Steuben Coal Co. - 1850's Pennsylvania Coal Mining Stock Certificate - Unissued

Unissued Mining Stock. Great vignette of coal train in center of stock and to the left an eagle, female figure and shield revenue stamp box. Rare! The Avondale Mine Disaster On September 6, 1869, a fire broke out at the Avondale Colliery near Plymouth, Pennsylvania. The Steuben Coal Company had built a breaker directly above the single shaft. Small fires were kept burning at the bottom of shafts to create drafts that then promoted better air circulation for the working miners. The official cornoner's report stated that sparks from this ventilating furnace set fire to the timbers in the shaft, and the flames then engulfed the breaker at the surface. There was no other way out. The breaker collapsed into the shaft and the fire consumed the oxygen. The death toll was 110, making this the worst anthracite mining disaster. The total included five boys between the ages of twelve and seventeen, and two volunteers who were suffocated while attempting rescue.

The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western took a circuitous path to ownership of Avondale because its 1854 charter limited its ownership of coal lands. As a result, it used surrogates to acquire coal properties. In 1863, John C. Phelps, a director of the DL&W, leased a portion of the Avondale property from William Reynolds and Henderson Gaylord, Plymouth natives. In 1866, the mine was transferred to the Steuben Coal Co., which in turn became part of the Nanticoke Coal & Iron Co., whose board of directors overlapped with the board of the DL&W. The NC&I built the first breaker at Avondale. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_mining_in_Plymouth,_Pennsylvania