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breaker boy: “When I got down into the mines, that was paradise.” 27
    â€œNippers” were the youngest, around eleven years of age, and they tended the heavy wooden doors in the gangways. They were usually the first to hear the creaks and groans that would alert them to the danger of collapse, and it was their responsibility to warn the others.
    â€œSpraggers” controlled the speed of the mine cars as they rolled down the slope—again one of the most dangerous jobs in the mines since they could be run over by the fast-moving cars when they reached down to apply the breaks. These boys lost arms, legs and their lives.

    Miners descended into the dark, dank mines before dawn each morning. Courtesy of Robin G. Lightly, Mineral Resources program manager, Bureau of Mining and Reclamation, PA Department of Environmental Protection .
    The mule drivers collected the coal in cars pulled by mules, and they could work as many as a six-mule team in the narrow passages of the mines. Although it wasn’t the most pleasant job, it did afford them the opportunity to move about the mines from cavern to cavern, and it was one of the most sought-after jobs among the younger miners. Their responsibility was to get their cars full by quitting time, and if the work wasn’t done, they stayed until it was. Miners were paid by the weight of the cars they filled, so it was important for the spraggers and the mule drivers to make certain that no coal was spilled or lost from the cars.
    If they did the job right, they were promoted again and labored beside their fathers, brothers and uncles, working on the face of the walls of the mountains. They shared the same risk as the men, sometimes standing for hours in dank air with water up to their ankles, knowing that at any moment the roof could collapse or poisonous gas could escape. At the end of the day, they were brought back to the surface of the earth, exhausted and covered in black coal dust that was embedded in their skin.

    Coal dust would embed itself into the skin of the miners, sometimes permanently. Courtesy Istockphotos.com .

    It was the backbreaking work of men and little boys in the mines that helped to fuel the Industrial Revolution. Courtesy of Robin G. Lightly, Mineral Resources program manager, Bureau of Mining and Reclamation, PA Department of Environmental Protection .
    According to The Death of a Great Company by W. Julian Parton, the accident and death rate at the LC&N was consistently below the industry as a whole. “Management carried out excellent safety programs and did everything possible to train miners to work safely.” Yet mining was extremely dangerous, even under the best of conditions, and miners who were not injured or killed on the job often developed black lung disease.
    It is not unfair to say that the Pennsylvania miners of the eighteenth century are among the true heroes of the Industrial Revolution.
    The Molly Maguires
    Working conditions in the early years of the anthracite mines were indisputably hard and often brutal. Whenever men work under cruel conditions for long enough, rebellion follows. Sometimes revolt comes in the form of union activities, sometimes in criminal activity—oftentimes, both, and from both sides of the argument.
    In the 1700s and early 1800s, the miners were primarily Irish immigrants. Back in Ireland, in response to what the Irish farmers believed were unfair practices by landlords, a clandestine organization called the Molly Maguires was formed to correct transgressions. How the organization got its name has always been more folk tale than factual. One story is that “Molly” was a widow who had been evicted from her house and inspired defenders; another is that Molly was a young woman who led men on nighttime raids; and still another was that Molly owned a tavern where the secret society met. Some say that the name came about because the men in the secret society disguised themselves as