He Struck Coal Digging A Well

Did you know? A well dug by W. H. Sweet, on the high ground back from the Catholic church in the southern part of Dudley village, went down through a coal bed. Mr. Sweet reported the coal four feet thick, struck thirty five feet beneath the surface. There it was apparently clean coal, with a sandstone lying immediately on top of it.

I. C. White's 1885 report on the geology of Huntingdon County names this the Dudley coal bed and describes it as an impure, slaty bed. W. T. Watson once opened it just south of the village and mined some for local use, but found it too slaty to ship. Several small trial holes sunk to the same coal on the east side of the small run above Dudley never found it pure enough to be worth mining.

Sweet was superintendent of the Ocean mines, and White gives him the honor of demonstrating that the Cook and Fulton coal beds were the same bed.

Checked 2026-10-30 · County histories and primary sources, read in full

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