Although most coal mining structures in Westmoreland County have disappeared, many of the company houses built by the mining companies for their workers have survived.
These coal "patch towns" were built for a variety of reasons.
Because transportation was limited in the early coal mining days, the companies needed to house their workers nearby, and by renting the houses, the companies could generate profits and exercise some control over their employees, who could be evicted at the company's discretion.
The coal patch community on Adams Hill, however, was developed for a different reason.
The Philadelphia-based Penn Gas Coal Co. opened its Shaft No. 2 (Adams) Mine in 1872 after it completed the Youghiogheny Railroad from Irwin through Hahntown and Rillton to the Youghiogheny River at Gratztown.
The mine was located just south of Irwin, on the west side of Hahntown along Tinkers Run. The mine buildings included an office, foundry, engine house, boiler house, lamp house and blacksmith shop. The mine and tipple stood at the base of Adams Hill near the rail line. There also was a 30-stall brick mule barn, which was destroyed by fire in 1988.
The company initially constructed 10 workers' houses on the west side of Main Street in Hahntown, and three houses for its mine managers on Adams Hill, above the mine.
In 1910, the United Mine Workers campaigned to organize the Irwin gas coal basin mines. The union sought an eight-hour day and a wage scale in Westmoreland County comparable to the one in the Pittsburgh coal district.
Along with Westmoreland Coal and the Keystone Coal & Coke Co., Penn Gas Coal strongly resisted the union's efforts. When the workers struck, the coal companies fired them and evicted their families from the company houses. Tent communities were established by striking miners and their families at Irwin and Hahntown; soup lines became common.
The Penn Gas Coal Co. constructed about 30 two-story wood-frame houses on Adams Hill, near the mine and away from Hahntown, where it housed replacement workers from southern and Eastern Europe. The company recruited the "strikebreakers" with the promise of a job and housing for their families, and it paid their passage to America.
Most of the houses on Adams Hill were built during that time period. Striking miners at Irwin and Hahntown referred to the new community as "Scab Hill" because of the replacement workers who lived there.
Coal and iron police were brought in by the coal companies to protect their interests.
The strike lasted from April 1910 through July 1911, but the Penn Gas Coal Co. was able to maintain coal production at a reduced level. The strike finally ended in victory for the company; some miners returned to work while others, blacklisted by the company, sought work elsewhere.
One of the Adams Hill miners was Marko Javor, who emigrated from Croatia with his wife, Catherine Svetic Javor, in 1910. They raised eight children in Penn Gas Coal's Co. House No. 48.
Their youngest son, retired Irwin merchant Mike Javor, recently toured the neighborhood where he grew up. He pointed out the red-brick blacksmith shop and lamp house, still standing near the bottom of Adams Hill, as well as the houses that were originally built for the mine managers and the spring where the residents obtained their drinking water.
Mike's brother John "Yow" Javor operated the cage that was used to transport the miners into and out of the mine, as well as bring the coal up the shaft. Another brother, Steve "Jazzie" Javor, worked at the mine tipple. His sister, Mary, the oldest of the eight children, was the last of the Javors to live in the family's house on Adams Hill.
Mike Javor said there was a bath house near the blacksmith shop.
"Many of the men, including my dad, would bathe there after a 10-hour day in the mine, leaving their coal dust-covered work clothes in a basket hung up by a hook for use the next day," he said. "There was no running water in the company houses on Adams Hill in those days. Sometimes my dad would sneak me in to get a shower."
By the time the Adams Mine closed in 1953, all the company houses had been sold to the residents.
Javor remembers when his father purchased their house from Westmoreland Coal Co. (which had bought the Penn Gas Coal Co.).
"My dad paid $575 for our four-room house," he said. "They wanted $600 but agreed to deduct $25 because the wall behind the house needed repairs."
Driving along streets named Entry, Slate, Mineral, Carbon and Mineview, it was readily apparent that this was a mining town.
Javor's neighbor, Theresa Waszczak, was born on Adams Hill 83 years ago and continues to live there on Carbon Street. Her father, John Yurisinec, who emigrated from Austria-Hungary, worked as a coal loader at Adams Mine for 32 years. He died of black lung in 1948 at the age of 63 after collecting only one month's pension.
Waszczak reminisced about growing up on Adams Hill.
"Every two houses shared an outhouse, as well as a cistern for water to wash clothes and, later, a pump for drinking water," she recalled. "Before we got the pump, we had to carry all our drinking water up the hill from a spring below."
Waszczak's friend, 87-year-old Betty Kostic, has lived on Adams Hill since she was a child. Her father, John Bucan, worked in the mines all his life; her husband, John Kostic, also worked in Adams Mine. Betty Kostic described what life was like back then.
"When the men got laid off, they went from one mine to another," she said. "I remember my dad bringing home a $3 pay. We had to pick our own coal, climbing up on the coal cars to get the good lumps of coal. I used to pull a wagon full of coal or push a wheelbarrow. It was hard living, but we survived."
As Kostic rattled off the names of her old friends and neighbors on Adams Hill, it became clear that a strong sense of pride and unity still exists in the little community that was developed to provide housing for replacement miners.
"Everybody knew everybody; everybody helped everybody," Kostic remembered.
Kostic spoke with lasting gratitude about the man who owned the neighborhood grocery store.
"Pete Perretto ran the store at the bottom of the hill across from the Korner Tavern," she said. "If it wasn't for Pete giving us credit, I don't know how we would have survived. God rest his soul, that Pete was one hell of a good friend to us poor people. He gave us credit when we needed it. He would give us a bag of penny candy every time we paid a little bit on our bill. He also had a beer garden on the other side of the building. The streetcar went right past the place and, when it did, the whole building would shake.
"When the coal company was selling these houses, Pete lent us the money to buy ours," Kostic said. "We were lucky to get it for $575. These houses may not be much, but they're still here after all these years. We thought we were big shots -- buying our own houses. Before that, you always had to pay rent to the company."
Waszczak said, "People came here from Italy, Serbia, Croatia, Slovakia, Russia, Austria-Hungary and Poland. It was a real melting pot of men who were desperate for work; they did what they had to do to feed their families. Large families were common in those days; the Fomich family had 14 children, the Esaskys had 11 and the Doboskys had nine.
"People on this hill made something of themselves and they never asked for any recognition," Waszczak said. "Many of those children became professional people. Dr. Norman Venzon (a well-known and respected Penn Township family physician) was raised on Adams Hill. Others became teachers, police officers and business owners."
Now the Norwin School District plans to build a new elementary school on Adams Hill on land adjacent to the Norwin High School campus. One of the potential names considered by school board members for the new school is "Adams Hill."
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