On December 19, 1907, two hundred thirty-nine coal miners died in the Darr Mine Disaster in Jacobs Creek PA.

[Dear_Prudence]

2. Springhill Mining Disaster

Years ago, I did a program for a women's group on the history of country music. I sang a few songs, accompanied by my autoharp. One woman asked if I knew "Springfield Mining Disaster". My Welsh ancestors died of black lung, so I knew that and several other mining songs. Some men had survived the Springhill Mining Disaster so the song paints a vivid, painful picture. I sang, "Twelve men lay 2 miles from the pit shaft, 12 men lay in the dark and sang, long hot days in the miners' grave, it was 3 feet high and a hundred feet long". After I had sung, the woman who had requested the song said quietly that she had lost her father in a mine. I felt like I had been shot with an arrow thru the heart. 💔 Here are the lyrics:

https://genius.com/The-dubliners-springhill-mining-disaster-lyrics