the Forgotten Coal Mines of Monongahela Pa

the Forgotten Coal Mines of Monongahela Pa the Forgotten Coal Mines of Monongahela Pa the Forgotten Coal Mines of Monongahela Pa

the Forgotten Coal Mines of Monongahela Pa

the Forgotten Coal Mines of Monongahela Pa the Forgotten Coal Mines of Monongahela Pa the Forgotten Coal Mines of Monongahela Pa
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    • Home
    • More mining History
    • Dr Edmund T Dlutowski
    • Danger, Death & Disasters
    • East Main Street History
    • City on the graveyard
    • Tour Fort Pitt Coal
  • Home
  • More mining History
  • Dr Edmund T Dlutowski
  • Danger, Death & Disasters
  • East Main Street History
  • City on the graveyard
  • Tour Fort Pitt Coal

GRUESOME FIND UNEARTHED

Monongahela City Dec. 1916

A gruesome find was made this morning at the former entrance of the old River bridge in the first ward .

Workmen engaged in leveling up the ground and tearing away the stone abuntment, for the widening of the railroad so additiional tracks may be added, unearthed a human skull.

The find was made just inside the excavation  where the wingwall formally stood, at a depth of about six feet underground

From the evidence in the surrounding artifacts and shells it was determined to be that of an Indian buried in prehistoric times.

The old wooden bridge was built in 1838 and fill was made to level the wingwall, about four feet  added on top of the ground  in the area where the skull was found, Indicating the burial was  approximatly two and one-half feet below the original ground level

The skull found was in rather a good state of preservation and points to the fact that the site was that of an old indian burial ground


Founded on a graveyard

Monongahela City March 25th 1880

Saturday March 18th 1880, Mr. John R. Gee

Owner of the stone works on Main St. 

Passing up the railroad cut near the bridge,

Saw what he thought was an iron ring embedded

in the clay. He gave it a kick ,when to his sorrow

discovered he had shattered the outcropping

of the mouth of a crude indian pottery jar.


Carefully gathering up the pieces, he tenderly

carried the pitcher to Dr. Linn, who painstakingly

restored the piece, the result being an almost

priceless specimen of pre historic pottery.

The jar is in the urn shape, or rather resembling 

a water jar with a narrow neck & flaring mouth,

not unlike a modern cuspadore. It is very thin,

without ornament, & if sun baked is remarkably

well preserved. Dr Linn suggested to Mr John Wall

& Mr Gee that this was likely a food depository for

a grave. 

With further search these gentlemen 

resulted in the exuhumation of a child's skeleton.

The vessel proven to be one such as were put in 

the graves of indians, containing enough food to 

last the child its passage to the spirit land.


Mr. Culbertson recently found a provision jar at 

the paper mill, and Mr. E W. Keller tells us that when

a boy,  the falling in banks of the creek frequently

exposed indian graves. 

What is true about nearly

every grave found in this area [not in the mounds]

is the fact that they are all the graves of children.

There was once a continuous grave yard along the 

river bottom from the site of the paper mill to the 

old creek mouth which was then north of  the island, 

a new effluent having been cut thru the quicksand ,

forming the present channel. Valuable specimens 

are coming to the surface with every new excavation.


the mounds burial grounds

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