizable, one would be heard to say, "Another Slovenian miner gone."
Scattered throughout the background are a number of miner's homes, pine and maple trees.
Hidden throughout the scene are 32 beer joints where gambling and fist fights ensued regularly, hence one became known as the Bucket of Blood. Most every miner visited one or more joints after each shift in the mines. His favorite drink was whiskey, a beer and Horke Vino. Upon drinking that combination, it induced a hard-grinding coughing spell. The miner was then able to spit out some of the coal dust lodged in his lungs. Sadly, nothing worked for rock dust in the lungs. The miner eventually became doomed to contract miners asthma, from which he invariably died in later years. Hence, the "Miners Black Lung Federal Program" to aid the miner, his widow and family financially.
Just between this town scene and in front of the lokie you can see the small figure of a tired miner carrying his empty pail and heading for home.
I will always remember running with my brother to meet our Dad as he neared the fenced-in yard of our house. (Every yard and property at that time was entirely fenced in. Some to keep the kids in, but mostly to keep trouble out.)
We ran to meet him because he made it a habit to leave something in his dinner pail to bring back home. A Ward's cake, a chocolate Tasty-Kake, a crimpet, half a baloney sandwich, a piece of hard kielbassi, a banana, a little tea, and the like. Nothing ever tasted better to hungry kids than food that spent all day in the mines. It took on a very special flavor that everyone soon learned to enjoy. The miners would deliberately carry extra to share with the family later. All smokers would recruit miners to carry packs or cartons of cigarettes into the mine and leave them hidden there for several days. They claimed there was never a better flavored smoke.
The smaller size first coal miner's head depicts the oldest miner. He is wearing a cloth miner's cap with a simple tin oil lamp hooked to it. The wick, about an inch thick, protruded from its slanted spout. When the miner was about to enter the mines, he lit the wick which flamed erratically with the slightest movement of air. The light given off was like a flaming stick of wood at best. Miners and laborers working at the mine face were an eerie bunch. The fumes of burning oil saturated the small working space adding to the miner's discomfort. The shadows were grotesque. I cannot imagine working 8 to 12 hours per day under such conditions, let alone that you could not even see. To me those are frightening thoughts. How they had the courage to go forth and how they survived it is beyond my comprehension!
The working light improved immensely about 1935 as the next miner's face shows him with the most modern hard hat helmet and electric light attached. You can see the cable across his helmet which then runs down his back to his side connected to a battery power supply attached to his belt on his hip.
Next you see the famous Lokie pulling a load of coal in the wooden, iron-reinforced small coal cars holding 4-5 tons.
Sculptured just above the Lokie is the Hillside Coal Company breaker and trestle. At the very top of the trestle where the cars were pulled up by cable one by one to be unloaded, there was a tiny office the size of a telephone booth. That is where my grandfather, Joseph J. Julius Sr. worked. It was his duty to remove and record the numbered brass tag that was nailed to each full car of coal by the miner who loaded it. He would then inspect the loaded car for quality. Good quality coal and a car well topped and loaded brought top dollar to the miner. Cars poorly loaded and with large amounts of bony coal, dirt or rock were docked, the miner paid less. This earned Joe the title of Docking Boss. He was well liked and respected by the miners for his honest and fair judgment and retained the Docking Boss job until he retired.
Just below the breaker you see the D&H railroad track and rail car loading station in and out. From there the loaded railroad cars carrying quality sized and heaped loaded coal were shipped to market. Pea, walnut, and chestnut were the most popular sizes.
You can see the ticket shanty just beside the breaker. This is where the numbered brass tags from each car of coal were hung on a nail at the end of each shift. It had a locked glass door on the front so the miner could go there anytime to figure out his approximate pay for the week. Many is the evening my father walked me and my brother down to the ticket shanty to check his number- 457.
Above all this you see another head of a miner in the early 1930s wearing an early type of safety hard hat with curly edges, and a carbide lamp.
And then the main feature of the bronze memorial, Big Mike, wearing an early brown canvas cap with a thick leather peak and back plate to hold his carbide lamp. Note his courageous, determined, rugged face, a typical mustache of the time, wearing a miner's wool coat and showing a powerful hard fist gripping a very sharp coal digging pick. God bless all of the Big Mike's and John's in the coal mining industry.
Just below you see six breaker boys picking slate from the moving coal in the chutes. The boys depicted range in age from 9 to 16 years of age.
Then you see the large coal chutes carrying the coal in the breaker to be screened and sorted.
Above you see a rested miner coming on shift with a full dinner pail and also carrying a modem coal-gas detecting lamp at his shoulder.
Not shown, but in the early days, one of the miners per crew carried a small wooden cage with a handle. Inside the little cage was some water, bird seed, and a live yellow canary. This was the early coal-gas detection bird. As long as the canary sang and hopped around, all was well. If the miner no longer heard the bird sing or saw the canary collapse, the mining crew quickly left the chamber. They knew it was filled with what was frightfully known as Black Damp, no oxygen in the air and a sure killer.
All through and above you can see the mine shaft well timbered behind and over the miner.
Just below the in-coming miner's feet you see a mine rat, the coal-miner's pet. No one ever would harm or kill a mine rat. Instead, they fed them part of their lunch and allowed them to clamber all over the place. Why? Well, when the miner saw the rats scrambling out of the work place and squeaking loudly, they knew that the rats were going to safety and a mine squeeze or caving-in of the timbers was imminent. The miners rushed to retreat to safety right along with the rats.
Next is a coal miner "topping" a car of fresh loaded coal with clean chunks. A good loaded car brought top dollar pay.
Just below are two more breaker boys working the chutes.
Note the construction of the very rugged coal car and front end loading gate. You see a laborer putting a hardwood pointed sprag into the spoke of the iron car wheel to act as a brake to hold the car in place on the slope and not let it run downgrade. (Many injuries came about this way.) This spragged car also aided the mule to hold back on the moving loaded or unloaded cars more easily.
The coal chute above the coal car is being filled by the tiny figure (known as the tommy knocker) of the miner up the shaft scooching down in a very tight chamber probably· no more than three feet high. Many were lower than that, where the miner could barely swing the shovel or pick sideways. The miner is a long way up the face with a rock and slate pillar behind him to hold up the roof
A fully harnessed mule is straining in place with all his might to hold the coal car until the mule boy instructs him to pull the car down the plane on the track. Mules were very important work mates of the miners. Many generations of mules were born, lived, worked and died in the mines without ever having seen daylight. But that is a whole other story.
My father was renowned for being the best "Blaster" or dynamiter in the colliery. He developed a technique that he knew exactly where to place the dynamite charges to blast out perfectly square openings as the mine face advanced. Even after retiring from the mines, he did a number of dynamiting jobs, including tree stumps, old walls and rock foundations, and wells for the public at large. He did some wells so deep that he said when he looked up from the bottom during broad daylight, he could see the start.
William "Watts" Feddock (my father) and Peter Lavenduski were the last two salaried underground coalminers to operate in Forest City. They worked until they closed the last shaft for the Volpe Coal Company at No. 2 in 1935-36.
As the miners left the mines, they would spill and tap out the used-up carbide from their lamps, and always at the same spot or stump. It seems I can still hear the large mound of old carbide hissing when it rains and I can smell its peculiar pungency.
On the porch stands a young woman dressed in the typical attire of early coal mining families - dark colored woolen and cotton garments and the ever present babushka. Her countenance reflects the hardships of their times. Very likely, the eldest of the coal miner's daughters.
In the foreground, the miner's wife with a knob in her pushed-back hair, is scrubbing the back of her miner husband as he kneels over the old wooden washtub, modestly with his dirty work pants still on, elbows and arms buried in the hot water which is already turned black, his hands rubbing hard to loosen the coal and rock dust from his hair, face, and head. His wife is using a common floor scrubbing brush and Fels-Naptha yellow laundry soap, the only combination known to remove the coal and rock dust grime embedded in his skin.
Even then, it took two or three scrubbings to come clean. The bathwater was now black as coal. When the tired miner raised up and dried off, the edges of his eyes still carried the almost frightening black rings. And this tough assignment became a daily ritual.
Above and beyond the skyline of Forest City, you would find Lake Erie, the impounded water supply for the breaker and colliery steam power.
You can clearly distinguish the double twin towers of St. Anthony's Lithuanian Church erected in 1894 (the first church burned to the ground). Missing in the sculpture is the huge round cylindrical water tower with the weathervane on top. It was located just to the right of St. Anthony's towers until it was no longer needed and was discarded in 1992.
Just above the area of the porch railing would be Delaware Street joining up with Maxey Street Hill. Frequently, the Black Mariah, or the sometimes called black wagon, left the garage of the coal yard office below Main Street headed for No. 2 Shaft. This wagon was an early vintage small truck totally black and with a black roof and drop sides. A weary and ominous looking vehicle. When the wagon went over Delaware Street with a small bell ringing a thin II ding-ding, ding-ding, all of the families along the way sighed sadly in great apprehension wondering, is it our Mike or Joe or John or David? The ringing bell signified that someone was badly injured at the mines. You continued hearing the ding-ding as it went up Maxey St. hill and on to Hudson St. and south over to No. 2.
Communications at that time were very slow. It often took several hours before the sad details were known. At other times, the black wagon made the same trip, only this time a little slower and quietly, no dinging bell. Terror set in and tears welled in the eyes of many and hearts dropped, for this signified some unfortunate family would have a dead father or son or brother or uncle delivered to their doorstep. Those were heartrending days in Forest City Country where the church bells chimed slowly and in memoriam daily.
All through that background is Forest City. At the foot of Dundaff Hill is the Methodist Church and parish house erected in 1886.
Two blocks further up the hill is the all brick Polish Sacred Heart Church erected in 1905.
On the right side of Dundaff Hill is Christ Episcopal Church erected in 1891. Opposite is St. Michael's Church established in 1913.
Up Dundaff Street, opposite to Sacred Heart Church, now the site of the American Legion hall, is Forest City's old No. 1 School.
Next to St. Michael's on Delaware Street is St. Agnes (Irish) Church erected in 1888. I once asked Father Leo Craig why St. Agnes Church tower was the only church without a bell. Father replied, "The Irish know well when to come to church. They need no bell to remind them."
A little further over Delaware Street but still in the 700 block, is the all-brick St. Joseph's Slovenian Church and parish house erected in 1904. The Slovenian miners and laborers were acknowledged to be the hardest and most willing workers. They worked the most dangerous places and jobs. As children it was common for us, upon so frequently hearing the tolling of St. Joseph's Church bell for the dead which is so easily recognizable, one would be heard to say, "Another Slovenian miner gone."
Scattered throughout the background are a number of miner's homes, pine and maple trees.
Hidden throughout the scene are 32 beer joints where gambling and fist fights ensued regularly, hence one became known as the Bucket of Blood. Most every miner visited one or more joints after each shift in the mines. His favorite drink was whiskey, a beer and Horke Vino. Upon drinking that combination, it induced a hard-grinding coughing spell. The miner was then able to spit out some of the coal dust lodged in his lungs. Sadly, nothing worked for rock dust in the lungs. The miner eventually became doomed to contract miners asthma, from which he invariably died in later years. Hence, the "Miners Black Lung Federal Program" to aid the miner, his widow and family financially.
Just between this town scene and in front of the lokie you can see the small figure of a tired miner carrying his empty pail and heading for home.
I will always remember running with my brother to meet our Dad as he neared the fenced-in yard of our house. (Every yard and property at that time was entirely fenced in. Some to keep the kids in, but mostly to keep trouble out.)
We ran to meet him because he made it a habit to leave something in his dinner pail to bring back home. A Ward's cake, a chocolate Tasty-Kake, a crimpet, half a baloney sandwich, a piece of hard kielbassi, a banana, a little tea, and the like. Nothing ever tasted better to hungry kids than food that spent all day in the mines. It took on a very special flavor that everyone soon learned to enjoy. The miners would deliberately carry extra to share with the family later. All smokers would recruit miners to carry packs or cartons of cigarettes into the mine and leave them hidden there for several days. They claimed there was never a better flavored smoke.
The smaller size first coal miner's head depicts the oldest miner. He is wearing a cloth miner's cap with a simple tin oil lamp hooked to it. The wick, about an inch thick, protruded from its slanted spout. When the miner was about to enter the mines, he lit the wick which flamed erratically with the slightest movement of air. The light given off was like a flaming stick of wood at best. Miners and laborers working at the mine face were an eerie bunch. The fumes of burning oil saturated the small working space adding to the miner's discomfort. The shadows were grotesque. I cannot imagine working 8 to 12 hours per day under such conditions, let alone that you could not even see. To me those are frightening thoughts. How they had the courage to go forth and how they survived it is beyond my comprehension!
The working light improved immensely about 1935 as the next miner's face shows him with the most modern hard hat helmet and electric light attached. You can see the cable across his helmet which then runs down his back to his side connected to a battery power supply attached to his belt on his hip.
Next you see the famous Lokie pulling a load of coal in the wooden, iron-reinforced small coal cars holding 4-5 tons.
Sculptured just above the Lokie is the Hillside Coal Company breaker and trestle. At the very top of the trestle where the cars were pulled up by cable one by one to be unloaded, there was a tiny office the size of a telephone booth. That is where my grandfather, Joseph J. Julius Sr. worked. It was his duty to remove and record the numbered brass tag that was nailed to each full car of coal by the miner who loaded it. He would then inspect the loaded car for quality. Good quality coal and a car well topped and loaded brought top dollar to the miner. Cars poorly loaded and with large amounts of bony coal, dirt or rock were docked, the miner paid less. This earned Joe the title of Docking Boss. He was well liked and respected by the miners for his honest and fair judgment and retained the Docking Boss job until he retired.
Just below the breaker you see the D&H railroad track and rail car loading station in and out. From there the loaded railroad cars carrying quality sized and heaped loaded coal were shipped to market. Pea, walnut, and chestnut were the most popular sizes.
You can see the ticket shanty just beside the breaker. This is where the numbered brass tags from each car of coal were hung on a nail at the end of each shift. It had a locked glass door on the front so the miner could go there anytime to figure out his approximate pay for the week. Many is the evening my father walked me and my brother down to the ticket shanty to check his number- 457.
Above all this you see another head of a miner in the early 1930s wearing an early type of safety hard hat with curly edges, and a carbide lamp.
And then the main feature of the bronze memorial, Big Mike, wearing an early brown canvas cap with a thick leather peak and back plate to hold his carbide lamp. Note his courageous, determined, rugged face, a typical mustache of the time, wearing a miner's wool coat and showing a powerful hard fist gripping a very sharp coal digging pick. God bless all of the Big Mike's and John's in the coal mining industry.
Just below you see six breaker boys picking slate from the moving coal in the chutes. The boys depicted range in age from 9 to 16 years of age.
Then you see the large coal chutes carrying the coal in the breaker to be screened and sorted.
Above you see a rested miner coming on shift with a full dinner pail and also carrying a modem coal-gas detecting lamp at his shoulder.
Not shown, but in the early days, one of the miners per crew carried a small wooden cage with a handle. Inside the little cage was some water, bird seed, and a live yellow canary. This was the early coal-gas detection bird. As long as the canary sang and hopped around, all was well. If the miner no longer heard the bird sing or saw the canary collapse, the mining crew quickly left the chamber. They knew it was filled with what was frightfully known as Black Damp, no oxygen in the air and a sure killer.
All through and above you can see the mine shaft well timbered behind and over the miner.
Just below the in-coming miner's feet you see a mine rat, the coal-miner's pet. No one ever would harm or kill a mine rat. Instead, they fed them part of their lunch and allowed them to clamber all over the place. Why? Well, when the miner saw the rats scrambling out of the work place and squeaking loudly, they knew that the rats were going to safety and a mine squeeze or caving-in of the timbers was imminent. The miners rushed to retreat to safety right along with the rats.
Next is a coal miner "topping" a car of fresh loaded coal with clean chunks. A good loaded car brought top dollar pay.
Just below are two more breaker boys working the chutes.
Note the construction of the very rugged coal car and front end loading gate. You see a laborer putting a hardwood pointed sprag into the spoke of the iron car wheel to act as a brake to hold the car in place on the slope and not let it run downgrade. (Many injuries came about this way.) This spragged car also aided the mule to hold back on the moving loaded or unloaded cars more easily.
The coal chute above the coal car is being filled by the tiny figure (known as the tommy knocker) of the miner up the shaft scooching down in a very tight chamber probably· no more than three feet high. Many were lower than that, where the miner could barely swing the shovel or pick sideways. The miner is a long way up the face with a rock and slate pillar behind him to hold up the roof
A fully harnessed mule is straining in place with all his might to hold the coal car until the mule boy instructs him to pull the car down the plane on the track. Mules were very important work mates of the miners. Many generations of mules were born, lived, worked and died in the mines without ever having seen daylight. But that is a whole other story.
My father was renowned for being the best "Blaster" or dynamiter in the colliery. He developed a technique that he knew exactly where to place the dynamite charges to blast out perfectly square openings as the mine face advanced. Even after retiring from the mines, he did a number of dynamiting jobs, including tree stumps, old walls and rock foundations, and wells for the public at large. He did some wells so deep that he said when he looked up from the bottom during broad daylight, he could see the start.
William "Watts" Feddock (my father) and Peter Lavenduski were the last two salaried underground coalminers to operate in Forest City. They worked until they closed the last shaft for the Volpe Coal Company at No. 2 in 1935-36.
As the miners left the mines, they would spill and tap out the used-up carbide from their lamps, and always at the same spot or stump. It seems I can still hear the large mound of old carbide hissing when it rains and I can smell its peculiar pungency.