The Argonaut Mine Disaster - Part 2

 

Possible Staged Photograph

The photograph you see above is the "official" photograph of the final message from the miners of the Argonaut Mine that has been circulated all these years, although this is not entirely accurate. In reality, it is actually believed to be a staged photo, made after the miners bodies has been found, and done so by a photographer for the San Francisco News by photographer, W. Aird MacDonald. You see, there are two photographs, and one appears to be more authentic than the other.

How do I know this?

Well, this information comes from the research of the one and only late Amador County Historian, Larry Cenotto which was published in the Ledger-Dispatch in 1997. He happened to stumble upon an old photograph in the archives over 25 years ago, that appeared to be similar but not exact, which prompted his further investigation.  

Original Photograph

“The last message written by the entombed 47 miners” was written below the photograph, with a stamped imprint on the back that said, “Jackson Studio, Jackson, Cal.” It was believed that a local photographer had the chance to photograph the original message before MacDonald.

After carefully analyzing the photo, Cenotto determined that the photo found in Amador County archives was more than likely the original photo of the writing on the wall left by the miners, which was clearly made under duress by the look of the writing. 

The cleaner, more visibly clear writing that was circulated by the news media which spells out Fessel’s name on it, had to have been staged later and it clearly done with more precision, which would be the last thing a miner, choking on carbon monoxide gases, fearing for his life in the dark would be doing.

The photo now believed to be the original message, only states the words: “3 o’clock gas getting strong, 4 o’clock Fez,” as if the writer of the message perhaps lost consciousness prior to finishing his inscription on the wall.

But why stage the photo?

Cenotto suspected that something had happened to the original writing, which forced them to recreate it.  Another question to be asked is, how did Fessel’s body end up on the 4650 level, far away from and outside of the barricade where the other miners were discovered, if he had in fact scribbled that message on the wall?

Again, Cenotto believed that since Fessel was working alone on the 4650 level that night doing timber work, which was confirmed by those who worked at the mine that night, he would have had no idea what was going on in the other part of the mine and had no chance to make an escape before the fumes and the smoke reached him.

“The message, therefore was that “F:z” or “Fezzel” was not with them and rescuers need look for him elsewhere.”—Larry Cenotto’s quote.

Another thing I would like to point out is that I personally enlarged copies of Bill Fessel’s naturalization papers and his draft registry card, and I looked at his signature on both documents. Despite what some claim, including Fessel's son who was interviewed and claimed that Fessel signed his name with two ‘z’s is actually inaccurate. In fact, both signatures I examined, signed by Fessel, were signed in cursive, and showed the letter “s” twice, not z.

So, there were a lot of questions here. From the extra brass tag found among the 46 miners behind the barricade that didn't match any of the miners on duty that night, to the extra set of clothing discovered in the change house, and then the mystery behind the two photographs of the miner's message, it appeared that the more I dug into this story, the more questions I was coming up with, rather than answers.

Still, I kept digging....

There were inquiries & hearings, plus speculation galore. Some argued they should have went down the Muldoon shaft to reach the men in time, some argued that they should have sent the skip down to at least attempt to rescue some of the men, despite the fact that eventually the phone and bell system was disrupted by the fire, and thus the hoist man could not have known when to lift or lower the skip to and from the men, in order to provide a clean escape for them.

When it came to pointing fingers at someone, some newspapers insinuated that Fessel started the fire, as if he had conveniently snuck off into the night. Because he was German, had been an interpreter for the United States Government for a while and wasn’t always a “miner,” there was gossip that he could have been a spy. 

Others insinuated that perhaps it was the work of communists which at the time went by the name the Industrial Workers of the World. There were other insinuations that the fire could have been started by a “mystery person” who may have escaped out of a drift at the 2500 foot level that exited out near the creek. That could have very well been the case, given the extra set of clothing and "secret" brass tag that the mine company wouldn't divulge whom it belonged to.

According to O. Henry Mace's research, Ben Sanguinetti claimed that there had been footprints found on a drift leading out of the mine and down to the creek, but no one ever did any further inquiry into this possible lead, and it was left to be forgotten. 

Why no one bothered to investigate that lead makes me wonder about the whole thing all together. As much as I hated to think it, it almost started sounding like an inside job. But then I found another lead that took me in another direction completely.

A New Theory

I too have another possible theory, which could be completely unfounded, yet I would still like to toss it into the ring with the others. Only 8 months earlier, the Argonaut had been robbed by red bandana wearing bandits, and only two of eight men were eventually caught. The robbers took approximately $60,000 which was in gold amalgam.  Could this fire have been related? Could someone, perhaps have come back to cause more trouble at the mine?

The reason I say that is because for one, Hiram Baker, although later acquitted could have had a score to settle with the mine, after having been through the ringer in the newspapers and in his much publicized trial. When Hiram was arrested he was with a man known only as Frank Lynch.

I find it interesting that Frank was never mentioned again in the clippings about the robbery, only Hiram. And if Hiram was acquitted, what happened to the other guy?

I couldn’t find any convictions noted for the robbery. So, I started digging deeper. It turns out that  Frank was actually Arthur Welling, of Indiana, and he was a known safe cracker and specialized in explosives. He was already on the run for robbing Western Oil Refining Company in Indiana, and was originally caught with his friend, Edward Stevens at the Omni Severin Hotel when they were found in the check room with nitroglycerin, more than likely ready to crack open the hotel’s safe.

During an escape from the County Jail on July 4, 1919, Arthur helped 24 other inmates slip away into the night, and into freedom. When he was caught in California and held on charges for the mine robbery, Sheriff Lucot kept him in the Amador County jail until he was extradited to Michigan City, Indiana where he was sentenced to 14 years in the penitentiary for his previous crimes.  Lynch a.k.a. Welling, had friends everywhere, so how do we know that one of Arthur’s buddies didn’t pay back the mine for their friend having been caught and being sent to the big house? We don’t.  This is why I wonder if possibly this fire was started by Welling's friends.

Only Known Picture of Bill Fessel
(Courtesy of the Ryan Family)

Still, no matter what theories were being thrown around, the blame kept going back to Fessel. Those who knew him, knew that wasn’t possible. That didn’t stop some law enforcement agencies to put out APB’s to be on the lookout for anyone matching Fessel’s description. Even a year to the day of the disaster, there were newspapers claiming that there were sightings of Fessel who was allegedly on the run.

Again, locals who knew him didn’t believe it one minute, and were adamant that he would eventually be found in the mine. Still, the whispers and the rumors were too much for Fessel’s wife, who basically became a hermit and moved up to live with her mother in Pine Grove, where she remained the rest of her life.

On September 31, 1923, after flushing out the mine, at the 4650 level, the remains of the 47^th miner, Edward William "Bill" Fessel  was discovered and the newspapers and everyone else who had made slanderous insinuations about Fessel, had to eat crow.

Although there was no forensic way to determine for certain who it was, it was believed to be the body of Bill Fessel, given the fact he was the last miner who had not been identified with the recovered bodies, and they were one body short of the total of miners on duty that night.  

A local dentist examined the skull of the body that had been found, and he believed it was Fessel, based on the missing molars and still present wisdom teeth that he had noticed during an examination a few years prior at a dental visit.  The coroner determined it to be the remains of Edward William Fessel and he took his rightful place besides his fallen friends at the public cemetery in Jackson. 

The Grave of Bill Fessel 

TO BE CONTINUED.....  TO READ PART 3 (CLICK HERE!) 

(Copyright, J'aime Rubio 2022  www.jaimerubiowriter.com) 

The Argonaut Mine Disaster - Part 1

 

When I was about 10 years old, my dad came home with a large framed photo, which had a copy of the Stockton Record’s front page about the Argonaut Mine Disaster of 1922. There was something different about this particular picture, as there was a super imposed photograph of the miners on the newspaper headline front page. My dad hung it in the hallway of our home in Pioneer, and every day I would walk through that hallway and stop and look at the photograph. Sometimes I would stand there and read the article, while other times I would stand there and stare at the faces in the photograph, wondering if I was looking at one of the miners who had perished in the mine disaster so many years ago.  

My dad’s sincere interest of the history of the Argonaut Mine Disaster piqued a genuine interest in local history as a whole for me, especially Amador County history. Over the years, there have been books, blogs, articles  and even some documentaries on this subject, covering the horrific event that took place in 1922. Today, I wanted to share with you my investigation into this somber event. This story is very special to me, as I feel I have a genuinely personal attachment.  

Come with me as we go back 100 years to Jackson, California, where we will take a deep dive down into the Argonaut Mine.  Let’s take a step by step look at what occurred in chronological order.

On August 27, 1922, approximately 10:00 p.m. the skip tender at the Argonaut Mine, Steve Pasalich, was working his shift for the night. Besides being the skip tender, Steve Pasalich had the duty of dropping off the lunch buckets on each level of the mine, later he would come back after the miners had eaten and retrieve their lunch buckets and bring them back up to the surface again.

The shift boss that night was Clarence Bradshaw, he was the main person in charge that night. Below him in rank would be the Jigger Boss, and below him would be the Level Boss.  That night the Jigger Boss was Ernie Miller. Just after lunch, Bradshaw asked Pasalich and another miner, Mitchell Joko, to go with him to drop off waste from the chute and drop it to the 4,200 level. As they prepared the ore cart to go underneath the overhead chute, as they were pulling out the stopboard the falling rock pushed through and broke the stopboard. 

This was when Joko offered to go down to the 4,600 level to pick up wood to build another stop board for the chute, before they were to go back up on the skip again. Bradshaw eventually grew irritated, waiting longer than he had expected for Joko, and that is when he and Pasalich smelled smoke and haze in the air.

Skip Tender, Steve Pasalich

The San Francisco Call reported Bradshaw’s experience, “By a margin of a few minutes , Shift Boss, Clarence Bradshaw, Steve Pasalich and Michael Jago [SIC] escaped from the Argonaut mine before the fire made egress possible. Bradshaw says he and his two companions were at the 4200 foot level at 11:40 o’clock the night of the fire when he smelled smoke. Without an instant’s delay he called to the two miners to accompany him up the shaft. The smoke became thicker and thicker as they ascended and at the 300 [SIC: 3000] foot level they were almost overcome by heat.” – SF CALL, 9/18/1922

According to Bradshaw, the men wrapped their coats around their heads to keep the smoke from getting to their lungs while they ascended up to the fresh air from the surface which was just about at the 3000 level. You see, the fire was just below the 3000 level, and because of the ventilation system, which was a large fan installed at the head of a nearby mine shaft known as the Muldoon, which had been an old abandoned mine that the Argonaut was using, by the fan pulling the air from the Argonaut, it kept fresh air running through the mine and the drifts for the miners, moving it from the collar of the main shaft down and then back up to Muldoon. 

Because of the fire, now the smoke was being drawn down deep into the mine, instead of up. So once the men on the skip had passed the fire, they were able to breathe again, but then they realized that all of the men below them, were now going to suffer from carbon monoxide poisoning due to the smokey air being drawn down the shaft into the deepest parts of the mine, where the 47 miners were working that night.

According to author, O. Henry Mace's research, Jigger Boss, Ernie Miller caught the scent of smoke at the 4800 level and quickly phoned to the Hoist house that there was smoke coming down the shaft. When Bradshaw picked up the line at the 2000 level he warned him that the shaft was on fire and they were trying to put it out. The last words they heard Ernie Miller say was “all right,” and he hung up the line.

This is where it gets tricky, we will never truly know exactly what happened after that. We can speculate all we want, but we can only base our opinions on what was found after rescuers recovered the miner’s remains. One would like to assume that Miller at least attempted to get his men out through ventilation rises in the Muldoon shaft which was supposed to be their “emergency exit” but they stopped at the 4350 level and ended up barricading themselves in a cross-cut, which leads us to believe the air was just so bad they had no other choice but to bunker down and wish for the best.

Another reason I believe this is exactly what happened is because this had all happened before to Ernie Miller. You see, he was a survivor of another horrible mine disaster only five years prior. The infamous Granite Mountain Mine disaster in Butte, Montana in 1917.  

In that experience, a fire had ignited when a miner’s carbide lamp got a little too close to a oily paraffin paper that was insulating a three ton electric cable that had been brought down the shaft to complete, of all things, a sprinkler system. When the paper ignited the fire spread quickly to the timbers of the framework in the shaft and before they knew it, it was uncontrollable.

A little over half of the miners escaped, but 168 weren’t so lucky. Most died from the carbon monoxide poisoning, not so much the fire itself, but there were two groups of men in different parts on the mine, who had built bulkheads to create a makeshift barrier between themselves and the carbon monoxide from the smoke. 

Both groups were eventually rescued. The first group after 38 hours, and the last group after 50 hours. It was said that Ernie Miller was among the men in the last group, which only 6 of the 8 survived.  According to reports from his family, it was Miller who helped his co-workers to build that bulkhead in the crosscut, something done in such a similar fashion at the Argonaut that leads me to believe it was Ernie who tried to save the men.

Going back to the story, By the time Bradshaw, Pasalich and Joko got up the shaft of the mine, they quickly tried to think of ways to put out the fire. They told Virgilio Garbarini to let them to open the sump reservoir and dump it down the mine to extinguish the fire. He agreed and they went to work. According to reports, the valve hadn’t been opened in a long time and it had become rusted shut, so it took a lot of muscle and help from a sledgehammer to break the valve and let the water do its job. But once the water had been poured, the makeshift rescue crew realized the fire was still burning in adjacent drifts of the mine, where the water couldn’t reach.

Different people came and tried to convince Garbarini to reverse the fan on the Muldoon shaft or turn it off completely. Garbarini tried to explain that by doing so, the fire would then burn upwards and completely decimate the main shaft itself, destroying any chance of firefighters reaching the fire deep inside the mine.  Garbarini wasn’t just the superintendent of the mine, he had been the master mechanic who designed the working mechanisms of the mine itself back in 1909. He knew the mine better than anyone.  He was adamant that the fan not be touched in anyway.

The rescue workers even at their best effort could not have enough time with the right breathing apparatuses to reach the miners in time without risking their own safety due to the overwhelming amount of smoke to the toxic carbon monoxide gases. That, and by shutting off the fan it would allow the Argonaut main shaft to completely be destroyed. 

This was when they decided to make their rescue attempt via the Kennedy Mine.

Kennedy Mine, just across from the Argonaut

You see, the Argonaut and the Kennedy mines were connected at one point up until a fire occurred in 1919, which took months to burn out. The only way the two mining companies could figure out how to stop the fire, was to flush both mines out.  After that, the two companies decided it would be better to seal off the connections to each other. Now they would need to reconnect the two mines in order to make a last-ditch rescue attempt before it was too late.

It was surveying work done years prior by Civil Engineer, Walter Ephraim Downs that directed the rescuers where to dig through to the Argonaut mine shaft in an attempt to rescue the trapped miners. (On a side note, Mr. Downs was the son of Robert Carleton Downs,’ superintendent of the Union Mine, later known as the Lincoln Mine in Sutter Creek and owner of the Hanford & Down’s stores which were in Sutter Creek, Jackson and Volcano.  Walter Ephraim Downs’ brother, Fred, tragically drowned in the Preston Reservoir in Ione, in 1902.)

It was decided that the rescue crew would go in through the Kennedy and reconnect the two mines via the Kennedy’s 3600 drift with the crosscut near the Argonaut’s 4200 level. Unfortunately, this would be a very difficult job as the mud, debris, and compression from the flooding of the mines just a few years before had caused much of the connecting passes to collapse. 

There were still others convinced they go through the Muldoon shaft to save the miners, which was shot down each time. 

At one point they decided to also go from the 3900 level at the Kennedy and work towards Argonaut’s 4600 level, as it appeared their first attempt via the 3600 level was not going fast enough. Many of the men working in the mines, trying to get through were relatives of the trapped miners, including other employees of the mine itself as well, one of those rescue workers was none other than Steve Pasalich, the skip tender who barely made it out alive with Bradshaw and Joko. 

On September 18, 1922, exactly 23 days from the time of the actual fire starting in the mine, the bodies of the miners were discovered at the 4350 level. They had barricaded themselves in a crosscut using timbers and chinking the gaps with the clothes off their backs, to block the poisonous gas from seeping through. When the bodies were discovered, only 46 were found, along with a message written on the wall of the crosscut. It appeared to be a message from Bill Fessel, letting the rescuers know how long they were awake before the fumes overtook them.

“3 o’clock, gas getting strong, 4 o’clock, Fessel.” 

The rescue team now had to work at figuring out how to bring the bodies back to the surface without further damaging the remains and then work on identifying them. They brought in gurneys with rubber bags to place each miner into and they were carried up the drift and into the adjacent connecting tunnels and up the skip on the Kennedy Mine side.  Each body was transported up to the Argonaut and placed in the mill, as a makeshift mortuary until all the bodies could be recovered.

Besides discovering the bodies, they also had to bring up the belongings of the miners, such as clothing.  Some of the miners had their brass tags with their individual miner’s number on their person, but some of them did not have their tags. In fact, many of the tags were never found, leading mine employees to have to identify the bodies visually.

According to the book, "47 Down" by O. Henry Mace, there was another brass tag found that did not match any of the miners on duty. He stated that not only did the mine company never divulge the number of the tag, but they also never divulged the person whose name was assigned to that number.  If that wasn’t odd enough, Mace mentions that the rescue crew also found a ring within the belongings, but this was a personalized ring with the initials “J.S.N” which none of the miner’s names matched.

Mace also mentions in his book, that when the foreman and volunteers went to collect the miner’s effects from the change house, they discovered 48 changes of clothes hanging on hooks, not 47. 

So, who did this extra pair of clothes belong to? 

And who was this unidentified person’s tag discovered that the mine never wanted to mention?

This is where it gets interesting. --------

 TO BE CONTINUED..... TO READ PART 2 (CLICK HERE) 

Copyright, J'aime Rubio 2022, www.jaimerubiowriter.com

Special Thanks to George Pasalich for all your help!

***Photograph of frame photo is the actual photograph/newspaper that my father had hanging in the hallway of our house when I was growing up. Dad brought it to the Jackson Cemetery on the 100th anniversary of the Argonaut Mine Disaster, this year, and we brought it to the graves of the fallen miners to pay our respects to all 47 men. This is a photograph Roland took of that very framed picture I grew up looking at, the same picture that inspired me to have a life-long interest in this piece of Amador County history. 

Burning Love - The Tragic Story of David and Rebecca Schneider

On January 23, 1922 at 3:30 a.m., the lives of newlyweds David and Rebecca Schneider of the
Bronx, in N.Y. would be forever changed. Only just married two weeks prior, the happy couple had just moved in and furnished their 5-room apartment on the top level floor (4th floor) of their apartment complex at 749 Tinton Ave.**

After going to bed for the evening, David Schneider woke up to realizing that the oil heater in the living room had been left on and it tipped over spilling and igniting oil all over the floor. In an attempt to put out the fire, David became severely burned on his arms and face. David screamed out, alerting his neighbors who then called for help. The fire quickly spread downward and through out the apartment building, forcing the panic stricken tenants of the building to flee in the frigid streets in the early hours of the morning.

Many of the tenants were not sure where the fire was so they attempted to make way to the roof of the building, hoping to climb down the fire escapes but found themselves trapped even more. One of the young teenagers from the 2nd floor, Henrietta Koser, was rescued by Police Officer Eugene Bacaglini who found her in a frantic state and completely helpless.

Police Officers Gordon Guderman, William Kelly from the Morrisania Station as well as Fire Truck No. 19, Lt. Hamilton Rider, Battalion Chief White and Deputy Chief Carlock came to the rescue as well. As ladders were set up to allow the tenants to escape the fiery inferno, the other officers and fireman risked their lives to go back into the burning building to save the Schneiders.

While the rescue efforts were going on outside and they were attempting to make their way inside and up to the 4th floor, David Schneider attempted repeatedly to run through a wall of flames that separated the living room, where he was, to the bedroom where his wife was. He kept trying to get through, only to be thrown back by the flames and continually burnt. Sadly, by the time the fireman reached him, they refused to allow him to continue, dragging his body outside while he kept screaming that he needed to save his wife. Sadly, Rebecca was not saved. By the time they broke their way into the bedroom it was apparent that she had already expired. They found her body laying on the bed, almost consumed entirely.

Hopefully she did not feel anything, as more than likely she had succumbed to the smoke inhalation before being burned. Nevertheless, a young bride, barely 18 years of age, died so tragically that early morning on January 23, 1922.  Her husband tried and tried to reach her, but was not able to save his bride.

David was taken to Lincoln Hospital where doctors treated him for bad burns all over his body. They suspected that he would not survive his wounds, however I could not find his death in the New York Times Index, where I did confirm Rebecca's death. It seems he recovered physically, but there is no telling if he ever recovered emotionally from that tragic night.

In my search to find Rebecca's headstone, I found two different cemeteries with interments of a Rebecca Schneider who died on January 23, 1922.  One of the cemeteries was Mount Zion Cemetery, Maspeth, Queens County, New York. The other cemetery was Washington Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York. I am uncertain which of the two is her grave. Hopefully one day I will  be able to find out.

Rest In Peace Rebecca Schneider-- Never Forgotten!!

(**Note: If you go to google maps, I have figured out that the building no longer stands, but it appears as if it may have once stood where the basketball court for the South Bronx Academy for Applied Media stands today.)

(Copyright 4/19/2014- J'aime Rubio)
Republished 3/28/2018
www.jaimerubiowriter.com