Page 34 - April Banner 2018_Neat

Page 34 April 2018
by James Rada, Jr.
Catoctin Fur nace vs. Thur mont
In September of 1838, a
Mechanicstown, Maryland (present-
day Thurmont), resident wrote a
letter to the editor of the Baltimore
Gazette and Daily Advertiser.
He told the following story.
Earlier that month, shortly before
sundown, around a dozen employees
of Catoctin Furnace had had too
much to drink. They came into town
with two slaves for the purpose of
“using up people.”
The men started a fight with
two townspeople. “The people,
anxious to persevere the peace, and
apprehending the consequence of
their remaining in town, used every
means to persuade them from the
place. They, however, refused to go
and became more violent, until at
length, one of the citizens, after in
vain urging a Negro fellow to throw
away some stones with which he
had armed himself, attempted to
take them from him by force; this
the Negro resented, with violence,
and the citizen knocked him down,”
the newspaper reported.
Apparently, when at least one
of these people tried to get back
to his house, the Furnace mob
followed him with clubs and knives,
“invading and disturbing the peace
The Catoctin Banner Newspaper
This 1890 view shows the Ironworks, the Catoctin Furnace Supply Store, and the Manor House. in the fight, they would have been
and quiet of his family, compelling
him to escape through a window
to which fortunate circumstance
probably he owned his life,”
according to the letter writer.
The town constable got
involved and arrested the slaves
and imprisoned them. However,
the Furnace workers instituted a
jailbreak and freed them.
The letter writer said, “This
act, though highly outrageous, the
people were disposed to tolerate,
as some of the rioters proposed to
1838
Photo Courtesy of Thurmontimages.com a severe blow. Suddenly, people
depart, and here it was thought
the matter would end. We were,
however, disappointed. Someone
demanded more whiskey, and
this the landlord refused to give,
supposing no doubt, that they
already had too much, and dreading
the consequence of giving them
more. Upon this, one of them
left the crowd, but returned in a
moment with an axe, swearing
that the landlord who refused to
sell liquor ought to have his sign
post cut down, and accordingly
commended hewing at the post.”
Finally, the people in town had
had enough and fought back. One
of the citizens tried to pull the axe
away from the worker and received
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were arming themselves with stones,
bricks, bats, or whatever they could
grab.
The workers were eventually
driven out of town “some of them
so severely beaten that they could
not reach the Furnace, though but
three miles distant, without having
their wounds dressed,” according to
the letter writer.
Interestingly, the letter writer
noted that it was a good thing that
the slaves left before the fighting
began. He said that he had no doubt
that if they had gotten swept up
killed.
Once the workers were driven out
of town, residents appointed guards
to patrol the streets. At the close
of the letter, the writer pointed out
that the people of Mechanicstown
were peaceful and hardworking, but
“any attempt to disturb the people
hereafter, in a similar manner, will
be opposed by an efficient force well
prepared for the purpose.”
The story shows that there was
tension between the blue-collar
laborers and slaves of the Furnace
and the small businessmen and
farmers of Mechanicstown.
A unique aspect of this story
is that slaves stood with Furnace
workers during the fight. The white
workers even rescued the slaves
from jail.