2. Allen, The Great Southwest Strike; Case, The Great Southwest Railroad Strike and Free Labor.
3. For background on the unionization of coal mining, see Blizzard, When Miners March, pp. 26–28; Fox, United We Stand; McDonald, Coal and Unionism.
4. For the history of unions in hard-rock mining, see Lingenfelter, The Hardrock Miners; Wyman, Hard Rock Epic.
5. See, for example, Smith, Trial of Oscar T. Caldwell.
6. Gutman, “The Braidwood Lockout of 1874,” p. 16.
7. Asher and Stephenson, Labor Divided, pp. 183–86.
8. Morn, The Eye That Never Sleeps, pp. 100–1.
9. For statistics on the Silver Valley, see Bennett, Siems, and Constantopoulos, “The Geology and History of the Coeur d’Alene Mining District, Idaho,” p. 137.
10. For historical background, see Bennett, Siems, and Constantopoulos, “The Geology and History of the Coeur d’Alene Mining District, Idaho”; see also Historic Wallace Preservation Society, The Silver Valley.
11. Luck was always a key element in mining, and few tales show its value more than that about the discovery of the site on which the Bunker Hill Mine was founded; see Aitken, Idaho’s Bunker Hill, pp. 3–6 for a full account. In 1885, Noah Kellogg, an unsuccessful gold seeker, obtained a grubstake—the supplies, provisions, funds, and other materials needed by a prospector to seek out a claim, which were provided in return for a promised share in that claim or its profits—from O. O. Peck and J. T. Cooper. A condition of the grubstake was that Kellogg take with him a noisy jackass that had been annoying many of those living in Murray, the town that had developed near the first claims on the North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene. In late August, while Kellogg was sleeping in Milo Gulch, the jackass wandered off. When he awoke, Kellogg could hear the animal braying, but he had to climb high into the hills on the west side of the creek to find it. When he did, he discovered it standing on a mineral outcrop of galena, or lead sulfide, a compound frequently found in conjunction with silver and zinc. Whether Kellogg was alone at the time and told several friends about his discovery or whether they had gone with him has long been disputed, but one of those friends—Jim Wardner—described finding the donkey as if several of them were there. “Reaching his side,” he wrote, “we were astounded to find the jackass standing upon a great outcropping of mineralized vein-matter and looking in apparent amazement at the marvelous ore-shoot across the canyon . . . [where] it was reflecting the sun’s rays like a mirror” (Wardner, Jim Wardner of Wardner, Idaho, p. 23).
When Kellogg and his friends filed a claim in early September, Peck and Cooper brought suit against them for not including them, as agreed. In April 1886 the case was heard before First District judge Norman Buck, who determined that, as the jackass was part of the grubstake, and it had discovered the outcrop, Peck and Cooper were entitled to a quarter interest. Meanwhile, the claim was leased to Wardner—for whom the town that grew nearby was named—and together with Cornelius Sullivan, whose claim was across the creek, he formed the Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mining & Concentrating Company. Four years later, a mile and a half down the canyon, the town of Kellogg sprang up around Bunker Hill’s second mill. For years a sign there supposedly noted that it was “the town discovered by a jackass and inhabited by its descendants.”
12. Smith, The Coeur d’Alene Mining War, p. 17.
13. For an overview of the background to the struggles in the Coeur d’Alene region as viewed by members of the labor movement, see Lingenfelter, The Hardrock Miners, pp. 196–218.
14. CAS, A Cowboy Detective, pp. 135–36.
15. Ibid., p. 136.
16. Where Siringo was forced to change the names of individuals when he published A Cowboy Detective, the original proofs of “Pinkerton’s Cowboy Detective” (LoC, box 61, folder 2) are used, in this case pp. 137–38.
17. CAS, A Cowboy Detective, p. 140–41.
18. Ibid., p. 138.
19. CAS, Two Evil Isms, pp. 37–38.
20. CAS, A Cowboy Detective, p. 140.
21. CAS, Riata and Spurs, pp. 159–60.
22. The owners’ honesty was called into question in March, when the railroads rescinded the rates but the mines were not opened; see Lingenfelter, The Hardrock Miners.
23. Smith, The Coeur d’Alene Mining War, pp. 36–40.
24. CAS, A Cowboy Detective, p. 141.
25. Ibid., pp. 142–43; CAS, Riata and Spurs, pp. 160–61.
26. CAS, A Cowboy Detective, p. 144.
27. Ibid., p. 145.
28. Ibid., pp. 144–47; CAS, Riata and Spurs, pp. 162–64.
29. CAS, A Cowboy Detective, p. 148.
30. CAS, Riata and Spurs, p. 162.
31. CAS, A Cowboy Detective, p. 148.
32. Ibid., p. 150. The events at Homestead, a center of the iron and steel industry about seven miles east of Pittsburgh, were among the most serious and violent in U.S. labor history. Members of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers had engaged in strikes in Homestead in 1882 and again in 1889. When a new strike threatened at Andrew Carnegie’s steel works in 1892, the chairman of the company, Henry Clay Frick, locked out the workers and sealed off the plant. The strikers surrounded the plant so that no one—including strikebreaking workers—could get in or out. On July 6, in an effort to open the plant to nonunion replacement workers, some three hundred armed members of Pinkerton’s Protective Patrol from Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York were sent by barge down the Monongahela River with orders to land under cover of darkness and enter the plant. Instead, as a tug pulled the barges toward shore, the strikers, their families, and other supporters tore down the fences, which were topped with barbed wire and surrounded the plant, to reach areas where they could prevent the Pinkerton’s agents from landing. There is conflicting evidence as to which side fired first, but a twelve-hour siege of the two barges ensued in which three Pinkerton’s men and about ten strikers were killed. As thousands of other workers descended on the site, the Pinkerton’s chose to surrender. Despite being guaranteed safe passage out of town, a number of them were severely beaten before a special train transferred them to Pittsburgh. On July 12, state militia entered the town, removed the strikers from the plant site, and oversaw Frick’s bringing in of nonunion strikebreakers; the militia would remain in Homestead for more than three months. Meanwhile, the ill treatment of the Pinkerton’s agents and a subsequent assassination attempt on Frick lost the unions public support, and the strike collapsed, breaking the Amalgamated Association as a force. For a full account of the events at Homestead and the role of the Pinkerton’s, see Krause, The Battle for Homestead.
33. CAS, A Cowboy Detective, pp. 151.
34. Magnusen, Coeur d’Alene Diary, p. 247.
35. The story of the events of July 9–11 are told in detail in CAS, A Cowboy Detective, pp. 149–71, and Riata and Spurs, pp. 164–83.
36. CAS, A Cowboy Detective, p. 159.
37. Ibid.
38. Stoll, Silver Strike, pp. 225–26; Smith, The Coeur d’Alene Mining War of 1892, pp. 74–79; Pingenot, Siringo, p. 44.
39. CAS, A Cowboy Detective, pp. 178–79, and Riata and Spurs, pp. 182–83; Grover, Debaters and Dynamiters, p. 16.
40. CAS, A Cowboy Detective, pp. 184–87. One common but historically unsound interpretation of the strike is that the violence erupted because the union miners discovered they had been infiltrated by a Pinkerton’s agent. Early proponents of this were Smith (The Coeur d’Alene Mining War of 1892, p. 63) and Lingenfelter (The Hardrock Miners, pp. 199, 206), and it was repeated by Lukas (Big Trouble, pp. 103–4). In fact, Siringo had reported through the St. Paul office well in advance of the time he began to be suspected that July would see the beginning of the uprising. In addition, not only had large supplies of guns and ammunition been purchased prior to that, but violence had already begun in a concerted way as early as July 4.
41.
Lingenfelter, The Hardrock Miners, pp. 212–15; Stoll, Silver Strike, pp. 247–48; Wood, The Introductory Chapter to the History of the Trials of Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone, pp. 8–9.
42. See Smith, The Coeur d’Alene Mining War of 1892, pp. 110–13; Lingenfelter, The Hardrock Miners, pp. 219–21; Jensen, Heritage of Conflict, pp. 54–55; JM, report to Luther M. Goddard, Feb. 9, 1906, ISA, box 5.
43. McMurry, The Great Burlington Strike of 1888, pp. 192–204.
44. Quote from United States of America ex rel David P. Weinberger, and David P. Weinberger, Esq., Individually v. Equifax, Inc., U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. For full accounts of the hearings, see U.S. House of Representatives, Employment of Pinkerton Detectives, and U.S. Senate, Investigation in Relation to the Employment for Private Purposes of Armed Bodies of Men, or Detectives, in Connection with Differences Between Workmen and Employers.
45. The current, revised wording of the Anti-Pinkerton Act states: “An individual employed by the Pinkerton Detective Agency, or similar organization, may not be employed by the Government of the United States or the government of the District of Columbia.” See Office of the Law Revision Counsel, United States Code 5 Sec 3108.
46. Morn, The Eye That Never Sleeps, p. 107.
47. United States of America ex rel David P. Weinberger, and David P. Weinberger, Esq., Individually v. Equifax, Inc., U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
48. For an excellent summary of the Cripple Creek strike of 1894, see Jameson, All that Glitters, pp. 55–64.
49. Carlson, Roughneck, p. 51.
50. Quoted in Jameson, All that Glitters, p. 57.
51. JM, letter to GDB, March 4, 1915, LoC, box 140, folder 8. For a less biased viewpoint regarding the men behind the explosion, see U.S. Senate, A Report on Labor Disturbances in the State of Colorado, pp. 78–79.
52. In hindsight, most historians agree that Waite was relatively evenhanded. McParland held no such opinion, giving him a large share of the blame: “The militia was sent for, but unfortunately it was controlled by the notorious Governor Waite. They gave no protection to lives or property” (JM, letter to GDB, March 4, 1915: LoC, box 140, folder 8). Much of the public at the time agreed with McParland in thinking Waite’s lackluster response had encouraged anarchy; the result was that he was voted out of office in November 1894, and his party was never again a powerful force (Suggs, Colorado’s War on Militant Unionism, p. 20).
53. Carlson, Roughneck, p. 51.
54. Baker, “The Reign of Lawlessness,” p. 51.
55. For basic information on Edward, see U.S. Bureau of the Census, Precinct 37, Victor, Teller County, Colorado Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, microfilm roll T623_130, p. 11A; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Precinct 1, Manitou, El Paso County, Colorado, Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910, microfilm roll T624_118, p. 5A.
56. Campbell, A Molly Maguire Story, pp, 87, 89.
57. Among the investigations in which McParland played a prominent role was a diamond robbery aboard the Sioux City and Pacific Railroad, committed by Sherman W. Morris, also known as James Burke, Kid McCoy, Edward Herman, and a man “with as many aliases, an itching palm for diamonds, and as nervy a bandit as ever cut a throat or cracked a safe” (The Chicago Daily Tribune, Aug. 10, 1893; see also Moffett, True Detective Stories, pp. 95–120; Criminal History of Edward Herman, LoC, box 142, folder 6; R. Dudley, letter to WAP, Sept. 26, 1920, LoC, box 142, folder 6). Having started his criminal career in Iowa by robbing a jewelry store there in 1885 at the age of sixteen, Morris was still going strong when he disappeared in 1920 while on parole for snatching a purse in Philadelphia. Another conviction with which McParland has since been credited was that of the noted train robber Oliver Curtis Perry, who twice committed daring break-ins into the “money car” of the American Express Special of the New York Central Railroad while the train was racing along the tracks (see Lukas, Big Trouble, p. 190). Yet, thorough searches of Pinkerton’s records, the biography of Perry, and the newspapers of the time do not indicate he had any involvement whatsoever (see Oliver Perry file, LoC, box 148; Spargo, Wanted Man; The New-York Times, 1892, 1893, 1895). Intriguingly, the original story seems to have come from the Great Detective himself, who was, perhaps, once again pushing stories to the limits of the truth. (For McParland’s claims, see WAP [for JM], report to FRG, Jan. 22, 1906, ISA, folder 4. In the report, McParland stated: “I then told Orchard of several other cases that I had personally handled wherein the state witnesses went free, among them Perry the train robber in 1893.”)
58. See Ballenger & Richards’ Nineteenth Annual Denver City Directory [1891]; Ballenger & Richards’ Twentieth Annual Denver Directory [1892].
59. In early 1877, Pinkerton discovered that members of Franklin’s Philadelphia office were attending urban revivalist meetings held by the followers of the wildly popular and powerful evangelist Dwight L. Moody and his associate, the gospel singer and composer Ira David Sankey (see Evensen, God’s Man for the Gilded Age). Pinkerton—a self-professed atheist—exploded: “I should never have dreamt for a moment that the evil preachings which are spread throughout the U.S. by Moody and Sankey and others should have at length come into my Agency.” As his employees evidently had extra time, he ordered: “They are to give their whole time to my business without reservation whatsoever. The men are to remain on duty on Sunday until the Superintendent sees fit to excuse them. . . . [N]one of them shall in any way undertake to attend church on Sunday but shall be at the office at 9 AM” (AP, letter to BF, Jan. 23, 1877, LoC, box 47, AP letterpress copybook, vol. 2). That said, understanding McParland’s intensity of feeling about the Catholic Church, neither Pinkerton nor his sons ever tried to prevent his regular involvement in Catholic affairs.
60. JM, letter to GDB, Sept. 5, 1903, LoC, box 30, folder 11.
Chapter 16: Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch
1. For a sample of the wide variety of cases worked by Pinkerton’s agents in this period, see CAS, A Cowboy Detective.
2. This term was popularized in studies of the Old West by James D. Horan, who used it as a title for three distinct editions of his book Desperate Men.
3. The Salt Lake Herald, Oct. 12, 1894.
4. CAS, A Cowboy Detective, pp. 194–95.
5. For a full account of the case, see CAS, A Cowboy Detective, pp. 197–228; CAS, Riata and Spurs, pp. 184–95.
6. CAS, A Cowboy Detective, p. 202.
7. Ibid., pp. 205–6.
8. Ibid., p. 222.
9. Ibid., p. 279.
10. CAS, “Pinkerton’s Cowboy Detective,” p. 279, LoC, box 61, folder 2.
11. J. C. Fraser, letter to WAP, July 22, 1905, LoC, box 31, folder 1.
12. Choroiditis is a swelling and inflammation of the choroid, a layer of blood vessels and connective tissue in the posterior part of the eye. Current ophthalmological opinion has questioned what kind of appropriate operation could have been performed were the diagnosis correct (Doheny Eye Institute, personal communication, Nov. 27, 2011).
13. Shoaf, “Quiet for the Gun Men”; Campbell, A Molly Maguire Story, pp. 186–87.
14. For the marriage of Charles McParland and Emma Schoepple, see The Chicago Daily Tribune, Sept. 22, 1893; The Weekly Miners’ Journal, Sept. 22, 1893. For the year of Edward’s marriage, see U.S. Bureau of the Census, Precinct 1, Manitou, El Paso County, Colorado, Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910, microfilm roll T624_118, p. 5A. For Emma McParland’s death, see Report of Death number 13418, May 3, 1898, Illinois Department of Public Health, City of Chicago.
15. Electoral Roll, Electoral District of Grey, 1893, p. 46; Electoral Roll, 1896, City of Wellington Supplementary Roll, p. 19. New Zealand Electoral Rolls.
16. For McParland’s home addresses, see Ballenger & Richards’ Seventeenth Annual Denver City Directory through Ballenger & Richards’ Thirty-Eighth Annual Denver City Directory [1889–1910].
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br /> 17. For example, WAP (for JM), report to FRG, Feb. 20, 1906, ISA, folder 6.
18. An example of this occurred in the period running up to the Haywood trial in 1907, when John Russell Kennedy, representing the Associated Press, was given a good deal of inside information by Governor Frank Gooding. When Kennedy was afterward taken to see McParland and the lead prosecutor, James Hawley, the detective “suggested to Mr. Kennedy that while we did not want to censor what he should send out, if he would . . . read it to us, we might have some suggestions to make which would be beneficial to him, in other words we might add to it. He thought that was very fair” (WAP [for JM], report to FRG, May 4, 1907, ISA, folder 22).
19. McMenamin, The Pinnacled Glory of the West, p. 173; see also, for example, The Salt Lake Herald, July 12, 1901 (for his participation in the Elks Fair), and The Intermountain Catholic, Aug. 30, 1902 (for being named to the General Advisory Committee for the Denver Cathedral Fair).
20. The Castle Rock Journal, Jan. 21, 1898.
21. The Clipper, March 25, 1898.
22. The biographical material about Parker and his outlaw career has been drawn from numerous sources, including: Baker, The Wild Bunch at Robbers Roost; Horan, Desperate Men; Kelly, The Outlaw Trail; Meadows, Digging Up Butch and Sundance; Patterson, Butch Cassidy; and Pointer, In Search of Butch Cassidy.
23. Patterson, Butch Cassidy, p. xi.
24. Ibid., p. 38.
25. Warner, The Last of the Bandit Riders, p. 136.
26. See Davis, Wyoming Range War.
27. Although it is frequently stated that Cassidy acquired “Butch” while working at a butcher’s shop in Rock Springs, Wyoming, in 1891 (for example, Betenson and Flack, Butch Cassidy, p. 70; Lamar, Charlie Siringo’s West, p. 197), Patterson showed that there were at least several other versions of how the name came about, and that there is no certainty about it (Butch Cassidy, pp. 56–57).
28. One of the intriguing things about Lay is how widely descriptions of him differ. Patterson described him as “tall and dark-complected, often described as handsome, although some of his photos do not always bear this out” (Butch Cassidy, p. 80). Conversely, the description released by Pinkerton’s at the time listed him as having a “[l]ight complexion, light brown yellowish hair, light brown eyes” and being “[q]uite good looking, good education and gentlemanly sort of fellow not rough or uncouth, very erect, is said to have teeth gold filled” (LoC, box 90, folder 14).
Pinkerton’s Great Detective Page 65
