MINERSVILLE - While many are aware that the borough got its name due to the large number of inhabitants working in the coal mining industry, most probably don't know where the borough got its beginnings.
Tommy Symons Sr., a member of the Minersville Historical Society, said the borough wasn't founded until 1830 by Titus Bennet. However, Thomas Reed was the first settler in what is now Minersville, arriving in March 1793. Minersville was incorporated April 1, 1831, and approved by Gov. George Wolf, according to "History of Schuylkill County, Pa.," which was written by W.W. Munsell in 1881.
Much has changed in the borough's 181 years, but at least one thing has remained the same. Its main thoroughfare, according to the December 1830 edition of the Miners' Journal, was called Sunbury Road. Today, it is known as Sunbury Street.
In Minersville's early days, all of the stores and public buildings stood along Sunbury Road. Today, many businesses and public buildings still operate along Sunbury Street, among them borough hall and the First National Bank of Minersville.
Since the incorporation of the borough, it has doubled in size twice.
Borough firsts
When Reed first settled the area, he built a saw mill in the west branch of the Schuylkill River, just below the mouth of Wolf Creek, which sits at the east end of Minersville. He also built a log cabin, which is believed to be the first residence.
Reed later built a tavern on the south side of Sunbury Road, where the current St. Michael the Archangel Roman Catholic Church stands at 541 Sunbury St. It is the former St. Vincent De Paul Roman Catholic Church.
About the same time he was building the tavern, Reed built a log cabin that was made into a distillery to convert surplus coarse grin into spirits. No other residences or buildings were built in Minersville until 1828.
Reed's daughter, Susanna, was the first child born in Minersville on Dec. 18, 1793. Ironically, Reed was the first death recorded in the settlement in 1814.
Other firsts for the borough included the first store that was established in 1830 by John Swaine and his partner, "Mr. Duncan," on the north side of Sunbury Street near Third Street. The first election for borough officials was at the home of David Buckwalter on May 1, 1831. That election resulted in Samuel Rickert as chief burgess and John Provost, John Patrick, Dr. Anthony Steinberger, John L. Swaine, Daniel R. Bennet, John B. Hahn and Daniel Buckwalter as councilmen.
The first public school in the borough opened about 1837 in a framed building on South Street. It wasn't until March 7, 1843, when Minersville became a separate school district. Before that, it was part of a district consisting of Branch and Cass townships. When the townships' schools closed, they merged into what is now the Minersville Area School District.
Fire companies
Fire protection in the borough consisted of three hose companies and a hook and ladder company.
Mountain Hose Company was the first fire department that organized Aug. 15, 1864 with 31 members. It was fully equipped with a hose-cart and hose. The fire company was located in what was called Mountaineer Hall on the corner of Third and Sunbury streets.
Other fire companies included Good Will Hose Company that was organized in 1867, Independent Hose Company organized in 1869 and the Rescue Hook and Ladder Company organized in 1871.
Symons said that today in front of the Mountaineer Hose Company, 3 South St., there is an old cannon called "Uncle Tom" that used to be fired off on the fourth of July every year. It was made at a foundry that was once in the town.
"Everybody just walks by and thinks it's just a decoration," Symons said. "That's an old piece of history there."
Historical connections
Minersville has significant connections to major events in U.S. history, according to Symons.
One of the most famous stories hails from the Civil War with the 48th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment in the Battle of the Crater.
According to "The 48th Pennsylvania in the Battle of the Crater: A Regiment of Coal Miners Who Tunneled Under the Enemy" written by Saint Clair native Jim Corrigan, Etters, a historian and journalist, the 48th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, which recruited exclusively in the coal region, contained a large number of experienced miners. Many of these miners were in Company F out of Minersville and were involved directly with this battle.
In Corrigan's book, he said when the Union army lay siege to the city of Petersburg, Va., in the summer of 1864, the men were entrenched just 100 yards from a heavily defended Confederate fortress.
Led by Lt. Col. Henry Pleasants, Pottsville, the miners tunneled beneath the fort and planted a massive gunpowder charge that resulted in an explosion that destroyed the Confederate stronghold, killing most of its occupants.
While the miners' actions could have brought a swift Union victory and an early end to the war, the Battle of the Crater turned into a bloody debacle that Ulysses S. Grant described as "the saddest affair I have witnessed in the War."
Fast forward to 1940, Minersville was behind a famous case that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the case of the Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586, it involved the religious rights of public school students under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Symons said that prior to the case, Walter Gobitas, the court misspelled their name as "Gobitis," was a recent convert to the Jehovah's Witnesses. The man decided to make a stand and instructed his children not to say the Pledge of Allegiance at school.
In the end, the Supreme Court ruled that public schools could compel students - in this case, Jehovah's Witnesses - to salute the American flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance despite the students' religious objections to these practices.
The decision led to increased persecution of Witnesses in the U.S. and was overruled three years later in 1943 in the Supreme Court case of West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624.
Symons said that the Gobitas family had owned a grocery story in the borough. Due to the case, the town boycotted the family store, and it eventually closed.
Being expelled from school, Gobitas had to enroll his children in a private school that resulted in more economic hardship, according to Symons.
Minersville by the numbers
Population, 2010 - 4,397
Persons under 18 years, 2010 - 1,024
Persons 65 years and over, 2010 - 783
Male persons, 2010 - 2,107
Female persons, 2010 - 2,290
White persons, 2010 - 4,202
Hispanic or Latino, 2010 - 108
African-American, 2010 - 61
Housing units, 2010 - 2,315
Owner-occupied - 1,209
Population in owner-occupied - 2,781
Source: U.S. Census Bureau