———-
—–
WE NEVER FORGET
Jack Smith, Member of Burke Miners Union (WFM)
Battle of Bunker Hill, Near Wardner, Idaho, April 29, 1899
Jack Smith, age about 28 years, was a member of the Burke Miners’ Union (Western Federation of Miners) who died in the Battle of Bunker Hill near Wardner, Idaho, on April 29, 1899. Newspaper accounts of the day tell the story.
From The Seattle Post-Intelligencer of April 30, 1899:
UNION RIOTERS BLOW UP A WARDNER MINE.
[…..]
By Mistake two Parties of the Lawbreakers Fire Upon Each Other,
and Jack Smith, a Well Known Agitator, Is Killed…..
———-SPOKANE, April 29.-A Wardner special to the Spokesman-Review says:
Wardner today has been the scene of the worst riots since the deadly labor war of 1892. One man is dead, another is thought to be mortally wounded, and property valued at $250,000 has been destroyed by giant powder and fire. The damage was done by union men and sympathizers from Canyon creek, about twenty miles from Wardner. This morning a mob of from 200 to 1,000 men, all of them armed and many of them masked, seized a train at Burke, the head of Canyon creek. There were nine box cars and a passenger coach, and they were black with the mob. The visitors brought with them 2,000 pounds of giant powder.
—–
RIOTER KILLED BY COMRADES.
After a parley of two hours, 140 masked men armed with Winchesters, Burke in the lead and Wardner following, started with yells for the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mill and other buildings, a third of a mile from the depot. They sent pickets ahead, and one of these pickets fired a shot as a signal that the mill was abandoned. This was misunderstood by the main body of the mob, who imagined that non-union miners in the hills had opened fire on them, and they began firing on their own pickets. About 1,000 shots were thus exchanged between the rioters and their pickets, and Jack Smith, one of the pickets formerly of British Columbia and a noted figure in drill contests, was shot dead. The fatal error was discovered after a few seconds firing and Smith’s body brought down from the hillside……
[Photograph added.]
From the Weekly Coeur d’Alene Press of May 6, 1899:
Article states that, after blowing up the Bunker Hill Mill, the armed miners from Canyon Creek [Burke] left Wardner and “with them they took the dead body of a fellow rioter, whom they themselves had accidentally shot.”
The dead comprises:
Jack Smith, miner at the Tiger at Burke, shot with a rifle ball through the chest.
From The Seattle Post-Intelligencer of May 1, 1899:
Rigid Inquiry Will Be Held.
A Special to the [Spokane] Spokesman-Review from Wardner, Idaho, says:
The killing of Jack Smith, the rioter from Burke who fell yesterday, will be the subject of such an inquest as the Coeur d’Alenes have never seen.
“I shall summon every man in the county if necessary in order to ascertain the cause of his death,” said Coroner France decisively tonight. “No straw verdict will be received. I shall continued the [inquest?] as long as may be necessary.”
Smith’s Body at Burke.
Smith’s body is now lying in the miners’ union hall at Burke, where it was taken by the rioters on their return trip. At first some difficulty was looked for in holding the inquest. The miners sent down word to Dr. France, the coroner, that he would be expected to come up there in order to examine into the cause of death. They added that in case he did not see fit so to do, one of the local magistrates would be called upon to conduct the examination. Dr. France promptly telephoned to Paul Cochrane, the secretary of the Burke union, and held him personally responsible for the safe keeping of the remains until the coroner himself could conduct the hearing. Last night Mr. Cochrane telephoned back that the body would be held there subject to the orders of Dr. France. The latter authorized a firm of Wallace undertakers to bring the body down from Burke, and it will probably be brought back here tomorrow.
[Emphasis added.]
From the Butte Daily Inter Mountain of May 2, 1899:
Wardner, Idaho, May 1.-Today the body of Jack Smith, who was killed by his fellow rioters, was brought down from the Miners’ Union Hall in Burke and is at Wallace in charge of an undertaking firm named by Coroner France. The remains will be brought here in time for the inquest. This will be held at 2 o’clock Saturday afternoon. Unless the soldiers have arrived in the meantime the inquest may be postponed….
———-
From Report of the Industrial Commission, Volume 12
-Transmitted by Chairman Albert Clarke on December 4, 1901:
Testimony of Mr. Frederick Burbidge
-Manager Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mining and Concentrating Company. Kellog, Idaho.
The subcommission on mining met at 9 a. m. in Wallace, Idaho, July 27, 1899, Chairman Bell presiding. Mr. Frederick Burbidge was sworn and testified as follows concerning the labor troubles in the Coeur d’Alene mining district of Idaho:
[…..]
[On death of Jack Smith:] He was one of the union men, and his death was either accidental or designed, because he was a traitor. After he was shot and his body was being carried to the train many people inquired who he was, and the reply was that he was a traitor. The wound from which he died was in his back and circumstances all tend to the belief that he was shot by his own men because he was supposed to be a traitor…..
I have been informed that he did not want to come down to Wardner; that he offered $50 to be let off, to be allowed to remain in Burke, but that he was told that he would have to come down. He was shot by members of the party, the strikers or rioters. I understand he made a detour on the side of the hill fronting our office that after some firing had been done, one man shot and this man fell; the wound was in his back, and it was inflicted by one of his own party. They claim it to be an accident, but at first when they were in the full flush of the their victory, as they supposed, and some people asked who it was that was shot, they simply replied that it was a traitor.
Testimony of Hugh France, Coroner and Acting Sheriff of Shoshone County
-includes results of Coroner’s Inquest:
The subcommission on mining being in session at Wallace, Idaho, July 27, 1899, Chairman Bell presiding, Dr. Hugh France was sworn as a witness, an testified as follows concerning labor troubles in the Coeur d’Alene mining district of Idaho:
[…..]
[April 29th, after attending to the wounded at Bunker Hill] I went back home [at Wardner] that afternoon and in the evening I was called up by telephone by Paul Corcoran, from Burke, notifying me that there was a man in Burke killed that day. Paul Corcoran was the defendant in this case just tried here, and I asked him who it was, and he informed me that it was the secretary of the Burke Miners’ Union, and that I was expected to come to Burke and hold an inquest over the body of this man John Smith. I asked him where Smith was killed, and he informed me that he had been killed at Wardner that day. I then informed him that the parties who had removed him from Wardner to Burke had done so without any authority, and that I expected to have the body brought back, for the purpose of holding the inquest, to the place where he had been killed; and told him that I should hold him responsible for the body until such time as I desired to hold the inquest.
[…..]
I want to offer for your consideration a copy of the findings of the coroner’s jury. The original is on file in the office of the county auditor and is signed an sealed by order of the court. (The document referred to follows.)
STATE of IDAHO, County of Shoshone, ss:
In the matter of the inquisition upon the bodies of John Schmidt (sometimes called John Smith) and James Cheyne, deceased. Before Hugh France, coroner. We, the undersigned, the jurors summoned to appear before Hugh France, the coroner of the county of Shoshone, State ‘of Idaho, at Wardner, Idaho, in said county and State, on the 3d day of May, 1899 [and ending July 25, 1899], to inquire into the cause of the deaths of John Schmidt (sometimes called John Smith) and James Cheyne [Bunker Hill employee], having been duly sworn according to law, and having made such inquisition, after inspecting the respective bodies and hearing the testimony adduced, upon our oaths each and all do say:
First. That deceased, John Schmidt (who in life was sometimes called John Smith), was a native of Germany, aged about 28 years. That he came to his death on April 29, 1899, in this county. That the cause of his death was a gun shot wound inflicted by the parties and under the circumstances hereinafter particularly set forth, with the intent then and there to kill and murder the said John Schmidt.
[However, the same coroner’s report goes on to indicate that the shooting of Jack Smith was by mistake:]
Shortly after leaving the train [near Wardner] orders were given to form. The first order was “Wardner to the front,” followed in quick succession by “Burke” and “Mullan.”
A large force of armed men marched two by two, going up the road towards the town of Wardner, then turning to the right passed down the road towards the Bunker Hill mill. An advance guard of pickets were sent ahead to clear the roads and stop persons attempting to pass. Another scouting party of 10 or a dozen were sent around the foothills south of the Bunker Hill mill to reconnoitre from an elevated position commanding a view of the mill and its surroundings. In this party was John Smith, or Schmidt, the deceased, a member of the Burke union….
The main body of the rioters then marched to the oflice of the Bunker Hill and Sullivan Company, about 70 yards from the mill, and about opposite the scouting party, who were in the bushes on the north slope of the hill.
Evidently the larger party in front of the mill office mistook the scouting party for Bunker Hill and Sullivan employees. They fired numerous volleys at the hill, and one of the shots struck and killed Smith, or Schmidt. His body was taken by his associates and carried to the train and subsequently returned to Burke, where it lay in state at the hall of the Burke union until it was removed by order of the coroner and brought to Wardner for inquest purposes…..
Note: It seems doubtful to me, that the body of Jack Smith would “lay in state at the hall of the Burke union” had his fellow miners thought him a traitor. All of the so-called evidence, that I have found thus far, indicating that Jack Smith was executed as a traitor by his fellow miners, was based on hear-say and propagated by enemies of the W. F. of M.
Note: Emphasis added throughout.
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SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones, Pray for dead, Ab Chp 6, 1925
https://www.iww.org/history/library/MotherJones/autobiography/6
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
(Seattle, Washington)
-April 30, 1899
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045604/1899-04-30/ed-1/seq-1/
-May 1, 1899
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045604/1899-05-01/ed-1/seq-1/
Coeur d’Alene Press
(Coeur d’Alene, Idaho)
-May 6, 1899
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88056095/1899-05-06/ed-1/seq-1/
Daily Inter Mountain
(Butte, Montana)
-May 2, 1899
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85053057/1899-05-02/ed-1/seq-4/
Report of the Industrial Commission,
on the Relations and Conditions of Capital and Labor
Employed in the Mining Industry, Volume 12
-Dec 4, 1901-Transmitted by Chairman Albert Clarke
WDC, Government Printing Office, 1901
https://books.google.com/books?id=MusxAQAAMAAJ
Testimony of Mr. Frederick Burbidge
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MusxAQAAMAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA438
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MusxAQAAMAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA443
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MusxAQAAMAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA451
Testimony of Hugh France, Coroner of Shoshone County
-includes results of Coroner’s Inquest
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MusxAQAAMAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA461
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MusxAQAAMAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA464
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MusxAQAAMAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA468
IMAGE
Burk ID, Hutton p65, 1900
https://archive.org/details/coeurdalenesorta00hutt/page/n83
See also:
Tag: Coeur d’ Alene Miner’s Struggle of 1899
https://weneverforget.org/tag/coeur-d-alene-miners-struggle-of-1899/
The Coeur d’Alenes
or, A Tale of the Modern Inquisition in Idaho
-by May Arkwright Hutton
Wallace ID, 1900
(search: smythe)
https://archive.org/details/coeurdalenesorta00hutt/page/n6
Note: Hutton tells the story of the death of “Smythe” whereby he is murdered by an agent posing as a union miner. Keep in mind, however, that Hutton’s “Preliminary Remarks” state that “it has been deemed wise to exercise the usual license of the novelist, and to mould the circumstances to fit the dramatic exigencies of the occasion.” The book is, nevertheless, a good read.
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The Red Flag – Socialist Victory Choir