Coroner's Inquest
1903 Explosion of Union Pacific Coal Company's Number One Mine in Hanna, Carbon, Wyoming
The State of Wyoming.)
: -ss.
County of Carbon. )
Before H. K. BENNETT,
Coroner of said county.
IN THE MATTER OF THE INQUEST CONCERNING THE DEATH of the men killed in Hanna Mine No. 1, whose names are listed and subjoined.
Monday, August Third, 1903, 2 o’clock P.M.
The following jury having been empanelled and sworn,
Joseph Widdowfield,
Jonathan Veitch
Wm. Davis,
The following proceedings were had, to-wit:-
W. H. JEFFRIES, being first duly sworn testifies as follows:
(Examined by the Coroner)
Q. What is your occupation, Mr. Jeffries?
A. Coal Miner.
Q. Where were you the morning of the explosion.
A. In number one mine.
Q. Please state to the jury all you know as to how, when and by what means these bodies came to their death?
A. I was working on eleven entry - on eleven entry between number six and number seven rooms, brushing; as near as I can get at it, it was about half past ten. There was five of us sitting at the mouth of this room laughing and talking and here came a gust of wind and dust and I lays down, and then follows - and then I sees fire follows. And then my butty called me and I did not answer him, and after the second gush came along, then I gets up and asks Tom Banks to give me a light, he says what’s this, I says an explosion, let’s get out as quick as we can. He says what shall we do with the tools and I says, leave them there. He goes into the room and gets his coat and cap and starts out. When we got up to the foot of the plane in eleven entry the after damp overtakes us. I started up the plane but I don’t know how I got up.
Q. What was the cause of this explosion and these men’s death?
A. I can’t tell.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. How long have you been working in the mine, Mr. Jeffries?
A. I came here the twenty-second day of October, Eighteen ninety-eight.
Q. Been digging coal all the time?
A. Every since I've been here - only three months I spent in Alabama year before last.
Q. Did you work any further down than that?
A. I worked as low down as sixteen - as low down as eighteen in the air course in eighteen ninety-nine.
Q. Did you ever see any gas in the mine at any time?
A. I set it off one day, I run like the devil and it burned my shirt.
Q. Did it burn your shirt?
A. Yes, I run. It put my light out, knocked my light off my head at least. Of course I had no business to run---I never gave it a thought, just run.
Q. Was that the only time you ever saw gas there?
A. No, sir; we tried to shoot lots of holes there and the gas wouldn't let us shoot them. The gas just come out of the barrel. We had to go out and get gas squibs to shoot them with.
Q. You always had plenty of air in the rooms where you was working?
A. No, sir.
Q. You didn't?
A. No, sir. I couldn't say so, because I have worked in rooms when I and my butty had four lamps and then we had to crawl into the next room to get a lamp, all four went out.
(By Dr. Davis)
Q. Was any brattice used to get the air to the face?
A. In some places it was used. Where I was working lots of the time no brattice was used.
Q. About how far ahead of the air was you?
A. I was working away up to the face at my room at the fourth cross cut if I am not mistaken; yes we got to the fourth cross cut.
Q. About fifty yards apart probably?
A. I don’t know exactly what the distance is.
Q. Was any of them stopped off, any of them built up behind you.
A. They claimed some of them were stopped. He gave my butty some nails and told him to nail a brattice up. He told him that wasn't his work and he laid the nails down and went on working, and the nails are there today, I guess.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Did the fire boss ever come around and tell you there was gas in the place at the time you claim you set fire to it?
A. Yes, in those places, yes, sir.
Q. He told you gas was there?
A. Yes, sir; he told me the gas was there.
Q. And he told you not to go into the places until he came down?
A. Let me know in the morning when I would go to work. He would tell me not to go to work until he came down and then I would go down and sit on the entry slope until he came down.
Q. That was in sixteen entry?
A. No, sir, that was working in this air course down on the slope.
Q. And you had to wait there until he came?
A. He came down.
Q. What means did he use in getting that gas out of that place?
A. He make us set our lamps down and let us go up and take an empty car and shovel the coal into the car.
Q. And so commence the circulation by shoveling?
A. He’d say all right.
Q. Who was the men working at that time?
A. I don’t know. That was four years ago - three years ago.
Q. Did you ever see any gas in the upper part of the mine?
A. No, sir, only in this air course. I never seen any in sixteen, I worked in sixteen and seventeen.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Well, when your partner refused to nail up that brattice, did anybody else come and nail it up?
A. It wasn't nailed up when this explosion happened.
Q. He didn't?
A. No.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Is this air course you speak of clear up in the face of the slope?
A. Where this air course was, that was the face of the slope at the time.
Q. Face going down?
A. We was driving the face up. The slope wasn't any further than just below eighteen at that time.
THOMAS BANKS, being first duly sworn testifies as follows:
(Examined by Coroner)
Q. Thomas Banks is your name, is it?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What is your occupation?
A. Coal Miner.
Q. Do you live in Hanna?
A.Yes, sir.
Q. Will you please state to the jury what you know of this explosion on the morning of the thirtieth?
A. Well, there was four or five of us sat in the bottom of six room in number eleven entry. It was half past ten; and then I says it’s an explosion we might as well be getting out as quick as we can and so we came out then. We got to the bottom of the plane.
Q. What did you do then, after you got to the bottom of the plane?
A. And then we came up the plane, I don’t know how we came up, out or nothing about it; so that’s all that I know.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Did you ever see any gas in this mine?
A. No, sir, I never have; but Jim says one time he says to be very careful that there was lots of gas in the mine.
Q. Jim While, the fire boss?
A. Yes. He said to be very careful there was lots of gas in the mine but we never seen any.
Q. There was something about some saw that was left up in a room, and the fire boss told you not to go up there and another person went up and got it, what was that?
A. This day the mine was idle and they were working blowing some tops down in the entry and Jim While had never been in that place this morning, he said we could go up the entry but we couldn’t go up the room, and then John Boney and James Kilday came after this saw and Boney said he would go up there. He said it was up there and he would find it. I think that’s all I know.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Did he get that saw?
A. Yes, he got the saw.
Q. He didn't take any light in?
A. Yes, he took a naked light, these big lights we travel with.
Q. He went into the same room that Mr. While told you not to go into, with a naked light?
A. He said if there was anything in that room he’d find it.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. What was Mr. While’s object in telling him not to go into that room for that saw?
A. He’d never been up to the rooms this morning on this side, I don’t think. It was seven o’clock when they came in the morning and they hadn't been into the room that morning, you know.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. He hadn't been there to find whether there was any gas or not, that morning?
A. No.
Q. And told you to stay back until he did?
A. Yes, sir, that’s it.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Was there any ladders for the men to get up to the tops of these rooms?
A. We had sixteen foot props in our place, I don’t know whether there was gas there or not, I know nobody ever went up there to find out whether there was gas there or not, as the ladder had never been used.
Q. What room was that in?
A. This was in five room number eleven entry.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Go ahead and tell us all about it.
A. I think that’s all; I never went any lower down than that.
A. BECKHAM, being first duly sworn testifies as follows:
(Examined by the Coroner)
Q. What is your occupation?
A. Coal miner.
Q. Please state to the jury and others what you know of this explosion and what you think is the cause?
A. I was working at number eleven entry at seven room, brushing on the entry. I had loaded three cars and I and my butty, to my recollection, was setting down and at that time there came a gust of dust and wind and my butty said, what was that, and just at that time looked up and seen a blaze of light down toward the plane. The light comes in from that direction and by that time I turned over on my face and I called my butty but he refused to answer, and as soon as this wind was kind of ceased I gets up and asks Tom Banks to give me a light. After I got a light I gave my butty a light, after we both got a light, I asked him what will we do. He says get out as soon as we can get out. We goes in and fills up our lamps in the mouth of our room where our box was setting. We fills our lamps and starts out. I was in the light when we started out until we got to the mouth of the plane, and the dust, after damp or something, I don’t know what, put my lamp out - at the mouth of eleven entry right at the plane - and I asked Jeffries for a light and he gave me a light but it went out again and then in a few steps I run up against a trip of cars that was standing there at the plane - had come down the plane - being in the dark I crawled up the plane to get out. I don’t remember anything else until the rescue came down and carried me out. That’s what I know of the explosion.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. How long have you worked in Hanna?
A. Since the thirteenth of August last.
Q. Ever work in eleven entry?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What entries did you work on?
A. I worked on twenty, that is the first place; and then I worked on sixteen, and then I worked on the slope during the winter up until along about the first of June, I think, or the last of May, I don’t remember which - anyhow somewhere about that time - then I got changed out of there and went back on twenty entry; worked on twenty a couple of weeks, as near as I can remember, then I got another change in eleven entry, where I was at the time of the explosion.
Q. Did you ever see any gas in this mine?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. You have seen gas?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How do you know it was gas?
A. Well, I had a safety lamp and it lit it off. Lit it off shooting the holes, tamping up the holes - set the gas off with the blast.
Q. You know it was gas?
A. I know it must have been gas.
Q. Was the air always good where you worked?
A. Well, not very good, but then it was as good as it could be right at that time, I think, to my own estimation, I don’t know.
Q. Wasn't very good?
A. No, sir.
Q. It was as good as it could be at that time?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Couldn't have improved it any?
A. Not to my knowledge, right then anyhow. You see, we would probably shoot a shot and shoot the brattice out.
Q. Shoot the brattice out?
A. Yes, that was in the slope.
Q. Yes, I understand.
(By Mr. Davies)
Q. Were you in the entry at this time, or in the room?
A. I was in the room but when the explosion took place, brushing on the entry. Do you mean was I in the room when I saw the gas?
Q. Yes?
A. In the main slope.
Q. In the main slope?
A. Yes, sir.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. How far was the air from the face of the entry?
A. I couldn't tell you the exact distance of that - sometimes it would be closer than others.
Q. You mean you were working in the main slope driving through the hill:
A. The main slope, yes, sir.
Q. Did you people work steady in that slope?
A. Pretty steady, night and day.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Night and day?
A. Yes, two shifts, night and day shift.
Q. Didn't lose any work at all?
A. Lose any days?
Q. Yes?
A. Yes, once in a while the night shift would lay off but then there would be a day shift in there.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Was there any water in the slope when you were driving it?
A. It would be wet in there. It would be impossible to be much water because the slope was going up. The water run from the slope.
Q. Did the water run away?
A. Yes, sir?
Q. Couldn't have been any dust?
A. In the slope? No, sir.
Q. Do you know anything about what they call a windy shot?
A. A windy shot?
Q. A windy shot.
A. Yes, I think I do, sir. I might not, but I think I do. What I call a windy shot is a shot that is shot too stout. The hole is bored too stout for the amount of powder and the tamping not being good on the powder, would cause a windy shot.
Q. That is a shot when you fire it, the strength goes out of the hole?
A. Instead of bringing coal.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Shoots back?
A. Yes, that’s what I call a windy shot.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. What do you do with these shots, do you fire them over again?
A. I never do.
Q. And you have to make a new hole?
A. Yes, sir. I never do, maybe some do, I never did.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. What do you do when a shot misses?
A. When a shot misses?
Q. Do you blow another, fire another?
A. It depends on what kind of condition the hole is in. If the hole is wet I drill another.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Do you fire with blasting barrels?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Whether in a wet hole or dry hole?
A. Yes, sir, all the same.
Q. Does everybody do the same?
A. Do not know whether everybody does - I never seen anybody use any, but you see, I never hardly went to anyone else’s place.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Did you ever notice whether the one you fired would ignite to the one that had missed?
A. No, sir, it would be impossible for me to see that.
Q. You would notice it though?
A. No, sir, I couldn't notice it because I wouldn't be there at the time the shot went off.
Q. Couldn't you tell by the smoke?
A. Oh, no, you can’t see nothing like that. When a man lights a hole he is around the corner - he don’t see nothing.
Q. Yes?
A. I changes the hole, you don’t drill that hole within a few feet of the other.
Q. But the chances are there is a crack, have you seen them fired that way?
A. A man wouldn't drill a hole close to a crack he would be afraid of losing his powder.
Q. Probably he wouldn't know anything about that, he couldn't see it”
A. Yes, he would be taking a chance from the outside.
HARRY SMITH, being first duly sworn, testifies as follows:
(Examined by the Coroner)
Q. What is your occupation, Mr. Smith?
A. Gas watch.
Q. In the Hanna mine? That is -
A. Yes.
Q. You may please state to the jury what you know of this explosion.
A. Well, I don’t know anything of the explosion. I wasn't in the mine.
Q. Or as to the condition of the mine as near as you can at the time of the explosion?
A. Well, the night before the explosion, I examined all of the entries, straight entries, from the slope into the face; found them all clear of gas. In sixteen entry I found a little fire damp coming out, or smoke they call lit, coming out of thirty-nine room in sixteen. I noticed it was pretty damp all through. That’s all I can say about the mine.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Was it your place to go and examine these rooms in the mine?
A. No, only when there was a fire boss lays off in the day time, I take his place in the morning and go through.
Q. Was there much gas in this mine, Mr. Smith?
A. Yes, there was gas most all over the place, all over.
Q. All over the mine?
A. Yes.
Q. In different parts of the mine?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Was it in large quantities?
A. No, I never did see a large amount of gas in one body. When the entries would be working and the men wouldn't be in, we would find a little gas but then after I had gone through there was the other fire boss would go in the morning -
Q. If you -
A. And when I found there was any gas I notified them and they would go over the same place.
Q. They would always go? Didn't it sometimes happen, Mr. Smith, that the fire boss would meet you on the entry going out and ask if you had been in such and such a place? And he would return with you?
A. No, they wouldn't see me in the entry; I would stay there until they came in the morning and they would ask me how is such and such a place for gas and I would tell them how it was when I was in there, and I would tell them what time I was in there, but they would go in there, I suppose - I don’t know.
Q. You don’t know whether they did or not?
A. No, I never went down there, I would go home. The morning I found the smoke I notified old man Cox, the fire boss there.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. What room was it Mr. Smith, you seen the black damp or gas coming out?
A. Thirty-nine room on sixteen entry - fire stink.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. It was explosive was it?
A. No, it was just the heat from a cave, kind of heating up to a fire, that’s what they call fire stink.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Now, in places in these rooms where there was a big cave and a big vacant place above, how would you ascertain whether gas was in there or not?
A. I don’t know, I never went up there myself, I don’t know anything about it.
Q. That place might be full of gas and yet a good current of air traveling underneath?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. But you never went up to find whether that gas was up there or not? Do you know whether or not it was the custom of the other fire bosses to get up there and see whether gas was there or not?
A. No, I don’t know whether they went up there or not. On an idle day they would never hardly go round the place.
Q. They wouldn't go around?
A. No, they would have something else to do, lowering track or leveling track or something.
Q. There was a good deal of those works bratticed up wasn't there - old works as we call them in the mine?
A. Yes, a good many of them.
Q. Did they have any way of finding out how these places was in regards to gas?
A. No, only by testing the stoppings. Sometimes the gas would push out or afterdamp would push out.
Q. There would have to be an awful pressure of gas before it would come out, through the stoppings, wouldn't it?
A. I don’t know, it just depends on the atmosphere the barometer changing - sometimes it would draw in through a hole or a leak, maybe, when the wind came through; sometimes it would draw in and sometimes it would push out. Some stoppings had test pipes on. Then when you would take out the plug, if she was pushing, you would catch it right there in your lamp. If it was gas she would explode, if it was damp it would put the light out.
Q. Now, suppose there had been a big cave back in these old works, what would have been the consequence on the men working in the rooms of anything like that?
A. I don’t know; I think it would cause an explosion if there was a big place, a big leak, it might push out.
Q. You have experience enough to know it would be a big pressure and almost blow out a stopping?
A. Yes. If I was going along the main entry, sometimes with a makes light, if I heard a big cave or anything like that I would put the light out.
Q. But there is lots of miners wouldn't know to put the light out?
A. Yes, lots of them wouldn't have time; because they might be right there.
Q. What is your idea in regard to this explosion, did you ever go around where it occurred?
A. No, I was just down the first day - down to eleven entry, that’s all I was and down to five entry on the slope.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. How many were working on the night shift, that is, entry men?
A. I don’t know, I can count them up. Twenty-eight, and sometimes there was five up the slope, I don’t know, but there must have been about thirty-three men altogether, drivers, company men - altogether company men and diggers. There was four drivers and a rope runner and an engineer and about thirty diggers - something like that.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Did you have time to get around this place every night, Mr. Smith?
A. Yes, I had to travel, I couldn't stop along the road very much.
Q. Seems to be an awful large place for one man to get around, by looking at the maps.
A. You see, I had just to go straight in to the face and back again. Went in to the face of the entry, down through the face of the back entry and out to the next one, and again the same way, and it was a long ways.
Q. Now then, the entries was always kept in a damp condition to prevent any spontaneous combustion, or anything like that?
A. Yes, I used to water them myself most of the time.
Q. You used to water them yourself?
A. Yes, there was lots of water, there was a pipe right along the entry.
Q. In connection with going around and seeing all these entries?
A. Yes, all I would have to do was to open the valve on the hose there and let it run down the track.
Q. Let it run until you came back?
A. Let it run until the day men came around. At sixteen entry, I never watered over there because there is water on there every day - old man Cox.
Q. Well then, the mine was in such a condition that it could not be possibly a dust explosion?
A. Well, I don’t know, up in the rooms. All I know was that right in the middle of the track where the horses and mules traveled it would splash on the sides of the entry sometimes - once in a while. Sometimes when there was nothing doing I would get a couple of drivers to water sixteen or twenty room lengths on the side and bottom - I had them water it with a hose - one and a quarter or one and a half - yes, an inch and a half.
Q. Now as a fire boss, what in your opinion was the cause of this explosion - you have a right to an opinion the same as anyone else?
A. Well, I think it started from a gas explosion.
Q. Gas explosion?
A. There is some rooms in some of the entries where they are stopped, not working, nobody working in them, and no stoppings in them.
Q. No stoppings in them?
A. No.
Q. And there could have been a cave up in the top of these rooms and forced the gas out?
A. If there was any - I wouldn't say there was any for sure, I never was up in them. They never would let any of the men that was working on nights go up in the rooms, drivers or nothing, I would caution them not to go up whether they was working or not, because I didn't know what was up there, they might get into trouble.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. What was the way of diggers would get rails, ties or anything they wanted, to go fetch them themselves, or were they sent in to them?
A. Yes, lots of them, some room would be finished and some digger would be looking for rails and I would tell him to go up there and get them.
Q. Did anyone go in with a safety lamp first?
A. No.
Q. Is this the bosses’ orders?
A. Yes, well, the bosses and fire bosses just the same. Just tell them where the rails was and to go and get them.
Q. Now, Mr. Smith, Mr. Brooks and you working there as a competent man, able to judge whether it was dangerous or not - he thought you were all right as an expert on gases, that you understood your job?
A. I suppose he thought I knew enough about gas to know what it was or he wouldn't have me there. I had the whole mine in my charge. I had to travel all over it where there was anybody working and I have gone around as high as four or five mornings in a month in them other fellow’s places.
Q. In place of the regular firemen?
A. Yes, sir.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Mr. Smith, have you a certificate?
A. No, I understand they got a permit, I never seen it, I was working there for my own good, trying to get to be a fire boss, the pit boss told me a little while before the explosion, maybe six weeks before that I must get ready, that the mine inspector was coming - to get ready for the examination.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Is there any other fireman in this town that has been working in there that knows about that gas?
A. Yes, there is a man here - I guess he is in town - yes, he is in town, I seen him today. He used to be a fire boss.
Q. What is his name?
A. John Pettitt.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Did you ever have any conversation with the day firemen as regards to the condition of the mine in relation to gas?
A. Yes, if there was a big quantity of gas in any place, they would tell me to watch when I went in there. They say if there was so much gas in there, there would be a danger board in there - a big tie, or whatever they could get hold of, wrote on there, danger keep out, in the entry; I never seen none in the rooms.
Q. Never seen any in the rooms?
A. No, not just where they was working, maybe some idle day they wouldn't go around, maybe when the entry drivers was working in there one of the fire bosses would have to go in there to see if it was safe for those fellows to work in there. If there was gas in there he would tell me the same night as he went out.
Q. Wrote it on a piece of stick?
A. Piece of plank or something.
Q. Nothing there to prevent the fellows who couldn't read - lots of fellows who were working here didn't know whether it meant danger, dam, or anything of that kind?
A. No, but every man is supposed to know what that means.
Q. These Finlanders?
A. I don’t know, they are supposed to, I think; I know if I went in a place a fell over a tie, I would turn back and see what it was on there, or what it was for.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Yes, if you couldn't read, you wouldn't accomplish much by looking at it.
A. No, he might think it was something else. I don’t know.
JOHN WHILE, being first duly sworn, testifies as follows:
(By the coroner)
Q. What is your occupation, Mr. While?
A. Digger.
Q. In the Hanna mine?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Please state what you know of the explosion, what you know of the mine in general.
A. I wasn't working that day.
Q. Well, give your opinion of the mine in general, what you think of it as to gas and so forth?
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Just tell us all you know about it John. Just tell how it occurred? Just tell all you know about the mine - did you see any gas in this mine?
A. Yes, I seen some in twenty and some in eighteen, too.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Now this gas that you saw, Jack; was it in large quantities?
A. No, no, just a little in the entry.
Q. A little in the entries?
A. Yes, sir.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. What way had they of getting it out?
A. Canvas.
Q. Canvas?
A. Yes, sir.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. How long was you off, John, How long was you off? Was you working the day before the explosion - two or three days before?
A. Yes, I was working the day before the explosion.
Q. The day before?
A. Yes, sir.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Well, tell us anything you know about it?
A. I couldn't tell you anything about how it occurred besides an explosion of gas, that is all that I can tell you about how it occurred.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Did you ever hear your brother say anything in regards to the condition of this mine?
A. Yes, sometimes he would and sometimes he wouldn't.
Q. Well, what was his general opinion of the mine?
A. Well, it was a bad one.
Q. His opinion was bad?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you ever hear him say that there was liable to be an explosion there at any time?
A. No, no, I never heard him say that.
Q. Sir?
A. If he had, I wouldn't have gone down and he wouldn't have I guess.
Q. Did you travel around this mine enough to know anything about the ventilation of this mine?
A. No. I never went around through the air course except in the face of the entries. They had plenty of air in the face of the entries.
Q. Face of the entries?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Was the air good in the room where you worked?
A. I worked in the entry.
Q. In the entry?
A. Yes.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. What number?
A. Twenty entry back.
(By Dr. Davis)
Q. What shift were you on when this explosion happened?
A. I had been on the night shift.
Q. You had been on the night shift?
A. Yes, sir, I was working on the night shift.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. You never had any conversation with your brother in regards to gas and things in the mine?
A. Oh, yes; sometimes we would get to talking together.
Q. And he told you that there was lots of gas?
A. Yes, sir.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. What about this day that your brother was carried out and they thought he was done up - the gas had knocked him out?
A. I came out then -
Q. There was an explosion and your brother was burned by gas?
A. No, no fire was in the mine then - it was from fire - black damp, something of the kind.
Q. Did they have to carry him out?
A. I packed him out myself for a ways - he walked out after he came around to himself.
Q. When was this, about what date?
A. It has been six or seven years I guess, or more than that, when the fire broke out.
Q. Did you ever know of any man getting burned by gas in this mine?
A. Oh, yes there is one here now that has been burned, Newsomes, I think they call him.
Q. He was burned previous to this explosion?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Badly burned?
A. Burned his face, not badly burned - just burned a little - his face and neck.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Did you ever know of anyone had their clothes burned off, or their hair burned off, or anything of that kind?
A. No, only him, he got burned. When you go in the entries you get lamps to go in with after they fire a shot, you light the lamp up and go in, and this time he didn't and it exploded on him and he got burnt.
Q. Did you ever see anything that would cause you to think that there was liable to be a dust explosion in this mine?
A. No.
Q. You never did?
A. No.
Q. Did you ever work in any other mine that was gassy, anywhere?
A. In the old country I have worked where there has been lots of gas - we worked with lamps there.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. It was all with lamps where you worked in the old country?
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Never worked in this country any where else?
A. No, nowhere besides here and Carbon.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Were you present Sunday night before this explosion when your brother Jim told his wife that he was liable to be packed out any time?
A. No, no; I don’t think he ever said such a thing as that. I don’t think that he ever has.
Q. It was just rumored around here - I heard that he had made this remark and I thought I would ask you?
A. No, I don’t think he ever said a word about that. I know that if he thought, or I thought that, I would not have been in there -
Q. Nor he?
A. No, sir, no, I don’t think that he would.
Q. Did you ever hear your brother Job give you his views on this?
A. Yes, I have heard him. When he used to run - where he used to run in eighteen that was a bad place and he used to tell me it was a bad place.
Q. That there was lots of gas in eighteen?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you ever hear old man - Mr. Cox say that there was a terrible quantity of gas in sixteen?
A. No, I never heard him say that - I never had much to say with Cox at all.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. He had two entries, taking care of two entries, did he?
A. One entry.
Q. One entry?
A. Just sixteen.
Q. And he used to be on in the day time?
A. All days.
Q. All days?
A. Yes.
RICHARD WILSON, being first duly sworn, testifies as follows:
(By the Coroner)
Q. What is your occupation?
A. Miner.
Q. Please state to the jury what you know of the explosion and as to the general condition of the mine at that time?
A. I wasn't working that day.
Q. Well, what do you know of the mine before?
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Of the mine, any time previous to that?
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Were you working that day?
A. No, I was working on the night shift.
Q. That’s all right, go ahead?
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. How long have you been in Hanna, Dick?
A. Four years.
Q. Working in the mines continuously?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you ever see any gas in this mine?
A. Not where I was working?
Q. Not where you were working, what condition was the air?
A. Pretty good where I was working.
Q. Good air where you were working?
A. Yes, sir.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. What entry was that Dick?
A. I had started to work in seventeen, just about six weeks, I had been working in thirteen entry and at eleven entry one other time.
Q. You are pretty well posted on gas aren't you, Dick?
A. Yes, I know it when I see it.
Q. Now, since this explosion you have been working helping get these bodies out and repairing the brattice and such like, what’s your idea in regards to this explosion - what in your opinion was the cause of the explosion?
A. Well, it’s hard to tell.
Q. Was it caused by gas or dust?
A. Well, I couldn't say what it was caused by, I couldn't say.
Q. You couldn't say?
A. No, I couldn’t say.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Did you ever see any gas in any portion of the mine besides?
A. No, I never have been below - I never worked below - not below thirteen. I never seen anything there.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Did you hear anybody say anything about it?
A. Only an entry man. I heard an entry man say there was a lot of gas on their entries, that’s all.
Q. Have you been working on the pillars any time, Dick?
A. Yes, working on pillars all the time.
Q. You were?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. You never seen no gas in there?
A. No, only black damp I have seen.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. You have seen black damp?
A. Black damp is in all of them pillars where I have been working.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. How high was the roof?
A. It was usually from nine feet to fourteen and fifteen feet.
Q. Were there any ladders for anyone to go up and see whether was gas on top?
A. Yes, we always had ladders in our place.
Q. Did you put them up for the fire men to go up?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Was there any dust there - dry dust?
A. No, there was lots of water in our entries.
Q. Lots of water?
A. Yes.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Good ventilation?
A. Yes, sir.
FRANK E. COLLINS, being first duly sworn testifies as follows:
(By the Coroner)
Q. Please state to the jury what you know of the Hanna mine.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Were you working the day of the explosion?
A. No, sir.
Q. Been working -
A. Working nights.
Q. Did you work with Dick Wilson?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How long have you been working in Hanna?
A. Just eleven months.
Q. Eleven months?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Then you never worked anywhere only in seventeen entry?
A. Yes, sir, eleven and seventeen. I have been down in seventeen about six weeks.
Q. Then the condition of the air was good down there as far as you know?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Never saw any gas?
A. No, sir.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. How did you get material such as rails and ties, did you have to get them yourself or did they fetch them in to you? The drivers fetch them rails, ties and all?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And you practically know nothing about the explosion?
A. No, sir.
Q. Were you working that night before that explosion?
A. Yes, sir.
FRANK MASSARO, being first duly sworn, testifies as follows:
(By the Coroner)
Q. Please state to the jury what you know about the Hanna mine, just give them a story of what you know?
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. How long have you been working here, Mr. Massaro?
A. I worked about two years and five months.
Q. Were you in the mine the day of the explosion?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What entry do you work?
A. Seventeen.
Q. You came from away down didn't you?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Well, tell us what you know of the explosion.
A. Well, I don’t know, I believe there was some place that got lots of gas, somebody make a big shot, and put lots of powder and maybe he got some powder on the box and it fire up altogether and find some dust in the road and lit it. I don’t know - that’s my opinion, I don’t know.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Did you ever know of any gas in this mine, that is explosive fire damp?
A. Somebody told me in our place there was gas sometimes. I never seen gas at all because I worked on the pillars all the time. I never seen any gas at all in my place.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Yes, that’s right - just what you seen, not what other people seen, you never saw any gas in your place then?
A. No.
Q. Did you always have good air?
A. Sometimes good, sometimes bad.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Were there ladders to go up and ascertain if there was gas where there was a big hole?
A. Yes, there was ladders right on the props.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. You mean something to walk up so as to reach the top?
A. Yes.
Q. How high was the coal?
A. Oh, someplaces twelve, thirteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen high, in my place.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Seventeen feet high?
A. Yes, sir.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. How did you find whether there was any gas up there - you couldn't tell.
A. What?
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. You couldn't tell whether there was any gas in there?
A. I couldn't tell. Lots of times I would go myself with a lamp, never saw any gas myself.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. You have been to the roof with your lamp?
A. Yes, lots of times; to drill a shot. I touched my lamp pretty near on top sometimes - never seen gas at all.
Q. Never seen any gas blow out your blasting barrel?
A. No.
Q. Is there any water in the coal?
A. Water?
Q. Yes?
A. Some.
Q. You’d get wet holes sometimes?
A. Sometimes wet, sometimes dry.
Q. You used blasting powder all the time, no needle at all?
A. I used the needle sometimes too.
Q. You used the needle sometimes?
A. Yes, lots of times.
Q. Lots of times?
A. Yes, lots of times I used the needle.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Did this coal bleed enough to keep the bottom wet - did water enough come out of the coal to keep the bottom wet?
A. The bottom was wet all right, pretty near down.
Q. No dust there?
A. Not any dust in there.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Your place rising or dipping?
A. Straight entry.
Q. Did it raise, go up or go down?
A. This way, level.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. You worked all the time on pillars?
A. No, I worked about one year in pillars in seventeen, and I worked in sixteen then in a room.
Q. Ever see any gas in the room?
A. No, I never seen gas in the room at all.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. How far did you go between the cross cuts?
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. How far did you drive these rooms before you put a break through, an air course, cross cut?
A. How far from another?
Q. Yes. How far from one room to the next room?
A. Sometimes fifty, sometimes sixty feet, sometimes seventy-five, sometimes—I don’t know.
Q. You don’t have any regular -
A. I think it was fifty feet.
Q. Fifty foot is what they are called?
A. Yes.
Q. Well then, when you get one through here what do you do with the one that was open, stop it up?
A. Fill it up, put brattice in. Sometimes, if you got no air you put brattice in.
Q. Who puts that in?
A. The gas man.
Q. Built it with what - cloth, canvas, rock, coal?
A. I didn't need to put canvas on my place now. Before where I worked in the room we didn't need them.
Q. How did you find your way out, get out, after the explosion?
A. What place I come out?
Q. Yes, I say how did you come out, tell us all about it.
A. Well, by George, I can’t tell you. I worked on face of the entry and then some could keep on the straight entry; then all dark - and I got six or seven partners all with me.
Q. Six or seven partners?
A. Yes, and then I says to my partners, come this way to the back entry, this way, I think it is explosion all right, because it catch me two times now, explosion, the other time in Indian Territory. I know we skip down the lower entry and then the fire come up the top entry, the black damp, the smoke and everything, and then we go down the lower entry through the door down the lower entry, and then worked up the side.
Q. Up the hill?
A. And then I saw three men come along with me in there, and then I don’t know how far we go - lots of smoke you know - I don’t know what place then, that time.
Q. Who were the three men?
A. Two colored men, one Fin. He’s gone now.
Q. Has he left the town?
A. Yes sir. And then we tried to catch the top entry, pretty close down to the depot down in seventeen entry and then we find a little hole. We got some canvas in there and we find a hole and then we catch the top entry and then we find a little bit of place in there and got a little higher - not so much, just so much. Then we light the safety lamp. We take a rest about two hours, because we not get no place to go out. Lots of smoke - had better stay there.
Q. And you had the canvas to put around you?
A. And then we stayed there and after we started away, I don’t know what side to go out. I don’t know this side of the entry that is to go out.
Q. You didn't know whether you were going out or going in?
A. But when I see the switch on the room go like that, I know then that is the right way to go out. We go there and find lots of cave and can’t go out - the entry full of dirt, rock, coal and everything.
Q. Caved down?
A. Yes, we can’t go out. We come back again, it was a little bit more in that place, got a little bit higher, and then after the smoke is gone a little we started to work again to see some place to go out, and then I see one place that got a plug stopping.
Q. Plug stopping?
A. Yes, they got a little hole, a little door in there. I seen to open that little door and then got through there and then we started to work up the cave in there and tried to catch fifteen, to catch thirteen, and eleven, and come out up at nine and catch six shaft up here.
Q. And were these colored men with you all the time and that one Finn?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Just the four of you?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Well, that’s a miracle, ain't it!
A. I worked about two or three hours to get out.
Q. Had you got anything to put over your mouth at all?
A. Nothing, no. There’s lots of times pretty bad smoke, black damp, all the time, that was. That is where it’s pretty good thing to just catch a little handful of water and throw it on your face.
Q. It was two hours before you got out on top?
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Four, he said, two hours in one place they rested.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. It must have been four o'clock when you got out?
A. I came out half past three.
Q. Been all the time from half past ten to half past three - that beats the record!
JOHN B. EVANS, being first duly sworn, testifies as follows:
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Now, John, tell us all you know about this.
A. I don’t know anything to tell you that amounts to anything, by George.
Q. How long have you worked in this mine?
A. Well, I started to work here a year ago last June.
(By the Coroner)
Q. As a miner?
A. Yes.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. What part of the mine did you work in?
A. When I first started here, I started on the pillars in seventeen entry. Worked there three months, I think.
Q. Have good air down there?
A. Yes, pretty fair air down there, a little black damp once in a while. That is, when it gets way high, starts caving, coming down over the cards - not enough to amount to anything. All pillar work.
Q. Any gas in there?
A. Never seen any in there.
Q. Well, where else did you work?
A. I went down to start twenty-six entry up the slope, down in the basin, and that is where I worked when this thing happened.
Q. Twenty-six?
A. Yes, sir, and for two weeks before this happened the entries was stopped and we was blasting rock down to grade the track up on twenty-eight.
Q. How was the air down there?
A. Strong current of air there.
Q. Did you ever see any gas down there?
A. Yes, sir, I've seen some gas down there when I was working in the entry.
Q. Exploded on you two or three times?
A. Yes, sir; it kind of lit several times with the lamp, going in there, you know.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Ever do any damage to amount to anything?
A. No, never done me any damage - just knocked a little off the roof.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Did you ever see any gas in any other part of that mine?
A. No, I never went anywhere else, I have never been there.
Q. Did you ever work on company work, John?
A. No, I never did till this thing happened. Of course, I guess there was gas in the next place to us, just like ours, once in a while. It would happen both of them - three of them, were working together and I guess they were all about alike.
Q. How were the entries in regard to damp?
A. These entries was pretty damp, lots of water, lots of places we was working in the last two week we was blasting rock—where we was working the last week there must have been two feet of water.
Q. Then, there wouldn't be likely to be a dust explosion?
A. No, no dust there to explode anything.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. What would you call a windy shot, John?
A. Lots of different opinions. I have my own; I can’t be the man to settle that matter.
Q. Give us your opinion - we want everybody’s opinion.
A. Well, I think any kind of a shot that will cause a blow shot of any kind, but I do not know what a windy shot is that altogether. I don’t think a windy shot is a shot that stands still. I've fired shots in here that I don’t call windy shots, and I've had shots I thought was windy that had very little powder in them.
Q. Well now, John, wasn't there liable to be a windy shot if there was a little too much powder, how would that work?
A. I don’t know, it might occur from that sometimes. I know I've fired a windy shot - what I call a windy shot myself - it threw the canvas out - didn't blow it down. I know I've just blowed a nice hole in the face of the entry - just in one chunk - that’s what I call a good shot, but still they’ve got other opinions on them kinds of things sometimes - a man working in a gassy mine sometimes.
Q. Did you ever see a standing shot where a little water run out the blasting barrel and then you would light it with a lamp and see it burn up?
A. Why, yes. I don’t know that I ever seen any of that here, Billy.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Did you ever see any shot that there was any likelihood of a dust explosion from?
A. No, not that I know of.
Q. You never seen dust burn up or flare up around after a shot?
A. Not here I haven’t.
Q. Not here?
A. No.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Was there any limit to your entry on account of cross cuts going through?
A. Yes, sir. I think the limit was two hundred feet in an entry and canvas up.
Q. Canvas up the sides?
A. Yes, canvas up; that is the limits here - that is our limits, I don’t know about the other entries.
Q. That’s right, only tell for yourself.
A. That’s the only one that I've been in here, of course, it was a hundred feet between every cross cut, that pillar would be two hundred feet. Of course there was a cross cut between.
Q. About how far were the two entries apart, what kind of pillars?
A. About thirty feet - thirty-three to thirty-five feet - thirty five feet I should think, pretty near alike.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. How far is the cross cuts in the other entries where there are turned rooms?
A. I have never been in any other entry where there was a room turned.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Since the explosion, John, have you been working every day helping to get these men out?
A. Pretty near - yes.
Q. You have been around sixteen working?
A. Yes.
Q. Where this explosion is supposed to have occurred?
A. I have been working in that entry, yes.
Q. Did you ever hear these experts claim they think it started in sixteen?
A. Well, I guess some of them was passing their opinion. Sometimes they pass their opinion in one place and then go to another and pass their opinion on that, and you can’t make much out of it.
Q. Well, what’s your opinion in regards to these places that you have worked in in regards to a dust explosion or a gas explosion; you’re an old miner?
A. I couldn't tell exactly, that’s sure.
Q. You couldn't tell?
A. I couldn't tell. I think there must be gas among that thing somewhere.
Q. You think it was gas?
A. Must be, I should think. Still there might be dust around there to help it along.
Q. Yes, there is bound to be some dust, but your opinion is that is started from a gas explosion?
A. Yes, I just think it that way.
Q. All old miners are supposed to have an opinion, John.
A. Oh, yes; I couldn't tell.
HENRY NOWELL, Being first duly sworn, testifies as follows:
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Now Harry you just tell me what you know about this in your own way, just the same as you do in old country talk. Were you in the mine the day the explosion occurred?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Just tell us what you know about it—how you felt.
A. I was snubbing.
Q. Yes?
A. I had snubbed all my cars up - it was about half past ten. I was going out with the driver with his loaded trip. I was going out to the first room to begin on the empty cars again, when it came in.
Q. Which entry was this?
A. Nine entry. I got about four rooms off when the explosion went off - I didn't know it was an explosion.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Didn’t know what it was?
A. I thought it was an air door blowed open or something like that.
Q. Did it put your light out?
A. Yes, right off.
Q. Were you driving a horse or a mule?
A. A mule. My mule turned around and run up the entry back again, so I stepped in the room and let the air pass me.
Q. And where did the mule run up the entry?
A. It run up the entry. I shouted the men down - the Finn men, they didn't understand me at all. While I was shouting the driver lit his lamp and went in and made a trip..
Q. Went in and made a trip after the explosion?
A. He went for his empty card. He stopped there. It would be about ten minutes after the explosion when two or three Finns past me with their lights to the ground, so I lit my own and followed them. I run to the parting where the driver and the other snubber had gone. We heard them groaning in the cars, so I left them and went out to the plane - where it turns down to the foot of the slope. I couldn't see any of the Finns that had passed me and I knew they had gone the shortest way, so I went that way too - I was two miles from the shaft. So I passed another driver.
Q. Do you know who he was?
A. Dennis Cummins, and I passed a man by the name of Kilday.
Q. How were they setting?
A. They was lying down face to the ground and groaning, so I came up and I met Mr. Brooks and them coming down, and he sent me out. And I went up.
Q. Nobody helped you up?
A. No, sir.
Q. Did you tell Mr. Brooks where these men were?
A. No, they was right in their way. I was only about ten yards ahead of the men when I met Mr. Brooks, they could hear them groaning from there.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. That’s all you know about the explosion - you went out then?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. You came out of the mine then?
A. At six shaft, yes sir
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Where was this mule - did that come out at all?
A. No, it was in the entry. Mr. Brooks brought it up to the shaft.
Q. The mule come up all right?
A. They got it out about two days after.
Q. It got killed then?
A. No, they brought it out of eleven entry - they fed it down there. There was four mules and one horse got out.
ALEX BRIGGS, Being first duly sworn, testifies as follows:
(By the Coroner)
Q. Please state to the jury what you know of this mine, to the best of your knowledge?
A. I haven’t been in the mine except about one-half hour in four years - four years past the first of May. I moved from this mine to Carbon. When I left the first of May eighteen ninety-nine, I thought the mine in a safe condition. The condition on June thirtieth, nineteen hundred and three I couldn't say anything about, for I don’t know. I haven’t been in the Hanna mine except that one half hour - that is something like two years ago.
Q. You weren't in the mine for two years before this thing happened?
A. Yes, I don’t know what it has been doing for four years. I left here as I said now, on May 1st, eighteen ninety-nine. At that time the mine I considered in a good safe condition, as the reports will show from the fire bosses right along every day. They were then signed by the mine foreman, Mr. Battle, whom I thought was a good, responsible, honest man.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Well, since the explosion Mr. Briggs, you have been around where it is supposed to have started from?
A. I have been around and seen evidences of it, Mr. Widdowfield.
Q. Evidences of it?
A. Yes, but I don’t think that there is any person that can say just exactly at the present time where it started from, I have seen both evidence of fire and I have seen evidences of gas; that is, as a dust explosion or a gas explosion. I have seen timbers burned that would show very plainly that gas had burned there. Other places here I have seen dust buried into the timber without any evidences at all - without any evidences of fire at all. That would go to show a dust explosion. But from what I have seen in the mine, why, I really believe myself that the explosion has been started either at Number one room on sixteen entry or at number eleven room on sixteen entry, but of course I have not had any time - I haven’t been allowed any time to make a thorough investigation of the place wherewith I could arrive at a definite opinion of it. That’s the way I find it at the present time.
Q. Does that coal bleed any - any water in the rooms, or anywhere in these rooms?
A. Very little; at sixteen I don’t think that there was anything - it seems to be almost dry.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Did you see any gas in these mines, Mr. Briggs?
A. Any gas?
Q. Yes.
A. Yes, why piles of it, yes, why it’s everywhere in the mine from being shut up, it’s full of gas. They start to generate gas right along whether closed or open and of course, being closed up, it is natural for it to fill up the vacancy - all the space. When we went in there first we found a mixture of gas and afterdamp; The afterdamp, at that time, had the best of the fight; that is, had the best of the gas at that time. Anything, any mixture of gas and afterdamp outside of the regular current of air - at that time any mixture of gas and afterdamp outside of the regular atmosphere would put the lamp out, that is, a Wolfe safety lamp - put it out.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. About how high is that coal in these rooms, Sandy?
A. Some of the places there must be fifteen or sixteen feet - yes, or more - caves and places that it is more. Some places it is a good deal less, but generally I would say that the places would be about fifteen or sixteen feet high.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Now Mr. Briggs, now in bratticing up these old works, that is, in closing them all up after they are through, don’t you think they are creating a danger there?
A. I ain't here to think Mr. Widdowfield.
Q. Well, what’s your opinion in regards to that. This explosion may have been caused by these places being full of gas and a cave may have drove the gas out on the open light.
A. That may occur, but I couldn't say.
Q. It might have occurred?
A. Yes. If it would be of any benefit to the jury, why, I can state that during my time as superintendent of this mine I closed old workings myself. That was, where I had been drawing pillars, closed them off to save damp gas from going towards the men. After closing them off I made several tests myself from the inside of the stoppings by taking it in a bottle, drawing the gases from the inside of the stopping through test pipes. I made several tests with them; I never could get them to fire. I tried with electricity, tried with naked lights, tried with different processes of trying gases to get it to explode. I never could get it to explode because the old slow combustion causes what we call a depleted air to form inside. That depleted air kills the gas, makes it non-combustible, non-inflammable. I also had two bottles sent to Mr. Wilbur C. Knight, the professor of Laramie University, and he pronounced it, on analysis, as being depleted air or free nitrogen; that there was no inflammability to it.
Q. Free nitrogen, then if that was pushed out by a gas or anything, and coming into contact with the air would make it inflammable?
A. No, sir.
Q. It wouldn't?
A. No, sir.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. How did you handle these rails and ties and things, Sandy, when you were boss here? That is, supply them to the men, or else let them all go hunt their own in the diggings or workings?
A. Well, it was the company’s business to supply the rails and ties when I was here.
JAMES KNOX, being first duly sworn, testifies as follows:
(By the Coroner)
Q. Please state what you know of the mine in relation to gas.
A. I don’t know anything about the mine until the day after the explosion - that was the first time I was in the mine.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Just tell us what you found here when you came down, that is in relation to the cause of the explosion.
A. Oh, I don’t know anything about what was the cause of the explosion.
Q. You don’t know anything about it?
A. I came here to be one of the rescue party, to try to get out the men. I never took any thought about what was the cause of the explosion at all.
Q. Don’t know anything about it?
A. I couldn't say.
Q. Couldn’t tell whether it was caused by gas or dust?
A. No, sir. No I couldn't tell, I never made any examination.
Q. Or whether it was caused from a windy shot?
A. It could have been caused by a windy shot - it could have been caused by an accumulation of gas, but as to which of the two, I couldn't tell.
Q. Then, you know nothing practically about the mine?
A. I don’t know nothing practically about the mine I guess. You've been down there just as much as I have, pretty near. I have been in twenty entry, I have been in sixteen entry, I have been in eighteen entry - that’s about as far as I have been. I was down in the slope as far as twenty-two entry.
Q. Was there evidence of an explosion down at twenty-two entry, Mr. Knox?
A. Very slight, we couldn't get into twenty-two entry you know, for water.
JOHN PETTIT, being first duly sworn testifies as follows:
(By the Coroner)
Q. Please state to the jury what you know of this Hanna mine.
A. Well, I have been employed in the mine since - for about four years and a half previous to the explosion as a gas watchman. As far as gas is concerned they have been very careful in examining for gas and getting it out when any was found. I came here in answer to a message from Mr. Clark. I arrived here on the night of the third of July, three days after the explosion. Since that time I have been in the mine about twenty-two shifts, trying to get at the bodies.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. What is your opinion in regards to the explosion, Mr. Pettit?
A. Well, I haven’t formed any definite opinion and couldn't on oath say that I had an opinion of how or where exactly the explosion occurred. I am certainly of the opinion, and it is an opinion, that it occurred somewhere in the first ten or twelve rooms, in sixteen entry.
Q. Was the condition of the air while you was here always good?
A. The mine was always well ventilated and the caves in that part of the mine, in sixteen. I have traveled over them scores of times and only once before, while the mine was drowned out after the water had been gotten out, did I find any gas in these caves - in these rooms.
Q. Only the once?
A. Only that one time.
Q. Did you have to make a written report out every day in regards to the gas - what you find?
A. Every day a report was made, a blank report for Rock Springs, and a book report for the Hanna office.
Q. The stoppings between these main entries, that is the main entry and the rooms, what were they composed of?
A. In the slope?
Q. Well, the slope and entries.
A. The slope were rock and the entries were logs about two feet - two feet six long, laid in alkali mud.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. What distance did they put their cross cuts in the rooms? Drive a room between the cross-cuts?
A. The law requires them every forty-eight feet.
Q. Did they do it according to law?
A. Some of them, they have gone seventy feet.
Q. Bratticed on the sides, I suppose?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Well, what way did these firemen have of getting up on tops of caves thirty feet high, and so forth, so as to test the gas?
A. Well, they have tested with lamp sticks; that is a stick with a screw on the end of it where you could raise the lamp into the hole in the roof. Of course, most of these caved places you could reach the roof on top of the cave - ladders were left in some of the works, some of these rooms, to examine for gas.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Do the mining laws of this state require that these old works should be ventilated after being bratticed up?
A. I am not positive on that.
Q. Then, they were not ventilated on this mine?
A. You know that all the old workings as in sixteen entry and some other entries were walled off on account of gob fires.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. I understand there has been a fireman for that sixteen entry stationary, going no where else but in those few rooms. Is that so?
A. I do not know anything about it only from the report.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Did the boss ever tell you not to report gas on the reports when you found it?
A. What?
Q. Did the boss ever tell you not to report gas when you found it?
A. To the contrary, we were always instructed to report, whenever gas was found in a place it had to be reported.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Was the gas got out just as soon as it was reported?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. By what means?
A. By ventilation.
Q. What bratticing, was it boards or canvas?
A. Canvas bratticing generally.
Q. Then the same body of gas never was reported twice?
A. I can only call to mind once where such was the case, where gas was left standing from Sunday morning to Monday morning.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Did you ever know anyone to get burned here with gas during the time you have been in?
A. No, sir.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Isn't that against the mining rules to report gas twice, the same body?
A. The mining laws require that all gas shall be removed, and the laws of the company require that the gas shall be removed under direct supervision as quickly as it can be done.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Do you know anything about how long this air shaft has been going on - when it was started, how long has it been working?
A. The mine was drowned out - well, I think, as near as I can remember, the slope was started up from just below the eighteenth level in February nineteen hundred.
Q. Do you know anything about the distance it was driven?
A. No, not without measuring.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. I want to ask you a few questions here (Producing map.) Now, at sixteen here in case of an explosion at sixteen at these overcasts and this here was blowed out, was there any possible way of escape for those men working down below?
A. What?
Q. I say, in case of an explosion, here at sixteen destroying this overcast here, was there any possible way of escape—for these men to get out, any possible way of getting air to them?
A. Not that I know of.
Q. Then, in your opinion, these men that were down here, a good many of them might have been saved if this had been connected through the hill?
A. I can’t say that because the explosion would travel so fast, and if the connection even was made here, the explosion would certainly have got the pure air and they might have stood just as bad a chance down where they were in those places as if it was not through.
Q. If it wasn't through?
A. No, sir.
Q. Then you think that the explosion would go both ways?
A. I do.
Q. Well, when the recoil of that explosion came wouldn't it draw a current of air both ways - a current of fresh air?
A. It’s hard to determine which would have the largest weight, the most pull.
Q. Well, whichever way the pull was it was bound to cause a natural current to go that way?
A. It is hard to determine which would be the natural way in the distance from that point.
Q. In your opinion, oughtn't there to have been more outlets from the lower parts of that mine - the way it’s laid off here. Below sixteen there is no escapes whatever?
A. The only escape is by return and manway.
Q. That’s all in case of an explosion up here and these were damaged or closed, then these men were entrapped?
A. The return and manway and the plane road on this point over seventeen cut off?
Q. Over seventeen cut off, but nothing below that?
A. No, sir.
Q. Since that slope was started, there has been ample time to have it through there in your opinion?
A. While I was working here the slope was pushed with all possible speed to make that connection. Since I left here last August I am unable to say what has occurred because I know nothing of it.
Q. Were these colored gentlemen working in there when you were here?
A. No, sir.
Q. Good practical miners in there at that time?
A. Yes, sir.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Since you came back this last time, have you seen any explosive gases in this mine?
A. Yes, sir.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Was there very much water in that place they were driving down?
A. No, the water didn't bother them very much, it was taken out with a small electric pump.
Q. Well, what has been the cause that they didn't drive it through, what has been the cause of that standing all this time?
A. It is impossible for me to say.
GEORGE L. BLACK, being first duly sworn testifies as follows:
(By the Coroner)
Q. Please state to the jury the condition of the mine as near as you know before this explosion happened, Mr. Black.
A. That is, as far as gas was concerned?
Q. Yes, and the conditions as to the explosion and the cause of the men’s deaths?
A. Well, I can only say that from the visits that I have made at the mine and through the mine and from the daily reports that we have received, the mine was in good condition, and that is has been in good condition as far as I know for a long time past. We considered it one of our best ventilated mines and as carefully looked after as any property we had. We never have had any trouble in getting men to work at Hanna when we have been short of miners at our other mines, on account of the wages they they made here, and their willingness to work in the mine. I don’t know that there is anything further that I can state unless you care to ask me some questions.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Well, did you ever see any gas - did they ever report any gas in the mine, Mr. Black?
A. Yes, sir. Yes, there has been gas at different times in the mine for years. In fact, I might say, since it was fairly opened up. We have always kept gas watchmen, had inspections made for the gas and reports of it as found and removed.
Q. Now, this mine, in your mind being in such a safe condition there must have been some serious thing occurred to cause this accident?
A. That is very evident.
Q. Yes, the evidence is very strong that there must have been some place where there was gas there, or dust, or something?
A. Of course, as to what caused the explosion or where it occurred, I am not prepared to answer.
Q. All we are trying to get at is what caused the death of these men.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Have you been down in the mine, Mr. Black, lately?
A. Yes, quite recently. I average about once a month in the mine.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. If this slope had been through the hill, Mr. Black, from here down, (indicating on map) mightn't it have bettered the condition of this mine - if anything had occurred up here they might have had some chance of escape?
A. Well, that would have depended entirely on where the trouble occurred.
Q. Say it occurred in sixteen, where these overcasts are from one side to the other, now you see this explosion occurring here and destroying these overcasts here, it would entirely cut off ventilation from these men down below, wouldn't it?
A. Very likely, but to all appearance there is some effect of this explosion below sixteen, it has been in the entries below. Now, whether it came to these other entries from sixteen or not I am not prepared to say, and just what the effect might have been if this connection had been made, is another point I wouldn't be positive on, because we don’t know the conditions - we don’t know where it happened or what caused it, or in what direction it traveled.
Q. You have been down in the mine?
A. I've been down as low as twenty, there are many places where the explosion has been going in one direction very uniformly and other places you will find it reversed.
Q. In room twenty-five it seems to have gone up there and back here at thirty it seems to have gone the other way.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Haven’t you had ample time to get this connection through here since it was started? It was started I suppose, for the benefit of the men working there?
A. No, sir, it wasn't started for ventilation or anything of that kind, it was started for the convenient working of the balance of the coal body. We were intending to plane this down to the basin and take it up with the same hoist at the same time. It wasn't driven for the purpose of ventilation.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. That place wasn't needed for an air shaft at all or ventilation?
A. It would very likely have been used for that purpose in connection with the balance of the mine, but it was driven to develop the balance of the coal field and work the eastern outcrop. It was not the intention of the company to put up a town or machinery at the east side, but plane that to the basin and hoist with the present hoist.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Then, it wasn't driven in the shape of a manway?
A. Oh, no, it was driven just the same as it was driven on the western outcrop, a slope and different air courses, to the western face with intentions of putting the plane out of the east end.
HARRY SMITH, recalled for further examination, testifies as follows:
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Now, Mr. Smith, the morning of the explosion you say you discovered a fire burning in room thirty-five, sixteenth entry?
A. No, it wasn't a fire, I discovered a little smoke coming out, fire stink, room thirty-nine.
Q. Did you go up and examine the fire?
A. No.
Q. You couldn't tell whether it was burning strong enough to ignite gas or anything of that kind?
A. No, just stink from a cave that was heating - getting hot.
Q. Now, you spoke yesterday about finding gas on several occasions in your work in the Hanna mine as a gas man - did you report this gas on your reports?
A. No, sir, I never reported gas at all.
Q. Why didn't you make these reports up, your reports in writing, why didn't you report the gas?
A. They told me I didn't need to report gas, if I found any gas to put a danger board there and tell them about it in the morning. I used to see the fire boss in the morning. They said I was supposed to get the gas out if I reported it, and make a report out that would read the way I got it out, brattice or what way. I didn't have time to put a brattice up. If I found gas where the men were working, and it was dangerous for them to work, I sent them out and wouldn't let them work.
Q. Who told you not to write gas on your reports?
A. Both Battle and the fire bosses. You see when I go around at night the other fire bosses go around in the morning. I tell them how the gas is all over and they report the gas. They are the ones who find it.
Q. Then you reported gas on several occasions, to these men?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. That is, a verbal report?
A. Yes, sir, just in working entries. I never went up in the workings.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Was there any danger boards or gas signs in the old workings to keep persons from going in there?
A. Yes, there are lots of them. A board nailed on the stopping with a sign on it, Danger Keep Out.
Q. Now, in English or Finn, or how?
A. English.
Q. How does the Finn’s read it, can they read it do you suppose?
A. I don’t know, some of them can and some of them can’t. But you can see there is something wrong there and if an old miner sees anything like that he knows enough to keep out.
Q. Never saw any of these men go into any of these places for anything?
A. No, not on the night shift.
Q. When a room is stopped and there is gas or fire in there and has no stoppings, how are they notified that it is dangerous?
A. I do not know, I never seen anything like that. Some places if there is any danger up there it is liable to be wrote in chalk on a board or canvas - something you can write on.
Q. Nothing there to prevent them from going in, they can get right in there?
A. There might be a lagging pole nailed across.
Q. They can get in there?
A. If they want to, but I guess the pole is supposed to keep them out.
Q. Never seen anyone in there to get rails or ties or anything of that kind?
A. Not on night shift. I told the men to keep out of old rooms - drivers or anything. If they got off the track I cautioned them not to go up there. I didn't know what was up there and I was looking out for the safety of myself as well as anyone else.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Have you ever noticed any of the posting boards took away?
A. No, they are all yet there. I have noticed some boards down, in the last eight years that I know of—never took away.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Gas been there all that time for eight years?
A. No, not gas, but it was a danger board to keep anybody away from there for fear there was any danger of anyone with a light going in there.
E. S. BROOKS, being first duly sworn testifies as follows:
(By the Coroner)
Q. Mr. Brooks, if you will please state to the jury as near as you can, and answer the questions of Mr. Widdowfield, as to what you know of the condition of the mine at the time of the explosion.
A. Well, I’d rather a good deal that you would ask me questions and get all the information you can.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. We don’t want to ask you any questions only in relation to the explosion and what you think as to gas.
A. Now, you understand, Mr. Widdowfield, that we haven’t gotten into this thing far enough for any man to tell what caused it. Now, I know as well as any man can know, who has trusty subordinates, that there was no standing gas in that mine, and I know it for this reason, that I never take a safety lamp, that I never advise Johnny Battle when I am coming down, he never knows when I am in the mine until he meets me somewhere on the entry. I go up to the face of a room and then I go on to the next one; I don’t care whether it has been worked for three weeks or a month, and I know that every cross cut in that mine is bratticed up to the last cross cut. I know that gas rises naturally, and I know that my rooms pitch and I know I have nothing to fear in walking up any one of the cross cuts - any one of them I go in. I know that my subordinates are men that have been in this mine longer than I have. Every one of them, I have grown up here with them, I know they are reliable, and for that very reason I have pushed them along. They have all complied with the laws of Wyoming. They have all stood their examinations except one, and I didn't use him until I had a permit. He was posted and ready to take his examination when the state mine inspector was ready to examine him.
Q. Well, in your opinion, does the condition of the mine change or vary from day to day? Today it may be considered safe and tomorrow an explosion occur?
A. No, it does not, but I know that the number one Hanna is a gassy mine and our only safety is in ventilation, and we know when the barometer goes down we have more gas to contend than we find on days when we have a fair barometer and the same current of air.
Q. Then, you haven’t any idea what was the cause of the explosion?
A. I have an idea, but I don’t care to do any injustice to anybody. As soon as we get that gas out of the mine and we can use our naked lights in that mine it is a question of only a few days until it is plain to everybody.
Q. I know it is pretty hard myself, to find out a direct cause at the present time—a man can’t locate it.
A. I would like to make one more statement.
Q. Yes, we would like to have you.
A. And that is this: while we work green Finns and green Italians, they are never allowed to go into that mine without an old miner. Now there are Finns that have stayed in this camp six weeks before they got a job because no old miner would take them.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Was this place, Mr. Brooks, way back there, was that started to air that mine or not?
A. To make the connection makes the mine that much safer, to give us an outlet and an inlet. It was going day and night and the yardage had been raised twice in this month previous to the explosion to keep it going.
Q. That would help, wouldn't it?
A. That’s a good question. There would have been but the two places going up there, the slope and the air course, and there would have been a fresh current of air for the explosion to travel up on and the chances are every stopping would have been gone.
Q. The only benefit that would have been, if there was anyone in there that hadn't been killed, why they could have gotten out.
A. Oh, you understand there wasn't any time. It would have done no good, they would have met everything the same as we did going out. It would have been pulled back into the fan and brought out this way; or the fresh air would have been burned out on that side just the same as it did on this, the explosion passing there. Even that would have been absolutely useless.
Q. Well, is it possible that a blast could have done so much damage if it had been all right in the morning when the firemen went around---if everything had been all right?
A. Well, sir, the best evidence we have that everything was all right that morning was that there was a trip from every entry and the explosion occurred at ten thirty. Now, I have known this mine for nine years, and I make this assertion without fear of contradiction, that there has never been a man burned in Hanna mine in his place in the morning, but I have been in places at eleven o’clock and seen them brought out. If a man don’t keep up his brattice he can’t come out and go in in safety in a gassy mine.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. What means, Mr. Brooks, had the miners of getting rails and ties?
A.What means? Why they had to go on top, all they had to do was to mark them, put them at the mouth of the slope and they’d get them.
Q. They were never allowed to go into old rooms?
A. Oh, yes, they were allowed to go in the rooms and get them. I don’t call it an old room when rails and ties are in them, and there isn't any possibility of danger for the men to go in and get them. Even then he gets permission from his gas watch who has been in there before him, and lets him go. That’s one thing I've kicked about, because in my travels I find a hundred feet of rails from the face down and every tie gone, and then there isn't any way to get them out and then they would stay there until they were lost.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. You don’t care to advance any opinion as to the cause of the explosion?
A. I don’t like to advance any opinion. You have seen what I have seen and I don’t suppose you would feel competent to say what caused the explosion.
Q. No, sir, I wouldn't all that we know is that is was an explosion.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Were these places dry do you suppose, was there any dust any where around?
A. That is why the mine foreman was on the entry and we employ a gas foreman and gas watch to look after that. That is not my work, when I go through and see a dusty place, I call their attention to it.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. All the entries seemed to be well watered, pipes and everything there shows they were there for that use.
A. They were all careful men, all good men.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. There was one fire boss in one single entry alone?
A. We had one gas watch where we were pulling pillars in sixteen entry and where we had heating caves, we had one gas watch who never left that one entry.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Did you ever notice any place making any gas where it was muddy on the bottom?
A. Oh, yes; frequently on the slope I find gas bubbles rising and all you've got to do is shelter it for an instant with your hat or cap and fire it.
Q. Any show for that to accumulate?
A. It can’t accumulate on the bottom there because the air is passing right over it all the time.
Q. Are there any of the rooms that are wet and muddy?
A. The rooms?
Q. Yes.
A. Where the gas comes up through the floor?
Q. Yes.
A. I don’t remember any.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. There ain't any entries in there I suppose that aren't working, that is run a long way in and abandoned?
A. Well no, not except those that are walled off within a hundred feet of the slope. Now, thirteen and fifteen entries have got their stoppings in them. Eleven and twelve and fourteen and ten and eight and six and five and seven and nine---everything shut off that wasn't working. All entries not working were shut off outside the fault; that is, thirteen and fifteen are. The others are shut off at the slope or manway.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Those old works, wasn't there some cause that the gas might accumulate in there, Mr. Brooks?
A. Well, I don’t believe that gas could accumulate and live in there---the black damp with it would make a mixture that would put out anything in the shape of a light. In addition to that, they had their rounds to make and report the condition of them twice a day.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Did they use ladders or something to get up in the high places to test them?
A. Yes, every digger has to put his ladder in place so the gas watch can reach the highest part of the roof. If he doesn't he is sent out---I have sent men out for that very thing. And I consider one of the best proofs of the efficiency of the men in this mine is that there has never been a man burned in his place in the morning after the gas watch had made their rounds, but of course they are not responsible after he fires a shot or two if gas accumulates.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. What means have you got of trying the gas in the pillars when it folds in behind?
A. What?
Q. In the pillars, when it folds in?
A. What means have we got?
Q. Yes.
A. Nothing, except that the gas watch climbs on the caves to try it. They have got to climb on the cave to try it. You take the working places, no matter how high, we have a ladder there for the gas watch to get up to try the top. I have sent men home because they didn't set their ladders up for the gas watch.
A. E. BRADBURY, being first duly sworn, testifies as follows:
(By the Coroner)
Q. Mr. Bradbury, please state to the jury as near as you can how these bodies came to their deaths and the general condition of the mine at the time of the explosion.
A. Well, that’s a pretty hard matter. I know that an explosion occurred without a doubt. I am unable to state any positive facts as to what brought about that explosion. It could have occurred from many instances, and for me to select the proper one I don’t believe I am able to make a statement as to the exact cause of it, any more than that it was an explosion. I could fairly believe that it might have been caused from a great pressure of gas that lay somewhere in the vicinity of the sixteenth in and about from number one to number eleven rooms, and that from the pressure of the gases in the roof might have caused a cave, and with that cave it would probably bring down more or less gases that was stored and might have touched an open light. That probably would ignite the gas, if it was the fact, and the gas would ignite the dust. That would without a doubt create an explosion of considerable force. Now as to going into details any further, why, I couldn't do it from this point. I couldn't give any particular cause and I should hate to say that was a positive fact, that it originated from that, but it looks plausible that it might. From the indications since the gas has been removed out of the sixteenth entry wherein it is fairly probable to believe that this explosion first started in that vicinity. I would think previous to what I have stated that it would have been entirely free from gas for the reason that there has been no signs of any under a very moderate velocity or air since that time, simply enough to move, and no gasses found since, on my examinations; and I have been through it nearly every day with the exception of four or five total, for the last month, and I have never detected any during that time. That being the case, I make the statement I do that it probably originated from a cave and brought down a large amount of gas which created an explosion by touching someone’s light.
Q. What was the condition of the mine at your last examination?
A. What was the condition?
Q. At your last examination.
A. I think it was in as good a condition as any mine that I ever went into with the exceptions of what we all know of the old workings, stopped off, and they were stopped off at that time in a very perfect manner.
Q. How long ago, Mr. Bradbury, was that before the explosion?
A. Well, it strikes me that it was sometime about the---I think it was sometime in June that I was in there—I can’t tell you the date without looking at my report.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. All that we want to find out is the cause of the explosion—the cause of the men’s deaths, that is what we are here for.
A. Yes, I understand what you want is to find out, but I feel perfectly---
Q. You examined the mine and found everything in good condition?
A. --if I can give any answer to any inquiry, I would be glad to do so to satisfy the jury in a manner that they would be pleased with.
Q. Well, I am satisfied with the explanation that you have made with regard to it. I think that is about as near as anybody can get to it.
THE STATE OF WYOMING.)
:-ss.
County of Carbon, )
Roy S. Chamberlin, being first duly sworn on oath deposes and says, that the above and foregoing is a full, true and correct transcript of all short hand notes or testimony taken by him in said matter.
(Signed) Roy S. Chamberlin
Subscribed in my presence and sworn to before me this 8th. day of August, A. D. 1903
(Signed) N. R. Greenfield
Notary Public.
Com Ex. June 19, 1907
NAME ALIAS MARRIED NATIVITY
John Alahuhta John Huhta Yes Finlander
Mike Arthurs Yes Irish
John Asplund “ Finlander
Desha Austin No Negro
William Austin Yes “
Samuel Richard Aysto No Finlander
Richard Bain “ Negro
John Battle Yes Irish
John Blumstrom “ Finlander
John Boney No Irish
Ed Brown Yes Negro
Castanzo Ciarallas “ Italian
John Clarkson “ English
Robert Clarkson “ “
John H. Cox “ “
John R. Cox “ “
Giovanno D’Bartilomeo John Delbarto “ Italian
Thomas Davis No English
Uriah Davis “ “
Passo Decasaro Yes Italian
Christ Decreshentis Christ Dandry No “
Jiusto Delmonico Jim Delmonico “ “
Robert Evans “ Negro
Hendrik Glad Henry Glaat Yes Finlander
Mat Hakomaki Mat Hako Yes “
William Hall “ Negro
Yrjo Hanhimaki Y Hankimo “ Finlander
Alf. Hapgood “ English
Alrik Hatala No Finlander
James Hayes “ English
C. H. Heiskanen Yes Finlander
Erik Heiskenen No “
Isak Sakens Hietamaki Isaac S. Maki “ “
John Hokka “ “
Alfred Holm “ “
John Honka No “
George Hooper Yes Negro
Peter Howley No Irish
Samuel Hudspeth Yes Negro
Ole Jacobson No Swede
Oscar Jacobson Yes “
Mat Jarvela “ Finlander
Dave Jones, Jr. No English
John D. Jones Yes “
Joe Julio No Italian
Andrus Gustof Kaanta August K. Matson Yes Finlander
Samuel Kaeris “ Polander
Sakari Kakko No Finlander
Antti Wilho Kankaanpaa Andrew Williams Yes “
Henrik Kankaannpaa Henry Konkamper “ “
Otto Kankaanpaa Otto Hullanda No “
Herman Kaskelo Herman Takkinen Yes “
Aksel Kerttula Axel Gittala No “
S. John Klassen Yes Swede
Alex Klemettila Alex Kleme No Finlander
Andry Korkiakaski Andrew I. Koski Yes “
Kaappo Korkiamaki Gabe Maki No “
Teofilus Koski Files Nickelson ? “
Oskar Kukkola No “
Nikolai Laamanen Yes “
John Lassila “ “
Henrik Laskala “ “
Gustaf Linden No “
Henry Lindi Yes “
Andrew Longi No “
August Longi Yes Finlander
Erik Longi “ “
Matti Longi No “
Matti A. Longi “ “
Ed Love Yes Negro
Dan Luoma “ Finlander
M. M. Luoma “ “
Andrew Luomala “ “
Erid Luomala “ “
John Lundberg No “
Matti Lundberg Yes “
Matti A. Lundberg No “
Felix McKenna Yes English
George McKenna No “
Archie McDonald Jr. “ Negro
Jesse McDonald “ “
Alfred Makynen “ Finlander
Mat Malberg Yes “
Gust Malburg No “
John Malburg Yes “
Thomas Manty “ “
D. Massaro “ Italian
Nick Massaro “ “
James Massey “ English
Axel Matson No Swede
John B. Matson No “
Felepo Mazzana Philip Marzon “ Italian
Charles Mertala Charles Mertilia “ Finlander
John Mertala “ “
Martin Mickelson “ Dane
Samuel Mickelson Yes Dane
Ben Miller “ Negro
Mark Miller “ “
Jac Mikkila “ Finlander
Andry Myllyniemi Andrew Matson ? “
A. E. Newsome Yes Negro
Charles Nieme No Finlander
Abraham Niemela “ “
Jacob Niemisto Yes “
Matti Niemi ? “
Alex Nikkola Yes “
Mike Nikkola No “
Matti Nissila Yes “
John Nortunen John Norkonem “ “
Robert Nunley No Negro
Henry Oja Henry Ojua Yes Finlander
Simon Ojala Wdr “
John Passi No “
James Patton James Denny Yes Negro
Sakri Payhonen Sakri Jacobson No Finlander
Charles Peltokangas Charles Pelto Yes “
John Peltokangas John Pelto “ “
Ejidio Petracco No Italian
Solomon Pohto S. Poutta Yes Finlander
Wilhelm Pulkkinen “ “
Hjalmar Raasio Hjalmar Matson No “
John Raite Yes English
John Rapakko John Roebuck No Finlander
H. Hankinen H. Rankinem No “
John William Rassio Yes “
Henry Reese “ English
Herman Rinko “ Finlander
John Ruonala “ “
Charles Ruuska “ “
John Rysberg “ “
John Saari Yes Finlander
Lauri A. Saari “ “
August Saarineva August Maki No “
William Sakrison Wdr “
Rudolf Salo No “
Henry Sanders Yes Negro
John Sannamaki John H. Hill Yes Finlander
Theodore Schill “ German
Joe Sheffield “ English
James Smith “ “
W. L. Smith “ Negro
Charles Somers Charles Summeril “ Finlander
Nikolai Sorvisto No “
Mike Sparo “ Italian
John Swanson Yes Swede
Henry Talkkinen Yes Finlander
John Tapio John Takia No “
Nick Thies “ Belgian
James Thomas “ Negro
Andrew Tikka “ Finlander
Clay Tinslay “ Negro
Robert Tinslay, Sr. Yes “
John Tomperi John Tomper No Finlander
Matti Tuhkala “ “
Simon Tuhkala “ “
Nikolai Wahtola Nels Wahtola Wdr “
Jac Wasti No “
James Watson, Jr. “ English
Thomas Weathers Yes Negro
Gust Westerlund “ Finlander
James While, Jr. No English
James While, Sr. “ “
Job While Yes “
Fred Wilkins No Negro
William Williams Yes “
W. O. Williams No “
Henry Wilmumen “ Finlander
Sac Wilmumen “ “
Alf. Zillo Yes Italian
: -ss.
County of Carbon. )
Before H. K. BENNETT,
Coroner of said county.
IN THE MATTER OF THE INQUEST CONCERNING THE DEATH of the men killed in Hanna Mine No. 1, whose names are listed and subjoined.
Monday, August Third, 1903, 2 o’clock P.M.
The following jury having been empanelled and sworn,
Joseph Widdowfield,
Jonathan Veitch
Wm. Davis,
The following proceedings were had, to-wit:-
W. H. JEFFRIES, being first duly sworn testifies as follows:
(Examined by the Coroner)
Q. What is your occupation, Mr. Jeffries?
A. Coal Miner.
Q. Where were you the morning of the explosion.
A. In number one mine.
Q. Please state to the jury all you know as to how, when and by what means these bodies came to their death?
A. I was working on eleven entry - on eleven entry between number six and number seven rooms, brushing; as near as I can get at it, it was about half past ten. There was five of us sitting at the mouth of this room laughing and talking and here came a gust of wind and dust and I lays down, and then follows - and then I sees fire follows. And then my butty called me and I did not answer him, and after the second gush came along, then I gets up and asks Tom Banks to give me a light, he says what’s this, I says an explosion, let’s get out as quick as we can. He says what shall we do with the tools and I says, leave them there. He goes into the room and gets his coat and cap and starts out. When we got up to the foot of the plane in eleven entry the after damp overtakes us. I started up the plane but I don’t know how I got up.
Q. What was the cause of this explosion and these men’s death?
A. I can’t tell.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. How long have you been working in the mine, Mr. Jeffries?
A. I came here the twenty-second day of October, Eighteen ninety-eight.
Q. Been digging coal all the time?
A. Every since I've been here - only three months I spent in Alabama year before last.
Q. Did you work any further down than that?
A. I worked as low down as sixteen - as low down as eighteen in the air course in eighteen ninety-nine.
Q. Did you ever see any gas in the mine at any time?
A. I set it off one day, I run like the devil and it burned my shirt.
Q. Did it burn your shirt?
A. Yes, I run. It put my light out, knocked my light off my head at least. Of course I had no business to run---I never gave it a thought, just run.
Q. Was that the only time you ever saw gas there?
A. No, sir; we tried to shoot lots of holes there and the gas wouldn't let us shoot them. The gas just come out of the barrel. We had to go out and get gas squibs to shoot them with.
Q. You always had plenty of air in the rooms where you was working?
A. No, sir.
Q. You didn't?
A. No, sir. I couldn't say so, because I have worked in rooms when I and my butty had four lamps and then we had to crawl into the next room to get a lamp, all four went out.
(By Dr. Davis)
Q. Was any brattice used to get the air to the face?
A. In some places it was used. Where I was working lots of the time no brattice was used.
Q. About how far ahead of the air was you?
A. I was working away up to the face at my room at the fourth cross cut if I am not mistaken; yes we got to the fourth cross cut.
Q. About fifty yards apart probably?
A. I don’t know exactly what the distance is.
Q. Was any of them stopped off, any of them built up behind you.
A. They claimed some of them were stopped. He gave my butty some nails and told him to nail a brattice up. He told him that wasn't his work and he laid the nails down and went on working, and the nails are there today, I guess.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Did the fire boss ever come around and tell you there was gas in the place at the time you claim you set fire to it?
A. Yes, in those places, yes, sir.
Q. He told you gas was there?
A. Yes, sir; he told me the gas was there.
Q. And he told you not to go into the places until he came down?
A. Let me know in the morning when I would go to work. He would tell me not to go to work until he came down and then I would go down and sit on the entry slope until he came down.
Q. That was in sixteen entry?
A. No, sir, that was working in this air course down on the slope.
Q. And you had to wait there until he came?
A. He came down.
Q. What means did he use in getting that gas out of that place?
A. He make us set our lamps down and let us go up and take an empty car and shovel the coal into the car.
Q. And so commence the circulation by shoveling?
A. He’d say all right.
Q. Who was the men working at that time?
A. I don’t know. That was four years ago - three years ago.
Q. Did you ever see any gas in the upper part of the mine?
A. No, sir, only in this air course. I never seen any in sixteen, I worked in sixteen and seventeen.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Well, when your partner refused to nail up that brattice, did anybody else come and nail it up?
A. It wasn't nailed up when this explosion happened.
Q. He didn't?
A. No.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Is this air course you speak of clear up in the face of the slope?
A. Where this air course was, that was the face of the slope at the time.
Q. Face going down?
A. We was driving the face up. The slope wasn't any further than just below eighteen at that time.
THOMAS BANKS, being first duly sworn testifies as follows:
(Examined by Coroner)
Q. Thomas Banks is your name, is it?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What is your occupation?
A. Coal Miner.
Q. Do you live in Hanna?
A.Yes, sir.
Q. Will you please state to the jury what you know of this explosion on the morning of the thirtieth?
A. Well, there was four or five of us sat in the bottom of six room in number eleven entry. It was half past ten; and then I says it’s an explosion we might as well be getting out as quick as we can and so we came out then. We got to the bottom of the plane.
Q. What did you do then, after you got to the bottom of the plane?
A. And then we came up the plane, I don’t know how we came up, out or nothing about it; so that’s all that I know.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Did you ever see any gas in this mine?
A. No, sir, I never have; but Jim says one time he says to be very careful that there was lots of gas in the mine.
Q. Jim While, the fire boss?
A. Yes. He said to be very careful there was lots of gas in the mine but we never seen any.
Q. There was something about some saw that was left up in a room, and the fire boss told you not to go up there and another person went up and got it, what was that?
A. This day the mine was idle and they were working blowing some tops down in the entry and Jim While had never been in that place this morning, he said we could go up the entry but we couldn’t go up the room, and then John Boney and James Kilday came after this saw and Boney said he would go up there. He said it was up there and he would find it. I think that’s all I know.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Did he get that saw?
A. Yes, he got the saw.
Q. He didn't take any light in?
A. Yes, he took a naked light, these big lights we travel with.
Q. He went into the same room that Mr. While told you not to go into, with a naked light?
A. He said if there was anything in that room he’d find it.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. What was Mr. While’s object in telling him not to go into that room for that saw?
A. He’d never been up to the rooms this morning on this side, I don’t think. It was seven o’clock when they came in the morning and they hadn't been into the room that morning, you know.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. He hadn't been there to find whether there was any gas or not, that morning?
A. No.
Q. And told you to stay back until he did?
A. Yes, sir, that’s it.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Was there any ladders for the men to get up to the tops of these rooms?
A. We had sixteen foot props in our place, I don’t know whether there was gas there or not, I know nobody ever went up there to find out whether there was gas there or not, as the ladder had never been used.
Q. What room was that in?
A. This was in five room number eleven entry.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Go ahead and tell us all about it.
A. I think that’s all; I never went any lower down than that.
A. BECKHAM, being first duly sworn testifies as follows:
(Examined by the Coroner)
Q. What is your occupation?
A. Coal miner.
Q. Please state to the jury and others what you know of this explosion and what you think is the cause?
A. I was working at number eleven entry at seven room, brushing on the entry. I had loaded three cars and I and my butty, to my recollection, was setting down and at that time there came a gust of dust and wind and my butty said, what was that, and just at that time looked up and seen a blaze of light down toward the plane. The light comes in from that direction and by that time I turned over on my face and I called my butty but he refused to answer, and as soon as this wind was kind of ceased I gets up and asks Tom Banks to give me a light. After I got a light I gave my butty a light, after we both got a light, I asked him what will we do. He says get out as soon as we can get out. We goes in and fills up our lamps in the mouth of our room where our box was setting. We fills our lamps and starts out. I was in the light when we started out until we got to the mouth of the plane, and the dust, after damp or something, I don’t know what, put my lamp out - at the mouth of eleven entry right at the plane - and I asked Jeffries for a light and he gave me a light but it went out again and then in a few steps I run up against a trip of cars that was standing there at the plane - had come down the plane - being in the dark I crawled up the plane to get out. I don’t remember anything else until the rescue came down and carried me out. That’s what I know of the explosion.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. How long have you worked in Hanna?
A. Since the thirteenth of August last.
Q. Ever work in eleven entry?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What entries did you work on?
A. I worked on twenty, that is the first place; and then I worked on sixteen, and then I worked on the slope during the winter up until along about the first of June, I think, or the last of May, I don’t remember which - anyhow somewhere about that time - then I got changed out of there and went back on twenty entry; worked on twenty a couple of weeks, as near as I can remember, then I got another change in eleven entry, where I was at the time of the explosion.
Q. Did you ever see any gas in this mine?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. You have seen gas?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How do you know it was gas?
A. Well, I had a safety lamp and it lit it off. Lit it off shooting the holes, tamping up the holes - set the gas off with the blast.
Q. You know it was gas?
A. I know it must have been gas.
Q. Was the air always good where you worked?
A. Well, not very good, but then it was as good as it could be right at that time, I think, to my own estimation, I don’t know.
Q. Wasn't very good?
A. No, sir.
Q. It was as good as it could be at that time?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Couldn't have improved it any?
A. Not to my knowledge, right then anyhow. You see, we would probably shoot a shot and shoot the brattice out.
Q. Shoot the brattice out?
A. Yes, that was in the slope.
Q. Yes, I understand.
(By Mr. Davies)
Q. Were you in the entry at this time, or in the room?
A. I was in the room but when the explosion took place, brushing on the entry. Do you mean was I in the room when I saw the gas?
Q. Yes?
A. In the main slope.
Q. In the main slope?
A. Yes, sir.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. How far was the air from the face of the entry?
A. I couldn't tell you the exact distance of that - sometimes it would be closer than others.
Q. You mean you were working in the main slope driving through the hill:
A. The main slope, yes, sir.
Q. Did you people work steady in that slope?
A. Pretty steady, night and day.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Night and day?
A. Yes, two shifts, night and day shift.
Q. Didn't lose any work at all?
A. Lose any days?
Q. Yes?
A. Yes, once in a while the night shift would lay off but then there would be a day shift in there.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Was there any water in the slope when you were driving it?
A. It would be wet in there. It would be impossible to be much water because the slope was going up. The water run from the slope.
Q. Did the water run away?
A. Yes, sir?
Q. Couldn't have been any dust?
A. In the slope? No, sir.
Q. Do you know anything about what they call a windy shot?
A. A windy shot?
Q. A windy shot.
A. Yes, I think I do, sir. I might not, but I think I do. What I call a windy shot is a shot that is shot too stout. The hole is bored too stout for the amount of powder and the tamping not being good on the powder, would cause a windy shot.
Q. That is a shot when you fire it, the strength goes out of the hole?
A. Instead of bringing coal.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Shoots back?
A. Yes, that’s what I call a windy shot.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. What do you do with these shots, do you fire them over again?
A. I never do.
Q. And you have to make a new hole?
A. Yes, sir. I never do, maybe some do, I never did.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. What do you do when a shot misses?
A. When a shot misses?
Q. Do you blow another, fire another?
A. It depends on what kind of condition the hole is in. If the hole is wet I drill another.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Do you fire with blasting barrels?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Whether in a wet hole or dry hole?
A. Yes, sir, all the same.
Q. Does everybody do the same?
A. Do not know whether everybody does - I never seen anybody use any, but you see, I never hardly went to anyone else’s place.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Did you ever notice whether the one you fired would ignite to the one that had missed?
A. No, sir, it would be impossible for me to see that.
Q. You would notice it though?
A. No, sir, I couldn't notice it because I wouldn't be there at the time the shot went off.
Q. Couldn't you tell by the smoke?
A. Oh, no, you can’t see nothing like that. When a man lights a hole he is around the corner - he don’t see nothing.
Q. Yes?
A. I changes the hole, you don’t drill that hole within a few feet of the other.
Q. But the chances are there is a crack, have you seen them fired that way?
A. A man wouldn't drill a hole close to a crack he would be afraid of losing his powder.
Q. Probably he wouldn't know anything about that, he couldn't see it”
A. Yes, he would be taking a chance from the outside.
HARRY SMITH, being first duly sworn, testifies as follows:
(Examined by the Coroner)
Q. What is your occupation, Mr. Smith?
A. Gas watch.
Q. In the Hanna mine? That is -
A. Yes.
Q. You may please state to the jury what you know of this explosion.
A. Well, I don’t know anything of the explosion. I wasn't in the mine.
Q. Or as to the condition of the mine as near as you can at the time of the explosion?
A. Well, the night before the explosion, I examined all of the entries, straight entries, from the slope into the face; found them all clear of gas. In sixteen entry I found a little fire damp coming out, or smoke they call lit, coming out of thirty-nine room in sixteen. I noticed it was pretty damp all through. That’s all I can say about the mine.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Was it your place to go and examine these rooms in the mine?
A. No, only when there was a fire boss lays off in the day time, I take his place in the morning and go through.
Q. Was there much gas in this mine, Mr. Smith?
A. Yes, there was gas most all over the place, all over.
Q. All over the mine?
A. Yes.
Q. In different parts of the mine?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Was it in large quantities?
A. No, I never did see a large amount of gas in one body. When the entries would be working and the men wouldn't be in, we would find a little gas but then after I had gone through there was the other fire boss would go in the morning -
Q. If you -
A. And when I found there was any gas I notified them and they would go over the same place.
Q. They would always go? Didn't it sometimes happen, Mr. Smith, that the fire boss would meet you on the entry going out and ask if you had been in such and such a place? And he would return with you?
A. No, they wouldn't see me in the entry; I would stay there until they came in the morning and they would ask me how is such and such a place for gas and I would tell them how it was when I was in there, and I would tell them what time I was in there, but they would go in there, I suppose - I don’t know.
Q. You don’t know whether they did or not?
A. No, I never went down there, I would go home. The morning I found the smoke I notified old man Cox, the fire boss there.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. What room was it Mr. Smith, you seen the black damp or gas coming out?
A. Thirty-nine room on sixteen entry - fire stink.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. It was explosive was it?
A. No, it was just the heat from a cave, kind of heating up to a fire, that’s what they call fire stink.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Now, in places in these rooms where there was a big cave and a big vacant place above, how would you ascertain whether gas was in there or not?
A. I don’t know, I never went up there myself, I don’t know anything about it.
Q. That place might be full of gas and yet a good current of air traveling underneath?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. But you never went up to find whether that gas was up there or not? Do you know whether or not it was the custom of the other fire bosses to get up there and see whether gas was there or not?
A. No, I don’t know whether they went up there or not. On an idle day they would never hardly go round the place.
Q. They wouldn't go around?
A. No, they would have something else to do, lowering track or leveling track or something.
Q. There was a good deal of those works bratticed up wasn't there - old works as we call them in the mine?
A. Yes, a good many of them.
Q. Did they have any way of finding out how these places was in regards to gas?
A. No, only by testing the stoppings. Sometimes the gas would push out or afterdamp would push out.
Q. There would have to be an awful pressure of gas before it would come out, through the stoppings, wouldn't it?
A. I don’t know, it just depends on the atmosphere the barometer changing - sometimes it would draw in through a hole or a leak, maybe, when the wind came through; sometimes it would draw in and sometimes it would push out. Some stoppings had test pipes on. Then when you would take out the plug, if she was pushing, you would catch it right there in your lamp. If it was gas she would explode, if it was damp it would put the light out.
Q. Now, suppose there had been a big cave back in these old works, what would have been the consequence on the men working in the rooms of anything like that?
A. I don’t know; I think it would cause an explosion if there was a big place, a big leak, it might push out.
Q. You have experience enough to know it would be a big pressure and almost blow out a stopping?
A. Yes. If I was going along the main entry, sometimes with a makes light, if I heard a big cave or anything like that I would put the light out.
Q. But there is lots of miners wouldn't know to put the light out?
A. Yes, lots of them wouldn't have time; because they might be right there.
Q. What is your idea in regard to this explosion, did you ever go around where it occurred?
A. No, I was just down the first day - down to eleven entry, that’s all I was and down to five entry on the slope.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. How many were working on the night shift, that is, entry men?
A. I don’t know, I can count them up. Twenty-eight, and sometimes there was five up the slope, I don’t know, but there must have been about thirty-three men altogether, drivers, company men - altogether company men and diggers. There was four drivers and a rope runner and an engineer and about thirty diggers - something like that.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Did you have time to get around this place every night, Mr. Smith?
A. Yes, I had to travel, I couldn't stop along the road very much.
Q. Seems to be an awful large place for one man to get around, by looking at the maps.
A. You see, I had just to go straight in to the face and back again. Went in to the face of the entry, down through the face of the back entry and out to the next one, and again the same way, and it was a long ways.
Q. Now then, the entries was always kept in a damp condition to prevent any spontaneous combustion, or anything like that?
A. Yes, I used to water them myself most of the time.
Q. You used to water them yourself?
A. Yes, there was lots of water, there was a pipe right along the entry.
Q. In connection with going around and seeing all these entries?
A. Yes, all I would have to do was to open the valve on the hose there and let it run down the track.
Q. Let it run until you came back?
A. Let it run until the day men came around. At sixteen entry, I never watered over there because there is water on there every day - old man Cox.
Q. Well then, the mine was in such a condition that it could not be possibly a dust explosion?
A. Well, I don’t know, up in the rooms. All I know was that right in the middle of the track where the horses and mules traveled it would splash on the sides of the entry sometimes - once in a while. Sometimes when there was nothing doing I would get a couple of drivers to water sixteen or twenty room lengths on the side and bottom - I had them water it with a hose - one and a quarter or one and a half - yes, an inch and a half.
Q. Now as a fire boss, what in your opinion was the cause of this explosion - you have a right to an opinion the same as anyone else?
A. Well, I think it started from a gas explosion.
Q. Gas explosion?
A. There is some rooms in some of the entries where they are stopped, not working, nobody working in them, and no stoppings in them.
Q. No stoppings in them?
A. No.
Q. And there could have been a cave up in the top of these rooms and forced the gas out?
A. If there was any - I wouldn't say there was any for sure, I never was up in them. They never would let any of the men that was working on nights go up in the rooms, drivers or nothing, I would caution them not to go up whether they was working or not, because I didn't know what was up there, they might get into trouble.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. What was the way of diggers would get rails, ties or anything they wanted, to go fetch them themselves, or were they sent in to them?
A. Yes, lots of them, some room would be finished and some digger would be looking for rails and I would tell him to go up there and get them.
Q. Did anyone go in with a safety lamp first?
A. No.
Q. Is this the bosses’ orders?
A. Yes, well, the bosses and fire bosses just the same. Just tell them where the rails was and to go and get them.
Q. Now, Mr. Smith, Mr. Brooks and you working there as a competent man, able to judge whether it was dangerous or not - he thought you were all right as an expert on gases, that you understood your job?
A. I suppose he thought I knew enough about gas to know what it was or he wouldn't have me there. I had the whole mine in my charge. I had to travel all over it where there was anybody working and I have gone around as high as four or five mornings in a month in them other fellow’s places.
Q. In place of the regular firemen?
A. Yes, sir.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Mr. Smith, have you a certificate?
A. No, I understand they got a permit, I never seen it, I was working there for my own good, trying to get to be a fire boss, the pit boss told me a little while before the explosion, maybe six weeks before that I must get ready, that the mine inspector was coming - to get ready for the examination.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Is there any other fireman in this town that has been working in there that knows about that gas?
A. Yes, there is a man here - I guess he is in town - yes, he is in town, I seen him today. He used to be a fire boss.
Q. What is his name?
A. John Pettitt.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Did you ever have any conversation with the day firemen as regards to the condition of the mine in relation to gas?
A. Yes, if there was a big quantity of gas in any place, they would tell me to watch when I went in there. They say if there was so much gas in there, there would be a danger board in there - a big tie, or whatever they could get hold of, wrote on there, danger keep out, in the entry; I never seen none in the rooms.
Q. Never seen any in the rooms?
A. No, not just where they was working, maybe some idle day they wouldn't go around, maybe when the entry drivers was working in there one of the fire bosses would have to go in there to see if it was safe for those fellows to work in there. If there was gas in there he would tell me the same night as he went out.
Q. Wrote it on a piece of stick?
A. Piece of plank or something.
Q. Nothing there to prevent the fellows who couldn't read - lots of fellows who were working here didn't know whether it meant danger, dam, or anything of that kind?
A. No, but every man is supposed to know what that means.
Q. These Finlanders?
A. I don’t know, they are supposed to, I think; I know if I went in a place a fell over a tie, I would turn back and see what it was on there, or what it was for.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Yes, if you couldn't read, you wouldn't accomplish much by looking at it.
A. No, he might think it was something else. I don’t know.
JOHN WHILE, being first duly sworn, testifies as follows:
(By the coroner)
Q. What is your occupation, Mr. While?
A. Digger.
Q. In the Hanna mine?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Please state what you know of the explosion, what you know of the mine in general.
A. I wasn't working that day.
Q. Well, give your opinion of the mine in general, what you think of it as to gas and so forth?
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Just tell us all you know about it John. Just tell how it occurred? Just tell all you know about the mine - did you see any gas in this mine?
A. Yes, I seen some in twenty and some in eighteen, too.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Now this gas that you saw, Jack; was it in large quantities?
A. No, no, just a little in the entry.
Q. A little in the entries?
A. Yes, sir.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. What way had they of getting it out?
A. Canvas.
Q. Canvas?
A. Yes, sir.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. How long was you off, John, How long was you off? Was you working the day before the explosion - two or three days before?
A. Yes, I was working the day before the explosion.
Q. The day before?
A. Yes, sir.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Well, tell us anything you know about it?
A. I couldn't tell you anything about how it occurred besides an explosion of gas, that is all that I can tell you about how it occurred.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Did you ever hear your brother say anything in regards to the condition of this mine?
A. Yes, sometimes he would and sometimes he wouldn't.
Q. Well, what was his general opinion of the mine?
A. Well, it was a bad one.
Q. His opinion was bad?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you ever hear him say that there was liable to be an explosion there at any time?
A. No, no, I never heard him say that.
Q. Sir?
A. If he had, I wouldn't have gone down and he wouldn't have I guess.
Q. Did you travel around this mine enough to know anything about the ventilation of this mine?
A. No. I never went around through the air course except in the face of the entries. They had plenty of air in the face of the entries.
Q. Face of the entries?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Was the air good in the room where you worked?
A. I worked in the entry.
Q. In the entry?
A. Yes.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. What number?
A. Twenty entry back.
(By Dr. Davis)
Q. What shift were you on when this explosion happened?
A. I had been on the night shift.
Q. You had been on the night shift?
A. Yes, sir, I was working on the night shift.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. You never had any conversation with your brother in regards to gas and things in the mine?
A. Oh, yes; sometimes we would get to talking together.
Q. And he told you that there was lots of gas?
A. Yes, sir.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. What about this day that your brother was carried out and they thought he was done up - the gas had knocked him out?
A. I came out then -
Q. There was an explosion and your brother was burned by gas?
A. No, no fire was in the mine then - it was from fire - black damp, something of the kind.
Q. Did they have to carry him out?
A. I packed him out myself for a ways - he walked out after he came around to himself.
Q. When was this, about what date?
A. It has been six or seven years I guess, or more than that, when the fire broke out.
Q. Did you ever know of any man getting burned by gas in this mine?
A. Oh, yes there is one here now that has been burned, Newsomes, I think they call him.
Q. He was burned previous to this explosion?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Badly burned?
A. Burned his face, not badly burned - just burned a little - his face and neck.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Did you ever know of anyone had their clothes burned off, or their hair burned off, or anything of that kind?
A. No, only him, he got burned. When you go in the entries you get lamps to go in with after they fire a shot, you light the lamp up and go in, and this time he didn't and it exploded on him and he got burnt.
Q. Did you ever see anything that would cause you to think that there was liable to be a dust explosion in this mine?
A. No.
Q. You never did?
A. No.
Q. Did you ever work in any other mine that was gassy, anywhere?
A. In the old country I have worked where there has been lots of gas - we worked with lamps there.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. It was all with lamps where you worked in the old country?
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Never worked in this country any where else?
A. No, nowhere besides here and Carbon.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Were you present Sunday night before this explosion when your brother Jim told his wife that he was liable to be packed out any time?
A. No, no; I don’t think he ever said such a thing as that. I don’t think that he ever has.
Q. It was just rumored around here - I heard that he had made this remark and I thought I would ask you?
A. No, I don’t think he ever said a word about that. I know that if he thought, or I thought that, I would not have been in there -
Q. Nor he?
A. No, sir, no, I don’t think that he would.
Q. Did you ever hear your brother Job give you his views on this?
A. Yes, I have heard him. When he used to run - where he used to run in eighteen that was a bad place and he used to tell me it was a bad place.
Q. That there was lots of gas in eighteen?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you ever hear old man - Mr. Cox say that there was a terrible quantity of gas in sixteen?
A. No, I never heard him say that - I never had much to say with Cox at all.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. He had two entries, taking care of two entries, did he?
A. One entry.
Q. One entry?
A. Just sixteen.
Q. And he used to be on in the day time?
A. All days.
Q. All days?
A. Yes.
RICHARD WILSON, being first duly sworn, testifies as follows:
(By the Coroner)
Q. What is your occupation?
A. Miner.
Q. Please state to the jury what you know of the explosion and as to the general condition of the mine at that time?
A. I wasn't working that day.
Q. Well, what do you know of the mine before?
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Of the mine, any time previous to that?
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Were you working that day?
A. No, I was working on the night shift.
Q. That’s all right, go ahead?
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. How long have you been in Hanna, Dick?
A. Four years.
Q. Working in the mines continuously?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you ever see any gas in this mine?
A. Not where I was working?
Q. Not where you were working, what condition was the air?
A. Pretty good where I was working.
Q. Good air where you were working?
A. Yes, sir.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. What entry was that Dick?
A. I had started to work in seventeen, just about six weeks, I had been working in thirteen entry and at eleven entry one other time.
Q. You are pretty well posted on gas aren't you, Dick?
A. Yes, I know it when I see it.
Q. Now, since this explosion you have been working helping get these bodies out and repairing the brattice and such like, what’s your idea in regards to this explosion - what in your opinion was the cause of the explosion?
A. Well, it’s hard to tell.
Q. Was it caused by gas or dust?
A. Well, I couldn't say what it was caused by, I couldn't say.
Q. You couldn't say?
A. No, I couldn’t say.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Did you ever see any gas in any portion of the mine besides?
A. No, I never have been below - I never worked below - not below thirteen. I never seen anything there.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Did you hear anybody say anything about it?
A. Only an entry man. I heard an entry man say there was a lot of gas on their entries, that’s all.
Q. Have you been working on the pillars any time, Dick?
A. Yes, working on pillars all the time.
Q. You were?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. You never seen no gas in there?
A. No, only black damp I have seen.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. You have seen black damp?
A. Black damp is in all of them pillars where I have been working.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. How high was the roof?
A. It was usually from nine feet to fourteen and fifteen feet.
Q. Were there any ladders for anyone to go up and see whether was gas on top?
A. Yes, we always had ladders in our place.
Q. Did you put them up for the fire men to go up?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Was there any dust there - dry dust?
A. No, there was lots of water in our entries.
Q. Lots of water?
A. Yes.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Good ventilation?
A. Yes, sir.
FRANK E. COLLINS, being first duly sworn testifies as follows:
(By the Coroner)
Q. Please state to the jury what you know of the Hanna mine.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Were you working the day of the explosion?
A. No, sir.
Q. Been working -
A. Working nights.
Q. Did you work with Dick Wilson?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How long have you been working in Hanna?
A. Just eleven months.
Q. Eleven months?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Then you never worked anywhere only in seventeen entry?
A. Yes, sir, eleven and seventeen. I have been down in seventeen about six weeks.
Q. Then the condition of the air was good down there as far as you know?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Never saw any gas?
A. No, sir.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. How did you get material such as rails and ties, did you have to get them yourself or did they fetch them in to you? The drivers fetch them rails, ties and all?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And you practically know nothing about the explosion?
A. No, sir.
Q. Were you working that night before that explosion?
A. Yes, sir.
FRANK MASSARO, being first duly sworn, testifies as follows:
(By the Coroner)
Q. Please state to the jury what you know about the Hanna mine, just give them a story of what you know?
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. How long have you been working here, Mr. Massaro?
A. I worked about two years and five months.
Q. Were you in the mine the day of the explosion?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What entry do you work?
A. Seventeen.
Q. You came from away down didn't you?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Well, tell us what you know of the explosion.
A. Well, I don’t know, I believe there was some place that got lots of gas, somebody make a big shot, and put lots of powder and maybe he got some powder on the box and it fire up altogether and find some dust in the road and lit it. I don’t know - that’s my opinion, I don’t know.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Did you ever know of any gas in this mine, that is explosive fire damp?
A. Somebody told me in our place there was gas sometimes. I never seen gas at all because I worked on the pillars all the time. I never seen any gas at all in my place.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Yes, that’s right - just what you seen, not what other people seen, you never saw any gas in your place then?
A. No.
Q. Did you always have good air?
A. Sometimes good, sometimes bad.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Were there ladders to go up and ascertain if there was gas where there was a big hole?
A. Yes, there was ladders right on the props.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. You mean something to walk up so as to reach the top?
A. Yes.
Q. How high was the coal?
A. Oh, someplaces twelve, thirteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen high, in my place.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Seventeen feet high?
A. Yes, sir.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. How did you find whether there was any gas up there - you couldn't tell.
A. What?
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. You couldn't tell whether there was any gas in there?
A. I couldn't tell. Lots of times I would go myself with a lamp, never saw any gas myself.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. You have been to the roof with your lamp?
A. Yes, lots of times; to drill a shot. I touched my lamp pretty near on top sometimes - never seen gas at all.
Q. Never seen any gas blow out your blasting barrel?
A. No.
Q. Is there any water in the coal?
A. Water?
Q. Yes?
A. Some.
Q. You’d get wet holes sometimes?
A. Sometimes wet, sometimes dry.
Q. You used blasting powder all the time, no needle at all?
A. I used the needle sometimes too.
Q. You used the needle sometimes?
A. Yes, lots of times.
Q. Lots of times?
A. Yes, lots of times I used the needle.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Did this coal bleed enough to keep the bottom wet - did water enough come out of the coal to keep the bottom wet?
A. The bottom was wet all right, pretty near down.
Q. No dust there?
A. Not any dust in there.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Your place rising or dipping?
A. Straight entry.
Q. Did it raise, go up or go down?
A. This way, level.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. You worked all the time on pillars?
A. No, I worked about one year in pillars in seventeen, and I worked in sixteen then in a room.
Q. Ever see any gas in the room?
A. No, I never seen gas in the room at all.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. How far did you go between the cross cuts?
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. How far did you drive these rooms before you put a break through, an air course, cross cut?
A. How far from another?
Q. Yes. How far from one room to the next room?
A. Sometimes fifty, sometimes sixty feet, sometimes seventy-five, sometimes—I don’t know.
Q. You don’t have any regular -
A. I think it was fifty feet.
Q. Fifty foot is what they are called?
A. Yes.
Q. Well then, when you get one through here what do you do with the one that was open, stop it up?
A. Fill it up, put brattice in. Sometimes, if you got no air you put brattice in.
Q. Who puts that in?
A. The gas man.
Q. Built it with what - cloth, canvas, rock, coal?
A. I didn't need to put canvas on my place now. Before where I worked in the room we didn't need them.
Q. How did you find your way out, get out, after the explosion?
A. What place I come out?
Q. Yes, I say how did you come out, tell us all about it.
A. Well, by George, I can’t tell you. I worked on face of the entry and then some could keep on the straight entry; then all dark - and I got six or seven partners all with me.
Q. Six or seven partners?
A. Yes, and then I says to my partners, come this way to the back entry, this way, I think it is explosion all right, because it catch me two times now, explosion, the other time in Indian Territory. I know we skip down the lower entry and then the fire come up the top entry, the black damp, the smoke and everything, and then we go down the lower entry through the door down the lower entry, and then worked up the side.
Q. Up the hill?
A. And then I saw three men come along with me in there, and then I don’t know how far we go - lots of smoke you know - I don’t know what place then, that time.
Q. Who were the three men?
A. Two colored men, one Fin. He’s gone now.
Q. Has he left the town?
A. Yes sir. And then we tried to catch the top entry, pretty close down to the depot down in seventeen entry and then we find a little hole. We got some canvas in there and we find a hole and then we catch the top entry and then we find a little bit of place in there and got a little higher - not so much, just so much. Then we light the safety lamp. We take a rest about two hours, because we not get no place to go out. Lots of smoke - had better stay there.
Q. And you had the canvas to put around you?
A. And then we stayed there and after we started away, I don’t know what side to go out. I don’t know this side of the entry that is to go out.
Q. You didn't know whether you were going out or going in?
A. But when I see the switch on the room go like that, I know then that is the right way to go out. We go there and find lots of cave and can’t go out - the entry full of dirt, rock, coal and everything.
Q. Caved down?
A. Yes, we can’t go out. We come back again, it was a little bit more in that place, got a little bit higher, and then after the smoke is gone a little we started to work again to see some place to go out, and then I see one place that got a plug stopping.
Q. Plug stopping?
A. Yes, they got a little hole, a little door in there. I seen to open that little door and then got through there and then we started to work up the cave in there and tried to catch fifteen, to catch thirteen, and eleven, and come out up at nine and catch six shaft up here.
Q. And were these colored men with you all the time and that one Finn?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Just the four of you?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Well, that’s a miracle, ain't it!
A. I worked about two or three hours to get out.
Q. Had you got anything to put over your mouth at all?
A. Nothing, no. There’s lots of times pretty bad smoke, black damp, all the time, that was. That is where it’s pretty good thing to just catch a little handful of water and throw it on your face.
Q. It was two hours before you got out on top?
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Four, he said, two hours in one place they rested.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. It must have been four o'clock when you got out?
A. I came out half past three.
Q. Been all the time from half past ten to half past three - that beats the record!
JOHN B. EVANS, being first duly sworn, testifies as follows:
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Now, John, tell us all you know about this.
A. I don’t know anything to tell you that amounts to anything, by George.
Q. How long have you worked in this mine?
A. Well, I started to work here a year ago last June.
(By the Coroner)
Q. As a miner?
A. Yes.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. What part of the mine did you work in?
A. When I first started here, I started on the pillars in seventeen entry. Worked there three months, I think.
Q. Have good air down there?
A. Yes, pretty fair air down there, a little black damp once in a while. That is, when it gets way high, starts caving, coming down over the cards - not enough to amount to anything. All pillar work.
Q. Any gas in there?
A. Never seen any in there.
Q. Well, where else did you work?
A. I went down to start twenty-six entry up the slope, down in the basin, and that is where I worked when this thing happened.
Q. Twenty-six?
A. Yes, sir, and for two weeks before this happened the entries was stopped and we was blasting rock down to grade the track up on twenty-eight.
Q. How was the air down there?
A. Strong current of air there.
Q. Did you ever see any gas down there?
A. Yes, sir, I've seen some gas down there when I was working in the entry.
Q. Exploded on you two or three times?
A. Yes, sir; it kind of lit several times with the lamp, going in there, you know.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Ever do any damage to amount to anything?
A. No, never done me any damage - just knocked a little off the roof.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Did you ever see any gas in any other part of that mine?
A. No, I never went anywhere else, I have never been there.
Q. Did you ever work on company work, John?
A. No, I never did till this thing happened. Of course, I guess there was gas in the next place to us, just like ours, once in a while. It would happen both of them - three of them, were working together and I guess they were all about alike.
Q. How were the entries in regard to damp?
A. These entries was pretty damp, lots of water, lots of places we was working in the last two week we was blasting rock—where we was working the last week there must have been two feet of water.
Q. Then, there wouldn't be likely to be a dust explosion?
A. No, no dust there to explode anything.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. What would you call a windy shot, John?
A. Lots of different opinions. I have my own; I can’t be the man to settle that matter.
Q. Give us your opinion - we want everybody’s opinion.
A. Well, I think any kind of a shot that will cause a blow shot of any kind, but I do not know what a windy shot is that altogether. I don’t think a windy shot is a shot that stands still. I've fired shots in here that I don’t call windy shots, and I've had shots I thought was windy that had very little powder in them.
Q. Well now, John, wasn't there liable to be a windy shot if there was a little too much powder, how would that work?
A. I don’t know, it might occur from that sometimes. I know I've fired a windy shot - what I call a windy shot myself - it threw the canvas out - didn't blow it down. I know I've just blowed a nice hole in the face of the entry - just in one chunk - that’s what I call a good shot, but still they’ve got other opinions on them kinds of things sometimes - a man working in a gassy mine sometimes.
Q. Did you ever see a standing shot where a little water run out the blasting barrel and then you would light it with a lamp and see it burn up?
A. Why, yes. I don’t know that I ever seen any of that here, Billy.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Did you ever see any shot that there was any likelihood of a dust explosion from?
A. No, not that I know of.
Q. You never seen dust burn up or flare up around after a shot?
A. Not here I haven’t.
Q. Not here?
A. No.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Was there any limit to your entry on account of cross cuts going through?
A. Yes, sir. I think the limit was two hundred feet in an entry and canvas up.
Q. Canvas up the sides?
A. Yes, canvas up; that is the limits here - that is our limits, I don’t know about the other entries.
Q. That’s right, only tell for yourself.
A. That’s the only one that I've been in here, of course, it was a hundred feet between every cross cut, that pillar would be two hundred feet. Of course there was a cross cut between.
Q. About how far were the two entries apart, what kind of pillars?
A. About thirty feet - thirty-three to thirty-five feet - thirty five feet I should think, pretty near alike.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. How far is the cross cuts in the other entries where there are turned rooms?
A. I have never been in any other entry where there was a room turned.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Since the explosion, John, have you been working every day helping to get these men out?
A. Pretty near - yes.
Q. You have been around sixteen working?
A. Yes.
Q. Where this explosion is supposed to have occurred?
A. I have been working in that entry, yes.
Q. Did you ever hear these experts claim they think it started in sixteen?
A. Well, I guess some of them was passing their opinion. Sometimes they pass their opinion in one place and then go to another and pass their opinion on that, and you can’t make much out of it.
Q. Well, what’s your opinion in regards to these places that you have worked in in regards to a dust explosion or a gas explosion; you’re an old miner?
A. I couldn't tell exactly, that’s sure.
Q. You couldn't tell?
A. I couldn't tell. I think there must be gas among that thing somewhere.
Q. You think it was gas?
A. Must be, I should think. Still there might be dust around there to help it along.
Q. Yes, there is bound to be some dust, but your opinion is that is started from a gas explosion?
A. Yes, I just think it that way.
Q. All old miners are supposed to have an opinion, John.
A. Oh, yes; I couldn't tell.
HENRY NOWELL, Being first duly sworn, testifies as follows:
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Now Harry you just tell me what you know about this in your own way, just the same as you do in old country talk. Were you in the mine the day the explosion occurred?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Just tell us what you know about it—how you felt.
A. I was snubbing.
Q. Yes?
A. I had snubbed all my cars up - it was about half past ten. I was going out with the driver with his loaded trip. I was going out to the first room to begin on the empty cars again, when it came in.
Q. Which entry was this?
A. Nine entry. I got about four rooms off when the explosion went off - I didn't know it was an explosion.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Didn’t know what it was?
A. I thought it was an air door blowed open or something like that.
Q. Did it put your light out?
A. Yes, right off.
Q. Were you driving a horse or a mule?
A. A mule. My mule turned around and run up the entry back again, so I stepped in the room and let the air pass me.
Q. And where did the mule run up the entry?
A. It run up the entry. I shouted the men down - the Finn men, they didn't understand me at all. While I was shouting the driver lit his lamp and went in and made a trip..
Q. Went in and made a trip after the explosion?
A. He went for his empty card. He stopped there. It would be about ten minutes after the explosion when two or three Finns past me with their lights to the ground, so I lit my own and followed them. I run to the parting where the driver and the other snubber had gone. We heard them groaning in the cars, so I left them and went out to the plane - where it turns down to the foot of the slope. I couldn't see any of the Finns that had passed me and I knew they had gone the shortest way, so I went that way too - I was two miles from the shaft. So I passed another driver.
Q. Do you know who he was?
A. Dennis Cummins, and I passed a man by the name of Kilday.
Q. How were they setting?
A. They was lying down face to the ground and groaning, so I came up and I met Mr. Brooks and them coming down, and he sent me out. And I went up.
Q. Nobody helped you up?
A. No, sir.
Q. Did you tell Mr. Brooks where these men were?
A. No, they was right in their way. I was only about ten yards ahead of the men when I met Mr. Brooks, they could hear them groaning from there.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. That’s all you know about the explosion - you went out then?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. You came out of the mine then?
A. At six shaft, yes sir
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Where was this mule - did that come out at all?
A. No, it was in the entry. Mr. Brooks brought it up to the shaft.
Q. The mule come up all right?
A. They got it out about two days after.
Q. It got killed then?
A. No, they brought it out of eleven entry - they fed it down there. There was four mules and one horse got out.
ALEX BRIGGS, Being first duly sworn, testifies as follows:
(By the Coroner)
Q. Please state to the jury what you know of this mine, to the best of your knowledge?
A. I haven’t been in the mine except about one-half hour in four years - four years past the first of May. I moved from this mine to Carbon. When I left the first of May eighteen ninety-nine, I thought the mine in a safe condition. The condition on June thirtieth, nineteen hundred and three I couldn't say anything about, for I don’t know. I haven’t been in the Hanna mine except that one half hour - that is something like two years ago.
Q. You weren't in the mine for two years before this thing happened?
A. Yes, I don’t know what it has been doing for four years. I left here as I said now, on May 1st, eighteen ninety-nine. At that time the mine I considered in a good safe condition, as the reports will show from the fire bosses right along every day. They were then signed by the mine foreman, Mr. Battle, whom I thought was a good, responsible, honest man.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Well, since the explosion Mr. Briggs, you have been around where it is supposed to have started from?
A. I have been around and seen evidences of it, Mr. Widdowfield.
Q. Evidences of it?
A. Yes, but I don’t think that there is any person that can say just exactly at the present time where it started from, I have seen both evidence of fire and I have seen evidences of gas; that is, as a dust explosion or a gas explosion. I have seen timbers burned that would show very plainly that gas had burned there. Other places here I have seen dust buried into the timber without any evidences at all - without any evidences of fire at all. That would go to show a dust explosion. But from what I have seen in the mine, why, I really believe myself that the explosion has been started either at Number one room on sixteen entry or at number eleven room on sixteen entry, but of course I have not had any time - I haven’t been allowed any time to make a thorough investigation of the place wherewith I could arrive at a definite opinion of it. That’s the way I find it at the present time.
Q. Does that coal bleed any - any water in the rooms, or anywhere in these rooms?
A. Very little; at sixteen I don’t think that there was anything - it seems to be almost dry.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Did you see any gas in these mines, Mr. Briggs?
A. Any gas?
Q. Yes.
A. Yes, why piles of it, yes, why it’s everywhere in the mine from being shut up, it’s full of gas. They start to generate gas right along whether closed or open and of course, being closed up, it is natural for it to fill up the vacancy - all the space. When we went in there first we found a mixture of gas and afterdamp; The afterdamp, at that time, had the best of the fight; that is, had the best of the gas at that time. Anything, any mixture of gas and afterdamp outside of the regular current of air - at that time any mixture of gas and afterdamp outside of the regular atmosphere would put the lamp out, that is, a Wolfe safety lamp - put it out.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. About how high is that coal in these rooms, Sandy?
A. Some of the places there must be fifteen or sixteen feet - yes, or more - caves and places that it is more. Some places it is a good deal less, but generally I would say that the places would be about fifteen or sixteen feet high.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Now Mr. Briggs, now in bratticing up these old works, that is, in closing them all up after they are through, don’t you think they are creating a danger there?
A. I ain't here to think Mr. Widdowfield.
Q. Well, what’s your opinion in regards to that. This explosion may have been caused by these places being full of gas and a cave may have drove the gas out on the open light.
A. That may occur, but I couldn't say.
Q. It might have occurred?
A. Yes. If it would be of any benefit to the jury, why, I can state that during my time as superintendent of this mine I closed old workings myself. That was, where I had been drawing pillars, closed them off to save damp gas from going towards the men. After closing them off I made several tests myself from the inside of the stoppings by taking it in a bottle, drawing the gases from the inside of the stopping through test pipes. I made several tests with them; I never could get them to fire. I tried with electricity, tried with naked lights, tried with different processes of trying gases to get it to explode. I never could get it to explode because the old slow combustion causes what we call a depleted air to form inside. That depleted air kills the gas, makes it non-combustible, non-inflammable. I also had two bottles sent to Mr. Wilbur C. Knight, the professor of Laramie University, and he pronounced it, on analysis, as being depleted air or free nitrogen; that there was no inflammability to it.
Q. Free nitrogen, then if that was pushed out by a gas or anything, and coming into contact with the air would make it inflammable?
A. No, sir.
Q. It wouldn't?
A. No, sir.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. How did you handle these rails and ties and things, Sandy, when you were boss here? That is, supply them to the men, or else let them all go hunt their own in the diggings or workings?
A. Well, it was the company’s business to supply the rails and ties when I was here.
JAMES KNOX, being first duly sworn, testifies as follows:
(By the Coroner)
Q. Please state what you know of the mine in relation to gas.
A. I don’t know anything about the mine until the day after the explosion - that was the first time I was in the mine.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Just tell us what you found here when you came down, that is in relation to the cause of the explosion.
A. Oh, I don’t know anything about what was the cause of the explosion.
Q. You don’t know anything about it?
A. I came here to be one of the rescue party, to try to get out the men. I never took any thought about what was the cause of the explosion at all.
Q. Don’t know anything about it?
A. I couldn't say.
Q. Couldn’t tell whether it was caused by gas or dust?
A. No, sir. No I couldn't tell, I never made any examination.
Q. Or whether it was caused from a windy shot?
A. It could have been caused by a windy shot - it could have been caused by an accumulation of gas, but as to which of the two, I couldn't tell.
Q. Then, you know nothing practically about the mine?
A. I don’t know nothing practically about the mine I guess. You've been down there just as much as I have, pretty near. I have been in twenty entry, I have been in sixteen entry, I have been in eighteen entry - that’s about as far as I have been. I was down in the slope as far as twenty-two entry.
Q. Was there evidence of an explosion down at twenty-two entry, Mr. Knox?
A. Very slight, we couldn't get into twenty-two entry you know, for water.
JOHN PETTIT, being first duly sworn testifies as follows:
(By the Coroner)
Q. Please state to the jury what you know of this Hanna mine.
A. Well, I have been employed in the mine since - for about four years and a half previous to the explosion as a gas watchman. As far as gas is concerned they have been very careful in examining for gas and getting it out when any was found. I came here in answer to a message from Mr. Clark. I arrived here on the night of the third of July, three days after the explosion. Since that time I have been in the mine about twenty-two shifts, trying to get at the bodies.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. What is your opinion in regards to the explosion, Mr. Pettit?
A. Well, I haven’t formed any definite opinion and couldn't on oath say that I had an opinion of how or where exactly the explosion occurred. I am certainly of the opinion, and it is an opinion, that it occurred somewhere in the first ten or twelve rooms, in sixteen entry.
Q. Was the condition of the air while you was here always good?
A. The mine was always well ventilated and the caves in that part of the mine, in sixteen. I have traveled over them scores of times and only once before, while the mine was drowned out after the water had been gotten out, did I find any gas in these caves - in these rooms.
Q. Only the once?
A. Only that one time.
Q. Did you have to make a written report out every day in regards to the gas - what you find?
A. Every day a report was made, a blank report for Rock Springs, and a book report for the Hanna office.
Q. The stoppings between these main entries, that is the main entry and the rooms, what were they composed of?
A. In the slope?
Q. Well, the slope and entries.
A. The slope were rock and the entries were logs about two feet - two feet six long, laid in alkali mud.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. What distance did they put their cross cuts in the rooms? Drive a room between the cross-cuts?
A. The law requires them every forty-eight feet.
Q. Did they do it according to law?
A. Some of them, they have gone seventy feet.
Q. Bratticed on the sides, I suppose?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Well, what way did these firemen have of getting up on tops of caves thirty feet high, and so forth, so as to test the gas?
A. Well, they have tested with lamp sticks; that is a stick with a screw on the end of it where you could raise the lamp into the hole in the roof. Of course, most of these caved places you could reach the roof on top of the cave - ladders were left in some of the works, some of these rooms, to examine for gas.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Do the mining laws of this state require that these old works should be ventilated after being bratticed up?
A. I am not positive on that.
Q. Then, they were not ventilated on this mine?
A. You know that all the old workings as in sixteen entry and some other entries were walled off on account of gob fires.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. I understand there has been a fireman for that sixteen entry stationary, going no where else but in those few rooms. Is that so?
A. I do not know anything about it only from the report.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Did the boss ever tell you not to report gas on the reports when you found it?
A. What?
Q. Did the boss ever tell you not to report gas when you found it?
A. To the contrary, we were always instructed to report, whenever gas was found in a place it had to be reported.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Was the gas got out just as soon as it was reported?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. By what means?
A. By ventilation.
Q. What bratticing, was it boards or canvas?
A. Canvas bratticing generally.
Q. Then the same body of gas never was reported twice?
A. I can only call to mind once where such was the case, where gas was left standing from Sunday morning to Monday morning.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Did you ever know anyone to get burned here with gas during the time you have been in?
A. No, sir.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Isn't that against the mining rules to report gas twice, the same body?
A. The mining laws require that all gas shall be removed, and the laws of the company require that the gas shall be removed under direct supervision as quickly as it can be done.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Do you know anything about how long this air shaft has been going on - when it was started, how long has it been working?
A. The mine was drowned out - well, I think, as near as I can remember, the slope was started up from just below the eighteenth level in February nineteen hundred.
Q. Do you know anything about the distance it was driven?
A. No, not without measuring.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. I want to ask you a few questions here (Producing map.) Now, at sixteen here in case of an explosion at sixteen at these overcasts and this here was blowed out, was there any possible way of escape for those men working down below?
A. What?
Q. I say, in case of an explosion, here at sixteen destroying this overcast here, was there any possible way of escape—for these men to get out, any possible way of getting air to them?
A. Not that I know of.
Q. Then, in your opinion, these men that were down here, a good many of them might have been saved if this had been connected through the hill?
A. I can’t say that because the explosion would travel so fast, and if the connection even was made here, the explosion would certainly have got the pure air and they might have stood just as bad a chance down where they were in those places as if it was not through.
Q. If it wasn't through?
A. No, sir.
Q. Then you think that the explosion would go both ways?
A. I do.
Q. Well, when the recoil of that explosion came wouldn't it draw a current of air both ways - a current of fresh air?
A. It’s hard to determine which would have the largest weight, the most pull.
Q. Well, whichever way the pull was it was bound to cause a natural current to go that way?
A. It is hard to determine which would be the natural way in the distance from that point.
Q. In your opinion, oughtn't there to have been more outlets from the lower parts of that mine - the way it’s laid off here. Below sixteen there is no escapes whatever?
A. The only escape is by return and manway.
Q. That’s all in case of an explosion up here and these were damaged or closed, then these men were entrapped?
A. The return and manway and the plane road on this point over seventeen cut off?
Q. Over seventeen cut off, but nothing below that?
A. No, sir.
Q. Since that slope was started, there has been ample time to have it through there in your opinion?
A. While I was working here the slope was pushed with all possible speed to make that connection. Since I left here last August I am unable to say what has occurred because I know nothing of it.
Q. Were these colored gentlemen working in there when you were here?
A. No, sir.
Q. Good practical miners in there at that time?
A. Yes, sir.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Since you came back this last time, have you seen any explosive gases in this mine?
A. Yes, sir.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Was there very much water in that place they were driving down?
A. No, the water didn't bother them very much, it was taken out with a small electric pump.
Q. Well, what has been the cause that they didn't drive it through, what has been the cause of that standing all this time?
A. It is impossible for me to say.
GEORGE L. BLACK, being first duly sworn testifies as follows:
(By the Coroner)
Q. Please state to the jury the condition of the mine as near as you know before this explosion happened, Mr. Black.
A. That is, as far as gas was concerned?
Q. Yes, and the conditions as to the explosion and the cause of the men’s deaths?
A. Well, I can only say that from the visits that I have made at the mine and through the mine and from the daily reports that we have received, the mine was in good condition, and that is has been in good condition as far as I know for a long time past. We considered it one of our best ventilated mines and as carefully looked after as any property we had. We never have had any trouble in getting men to work at Hanna when we have been short of miners at our other mines, on account of the wages they they made here, and their willingness to work in the mine. I don’t know that there is anything further that I can state unless you care to ask me some questions.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Well, did you ever see any gas - did they ever report any gas in the mine, Mr. Black?
A. Yes, sir. Yes, there has been gas at different times in the mine for years. In fact, I might say, since it was fairly opened up. We have always kept gas watchmen, had inspections made for the gas and reports of it as found and removed.
Q. Now, this mine, in your mind being in such a safe condition there must have been some serious thing occurred to cause this accident?
A. That is very evident.
Q. Yes, the evidence is very strong that there must have been some place where there was gas there, or dust, or something?
A. Of course, as to what caused the explosion or where it occurred, I am not prepared to answer.
Q. All we are trying to get at is what caused the death of these men.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Have you been down in the mine, Mr. Black, lately?
A. Yes, quite recently. I average about once a month in the mine.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. If this slope had been through the hill, Mr. Black, from here down, (indicating on map) mightn't it have bettered the condition of this mine - if anything had occurred up here they might have had some chance of escape?
A. Well, that would have depended entirely on where the trouble occurred.
Q. Say it occurred in sixteen, where these overcasts are from one side to the other, now you see this explosion occurring here and destroying these overcasts here, it would entirely cut off ventilation from these men down below, wouldn't it?
A. Very likely, but to all appearance there is some effect of this explosion below sixteen, it has been in the entries below. Now, whether it came to these other entries from sixteen or not I am not prepared to say, and just what the effect might have been if this connection had been made, is another point I wouldn't be positive on, because we don’t know the conditions - we don’t know where it happened or what caused it, or in what direction it traveled.
Q. You have been down in the mine?
A. I've been down as low as twenty, there are many places where the explosion has been going in one direction very uniformly and other places you will find it reversed.
Q. In room twenty-five it seems to have gone up there and back here at thirty it seems to have gone the other way.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Haven’t you had ample time to get this connection through here since it was started? It was started I suppose, for the benefit of the men working there?
A. No, sir, it wasn't started for ventilation or anything of that kind, it was started for the convenient working of the balance of the coal body. We were intending to plane this down to the basin and take it up with the same hoist at the same time. It wasn't driven for the purpose of ventilation.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. That place wasn't needed for an air shaft at all or ventilation?
A. It would very likely have been used for that purpose in connection with the balance of the mine, but it was driven to develop the balance of the coal field and work the eastern outcrop. It was not the intention of the company to put up a town or machinery at the east side, but plane that to the basin and hoist with the present hoist.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Then, it wasn't driven in the shape of a manway?
A. Oh, no, it was driven just the same as it was driven on the western outcrop, a slope and different air courses, to the western face with intentions of putting the plane out of the east end.
HARRY SMITH, recalled for further examination, testifies as follows:
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Now, Mr. Smith, the morning of the explosion you say you discovered a fire burning in room thirty-five, sixteenth entry?
A. No, it wasn't a fire, I discovered a little smoke coming out, fire stink, room thirty-nine.
Q. Did you go up and examine the fire?
A. No.
Q. You couldn't tell whether it was burning strong enough to ignite gas or anything of that kind?
A. No, just stink from a cave that was heating - getting hot.
Q. Now, you spoke yesterday about finding gas on several occasions in your work in the Hanna mine as a gas man - did you report this gas on your reports?
A. No, sir, I never reported gas at all.
Q. Why didn't you make these reports up, your reports in writing, why didn't you report the gas?
A. They told me I didn't need to report gas, if I found any gas to put a danger board there and tell them about it in the morning. I used to see the fire boss in the morning. They said I was supposed to get the gas out if I reported it, and make a report out that would read the way I got it out, brattice or what way. I didn't have time to put a brattice up. If I found gas where the men were working, and it was dangerous for them to work, I sent them out and wouldn't let them work.
Q. Who told you not to write gas on your reports?
A. Both Battle and the fire bosses. You see when I go around at night the other fire bosses go around in the morning. I tell them how the gas is all over and they report the gas. They are the ones who find it.
Q. Then you reported gas on several occasions, to these men?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. That is, a verbal report?
A. Yes, sir, just in working entries. I never went up in the workings.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Was there any danger boards or gas signs in the old workings to keep persons from going in there?
A. Yes, there are lots of them. A board nailed on the stopping with a sign on it, Danger Keep Out.
Q. Now, in English or Finn, or how?
A. English.
Q. How does the Finn’s read it, can they read it do you suppose?
A. I don’t know, some of them can and some of them can’t. But you can see there is something wrong there and if an old miner sees anything like that he knows enough to keep out.
Q. Never saw any of these men go into any of these places for anything?
A. No, not on the night shift.
Q. When a room is stopped and there is gas or fire in there and has no stoppings, how are they notified that it is dangerous?
A. I do not know, I never seen anything like that. Some places if there is any danger up there it is liable to be wrote in chalk on a board or canvas - something you can write on.
Q. Nothing there to prevent them from going in, they can get right in there?
A. There might be a lagging pole nailed across.
Q. They can get in there?
A. If they want to, but I guess the pole is supposed to keep them out.
Q. Never seen anyone in there to get rails or ties or anything of that kind?
A. Not on night shift. I told the men to keep out of old rooms - drivers or anything. If they got off the track I cautioned them not to go up there. I didn't know what was up there and I was looking out for the safety of myself as well as anyone else.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Have you ever noticed any of the posting boards took away?
A. No, they are all yet there. I have noticed some boards down, in the last eight years that I know of—never took away.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Gas been there all that time for eight years?
A. No, not gas, but it was a danger board to keep anybody away from there for fear there was any danger of anyone with a light going in there.
E. S. BROOKS, being first duly sworn testifies as follows:
(By the Coroner)
Q. Mr. Brooks, if you will please state to the jury as near as you can, and answer the questions of Mr. Widdowfield, as to what you know of the condition of the mine at the time of the explosion.
A. Well, I’d rather a good deal that you would ask me questions and get all the information you can.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. We don’t want to ask you any questions only in relation to the explosion and what you think as to gas.
A. Now, you understand, Mr. Widdowfield, that we haven’t gotten into this thing far enough for any man to tell what caused it. Now, I know as well as any man can know, who has trusty subordinates, that there was no standing gas in that mine, and I know it for this reason, that I never take a safety lamp, that I never advise Johnny Battle when I am coming down, he never knows when I am in the mine until he meets me somewhere on the entry. I go up to the face of a room and then I go on to the next one; I don’t care whether it has been worked for three weeks or a month, and I know that every cross cut in that mine is bratticed up to the last cross cut. I know that gas rises naturally, and I know that my rooms pitch and I know I have nothing to fear in walking up any one of the cross cuts - any one of them I go in. I know that my subordinates are men that have been in this mine longer than I have. Every one of them, I have grown up here with them, I know they are reliable, and for that very reason I have pushed them along. They have all complied with the laws of Wyoming. They have all stood their examinations except one, and I didn't use him until I had a permit. He was posted and ready to take his examination when the state mine inspector was ready to examine him.
Q. Well, in your opinion, does the condition of the mine change or vary from day to day? Today it may be considered safe and tomorrow an explosion occur?
A. No, it does not, but I know that the number one Hanna is a gassy mine and our only safety is in ventilation, and we know when the barometer goes down we have more gas to contend than we find on days when we have a fair barometer and the same current of air.
Q. Then, you haven’t any idea what was the cause of the explosion?
A. I have an idea, but I don’t care to do any injustice to anybody. As soon as we get that gas out of the mine and we can use our naked lights in that mine it is a question of only a few days until it is plain to everybody.
Q. I know it is pretty hard myself, to find out a direct cause at the present time—a man can’t locate it.
A. I would like to make one more statement.
Q. Yes, we would like to have you.
A. And that is this: while we work green Finns and green Italians, they are never allowed to go into that mine without an old miner. Now there are Finns that have stayed in this camp six weeks before they got a job because no old miner would take them.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Was this place, Mr. Brooks, way back there, was that started to air that mine or not?
A. To make the connection makes the mine that much safer, to give us an outlet and an inlet. It was going day and night and the yardage had been raised twice in this month previous to the explosion to keep it going.
Q. That would help, wouldn't it?
A. That’s a good question. There would have been but the two places going up there, the slope and the air course, and there would have been a fresh current of air for the explosion to travel up on and the chances are every stopping would have been gone.
Q. The only benefit that would have been, if there was anyone in there that hadn't been killed, why they could have gotten out.
A. Oh, you understand there wasn't any time. It would have done no good, they would have met everything the same as we did going out. It would have been pulled back into the fan and brought out this way; or the fresh air would have been burned out on that side just the same as it did on this, the explosion passing there. Even that would have been absolutely useless.
Q. Well, is it possible that a blast could have done so much damage if it had been all right in the morning when the firemen went around---if everything had been all right?
A. Well, sir, the best evidence we have that everything was all right that morning was that there was a trip from every entry and the explosion occurred at ten thirty. Now, I have known this mine for nine years, and I make this assertion without fear of contradiction, that there has never been a man burned in Hanna mine in his place in the morning, but I have been in places at eleven o’clock and seen them brought out. If a man don’t keep up his brattice he can’t come out and go in in safety in a gassy mine.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. What means, Mr. Brooks, had the miners of getting rails and ties?
A.What means? Why they had to go on top, all they had to do was to mark them, put them at the mouth of the slope and they’d get them.
Q. They were never allowed to go into old rooms?
A. Oh, yes, they were allowed to go in the rooms and get them. I don’t call it an old room when rails and ties are in them, and there isn't any possibility of danger for the men to go in and get them. Even then he gets permission from his gas watch who has been in there before him, and lets him go. That’s one thing I've kicked about, because in my travels I find a hundred feet of rails from the face down and every tie gone, and then there isn't any way to get them out and then they would stay there until they were lost.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. You don’t care to advance any opinion as to the cause of the explosion?
A. I don’t like to advance any opinion. You have seen what I have seen and I don’t suppose you would feel competent to say what caused the explosion.
Q. No, sir, I wouldn't all that we know is that is was an explosion.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Were these places dry do you suppose, was there any dust any where around?
A. That is why the mine foreman was on the entry and we employ a gas foreman and gas watch to look after that. That is not my work, when I go through and see a dusty place, I call their attention to it.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. All the entries seemed to be well watered, pipes and everything there shows they were there for that use.
A. They were all careful men, all good men.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. There was one fire boss in one single entry alone?
A. We had one gas watch where we were pulling pillars in sixteen entry and where we had heating caves, we had one gas watch who never left that one entry.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. Did you ever notice any place making any gas where it was muddy on the bottom?
A. Oh, yes; frequently on the slope I find gas bubbles rising and all you've got to do is shelter it for an instant with your hat or cap and fire it.
Q. Any show for that to accumulate?
A. It can’t accumulate on the bottom there because the air is passing right over it all the time.
Q. Are there any of the rooms that are wet and muddy?
A. The rooms?
Q. Yes.
A. Where the gas comes up through the floor?
Q. Yes.
A. I don’t remember any.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. There ain't any entries in there I suppose that aren't working, that is run a long way in and abandoned?
A. Well no, not except those that are walled off within a hundred feet of the slope. Now, thirteen and fifteen entries have got their stoppings in them. Eleven and twelve and fourteen and ten and eight and six and five and seven and nine---everything shut off that wasn't working. All entries not working were shut off outside the fault; that is, thirteen and fifteen are. The others are shut off at the slope or manway.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. Those old works, wasn't there some cause that the gas might accumulate in there, Mr. Brooks?
A. Well, I don’t believe that gas could accumulate and live in there---the black damp with it would make a mixture that would put out anything in the shape of a light. In addition to that, they had their rounds to make and report the condition of them twice a day.
(By Mr. Davis)
Q. Did they use ladders or something to get up in the high places to test them?
A. Yes, every digger has to put his ladder in place so the gas watch can reach the highest part of the roof. If he doesn't he is sent out---I have sent men out for that very thing. And I consider one of the best proofs of the efficiency of the men in this mine is that there has never been a man burned in his place in the morning after the gas watch had made their rounds, but of course they are not responsible after he fires a shot or two if gas accumulates.
(By Mr. Veitch)
Q. What means have you got of trying the gas in the pillars when it folds in behind?
A. What?
Q. In the pillars, when it folds in?
A. What means have we got?
Q. Yes.
A. Nothing, except that the gas watch climbs on the caves to try it. They have got to climb on the cave to try it. You take the working places, no matter how high, we have a ladder there for the gas watch to get up to try the top. I have sent men home because they didn't set their ladders up for the gas watch.
A. E. BRADBURY, being first duly sworn, testifies as follows:
(By the Coroner)
Q. Mr. Bradbury, please state to the jury as near as you can how these bodies came to their deaths and the general condition of the mine at the time of the explosion.
A. Well, that’s a pretty hard matter. I know that an explosion occurred without a doubt. I am unable to state any positive facts as to what brought about that explosion. It could have occurred from many instances, and for me to select the proper one I don’t believe I am able to make a statement as to the exact cause of it, any more than that it was an explosion. I could fairly believe that it might have been caused from a great pressure of gas that lay somewhere in the vicinity of the sixteenth in and about from number one to number eleven rooms, and that from the pressure of the gases in the roof might have caused a cave, and with that cave it would probably bring down more or less gases that was stored and might have touched an open light. That probably would ignite the gas, if it was the fact, and the gas would ignite the dust. That would without a doubt create an explosion of considerable force. Now as to going into details any further, why, I couldn't do it from this point. I couldn't give any particular cause and I should hate to say that was a positive fact, that it originated from that, but it looks plausible that it might. From the indications since the gas has been removed out of the sixteenth entry wherein it is fairly probable to believe that this explosion first started in that vicinity. I would think previous to what I have stated that it would have been entirely free from gas for the reason that there has been no signs of any under a very moderate velocity or air since that time, simply enough to move, and no gasses found since, on my examinations; and I have been through it nearly every day with the exception of four or five total, for the last month, and I have never detected any during that time. That being the case, I make the statement I do that it probably originated from a cave and brought down a large amount of gas which created an explosion by touching someone’s light.
Q. What was the condition of the mine at your last examination?
A. What was the condition?
Q. At your last examination.
A. I think it was in as good a condition as any mine that I ever went into with the exceptions of what we all know of the old workings, stopped off, and they were stopped off at that time in a very perfect manner.
Q. How long ago, Mr. Bradbury, was that before the explosion?
A. Well, it strikes me that it was sometime about the---I think it was sometime in June that I was in there—I can’t tell you the date without looking at my report.
(By Mr. Widdowfield)
Q. All that we want to find out is the cause of the explosion—the cause of the men’s deaths, that is what we are here for.
A. Yes, I understand what you want is to find out, but I feel perfectly---
Q. You examined the mine and found everything in good condition?
A. --if I can give any answer to any inquiry, I would be glad to do so to satisfy the jury in a manner that they would be pleased with.
Q. Well, I am satisfied with the explanation that you have made with regard to it. I think that is about as near as anybody can get to it.
THE STATE OF WYOMING.)
:-ss.
County of Carbon, )
Roy S. Chamberlin, being first duly sworn on oath deposes and says, that the above and foregoing is a full, true and correct transcript of all short hand notes or testimony taken by him in said matter.
(Signed) Roy S. Chamberlin
Subscribed in my presence and sworn to before me this 8th. day of August, A. D. 1903
(Signed) N. R. Greenfield
Notary Public.
Com Ex. June 19, 1907
NAME ALIAS MARRIED NATIVITY
John Alahuhta John Huhta Yes Finlander
Mike Arthurs Yes Irish
John Asplund “ Finlander
Desha Austin No Negro
William Austin Yes “
Samuel Richard Aysto No Finlander
Richard Bain “ Negro
John Battle Yes Irish
John Blumstrom “ Finlander
John Boney No Irish
Ed Brown Yes Negro
Castanzo Ciarallas “ Italian
John Clarkson “ English
Robert Clarkson “ “
John H. Cox “ “
John R. Cox “ “
Giovanno D’Bartilomeo John Delbarto “ Italian
Thomas Davis No English
Uriah Davis “ “
Passo Decasaro Yes Italian
Christ Decreshentis Christ Dandry No “
Jiusto Delmonico Jim Delmonico “ “
Robert Evans “ Negro
Hendrik Glad Henry Glaat Yes Finlander
Mat Hakomaki Mat Hako Yes “
William Hall “ Negro
Yrjo Hanhimaki Y Hankimo “ Finlander
Alf. Hapgood “ English
Alrik Hatala No Finlander
James Hayes “ English
C. H. Heiskanen Yes Finlander
Erik Heiskenen No “
Isak Sakens Hietamaki Isaac S. Maki “ “
John Hokka “ “
Alfred Holm “ “
John Honka No “
George Hooper Yes Negro
Peter Howley No Irish
Samuel Hudspeth Yes Negro
Ole Jacobson No Swede
Oscar Jacobson Yes “
Mat Jarvela “ Finlander
Dave Jones, Jr. No English
John D. Jones Yes “
Joe Julio No Italian
Andrus Gustof Kaanta August K. Matson Yes Finlander
Samuel Kaeris “ Polander
Sakari Kakko No Finlander
Antti Wilho Kankaanpaa Andrew Williams Yes “
Henrik Kankaannpaa Henry Konkamper “ “
Otto Kankaanpaa Otto Hullanda No “
Herman Kaskelo Herman Takkinen Yes “
Aksel Kerttula Axel Gittala No “
S. John Klassen Yes Swede
Alex Klemettila Alex Kleme No Finlander
Andry Korkiakaski Andrew I. Koski Yes “
Kaappo Korkiamaki Gabe Maki No “
Teofilus Koski Files Nickelson ? “
Oskar Kukkola No “
Nikolai Laamanen Yes “
John Lassila “ “
Henrik Laskala “ “
Gustaf Linden No “
Henry Lindi Yes “
Andrew Longi No “
August Longi Yes Finlander
Erik Longi “ “
Matti Longi No “
Matti A. Longi “ “
Ed Love Yes Negro
Dan Luoma “ Finlander
M. M. Luoma “ “
Andrew Luomala “ “
Erid Luomala “ “
John Lundberg No “
Matti Lundberg Yes “
Matti A. Lundberg No “
Felix McKenna Yes English
George McKenna No “
Archie McDonald Jr. “ Negro
Jesse McDonald “ “
Alfred Makynen “ Finlander
Mat Malberg Yes “
Gust Malburg No “
John Malburg Yes “
Thomas Manty “ “
D. Massaro “ Italian
Nick Massaro “ “
James Massey “ English
Axel Matson No Swede
John B. Matson No “
Felepo Mazzana Philip Marzon “ Italian
Charles Mertala Charles Mertilia “ Finlander
John Mertala “ “
Martin Mickelson “ Dane
Samuel Mickelson Yes Dane
Ben Miller “ Negro
Mark Miller “ “
Jac Mikkila “ Finlander
Andry Myllyniemi Andrew Matson ? “
A. E. Newsome Yes Negro
Charles Nieme No Finlander
Abraham Niemela “ “
Jacob Niemisto Yes “
Matti Niemi ? “
Alex Nikkola Yes “
Mike Nikkola No “
Matti Nissila Yes “
John Nortunen John Norkonem “ “
Robert Nunley No Negro
Henry Oja Henry Ojua Yes Finlander
Simon Ojala Wdr “
John Passi No “
James Patton James Denny Yes Negro
Sakri Payhonen Sakri Jacobson No Finlander
Charles Peltokangas Charles Pelto Yes “
John Peltokangas John Pelto “ “
Ejidio Petracco No Italian
Solomon Pohto S. Poutta Yes Finlander
Wilhelm Pulkkinen “ “
Hjalmar Raasio Hjalmar Matson No “
John Raite Yes English
John Rapakko John Roebuck No Finlander
H. Hankinen H. Rankinem No “
John William Rassio Yes “
Henry Reese “ English
Herman Rinko “ Finlander
John Ruonala “ “
Charles Ruuska “ “
John Rysberg “ “
John Saari Yes Finlander
Lauri A. Saari “ “
August Saarineva August Maki No “
William Sakrison Wdr “
Rudolf Salo No “
Henry Sanders Yes Negro
John Sannamaki John H. Hill Yes Finlander
Theodore Schill “ German
Joe Sheffield “ English
James Smith “ “
W. L. Smith “ Negro
Charles Somers Charles Summeril “ Finlander
Nikolai Sorvisto No “
Mike Sparo “ Italian
John Swanson Yes Swede
Henry Talkkinen Yes Finlander
John Tapio John Takia No “
Nick Thies “ Belgian
James Thomas “ Negro
Andrew Tikka “ Finlander
Clay Tinslay “ Negro
Robert Tinslay, Sr. Yes “
John Tomperi John Tomper No Finlander
Matti Tuhkala “ “
Simon Tuhkala “ “
Nikolai Wahtola Nels Wahtola Wdr “
Jac Wasti No “
James Watson, Jr. “ English
Thomas Weathers Yes Negro
Gust Westerlund “ Finlander
James While, Jr. No English
James While, Sr. “ “
Job While Yes “
Fred Wilkins No Negro
William Williams Yes “
W. O. Williams No “
Henry Wilmumen “ Finlander
Sac Wilmumen “ “
Alf. Zillo Yes Italian