Gunfire at the Depots

Wages before the confrontation

Before the violence at the depots, there were disputes over pay at the collieries. A July 12, 1877, dispatch reported that about 200 men and boys had struck at Buck Ridge, operated by May, Audenried & Company. Their complaint was that the previous month’s wages had been paid at half the established basis. That comparison was the dispatch’s explanation of the dispute; it did not set out a wage table.

Later in July, another report described a ten-percent reduction among operators in the Shamokin region and a stoppage at Buck Ridge. The papers were reporting different wage comparisons, not a single uniform rate for every worker. Their accounts place the depot confrontation within an already troubled summer of coal work.

From Union Hall to the railroad depots

On July 25, 1877, a meeting at Union Hall near Rock and Spurzheim streets brought workers together during a dispute over wages. The day’s unrest then moved toward the Reading freight depot and the Northern Central railroad. Places built to move goods and passengers became the setting for a confrontation.

The fullest retained local account was a Shamokin Times report reprinted by the Sunbury Gazette. It said that an offer of work at a dollar a day was voted down at the meeting. After adjournment, the crowd moved along Spurzheim, Shamokin and Independence streets toward the Reading freight depot.

There, the account described stones thrown at a window and doors forced with a plank. Flour, cheese and brooms were among the goods taken. The railroad agent’s estimate put the loss at no more than fifty dollars. The report described damage to the doors, rather than the complete destruction of the building.

The gathering then moved toward the Northern Central depot. The chief burgess had assembled armed citizens at the Presbyterian church, and the local account described them advancing toward the crowd and firing. The street names, the depots and the church give this encounter a specific setting within the town; they do not make every account of the firing agree.

Philip Wiest survived

Philip Wiest was one of those struck. The local account placed him at a cellar doorway near Independence and Liberty streets and described a wound passing from near the diaphragm toward his hip. It reported that his physician did not consider the wound fatal.

Other early reports were far more alarming. The Public Press described a man named Weist as mortally wounded, and accounts predicted that a boy called Shoops would die. Robert Thompson was also named among the injured. The Carbon Advocate described Thompson and the boy as spectators. These were reports made amid the crisis, with different descriptions and expectations.

Wiest’s subsequent appearances in the news change the story. In August, the Public Press reported that he was able to be out. Another report named Philip Wiest among men committed to jail on accusations connected with rioting and the Reading depot robbery, adding that he was the man who had been shot during the troubles.

The first news of a crisis is not always its final history. Wiest’s recovery is documented; an early prediction of death should not take its place. A later Gazette item also said the list of people wounded had grown as some initially slight injuries required medical attention. That changing list cannot safely be turned into a settled death toll.

The strike entered households

Mine work remained unsettled after the gunfire. An August 9 dispatch, printed the following day in Lebanon, reported that men at Cameron, Luke Fidler, Hickory Ridge and Hickory Swamp had decided to hold out for a twenty-five-percent advance. The dispatch described a threatened shutdown, not proof that every announced measure was carried out.

The Shamokin Times also reported hardship away from the collieries. In an August 10 account reprinted by the Public Press, it described hunger and sickness in streets and alleys and said merchants and private citizens had given assistance until their own means were strained. Its language was urgent, but it supplied no household-by-household count or relief ledger.

By the end of August, the Gazette reprinted happier news from the Times: collieries in the vicinity were working again. Cameron had resumed, and the Luke Fidler whistle had sounded. The writer hoped better coal prices would bring better wages. Resumption was reported; a common wage settlement for all the collieries was not.

Court proceedings and a family’s loss

The court cases continued into November. The Gazette reported jury verdicts against Christian Neely and David Gass and an acquittal for James Tenety. Philip Wiest, James Ebright, Peter Campbell and James Richards pleaded guilty in the proceedings it described. The distinctions matter: an arrest, a plea and a jury verdict are not interchangeable.

A subsequent report in the Selinsgrove Times gave the prison terms, ranging from three months for Richards to nine months for Wiest. It listed a five-dollar fine and prosecution costs for each of the six sentenced men.

The following July, a newspaper report brought Wiest’s family into view. It said he had returned home to attend the funeral of his youngest child and then gone back to Sunbury to serve the remaining four days of his sentence. The child, whose name was not given, had been born around the time the father went to prison.

The surviving news follows more than a single night of disorder. It follows disputed wages, a workers’ meeting, armed public authority, wounded people, interrupted work, relief, court sentences and a household bereavement. In that longer history, the depots were the scene of the confrontation, but its consequences reached far beyond them.