Coal Mining Disasters in the Picton Family History

 My first sketch here is going to be about the family history of my step-father, Jack Lloyd Picton (1927-2004). Jack lived nearly his whole life at the same address in Edwardsville, Pennsylvania. He was the son of a long line of Welsh coal miners. 

His father was John Henry Picton (1886-1932). John Henry served in WWI. I remember a revolver that Jack owned, a hand-me-down from his father. It was the kind used by the military police during the war. Jack told a story about how his father arrived home from the war even as the wake for his own deceased father was going on at home. He hadn't known his father had passed, so what should have been a joyous occasion turned out to be a profoundly sad one.

Another story Jack told about his father was that he had been exposed to gas in the war and his lungs never really recovered. Although he went back to work in the colliery after the war, his increasing troubles with breathing made things difficult. In the end he was not able to work at all.

This is a picture of Jack in his schoolboy days:

And here is his father, John Henry Picton, probably not long before his death at the age of 46:

The Picton family has met more than its share of tragedy over the generations, beginning with the Garden Pit mine disaster in Landshipping, Wales. In 1844, the incoming tide broke through and flooded the mine, drowning 40 miners, including some as young as 11 years old. Among these victims were fully 6 Pictons. Joseph Picton, who was Jack's 2G-grandfather, and three of his sons!

So two of the surviving sons, including Jack's Great Grandfather, the Reverend John Picton (1824-1901), came to America in 1881. He was not only a miner but a preacher in the Welsh Baptist Church in Plymouth, Pennsylvania.

Plymouth, a coal mining town in the Wyoming Valley, would be the scene of another dreadful mine disaster, this one in 1894 (although a few years later this part of town would split off and become its own municipality, called Larksville). The disaster happened at the Gaylord Mine, not far from where my step-dad, Jack, spent his life. It was in this mine cave-in that Jack's grand-uncle, Thomas H. Picton, would lose his life (along with 12 others).