CHAPTER VII
The Bloody Coeur D’Alene Strike—I Become Recording Secretary of the Union—During the Riot I Sawed a Hole in the Floor to Escape from Bloodthirsty Dynamiters.
After the smallpox siege I found myself in Denver without a home or family ties; but I had quite a fat little bank account. My salary had piled up during the eight months that I was gone, as I had no occasion to touch it, all my expenses, even to my laundry, medicine and doctor bills, having been paid by our client, the Territory of New Mexico.
This goes to show that the business of a detective is more suitable for a single man. In fact the business is unjust and cruel to the wife, even though she does get to spend the biggest part of her hubby’s money while he is absent. She is deprived of his company and protection when most needed, and has to shut her eyes to the fact that he has to associate with all kinds of women, in order to win a case.
After a few weeks’ rest in Denver, Mr. McCartney called me into his private office and told me to get ready for a long trip into the Coeur D’Alene mining district of northern Idaho.
He explained that the Miners’ Union of that district was raising Hades with the mine owners who had formed themselves into a Mine-Owners’ Association for self-protection, and that the Association wanted a good operative to join the Miners’ Union, so as to be on the inside of the order when the fast approaching eruption occurred.
I told Mr. McCartney that I didn’t want this operation as my sympathy was with labor organizations as against capital. He replied that if such was the case I couldn’t do the Agency’s clients justice, and for that reason he would have to select another operative.
A few days later I was detailed on a railroad operation through Utah and California, along with several other operatives.
A month or more had passed when one day in Salt Lake City, Utah, I received a telegraph message from McCartney instructing me to come to Denver on the first train. This I did, and on meeting McCartney he said: “Now Charlie, you have got to go to the Coeur D’Alenes. You’re the only man I’ve got who can go there and get into the Miner’s Union. They are on their guard against detectives and they became suspicious of the operative I sent up there, and ran him out of the country. We know the leaders to be a desperate lot of criminals of the Molly Maguire type, and you will find it so. I will let your own conscience be the judge, after you get into their Union. If you decide they are in the right and the Mine-owners are in the wrong, you can throw up the operation without further permission from me.”
This seemed fair, so I accepted and began making preparations for at least a year’s absence.
In Wallace, Idaho, the central town of the Coeur D’Alene district, I had a secret meeting with a Mr. Hankins who represented Mr. John Hayes Drummond, the President of the Mine-Owners’ Association, and John A. French, Secretary of the Association. The importance of my work and the difficulties under which I would have to operate, were laid before me. I was told that the Miners’ Union were on the lookout for detectives, and that the Union in Burk had become suspicious of a Thiel detective by the name of Mitch G., and ran him out of the country a short time previous.
It was agreed that no one in Gem knew me, outside of the mine superintendent, John Monihan, and that I would be described to him so that he would put me to work when I applied for a job.
A day or two later I applied to John Monihan in a natural way, and he turned me over to one of his shift-bosses, Peterson, on the Gem mine, who was told to make a place for me, Peterson of course not knowing who I was. I gave the name of C. Leon Allison. I worked as a regular miner two weeks, on day-shift, and the next two, on the night-shift.
Gem was a camp of two or three stores and half a dozen saloons. The three mines, the Gem, Helen-Frisco, and Black Bear, which supported the camp, were near by, so that the men boarded in town. About 500 miners worked in these three mines, besides hundreds of other surface workmen; hence the little camp was a lively place after night when the saloons and gambling halls were running full blast. I put in much of my time at the saloons and made myself a “good fellow” among “the boys.”
My worst trouble was writing reports and mailing them. These reports had to be sent to St. Paul, Minnesota, where our Agency had an office, with my Chicago friend, John O’Flyn, as superintendent. There they were typewritten and mailed back to John A. Finch, Secretary of the Mine-Owners’ Association, where all the mine owners could read them.
The Gem Post Office was in the store of a man by the name of Samuels, a rabid anarchist and Union sympathizer; so for that reason I dare not mail reports there. “Big Frank” was the deputy postmaster and handled most of the mail. He was a member of the Gem Miners’ Union, consequently I had to walk down to Wallace, four miles, to mail reports; and for fear of being held up I had to slip down there in the dark.
Two weeks after my arrival in Gem, I joined the Gem Miners’ Union, and a couple of months later I was elected recording secretary of the Union. Geo. A. Pettibone, a rabid anarchist, was its financial secretary.
Now that I had become an officer of the Gem Union, I concluded to quit work; but I didn’t want to quit of my own accord. I wanted shift-boss Peterson to discharge me so that I couldn’t get any more work in the camp. In order to be “fired,” I shirked my duty and was discharged.
That night I got on a big “jamboree,” and spent my wages freely.
In order not to desert the Miners’ Union to hunt work elsewhere, as trouble with the Mine-Owners’ Association was expected soon, I pretended to send to my rich father in Texas for money to carry me through the winter.
Now that I was not working, I had plenty of time to accompany Geo. A. Pettibone and others to the houses of supposed “scabs,” or of men who wouldn’t pay their dues to the Union, and order them to leave the country. Often they were stubborn and wouldn’t go. Then we would get up a mob by holding a citizens’ mass-meeting to run them out of the State.
We would first hold a special meeting of the Union, to resolve on running certain ones out. Then boys, ringing bells, would be sent through the town calling a citizens’ meeting in the Union Hall; but no one except members were allowed to enter the hall. Then it would be declared the sense of the citizens’ indignation meeting that certain “scabs” be run out of the State. Often as many as half a dozen “scabs” would be taken from their homes, sometimes with weeping wives and children begging for mercy, and with tin pans and the music of bells, they would be marched up and down the street to be spit upon and branded as “scabs,” before the public eye. Then, half clothed and without food, the poor devils would be marched up the canyon, a few miles beyond the big mining camp of Burk, three miles distant, and told to “hit the road” and never return at the peril of their lives. Pistols would be fired over their heads to give them a good running start.
By this route, during the winters, the snow is waist deep over the Bitter Root range of mountains, and not a living inhabitant until reaching Thompson’s Falls, Montana, a distance of about thirty miles.
This thing was kept up all winter, and I learned a few new lessons in human nature. My mind had taken a regular “flop” on the labor union question, since telling Superintendent McCartney that my sympathies were with the unions. I had found the leaders of the Coeur D’Alene unions to be, as a rule, a vicious, heartless gang of anarchists. Many of them had been rocked in the cradle of anarchy at Butte City, Montana, while others were escaped outlaws and toughs from other States.
Of course, after a batch of these “scabs” were run over the range to Montana, the daily papers of Spokane, Washington and Anaconda and Butte, Montana, would come out with glaring headlines of how the citizens had held a mass-meeting and ordered these “scabs” deported; that the unions had nothing to do with it. I knew better though, but the general public didn’t.
Thus did the winter of 1891-92 pass.
Gem was not the only transgressor of our glorious Constitution. The deporting of “scabs” was going on in the other camps, though Gem and Burk took the lead.
During the winter I often attended the Burk Union meetings. At one of these meetings, I had the pleasure of seeing with my own eyes a Miners’ Union Irishman, not many years from the “ould sod,” who was for law, order and justice, first, last, and all the time. He was a fine-looking specimen of manhood, with jet black hair, eyes and mustache. He made a fine speech, but after he had finished he was sat down on so hard by the rabid leaders, that he couldn’t get his jaws in working order again during the whole winter. I saw him at many meetings after that, but he never said a word. There had been talk of branding him as a “scab.” This was a warning to others to fall in line and be true union men.
In joining the Gem Union, I had to take an iron-clad “Molly Maguire” oath that I would never turn traitor to the union cause; that if I did, death would be my reward, etc.
Early in the Spring of 1892 war was declared between the Mine-Owners’ Association and the Executive Committee of the Coeur D’Alene Central Organization of the Miners’ Unions. This Central Union was made up of delegates from each local union. Geo. A. Pettibone represented the Gem Union and he told me that they had selected a secret crowd of the worst men in the unions to put the fear of Christ into the hearts of “scabs”; that if these secret men committed murder the union would stick by them, but that no one outside the Executive Committee, of which he was a member, was to know who these secret men were, and their pay came from a fund reserved “for the good of the order.”
After war was declared, all the mines in the Coeur D’Alenes were closed down. Shortly after this, a big mass-meeting was called in Wallace to hear both sides of the trouble.
The Unions of Gem, Burk, Mullens and Wardner, had the meeting packed with the intention of choking off the Mine-Owners’ side of the question, but the man whom the Mine-Owners selected to represent their side of the case, was not of the quitting kind. He wouldn’t be choked off. He would wait until the cursing, hissing and abuse ceased and then start in anew.
Back in my part of the Hall, where sat Paddy Burk and a gang of dynamiters, there was talk of making a rush for the stage and in the excitement pitch this speech-making “scab” out of the upstairs window to the pavement below. It looked very much as though the meeting would end in a riot, but finally cooler heads got control, and Attorney W. T. Skoll, now one of the leading lawyers of Spokane, Washington, was allowed to speak his little piece.
Shortly after this, a train load of “scabs” with Joe Warren at their head, were imported into the district from other States. We heard they were on the way. Then the Central Union’s headquarters in Wallace became a busy place. I was made one of the despatchers to carry messages on horseback, when necessary.
Tom O’Brien was the President, and Joe Poynton was the Secretary of the Central Union. I was in their company a good deal, and caught on to many of their secrets. One of them was that the sheriff of the county, Mr. Cunningham, was in with the union even to murder.
On the day the “scabs” were to arrive in Wallace, there was great excitement. The drunken sheriff was on his fine horse with a gang of union deputies to preserve order, but in reality to help shoot down “scabs,” if the Central Union desired it.
The funny part of it was that the mine owners caught the union napping and stole a march on them. Of course I had been keeping them posted as to the unions’ intentions.
Instead of the train stopping in Wallace, as expected, the engineer put on a full head of steam and went flying up the canyon towards Burk. The poor sheriff waved his order of arrest under the State laws for importing armed thugs, as he ran after the train on his swift horse. Before the armed gang of union men could get back to Burk afoot, it being seven miles, Joe Warren had unloaded his 100 or more armed “scabs” and marched them up the mountain side to the union mine, which had been prepared secretly for their reception.
Late that evening Burk was jammed full of angry miners begging President O’Brien for permission to blow those “scabs” off the face of the earth. Joe Poynton, Geo. A. Pettibone, and the rest of the rabid leaders, were eager for bloodshed, but O’Brien was the dam which held the angry waters of anarchy back.
A committee of level-headed unionists was finally appointed to go with the sheriff and arrest Joe Warren peaceably, if possible. Warren submitted to arrest so as to test the law, and he left a good man to act in his place. In submitting to arrest, Joe Warren did a foolish thing, and he would have thought so, could he have heard the plots to assassinate him that night, as I did. Warren no doubt realized his danger when he was surrounded by the hundreds of angry miners. They were clamoring for his blood; but O’Brien and the drunken sheriff argued that if he was harmed while under arrest it would ruin the unions. During all this excitement Warren, who was in the prime of manhood and stood about six feet four in his bare feet, was cool, though a little pale behind the ears. Late at night he was taken to Wallace under a heavy guard.
To record the fights and cruel acts of the union on “scabs” for the next few months, would require a book twice the size of this.
Other train loads of “scabs” were brought into Gem and placed in the Helen-Frisco and Gem mines under armed guards.
A bloody revolution was planned for July sometime. On the 4th day of July the American flags were shot full of holes and spat upon.
Previous to this the secrets of the unions were published in the Coeur D’Alene “Barbarian” a weekly journal run in the interest of the mine owners, and published at Wardner, by a Mr. Brown.
Everything pointed to these union secrets having leaked out of the Gem union. Therefore, Dallas, a one-eyed, two-legged, Irish hyena from the Butte City, Montana union, was sent to Gem to discover the spy and traitor within their ranks.
After Dallas had been in Gem a few days doing secret work, a special meeting of our Gem union was called. On that day a rank union man by the name of Johnny Murphy confided in me and told me that I was suspected of being the traitor who supplied the mine owners with the secrets of the union, as I had access to the books and made too many trips to Wallace to mail letters; that I had been watched mailing letters in Wallace often. He said that he felt confident that I was not a detective, but for my personal safety he advised me to skip out and not attend this special union meeting, as the chances were I would be killed. He said that h——l was going to be turned loose within the next few days or weeks, and that I would not be safe in the district, even though innocent.
I assured him that I was innocent and that I would be a true soldier by sticking to my guns.
That night the large union hall was packed, as it was known that Dallas would attempt to show up the spy who had given out the union secrets.
When the meeting was called to order by the President of the Gem union, a Mr. Oliver Hughes, I sat by his side upon the raised platform, or stage. With us on the stage were Pettibone, Eaton, of the Central Union, and Dallas, the Secretary of the Butte City, Montana union.
After I had read the minutes of the last meeting from my book as recording secretary, Dallas got up to make his speech. A pin could have been heard drop, everything was so still.
He started out with a shot at me, as he glanced in my direction. He said: “Brothers, you have allowed a spy to enter your ranks, and he now sits within reach of my hand. He will never leave this hall alive. His fate is doomed. You know your duty when it comes to dealing with traitors to our noble cause for the upbuilding of true manhood.” Here the applause broke loose and I joined in. I clapped until the palms of my hands were sore, despite the fact that I felt a little shaky as to what lay in store for me.
In a “Wess Harding” shoulder scabbard under my left arm, rested old Colts 45, and around my waist underneath my pants was strapped my pearl-handle bowie knife. My mind was made up to start business at the first approach of real danger. Of course I didn’t expect to last long among those hundreds of strong men, many of whom were armed, but I figured that they couldn’t get but one of me, while I stood a chance to kill several of them. I would have been like a cat thrown into a fiery furnace—spit fire so long as life held out.
After Dallas wound up his long fiery speech, which I must confess was delivered in a masterful manner, a recess of ten minutes was announced. The president then asked me to step down off the stage while they examined my book. I did so. As these officials turned each leaf of the large book over, my eyes were on them. Finally they came to something wrong, and Dallas looked down at me, with a look of, “Oh we’ve got you now.” I stepped up near the platform and said: “What’s the matter gentlemen, you seem to be puzzled?” Dallas replied in an angry voice: “Here’s a leaf cut out of this book. We want an explanation.” I answered that the president, Mr. Oliver Hughes had ordered me to cut that leaf out. The president jumped up with an oath and said it was a lie. I then referred him to the time when the members of the Burk union came down to hold a joint meeting with us, at which time it was voted on and decided to pull up the pumps of the Poorman and Tiger mines at Burk, and flood the lower workings of these deep properties; that I wrote down the full facts of our resolution and read it at the following meeting; my duty requiring me to read the minutes of the previous meeting; and that then he (the president) ordered me to cut out this leaf and burn it, as nothing of that kind should be put in the minutes to be on record, in case the book fell into the hands of the enemy.
The president then acknowledged the fact, and Dallas smothered the wrath which he had been accumulating for the explosion to follow.
Instead of burning the leaf, I had sent it to St. Paul along with my reports.
Finally I got back on the stage when the meeting was again called to order, after my book had been carefully gone through.
The president then made a conservative speech and advised that nothing be done tonight that might bring discredit on the union. He said the time would soon be here when we could act. Of course I helped cheer, and it came from my heart this time, as I could see daylight ahead. The meeting was then adjourned.
I have no doubt but that Dallas and his gang thought that I would show my guilt during and after his blood-curdling speech, and that during the ten minutes’ recess I would make some kind of an excuse to the outer guard at the door so as to get out. But I was too “foxy” to make a break like that. Neither did I show guilt in my actions or looks. I had learned to control my looks while playing poker in cow camps on the range, so my opponents couldn’t guess the value of my hand by the looks of my face.
A couple of days after the above occurrence, Mrs. Shipley called my attention to a man sitting on a box in front of the postoffice, and informed me that she had noticed him following me. Looking through the store window, I recognized Tim W.’s chum, “Black Jack” from Tuscarora, Nevada. He had helped in the blowing up of Prinz and Pelling and we had heard that he skipped out to Africa. Later I caught him watching me, but didn’t pretend to notice it. Whether he had really recognized me or was trying to place me, I never knew; but as I later found out that he was a member of the Miners’ Union, I concluded that he had recognized and given me away to the union, for the chances are by this time he knew my business.
I had bought a two-story building in the center of town, and in the store part, Mrs. Kate Shipley and I started a small store. Upstairs there were 12 furnished rooms and I gave Mrs. Shipley half the income from these to run the place. She roomed back of the store with her little five-year-old boy, while my room was upstairs.
Mrs. Shipley, whose husband was on their farm in Dakota, had no idea that I was a detective.
To keep prowlers out of our back yard, I built a high board fence and made it tight so as to shut out the public gaze. As a precaution in case of trouble, I left the bottom of one wide board loose so that I could crawl out instead of going over the fence.
At our next regular meeting night of the union, early in the evening, Billy Flynn, a brother-in-law to John Day, with whom I had previously roomed, called me off to myself. He was pretty drunk. He began crying and said he hated to go back on union principles by warning a spy and traitor of danger, but said he always liked me and he couldn’t believe that I was a Dickenson detective. Of course I assured him that I was not. Then he shook my hand and said I didn’t look degraded enough for a detective who would take a false oath by entering a union in order to give away their secrets. I asked Flynn to tell me all the facts as to why I was suspected of being a detective. He replied that he couldn’t do that as he was sworn to secrecy; but said that some one who knew that I was a detective, had recognized me. He further said that I was doomed to die the death of a traitor, and he advised that I skip out and not attend the union meeting that night.
Dallas was still in town, and I saw him with “Black Jack” who no doubt had given me away to the union.
The day had been one of excitement. Many “scabs” had been caught and nearly beat to death. “Scabs” were fed at the mines and seldom ventured away from their quarters, but when they did, they were caught and pounded nearly to death.
Early in the day John A. French had come to Gem, and was almost mobbed by Joe Poynton and a gang. He was glad to get back to Wallace with a whole hide.
The time for me, as recording secretary, to be in the union hall had passed, the hour being 8 P.M. About 8:30 P.M. a committee of three came to my room to see what was the matter that I didn’t attend the meeting.
In my room I kept a Winchester rifle and 100 cartridges, secreted under the mattress of my bed, and I had made up my mind to stay close to these. I told the committee to go back and I would be at the hall in 10 minutes. When they had gone I wrote out my resignation as recording secretary and as a member of the Miners’ Union. In it I told of them planning to knife me in the dark under the false impression that I was a Dickenson detective, one of the lowest and most degrading professions that mortal man could follow, and to be accused of such a black crime behind my back was more than I could stand, and for that reason I would never put foot in their union hall again. I gave this resignation to the door-keeper at the union hall about half a block from my place, and then returned to our store.
After the union meeting had adjourned, the hall was thrown open for a public dance. Men kept pouring in from outlying camps.
While I was standing in the dark in front of the union hall watching the dancers through the window, a leading member of the Mullen union who had just arrived in town, recognized me and we had a confidential talk on union matters. Of course he hadn’t yet heard of my downfall in the union. He supposed that I knew all the secrets of coming events and therefore it was easy for me to lead him on. From him I found out that blood would flow here within the next few days; that it would amount to a regular uprising against “scabs” and the mine owners. He said the Homestead, Pa., riots of a few days previous would be child’s play as compared to our approaching storm. He thought it was billed to come off the following night, but wasn’t sure, as the executive committee of the Central Union had not given out the exact date. But he said the outside unions had already been ordered to concentrate their forces and arms in Gem, which would be the center of action.
About 11:30 P.M. a member of an outside union, who had not learned of my being branded as a traitor, told me that two “scabs” from the Gem mine were to be murdered and thrown into the river just as soon as the lights in the union hall were put out, after the dance, which would only last until midnight. He said that these two “scabs” had slipped over from the Gem mine to get a drink, and that a gang of union men had them at Dutch Henry’s saloon getting them drunk so as to kill them.
A few minutes before midnight I entered Dutch Henry’s saloon in hopes of getting a chance to warn these two “scabs” of their approaching danger. They were surrounded by a dozen union men who were patting them on the back and making them think they were fine fellows. One of them was a giant in size and said he could whip any union man in Gem.
While I was seated in the saloon watching for a chance to warn these “scabs,” I saw a crowd collecting outside in front of the saloon. I could see through the front window that they were watching me. It only lacked ten minutes of midnight.
Just then the front door opened and old Shoemaker Roberson walked up to me and said: “Say Allison, you had better duck your nut out of here, and do it quick.” I told him that I would leave when I got good and ready. He then went out and joined the crowd outside. I stepped up to the bar and drank a glass of beer, then went out at the front door.
On reaching the sidewalk the crowd, led by a hair-lip son of the scum of society, called “Johnny get your gun,” started to enclose me in a circle. I sprang out into the street and with my hand on my cocked pistol, threatened to kill the first man who undertook to pull a gun. In this manner I backed across the street to the hallway leading up to my room. As I entered the hallway still facing the 25 or 30 men, “Johnny get your gun” said: “Oh, you d——d traitor, we’ll get you before morning.” At this the crowd split and ran around my building to prevent me from escaping. A few moments later, through a rear upstairs window I saw men with rifles guarding the rear of my high board fence. I could also see three men with rifles on the bridge spanning the river towards the Gem mine.
There were no back stairs to my building, but the window to my room opened out in a narrow alleyway between my building and Jerry Nelson’s Hotel, and here I had placed an old ladder just for such an emergency as this.
With my Winchester rifle and pockets full of ammunition, I crawled down this ladder and thence to the board previously left loose at the bottom. A light shove displaced the fence board, and on my hands and knees I crawled out by the side of a large fallen tree. The board being put back in place, I was now in a timbered swamp near the bank of Canyon Creek. The night was dark, and by crawling between logs and in brush, I reached the river, which was waded in a dark place under overhanging trees. Then to prevent being seen by the guards on the bridge, I had to crawl on my stomach, inch by inch, for quite a distance. On reaching a place where it was safe to stand up, I ran to the Gem mine, a few hundred yards distant. I found John Monihan, the superintendent, up and expecting trouble on account of the town filling up with union men, and guards being placed on the bridge. I informed him that two of his men were to be murdered in Dutch Henry’s saloon.
While we and some of the Thiel guards were figuring on the best way to rescue those men, the town constable under the Justice of the Peace, Geo. A. Pettibone, came over to tell Mr. Monihan that two of his men had been “slugged” and one of them was about dead, and that the badly wounded one had been dragged to the deadline at the bridge near where the company’s office was located. Monihan and some of the guards returned with the constable to get the wounded man. This was the big fellow who had been drinking in Dutch Henry’s saloon, and he was barely alive. He was beaten almost into a jelly, his jaw and several ribs being broken. In fact, he had lost all resemblance to a human being, except in shape. His face was one mass of bruised and bloody flesh.
Monihan called for volunteers to walk down to Wallace four miles, after the doctor, but only one of the Thiel guards would consent to risk his life, as it was feared the road to Wallace was guarded by union men, and this guard refused to go alone.
Rather than see this fellow die without the care of a doctor, I accompanied the Thiel guard. We arrived in Wallace, walking on the railroad grade, without mishap. Dr. Simms was awakened and went back with the guard. By that time it was about 3:30 A.M.
I then went to report matters to the Secretary of the Mine-Owners’ Association, John A. French. Mr. French was himself a millionaire, owning many mines and steamships on the Pacific coast. I found him in bed and told him to prepare for riots within the next couple of days. He begged me to leave the country and not return to Gem, when I told him the facts; but I told him that I had enlisted for the war and would stay and see the finish. I figured that a good sailor never gives up his ship until she is going down.
I went to a saloon and held the Winchester rifle in my hand until daylight, at which time the morning train went to Gem and Burk, the latter place being the end of that branch line.
On the train I found Geo. A. Pettibone who had gone to Wardner in the night. He had with him a delegation of union leaders from Wardner and a Catholic priest. I never knew what the priest was doing in such company.
Pettibone asked what I was doing with a rifle. I told him that his union scalawags had made a raid on me during the night, and that I was going back to kill the first one who interfered with me. He tried to bulldoze me from carrying a rifle into Gem. He said it wouldn’t be allowed; but it was allowed, as I marched through the large crowd who came to the train to greet the priest and union delegation.
Shortly after my arrival, Bill Black, a desperado who had just recovered from a bullet wound through the stomach, was sent to me to find out my intentions. He asked if I intended to remain in Gem that night. I said yes, that I would stay there until carried out a corpse. This seemed to satisfy him. When he left he went direct to the union hall to report to the meeting then in session.
The chances are they thought a raid on me then would spoil their plans, so concluded, as I didn’t intend to leave, to not disturb me until the general uprising started.
I remained in our store, or in Mrs. Shipley’s bedroom back of the store, most of the time.
Mrs. Shipley would visit neighbor women and report the news to me. It was said the uprising would start just before daylight.
The whole day had been spent drilling men under captains in the union hall. By dark the town was jammed full of union men from all over the district. There were over 1,000 present.
Mrs. Shipley had found out that a strong guard was placed all around the town at dark to prevent any one from leaving Gem. I suppose this was partly for my benefit.
About 8 P.M. I concluded to “take a sneak”; so I went down the old ladder out of my bedroom window, thence over the same route taken the night before. I crawled within 30 feet of three union guards.
I reported to Mr. Monihan that the riot was to start before daylight. He then armed his 120 “scab” miners, and guards were put out. Until daylight, a tall fellow known as “Death on the Trail” and I did scout duty, both sticking close together. No one slept that night to speak of.
When daylight came I concluded to beard the lion in his den and find out the latest news from Mrs. Shipley. Putting the rifle under my raincoat and holding it by my left side so it couldn’t be seen, I walked right by the three union guards on the bridge. We didn’t speak. I entered the rear door of the Nelson Hotel. In the kitchen I found the two cooks and a waitress, Miss Olson, but I only bowed to them. I raised the kitchen window and jumped through it into the narrow alley where my old ladder stood. I found Mrs. Shipley in bed. She reported that all night the union men were drilling in the union hall. I then went into the store and through a side door into the hallway and thence upstairs. A window to a vacant front room was raised so that I could look up and down the main street. There were only a few armed men doing guard duty in front of my place. Two men with rifles stood directly under me. An awning prevented them from seeing me, though I could see them through the crack between the awning and the wall.
About this time the long-nose clerk, Jim Ervin, in White & Benders’ store, a few doors below, stuck his head out of the window to see what was going on. One of these union men, a big blacksmith, raised his rifle and said to his companion, Tom Whalen: “Watch me knock that —— nose off.” He fired and as I learned later, the bullet just missed the clerk’s nose by a scratch. It being 6 A.M. this no doubt was intended as the signal shot, as shooting became general up the canyon towards the Frisco mill, where armed guards and “scab” miners were housed.
I concluded it was time for me to emigrate, so I hurried down my ladder and through the window into the kitchen of the Nelson Hotel. Then I opened the back door to make a break for the bridge to fight my way past the three guards there. Just as I opened the door, the French cook grabbed me by the arm and jerked me back. I raised the rifle to strike him, but he threw up his hands and said: “For Christ’s sake, don’t go out there. They are laying for you. There are 50 men with Winchester rifles right around the corner of the house. I saw them just now when I went after wood.”
I had thrown the door wide open, and it still remained so.
From the end of the bridge across a swamp to this kitchen door, there was a board walk, and on it, coming towards us, was a lone man in his shirt sleeves, and unarmed. I recognized him as one of the Thiel guards at the Gem mine. He was about 50 yards from the kitchen door then. I said to the two cooks: “I’ll wait and see what they say to that guard.” We all three had our eyes on him when a voice around the corner said: “Go back you ——!” He stopped suddenly and threw up his hands. Just then a shot was fired and the poor fellow fell over dead, with a bullet through his heart. His name was Ivory Bean, and he was an honored member of the K. P. lodge. He had volunteered to come over to the drug store after some medicine for the big fellow who was wounded two nights before. He was supposed to be dying, and to relieve his suffering, Bean risked his life. He argued that the union miners surely wouldn’t harm him on an errand of mercy if he went in his shirt sleeves to show that he carried no firearms. The poor fellow hadn’t reckoned on the class of curs that he was dealing with.
This convinced me that I was “up against the real thing,” so shutting the door and thanking the cook for saving my life, I crawled back through the window. Just as I did so, Miss Olson came into the kitchen.
After Bean fell, the men at the Gem mine began to pepper the town of Gem with rifle bullets. A big part of their shooting was at the rear of Daxon’s saloon—that being a union hang-out; but the men in there soon found the cellar. Billy Daxon had his clothes shot full of holes. A union man was killed by this shooting. The firing was still going on at the Frisco Mill. They were burning powder up there in a reckless, extravagant manner. I concluded that “war is hell,” sure enough, and that I was right in the midst of it without a way to get out.
I had Mrs. Shipley keep the store door locked, and told her to not let any one in. I then went out in the back yard to see if the coast was clear in the vicinity of my hole in the fence. I looked through a crack in the fence and discovered two armed men hiding behind a big log. I then went into a storeroom adjoining the fence on the east, and through a crack saw my friend Dallas walking a beat with a shotgun on his shoulder. He was evidently guarding a rat in a trap, and I happened to be that rat.
In this storeroom I discarded my hat and coat and in their place put on an old leather jacket and a black slouch hat. Then I got a saw and went into Mrs. Shipley’s room, and next to the store wall, tore up a square of carpet and began sawing a hole through the floor. I sawed out a place just large enough to admit my body. This done, I replaced the carpet in nice shape, loosely, over the hole.
At first I had planned a scheme to barricade the head of the stairs with furniture and bedding and then slaughter all who undertook to come up the stairs. Had I carried out this plan, the newspapers would have had some real live news to record; but I hated to wait upstairs for business to come my way, hence made up my mind to go under the floor and do some skirmishing, which would at least keep my mind occupied.
The back part of my store building rested flat on the ground, and the front part was up on piles three feet high.
Finally I bade Mrs. Shipley and her little five-year-old goodbye, and dropped out of sight. Then Mrs. Shipley pulled her trunk over the hole as per my instructions.
In scouting around under the house, I could find no possible way to get out, except up under the board sidewalk on the main street. Through a crack the width of my hand, on the east side, I saw Dallas resting on his beat. He was leaning on his shotgun. I up with my rifle and took aim at his heart, but before pulling the trigger, the thought of the danger from the smoke going up through the cracks and giving my hiding place away, flashed through my mind, and the rifle was taken from my shoulder.
Just then an explosion took place which shook the earth. It was up towards the Frisco Mill. The rifle shooting was still going on, but it soon ceased.
In about 20 minutes Mrs. Shipley pulled the trunk from the hole, and putting her head down in it, cried: “Oh, Mr. Allison, run for your life. They have just blown up the Frisco Mill and killed lots of men and now they’re coming after you to burn you at the stake, so as to make an example of Dickenson detectives.” Crawling nearer to the hole I asked Mrs. Shipley how she had found this out. She replied that Mrs. Weiss, a strong union woman, who was a friend of mine while I was in the union, had just told her when she went across the street to find out the cause of the explosion. I told Mrs. Shipley to keep cool and put the trunk back over the hole. It was explained to her that I could find no way to get out, hence must stay.
Soon I could hear the yelling of more than 1,000 throats as they came to get me. It wasn’t long until the street was jammed with angry men. I was directly under the center of our store and could hear the leaders commanding Mrs. Shipley to open the door, but she refused to do it. Then they broke it down and the mob rushed in. I could hear Dallas’ voice demanding that she tell where I was, but she denied having seen me since the night before. He told her that they knew better, as Miss Olsen had seen me crawl through the window, since which time a heavy guard had been kept around the house. I heard Mrs. Shipley ask why they wanted me. Then Dallas replied: “He’s a dirty Dickenson detective and we intend to burn him at a stake as a warning to others of his kind.” Mrs. Shipley asked why they didn’t kill me yesterday when they had a good chance. To this Dallas replied: “The time wasn’t ripe yesterday, but it is now and we will find him, so you might as well tell us or it will go hard with you.” Mrs. Shipley then told them to do their worst, as she didn’t know where I was. I felt like patting the lady on the back, as one out of 10,000 who wouldn’t weaken and tell the secret with that vicious mob around her. I feared the child would tell, as he was bawling as though his little five-year-old heart would break.
Now I could hear “We’ll find the ——. He’s in this house,” etc. Then a rush was made into Mrs. Shipley’s bedroom and out into the back yard and also upstairs. I couldn’t help but think of what a fine chance I was missing for making a world’s record as a man-killer; for had I carried out my first plan, this was the moment as the rush was being made upstairs, when there would have been “something doing.”
As I feared they might find the hole in the floor and then set fire to the building, I concluded to get out of there, even though I had to fight my way out.
The only opening was under the sidewalk, which was about a foot above the ground. I had no idea where it would lead me, but I thought of the old saying, “Nothing risked, nothing gained.”
Finally I started east, towards the Miners’ Union hall. The store buildings were built close together, except at my building where there was a narrow alleyway leading to the rear. It was in this narrow passage where Dallas had his policeman’s beat that morning. I had to crawl on my stomach, “all same” snake in the grass; but I had to move very slowly as I was afraid of being seen by the angry men who lined the sidewalk as thick as they could stand. Some of the cracks in the sidewalk were an inch or more wide. After going the width of two store buildings, I stopped to rest, and while doing so, I lay on my back so as to look up through a wide crack. I could see the men’s eyes and hear what they said. Most of their talk was about the “scabs” killed when they blew up the Frisco Mill with giant powder. Finally one big Irishman with a brogue as broad as the Atlantic Ocean, said: “Faith and why don’t they bring that spalpeen out. I’m wanting to spit in his face, the dirty thraitor. We Emericans have got to shtand on our rights and show the worreld that we can fight.” Of course I could have told this good “Emerican” citizen the reason for the delay in bringing me out to be burnt at a stake; and I could also have told him that he was then missing a good opportunity of spitting in my face, while alive, for my mind had been made up not to be taken until dead.
This was a hint for me to be moving, knowing that I was exploring new territory.
Another twenty-five feet brought me in front of a saloon, and here I found an opening to get under the building, which was built on piles and stood about four feet from the ground. In the rear I could see daylight. At this my heart leaped with joy. The ground was covered with slush and mud and there were all kinds of tree-tops, stumps and brush under this building.
In hurrying through this brush, my watch-chain caught and tore loose. On it was a charm, a $3 gold piece with my initials C. L. A. I hated to lose this, so stopped to consider as to whether I should go back to hunt it. While studying, I wondered if I was scared. I had to smile at the thought, so I concluded to test the matter by spitting; but bless you, my mouth was so dry I couldn’t spit anything but cotton, or what looked like cotton. I decided that it was a case of scared with a big S. I had always heard that when a person is badly frightened he can’t spit; but this was the first time I ever saw it tested.
A week or so later I bought the watch-chain and charm from a boy who had found it while the union had “kids” searching for me under these buildings on the day of the riot. When the chain was found, I suppose they figured that the bird had flown, all but this relic of his breast-feathers.
On reaching the rear of the saloon, I found plenty of room to get out in the open, but before making the break, I examined my rifle and pistol to see that they were in working order.
All ready, I sprung from under the house and stood once more in glorious sunshine. The Winchester was up, ready for action. Only three men were in sight and their backs were towards me. They stood at the corner of the saloon building, looking up a vacant space towards the main street. They had evidently been placed behind these buildings to watch for me, but in their eagerness to be at the burning, they were watching the crowd in the street, knowing that the movements of the mob would indicate when the “fatted calf” was ready for the slaughter. My first impulse was to start shooting and kill these three men, but my finer feeling got the best of me. It would be too much like taking advantage and committing cold-blooded murder.
I glanced straight south. There, in front of me, about fifty yards distant, was the high railroad grade which shut off the view from the Gem mill where I knew my friends awaited me. But to undertake to scale this high grade I would be placing myself between two fires, for the chances were, my friends would take me for an enemy and start shooting.
Quicker than a flash the thought struck me to fool these three men and make them think I was going up to the top of the grade to get a shot at the “scabs.”
A little to the left there was a swift stream of water flowing through a culvert under the railroad grade, and to avoid being shot by my friends I concluded to go through this and sink or swim.
I started in a slow run, half stooped like a hunter slipping upon game, as though intending to crawl up on the grade and get a shot at the enemy, my course being a few feet to the right of the boxed culvert. I didn’t look back, as I knew my footsteps would attract the attention of the three men, and I didn’t want them to see my face or to note that my movements were suspicious. When within a few feet of the rushing water, I made a quick turn to the left and into the culvert. Just then one bullet whizzed past my head. This was the only shot fired. It was all I could do to stem the force of the water, which reached to my arm-pits. The Winchester was now in my left hand while my right extended forward holding on to the upright timber on the west wall of the culvert. After I had worked my way far enough into this culvert so that I was in the dark and out of sight of my enemy, I braced myself against an upright timber and turned around to look back. There in plain view, were three drunken Swedes trying to see me so as to get another shot. Now I held the winning hand, and raised my rifle to take advantage of my opportunity; but my heart failed me at the thought of murdering a drunken Swede, for I had found them to be a hard-working lot of sheep who were always ready to follow heartless Irish leaders. I also thought of the danger of shooting, as the flash from my rifle would indicate my whereabouts and shots might be fired in that direction. Although from the way these Swedes or Finlanders were staggering around, I didn’t think they could shoot very straight. I began to work my way to daylight on the other side, a distance of about fifty feet. I would reach ahead and get hold of an upright timber and then pull myself forward against the raging torrent. I finally emerged from the culvert and found myself under a Swede’s house, which was built over the opposite end of this culvert, with the entrance to the house fronting on the railroad track. On walking from under the house, which was built on piles, a Swede woman at her back door recognized me. She called me by name and asked what I had been doing under her house. Her husband had been one of my best union friends. I told her that I was just prowling around a little for exercise. She laughed.
Now I had to march across a 200-yard open space to reach the Gem mill and I had to take chances of being shot at by both sides.
On reaching the “scab” forts—high ricks of cordwood with port holes—I was halted by a voice behind the woodpile which said: “Drop that gun you —— and walk up here with your hands up.” I replied that I was a friend. He answered: “It don’t make a d——d bit of difference; if you don’t drop that gun your head goes off.” I dropped it, and with both hands raised, I walked up to the port hole which was made by a stick of the wood being pulled out. The fellow then told me to pull off my hat so he could see my face. I did so, and he said: “Are you that detective who came to our camp last night?” I replied yes. Then he told me to hurry and get behind the fort before the union —— took a shot at me. It was a relief to get behind the fort and shake hands with the Thiel guards there.
From here I went to the concentrator, or mill, where I found Superintendent John Monihan and a crowd, among them being Fred Carter, a wild and woolly cowboy who had been in the Frisco Mill blow-up and had run the gauntlet through a shower of bullets to reach this haven of safety. One bullet had torn the heel off one boot and crippled his heel, and another knocked one knuckle off his right hand. I afterwards saw the bullet-marks in the railroad ties where this fellow ran along the railroad track. No doubt 50 to 100 shots had been fired at him. He was the only man who escaped. The others who were not killed or wounded were taken prisoners.
This fellow Carter, had brought in bunches of “scabs” and I saw his courage tested on several occasions. He was not afraid of man nor the devil, when he had half a chance.
Shortly after my arrival at the Gem mine, a union man under a flag of truce, in the shape of a white rag, came to tell Monihan that if he didn’t surrender in a given time the Gem Mill would suffer the same fate as the Frisco Mill by being blown up. Monihan refused to surrender, and the fellow went back.
Soon we could see squads of men going around over the mountains back of the mill towards the main tunnel of the mine, up the side of the heavily timbered mountain, from whence a tramway was run to conduct the ore into the mill. Monihan and I decided that they intended to capture the mine-tunnel and then turn a tramway car loaded with dynamite and a burning fuse, down the side of the mountain into the mill. This had been done, so Fred Carter told us, at the Frisco Mill, but they failed to make the fuse long enough and the charge went off before reaching the mill, and as to how the Frisco Mill was finally blown up, was then a mystery to Carter.
In order to offset a scheme of this kind, I suggested to Monihan that I go with some men half way up the tramway and there tie some heavy poles across the rails in order to ditch a car if sent down. A couple of men were sent with me. On reaching the station over the mill I discovered that one of the men supposed to be guarding this part of the works was a union spy, and I so reported to Monihan later. Though I didn’t know it for a fact, I felt confident of it. About twelve years later the fellow confessed it to me. His name was Oscar W.
After tying the poles across the track, we continued on to the tunnel, being exposed to union bullets, as we could be seen from town.
At the tunnel I found among our guards, a rank union man who had been a shift-boss. I knew this fellow’s record in the union. He acted sheepish as though he knew that I would tell Monihan of his past record, which I did.
Shortly after my return to the mill, Monihan received orders through Ed. Kinney, French and Campbell’s confidential secretary, to surrender to the union in order to save their valuable mill from being blown up. Ed. Kinney who had been passing back and forth under a flag of truce, had received this message over the wires. Monihan asked my advice. I told him it was a bad mistake, as it placed the lives of all his men and himself at the mercy of a lot of cut-throats. He agreed that I was right, but said in the face of his orders he would have to surrender. I told him that I would never surrender alive, and that I would fight it out alone.
A young man by the name of Frank Stark, who had come in as a guard with Joe Warren and the first batch of non-union men, asked me if he couldn’t stay with me. He said he didn’t care to risk his life by surrendering. As he had an honest face and seemed to be made of good material, I consented.
We then bade Monihan farewell and slipped through the heavy timber and brush up a side canyon towards the top of the mountain to the southwest. We knew that the union had armed guards all around us, as they could be seen moving to and fro. On reaching a secluded spot on the side of the mountain from whence could be seen Gem and the union miners, we waited to see the surrender. Monihan and his 120 to 130 men marched to the depot platform and surrendered their arms to the union officials. Then we could hear loud cheering by the unionists. Finally all the prisoners were lined up in rows and a committee seemed to be examining them. I afterwards learned that it was Dallas and his gang searching for me; that after they had looked at the face of each man Dallas remarked: “The —— must have gone over the hill.” Then I heard men were sent to guard the approaches into Wallace.
While sitting here resting, I realized for the first time that I was hungry, for all I had eaten since supper the night before, was a sandwich and cup of coffee which Mrs. Shipley had put down into the hole for me, and it was in the middle of the afternoon now.
On reaching the top of the mountain range, we discovered three armed men standing in our trail, a footpath over the mountain. They were on the summit of the mountain and we dare not go below them to get past, for we could be seen. Here I got my 2 by 4 brain to working and soon studied up a scheme that might work without having to kill them. I laid my plan before Stark and he agreed to follow my instructions, which were as follows: To crawl just as near as possible to the men and then both take aim at separate ones. Then I was to say in a voice loud enough to be heard by them: “Now you shoot the —— on the right and I’ll kill the one on the left,” and then if they raised their guns to fight, we were to shoot and fight it out to a finish.
It worked like a charm, and we could hear the brush cracking where they were falling and rolling down the steep gulch to the right. We laughed until our sides hurt.
That night, just after dark, we reached the wagon road half a mile above Wallace. It was a relief to get in a smooth road after traveling so long through brush and fallen timber. We had traveled about ten miles the way we had come, and were worn out.
Just before reaching a high rocky point on the bank of the river, a few hundred yards above the depot, on the edge of Wallace, we discovered four men with rifles guarding the road, two being on one side and two on the other, about fifty feet apart. No doubt these men were guards sent to watch for me. Now it was a case of going miles around through the hills or to risk a fight with these four men. Stark agreed to leave the matter to my judgment. I decided to fight rather than quit the road, but I told Stark not to shoot until I said fire. He was to take charge of the two on the left of the road while I took care of the other two. They didn’t see us until we were within fifty feet of them. We kept the middle of the road, I watching my men, and Stark his. After passing them we kept watch over our shoulders. They hadn’t spoken or moved until we got passed them. Then my two ran over to the other two. We were soon around the high rocky point in the glare of the electric lights at the depot. Here it was as light as day, and I saw we were in a bad place.
I jumped down the bank and into the swift stream, Stark following. The water struck us about the waist and the stream was about forty feet wide. Reaching a dark place in the timber on the opposite bank we sat down to await results. But we didn’t have a minute to wait, as the four men came running around the bluff. When they reached the full electric lighted space to the depot a few hundred yards distant, and didn’t see us, they were puzzled. It was comical to see their maneuvers. Their actions showed that they never suspected the truth. Their whole minds seemed to be centered on the high cliff to the right of the road, as though we had hid in some crevice. They knew we didn’t have time to have reached the depot, the first building. In a few minutes three of them started back to their post while the other ran as hard as he could to town. We then hurried through the timber to the rear of the Carter Hotel, which had been the stopping place for mine owners. Stark was secreted in a dark place to shoot whoever undertook to harm me.
I knocked on the rear door and the porter came out. I asked who of the mine owners were there. He replied that all the mine owners but Mr. Goss had “flew the coop” on a special train, but that Mr. Monihan and Mr. Goss a millionaire mine owner, from Wisconsin, who owned a big share of the Morning mine at Mullen, were upstairs in their rooms. I told him to tell them that Allison wanted to see them at the head of the back stairs. Soon both appeared greatly excited. They begged me to skip out and get away from the hotel as they would be murdered if I were found there. They said the union men were scouring the country for me. Here I shook hands and bade them goodbye.
We then “sneaked” into French and Campbell’s private quarters where I knew Ed. Kinney and young Harry Allen, the bookkeeper, slept. Both were there and tickled to see us, but they feared the union had guards watching the place and might have seen us come in through the rear gate. So for that reason, we concluded not to waste any time telling funny stories; but we remained long enough to fill up on sardines and crackers and to put on dry underclothes. Then we struck out up a side canyon towards the southwest for “tall timber,” there to await future results.
Thus the first act in the great Coeur D’Alene miners’ strike of 1892 ends.