By 1880 coal ranked among Boone County's most important industries, and the county history published that year printed the mine inspector's reports in full so they would be preserved. Those reports, along with early letters, a state geologist's account and short biographies of mine owners, name the companies, the camps and many of the men who worked underground at Moingona, Coal Valley, Zenorsville, Milford, Ontario and the smaller shafts scattered along the Des Moines River.
Written from The History of Boone County, Iowa (1880). Everything below comes from that book, and where it gives an opinion, we say so. You can read the full book free on the Internet Archive.
Early Finds Along the River and Honey Creek
The 1880 history says that in the early days most of the coal mined in this region came from the bed of the Des Moines River, where the current had laid the seams bare.
One of the best early descriptions comes from A. B. Holcomb, a Connecticut man who came to Boonesboro in 1855 and dealt chiefly in real estate. In a letter dated June 30, 1856, he described the coal on a 140 acre tract: a stratum from three to six feet thick lying on potter's clay above blue limestone. Local blacksmiths were already working coal from these beds and, he wrote, called it equal to the best Ohio coal.
Holcomb thought the Central Railroad's best crossing of the Des Moines ran down Honey Creek and predicted the coal beds would one day be worth $50,000. Stoneware makers in town had already made about 15,000 fire-proof bricks from the clay vein beneath the coal. The county historians called his letters prophecies written almost a decade before the railroad came.
Moingona, Boonesboro and the Railroad Companies
Prof. C. A. White's Geology of Iowa, published in 1870 and quoted at length in the county history, reported that coal had been worked extensively near Boonesboro and Moingona, on the line of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, by two companies organized for the purpose. Every mine then open sat in the valley sides of the Des Moines River or Honey Creek. White described two beds: the principal one, the lowest, about four feet thick, and an upper bed of two and a half to three feet. The inspector's later reports speak of the "lower vein" and the "upper vein."
The book's state chapter says that only in the last few years had the Moingona mines furnished the large supplies shipped along the Chicago and Northwestern. The county chapter claimed Boone coal was becoming the favorite of Iowa coals and had become a successful rival to Oskaloosa coal, long thought the best in the state. The State Geologist's analysis of a sample from the Northwestern Coal Company's mine at Moingona found 13.23 parts moisture, 37.52 volatile combustible matter, 43.69 fixed carbon and 5.56 ash.
William McCall Sr. entered the land where Moingona stands in 1853 and sold it in 1863 for $25 an acre. Phil Livingston came to Moingona in 1867 to take charge of the railroad station and later served as its postmaster.
“…most of the coal mined in this region was taken from the bed of the river where the seams were laid bare…”
The Mines in the 1879 Inspector's Report
Under a state act approved March 18, 1874, Boone County had an inspector of coal mines, and E. D. Roberts filed his first annual report with the Board of Supervisors on January 1, 1879. The Moingona Coal Company had worked 350 men the previous year and now worked 65 to 70. Its Shaft No. 5, 115 feet deep, employed 60 men, 7 boys and three mules in a three-foot upper vein worked on the long wall plan.
At Coal Valley, the Northwestern Coal Company ran a 130 foot shaft with 40 men and 10 boys, and Roberts singled out its agent, M. D. Morgan, for credit. The Boone and Marshall Coal Company worked 36 men in a 90 foot shaft hoisted by a two-horse gin. The Lower Vein Coal Company's shaft went down 248 feet, employed 83 men and 8 boys, and had what Roberts called the best hoisting machinery in the county. Logan & Canfield's mine, 243 feet deep with 70 men, 12 boys and 8 mules, was in his words the oldest mine in the county.
Smaller outfits filled out the list. Rogers and Crow worked twenty men in a 58 foot shaft at Milford on Robert Cline's land, and their shaft and outbuildings burned about the first of December 1878, on a Sunday morning with no men at work. On Squaw Creek in Jackson Township, J. Clemens, the Hutchinson brothers and Joseph York worked shafts and slopes in coal about four feet thick. Roberts counted boys separately, all over ten and under sixteen, worth knowing when a census calls a young son a miner.
Nineteen Mines by 1880
Roberts's second report, dated January 1, 1880, counted nineteen coal mines employing 575 men, 100 of them Black (the report uses the period term "colored"), plus 30 boys. The Lower Vein Coal Company worked 75 men, 70 of them Black, and Logan & Canfield, now under new ownership, worked 50, of whom 30 were Black. Roberts mentioned a strike the previous summer, and after the Boone and Marshall Coal Company ignored his order to sink a second shaft, he served an injunction; Judge McKenzie gave the company four more months.
New names appear across the county. A. McKenna and P. Brinn sank a 114 foot shaft on George Western's land, about three-fourths of a mile west of the Clemens mine, and struck 4 feet 2 inches of excellent coal, though water slowed them. The Boone Lower Vein Coal Company, in the southwest corner of the county and owned by Duncombe & Richards of Fort Dodge, could hoist about 225 tons a day and had a railroad switch about three-fourths of a mile long to the Des Moines and Fort Dodge road.
In Pilot Mound Township, Thomas Lynch's 65 foot shaft was in Roberts's view the worst in the county. Thomas Teighe lost his life there the previous July, and Lynch sold out to Wm. Zunkle. Eli Myers ran a slope in the same township. Wilson and Speer, and Dallas Smith at Green's Mills, worked in Dodge Township; James Buckley had a shaft three-fourths of a mile above Centerville; David Bardwell drove a drift into the bluff in Yell Township; and Conoway's Diamond mine operated in Des Moines Township.
“…have in fact the best hoisting machinery in the county. This company work 83 men and 8 boys…”
Accidents Underground
On Thursday, September 12, 1874, four men stepped into the cage at Logan & Canfield's mine when the wire rope broke, dropping them two hundred and forty feet to the bottom of the shaft. Tolbert Dale, a carpenter, died at once. Miner Thomas Brinn died the same day. Miner David Parks survived a broken leg and dislocated shoulder, and the foreman, Ed. Roberts, escaped at the ground landing. In August 1876, William Mort and Peter Rice were killed by the damp in a coal shaft at Ontario, in the east part of the county.
The 1879 report lists injuries by name: Wm. Clinepeter broke an arm at the Lower Vein Coal Company on February 11; Geo. Miller broke a leg there on September 20 from falling coal; a Mr. Mooney broke his leg on December 17 under a fall of top rock; and Stephen Hill fractured his ankle at Logan and Canfield on October 3. In 1880 Roberts reported that on September 22, 1879, a Black miner died at the Lower Vein mine because no man was stationed at the shaft bottom to give hoisting signals, and he pointed readers to the coroner's inquest.
Where Boone County's Miners Came From
Thomas Thomas, born in South Wales on July 18, 1825, quarried stone in Canada and mined coal at Pittsburgh, moved to Illinois in 1867, and after about nine months came to Moingona to mine. Two years later he opened a butcher shop, and after seven years a restaurant. John Clemens, born in Ireland on November 1, 1826, landed in New York in 1850, mined gold in California, and came to the county in 1867. His mine on Section 12, opened in 1873, worked a four-foot vein forty feet down with forty men and about seven thousand tons a year.
James Hutchison, born in Scotland on September 30, 1829, went with his parents to Nova Scotia in 1832 and to Pennsylvania in 1837, where at sixteen he took a job breaking coal with a hammer. His partner John Hutchison, born in Pennsylvania on April 1, 1838, came to the county in May 1872. John Pritchard, born in England on July 19, 1849, began coal mining at fourteen, came to the county in the fall of 1867, and in 1879 moved to Yell Township as a partner in Pritchard & Laport. That mine, first opened by Eli Myers in the fall of 1876, employed sixteen hands and produced about 7,000 tons a year.
For researchers, the book points to records worth chasing: the inspector's annual reports to the Board of Supervisors, coroner's inquests for mine deaths, district court actions against operators, and the Zenorsville and Ogden post office addresses given in mine owners' biographies. Spellings vary: the inspector wrote Hutchinson and Clemmen where the biographies print Hutchison and Clemens.
People from this history in our records
These Boone County residents have biographies on our site from the county histories, and each one mentions the mines. Their sketches name parents, spouses, and where the family came from.
- Fred Johnson (b. 1840)
- Andrew G. Anderson (b. 1867)
- Ira D. Johnson (b. 1870)
- John M. Anderson (b. 1866)
- Leonard E. Johnson (b. 1864)
Finding your ancestor in Boone County
- Census records (free through 1950) list each person's occupation and town, so a mining family shows up decade by decade.
- Death records: search our Iowa database by surname.
- The county histories themselves: the biographical sections of The History of Boone County, Iowa hold hundreds of family sketches.
- Newspapers on the Library of Congress's Chronicling America carried obituaries, accidents, and local news.
Tell us one grandparent's name. We'll take a free first look at the records and email you back.
Ask about my family →Frequently asked questions
Where were the coal mines in Boone County, Iowa, by 1880?
The 1879 and 1880 inspector reports place mines at Moingona, Coal Valley, Milford and on Squaw Creek near Zenorsville in Jackson Township, plus shafts and slopes in Pilot Mound, Dodge, Yell and Des Moines townships. The Boone Lower Vein Coal Company worked in the southwest corner of the county, and an 1876 accident took place at Ontario in the east.
How many people worked in Boone County coal mines in 1880?
Inspector E. D. Roberts's report dated January 1, 1880, counted nineteen coal mines employing 575 men, 100 of whom were Black, plus 30 boys over ten and under sixteen. A year earlier he noted the Moingona Coal Company had fallen from 350 men to 65 to 70.
Did children work in the Boone County mines?
Yes. The 1879 report counts boys over ten and under sixteen at several mines: 7 at Moingona's Shaft No. 5, 10 at Coal Valley, 8 at the Lower Vein Coal Company and 12 at Logan & Canfield. The 1880 report counted 30 boys across the county.
What happened in the 1874 Logan & Canfield mine accident?
On September 12, 1874, the wire rope broke as four men entered the cage, dropping them 240 feet. Carpenter Tolbert Dale died immediately and miner Thomas Brinn died the same day. Miner David Parks recovered from a broken leg and dislocated shoulder, and foreman Ed. Roberts escaped at the ground landing.
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