THE CONFESSIONS AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF
HARRY ORCHARD

CHAPTER ELEVEN

HOW WE BLEW UP THE INDEPENDENCE DEPOT
DURING THE CONVENTION

THEN W. F. Davis, Parker, and Pettibone wanted me to go to Cripple Creek and pull off something, and stir up the delegates, so they would quit this quarreling, and be united, and finish up their business and go home. The different factions were having their little meetings nights. During this wrangle Pettibone, Davis, and Parker said I had better go to Cripple Creek and blow up something, as that would not only unite the convention, but if it happened when all the union leaders were out of the district, they would not know who to lay it to. I told them it would not be much trouble to blow up the Independence depot. We had talked of this before. The idea was to get the night shifts of non-union miners that got on the 2.30 train there every morning. They said that would be all right. Haywood said he did not want me to get mixed up in a job like that, and wanted me to get some one else to do it, as he said he had some heavier work for me to do. He said as I had never had my name mixed up with the Federation, and they had never suspected me, I could do this work better than some one that had been written up in the papers in connection with some of this work. I told him I would not get mixed up; that I would get some one else to do it, or I would set it off with an alarm-clock.

Pettibone was doorkeeper at the convention hall, and Parker, Davis, Pettibone, and myself were talking this over, and they wanted me to go up to the district that afternoon. The convention had just assembled after lunch, and Haywood came in while we were talking, and we asked him about it, and he said no doubt it would be a good thing, and that anything went with him. He gave me some money, and told me to be sure and not get mixed up myself.

I bought an alarm-clock and went to Cripple Creek that afternoon.

I went and asked Billy Aikman if he wanted to help do a little job. He told me he did not see how he could get away, as he had bought a half-interest in a saloon at Independence and was tending bar nights, and he thought he might be missed if he wasn't there. I did not tell him what we were going to do. Then I went and told Adams they wanted a little job done, and he said all right, he was ready for any old thing, or words to that effect. I told Billy Easterly what we were going to do, and he said all right, if we wanted any help he would help us. I went and saw Floyd Miller, where he was working on a lease, and asked him if he would get me a hundred pounds of powder and two boxes of giant-caps. He said he would, and I gave him the money to get them.

I got Adams and went over that night after the powder, where Miller said he would leave it, but it was not there. Adams and I went over to see Miller the next day, and Miller said they did not deliver it, but that he had ordered it and thought it would be up sure that day. We went over that night, and carried it over to Independence, and hid it in an old cellar in the back of a cabin that Adams had a key to. I think this was on Thursday evening, and we intended to use the powder on Saturday night.

A good while before this, Johnnie Neville and myself had planned to go out on a camping and hunting trip, and as his saloon had not paid him since the strike, he said he would close it up, and I said to him that he had better burn it up. So he got the saloon insured after this, and we took out some of the liquor and buried it in a dump. So when I went to Cripple Creek to get Steve Adams to go after Governor Peabody, we set the saloon on fire. I took five bottles of the Grecian fire and poured it round in the upper rooms of the saloon, and shut the doors and went away. I got these bottles in the dump by Easterly's cabin. He told me where they were when I saw him in Denver. The saloon was all in flames a short time later, and no one could get near it, and it burned up completely.

Now, after Adams and I had fixed up everything to blow up the depot, I thought it would be a good plan to go off with Johnnie Neville on this camping trip. I figured it would be a good thing for me to go away from there in the daytime with him, and then come back at night on horseback and do the job; and as Neville had a good reputation and was well thought of, I took advantage of the saloon fire and thought he dare not go back on me. Neville wanted to go with me, and we looked around for a team and wagon, as we intended to drive through the country. We bought a team and wagon from Joe Adams, Steve's brother. We got all ready and intended to leave on Saturday, and I intended to come back on horseback Saturday night and blow up the depot and ride back to where we camped.

But Friday evening Billy Easterly came to my house and told me Parker was up from Denver and wanted to see me. I went down to Parker's house in Independence, and he told me the convention had appointed a committee to come up and investigate the strike, and to see the mine operators' representative and get both sides of the story. The Haywood faction did not want this committee appointed, and after it was appointed Parker said they did not want them to come up alone, and they decided to have him come with them. I told them we were all ready, and intended to finish the job Saturday night, but he wanted us to wait, until they got away. He said they would hang him if anything like that happened when he was there, but he said if it was going to make any particular difference to go ahead, and he would take his chances, and would rather like to catch this committee up there, so they would get a touch of high life. I told him we would wait until they left, so Parker and this committee went and had a conference with the secretary of the mine operators, and the committee were favorable to some kind of a settlement.

Now, Haywood and the strike committee and some, if not all, of the executive board did not want this committee to make any settlement or interfere with the strike, and Haywood said they had spent too much money to let them settle with any one else, and that when they wanted to settle they would have to come to them. Malcolm Gillis from Butte was on this committee, one man from Wyoming, and one from British Columbia. The Haywood faction were sore at Gillis, and said he was chairman of the Republican State Central Committee of Montana and stood in with the mine operators. The fact was that Gillis was a bright and, I think, reasonable man, and they were afraid he would open the way for settlement, and they would have no hand in it, and lose the glory.

After the conference with the secretary of the mine operators, the committee made some further inquiry about the district, and visited the union at Victor Saturday evening, and left Sunday for Denver. Sunday evening, Neville and I and his little boy Charlie left Independence with a team and wagon, and drove down the road toward Colorado Springs a few miles —I think six or eight miles—and camped for the night. I told Neville I intended to go back and do a little work that night. I told him I would make some excuse before Charlie, and if anything happened that I was ever mistrusted, I was supposed to be there all night with them. I had gotten a saddle from Tom Foster before I left, and had made arrangements with Adams to meet me where we left the dynamite.

A little after dark, I saddled one of the horses and rode back within a mile of the depot, and tied my horse in some bushes, and walked the rest of the way to the cabin, and found Adams already there. This was about ten o'clock. He had a candle, and we stayed in there about an hour, making a little wooden windlass to set off the dynamite with. We fastened two little vials on the cross-piece of this with a strip of leather, so when you pulled on the windlass these bottles would turn over and spill sulphuric acid on the giant-caps we had put in the powder.

About eleven o'clock, when 'most everybody around there had gone to bed, we took the two fifty-pound boxes of powder with us and went over to the depot. This depot had been closed for some time, and they kept no operator there, though the train stopped there for people to get on and off. The depot was built on a side-hill, with a long platform in front of it. We walked under this platform, and I crawled under where the plank came right close to the ground. I dug away a little place in there, and buried the two boxes of dynamite in the ground close up to the planks, put in the giant-caps and set up the windlass on one of the boxes, and filled the two little bottles with sulphuric acid from another bottle I had it in. This was ticklish business, as it was very dark in there, and I had to fill these little bottles without seeing them; and though I kept a pasteboard over the giant-caps and the dynamite while I was filling this, yet a drop of the acid would have set the whole thing off. We had a mixture of sugar and potash on the caps, too, that the acid would set fire to immediately.

Then we stretched a wire out from the windlass about two hundred feet on to a spur track, and tied a chair-rung to the end of it. We went back to an old ore-house beside the spur track, and waited. It had been dark and lowery that night, but about two o'clock it began to lighten up. We were a good deal put out by this, as there was a small moon and it got quite light. The train we were waiting for came in every evening about 2.30, and it generally was on the dot. We heard the men come on the platform talking, and finally we heard the train. Then we got down to the end of our wire and took hold of the chair-rung, and when the train was within about a hundred feet of the depot, we each had a hold of one end of this chair-rung which the wire was attached to, and pulled it and kept right on going. We intended to take the wire with us, but forgot that part, as the rocks and debris were falling around us pretty thick, although neither of us got hurt. I do not know how many men were on the platform at the time, but I think there were thirteen killed outright and some others were maimed and crippled for life.

We ran as fast as we could, and soon got up on the railroad and followed it around nearly to the old Victor mine on the north side of Bull Hill, and then separated. Adams went on around to Midway, where he lived, and I went down to where I left my horse, on the Colorado Springs road, and rode back to our camp as fast as possible, and got there just at daybreak. Mr. Neville and Charlie were awake, and I crawled up in the wagon and went to sleep for a while, or at least tried to sleep.

Mr. Neville asked me what we had blown up. I told him nothing at first, or put him off with some evasive answer. He said there were two reports and they shook the ground there. He then asked me if it was the Findlay mine; I told him I was not there, and this was reasonable enough for him to believe, for the explosion was at 2.30 and it was only a few minutes after three when I got to the camp. But it was all down grade and my horse was cold standing so long—for it was a cold night for that time of year, with a frost—and I ran him most of the way at full speed, only slacking a couple of times close to two houses, so they would not hear the horse running.

We got our breakfast and started on down the road toward Colorado Springs about eight o'clock. We did not meet or see any one who said anything to us until about four o'clock in the afternoon, when we got close to Colorado Springs, and a man asked us if we were from Cripple Creek. We told him we were, and he asked when we left, and we told him the day before, and he began to tell us about the explosion, and said there were sixty men killed and several hurt, and the depot was blown to atoms, and some of the people living close by were thrown from their beds. This startled Mr. Neville and Charlie, as Neville's house was only about a hundred yards from the depot, and I had to tell him I knew his folks were not hurt. I did not let Charlie hear me tell his father this, but I told him I was not more than a hundred feet from it when the explosion occurred, and this somewhat pacified him. When we got to Colorado Springs we got some later papers and found that the first reports were exaggerated and that none of the people living around the depot were seriously hurt, and we bought some things in the city that we needed, and went on about four miles beyond the Springs and camped that night. The next morning I walked back a ways until I reached a street-car line, and went into the city and got the morning papers and came back. We found in the paper where a piece of plank had gone through the roof of Mr. Neville's house, and a sliver had struck Mrs. Neville on the breast while she was in bed, but had not seriously hurt her. This relieved me a whole lot, for I realized my position if any of his family had been hurt.

We started on again, and drove a few miles beyond Palmer Lake, and camped the next night, and the next afternoon we reached the suburbs of Denver and got a little barn to put our horses and wagon in. It was only a little way from the end of the street-car line, and after we put our horses up, we took the car and went into the city. We got there a little before dark.

I left Mr. Neville and started to go to Jack Simpkins's room in the Granite Block. I met Simpkins on the street, and we went up to this room together, and Kirwan was there, and a little later Haywood and Pettibone came in, and while we were talking Steve Adams came in. Kirwan did not take any part in the conversation; I think he left the room soon after Simpkins and I came up. They were all greatly pleased with the job, and they said it was the only thing that ever saved the Federation from being split up. They said every delegate there wanted to get through as soon as possible, and there was no more kicking and no more new candidates for office, as no one wanted the offices, but wanted to get away as soon as possible for fear something would fall. They told us everything was on fire up in the district, or words to that effect, and they had declared martial law and had established a "bull-pen," and were deporting men, but still they did not think anything of this. They were well pleased to think they had all been elected again, except one member of the board, and they did not want him. They said the dogs had followed my trail several miles down the cañon, but Haywood said he did not think they were on to anything. Adams had stayed home and the next day went over to Cripple Creek, and his friends advised him to leave the district, and Monday night after dark he started to walk to South Park, and he caught the train there and came in to Denver. He did not leave any too soon, for that night or the next day, I have forgotten which, there was a mob of about a hundred men came to his house, and if they had found him there is no doubt but they would have lynched him, as he had the name of being a dynamiter.

Haywood and the others asked us what we intended to do, and I told him I was going up through Wyoming on a prospecting and pleasure trip. He asked us how much money we wanted, and said it would be better for us not to take it all now or all we expected. Adams told him he wanted $200 now, and he said he was going to send for his wife, and I don't think he said what he intended to do—if he knew. I told Haywood I wanted $300 anyway then. Next day I got the $300 from Pettibone, and Mr. Neville and I bought a tent and some other things we needed, and I think after we were there three or four days we got our team and started for Cheyenne, Wyo. I think we were four or five days going to Cheyenne. We put our horses up there and intended to let them rest a day or so.

We went to Pat Moran's saloon, as he was an old friend of Pettibone's, and he told me he was all right and to go to see him if we stopped at Cheyenne. The first night we got in Cheyenne we were at his saloon, and he handed us a paper with our names and good description of us, stating we were wanted in connection with the Independence explosion. I showed it to Johnnie, and he wanted to go and put a piece in the paper telling them where we were, if they wanted us. I told him to wait a while and we would think it over. This piece also stated we were either going to Wyoming or New Mexico, and would probably engage in stock-raising, and that we had taken a good supply of provisions, and were heavily armed with the latest improved firearms. I thought the proposition over that night, and W. F. Davis and D. C. Copley came into Cheyenne that night on a late train, and said they were making their get-away, as the Cripple Creek authorities were hunting them, and they told me how they were throwing all suspects in the "bull-pen," and deporting all the union men, and had closed up all the union stores, and forbade any of the grocers from selling anything to the union men's families. I did not know hardly what to do. Mr. Neville still wanted me to go on with him, and said he would see me through, and that they could not prove anything against us. I was sure they could not prove anything if he stood pat, but I was afraid they might arrest us and get at little Charlie, who was only fourteen years old, and make him tell that I was away nearly all night the first night we camped out after leaving Cripple Creek.

We had a good outfit, and I wanted to go on this trip, and we were going to try to get into a saloon somewhere in a good lively town; we thought of Cody. I knew I could get money enough from Haywood to start up, and Neville was a good saloon man, and also had some money. I thought he would stay by me on account of what happened between us, for I knew he would not have it known about setting his saloon afire for the world, and he told me it was the first crime he had ever committed in his life. I feel that I ought not to write this now, that is, I hate to mention his name, as he is dead and gone, poor fellow, and I want to say that I do not think Neville would ever have thought of doing what he did with his saloon if I had not set him up to it, and agreed to help him; and if it had not been for that I would never have taken him into my confidence. I knew he had a good reputation, and his word would be taken, and I was sure he would die before he would have it known that we burned up his saloon. I have no doubt but this sent him to an early grave—if he died a natural death.

Davis urged me to quit the wagon and Neville, and for him and I to go to the coast for a while, and he said this would soon blow over. I did not like Davis much, and then I knew he was well known, and had been mixed up in so many strikes that he looked like bad company for me to be traveling with, and he had used me pretty small when I was broke in Cripple Creek. Now I had or could get a little money, and he had only about $100, and I thought I would have to keep him, and he would not have much left after he paid his fare to the coast. I asked Pat Moran if he would go to Denver for me and take a letter to Pettibone, and he said he would, as he wanted to go to Denver anyway. I gave him a letter to Pettibone, and gave him $10 to pay his expenses. I told Pettibone in the letter to see Haywood and get me $500 and send it to me by Pat Moran. I told him I thought I would go to Los Angeles, and while there would go out and look at the ranch that Johnnie Neville had near San Diego. We had talked this over before, and Pettibone, Haywood, and Moyer said they would put up the money to buy his ranch, if it suited, and if it did not to get one that did.

Pettibone sent me the $500, and wrote me a letter to go down to Los Angeles and San Diego and look over that country and hunt up a small place near the Mexican line, and he would see that I got the money to buy it, and he said we would have it for a rendezvous and a hiding-place to send any one we wanted to. He said if we were close to the Mexican line we could do a little smuggling, and also get across the line quick. I had told him in the letter that Davis was there and wanted to go with me, but he told me to go alone, and if I wanted any one he would be a pretty good one for me himself. Moran returned the same night and gave me Pettibone's letter and the package with the money in it. I think he stated that the newspapers said they were looking for me, but, as he thought I was going to Los Angeles, he did not warn me to keep out of the way, and I did intend to go there when I wrote him. I told Johnnie Neville where I intended to go, and he wanted me to recommend them to buy his ranch down there if I went.

I thought this all over, and thought if his ranch did not suit, which I had reason to believe it would not, as it was in that dry belt and no water—and we did not buy it—but we got a place anywhere around that country, so that he would know where we were, he would not perhaps feel very friendly toward us and might divulge our whereabouts. As he wanted me to stay with him for the time, and said he would go to California with me later on, I thought it might be better for me to stay with him and keep on the right side of him; and so I decided not to go to California for the present, but to go on with him on our trip.

We left Cheyenne and drove up on Crow Creek, and camped there two or three days, and Pat Moran and Davis came up there and stopped a day or so with us and fished, and Davis wanted to go with us on the trip, but I told him there was no room in the wagon, as we were already crowded. They left us and we went on to Laramie. We just stopped there a little while and got shaved, and got a few little things we needed, and inquired the way to Casper. There are no towns to speak of between Laramie and Casper, and we drove along leisurely, and stopped and camped on some creeks where there was good fishing, and finally reached Casper. I think we were about two weeks on the road from Laramie to Casper, and had not seen a paper during this time. Mr. Neville had written to his family from Cheyenne, and told them to address him there in care of Pat Moran, and we made arrangements with Moran to forward the same to Casper. We went to the post-office when we arrived at Casper and inquired, but there was no mail; and I went and called Pat Moran up on the phone, and he told me no mail had arrived there for any of us. Neville wrote to his family from Casper, and told them to address him at Cody.

We stayed in Casper a few days and rested our horses, and then started for Cody. There is no railroad between Casper and Cody, or at least there were none at that time, and most of the way it is a dry and barren country. I think we were about a week on the road, and about thirty miles from Thermopolis, Wyo., when one of the wheels of our wagon broke. I took one of the horses and saddled him and rode on into Thermopolis, got a new wheel and sent it out on the stage, and rode back. We came on into Thermopolis then, and I think we got into Thermopolis about the 10th of July, 1904.

Thermopolis is a flourishing town situated on the Big Horn River in Wyoming, and is noted for its hot springs. Although there was not a railroad within 135 miles at that time, still there were people there from all over the country taking the hot baths. I noticed many monuments built upon the mountains about the springs, and was told they had been built by people that came there as a last resort, and had been cured, and built or had these monuments built as a memorial. We camped there by one of these springs, and, as it was a nice place to stop, we thought we would stay a few days, and used to go in bathing every day. Neville had some kind of a ringworm coming on his face, and they told him they thought these baths would help him, as they had seen skin diseases cured there before. I think we had been there nearly a week, and could not get much word how things were going, and had telephoned to Cody to see if there was any mail there for Neville, and was told there was not. As Neville wanted to stay there and take these baths a while longer, I proposed to him to take one of the horses and saddle and ride on to Cody, and have a look around and see what the prospects were for starting or buying out a saloon, and then come back again, and perhaps he would be ready to start again by that time.

Neville was agreeable to that, and so I started and went to Cody and sent the horse back by the stage from Meeteetse. This is a live little town situated on the Gray Bull River, Wyoming. I took the stage from there to Cody, and got some mail for Mr. Neville, and a letter for myself from Pettibone. I called Neville up on the phone and told him I had forwarded him some letters, and had sent the horse and saddle back, and was going to leave there for the present, and was going to Montana, as things did not look good, and would write to him. I told him things looked good in Cody, and for him to come on through, and I would write to him. What caused me to take this course was Pettibone's letter; he told me they were hot on my trail, and that I had better get in the tall timber. At first I could not think they were looking for us, for if they had been they would have found us before, as we had not tried to conceal our whereabouts, and had been through all the principal cities and towns in Colorado and Wyoming.

I was undecided at first what to do, but had made up my mind to leave there for the present. That night I got in a poker game and won between $100 and $200, and went to bed about nine o'clock the next morning and got up in the afternoon. I think they had a game already fixed up for me. I started to play some more and lost a couple of hundred dollars pretty quick. I saw the poker game was too strong a combination for me and I quit it and went over to buck a Black Jack game, and got to betting $50 at a turn, and I lasted only a few turns. I said to Mr. Hall, the proprietor, "Lend me $50 to get to Denver, and I will pay you when I come back." I had been talking of buying a place there, and told them my partner was at Thermopolis. Mr. Hall handed me $50 without a moment's hesitation; he was only loaning me my own money, but not many would have done that, especially me being a total stranger. I think I went then under the name of Despasy or Hogan. I had made up my mind, now that I was broke, to go back to Denver.

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