In 1903 Mary D. Coal Company, which was named after Mary Delores Dodson, the wife of the the president of the company Truman Dodson, began sinking shafts on a lease from the legendary Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company for what would become Mary D Colliery (sometimes spelled Maryd). By 1905, Mary D. was shipping coal from mines entered by shaft, slope portal, and drift portals. Approximately 4500' of cast iron pipe was installed to bring water from the creek to the breaker and boiler house. The breaker partially burned in 1906 and had to be rebuilt. During the next several years, Mary D. Coal Co. continued to make improvements and expansions of the colliery (including building another breaker in 1909). Disaster struck on May 29, 1914 when an intoxicated elevator operator caused the death of six miners in the shaft. In 1923 Hazle Brook Coal Co. became the new operator of Mary D Colliery. Hazle Brook closed Mary D. in 1932. The breaker was later demolished. However, in the 1950s, Maryd Mining Co. (or Maryd Coal Mining Co.) began stripping coal at Mary D. They built a new breaker there, named the Carbon Breaker, of which the skeletal remains still stood into the early 21st century.

April 2025 image by author
Coal company houses built by Mary D. Coal Co. in the early 20th century.

April 2025 image by author
Jones Coal Co. delivers a load of anthracite coal to a Mary D resident. In the background can be seen the side gabled house behind the evergreen trees that was the mine superintendent's house.

Image by Evan Kalish
This structure was once the Mary D company store.

April 2025
Besides culm dumps, all that remains of the Mary D mine is this acid mine drainage borehole.

April 2025 image by author