Centennial history of Summit County, Ohio and representative citizens, Part 11

Author: Doyle, William B., b. 1868
Publication date: 1908
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1150

USA > Ohio > Summit County > Centennial history of Summit County, Ohio and representative citizens > Part 11

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OUTSIDE FIRE AND POLICE DEPARTMENTS.

Outside of Akron the fire and police de- partments exist, but in a modified form. Bar- berton has a regular police department and a paid fire department has been recently organ- ized. A water-works system prevails there, and an unusual degree of efficiency is mani- fest in both organizations.

Cuyahoga Falls still relies on the village marshal and has the nucleus of an efficient fire department. The other villages of the county rely for police protection on their mar- shals and constables and on volunteer depart- ments. HARRY S. QUINE.

THE RIOT OF 1900-THE DARKEST NIGHT IN AKRON'S HISTORY.

Wednesday, the 22d day of August, in the year 1900, was a day of rejoicing in America. The wires under the Pacific had throbbed with a message of joy for all Christendom. Pekin had fallen-the capital city of China. The Imperial Court had departed in hasty flight to the interior. The American troops were the heroes of the allied armies. They had attacked and repulsed the Yellow Horde laving siege to the British Legation, where the American minister and his family and other good citizens had taken refuge when the Boxers arose. America rejoiced that her sons and daughters had successfully escaped from the perils of the 4,000 shells that fell

into that legation ; from the famine and sick- ness of the long siege, and especially from the ferocity and torture and barbarism of the legions of Chinese savages. Akron is a rep- resentative American community. Her peo- ple were just as glad as any on account of the glory which had come upon the American armies.

In the evening of that day a large part of the beauty and wealth and culture of the city had met on the beautiful grounds of the Per- kins homestead where a lawn party was being held for the benefit of a splendid charity. Sounds of mirth and music filled the air and countless lights and colors made it a brilliant scene. It is a common sight in any center of culture and fashion.

Out in Lakeside Park the beautiful sum- mer night had drawn a large company of spectators to the Casino, and they were en- joying to the full the delights of the thea- ter.

But the night in Akron had not been given over to pleasure alone. What strange con- trasts human living presents sometimes! The darkest night Akron had ever seen had fallen with the coming of dusk that night. The perfect picture of Hell, that was to be beheld before the coming of dawn again, was then in the making. The Antithesis of joy and light and love and good-will was gaining fol- lowers in other parts of the city and they were preparing for the crowning of Hate, and Re- venge, and Lust for Blood.

If little Christina Maas had not been play- ing by the road-side, near the home of her parents on Perkins Hill, on Monday evening, August 21, 1900, in all probability Akron would have been spared her deepest shame. Not that the innocent child, in her sweet play, was the cause of what followed. but that she was destined to form a link in the chain of circumstances, without which completed ac- tion could not be had. She was the little, six- vear-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Maas. As she played by the roadside in the early evening with her girl friends. a negro drove by. He called to her. She did not fear him. He persnaded the older children to

HISTORY OF SUMMIT COUNTY

leave and promised little Christina a gift of candy. He asked her to get into his buggy and she responded in her childish confidence and natural faith in mankind and all. He assisted her as she climbed in. He whipped up the horse and drove down the country road. The negro was Louis Peck. He was a stranger in Akron. He had been here but a short time, having come from Patterson, New Jersey. His reputation there was very bad and the authorities wanted him there for a long list of crimes he had committed. Since coming to Akron he and his wife had been working in a restaurant. He was about forty years of age and black and unprepossessing. After his arrest, he confessed freely all he did that evening, after he drove into the country and until he left the little girl crying and injured by the lonely roadside with night coming on.

He had hired the horse and buggy from a Main street liveryman. After driving back into town he abandoned them and they were found soon after by the police. It was by means of the horse and buggy that the offi- cers were enabled to learn the identity of the perpetrator of this outrage. As soon as the police department was informed of the crime every policeman on duty was notified and in- structed to be on the lookout for such a ne- gro as Peck. Every place in the city likely to harbor him was searched and the railway tracks were watched with sharp sight, but Peck succeeded in escaping from the city. He had lost no time in beginning his flight. Not a trace of him could be secured. On Tuesday the officers patrolled the railway tracks, rather expecting that Peck was still in the city, in hiding, and would try to make his escape. A number of them were scattered along the tracks on Tuesday night.

Shortly after midnight a freight train rolled into the Union depot from the east. Officer Duffy was patrolling the tracks in that vicin- ity and, as the train pa-ed him, standing in the dark. a negro jumped from one of the cars almost into his arms . Officer Duffy ar- rested the man. It was Peck. He was taken at once in the patrol wagon to the city prison.

The prison-keeper was awakened and spent the rest of the night talking with Peck about the crime. By adroit leading and skillful questioning Mr. Washer succeeded at last in getting Peck to make a full confession. R. W. Wanamaker, the prosecuting attorney, was summoned, a stenographer secured, and Peck's statement was taken down verbatim.

At 9 o'clock he was arraigned before the mayor, W. E. Young, in the mayor's court. He pleaded guilty to a charge of rape and was bound over by the mayor to the Common Pleas Court to await the action of the Grand Jnry at the coming September term. His hond was placed at $5,000, and he was com- initted to the prison because of his inability to furnish bail in that amount.

Greatly exaggerated stories of his confes- sion and of the criminal act were circulated throughout the city. The appearance of the evening papers (especially one, very im- prudently printed in red ink) and the cries of the newsboys selling them, stirred up a feeling of resentment. Excitement was slow- ly kindling. Many heedless remarks were made by persons whose words usually carry weight. An Akron professional gentleman was on his way home at 5 o'clock that bright Wednesday afternoon. He stopped in a store and listened to a recital of the outrage by the merchant. Said the professional man in the hearing of a little company, "I'll be one of a hundred to go over and take him out of the jail and hang him." Not a man in the company protested. No one deemed the senti- ment extravagant or the speech incendiary. There was an echo in their own breasts. Every man felt a personal interest in having so great a wrong redressed and in having it done at once. Many such intemperate remarks were made that afternoon as the story spread.

As early in the day as noon, threats were made to the authorities that the negro would be lynched. The executive departments of the city government heard the mutterings of the coming storm all afternoon. The county officers heard it also. None of them can be heard to say now that they were taken hy sur- prise. They were totally unprepared when

HIGH SCHOOL, AKRON

MILLER SCHOOL, AKRON

BUCHTEL COLLEGE-RESIDENCE OF PRESIDENT

FRAUNFELTER SCHOOL, AKRON

FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST (DISCIPLES)

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHI-AKRON

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

the hour of trial came, but they were not taken unawares. They had full warning more than ten hours before the storm broke in all its fury. They paid this much attention to the threats and warnings they had received-they ordered Sheriff Frank G. Kelly to take the prisoner to Cleveland during Wednesday aft- ernoon for safe keeping. Another colored man named William (alias "Bug") Howard had been locked up in the prison awaiting commit- ment to the county jail as he, too, had been bound over to the Common Pleas Court on a charge of shooting a white man in the leg. It was deemed best to take Howard along. as a mob might easily mistake the identity of the negro they sought, or might be so incensed at the whole black race, that they would not hesitate to hang another than the one sought. These two black men were soon secure behind the gray walls of the Cleveland prison. The Akron authorities were congratulating them- selves on so successful an issue of their wise plans. When a mob appeared they would laugh at them and enjoy their discomfiture when told the quarry had flown. They know more about mobs and mob nature now.

Crowds began to collect at the intersection of Main and Howard streets a short time after 6 o'clock. Knots of men stood about the prison talking over the affair. Some were already discussing the advisability of trying to make an example of the prisoner. Consid- erable sentiment in favor of such action had been aroused during the day in several of the big city factories. Some of these men were present and made up their minds that, if an opportunity offered, they would make good what they had said they would do.

As it began to grow dark and to become difficult to distinguish objects across the street, the crowd, much augmented, closed in about the old brick building which Akron people had known for many years as "The City Building." They hegan to call for Peck and to hoot and jeer the police officers who were within. The chief of police had become alarmed and had summoned every available man for duty at headquarters.

Much parleying took place between city of-

ficials and the members of the crowd. They tried to push into the building through the Main street doors, but the officers prevented them. There was still much daylight remain- ing when the first attack on the building was made. A shower of stones and bricks broke the windows and bombarded the stout doors. Then a ladder was brought out and quickly manned. This was used as a battering-ram on the north doors, which lead into the Mayor's Court. The stones and bricks continued to fly. The doors were rapidly giving way be- neath the repeated blows of the improvised ram. Then one of the front windows was raised and a policeman emptied his revolver over the heads of the assailing party. This was a foolish move. There was no ammuni- tion in the city building beside what was al- ready in the chambers of the policemen's re- volvers and part of a box which was in pos- session of the prison-keeper. The scarcity of ammunition was a cause of much alarm to the policemen in the building. They had seut outside to secure more, but were unsuccess- ful.

Across the street were a large number of spectators watching the efforts of the men in their attack upon the building. Among them were a few carriages and buggies. In the one of the latter sat John M. Davidson, with his wife and four-year-old daughter, Rhoda. They had been out looking at some work Mr. Davidson had taken the contract for and were returning home by the way of Main street. They had started to go up the Quarry street hill and were told that the Fire Department was coming down. They turned back on to Main Street and other buggies crowded around them so that they were forced to re- main.

Mrs. Davidson was looking at the policeman in the window. She saw him shoot his re- volver directly at them. She heard bullets fly about their heads. Her little daughter said. "Oh, mamma," and her head fell for- ward on her mother's knee with the blood flowing from a mortal wound in her head. Glen Wade. a boy of ten years, was also stand- ing among the spectators on the opposite side

HISTORY OF SUMMIT COUNTY

of Main street and he received one of the bul- lets from this same policeman's reckless-yes, criminal shooting. He was instantly killed. Hundreds of shots were fired afterward, and charges and charges of dynamite exploded, and two large buildings were burned to the ground, yet these two innocent children were the only persons who lost their lives by reason of the riot. The injuries received by other parties that night were mostly of a minor character.

The party within the walls was increased by this time so that it consisted of Mayor Young, the four city commissioners, Chief of Police Harrison and seven or eight police- men.

A hurried conference was held and it was decided to allow the crowd to appoint a com- mittee to enter and inspect the jail to make sure that Peck was not in it. The mob selected a committee of six, headed by a mem- ber of the City Council, who was one of the loudest and most strenuous of all the seekers for the blood of this negro.

When the doors were opened to admit the committee, the crowd poured in after them. It was impossible to stem that impetuous rush. They filled the building and searched every nook and corner of it. The cells of the prison were opened, but the mob found no negro within the building. Even Mr. Wash- er's private apartments were invaded and the garments of himself and wife torn from the closets where they hung, to see if any one was concealed by them. Their cellar was ran- sacked, and every spot which could possibly contain or shelter a man was searched. The disappointment of the mob was plain. Some one shouted that Peck was in the county jail. The entire crowd started for the jail. Deputy- Sheriff Simon Stone was on duty. Sheriff Kelly was absent for some unexplained cause. His continued absence through all the stirring events of that night and until the hour of danger had passed caused much com- ment.

The deputy sheriff met the mob in front of the old brick jail, which stood on the east side of Broadway, opposite the Court House, and

which was torn down on the completion of the new jail. Standing on the old stone steps at the front entrance, he made them a short address, telling them that Peck had been taken to Cleveland that afternoon and that he had never been bronght to the county jail. He offered to allow a committee chosen by themselves to make a search. This was done and the same committee searched the jail thoroughly and reported that no negro could be found. The crowd moved over to the old Court House, battered in the wooden doors, and trooped into every room in the building except the office of the treasurer.

Here the heavy iron doors resisted their ef- forts to make an entrance and caused them to desist in their purpose.

They hastened back to the City Building and filled the space in front of it. They were still shouting and calling for Peck, and oc- casionally a stone or a brick would fly through the windows on both the Main street and Via- duct sides of the building. When the mayor appeared at a window in the rooms of the board of health and motioned for silence, the crowd listened to him with comparatively good attention. He told them that Sheriff Kelley had taken Peck to Cleveland that afternoon and that there was no use hunting longer for him. Some one insisting that this was not so, the mayor offered to bet $20 that Peck was not in Akron. He urged them to disperse and let the law take its course in bringing Peck to a full punishment for his crime.

Of course, this did not satisfy them. It was a mistake to suppose that it would. They were not there for oratory. They had come on a serious business. They sought ven- geance. Nothing but blood would satisfy them. It was a maddened, blood-thirsty pack of wolves, and to advise, and to temporize, and to try to compromise with such was entirely unreasonable and a waste of effort. It was the temporizing policy of the authorities up to this time which had helped bring the mob up to its present pitch. The attack was re- newed with increased vigor. It was no longer a crowd of men confronting the officers; it was a furious mob. Many of them carried pistols

CITY HALL, AKRON

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Y. M. C. A. BUILDING, AKRON

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

in their hands and a few shots were fired at the building. Occasionally a policeman would come to the window and discharge five or six shots toward the sidewalk.

Prison-keeper Washer had been spending the evening with Mrs. Washer and friends at one of the summer resorts south of Akron. He had gone out of town on the earnest solicita- tion of the chief of police, who explained to him that, if a mob did form, it would make the story more credible if it could be said that the prison-keeper was out of town with the prisoner. When the fish supper was con- cluded, Mr. Washer tried to reach the city building by telephone, but was unable to do so. He became apprehensive that all was not right and started for Akron about 8 o'clock. He drove into the mob at Main street about 9 o'clock and they dragged him and Mrs. Washer from the buggy. They shoved two revolvers into Mr. Washer's face, boring the barrels into his flesh, saying they wanted Peck and meant to have him. One man, in a perfectly fiendish condition of mind, kept scratching Washer's face shrieking, "It's blood we want, blood, blood, blood." He suc- ceeded in drawing some of Mr. Washer's. Mrs. Washer finally succeeded in reaching their apartments at the rear of the building, with a large part of her clothing torn from her body. Mr. Washer tried to make a speech to the mob. The noise and tumult was so great he could not make himself heard, ex- cept to a few immediately surrounding him. He saw a man with a brick in his hand work- ing his way up to the front. A minute later and this brick struck the speaker on the side of the head and he dropped senseless to the street. The blow nearly fractured his skull and he suffered from the wound it made for several years afterward.

After Mr. Washer had been carried into the drug store on the corner, and the police had fired a few more desultory shots from the building, the crowd withdrew. The larger part of them strangely disappeared and an ominous quiet reigned in the neighborhood from about 9:30 o'clock until about 11. A few spectators stood on the opposite side of

the street; another knot or two were scattered at different street corners. The electric lights were all burning brightly and the street cars were running as usual. But for the broken panes in the building, the stones and bricks on the sidewalk, and the ladder lying where the mob had left it, no indications that trou- ble had happened were present. The city commissioners took advantage of this lull to leave the building by the rear entrance and inade a successful escape down the railway spur. The mayor also took his departure and went direct to his home on Perkins street. The Chief of Police, with seven or eight police- men, remained. About 11 o'clock the crowd began to collect again, and the spectators were not long in finding out where its members had been in the interim. An electric arc lamp hung about half way between the City Building and the Beacon-Journal office and flooded the vicinity with light.

The spectators saw a couple of men cross the sidewalk with bundles in their arms and enter the south door, leading to the stairway to the second floor. In a few minutes after they returned, a fearful explosion shook the neighborhood, and brought a cloud of dust into Main street. The concussion was terrific, but little apparent damage was done. The walls still stood just as before. The dynamite for this and the other explosives which fol- lowed had been stolen from the Middlebury clay banks and from the chests of contractors doing work on the Erie Railway.

A peddler had been arrested that Wednes- day morning for peddling without a license and released on bail. He drove an old white horse in a spring wagon. He volunteered to haul the dynamite to the City Building, and the mob gladly accepted his services. The cessation of hostilities was due to this cause and a further desire on the part of several to go home and get arms.

The last of the cars carrying home the throng of pleasure-seekers from the Casino at Lakeside Park had passed, and empty cars were on their way back to the South Akron barns. Perhaps a thousand men were in Main Street, from Church to Howard Streets. Four

HISTORY OF SUMMIT COUNTY

or five thousand more stretched from these until it was in flames at every point. It made points down to Mill and up to Center and covered the bluff on High Street. The active members of the mob numbered not more than two or three hundred, including active sym- pathizers. The rest were mere onlookers- some a prey to a morbid curiosity ; others fas- cinated by the spectacle of terror enacted be- fore them.

After the first explosion, a few men started to lower the electric lamp that was lighting the scene. They let it fall the last six feet upon the brick pavement, and the place was dark enough for the vilest purpose. Up to this time, at intervals, a policeman in the City Building would approach the window and fire five or six shots in rapid succession into the sidewalk, directly under the window. It was easy to see that the shots were directed into the ground and it was not possible that even the most foolish in the crowd could be fooled by the action, yet this silly performance was repeated many times. Then followed dynamite explosions, one after another, each sounding like the discharge of a mighty can- non. These reports should have awakened the entire city. The policemen had stealthily taken their departure out of the rear door and crept off in the darkness. Some of them hid in the lumber yard in the rear of Merrill's pottery ; others in box-cars in the rear of the American Cereal Company's big mill. Their demoralization could have not been greater. Each man was looking out for himself, and no one else. The city property was left to the mercy of the relentless mob.

Soon a little blaze of a match was seen burning at the northeast corner of Columbia Hall, the large rambling frame building next south of the City Building. It had been erected as a roller skating rink during the days of the first roller craze and had been used subsequently as an armory for militia and an assembly hall for concerts and bazars, etc. The little match kindled a pile of paper and dry wood and soon a bright fire was burn- ing alongside the front of the hall. The building was so dry and of such favorable con- struction that ten minutes had not elapsed

a magnificent spectacle. Great tongues of flame leaped high above a seething mass of fire, and the sparks ascended in showers. On the front side of the hall was a tower with a flag-staff. An American flag waved nobly in the breeze made by the ascending heat cur- rents. The lesson of that waving emblem of freedom was lost on that demoniacal assem- blage. The fire reigned with unrestrained fury. Not a drop of water fell into its midst. Violent hands were laid on every one who had the courage to attempt to subdue it.

About midnight a part of the crowd had marched down the middle of Main street to the Standard Hardware Company, located on the west side of South Main Street about halfway between Market and Mill Streets. They made entrance into the store by break- ing a plate-glass window. A few entered and passed out guns, revolvers, rifles, knives and ammunition, until the store was despoiled of its entire stock of such goods. Over one hun- dred arms of various descriptions were stolen by the mob in this raid. Hidden behind tele- phone poles and in dark corners of buildings, they kept up a perfect fusillade upon the city building, while Columbia Hall was burning. The firemen in the central station, only a stone's throw east of the City Building, had on the first appearance of the blaze, sounded an alarm of fire and carried a line of hose down Church Street. The fire-bell had been rung earlier in the evening, with a response on the part of No. 1 company, merely as a ruse to attract attention of the mob from the City Building.

Three firemen from Company No. 1 stood out in the middle of Main Street, holding the nozzle of the line of hose. The water shot through it for only a few seconds. The riot- ers had cut the hose in many places, and, while the three firemen stood in the street alone, a perfect hail of bullets and shot were fired at them. One of them fell and another promptly stepped forward and took his place at the nozzle while others came out and re- moved their fallen comrade. It was the finest exhibition of heroism ever seen in Akron.

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

That little band stood out there until the walls fell in, waiting for the water to come through that hose, and laying new lines to replace the damaged. Cowards were firing at them from behind walls and telephone poles, yet they went about the performance of their dnty as calmly as though it were an or- dinary attack upon their customary foe, the Fire Demon.

It was a superb exhibition of manly cour- age. Many a man who felt the flame of faith in human nature die out that night, found it rekindled after beholding the deeds of those heroic firemen.

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Centennial history of Summit County, Ohio and representative citizens, Part 11

Author: Doyle, William B., b. 1868 Publication date: 1908 Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : Biographical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1150

Author: Doyle, William B., b. 1868
Publication date: 1908
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1150