John Kuchinski (1906-1977) was born in Dupont, Pa. one of at least nine children of Polish/Lithuanian immigrants Louis Kuhta / Kuchinski and Bertha / Bronislawa Jaroszewski. In 1910, John’s home had his 41-year-old father, 14-year-old brother, an uncle and a boarder working in the coal mines. John married Mary Ann Fela of Dupont in 1931, and they had at least five children.
Kuchinski and Henry Skibitski 32, Dickson City, Pa., were working as miners at Jermyn-Green Coal Company’s No. 6 Colliery at Inkerman, Jenkins Township, Luzerne County, Pa., on March 30, 1943. A mine train run by Michael Novobilski, Dupont, ran away on an air-course of the mine, two cars derailed, causing the roof to collapse for 17 feet in the air-course and in a crosscut at one end of the cave-in. Novobilski was unhurt, but Andrew “Tonto” Swierczewski, 45, miner, Duryea, was killed by the cars, and Frank Chas, 44, mine laborer, was trapped by caved rock and mine timbers. John and Skibitski crawled around the cave and worked together for some 2½ hours to free Chas, endangering their own lives. Chas was hospitalized at Pittston for about a month and after his discharge did not return to his former job. Newspapers reported that a second miner, Frank Ozale, of Dupont, had also been rescued, but uninjured.
The two were added to the Carnegie Hero Fund roll of honor and awarded bronze medals and a cash award in January 1944. Skibitski was surprised when he was informed by the Scranton Tribune of the award. He was overjoyed by the news, and while he was happy to hear about the medal, he was mostly concerned about his son who had gotten polio three months before. The boy was then showing improvement at Sister Kenny’s Hospital, Elizabethtown. He would live about 55 more year.
The January 27, 1944 Tribune reported that: The accident still was vivid in Kuchinski’s memory. He recalled that the miner who was killed had seen the car running wildly and vainly tried to take refuge in gob along the gangway. He called Swierczewski “Detroit Tony”. The paper also mentioned that this was not Kuchinsky’s first experience in mine rescue. Five years before, while he was working for the Volpe Coal Company No. 6 Colliery, he had helped save Joseph Kupcho, 29, an acting miner, who had been buried in a cave-in. Kuchinski also developed a friendship with Chas, then living in Kearny NJ.
The Jermyn Green Coal Company honored Kuchinski with Greater Pittston’s first officially designated “Hero of the Production Front” award for his bravery at a colliery ceremony in May 1943. He was presented with a diamond locket/medal by William Stowers Jermyn (1895-1977), president of the Company.
The two men received a Joseph A Holmes Medal of Honor at November 1946 banquet sponsored by UMWA Local 7499, employees of No. 6 Colliery. Kenneth Alfred Lambert, Sr. (1895-1972), president of the coal firm, was toastmaster at and speakers included mine inspectors and union officers and Thomas Maudlin Beaney (1902-1973), colliery superintendent at the time of the accident. Union members gave each of the men two $100 savings bonds.
The Pennsylvania Coal Company opened No. 6 Colliery about 1854 and built a new No. 6 breaker at Inkerman in 1898. About 1,500,000 ft of lumber was used in its construction. The capacity of the breaker was 1,800 tons per day while the combined pocket room was about 1,500 tons. The coal prepared at this breaker was mined at Nos 5, 6, and 11 shafts, mining the Checker, Pittston, Marcy, Clark and Red Ash Seams. The company sunk No 6 shaft 557.7 feet, the deepest in the Pittston district. The Company became the Pittston Coal Company in 1930, and they operated with many financial and labor problems until 1935.
Volpe Coal Company, owned by Santo Volpe (1879-1958), a Pittston gangster; sublet the colliery in September 1937 and hired many of Pittston’s supervisors and miners. The breaker was shut down, and products from the colliery, and later strippings, processed at Volpe’s Butler breaker in Hughestown. Volpe Coal Company was sold to the Jermyn-Green Coal Company in March 1943, Edward Menzes Green (1896-1944), General Manager. Production of No. 6 in 1943 was 472,556 tons, with 809 men working 282 days.
Jermyn Green failed in June of 1949 and shut down operations. Eight hundred employees of the Number 6 Colliery, Inkerman, were owed approximately $300,000 in wages. Jermyn Green Coal Company sold the idle mine to Louis Joseph Pagnotti Sr. (1894-1966), owner of Number Nine Coal Company. Pagnotti also leased No. 6 from Pennsylvania Coal Company and would operate until 1954. In 1955 John Boyle McDade (1897–1976) and his brother Joseph P McDade (1904-1960), owners of the Heidelberg Coal Company and lessee of the Butler Colliery, formed the Inkerman Coal Company. Inkerman operated No. 6 mine until 1959.
Kuchinski was a miner all his life, after attending school through the seventh grade. Most of his work life was at No. 6 Colliery, working for Pennsylvania Coal, Pittston Coal, Volpe Coal, and Jermyn-Green, He was injured in 1959, working in a small underground mine on the Ewen Colliery operated by C & P Coal Company. After he retired, he moved to Laflin, Luzerne County. He died in Pittston Hospital May 19, 1977, and is buried at Sacred Heart of Jesus Cemetery in Dupont.