Exhibit #5: Coal Mining Chronology in Chesterfield
1835 - Mid-Lothian Coal Mining Company is chartered.
1836 - The Company organizes with 3,000 shares valued at $100 each with 1,000 shares being sold to raise $100,000 capital. The Wooldridge family contributes 404.5 acres valued at $300,000. Four shafts are sunk: Pump Shaft, Middle Shaft, Grove Shaft and Wood Shaft.
1837 - These pits produce only 70,000 bushels of coal. About 2,660 tons are moved by the Chesterfield (Gravity) Railroad.
1838 - In March, 42 African-Americans, mostly slaves, are killed at Black Heath mine in the new 700-foot shaft.
1839 - A 36 foot thick coal seam is hit 722 feet deep in Pump Shaft. Work in other shafts is stopped to mine this seam.
1840 - Three hundred thousand bushels are extracted (11,400 tons) from Pump Shaft from the labor of 150 men and boys and 25 mules.
1843 - The Reverend J.B. Jeter preaches sermons underground in mine.
1846 - Miners, free blacks and slaves establish Mid-Lothian African Church, now the First Baptist Church of Midlothian.
1850 - The steam powered Richmond and Danville Railroad opens Coalfield Station at Midlothian. The old Chesterfield (Gravity) Railroad is replaced.
1855 - An explosion at Pump Shaft kills 55 men. Heavy flooding enters mine.
1856 - Attempts to end the flooding problem by tapping into old mines fail with 10 men drowning.
1861 - Mines are pumped out, but then catch fire. Equipment and supplies are abandoned.
1863 - Richmond and Danville Railroad Spur line hauls coal from Grove Shaft to Richmond.
1867 - Post Civil War attempts to revive mines fail. R.S. Burrows of New York provides $180,000 to fund construction of Sinking Shaft, over 1,300 feet deep, but no coal is found.
1868 - R.S. Burrows purchases site and under the direction of mining engineer Oswald Heinrich, the beginning of operations is plagued with many problems.
1870 - At the first meeting of the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors, a county seal is adopted showing: “a coal miner leaning on a pick under a pine tree with a flowing river at his feet.”
1873 - Operations begin at the re-opening of the Grove Shaft.
1876 - An explosion of firedamp, a methane gas blast associated with coal mines, kills eight at Grove Shaft. Heinrich leaves the company.
1880 - Approximately 13,122 tons of coal is produced from a seam measuring 4 2/3 feet thick.
1882 - The Grove Shaft again explodes, killing 32 men.
1905 - James River Coal Corporation builds a new incline track railroad only 900 ft. south of the Grove Shaft.
1906 - Murphy Coal Corporation takes control, but because of lawsuits, ends coal mining in 1923.
1923 - Coal mining operations gradually ceased.
Source: Chesterfield County Parks and Recreation, 2008