The Jasonville Story Chapter 15

THE JASONVILLE STORY CONTINUED...

Chapter XV

Few people will recall, if they ever heard of it at all, a place named Vivian City. The name had no official status and was never shown on a map. It was the name given by the occupants of several rows of four room houses, all just alike, located in the field at the northeast corner of the Bogle cross roads. These occupants, all foreigners, mostly Hungarians, worked at the nearby mine owned by the Vivian Collieries Company. The coal company, financed by Chicago capital, through some arrangement would hire these men in Hungary and they would go to work immediately upon arrival in Jasonville. Living with only their nationality as neighbors and buddies in the mine, they learned to speak little English and had no particular need for the language. Most of their trading was done at a general store owned by Herman Goldstein and located at the northeast corner of Main and Meridian streets. Herman had some knowledge of their language and could attend to their needs and make him understood by them.

This labor was a valuable asset to the coal company, as they would work in water and in dangerous places refused by others. Being relieved of the expense of making such places dry and safe, the company profited by lower production costs. �Man cannot live unto himself alone� seemed to apply equally well to this racial group. Hundreds of immigrants from foreign lands moved into Jasonville, associated with, and adopted the customs of their neighbors and became some of our most reputable citizens. The only way they could be distinguished from our native born was their, to us, peculiarity of speech. Not so, with these residents of Vivian City. They had lived in the same squalor and overcrowded quarters they had known across the sea. With the passing of time some became arrogant and abusive to the other miners. The mine management would try to force other miners to work under the same unsafe conditions as the �hunkies�, but efforts to get the hunkies to demand better working conditions were to no avail. This created bad feelings between the two groups of workers and when some of the hunkies boasted that it was their city and their mine, and threatened to drive out all others, tempers really flared.

The incident that brought matters to a climax was when a hunky struck Charley Madaris over the head with a room tie, which was said to have cost the sight of one eye. By word of mouth a meeting of miners was called in the old opera house. The word got around quickly and on an April evening in 1908, some say 1909, a large crowd assembled. The writer attended the meeting and was impressed by the orderly manner in which it was conducted at the outset. Reports were made of several incidents at the mine, which placed the hunkies in a bad light. On one thing there seemed to be unanimity of opinion, the hunkies must go, or the other miners relinquish their jobs and seek work elsewhere. The latter course was unthinkable, so the discussion was based entirely upon the method of serving notice, and the time they would be given to leave. Cooler heads seemed to prevail toward giving them a few days to dispose of, or remove their belongings.

At this point a miner hurriedly entered and engaged in a whispered conversation with one of the leaders of the meeting. Three men followed him outside. In ten minutes or less the four returned and one of them taking the floor stated a report had been made that two hunkies had been in town that afternoon and purchased several boxes of ammunition for theses and other weapons. He alleged that the report further stated that the policeman had been tipped off concerning the purchase, had apprehended the men on their way home and relieved them of the arms and ammunition. The spokesman then announced that a committee of three had just interviewed the policeman and found the story to be true. Then a man yelled from the stage, �I make a motion we give them 15 minutes to leave.�

This was greeted with wild disorder and confusion. No effort was made to put the motion to a vote or to restore order. Without agreement or plan the crowd dispersed, each one motivated by the same purpose, arm himself and await the reassemblement of the crowd on Main Street at nightfall. A short time before, an army surplus Store in Terre Haute had held a sale on outmoded Springfield army rifles, selling the guns and several rounds of ammunition for $1.98. Several local people had bought them and many of 4hem~ were in evidence when the crowd re-assembled. There was every sort of weapon from a muzzle loading squirrel rifle to the latest models in Colts revolvers and Remington shotguns. I even saw a horse pistol of ancient vintage that the owner proudly displayed as being the one he used in running the hoboes out of Alum Cave several years before.

With the arrival of darkness this motley crew began its two-mile march to Bogle Corner. There were men from almost every station in life. Miners, businessmen, livery stable, employees, bartenders, and a few farmers marched in the throng. The devout churchman marched side by side with the tipsy bartender, each equally enraged and outraged that a foreign group dared to attempt the exclusion of Native Americans from any part of the U.S.A. No martial music, no clipped marching commands, this group of silent, determined men trudged on, even those who had imbibed too freely before leaving town seemed to realize the seriousness of the situation and marched in grim silence. Upon approaching Wier�s store at the corner, a single horseman appeared in the middle of the road and commanded the �army� to �Halt, in the name of the law, I am from the Clay County Sheriff�s office�. The ranks didn�t slacken their pace and the horseman wheeled his horse and galloped at a lively clip back toward Brazil.

The first break in the ranks came when all the short men in front so the taller ones could shoot over their heads. With several of the taller men marching rather unsteadily, this formation did not appeal at all to those of shorter stature. They retired to the side in a formation of their own. It had been learned from people living nearby, that the children and most of the women had been placed in houses at a far corner of the �blocks� as the settlement was called. The men had concentrated in two houses in which they had stood railroad ties on end entirely around the walls leaving only cracks at the windows to fire through. These timbers of seasoned white oak eight inches thick undoubtedly saved several lives as those Springfield rifles penetrated the walls and plaster, as though, they were matchboxes. Long afterward these walls resembled a sieve.

When they arrived at the nearest of these houses, a committee of three stepped forward and called to those inside that they wished to talk with them. When they had advanced within a few feet of the closed door, the end of a shotgun barrel was stuck through from the inside and fired almost in the faces of the committee. The charge couldn�t have missed the heads of two men more than a few inches as it passed between them. This committee of truce sprang back out of range from the door and the battle was on. No one there had ever heard such a volume of sound. There was no count but I know there were more than 200 firearms of various designs being fired simultaneously. One gun blast makes quiet a sound, and if you can image it multiplied 200 or 300 times, it may give you a faint idea of what it was like. To our boys who have served in two wars since that day, it would probably resemble the popping of corn.
After the door had been pretty much shot away, the hunkies shouted that they wanted to talk. A cease-fire was ordered and the defenders of the houses agreed to leave at once if the other force would withdraw. Most of them left on foot that night, some catching trains at Coalmont, Lewis and elsewhere the next morning. The wounded among them kept applying for medical aid from the doctors of Clinton Indiana, and Georgetown and Westville, Illinois for several days thereafter. Most of them became citizens of those three mining towns thereafter. They must have adopted American ways in their new environment more readily than they did here. One of them became mayor of Westville and this made our football team and fans quite apprehensive when they learned of this after arriving there for a football game. The matter went unnoticed. I can recount six members of the native �Army� that were wounded by gun shot, none seriously.
The next day wild rumors flew through the city about a proposed return of the hunkies with reinforcements from their numbers in nearby mining towns. Guards had been left at the Bogle through the night and the next day and they reported no suspicious movements. In spite of this apparent cessation of hostilities, a local citizen, Mack Kilburn, promptly recruited an army for duty on the second night and telephoned friends in Linton to send re-enforcements on the evening train. A great host of onlookers together with �General� Kilburn�s army packed the platform at train time. As the train neared the General, bayonet fixed on an old army musket, prodded people out of the way and commanded, �Stand back folks, give these Linton men room to get off�. The train ground to a stop, they helped a little old lady off on the station side, a drunk fell off on the other side and the train whistled its departure.

On the night of the battle the Clay County sheriff must have notified the Governor�s office, as Company B. of the state militia was alerted and held in the armory at Terre Haute all night. The affair was also subject to diplomatic exchanges between the Austria Hungary government and the American state department. If our government ever made any sort of settlement, I never learned of it, and no one of the attacking force was ever tried or punished.

Were there serious casualties on our side? It is alleged that Clell Sexton suffered a heat prostration while leading the retreat of the �short� men, from which he has never fully recovered.

In the early days of mining, pay roll checks were a thing unknown. On miners pay days the 10th and 25th of each month, the men received their pay in cash at the office on the mining property. In many cases payment was made in gold except the small amount required to balance the payment. Each employee�s pay was made up in a small envelope and handed out to him when he arrived in turn at the pay window.

No one paid any attention to a red bearded man who loitered about the tipple at Latta Creek mine on the morning of Saturday, October 9, 1915. Men, bearded and otherwise, often hung, hoping to catch one of the bosses �on top� and ask for a job. Lattas Creek had better working conditions than most mines of the field, and for a period of years had averaged better working time than most.

As this autumn morning wore on, Neal Murphy, Cashier of the Vandalia Coal Company from Linton, called at the Lattas Creek office and delivered to bookkeeper Earl Smith $8400.00 in cash for the pay roll. The day, October 9th, was payday, the 10th falling on Sunday. After a brief chat with Smith, Murphy departed for Linton. Smith busied himself with getting the pay roll money in readiness for distribution to the men at the close of the workday. He paid scant attention to a man entered the office and inquired as to what time he would begin paying off. Smith had no means of knowing that this was the red bearded man seen loitering about earlier in the morning, but had now shed the false beard. Nor did he know that this man with or without beard was Dusty Grimes a notorious underworld character of Terre Haute, came out of the brush West of the office dressed in hunting clothes and carrying a shotgun. Upon entering the office he ordered Smith to turn and face the wall. A mine pay roll robbery was a thing unheard of and Smith considered it a joke until Grimes whipped out a revolver, and leveling it at Smith�s head, ordered him to put up his hands.

They took the money, and a shotgun Smith kept in the office, and tearing the telephone from the wall ordered the terrified Smith not to move for five minutes. They ran west to a lane where they had hidden a motorcycle, throwing both shotguns away in the brush as they ran. As they ran front Smith�s sight he raced to the engine room and excitedly spluttered out the story to Pleas Bledsoe and hoisting engineer. Pleas grasped the whistle cord and five long piercing blasts from the mine whistle (the distress signal) rent the autumn air. He then quickly spun the crank on the phone; the one in the engine room had not been disconnected, answered by Mary Lewis the Jasonville operator. He relayed to the operator, Smith�s story with a description of the two men and their means of escape. The information was soon in the hands of the police officials of Linton, Sullivan, Shelburn, Terre Haute, and all other nearby towns and cities.

Through the ownership of a motorcycle Davey was picked up for questioning, being found at a hotel on N. 9th Street in Terre Haute. Smith identified him as one of the men at the Terre Haute police station the following Tuesday. Dusty Grimes was arrested about a week later in a boarding house at Zeigler, Illinois, where he had fled with the bulk of the money. He had secreted this money in a jug and two of his fellow boarders stole it and departed for the West Coast. After some time these men were~1ocated but had squandered all the money. Davey had hidden something over $1000 inside a piano in the home of a relative in Sullivan County and this was all of the $8400 ever recovered. Both men entered pleas of guilty and were sentenced to terms of 2 to 14 years in the state pris4n. Their prison terms did not turn them aside from their lives of crime, and both men met violent deaths while engaged in the commission of crimes in later years. Davey was shot to death by officers when caught in an attempted robbery in Worthington a few years ago. I do not recall the details of Grimes� death.

It was necessary that I refresh my memory to get the exact details of this story again in order. We older folks all knew the story well 43 years ago. With this in mind, I directed a letter to Earl Smith at Petersburg, Indiana a month or so ago, enclosing some questions I wished to be answered. I received a reply from his daughter Lois (Smith) Burch stating that Earl was �almost blind and quite deaf� but that his memory was very clear about the incident and she relayed to me the needed information. Old Lattas Creek men, who reside away from Jasonville, will be sad to learn that not long after this correspondence was had, about May 1, 1958, Earl passed away. I am taking it for granted that all his local friends, and they were a host, know of his passing.

This incident entirely changed the manner of payment of miners� wages. Until the system of payment by check could be instituted, armed guards stood over the money from the time it arrived at the mine until the distribution was completed. It was the first and only holds up of the kind.

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