Even though the main bulk of the coal hauling with wagons was coming to an end there is some information which, it is felt, should be added.
A vein of coal had been discovered down in the bottom of Valentine Canyon. It was felt that it should be opened up and developed. I was old enough by then that I had had considerable experience at driving teams on all kinds of farm equipment (including grain binders) as well as wagons, and so I was to help Grandpa open up this vein and get it ready to start mining. A camp wagon was set up near where we would be working. That way we wouldn't have to go way up the hill to the cabin several times a day. The camp wagon had everything needed for two people - a stove, bed and food supplies. We hauled a hand plow, scraper, picks and shovels, what other hand tools we would need, to the site and prepared to begin. I cut some small aspens and built a manger for the horses so they could eat without scattering hay all over. The first thing we had to do was divert the stream to the other side of the canyon.
Using the hand plow and scraper we began to remove the over burden of dirt and rocks. There were plenty of rocks. The larger ones were pulled out of the way with the horses.
Grandpa and I would trade off driving the team and handling the plow. I always handled the scraper because he was getting too old for the work required to handle it, although once in a while when we got in a tight fix he would handle it and I never ceased to marvel at the skill he had from long experience. If the teamster doesn't know his business then the scraper man can't do his work very well and so it wasn't only because of his old age that he handled the team but he made it possible for me to do much better work with the scraper than I otherwise could have.
We would start out away from the hill about the width of the future mine track and work in toward the hill. We had to move a lot of dirt and we would pull the loaded scraper to where the mine track was to be built and fill up the low places so the track would have level ground to be built on.
When we got in close to the face with the plow we would use a single horse so we could get the plow in closer. That way we wouldn't have so much hand work to do with the pick and shovel. I got a pretty good education on how to open up a mine, at least the way it was done in those days.
I was sure glad to see the evenings come; and was glad that we didn't have to go up the hill to the cabin. The camp wagon was just a few hundred feet away. Grandpa usually did the cooking - I think it was a matter of survival. I never could cook worth a darn. I took care of the horses and carried the water in a bucket from the stream to the camp.
During those evenings I sure didn't desire to stay up late. I went to bed and was asleep within minutes. I figured the wee hours of the morning were for night owls not for people.
It didn't really take as long as I thought it would to get the coal vein exposed and ready to start mining. What took longer was digging a dugway along the side hill for the track. I remember that there was a huge rock in the way about the size of a horse. I don't really know how big it was because at least half of it, or more, was under ground. Dad and his brother, my uncle, were there at that time and they were talking about how to get it out of the way. There was considerable discussion about it.
Finally it was decided to use powder and break it in two because we didn't know how far it went under ground. So while Dad and Uncle Albert were working on the track bed Grandpa and I had a sledge hammer and a rock drill and were drilling holes in it.
Here was another skill that my grandfather showed. He could break a rock about any way it needed to be broken. He knew just where and how deep to make the holes, how many sticks of dynamite to put in each one, etc. We would take turns - one would hold the drill while the other swung the sledge hammer, then we would trade positions. Grandpa was far more skilled at this sort of thing than I was. It was fascinating to watch how he placed those holes and how much powder he put in them to get the effect he wanted.
Finally the shots were ready. In those days we didn't use an electric switch to set them off. We used caps and fuses. If we wanted two shots to fire at the same time we used two fuses of the same length and lit them at the same time. If we wanted some space between them we either used a watch with a second hand, or else guessed at the amount of time lapse between them. It was perfect. The rock broke in two. The part that stayed under ground didn't even seem to be disturbed. The other half moved out a few feet and stopped, ready to be dragged away with the team. I couldn't believe how well that worked.
Aspen poles were cut and skidded to the mine with the team and were used to build the lagging at the entrance to the mine so we could begin to go under ground.
I didn't see the mine begin to go under ground because about this time the hay on the farm was ready to cut. I was sent down off the mountain with the team and wagon and was to get the alfalfa cut and raked. That would give them a few more days to get the lagging finished and to do what they could in that time and then they would come down and we would get the hay put up (the first crop). The meadow hay wasn't ready yet and the grain wouldn't be ready for some time.
I got the hay cut and raked. They came home and we started hauling hay to the barn. We used harpoon-type hay forks (that's what they were called). They worked real well and weren't so heavy and cumbersome as the Jackson Fork and some other types. When we got the first crop of alfalfa in the barn Dad decided to get the derrick positioned in the stack yard so it would be ready when it came time for the meadow hay to be put up. This was a monstrous derrick - bigger than most of the other farmers in the area used because we put up the meadow hay in stacks that were big and high. I loved to watch Dad handle the team when moving this derrick. They couldn't pull the whole thing at once. He would hitch onto one corner of the base and move it forward. Then he would shift over to the other corner and move it in the direction the derrick arm was pointing and in this way he would walk it to where he needed it to be positioned so the derrick arm would be positioned over the hay stack. He sure knew how to handle teams. It wasn't long before they knew just what he wanted and with his guidance they would move it where he wanted it. It was a series of short, hard pulls and they were willing to move it.
I will mention one incident which took place while I was cutting grain. This particular field was just north of the house and could be easily seen from the kitchen window. Dad had hitched onto the grain binder (we worked three horses on the binder) and had made about three rounds around the field and had the machine all adjusted and going well.
There was an irrigation ditch which went across the middle of the field but it was no problem. He just slowed the horses down and eased the binder across - then went on. He had me take over to cut the grain in that field while he threaded the derrick rope through the pulleys on the derrick so it would be ready when we hauled the meadow hay.
I was going along fine for awhile. The binder is quite complicated; there are so many adjustments which have to me made, i.e., in places where the grain is shorter, the reel has to be moved down and back toward the table canvas, the knotter has to be adjusted so that it will tie the strings in the middle of the bundles, the guide boards on the elevator canvas have to be positioned for the shorter grain, etc. This is all done with levers and is done as you go along. It requires a lot of attention.
I was watching all these things but I had momentarily forgotten about the irrigation ditch. I felt the binder lurch forward and then back into position. I looked down at the front truck. The wheels had just crossed the ditch at the walking speed of the horses. I suddenly realized that the bull wheel was about to hit the ditch and I couldn't stop them in time. I had let my attention be diverted and hadn't kept the ditch in mind.
The drivers seat is mounted on a wide piece of spring steel (similar to the seat on a mowing machine) and when the bull wheel hit the ditch, that spring compressed when my weight hit (coming down) and then threw me at least a foot - maybe more - into the air. It's almost unbelievable how fast a person can think when in a crisis like this. I looked down at all that moving machinery below me. I grabbed at the levers to keep from falling down onto the elevator canvas. Just as I was coming down, the horses jerked the binder up out of the ditch and the seat came up to meet me. Up I went again. Fortunately I came back down onto the seat. The binder made a terrible noise when it fell in the ditch at that speed and I thought I had broken it all to pieces. As my eyes darted around to the different parts of the machine I began to realize that it was all still working perfectly.
Quickly my eyes darted toward the house, the granary, the barn, the stack yard, but I didn't see Dad anywhere. What a relief. I guess he didn't see me. I began to calm down but I sure remembered where that ditch was! There was only another half hour until dinner time and when Mother came out on the back porch and hollered at me to come to dinner I stopped, unhitched the team, fed and watered them and went to the house for dinner. Nothing was said about the incident and I began to relax. We sat down and started to eat. Dad, still looking down at his plate, said, "I see you found the ditch all right." I almost sunk through my chair. Then I looked at Mother who couldn't conceal the little grin on her face. I said, "Yeah, and I sure know where it is."
On the mountain again between crops on the farm the work continued in the mine. I wasn't there all of the time and my next real memory of it was when it was in about one hundred feet. I spent time hauling coal and working on the farm.
The work went on in the mine. My uncle helped quite a bit and it went deeper into the mountain. I remember the second room or cross cut which went off to the right to connect up with the air course. I don't know where Dad got the mine horse. It was a black mare - not very tall. She was outfitted with the regular iron shafts which were fastened to the harness. When we brought a loaded car out of the mine and got near the goose-neck at the top of the chute the driver reached down and pulled the pin out which held the shafts fastened to the coal car and the horse turned to one side off the track and out of the way of the loaded car. The shafts hung on the harness and the horse carried them around with her. When the car was dumped at the goose-neck the coal went down into the chute. The horse was then hitched to the other end of the car and it was pulled back into the mine for another load. To hitch the horse to the car, the pin on the shafts was dropped into a hole in the draw-bar of the coal car and away they went; horse, car, and driver.
The cars were loaded by hand with either coal shovels or forks. The big chunks were broken up with a pick. The car held about a ton of coal. For light in the mine we used the open-flame carbide lamps hung on the front of the miners' cap. These lamps put out a fair amount of light but they gave us quite a bit of trouble keeping them going.
I remember some tiring days loading coal into the cars; it was always someone else who drove the loaded car out of the mine. This mine never got very deep into the mountain. At three hundred feet it ran into a fault. That put an end to that mine.
I remember about my last trip on the mountain hauling coal. We needed another load of coal at our house to see us through the winter. We had a pile of coal at the house but we were afraid it wouldn't be quite enough so I hitched the team on the wagon and went to the mountain to get one more load. I was told that there was a wagon load of coal in the chute and to load that in the wagon and come back. This was about the middle of October and the weather was becoming threatening. In the valley it was freezing at night and we knew it was certainly so in the mountain. It was a cold though sunny day. I had my winter clothes on and plenty of bedding because I would have to stay overnight and come back the next day.
When I got there I unhitched the horses, tied them to the manger and fixed something to eat. I left a little hay in the bottom of the wagon box and made my bed on it. It would keep drafts from coming up from underneath. I walked down to the chute and found that the coal was there and as it was getting dusk I went to bed. I kept warm during the night but the next morning everything was covered with frost. The stream was frozen over and I had to break the ice to get water to fix breakfast. I hurriedly made a fire and got breakfast over with, after feeding the horses. I took everything out of the wagon box and put it on the ground so I could load coal. Getting the harness on the horses was a finger-punishing chore. My fingers felt like they were frozen. They weren't. They were just numb. I went to the fire and got them a little bit warm again and then hitched up.
Just a word about the steering mechanism of a wagon (you old timers who already know this can ignore it). Under the wagon, attached to the front axle and a little behind it is the sway bar. The sway bar goes across the wagon in a transverse direction, under the reach. It is clad with a thin strip of metal across the top of it to keep it from wearing out because of contact with the reach. This metal strip is fastened with screws which have counter sunk heads. Eventually this iron strip wears thin. On this particularly cold morning the metal strip cracked and broke across where one of the screw heads went through it. The metal strip stayed down on the sway bar on one side of the crack but the other side raised up a little more than a quarter inch (as I saw later).
The wagon was on a small hill and the horses had to hold back on the hill and turn at the same time to go over to the loading chute. When they went to turn, the raised end of the metal strip jammed into the reach. The horses pulled sideways on the end of the tongue to turn the wagon but the sway bar couldn't move. The horses applied enough sideways force to break the tongue. It broke just ahead of the double tree where it enters the tongue hounds. This meant that the horses were still hitched to the wagon but they could not guide it nor hold it back. The wagon started rolling up against the horses. Here was a real threat of a runaway. I don't know when I ever grabbed the brake lever so quickly before, but I did then and stopped the wagon. I unhitched the team.
After considering the situation for a few moments I tied them up to the manger, then with axe in hand, climbed up the hill into the timber in search of a tree the right size to serve as a tongue for the wagon. Finding one I cut it down, then went down the hill and got a horse and, with single tree and chain, went back up and hitched the horse onto the tree and, with much maneuvering through the timber, skidded it down to the wagon.
It took half a day to make a new wagon tongue by hewing and shaping it with an axe, drilling holes the right size with brace-and-bit, etc., (I always carried tools of this type with me). I took the bolts out of the old tongue and used them in this one. This tongue wouldn't be as good as one made of oak but I felt that it would get the outfit down off the mountain. I pulled down to the chute and loaded up. Would the new tongue hold while the horses pulled the loaded wagon back up onto the road? It did. I loaded the camp gear on and started out. It was a little afternoon now and I would either have to camp along the road somewhere when night came or just keep driving.
The outfit moved on mile after mile. The sun also kept moving toward the west. I estimated that I should be able to make it to the head of the canyon by dark. If I could do that I would just keep on going. I thought of my mother being worried but there wasn't much else I could do.
Going up Gooseberry Hill the outfit wasn't moving very fast - it was a long, heavy pull to the head of the canyon. It was past evening and was settling into real darkness when I pulled over the divide. Now the horses seemed anxious to go so I thought I would just keep on going. It was a pleasant drive - it had warmed up some during the day. Although the air was crisp I wasn't terribly cold, clad as I was with long handled underwear and winter clothes.
It was getting dark but the horses could see well enough and they were anxious to get home. Travelling in the dark with an outfit like this is very deceiving. It looks like you are going faster then you really are. Consequently I kept thinking I should have reached Maple Fork by now, but I hadn't passed it. I wasn't worried, I knew I hadn't reached it yet - I had driven a wagon many times in the dark and this was just one of the things that happens.
Eventually I got down out of the canyon. When I reached Fairview I had two more miles to go, then turned into the lane toward the house. When I got close to the house I saw that the lamp was still burning. I knew I had travelled at least half the night, maybe more than that (I found out later that it was 1:00 am). I heard later that when they began to hear the horses' foot falls on the ground and then, a little later, the chuckle of the wagon wheels, Mother was greatly relieved. Earlier she had wanted Dad and Grandpa to go and look for me. They had conversed with each other and figured I had had a break down, or a delay for some reason. Anyway there wasn't much use in running all over the mountain at night when you can't see anything.
When I stopped at the coal pile Dad and Grandpa came out. I told them about the broken tongue and having to make a new one. They looked at the home made tongue and I could tell that they were pleased with how I had handled the problem.
No comments:
Post a Comment