page_title: Clearfield County, Pennsylvania
section_title: Clearfield County Conspiracy Trials
hierarchical_section_title: Clearfield County, Pennsylvania / History / Clearfield County Conspiracy Trials
caption_attribution_description: English: View of Clearfield borough looking west
context_page_description: Clearfield County is a sixth-class county located in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 census, the population was 81,642. The county seat is Clearfield, and the largest city is DuBois. The county was created in 1804 and later organized in 1822.
  Clearfield County comprises the DuBois, PA Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the State College-DuBois, PA Combined Statistical Area.
context_section_description: No case tried in the county has caused as much comment as the union conspiracy trials. In all there were fifty-six persons, primarily miners in the Houtzdale region, who were charged with conspiracy as organized strikers. The first case against John Maloney and fifty three others was tried in 1875, before a jury with Judge Orvis presiding. All were found guilty, although they seem to have been solely peacefully picketing. Four were sentenced to one year's imprisonment, eight for six months, and sentences suspended as to the others. As every organized labor society in the USA was interested in the result, the events of the trial and verdict were telegraphed throughout the country
  This proceeding was followed by the trial of the remaining two offenders who were union representatives, John Siney, and Xingo Parks. Siney was then the President of the Miners’ National Association (MNA). He came to Houtzdale and delivered an address of support for the union strike, for which he was arrested. Parks was an able organizer for the MNA. They were defended by US Senator Matthew H. Carpenter of Wisconsin. At trial Siney was acquitted, but Parks was found guilty of inciting unlawful assembly. He was sentenced to one year's imprisonment, but pardoned within a month from the time sentence was pronounced. These cases led in the next year to a liberalization of the Pennsylvania conspiracy law, through amendment providing that only "force, threat, or menace of harm to person or property" should be considered illegal.
caption: Clearfield the county seat of Clearfield County
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