One week before Christmas, two families crawled into their beds on a cold, crisp winter night.

A few hours later they were buried alive.

It seems to defy logic. Yet it happened.

Their houses were swallowed by a mine cave-in, plunging into a black abyss 400 to 600 feet deep.

Dec. 18 will mark the 154th anniversary of the Stockton Mine Disaster.

Stockton, 16 miles north of Tamaqua, was a busy hamlet of 1,200 people, home to East Sugar Loaf Mines when coal was king.

To maximize output, miners sometimes “robbed the pillars.” Pillars were columns of coal left in place to support the mine roof.

And sometimes miners dug too closely to what was above, which is what happened at Stockton, said investigators.

The Hazleton Daily Journal said workers were digging “too near the surface under the houses, there being only about twenty feet of space.”

Early Saturday morning, Dec. 18, 1869, the earth gave way. The ground opened and swallowed everything in a giant roar, said survivors.

The deep mines had been dug in many subterranean levels. Those levels pancaked, collapsing on top of each other up to 600 feet below.

In darkness of night, houses tumbled into the black void. A fire then ignited, likely from overturned coal stoves.

Panic spread. Nearby residents feared their homes, too, would fall. All church bells rang to summon help from Hazleton, about one mile away.

Occupants

George Swank and Isaac Rough and their families lived in a large wood-frame duplex. The two families were related through marriage.

Theirs were the first two homes to tumble into the pit.

Next door lived Phillip Wetterau and his family in a double cottage shared with the Merish family.

Wetterau told authorities he was awakened by a barking dog, as were others. He went outside and spotted ground cracking beneath the houses.

Hurriedly, he awakened family members and fled to safety before his house tumbled.

Others weren’t so lucky.

Swank perished along with his wife, Elizabeth, and three children: son William, 19, and a younger daughter and infant son.

Rough also disappeared into the hole, with wife Margaret, 9-month-old daughter Elizabeth, and Rough’s mother, Elizabeth, 73.

Rough was a Civil War veteran. Ironically, he had survived the brutality of battle only to lose his life violently while resting in his own bed.

Rescuers estimated his body to be 400 feet below ground. If so, he is possibly the deepest land burial of any veteran of any war.

A few victims weren’t tossed as deep.

Rescuers, undeterred by smoke and flames, scampered down ropes and retrieved the bodies of Elizabeth Swank, her daughter and the couple’s infant boy.

“The youngest child was in the oldest girl’s arms with a sheet wrapped around it. The head of the oldest girl was crushed,” reported the newspaper.

After three days of struggles, and with ground continuing to cave, workers determined it too dangerous to continue rescue or recovery.

All victims were believed dead. Rescuers said the bottom of the wreckage would never be reached.

Today, many local residents are unaware of the tragedy of so long ago. But others are familiar and visit the site.

“It’s sad the way those people died, thinking you’re home safe in bed,” said Bruce Jones of Hazle Township. He passes there weekly and has stopped several times.

Most of the houses are gone on what is now a wooded mountainside along Stockton Mountain Road.

The feeling of sadness is pervasive, some say.

“I stopped there once and was overwhelmed with sorrow for everyone,” said Jean Holmberg of South Tamaqua.

“I felt sorry that they didn’t get to finish their lives. I also felt some of the horror they must’ve felt. It really felt like a sacred place.”

Memorial

When the deep hole was finally filled, a marble memorial was placed at the site, surrounded by an iron fence. It created a makeshift cemetery but was never consecrated.

Interestingly, the marker lists only the names of bodies that remain entombed. The names of three bodies retrieved aren’t mentioned. Nor anything else. No explanation of what happened.

But it wasn’t an oversight. It was intentional, according to written reports of the day.

It was simply too unspeakable. Hardworking families, looking forward to Christmas, suddenly engulfed by a black hole while in their beds.

The community, stunned, decided that there should be no engraved description.

There should be no information revealed of innocent families lost at their most vulnerable. An indescribable nightmare.

Sometimes a tragedy is beyond words. Sometimes details are just too shocking.

Nine residents were gone. Six of those, never found. The sheer horror of the circumstances was unspeakable.

And so it remains to this day.