TOPIC:

One never knows what story's hide behind a medal!!

Yesterday I acquired a QSA to a Fred Stockman of the Prince of Wales Light Horse with clasps Cape Colony, Orange Free State and South Africa 1901.

I asked our very own Kevin Asplin to obtain his attestation papers at Kew and what a surprise they contained!! Stockman, who I am guessing was a Russian Jew, was a Seaman off a ship in Durban harbour when he attested for service with a Cape-based unit.

Having taken an early discharge he headed north where, thanks to another friend Cam Simpson, I know he enlisted with the B.S.A.P. in Rhodesia. All of this was pretty standard stuff and hardly overwhelming but what piqued my interest was the annotation scrawled across his attestation paper - it read:-

"Killed in a coal mine explosion at Harwick, PA, USA 25/1/04 - Administrator of Estate Mr. E.A. Arthur, Attorney at Law, 314 Frick Building, Pittsburg, PA., U.S.A."

Does anyone else have a medal to a chap who was killed in this incident? I think it's a rare find.







Regards

Rory

Good Morning Rory......

I must say that you have the luck of the Irish.......

Great find.......

Mike

Rory,

That's an excellent discovery. There can't be many Boer War veterans to perish in the disaster.

The mine explosion was one the US's top mining disasters, claiming some 181 lives.

With a name like Rory how did you know I had a touch of the Irish in me Mike?

What I find even more amazing is that someone took the trouble to update his attestation form with the details.

Very odd I thought. Without the benefit of computers to cross reference everything who would have thought to link the death of a miner in the US to a Trooper in the POWLH in South Africa??

Regards

Rory

That is exactly what I mean Rory......

First to find the medal itself.....

and

That someone made the notation on his form......

Being in 1904 it would have been the time that the medals were being distributed and when they tried to send his medal to him that's when the notification of the disaster must have taken place.....

Mike

If his body was recovered, but not identified, he would have been interred at Springdale Cemetery, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.

usminedisasters.com/saxsewell/harwick.htm

Below is the monument which is on the site of the mass grave of the unidentified miners.



Photo taken from this almost-comprehensive (no list of those who died, but perhaps one doesn't exist) account of the disaster - patheoldminer.rootsweb.ancestry.com/allharwick.html