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The great mining accident of 1854

Dagbrudd i mellomgruvene, Koboltgruvene. Fotograf Gercke 1860-årene.
Published 11 Dec 2020

On 13 December 1854, at around 12 noon, the biggest mining accident occurred at the Cobalt Mines. If you've been on the children's mine tour, you'll have passed the spot where it happened, in the shaft down from the open pit just before you enter the Forhåpningsstollen. Here we take a closer look at this accident and the people involved in it.

Things must be going wrong today - Lucia Day 1854

St Lucia's Day, 13 December 1854, started in much the same way as the days before. The cobalt mines were shrouded in mist due to a sudden change in temperature, and winter darkness hung thickly over Skuterud's hills. Through the snow-heavy trees, the sound of the bell ringing for work was more muffled than usual. It was 5 o'clock in the morning and workers young and old gathered for roll call at Gruvetråkka in the winter darkness. Stiger, Ole Stenstuen, called out the workers by name and delegated tasks. The workers then approached the blacksmith to be handed out drill bits, or got out sweepers and oil lamps. The boys picked up their hammers and strolled into the shepherd's huts. The adult workers began their journey into the tunnels or climbed down the scaffolding in the opencast mines. The mine carts were rolled into the mountain to await refuelling.

For the time being, everything was as normal. The workers were probably looking forward to Sunday off and the Christmas celebrations that were just around the corner. But according to old legends, the origins of which are unknown, the day started with ominous signs that something terrible was about to happen. Miner Ole Torstensen had been followed by a fox as he trudged through the snow to the mines along the old forest roads. When he reached the mine smithy in the field, the animal made a sudden turn and disappeared. In ancient folklore, close contact with a fox is said to foretell death.[1] On the same day, the blue man is said to have appeared (a mythical ghost-like creature that warned of accidents in the mines) and birds are said to have pecked at the window in the accommodation for commuters, the sacker house. Lars Corneliussen, who had worked at the Cobalt Mines since the 1840s,[2] also experienced something out of the ordinary before work started. When he visited one of the mine buildings to find out what time it was, he hung his scratching post on the door handle. When Lars turned round to go out, he got stuck again and walked straight into the wooden floor. When he stood up, he is said to have said "I guess things are going to go wrong today".[3] Lars only wishes he knew how right he was going to be.

On 13 December 1854, something happened that wasn't supposed to happen. Just before noon that day, a terrible roar rang out through the middle of the Cobalt mines. Sounds went through the marrow and bones of the workers. The elders quickly realised, from the sound alone, what had happened. A rock face in one of the large open-cast mines had come loose. The piston logs, i.e. the logs that had been wedged crosswise to stabilise the quarry, had broken like matches when the mountainside came loose. When the dust had settled, the uncomfortable silence was broken by desperate cries for help.

Labourers flocked to help remove the masses of rock scattered across the bottom of the quarry. A battle against the clock began. According to local legends, voices were heard down in the rock piles for a while before they fell silent.[4]

We know little about the rescue work, but we do know that five men died instantly when the mountainside hit, while three men were pulled alive out of the rock masses. 1 was so injured that he died after a short time, 1 other had his leg crushed and the 8 man involved, Ole Bøenstøa, escaped without physical injury.

Scared witless - Those who were affected

According to local legend, Ole Larsen Bøenstøa hand-drilled together with Ole Torstensen, the man being pursued by the fox, on this day.[5] When workers were drilling by hand, there were usually two people working in teams, with one holding the drill and the other striking the drill with a chisel. The man holding the drill had to turn it with each blow. When the hole was deep enough, it was filled with gunpowder and blasted loose from the mountainside.

When the mountainside collapsed, Torstensen was killed instantly, but Bøenstøa, who was standing right next to him, escaped without a scratch. Bøenstøa was also caught in the rock masses, but he avoided injury, according to witnesses, because "as the stone weight where he was was placed above him towards the other side of the pit".[6] It was said that "He [Bøenstøa] was frightened out of his wits and went straight home and never came to Gruva again".[7]

However, it is difficult to confirm whether the legend of Bøenstøa is true. He probably continued to work at the Cobalt mines for some time after the accident, but several sources confirm that he was caught up in the race. What we know for sure about Bøenstøa is that he married, had two children and later emigrated to Canada. The family left Drammen on the ship Fauna on 30 April 1868 and arrived in Quebec on 3 July. Bøenstøa was then 37 years old and his occupation was listed as "Blaafarveværksarbeider".[8]

We know that everyone who died in the accident was dug out of the rubble. The local church register records that 54-year-old Lars Corneliussen Søya, 32-year-old Torger Trulsen Bergan, 53-year-old Ole Arnesen Haugerud, 22-year-old Cornelius Ellingsen Toseie, 21-year-old Ole Torstensen Sandager and 50-year-old Torsten Christensen Bærven were buried on 16 December. The cause of death was listed as "crushed".[9] The man who lost his leg was 24-year-old Lars Svendsen Skuterudfladen.

It seems that the man who injured his leg, Lars Svendsen Skuterudfladen, was a man of sound mind. He is actually listed as a labourer at Blaafarveværket in the census from 1865, 75 and 91. In a labour list from 1864, we find a man with the same name working in the mines. Continuing to work in the mines after a serious injury and after experiencing something so traumatic is impressive.[10] Skuterudfladen also had two daughters with his wife, Larine Olsdatter. The first, Randi Sørine, was baptised on 16 March 1856.[11] He died on 27 January 1892 of bronchitis.[12]

Bergmester Wilson is guilty of this offence - the Bergmeister is put on trial

In the aftermath of the accident, work at Mellomgruvene was halted for a week while the area where the collapse had taken place was cleared of rock. Over the weekend, coffins were made for the dead and funeral money for the bereaved was paid out of the works' coffers, as was customary. The work of removing the dead cannot have taken long. They were all buried three days after the accident, on Monday 16 December.[13] The coffins were taken to the church and the funeral procession sang hymns, put the coffin in the ground, prayed the Lord's Prayer and went home. Usually that was the end of the song. Until 1854, it is not known that the plant's managers were held liable in any way for accidents. For the most part, the accidents were barely mentioned in the managers' protocols, and if they were mentioned, it was common for the manager to claim that it was the victim's own fault.

But this time it was different. Firstly, it was not common for six people to die in a single accident. Earlier in the 1820s and 40s, when the workforce numbered more than 1,000, there have been no documented accidents in which more than one person died.

However, it wasn't just the scale of the accident that attracted attention. The managers of the Blaafarve plant were pilloried in anonymous letters to the editor that appeared in Morgenbladet.[14] The letter to the editor claimed that the mine was being run without regard for the safety of the workers, and that the 27-year-old Scottish mine manager, Peter Wilson, had dismissed the workers' concerns and forced them to work by threatening them with dismissal if they refused.[15]

Wilson attempted to clear his name in a rebuttal in which he enclosed certificates from mine superintendent Ole Steenstuen and all the workers, in which they swore that the mining operations were run in a responsible manner.[16]

On 18 January, the trial began. Mine manager Wilson was charged with manslaughter and interrogations were initiated. The mine's owner, the Englishman James Reeves, barely had time to be questioned before he died of an upset stomach at Fossum Farm in April 1855. Miners, Ladder Steenstuen, servants and family members of the deceased were all questioned. It seems that the miners agreed that they did not consider the place where the accident occurred to be any more dangerous than other places in the mine. A report had been made to the ladderman about a possible hazardous point at the site, but the site had been investigated.

However, there is little doubt that the accident left a mark even on experienced miners. In the testimony of miner Christian Helgesen Jahr, who had worked at the Cobalt Mines since he was 15 years old, it is clear that Jahr was not used to such devastating mining accidents:

At the time of the reported accident, the depositor had no idea that there was any danger at this place, and had no particular reason to fear an accident where he himself was working, but when the aforementioned landslide occurred, killing several people, he became so disinclined to work in the mine that he left soon afterwards.[17]

Wilson, the mine manager, was found in favour of the claim that it was the change in weather conditions that had led to cracking, which in turn led to the collapse, but the case still dragged on for a whole year. The final verdict did not come until the Superior Court in Christiania on 21 January 1856. The court's judgement was as follows: "Mining master Peter Wilson should be acquitted of the Institute's charges in this case".[18]

The Moings are said to have been of a different opinion to the superior court in the capital. When Jakob Samuelsen collected folk memories from Modum in 1928, 72 years after the ruling, he wrote down a song that was still known in Modum. The song was about the accident and goes as follows:

In the year eighteen hundred and four and a half, on the [13th] of December, if I remember rightly, in the morning early to the mine they went, and about noon then there lay 6 corpses.

We take the ladder completely free; but Wilson the miner is guilty of it.[19] 

Epilogue - A pauper in Telemark

We have some idea of what happened to the surviving miners. Most continued to work in the Cobalt mines and some emigrated to America.

So how did things turn out for mine manager Wilson? There is little doubt that the trial was a strain. Wilson had only lived in Norway for a year and a half before the accident, and shortly after he was put on trial, his boss died. The colliery was put up for sale and was bought by a Saxon firm in the winter of 1855.

It became clear that the Saxons did not regard Wilson as a suitable mining master and quickly found a replacement. Wilson treated the Saxons as inferior. The British Empire was far larger than the German city-state of Saxony. Wilson took advantage of his nation's greatness by, among other things, ostentatiously sitting with his back turned and drinking tea when they visited him. Wilson was dismissed from his position as collier and had to leave his home at Aslaksby at Easter 1857.

With his resignation, Wilson disappeared from the archives. At the time, he had no children and was not married. All we know about him as a person is that he had a penetrating gaze and that he spoke Norwegian and German fluently.

We don't know anything about Wilson until we meet him again 53 years after he left Aslaksby. In 1910, the 81-year-old Scot lived in Hjartdal herred in Telemark. He was on public assistance and still unmarried.[20]

Sources:

From the book archive of Bokhylla.no:

From Store Norske Leksikon:

From the newspaper archive of Bokhylla.no:

From Digitalarkivet.no:

  • SAKO, Eiker, Modum and Sigdal magistrates' court, F/Fc/L0010: Extra court record - Modum, 1847-1857
  • SAKO, Modum church books, F/Fa/L0008: Ministerialbok nr. 8, 1851-1859
  • SAKO, Modum church books, F/Fa/L0012: Ministerialbok nr. 12, 1890-1898
  • RA, Modums Blaafarveværk, G/Ge/L0312: -, 1840-1844
  • RA, Modums Blaafarveværk, G/Gd/Gdd/L0272: -, 1846-1849

[1] Store Norske Leksikon, etc. "Red fox" by Karl Frafjord, 10 December 2020 https://snl.no/r%C3%B8drev

[2] RA, Modums Blaafarveværk, G/Gd/Gdd/L0272: -, 1846-1849, p. 536

Use link for page view: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/db20120810610536

[3] Samuelsen, Folk memories from Modum and neighbouring villages 2(Sysle i Modum: J. A. S., 1930) 50  https://www.nb.no/nbsok/nb/16fa8fd14a7ee98e4544bbba0083ce52?lang=no#23

[4] Samuelsen, Folklore from Modum and neighbouring villages 1(Sysle i Modum: J. A. S., 1928) 22  https://www.nb.no/nbsok/nb/7879a79f4bd74c2b5d0bf7f2bc94ada7?lang=no#27

[5] Samuelsen (1928) op.cit. 22

[6] SAKO, Eiker, Modum and Sigdal magistrates' court, F/Fc/L0010: Ekstrarettsprotokoll - Modum, 1847-1857, p. 289

Use link for page view: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/rg10311211271291

[7] Samuelsen (1928) op.cit. 22

[8] http://www.norwayheritage.com/p_list.asp?jo=583 (Read 10 December 2020)

[9] SAKO, Modum church books, F/Fa/L0008: Ministerialbok nr. 8, 1851-1859, p. 623-624

Use link for page view: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/kb20051114021136

[10] RA, Modums Blaafarveværk, G/Ge/L0312: -, 1840-1844, p. 85

Use link for page view: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/db20120815620825

[11] SAKO, Modum church books, F/Fa/L0008: Ministerialbok nr. 8, 1851-1859, p. 151-152

Use link for page view: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/kb20051114020933

[12] SAKO, Modum church books, F/Fa/L0012: Ministerialbok nr. 12, 1890-1898, p. 195

Use link for page view: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/kb20051031011004

[13] SAKO, Modum church books, F/Fa/L0008: Ministerialbok nr. 8, 1851-1859, p. 623-624

Use link for page view: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/kb20051114021136

[14] Anonymous, "Drammen"

[15] Ibid.

[16] Wilson, "To the editorial staff of Drammens Blad"

[17] SAKO, Eiker, Modum and Sigdal magistrates' court, F/Fc/L0010: Ekstrarettsprotokoll - Modum, 1847-1857, p. 293

Use link for page view: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/rg10311211271295

[18] Unknown, "Christiania"

[19] Samuelsen, (1928) op.cit. 21-22

[20] RA/S - 2231/E/Ef - Census 1910 for 0827 Hjartdal herred https://www.digitalarkivet.no/census/person/pf01036532001113