Oct. 16—Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coal Company foreman John O'Hara arrived early for work at the Stanton Colliery Washery not knowing if any miners would show up for work on Oct. 22, 1900.

The number of miners reporting for a hard days work began dwindling soon after the president of the United Mine Workers of America, John Mitchell, on Sept. 17, 1900, called for a strike of anthracite coal miners.

The strike was somewhat peaceful through the end of September and the beginning of October 1900 but the pressure of keeping men away from the mines turned violent.

"The peaceful serenity that has characterized the conduct of the big strike in this vicinity was disturbed yesterday by a riot near the Stanton washery that almost had a very serious termination," the Wilkes-Barre Record reported Oct. 23, 1900.

O'Hara was assaulted by a riotous crowd intending to harm other non-unionized workers at the Stanton Colliery. Sheriff deputies and Wilkes-Barre policemen rushed to the scene and exchanged gunfire with the mob.

"Several workmen and a policeman were roughly handled and some of them severely cut and painfully bruised by stones and clubs," the newspaper reported.

Outbreaks occurred throughout the morning and continued into the evening hours.

"That someone was not killed or seriously injured cannot be explained in the face of the shots exchanged and the stones and other missiles that were hurled," the Record reported.

O'Hara was in charge of 25 men employed at the Stanton washery located at South and Empire streets in Wilkes-Barre. After checking on some workers at the culm bank between Sheridan and Empire streets, he was met by a crowd of men and boys, principally Polanders, who told him he could not work.

As O'Hara was talking to the group, he was punched in the face and pummeled.

"Then the whole mob jumped on hims, struck him with stones and clubs and kicked him," the Record reported.

Several English-speaking men came to O'Hara's aid to get him out of harms way.

News of the riotous mob resulted in Wilkes-Barre Mayor Francis M. Nichols to rush to the scene begging the unruly crowd to keep peace. Sheriff deputies and policemen accompanied Nichols that only spurred the mob to become more violent, throwing stones and clubs.

"A number of children who were on the streets were badly bruised being trampled upon by the crowds," the Record reported.

News of the riot quickly spread across the Northeast part of the country and reported in major newspapers in New York City and Philadelphia.

Any hope of peace the following day, Oct. 23, 1900, quickly faded.

Strike sympathizers went from one culm bank to another compelling workmen to cease their labor during the night and the morning of Oct. 23, 1900.

"All Monday night and until daylight yesterday morning the people in the vicinity of the Empire culm bank were kept in continual terror by the reports of firearms and dynamite explosions. Everybody kept under cover and when yesterday morning arrived, ti was expected that much damage would be found," the Record reported Oct. 24, 1900.

A dummy made up of a suit of old working clothes, boots and a straw hat was burned in effigy.

Many in the riotous crowd began to commit mischief by setting fire to garages, uncoupling and emptying train cars and damaging rail lines.

When the mob realized no work was going to happen at the Empire culm bank, they marched to another culm bank near New Market Street in Wilkes-Barre to terrorized workers.

"At the Black Diamond and No. 2 Baltimore collieries, there was also indications of trouble but happily there was no clash," the Record reported.

The mob-like mentality by striking sympathizers gradually subsided when Mitchell announced an end to the one-month anthracite strike on Oct. 29, 1900.