Question:
As a young man, John C Kehoe, Sr., publisher of the Sunday Dispatch, was a mule driver at the Twin Shaft Mine and was supposed to work the night of the mine disaster on June 28, 1896. What circumstance, did he say, led him to not being in the mine the night the roof of the mine caved in killing 58 men, including members of his family?
1968
Master Sergeant John E. Tischler, of Pittston, received a second award of the U.S. Air Force Commendation Medal while serving at Osan Air Base in Korea. Sergeant Tiscler was decorated for meritorious service as a security police supervisor at McCoy Air Force Base. Osan Air Base is one of two major airfields operated by the U.S. Air Force in the Republic of Korea. In 1968, troops increased at the base when on Jan. 23, 1968, North Korea seized the Naval Intelligence vessel the USS Pueblo and its crew. After a several months of intense negotiations the North Koreans released the ship and crew on Dec. 23, 1968.
1972
The Wyoming Valley was reeling from the flood damage caused by Hurricane Agnes in June. Boroughs and towns sent out the following reports: West Wyoming’s Atherton Park suffered the most damage with eight homes lost to Abraham’s Creek, 120 families evacuated. The Bridge Street area had 300 evacuees housed at Shoemaker Street Elementary School. Exeter reported about 10 feet of floodwater with 200 homes affected. Sixty homes were hit in Port Blanchard. Duryea reported 40 families affected, much less than the Diane Flood of 1955. Father Brague, assistant pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church, filled sandbags. Jenkins Township Hose Co. Ladies Auxiliary collected items to be distributed at Pocono Downs. Falcone Beverage donated trucks to haul food and clothing. State Trooper Sgt John Cummings, of Pittston, coordinated police activities on the East Side.
The Hurricane Agnes Flood killed 72 people in the Susquehanna River basin and caused $3.2 billion in property damage. It held the record of being the most devastating on record in the Northeast until Hurricane Andrew in 1992. In the early 1800s, the American Indians told of serious floods occurring about every 14 years along the Susquehanna River. According to weather.gov, the years that large-scale major floods hit the basin are 1865, 1902, 1936, 1940, 1946, 1955, 1964, 1972, 1975, 1979, 2004 ,2005, 2006 and 2011.
1985
The Pittston Tomato Festival committee announced that the Pittston Parking Authority lot on the corner of Dock and Kennedy Streets would again be the location of the second annual festival. Expected to attract even more people than the 1984 debut, the event was expanded to encourage participation from within a 50-mile radius of Pittston. The parade committee planned to invite communities from Tunkhannock to Shickshinny. Due to an article published in the Pennsylvania Magazine regarding the event, committee members found themselves responding to numerous inquiries about participation. This year’s Pittston Tomato Festival will be held Thursday, Aug. 15 through Sunday, Aug. 18.
A famine in Ethiopia, a country in the northeastern part of Africa, killed over one million people and, after much media attention concerning the situation, the women of Greater Pittston took up the fight to help those in need. Approximately 300 volunteers went door to door asking for donations. Gordon Fader, executive director of the American Red Cross in Wyoming Valley, accepted the check from co-chairman of the effort, Laurie Brogan and Peggy Burke. Burke praised the volunteers for their efforts in collecting over $8,300. Fader presented a plaque to Burke and Brogan which read, “Certificate of Appreciation to ‘Mothers Feed the Children’ for generously supporting the Red Cross famine relief efforts in Africa.”
1987
Upon celebrating his birthday on June 28, 1987, John Watson, editor of the Sunday Dispatch, wrote in his weekly article about June 28, 1896, the day 58 of the 250 miners at the Twin Shaft in the Junction were buried alive. He also wrote about Mrs. Joseph (Agnes) Glennon, the largest single contributor to the Pittston Community Welfare Association. In closing he said, “These stories are merely examples I use of local history that should not be forgotten, knowledge that should be passed along to students in our high schools. There is much to learn in the tapestry of local history, most of which is lost to new generations. If our high schools showed the creativity to formulate such elective courses, some youngsters would graduate with at least some knowledge of their own roots and, more importantly, a respect for their community.”
1992
The Newtown Coal Company’s Twin Shaft Disaster claimed the lives of 58 men and boys on June 28, 1896. The accident will forever be remembered due to an historical marker unveiled in June 1992 by Michael Connell, grandson of M.J. Lynott, foreman of the mine. Thirty-eight of the deceased miners were married with children, M.J. Langan having the most numbering 10. Grace O’Brien Fintermann, great granddaughter of Mr. Lynott, persevered over the years in her efforts to bring the placement of the marker to fruition. Sister Arlene Perry, C.P. read the names of the entombed men at the unveiling of the monument, her four great uncles among them. John C. Kehoe, Sr. publisher of the Sunday Dispatch, lost his father, brother Frank, uncle Thomas Barret and many of his closest friends in the disaster. In 1948, Kehoe recollected the incident in his weekly Dispatch article, “The men who were eventually entombed knew when they went to work that the condition of the mine was dangerous.” Due to faulty mine practices, the roof of the mine was ready to collapse. Miners were sent in to reinforce the roof and retrieve a mine pump. As they worked, miners were unsure if their efforts were in vane and some left, but others remained. The decision was made that the miners should continue their attempt to reinforce the roof, after which some of the miners descended back into the mine, “All were never seen again,” Kehoe remembered. “Billy Lee of Prospect St., Pittston and myself are, as far as I know, the only two still alive of the rescue crews who tried for days to dig a way into the entombed men. Whether any of the 58 escaped the crash of the roof and starved or smothered to death in a clear area behind the cave will never be known as the section where the bodies lie is too badly caved and under water.” Kehoe’s Kehoe-Berge Coal Company purchased the Twin Shaft Mines from Newtown many years after the disaster.
Answer:
In 1948, in his weekly Sunday Dispatch column, “As Kehoe Knows It,: John C. Kehoe, Sr. explained why he was not present when the roof of the Twin Shaft Mines collapsed, killing 58 men, including his father, brother and uncle. Kehoe recounted, “I had escaped being in the Twin Shaft disaster because of my love of cockfighting. I lost my job at Twin Shaft because I had refused to work on that Saturday night in order to attend a cockfight at Fox’s Hotel in Duryea.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
1857 — Charles Dickens reads from “A Christmas Carol” at St. Martin’s Hall in London — his first public reading.
1908 — A mysterious explosion, possibly the result of a meteorite, levels thousands of trees in the Tunguska region of Siberia with a force approaching 20 megatons.
1936 — Margaret Mitchell’s novel, “Gone with the Wind,” is published.
1960 — Alfred Hitchcock’s film, “Psycho,” opens.
1971 — Three Soviet cosmonauts die when their spacecraft depressurizes during reentry.
BORN ON THIS DAY
1768 — Elizabeth Kortright, later Elizabeth Monroe, first lady to U.S. President James Monroe
1911 — Czeslaw Milosz, Polish poet and critic
1917 — Lena Horne, American singer
1919 — Susan Hayward, actress
