Avondale Mine Disaster

Composer: Unknown
Lyricist: Unknown
Written: 1869-1870

Good Christians all, both great and small,
I pray you lend an ear,
And listen with attention while
the truth I will declare.
When you hear this lamentation,
it will cause you to week and to wail,
about the suffocation
in the mines of Avondale

On the 6th day of September,
in Eighteen Sixty-Nine
those miners all then got a call
to go work in the mines.
But little did they think that day
that Death would soon prevail,
before they would return again
from the mines in Avondale.

The women and their children
Their hearts were filled with joy
to see their men go to their work,
and the likewise every boy.
but a dreadful sight in broad daylight
soon made them all turn pale
when they saw the breaker burning
o'er the mines in Avondale

From here and there and everywhere
they gathered in a crowd.
Some tearing out their clothes and hair,
and shouting right out loud:
"Get out our husbands and our sons
or Death he's going to steal
their lives away without delay
in the mines of Avondale!"

But oh, alas! There was no way
one single soul to save.
For there is no second outlet
from that sub-terranian cave.
No tongue can tell the awful fright
and horror that prevailed
among those dying victims
in the mines of Avondale.

A consultation then was held,
they asked for volunteers
to go down in that dismal shaft
and seek their comerades dear.
Two Welshmen brave, without dismay
and courage without fail
went down that shaft without delay
to the mines of Avondale.

When at the bottom they had reached
and thought to make their way
one of them died from want of air
and the other, without delay,
he gave the sign to hoist them up,
where he told the dreadful tale
that all were lost forever
in the mines of Avondale

The next two men that they sent down
they took of them good care,
and every effort then was made
to send down some good air.
They traversed every chamber
and this time did not fail
to find those miners bodies
in the mines of Avondale.

Sixty-seven was the number
that in a heap were found.
It seemed they were bewailin'
their fate beneath the ground.
They found the father with his son
clasped in his arms so pale.
It was a heart-rending scene
in the mines of Avondale.

Now to conclude and make an end,
their number I'll pen down.
One-Hundred and ten, of brave, strong men
were smothered underground
They are in their graves 'til the last day
And their widows may well bewail,
And the orphans' cried still rend the skies
All around o'er Avondale.