One Photo, Many Emotions

Consolidated Coal Company Miners of Frostburg, Allegany County, Maryland.

 

 

I'm really lucky to belong to a closed Facebook group for Western Maryland History. This group has amazing members who know the goods when it comes to the history of my ancestors' homeland in Western Maryland. Document from the earliest times back in the early 1700s to now, members of the group bring obscure and overlooked oddities, often with links, and a short citation. There have even been some uploaded documents, especially maps. They're crazy about maps! Memories too get posted there. We have one thing so obviously in common: we love the land and history of our ancestors!

 

The above photo, taken in the early 1900s, got posted recently and there was a large and strong reaction. It's a group photo of a shift of coal miners all working in the very hazardous conditions that was the very nature of coal mining on what was called The Big Vein along George's Creek in Western Maryland. Men came, often with their families, from Wales, Ireland, and Germany, as well as north from the coal fields in Pennsylvania to the area for the work. It was hard and dirty work but it was a sure way to earn a decent living for your family, if you weren't killed in the process. Strikes were common as the mine owners tried once again to wring extra profits out of the operation by cutting the miner's salaries. But all-in-all, if a man was going to earn a living by coal mining, this was one of the best places to do it.

It's the faces of the miners that hooks everyone who sees the photo. The faces and expressions are clear. Young men, older men but no very old men. By the time a man reached middle age here he was too worn out and his body too damaged to work very hard. Young boys worked with their fathers and brothers for half-pay. They worked side-by-side, and lost limbs or lives in the same way as the men but earned half.

On the Facebook page, posts appeared under this photo. The comments were heartfelt, even emotional, rather than the cool factual comments that typically get posted. This photo was different. You see, many of us have strong men of the coal mines as our ancestors. Bit by bit, the lives of these miner came together as posts popped up.

 

I looked at it for the first time searching for my grandfather and great grandfather but I didn't see them there. My great grandfather Daniel Williams, who came from Wales to the area to work the mines, was a supervisor at one of the Ocean Mines, so he wasn't in this picture which appears to have been taken elsewhere. My grandfather Lee Kelly worked in the Borden Mines but he did so at a time later than this picture. But just from the looks of the picture, they could easily have been here because they would have fit right in.

There's my great grandfather Daniel Williams, second from the left, with a mining crew.

 

That's my grandfather, John Lee Kelly, about 1930 when he was working in the mines. That's Dad second from the right. No one knows who the kid on the left is.

 

 

Back to the photo up top. Do you see their lunch buckets? There in the front. Everyone had one. These men worked hard doing manual labor that burned a lot of calories, so they had big appetites. My Grandpop Kelly called it a dinner pail because that's what he called the mid-day meal. You can see the size of the bucket and imaging what all went in there. Lots and lots of food. No salads. No kale. No quinoa.

 

Look how clean their faces and garments are. Obviously this photo was taken at the start of the day when the men were on the way to the mines. By the end of the day they were covered in coal dust. Some homes had a "wash house" out back, for laundry but also as a place where the miners of the family could wash up and change clothes before entering the house. Grandma Kelly's house had a big back porch were Grandpop washed up.

But the killer detail in this big group photo is the lamps on the hats. And I don't use the word "killer" lightly. Those were carbide lamps and if the coal dust got bad or there was gas leaking from the mine, the carbide lamp would cause an explosion.

One of the members of the Facebook group posted that his ancestor raised canaries to be sold to the mining companies. If the canary died, well....

The mine caused all sorts of other businesses to prosper in the area. My great grandfather Gustav Zeller owned a "tonsorial emporium" or barber shop that had big bathtubs where the miners could have a bath on Saturday. He was a prosperous man!

Great grandfather Gus Zeller's barber shop on Main Street, Frostburg, Allegany Co., MD. Notice the oversized barber pole!

That's him. Can you tell he was a barber? Look at that mustache.

The 100 year anniversary of Frostburg happened in 1912. It might be said that the area reached it's prosperous zenith then. The population of the area was around 15,000 and they all came to town on Saturday, market day. Frostburg hummed on a Saturday afternoon as miners and their families came to Main Street. Those miners in the photo? Wonder how many had a Saturday bath at great grandfather Zeller's barber shop?

 



Murder? Theft? Bribery?

Yesterday I posted that it finally struck me like a bolt of lightning how facebook can be used for genealogy when I joined the group, "Descendants of George Adam Eckhart of Eckhart, MD". Rich, bless him, created the group March 22, just eight days ago and already the group has almost 20 cousins.

But the most extraordinary thing is that we're sharing family history. And photos too... you know me, I love the photos... but this story takes the cake!!!

There's always been an oral history story in my Eckhart line about how the Consolidation Coal Company, the Consol, "stole" the Eckhart land from the family. Their man, "Jenkins", supposedly went to the county court house and paid a clerk to make one (or more) of the parcel deeds "disappear". It's hard, I would imagine, to get evidence to substantiate that claim now. I think at one point Mom did try to go and look to no avail. So I doubted the story or at least just chalked it up to family legend and lore. But here's a twist!

Here's what Rich posted to the Eckhart facebook group and it's very interesting indeed! And sorry about the font size craziness... I just copied and pasted and it went berserk:)

I was just reading some of the "history" of the Eckharts on the Genealogy web site. Here is an excerpt: "The original Eckhart farm was 600+ acres extending into what is now Frostburg. The Eckhart mansion stood close to where the McDonald's and Food Lion are in Frostburg now. There is actually a saw mill there now.

Nearby there are some small cottages built on rock foundations; those were the slave quarters. Everything was left to John, & he became quite a wealthy man. Harry said Matthew St. Claire Clark bought the Eckhart land. John Edwin Eckhart said a man by the name of Jenkins ended up with Consolidation Coal Co., and they bought out the Eckhart Farm".

Interesting reading, but I think a few facts were left out.

From research that I did, the Eckhart farm was indeed sold to Matthew St. Claire Clark, in 1835. The land was purchased from Mary Eckhart. The excerpt does not include the fact that her "wealthy" husband and her oldest son, had both died within 5 days of the sale.

It seems Mr St. Claire Clark, who was the Washington D.C. based attorney for The Consolidated Coal Co. of New York, was also privy to the fact that the land contained the largest vein of coal ever found in Maryland. Mr St. Claire Clark had authorized the production and publication of a book which described in detail the minerals located within "our new land purchase in Eckhart, Maryland". The book was published shortly after the purchase of the land. So shortly after, that it seems Mr. St Claire Clark had to have his geologists working on the land before they even owned it.

Finding the mother lode of coal in 1835 was like finding the mother lode of gold in 1849. Who knows how many people lost their lives in the name of greed? I believe John and his son did.

 

 

Today's photo from my archive, the town of Eckhart Maryland taken about 1909:

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/03/murder-theft-bribery.html

Daniel Williams In The Newspaper: Chicago Fair of 1893

OK, so here's where I am so far tracking down my GGF, Daniel Williams (1852 -1920) and his trip to the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. He was chosen to take a large lump of coal from the Ocean Mines of the Consolidation Coal Company in Western Maryland where he worked as a foreman in mine number 16. It's just the kind of detail that tickles the fancy of the story teller in me, so I must know more!

It's the newspapers of the day that I want, so first stop is to find out what newspapers were published in the area in 1893. The Library of Congress's Chronicling America project was go-to location. There I searched on state, then town. Cumberland MD had 64 entries for local newspapers and it was interesting to see the frequency with which they came and went over the years!

The "finalists" on my list to track down for Cumberland are the Cumberland Evening Times (1892 - 1916) and the Cumberland Daily News (1890 - 1923). While talking to Mom this morning she shared that over the years one leans left the other right, politically.

Chronicling America's search for Frostburg MD produced one entry that had relevance and that's the good old Frostburg Mining Journal, the FMJ. It was published from 1871 to 1913.

None of the above are available online, much to my dismay. So now I have to figure out how to get this research done by remote control.

I was at a little workshop on US land records and happened to mention that I had paid $25 to get a copy of my 5th GGF's land sales in 1816 and 1817 and his will. One of the ladies in attendance "hrumphed" with great disdain at my not having gone to upstate New York to track them down myself. Of course it would have been exquisitely better to have gone there and dug through the archives my own self... no telling what I might have stumbled into. But it simply was not possible. Likewise, I need a work-around to browse and get a copy of the relevant articles in the FMJ and Cumberland newspapers.

Picture of the day from Aunt Betty's Archive:

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/02/daniel-williams-in-newspaper-chicago.html

Daniel Williams and the Chicago World's Fair of 1893

Here's how my latest research project got launched. I was trying to find out more about the mystery photo (below) of my GGF, Daniel Williams. We know he worked for the mines but how did the clothing and gear fit into his work? Can we find out even more about him by following the tracks of this photo? Hopefully, yes.

So I put out some inquiries and Cousin Jo Ann C. wrote back that she thought they had on miner's hats with lamps. Good observation!

Then Aunt Betty wrote this and I'm off on another trail as well:

Daniel worked for the Consolidation Coal Company as a foreman

at mine #16 at Ocean, MD which is about a mile from where he lived.

He was chosen to take a large lump of coal from Ocean Mines

to the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.

WOW! He took a large lump of coal to the Chicago World's Fair in 1893! Here's a link to the epic event on WIKI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_Columbian_Exposition

It was the Gilded Age and nothing was "too much", or too new for that matter. It was the first time that a wide area was bathed in electric light at night and by all accounts it was a magical sight! There's so much written about this event that you can (and I did) lose yourself for hours in the swim of information!

Of course general googling around leads me nowhere in finding the specifics of this effort of Daniel Williams. Now it's on to newspapers of the day, locally. In Chicago, it was just one of thousands of ventures to make the Exposition a success. But in the hills of Western Maryland it would have been newsworthy. Wish me luck!

Photo of the day from Aunt Betty's Archive:

The URL of this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/02/daniel-williams-and-chicago-worlds-fair.html