3. Robert Legg Looks for a Better Life

Copy of a copy of a portrait of Robert Legg,
taken from Gilbert & Lodine, 1992.

Robert Legg was born to the aforementioned Jack Legg and Jane Swinburne Legg on March 15, 1847 in Tynemouth, Northumberland, England. He was the seventh of nine children born to the celebrated pugilist and his wife Jane Swinburne Legg.

Robert's early life was spent in a series of small coal-mining communities, as his father moved the family from colliery to colliery, searching for better conditions. It was not uncommon for nuclear families to move around, and few of them owned property. 

During Robert Legg's lifetime, working conditions were poor and boys started working in the mines as early as age 10.  We know that Robert Legg was working in the mines as a driver by the age of 14 (1861 Census). He may have begun work there as young as eight years old. Explosions due to coal dust were common. In the early part of the 19^th Century, it was not unusual for a miner to be bonded – to be tied to a particular mine and not allowed to quit there for a specific period of time. Many of the region's mining family moved from town to town, following work. By today's standards, it was a life of relentless toil, grinding poverty and misery.

Thomas Legg, Robert's older brother, was also working in the coal mines from a young age. Thomas was just two years older than Robert, and the two of them would share a Klondike adventure in the United States.¹ That adventure was many years away on January 16, 1862. Thomas Legg was just shy of 17 years old and employed at the New Hartley mine workings.

New Hartley was the name of the community that had grown up around the Hester Pit, the "New" differentiating it from the nearby town of Hartley, which grew up around the original Hartley Pit. The Hester Pit, sunk in 1846, was meant to replace the old Hartley Pit, abandoned in 1844 due to flooding. 

The Hester Pit was constructed around one central shaft. Use of only one shaft made the circulation of air more difficult, since the ideal configuration used at least one shaft for air intake and another for exhaust. The drawbacks of a single-shaft system had already been pointed out by the Shields Committee, a group assigned the task of finding the cause of the 1839 South Shields mine disaster (Wikipedia).

Instead of sinking a second shaft at a cost of 900 pounds, the mining company chose to construct a wooden partition that divided the Hester Pit shaft into two, creating an artificial separation intended to provide the air circulation allowed by multiple shafts. It's worth noting that the Shields Committee condemned the use of a wooden partition like this one, noting that it would quickly burn in an emergency, leaving the coal miners to suffocate in the flames below.

In 1852, water from the old Hartley Pit began to flood the Hester Pit workings to a depth of 48 feet, or 15 meters, requiring the installation of pumps powered by a steam engine. A cast iron beam at the top of the shaft supported the steam engine that powered the pumps. On Thursday, January 16, at about 10:30 AM, this cast iron beam broke. The beam's two halves hurtled down the shaft, taking out much of the wooden partition intended to create ventilation shafts. At the same time, eight pit-man were making their way up the shaft in "the cage," a rudimentary elevator that took men from the surface of the earth into the bowels of the mine workings. As it fell, the cast iron beam also broke two of the four chains supporting the cage. Four of the eight men ascending were knocked into the pit below, while the remaining four clung on for their lives. Meanwhile, deeper in the shaft, the beam and wooden debris created a blockage 30 yards (or 27 meters) deep. 

Rescue efforts began almost immediately, but got off to a rocky start. The first man rescued, George Sharp, Senior, had been on his way up in the cage when the beam failed. Sharpe was sent up in a rope sling, but got hung up on some of the overhanging timbers, slipped from the sling, and fell to his death. The other men from the cage were rescued without incident. They were the last living miners to emerge from the Hartley Pit. 

Because the pumps were no longer operating, the water level in the mine workings began to rise. Rescuers assumed that miners in the lowest levels of the mine would make their way upward to escape the inundation. They cleared debris from the main shaft until 9:00 AM on Friday morning, and then began to "timber up" the sides of the shaft so as to stabilize it, which took until Saturday night. Their goal was an upper seam called the yard seam, where they thought they could hear the sound of men. Excavation towards the yard seam began on Sunday morning and continued until Tuesday afternoon. When they finally broke through the rock barrier, workers were overcome by noxious fumes and an entire work party needed rescue.

By this time, more than 5 days had passed since the initial disaster. Work came to a halt and more precious time ticked by while a cloth partition was improvised to provide rudimentary ventilation. Two pitmen volunteered to venture into the mine, and were able to reach the yard seam, where they encountered dead men. Noxious gases continued to hamper entry into the mine, but other men ventured into the mine and verified that all below were dead. The last entry in the "back overman's" (the most senior miner on site) notebook sited a prayer meeting at 1:45 PM on Friday, January 17, but nothing after that.

Recovery of bodies began on Saturday, January 24, more than a week after the disaster. Bodies were placed in coffins as they were removed from the pit, and the coffins were sent on to the occupant's home, if known. Tom Legg was among those who carried those 215 coffins from the mine workings to the decedent's home. Tom was employed at the New Hartley at that time; his obituary refers to his escape from death on that date. Tom would go on to marry the widow of Winship Jacques, another coal miner lost to the New Hartley pit. Elizabeth Wanless Jacques lost not only a husband but three brothers on the day of the disaster. Few families in New Hartley were spared a loss.

Although Robert Legg was not employed at the New Hartley at this time, his brother's close brush with death must have impacted him, if only by reminding him of the uncertainty and mortality of his current occupation. This life of hardship and constant danger molded Robert Legg into someone who wanted more than his father had. He wanted property and a permanent home for his family, as well as the improved conditions that local unions had begun fighting for. 

Robert Legg was 22 years old when he left his home and set out for the United States. There were a number of reasons why Legg might have immigrated when he did. The United States was viewed, in this era, as a land of opportunity where it was easy to accumulate property, particularly in the time of Westward Expansion. 

An additional motivation is offered in a story passed down through the Legg family, which I heard from Terry Legg. The Legg family were landless commoners, and were subsequently limited in where they could hunt for food. Robert Legg was caught flaunting this law, hunting for deer on the land of nobility. As the story goes, Legg was caught with his kill. His response to being confronted was to strike the noble, who did not take kindly to being struck. Robert Legg fled England in fear of retribution from this nobleman.

It is possible that the story is true. It is also possible that Legg had already planned to travel to the United States and find work through family members. Robert Legg's sister, Elizabeth Legg Bradwell, immigrated to the United States with her husband in the mid-1860s; the couple's son Charles was born there in 1866. Sometime between 1863 and 1867, an uncle named William Laws moved to Pennsylvania, accompanied by several of his adult sons. 

It's also possible that Tom Legg had contacts in the United States who Robert planned to exploit. According to his obituary, Tom was in Ohio on a protracted stay that included a stint in the Union Army. ²

No matter what the inspiration for his immigration was, the end result was the same. On April 21, 1869, the steamship Manhattan arrived in New York’s harbor, having set sail from Liverpool, England about ten days earlier. On board were more than a thousand passengers from Great Britain and Sweden, most seeking a new life in the United States. Among them was Robert Legg.

---

1 "Seaton Delaval Man's Many Adventures." Blythe New Thursday, January 1938.^↩
2  I've seen it written elsewhere that Thomas Legg served in the 13th Ohio Cavalry.  There was a Thomas C. Legg who served in the 13th Ohio Cavalry; however, this same Thomas C. shows up in 1911 living in a disabled veteran's home at a time when "our" Thomas Legg was back in England.