The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-06-17
MURDER ANDLYNCHlNG,
Italians on Monte CristO Road
Kill Their Foreman.
iMPALED WITH A CROWBAR:
Four Of the Murderers Caught and
Strung Up to a Tree.
0uietly-The Italians In . Big Ma
jority at the Camp-Crime OF the Ex-

Mourn VERNON. June l6-TSpecial. l.
Peter Bresslin arrived in the city tonight
with the story of the terrible murder of a
boss on the Monte Cristo road and the
lynching of four Italians who perpetrated
the deed. There are about $50 Italians
working for Smith Bros, contractors, and
about forty other men, beside the bosses.
On Monday last gang of eight Italians
who We're working under John Nelson,
Swede boss, became angered at him, and
at noon, when they quit work. they caught
him alone and held him and hurled
crowbar completely through his body.
-Four escaped to the woods after the deed
and four more went back to camp. The
other men in camp heard of the murder
and Immediately set about finding the
men. They finally captured the four
Italians in camp and strung them up to a
tree without ceremony. The hanging was
done so quietly that hardly any one knew
about it. even at Sauk City. Bresslin
brings the first information of the hang
ing, and as his account was secondhand
1t is only meager.
HAMILTON, June 16.-TSpecial. l. Mr.. La
mour, of Sedro, just in from Sauk, brings
news of feud in railroad camp in
Smith Bros district of the Monte Cristo
road that terminated in five deaths On
Monday the Italians in camp. or some %
them, became enraged at John Nelson,
the foreman, and, picking up crowbar,
pierced his body with the terrible weapon,
killing him almost instantly. That even
Ing the workmen in camp to avenge the
outrage, lynched four of the Italian mur-
derers by hanging
SEDRo, June 16.-TSpecial. IA report of
brutal murder of a foreman at Smith
Bros. camp on the line of the Monte Cristo
railroad, by four Italians, followed by the
lynching of the murderers, was brought
to the city this evening. John Nelson, a
white man, who has lived at Sedro for
some time and has been in the employ of
Smith Bros, the railroad contractors,
was given a position as foreman over a
gang Of Italian laborers on the grade of
the Monte Cristo railroad.
The statement as given to the Posr-IN-
TELLIGENcER reporter was that Nelson was
attacked by the Italians, and that during
the fight an iron bar was driven through
his head, killing him instantly. The other
men at the camp, numbering about sixty,
became so enraged over the brutal and un-
1'i'So-ioi HuiueI tuat kHcy Seilcu tue
Italians, and in thepresence of 150 of their
follow-countrymen lynched the quartette.
Captain W. A. Jones, of Hamilton arrived at
the Arlington hotel last night, bringing to the
city news of the lynching of four Italian work
men on the Everett d Monte Cristo railroad. He
left Hamilton at II O'Clock in the morning and
he got the word from Peter Bressin, farmer,
who came from Sauk City to Hamilton by the
steamer Indiana. The event occurred on Mon
day. The story as Captain Jones heard it was
that an American foreman on the sauk river
side OF Monte Cristo, some thirty miles from
Sauk City, had ordered gang OF Italians to do
a certain piece OF work. The men grumblei,
and the foreman threatened. Then one of the
Italians picked up crowbar and drove it clean
through the boss's body. The Americans then
rose in their wrath aud hung four OF the
Italians