Mine Shafts, Ponds & Frogs

Byrnesville, Barnesboro, Northern Cambria, Cambria County, Pennsylvania

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Monday, June 1. 2009

Mine Shafts, Ponds & Frogs

[Byrnesville Area, Cambria County, PA, Early Summer, 1960]

We'd walk from Byrnesville through Allport and up across Municipal Road to the farms and woods way up in the hills over there. The dirt roads we followed, which connected farms, creeks, abandoned mines, and undisturbed woods became narrower the higher we went. At one spot, in the middle of the woods was a bunker, a small structure with a door and window made with cement walls two feet thick. It was a flooded abandoned mine shaft; a dangerous place, half surrounded by a bottomless pond the other end of which formed a similar pond in China.

Submerged and hidden in the main, except for three red-brown islands of hide; a dead horse floated in the pond. On those spots of hide sat a half dozen dark green frogs seemingly secure with the knowledge that we could not, actually would not, reach for them with our nets.
Farther up the road became steep; about one-third the way up you could turn to the right and come to a wide level area which held a strip mine pond. This pond was a large rectangle longer than a football field and maybe 100 feet wide. The road on the left formed a wall thirty or more feet high by the time the road leveled off, the far end of the pond was also held in by a similar wall of rock but with tall pine trees growing from the top. Ferns and moss grew on the wall and in between the tree roots.

On the right of the pond was level ground almost all the way to the far wall. We would fish this pond but never got a bite, maybe acid from the mine killed the fish although the frogs didn't seem to mind. We couldn't find the bottom here using a sinker on the end of our fishing line. Grass and weeds grew among large flat rocks on this side and this is where the frogs lived. There were all kinds of frogs of all sizes and many colors; there were bullfrogs, Leopard Frogs, Spring Peepers, Wood Frogs, Choral Frogs, and Pickerel Frogs.

We called this place Frog City. If you were very quiet and snuck up to the edge of the pond you might see a couple dozen frogs sitting in the weeds or on the rocks if it was wet. If you were not quiet you hear a sound like the word 'dupe'. Each 'dupe' accounted for each frog jumping into the water. One afternoon a man way at the other end of the pond up on the road at the top was beeping his horn and hollering. We thought we were getting kicked off the property when I heard "Ho, Eddie, Ho!" It was my grandfather, I was late for supper and he had come looking for me in his 1955 Chevy. Didn't get in trouble, he just had us all slide in for the ride home.
Posted by
Edward Byrnes
at 19:30
Last modified on 2009-07-14 17:09
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Related Websites

Northern Cambria PA Website
Cambria County Camgenpa
Cambria County Rootsweb
Cambria County Genforum
Cambria Cnty Library Genealogy
Cambria Cnty Historical Society
People for Better Pennsylvania
        Historical Records Access
Life of a Sm Town Photographer
Po's Peek at the Past Magazine

Byrnesville Contents

The Byrnes Family Crest and Coat of Arms
Breakfast in Byrnesville
A Story of the Platt Family Tree
The Monkey Drifts
Searchable Platt Family Tree
Mine Shafts, Ponds & Frogs
Snakes on the Hill
Camping Out Boney Pile Style
Fishing At Thomas Mills
Bunny's Store in Byrnesville I
Bunny's Store in Byrnesville II
Byrnesville Boney Town
Walnut Run Coalmine
Coalmining Cousins at the Allport Mine
Barnesboro in 1956
Family Home in Barnesboro, PA
Summers Long Ago
Fly Fishing on Walnut Run
Author Maureen Byrnes Hardegree
Valley of the Pines
Byrnes Family Tree
The Byrnesville Snow Train
Byrnesville On A Map
Byrnes Family & Friends Reunion 1981
Byrnes Family & Friends Reunion 2005
Poor Raphael Byrne
Down Home in Clearfield, Pennsylvania
Descendant's of Edward R. Byrnes
Pauline's Poems
Byrnes Family Picnics
Thomas J. and Sarah Miller Byrnes
Founder of Byrnesville
Shucking Beans
Byrnesville Recorded Recollections
The Byrnes Hotel
The Byrnes Hotel II
Old Byrnesville Picture
The Shanty
Byrnesville Woodworker
Fossil Fern on Slate
Byrnesville and Keepsakes
Paul Byrnes in Byrnesville
Grandma Byrnes in Byrnesville
Call for additional authors!
Grandad in Byrnesville
Grandad's Transistor Radio
About Byrnesville

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Stories of the South
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