Descendants of Domenico Baroni

Second Generation

Family of Domenico BARONI (1) & Angela LEONI

2. Egidio Francesco BARONI. Born in 1883 in Tenno, Trentino, Austria. Immigrated abt 1900 to Jerome, Pennsylvania. Egidio Francesco died in 1957 in Lincoln Park Michigan. Buried in Holy Sepulture Cemetary, Birmingham Mich. Occupation: Coal Miner.

World History: Bituminous coal is mined in 21 Pennsylvania counties: Greene, Somerset, Armstrong, Indiana, Clearfield, Washington, Cambria, Jefferson, Westmoreland, Clarion, Elk, Fayette, Lycoming, Butler, Lawrence, Centre, Beaver, Blair, Allegheny, Venango and Mercer (ranked in order of production).

Some 10 billion tons of bituminous coal have been produced in Pennsylvania during over 200 years of mining, or nearly one fourth of all coal ever mined in the United States.

Geologic history in Pennsylvania resulted in nearly flat layers of bituminous coal deposits in Western Pennsylvania. In between the veins of coal are layers of sandstone, shale and limestone. These non-coal layers are called overburden.

About 40 different beds (layers) of coal are mined in Pennsylvania, they range from a few inches to over eight feet thick. About 75 percent of Pennsylvania's coal is mined from five different beds: the Pittsburgh, the Upper and Lower Freeport and the Upper and Lower Kittanning.

Bituminous coal mining reached its peak in Pennsylvania in 1918 when 181,000 underground miners produced 177.2 million tons of coal. That same year also marked the historic high for coal production from any state when the combined anthracite and bituminous output exceeded 276 million tons. In 1918 more than 330,000 Pennsylvanians were employed by the coal industry.

Between 1877 and 1995 there have been 20,370 fatal accidents in bituminous coal mines, from a high of 806 in 1907 to two fatalities in 1988, 1989, 1991 and 1992.

Modern mining methods, safety training and inspections in the mining industry have dramatically improved the safety record on the industry to the point where it is about equal to agriculture and the construction industry.

Generally, Pennsylvania's bituminous coals are somewhat higher in sulfur content that coal mined in Wyoming or other western states which means tighter clean air requirements in recent years have tended to limit some markets for Pennsylvania coal. On the other hand, Wyoming coal is lower in heat value and higher in moisture which means more coal has to be burned to obtain the same heat value.

There are three types of mining technics used to mine coal: drift, slope and shaft mines. Drift mines have horizontal entries into the coal seam from a hillside. Slope mines, which usually are not very deep, are inclined from the surface to the coal seam. Shaft mines, generally the deepest mines, have vertical access to the coal seam via elevators that carry workers and equipment into the mine. Mining in western Pennsylvania in the early 1900s consisted mostly of drift mines with an occasional slope mine. Few shaft mines were used. Almost all underground mines are less than 1,000 feet deep, but some mines reach depths of about 2,000 feet.

THE LIFE OF A COAL MINER
THE SLOW PROGRESS OF THE BOY WHO STARTS IN A
BREAKER, AND ENDS, AN OLD MAN IN THE BREAKER
-AS TOLD BY A MAN WHO WAS ONCE A MINER
BY REV. JOHN McDOWELL
from The World's Work 4(October 1902): 2659-60

"I'm twelve years old, goin' on thirteen," said the boy to the boss of the breaker. He didn't look more than ten, and he was only nine, but the law said he must be twelve to get a job. He was one of a multitude of the16,000 youngsters of the mines, who, because miners' families are large and their pay comparatively small, start in the breaker before many boys have passed their primary schooling. From the time he enters the breaker there is a rule of progress that is almost always followed. Once a miner and twice a breaker boy, the upward growth of boy to man, breaker boy to miner, the descent from manhood to old age, from miner to breaker boy: that is the rule. So the nine-year old boy who is "twelve, goin' on thirteen," starts in the breaker. He gets from fifty to seventy cents for ten hours' work. He rises at 5:30 o'clock in the morning, puts on his working clothes, always soaked with dust, eats his breakfast, and by seven o'clock he has climbed the dark and dusty stairway to the screen room where he works. He sits on a hard bench built across a long chute through which passes a steady stream of broken coal. From the coal he must pick the pieces of slate or rock.

It is not a hard life but it is confining and irksome. Sitting on his uncomfortable seat, bending constantly over the passing stream of coal, his hands soon become cut and scarred by the sharp pieces of slate and coal, while his finger nails are soon worn to the quick from contact with the iron chute. The air he breathes is saturated with the coal dust, and as a rule the breaker is fiercely hot in summer and intensely cold in winter. In many of the modern breakers, to be sure, steam heating pipes have been introduced into the screen rooms, and fans have been placed in some breakers to carry away the dust. But however favorable the conditions, the boy's life is a hard one. Yet it is a consistent introduction to what is to follow.

The ambition of every breaker boy is to enter the mines, and at the first opportunity he begins there as a door boy,-never over fourteen years of age and often under. The work of the door boy is not so laborious as that in the breaker, but is more monotonous. He must be on hand when the first trip of cars enter in the morning and remain until the last comes out at night. His duty is to open and shut the door as men and cars pass through the door, which controls and regulates the ventilation of the mine. He is alone in the darkness and silence all day, save when other men and boys pass through his door. Not many of these boys care to read, and if they did it would be impossible in the dim light of their small lamp. Whittling and whistling are the boy's chief recreations. The door boy's wages vary from sixty five to seventy five cents a day, and from this he provides his own lamp, cotton and oil.

Just as the breaker boy wants to be a door-boy, the door boy wants to be a driver. When the mules are kept in the mines, as they usually are, the driver boy must go down the shaft in time to clean and harness his mule, bring him to the foot of the shaft and hitch him to a trip of empty cars before seven o'clock. This trip of cars varies from four to seven according to the number of miners. The driver takes the empty cars to the working places and returns them loaded to the foot of the shaft. They are then hoisted to the surface and conveyed to the breaker where the coal is cracked, sorted and cleaned and made ready for the market. There are today ten thousand drivers in the anthracite coal mines. These boys are in constant danger, not only of falling roof and exploding gas, but of being crushed by the cars. Their pay varies from $1.10 to $1.25, from which sum they supply their own lamps, cotton and oil.

When the driver reaches the age of twenty he becomes either a runner or a laborer in the mines, more frequently the latter. The runner is a conductor who collects the loaded cars and directs the driver. The laborer is employed by the miner, subject to the approval of the superintendent, to load the cars with the coal which has been blasted by the miner. As a rule he is paid so much per car, and a definite number of cars constitute a day's work-the number varying in different mines-averaging from five to seven, equaling from twelve to fifteen tons of coal. The laborer's work is often made difficult by the water and rock which are found' in large quantities in coal veins.

There are 24,000 laborers in the anthracite mines of Pennsylvania, each one of whom is looking forward to becoming a miner in the technical sense of the word-that is, the employer of a laborer. To do this a laborer must have had two years' experience in practical mining and be able to pass an examination before the district board. If he passes he becomes a contractor as well as a 1abor. He enters into a contract with the company to do a certain work at so much per car or; yard. He blasts all the coal, and this involves judgment in locating the hole, skill in boring it, and care in preparing and determining the size of the shot. The number of blasts per day ranges from four to twelve, according to the size and character of the vein. He is responsible for the propping necessary to sustain the roof. According to the law of the State of Pennsylvania, the company operating the mine is obliged to furnish the miner the needed props, but the miner must place them at such places as the mine boss designates Most of the boring is now done with hand machines. The miner furnishes his own tools. and supplies. His powder, squibs, paper, soap and oil he is compelled to buy from the company which employs him. His equipment includes the following tools-a hand machine for drilling, drill, scraper, needle, blasting barrel, crowbar, pick, shovel, hammer, sledge; cartridge pin, oil can, toolbox and lamp. As a rule he rises at five A.M.; he enters the mine shortly after six. In some cases he is obliged to walk a mile or more underground to reach his place of work. He spends from eight to ten hours in the mine. Taking three hundred days as the possible working time in a year, the anthracite miner's daily pay for the past twenty years will not average over $1.60 a day, and that of the laborer not over $1.35.

His dangers are many. He may be crushed to death at any time by the falling roof. burned to death by the exploding of gas, or blown to pieces by a premature blast. So dangerous is his work that he is debarred from all ordinary life insurance. In no part of the country will you find so many crippled boys and broken down men. During the last thirty years over 10,000 men and boys have been killed and 25,000 have been injured in this industry. Not many old men are found in the mines. The average age of those killed is 32.13.

It is an endless routine of dull plodding world from nine years until death-a sort of voluntary life imprisonment. Few escape. Once they begin, they continue to live out their commonplace, low leveled existence, ignoring their daily danger, knowing nothing better."

abt 1911 Egidio Francesco married Eugenia Teresa BARONI, daughter of Luigi Bortolo BARONI (1853-) & Emilia MICHELINI (1861-1905), in Tenno, Trentino, Austria. Born on 5 Feb 1893 in Tenno, Trentino, Austria. Immigrated abt 1914 to Jerome, Pennsylvania. Eugenia Teresa died in Aug 1974 in Lincoln Park Michigan. Buried in Holy Sepulture Cemetary, Birmingham Mich.

They had the following children:

3	i.	Egea (1913-1985)
4	ii.	(Private)
5	iii.	(Private)
6	iv.	(Private)
	v.	Evelyn. Born on 21 May 1926 in Loretto, Pennsylvania. Evelyn died in San Francisco, California on 31 Jan 1990; she was 63. Buried in Acacia Memorial Park, Southfield Michigan. Evelyn married George HOLTHAUS. Born in California. George died abt 1993 in California.
	vi.	(Private)

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