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Oral History Project - Derenge, William 1980 Part 1
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These interviews are presented here in their original form, unmodified, in an effort to preserve and share the history of our park and its surrounding area. The memories, comments, and viewpoints shared by interviewees in the materials of the New River Gorge Oral History Project and related documents do not represent the viewpoints of the National Park Service.
Interview NRGNPP 010
File H NRGNPP OIO-T
TAPE TEN
Mr. William Derenge
Interviewer:
Paul J. Nyden
Beckley, W. Va.
25801
October 4, 1980
PN: Mr. Derenge, maybe you could start off by saying what date that you were born and where you were born.
WD: I was born in Freeland, Pennsylvania in the year 1981. My father moved to West Virginia, oh about, 1900.
PN: What did your father do? Was he a coal miner?
WD: He was a coal miner, yea. And we were on Loup Creek, at Dunloup, just about a mile below Mt. Hope. It's a ghost town now. From there, he went down to Thurmond. He worked the mines in Thurmond. Of course, I was just a small lad then. He worked at Thurmond about over a year, and things didn't go right, so he went down to Red Ash.
PN: Your father? He went to Red Ash after Thurmond?
WD: Yea, he went to Red Ash. They had an explosion at Rush Run about a year before that. So he went to work about a year after that. And he worked at Red Ash about two years, I suppose.
PN: About two years?
WD: About two years, yea. Dad had a skift [meaning skiff] hand made, on the New River there. The water's quiet there along Fire Creek. And had them on that river about an hour's time, about half my time. 1 used to haul water. Water was scarce over on our side; I used to cross the river at Fire Creek and get a boiler full of water in the boat.
PN: You went across the river on this skiff?
WD: Across the river. And they had no system of delivering any coal. I recall one time, I went up to the tipple and carried it down, two buckets at a time — coal — and loaded up the skiff. And it was down, almost that much about water.
PN: What, about five inches?
WD: Mm. Go down there about a mile. And the same thing, I carried my buckets full up to the house.
PN: Of coal?
WD: Of coal, yea. After we was there about two years, my father was going up here to Prince, to Royal —— the mines was working. And after the first year, between the school times, I went to the mines and worked with him. That went on for about three years.
PN: So you started working in the mines yourself at Prince?
WD: Across the river from Prince.
PN: How old were you then?
WD: Let's see, I was about 11 years old.
PN: What was the year that you said you started working?
WD: Huh?
PN: What was the year when you started to work?
WD: 1902. Yes, I worked in 1902. Worked there on and off between the school terms about three years, till my father come out and got a piece of property, or farm, here at Springdale. And so we left Royal and went to Springdale, and he farmed one year. Then he went back to the coal mine, and of course, I went with him. The next place we went to work was Greenwood on Laurel Creek, and Brown was what it was called.
PN: Greenwood?
WD: Greenwood, or Brownwood.
PN: Or Brownwood?
WD: Yea.
PN: Where's that near, Layland?
WD: Yea, just about a mile below Layland, hardly a mile. Layland tipple was just inside of Greenwood tipple. Worked there about, I don't know, three or four years. That's where my father, he got seriously hurt in a slate fall, fell on him in the Greenwood Mines. So he went out of the mines for about a year. My father couldn't, he was almost paralyzed for about a year. So I asked if he was going back in the mines again, because in them days, there was no workmen's compensation or anything like that. You was all on your own. And so, we went back to Greenwood and went to work again. It was mostly what work I could do. He wasn't hardly able to do anything.
PN: He was hurt at the Greenwood Mine? Your father was hurt there?
WD: He was hurt there, yea. And so we worked there. And Lay land a t that time was called Gentry. It opened up and started working; my father tried to get a job there, but he knew the mine foreman they were old Pennsylvania buddies — he wouldn't hire him. Found out later they weren 't allowed to hire any of Mr. Brown's men, you know.
PN: Why?
WD: Well, they got a right—of—way ditions they wouldn't hire any of best men away from him. After he belonged to New River—Pocahontas, through their property under the con— his men. So they wouldn't take the found that out, we went to Minden, which that was Lay land then [?], and worked there two months, and then come back there, and he hired him right off. Told him he worked at Minden, so that was different.
PN: Do you remember what Royal looked like back in 1902 when you started working there?
WD: What?
PN: Do you remember what the town looked like then?
WD: Which, Layland?
PN: No, Royal.
WD: Well, Royal was just a, common old houses built with strips, boards up and down, strips. It was typical miners' houses of that day and time. Of course, now, Layland, they build pretty good houses there. Of course, there are not many of them left now; they tore down at least part of them after the mines worked down. I think there's only about a dozen or so left now.
PN: In Layland?
WD: Left down there. Well, I forget where I was now.
PN: How about Royal? When you lived in Royal in 1902, how many people lived there?
WD: Oh, I don't know, it wasn't very big. It worked, say, I expect 75, or between 75 and 100.
PN: How many homes were there there?
WD: Oh, I just can h: hardly recall. If I had a little more time I could say. You're going to have to shut it off for a while [referring to the tape recorder], and I can sit and tell you more accurate.
PN: We can come back to that later then if you want to. %at, when you lived in a place like Royal, what did people do there for entertainment or for fun?
WD: There weren't any. They didn't have any moving—picture show, till we was at Lay land, several years before the first moving picture, moving house, well, was at Lay land. That was around 1906 or 07.
PN: They did have a movie, they did have a moving picture house at Layland by 1907?
WD: Yea, about that time.
PN: Did they have bars or saloons around there then?
WD: Did they have what?
PN: Bars or taverns?
WD: Oh yes, they had a fellow, name was Alex Salveras, saloon just, just before you come into town. And he was kind of a pretty, pretty rough. Somebody done something he saw and didn't like it, he took a blackjack and beat 'em up and throwed ‘em out. That was the law of the land at that time. Coal, in these coal camps like, they only had what they called a detective. Nowadays, they call them Baldwin thugs, and so he was depending on them to keeping order, and keeping any organizers from coming in, and so on. If he got suspicious you was an organizer or something, he told you to get out of town. And if you didn't go, why he, he'd see you did go. he made you go.
PN: These detectives?
WD: Yea.
PN: Were they the Baldwin—Felts?
WD: The Baldwin—Felts, yea. This fellow, laat man there, they had a man there by the name of Payne there for a good while. And he got in bad with the company and they fired him. And a fellow by the name of Green…
PN: In between?
WD: Green, took his place.
PN: Green?
WD: Uh huh. He was, he was a more decent man than the other one. Payne tried to be hard—boiled.
PN: Where was this, this was at Layland?
WD: Layland, yes, along about 1907—08, along there. We worked from about
1907 till about 1912, I guess, on and off. I think my father [was on] the farm one year.
PN: When did, did you move from Lay land to Eccles?
WD: Eccles, I don't know where that come in. It was, I don't just remember what it was, which one. Now up at Eccles, I was on my own. I didn't work [with] my father along in there. So I worked till, Lay land, had for a buddy a German. And he got dissatisfied [with] Layland, so he talked me into going to Pennsylvania —— Hermanie, Pennsylvania. Talked like things, milk and honey up there. When he got up there, why he didn't [see] any milk and honey, and I didn't either. We worked about two weeks, and come back to West Virginia. First went to Logan; went to work, work us, a guy up there said he was only working one, two day a week.
PN: Where, in Logan?
WD: At Logan, yea. So we didn't even ask for a job. And someone told us Eccles was a good place to work. It was some 50 mile away from there on the Virginia Road [meaning the Norfolk and Western Railroad]. So we went to Eccles and got a job and went to work. And we done real well. We worked pillars and pick work. We worked there till, I don't know, spring one year, they got in a labor dispute, and the mines went on strike. And so, I didn't feel, I wasn't going to go back and go in there and what they call scab. So I left there and went out in the country in Springdale at home, and went to work in the woods.
PN: At Springdale?
WD: Springdale. I worked in the woods cutting timber until this thing was settled. And s o I went back to Eccles about, it must have been about 1913, and worked for some time. And on Mar—, April 28, 1914, No. 5 Eccles blowed up. And I was working No. 6. And No. 5 and 6 connect up with a "false—bottom shaft" they call it. And everyone that was around close to the shaft, blown all to hell. We was farther back, and when we was farther back, we could run into this after—damp and suffocated, but we got out.
[Afterdamp is a general term applied to the gasses present inside a mine after an explosion, usually meaning that there are dangerous quantities of carbon monoxide present, accompanied by a lack of oxygen. Carbon monoxide will produce collapse after an hour in concentrations of 0.12 — 0.16%, and will cause unconcsiousness within a few minutes in quantities of 0.5% or more.]
So we got out that same evening; we wait till about 6:00. They got, the explosion wrecked the cage; they got one of the cage, cages working. And so they lifted us all, all out. Well, I have a little story there. We come within, oh, 300 or 400 yards of the shaft bottom. They said the smoke's and fume’s so bad, didn't think we would make it. So they all stopped there. And there's three of us went back to our working—place to get some canvas something to build a barricade with, trying to stay away from the poison fumes. And while we was going back, well No. 5 blew up the second time.
PN: The same day?
WD: Yea. And so we just supposed that all them men close to the bottom of the shaft got killed. And we didn't want to [move] no more, so we barricaded ourselves off, close to where we was working. Cause the air was still clear up there, we got, there. And we stayed there till rescue party come after us. When they got down there, they found this bunch of men. And they wanted to know, was there anymore. They told them, "Yea, there's three men went back. Something must have happened to them. They never did come back. Course we didn't come back, cause we was afraid to. And so they got us out, and we got out about six o'clock I would say.
PN: About six o'clock?
WD: Six o 'clock in the evening.
PN: When did the explosion take place?
WD: When? About two o clock in the afternoon. And we got out about six o'clock that same, same afternoon.
PN: What was that, about four, four hours later?
WD: Something like that.
PN: That you were trapped in there?
WD: Four or five hours.
PN: How did they get you out? Did they fix the cage?
WD: I was going to say, they had got the cage working, anyhow, they hoist us out, normal, I might say, the guides was a little rough on the cage, but still, they made it through.
PN: How many feet under the ground was that? About 400?
WD: How's that?
PN: How deep?
WD: No. 6 is 550 feet, and they had to just half, no , 550 feet to No. 5 And we was halfway, about 200 and some feet down.
PN: That's where you were working on the seam?
WD: We was, our, No. 5, or 6 level was about half, just exact1y halfway. The cages passed each other, mm.
PN: What was your feeling when you came out of the mine then?
WD: Well [laughs], I, my feeling was I was just as glad, glad I got out. And of course I got enough fumes; I got a headache and was sick awhile. I didn't require no medication; it soon wore off.
PN: What was the feelings of the people in the town that night?
WD: Well, there was people there from all over. And they stayed, people there from all over West Virginia. It was like a circus day. You couldn't hardly get around to nowhere. And of course, people that just heard about it come there. And a lot of people who had relatives, you know, and different, and all those countries, there was. You see, there was 186 men killed in No. 5. And there was about 14 killed in No. 6. And people like to came there from all over the country, you know. There was one or two curiosity —seekers, and the others come there to see about their people. They had them all relatives from all over the country. That was a pretty that turn, big mine; 186 was killed. Of course, everyone in No. 5 was killed; wasn't one guy out alive.
PN: Everybody in No. 5?
WD: Yea. And I don't really know how much was No. 6, but No. 6 was a small mine. I'd say about 50 of them got out alive.
PN: What did you, what did you do right after that? Did you stay in Eccles, and did they reopen the mine right away?
WD: No I didn't, some of my friends from down in Terry at - the mouth of Piney Creek. Do you know where Terry is?
PN: Yea.
WD: I was there, and they asked me what I was going to do. And 1 say, "Well, I can go back in there and work. But I say not. Well they say, "Come on down to Terry. Terry was a good place to work. And I told them, "Well, I '11 get my board and things straightened up, and I 'd come down." Which I did. I drawed what little pay I had coming, and paid up my board.
PN: Where, at Eccles?
WD: And I went to Terry, went to work at Terry. And I worked there I don't know exactly how, I went to work about a week after Layland, or [correcting himself] Eccles explosion. About a week, I was down in Terry. And I worked there for 10 months. And I worked there, and the work begin getting slack in February. So I told someone I wasn't going to lay around there. Go back to Layland; they work six days a week around the clock. And I 'd go back to Layland, which I did. I went up there on the first day of March and got a job. And I went to work on Tuesday, March the 2nd. And it blowed up on Tuesday in about ten minutes after I got to my working place.
PN: It blew up?
WD : It blew up. I happened, it got, I asked the you going to send me to?" And he said, “On tenth left.” And I said, “Who’s working that side? I know a lot of people here.” He told me, "Errol Laurentz.”
PN: Earl Lawrence?
WD: A—u—r—e—n—t—z. It sound like, it all sound like Lawrence. Aurentz.
PN: Aurentz?
WD: And I told him, “Well I know him quite well. He's." I said, “I can find my own way. You don't have to show it to me. You can tell me where it is." He says, "Number three room on tenth left.” So I struck out. They all walked in on foot. They didn't have no man—trip. So I struck out. And he say, "You can put your tools on that motor there. He's going up there now to pick up a load.” So he, I put, I put tools on top of the motor. And he told them where I get, where to take them off. So when I got up there, Aurentz looked around to see who it was. He was tickled to death. He jumped up and hugged me. He said, “I sure am glad I got you for a buddy.” He said just the Saturday before his old buddy had quit and left. He'd come out in the country here at Greenbrier out to his place. He said, “I sure am glad they send you in here instead of someone of no count." The way it was, then you were buddies. You shared half and half whether you done anything or not, you might say.
PN: Do what?
WD: I say you shared half and half. Each one checked car about [referring to practice of each coal—loader putting his brass check on each car loaded in a room], regardless how much more one worked than the other. And some fellows was naturally lazy. Well, they didn't put their part. And when we talked there for a few minutes and, the mine blowed up and there's such a concussion. There's no way to describe it, only it seemed like it numbed you all over. You can't think of anything.
PN: Really?
WD: And the compression's so great. When that compression lets loose, well you come back to your senses.
PN: Does it press in on your ears and everything?
WD: Well just the compression's so great, you know. It's almost enough to bust your ear drums. Not no noise, but just the air compressed.
PN: You didn't hear it? You don't hear anything?
WD: You don't hear nothing, just compression. And so after it let loose, he said, "Bill, what is that?" I said, “Well, it's an explosion.” Isaid, "Was any of the gas here?" Well he says, “There’s not much gas here. There’s a little bit up on the main headings.” And I said, “ If it's up in the main heading, well we'll try to get out of here."
PN: A what, a little bit of what?
WD : He said, ' 'It 's up in, a little bit of gas, up in the main headings .
PN: In the main headings?
WD: Yea, we was on tenth left. And so I said , “If that's the case, we better try to get out of here before the poison fumes gets everywhere. Get our on the main entry. That motor that brought my tools in here; they just went out. And the first man we seen dead was right at the switch— points. He blowed off of this trip [which] was going out, just, just left there. And some, we went on down and come to where the trip was, and one was laying on top of the motor head up on his arms like that —— he was dead.
PN: What, the motorman?
WD: Yea. And we were right at the mouth of ninth left. And all the men out of ninth left was coming out. And it was getting, the fumes was getting so strong, you couldn't hardly breathe in. I said, ' 'Let's go back. And we was alongside a trip of cars. And it was lucky, it was lucky, though, they they obeyed. Everybody turned around and s tar ted back. And when we got up on tenth left, going up in there — ' 'Let's go up in here and we can talk" —— about that time we met all the men out of the main entries was coming out. 1 told them the air was good in tenth left. And I said, "There's only one chance we 've got [of] surviving. They wondered what that was. I says, "Build a barricade." And some of ‘em wanted to know what good would it, good would that do, and so on. Of course I explained it as quick as I could. I told them, "The main thing of it is to seal this fumes off, and we can live, live several days with sound air there. Well when they seen the point, well they all pitched in then to, for uu to do that.
PN: So all of them went this, to tenth left?
WD: Yea, we…
PN: And then you barricaded it?
WD: We went just, just inside of tenth left, above, above the main air course. And we build us one, just a temporary one. And then we further back, we build a little better use rocks and use this here fine coal dust for mortar [laughs].
PN: Really?
WD: That's the only thing I had.
PN: You didn't have any cement, so you had to use the coal dust?
PN: I said, you didn't have any cement there, so you had to use the coal dust instead?
WD: No, didn't have none. Use this damp, damp dust for mortar. Well after some, some time, smell was coming through it. Let's see, this was on Tuesday. So on Wednesday then, I told, "Well the only thing we can do is build, build another barricade.
PN: Another one?
WD: And so we build one right, what we called, right where the “gob entry.” If you know what we're talking about, a gob entry's where they take coal out and throw the slate back in that space there. They call that a gob. So got out gob, and took the big pieces and made a wall, and fill in between the wall with fine dirt we got out of the track and so on. Build a wall about five—foot thick.
PN: What was that, the third one you built?
WD: Two altogether; third one, yea.
PN: This was the third one you built?
WD: Yea and it held. We never could, could never smell no fumes after that. So one the Thursday, we had, I'd say, 42 of us got out. There was 30 of them — probably Italians, diff—, foreigners. So they got restless and on Thursday and said they're going to leave us in there to die. [Just as well] try to go. out. 1 said, "Well," I said, "You 're not talking about we going. I'm not a' going, I said. "Let one go out and if one makes it, well, the rest of us can make it. So this fellow Tony I got acquainted with him several years back when he and my father worked together and he said, "All right, he said, "1 '11 go. " I told him, "Well it don't make an difference to me who goes. But I don't think it's any sense more than one go, because if you go down, that '11 be one. But if all of us go, we'll all go down." He said, "That's a good Idea, he said, "I'll go."
PN; What was his name?
WD: His name was Tony. I never did, I never did learn his last name. And so, and I known him real well too. He was just Tony, Tony, that 's all. So we broke a pick handle out. And told him we'd slide the pick handle along on a trolley wire. And he, you know, knowed he was all right so long he followed that trolley wire take him to the outside. And I told him he couldn't take no light. Well he balked then. He said, oh, he wouldn't go without a light. But I told him he can't take no light, cause he '11 blow up and kill everybody outside and us too. And he seen the point, he didn't insist on it anymore. Well, he said, he '11 go anyway. And I give him, I tore up a piece of what we call "shooting paper", “dummy paper" we called it. And I wrote on there — "42 men alive" and dated it. I told him, "You take this with you now. If you don't make it, well they '11 find this paper and they'll know where we are. Well he kept just sliding the pick, you know, we told him to rap on the pick on the trolley wire — sound goes a long ways, you know. He kept saying, "OK, OK, OK, everything OK." And all of a sudden, no more "OK”. And we got listening to him thumping on the bottom. So I said, ' 'Well, he's down. I said, "Shall we try to get him or not?" And some, I don't know who the other man was, but he said, ' 'Yea, let's go and try to get him. I said: “Take good deep breath. And let the breath out a little at a time as you can. And breathe air very little, be— cause the same thing that happened to him’ll happen to us.” And first, he grabbed him by the legs and started dragging him, his head a 'bumping on the side, and bumping hard on the ribs. So [he] change holds and grabbed him by the hands and pulled him. Pull him up and shove him through the hole we had in the wall. Just took a hole out big enough for a man to crawl through. We shoved him through, and he crawled through hisself, and sealed it up again.
PN: You saved his life then, that way?
WD: Yea. He lay down just like a dead man, don't move even. After about five minutes, he begin breathing heavy. And then he start moaning. And I said, "Well, I believe he's going to be all right." In about 15 minutes, he set up and looked real wild. And I said, “Tony, what's the matter?" I said, “Why didn't you go outside like you said you was?" He said, "Oh Bill, all I know, my legs go to sleep.” So that was on Thursday. And after that we didn't have no trouble of anybody wanting to go [laughs].
PN: What was he breathing. Was that afterdamp or something?
WD: Oh yea, he run right into it.
PN: And the afterdamp was what made him collapse?
WD: Collapse, yes. And He said, "All I know," he said, "Bill, my legs go to sleep. And that's the last thing I remembered. But anyway after, the meantime while I was in there, we had no food or water much. There was 42 of us and we only had, I think, about five dinner pails some of us who were working left. And the rest of these fellows in the mines left and they had, they never thought nothing about their buckets. They just wanting to get out of there.
PN: You only had five pails?
WD: Only had about five pails. The first day, after [we] build these barricades, we had about one biscuit around, I think. And that was the end of our food supply. Of course, water would last so long; we didn't have very much of that either. And our biggest trouble was that we didn't have no water. And so the men went around and pick up the scraps where the men eat their lunch, you know, pieces of moldy bread and things. And some of them took the strips out of egg shells and eat the stripping. And some went so far as to eat leather on their shoes and chewed on that.
PN: And they were eating the leather from their shoes?
WD: Yea. Lot of them says you get some substance out of it. And I experiment eating, peeling the inside of bark of chestnut. About that time, there was plenty of chestnuts, you know.
PN: Chestnut?
WD: Chestnut wood. I don't know if that was in the old time or not. But this, along about then, about half of the timber in the woods was chestnuts. And the bark come off easy and had a thick, white layer in there. You scrape that, and it really taste good and sweet.
PN: It does?
WD: Well, I eat enough. I was elected, you know, to eat that thing, eat the bark. And the top of my mouth, there's acid in it, and it just eat up the top of my mouth. Like a horse that got "lampers" it all swolled up — and I couldn't eat no more.
PN: Really, your whole mouth swelled up?
WD: Yea, on account of soreness of the mouth
PN: Just like a horse, you said?
WD: A horse has lampers, you know? The roof of his mouth gets sore and swells up. Well that's the way my mouth was. So that ended my chestnut diet. And so we just had to set there and wait her out. Every now and then, somebody said they h eared something, you know. And after listening and listening for a long time, we found out it was just, just imagination. And there wasn't, didn't hear nothing. In the meantime, there was five men on ninth left. There was about 20 worked there. But they all left. But them five, they was back at the far end of ninth left. They done the same as we did, only they had more material. They had wood there, and they nailed up a wooden barricade. And on Saturday morning, they had a door or something, and then they'd get out and sample air. And it seemed like on Saturday, the air looked like it was pretty good. So they ventured and come outside.
PN: The men from ninth left?
WD: And when they come outside, they went on, they really bawled out them on the rescue (squad). Wanted to know why they didn't explore tenth or No. 3 mines. They said: “We were in there; there might be others in there." So they did. They vent, come in there, and they come across this paper where it said — "42 men alive on tenth left.” And they come right into where we were. I might have to add, they had the mine rescue car in them days, but they kept it up in Pittsburgh. And the ones that worked in there — most were some politicians' sons. And they didn't know anything about a coal mine. They knew how to use a breathing apparatus oxygen helmets and so on but as far as knowing anything about a mine, nothing about it.
PN: This was a rescue squad in Pittsburgh?
WD: How?
PN: The rescue car was in Pittsburgh?
WD: Yea, it was there and they had the rescue car is supposed to explore ahead of everybody else and report what they find. They come in No. 3, I guess. It exploded on Tuesday; they come up No. 3 about Wednesday. They said it was, tenth, No. 10 entry fell in from top to bottom. They didn't know a barricade from a slate fall! [laughs] That was the truth.
PN: They didn't?
WD: And so when they had a report, there wasn't anybody in No. 3 alive. so they didn't, they didn't explore it any more. Instead, they went to No. 4 and No. 5 —— it was off of No. 3 Main.
PN: Cause all these mines were really part of one mine?
WD: Yea, see, No. 4 was up, it was on another creek. No. 5 was still further. They went 2,000 feet into No. 4, and 2,000 feet into No. 5. Well the explosion happened up in No. 4. And of course, they just went all through all the mine. And so…
PN: So by Saturday, nobody was looking any more, right?
WD: No. They were just reporting everything where they'd been — everything, everybody was dead. The explosion really started from [the] substation, where it started from.
PN: A substation?
WD: That mine was so dry that you'd walk in dust above the ankles, just as fine as talcum powder. There the hills, they had good track 35, or [correcting himself] 45—pound steel. And they just turn them, going downhill, they just turned ‘em loose and let ‘em drift [motors and tram cars]. And they stirred up that dust. And ribs everywhere was laying full of dust. And what I was trying to get at there, they had a substation back there; it was cut in solid coal. And that substation get so hot at peaked load anytime. They had to shut it down sometimes, afraid it was going to burn up.
PN: What was the substation? Was that electric power?
WD: Yea, they boost the power.
PN: They boost the power?
WD: Anyway, this old man Atticus attend that substation. He had instructions, he had some fellow got the idea to put a fan in there to blow through the generators, help keep cool. It would, you know, blow that hot air out. And so, he was, the old man was instructed to start up that fan the next morning.
PN: Did it stir up the dust?
WD: They finished, they put the fan in Monday, and he had started up Tuesday. And when he started that fan, that just stirred a whole lot of dust up in there. And the breaker went out. And that circuit breaker 's what had set it off.
PN: The circuit breaker?
WD: Yea.
PN: What, was there a spark and then…?
WD: The circuit breaker is not just a spark. It was, it was a big arc usually always. Yea. I can't hardly describe it. Anyway, instead of a spark, it was a big arc, maybe that jumped that far.
PN: What, what almost a foot?
WD: Yea, when it breaks the circuit see, electric, you know. When you, you cut it, and have two wire and pull them apart, well they’ll arc you. Well that's what happened. That arc sets the dust off. Because this old man had a seat just back far enough, so that he wouldn't get too much cold air off the mainline or too much heat [from the] substation. If that happened up in No. 5 like they said it did well it's have blowed him back into the substation. But instead, he was laying right straight opposite the substation agin' another rib. * Do you want to shut that down a while?
[At this point, we took about an hour's break in the interview. Mr. Derenge was tired and short of breath, both because of his age and his Black Lung.]
PN: You were just saying that they started up this fan, which stirred the
dust up, which exploded?
WD: Yea.
PN: The people that did that, they must not have known too much about mining then, did they?
*One example of an official account which totally neglects the facts brought out in this account by William Derenge is: H. B . Humphrey, Historical Summary of Coal—Mine Explosions in the United States, 1810—1960, U. S. Bureau of Mines Bulletin 586 (Washington, D. C. Government Printing Office, 1960) pp. 72—74.
WD: How?
PN: I said the people that did that must not have known the mines.
WD: Well, at that time, just about anybody, but at that was a lot of things we didn't know. We had idea at that you had to have gas for the dust, before the dust would out after that it wasn't so. They can just, doub—, what double shots, an open shot?
PN: An open shot would?
WD: Yea, would set them off. And like in this case, you get the dust mixed just right, well this arc, electric arc, will set it off.
PN: People didn't know that then?
WD: Back in them days.
PN: That dust would explode?
WD: They didn't know that you see, and which later on they learned that. And anyway, they never did put that substation back in the mines anymore. They build It on top of the mountain and put the wire It shows there they're satisfied that's what done it. Of course they, they, during the investigation, they tried to put the blame on a blow—through shot.
PN: What's a blow—through shot?
WD: Oh, a blow—through shot is where the, say you have a, shots close to the edge that, when you’re going, going into another place. The shot, instead of blowing the coal here, [will] blow on through in the vacant place. And of course, if there's any dust and gas in there, it would set it off. But it isn't possible for anything to blow up, because that was all - nothing but water there.
PN: Why were they doing that? Were they driving an entry somewhere else?
WD: They, a man was working there, driving through what we call a break— through.
PN: So, you were in the Layland Mine from Tuesday until Saturday. And they found you on Saturday?
WD: Yea, we got out Saturday afternoon.
PN: What was the feelings of the people outside then?
WD: Oh, inside, it was, these, one, these five men come out — "There’s liable to be others, So naturally everybody hoped that their, their people was alive. And oh when we come out, they, oh, they swarmed and looking, looking all us over. Looking over all to see if someone, hoping that some of their people [was] in there. And there's, oh, out there, Lay land was just like it was in Eccles. The crowd just like circus day. You could hardly get through there, there was so many people there from all over the country.
PN: All the people in the town were right there too at the mine entry?
WD: Yea, for example, my Dad, he got the word that Lay land Mine blowed up. Well he knowed some way that I was; he said, well, I was working down at Terry. He [some other man] said: “No, he wasn't either he left Terry and went to Layland. So naturally he got in his horse and buggy and took off. And he was there too.
PN: Your father came up?
WD: Yea, and he was, him and the main mine foreman, Roly Nydell, were great friends. He went to Nyde11 and asked him, “Is that so that Billy was here to work?" “Yes, I give him a job on Monday. He's, he's in there somewhere. And so other people, you know, everybody that had people there, well naturally they was going there to see about them. And then, curiosity seekers too; more of them I guess than there were looking for relatives.
PN: Where was your father working at that time?
WD: Well he was out here in the country farming. He wasn't working in the mines at that time.
PN: Oh, he was on a farm then. So he came…?
WD: I was all on my own then. And I had been for several years. He lived out at Spring Dale on a farm. [Spring Dale is in the southeast corner of Fayette County.] Well, can you think of anything else?
PN: What? We could stop a minute if you want. [Short break] You were talking about the substation and how that set off the Layland explosion.
WD: After, I guess I’ll tell him [looking towards his wife], after I got out of Layland Mine, I decided I wanted to quit the coal mines for a while. I left there and went out in the country to my father's house, and went to work in the woods. I worked cutting timber, let's see, about a year. And I last worked, I first worked for Hutchinson's Company in Bellwood.
PN: Hutchinson? Hutchins?
WD: Hutchinson at Bellwood. And something went wrong there. I quit and went to Meadow River, and went down to Bear's Creek, and went to work at this swamp and roads. And I got together with a fellow by name of Louis Johnson from Oklahoma. And we become quite close friends and worked together. And the winters, very severe winter of 19 — between 1913 and 14. And so, we were just working along. We thought we had a road stake. I remember I wanted to cash up; I had $110. And at that time, Meadow River paid off all in gold 50, or 20 gold, $100 and $20 gold piece, and a $10 gold piece. That's the way they paid off.
PN: Meadow River is right on the New River, isn't it?
WD: No, Meadow River, [Meadow] Creek's on Meadow River.
PN: That's right, that's right, yea, it doesn't flow into there.
WD: Well, anyway, we walked all the way to Rainelle. And of course the bank didn't open till nine o'clock, so we couldn't get to Meadow Creek unless we walked. Well, I got ahead of myself there. We, when you…
PN: Might as well stop now.
[The first of two reels for Interview Ten ends here.]
Description
Company Store Operator, Royal, Terry, Prince, Layland, Greenwood, early 1900's, mining explosions
Date Created
10/04/1980
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