A photograph from April 7, 1919, of an early Marion steam engine loading coal from the surface into an old wood coal car for shipment to the colliery breaker for processing.
From a series of articles that appeared in the Pottsville Republican and Herald in 1998:
The Oak HIll Colliery was located at Mount Laffee. It was an extensive mine, covering a large area in the Primrose and orchard veins. in the operation of the colliery, several drifts, four slopes and one shaft were employed in the work of mining.
The colliery was opened by a drift driven west on the Primrose Vein by Daddow & Brown in 1830. It mined the drift to 1836, when Daddow retired. In 1840, the oak Hill Coal Company was organized by D. P. Brown, J. P. Wetherill and others who made extensive improvements and opened more drifts on the Primrose and Orchard veins.
In 1844, D. P. Brown & Company sank a shaft 165 feet deep, from which the gangway was driven 2,000 feet west in 1851.
In 1854, it sank the first slope 270 feet on the4 South Dip Primrose Vein 2,000 feet west of the shaft. It was abandoned in 1860 as exhausted.
In 1856, the second slope was sunk 234 feet to the first level. It was later used as a pump slope and sunk to the second level.
In 1863, a fourth slope was sunk in the line with the former two slopes 329 feet on the North Dip Primrose through the old abandoned Pollock North Dip workings. The other slope was sunk on the South Dip Orchard Vein about a half mile from the Brown’s shaft.
D. P. Brown & Company operated the colliery to 1864, when it was purchased by the Norwegian Coal Company, which operated it to 1870, when an injunction was served on the company for not complying with the mine laws of the state. All the slope workings were abandoned, but mining continued in one of the rifts to 1872, when the colliery was abandoned.
The colliery was surrounded by several collieries whose workings became connected and in later years were worked as part of the Oakhill Colliery. These collieries were the harper, Whooler, Goyne and Stutz Tunnel mines.
The coal shipment from the Oak Hill Colliery totaled 8242,900 tons.
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Article by Frank Blase, Historian, Reading Anthracite Company Historical Library, Pottsville Republican & Herald, January 31, 1998. Obtained from Newspapers.com.
Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.