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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday November 29, 1900
Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1900, Part IV
Found with Strikers and Army of Mining Women Marching on Panther Creek
From the Hazleton Plain Speaker of October 16, 1900:
The four thousand strikers from Hazleton, Freeland and the South Side who left McAdoo at midnight last night to close down the collieries of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Co. in the Panther Creek Valley, where operations have been carried on without interruption since the beginning of the strike, did not get at the mines but Nesquehoning was rendered idle and all the other collieries are somewhat crippled. The strikers were met on the outskirts of Coal Dale, which was their first objective point, by eight companies of the Fourth Regiment in command of Colonel O’Neill, of Allentown, and driven back into Tamaqua and the strikers who paraded the streets of that town were dispersed at the point of bayonet. The presence of the soldiers was a complete surprise to the marchers. Many of the latter returned home at noon today while others remained and will use their persuasive powers tonight to induce the men who are at work to join the strike movement. Several of the strikers were arrested.
The March Begins.
The strikers collected at McAdoo. Large crowds were seen wending their way over the hills to the South Side and when the word was passed along the line to move on it is estimated that there were about 3,500 men in the ranks.
The strikers from the upper Schuylkill region were to have met the McAdoo people at Hometown, but when the South Siders got there they were disappointed, as not a striker from upper Schuylkill was to be seen.
A delegation of about five hundred, comprising the strikers from Hazleton and the North Side, moved over the Beaver Meadow road and joined the South Siders at Hometown, a small place some distance north of Tamaqua. From Hometown the strikers marched about four abreast to the outskirts of Coal Dale.
“Mother” Jones There.
There were a number of women in line, among them “Mother” Jones and Miss Brennan, of McAdoo, who carried an American flag and who was to have led the men to the Coal Dale collieries.
The Honey Brook band and several drum corps were also in line. The band played almost continuously from the time the men left McAdoo until they got within a half mile of Coal Dale. The music had a wonderfully inspiring effect on the men and aroused people every where along the route.
