Compiled by Roscoe Neal Reed
On February 7, 1922, at about 4:30 P.M. an explosion at the Marietta Mine at Ball Fork, Pinson Fork, Kentucky, took the lives of nine coal miners and seriously injured at least one other. The bodies of the dead men were found all huddled together. Although the bodies showed signs of burns, the cause of death was listed as suffocation on all nine death certificates. In addition to the nine dead, one badly burned miner was found a short distance from the deceased miners.
On a coal property map dated January 1, 1920, the Marietta Coal Company is shown with 20+ acres on each side of May Fork Creek and the mine property were located just above where Ball Fork Road turns right and May Fork Road goes forward. The old maps show that May Fork creek runs into Ball Fork Creek at that junction and Ball Fork Creek continues about a quarter mile farther downstream and runs into Pond Creek.
The Marietta Mining Company was headquartered in Huntington, West Virginia and was run locally by J. H. Young, Superintendent at Pinson Fork and Walter Wroten was mine foreman. At the time the Marietta Mine was a small operation employing about fifty men and producing about two hundred tons per day. The mine was located up Ball Fork Creek about a quarter of a mile up from the junction of Ball Fork Creek and Pond Creek. There was no electrical power in the mine. Animal labor moved the coal underground. The seam was about 4′ and 9″ total of coal and bone. The Marietta Coal Camp housed 11 families and also included a company store.
The Adverse Tract outlined in Green.
The investigative report of the explosion was compiled by L. D. Tracy, Coal Mining Engineer and that report is included in this booklet and contains a great deal of the technical information on the conditions at the time of the explosion and of the operations of the mine. The above information was taken from that report.
According to the “Chronicle Telegram” of Elyria, Ohio the Ball Funeral Home of Williamson, West Virginia was requested to deliver 12 coffins to the mine site. A description of the explosion by the same, “Chronicle Telegram” ‘, states, “As the blasters were putting off their first shot of the night shift a terrible explosion occurred. Heavy rocks, timbers and wreckage were hurled high into the air, out of the mine shaft, as a pillar of fire and smoke flashed upward.”
The dead were: William Fultz, Russell Lutz, Oscar Nunley, Paul Nunley, Paris Adkins, James Williams, Kelly Lockhard, Frank Collins, and Joe Burchfield. A trackman, Hobart Burchfield was badly burned and found a short distance from the nine deceased men. Apparently, an error in initial reports listed a Frank Aines and J. Aines (possibly Eanes) as killed in the blast, but their names don’t appear in later reports.
One miner, John Lago reportedly was treated at a Williamson hospital and survived. His name didn’t appear in any of the later reports that I found. The normal evening shift was made up of 12 men.
William Fultz and Russell Lutz were from New Boston (near Portsmouth, Ohio) and had only been hired the week before. William Fultz had been a resident of New Boston several years and had worked in the steel mills there. They left New Boston early in the previous week. William wrote a letter to his parents requesting they send his clothes and that he had a job with Marietta and was boarding with a William Kegley and was happy with his situation and needed some clothes. William Kegley was a man they knew from his being originally from the New Boston, Ohio area also. William Fultz was 25 years old, the son of James and Elizabeth Fultz of Oak Street in New Boston and had eight brothers and sisters.
His sister Dorothy worked at the Western Union office and was on the job and received the telegram from Mr. Kegley about her brother’s death. Mrs. Fultz had mailed her son the clothes he requested on the same day as the explosion.
Russell Lutz, 23 years old, was the son of Charles and Florence Lutz also of Oak Street in New Boston.
He left behind 3 brothers and 3 sisters. Russell was a crane man at the local steel plant prior to leaving to work in the coalfields and had lived in New Boston most of his life. The bodies of the young men were expected to arrive on the Thursday following the explosion and to be interred in the area near New Boston.
Paris Adkins was a victim of the mine explosion. He was born February 16, 1896, in Beaver, Floyd County, Kentucky. He was killed a few days short of his 26* birthday. He was the son of Lewis Jackson Adkins and Tamsy Carter. (One record lists his mother as Tamsy Ratliff.) Paris was in the military at some point about 1917 or 1918. He married Crissie Keen, daughter of Dave and Mary Keen. Paris and Crissie had a daughter very early in 1919 and named her Estella.
On the 1920 U.S. census, Paris, Crissie, and Estella were living in the household of her parents, Dave, and Mary Keen up Lark Hollow in McVeigh. Shortly after the census was taken Estella died of the pneumonia following measles on May 13, 1920. Less than two years later the Marietta Mine explosion took Paris’s life. The “Norwalk Hour” in the February 8, 1922, edition of the “Beckley Daily Gazette” tells of the explosion and lists Paris Adkins’s siblings as Garland, Lizzie, Laura, John, and Cora. Paris is buried near his birthplace in Floyd County, Kentucky.
James Williams was the only black man killed in the blast. He was born about 1899 in Fort Valley, Georgia making him 23 years old, and he lived at Pinson Fork, Kentucky. He is listed as married but his wife’s name isn’t given. The informant on his death certificate is Cora Williams also of Pinson Fork, Ky. and she possibly could have been his wife. According to records he was returned home to Fort Valley, Georgia for burial.
Two Nunley brothers also were killed that day. They were sons of Charley Nunley. The elder of the brothers was Oscar Nunley. He was born about 1891. By 1900 the Nunley family was living in Cannonsburg, Boyd County, Kentucky. He appears to be the same Oscar Nunley who went to Europe in WWI in October 1917 and on 14 July 1919 left Brest, France sailing home on the Missouri having served with the 49th Infantry in Europe. At the time of the 1910 census the family was living around Matewan in Mingo County, West Virginia.
Charley Nunley and his family on the 1920 census were living at # 5 camp on upper Pond Creek. The younger brother, Paul who was killed is listed as 17 years old on the census which was two years prior to the explosion. Oscar was no longer living in the household at the time of the 1920 census.
Kelly Lockhard, also killed at that time was from Pigeon Creek, West Virginia. He was the son of Thomas Lockhard and Liddie Grenitt. He was 38 years old and was to be buried back on Pigeon Creek, West Virginia.
Frank Collins was 32 years old at the time of the blast. He was married but no wife’s name is given.
He was born at Odds, Kentucky, the son of Perry Collins. The informant on the death certificate was Robert Collins and Frank was to be buried back in Odds, Johnson County, Kentucky.
Joe Burchfield was 17 years old and single. He also was from Odds, Kentucky. The informant on his death certificate was a Robert Burchfield. Joe was also returned to Odds for burial.
The nine who died were found huddled together against a wall and the badly burned Hobart Burchfield was nearby but l am not sure of his relationship with Joe Burchfield. Hobart lived in #5 camp in 1920 with his wife Della. One other injured man was John Lago (or lago) was just listed as treated at a Williamson hospital.
The Marietta Coal mine at Ball Fork was in operation from 1919 until 1932. Those dates are given on a couple websites dealing with coal mining companies operating in the Pike County area. In the investigation of the mine explosion the superintendent is recorded as J. H. Young and on the 1930 census John H. Young is listed as a superintendent of a coal mine. With 1932 listed as the last year of operation of the mine John Young may have become the owner because when he died four years later on November 29, 1936, his wife Mrs. Virgie (Williams) Young took over the mine and was described in the Huntington Herald Dispatch as the owner and the only female coal operator in the Williamson area.
On the 1940 census, Mrs. Young listed herself as, superintendent.
John Young was born in 1891, the son of George Young and Catherine Huffman Young. John married Virgie Williams in Lawrence County, Ohio on January 15, 1913. She was the daughter of James I.
Williams and Elizabeth Bell. Virgie was born in West Virginia in October 1892.
Their eldest daughter, Edna had married John Edwards a few months prior to her father’s death and at the time of his death Mrs. Young was left widowed with nine daughters. Earlier in their marriage the Youngs had two sons who died in childhood. One son, John Young, Jr was born February 6, 1915, and died of Typhoid fever on December 27, 1929. Another son, Phillip, was born September 2, 1922, and died August 12, 1924. Their daughters were Edna, Catherine, Margarette, Mary, Eva, Opal, Charlotte, Glenna, Clara, and Phyllis. The Young family lived a number of years on May Fork.
A strange twist to this story is that on August 11, 1941, five years after Mr. Young’s death, Mrs.
Young along with her 8-year-old daughter, Phyllis, and a neighbor, Laura May, were walking near the mine when dirt and rock over the drift mouth collapsed on them. Laura May, 35, died a few hours later.
Virgie Young suffered a cracked skull and broken back and was in critical condition that night. The little girl just suffered minor injuries.
According to the newspaper article there was: “an overhang of earth and rock undermined by residents of the neighborhood who had dug deeply into an outcrop vein for coal, crashed down on the two women and the eight-year-old daughter of Mrs. Young.”
I saw no further news of Virgie Young’s condition but 3 years later in a Red Robin Magazine she is mentioned in one of the articles. One entry I saw on Ancestry.com, Virgie was recorded in someone’s genealogy as having died in Morton, Lewis County, Washington on October 11, 1964. (I didn’t research this so can’t vouch for it myself. Laura May is buried at Mill Branch Cemetery at Stone.
REPORT ON MARIETTA MINE EXPLOSION, PINSON FORK, KENTUCKY.
By
L. D. TRACY, COAL, MINING ENGINEER.
Brief Statement:
About 4:30 P.M. on Tuesday February 7th, 1922, an explosion occurred in the Marietta Mine of the Marietta Coal Company in which nine men were killed and one man badly burned.
Location:
The Marietta Mine is situated at Pinson Fork, Ball Township,
Pike County, Kentucky, about 10 miles south of Williamson, West Virginia.
Operating Company:
The Marietta Coal Company is one of about fifteen companiesbwhich comprise the so-called Deegan’s interests with headquarters at Huntington, West Virginia. Mr. W. E. Deegans is President and General Manager, Mr. J. M. Turner, Assistant General Manager and Vir. O. C. Huffman, General Superintendent, all at Huntington, W. Va. Mr. J. H. Young is Superintendent at Pinson Fork, Kentucky, and Hr. Walter Wroten, Mine Foreman.
The Seam of Coal Mined:
The seam of coal which is being mined at the Marietta MineIs locally known as the Pond Creek Seam. It is also known as the Freeburn, Warfield and Vulcan Seam on the Kentucky side of the Tug River, while in West Virginia It has been correlated with the No.2 Gas Seam, also called Campbell Creek, Upper War Eagle, Freeburn, Burnwell, Rawl and Warfield seams. From a point a few miles southward from Warfield, Kentucky, the coal has a general southeasterly rise which brings it to the surface near Williamson, West Virginia and the Pond Creek Valley•
General Conditions:
The Pond Creek Coal Field lies in a narrow valley, through the center of runs a creek, from which the field takes its name. Rising in the foothills of the northern watershed of the Pine Mountains it winds its crooked way northward until it reaches the lug River opposite Williamson, West Virginia. Through the center of the valley, every now and then crossing the creek, the Norfolk and Western Railroad has constructed the Pond Creek Branch. There are a goodly number of coal operations along this Branch, the largest of which is the Pond Creek Coal Company. The coal outcrops in the steep hills bordering the valley, about fifty feet above water level. At Pinson Fork a small creek joins Pond Creek, flowing in from the east and known as Ball Fork.
Marietta Mine is located on this small creek about a quarter of a mile from its junction with Pond Creek. Ball Branch cuts the property of the Marietta Coal Company into two parts. The coal outcrops thirty or forty feet above the creek, so that there are practically two mines• The valley is narrow and a bridge spans the creek so that the coal as it comes from that part of the property lying east of Ball Creek is hauled over the bridge to a tram road over which it is transported about half of a mile to the tipple on the Pond Creek Branch of the Norfolk and Western. The mine on the west side of the creek opens directly on the tram road. The operation is just a small one producing about two hundred tons per day and employing about fifty men. On the west side of the creek there are about 22 acres and on the east side about 25 1/2 acres of coal.
Plan of Development:
The explosion occurred in that part of the operations lying on the west side of Ball Branch. This section of the mine is developed by two drift entries driven close to and practically parallel with the western property line. Two pairs of butt entries about four hundred feet apart have been turned at practically right angles to the main entries and have been driven about three hundred and fifty or four hundred feet. The right hand entry of each pair of Butt Entries is used solely as an air course, rooms being turned from the left hand entry. A plan of the mine is attached to this report which will illustrate in detail the mine workings.
The entries are from 12 feet to 14 feet wide driven on 55 foot centers. Rooms are, on an average, 16 feet wide on 55 foot centers.
Haulage:
Animal haulage is the sole method of transportation underground. When the loads are gathered on the outside of the mine they are hauled by a steam locomotive to the tipple, a quarter or a half a mile down the creek.
Ventilation:
The ventilation is furnished by a fan three feet in diameter by eight feet wide running at a speed of 350 revolutions per minute. The fan is driven by a 6 Horse Power Gasoline Motor. The fan and motor are housed in a non-fireproof structure. The fan is used as a blowing fan producing about 10,900 cubic feet of air per minute. The stopping were constructed of wood. The ventilation system is shown on the attached plan of the mine.
Method of Mining:
No machines are used as nearly all the coal seems to be shot from the solid. Black Powder is used for shooting. The miner makes up his cartridges from 1″ to 3″ in diameter according to the size of the hole. A charge of 2 feet to five feet in depth is fired by the ordinary fuse. It appeared as if coal dust had been used as tamping material.
Kentucky Department of Mines 1922
