Warren Albert Hoy (1889-1921) in Upper Paxton Township, Dauphin County Pa, near Millersburg, one of at least 10 children of Charles Edwin Hoy and Mary Jane Weaver. He married Lillian Marie Bender of Elizabethville in 1919 and they settled in Millersburg. Their daughter Thelma Arlene was born after Warren’s death.
On January 21, 1921, Warren was working as a machine man’s helper at a drainage tunnel of the Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron, Lincoln Colliery, near Rausch Creek, Frailey Township, Schuylkill County. Several of his coworkers, Frank Carter, 38, chargeman, and John Payne, 41, machine man, and James Jackson, 43, machine man, were overcome with fumes after a dynamite blast.
Hoy helped to save Frank Carter and Payne, and died attempting to help save Jackson, 43, machine man, from suffocation.
Carter, Payne, and Jackson were working about 200 feet from the mouth of the tunnel. Hoy, who had been working with the men, left the tunnel but re-entered it on a small motorcar, accompanied by Peter Rumpf, 49. They took Carter to the open air on the motorcar and then rescued Payne in the same manner. Both were unconscious.
Hoy and Rumpf then ran the motorcar into the tunnel within a short distance of Jackson, and Rumpf dragged Jackson about 25 feet toward the motorcar. Feeling that he was about to pass out, Rumpf dropped Jackson, left the tunnel, and ran more than a mile for help. Hoy was overcome close to the motorcar. He was the only one besides Carter that knew how to run it. Carter, who revived, entered the tunnel and dragged Jackson out. Hoy was taken out by other men about an hour after he had entered but could not be revived. Jackson and Payne recovered.
Hoy, Rumpf, and, Carter were added to the honor roll of the Carnegie Hero Fund in 1922. The NEGRO YEAR BOOK, an Annual Encyclopedia of the Negro 1921-1922, published by the Tuskegee Institute, Alabama, described the events around the awards made January 18, 1922, by the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission
“to colored persons for deeds of heroism and also of the awards to white persons who performed deeds of heroism in connection with efforts to save colored persons from injury or death.
“Warren A. Hoy (white), aged thirty-one, machine-man’s helper, helped to save Frank Carter (colored), aged thirty-eight, chargeman, and John Payne (colored), aged forty-one machine-man, and died attempting to help save James Jackson (colored), aged forty-three, machine-man from suffocation, Rausch Creek, Pa., January 21. 1921. Carter, Payne and Jackson were overcome by dynamite fumes about two hundred feet from the mouth of a tunnell [sic] in which they were working. Hoy, who had also been working with the men, left the tunnell, but re-entered it on a small motor-car, accompanied by the only other man near the scene. They took Carter to the open air on the motor car and then rescued Payne inthe same manner. Both were unconscious. Hoy and his companion then ran the motor car into the tunnel to within a short distance of Jackson, and Hov’s companion dragged Jackson about twenty-five feet toward the motor car. Feeling that he was about to overcome. Hoy’s companion dropped Jackson, left the tunnel, and ran more than a mile for help. Hoy was overcome close to the motor car. He was the only one besides Carter that knew how to run it. Carter, who revived. entered the tunnel and dragged Jackson out. Hoy was taken out by other men about an hour after he had entered but could not be revived. Jackson and Payne recovered. A silver medal was awarded to the widow and (supplementing Workmen’s Compensation) until further notice $50 a month with $5 a month additional on account of her daughter while she is dependent upon her, no benefits to extend however, bevond five years of the date of the widow’s remarriage.
“Peter G. Rumpf, (white), aged forty-nine, compressor-man, helped to save Frank Carter (colored) and John Payne (colored) and attempted to help save James Jackson (colored) from suffocation, Rausch Creek, Pa.. January 21, 1921. Rumpf was Hoy’s companion in the rescue work. He was not seriously affected. He was awarded a bronze medal and $1.000 for worthy purpose as needed.
Frank Carter (colored) saved James Jackson (colored) from suffocation, Rausch Creek, Pa., January 21, 1921. Carter was the first to be removed from the tunnel. He recovered and entered for Jackson about twenty minutes later. He took hold of Jackson, and with great difficulty dragged him two hundred feet to the open air. He was awarded a bronze medal and $1.000 for a worthy purpose as needed.
Check the audio segment “Hoy” at PRX “A Century of Heroes”
https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/3370?m=false
The men also received honors from the US Bureau of Mines. Coal Age April 5, 1923, wrote,
“Miners who risked or lost their lives in attempting to save their fellow workers have been awarded gold hero medals by the Joseph A. Holmes Safety Association, which annually selects distinctive acts of bravery in the mining industry. The presentation of the medals will form a portion of the program of the Seventh International First Aid and Mine-Rescue meet to be held in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Aug. 27, 28 and 29, under the auspices of the U. S. Bureau of Mines. Warren A. Hoy, Frank Carter and Peter G. Rumpf, all of whom were employed in the Lincoln Colliery, Rausch Creek, Pa., are awarded medals for rescue work when three men were overcome by dynamite fumes in a drainage tunnel. Carter, one of the men overcome by the fumes, was revived and without assistance re-entered the tunnel and rescued one of the men who was yet in the tunnel. Hoy lost his life and the medal awarded him will be presented to his widow, Lilliam M. Hoy, Tower City, Pa.’
Newspaper reports of the accident were sketchy as to the location of the accident, mentioning East Franklin Tunnel, Lincoln Colliery, Tower City, Rausch Creek, Brookside Colliery, “drainage tunnel” and probably others. The writer hasn’t been able to find a coroner’s investigation online. The Lincoln Colliery had what was called the “East Franklin Short Slope Tunnel” but it did not go outside. The East Franklin Colliery is drained by a drift opening, that may have been called the East Franklin Tunnel. The Rowe Tunnel drains the Lincoln Colliery.
Henry Heil (1813-1873), in the mid-1850s, opened two mines in the area. The first was the Upper Rausch Creek Colliery and in 1857 the East Franklin which was the first documented coal mine in Porter Township, Schuylkill County near the now ghost town of Strongville. Henry Heil was married to an aunt of Peter Rumpf’s wife, Emma Brower. Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron acquired it sometime around 1872. The colliery was idled in 1893 and dismantled in 1889.
Lincoln colliery was opened by a water level tunnel driven originally 516 feet north to the Buck Mountain vein by Levi Miller (1810-1887) & Company in 1869 and they operated the colliery until 1884 when P. & R. C. & I. Co. acquired it. By 1900 the Lincoln Colliery was the gathering point for Reading on the West End of the anthracite fields. Reading operated the Lincoln until 1930.
In 1913 a mine track was built from P. & R. C. & I. Co.’s Rausch Creek Washery to East Franklin. A new No. 40 Bucyrus steam shovel was installed at East Franklin, and culm banks were loaded into mine cars. Perhaps, the company was robbing coal from the drift drainage tunnel to send out of the East Franklin to the washery or the Lincoln breaker. That drift drainage tunnel today has a small discharge, as it is the second discharge from the Rausch Creek/East Franklin mine water pool.
More likely they were working in the main Lincoln Colliery drainage tunnel. This tunnel was driven by a man named Rowe, for Levi Miller and Dr. John Kutzmiller (1815-1864) as drainage from the Lorberry Colliery. It is still known as Rowe’s Tunnel. The Lorberry Colliery closed about 1903 and the tunnel was reopened in 1921-1922 by the P. & R. C. & I. Co. for the purpose of a water course from Lincoln Colliery. The timber that was used at the time it was driven, seventy years before, was in excellent condition and most of it was reset in the tunnel by the Reading Company. This reopening work is probably what Rumpf, Carter and Hoy were doing that day.
The Rowe Tunnel dates to about 1852 and is approximately 2,000 feet in length. It was a component of the abandoned Lincoln Colliery and drains workings in the Lykens Valley, Mammoth, and Buck Mountain coal seams. The Rowe Tunnel Discharge opening is approximately 10’ wide x 7 ‘high and drains an average of about 3,500 gallons per minute of mine water today.
Warren, a 22-year-old farm hand, volunteered for the U S Army in 1911. He joined the 8th Cavalry Regiment Troop H in the Philippines during their second tour of Pacific duty. The regiment was again fighting against Moro rebels on the Filipino island of Mindanao and in the Sulu Archipelago. In the Battle of Bud Bagsak in June 1913, 51 members of the 8th Cavalry’s Troop H joined other U.S. Army soldiers led by General “Black Jack” Pershing in a violent battle/massacre with hundreds of Moro warriors near Jolo City, in the Sulu archipelago.
Hoy was honorably discharged in California in July 1914 and reenlisted to the Regular Army Medical Department upon his return east, at Fort Howard Maryland, a training center for the Coast Artillery Corps, that September. He advanced to Sergeant First Class in 1918 and was discharged from the Regular Army Reserve when it was abolished in 1920.
Hoy returned to Millersburg Pa and went to work at the Lincoln Colliery. He was buried at the Oak Hill Cemetery in Millersburg, after a full military funeral.