In 1891, local Anderson County miners, angry over being displaced by the use of state convict labor, attacked a mining camp in Briceville, captured many of the convicts, marched them to Briceville and then shipped them by rail to Knoxville. The state militia was sent in to bring order and was stationed there for about a year. The convict lease system was finally overturned, but a decade later more than 200 miners, many of them Welsh, were killed in an explosion at the Fraterville Mine. Many of the trapped miners wrote poignant letters to their families before their suffocating deaths.
Barry Thacker of the Coal Creek Watershed Foundation will discuss these and other stories associated with Anderson County's coalmining history at a brown bag lecture sponsored by the East Tennessee Historical Society on May 17. The lecture will begin at noon and is free and open to the public. Bring your lunch, soft drinks will be available.
As a follow-up, the East Tennessee Historical Society and the Coal Creek Watershed Foundation will sponsor a June 3 tour of the sites associated with the dramatic events of the Fraterville and Cross Creek mining disasters and the Coal Creek Wars. Sites visited will include the Fraterville Mine, the old Welsh Briceville Church, the burial places of miners killed in the Fraterville and Cross Mountain explosions, and Fort Anderson on Militia Hill where the state militia kept order among striking miners. Tour-goers are responsible for transportation to Lake City. The price of $20 includes local, site-to-site bus transportation, a mid-morning snack, and a donation to the Coal Creek Scholarship Fund which sends local kids from this mining area to college. Reservations required; space is limited. To make reservations, send checks to ETHS Tour, P.O. Box 1629, Knoxville, TN 37901.
Background to the Coal Creek Mining Country Tour
In the years following the Civil War, East Tennessee witnessed growth in a number of industries. One of the most significant of these industries was coal mining. By 1891 the Cumberland Plateau was being mined extensively by several companies. Anderson County was a focal point for the coal industry, and the presence of a large Welsh community, many of whom were experienced miners, was no small factor. In the late 1880s, the state of Tennessee entered into an agreement with the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company to use convict laborers in the coal mines. Such a move would have eliminated the jobs of the miners. They responded in July of 1891 with a series of attacks against the camps in Briceville where the convict laborers were being held. They eventually captured the convicts, marched them to Coal Creek (now Lake City) and shipped them by rail cars to Knoxville. Governor John P. Buchanan intervened at the request of the miners, but he also brought in three companies of state militia to restore order. Sporadic attacks continued in Anderson County and elsewhere across the state until the convict-lease system was abolished in 1896.
The miners were thus able to return to work, but the conditions under which they labored were virtually unregulated. On the morning of May 19, 1902, the miners in the Fraterville Mine has just entered the mine when a horrific explosion ripped through the mine. Set off by methane gas and coal dust, the heat and blast were deadly, killing many miners instantly and trapping others in side tunnels where they suffocated. Before they die, however, many of these trapped miners left notes to their families and loved ones.
Jacob Vowell, who was trapped with his 14 year old son, Elbert, wrote this note to his wife Ellen:
"The bad air is closing in on us fast. Dear Ellen, I leave you in bad condition, but set your trust in the Lord to help you raise my little children. Little Elbert said he had trusted in the Lord and said for you all to meet him in heaven. Horace, Elbert said for you to wear his shoes and clothing. Bury me and Elbert in the same grave by little Eddie. Goodbye Ellen, Lillie, Minnie, Jimmie, Horace. Oh God, for one more breath. Ellen, remember me as long as you live. Goodbye darling."
More than 200 miners perished in the Fraterville explosion; the exact number is unclear as many were itinerate workers and never identified. The bodies were buried in a mass grave near the mine entrance. One hundred and eighty-four miners were identified and are buried at various locations around Anderson County. The disaster left only three adult males alive in the town of Fraterville. Hundreds of women were widowed and nearly 1,000 children were without fathers. A similar explosion at nearby Cross Mountain Mine in 1911 left 84 miners dead.
Barry Thacker of the Coal Creek Watershed Foundation will be the speaker at the East Tennessee Historical Society Brown Bag lecture on May 17, 2006, at the East Tennessee History Center. Mr. Thacker and Carol Moore, also of the Coal Creek Watershed Foundation, will join the ETHS Tour on June 3 to provide insights and descriptions of the Anderson County Coal Country, and also to discuss their ongoing efforts to preserve the stories and the sites associated with this important piece of East Tennessee history.
The Coal Creek Watershed Foundation is a non-profit a non-profit organization with a mission to improve the quality of life in the Coal Creek watershed. We are working as volunteers with government agencies and other partners to effect change by combining the intellectual resources of our engineers/scientists in East Tennessee with the common sense of the residents from the Coal Creek watershed.
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