Macon County, Missouri - Chapter with an unread heading (no. 9 of those read), 1910

Mixes ano Minins - Tue PILGRIMAGE ro CALIFORNIA - PHIL ARMOUR AND Nep Croarkin - A Miner's Dream - Discovery or Coan 1N Macon CoUNTY - ALEXANDER Recror - THomas WARDELL - STRIKES, Panics AND THEN PnospERnITY - ''Suoorixo Orr THE Soitp'' - Ruiors or 1899 - A Mine Disaster - A Journey THROUGH GLOOMY AvENUES - A MixixG Town THAT Drep - Miners ARE LONG-LIVED - STATISTICS FROM SrarE Minine Report - Eariy GOLD EXCITEMENT IN CHARITON VALLEY - DEVELOPMENT OF VALUABLE Ore AT New Campria.

Macon county was a lusty child of eleven when the workmen at Colonel Sutter's sawmill at Coloma, California, in January, 1848, struck some curious stuff in the channel which turned out to be gold. Sutter and his men kept quiet about the discovery until their mill was completed, when a lot of the ore was sent to Sacramento to be tested. The amazing result of the test soon reached San Francisco, and from there the news was spread over the world, adding richer color as it traveled. It was the main topie of conversation in this nation. Men supposed the hills and valleys of California were literally underlaid with gold, awaiting the scratching of the ground. The further east they were the stronger was this belief. 'lhere was warrant for it in all the slowtraveling letters from the far west, each one freighted with intelligence of new discoveries. The nation held its breath until the spring of '49, when the mightiest pilgrimage ever seen on this continent began. From morn till night the highways were dotted with great white wagons, moving slowly behind one, two and three yoke of oxen - 'California or bust," many said, laughing with hope.

Macon county sent many of her best sons on the long trek across the deserts and the mountains. They turned from her broad aeres, pleading for her husbandman's touch, to the alluring call of the sunset, a sunset brilliant with promise. They smiled at the stories of fierce Indian warriors, of burning sands, of dangerous mountain passes. It was a sort of epidemie - this vast pilgrimage to the coast. It invaded the blood like the summons to war. Strong young men felt they just had to go; it was the right thing to do; they would return, their lumbering craft of the plains loaded with gold - some day. Then they planned great things for their villages on their home-coming. They would first pay off the mortgage and give the old folks a bank account that would keep them in ease the balanee of their days. Next they would build a new church and increase the pastor's salary. Then would come a town library, a eity hall, new publie school building and a few other small things. These attended to, they would travel and see the old world - England, France, Germany, the Holy Land - go everywhere.

People smile now, but it was very real then. The writer has the above, almost word for word, from a Macon county citizen who was a part of that great army of hopefuls in the year 49, and he said it was those thoughts which caused he and his comrades to endure uncomplainingly the bitter hardships of the long overland journey.

One stormy evening a prairie schooner and oxen, an outfit exactly like hundreds that had been passing through the early spring, stopped on the public square of Bloomington. Four weary-looking young men climbed out and slowly attended to their oxen, and then went into the little tavern, where they put up for the night. In the early morning, before the travelers were up, someone painted these words on the canvas of their wagon:

Later the wayfarers came out, proceeded to hitch up their oxen and resumed their journey to the west. Nothing much was thought of the incident at the time, but many years later B. M. Clark, then living in Shelby county, wrote the story of his trip to California in 49, and stated that he and his companion had become heartsick of their enterprise when they reached Bloomington, and had decided to start next day from whence they came. But when they got up in the morning and read the blessing from their unknown friend at Bloomington - a stranger who had pronounced them ''brave'' - they unanimously resolved to make themselves worthy of his confidence. They had not found much gold in California, Mr. Clark wrote, but they had kept on until they had passed all obstacles on the way, and had reached the point at which they were aiming. The lesson was such that each of those young men had made it his life's philosophy, **once his hands were put to the plow, never to turn back until the end of the furrow was reached."

A few years ago a St. Louis newspaper beat the bush about Missouri, to scare up the remnants of the famous army that had treked across the desert and mountains in '49 in quest of gold. The result was much interesting lore of adventure and quaint incident. A writer who had traveled much, both in the gold and later days, said:

'We sometimes think it an unfortunate thing that so much more money was invested by the Argonauts than they ever realized out of California; that $10 shouid be spent for teams, provisions and general layout, to every one that eame back in gold dust. But it was not the purpose of the Almighty to make the nation rich when he tucked gold among the hills; it was to make men go over there and develop that country; to hew down the timber, bridge the canyons, tunnel the mountains and make this nation great from ocean to ocean. "That was the rich reward for the pilgrimage of 1849 and those of later years.

James M. Green eleaned up $20,000 in gold dust and arrived safely back in Macon county with it. On the advice of friends, he invested nearly all this money in negro slaves. Soon after, the war came on and the slaves were made free. Mr. Green died janitor of the Bevier publie sehool, an honest, hardworking citizen.

Ned Croarkin went out with Phil D. Armour, who later became the packing king of Chicago. They were congenial spirits, working side by side with pan and sluiee-box many days. Saturday night they would divide their pile by drawing a ease knife through the center of it. Later, when Armour became rich, he educated one of "Uncle Ned's'' boys in a law school. '"Unele Ned" made frequent journeys from Macon to Chicago to see his old comrade of the gold days, and Armour was never so glad as when "Uncle Ned' was his guest. It is doubtful whether the great pork packer ever had a warmer friend or one who was more eongenial to him than Mr. Croarkin.

Dave Nickell, after whom the town of Nickellton, Macon county was named, went to California in 49 with a crowd of gold hunters, journeying across with ox teams. Mr. Nickell met with moderate success, returned to Macon county and resumed his vocation as a farmer. One night he had a dream. He saw a rich gold ledge near where he had worked and became so strongly impressed that he hitehed up the old ox team and drove back to California along the trail he had followed ihe first trip. He found the ledge of his dream all right, but it was as barren of gold as those bricks which are sold to the unsophisticated. Mr. Nickell returned home for the second time and remained here for good. He amassed a large fortune and died, leaving behind, as a greater heritage to his ehildren, an honored name.

Jefferson Morrow, the first sheriff of Macon county, was also a part of that great pilgrimage to California. Among the others were Mike Hornback, J. B. Clarkson, John J. Jones, Dr. Al Ray, Daniel Cornelius, Jeptha Banta, S. S. Lingo, M. M. Turner, Aleck Nichols, Levi Cox, J. J.

West, Col. Thomas Pool, Matt Halley, R. S. Halley, Lewis Cox, Hardin Butner, Hugh MeCann, John Murphy, James and Carter Landrum, James Banning, D. D. Fowler, J. B. Hutchinson, Burrell and Enoch Griffin, John Tilley, John Fisher, Nathaniel Brogles, William Gates, William Stanfield, William Balmear, John Melone, John Midley, James M. Stone, Thomas Hale, Daniel C. Hubbard, the first county clerk; Wilson Fletcher, Lewis Smith, Carter Wilkin, Thomas Bourk, Joseph Bourk, A. and S. Mendenhall, Washington and Benton Surber and George W. Anderson.

In presenting the history of the discovery of coal in Macon county and its development, the publishers of this work are indebted to the intelligent and painstaking research of the late Elder F. Theo Mayhew, Dr. W. P. Rowland, Frank D. Jones, editor of the Bevier Appeal; R. S. Thomas, former state coal mine inspector, and to Robert Richards, the present efficient inspector of the mines.

The first discovery of coal in Macon county was made east of Macon by Hopkin Evans, just about the time the Hannibal & St. Joseph railroad began operating its trains. The place was known as Carbon, and for a while it looked like quite a town would spring up about the coal works. The coal produced by Evans was very hard and of an excellent quality. The vein was operated for only a short while, however, because of the instability of the roof, and the works there had to be abandoned. Mr. Evans afterwards went to Bevier and became a well-to-do citizen there as a result of his industry and investments.

In 1860 Alex Rector, then a young man of twenty, was employed by William Hughes to work on his farm, a mile and a half west of Bevier, between two streams known as Middle Fork and Garrett Branch. Rector's salary was $13 a month.

Rector's first work for Mr. Hughes was to sink a well for the purpose of striking water. The excavation was begun near the edge of a large hill. When he was down about twelve feet the digger struck two feet of slate and farther on a thiek bed of coal. Later investigations discovered that this was a six-foot vein.

Reetor thought he was unlucky; he had failed to get water. And even if he had struck it, that blaek material in his well would have destroyed the usefulness. Discouraged at his lost labor, he hunted up another place where he hoped to have better luck. Of course, he talked in a casual way about the stuff he had struck in Hughes' well, attaching no particular consequence to it, however.

They employed Rector and his father and Cleve Stacy to chop hickory logs and wall the shaft. This was the first work of that character done in the mining distriet which was destined to become the greatest in the state. The logs walling the mine were placed a little ways apart, so as to form a sort of ladder for the workmen to climb up and down.

'The pioneer company did not operate long before it sold its coal rights to Mr. Hinton, of Hannibal, who installed a horse-gin, and hoisted from two to three ears of eoal per day. The average weight of a car of coal then was from eight to ten tons.

By this time the excitement of the coal discovery about Bevier became intense. People were awakening to the fact that they had within arins' reach a mighty industry, one which promised to revolutionize trade conditions in that section. The Hannibal & St. Joseph locomotives all burned wood at that period, using great bonnet stacks, which looked like balloons. Fuel stations were scattered at frequent intervals along the line, and large forces of men were constantly at work in the forests chopping down valuable timber to be burned in the engines. This waste was even then discussed by the railroad officials, and they were tremendously interested in the discovery of coal about Bevier.

Colonel Robeau, who owned the farm just east of Mr. Hughes, employed David Reese to excavate a tunnel for coal on his farm near the railroad. Miners call a horizontal excavation a slope. This was the first slope mine in the distriet. Colonel Robeau named the scene of his operations Hazleton.

This brings us to 1861, when the great coal man of the Bevier distriet eame to Maeon eounty. "Thomas Wardell was born and reared in England, in the heart of the great coal produeing section. He came to America to seek his fortune and was at Kewanee, Illinois, when he picked up a Macon county newspaper and read a discourse on the embryonic coal operations here. He took the next train to Macon county and managed to secure the lease of the Hazleton from Colonel Robeau. Wardell's main capital was energy, courage and thorough self-confidence. In later years he was the leader, and was even then, to some extent, of the coal operators. He was a man of sharp, decisive action, a thorough business man, and those who knew him longest and best maintain that he was always fair.

W. S. Watson, a brother-in-law of Wardell, eame from Knoxville, Iowa, and put down a shaft on the George Parker farm, calling the scene of his operations Centerville. It will be noted that in the early days of the industry the various eoal mines were designated by names instead of by numbers as they are now.

In 1862-3 the railroad company took a hand in the coal mining operations about Bevier and sunk a shaft near the depot, where the first steam engine in the district was used to hoist coal. This shaft would load from eigbt to twelve cars a day. All the other plants were then depending upon horsepower to get their product to the surface.

Eleven mines altogether were working out along the railroad track and the various operators were forced to follow the production southward, where new mining towns were established. Within recent years the Central Coal & Coke Company has constructed a road extending sixteen miles southward to Ardmore. This road, which is put up in modern style and is equipped with high class rolling stock, handles general freight and passenger traffie along its line and takes care of the coal produced by the Northwestern Coal & Mining Company just south of Bevier. The division headquarters of the road are at Bevier.

"The largest output of coal in one day for 1904 was 175 cars; total number of cars sent out during the year 1904, 47,764. The average tonnage per car was from forty to fifty."

Reetor died at the age of seventy, having devoted all his working years to mine labor. He was contented with his lot, made good wages and had plenty to eat and wear. The end eame to Mr. Wardell, the man who made such energetic use of Rector's discovery, in 1888. The lives of the two men are interesting in comparison. When Wardell reached Bevier he and Rector were on the same footing as regards worldly goods. Wardell went into the mines with pick and shovel as a laborer, but his active brain soon furnished wider avenues for his endeavors. He died one of the most successful and one of the wealthiest coal operators in the west. Rector lived longer than Wardell, and at his death was worth about the same as he was when his pick struck coal on the Hughes farm in 1860.

The land which now constitutes Bevier was entered by Lewis Gilstrap. When the railroad was located Mr. Gilstrap sold out to Mr. Bevier for whose son, Col. R. S. Bevier, a lawyer employed by the railroad eompany, the town was named.

'The next proprietors were Duff & Co., a Boston firm. In 1858 this company laid out the future city, extending, as originally platted, from the railroad on the south to Livingston street on the north, and from Carroll street on the west to Adair street on the east.

In 1859 the railroad was extended through Bevier and it at once became a distributing point for supplies to College Mound to the south, and Bloomington, then the county seat, to the north.

In 1861 a slope called No. 6 was put down on what is at present the Black Diamond farm, then owned by Lewis Robeau, near the railroad and a little east of the first trestle west of town. This was named Hazleton, but it also was abandoned on account of too much water. In the same year eame No. 4, known as Oakwood, which was located on land now owned by Lew Lewis, one mile west of Bevier. This proved to be a pocket and was soon worked out.

Nos, 1, 2 and 3 were put down during the winter of 1861-2. The site of No. 3, one-half mile west of town, owned by W. S. Watson, was known as Centerville. A store building now oceupied by Lewis L. Williams was the nucleus for the new town. Streets were laid out and are still found on the township maps.

At mine No. 2, owned by Hopkin Evans, just at western limits of the eity, apparently no effort was made to establish a town. Mine No. 1, located at the west end of the depot platform, put down by the railroad company under the direction of O. Godfrey, with Thomas Wardell as superintendent, and the location of a large company store on what is now known as the Watson Block site, with the precedence of an established depot, settled the matter in favor of building a permanent town on the present site of Bevier. For some five years or more, until 1867, there was not a great deal of centralizing of dwellings, though the independent &mall storekeepers all opened in Bevier.

In 1864, on account of war conditions and the depreciation of paper eurrency, and in order, too, to hold men there, the companies informed the men that they would pay them one per cent per bushel more than they had been paying. A meeting was called to accept this generous offer, when it was thought only fair to ask for another cent - the miner

In 1867 an effort was again made to organize a union and a strike was on. In this strike, for the first and last time, women were called to the front and with tongues, tinpans and stale eggs they succeeded in a fair way to humiliate the ''black legs," as those taking the places of the men were at that time termed. But on one rainy Saturday, when the women had the blaeklegs corralled in the engine house of mine No. 1, afraid to venture out, the sheriff of the county, with twenty-nine deputies, swooped down on the crowd and corralled the women. They were all taken to Macon, retained over Sunday and then allowed to come home. This broke the strike, the union losing out.

About this time - 1867 - the three mines, 1, 2, and 3 were consolidated into a joint stock company known as the Central Coal & Mining Company. From this time Bevier grew rapidly. The first settlers were Welsh and English, with a scattering of Irish and Scotch, and an occasional American to leaven the mass. The independent merchants, who, with one exception, had gone to the wall, again took heart. One-story frame store buildings sprang up on front street and two and threeroom frame dwellings were soon ornamenting numberless lots of the platted town. The First Congregational church was the first building erected for purposes of worship, and as there was no schoolhouse nearer than the Miners' Hall, one mile west of town, it was used also for school purposes. The Welsh Congregational church, built immediately after, was a close second.

In 1870 the schoolhouse, consisting of two large rooms, was completed and oceupied. From 1867 to 1873 was a period of unbroken prosperity. Everybody had money and paid his bills, and with what was left over enjoyed life as best he could.

Bevier was a regular western boom town these days. The saloons were wide open and the dueats flowed into them steadily. The rural enthusiast, booted and spurred, the **best man in sixteen counties, sir!" eharged into town on Saturday afternoons, filled his long-necked bottles with more ginger, and then tried his lungs. He rode hard up and down the streets, proclaiming his constitutional rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and defying any one-gallus galoot in the bailiwiek to debate the matter with him. There was usually a **round-up"' the Saturday following pay-day, furnishing enough western color to stock a magazine writer the balance of his days. That, however, has been the universal charaeteristie of young mining towns of the west, and at all times there were in Bevier a solid, substantial citizenship, working quietly and steadily for law and order, for the observance of Sunday and the better things of life, and to this constantly growing element is due the splendid position Bevier occupies today as a city of churches, of good morals and a thorough respect for the law.

In 1873 the panie following the Civil war affected Bevier as it did all the other sections of the country. An effort on the part of the coal companies to reduce the price of mining from 6 cents to 5 cents a bushel 'aused another strike, which dragged along for months, when the union again lost and one of the concerns, the Central Coal & Mining Company, went into bankruptcy. This was the darkest period of Bevier's history. For five or six years there was but little work in winter and practically idle summers, and nowhere to go to better conditions, for a succession

. of crop failures over the country generally and grasshopper plagues in Kansas added to the money panie, and made it impossible to reeuperate. But after this depression the town went forward, keeping pace with the rest of the world. Loomis & Snively bought up the remains of the Central Coal & Mining Company, with the exception of mine No. 2 which had fallen into the hands of Mr. Atwill, of St. Joseph. "They proceeded to open up mine No. 4, one-fourth of a mile east of the depot, and W. S. Watson about the same time opened up his mine No. 1 a little further east. These added to mine No. 3 still further east, opened up by Thomas Wardell, in addition to the Summit mines, which he had purchased, placed Bevier again on the prosperous way, and so it continued until 1885, when the eoal eompanies decided to fight the union. Negroes were for the first time brought to work in the mines, and after a bitter and protraeted struggle they became established as a permanent part of the population. For a few years peace again reigned, when under an effort to reduce the wages, which was resisted by the men, the companies in 1888 brought in Swedes from Chieago to break the strike and again the men lost out. After this until the disastrous panie of 1893 prosperity was noted on every hand. During and following this period, mines 43 and 46, Watson No. 2, Black Diamond No. 7, and 61 and 66 were opened.

With the prosperous times following the panie of 1873, the people felt the need of a better government, so on September 5, 1881, the County Court was induced to incorporate the village of Bevier, with Daniel Rowland as its first chairman of the Board. During the negro and Swede strikes, as they were termed, there had occurred riots, with which the village found itself powerless to cope and on one occasion the state militia was called upon to protect life and property. This was following the killing of Thomas Wardell, one of the leading operators, by parties who have never been located. Two men were brought to trial for the affair, but after a stubborn legal battle, lasting the greater part of a week, the defendants were acquitted, and the tragedy is as much of a mystery as ever.

The killing of Mr. Wardell was the most unfortunate occurrence in Bevier's history. It gave the town an unpleasant reputation abroad, a reputation whieh has been entirely obliterated by its good record of later years. "The death of Mr. Wardell deprived the Macon county coal district of one of its most energetic and forceful characters, a man who had in him the capacity and the will to do great things for the development of the county's industries. Bevier had a sentimental as well as u material interest for the great coal operator. It was here he made his real start in life, showed what he could do and enjoyed the first fruits of his intelligent effort. He felt closer to the place than to any other point where his great interests had ever drawn him.

On Mareh 16, 1889, through an election ealled for the purpose, the village of Bevier was reorganized into a eity and, on April 2 following, Lewis Nowlan was elected its first mayor.

During the twenty years from 1873 to 1893, Bevier grew in population, houses sprung up on all sides and wooden sidewalks replaced the pathways; the one-story business houses on Front street, which were burned out during the Swede strike, were partly replaced with brick, and Macon street was converted into a business street, the onestory frame dwellings giving way to the business houses. The year 1893 found the Watson block erected, with the Northwestern building and Odd Fellows' Temple under way. During these years, two more churches had been added until there numbered nine, and a handsome central school building, costing $30,000, has been included in the arehitectural development of the town.

The panic of 1893, which continued four years, again set matters back. One of the companies, the Loomis Coal Company, erippled by the importation of strike breakers, went into bankruptcy. Building was at a standstill and predictions were heard on all sides of the city's doom. Strikes against the reduction of wages were numerous, the men invariably losing. The present union was formed the following year and the tide turned, One company, the Kansas & Texas Coal Company, which held out against recognition, was forced to sell out after spending $200,- 000 in the fight. Since this time wages have been increased and Bevier has moved forward smoothly and steadily. Brick business blocks are the rule, two-story frame and brick dwellings as well as a large number of handsome one-story cottages, have been built in and around the city.

Two prosperous, substantial banks are now housed in brick buildings and a three-story brick structure with opera house on the ground floor, second to none in cities of twice Bevier's population in Missouri, attest the faith of all in the great mining center. Wooden sidewalks are rapidly giving way to brick and granitoid, and the outlying distriets have been taken into the city limits, so that the population has inereased to between 2,000 and 3,000. In this time, too, the Missouri & Louisiana railroad has made Bevier its terminal and along its line have been sunk mines 24, 25 and 28, which, added to mines 8, 9, 10 and 66, make Bevier the most important eoal producer of Missouri. Other mines will be opened in the years to come and there is no reason why Bevier should not furnish the men to do the work in the future as in the past, and as Bevier must be the distributing point for the coal from the vast coal field to the south, the eity must in the prosperous years continue to grow even greater than before.

Since the advent of the United Mine Workers of America in the Bevier field, embracing all the miners and mine workers within the folds of that splendid organization, and the plan of joint agreements have been adopted by the operators and miners through the organization, there have been but few mining diffieulties to mar the harmonious relationship between them, so that good eontraets and steady employment have marked the industry for years past. As a result, the annual coal production has been increasing almost every year. Statistics indicate that the high-water mark in coal production in the Bevier coal field was reaclfed during the year 1907, when a total of 29,439 ears, or 1,032,- 143 tons were mined and shipped. The greatest month of that year was October - 3,042 cars, or 108,782 tons.

In 1896 there was a dispute between State Coal Mine Inspector Charles Evans and W. E. Murlin, superintendent of the Kansas & Texas eoal mines, as to what was really meant by the term, **shooting off the solid." The matter was brought to the attention of the court by the mine inspeetor by filing an action against Mr. Murlin, to compel him to obey the law as the mine inspector understood it. The case immediately attracted wide interest in the mining districts of the west.

Murlin was charged with the violation of Section 7077 of the mining law adopted by the State Legislature in January, 1895. It was alleged that the violation occurred at mine 33, Ardmore, and mines 43 and 46 near Bevier. This is the law the inspector claimed Murlin had disregarded in his mines:

'The next section provided a penalty of not less than $50 or more than $200, or by imprisonment in the county jail not less than three or more than twelve months, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

The purpose of the mine inspector was to force the defendant to employ shot firers so as to relieve the miners of the hazard of making their own shots. That is why it became material to have a legal definition of the term, **shooting off the solid."

Mr. Murlin contended that shooting off the solid was not the practice in his mines, because the operatives loosened the coal by a side cutting, which made it easy to remove as if the vein had been undermined. The practice, Mr. Murlin insisted, was entirely safe for the miners.

The inspeetor replied that in order to remove the practice from the classification of shooting off the solid the coal had to be first undermined by a deep cutting with a hand pick.

The case eame up before a justice in July, 1895, and Mr. Murlin was acquitted. Nothing daunted, the inspector filed an information in the Macon County Circuit Court, and secured the attendance of expert miners from all over the country, either in person or by deposition, and prepared to make a strong fight for his contention. When the case was first called the defense objected to the information on the ground that the term, **blasting off the solid,'' was not specific enough to inform the defendant what he would have to meet and that he could not properly prepare a defense to such an allegation. The attorneys for the mine inspeetor insisted that they had followed exactly the language of the statute, and that their information was good. The Court - Judge Ellison - remarked that in a case of this sort it was necessary to go a little further than the statute and allege more than ''blasting off the solid" to fairly put the defendant on his guard and let him know the issues he would have to meet.

This second defeat didn't dismay Mr. Evans, the determined inspector of the coal mines. He instructed the proseeuting attorney, Mr. R. W. Barrow, to perfeet his appeal to the Supreme Court.

The higher tribunal, in an opinion written by Judge Gantt, and concurred in by Judges Sherwood and Burgess, sustained the mine inspector on every point. The court, in its opinion, referred to the disaster at Rich Hill, Mo., in the Keith & Perry mines in 1888, by which twentythree miners were killed and fifty others seriously burned, and said that had the law, in regard to the employment of shot-firers been in existence

"Tf the Legislature can regulate the harmless business of the eitizens on the ground that possible fraud may be perpetrated, surely there can be no hesitation in holding that a regulation requiring mine owners to operate mines in which the dangerous agency of blasting powder is used, to so use and handle that powder as to protect the lives and insure the safety of their miners."

Judge Gantt also said: 'The statute is wise in its purpose, and it is the duty of the courts to enforce compliance with its plain and obvious provisions."

So the indomitable inspector won at last, and from that time shot firers have been employed in all the Macon county collieries to go down into the mines and touch off the powder after the workmen have left.

For several days during the first part of November, 1899, there was a reign of terror about the mines, owing to a clash between the negroes employed at 61, the officers of the county and some white miners. The first news reached Sheriff A. J. Glenn in the shape of a telegram from Edward Vail, an offieial of the Kansas & Texas Coal Company. The telegram read as follows:

"A party of colored miners was attacked by armed men west of Bevier and left lying on the track badly wounded, perhaps dead. Your presence needed immediately. Edward Vail."

Sheriff Glenn had been a cowman in Wyoming, and had handled desperate situations before. He immediately deputized some men and went over to the scene of the trouble. When he arrived the negroes had retired to the enclosures at 61, where they remained during the night. The sheriff returned to Macon.

The next day was Sunday. The negroes seeured possession of some arms and started down the track. They took a position in a eut and began firing in a northeast direction, towards the Watson mines and the homes of a number of union miners.

Sheriff Glenn was again summoned by Mr. Vail, who stated that the negroes had become uncontrollable. Prosecuting Attorney Ben Franklin drove over with the sheriff, reaching Bevier about 12:30 p. m., Sunday. The town was found to be considerably excited. The people clamored for instant action against the negroes. Both Glenn and Franklin addressed the erowd, urging moderation and promising to do everything they could to restore order. While the meeting was in progress a man rode up and related the narrow escape of himself and his family from the bullets of the blaeks. He said that his house had been riddled and

This fresh outrage greatly increased the excitement, and it was with some difficulty that the citizens could be induced to remain quietly until the sheriff returned from the mines.

The white miners held a mass meeting in the afternoon, at which time they resolved they would not return to work in any of the mines until all danger of the negroes attacking their homes had been guarded against.

There was a meeting in the city hall at Bevier to talk over the situation. It was called at the request of the sheriff. There was a large crowd present. Among the prominent ones there were John J. Bovard, then manager and now president of the Northwestern Coal Company; John H. Gay, auditor; L. J. Loomis, of the Black Diamond Coal Company; W. S. and John Watson, of the Watson Coal Company, Mayor H. A. Bott, ex-mayors James G. Edward and Lewis Nowlan, W. E. Roberts, of the United Mine Workers of America; Prosecuting Attorney Ben Franklin; Sheriff A. J. Glenn; D. R. Hughes, an attorney of Macon; W. A. Clymans, T. D. Francis, postmaster; A. D. Goodale, F. D. Jones, editor Bevier Appeal, and Dr. D. D. Rowland.

Sheriff Glenn explained matters as fully as he could and asked the advice of the citizens as to the proper course to take, under the grave exigency confronting him. Everybody realized the seriousness of thesituation. The negroes were well armed and had given every evidence of being desperate and reckless. All sorts of rumors had heen coming in hourly. It was even stated that the negroes were planning an attack on the town. Requisitions were made for guns, and every household was supplied with arms and ammunition.

In addressing the citizens in the hall Prosecuting Attorney Franklin stated the law of the ease and advised that deliberation be exercised until suflieient evidence could be secured to locate the parties guilty of inciting the riot. He then said they should be promptly and vigorously proseeuted.

Finally, a resolution was adopted requesting the sheriff to put ` on a sufficient force to maintain order and to insure protection to the residents in the south part of Bevier.

There was quietude all the balance of Sunday night and Monday. In the afternoon of Monday notices signed by the sheriff were posted around town and at the mines. These requested that everybody refrain from carrying firearms. A strong posse was stationed just north of 61 and another near mine No. 7. The sheriff swore in Superintendent Vail and the mine guards as deputies and instructed them not to allow any of the negroes to pass out of the mine limits.

Sheriff Glenn, unaecompanied by deputies, drove down to the spur of mine 61, hitched his horse and walked in among the crowd of negroes who had been causing the trouble. Several rifles were pointed towards Jim, but the sheriff did not flinch. He is quoted as having said on that dramatic occasion.

* You can shoot me if you want to, men, but if you kill me, there will be others to take my place and they will kill every one of you. They are in no mood to tolerate this outrage. Iam the sheriff of this county, and I am here to preserve order. I want you fellows to lay down your guns and go back with me to the mine."

The negroes looked at the little officer sullenly, then lowered their weapons and went back to the works. There they handed over their rifles and were placed in charge of a sworn deputy. This incident praetieally ended hostilities between the negroes and the whites.

John Killholland, a well-known mining man, happened to be near one of the encounters between the whites and the blacks during the riot. He said that seven negroes left the mine and started towards Bevier, traveling by way of the track at No. 43. In that vicinity were several white men. Two of the negroes, it was said, displayed weapons and threatened to use them. Mr. Killholland was sinking a shaft near the place, and says he saw the negroes fire in the direction of some small children. Almost instantly, it appeared to him, the whites and negroes were in battle array against each other, using their weapons rapidly. There was a thick wood on the west side of the track, and the negroes reireated to it, followed by about twenty men. Each side used the trees for shelter, but the blacks fell steadily back. Mr. Killholland stated that there were fully 500 shots exchanged during the battle. Occasionally a negro would drop, then rise up and limp away. But, finally, the blacks retreated out of range and the firing eeased. The whites did not pursue them very far, fearing an ambuscade.

During the riots, which occurred at several different points, it was reported that a great number of men had been slain and their bodies seereted, but after order was restored and investigations made, no fatalities were discovered. Quite a number, however, were injured. Many houses bore the marks of bullets. A great deal of shooting was done, more or less at random.

dangerously near the firing zone, superintending some traek work. As he was not a combatant, he moved to a safer spot. In diseussing the situation Mr. Bovard remarked at that time:

"Your sheriff, I think, is trying hard to do his duty. Of course, it has been a somewhat difficult proposition for him to handle. I think he ought to keep negroes out of town, at least until things quiet down.

**We have a good town here and good people. I have been in a number of mining towns, and I know something about them. You can say for me, without reservation, that I have never seen a person insulted on the streets of Bevier, nor a drunken man. The real workingmen of this town never molest anybody. I am satisfied with conditions and prospects here."

One of the old Bevier miners, in discussing early day troubles, said that they used to make bullets for the old Springfield rifles by digging a hole in a briek and using it as a mold. When the hole was full of melted lead the overflow would be seraped off with a case knife. It was a quiek method and the balls thus made would sing as mournful a song as those which were traveling from the latest army rifle.

The sheriff of Macon county had the most trying position of any man conneeted with the duty of putting down the riots. In diseussing this, a Bevier citizen said:

**In a time of war an officer ought not to try to explain things to everybody who asks him questions. The right thing to do is for the officer to plan his campaign and then go ahead and work it out according to his system. It is mighty easy for a fellow to get rattled by those who do a great deal of talking. I remember during a strike some years back the boys met and discussed the prospect of taking the mines. They talked long and loud about how they would do it, and finally they started out on their campaign. The enemy fired back, and the only one of the lot who held his ground and responded with his blunderbuss was a quiet little chap who had been at the pow-wow, but hadn't said a word about what he was going to do."

On Friday morning, August 16, 1901, three miners were killed and two seriously injured by the explosion of a 25-pound ean of Dupont powder in the Kansas & Texas Coal Company's mine No. 52, a short distance west of Excello. It was what is known as a slope, the tunnel having been sunk for a short ways in the hillside. The three men who met death were W. R. Brown, aged 76; J. C. McCully, 40, and Charles

P. Stokes, 31. The injured were I. J. Lucas, 65, and John MeCanne, 32. Charles Stokes started to open the can of powder. The lid did not move smoothly and MeCully told him to stand aside and he would show him how to get into the ean. MeCully struck the lid what seemed to be a light blow with a pick; he followed this with a more vigorous stroke. A terrifie explosion followed. The five men named above were thrown against the sides of the entry, blazing and burning like pillars of fire. In their fearful agony they rolled around on the ground, shrieking and calling for help, all the while frantically trying to tear the burning garments from their bodies. Some men who were working ` at an air shaft some distance away heard the eries and ran to their rescue. They tore the clothing from the poor fellows' bodies, enduring serious burns themselves in doing so. MeCully, Brown and Stokes were taken to the hospital at Moberly in the afternoon, and after enduring dreadful suffering passed away. Stokes lived twelve hours after the accident and MeCully died at 1:30 Saturday morning, Brown following him at 5.

W. H. Frazier, one of the men who was sinking the air shaft, was the first man on the scene of the accident. His story of what he saw was as follows:

"The first thing I knew about the matter was when I heard what I thought was a shot, but as it was followed almost instantly by terrible sereaming I knew something had gone wrong. We dropped our tools and dashed down the hill. As we hurried along we saw a great pillar of smoke arise in the air and move slowly and solemnly away. It looked like a monster balloon. MeCully was the first man I saw. He was a living pillar of fire. His shirt was burned completely off. All of them were trying with their maimed hands to put out the fire that was scorching their lives away. The cries from those poor fellows will ring in my ears as long as I live. If I had known that I was going to witness such a dreadful sight I am afraid I would have turned and fled in some other direction. As it was, none of us thought of the horror of it just then. All that entered our heads was to reliéve the poor men as quickly as we could.

"T tore the shreds of MeCully's clothing off and threw them to one side, where they were rapidly consumed. Then I turned my attention to Mr. Brown. I didn't know who he was. You couldn't tell one of the men from the other. They were so disfigured by the burning and the powder. We got Brown's garments off, and when we were wrapping him up in one of the men's coats, someone told me who he was. By this time assistance was coming from all directions, and the charred bodies were all wrapped up and driven to town.

"I don't like to talk about this thing. I have been in the army and seen a great deal of suffering, but nothing quite so fearful as this. After it was all over, I was as weak as a cat; my legs would hardly hold me up. People who visited the mines soon after the explosion pieked up buttons, buckles and metal pieces the men had in their pockets. A number of finger-nails were found and several fingers literally burned off. The heat these poor men endured was about the same as if they had been placed in a small room of solid fire and a force draught turned upon their bodies. Every hair on their heads and faces was burned off, giving their features a weird, uncanny look.

"I don't see how anyone could be blamed for this unfortunate affair," Mr. Frazier went on. ''It was an accident, pure and simple. It has always been the eustom of the miners to press their picks through the lids of the powder cans to get at the contents. Some struck the lid, but I believe the rule is rather to push the sharp point of the piek through the tin. McCully was the foreman and was considered a safe and careful man."

The Sunday following the disaster funeral services were held at Mount Salem church. The attendance was enormous, nearly every home in the neighborhood being represented by people who sorrdwed for the dead miners.

Not long after the Supreme Court's decision affirming the law regarding shot-firers, a member of the staff compiling this history was invited to accompany ''Jack'' Richards and ** Bill" Jones, two of the shot-firers in Northwestern colliery No. 8, on their rounds. "Jack" and ** Bill" promised to be gentle with the layman and to see that part of him reached home alive. The tenderfoot went out to the mine, arriving there a short while before dusk. Engineer James Leyden, a big, good-natured sort of fellow, welcomed the visitor in his large and wellkept machine room, grinning slightly as he thought of what was in store for him. Jack and Bill were there, dressed up like desperadoes, it seemed to the tenderfoot, but it was only the ordinary regalia for use in the pit: The shot-firers scrutinized the explorer and sarcastically suggested that he might have shown them a little more respect had he worn a high hat and shined his shoes. Then they lighted their pit lamps and led the way to a place that looked like it might be the gate- way to the inferno. The tenderfoot followed, trailing along in the midst of the four shot-firers, and the little party passed on to one of the cages. There was the sound of a gong and the wire ropes overhead began to move. After a drop of 130 feet the ''cage'' struck the **bottom" so gently that not a man on it could detect the contact. This was the last merey to the visitor. Leyden, the engineer, knew he had troubles enough ahead without his adding to them. At the bottom a little eoffee-pot, which the shot-firers said was a lamp, was filled with lard oil, lighted and handed to the guest of the mine.

The visitor followed instructions, and when he got into the eurrent on the double entry there was the smell of burning cloth. His coat sleeve had caught fire.

"So long! was the parting of the two little forces. Only five men were in the underground world, with its miles of narrow streets, halllike rooms, its eross-euts and its caverns. With heads slightly bent, Jack and Bill led the way along the **First East." The roof here was of solid rock and fairly high. The roadbed between the narrow rails was firm and walking was easy.

The observation from Jack was enigmatical, rather than reassuring. On the right there was a fissure in the coal. Two great ears projected over a wooden barrier, and cast a sinister shadow. The big ears belonged to ** Murphy," one of the pit mules. His "flat" was of nearly as meager limitations as the conventional sort above ground. **Murphy" looked bored when the three foot travelers stopped and tried to make friends with him.

**He's heard the company's going to put in motors," said Jones, 'tand it's made him sullen. While back he was the most sociable mule in the pit."

There are from twenty-five to thirty small mules stowed around in the honeycombs of No. 8, and it is said they fare well under ground. They are given periodie baths in sunshine, during which they express their joy by trying to kick holes in the sky.

On through the gloomy avenues the trio marched, their torch lamps revealing great slides of rock and coal on the side, and here and there a black hole penetrated by a narrow iron track. Into one of these Jones dauntlessly led the way. As they advanced the roof came down and the men had to bend lower, reaching their hands out ahead like great spiders. For a long time the tenderfoot tried to unloosen the cross timbers with the top of his head, and then he learned the lesson of humility. The roadway began to get soft and soon the gray mud and water reached over the ankles. The recruit murmured.

The slender iron rails were about as inviting a prospect as a slack wire. But the man who had come to see endeavored to obey the suggestion. One foot went off into the ooze so suddenly that he fell against a side prop and went to his knees. "The ruination of his new trousers didn't insult him so much as the affront to his bones. But he got up and stumbled along after his companions, whose tiny lamps were flickering far down the inky corridor. A good quarter mile of slush and water and they eame to a solid wall. It was the end of the fifth entry south.

They explained that all the rooms along that entry were marked **0," by which the shot-firers understood that there were no cartridges for them to touch off and no holes to tamp. The information is conveyed by marks on a small board at the mouth of the miner's room. Through a eross-eut almost entirely filled with fine coal and debris the party passed into the next entry.

The shot-firers darted off like shadows of the night. Now and then their lights could be seen twinkling in the distance like fire-flies. Then they would disappear. Presently there came a dull roar like the boom of a eannon. This was followed by a eyelonie rush of wind which blew off the tenderfoot's new hat and put his lamp out of business. He was alone with his imagination and darkness that could have been carved with a meat ax. Sulphur fumes followed in the wake of the wind. Two more heavy blasts came in quick succession. One was near the entry and the fire from the five-pound eartridge made a pyrotechnie display that would have been worth money on the Fourth of July. Volley after volley of coal crashed viciously against the side of the entry, and the cross timbers cracked.

The cannonading was getting closer and fiercer as if the battle line were advancing. Now and then there was a tearing sound as if some angry carpenter were splitting a. plank, and the soapstone roof overhead moaned uneasily.

Jack kindly relit the tenderfoot's lamp and showed the way. Blocking the **neck"' of a room was a loaded ear of coal. The shot-firer shinned through a space that would have squeezed the life out of a cat and hauled the layman after him by the coat collar. On the other side of the eoal ear was a wide space that looked like a miniature forest. A wilderness of props was supporting a ''touchy'' roof in the miner's room. Arriving at a high black wall in the far end, Jack pointed to something which looked like a baby garter snake climbing out of its hole backwards.

The shot-firer grabbed the tenderfoot's arm and hustled him to the far side of the black wall and there indieated a twin sister of the first garter snake.

Had Jaek threatened him with a elub it wouldn't have been half so dreadful. The tenderfoot held his lamp to the garter snake about as intrepidly as a lady lights her first cigarette. The thing burst out into a shadow of sparks like a Chinese *'sizzer." The scholar made a wild break for cover, losing his hat and lamp on the way. In pushing between the coal ears and the side of the **neck,"" he lost all the buttons off his vest and a few feet of skin, but he wasn't worrying over trifles that night. When he got out in the entry he looked baek over the car and saw Jack standing between the two cheerfully sputtering fuses, ealmly retrimming and lighting the abandoned lamp. He also took thought to pick up the tenderfoot's hat and knock the coal dust from it.

"That's the way with vou fellers," said the shivering layman indignantly; **you stand in front of a cannon, and when you get your head blown off you lay it on the company."

Here Jones, who had been planning devastation up the entry, joined them, and they hiked along through the slush toward the **First East" again, helped along by the young hurricanes from the exploding eartridges behind them. A short jog along the east entry, and the shot-firers again plunged into a "hole?" running south. Midway of this was a long line of loaded coal ears. A jutting rock prevented passage between one of the coal ears and the side of the entry. Jones leaped up on the cars and crowded forward in the seant space between roof and load. The tenderfoot realized what he was up against.

Jack grasped the layman's legs and hoisted him on the loaded coal. Jones reached his body forward and grabbed his hands, while Jack eased him along by the belt. The two or three white spots that had stood out on his shirt and collar up to this time withdrew from complicity in the enterprise, and the black became unanimous. Jordan's stormy highway wasn't a cireumstance to that journey across the coal cars. When at last all three stood safely on the far side, the shot-firers held up their lamps and admiringly inspected their companion.

Through the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth subentries the shot-firers plodded along to the inspiring thunder of artillery and the rush of infant tornadoes. When every miner's room in that section of the great eolliery had been attended to they headed westward for the **bottom," going back along the ''First East." The tenderfoot, recognizing various landmarks under the rocky roof, felt keen relief. All the shots had been fired and he was still alive.

"You see," Jones went on, with a wink that even the darkness couldn't hide, **whenever the company's medicine man reports that some fellow is getting too frisky they made a 'fire-shooter,' as you call it, out of him. It fixes him, generally.

The roof in the west side was lower, because the vein was thinner. The lamps burned feebly and often went out. At one place Jones held up his lamp where a wagon load of rock had fallen out of the roof and left a sort of ledge extending over. The lamp almost instantly went out.

It is the vampire of the coal mine. The fatal wings stretch out and gently fan the grimy toiler to pleasant dreams - dreams that last into eternity. The black damp hovers near the top, but at the slightest cessation of the air current it will flood the entries and the rooms. The percentage was so small in No. 8 that the miners were hardly aware of its existence.

Pretty soon there was a dull intonation to the south and the skyrockets came out and danced a jig. Spitefully the nut coal crashed over the passageway for a minute, and all was still in the direction of the shot. Overhead the soft roof began to make sullen noises, as if seeking a better lodging place. It didn't take any imagination to see things moving. The shot-firers' pupil saw a chance while Jones was holding up his lamp and seooted.

"I am sorry to feel it necessary, Mr. Jones," said the layman, stiffly, "to support all your statements with proof. You act as if I doubted your word."

"Drawing pillars" is the most delicate undertaking in a mine. The pillars are solid coal between rooms, and are left to support the roof. When the pillars are drawn the roof is likely to fall at any time. While engaged at such work the miner props well up to his work and takes every possible precaution. Only the oldest and most experienced men are permitted to draw pillars. The remuneration is good, because the coal comes down easily and in great chunks. For this the pillar

After passing through a long, muddy entry Jones stopped at a place that looked like a great eavern. Immense boulders had fallen out of the roof and lay piled up like the ruins of a temple. The shotfirer looked all around the dark pillars for **garter snake tails."

He held his lamp up to the roof, where the thin edge of the rock breaking out was showing. It looked like one might pull it down with his finger, and that it would be smooth and flat like a pane of glass.

"A bell rock," said Jones, **is a rock that breaks off in a feather edge, like you see this, and suddenly spreads out as you approach the center of it. It may weigh 500 pounds or it may weigh a ton. It is a distinet roek imbedded in the general strata - sort of a pocket, you might say. It may stand for years. It may fall in a second. Nine out of ten of the damage suits brought against eoal eompanies are for injuries and death occasioned by fall of bell rocks. They cause more trouble than everything else added together."

The noviee, with his usual precaution, moved. Jones laughed and dived into the blaek ink toward the main entry again. Along the western entries were great piles of props and timbers, awaiting the call of the miner to protect his roof. The miner is responsible for his room, but the company has to see that he has plenty of timber handy. The road-ways here and there were covered with slabs of rock that had fallen since the mule drivers had quit work in the afternoon. Miners say most heavy falls of rock oceur between midnight and dawn. They have a theory that the earth is more restless between those periods.

At a number of places the shot-firers passed from one entry to another through a eross-eut where the coal and fallen rock came so near the roof that they had to erawl through on hands and knees. "They traveled ten miles through tunnels, holes and caverns, across bogs and over fallen rock and eoal, plowed through mud and mire that would have stalled an ox team, squeezed between coal cars and sides of entries or erawled over them, and for not one second were they in doubt as to their surroundings. Every foot of that murky, ten-mile journey was as familiar to them as his division is to a veteran locomotive engineer. For this sort of knowledge and work the shot-firer gets $2.83 a day.

The cage was waiting when the party returned to the broad avenue of the bottom. The men stepped on, Jones pulled a lever at the side and the hoarse whistle of the big engine on top cheerfully responded. When the cage gate was thrown open the pilgrims from the nether world looked up and saw the stars were out and that darkness enshrouded the great coal valley. But it was not the bitter gloom of the sort from whence they eame, and there was no danger of the diamond-studded ''roof'' above crashing down upon the brawny sons who toiled beneath.

'The town of Lingo, a few miles west of New Cambria, on the Burlington railroad, was founded in 1873 by Thomas and George Jobson, both of whom yet live in Macon county. The Jobsons were farmer boys, but they had been interested in railroad work, and had noticed that the railroad eompany was abandoning the use of wood and depending almost exclusively on coal in its locomotives. The place which they ealled Lingo, in honor of Judge Samuel Lingo, member of an early county court, was originally known as ''Peabody's Woodyard." Colonel Peabody there stacked up his wood, which was purchased by the railroad for its engines.

The Jobsons figured that since there was coal in large quantities at Bevier, likely some of the same material existed about Lingo, and they resolved to put Peabody's Woodyard out of business. At 110 feet they struck a good vein of coal. The young men had some money, and they purchased 120 acres on which to operate their coal mine and build the town of Lingo. The railroad sold them the land at $6 an aere. After having thoroughly demonstrated the existence of good coal under all the land thereabouts, the Jobsons interested some capitalists and organized a mining company, with a capital stock of $30,000. Contracts were made with the railroad company to furnish coal to its locomotives. The Jobsons, then in their 20s, found themselves in the possession of a great, big business, but that was just what they wanted, and they were prepared to handle it right.

The first attempt at mining was on what is called the room and pillar system. Welsh miners from Bevier were employed. But it was soon found, owing to the peculiar formation of the coal, that it could only be mined advantageously on the long wall system, a plan used in Austria, where the roof is not good. So it beeame necessary to secure

Things began to liven up at Lingo. New houses were built rapidly, merchants purchased large stocks of goods, and farmers began driving in and making it their trading point. The population was distinctly foreign. "The Bohemians were big, stalwart, fun-loving fellows, and they had great times of night dancing and singing. They brought their women with them, and they were as lively and full of fun as the men. Sometimes there were dances which lasted all night. Old and young took part in them, and all drank a good deal of beer. After the fun was over, the Bohemians would put on their working harness, go down into the mines and labor as steadily as if they hadn't been np all night. Once a year the Bohemians would hold a festival, during which they would carry around through the streets of the town the effigy of some traitor to their country who had been executed. Arriving at a certain place which had been prepared for the occasion, they would solemnly hang the effigy and deliver it over to the Evil One.

The force that sunk the original shaft at Lingo was composed of F. A. Quinn, William Blake, John Vanderpool, John Saunders and John Redman, all of whom are dead.

Lingo thrived steadily and for a time many of its residents thought. it would rival Bevier as a coal mining center, but finally the Jobsons disposed of their holdings and their suecessors had some trouble with the railroad, which quit using Lingo coal. The mines passed through various hands, and finally, in the 90s, the Armours aequired 600 acres of land, which included the entire town of Lingo. Every building was painted a bright yellow in eonformity with the eolor of the Armour property. 'The Armours ran the mines steadily, using all the coal produced, until the miners at Lingo went out on a sympathetie strike with their brethren who were working in some other mines the Armours owned, a few years ago, and then the packing company shut down its coal mines altogether and began using oil as a means of producing steam. The strike was fatal to Lingo. From a town of 500 population, with churches, stores, schools and many dwelling houses, it dwindled to a hamlet. The miners left for other fields, the merchants went out of business and many of the houses were moved away. The railroad loaded up the station on some flat cars and moved to another point. Trains ceased to stop there except on signal. The once lively mining town was practically off the map.

"I was mighty sorry to see the town go down. There is plenty of good coal there yet, and if it is properly managed I am confident it would yield good revenues to the operator. When I was the individual owner of the mines, from 1884 to 1888, they made money, but every man I had on the pay roll was a producer. I never kept about me a lot of elerks and bosses, but saw to it that every man was aetually needed and worked. You have to figure mighty close these days to make money in coal. When I was down there I was postmaster, storekeeper, operator, elerk and bookkeeper for the mines. Yes, these things kept me pretty busy, but we were making money and that was all right. I believe I could go back there today, take charge of those mines and make them profitable. I would liked to have seen Lingo stay on the map. It was the only town I ever started and I was hopeful in my younger days that it would eventually become a great city. For a while things were looking that way. I believe yet that somebody will take hold of that coal down there and operate it profitably. It can be done, without a doubt."

Has the man who works underground with pick, shovel and blasting powder, in a room the size of a kitchen pantry, a better chance for reaching threescore and ten than his brother who toils in the sunlight?

That is the view of R. S. Thomas, former coal-mine inspector of Missouri, who had a fixed belief that coal mining and longevity go hand in hand.

. "You never hear of a coal miner having consumption," said Mr. "Thomas, **unless he contracted the disease before he went into the pit. And even then he finds the peculiar properties of a coal mine beneficial to his lungs, and often becomes well and strong by reason of his work underground.

"The air in a large eoal mine is always kept pure and free from germs. The temperature is regular and the elements in the coal are strengthening for weak lungs. We have a number of hardy miners in Missouri who were taken into the pit in the old country (Wales) at 6 to 10 years of age to act as trapper boys. These youngsters kept steadily at work until they were promoted to be regular miners, and thrived under eonditions which, in most trades, would retard their development - I mean beginning work so early.

"It seems that Providence has made the health of the miner good, as eompensation for his hazard. Nearly all of them who manage to dodge falls of rock, the breaking of eables and other dangers ineident to the eraft, live to a green old age. They not only live, but they keep at work. It would surprise Dr. Osler if he knew how many men far past sixty years were yet working in the mines at Bevier. Uncle Johnnie Griffith, who died a few months ago at the age of eighty-four, worked in the pit from the age of seven until a year before he died. Some think if he hadn't knocked off work he might be living yet. He began as a trapper boy in Wales, his father carrying him to the mines on his back. His last work was in mine No. 61 of the Central Coal Company, near Bevier, and he made a full hand every day for three years after he was eighty. With the exception of a short time, when he ran a hoisting engine, Mr. Griffith has practically been in the pit three-quarters of a century."

Mr. Thomas has made some research at Bevier, the largest coal eamp in the state, to ascertain the ages of veterans, still working, between the ages of sixty-five and eighty-six, and furnished this as a partial list:

James E. Tanner was born in Newberry, Burkshire, England, July 14, 1822; started to work in the mines of that country at the age of ten years, and has worked continuously until a few years ago. He came to St. Louis in May, 1850; landed in Bevier forty-two years ago, worked here awhile, then went west with Thomas Wardell and W. S. Watson; opened up mines at Rock Springs and Carbon, Wyoming. Came back to Bevier and has resided here ever since.

John T. Richards, born in North Wales, Denbifshire, April 16, 1840; started to work in the mines at eight years of age, has been working continuously ever since.

Charles Perry, who recently died, was born in England June, 1825; started to working in the mines at the age of seven years and worked up until he was seventy years old.

William Clark was born in County Durham, England, October, 1839; started to work in the mines very young, and is still following mining every day.

James Burton, born October 17, 1827, at Newtown, near Spennymoor, Durham County, England; started working in the mines at ten years of age, and worked in the mines up to 1857. Came to America in ihe year of 1857 ; arrived in Pennsylvania the same year, and worked in mines at different places up to the year of 1869. He then came West and landed with family in Bevier in 1869, and has lived in Bevier ever since; he has worked in the mines till he was over eighty years of age, having started working as a trapper, and has worked at every other kind of work to be done around a mine. He is still working every day.

** And here's another thing," remarked Tom Williams, a veteran who had to abandon the pit some years ago, owing to a fall of rock, and who later was Cireuit Clerk of Macon county ; **you never hear a miner puff and blow when he runs. His wind is as good as an athlete's. His lungs are sound, although coated thick with coal dust. I spit coal dust for ten years after I quit mining, but my breathing apparatus was perfect. Nearly everybody at Bevier burns coal for all purposes, because it is cheap. Most other towns in these parts use wood for fireplaces and heating. Now, in time, the tops of those Bevier houses become coated with coal soot from their chimneys, and the rain falling on the roofs passes into their wells and they drink it. A Bevier family does not like water unless it is caught that way and goes through that proeess; that's the only kind of water that tastes good to 'em. Why? Because it has properties that kill pneumonia and typhoid germs. It's an absolute faet that people don't have sueh maladies when they use water caught in that way. I've lived among them a lifetime, and I know that. I ean't give the scientific reason for coal soot's beneficial influence on well water, but there's no earthly doubt that it has such influence.''

A local physician who has had considerable experience in the mining district was asked if there was any scientific explanation for a collieryman's immunity from disease.

the doctor. **The poisons of the atmosphere hovering over the average inan never get to the miner while he is at work. Another thing I have notieed: The wound a miner receives, no matter how severe, rarely suppurates or becomes inflamed. "That is because there are no germs of inflammation in the man's body. "This indicates that there is some antiseptie action of the sulphur or the eoal dust, with which he comes in contact. Sulphur is recognized as an active germicide. The tendeney of such agents is to prevent and eradicate tuberculosis. You and I, who go about in the sunlight, have doubtless been exposed dozens of times to the inhalation of tubereulosis germs, but, our systems being in condition, the germs are destroyed. If the system is weak, they may develop. The miner is not exposed to this risk while at work, which is the greater part of the time.

"I think this accounts in large measure for the healthy, rugged physique of the average miner. He may not be a brawny giant, but his blood is in good condition because of the purity of the atmosphere fed into his respiratory organs."

The coal mines of Missouri do not generate gas. That is why there has never been an explosion in them. There is what is known as damp, but it is soon dissipated when the air current is turned against it.

**In the old country mines were often set afire by a gas explosion," said John E. Richards, a North Wales man. 'Our boys here hardly know what gas is by actual experience, because these mines don't have it. But it is the 'king of terrors' over in Wales. "There they go down after coal much deeper that we do here. The colliery in which I was employed as gas boss at Ruabon was from 300 to 350 yards down.

"The gas comes from want of ventilation. In those deep, extensive mines, with their galleries extending many miles in all direetions, pitching up and down with the coal veins, and their hundreds and hundreds of worked-out rooms, it was practically impossible to control the gas at all places. The gas is exploded by being ignited with a naked flame. It was a rigorous rule that no smoking was allowed in the mines. Our lamps were covered with gauze or glass, and could only be unlocked by the gas boss or his deputy.

"A gas explosion in a mine does not sound like the discharge of powder or dynamite above ground. It is a sort of dull, suppressed roar, a mighty groan of the underworld. The immediate result is a terrifie rush of wind. Men are thrown through the entries like toy soldie Great timbers and coal boxes are shot by as if struck by cyclone.

great as those which follow from the terrible afterdamp. This chokes the life out of the miner before he can start to run, even if he's unscathed by the explosion.

"The Davy lamp flame burns blue at the top when you are approaching a gas territory. It is then the pit boss's duty to fix up his danger signal and to hike out in a hurry.

"White damp is the most deceptive thing you ever ran across on land or sea. It fools you, because your lamp burns well - in fact, it grows brighter when you enter it. Not thinking what it means at first, a man is inclined to push on. You don't feel any oppression on the lungs; your light tells no tales. But suddenly you start to raise an arm. It hangs limp by your side. Your legs get shaky and you feel an almost uncontrollable desire to lie down. Energy has left you, and you don't feel worried about the troubles of this old world any longer.

"There are gardens with flowers, beautiful walks and balmy air. That is the moment, my boy, when you want to grit your teeth and tight and pull for the shore. If you can't walk, get down on your knees and erawl, for in two minutes you'll be asleep in that beautiful garden, to awake no more in this life.

"The black damp is a fairer enemy. When in it your lamp burns low, and you get timely warning. A pure current of air is the antidote for both conditions. If you have ever heard a miner pray in publie you will have noticed that he thanks the Almighty for an abundance of ntmosphere. ]

Keota was opened up in 1900 by the Kansas & Texas Coal Company, which at that time operated two mines. Later on this company was absorbed by the Central Coal & Coke Company. This and the Northwestern Coal & Mining Company are the two large concerns of the district. The Central Coal Company employs about 1,000 men. Keota's population is close to 500. It is a thriving town, with a good farming trade and healthfully situated. At present this list comprises the local officers of the Central Coal & Coke Company: Arthur Vail, superintendent of mines; Isaac Rice, foreman of Mine No. 66; Monroe Barnes, foreman of Mine No. 25; James Weeks, foreman of Mine 61; George A. Wandt, manager of mine officers; Gomer L. Thomas, manager of general store.

washer, something new in this distriet and a contrivance of great importance in the mining industry. E. O. Jones is the foreman of this branch of the work.

The last mining report issued by the Bureau of Mines, Mining and Mine Inspection was for 1908. During that year Richard S. Thomas of Bevier was chief coal mine inspector.

Central Coal & Coke Company. This company owns and operates six mines, embracing several thousand acres of coal land. The company is capitalized at $7,000,000. The officers are C. S. Keith, president; J. C. Sherwood, vice-president; F. E. Doubleday, manager of mines, and Arthur Vail, division superintendent. The mines are known as Nos. 61, 66, 24, 25, 28 and 10. Mine 61 is equipped with modern machinery, good tipple and a commodious engine house and boiler room, a large dynamo supplies power for electrie haulage, two six-ton motors bring the product to the mine bottom. The coal is hoisted from a shaft 125 feet deep. The coal seam averages 415 feet; overlaid with a soapstone, sand-rock and slate roof.

Mine No. 10 has first-class equipment. Coal shaft, 137 feet. Ventilation is provided by a 12-foot fan. The equipment of Mine 24 is first-class; good tipple and top houses, commodious engine house, boiler room and blacksmith shop. The machinery is of the best, inelud- ing a Litchfield first motion engine, which hoists the coal out of shaft 124 feet deep. Coal averages from 41% to 5 feet; 14-foot fan. Equipment of Mine 28 is also first-elass. Up-to-date tipple, engine and boiler room and blacksmith shop, Wright-Adams engine, self-dumping cages and safety catches of latest pattern; 12-foot fan.

Mine 25 is a slope; coal is pulled up over an incline plane to a landing, where it is dumped into railroad ears. Steam power is used for hauling the product to the surface and for running the fan. Coal averages from 4 to 415 feet; 12-foot fan.

Mine No. 66 is similar to No. 61. "The shaft opening is 57 feet and the coal has an average thickness of 4!5 feet overlaid with soapstone, sand-rock and slate roof. The equipment of mine is up-to-date in every partieular, and is provided with every facility for rapid and economie handling of the production. At the inspection in January, 1908, all the top struetures were found in good condition; 14-foot fan.

Northwestern Coal & Mining Company. This company is one of the largest in the state, owns 850 acres of coal lands in Macon county and is eapitalized for $150,000. Officers: John H. Bovard, president; S. B. Ladd, vice-president; C. G. Thurston, seeretary and treasurer. Officers at the mines: Louis Larson, superintendent; E. Simpson, foreman of Mine No. 8; Perry Aldridge, foreman of Mine No. 9. Both mines are in active operation, No. 8 being located a mile south of Bevier, and No. 9 three-quarters of a mile southeast of No. 8. Both mines are connected by a spur switeh more than a mile in length from the Missouri & Louisiana railroad, which delivers the produet to the Burlington railroad at Bevier.

In mine No. 8 the equipment is up-to-date in every particular, and every care is taken to keep them so. "Top struetures were found in good order. Mine No. 9 is equipped in up-to-date manner, has a good tower, a commodious engine house and a first motion Litchfield hoisting engine. Ventilation by 14-foot fan. Underground works in these mines are given every possible attention. All abandoned rooms and entries were securely filled up on date of inspection.

Other mines briefly mentioned by the inspeetors were the Gronoway mines at Macon and the Isaaeson & Underwood mine, three and a half miles west of Bevier.

The Home Coal Company of Macon began operations the first of November, 1909. It controls several hundred acres of land. The operating shaft is in the southeastern part of town, on a spur connecting it with the Burlington railroad. The company was capitalized at $10,000, and is officered as follows: Ben Davis, president; J. P. Moore, vice-president and treasurer; Waldo Edwards, secretary and attorney; Charles White, former general foreman for the Central Coal & Coke Company, mine manager, and Thomas Evans, mine foreman. The company has what is known as a geared engine, 60 horsepower, double eage and first-class tipple and upper works. The coal vein is from 22 to 25 inches and is operated on the long wall system. Sixty men are employed, including miners and day men. The company supplies the domestie trade about Macon, but is arranging to handle outside trade on an extensive scale. The coal is of excellent quality, being found at 80 feet below the surface. This is the first steam mine to be operated about Macon, and from its very start it has had more orders than it could handle.

In Oetober, 1875, there was considerable excitement up the Chariton valley about Mercyville, now Elmer, concerning gold discoveries. A correspondent of the Macon Republican writes this in the issue of October 14 about the situation:

"New Cambria, October 11. Great excitement! Our hotels are erowded with strangers going to and returning from the gold regions, this being the most accessible point. Doubt no longer exists that gold can be found in paying quantities. It has been found in dust as high as fifty colors to the pan. Nuggets have been found varying from the size of a grain of wheat to that of a grain of corn. The number now prospecting in the vicinity of Mercyville is estimated at from 400 to 800, the people coming here from all parts of Missouri, Illinois, New York Ohio, Iowa and many other states. All agree that the prospeet for gold is as good as that of California or any other western state or territory. Your correspondent, having a desire to know the true faets, visited the region himself last week and looked the whole field over, until he was thoroughly satisfied that it was no humbug. He saw the particles washed out in different places, and has now in his possession a specimen the size of a half grain of wheat. Anybody can see it by calling at my office in this town. I have also some beautiful specimens of fine stones of the order of diamond, ruby, agate, ete., all of which will compare favorably with any found in foreign countries. Every person I met was jubilant and all were busy arranging to engage in mining for the precious metal. Old miners are eursing themselves because they had in days gone by spent all their means to prepare themselves to go to the far west to dig for gold, when at the same time, had they but known the truth, they could have found it right at

The character of mining prosecuted at that time was known as placer, like that of California in the early days. The excitement up at Mereyville finally died down when the gold ceased to appear, though from time to time small discoveries have since been made.

The following sketch relative to mining for valuable mineral in Macon county is prepared for this history by G. A. Yager, secretarytreasurer of the Pioneer Gold Mining Company, New Cambria:

"Back in the seventies California miners who had returned to their Macon county homes noticed the black sand in the brooks that empty into the Chariton river on the west side.

"The old-fashioned rockers were set to work, quite a little gold was washed out, excitement ran high for a while, but when the state geologist (Mr. Winslow) reported it to be a 'glacier deposit, such as could be found in many places in the Mississippi valley, but not in paying quantities,' the boom died.

"Had Mr. Winslow been an old miner instead of a young, inexperienced man, his report would have been different. The gold was rough and little work, showing local origin; glacial gold is worn smooth. Had the truth been known at that time, prospecting would have brought to light the hidden vein found many years later.

"There is a strip of country, beginning at Hammock's Mill, running north and west some miles, which is of a different formation from the country east, south and west, where the coal is found. It is strongly mineralized, but the vein being of blanket formation, showing no outcropping, nothing was done to prospect for mineral. Perry Baldwin, who owned a large tract in this belt, formed a company of New Cambria people forty-three years ago to prospect for coal on his land. A shaft was sunk 100 feet. Rock was struck and work stopped. Years later a contract was made with well-drillers to sink to coal for $225. They sunk twenty-seven feet, found no coal, but struck a formation their drill would not touch. To save the $225 they salted the hole with coal, reported a 315 foot vein, got their money and left for parts unknown.

For the want of capital no more work was done by the company. After they had passed away, a son of Perry Baldwin became possessor of the land. By this time coal was in demand. A 314-foot vein, 123 feet from the surface, on the railroad, is valuable. The present Mr. Baldwin started sinking for the coal eight years ago. The drill-hole was followed but no coal found. The rock showed mineral all the way, yet little was thought of it; eoal was what they were after. Thomas Mordecai, of Lingo, who had worked in ihe shaft, believed it carried gold and other minerals. He persuaded Mr. Baldwin to send samples of the ore to Denver to his friend, David J. Reed, an experienced miner. The ore proved to run $15 per ton in gold, silver and by-produets.

**Tn March, 1908, Mr. Reed formed a partnership with G. A. Yager, who is interested in mines and land in Colorado and Nevada. Work was carried on for six months. The large vein was thoroughly tested by them and other experts and found to be pay ore. "They purchased 160 aeres of this land, formed and incorporated the Pioneer Gold Mining Company, and sunk one of the finest shafts in Missouri.