Patrick Joseph Gallagher (1877-1933) was born near Pittston, a son of James Gallagher and Anna Curtis. He married Mary E Davitt of Oregon, Pa. in 1898 at the St John’s church in Pittston, and they had at least four children.
Patrick J. Gallagher, aged 43, a mine track layer; Edward. F. Norton, aged 33, a mine laborer; and Michael J. Franklin, aged 37, a mine track layer; of the Browntown section of Pittston Township, helped to save Sylvester William McKeon, aged 12; and Robert Emmett Fear, aged 13; both of Browntown, from a mine cave-in at a bootleg mine hole at Browntown on May 18, 1917.
Gallagher helped to save Robert Fear. Fear and McKeon had entered a mine slope from a hole that had caved in the ground and entered the chamber of an abandoned mine of the Pennsylvania Coal Co. “to gather coal”. They were caught by a fall of earth overhanging the entrance to the chamber, and Fear was buried to his chest, and McKeon was buried to his hips. Cracks at the top of the hole and the dropping of clay earth overhanging the chamber indicated another cave-in was imminent. Gallagher descended the hole to Fear and began extricating him by clawing away the earth with his hands. Later he used a shovel. After removing a six-inch thickness of earth from around Fear, a small mass fell from the overhang and filled the depression. After Gallaher removed the earth to Fear’s hips, Franklin, who had descended the hole and aided McKeon assisted Gallagher in extricating Fear, whom they then took to the top of the hole. Later, during the night there was another fall of earth which filled the entrance to the chamber.
Robert Fear recovered and grew up and became a dentist. He lived until 1971, leaving a widow, two sons, two daughters, and six grandchildren.
Patrick J. Gallagher was awarded a bronze medal, No. 1487, and $1,000 “for a worthy purpose, as needed”. The awards to Gallagher, Norton, and Franklin were made in October 1919.
The 1893 History of Luzerne County Pennsylvania, H. C. Bradsby, Editor, describes Browntown as,
“A mining place in Pittston township, on Pennsylvania coal company leaseholds. It joins Pittston on the east and extends toward the D. & H. Canal Company railroad; bounded on the north by a line from Fairmount breaker to Market Street and on the south by an extension of Swallow Street to the D. & H. Canal Company railroad. It is supplied with water by the Pittston Water company; has an estimated population of 1,000, in 200 dwellings, engaged in the mines.”
Browntown perhaps was named for Newman Brown (1799-1879), farmer, an early settler in that neighborhood. The coal and all the property were owned by the Pittston Coal Company, leased to the Pennsylvania Coal Company, and all the housing either belonged to the Company and leased to the miner’s family or were houses placed on leased property. The Company’s mining under Browntown was done from the No. 4 Shaft, an early work of the PCCo. Henry Darwin Rogers and the First Pennsylvania Geologic Survey visited the Pittston and Port Griffith works of the PPCo in 1854. The existing openings and part of his descriptions was, “Shaft No. 4, immediately south of the Pennsylvania Company’s office, a depth of 100 feet with coal 76 feet below the surface.” By 1917 only pillar robbing was the only legal mining happening under Browntown.
Coal Age magazine, April 17, 1917, reported,
“Several homes were wrecked and the main roadway of the town caved in on April 5. The cave extended entirely across the street to a depth of about 40 ft. The water main burst and the continuous flow of water and loud rumbling of caving earth caused people to run in all directions for fear they would be engulfed. It is said the subsidence is due to taking out the pillars in the No. 4 shaft of the Pennsylvania Coal Co.”
and in the December 15 issue of that year wrote,
“Mine caves menacing the property and lives of three families on Brown St., notice was served upon the residents by officials of the Pennsylvania Coal Co. to remove their dwellings. It is believed that the surface settlings result from the breaking of the roof in workings of the No. 4 shaft where it is said the company is robbing pillars as the quality of coal at that point is good. Most of the dwellings in this town are erected on ground leased from the company and occupants have no regress, they state.”
Subsidence is not exclusively a Pennsylvania problem. It occurs in most of the mining areas of the world. In most places the subsidences happen under unused and vacant land, and effects on the public are little noticed. However, in northeastern Pennsylvania, notably Pittston, the area is densely populated and the consequences are striking.
Beside much of the land being undermined by Pennsylvania Coal Company, small leasehold mines and illegal “bootleg” mines had been worked in the area, all close to the surface. It was likely that one of these was the hole that the boys were playing in.
Patrick Gallagher was a lifetime resident of Browntown. He had to leave mining because of poor health and rheumatism and became very active in local politics. Gallagher died Mach 22, 1933 in Pittston Hospital of complications from an appendectomy.