There were not many large falls of slate on the entrance, so the explosion was terrific at the main entrance.  Heavy steel mining cars' axles were broken off in the cars' wheels.  Loaded cars were hurled against the side of the entries and broken to pieces.  No flesh could stand against such force.  I worked three days in getting all the bodies out.

The last evening, when I reached the outside of the mine, an old white haired man came running to me and asked me if we had found his grandson, who was a door tender on the main entry.  He said he had a wide leather belt around his waist.  The old man was heart-broken because, as yet we had not found the body of his boy.  It took force to keep him from going into the mine.  He could not sleep, watching everybody that brought out a body.  He was broken with grief.  Finally, part of a boy's body was brought out.  It was his grandson.  When clearing up the mine they found a boy's torso with the belt still around his body.

The clothes that I wore in the mine, I had to destroy on account of the peculiar odor which could not be gotten rid of.  The scene around the entrance of the mine could not be forgotten with 184 parts of many bodies that could be recognized by relatives.

A few years after the Fraterville mine explosion, another explosion took place at an adjoining mine called Cross Mountain Mine, taking the lives of 74 miners.  A message was sent to me to come at once as they needed rescuers.  I left Jellico on the morning train at 8 o'clock a.m.

Coal Creek (now called Lake City) is about 30 miles away.  Many other miners were on the train.  As I arrived near Coal Creek several miners came to me and asked me where I was going.  I told them that I was going to the mine where the explosion occurred.  They then left me and went into another car.  In a few minutes they came back to where I was sitting and said to me, "We have forty miners on the train going to the mine to help.  We are all from Kense Mine, Kentucky.  We held a meeting and all decided that if you would be our leader we would follow you into the mine.  We know you took charge in the Fraterville explosion and we wondered why you would risk your life going into a closed shop Union Mine.  The Procter Coal Company, with its three mines of which you are superintendent, have fought us for many years; men having been killed on both sides and the fight still continues."  I said, "Yes, I have fought you hard but when I see my fellow miners in distress, I can not fight them for I am one of you.  I was willing to take the risk by helping out with my long experience in the mines", and I said, "I want to thank you men for placing your confidence in me."  Let me say that I have considered this one of the greatest compliments that I ever received in my life, when others are willing to place their lives in your hands.

On arriving at the mine, the same sorrowful scene greeted us.  Women and children were weeping and all in great distress.  Once again I must control myself and not let my sympathy weaken me.  I had work to perform.  So I went into the mine with those forty men.  It was a drift opening.  After going in nearly one mile, I came to a body lying on one side of the entry.  Black damp had taken his life.  Some few men were building a brattress to carry on the air.  I told my men to help and went on further into the mine.  The air was foul.  I met a man with a small cage with a dead canary in it.  I asked him why he brought that bird in here.  He said it gave him warning when he went into bad air, the bird would drop dead.  The test after a gas explosion is not needed by an experienced miner.

I met another man with a gas mask on and carrying his oxygen with him.  I asked him how far he could go.  He told me about 300 feet.  We were standing close to the foul air.  He said it was very hot 200 feet further in.  I asked him if he saw any bodies.  He thought he had.  There were coal, slate, and timbers lying loose everywhere.  He took off his helmet and sat down.  His breathing was not regular, it seemed to me.  He was scared and would swear often.  His thought was to keep his courage up.  He told me he was sent here by the state and that he belonged to the rescue squad.  I did not like his swearing.

In all my long life underground, I would not work with any man who swore, especially when there were 80 dead in the mines, lying around and some of them near us and others further on in this sad, gloomy place.  I left him and went back to help the men to place brattices back to carry on fresh air, that would move out foul air so that bodies could be found and taken outside of the mine.  I worked up to late that evening and then went by train to Jellico.  A little gas and fine dust make a strong explosion.  It is impossible to go through the after damp, to breath it and live.  Strong men have tried to break through the after damp and have given up their lives in the effort.