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PLYMOUTH — The observance of Anthracite Mining Month to honor coal mining in northeastern Pennsylvania is “critical” to preserving a significant part of local and national history.
“As the miners die, their stories are forgotten,” Steve Kondrad, president of the Plymouth Historical Society, told the approximately dozen people who came out to the Plymouth Municipal Building to hear Maxim Furek’s presentation “The Sheppton Mine Disaster, August 1963” as the kick off Anthracite Mining Month.
Furek spoke for about 45 minutes on Sunday about how the miraculous, supernatural, technological and bizarre differences make the Sheppton Mine in Schuylkill County different from other mines around the world.
In August 1963, three “regular guys” who happened to be miners went to work at the Oneida No. 2 slope, not knowing they would become trapped.
The mine collapsed and buried the trio more than 300 feet below, Furek explained. David Fellin and Henry Throne were pulled out alive. The third miner, Louis Bova, was never found. Some argue the hit song “Timothy” by local recording artists The Boys was based on the the rumor Bova was eaten by Fellin and Throne.
The efforts to rescue the men spanned two weeks and attracted international press to the tiny town — big enough for a separate Census designation, but too small to warrant much other recognition in any other given time. Howard Hughes, famous in his time as a movie director and aviator, even had a part in rescuing the miners.
Furek explained that to create two 6-inch boreholes about 20-feet apart, the rescuers needed a drill bit for the Bucyrus-Erie drill. Hughes had the part and flew it to Sheppton via a U.S. Navy airplane.
The drill had been used in the Quecreek Mine rescue and the Chilean miner rescue in 2010.
“But no one mentions it (the drill) had been thought of in Sheppton,” Furek said.
The rescue, Furek said, was the hardest part. The two men came out of a 17-inch opening in a harness because there was a concern the capsule, which was originally the rescue device, would break since the hole wasn’t straight down to the men.
Throne was first and, when he saw the light of day, he passed out. Fellin, on the other hand, was talking and singing, Furek said.
During a post-rescue interview, Fellin signed an affidavit that said he prayed to Pope Saint John XXIII daily and the Pope, who died months prior to the accident, was with the trapped miners.
“I believe they had a flight of the soul, out-of-body experience,” Furek said.
After the presentation, Lillian Caffrey, of Larksville, said she found it “interesting.” Some of the information, but more specifically, the spirtual aspect of the disaster was new to Caffrey.
For Heather Ruseskas, of Plymouth, she lived her whole life in Northeastern Pennsylvania and never heard the story of Sheppton, which is in Schuylkill County, about 8 miles south of Hazleton.
“It’s fascinating,” she said.
