The Salem Colliery was located
at the eastern end of Pottsville at what was known as Young's Landing. The original
operations were the Young brothers who in 1830 opened a water level drift and
worked it to 1835 when they sold their interests to a Mr. Milnes. He did very
little work on the drift realizing that a slope was necessary to make a success
of the mine as there was little coal to remove from the drift.
In 1837, Mr. Milnes began
sinking the slope and completed it to the first level in 1838, with gangways
driven east and west. The east gangway in 1841 connected with the slope workings
from Charles Elliot's Port Carbon Colliery and the east side of the Greenwood
Colliery slope workings.
In 1842, Milnes took in
a partner, Benjamin Haywood, and under the firm of Milnes and Haywood, the slope
was sunk a total of six levels.
In 1846, the west gangway
was driven 4000 ft. to Sixth street in Pottsville. The lower levels of the colliery
had reached westward beyond Centre Street in Pottsvile by 1850 and connected
eastward with the Port Carbon Colliery workings. Milnes and Haywood built a
short canal from the navagation canal basin to their breaker where they loaded
the coal directly into the canal boats at their dock. They operated the colliery
until 1851 when, due to financial troubles sold it to Waddington and Ogden,
who operated the mine to 1854 when they were succeeded by John G. Hewes who
mined until 1855 when the colliery was flooded and abandoned.
The total length of the
slope was 1030 ft. with the foot of the slope located under the bed of the navagation
company's dam on the Schuylkill River. In driving the gangways at the foot of
the slope in 1855, a fissure in the rock strata was encountered so suddenly
that a large body of water was drawn into the mine, drowning it out so that
nothing could be saved except the mules. No lives were lost.
The total shipments from
the Salem Colliery was 260,156 tons of coal.
The machinery and improvements cost $70,000.