A Most Deadly Business

During the early morning hours of December 5, 1885, John Lynot labored hundreds of feet underground in the stale air of his “breast,” a black chamber in the coal seam the size of a small room, preparing an explosive charge. An anthracite miner for the Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coal Company, Lynot earned eighty-five cents for each two ton mine car he filled. Finding the weakest point...
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The Lattimer Tragedy of 1897

Sheriff James Martin of Luzerne County in Pennsylvania was vacationing in Atlantic City, New Jersey, when he received an important telegram on Saturday, September 4, 1897, from George Wall, his deputy. The message indicated that Superintendent Lathrop of the Lehigh Valley Coal Company requested the sheriff’s presence at Hazleton to deal with a deteriorating strike situation that was...
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