A seven day free
subscription to the newspaper website www.newspapers.com was too
tempting to pass up. So I signed on and
as any good genealogist would do, immediately went to work searching for any
articles that name family members. One
name, Barney Coffey, is my third gr-grandfather, born 1824, Ireland, died 1898
Menager, Wyandotte, Kansas. New
information included three 1875 articles listing him as a delegate for the
Independent Reform (party) Convention,
one in 1883 when he (good Irish Catholic) is building a home for a priest, one in 1884,
when he reports the current crops growing better than those in the past, two in
1885 and 1886 when he is elected as one of six road overseers for Prairie
Township, three February 1888 articles about his appointment as postmaster in
Menager, Wyandotte County, KS , two September 1888 articles advertising the leasing
of coal rights on his property. Next are
Barney’s 1898 obit and forty two times when the same legal notice regarding his
probate ran between Feb 14, 1899 and April 3, 1899.
Then there were the two
articles about his jury duty in December 30, 1886 and the trial verdict on
January 20, 1887. I almost overlooked
the possibilities of a good story, but with a just two days left on my free
subscription, I check the facts closer.
The first article gave some clues that this was a bigger than usual
trial. The trial is about a man – George
H. Hamilton who is accused being part of a group of men responsible for a train
wreck on April 26, 1886. The jury was
sequestered for the entire trial. Twelve
men, of which nine are farmers. Names
and townships were listed including my Barney from Prairie Township. Maybe look
into this more.
The January 20th
article states that it took 94 hours before the judge called the jury to
court. Judge Hindman spoke. Normally he did not allow a jury to
deliberate so long, but because of the nature of the trail, he allowed it. Still, it was a hopelessly hung jury. Seven for the conviction, five for acquittal. The paper actually listed each juror’s name
and HOW he voted! Barney voted for
acquittal. A new trial would begin
soon. Hamilton returned to jail awaiting
his next trial.
I almost overlooked the
case, but realized…sequestering, one of a group of men responsible, train
wreck, hung jury. What was the rest of
the story? What happened at the next
trial? What happened to the other men in
the group? So I did a search on…George
Hamilton, found the five other men’s names and the name of the railroad, the Missouri
Pacific. Using these as a search, I
found the rest of the story.
Surprisingly, only two
articles were about the train wreck itself.
The Topeka Daily Capital gave it front page coverage on April 27th.
The first headline I saw, in the April 27th, 1886 Lawrence Daily
Journal reads:
A Terrible
and Fatal Train Wreck on the Missouri Pacific.
The Work of
Miscreants.
The Fireman
and Brakeman Crushed and Cooked –
The Engineer
Saves His Life by Jumping
…Full
Details
To give you a background,
there had been an ongoing and tumultuous railroad workers’ strike starting March 6, 1886. Known as the Great Southwest
Railroad Strike of 1886, the railroad workers in the organization called
the Knights of Labor, working in the southwest United States (at that time)
conducted strike against railroads owned by Jay Gould, a ruthless industrialist
who owned about 12% of the railway track at that time. His businesses included the elevated lines in
New York City, The Western Union telegraph service, and several railroad
including the Missouri Pacific. The
Knights of Labor was formed in 1869. Acting similar to a union, demands
included eight hour work days, an end to child labor and graduated income taxes. By 1886, membership jumped to 800,000
members.
The 1886 strike action was
sparked by the dismissal of a Texas employee who had attended a union meeting
on company time. More than 200,000 workers were on strike in Arkansas,
Illinois, Kansas, Missouri and Texas. [1]There
had been much vandalism and just a week before this accident, the railway
advertised a $300 reward for information leading to the arrest for such
crimes. The strikers were particularly
angry at one man, H.M. Hoxie who managed the Gould Southwestern Railway. Hoxie’s
response indicated that the strike left 10,000 men out of work nearly stopped
the travel on 5,000 miles of railway traffic in four states effecting four
million people.[2]
Leaders of the union, and the railway company met in March, 1886, but were
unable to reach agreement. Pinkerton
detectives were hired. While the
governor of Texas and Missouri hired State Militia for protection, Kansas’s
governor refused, stating there had been no reports of incidences. However newspapers reported many incidences
in Kansas where shots were fired, switching stations burned, trains uncoupled
and trains wrecked. The railroad was
forced to hire private security. Governor John A. Martin eventually the First
State Militia and tried to help the union and railroad negotiate. (Next –The
Train Wreck)
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