Lines on the Burning of No. 4 pit, Blantyre Colliery
or the Death of Young Andrew McClane
Which took place on Sunday March 14, 1880.
The members of the mining class
Who now are past and gone,
This is a dismal subject
Those lines are wrote upon.
This great conflagration
Did make my heart feel sore,
When I thought on young McClane
Who was in number four.
You all have heard tell of Blantyre
I'm sure the same you fear,
This is the third catastrophe
Within those three past years.
After I had read the news
This is what I said,
This makes two hundred and forty lives
That is numbered with the dead.
It was on the fourteenth day of March
I saw this dismal sight,
In eighteen and eighty
Upon a Sunday night.
The lamp-cabin took on fire
Supposed by [nafty] oil,
Which now leaves young McClane
Far far below the soil.
When the fire was first discovered
Three men were in the pit,
When they saw the flames arise
They tried to put them out.
There was Stewart and [Haveren]
Along with deceased McClane,
With pails of water they commenced
For to appease the flames.
Despite all their energy
The fire did still increase,
Then this young man went from their side
To the stables is believed.
But he never did return again
From that fatal spot,
For ten long months was past and gone
Before they his body got.
He was for that long space of time
Below a fall of stone,
No one was near to hear his cry
He was to die alone.
No one was near to take him from
Not one was near to save,
No no he was to die
In a collier's lonely grave.
There two men came at once
And gave the loud alarm,
They said there was a man down the pit
Amidst the burning fire.
Preparations soon was made
In search of him they went,
No trace was got of young McClane
For they could not get the length.
This lad as I can learn
He was an orphan boy,
He was twenty years of age
And full of mirth and joy.
He went down no thought of death
But he ner returned again,
I hope he's now at rest
Young Andrew McClane.
A man knows not when his hour may come
Nor can he tell the place,
The will of God must be done
What ever he may please.
Some are lost by fire-damp
Some are ship wrecked on sea,
Others at this present time
Are dying in misery.
The first dismal sight in Blantyre
Was in eighteen seventy seven,
An explosion then took place
And caused the lives of two hundred and eleven.
And in the pit called number three
Not one got up alive,
Blantyre pits I now believe
Are a grave for me alive.
On the second of July in seventy nine
Being an Wednesday night,
The second time it did explode
And killed about twenty eight.
This is the third, I hope the last
That was in number four,
I think my number quite correct
I will say nothing more.
