A Mountain of Coffins: Franklin Buries Its Miners

Franklin, Wash., Aug. 26.—The excitement over the disaster of Friday has almost subsided with the burial of the dead today, and in its place has come a feeling of loneliness, overpowering and depressing. Grief has taken a new hold, and the people now seem to realize more keenly than ever the loss that has fallen upon them; while the miners generally, those who lost no relatives, have awakened to the fact that their “butties” who were are no more. Men walk about the town solemn and in drooping spirits, while, to add to the somberness of the scene, there is a liberal supply of black and white drapings in the buildings, and also about the main slope of the mine, which throughout the day has been hanging listless in the hot, smoky atmosphere. The burning sun, shielded in a small degree by the murky air, seems to have taken on mourning out of sympathy for the dead and the stricken families. The mine has closed down for the day, and not a sound disturbs the stillness of the place except the occasional sound of a heartrending wail emanating from the households of the bereaved.

Today was made the occasion of a general funeral, twenty-seven bodies being buried, one at Newcastle, one at Cedar Mountain, eleven at Franklin, five at Black Diamond, three at Kenton and two at Seattle. A funeral train left Franklin at 11:45 o’clock this morning, carrying nearly all of the local people to Black Diamond, where everyone attended the funerals of John Grantilli, Joseph Dawson, John T. Pugh, Joseph Bozzio and David D. Jones. The Black Diamond brass band, consisting of nineteen pieces, rendered appropriate marches, and the procession, with the five coffins carried in line by pall-bearers, was escorted to the cemetery. The funeral of John T. Pugh was conducted under the auspices of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and Joseph Dawson and David D. Jones under the auspices of the Foresters. Rev. John F. Damon, the veteran preacher of Seattle, preached the funeral sermons, and in a little while a row of five mounds, with plain wooden headboards, marked the graves of the asphyxiated miners.

At this funeral the grief of Mrs. Dawson for her son Joe and that of Mrs. Pugh and her six motherless children for the husband and father was pitiful to behold. Mrs. Dawson was overcome with sorrow and her violent cries filled all with deep concern. Mrs. Pugh is now dangerously ill. Her grief, though of a less violent form, is none the less great, and she has passed from one spasm into another until her life is almost despaired of. She is not a strong woman, and the attending physician expresses grave fears lest she will never recover from the shock consequent upon the death of her husband. Her oldest child is but 8 years old.

At Cedar Mountain the people of the little town turned out en masse to pay their last respects to all that was mortal of John Morris. At Kenton three funerals were in progress, those of John Hall, Evan Hughes and William Secor. The different church bells tolled out their mournful peals, and throughout the valleys from Franklin to Kenton the people were performing their duty to the dead. When the funeral train reached Kenton one coffin, containing the body of Robert McCulsky, was transferred to the train coming east in charge of Superintendent I. E. Smith, of the Columbia & Puget Sound railroad, and thence was conveyed to Newcastle, where the funeral and burial took place.

The train immediately returned to Kenton, and, reaching the Franklin branch, started for Black Diamond. By this time the funerals at the latter place were at an end, and nearly the whole town, in addition to the Franklin people, was in waiting at the depot. The band and about 100 people were admitted to the coaches, and the train departed for Franklin, going back again for the second load of people.

By 12 o’clock all was in readiness for the funerals here, and at 1 o’clock the bodies of the three Italians, Philippe De Mari, Rocco Tetti and Louis Farriri, carried by pallbearers, were in line for the cemetery on the side hill three-quarters of a mile away. The band boys took up their stand in front, and then followed the pallbearers. Directly behind came Italian women and children, all moaning and crying piteously. The men have no relatives at Franklin, and their homes are so far remote that it was deemed impracticable to send their bodies away, so the funeral took place here. Farriri has no family, but leaves his parents in Italy. De Mari leaves a wife in Italy. He was working hard and saving his money, in the vain hope that before the year closed she could be with him. Tetti was not married, but has a father in Philadelphia.

The train to the cemetery leads in a devious way along the mountain side amid the dense growth of green bushes and ferns that shoot up and from any angle hide the pedestrian. In this path, which is just wide enough to admit of three persons marching abreast, filed a procession of 300 people, men, women and children, white and black. The band played a slow march until the cemetery was almost reached, when the musicians lined up on each side of the trail in the brush, continuing to play until the procession had passed.

At the cemetery the three coffins were lowered side by side into long graves, and then all was silent. The men were Catholics, and in the absence of a priest there was a painful curiosity on the part of those present as to how the ceremonies would conclude. Suddenly John Grosso, an Italian miner from Newcastle, stepped forward and announced in his broken English: “To the English-speaking people I wish to say that I do not speak your language very well. We are here to bury our dead, and, with your permission, I will address a few words in Italian to those of my mother country.”

Grosso then spoke for a few minutes in words which produced a marked effect upon the Italians present. Men choked and sobbed, not like women, but like men. Tears stood in their eyes, and when Grosso had finished the Italians present threw handkerchiefs, funeral emblems and handfuls of earth on the coffins—a custom of Italians the world over for centuries in burying their dead. Said one of the Italians after the ceremony was over: “We do not throw earth on the coffins; no, no! it is not raining the world over. I cannot explain it in English, but it signifies a great deal to us as the expression of our love and respect for the dead.”

Grosso’s address, translated, was substantially as follows: “My friends: We are here to perform the rite of burying our dead; those who were taken from among us without warning. Though we were born Italians, we were born poor and have had to work. Many of us, wishing to better our condition, left our mother country and came to America. Though we are of that great country, and will be loyal to its laws, we cannot break the ties which made us one people, or forget the mothers who bore us in Italy. Coming to America, our people scattered. Work we must, and some of us went into the bowels of the earth to earn our bread and maintain our families. Among our dead is De Mari. He came to America to prepare a home for his wife in this great country; great because Christopher Columbus, one of our own tongue, discovered it and has thus made it dear to us forever. Though we were born in the flowery land of Italy, many of us will never be buried there. Why not then permit our bodies to lie in America, the land first found by Columbus, whose name we revere and love? De Mari has a wife in Italy, but she cannot mourn for his last resting place when she knows that the soil of America contains his body. Next to Italy she would be satisfied with America. For the dead I will say: ‘Adieu, Italy. Adieu, dear ones. Adieu, America, the land of our hopes!’”

Almost before the grave enclosing the three men was filled the sound of the dead march was again heard. This time the band led a procession of 500 people following the bodies of John E. John and Evan D. John, father and son, who died in each other’s arms. Mrs. John, supported by her daughter on one arm and a friend of the family on the other, could scarcely keep her feet, but she struggled along not uttering a sound, her pallid face, which her mourning veil could not conceal, plainly indicating her poignant grief. Uphill and down the men, women and children followed the dead, the long line of slowly moving humanity stretching behind until lost to view in the dense foliage. The procession appeared to have no end. It was certainly the greatest cortege Franklin ever witnessed.

When the procession arrived at the cemetery the dead were placed by the side of an open grave dug for two. The people ranged about without uttering a sound, and the members of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows lodges of Black Diamond and Franklin formed a circle and uncovered their heads. Then Dr. J. J. Smith, the Oregon Improvement Company’s physician at the mines, acting as prelate, took his stand among fourteen newly made graves and read the ritualistic burial service. The bodies were lowered, men covered them over with earth, and the widow and mother with her little children about her gazed at the filling graves but did not cry; their grief was too deep for that. Finally Mrs. John was led away. She appeared to be thinking about something, not in the present but in the future; of some place not on this earth. In a moment a glimmer of hope lit her features, then she relaxed into a state of semi-coma and appeared oblivious of her surroundings. Her condition this evening is said to be critical.

In the course of the afternoon Ike Clemmens and Edward Maxwell, both colored, were buried near each other. Other funerals followed in rapid succession, the bodies of Joseph Standridge, Peter Gray, John E. John, Charles Stevens and Evan John being consigned to the earth. Evan John and John E. John were accorded funeral under the auspices of the Knights of Pythias. Saturday nine were buried here, and other burials took place at Black Diamond and Seattle. Of the thirty-seven dead, there remain not yet buried but two—Evan D. Jones and Chris Dunkers—whose bodies will be held until tomorrow, awaiting word from relatives.

T. B. Corey, superintendent of mines for the Oregon Improvement Company, was asked last evening what the losses caused by the Franklin disaster would foot up and replied that it would amount to $50,000. This, he said, was mere guess work, but in figuring the loss he counted what would be lost by the decrease in the output of coal, the damage done, the necessary repairs, the funeral expenses and the amount given to the widows and orphans of those who were killed in the disaster.

Mr. Corey estimates that the output will be lessened one-half. The mine had just got in such shape that 600 tons per day could be gotten out. Now not more than 300 tons can be removed. It will be three or perhaps four months before the sixth level can again be operated. It will have to be kept closed for a long period before the fire will be smothered, and a great deal of timbering and other things will have been destroyed and will have to be replaced. The fifth level has not been damaged. The fire in the fifth level a year and a half ago originated in the same mysterious manner as the present one. It occurred near the air shaft and the fan was kept going, but as the draft was away from where the men were working, they escaped. They could have escaped in the present instance if they had gotten out of the mine soon enough.

The funerals of Jacob Olsen and J. G. Anderson, two of the victims of the Franklin mine disaster, took place at Bonney & Stewart’s undertaking rooms at 2 o’clock yesterday afternoon under the auspices of Cascade Lodge, No. 38, I. O. O. F., of Franklin, assisted by members of the several Odd Fellows’ lodges of this city. The services were conducted by M. Hill, noble grand of Mystic Lodge, No. 21, and by Louis Gibbert, chaplain of the same lodge. The remains were interred in Odd Fellows cemetery. Olsen was a past grand in the Cascade lodge.