A 1911 photograph of a charging station for miners’ electric lamps.
From a series of articles that appeared in the Pottsville Republican and Herald in 1998:
The Forestville Colliery was located on the West Creek in the village of Forestville.
It was opened by a water-level tunnel driven north to the South Dip Bottom Split of the Mammoth Vein by the Forest Improvement Company and was leased by a Mr. Harris in 1842. He mined the vein until 1844, when he failed and Thomas Petherick was assigned the lease. Petherick continued the operation and in 1846, opened a drift to the north at a higher elevation, but on the same vein as the Harris Tunnel. He operated both mines until 1850.
In 1860, David Glover, Charles Heckscher & Company, which had large interests in the Forest Improvement Company’s lands, leased the Petherick mines and sank the Forestville slope 411 feet to the first level, driving gangways 3,600 feet east and 4,500 feet west.
In 1860, the company’s name changed to Heckscher & Company. It extended the slope to lower levels and opened three drifts above water level and all were driven 4,000 feet west.
Heckscher & Company continued operating to 1864.
The Forest improvement Company, under its charter, was confined to opening and preparing for use and occupation coal mines on its own land, but the company was prohibited from mining coal.
On April 29, 1864, it changed its name to the Union Improvement Company, but after the name was changed it was discovered that another coal company had incorporated using this name. On August 3, 1864, it changed the name from Union Improvement Company to the New York and Schuylkill Company, with the privilege of mining and shipping coal from its lands.
In 1864, the New York & Schuylkill Coal Company (Charles Heckscher, president) began operating the Forestville Colliery. It sank the slope to the bottom level, a total distance of 900 feet, and operated it to 1868, when the colliery was sold at sheriff’s sale.
In 1868, E. T. Ouilitch, an engineer for the company, operated the colliery as agent for a short time when Daniel Hock & Company came in possession and operated the colliery to 1875, when the Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Company purchased the lands of the New York & Schuylkill Coal Company.
The Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Company operated the colliery to 1880, when it suspended operations.
In 1880-1881, Gen. J. K. Seigfried leased the colliery and drove a short tunnel to the Black Vein and mined it until 1891, when it reached its boundaries and the colliery was abandoned and allowed to fill with water.
In 1899, the Pennsylvania Coal Company, which operated the Lytle Colliery, pumped out the water and used the slope only as an outlet to the surface.
The total shipment from the Forestville Colliery was 1,001,915 tons.
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Article by Frank Blase, Historian, Reading Anthracite Company Historical Library, Pottsville Republican & Herald, May 23, 1998. Obtained from Newspapers.com.
Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.