November 16, 2024 - The “History of Northampton, Lehigh, Monroe, Schuylkill and Carbon Counties” has some interesting information on the early coal industry in Schuylkill County.

Published in 1845, it says the “Schuylkill Coal Field” is a 65-mile deposit about 4½ miles wide at Pottsville, its widest point.

Bounded by Broad Mountain in the north and Sharp Mountain to the south, it is “a long elliptical, or oval, trough narrowing off toward the ends, with the exception of the western portion, which is divided into two narrow prongs.”

SUBMITTED Silver Creek Colliery

The field contains 95 veins — or strata — of coal, varying from two to 40 or 50 feet thick, some extending the length of the coal field, the history says. Lying on an angle, around 30 or so degrees, one end reaches the surface, called an outcropping. The depth of the other end is unknown.

The coal beds, the history says, are of “little likely to be exhausted.”

“If we suppose the whole number of veins to be 50, 6-feet-thick, 50 miles long and of unknown depth, it gives some idea of the supplies our coal field can furnish,” says the history.

Written 179 years ago, it gives a glimpse into how coal was mined in the early 1800s.

“The coal is loosened by cutting away a portion of it with small picks” at the bottom of the vein.

“The portion of the coal thus undermined, is then brought down by means of wedges and, frequently, by blasting with powder,” it says. “When it is sufficiently small to be handled, it is placed on a chute, down which it descends of its own gravity and passes into a car drawn to the mouth of the drift by horses or mules.”

Having made two trips inside the Bernitsky mine outside New Philadelphia, I can testify this is substantially the same method used by independent miners into the 1970s — minus the horses and mules, of course.

From the “Schuylkill Valley District,” the Schuylkill Valley Railroad, built in 1829, hauled coal to the Schuylkill Canal in Port Carbon.

In a 10-mile stretch from Tuscarora to Port Carbon, the railroad crossed 12 to 15 natural ravines, the history says. In that area, there were numerous collieries in 1845.

The book lists the colliery owners, the veins they worked and the year in which they were established.

The Tuscarora Collieries, for example, were at the base of Locust Mountain.

Music Hall Collieries, near Middleport, were named for German miners who played music in a company home on the property. Spayd and Luther mined 20,000 tons a year from the Raven vein on the property.

Myers and Allen, of Port Carbon, operated the Silver Creek Colliery near New Philadelphia. It processed coal from the Skidmore, Raven and Sillyman veins, transported on the Silver Creek Railroad to the Schuylkill Valley Railroad main line.

There were several small railroads that hauled coal from collieries to the main line of the canal. Included are the Mount Carbon, Port Carbon, Mill Creek, Eagle Hill and Bear Ridge railways.

The Salem Collieries, between Pottsville and Port Carbon, took their name from the Salem vein – celebrated for its purity and red ash coal.

Charles Ellet (possibly Elliot) opened in 1834, driving the slope from the north side of Salem Hill. He built a 600 yards long tunnel through the hill to connect with the Schuylkill Canal.

The Mammoth Colliery was situated four miles from Port Carbon on the west side of Mill Creek on land leased to Joseph G. Lawton. It worked the Mammoth and Daniels veins.

Samuel Sillyman, one of the first coal entrepreneurs, operated Rainbow Collieries on Little Wolf Creek, three miles north of Port Carbon. The vein of white ash coal was 21-feet thick and accessed by three tunnels.

The Sillyman & Evans Colliery, on the eastern side of Mill Creek, near Saint Clair, accessed the same vein through three drifts or gangways.

A copy of the “History of Northampton, Lehigh, Monroe, Schuylkill and Carbon Counties” is in the collection of the Schuylkill County Historical Society.