CITY OF DUBOIS Page 111
"All went well enough until Wednesday, we believe, when
the Sheriff concluded there were a few too many of the strikers in
town and arrested seven of them, among whom was Mr. D. Buckley, the
gentleman who led the strikers on their visit to Reynoldsville. The
next day three others were taken in charge and one who was told that
he was wanted took leg bail and has not been heard of since. The
Sheriff did not say what he had arrested the men for, and the miners
declare the prisoners did nothing but laugh at the officers, but the
truth will be developed at the trial."
This description reads like a strike of the present
day, with the exception that at that time a sheriff was in office in
Clearfield County who knew what to do without having the mining
company call in state police, as well as coal and iron policemen and
compelling the company to get an injunction to keep order in the
community.
It will be noticed that the Sheriff appeared on Monday
and on Wednesday he arrested seven disorderly miners and the next
day three others. One striker decided that it was unhealthy to be in
the vicinity of this Sheriff and decided to leave the community.
There was not only a strike in DuBois at this time, but there was
one in Houtzdale, in which this Sheriff proceeded in like manner and
the strike at Houtzdale soon stopped.
The Bell, Lewis & Yates Company was afterwards
absorbed by the Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal & Iron Company, which
concern, with affiliated companies took over the mining interests
not only at DuBois but Reynoldsville, Helvetia and the Punxsutawney
region.
About 1890 the Berwind-White Coal Company purchased
more than 2000 acres of coal lying south and east of DuBois. This
company put down a shaft on the Pennsylvania Railroad two miles east
of DuBois known as Shaft No. 1, which it operated until about 1900
when the Buffalo & Susquehanna Coal & Coke Company was organized,
which purchased the holdings of the Berwind-White Coal Mining
Company.
This company built a railroad from Sinnemahoning to
their new enterprise and continued it south to Sagamore, Armstrong
County, leasing trackage rights on the B. R. & P. Railroad from
Sykesville to a point beyond Punxsutawney. This concern opened a
second shaft, known as No. 2, south of DuBois, on its new road.
The Northwest Mining & Exchange Company leased some
coal rights south of DuBois and put in a shaft four miles southwest
of the city at a point called Eriton.
The old operation of Bell, Lewis & Yates was mined out
many years ago.
In the labor disturbances of 1929 the Buffalo &
Susquehanna Coal & Coke Company abandoned its operation in the
vicinity of
|