A Jury Called the Franklin Mine Fire Arson. Thirty-Seven Miners Were Already Dead.

FRANKLIN, Wash., Aug. 25.—Special.—After sitting in session the whole afternoon, the coroner's jury empaneled to investigate yesterday's disaster this evening rendered a verdict which, though it may startle the outside country, caused no surprise here. The jury found that the fire in breast sixty-two of the north sixth level was started by parties unknown who willfully, knowingly and maliciously desired to do great injury and damage to the lives of the employees and the property of the Oregon Improvement Company. The verdict in full is as follows:

'We, the undersigned jurors, do agree that on August 24, 1894, on the sixth level of the Franklin mine, King County, Wash., the following parties, namely: [here follows a list of the thirty-seven dead miners] did come to their death by suffocation caused by smoke emanating from a fire in breast sixty-two, on the north side of the sixth level; said fire having been caused by a party or parties unknown to us, and that said party or parties did willfully, knowingly and maliciously cause said fire with intent and purpose to do great injury and damage to the lives of the miners and property of the Oregon Improvement Company.'

Throughout the day there was a good deal of talk of the mine having been fired by an incendiary who, for some unknown reason, desired to destroy the company's property. Perhaps jealousy, vindictiveness or pure love of destruction prompted the fire fiend, but the truth will probably never be known. In view of the testimony adduced at the inquest, however, the verdict is thought to be a particularly strong one, but few can be found here who are not in hearty accord with it. Not a man in the town can be found who will even venture an opinion as to who the incendiary might be. The officials will not talk concerning the matter. One of the pit bosses said this evening: 'I have an idea who set the breast on fire, but I won't say.' 'Why?' 'Cause the man I suspect is dead. He was smothered in the level.'

An attempt was made during the day to fasten the blame for the loss of life upon the man who shut down the fan at the top of the hill which keeps the air course in the level, but not much was accomplished. While some will admit that the closing down of the fan was an error of judgment, others claim that it was what any man would do under ordinary circumstances. It was shown at the inquest today that the closing down of the fan alone would not have suffocated the men, but the door in the rock cut leading into the level from the air course was opened, and this caused a recourse which blocked the men in between two banks of smoke, and death ensued in a few moments. The only man who escaped alive, J. L. Snyder, testified that John E. John, the gas tester from the south side, who came into the north level to look after his son, opened the door, thinking it would drive the smoke out. The opening of the door or the closing down of the fan alone would not have caused suffocation, but the two formed a deadly combination whose effects the rows of thirty-seven bodies in the improvised morgue can properly demonstrate. John E. John died with his son in his arms, and father and son now lie in coffins side by side.

The break of day was ushered in this morning by moans and wails of wives and relatives of the dead. At the improvised morgue in the incomplete Masonic temple were thirty-seven white shrouds, while grief-stricken men and a few women walked mournfully among the dead. The town was a scene of life all night. Many of the Black people, too excited to sleep, built bonfires and sat around them the entire night, telling weird stories and recalling incidents in the lives of the dead. At the morgue were three or four white men keeping watch with their dead, but of the Black men eight or ten sat around all night, keeping a never-ceasing vigil, not tiring and watching the dead. A. F. Hurlsleigh, the Oregon Improvement Company's general manager, and T. B. Corey, the general mine superintendent, did not go to bed at all, but walked about. It was 2 o'clock a.m. when they returned from an examination of the mine, and then went on top of the hill back of the town, where an examination was made of the fan plant. During the early morning they stopped in at the morgue and exchanged a few words with the death watchers. The men, when questioned, answered in monosyllables and appeared in deep distress.

This morning nineteen coffins arrived about daylight from Seattle by freight train, and the other eighteen reached here during the afternoon. The Oregon Improvement Company is standing all the expenses of burial, and has agreed to ship the bodies of the dead to any point desired by the relatives, although it is known that most of them will be buried here. Of the eleven dead Black miners, nine were buried this evening at 6 o'clock, and the other two, Ike Chambers and Ed Maxwell, will be buried tomorrow morning. Jim Gibson and Frank Willis, the two Black Masons, were accorded a Masonic funeral. The nine bodies were carried by pallbearers to the little cemetery half a mile back on the hill, and the procession was composed of nearly all the Black men and women in the town. The men were buried side by side in one big grave, and, it is said, one big tombstone will mark their last resting place. The lamenting of the women was most pitiful; one Black girl remarked between her sobs as she watched the line of coffins: 'It seems like there isn't enough left to decently bury those who are dead.'

Andy Engdahl was buried this afternoon at Black Diamond by the side of his wife, who died two years ago. The funeral was under the auspices of Franklin and Black Diamond Knights of Pythias lodges. Tomorrow Joe Rossio, Chris Hunkers, Joe Dawson, John T. Pugh, D. P. Jones and Evan D. Jones will be buried, the latter under the auspices of the Knights of Pythias and I.O.O.F. lodges. The bodies of Jacob Olsen, John Anderson, Peter Perry, Joe Cassell and Frank Larson will be buried in Seattle. John Morris will be buried at Cedar Mountain, Evan Hughes and William Secor at Kenton, and Robert McClusky at Newcastle. The others will be buried here today.

The party composed of A. F. Hurlsleigh, Coroner Horton, Superintendent Corey, Deputy Coroner Green, Gas Tester John Morgans and reporters, who went down into the mine at 12 o'clock last night, remained on the sixth level for over two and a half hours. As soon as the car reached the bottom of the main slope the party entered the north sixth level, in which the thirty-seven men were killed. About 100 feet in, men were found building a 'stopping' or bulkhead across the gangway for the purpose of hermetically sealing that portion of the mine and smothering the fire which is now raging in breasts sixty-two, sixty-one and sixty. Close to the ground in the stopping was left a small manhole, and here the coroner's party went through one at a time. Twelve hundred feet further in a second stopping was encountered, and here further progress was blocked. This second bulkhead is built just thirty feet from the place where the fire is raging, and one could plainly hear the flames roaring as they consumed the coal. The suction from the draft was so strong that, in spite of the bulkhead, the lights from the miners' caps, when held close to the upper and lower cracks, would be almost pulled away and extinguished.

In going into the level the coroner's party was stopped just 1,330 feet from the foot of the main slope by Gas Tester Morgans, who called attention to a dinner pail and a miner's cap lying in the gutter at the side of the gangway, on the left-hand side of the track, which indicated the spot where J. L. Snyder, the only man taken out alive, was found by the rescuing party. Snyder, who is a 250-pound man, is almost insane, and is still so far overcome that, though he walks around town, he is wild at times and talks incoherently. He expressed the fear this morning that he would go insane. Fifty feet further in the level Mr. Morgans pointed out another dinner pail, marking the spot where the body of John H. Anderson was found. This was the first body taken out. Twenty feet still further in were miners' caps and dinner pails, showing where three more had fallen in their flight. As the party proceeded other evidences of death were discovered. A dead mule lying across the track marked the spot where 'Peg' John, the level horse driver, was found in the arms of his father. The latter, hearing of the fire, came from the south sixth level, where his duties as gas tester kept him, and hurried into the north sixth to rescue his son. In one spot indicated by miners' lamps and caps and dinner pails, seven bodies were found.