Gold Hill Daily News

THE EVENING NEWS
Sept. 20, 1869

TERRIBLE MINING ACCIDENT—TWO MINERS KILLED.

About three o'clock this morning two miners, Robert Roland and Thomas Job, were instantly killed in the Bonner shaft of the Gould & Curry mine.

The manner in which these unfortunate men came to their death does not appear to be precisely known, but the circumstances, as near as we could learn, were about as follows: The shaft is 1,185 feet deep, and these men were employed in the south working compartment, about 125 feet from the bottom, where the caving of the shaft has necessitated extensive repairs. They rang the bell to lower a little, and directly afterward to hoist. The cage came up with some half dozen short pieces of plank upon it, securely lashed, which had been used for a staging, their dinner pails and the heel of one of their boots lay upon the platform of the cage. Almost immediately afterward, the cage in the next compartment rang up, and a man came up on it with the sad intelligence that the two men had fallen and were killed.

The bodies were at once brought to the surface, and taken to Wilson & Brown’s undertaking establishment on B street. Most of their bones were broken, but their faces and heads were but little mutilated. Various theories are advanced as to how they came to fall, as no one is supposed to ride up the cage unless they are upon it. There is a place in the cribbing of the shaft at the point where they were working, used in getting behind and easing the timbers occasionally when the swelling clay presses too hard, and some think they were in there and attempted to get on the cage after ringing the bell, or that one accidentally fell off and pulled the other with him. They fell at least 100 feet, landing upon a platform at the 7th station, 25 feet from the bottom. Job’s feet were driven through the platform by the terrible force of the fall. All obtainable evidence tending to clear up the mystery of their death, will be elicited at the Coroner’s inquest which will be held at 6 o’clock this evening.

Job was a native of Cornwall, England, and Roland was a Welshman. They were about 28 or 30 years of age and unmarried. Job had been working in that mine nearly a year, but Roland came in from White Pine only four or five weeks ago; he was a Mason, belonging to a Lodge in California. Both were experienced miners and in the very prime of life, health and manhood. It is a sad as well as remarkable comment to record, that these terrible accidents, are apparently becoming more frequent, and the victims are nearly always the most able and experienced miners.