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438 BETWEEN THE OCEAN AND THE LAKES
M. B. Helme, was called upon to restore the property to the
Company and suppress the insurrection. He was powerless,
as the populace was in entire sympathy with the strikers.
The situation was such on the 28th of March that the sheriff
telegraphed Governor Hartranft for troops. Phe men rejected
all the propositions made by the Company, and continued
to holtl possession of its property and prevented the
running of trains. Governor Hartranft ordered the First
Regiment of State troops, Col. Dale Benson, of Philadelphia,
and the Fourth Division, under command of Gen. S. I). Osborne,
of Wilkesbarre, to the scene of the disturbance. The
Philadelphia troops, 400 men, arrived at Susquehanna on the
29th. On the 30th, General Osborne's command of 1,000
men arrived. Martial law was declared. 'Phe Company's
grounds were cleared of all strikers, and no person was permitted
to enter upon them without a pass from the commanding
officer of the troops, countersigned by Superintendent
of Transportation P. P. Wright. The strikers were
awed by the presence of the military, antl the railroad was
once more in possession of the Company. 'Phe strike was
broken. The men were all paitl off and discharged. Business
had been suspended on the railroad five days. 'Phe Company
found forty of its locomotives disabled in the yard,
with the missing parts in possession of the strikers. 'Phe loss
to the Company by the strike was more than $1,000,000.
This was under the Watson administration, which had
declared the railroatl to be so prosperous in its hands that
dividends had been paid on the alleged earnings. 'Phis had
aggravated the unpaid strikers the more, anil turned sympathy
more generally toward them antl their cause.
During the Susquehanna strike the Company was also
greatly harassed. by a strike of the freight handlers at New
York and Jersey City, which was to secure an advance in pay
from seventeen and a half cents an hour to twenty cents ah
1877.
July 1 st the brakemen, yardmen, and trackmen's wages
were reduced 10 per cent. A committee representing the
men was sent to headquarters with grievances, antl requested
a restoration of the wages to the former rate. President
Jewett ordered the discharge of the members of the committee
from the Company's employ. A meeting of the
employees concerned was held at Hornellsville at midnight,
July 19th, and a strike was ordered. It began immediately.
'Phe men demanded 82 a day for brakemen, 82.25 for heatl
switchmen, $i.5ofor yard brakemen, 81.40 for section trackmen,
a restoration of the monthly passes to brakemen and
piasses for switchmen and trackmen, and free occupancy of
the Company's grounds for dwellings of the men, the Company
having ortlered that rent should be paid for land occupied
by the shanties of the switchmen and trackmen.
From the 20th until the 25th of July all through business
and all local business, except on the Delaware and Eastern
divisions, was suspended on the railroad. General Superintendent
E. S. Bowen and other officers of the Company
succeeded in reaching Hornellsville by special train at 9 130
p.m of the 20th. 'Phe Hornellsville yard and shops were in
entire possession of the strikers. All trains that had arrived
at Hornellsville had been at once taken in charge by the men
and side-tracked. 'Phe men on the Western Division joined
the strike. At Hornellsville 400 strikers congregated. There
were 150 at Salamanca. The strike was engineered and managed
by a little red-headetl, freckled-faced man named Barney
J. Donohue, who was not an employee of the Company.
'Phe strikers patrolled the Hornellsville yard, and permitted
no one to work therein. All trains from Dunkirk and the
West were stopped at Salamanca. The last train to arrive
from the West was got through on the 21st by the strategy of
Engineer Dan Chapman. Passengers for the West were sent
by the Rochester Division at first, but on the 21st the men in
the Corning yards prevented any other trains going that way.
Then the passengers were sent from Elmira by way of the
Northern Central Railroad.
Sheriff Sherwood, of Steuben County, being unable to put
the Company in possession of its railroad and property at
Hornellsville, notified Governor Robinson, who ordered the
Fifty-fourth Regiment, of Rochester, to the scene. It arrived,
400 strong, in command of Col. George E. Baker, Sunday
evening, the 21st, at 6 : 30, hooted and reviled by the strikers.
The Tenth Battalion, Colonel Smith, and Battery A of the
Twentieth Brigade, Captain Walker, were ordered from
Elmira to Hornellsville, anil arrived the same evening. The
militia formed and cleared the tracks, and the Hornellsville
hour, and twenty-five cents an hour overtime. 'Phis brought yard became virtually under martial law. Strong guards were
freight shipments to a standstill. 'Phe Company put newmen
on under protection of the police, and on the 28th, the lines without a pass. 'Phe battery was stationed in Loder
placed about it, with orders to permit no one to enter the
new men having begun to do the work fairly well, the strikers Street, commanding the Company's property. It was soon
surrendered. 'Phe Company took back some and discharged discovered, however, that a majority of the militia were in
others, retaining many of the new men.
sympathy with the strikers. There being a disposition on the
part of the conductors and engineers to aid in getting trains
out, Barney Donohue notified them that they would do so
at their peril, as the tracks had been " fixed " by the strikers,
notwithstanding the presence of the military.
General Brinker and Gen. J. B. Woodward, anil William
Wallace MacFarland, of the Erie counsel, got through from
New York to Hornellsville on the 21st, arriving there at 11
o'clock p.m. That day an express train left New York at ti
a.m. Gen. I). D. Wiley, Chief of Ordnance, was a passenger
on the train. The train was abandoned at Elmira. A
special train was made up there, and General Wiley, with
ammunition and supplies, succeeded in reaching Hornellsville
on it at 3 : 25 on the morning of the 22d. An express
train from the East, carrying the United States mail, but no
passengers, got to Hornellsville at 9 o'clock a.m. of the 21st
(Sunday). Superintendent Bowen resolved to send it on