The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XI COAL MINING IN CIVIL WAR PERIOD Counties supplying coal to Confederate Government works. Captain John M. Huey agent at Selma. Cahaba field site of first underground mining. List of mines in operation during war. Important discoveries traced to old "bomb proofs." Work in Dailey Creek Basin. Early records of Piper and Coleanor. "Graveyards mark the Thompson Mines." Work of William Goold. Entrance of Joseph Squire. A remarkable biography. Coal discovered in Kansas and Nebraska by Joseph Squire and first mines opened there in eighteen-fifties. Mr. Squire's account of Old Montevallo mines. " It was not I who brought the ca,Pital into Alabama! I left that to Aldrich and DeBardeleben." Operung of Helena Coal mines for Red Mountain [Oxmoor] Company. Origin of various mines owned to-day by Tennessee Company, Little Cahaba Coal Company, Blocton-Cahaba Coal Company and others. T HE Alabama coal supply of the Confederate Government during the war period came in the main from six counties: Tuskaloosa, Jefferson, Walker, St. Clair, Bibb, and Shelby. Every train and barge load was concentrated at Selma and distributed from that station to Montgomery, Mobile, and other points. John M. Huey of Jonesboro, Jefferson County, was detailed with rank of captain as agent for the Confederate States navy to handle the coal and lumber end at Selma. " The developments of war showed that in quality and mining conditions, the coal beds of Alabama are unsurpassed by any bituminous region on this continent," John T. Milner declared. Certainly the demand for coal as well as iron at this particular time was insatiate. Before the war no more than ten or eleven thousand tons of coal were mined per year in the entire State. A great impetus was given to the mining of coal in the Cahaba field especially. Owing to the construction of the South and North Railroad into this field, its development preceded all others. " The first regular systematic underground mining in the State," says Joseph Squire, in his geological report of 1890, had been done in the Cahaba field, in 1856, " at a point in Shelby County, one mile west of the Montevallo Coal and Transportation Company 's present slope." It was begun by private individuals 150 THE STORY OF COAL AND IRON IN ALABAMA among whom were John M. Moore of Talladega, Judge Cooper of Lowndes, Dr. Miller of Wilcox, and P. M. Fancher of Bibb County. The Montevallo coal appears in the ascendancy at this period. The Brown mines and the Alabama Company mines were both located on the Montevallo seam. Three other wellknown coal mines were the Goold and Woodson mines on the Cahaba River; the Helena mines of Monk, Edwards and Company , managed by William A. Goold, and several drifts below Helena, near Dailey Creek, termed "bomb proofs." In fact, there were scattered all over Bibb and Shelby counties various of these temporary drifts. The legislature had passed an act exempting any man from field service, who, with twenty slaves, signed contract to dig coal for the Confederate government. This started an exploration for coal all over the counties. "The remains of these bomb proofs still exist, and they have led to some exceedingly important discoveries in coal," says T. H. Aldrich of Birmingham. Dailey Creek Basin was opened by refugees from Mississippi and elsewhere, among them being Brooks, Gainer, Rogers, Carter, Gholson, Herndon, and Thompson. Brooks and Gainer mined close to the present mines of the present day. All the coal from this basin was hauled in wagons to the nearest point on the Selma, Rome and Dalton Railroad, now the Southern, and shipped direct to Selma. "The seams worked," Mr. Squire states, "were the Clark seam, the Gholson seam, and the Thompson seam. The method of mining was by drift and horse power slopes. No steam power was used. The distance to the railroad by the wagon road was twelve miles. With a team of four mules and wagon they hauled one ton per day per each team. None of them advanced their mine workings very far from the outcrop , and all of these mines stopped when the war ended, the refugees, with one or two exceptions going back to their former homes." Practically the entire basin became utterly abandoned and the mines were grown up with briers until late in the eighteeneighties when Truman H. Aldrich and his associates revived the works and opened up the field to commerce and development. The Excelsior Coal Company, captained by T. H...