Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1886-04-01
A FREIGHT STARTED.

4
| The Missouri Pacific. With the Aid OF the
| st. Louis Police and Small Army of De-
tectives and Specials, Succeed in Dis
patching q Freight Train Westward--The
Strikers Active But Not Belligerent--The
] End Not Yet.
ST. LOUIS, March 24.-The understand.
ing that another attempt would be made
| by the Missouri Pacific to run out afreight
| this morning caused the strikers and
| their friends to gather in large numbers
| in the Seventeenth street yards at an early
| hour. The Eighteenth street bridge was
| also thickly lined with men. They re-
| manned rather quiet until $3.50, when the
| details of police arrived.
Ats :45 the engine that was to take out
| the train hove in sight coming down from
| Ewing avenue. BY orders from the chief,
| the police then drove the crowd back Off
| the tracks and afterward cleared the
bridge, as it was feared that the men
would stone the train from that vantage
ground
Chief Harrigan commanded the police.
Sergeant Hennessy had fourteen men on
the bridge; Sergeant Kelly, ten men un-
der the bridge, and Sergeant Fox ten men
east of the bridge.
Mayor Francis was an interested spec
tator of the scene from the bridge.
The engine was No. 827, Thompson,
engineer, and Simmons, fireman. Upon
it was Sergeant Keevil with ten men, and
also Detective FurIong and several of his
men. All of the city detectives were pres
emit. Switch engine No. 307 was used in
making up the train. The switching and
coupling was done by Superintendent
Dickinson, Tom Adams, agent at Seventh
CTR Tr,1o III
Superintendent of Motive Power Haines,
under the superintendent of Yardmaster
Stillwell. Adams mashed his thumb with
a coupling-pin and was obliged to hunt
up some sticking plaster.
While the police were driving the crowd
back a few rocks were thrown, but no one
was injured by them. The men cheered
Furlong and several others who were at
work in the yard.
1t was claimed that Superintendent
Dickinson tried to get the clerks and
other employees in the Central Elevator to
come over and help couple cars, but they
refused.
The Kirkwood accommodation went
out on time and unmolested at ten
o'clock.
Some time was occupied in making up
the train, so that all was not ready for a
start until nearly eleven O'Clock. Adams
acted as conductor, and caused some de-
lay by throwing a switch wrong. The
strikers cheered loudly at this. Tom
Furlong and his men, however, came to
the rescue, and with the aid of wrecking
frogs got the engine and cars back on the
track. There were sixteen cars in the
train, with one or two policemen on top
of each. There were twenty-five police
on the train and two on the engine.
The fireman of switch engine 307
| Jumped off and refused to work any
| longer, and engine 2l0 was substi-
| tuted. The breaking of a coupling link
| caused another short delay. Yardmaster
| Stillwell did most of the switching.
| Twenty additional policemen were put
on the train, making fifty altogether, just
| before the start, which was made at ten
| forty-eight O'Clock.
The police kept the crowd back off the
| Missouri Pacific tracks, but not from the
| Wabash, and the freight cars of the latter
| road west of the bridge were thickly COW
| cred with men, presumably strikers. As
| the train pulled out these men climbed
down into the yard and most of them
dispersed. Sergeant Fox marched his
squad of police away, but number of
officers remained to see that no damage
was done to railroad property.
The train went along rapidly, and by the
the time it had reached Twenty-frst street
it was going at the rate of ten or fifteen
miles an hour, while the crowd on the
cars standing on the track saluted the
Furlong men with jeers and cries of
"rats,' "scabs, etc. AS the train reached
Ewing avenue crossing one of the strikers
laid an American flag on the track, but
the engineer drove his train over it..
Much indignation was expressed at this
by the crowd at the crossing. AS the
frair, hn6 fhn chn ITSf nf
Ewing avenue, its speed slackened and it
came to dead halt. 1t is said that the
engineer and fireman both jumped off,
but other men were Immediately put on
in their places and the train proceeded
west.
After time Pacific City came to view
and away up along the track crowd
could be seen moving about hurriedly.
Two or three men broke from the crowd
and ran down the road to the switch just
east of the town. They fooled around
the switch little while and then ran
back. The train slackened up and De-
tective Furlong, nr. Ballard, Sheriff AL
len and Deputy Sheriff Hacquemburg, of
st. LOUIS County, ran out ahead and
turned the switch. AS they did so the
strikers ran west to escape the deputy
sheriffs, for the switch is in St. Louis
County and the town of Pacific is partly
IN St. Louis anu partly III L Tanklln COuH-
ty. Two other switches further west
were also turned and the officers had to
run ahead to turn them back. In one of
the frogs a large coupling link had been
wedged, and there was some difficulty in
getting it out. All the time the detectives
were Juggling at this obstruction the mob
kept up bowling and threatening them.
AS the train passed through the
town men ran toward the cars on either
side to catch the pins and detach
the cars. AS they approached, however,
there was an immediate display of pistols
upon the part of the men on the train.
| Some of the strikers put their hands to
| their pistol pockets, too, and picked up
| stones and pieces of iron with which they
| advanced on the cars, but they were
| covered with pistols and fell back. There
were probably one hundred men in the
crowd at the depot and all of them seemed
to be angry that the train had passed
| them. 1t was by mere good fortune
| that no shooting was done, and the
train passed out of the little town and
proceeded to Chamois, having got as
! far as it was intended it should go. The
| train got through and the railroad scored
one on the strikers. The crew that took
| the train up will start back with another
one from Chamois this morning, and
| trouble is anticipated on both sides.
s-
A n4rn