Mine blast shakes Crested Butte to its foundations

Fifty-nine miners perish in Jokerville explosion

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

The Jokerville Mine outside of Crested Butte was full of methane gas and exploded on January 24, 1884, killing 59 miners. Others were injured, and it is still the third-deadliest mine disaster in Colorado history. The explosion demonstrated the dangers of coal mining, despite it being prevalent fuel source at the time. Jokerville and other similar disasters helped nudge Colorado miners toward embracing unions such as the Western Federation of Miners, which started organizing in the state in the 1890s.

"Black clouds still rolled out of the coal mine shaft and a man crawled out with them. He was burned black, far beyond immediate recognition, and for a time seemed the sole survivor. Yet some others did get out, 11, more dead than alive. One able to speak coherently said he was among the group entering the mine for the day's work. He was knocked down and lay unconscious for a while, then started crawling along the floor where the air seemed better," according to an account of the disaster by Lambert Florin, in Ghost Towns of the West. 

"I know I crawled over several men that seemed very dead to me," the survivor reported.

"That blast on Jan. 24, 1884, shook Crested Butte to its very foundations," wrote Florin. "All the buildings around the mine were demolished, coal cars shot out of the tunnel, debris scattered more than 100 feet. The new ventilator fan was the first casualty, making it impossible for rescuers to enter the smokey, fume-filled entrance."

"As news of the January blast spread, miners from Baldwin and other camps quit work to come to Crested Butte on special trains to aid the rescue work. The first group was able to get in as far as the first level, 200 feet down, found a collection of 17 bodies. Although it was impossible to penetrate deeper more than a moment it was obvious many more dead lay at lower levels," wrote Florin.

"Huddled around the shattered entrance, families of the unfortunate men stood in shocked silence ..." wrote Gunnison historian Betty Wallace. "... there was no outcry, but muffled sobbing when, 38 hours after the explosion  — the first body was brought to the surface — wrapped in canvas, a card of identification pinned to his breast."

The process continued until 59 bodies lay in the blacksmith shop, which had been pressed into service as makeshift morgue.

Several of the victims were teen-age boys on their first job. Most men were found lying on the ground with handkerchiefs over their mouths, indicating deaths by suffocation, rather than concussion by the blast. 

According to Colorado Encyclopedia, " Crested Butte began in 1878 as a supply depot for the silver mines of Gunnison County. In 1880, though, high-quality coal beds were found nearby, the kind that could produce coke—a higher-carbon, hotter-burning fuel. Industrialist William Jackson Palmer had just formed Colorado Coal and Iron (CC&I), the predecessor to the goliath Colorado Fuel and Iron, and he saw Crested Butte’s coal as an integral part of his plan to open a steelworks in Pueblo. Palmer extended his Denver & Rio Grande Railroad to Crested Butte, and in 1881 the remote mountain outpost became a booming coal town."

"On November 24, 1881, CC&I opened the Crested Butte Mine about one mile west of town. By September, it was known as the Jokerville Mine and was among the most productive in the area. By 1883 it boasted fifty coke ovens, where the raw coal was superheated into coke. That coke was hauled off by rail to Pueblo, where it powered the creation of steel," says Colorado Encyclopedia.

Working in coal mines like the Jokerville was dirty and dangerous. Miners inhaled coal dust all day long, which led to the devastating respiratory disease known as black lung. Shafts could collapse or flood. Flammable methane gas released from coal beds often built up in the mines, and each morning an inspector had to check the air quality before work could begin.

Miners braved all these hazards for twelve to fourteen hours and two dollars a day. Even children worked the mine—the youngest employees at the Jokerville were two twelve-year-olds, William Neath and Tommy Lyle.

During a routine inspection in December 1883, state mine inspector John McNeil observed that the mine appeared to be “well ventilated” and “everything was in proper order”—though he still considered “the Crested Butte mine a very dangerous one.”

"On the frigid morning of January 24, 1884, fire boss Luke Richardson finished his daily inspection of the Jokerville Mine. He found the mine clear of gas except for one chamber—number eighteen, on the second level. Richardson told the miners it was safe to go to work even though the partition in the gassy chamber had to be repaired to prevent buildup in the rest of the mine. Workers had already begun their shifts as Richardson left to get materials for the repair," according to Colorado Encyclopedia.

"It was then, that Richardson heard the sickening sound of a blast that shredded the mine entrance. The explosion instantly killed the two boys who worked near the mine opening, as well as Neath’s older brother, seventeen-year-old Morgan Neath."

Thinking the explosion was much smaller than it was, Richardson ran into the mine with his lamp and immediately came across the body of another worker, John Rutherford. Then, ten more workers came struggling out of the deeper reaches of the mine; they survived the blast but were choking on the “after-damp”—gas that lingered after the explosion. All ten made it out safely, including worker John Angus, who had been injured in the blast. The other survivors set to work repairing the ventilation fan damaged by the explosion; nobody could enter the mine to recover bodies until the toxic air was cleared.

When Colorado mine inspector McNeil arrived the next day, he took control of the cleanup and recovery of the dead. On the mine’s first level, he encountered a grisly scene:

Some of the bodies on the main level . . . had been exposed to the full force of the blast, and in several cases arms and legs were found broken and bodies otherwise battered by being thrown against the jagged walls.

Moving past the “carcasses of nine mules,” McNeil followed the air-intake route deeper into the mine and found “18 of the missing bodies huddled and piled in little groups in indiscriminate confusion.” McNeil observed that the “men had evidently been making their escape before the deadly after-damp checked their attempt, when but a few hundred feet from air.” It took nearly a week to recover all 59 bodies.

"When he heard of the blast, Palmer, the mine’s owner, immediately sent a telegram with $1,000 to be divided among the families of the deceased miners. The company also paid for transportation and burial of the bodies," according to reports.

McNeil’s interviews with survivors suggested that the blast was the result of at least some negligence on the part of Richardson, the fire boss. Garvin Dickson, a twenty-four-year coal mining veteran, said that John Anderson, the miner working in the gas-filled chamber the morning of January 24, “did not know much about gas.” Still, Richardson allowed Anderson to attempt the repairs to the chamber partition, according to Dickson. This contradicted Richardson’s own story that he was just getting his tools to make the repairs when the explosion happened.

In his final inspection statement, McNeil wrote that he thought “there had been carelessness to cause such an accident, but could not locate it; it is difficult for the most expert miner to locate carelessness after an explosion.” He further noted that “if Anderson had allowed the fire-boss to have preceded him [into the mine], the fire-boss . . . would have done the self-same thing . . . thus the accident might have happened at the fire-boss’ hands.”

The explosion shuttered the Jokerville Mine for a year, until another entrance was dug out about a half-mile west of the blown-out one. The mine remained productive through 1891, when a labor strike disrupted activities. The mine closed in 1895 after a larger coal seam was found nearby.

The explosion captured national attention, with media coverage in the New York Times and Harper’s, but those accounts and McNeil’s reports spurred no reforms of the  dangerous industry. Accidents like the Jokerville blast, generally chalked up to be part of the risk of mining at the time. The danger of such disasters did, however, play a role in making miners more open to unions that started organizing in Colorado mining towns at the end of the nineteenth century.

In the early 1990s, Crested Butte residents put up a plaque with an incomplete list of the names of the miners killed in the disaster. In September 2017, the town placed a new granite memorial in the Crested Butte cemetery with the full list of fallen miners.

One of the earliest private eyes in public view

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” 

― George Orwell

“Police business is a hell of a problem. It’s a good deal like politics. It asks for the highest type of men, and there’s nothing in it to attract the highest type of men. So we have to work with what we get...” 
― Raymond Chandler, The Lady in the Lake

James McParland in 1907

McParland's legend rode in on backs of Labor

James McParland, one the earliest private eyes in the public view, considered his work to be “a life and death struggle” of good Americans against “the blight” of subversive, radical unionists. He said so, to George Bangs, in Denver, December 5, 1908, according Pinkerton records.

In his lifetime, he managed high profile cases in Union vs. Labor conflicts in the East including the Molly Maguires, and later in the mountain West, ranging from the "Butch Cassidy" file (and others belonging to the gang known later as the Wild Bunch), to "Mad Bomber of Cripple Creek," and the assassination of former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg. 

He was born in Ireland in 1843 and worked as a stock clerk, farm worker and circus barker before leaving from Liverpool to New York in 1867. He then lived in Chicago and ran a store selling booze. After a fire destroyed his business in 1871, he joined the Pinkerton Detective Agency. 

The Pinkerton National Detective Agency, of course, is a private security guard and detective agency established in 1850 by Scottish immigrant, Allan Pinkerton. The organization became famous when Allan Pinkerton claimed to have foiled a plot to assassinate president-elect Abraham Lincoln, who later hired Pinkerton agents for his personal security during the Civil War.

Molly Maguires

McParland first came to national attention when, as an undercover operative using the name James McKenna, he infiltrated and helped to dismantle an organization of activist Pennsylvania coal miners called the Molly Maguires. During the 1870s, miners in the region of the anthracite mines lived a life of "bitter, terrible struggle." Wages were low, working conditions were atrocious, and deaths and serious injuries numbered in the hundreds each year. Conditions were certainly ripe for labor unrest:

Labor angrily watched "railway directors (riding) about the country in luxurious private cars proclaiming their inability to pay living wages to hungry working men."

The Molly Maguires were Irish Catholic when there was frequent prejudice against such persons. It was a time of rampant beatings and murders in mining districts, some committed by the Mollies.
Franklin B. Gowen, the President of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, and of the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company, "the wealthiest anthracite coal mine owner in the world", hired Allan Pinkerton's services to deal with the Molly Maguires. Pinkerton assigned McParland to the job. McParland successfully infiltrated the secret organization, becoming a secretary for one of its local groups. McParland turned in reports daily, eventually collecting evidence of murder plots and intrigue, passing this information along to Benjamin Franklin, his Pinkerton manager. He also began working secretly with Robert Linden, a Pinkerton agent assigned to the Coal and Iron Police for the purpose of coordinating the eventual arrest and prosecution of members of the Molly Maguires.

On Dec. 10, 1876, three men and two women with Molly connections were attacked in their house by masked men. One woman in the house, wife of one of the Molly Maguires, was taken outside and shot dead. McParland was outraged that the information he had been providing had found its way into the hands of killers. 

To give McParland some credit, he protested in a letter to his bosses at Pinkerton:

"Now I wake up this morning to find that I am the murderer of Mrs. McAlister. What had a woman to do with the case – did the [Molly Maguires] in their worst time shoot down women. If I was not here the Vigilante Committee would not know who was guilty and when I find them shooting women in their thirst for blood I hereby tender my resignation to take effect as soon as this message is received. It is not cowardice that makes me resign but just let them have it now I will no longer interfere as I see that one is the same as the other and I am not going to be an accessory to the murder of women and children. I am sure the (Molly Maguires) will not spare the women so long as the Vigilante has shown an example."

McParland was prevailed upon not to resign. Frank Winrich, a first lieutenant with the Pennsylvania State Militia, was arrested as the leader of the attackers, but was released on bail. Then another Molly Maguire, Hugh McGehan, a 21-year-old who had been secretly identified as a killer by McParland, was fired upon and wounded by unknown assailants. Later, the McGehans' home was attacked by gunfire.

Eventually enough evidence was collected on reprisal killings and assassinations that arrests could be made and, based primarily on McParland's testimony, 10 Molly Maguires were sent to the gallows. Some writers declare unequivocally that justice was done. Others have argued that, "... punishment had gone too far, and that the guilt of some of the condemned was that of association more than participation and but half established by other condemned men seeking clemency for themselves."

Joseph G. Rayback, author of A History of American Labor, has observed:

The charge has been made that the Molly Maguires episode was deliberately manufactured by the coal operators with the express purpose of destroying all vestiges of unionism in the area ... There is some evidence to support the charge ... the "crime wave" that appeared in the anthracite fields came after the appearance of the Pinkertons, and ... many of the victims of the crimes were union leaders and ordinary miners. The evidence brought against [the defendants], supplied by James McParlan, a Pinkerton, and corroborated by men who were granted immunity for their own crimes, was tortuous and contradictory, but the net effect was damning ... The trial temporarily destroyed the last vestiges of labor unionism in the anthracite area. More important, it gave the public the impression ... that miners were by nature criminal in character ...

In Colorado

James McParland

In 1885, the Thiel Detective Agency opened an office in Denver. Allan Pinkerton, who had died two years earlier, left the Pinkerton Detective Agency to his sons. The brothers opened their fourth office in Denver in order to compete with Thiel. They assigned Charles O. Eames to head the Denver office. When it appeared that Eames was running the western branch dishonestly, they assigned McParland to investigate. McParland discovered extensive abuses against clients and against the agency, and reported on them. Everyone was fired except for McParland and Charlie Siringo.

Tom Horn

McParland was named superintendent of Pinkerton's Denver office, and of the Pinkerton's western division. In April 1891, Mrs. Josephine Barnaby was murdered by poison. McParland tricked Thomas Thatcher Graves, her accused murderer, into traveling from Providence, Rhode Island, to Denver where he was arrested and convicted of the crime. McParland hired gunman Tom Horn (later executed for murder in Wyoming), who, while working for Pinkerton killed seventeen men, according to a count by Siringo. While Horn had been working for Wyoming cattlemen, "it was the cattle interests who decreed that he must die", probably to keep him from talking.

One of McParland's tasks was infiltrating and disrupting union activities. He successfully placed numerous spies within the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) union, and more into the United Mine Workers. Some of McParland's agents took part in the WFM strike that came to be called the Colorado Labor Wars. One in particular was charged with sabotaging the union's relief program during the strike. Bill Haywood, Secretary Treasurer of the WFM, wrote about the sabotage in his autobiography:

"I had been having some difficulty with the relief committee of the Denver smelter men. At first we had been giving out relief at such a rate that I had to tell the chairman that he was providing the smelter men with more than they had had while at work. Then he cut down the rations until the wives of the smelter men began to complain that they were not getting enough to eat. Years later, when his letters were published in The Pinkerton Labor Spy, I discovered that the chairman of the relief committee was a Pinkerton detective, who was carrying out the instructions of the agency in his methods of handling the relief work, deliberately trying to stir up bad feeling between the strikers and the relief committee."

Steunenberg assassination

In 1899, Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg crushed a rebellion of miners during a labor dispute in Coeur d'Alene. On December 30, 1905, Steunenberg, five years out of office, opened the side gate of the picket fence at his house in Caldwell, which set off an explosive device that took his life. A man using the name Tom Hogan had set the bomb; he was born Albert Horsley but best known as Harry Orchard. The killer left evidence in his hotel room, and did not try to flee.

After the assassination, Idaho's Chief Justice Stockslager drafted a telegram which invited the Pinkerton Agency to investigate. Idaho Governor Frank Gooding was persuaded to approve the request, and Pinkerton agent McParland soon arrived to lead the investigation. McParland announced his suspicion that Orchard was "the tool of others."

McParland frequently used the expression inner circle to describe a secret cabal in the Western Federation of Miners when pitching Pinkerton's services to mine owners. McParland's stenographer, Morris Friedman, observed that by portraying the WFM in this manner, the Pinkerton office in Denver had generated "as much, and at times even more business than five other offices of the Agency combined."

McParland had Orchard transferred from the Caldwell, Idaho jail to death row in the Boise penitentiary. The move was initially resisted by Judge Smith, who would be responsible for trying the case. The local judge anticipated a successful habeas corpus lawsuit against the tactic. McParland gave him "thirty precedents for the move." However, the sheriff in Caldwell reportedly opposed the move as well. Gooding arranged a meeting between McParland and Chief Justice Stockslager, and then with Judge Smith. Before Smith arrived, McParland declared the county jail insecure, a potential target for dynamite. He also stated the purpose of the move to death row: "After three days I will attempt to get a confession." Chief Justice Stockslager approved of the move. In a pre-arranged plan, the Governor was called out of the room as soon as Judge Smith arrived, leaving McParland and the two judges alone. With the Chief Justice supporting the move to death row, Judge Smith also agreed.

Mad bomber of Cripple Creek, Harry Orchard.

On death row, Orchard was placed under a constant watch, and his food rations were cut.He was incarcerated next to two death row inmates who were awaiting execution themselves. Relays of guards watched him night and day, but never spoke to him. The three-day wait turned into nine days.

On January 22, the hungry prisoner was escorted into the warden's office and left alone with McParland. The two enjoyed a lavish meal followed by fine cigars. McParland threatened Orchard with immediate hanging, and said that he could avoid that fate only if he testified against leaders of the WFM. McParland allayed Orchard's skepticism by telling him about "Kelly the Bum", a confessed murderer who became a prosecution witness in the Molly Maguires cases.

McParland claimed "Kelly" not only had received freedom as part of the deal, but he had been given "one thousand dollars to subsidize a new life abroad". McParland dismissed the possibility that Orchard would face charges in Colorado if allowed to go free in Idaho. McParland had offered a stark choice: an immediate visit to the gallows, or better treatment for the prisoner with the possibility of freedom, a possible financial reward, and the gratitude of the state of Idaho. Orchard was known to Charles Moyer, having once acted as his body guard on a trip from Denver to Telluride. Orchard had also met Bill Haywood. In 1899 Orchard was at the scene of the labor unrest in Coeur d'Alene when Steunenberg had severely punished the union miners for an act of violence. He chose to cooperate. Orchard was transferred from death row to a private bungalow in the prison yard. He was provided with special meals, new clothing, spending money, his favorite cigars, and a library of religious tracts. The current governor of Idaho stopped by to shake his hand and congratulate him on cooperating.

Big Bill Haywood

McParland had Western Federation of Miners leaders Bill Haywood, Charles Moyer, and George Pettibone arrested in Colorado. In his book Roughneck, writer Peter Carlson wrote that the extradition papers falsely claimed that the three men had been present at Steunenberg's murder. Carlson described the arrest across state lines as a "kidnapping scheme." However, under Idaho law, conspirators were considered to be present at the scene of the crime. The extradition was done with the cooperation and involvement of the Colorado authorities, and was later upheld by the US Supreme Court, with one dissent.
The Steunenberg trials

McParland rounded up potential witnesses, assembled evidence, checked out potential jurors, and "leaked information that would tarnish the reputations of the defendants and their attorneys." McParland placed a spy, "Operative 21", on the defense team. The spy operated as a jury canvasser, and may have been instructed to provide the defense with erroneous reports of the preferences of potential jurors. However, the spy was discovered.

McParland sought to bolster Orchard's testimony by forcing another WFM miner, Steve Adams, to turn state's evidence. McParland used the same method for eliciting a confession from Adams as he had on Orchard: he told Adams he was merely a "tool," and told him he "would be forgiven his sins," if he confessed. With his wife and children also confined in the Idaho prison, allegedly for their own protection, Adams signed a confession, then later recanted. McParland sought leverage over Adams to force him to re-affirm the confession. Charges against Adams for several murders resulted in two hung juries and one acquittal. As a result of Adams' first trial, in which he was defended by attorneys Clarence Darrow and Edmund F. Richardson, details of McParland's coercive treatment of witnesses when seeking a confession were revealed on the witness stand. McParland had contracted to provide Pinkerton services for Bulkeley Wells, the president and manager of the Smuggler-Union Mining Company in Telluride, Colorado. Together with Wells and others, McParland planned to have Adams charged with involvement after-the-fact in the murder of mine bricklayer William J. Barney, who had disappeared one week after accepting the position as a guard at the Smuggler-Union mine. There was one difficulty with the accusation: William J. Barney hadn't been murdered; in fact, he was very much alive. 

McParland tried to turn conspiracy defendant Moyer against co-defendants Haywood and Pettibone by having a sheriff claim Pettibone, Adams, and Orchard were plotting to kill Moyer, but that plan wasn't put into action. A slightly different scheme was tried to split the trio, but Moyer didn't take the bait.

At the Haywood trial, which was funded, in part, by direct contributions from the Ceour d'Alene District Mine Owners' Association to prosecuting attorneys, the only evidence against the WFM leader was Harry Orchard's testimony. Orchard confessed to acting as a paid informant for the Mine Owners' Association He reportedly told a companion, G.L. Brokaw, that he had been a Pinkerton employee for some time. and a bigamist. He admitted to abandoning wives in Canada and Cripple Creek. He had burned businesses for the insurance money in Cripple Creek and Canada.

Orchard had burglarized a railroad depot, rifled a cash register, stolen sheep, and had made plans to kidnap children over a debt. He also sold fraudulent insurance policies. To satisfy McParland, Orchard had signed a confession to a series of bombings and shootings which had killed at least seventeen men, all of which he blamed on the Western Federation of Miners. The original confession was never made public. but a more comprehensive version released in 1907 included many pages of incriminating allegations.

Although at first his testimony on the witness stand in the Bill Haywood trial seemed plausible, the defense pointed out some significant contradictions. Orchard claimed his instructions came from Haywood and Moyer, but the authors of The Pinkerton Story observe:

It was impossible to establish beyond a reasonable doubt through any witness, except Orchard's wife, second and bigamous, the fact of private meetings between him and Haywood.

The defense called two surprise witnesses – Morris Friedman, McParland's private stenographer until 1905, who testified about Pinkerton's practices of infiltration and sabotage of the WFM; and McParland's brother, Edward, who had been a shoemaker in the Cripple Creek District during the Colorado Labor Wars. Edward testified that he had been working at his cobbler's bench in Victor when national guardsmen:

"... took him in custody, striking him several times with their gun butts for moving too slowly. After days in a Cripple Creek bullpen, he and seventy-seven others were put on a train and deported to neighboring Kansas ..."

The appearance of his brother Edward was intended "simply to embarrass" the detective, for it recounted "the imperial style of the Peabody administration in Colorado, with which McParland and the Pinkertons had been closely associated."

The majority of jurors in the Haywood trial found Orchard not to be a credible witness, and Haywood was acquitted. In a separate trial for George Pettibone, the defense team declined to argue the case, resting upon a not guilty plea. Pettibone was also acquitted. Charges against Moyer were dropped. After the cases against the WFM leaders failed, Orchard was tried alone for Steunenberg's murder, was found guilty, and was sentenced to death. However, the sentence was commuted to life, and he lived out the rest of his life in his prison bungalow.

Competition

McParland was a rival to Wilson S. Swain, northwestern manager of the Thiel Detective Agency. During the Stuenenberg investigation, Swain set up shop in Caldwell, Idaho, intimating to county authorities and to the governor that he'd been hired by the mine owners to investigate the crime. When he later presented his bill to the Canyon County Commissioners, they felt that they had been conned. Meanwhile, McParland was interviewed for the investigation by the governor. McParland sought to further undermine the competition:

"He never lost an opportunity to remind [Idaho Governor] Gooding that Swain had committed a "cold-blooded murder" on Denver's Larimer Street twenty years before. More often he worked surreptitiously, passing stories he knew would be repeated, impugning Swain's investigative skills, ridiculing his minions, suggesting [Swain] was in league with the [Western Federation of Miners]. He'd taken care of Swain all right, he told his superiors, "but done it in such a way that I am not suspected."

The rivalry was significant because, while the Pinkerton agency was associated with Colorado's mine owners, the Thiel agency had been closely tied to Idaho's mine owners. With the subsequent dismissal of the Thiel agency, Colorado's mine owners gained control of the Idaho investigation.

Charlie Siringo 

Voter fraud alleged

When "The Cowboy Detective" Charlie Siringo wrote his memoirs about working for the Pinkerton Agency, he accused McParland of ordering him to commit voter fraud in the re-election attempt of Colorado Governor James Peabody.

Charles A. Siringo, a Pinkerton who had worked for more than twenty years as an operative, detective, and spy, and McParland's personal bodyguard in Idaho, declared the agency "corrupt". [His 1915 book charged the Pinkertons with election fraud, jury tampering, fabricated confessions, false witnesses, bribery, intimidation, and hiring killers for its clients ... Documents and time sustained many of his assertions ... )

The Pinkerton Agency suppressed Siringo's books, in at least one case with an accusation of libel.

 MaryJoy Martin, author of The Corpse On Boomerang Road wrote:

"McParland would stop at nothing to take down (unions such as the Western Federation of Miners) because he believed his authority came from "Divine Providence." To Carry out God's Will meant he was free to break laws and lie until every man he judged evil was hanging on the gallows. Since his days in Pennsylvania he was comfortable lying under oath. In the Haywood and Adams trials, he often lied, even claiming he had never joined the Ancient Order of Hibernians. Documents showed he had."

Wild Bunch

"By mid-January 1901, the Wild Bunch had gone their separate ways. With the exception of Butch, Sundance and Etta, who traveled to Pennsylvania and New York together, gang members confined themselves to the West. On February 1, 1901, Etta and Sundance posed together for a picture at DeYoung’s Photography Studio in New York after having made a purchase at Tiffany Jewelers. Sundance bought Etta a gold lapel watch. According to historians, on February 20, 1901, the husband and wife and Cassidy boarded the SS Herminius at New York’s Pier 32 under the aliases Mr. and Mrs. Harry Place and James Ryan. The ship was bound ship for Buenos Aires, Argentina. They moved to Cholila and began raising livestock," writes Chris Enss, a New York Times bestselling author who writes about women of the Old West. “Queen of the Wild Bunch” is an excerpt from her book Love Lessons from the Old West: Wisdom from Wild Women.

According to Enss, shortly after the trio arrived in South America, they opened a bank account with $12 thousand in gold notes. According to the February 19, 1950, edition of the American Weekly, Butch told the Buenos Aires bank president that he and his friends were afraid of thieves. When Robert Pinkerton, head of the Pinkerton Agency, learned what the outlaws had done he was outraged. “It shows how daring these people are,” he wrote his brother in 1905. “We hunt them in the mountains and the wilderness and they are in the midst of society….”

"When the political climate in the region began to change, and with rumors that the Pinkerton Agency had picked up a lead on their whereabouts, the three felt it was best to leave the country. They disappeared in the night just as easily as they had done many times before. Pinkerton detectives raided the villa where the trio lived but found nothing that gave them a clue as to where the desperados were headed," says Enss.

Died in Denver

McParland died on May 18, 1919 in Denver's Mercy Hospital. He left a widow, Mary, but no children. 

MaryJoy Martin wrote:

"The Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, and the Denver Catholic Register filled columns in tribute, recounting his Molly Maguire tales and Harry Orchard triumph, tucking in fiction and numerous lies along the way. It mattered little, since the man had become a legend."

Maggie Tobin Brown as a life saver

Coloradan more than "unsinkable."

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

Margaret Tobin Brown’s experiences on the Titanic are the most well-known part of her overall story, but it is the aftermath of the tragedy, and Margaret’s role in helping the survivors, that placed her in the national limelight for the first time. It wasn't the first time, however, for her being an activist.

"By the time Margaret Tobin Brown boarded Titanic at Cherbourg, France, she had already made a significant impact in the world. She and her daughter Helen, who was a student at the Sorbonne, had been traveling throughout Europe and were staying with the John Jacob Astor party in Cairo, Egypt, when Margaret received word that her first grandchild, Lawrence Palmer Brown, Jr., was ill. She decided to leave for New York immediately and booked passage on the earliest ship: Titanic. At the last minute, Helen decided to stay behind in London. Due to her quick decision, very few people, including family, knew that Margaret was on board the Titanic," according to Encyclopedia Titanica.

On Margaret's trip to Egypt, Rome and Paris with her daughter Helen, and friends J.J. and Madeleine Astor, in 1912. However, news of her ill grandson hastened Margaret’s return, and she booked passage on the first available ship, the Titanic, says information from the Margaret Brown House.

In technology-obsessed America, the Titanic at the time, represented new heights in innovation and achievement. The ship was a wonder of modern science built by British White Star Lines in Ireland at a cost of $10 million. The boat weighed 46,000 tons and was 882.5 feet long. The ship’s builders boasted that the ship was “practically unsinkable.”

"Although the ship’s Captain and crew received numerous warnings of ice in the area during their passage, the Titanic charged ahead. Shortly before midnight on April 14, the Titanic struck ice.

Margaret described her experience in the Newport Herald, “I stretched on the brass bed, at the side of which was a lamp. So completely absorbed in my reading I gave little thought to the crash that struck at my window overhead and threw me to the floor. ”

According to newspapers accounts, after the crash, Margaret heard increasing confusion in the hall causing her to investigate further. “I again looked out and saw a man whose face was blanched, his eyes protruding, wearing the look of a haunted creature. He was gasping for breath and in an undertone he gasped, ‘get your life saver’.” After helping fellow passengers, she was physically taken a hold of and with a  “you are going too” was dropped four feet into the lowering lifeboat #6.

"She turned to go to the port side of the ship," Benziger added, "And two crew members came up behind her. They lifted her up, and they turned her around, and they dropped her, quite unceremoniously...into life boat number six,"  says Brown's great-granddaughter, Helen Benziger, a Titanic historian.

"Lifeboat #6 was equipped to hold 65 passengers. However, it pushed off from Titanic with 21 women, 2 men and a twelve-year-old boy on board. The women in the lifeboat rowed for hours," says info from Margaret Brown House.

"At 4:30 a.m. Margaret saw a flash of light. It was from the approaching ship Carpathia, which was the first to answer the distress call. After some difficulty, lifeboat #6 pulled up along side of the Carpathia, and the occupants were pulled aboard one at a time," says the Museum.

"Margaret, though sore, tired and cold, began to take action. Her knowledge of foreign languages enabled her to console survivors who spoke little English. She distributed extra blankets and supplies gathered by the crew and passengers of the Carpathia to women who were sleeping in the dining room and corridors. Margaret realized that many women had lost everything- husbands, children, clothes, money and valuables- and needed to start a life in a new country. She rallied the first class passengers to donate money to help less fortunate passengers. Before the Carpathia reached New York $10,000 had been raised."

With this new national fame, Colorado called for her leadership in April, 1914. For months, miners in Ludlow had been on strike against the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company in an effort to gain reprieve from harsh working conditions, extreme hours and dangerous working conditions. The company, part of the Rockefeller conglomerate, refused their demands. Local women wrote to Margaret Brown pleading for her aid and stating “We heard of your anxiety to do for the men in the Mexican War and we wanted to tell you of our own men and women of our own war, here at home,” as reported in the Denver Times.

Tensions between striking miners and CF&I came to a head on April 20th when a battle broke out between the miners and private guards hired by the company. Twenty people were killed in the struggle, including several women and children. The tragedy at Ludlow became a national crisis as Americans learned of the horrifying details of one of the most violent labor conflicts in American history.

Margaret, who had connections in both the West and the East, went to Ludlow in answer to urgent appeals for help from both sides, each seeing her as an ally. Margaret struggled to maintain a middle ground, refusing to join radicals calling for the resignation of the governor, while also challenging Rockefeller on his harsh business practices. As the two sides became further entrenched, Margaret spoke out about miners’ rights and pressured Rockefeller with the resulting negative media. Rockefeller eventually softened his stance and agreed to make concessions. The conflict at Ludlow was ultimately resolved and, in many ways, marked the end of the radical wing of the workers’ movement in America as the new PR savvy of industrialists like Rockefeller grew more and more effective.

Mrs Margaret Brown (née Tobin) aka "Molly Brown", was born on 18 July 1867,1 in Hannibal, Missouri, the daughter of John Tobin and Johanna Collins, both Irish immigrants.

Her father, John Tobin, was widowed with one daughter, Catherine Bridget. When he met Johanna Collins, Johanna was also widowed with one daughter, whose name was Mary Ann. John and Johanna married and had four additional children: Daniel (1863), Margaret (1867), William (1869), and Helen (1871).

Margaret grew up in a cottage just blocks from the Mississippi River, and attended the grammar school run by her aunt, Mary O'Leary. As a teenager she worked stripping tobacco leaves at Garth's Tobacco Company in Hannibal.

At the age of eighteen, she followed her sister, Mary Ann Tobin Landrigan, and Mary's new husband Jack Landrigan, to Leadville, Colorado, where they established a blacksmith shop. Margaret shared a cabin with her brother, Daniel Tobin, who worked in the mines and eventually became a successful mine promoter. Margaret, known as Maggie until she married, went to work for Daniels and Fisher Mercantile in Leadville, where she worked in the Carpets and Draperies department.

During the early summer of 1886, she met James Joseph ("J.J.") Brown, a miner whose parents had also immigrated from Ireland. They married on September 1,1886, at the Annunciation Church in Leadville, and lived in J.J.'s cabin in Stumpftown, a small, primarily Irish community up the hill from Leadville. The Browns had two children: Lawrence Palmer, born in 1887, and Catherine Ellen ("Helen"), born in 1889. After the birth of Lawrence, the Browns bought a house in Leadville and were eventually joined by members of both their families.

While her children were young, Margaret was involved in the early feminist movement in Leadville and the establishment of the Colorado Chapter of the National American Women's Suffrage Association. She also worked in soup kitchens to assist families of Leadville miners. When the Sherman Silver Act was repealed in 1893, Leadville was thrust into a deep depression and the unemployment rate was 90%. J.J. Brown, who had become superintendent of all the Ibex mining properties, had an idea. Convinced that the Little Jonny Mine might become a producer of gold rather than silver, he devised a timber-and-hay bale method to hold back the dolomite sand that had prevented them from reaching the gold at the lower depths of the mine. By October 29, 1893, the Little Jonny was shipping 135 tons of ore per day, and Brown was awarded 12,500 shares of stock and a seat on the board. Over the years he became one of the most successful mining men in the country.

On April 6, 1894, the Browns purchased a home on Pennsylvania Street in Denver and built a summer home, Avoca Lodge, in the foothills. Margaret became a founding member of the Denver Woman's Club, part of a network of clubs which advocated literacy, education, suffrage, and human rights in Colorado and throughout the United States. She raised funds to build the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception as well as St. Joseph's Hospital, and worked with Judge Ben Lindsey to help destitute children and establish the first Juvenile Court in the country, which eventually became the basis for today's U.S. juvenile court system. She also attended the Carnegie Institute in New York, where she studied literature, language, and drama. In addition to raising two children of her own, she raised the three daughters of her brother Daniel: Grace, Florence, and Helen Tobin, whose mother had died when they were young in White Pine, Colorado.

Margaret Tobin Brown was one of the first women in the United States to run for political office and ran for the Senate eight years before women even had the right to vote. On July 25, 1914, with Alva Vanderbilt (Mrs O.H.P.) Belmont, she organized an international women's rights conference at Marble House in Newport, Rhode Island, which was attended by human rights activists from around the world. A lifelong advocate of human rights, Margaret was also a prominent figure following the Ludlow Massacre in Trinidad, Colorado, in April 1914, a significant landmark in the history of labour rights in the United States.

After the ship struck the iceberg, Margaret helped load others into lifeboats and eventually was forced to board lifeboat # six. She and the other women in lifeboat six worked together to row, keep spirits up, and dispel the gloom that was broadcast by the emotional and unstable Robert Hichens. However, Margaret's most significant work occurred on Carpathia, where she assisted Titanic survivors, and afterwards in New York. By the time the Carpathia reached New York harbor, Margaret had helped establish the Survivor's Committee, been elected as chair, and raised almost $10,000 for destitute survivors. Margaret's language skills in French, German, and Russian were an asset, and she remained on Carpathia until all Titanic survivors had met with friends, family, or medical/emergency assistance.

 In a letter to her daughter shortly after the Titanic sinking, she wrote:

"After being brined, salted, and pickled in mid ocean I am now high and dry... I have had flowers, letters, telegrams-people until I am befuddled. They are petitioning Congress to give me a medal... If I must call a specialist to examine my head it is due to the title of Heroine of the Titanic."

Her sense of humor prevailed; to her attorney in Denver she wired:

"Thanks for the kind thoughts. Water was fine and swimming good. Neptune was exceedingly kind to me and I am now high and dry."

On May 29, 1912, as chair of the Survivor's Committee Margaret presented a silver loving cup to Captain Rostron of the Carpathia and a medal to each Carpathia crew member. In later years Margaret helped erect the Titanic memorial that stands in Washington, D.C.; visited the cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to place wreaths on the graves of victims; and continued to serve on the Survivor's Committee. She was particularly upset that, as a woman, she was not allowed to testify at the Titanic hearings. In response, she wrote her own version of the event which was published in newspapers in Denver, New York, and Paris.

Margaret used her new fame as a platform to talk about issues that deeply concerned her: labour rights, women's rights, education and literacy for children, and historic preservation. During World War I, she worked with the American Committee for Devastated France to help rebuild devastated areas behind the front line, and worked with wounded French and American soldiers (the Chateau of Blerancourt, a French-American museum outside of Paris, has a commemorative plaque that bears her name). In 1932 she was awarded the French Legion of Honor for her "overall good citizenship," which included helping organize the Alliance Francais, her ongoing work in raising funds for Titanic victims and crew, her work with Judge Ben Lindsey on the Juvenile Court of Denver, and her relief efforts during World War I.

In her later years, Margaret returned to her earlier fascination with drama, particularly Sarah Bernhardt, and studied in Paris in the Bernhardt tradition. She performed to appreciative audiences in Paris and New York.

J.J. Brown died 5 September 1922 in New York.

Margaret Tobin Brown died of a brain tumour on 26 October 1932, at the Barbizon Hotel in New York where she had been working with young actresses. After a simple funeral service, Maggie was buried, next to J.J., in Long Island's Holy Rood Cemetery. Their daughter Helen Benziger (née Brown) died in Old Greenwich, Connecticut on 17 October 1993 at the age of 97.

Despite the legend, she was not ostracized by society nor rejected by her family. The myth of "Molly" Brown has very little to do with the real-life of Margaret Tobin Brown, although it speaks to her spirit. Margaret was never known as "Molly Brown" during her lifetime: the name was a Hollywood invention.

The story began in the 1930s with the colorful pen of Denver Post reporter Gene Fowler, who created a folk tale, and sensationalist writer Carolyn Bancroft, who wrote a highly fictional account for a romance magazine that was turned into a booklet. This story enjoyed various radio broadcasts during the 1940s and was the basis for the Broadway play, "The Unsinkable Molly Brown", which eventually became the MGM movie of the same name, starring Debbie Reynolds. Even James Cameron's 1997 film "Titanic" has very little to do with the real story of Margaret Tobin Brown. After attempting to mitigate or correct the legend of "Molly," the Brown family eventually withdrew from the public and refused to speak with writers, reporters, or historians for many years.

Molly Brown with Captain Rostron of the Carpathian