James Hamilton Peabody
Encyclopedia
James Hamilton Peabody was the 13th and 15th Governor of Colorado
, and is noted for his public service in Cañon City.
. Three of his brothers fought for the Union (American Civil War)
in the American Civil War
. In 1871, while James was still in business college there, his family moved to Pueblo, Colorado
; after completing his degree the following year, James followed his family and kept the books for the family dry goods store for three years (1872 to 1875).
, unseating the incumbent
, who had held the post for 18 years.
of the Bank in 1891. He also served Cañon City as city treasurer
for two years and as alderman
for two years. He helped organize the Cañon City Water Works Company and served as its secretary and treasurer for many years. He was instrumental in forming the Electric Light Company of Cañon City and served as that organization's first president. In addition, he was a member of the Masonic
Fraternity, and, in 1885, at the age of 32, he was appointed Grand Master (Masonic)
of the Colorado Masons; at that time, he was the youngest Grand Master Mason in America.
; in 1902, he was the Republican candidate for Governor of Colorado
. He ran on a "law and order" platform and was elected, but his administration met with numerous difficulties, especially labor issues in Colorado's many mines.
, and miners conducted strikes in the gold
and silver
mines
at Clear Creek
, Cripple Creek
, and Telluride
, and in the coal
mines of Las Animas County. Peabody's tactic in dealing with these strikes was to call out the Colorado National Guard
whenever he felt it necessary, a strategy many felt was heavy-handed.
The union representing hard rock miners was the Western Federation of Miners
(WFM). The coal miners' union was the United Mine Workers
(UMW). Some of the officials in Teller County
, and particularly in the Cripple Creek District
, were considered sympathetic to the union. In 1903 the WFM called a strike in support of mill workers.
On June 6, 1904, after nine months of the strike, someone destroyed the Independence Railway Station near Victor, Colorado
with dynamite
, killing 13 non-union miners. County Sheriff Henry Robertson became a target of the Cripple Creek Mine Owners' Association
and their ally, the Citizens' Alliance
, and was forced to resign under threat of hanging. The mine owners used force to take over the press of the Victor Record, which had been a largely pro-union periodical, and captured strikers, who were then confined in the infamous "bullpens" or taken under guard to the Kansas
border and abandoned. The Colorado National Guard made several dozen unwarranted arrests of miners and their supporters and held many people without formal charges, some for several days. Colorado National Guard Adjutant General Sherman Bell
said of the miners, "Habeas corpus
, hell! We'll give 'em post mortems
." With the support of the state militia, the owners regained control of the mines, and by midsummer the strike was broken (although it was never officially terminated by the Federation). The mines reopened with non-union labor, and the labor unions lost significant power in Cripple Creek, and in the state.
A union member named Harry Orchard later wrote in a confession to Pinkerton
agent James McParland
that he had committed the attack at the Independence Station. He also admitted to serving as a paid informant for the Mine Owners Association, and to committing numerous other crimes.
, ripped into his handling of the Cripple Creek strike and insisted that he could handle Colorado's vicious "industrial warfare". After the election, it appeared Adams had won, but Republicans, who still controlled the state legislature, insisted that significant fraud and corruption had conspired to steal the election from Peabody (in reality, both sides had committed major violations of election law). On the day that Adams took office (March 17, 1905), the Republican-controlled legislature voted to remove him from office and reinstall Peabody, on the condition that Peabody immediately resign. He did so, and at day's end it was Peabody's lieutenant governor
, Jesse McDonald, who occupied the governor's mansion in Denver—thus making Colorado the only state to have three different governors (Adams, Peabody, McDonald) on the same day.
Governor of Colorado
The Governor of Colorado is the head of the executive branch of Colorado's government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor has a duty to enforce state laws, and the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the Colorado General Assembly, to convene the...
, and is noted for his public service in Cañon City.
Family background
James was the youngest of 17 children. He was born in Orange County, Vermont, where his family raised crops and children. He attended school in Vermont, and later furthered his education there at the Bryant Commercial College at Barre, and Stratton Commercial College at Burlington, VermontBurlington, Vermont
Burlington is the largest city in the U.S. state of Vermont and the shire town of Chittenden County. Burlington lies south of the U.S.-Canadian border and some south of Montreal....
. Three of his brothers fought for the Union (American Civil War)
Union (American Civil War)
During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the federal government of the United States, which was supported by the twenty free states and five border slave states. It was opposed by 11 southern slave states that had declared a secession to join together to form the...
in the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. In 1871, while James was still in business college there, his family moved to Pueblo, Colorado
Pueblo, Colorado
Pueblo is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Pueblo County, Colorado, United States. The population was 106,595 in 2010 census, making it the 246th most populous city in the United States....
; after completing his degree the following year, James followed his family and kept the books for the family dry goods store for three years (1872 to 1875).
Early employment
In early 1875, he moved to Cañon City, Colorado and worked for James Clelland in his "general mercantile" store. On March 19, 1878, he married his employer's daughter, Frances Lillian Clelland, and the couple eventually had four children together (James, Clellan, Cora May, and Jessie Anne). Peabody quickly climbed the ladder at Clelland's store, becoming a manager, then a full partner, and then purchasing the store outright in 1882. In 1885, he was elected county clerk for Fremont County, ColoradoFremont County, Colorado
Fremont County is the thirteenth most populous of the 64 counties of the state of Colorado of the United States. The county is named for explorer and presidential candidate John C. Frémont. The county population was 46,824 at the 2010 census. The county seat is Cañon City. The Cañon City...
, unseating the incumbent
Incumbent
The incumbent, in politics, is the existing holder of a political office. This term is usually used in reference to elections, in which races can often be defined as being between an incumbent and non-incumbent. For example, in the 2004 United States presidential election, George W...
, who had held the post for 18 years.
Public service
In 1889, while still serving in the position of county clerk, Peabody helped to organize the First National Bank of Cañon City, and was elected PresidentPresident
A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...
of the Bank in 1891. He also served Cañon City as city treasurer
Treasurer
A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The adjective for a treasurer is normally "tresorial". The adjective "treasurial" normally means pertaining to a treasury, rather than the treasurer.-Government:...
for two years and as alderman
Alderman
An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members themselves rather than by popular vote, or a council...
for two years. He helped organize the Cañon City Water Works Company and served as its secretary and treasurer for many years. He was instrumental in forming the Electric Light Company of Cañon City and served as that organization's first president. In addition, he was a member of the Masonic
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
Fraternity, and, in 1885, at the age of 32, he was appointed Grand Master (Masonic)
Grand Master (Masonic)
In Freemasonry a Grand Master is the leader of the lodges within his Masonic jurisdiction. He presides over a Grand Lodge, and has certain rights in the constituent lodges that form his jurisdiction....
of the Colorado Masons; at that time, he was the youngest Grand Master Mason in America.
Election
Because of his contributions to Cañon City, Fremont County, and the State of Colorado at large, he became widely known in state politics and was an active member of the Colorado Republican PartyRepublican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
; in 1902, he was the Republican candidate for Governor of Colorado
Governor of Colorado
The Governor of Colorado is the head of the executive branch of Colorado's government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor has a duty to enforce state laws, and the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the Colorado General Assembly, to convene the...
. He ran on a "law and order" platform and was elected, but his administration met with numerous difficulties, especially labor issues in Colorado's many mines.
Problems
During Peabody's administration, miners' unions acted on a variety of issues, including wages, hours, and working conditions. One particular issue of consequence was the eight hour dayEight-hour day
The eight-hour day movement or 40-hour week movement, also known as the short-time movement, had its origins in the Industrial Revolution in Britain, where industrial production in large factories transformed working life and imposed long hours and poor working conditions. With working conditions...
, and miners conducted strikes in the gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
and silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
mines
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
at Clear Creek
Clear Creek (Colorado)
Clear Creek is a tributary of the South Platte River, approximately long, in north central Colorado in the United States. The creek flows through Clear Creek Canyon in the Rocky Mountains directly west of Denver, descending through a long gorge to emerge on the Colorado Eastern Plains where it...
, Cripple Creek
Cripple Creek
Cripple Creek may refer to:Places* Cripple Creek, Colorado* Cripple Creek, VirginiaSongs* "Cripple Creek ", traditional folk song* "Up on Cripple Creek" by The Band* "Cripple Creek Ferry" by Neil Young on the album After the Gold Rush...
, and Telluride
Telluride, Colorado
The town of Telluride is the county seat and most populous town of San Miguel County in the southwestern portion of the U.S. state of Colorado. The town is a former silver mining camp on the San Miguel River in the western San Juan Mountains...
, and in the coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
mines of Las Animas County. Peabody's tactic in dealing with these strikes was to call out the Colorado National Guard
Colorado National Guard
The Colorado Department of Military and Veterans Affairs is a state agency of the Government of Colorado. It supervises both the Colorado National Guard , and non-military state safety agencies.The Department consists of the Department of Military Affairs, and the Division of Veterans' Affairs, and...
whenever he felt it necessary, a strategy many felt was heavy-handed.
The union representing hard rock miners was the Western Federation of Miners
Western Federation of Miners
The Western Federation of Miners was a radical labor union that gained a reputation for militancy in the mines of the western United States and British Columbia. Its efforts to organize both hard rock miners and smelter workers brought it into sharp conflicts – and often pitched battles...
(WFM). The coal miners' union was the United Mine Workers
United Mine Workers
The United Mine Workers of America is a North American labor union best known for representing coal miners and coal technicians. Today, the Union also represents health care workers, truck drivers, manufacturing workers and public employees in the United States and Canada...
(UMW). Some of the officials in Teller County
Teller County, Colorado
Teller County is the 22nd most populous of the 64 counties of the State of Colorado of the United States. The county population was 20,555 at U.S. Census 2000. The county seat is Cripple Creek, and the most populous city is Woodland Park...
, and particularly in the Cripple Creek District
Cripple Creek Historic District
Cripple Creek Historic District is a historic district including Cripple Creek, Colorado, USA and is significant for its gold mining era history.It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961.Many Cripple Creek buildings post-date the gold mining era...
, were considered sympathetic to the union. In 1903 the WFM called a strike in support of mill workers.
Strike
While the Federation worked to expel all non-union miners from the county, mine owners refused to negotiate over the Federation's complaints, and the struggle degenerated into violence by both parties; while the mine owners tried desperately to import non-union miners from elsewhere in the state, the Federation used its clout to barricade roads and rail lines into Cripple Creek. The owners appealed to Peabody, who dispatched an investigatory committee from Denver to look into the situation; on the committee's recommendation, Peabody ordered the state militia to "defuse" the situation. On September 4, 1903, almost 1,000 militiamen entered Teller County and essentially established martial law.On June 6, 1904, after nine months of the strike, someone destroyed the Independence Railway Station near Victor, Colorado
Victor, Colorado
Victor is a Statutory City in Teller County, Colorado, United States. The population was 445 at the 2000 census.Victor is in the heart of Colorado's gold country, home to two of the major gold mines in the Cripple Creek mining district...
with dynamite
Dynamite
Dynamite is an explosive material based on nitroglycerin, initially using diatomaceous earth , or another absorbent substance such as powdered shells, clay, sawdust, or wood pulp. Dynamites using organic materials such as sawdust are less stable and such use has been generally discontinued...
, killing 13 non-union miners. County Sheriff Henry Robertson became a target of the Cripple Creek Mine Owners' Association
Mine Owners' Association
In the United States a Mine Owners' Association, also sometimes referred to as a Mine Operators' Association or a Mine Owners' Protective Association, is the combination of individual mining companies, or groups of mining companies, into an association, established for the purpose of promoting the...
and their ally, the Citizens' Alliance
Citizens' Alliance
The Citizens' Alliance is a defunct political party in Trinidad and Tobago. Former finance minister Wendell Mottley was leader and businessman Peter George was deputy leader...
, and was forced to resign under threat of hanging. The mine owners used force to take over the press of the Victor Record, which had been a largely pro-union periodical, and captured strikers, who were then confined in the infamous "bullpens" or taken under guard to the Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
border and abandoned. The Colorado National Guard made several dozen unwarranted arrests of miners and their supporters and held many people without formal charges, some for several days. Colorado National Guard Adjutant General Sherman Bell
Sherman Bell
Adjutant General Sherman M. Bell was a controversial leader of the Colorado National Guard during the Colorado Labor Wars of 1903-04. While Bell received high praise from Theodore Roosevelt and some others, he was vilified as a tyrant by the leadership and the miners of the Western Federation of...
said of the miners, "Habeas corpus
Habeas corpus
is a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to his aid. Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, but it is now available in many nations...
, hell! We'll give 'em post mortems
Autopsy
An autopsy—also known as a post-mortem examination, necropsy , autopsia cadaverum, or obduction—is a highly specialized surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse to determine the cause and manner of death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present...
." With the support of the state militia, the owners regained control of the mines, and by midsummer the strike was broken (although it was never officially terminated by the Federation). The mines reopened with non-union labor, and the labor unions lost significant power in Cripple Creek, and in the state.
A union member named Harry Orchard later wrote in a confession to Pinkerton
Pinkerton National Detective Agency
The Pinkerton National Detective Agency, usually shortened to the Pinkertons, is a private U.S. security guard and detective agency established by Allan Pinkerton in 1850. Pinkerton became famous when he claimed to have foiled a plot to assassinate president-elect Abraham Lincoln, who later hired...
agent James McParland
James McParland
James McParland,There are various spellings of James McParland's name. His stenographer, Morris Friedman, wrote a book about him — as "McParland." The Pinkerton Labor Spy, New York, Wilshire Book Co., 1907). also known as James McParlan,The Corpse On Boomerang Road, Telluride's War On Labor...
that he had committed the attack at the Independence Station. He also admitted to serving as a paid informant for the Mine Owners Association, and to committing numerous other crimes.
Attempt at re-election
Peabody ran for a second term in 1904, but was vilified by his opponents, who declared "Anybody but Peabody!" and felt that he was in league with the mine owners. Peabody's opponent, Democrat Alva AdamsAlva Adams (governor)
Alva Adams was an American politician. He was born in Iowa County, Wisconsin. He served as the fifth, tenth and 14th Governor of Colorado from 1887 to 1889, 1897 to 1899, and briefly in 1905. He died in Battle Creek, Michigan.Adams County, Colorado, is named for Alva Adams, and it's believed the...
, ripped into his handling of the Cripple Creek strike and insisted that he could handle Colorado's vicious "industrial warfare". After the election, it appeared Adams had won, but Republicans, who still controlled the state legislature, insisted that significant fraud and corruption had conspired to steal the election from Peabody (in reality, both sides had committed major violations of election law). On the day that Adams took office (March 17, 1905), the Republican-controlled legislature voted to remove him from office and reinstall Peabody, on the condition that Peabody immediately resign. He did so, and at day's end it was Peabody's lieutenant governor
Lieutenant Governor of Colorado
The lieutenant governor of Colorado is the second-highest-ranking member of the executive department of the Colorado state government, below only the Governor of Colorado. The lieutenant governor, who acts as governor in his absence and succeeds to the governorship in case of vacancy, is elected on...
, Jesse McDonald, who occupied the governor's mansion in Denver—thus making Colorado the only state to have three different governors (Adams, Peabody, McDonald) on the same day.