Seeberville Shootings III: Raleigh in his own Words

This last document regarding Thomas Raleigh and the farce that was his "escape" from prosecution for the Seeberville murders proves that some people just don't learn their lesson. Put simply, Raleigh was a thug. In this handwritten letter we get an idea of Raleigh's exploits in his own words. They are not complimentary to the man, Raleigh, or the people and company (Waddell Mahon and C&H) who hired him to wreak havoc on the Copper Country's striking population. It takes a while to get used to Raleigh's writing, but the letter is a cold look into the psyche of a paid thug. He plainly recounts his exploits while spying in New York and then begins to ask about his next move. Raleigh was a hired gun and seemingly willing to do whatever for the right price. Especially disturbing is Raleigh's willingness to use violence in New York in 1914, even as he is a wanted man for murder in the Copper Country for something he did less than 6 months ago.

For a little more context on Seeberville murders and Raleigh's violent part in them, we post some text from Community in Conflict:

In fact, C&H knowingly protected the whereabouts of Thomas Raleigh, even though he was wanted for murder. Not only did the company protect Raleigh, it used information obtained by him to spy on WFM activities in New York City. While four of the six shooters at Seeberville were found guilty of manslaughter, Harry James was acquitted under direction of the court, and Thomas Raleigh supposedly fled the Copper Country. Special Prosecutor George Nichols later wrote to the Houghton County Board of Supervisors that it was thought that Raleigh had indeed left the country, but labor spy correspondence reveals that Raleigh was in hiding in New York by January. In fact, he was spying on the WFM’s New York offices for C&H, providing the fruits of his work as a labor spy to Mr. Robinson, a lawyer in the firm of Rees, Robinson, and Petermann, which was on C&H’s payroll. Robinson then forwarded Raleigh’s correspondence to O. F. Bailey, a claim agent with C&H.

Raleigh’s letters to Robinson give further example of the character of men hired by the Waddell-Mahon agency and seem to indicate that while in New York, Raleigh continued to act violently. On one occasion after confronting a competing detective agency that was working with the WFM to get affidavits from former Ascher men, Raleigh wrote, “I raised hell in 80 Wall St. yesterday where I went [this following page of the letter is not digitized] looking for Martin, he was out and the four Jew detectives there would not fight.”

Seeberville Shootings II: Thomas Raleigh Continued

For almost 100 years now people have wondered what happened to Thomas Raleigh, the man who was charged with murder in the deaths of Alois Tijan and Steven Putrich in the infamous Seeberville shootings. It was thought that he had fled the country, and even Houghton's Special Prosecuting Attorney brought in to expedite cases during the strike opined that he was unable to be found.

Raleigh was, in fact, in New York City. Through pretty tireless searching of the historic record we "found" him almost 100 years later in the historic record, and what we have uncovered is damning evidence against the Calumet & Hecla (C&H) mining company officials, the legal firm of Rees, Robinson, and Petermann, and the Waddell-Mahon detective agency.

The two "memo" style correspondences above, one a telegram, show that Raleigh was still working for C&H and that he was spying on the WFM's New York offices. Raleigh was attempting to "bust" WFM witnesses from the Ascher Detective Agency who were signing affidavits that were unkind to mining company interests. The former Ascher agents were saying that Copper Country mining companies were advocating the use of violence against striking workers in addition to other unfavorable tactics during the strike.

Raleigh was tasked with spying and confronting these men who were tattling on tactics used by mining companies during the strike. The next post will contain Raleigh's own words regarding one such confrontation.

Seeberville Shootings: The Unbelievable Story of Thomas Raleigh

One of the worst early, violent events against organized labor during the strike was the shootings of unarmed striking workers in Seeberville. We examine the event in the book, but found some damning historical documents regarding one of the principle actors in the event: Thomas Raleigh.

For some background on the event...taken from Community in Conflict:

The crowded, hardscrabble back streets of a ramshackle mining location [Seeberville] was the
setting for possibly the most notorious of the Waddell-Mahon men’s exploits. This ghastly event occurred in mid-August 1913, and the labor newspapers were quick to print a nuanced recounting of the event: “The character of these bloodhounds dressed as humans revealed itself for the first time on August 14th when they executed one of the most cold blooded massacres known to the history of the American workers’ battles in Seeberville location near Painesdale.”

Antti Sarell, who wrote for a Finnish-language labor newspaper, Tyomies, further described the event:

For absolutely no reason six crooks identified as sheriff ’s deputies, of which four were Waddell-Mahon’s Detective Agency gun hounds, attacked the men of Croatian Joseph Putrich’s boarding house, driving the men from the courtyard to the inside of the house and after that shooting in through the house’s windows with their revolvers. The consequence was that 18-year-old striker Aloiz Tijan was instantly killed and a striker named Steve Putrich died from gunshot wounds some days later. Two other strikers and the infant who was in the arms of the house’s lady suff ered gunshot wounds, with a shot of the revolver burning the child’s face. After they had committed this cruel deed, the gun hounds went to the road in front of the house where they loaded their revolvers again and jeered amongst themselves 'we wonder how many dead bodies there are in the house.'

Naturally, Sheriff Cruse, who had hired the men, did as much as possible to hinder eff orts to locate the assailants and bring the shooters to justice. After finally rounding up the suspects, the sheriff ordered the arrests of six “murderers”: James Cooper, Arthur Davis, William Groff , Harry James, Edward Polkinghorne, and Thomas Raleigh. According to Sarell, “The hounds that had committed the massacre were let to be on the loose for a long time before the sheriff , pressured by public
opinion, saw that it was better to take them ‘under his surveillance’ in the county jail where they weren’t treated like other prisoners at all, but were allowed to live like kings.”

That was our rendering of events from the historical sources of the labor press. What was especially intriguing was that while five of the men were eventually tried in court for the crime; one, Thomas Raleigh got away. Houghton County officials (including law enforcement, mine managers, and elected officials, who were often mine managers) claimed to have no idea of what happened to Raleigh. The Waddell-Mahon Detective Agency, who employed Raleigh, also was not helpful in determining Raleigh's whereabouts after the shooting.

We found documents that suggested otherwise! I'll include the first round of these documents below and then more in the next post along with more interpretation from Community in Conflict. The documents below were scanned from the originals contained in Tech's Copper Country Historical Collections.

As can be seen from the signature, this was Tom Raleigh reporting back to a handler at Wadell-Mahon regarding activities of organized labor in New York City. Raleigh was even using Waddell-Mahon stationary. The Waddell-Mahon Detective Agency was the company hired by Copper Country mine managers as additional security and company police during the strike. Some of these men were also deputized by Sheriff Cruse to police and ultimately strike-break during the labor action as Houghton County deputy sheriffs. Raleigh was one such deputy and he was one of the shooters during the Seeberville incident. After Fall 1913 Raleigh was a wanted man in the Copper Country--wanted for murder--so it is odd that he was writing to his employer in January of 1914. Amazingly, he was still on the job. So the Waddell-Mahon company was still employing Raleigh, a wanted man, in trying to union bust.

One begins to wonder, who else knew Raleigh was in New York City?

More to come in the next post...

102 Anniversary of the Strike: Sharing Primary Documents

Community in Conflict brought to light new and sometimes controversial research on the study of the 1913-14 Strike. As historians we stumbled upon some new primary sources that added to the understanding of the event and we would now like to share some of these sources with the general public. Knowing that a primary source is a historical document produced at the time of the event in question, we think that the public might find these original documents interesting and of use in future research on the event. As the 102 anniversary of the strike rolls around we thought it might be a good time to share some of our research.

The first such document (image below) is really the first piece of primary evidence that let us as historians know that there was more to the story of the 1913-14 Strike than many had written about before. This telegraph between C&H management used coded language to describe events during the strike. There are hundreds of such documents in the C&H archival collection at the Copper Country Historical Collections at Michigan Tech. For most of these coded messages a translation of the telegram is located along with the original message. These coded messages led us to look deeper into the archival collection because we began to wonder, "Why might a company need to send coded messages...what intrigue was behind the messages and what intrigue might also be ahead?"

The short answer to this question: a lot! And, we'll share the other documents on this site in the coming weeks and months.

This document from C&H Superintendent James MacNaughton to C&H President Quincy Shaw demonstrates the use of a coded message to disguise the interests of the mining company during the strike. Original document housed at the Copper Country Historical Archive, Michigan Technological University. Scanned by Gary Kaunonen.

Be certain to check back for more primary documents as we document the documents we used in telling the sometimes controversial working-class history of the 1913-14 Strike. We will publish documents pertaining to the use of labor spies by mining companies to infiltrate the Western Federation of Miners, the tragedy at Italian Hall, and the search for the men who murdered the strikers at Seeberville.

Talk for the Painesdale Mine Shaft, Inc. Organization

Wrapping up talks for this year, I (Gary) did a keynote talk, well, really a reading of a paper for the commemoration of violence in and around the Painesdale and Seeberville areas a couple of weeks ago. Citing some of the new research on the Seeberville shootings of striking workers Alois Tijan and Steven Putrich, and some of the new research on the Dally-Jane shootings in Painesdale, I spoke about the specter of the strike's violence 100 years later.

The event, a commemoration of events in the Painesdale area, was held in the Methodist Church and also featured remarks by Rep. Scott Dianda, a member of organized labor and a beacon for the labor movement in Michigan's legislature.

Houghton's Daily Mining Gazette covered the event, which was well attended by about 100 people. The article from the Gazette is below along with a photo of Rep. Dianda at the podium, and me in the background taking notes on his talk. The Gazette article doesn't get all the facts right about the events at Seeberville, but does a good job summing the thoughts of the day regarding remembering the sacrifice of strikers while enduring the violence of the strike.

From Daily Mining Gazette reporter Garret Neese's article "A Time to Remember: Ceremony Held on 100th Anniversary of Miners' Strike:

HOUGHTON - A century after miners went on strike in the Copper Country, people met to remember the hardships and violence the miners endured during the strike.

A ceremony took place Saturday morning at the Albert Paine Memorial United Methodist Church in Painesdale.

The keynote speaker was Gary Kaunonen, author of "Community in Conflict: A Working-Class History of the 1913-14 Michigan Copper Mine Strike and the Italian Hall Tragedy."

Upon writing the book in 2011, he uncovered previously unseen mining company documents from the era that detailed a campaign of intimidation against the striking miners.

An incident in nearby Seeberville was "one of the most cold-blooded massacres" in the area's history, Kaunonen said. When one resident of a boarding house threw a bowling pin at a sheriff's deputy, he and others fired, killing two miners - Steve Putrich and Alois Tijan - who had not been involved. Putrich's infant son was grazed by a bullet. He retained the scar for the rest of his life.

Houghton County Sheriff James Cruse hindered efforts to find the perpetrators, Kaunonen said; eventually, six men were arrested. The whereabouts of one suspect, Thomas Raleigh, who escaped, were said to be unknown at the time. But Kaunonen found correspondence between the Calumet & Hecla Mining Co. and a law firm representing them that placed Raleigh in New York City. He was working for Calumet & Hecla to spy on the Western Federation of Miners.

In December, three people - Thomas Dally, Arthur Jane and Harry Jane - were killed at a boarding house in Painesdale.

John Huhta was eventually convicted of the crime.

But labor organizers said Huhta was a dupe, framed because of his ties to the labor movement.

"In reality, it was not Huhta ... on trial, it was the Western Federation of Miners," he said.

Ultimately, Kaunonen said, his research into the mining strike had revealed, beyond bureaucratic red tape, a "uniquely human story."

State Rep. Scott Dianda, D-Calumet, felt a connection on multiple levels.

His grandfather worked at the mine in Painesdale; he also has a background in labor, having been past president of Local 5 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

He said many of today's families still have ties to the era of the mining strike.

"It's a part of who we are up here," he said.

Tours of the Champion No. 4 shafthouse, captain's office and house building were also available after the ceremony.

Deanna Niemi of Painesdale was interested in the incidents in Seeberville, where her grandparents were from and where she lived for a year as a child.

"It's important to remember them, the sacrifices," she said.

"And to keep that history alive, so future generations will know what went on in those days," added Ruth Wisti of Hancock.

Wanted for Murder...

This handwritten letter on Waddell-Mahon detective agency letterhead shows Raleigh's signature and that he was working as a labor spy for the company in 1914.

This memo-style letter from "D. L. Robinson" of the Rees, Robinson, and Petermann legal offices to O.F. Bailey, an official with C&H, shows that both the law firm and C&H knew the whereabouts of Thomas Raleigh and were employing him to spy against the WFM in New York City. 

For almost 100 years now people have wondered what happened to Thomas Raleigh, the man who was charged with murder in the deaths of Alois Tijan and Steven Putrich in the infamous Seeberville shootings. It was thought that he had fled the country, and even Houghton's Special Prosecuting Attorney brought in to expedite cases during the strike opined that he was unable to be found.

Where did Tom Raleigh go? Well we've "found" him almost 100 years later in the historic record, and what we have uncovered is damning evidence against the Calumet & Hecla (C&H) mining company officials, the legal firm of Rees, Robinson, and Petermann, and the Waddell-Mahon detective agency.

It seems that Thomas Raleigh was working for C&H through Waddell-Mahon to spy on the WFM mineworkers union in New York City. Correspondence between C&H agent O.F. Bailey and a lawyer from Rees, Robinson, and Petermann--a firm representing C&H throughout the strike--gives documentary proof that C&H knew of Raleigh's whereabouts and even employed him in subterfuge during the strike while he was wanted for murder in the Copper Country.

Handwritten letters from Raleigh on Waddell-Mahon stationary also prove that this so-called detective agency, employed by Houghton County Sheriff James Cruse to keep peace in the Copper Country, also knew the whereabouts and shielded Raleigh from being brought to justice in the Copper Country.

It seems that Raleigh had learned little in his brush with a murder charge in the Copper Country because while in New York he reported back to C&H and his handlers at Waddell-Mahon that he had busted into the offices of another rival detective agency and wanted to fight the men inside, but that the "four Jew detectives there would not fight."

Always classy, Raleigh's correspondence with C&H gives a good picture of a bad man, and also highlights the lengths and lowly depths C&H, their legal representatives Rees, Robinson, and Petermann, and Waddell-Mahon went to hid a murderer from justice.