The handwritten message found deep inside the smoke-blackened mine offered rescuers one last reason to hope: “Twenty men are in this room.”
For days back in 1919, rescue crews had battled fire, fallen rock, and poisonous gas beneath Amsterdam, Ohio, while families waited above for news of the trapped miners.
More than 250 men had escaped the burning shaft, but twenty remained missing. Their fellow workers pushed forward foot by foot, protected by gas masks and driven by the desperate pleas of wives, children, and neighbors.
Beyond a crude wall of timber, coal, and stone, the rescuers finally found eighteen men huddled together on the mine floor. The miners had stripped off much of their clothing and stuffed it into the cracks of their makeshift barricade, trying to hold back the deadly gas. They had fought until the darkness and fumes overcame them.
20 Entombed Miners Dead In Blazing Shaft
AMSTERDAM, Ohio. — Sorrow hung like a black pall over this little village of 1,200 tonight. It was mourning the death of 20 of its men who met death in a Y. and O. Company coal mine after a gallant battle for life.
Late this afternoon mine rescue workers pushed aside the last barrier of debris, penetrated the black, gas-filled mine and halted before a dirty piece of paper spiked to a post.
On it was scrawled the following:
“Twenty men are in this room.”
The rescuers tore away a roughly-constructed wall of timbers, rocks and coal and found eighteen men huddled on the floor. All were dead. Hasty examination indicated they had been dead for about twelve hours.
Friday night rescuers found the bodies of the other two.
Company officials believed two more were in the mine, but a record of the men showed only 20 men missing.
Fire started Wednesday. More than 250 miners were underground at the time. All but the 20 escaped.
Fellow workers, driven on by the appeals of the families of the imprisoned, made desperate efforts to effect a rescue. They were unable to check the fire.
Aided by a State Industrial Bureau mine car and experts in the employ of the State and similar car sent from Pittsburg, the miners gained control of the fire and rescue appeared imminent Friday when a cave-in occurred, blocking the shaft. A huge pocket of gas formed.
A desperate battle against time followed. It was realized the gas would back up on the men unless an opening was made. Protected by army gas masks, the rescuers worked shifts progressing a foot at a time until late Friday night when the last barrier of earth and rock and coal was cleared.
“Uncle Jimmy” Gray, 73, was found before a temporary wall. He was stricken while building a barrier against the gas. Near him lay the body of another.
Impenetrable clouds of gas held the rescuers from further exploration until late today when a new air shaft lightened the haze of death.
The 18 had sought to stave off suffocation with a wall, but the cave-in and consequent formation of the gas pocket sent the deadly vapor back upon them before the barrier could be completed.
They were nearly nude. In the darkness, lighted up only by the safety lamps, they had labored to perfect the partition between death and life and used their clothing to stuff the chinks and crannies.
It is planned to bury all victims with public ceremonies on the same day.
Source: The Washington Herald. Washington, D.C. November 2, 1919.
