Mystery Graves in Dickson City

Johnson Breaker, Dickson City

Founded by German immigrants shortly before the Civil War, the borough of Dickson City was originally known as Priceburg (later changed to Priceville). It was a tiny village which rapidly exploded in population in the 1880s, when the Johnson Coal Company began mining coal in the area. In 1897, employees of the Johnson Coal Company were digging sand from a hillside when they made a shocking discovery: two unidentified coffins. The most surprising part of the story, however, is that no one in the vicinity- including the town's oldest inhabitants- could recall anyone having lived near the hillside.

This is the account of the discovery as it appeared in the Scranton Tribune on October 27, 1897:

While digging sand from a hillside near the Johnson Coal company's breaker at Priceburg Monday, the workmen uncovered two coffins containing the bones of persons who were buried years ago. The oldest inhabitant thereabouts does not remember ever having heard of that plot being used as a burial place. The remains had evidently been properly and decently interred and the size of the bones indicated they were those of full grown persons. The bones were all carefully gathered together and reinterred.


(view original newspaper article here)