The Scranton Connection~ "Anthracite"



City Hall Rotunda

As you make the climb up the interior stairs of City Hall and onward into the octagonal shaped rotunda adorned with golden plaster carvings of civil war troops and accent flowers, surrounded by hand carved wooden frames depicting marble panels filled with inscriptions from wars past, you notice a rectangular black granite base about three feet tall supporting what appears to be a jet black stone trapped inside a glass square protective box in the center of the room. This base and stone sit just outside the Mayor's office as a reminder to the city what happened many years ago. What is this stone and where did it come from?

       As many of you may know, on March 10, 1941 my city fire department lost thirteen men to structural collapse while operating during the overhaul phase of a fire in a local theater (a story to be better touched on more in-depth at a later time). This news in 1941 would travel throughout the United States shaking the core of the fire service. At the time the amount of firefighters lost at this incident was catastrophic to say the least. As the news reached down the east coast and onto the central part of the country firefighters from Scranton Pennsylvania took notice.       
       
       The Coal region or Pennsylvania Anthracite region is home to the largest known deposits of anthracite coal found in the Americas. There is a reserve of seven billion short tons of Anthracite believed to be within the valleys. It is these deposits that provide the region with its nickname. The discovery of anthracite coal was first made by a hunter in Schuylkill County 1791. It would only be 16 years after that the North Field saw its first mine. The Region lies north of the Lehigh Valley and Berks County Regions, south of the Endless Mountains, west of the Pocono Mountains, and east of the region known in Pennsylvania as the Susquehanna Valley. The Wyoming Valley is the most densely populated of these valleys, and contains the cities of Wilkes-Barre and Scranton. According to Erin L. Nissley an assistant metro editor at The Times-Tribune.com "What most people saw simply as fuel to heat their homes, C. Edgar Patience saw as fuel for his imagination. The Wilkes-Barre man coaxed art out of chunks of anthracite coal, from small trinkets to a 4,000-pound altar for the chapel at King's College. A 3½-ton piece of coal Mr. Patience polished and sculpted was displayed at the Smithsonian, and a 5½-foot-tall, 1-ton monolith he made was displayed at the William Penn Memorial Museum in Harrisburg. Scranton's Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum owns two busts he carved - one of George Washington and another of Abraham Lincoln. The Lincoln bust has been selected as one of the state's top 10 endangered artifacts by the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts." To date I have not been able to pin down exactly who carved the Anthracite in our rotunda but this guy makes perfect sense to me.


        The Anthracite is about twelve inches square and about four inches deep, a striking stone with its own base. The front of the stone had been polished to a high sheen prior to its carving out to create a negative image on its front. You can easily read the names of the thirteen men lost on the Strand Theatre fire as well as who the stone was dedicated to, Local 144. The base of the stone once again clearly shows in a negative image that it was donated by the members of the Scranton Local, then 669. In the center of the base is carved the firefighter scramble donning the IAFF logo. This memorial stone clearly shows the strong union stance of the forties one that truly is carried on today.

       At some point during the summer of 1941 a Brockton firefighter and his new bride had made their way to the Pocono Mountains to celebrate their nuptials. On the return ride this firefighter and his wife happened to stop in at a Scranton fire station where he would intern be given the Anthracite that had been carved in memory of the 13 lost on March 10th earlier in the year. He would wrap the carving in a shirt or towel from his luggage and place it in his trunk for the return trip. I had heard stories of this carving staying in the truck for quite some time before its unveiling but this is not something I can confirm. In the fall of 1941 members of the Scranton Fire Department made their way from Scranton Pennsylvania to Brockton for a dedication ceremony. At this ceremony these two departments would unveil the beautiful Anthracite coal carving that is still in place to this day. This was not just a ceremony for the coal, but more of a ceremony of a symbol, a symbol of people and friendships. This ceremony would build a bond not to often spoken of but one that would stand the test of time. As time would continue on, fifty years to be exact, in 1991 the members of the Scranton fire department would once again make their way up the east coast to celebrate the remembrance ceremony for the Strand theatre fire of 1941.

       After numerous attempts to raise funds over the years the members of the Brockton Fire Department decided it was time to move forward with our own memorial to our lost members. In early 2007 a committee was formed one of which I am honored to have been a part of. I was assigned 3 tasks; Logistics-parking and where the membership would place during the ceremony, contacting and organizing the massed bands, and inviting the Scranton Fire Department. The first  two tasks were simple, the emotions of contacting Scranton on the other hand would be a different story. The day my assignments came up I had coincidently read online that the Scranton Fire Department lost a member of theirs at a fire. They had been operating a tower truck when the bucket of the tower had contacted the live power lines in front of the house. I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to invite these guys to a ceremony of remembrance up here in Brockton when they had just lost one of their own, with another lying in a Scranton hospital bed. I then decided to take it up with the band. The members of my band, without hesitation, said yes we would go down and pipe any ceremony they wanted, we owed them for what they had given us over 65 years earlier. So I took a deep breath and made the call.




to be continued...