Seth was the fifth child of Jeremiah and Mary Miller Combs of Sandlick. His monument states he was born in 1891, but his birth record states February 3, 1890.
According to "100 Years of Southern West Virginia Disasters": Seth was a contractor whose job it was to move a cutting machine from one side of a barrier to another. Rather than go around the barrier, a distance of one-half mile, he cut through the four-foot thick barrier. Doing so altered or stopped the regular air flow pattern, allowing explosive methane gas to build up in the mine. It is also believed that Seth's open light on his mine cap was the ignition source that initiated the blast.
No information is given in that article that says how investigators arrived at that conclusion or whether they speculated on their conclusion. Neither is information given on whether Seth was ordered to breach the barrier, or whether that was his own decision made in the haste of getting a job done.
Either way, twenty-four year old Seth, his brother Lee, and nearly 200 other men, died in the Eccles No. 5 coal mine explosion of April 28, 1914. The bodies of Seth and his brother Lee, were removed from the mine on June 18, 1914.
According to "100 Years of Southern West Virginia Disasters": Seth was a contractor whose job it was to move a cutting machine from one side of a barrier to another. Rather than go around the barrier, a distance of one-half mile, he cut through the four-foot thick barrier. Doing so altered or stopped the regular air flow pattern, allowing explosive methane gas to build up in the mine. It is also believed that Seth's open light on his mine cap was the ignition source that initiated the blast.
No information is given in that article that says how investigators arrived at that conclusion or whether they speculated on their conclusion. Neither is information given on whether Seth was ordered to breach the barrier, or whether that was his own decision made in the haste of getting a job done.
Either way, twenty-four year old Seth, his brother Lee, and nearly 200 other men, died in the Eccles No. 5 coal mine explosion of April 28, 1914. The bodies of Seth and his brother Lee, were removed from the mine on June 18, 1914.
Seth was the fifth child of Jeremiah and Mary Miller Combs of Sandlick. His monument states he was born in 1891, but his birth record states February 3, 1890.
According to "100 Years of Southern West Virginia Disasters": Seth was a contractor whose job it was to move a cutting machine from one side of a barrier to another. Rather than go around the barrier, a distance of one-half mile, he cut through the four-foot thick barrier. Doing so altered or stopped the regular air flow pattern, allowing explosive methane gas to build up in the mine. It is also believed that Seth's open light on his mine cap was the ignition source that initiated the blast.
No information is given in that article that says how investigators arrived at that conclusion or whether they speculated on their conclusion. Neither is information given on whether Seth was ordered to breach the barrier, or whether that was his own decision made in the haste of getting a job done.
Either way, twenty-four year old Seth, his brother Lee, and nearly 200 other men, died in the Eccles No. 5 coal mine explosion of April 28, 1914. The bodies of Seth and his brother Lee, were removed from the mine on June 18, 1914.
According to "100 Years of Southern West Virginia Disasters": Seth was a contractor whose job it was to move a cutting machine from one side of a barrier to another. Rather than go around the barrier, a distance of one-half mile, he cut through the four-foot thick barrier. Doing so altered or stopped the regular air flow pattern, allowing explosive methane gas to build up in the mine. It is also believed that Seth's open light on his mine cap was the ignition source that initiated the blast.
No information is given in that article that says how investigators arrived at that conclusion or whether they speculated on their conclusion. Neither is information given on whether Seth was ordered to breach the barrier, or whether that was his own decision made in the haste of getting a job done.
Either way, twenty-four year old Seth, his brother Lee, and nearly 200 other men, died in the Eccles No. 5 coal mine explosion of April 28, 1914. The bodies of Seth and his brother Lee, were removed from the mine on June 18, 1914.
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