A coal miner's lost grave

Fry Hill Cemetery at Lucas dates from the late 1870s, developed on land owned by the White Breast Fuel & Mining Co. on the highest point north of its new town of Cleveland (commenced in 1876)  overlooking the village, the mines and the White Breast Creek valley to the south beyond. 

The cemetery takes its name from Shadrack Hill, 24, a coal miner who came to the United States from England with his family during 1861 and died in Cleveland of a "lung complaint" on Nov. 30, 1880. His grave is marked.

Others had been buried there before, however, including Thomas Gray, another Englishman, who died in the mines on May 21, 1880. His death was reported in a brief item datelined "Cleveland" and published in The Chariton Patriot of May 26:

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CLEVELAND --- A sad accident happened in the mines at this place on Friday last. Thos. Gray, a miner, was killed by a fall of roof slate. Not having come home from work at the usual time, Mr. James Birchell, whom he boarded with, went into the mines to seek him, and on coming near the place where the deceased work, and seeing his dinner pail and going a little farther and seeing the fallen roof, the tale was soon told. He was quite dead when found.

It is quite evident he had fired his shots or blasts, the detached coal having knocked some props out. He resorted to a foolish practice among some miners, of going to see what work the blasts had done, and in so doing lost his life. The coroner's jury pronounced a verdict of accidental death.

Deceased had no relatives of any kind whatever in this country, but the esteem in which he was held by the community was manifestly shown by the large concourse of people attending his burial, which took place within the twenty-four in which he was killed. A word of commendation should be given the managers of the mine for the part they took in this sad affair. We understand the bore the greater part of the burial expenses.

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The mortality schedule attached to the 1880 federal census states that Thomas was 40, single and had been born in England, but there seems to be no further record of him.

It's unlikely that Thomas was the first to die in the Cleveland mines and he certainly was not the last. Others rest in many graves, marked and unmarked, at Fry Hill. We know nothing about Mr. Gray other than the fact he was here and still his --- somewhere in that big hilltop cemetery with wonderful views that has long outlived the White Breast mines and the mining town it was established to serve.