John Harry (1882 -1927) was born near Plymouth, Luzerne County, Pa., one of at least five children of Samuel Harry and Mary Edwards. He married Daisy Davidson Wampole in 1903 and they had at least three children.
John Harry was working as a rockman laborer on October 17, 1917. Harry attempted to save one of two men lost their lives in a gas explosion at the Smith mine, the old Hillman Vein, whose shaft was at North Pennsylvania and North Streets in Wilkes-Barre. In 1917 it was owned by the Wilkes-Barre Anthracite Coal Company. The accident occurred at the 600-foot level in a new tunnel being driven to connect two veins. At shift change, 7 am, Floyd Fowler and Frank Nugolis, Wilkes-Barre, and others, were coming on the job and the night shift crew, including John Harry of Dorranceton; David Cadwalader and Leroy Winters, of Luzerne; and several other men employed by the tunneling contractor were finishing up their work.
Fowler related that shortly after, he was the first to get to his workplace. When he got to the mine face, he realized that more supplies were needed for the work, and he had gone back a short way to get them, he bent over to pick up some equipment, and his open flame light must have ignited a methane flare. A flash and explosion of all the gas in the chamber were instantaneous, rocks and coal, debris and brattices were blown about, all the lamps were extinguished and the men thrown down.
The men ran to fresh air. Fowler and Nugolis were overcome by white damp, a mixture of poisonous gases produced by an explosion predominantly made up of carbon monoxide, part way safety, but later revived. Winters, in the dark and confusion ran the wrong way, further into the gas filled gangway. Fowler reported that he had heard Winters shouting “This is the way, boys”. The other men were able to reach fresh air and safety when Harry and Cadwalader realized that the others were not in the safe and went back to get them. As they got near the prostrate Winters, Cadwalader groaned, “I’m done for,” and fell to the floor. Harry went further and then realized he was about to collapse also and went back to safety.
A rescue party with breathing apparatus and helmets came promptly from the surface, about a mile from the surface. About two hours after the explosion, they administered first aid to Fowler, Nugolis, and Harry; and retrieved the bodies of Winters and Cadwalader.
The Hillman Vein Coal Co. was started in 1883 by Frederick Brown Parrish (1849-1885) and his cousin, Charles Parrish Hunt (1843-1933), prominent Wyoming Valley coal operators. They leased 100 acres of coal seams above Hollenback Mine around Beaumont Street in Wilkes Barre in 1882. A hoisting shaft. 16×11 feet, was sunk to the Five-Foot seam, a depth of 280 feet, in 1883. The colliery started to prepare and ship coal on September 28, 1883, and produced, including the coal used at the colliery, 1,244,972 tons. The Hillman, Kidney and Abbott seams were mined out, and the Company abandoned the mine on August 16, 1900.
The Wilkes-Barre & Scranton Coal & Iron Co. was started in 1902 by a group of Delaware & Hudson officials, a Scranton coal dealer and a Scranton lawyer. They leased the same area as the Hillman Vein had held and some surrounding tracts. The company also obtained a lease on Wilkes-Barre City coal lands under the river common. The old shaft was pumped out and sunk to 500 feet, and the old breaker was “remodeled” for legal purposes and completely rebuilt. They operated the property, mining lower seams and areas further from the shaft. The company bankrupted in 1908 and to Sheriff sale early in 1910.
The sale was for 100 acres of coal lands with a shaft, breaker and other parts of a colliery. Thomas Henry Atherton (1853-1923), Wilkes Barre Lawyer and Banker, was the auctioneer and it sold for $128,000 plus $82,000 in debts and royalties, subject to an adverse claim to ownership, to Marcus Mayer (1843-1918), agent, a strawman for New York and Philadelphia investors led by Thorne, Neale & Co., coal brokers. Samuel Brinckerhoff Thorne (1873-1930) and James Brown Neale (1872-1943), partners, held stock or ownership positions in a dozen or more collieries, who they sold coal for.
Later in 1910 the Wilkes-Barre Anthracite Coal Co. was incorporated by John Kochendorfer (1878-1954), Richmond Hill, NY attorney, Atty. Atherton, and Neale, of Buck Run, Schuylkill County. He was President and General Superintendent of Wilkes Barre Anthracite, and President of Buck Run Coal Co., Darkwater Coal Co. (Repplier), Locust Dale Coal Co. in anthracite; Sonman Shaft Coal Co. in Pennsylvania bituminous; Canmore Coal Ltd. In Alberta, Canada; beside being a partner in the coal broker Thorne Neale & Company. In 1917 – 1918 he became anthracite advisor and director of production for the U S Fuel Administration and later was President and Trustee of Coxe Brothers. Neale was known as socially progressive and wanted to create a community for the benefit of his workers. He tried this at his Buck Run Coal Company in Schuylkill County which he owned from 1902 until it dissolved in 1938. By 1925 the town boasted a school, an infirmary, a community recreation facility, a company store and several churches, in addition to homes with running water, electricity and steam heat.
Thorne Neale & Co. expanded exponentially with the purchase of Temple Anthracite Coal Co. and Neale replaced himself as General Superintendent with the mine’s State Mine inspector, Thomas H. Price (1863-1931). Neale’s and Price’s advocacy of safety programs, a degreed mining engineer and Assistant Mine Superintendent, Hans Heinrich Kudlich (1888-1940), and seven USBM-trained members of a mine rescue team were to no avail during 1917, when five fatal accidents occurred in the mine, one of the worst safety records in the anthracite. In 1917, they mined 225,410 with 412 men and boys working inside, mining mostly the 57” high Abbott seam.
In October 1918 John Harry was awarded a Carnegie Hero bronze medal and $1000 cash. Mrs. David A Cadwalader and her dependent children were awarded a monthly stipend, and a bronze medal.
In 1900 Harry was a slate picker in a coal breaker, and the 1910 census he was listed as a rock miner. He worked as a miner in the Westmoreland Colliery, West Wyoming, Luzerne County, in 1918, and his death certificate called him a rockman. John Harry died at home in West Trucksville, Kingston Township, Luzerne County, Pa. March 20, 1927, age 45, “of complications”. He left a wife and three daughters. He was buried in Trucksville Cemetery.