Stockton Mine Cave-In

I haven't seen anything about the Stockton Mine Cave in which happened in the mining area known as Stockton, near Hazleton in the middle of the night: More information is available at the Nescopeck site as these people had their roots in Nescopeck.

NEW YORK, SUNDAY, DECEMBER, 1869

VOL. XIX...NO. 5691

Heading: Ten or More Persons Buried Alive.

Disaster in the Coal Region

Caving is of a Pennsylvania Coal Mine

The Shaft Choked up

Fall of two Dwellings with the Bank

Ten People Buried in the Ruins.

Hazleton, Penn., December 18.-Another terrible mining accident occurred at 5 o'clock this morning at Stockton, near this place. A coal mine caved in, filling the shaft and tunnel with enormous masses of earth, carrying two large housed down with it, and choking the entrance to the mine. There were several persons in the dwelling houses at the time of the accident, and those were carried down in the falling mass, buried in the ruins, and doubtless instantly killed. As yet it has been entirely impossible to reach their bodies. Some men were in the mine, it is reported, at the time of the terrible disaster, and they are supposed to have been killed instantly. Ten persons in all lost their lives, and efforts are now making to extricate their bodies. The houses fell a distance of forty feet and were broken to fragments.

New York Times

Monday, December 20, 1869 (price: four cents)

GENERAL TELEGRAMS

The Sunken Coal Mine

The Latest Pennsylvania Mining Horror-

A Block of Houses Sink into a mine -

Ten Persons Engulfed-

Apprehension of Further Disaster

Hazleton, Penna., December 18.-Another terrible mining accident occurred at 5 o'clock this morning at Stockton, near this place. A coal mine caved in, filling the shaft and tunnel with enormous masses or earth, carrying two large houses down with it, and choking the entrance to the mine. There were several persons in the dwelling houses at the time of the accident, and these were carried down in the falling mass, buried in the ruins, and doubtless instantly killed. As yet it has been entirely impossible to reach their bodies. Some men were in the mine, it is reported, at the time of the terrible disaster, and they are supposed to have been killed instantly. Two persons in all lost their lives, and efforts are now making to extricate their bodies. The houses fell a distance of forty feet and were broken in fragments.

Mauch Chunk, Penn., Dec. 18.-One block of houses were swallowed up in the cavity so quickly that two families living in them had not time to escape. A girl who had fled from one of the houses as it went down, but not fast enough to escape falling, fell on top of the houses and was rescued. Three families in an adjoining block had just time to get off at a safe distance when the houses fell. Ten persons were swallowed up with the houses. GEORGE SWANK, his wife and four children, Mr. RETCH, (Rough) his wife, child and mother, were the unfortunates, and are still in the mine, and most certainly all be dead. The Hazleton steam fire engine has been throwing a continual stream on the ruins since daylight. The fireman are doing all I their power; they have taken charge of the affair, and extended a rope round the hole and allowed no persons inside. Trains are running from Hazleton every hour to the scene of the disaster, and will continue to do so until all the bodies are recovered, which will be some time yet, as it is still dangerous to enter on the work of the rescue, as the earth still continues to fall in, and thus enlarge the cavity continually, The excitement now is very great, and is increasing. Families in the vicinity are moving out of their houses, fearing that theirs will fall in next, and their fears are not groundless. The general opinion, indeed, is that other houses will soon fall. Mesers: Linderman & Skeer, the owners of the mine, arrived at the scene of the disaster this afternoon. They are sparing no pains to secure the bodies as speedily as possible. The mines are known as the "East Sugar Loaf Mines."

The Cause of the Disaster-

Twenty Feet Between the Mine and the Surface

Pottsville, Penn., Dec. 19-A dispatch to the Daily Journal from Hazleton says the cause of the accident at Hazleton was working the breast in the colliery too near the surface under the houses, there being only about twenty feet space left where they caved in. Only a few days before a couple of persons in a truck were pitched into a similar hole, where a portion of the foundation of the railroad had given way, over some workings that approached to near the surface.

The New York Times December 21, 1869

The Hazleton Coal Mine Disaster

Three Bodies Recovered

Mauch Chunk, Penna., Dec. 20-

Up to 7 o'clock P.M. to-day three bodies, those of Mrs SWANK, her oldest daughter and youngest child were found in the mine at Stockton, near Hazleton. The youngest child was in the oldest girl's arms with a sheet wrapped around it. The head of the oldest girl was crushed. Th mother was much bruised in the face.

New York Times Wednesday, December 22, 1869

Hazleton, Penn.,

December 21.-In addition to the bodies of Mrs SWANK and her two daughters, those of Mr. EATON and Mr. BAKER were also found on Monday night. The bodies were crushed to a pulp, and Mrs. SWANK's head was burned to a crisp.

VETERAN BURIED BY MINE CAVE

May 30, 1924

__________-

Hazleton military orders today ornamented the last resting place of Isaac Rough, Civil War veteran, whose body is buried 400 feet deep, probably the only case known where one of the boys of the '61-'65 awaits the call of Gabrielle's trump so far below the surface of the earth.

Rough was a Stockton miner and his house and that of Wm. Swank, a neighbor, went down into the lower No. 7 levels of the Stockton mines in a cave-in during the winter of f1869. The nine children of Swank and the two children of Rough, together with the men and their wives, were swallowed by the convulsion of the surface and recovery of their bodies was impossible. Eventually the cave-in was filled up and a marble marker placed on the restored levels of the earth. The monument was enclosed by a fence, trees were planted and today the little plot is in the midst of a village almost deserted, because the Stockton mines have been worked out for years and all but the top level of the workings are filled with water.