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Coal Breaker Communities
Faded Memories
Sue Hand's
Coal Breaker Communities
The
Gallery
Alden Colliery
The Alden Colliery (Alden Coal Company) was owned by the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad and located at the base of Alden Mountain. They also owned the Auchincloss, the Bliss, and the Truesdale breakers.
Alexander Gray
The Alexander Gray Breaker was located in Wilkes-Barre Township near the point where Coal Street would intersect the Nanticoke Branch of the Central Railroad of New Jersey. It was erected in 1860 and razed in 1874, fourteen years later.
Auchincloss Breaker
The Auchincloss Coal Breaker was built in 1895 by the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad. It was located on the opposite side of Prospect Street from the present LCCC. It was the first anthracite breaker in the world to be entirely operated by electricity. In 1904 a cage carrying 10 men at the #2 shaft descended so fast that it hit an obstruction and disintegrated, dropping the miners to their deaths about 400 feet below into 200 feet of water at the bottom of a 1700 foot deep shaft. The Auchincloss closed in 1919 when its production was transferred to the Loomis for processing.
Avondale
Plymouth was settled between the Susquehanna River and the Shawnee Mountain Range. As early as 1850, coal mining was the town’s primary occupation.The Avondale Breaker was built in Plymouth in 1867. August 22 was the first day the mine operated and by May 6, 1868, regular coal shipments had begun. It was a breaker-over-mine construction, convenient for processing coal, but disastrous if there was a mine fire. On September 6, 1869, 110 men and boys lost their lives in the Avondale Disaster. It was declared at the time that a ventilating furnace in the mines caught fire and spread to the breaker. But there is much historical evidence that the disaster was an act of arson connected to a labor strike. It was the worst single disaster in our area’s coal mining history. By spring of 1870, a new breaker had been constructed and regular work had resumed. In 1905 there were major modifications to the breaker. It was operated by the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad.
Baltimore Breaker No. 5
The Baltimore Mine was first utilized for profit by Lord Butler in 1814 (which is only 36 years after the Wyoming Massacre!) The mine was sold to a Mr. Thomas Simington and others from Baltimore in 1829 and reorganized as the Baltimore Coal Company. In 1836 it became the site of the first gravity railroad in the Valley designed by Alexander Gray to take coal from the mine to the new canal. In 1854 the Baltimore Breaker site was the first construction of a breaker in Wyoming Valley. It was built by the Baltimore Coal Co., and the seam of coal they worked is designated as the Baltimore Seam throughout Wyoming Valley. The first shipment of coal was made by the old canal from the boat sheds near East Market Street. The breaker was located about half a mile east of the boat sheds and here the first locomotive in Wyoming Valley was used to haul cars back and forth. In 1867 the colliery was purchased by the Delaware and Hudson Coal Company.
Barnum
The breaker construction began in 1880 but work was not completed until the spring of 1881. The new breaker was 80 feet high and had a production capacity of 1,000-1,200 tons per day. In 1892 the breaker burned after a fire originating in the pump house enveloped the shaft tower and then spread along the connecting trestle to the breaker itself. After the fire, coal from that mine was taken to the Bunker Hill Breaker in Dunmore until the Barnum was rebuilt in 1893.
Bellevue
Construction of this breaker was begun in 1854 and completed in May 1856. It was operated by the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad.
Black Diamond
The first Black Diamond breaker was built in 1854 and destroyed by fire around 1897. It was operated by John C. Haddock, who had previously been a wholesale coal merchant in New York City. The Haddock Coal Company also operated the Dodson Breaker in Plymouth.
Bliss
The Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad built the Bliss coal breaker in 1895 in the Hanover section of Nanticoke. The 1902 the Bureau of Mine Reports read “considerable improvements have been made to this breaker including the installation of mechanical pockets, etc, to facilitate the handling and cleaning of coal.” In 1950 a rock and earth slide at the colliery took two lives. The Bliss closed in 1953 after processing about 730,000 tons of coal each year.
Brisbin Colliery
Mine construction began in November of 1871. It was named for John Brisbin, a teacher in upstate New York who accepted a position with the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad in 1855. The breaker was located west of the Cayuga breaker, and operated until 1919 when it was dismantled. Coal from the Brisbin mine was then sent to the Diamond breaker. Operated by the D, L, & W., the mine shaft’s total depth was 520 feet down to the Clark vein.
Butler Breaker
Pittston (Pittstown) was one of the 5 original townships formed under Connecticut back in 1768 and settled by Connecticut Yankees prior to the Battle of Wyoming. About 1835-1838 John and Lord Butler opened the Butler Mine with their brother-in-law, Judge Mallory of Philadelphia, as a partner. The first coal was sent to market by canal about 1840. The Butler breaker was located in the area of the present Pittston Plaza. The infamous Butler Mine Tunnel was constructed in the 1930s to provide mine drainage for an estimated 5 square mile area of underground coal mines. The contamination was caused by the illegal disposal of liquid industrial wastes including oily waste into the underground mine via a mine ventilation borehole located at Highway Auto Service in Pittston. In 1979 a large oil slick formed on the Susquehanna from the illegal dumping. The borehole is approximately 3 ½ miles from the outlet of the Butler Mine Tunnel.
Buttonwood
Located in the Buttonwood Section of Hanover Township, it was a Wyoming Valley landmark since the 1870s. Built by the former Parrish Coal Co, it was taken over in 1913 by the Lehigh and Wilkes-Barre Coal Co. which later merged with Glen Alden. It had a daily capacity of 2,500 tons of prepared anthracite. When Buttonwood closed, the coal was sent to the new Maxwell breaker, which could prepare 1,000 tons of coal per hour.
Arguably, its most famous employee was Michael Fugmann, a German soldier in World War I who had immigrated to the United States in 1924. He was charged and convicted of the Good Friday mail-bombings that killed Thomas Maloney, former president of the United Anthracite Mine Workers, his 4-year old son Thomas Jr., and severely injured his 16-year-old daughter, Margaret. Also killed was Michael Gallagher, a school director. Fugmann walked unassisted to the electric chair as he kept repeating his innocence in broken English. There are many today who believe he was telling the truth. The mystery remains unsolved.
Arguably, its most famous employee was Michael Fugmann, a German soldier in World War I who had immigrated to the United States in 1924. He was charged and convicted of the Good Friday mail-bombings that killed Thomas Maloney, former president of the United Anthracite Mine Workers, his 4-year old son Thomas Jr., and severely injured his 16-year-old daughter, Margaret. Also killed was Michael Gallagher, a school director. Fugmann walked unassisted to the electric chair as he kept repeating his innocence in broken English. There are many today who believe he was telling the truth. The mystery remains unsolved.
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