Re: Some HARKLESS bur. in Fulton, Co. IL.
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In reply to:
Re: Some HARKLESS bur. in Fulton, Co. IL.
Jocelynn Knight 9/08/02
Hi Jocelynn,
Thanks for the census info., agree William is Ralphs' father.
Here is more about the Harkless family.
The following tidbits are from: "Obituaries and Odds and Ends",THE CANTON
REGISTER, Jan. 5, 1899-Jul. 4, 1901, Compiled by Marion C. & Virginia O.
Johnson, June 1997, Canton, Fulton Co. Il. Nov. 2. 1899-p.11 col.2-(Under
Ellisville.) "James Harkless went to Monmouth, Il. on Mon. to attend the
funeral of his bro. Thomas who died there Sunday.
April.11, 1901-p.7 col.3-Thurs. Under Ellisville-About Town. "Died, Thurs.
Apr. 4th. at the family residence in Ellisville, Mary A. Harkless. Age-over
76 yr's/ Mary Ann Duncan was born in Washington, D.C. Mar. 3, 1825 & was
married to John P. Harkless, at Carlton, Carroll Co. Ohio, Dec. 7, 1842. She
was the Mother of 9 ch. six of whom are living & present at the funeral. John
of Bedford, Ia.; Andrew of London Mills, Il.; James of Ellisville, Il,;
Martha Zabriskie, wife of J.J. Zabriskie of Fairview, Il.; Elizabeth, wife of
H.L. Griffith of Ellisville, Il.; & Lavina, wife of William Burrage of Avon,
Il.; The widow & 2 sons of Thomas Harkless, were present at the funeral. Her
husband, John P. Harkless was a
member of Co. H 32nd. Il. Vol. and died at Newburn, N.C. May, 1, 1865.
The next two articles are from, "Legacy of the Mines" The book was found in the Parlin Ingersoll Library in Canton, Il.
"Eight Years in Underground Coal Mines-by Willis R. Harkless"
I lived in Ellisville as a youth, and the only thing those people knew was
coal mine work. When I was 18 or 19 years old, Hayes Dalton hired me to work
at his mine, which was what they called a ten-man operation. This meant that
he could not have more than ten men underground. He took me undergrond to
help load coal at the face of the mine, but it wasn't long before I was
helping get coal out to the bottom.
Since we did not have electric power, we used Shetland ponies. The ponies had
tugs fastened to what we called a "butt stick." This :Butt stick" was a
singletree with a chain about four foot long. One end was hooked to the stick
and the other end was hooked to the coal car. This "butt stick" was
only about six inches from the rump of the pony. When you rode the coal cars,
you placed one foot on the tail chain,the other end was hooked to the coal
car: also one hand was on the pony's rump, and with the other hand, you hung
onto the front of the coal car. We also had a carbide light hanging
on our caps.
Since we did not have electric power, we piped steam down into the mine to
run steam water pumps. As business would pick up when it got colder, I would
be taken out of the mine and used on top in the tipple and boiler room. I
would help fire the boiler and dump the coal cars up in the tipple as they
were hoisted, and it wasn't long before I was hoisting and dumping the cars.
My wages were $3 per day. Most of the time, I worked a 10-hour day or longer,
and I never received any overtime. It wouldn't make any difference how many
hours you worked. On a good day, we would hoist 80 to 90 ton of
coal a day, and it sold for $15 a ton at the mine.
I started dating the oldest Dalton girl, and we were married in April, 1923.
We had a baby girl in June, 1924, and our son was born in April, 1926. My
brother, Pat, came to Canton and was working for International Harvester in
1924. Up until that time there was never a thought about any other work than
digging coal. I made up my mind that I was not going to try to raise my
family under the conditions I had been working. I had decided that when our
second baby was born, I was going to Harvester to get a job. That day our
baby, Harold, was two weeks okd, and I knew that the mother and baby were
both alright, I went to Canton and got a job. The day he was one month old,
in April, 1926, we moved to Canton. I did alright for a little over five
years, but when the Depression hit in 1932. I was laid off. I have to tell
you how I was laid off. I was sitting in my car on the south side of the
square when my foreman, Bob McDaniels, came walking down the walk, and when
he saw me, he came to the car and told me not to come back to work as I had
been laid off. Now such stunts as that is why we have to be covered with
unions. When I first started at Harvester, I was paid 33.5c per hour, which
gave me $16.75 per week, with 80.cts. off for insurance.
When I got laid off, Joe Pschirrer wanted me to come out to their mine to
work. When I left the mine in Ellisville, I had hoped that I would never see
the inside of a mine again, but since there were other jobs to be had, I went
to work for Mr. Pschirrer and was there for three years. I worked an
eight-hour day and was paid $3. I first loaded coal at the face of the mine
and we loaded 20 ton a day on many of the days. I soon was put on the drill
car. It was just a flat bed with powder, pick, shovel, and an electric drill
to drill the holeswhich were 1.5 inches in diameter and up to six foot
deep. When I first started drilling, we used keg powder, as we did in
Ellisville, and then they changed to stick powder. The sticks were eight or
ten inches long and about one inch in diameter. I drilled the holes, tamped
in the powder, fused the charge, and they were ready too light. I worked at
this mine for three years before I was called back to work at International
Harvester.
Altogether I spent more than eight years working in underground coal
mines.(P.101&102)
"The Dalton Mine and the Spoon River
Flood" By Willis R. Harkless
" It was during the last week of June, 1926, in the middle of the morning,
while I was working at the Hayes Dalton Mine which was up the river bottom
east of Ellisville, Illinois, that a lady named Martha Lawson came to the
mine and advised us to get the men out of the mine and go for home as the
river was over the bridge floor at London Mills--this was eight miles or so
north of Ellisville. We sent word down for the miners to come out right away
and all of them did except one fellow by the name of Dan South.
We had a streamabout 50 foot from the tipple. I went down to the creek and
stuck a stick at the water's edge. The stream in this creek was about four
foot across with a bank of six foot or more. At the time I placed the stick
in the creek, the water was down, but it was starting to rise, and it didn't
take long to realize that what Martha said was true. I went back down in the
mine where Dan was working and told him he should get out as the river was
rising at the rate of two foot an hour and I will never forget what he said:
" Oh, balderdash, I have lived along this river about all of my life and
that can't be true."
He did not come out for another hour and by that time the water was really
coming fast, just boiling. I would say that in less than an hour it was up
over the creek bed and over a foot deep in the parking lot. When Dan did come
out of the mine the water was up into his car and he could not drive it out.
He used a piece of number nine wire and tied his car to a tree and started
home. We did everything we could think of at the mine to protect it-there was
an underground gas tank and we screwed a full length of pipe on to the filler
pipe. Then we all went home, which was a silly thing to do as we waded in
water over knee deep and this was only two or three hours after Martha had
come to advise us to get out.
We no sooner got home than we realized the mine was going to be in trouble as
the water was rising so fast-it was bluff to bluff and was running like
rapids; it was almost white water. We kniw that we had to try to get back to
the mine so we borrowed a fourteen foot boat from Walter Griffith. Before my
two brothers-in-law, Chet and Pat, and I got in the boat, we took off our
shoes in case we had to swim. We shoved off-remember, the water was running
like rapids. Chet used the oars and would row until he had to rest. Pat and
and I would grab a tree and hang on until he got his wind, then we would let
go and progress further. When we finally reached the east bank of the river,
we pulled the boat up farenough so the river could not reach it. We had to
walk to the mine which was about one-half mile from where we had left the
boat. About one quarter of a mile east of the bridge, there was a creek
running southeast across the road, and we had to walk east far enough to get
around the water in this creek as it had raised a lot also. I know that it
could not have been more than four or five hours since Martha had been to the
mine to warn us, so you can understand how fast the water was running.
When we arrived at the mine, Hayes Dalton, the owner, was shoveling dirt to
keep the water out of the slope, it was a slope mine. It just so happened
that he was caught on the east side of the river as he had been away on some
business. The three of us who came back in the boat, Mr. Dalton, and two
fellows who lived just above the mine shoveled dirt off the hillside, piling
it in the mouth of the mine. We worked like crazy until two in the morning to
stay ahead of the water, when it finally quit rising.
We watched it for awhile and then went up to the house located just above the
mine and laid down on the floor to rest. During the night, someone would go
back down to the mine to check everything and make sure the water was not
rising again. When we got up the next morning, the water was as quiet as a
lake and as smooth as silk. We had to walk up around the creek back down to
where the boat was located-it was a lot different then when we came across
the day before. When we arrived back in town, we were surprised to find that
the water was more than two foot over the bridge floor. There was only one
other time that the water was over the floor of the bridge, and it was caused
by an ice gorge back in 1896 or sometime near that year.
As I remember, the 1926 flood was caused by a "goose downder" somewhere north
of London Mills. I know we never had a drop of rain in Ellisville!Someone
might say it was a dam that had broken, but I can't figure a dam with that
much water in that area. It was almost to the top of the telephone pole that
was located east of the bridge at Ellisville.
Anyway, we won our battle with the big flood, and when the water went down,
we went back to work in the Dalton Mine. (p.103,104,105)
More Replies:
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Re: Some HARKLESS bur. in Fulton, Co. IL.
Janice L Malcom 10/16/02
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Re: Some HARKLESS bur. in Fulton, Co. IL.
Janet Foster 10/16/02
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Re: Some HARKLESS bur. in Fulton, Co. IL.
Janice L Malcom 10/16/02
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Re: Some HARKLESS bur. in Fulton, Co. IL.
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Re: Some HARKLESS bur. in Fulton, Co. IL.