Byrnesville Recorded Recollections

Paul Byrnes & Edna Byrnes Lantzy

With the help of her daughter Kathy Lantzy Matta, Edna Francina Byrnes Lantzy has created a wonderful oral history of delightful recollections concerning Byrnesville and the Byrnes Hotel. Edna is the daughter of Marcellus Amandus Byrnes (who was known as M.A.) and Emma McClure Byrnes and a granddaughter of Thomas J. Byrnes founder of Byrnesville and the builder of the Byrnes Hotel.

Ed Byrnes, keeper of this Byrnesville site was very happy to find the packaged cassette tape in his mailbox and really enjoyed listening to the memories Edna shared. The typed up words from Edna's audio tape will be available on the site. Ed plans to digitize the tape and make it available too.

The picture here on the left, taken in Byrnesville, is of Edna Francina Byrnes Lantzy and Paul C. Byrnes meeting after not seeing each other in quite a while. Edna pointed out that they were happy to see each other as you can tell by the picture. In this 2003 picture, Edna is about 92 years old and Paul is 83 if my calculations are accurate.

In part of the tape Edna refers to the coal mine her dad opened up the hill behind the hotel. Here is the account in written words:
Marcellus owned the coal mine in the hill back of the hotel. And many relatives worked in the mine, Bunny, that's what they called him, and Elmer. Elmer worked in the mine to go get money to go to college, he did graduate from Pitt and was a dentist in Barnesboro. Dad had two mules that pulled the carts of coal out of the mine. He built a tram down the top hill to the coal tipple into the large railroad cars.The train then hauled the coal toward the final the destination. The engineer who ran the train who took the cars was Mr. Hite (Amandus G. Hite 1882-1965) and he roomed at the hotel. He became very close to our family, he did marry Aunt Margaret (Margaret Viola Byrnes 1891-1972) and they lived in Cresson, PA.	Elmer Byrnes & Bunny Byrnes
Pictured at right are Elmer A. Byrnes (right) and Bunny (Lavanis G. Byrnes 1906-1993), the two mules, and Scotty. You can see the rails on which the coal carts rolled, behind the men and animals can be seen a tiny bit of the structure which must have made up the entrance to the mine. My dad and uncles told me that the tram rails allowed the coal carts to be pulled out to what is now Ann Street in Byrnesville where the tipple loaded the coal into coal trucks. Perhaps the rails went all the way down to the railroad tracks which ran along Walnut Run. Perhaps both methods of transporting the coal were used; we will have to ask Edna Francina. Since I wrote that last paragraph I've read that there was another railroad bed adn tracks that went along behind the houses and the hotel. So the tram very likely led to a tipple which did empty into railroad cars. If you look closely you can see the dog Scotty, it is the same dog which appears below in the picture of the entry called "Old Byrnesville Picture." This dog Scotty was a very smart dog as Edna tells us:
I must tell you about a, we had a dog named Scotty and when I wanted anybody out of the mine for any reason, I'd put a note in the dog's collar and told him who to go in and bring out, and he sure did, and it didn't take him long.
Pictures in this entry courtesy of Edna Francina Byrnes Lantzy.

Byrnesville, Barnesboro, Northern Cambria, Cambria County, Pennsylvania

Thursday, January 15. 2009

Byrnesville Recorded Recollections

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